So I’m into fountain pens now, again

I haven’t used one since elementary school in Shanghai before moving to the US.  Rite of passage to own a Hero fountain pen.  Sadly no fountain pens in schools in the US.  The ones you see are often the way too expensive status symbol, but also very nice, Mont Blanc or Graf von Faber-Castell.  I took the plunge and started with a Lamy 

Safari a few weeks ago, and reminded me how much I liked having ink on paper.  So I 
also bought a few more for home and work.  A Cross Classic Century Medalist, a Pilot Metropolitan, and a Pilot Prera.  We’ll see how it goes when I go full fountain pen for everything.  Also thinking about trying different ink colors like brown, maybe…

Making some Tea Eggs

Another day of winter break, another day of making something from childhood.  While you can get these tea eggs at 7-Elevens in Taipei, a little bit harder to find it here.  Once again, easier than I thought it would be, since the local Chinese supermarket had something already mixed up so I don’t have to mix 7+ spices in the right proportions and put it in a bag myself.

Pretty easy.  Put the tea flavor packet and the powder into a saucepan with eggs (should be submerged).  I added 0.25 cup soy sauce, and 1 tea spoon mirin.  I also could have added some more white pepper powder and additional tea leaves, that will be next time.

High for ~20 minutes, make sure eggs are fully cooked.  Use a spoon or tongs to crack the egg shells but leave it intact on the eggs.  Ideally marbled look.  Then turn down to low heat and simmer for another 1.5 hours.

Chinese marinade beef

Decided to make some Chinese marinated beef.  Luckily, instead of having to come up with the marinade all by myself and finding all the spices and whatnot, Lee Kum Kee already has it in a bottle called Selected Five Spice Marinade.

Process was pretty simple. 1 pound shoulder beef, 0.75 cup LKK marinade, 0.25 cup soy sauce, 1.5 cup water, table spoon mirin, 1 lump (~60g) of rock sugar.  Throw it all into a small sauce pan.  Bring to boil, then simmer for ~2 hours.

TEALS at MGX (and on YouTube!)

I talk about the TEALS pilot program at the 2:05 mark. This was shown during Microsoft's annual Global Exchange sales / marketing event.

TEALS is in the classroom!

After a summer of hard work, TEALS is finally in the classroom as of this week. Along with the newly completed Issaquah High School (a cross between MS Research and a Galleria), 4 new MS teachers will be teaching in the brand new labs with our brand new(ish) curriculum we worked on over the summer.
For everyone but me, teacher orientation day itself was new and exciting. I totally forgot how many questions about school and teaching I had just logistics-wise. For me, I forgot how much I missed teaching, even though it was just summer break.

TEALS plows forward (and I have to assign homework to adults)

TEALS is now well into the lesson planning stages. Both the APCS and Web Design classes have a pretty good idea of what the school year will entail. It's funny, made it's a Microsoft thing, but I have to set milestones during the summer so we're all project planned out for "RTM (Release To Market)" when the school year starts. I have the teachers writing up their syllabussesseses and having them try out various projects they will be assigning during the school year.
In other news, I have finished a ThinkWeek paper on the topic, and currently getting it peer reviewed before submitting.

Hmm, almost a song for a for loop

If only Feist can add a little more to the song, it could be about a for loop doing a bit of i++...