UPDATED: We have a winner! Congratulations to Chris Swan! I will be in touch!
It’s the first of my back to school giveaways!
You can win a copy of TuneUp Utilities 2009. TuneUp Utilities is designed to help both novice and advanced PC users keep their system healthy and running fast. TuneUp Utilities 2009 let’s you solve PC problems, free up disk space, increase system performance, and even customize the appearance of Windows. TuneUp Utilities retails for $49.95 and can be used on up to three computers.
To qualify for the giveaway, just answer this question in the comments below:
You have until 9 a.m. EST tomorrow. I’ll randomly choose a winner from all of the qualifying comments. For a complete look at the giveaway rules, check out this prior post.
Wow…that’s a toughy…but since most recent experience is freshest in my mind…my contracts and evidence professor, Prof. Weeks, from law school. I was the first person called on the first day of law school, Contracts I. I had read the casebook, outlined the cases, was scared to death, and after I recited the facts and holding, he didn’t even pause before yelling at me that I much speak, MUCH MUCH louder! “And if you can’t speak louder, you don’t need to be in law school, go see the Dean.” You better believe I, and the rest of the class, spoke up after that. He also taught my evidence class…and if someone woke me up in the middle of the night and asked what hearsay was, I could quote the rule verbatim. I’m pretty sure my passing the bar had ALOT to do with Prof. Weeks and my understanding of the Rules of Evidence. The End.
My junior high English teacher Warren Childs was my favorite teacher. He took what up until then had been a boring subject and made it fun and memorable. I can remember him taking the entire class outside and reading on the grass, in the sunshine. He even got the jocks reading and acting out parts from Shakespeare AND loving it as they were doing it. He taught me to love reading, all kinds, from the classics to modern writers “they might be modern now kids, but in 50 to 100 years they might be the new classics”. He taught us how to write “proper papers” for other classes at the same time he was teaching us to write things just for fun, just for us to enjoy. He was the first teacher that I really felt was teaching for the love of it and not just because it was his job!
My favorite teacher was Ms. Rippelmeyer from 1st grade. I loved her because she was so young and fun. At one point she taped my mouth closed because I wouldn’t shut up. That makes her seem like a terrible person but really it just made the whole class giggle. She has since been married and changed her last name but I know have her maiden name as my married name.
I graduated (a looong time ago) from Kodaikanal School, a boarding school in southern India, run by fundamentalist American missionaries.
My senior English teacher was Key Unruh, an ex-Mennonite from Winnipeg, Canada. She taught me to read — really READ. We delved into Milton, Shakespeare, Pope, Blake, Wordsworth . . . all the English literary lights. But the most significant assignment was when we all were givcen novels to read and write papers about. She assigned me “Tom Jones”, from her own personal library. 1,000+ pages, unabridged.
It was one of the seminal events of my life. I devoured that book, not just for the story but for its amazing and fascinating portrait of 18th Century life in Britain. From that experience I became an avid reader of almost anything I could get my hands on, and learned that I could continue to educate myself for the rest of my life — just by reading.
So . . . she taught me how to READ. And, in so doing, she ended up “teaching” me almost everything I now know.
Randy Nissly. He was my french teacher for four years. A foreign language was only required for two years in high school. He taught more than academics in french. He taught compassion, he was very straight forward with all his students, told it to us the way things are. He brought Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) into our lives and taught us life lessons some of may have never learned.
He is the only teacher I keep in touch with because he kept himself open to talk to, he likes to hear of all his students accomplishments so I have been telling him every major event since I graduated high school.
My favorite teacher was my High School English teacher, Mr. Anderson. He was a wonderful teacher and was concerned about his students learning the material he taught but he was also interested in them as people. I was going through a difficult period in my life when I was in his class. Besides the normal teenage problems we all face, I was facing the fact that my mother had terminal cancer and her death. Mr. Anderson was always there for me and showed me a great deal of compassion. He is the reason that I went on to major in English in college.
My favorite teacher was my music teacher in elementary school. I loved her she was fun and the class was so much fun. I even picked her name for my confirmation name I liked her so much. Her first name was Rita but I cannot for the life of me remember her last name.
Mr. Jeff McLaughlin. He made me interested in the government.
Mrs. Wagner, my third grade teacher. She made learning fun with lots of music and movement. She didn’t play favorites. She encouraged each student to be the best they could and was always available for a hug or a word of encouragement even after moving on to the “upper” grades.
My favorite teacher was Dr. Hani. He taught all the hard tax classes in my masters program. The man was a genius!
Mr. Polansky
Amazing Bio Teacher who put up with a PITA like me. I literally bothered this man EVERY day with annoying questions, and not once did he get angry or annoyed, but rather answsered the question or if he didn’t know would politely tell me he’d get back to me. And he always did.
My favorite high school teacher was Mrs. Holly. She was kind and funny and she always had me read my poems or stories to the class because she liked them. She was great for my ego.
Mrs. Schwartz, my math teacher in 9th and 10th grades.
Christopher Mueller, my law school civil procedure and evidence professor. Somehow, he managed to make the rules of civil procedure interesting and even compelling. He showed us how they really matter, and how they can change the course of litigation and connect to the constitution. As for evidence, well, he wrote the book! (literally). On my one and only foray into federal court, I was in charge of one defense witness. The judge was one of the toughest on the bench. On the direct, the opposing counsel was wildly violating the evidentiary rules. There, like a whisper in my mind, I heard Prof. Mueller explaining the rules, and I lept from my seat “Objection!” The judge looked at me, waiting for my response. “Hearsay” The judge nodded, “Sustained.” It went like that for the rest of the direct – every one of my objections (and there were a lot!) was sustained, and after a time the judge started looking at me, waiting for my objection, when opposing counsel started straying again. I’ll never forget that moment, and I have Prof. Mueller to thank for teaching me so well that I could hold my own in federal court.
Mr. Gates, 8th grade history. I started that year hating history and ended up loving it. He was able to bring history “to life” instead of just boring reading.
Mrs. Andersen for 11th grade English because she taught me how to properly use commas.. and she loved everyone.
That would be Janet Smyth, a college instructor of mine who was both a CPA and a lawyer by day and taught at night. I didn’t take a law or accounting class with her. I actually had her for Theology! Most of us in the class were accounting majors and she always said, “As accountants we work all day to keep our books balanced – but you must also keep your spirit in balance.” That is why, she said, she chose to teach Theology in the evenings – to give her spirt a break from her career. She was a great reminder to me to never let my job become my life. Today none of my outside pursuits are remotely related to numbers. She taught me to work to earn a living but once work is done to LIVE.
Kelly, I’m too late to enter the contest, so I’ll just advise you to use “lets” (without the apostrophe) in this context.