FWIW...I get full-screen windows on my Mac. Macs can read PC documents. When I switched, I had more than ten years worth of PC documents to transfer from PC to new Mac. It was easy, straightforward, and fast. I also exchange documents with my PC friends and they with me. Really...these are not issues. And, if you find you must run windows for some specific reason, Macs run windows also. (For myself, I want nothing to do with windows and its myriad problems. However, acknowledge the obvious fact that many prefer it.) Suggest this free forum if you want to ask more questions. I hung out here for six weeks before I bought. Found it well attended. The individual forum I've posted here is called "switcher hangout"....frequented by lots of folks just like you. Here is a link that might be useful: Free Mac switcher forum

Different perspective here- I'm a 3rd year veterinary student. We do teacher evaluations as well and have also rated teachers very well on the standard questions yet given them a poor overall rating. However I do write WHY I didn't rate them well. I have no idea what subject you teach or what your teaching style is, and am only offering the reasons that I have rated a teacher poorly despite all the standard questions being good. One teacher read, word for word, her powerpoint presentations. Yes, she'd ask questions of the class (hence a good rating for engaging the students) but to any student who read the notes beforehand the answer was invariably in the next slide. I rated her well for subject knowledge, engaging the students, lecture notes, and presentation but failed her as a teacher. Why? I was one of the students who read the notes prior to lecture. I had a question about one of the slides that was not explained later in the notes. So I asked. The teacher said that she had to get through the slides- ie reading to us. This was in my 2nd year of vet school and I can assure you that every single person in my class was perfectly capable of reading the slides and notes for his/herself, myself included. I politely explained that I had already read the entire lecture and my question was not answered. She repeated that she had to "get through the material." At which point I packed up my books and left the class, never to attend any of her lectures again. If a teacher cannot satisfactorily answer a legitimate question, especially from a well-prepared student, not on the basis of not knowing the answer but in the interest of reading to the class, I cannot call her a good teacher. This was a veterinary immunology course, and the section I had a question about was in the molecular aspects of an immunologic response. I know she knew the answer- I later found it myself in the book she wrote! But the fact that she couldn't answer the question in class (it would have taken a minute or less) because she was too busy reading her presentation to the class just irked me to no end. I also rate any teacher who reads to us low, because again, we can all read quite well. A second teacher who I rated overall poorly despite high ratings for the standard questions taught a course in such a way that it was a complete waste of time. This was a veterinary nutrition course, and she spent several lectures on having us identify types of straw and grain. She also went over the definitions of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins and what types of foods were sources of these macronutrients. A prerequisite for vet school is domestic animal nutrition, and if we hadn't learned the macronutrients by college it was taught then. The veterinary nutrition course was supposed to help us choose appropriate diets for various clinical conditions, but we barely touched upon many of the most common clinical conditions (heart disease, liver disease, etc). So I had to fail the teacher for teaching things that were too basic for veterinary students. A European History teacher in my undergrad career spent most of his time analyzing our attack on Iraq (it was started at that time). Which was very enganging and informative, but I didn't learn much about European history. Failed the teacher for not sticking to the subject matter. I had to fail an honors English course teacher for not teaching to a higher level but instead assigning more "busy work." We learned the exact same things to the same level as my non-honors classmates, but had to write more essays and that type of thing. She only graded us on grammar and sentence construction, not our ability to write good essays. I am about to fail a very enthusiastic poultry TAU (a hands-on course) teacher for just overdoing the whole thing. He had our poultry medicine professor come in and give the exact same lecture that we had in our poultry medicine course (not a hands-on course). That was a total waste of 2 hours. He had us visit a pathology lab and they gave us a tour that included such useless things as how they enter submissions into their computer (as if we care) and showed us the PCR equipment. We had to take genetics as a prerequisite for vet school, and we had to RUN PCR ourselves, so looking at the equipment was a waste of time- we used it before! There were so many more incidents of repeating things we had already learned or otherwise wasting time that I won't go into. Again, he'll score well on the standard questions but rate poorly overall because if there's one thing I hate more than wasting time, I can't think of it right now. I'm not saying that you were guilty of any of these things. It's a shame that your students didn't give you any idea on why you didn't score well overall. It may be a simple matter of teaching a boring subject. It may be that because you are new you were not aware that the students already learned what you were teaching. It could be that they didn't do as well as they expected and took it out on your evaluation. I know people who do this and I do not agree with it at all. I don't know how to find out what went wrong. Perhaps now that the grades are done, you could try to contact some students and see if they can offer any suggestions. Learn the material from any perequisite courses and avoid repeating it if possible (I know many teachers do not control what is taught). Good luck.

I believe it would look better stained. Below is a link to a dark wood chest. It is very handsome. You could try a stain first and if you didn't like it, then you could paint over it. You may need to seal where you have stained. Here are directions for painting a table. I clipped it from a post by sugarbeak. IF you choose to paint, these might help you (even though it talks about brown paint, you can use whatever color you would prefer): [quote] Primer Sherwin Williams PrepRite ProBlock Interior Exterior Seals and Bonds, Latex primer (it's the most expensive...but if you don't like sanding or using chemicals to prep, this is the stuff for you!). I've never had to sand or strip first using this on the worst shiny stuff. Paint Sherwin Williams Exterior All Surface Gloss Enamel Code IFC411X Woodsy Brown 100% mix formula 2924 (color code) They use Acrylic Latex HIGH GLOSS Ultradeep base 6403-25932 Code A41T00204 Do not take a less glossy finish. This finish dries HARD and rich :) (There's a man joke in there somewhere but I'll avoid making it) I use one coat of primer and let it dry a day at least, then two coats (one day between at least) of paint with a good Purdy brush (which is important). With just one coat the grain still effects the paint, but with the two on top of the primer you get that nice smooth look :) I'm a paint freak, so forgive me for saying this if you know. Don't use rollers for wood. I like a 1 1/2 inch and a 2 1/2 or 3" brush at the most. The smaller works well on the small areas so you don't drip or oversmear the sides of the project.[/quote] Here is a link that might be useful: chest

We did not have problems with communicating. But you do have to give them credit for being more mature now. I did not worry about the hours they kept in college at their dorms and apartments, but when they were home, I wanted them home before the bars close at 2am and the drunks are on the road in greater numbers. I just appealed to them that as a mom I worry, and they had to be considerate of me when they were home so that I could get my sleep. I was far more flexible, and they appreciated that. I think we all remembered our eldest's little friend who was babysitting, driven home by drunk mom and were in a horrible, firey accident that killed them both, burning them to death. I am sure that sad example spoke to them when I told them I worried too much to sleep. I found with my daughter especially that sharing a lot of the things that happened to my friends and me when we were in college in the dark ages helped keep the communication lines open too. She found many of my stories funny and memorable--and repeated in the experiences she and her friends had. Human nature does not change all that much. But these stories gave her a heads up of sorts. And some of the great lines my friends used in those circumstances may well have been useful too.