So the past week has been full of food. Lots of food. First Christmas dinner, then another Christmas dinner at Peter's place, then another Christmas dinner last night at PRi's, and tomorrow is New Year's Eve and there will be yet more food. I can't feel my stomach muscles...
Actually, that last paragraph more or less sums up what I've done since last posting. I guess I went shopping. I got a long hoodie from the Gap for $13 yesterday. I was surprised and very happy. :-) I'm trying to decide what to get myself now that I've returned the Gilmore Girls Season Five DVD set Peter bought me. I love that show, but if I have one seaon of it, I'll feel compelled to have all seasons of it, and that would be a little over my budget in terms of money and DVD storage space. I'm considering buying a couple of the X-Files Mytharc boxsets, since I can get two of the four with the credit from what Peter got me along with the gift card from Chris. But they seem rather redundant, even though I'd love to hear any attempt at explaining the incredibly twisted conspiracy plot that show had. Seriously. It just doesn't make sense. I love that show dearly, but it doesn't make sense.
Wow, I can ramble. I think I'll do laundry today. I really need to do that. I've been extending my time between ddoing laundry by wearing new Christmas clothes, but I've kind of run out of those now. Oh! That's what else I did this week! I went to Vermillion for Jenilee's grandmother's funeral. Not that that's directly related to laundry--I was going to remark that I'd even gone through a lot of my fancier clothes, and I remembered that I'd dressed up for the funeral. I think half the population fo Vermillion was there. Apparently, four people died on the same day, and so the bizarre and morbid part of me imagined a bunch of people going out and buying new outfits for a couple days' worth of funerals. You can always use a nice black dress or skirt. ^_^
I don't think I mentioned my grandfather, either, come to think of it. A couple of days before Christmas, he fell and fractured his neck. He's not paralyzed or anything, but he's very sore, especially since he fell five times in two days and had to wait about an hour each time for something to hear him calling for help so that he could get up. My aunt who lives out in Winnipeg is making him stay in the hospital until we can get him into a nursing home. We're trying to get him into the same one as my grandmother's in, but there's still red tape and such to deal with. And now my mom and her sisters have to go clean out the apartment in the retirement complex my grandfather was living in. A year ago, they had to clean out the house they'd finally decided they could no longer stay in. My grandmother stayed in the retirement complex for only a few months before needing to go to the nursing home. I've been saying that they'll die any time now for the past three years, and it just keeps getting more and more likely. *sigh* I hope it doesn't happen during my APT, because then I wouldn't even be able to go to the funeral.
This is depressing. I think I'll got play with my dog.
12/30/2006
12/25/2006
Merry Merry!
'Twas the evening of Christmas
And all through the house
Five creatures were stirring
Having gotten rid of the mouse
The bottles were placed
In the recycle with care
In hopes that the garbage man
Soon would be there
And I puzzle and puzz
Though my puzzler is sore
Then I have an idea I haven't before
Maybe Christmas, I think
Isn't so much a snore
Maybe the Champagne, perhaps
Does it a little bit more
Ok, so i'm vaguely buzzed on Rose Champagne and I'm feeling silly. It is 8:54 pm on Christmas Day, according to my computer clock, and I send everybody the best and such! I got a 3-in-1 printer with which I can do flatbed photocopying. It made me happy. :-) My brother went the simple route and got me an American Eagle Outfitters gift card and an HMV gift card. Very nice. :-) My mom liked all the gifts she got, and my dad is willing to try all the gifts he got. My Christmas pajamas are bright pink with polar bears opening presents on them! ^_^ And I got new slippers, which is good, because I haven't been able to find my old ones for the past couple of days. ^_^
My brother and my dad are upstairs watching Monday Night Football, because it is still Monday, after all. My mom is letting Farley lick all the plates as she finishes cleaning up. We did the traditional turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and veggies (broccoli, in our case) with cranberry sauce and gravy for dinner. I am very full. And warm. It's really warm upstairs and I haven't quite cooled off since coming down into the basement to use my computer. Maybe it's the slippers and the angora sweater I've got on. I should think about changing.
My sister and her wife sent out parcels with Christmas gifts for us, and one of them was great--a box of four candy canes, each with a gummy Care Bear attatched to it! My sister and I share a love of Care Bears. I gave her a Champ Bear a while back. She's one of those "kidult" types, if you can a 30-year-old an adult these days. ^_^ Anyway, I think I'm going to give Jenilee the Friendship Bear one when I meet her for lunch tomorrow. We tried to go for lunch yesterday, but she had to go to Beaumont. I think we're just going to Joeys tomorrow--I was only somewhat awake when I talked to her. In fact, I slept for a couple of hours this afternoon. It was very nice. :-) That's the way Christmas Day should always go: Get up, open presents, have waffles for breakfast, futz around with gifts, take a nap, wake up, get dinner ready, eat, relax, eat dessert, do something fun. Jenilee wants to go Boxing Day shopping tomorrow. I'm not sure that's such a good idea. I've done it a couple of times, but since there's nothing I really want to go look for, I don't see any reason to subject myself to the insanity. We'll see, though, I guess...
In any case, pumpkin pie awaits. I hope you all are having very good evenings! I'll see many of you on Friday for PRi's dinner. Yay, more turkey!
And all through the house
Five creatures were stirring
Having gotten rid of the mouse
The bottles were placed
In the recycle with care
In hopes that the garbage man
Soon would be there
And I puzzle and puzz
Though my puzzler is sore
Then I have an idea I haven't before
Maybe Christmas, I think
Isn't so much a snore
Maybe the Champagne, perhaps
Does it a little bit more
Ok, so i'm vaguely buzzed on Rose Champagne and I'm feeling silly. It is 8:54 pm on Christmas Day, according to my computer clock, and I send everybody the best and such! I got a 3-in-1 printer with which I can do flatbed photocopying. It made me happy. :-) My brother went the simple route and got me an American Eagle Outfitters gift card and an HMV gift card. Very nice. :-) My mom liked all the gifts she got, and my dad is willing to try all the gifts he got. My Christmas pajamas are bright pink with polar bears opening presents on them! ^_^ And I got new slippers, which is good, because I haven't been able to find my old ones for the past couple of days. ^_^
My brother and my dad are upstairs watching Monday Night Football, because it is still Monday, after all. My mom is letting Farley lick all the plates as she finishes cleaning up. We did the traditional turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and veggies (broccoli, in our case) with cranberry sauce and gravy for dinner. I am very full. And warm. It's really warm upstairs and I haven't quite cooled off since coming down into the basement to use my computer. Maybe it's the slippers and the angora sweater I've got on. I should think about changing.
My sister and her wife sent out parcels with Christmas gifts for us, and one of them was great--a box of four candy canes, each with a gummy Care Bear attatched to it! My sister and I share a love of Care Bears. I gave her a Champ Bear a while back. She's one of those "kidult" types, if you can a 30-year-old an adult these days. ^_^ Anyway, I think I'm going to give Jenilee the Friendship Bear one when I meet her for lunch tomorrow. We tried to go for lunch yesterday, but she had to go to Beaumont. I think we're just going to Joeys tomorrow--I was only somewhat awake when I talked to her. In fact, I slept for a couple of hours this afternoon. It was very nice. :-) That's the way Christmas Day should always go: Get up, open presents, have waffles for breakfast, futz around with gifts, take a nap, wake up, get dinner ready, eat, relax, eat dessert, do something fun. Jenilee wants to go Boxing Day shopping tomorrow. I'm not sure that's such a good idea. I've done it a couple of times, but since there's nothing I really want to go look for, I don't see any reason to subject myself to the insanity. We'll see, though, I guess...
In any case, pumpkin pie awaits. I hope you all are having very good evenings! I'll see many of you on Friday for PRi's dinner. Yay, more turkey!
12/22/2006
*Christmas-y Title*
So I promised I'd write more, and here I am, doing so. *proud smile*
Christmas preparations are coming along, though I'd prefer they be finished. I still have a handful of gifts to buy. And then I have to wrap them all. I really like wrapping gifts, though, so that won't be a problem. Peter is apparently going out to search for a gift for me today. I wonder if he'll succeed. I still have no idea what to get his dad...
I went skiing on Wednesday night at Snow Valley with Peter, Jenilee and people Jenilee works with. They have cheap lift pass/rental deals from 7-9, which was nice. I spent the first while tying to snowboard. Yeah, that didn't go so well. I hurt my knees rather much. :-( But the rental shop let me trade inthe snowboard for a pair of skis, so it was all good after that. I was a reasonable competant skier when I was 10 or so, and I got most of that back in a couple minutes this time. :-)
I met up with Joyce last night. I was a couple of minutes late, and when I arrived at the Starbucks on Whyte Ave, she hurried me out of there and around the corner to Perugia Salon and Spa for a surprise manicure! Apparently, she'd tried to book a massage as a "you're done your IPT!" thing, but they didn't have any openings, so she booked me a manicure instead. I am now sporting festive red nails. :-) I felt kind of bad that my nails were short, because it gave the girl very little to do to them, but the hand massage was very nice and the lotion she used made my skin all soft. :-) Later, Joyce and I went back to her place and had a reminiscing night. We went through the notes we wrote eachother in high school, which we still had. Most of the ones I wrote were during either Etudes Sociales 10 or English/World Lit 20. In the former, I complained a lot about the teacher, M. Farley. *shudder* In the latter, I talked a lot about how I was cold, hungry, tired, bored or any combination of the above. Joyce's notes were mostly from English 10 or Bio/Chem 20, and they involved a lot of talking about this guy with a goatee whom she strongly disliked, and her vaguely disorganized, quasi-existant love life. Ah, to be 15/16 again...
Because I know there are people who read this in the hopes of also knowing what Peter's been up to, I'll mention it: The usual. He's been spending time reading microfilmed Uruguayan newspapers, playing World of Warcraft (though less now than previous weeks) and attempting semi-fuitlessly to buy people Christmas gifts. ^_^
Anyway, it's after noon now, so I should get my butt in gear and go do holiday-esque things. Merry, merry, and I'll see people tomorrow night!
Christmas preparations are coming along, though I'd prefer they be finished. I still have a handful of gifts to buy. And then I have to wrap them all. I really like wrapping gifts, though, so that won't be a problem. Peter is apparently going out to search for a gift for me today. I wonder if he'll succeed. I still have no idea what to get his dad...
I went skiing on Wednesday night at Snow Valley with Peter, Jenilee and people Jenilee works with. They have cheap lift pass/rental deals from 7-9, which was nice. I spent the first while tying to snowboard. Yeah, that didn't go so well. I hurt my knees rather much. :-( But the rental shop let me trade inthe snowboard for a pair of skis, so it was all good after that. I was a reasonable competant skier when I was 10 or so, and I got most of that back in a couple minutes this time. :-)
I met up with Joyce last night. I was a couple of minutes late, and when I arrived at the Starbucks on Whyte Ave, she hurried me out of there and around the corner to Perugia Salon and Spa for a surprise manicure! Apparently, she'd tried to book a massage as a "you're done your IPT!" thing, but they didn't have any openings, so she booked me a manicure instead. I am now sporting festive red nails. :-) I felt kind of bad that my nails were short, because it gave the girl very little to do to them, but the hand massage was very nice and the lotion she used made my skin all soft. :-) Later, Joyce and I went back to her place and had a reminiscing night. We went through the notes we wrote eachother in high school, which we still had. Most of the ones I wrote were during either Etudes Sociales 10 or English/World Lit 20. In the former, I complained a lot about the teacher, M. Farley. *shudder* In the latter, I talked a lot about how I was cold, hungry, tired, bored or any combination of the above. Joyce's notes were mostly from English 10 or Bio/Chem 20, and they involved a lot of talking about this guy with a goatee whom she strongly disliked, and her vaguely disorganized, quasi-existant love life. Ah, to be 15/16 again...
Because I know there are people who read this in the hopes of also knowing what Peter's been up to, I'll mention it: The usual. He's been spending time reading microfilmed Uruguayan newspapers, playing World of Warcraft (though less now than previous weeks) and attempting semi-fuitlessly to buy people Christmas gifts. ^_^
Anyway, it's after noon now, so I should get my butt in gear and go do holiday-esque things. Merry, merry, and I'll see people tomorrow night!
12/21/2006
I'm Alive and Such
Just a note because I haven't posted in about a week. I'm alive and well, though sore from skiing last night. I have been trying to catch up on my blog reading, but haven't gotten through everybody's. I hope I e-mailed everybody who might want to come on Saturday for wings and (*sigh*) pool. If not, yell at me! Man, my ex had a pool table and after nearly two years of dating him and trying to learn to play, I still can't always hit the cue ball.
Anyway, I will post more later. I promise!
Anyway, I will post more later. I promise!
12/14/2006
3... 2... 1...
So here I am on my second-last day of my IPT. Sitting next to me is a box of animal crackers that have been made into vaguely Grinch-spahed designs (a stocking, a wreath and a house) with holes in the top and a bag of "Finger Paint Decoration Frosting" in the box so that they can be billed as "Decorate-it-yourself Edible Ornaments." There are two more boxes in the cage upstairs. At least I know that they were a gift.
Also upstairs is my final evaluation, which says that I pass and which I have signed. Not that there was ever a concern that I wouldn't pass, but now it's official. Or, it will be once my mentor teacher and facilitator sign it and it gets put through the University beurocracy so that I can be officially assigned a mark of "Credit." Today was my deadline for handing in the script analysis assignment for any mark whatsoever (which was due a week ago, and which my mentor teacher is still making them do for a mark of ) if they haven't done it yet), and today were the last performances of the Reader's Theatre/Radio Plays scenes. So now all I have to do is a bit of marking, some tallying and some recording while I host detention this afternoon. Tomorrow, we play games. You can waste a remarkable amount of time playing Space Jump. I really wish that I didn't have to host detention this afternoon, but there are a dozen or so kids who still haven't handed in their assignments (!) and a few kids who were being ridiculously disruptive during performances today. The former just need to be supervised while they worth, and the latter will just be lectured for five minutes or so, though, so it won't be that troublesome, but it means I have to stay here until at least 4:30, which I've been trying to cut down on.
The School Co-ordinator (and VP) organized a little catered lunch for the three student teachers and their four mentor teachers today. Yay, free food! ^_^ We talked about Inclusive Education for part of it, and it turned out that, if I am as horrible a person as my prof would probably have considered me, then at least I wasn't the only one in that room. ;-) My mentor teacher says he's buying me lunch tomorrow, too, which is nice. There was supposed to be a pizza party for the cast of The Grinch tomorrow, which I would then partake in, but that had to be rescheduled because the student "Fear Factor" eating competition is in here every lunch hour this week. The stuff they have to eat isn't all that gross, though; today, it was oysters and cranberries. That actually sounds like it could be pretty good, what with the saltiness of of the oysets, and the sweet/tangy flavour of the cranberries. Apparently, the contestants didn't much mind it, either. So, anyway, my mentor teacher said that he'd buy me pizza from the cafeteria, since it's Pizza Friday tomorrow, and we'd have that instead. ^_^
A very odd thought just crossed my mind. All the emoticon faces that are used in typing are always leaning to the left. Nobody ever types (-: or q-; Actually, the second one there looks rather better than ;-p, I'd say. The wink looks happier, rather than just being a closed eye. I guess the reason for the left-leaning thing is probably that seeing ( or ) before other text is visually much more suggestive of actual brackets. Hmmm...
35 minutes until the bell rings for the end of the school day. Maybe I'll take a nap on the love seat. I forgot my glasses and don't feel like squinting at marking sheets right now.
Also upstairs is my final evaluation, which says that I pass and which I have signed. Not that there was ever a concern that I wouldn't pass, but now it's official. Or, it will be once my mentor teacher and facilitator sign it and it gets put through the University beurocracy so that I can be officially assigned a mark of "Credit." Today was my deadline for handing in the script analysis assignment for any mark whatsoever (which was due a week ago, and which my mentor teacher is still making them do for a mark of ) if they haven't done it yet), and today were the last performances of the Reader's Theatre/Radio Plays scenes. So now all I have to do is a bit of marking, some tallying and some recording while I host detention this afternoon. Tomorrow, we play games. You can waste a remarkable amount of time playing Space Jump. I really wish that I didn't have to host detention this afternoon, but there are a dozen or so kids who still haven't handed in their assignments (!) and a few kids who were being ridiculously disruptive during performances today. The former just need to be supervised while they worth, and the latter will just be lectured for five minutes or so, though, so it won't be that troublesome, but it means I have to stay here until at least 4:30, which I've been trying to cut down on.
The School Co-ordinator (and VP) organized a little catered lunch for the three student teachers and their four mentor teachers today. Yay, free food! ^_^ We talked about Inclusive Education for part of it, and it turned out that, if I am as horrible a person as my prof would probably have considered me, then at least I wasn't the only one in that room. ;-) My mentor teacher says he's buying me lunch tomorrow, too, which is nice. There was supposed to be a pizza party for the cast of The Grinch tomorrow, which I would then partake in, but that had to be rescheduled because the student "Fear Factor" eating competition is in here every lunch hour this week. The stuff they have to eat isn't all that gross, though; today, it was oysters and cranberries. That actually sounds like it could be pretty good, what with the saltiness of of the oysets, and the sweet/tangy flavour of the cranberries. Apparently, the contestants didn't much mind it, either. So, anyway, my mentor teacher said that he'd buy me pizza from the cafeteria, since it's Pizza Friday tomorrow, and we'd have that instead. ^_^
A very odd thought just crossed my mind. All the emoticon faces that are used in typing are always leaning to the left. Nobody ever types (-: or q-; Actually, the second one there looks rather better than ;-p, I'd say. The wink looks happier, rather than just being a closed eye. I guess the reason for the left-leaning thing is probably that seeing ( or ) before other text is visually much more suggestive of actual brackets. Hmmm...
35 minutes until the bell rings for the end of the school day. Maybe I'll take a nap on the love seat. I forgot my glasses and don't feel like squinting at marking sheets right now.
12/11/2006
Four More Days!
I feel much better now that I have spent the weekend sleeping. Friday night, I went to bed at 12:30 and I woke up at 3:30 Saturday afternoon. I had a pounding headache, but I really needed the rest, it seemed, since I slept from 11:00 to 9:00 that night, too.
I have just recently been realizing that I have a lot of students with learning disabilities. I really wish someone had told me. I have also just recently been realizing that I have kids coming to class high. These two realizations are getting in each other's way in terms of classroom management. Bah...
Hmmm... What can I talk about that's not related to my student teaching? Peter and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary by going out to Jack's Grill last Tuesday. It was a nice evening. :-) Peter had been fretting over what to do next year for the majority of the day, so a good meal and some wine were what he needed. ^_^ As for that, he's probably going to stay around and take some interdisciplinary courses, like Stats, Polisci and more Spanish, just to round himself out in preparationg for his PhD. He recently discovered that the application deadlines for a lot of the places he was considering have either passed or are coming up really quickly, so an extra year gives him time to get that organized, too, and really decide where he wants to go.
I haven't even started my Christmas shopping yet. I've been way too busy. I have ideas of what to get most people, though, so it shouldn't be too hard. Plus, my parents took pity on my and gave me allowance, now that I'm unemployed, so I can actually afford to buy gifts for people. Yay!
I'm thisclose to being fully moved in. Of all the things to not be able to find places for, I'm down to the following: picture frames, my CD wallet and an old Care Bears calendar (it's from 2005, but it's all retro-y) that's really cute and I don't want to get rid of just yet. And my slippers, I guess, but I don't know if those really need a place to live. I also have some school stuff from this past semester that I need to sort through so that I can file what I want to keep, but I at least know what I'm going to be doing with that stuff once I get through it. And there isn't really much I want to keep, except my Drama "Handbookes."
Christmas will be a quiet affair this year, which saddens me greatly. Peter is going to Calgary, and my sister and her wife are staying in Vancouver, so it'll just be my brother, my parents and I. I've always wanted busy Christmases with lots of people, but my parents aren't so fond of it. :-( Maybe that's why I've always wanted it. I remember saying to my mom many years ago that I wished that I could spend Christmas with my friends, and her very discouraging reply was "But do they want to spend the time with you?" I guess I just like the focus to be on spending time with people, rather than the food or the ceremony, which my parents are big on. Anybody want to come to my house for Christmas? There'll be more food than you can shake a stick at, and you can come check out my new and rather spiffy house! Anyone? Anyone...? Ohh... :*-(
I have just recently been realizing that I have a lot of students with learning disabilities. I really wish someone had told me. I have also just recently been realizing that I have kids coming to class high. These two realizations are getting in each other's way in terms of classroom management. Bah...
Hmmm... What can I talk about that's not related to my student teaching? Peter and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary by going out to Jack's Grill last Tuesday. It was a nice evening. :-) Peter had been fretting over what to do next year for the majority of the day, so a good meal and some wine were what he needed. ^_^ As for that, he's probably going to stay around and take some interdisciplinary courses, like Stats, Polisci and more Spanish, just to round himself out in preparationg for his PhD. He recently discovered that the application deadlines for a lot of the places he was considering have either passed or are coming up really quickly, so an extra year gives him time to get that organized, too, and really decide where he wants to go.
I haven't even started my Christmas shopping yet. I've been way too busy. I have ideas of what to get most people, though, so it shouldn't be too hard. Plus, my parents took pity on my and gave me allowance, now that I'm unemployed, so I can actually afford to buy gifts for people. Yay!
I'm thisclose to being fully moved in. Of all the things to not be able to find places for, I'm down to the following: picture frames, my CD wallet and an old Care Bears calendar (it's from 2005, but it's all retro-y) that's really cute and I don't want to get rid of just yet. And my slippers, I guess, but I don't know if those really need a place to live. I also have some school stuff from this past semester that I need to sort through so that I can file what I want to keep, but I at least know what I'm going to be doing with that stuff once I get through it. And there isn't really much I want to keep, except my Drama "Handbookes."
Christmas will be a quiet affair this year, which saddens me greatly. Peter is going to Calgary, and my sister and her wife are staying in Vancouver, so it'll just be my brother, my parents and I. I've always wanted busy Christmases with lots of people, but my parents aren't so fond of it. :-( Maybe that's why I've always wanted it. I remember saying to my mom many years ago that I wished that I could spend Christmas with my friends, and her very discouraging reply was "But do they want to spend the time with you?" I guess I just like the focus to be on spending time with people, rather than the food or the ceremony, which my parents are big on. Anybody want to come to my house for Christmas? There'll be more food than you can shake a stick at, and you can come check out my new and rather spiffy house! Anyone? Anyone...? Ohh... :*-(
12/04/2006
Hooker/Forwards... Tip?
So I figured I'd write an actual post instead of a list of things I should have all ready known. Well, that and I'm procrastinating writing my mid-point self-evaluation. I wonder if I should mention that when I write it?
Things are going well, though I'm really tired. I sent a kid to the office for the first time today. I didn't actually mean to send him to the office, but he was refusing to work and I finally had to tell him to either work or go to the office, and he went to the office without even batting an eyelash. he was having a bad day, I guess--at the beginning of class, he took a 0 on his scene presentation rather than attempt and fail it. Maybe he was in a bad mood about his low mark in Math.
Ok, so that was not a necessary remark. ^_^
The performances of How the Grinch Stole Christmas are this week, and since there are morning shows for school field trips, classes are being messed up. I have to teach my classes in the Music room tomorrow and cover my mentor teacher's CALM class. I have no idea what the 6 Drama 20 students who aren't in the play will be doing during second block. As long as they don't hurt themselves, damage equipment or tick off an administrator, though, I'm not too worried, and I doubt they'll do any of that. Or, well... They're a lot better than my Drama 10s, at the very least. ^_^
I've got my kids working on a script analysis assignment right now. One kid so far has questioned its validity. I was honestly expecting more, but I haven't gotten any. For some reason, though, the concept of writing a Character Bone Structure seems to really confuse them. For example: "But, the scene doesn't say what colour his hair is!" He's a man in his 30s; his hair could be brown, black, blonde or even red. Choose one that occurs naturally with the eye colour you've chosen for him. I guess it would be easier if they knew how to interpret information from the script, eg, the character who talks about hating to pay property taxes that support social programs for the poor is probably more of a Conservative, economically speaking. Apply that to the parts of the Bone Structure that ask about his political bent and economic status. I worry that this may be me being a "bad teacher," but past a certain point, the only way to learn how to do something is to do it. After having gone through the script with the class and answering every question the students had about the assignment sheet, they need to work on their own. They have to be able to follow instructions, rather than only answering a question when they're sure they've been given the right answer, lest they waste time thinking or writing stuff they don't need to. Ok, getting a little bitter now.
In news outside of my student teaching, Wednesday is Peter and I's three-year anniversary. We're celebrating tommorrow (Tuesday), though, since on Wednesday Peter will be playing WOW and I'll be scrambling to get my next assignment organized to give to my students on Thursday. Reader's Theatre. I don't know how they'll like that. Anyway, we've decided to go to Jack's Grill to celebrate. I should think of a gift to get him, I guess. I mean, I have gift ideas for Peter for Christmas and such, but for an anniversary, I want to give him something to which his reaction won't be "Very Nice!" or "Great Success!" (Have all you guys seen that movie? It's so wrong, but so, so funny. ^_^) But I guess I've procrastinated long enough and now I shall go work. :-(
Things are going well, though I'm really tired. I sent a kid to the office for the first time today. I didn't actually mean to send him to the office, but he was refusing to work and I finally had to tell him to either work or go to the office, and he went to the office without even batting an eyelash. he was having a bad day, I guess--at the beginning of class, he took a 0 on his scene presentation rather than attempt and fail it. Maybe he was in a bad mood about his low mark in Math.
Ok, so that was not a necessary remark. ^_^
The performances of How the Grinch Stole Christmas are this week, and since there are morning shows for school field trips, classes are being messed up. I have to teach my classes in the Music room tomorrow and cover my mentor teacher's CALM class. I have no idea what the 6 Drama 20 students who aren't in the play will be doing during second block. As long as they don't hurt themselves, damage equipment or tick off an administrator, though, I'm not too worried, and I doubt they'll do any of that. Or, well... They're a lot better than my Drama 10s, at the very least. ^_^
I've got my kids working on a script analysis assignment right now. One kid so far has questioned its validity. I was honestly expecting more, but I haven't gotten any. For some reason, though, the concept of writing a Character Bone Structure seems to really confuse them. For example: "But, the scene doesn't say what colour his hair is!" He's a man in his 30s; his hair could be brown, black, blonde or even red. Choose one that occurs naturally with the eye colour you've chosen for him. I guess it would be easier if they knew how to interpret information from the script, eg, the character who talks about hating to pay property taxes that support social programs for the poor is probably more of a Conservative, economically speaking. Apply that to the parts of the Bone Structure that ask about his political bent and economic status. I worry that this may be me being a "bad teacher," but past a certain point, the only way to learn how to do something is to do it. After having gone through the script with the class and answering every question the students had about the assignment sheet, they need to work on their own. They have to be able to follow instructions, rather than only answering a question when they're sure they've been given the right answer, lest they waste time thinking or writing stuff they don't need to. Ok, getting a little bitter now.
In news outside of my student teaching, Wednesday is Peter and I's three-year anniversary. We're celebrating tommorrow (Tuesday), though, since on Wednesday Peter will be playing WOW and I'll be scrambling to get my next assignment organized to give to my students on Thursday. Reader's Theatre. I don't know how they'll like that. Anyway, we've decided to go to Jack's Grill to celebrate. I should think of a gift to get him, I guess. I mean, I have gift ideas for Peter for Christmas and such, but for an anniversary, I want to give him something to which his reaction won't be "Very Nice!" or "Great Success!" (Have all you guys seen that movie? It's so wrong, but so, so funny. ^_^) But I guess I've procrastinated long enough and now I shall go work. :-(
12/03/2006
Things My Very First PD Day Taught Me
1. PD Days are pointless.
2. Free breakfasts are nice.
3. Budgetary concerns are omnipresent and not worth picking apart--work with what you have while working to get more money. Grousing does nothing.
4. Free lunches are also nice.
5. Deparment meetings are unpleasant.
6. My mentor teacher is argumentative.
7. All kinds of people become teachers, and that doesn't change the kinds of people they are--sycophants, misanthropes, cowards...
8. Respect is an odd thing.
2. Free breakfasts are nice.
3. Budgetary concerns are omnipresent and not worth picking apart--work with what you have while working to get more money. Grousing does nothing.
4. Free lunches are also nice.
5. Deparment meetings are unpleasant.
6. My mentor teacher is argumentative.
7. All kinds of people become teachers, and that doesn't change the kinds of people they are--sycophants, misanthropes, cowards...
8. Respect is an odd thing.
11/28/2006
Things My IPT Has Taught Me (So Far)
1. Photocopying is your mostest bestest friend.
2. 15-year-olds in the suburbs don't give a crap about politics.
3. Spending your weekends doing things like moving dozens upon dozens of cases of wine does not contribute to you being alert and happy come Monday morning.
4. Abused kids can manipulate the hell out of you.
5. I spent an apparently abnormally small amount of time on my hair as a teenager.
6. Kids that can scream loud enough to make you cringe during rehearsal can't talk above a whisper when they're on stage.
7. I was happier to have forgotten the necessary logistics of most teenage romances (ie, they only see eachother at school, so they, uh, express their feelings there).
8. Build a coffin along with your set--it's cheaper and more likely to be needed during prep for extra-curricular productions. Update it every few years as you gain or lose an unhealthy amount of weight.
9. One Acts are either really boring or too advanced for Drama 10. (I compromised by giving them one of each.)
10. Even when *everybody* (student, teacher, parent, administrator) tries their best, some kids just aren't that bright.
11. If outside attempts at help could blow up your classroom, you'd be "pathognomonic," too.
12. Dry erase markers in the hands of high school kids can be remarkably hazardous. Ditto with the erasers. My poor warm-up description... :-(
(Hi, Micah! Nice to hear from you!)
2. 15-year-olds in the suburbs don't give a crap about politics.
3. Spending your weekends doing things like moving dozens upon dozens of cases of wine does not contribute to you being alert and happy come Monday morning.
4. Abused kids can manipulate the hell out of you.
5. I spent an apparently abnormally small amount of time on my hair as a teenager.
6. Kids that can scream loud enough to make you cringe during rehearsal can't talk above a whisper when they're on stage.
7. I was happier to have forgotten the necessary logistics of most teenage romances (ie, they only see eachother at school, so they, uh, express their feelings there).
8. Build a coffin along with your set--it's cheaper and more likely to be needed during prep for extra-curricular productions. Update it every few years as you gain or lose an unhealthy amount of weight.
9. One Acts are either really boring or too advanced for Drama 10. (I compromised by giving them one of each.)
10. Even when *everybody* (student, teacher, parent, administrator) tries their best, some kids just aren't that bright.
11. If outside attempts at help could blow up your classroom, you'd be "pathognomonic," too.
12. Dry erase markers in the hands of high school kids can be remarkably hazardous. Ditto with the erasers. My poor warm-up description... :-(
(Hi, Micah! Nice to hear from you!)
11/20/2006
Hilow
So the past week or so has been full of ups and downs. Exams went all right, but I missed my Assessment final. The time and location weren't in the syllabus, and, silly me, I assumed it was during class time like my other exams. Yeah, no. I got to write it Friday morning, though, so it was all good.
Not so good was Thursday night. I got an e-mail from this guy in my Drama class saying how I humiliated him and he hopes I never EVER become a teacher. He then proceded to demand an apology for my unspecified act. I was confused and upset. I wrote back saying just that, and Cc'ed a copy to the prof, since she's a very involved person. I got a reply back from the guy saying that if I didn't know what he was talking about, then it just went to show how horrible I was. That did not encourage me to apologize to him. The prof wrote us, saying we both screwed up, and the matter of what I did wrong was clarified. On October 23rd (so, a while ago) I'd told him that his sentences ended in upwards lilts during his peer teaching, and that it was therefore difficult to tell when he was finished talking. I wanted to use the term Half Cadence, but nobody in the class except me knew what that was, so I wound up having to imitate it. I said many times that I wasn't trying to insult him, that it was just something I noticed, but apparently he didn't believe me. The prof, who wasn't there, but had heard about it, thought I hadn't been as professional as I could've been, though, so I sucked it up and apologized for hurting this guy's feelings. But I said I stood by the message I was trying to convey. He hasn't e-mailed me back.
The worst part, though? The initial e-mail he sent me, talking about how horrible I was, was Bcc'ed to the entire class. Yeah, the rest of the class was not impressed by that. I found this out through Joyce, though, who was told by Maura, a friend of both Joyce and I who was in the class. *That* sucked.
So I was stressed and nauseated and whatnot from that this weekend and was not looking forward to going to do my IPT. I knew it would be fine, but I couldn't nod last night without nearly blacking out, I was so lightheaded. I went, though, and it was all good. I have an assignment for my classes that should eat up a week or so. I'm gonna give them a scene of two people talking about the weather, without any stage directions, and get them to memorize and interpret it in a performance. I took the scene from a short One Act my mentor teacher had called Just One Day. The play is about a girl who's been knocked-up deciding to have an abortion, but the first while is just her and her friend waiting to meet with her boyfriend, and they're talking about how Spring has come early. Should be neat.
And tonight, I got home and got some very happy news via e-mail: My wallet has been turned in at the Music Office!!!!!! I knew it hadn't been stolen, but I had given up on finding it. Luckily, my credit card was only put on Protection, rather than having been cancelled outright, so all I have to do is call them back up when I have the card and it'll be usable immediately. Not that I have a lot of room on it... ^_^ But things like my Health Care card won't have to be replaced, which is nice. In celebration, I think I'm going to go get myself a glass of warm chcolate milk. :-)
Not so good was Thursday night. I got an e-mail from this guy in my Drama class saying how I humiliated him and he hopes I never EVER become a teacher. He then proceded to demand an apology for my unspecified act. I was confused and upset. I wrote back saying just that, and Cc'ed a copy to the prof, since she's a very involved person. I got a reply back from the guy saying that if I didn't know what he was talking about, then it just went to show how horrible I was. That did not encourage me to apologize to him. The prof wrote us, saying we both screwed up, and the matter of what I did wrong was clarified. On October 23rd (so, a while ago) I'd told him that his sentences ended in upwards lilts during his peer teaching, and that it was therefore difficult to tell when he was finished talking. I wanted to use the term Half Cadence, but nobody in the class except me knew what that was, so I wound up having to imitate it. I said many times that I wasn't trying to insult him, that it was just something I noticed, but apparently he didn't believe me. The prof, who wasn't there, but had heard about it, thought I hadn't been as professional as I could've been, though, so I sucked it up and apologized for hurting this guy's feelings. But I said I stood by the message I was trying to convey. He hasn't e-mailed me back.
The worst part, though? The initial e-mail he sent me, talking about how horrible I was, was Bcc'ed to the entire class. Yeah, the rest of the class was not impressed by that. I found this out through Joyce, though, who was told by Maura, a friend of both Joyce and I who was in the class. *That* sucked.
So I was stressed and nauseated and whatnot from that this weekend and was not looking forward to going to do my IPT. I knew it would be fine, but I couldn't nod last night without nearly blacking out, I was so lightheaded. I went, though, and it was all good. I have an assignment for my classes that should eat up a week or so. I'm gonna give them a scene of two people talking about the weather, without any stage directions, and get them to memorize and interpret it in a performance. I took the scene from a short One Act my mentor teacher had called Just One Day. The play is about a girl who's been knocked-up deciding to have an abortion, but the first while is just her and her friend waiting to meet with her boyfriend, and they're talking about how Spring has come early. Should be neat.
And tonight, I got home and got some very happy news via e-mail: My wallet has been turned in at the Music Office!!!!!! I knew it hadn't been stolen, but I had given up on finding it. Luckily, my credit card was only put on Protection, rather than having been cancelled outright, so all I have to do is call them back up when I have the card and it'll be usable immediately. Not that I have a lot of room on it... ^_^ But things like my Health Care card won't have to be replaced, which is nice. In celebration, I think I'm going to go get myself a glass of warm chcolate milk. :-)
11/14/2006
And it Squeaks on Contact ^_^
Yeah, so I have failed to find my wallet thus far. When University buildings open again tomorrow (since today is Fall Break) I'm going to go back to Campus 5-0 and ask if anything's been turned in yet. I've now got myself an interim driver's license and a new bank card, plus a new Amex on the way and my both my mom's and my Visas are on "protection," which means that nobody can use them and I have to call to either lift the protection when I find the cards or cancel them when I give up. I have not yet bothered with a new Alberta Healthcare card or ONEcard. I'd really like to find my wallet, since things like my LaSenza discount card an my CostCo card, which I probably won't bother to replace, are in there. I've checked everywhere my wallet could reasonably be. You name it, I've checked there. I am annoyed...
Elsewhere, my finals start tomorrow with Inclusive Ed. Yaaaaaay!!!!! ...or not. Oh, well. At least now those classes will be over. My group got a 91% on our IPP project, so I'm not too worried about my grade in that class. I am, however, rather uncertain as to what to prepare for my student teaching. But we'll jump off that bridge when we get to it, as they say.
I've switched my Blogger account to the Beta, and the "Labels" bit is kind of odd. The examples they have are "scooters, vacation, fall." Huh. I wonder if I should start a "rant" category, or a "ramble" one. Or rather use the labels as a rating system for how stable I'm feeling that day. I could rate them from 1-5 and be able to trace patterns of my bad days, as well as giggle at my choice of words at those times. They see a Rolodex, I see a hammer. ^_^
Elsewhere, my finals start tomorrow with Inclusive Ed. Yaaaaaay!!!!! ...or not. Oh, well. At least now those classes will be over. My group got a 91% on our IPP project, so I'm not too worried about my grade in that class. I am, however, rather uncertain as to what to prepare for my student teaching. But we'll jump off that bridge when we get to it, as they say.
I've switched my Blogger account to the Beta, and the "Labels" bit is kind of odd. The examples they have are "scooters, vacation, fall." Huh. I wonder if I should start a "rant" category, or a "ramble" one. Or rather use the labels as a rating system for how stable I'm feeling that day. I could rate them from 1-5 and be able to trace patterns of my bad days, as well as giggle at my choice of words at those times. They see a Rolodex, I see a hammer. ^_^
11/10/2006
Mmm... SIN...
I just got my very first piece of honest-to-God spam at my current e-mail address. (EDIT: I mean the first piece of spam that made it into my inbox. I pay almost no attention to my junk folder.) Prior to this, the closest thing I got to spam was people e-mailing stuff to a girl who had the same name but at hotmail.fr. I imagine that the spreading of her e-mail address with the .com mistake is what got me the spam. Seriously, I've had this address for *counts* roughly seven years and I've never gotten spam before. But this girl (I can't remember her name off the top of my head) seems to have gotten into the habit of giving out her e-mail address left, right and centre lately. I've had to block deozens, maybe even over 100 people who have mistakenly added me to their MSN list. Based on those people's screen names, this girl lives somewhere where the two main languages are French and Arabic, and I've asked people before where that might be, but I can't remember the suggestions they gave.
But, anyway, I just got a vital message from yourDICK_isSHORT and I am amuzed. ^_^
In other news, we sold our old house last night. We got less than the asking price, but more than we actually wanted for it, so it's all good. They take possession the first of December, which means that we have to get our wine coolers in at the new house and our wine but into them so it's not laying around when the new owners arrive. And I still have some blankets over there, which annoys me because I thought I had all my stuff cleared out, and now I don't know where I'm going to put blankets. Plus, I'm also annoyed that I haven't had them all along because it's cold in my bedroom and I want blankets. :-( My mom actually came into my room last night and remarked about how cold it was in here. She then said that something would have to be done about it and left. I sighed because I've been telling her since we moved in that we need some heavy-ish window coverings because the big picture window is what's making it cold. Plus, when I got out of the shower yesterday, there was a guy driving a Bobcat around our backyard and I was only wearing a towel. B'oh...
Today is the first day of my five-day weekend, but I'm waiting to be taken to the University. My car is, of course, not finished at Fountain Tire, and I can't borrow my mom's car because I have no driver's license because I've lost my wallet. I think I left it in the computer lab in FAB yesterday after I printed off my Policy Studies paper. Stupid 12 cents per page. Did I mention that there's something glitchy with our printer at home? I don't know what, but it doesn't want to work properly. The computer releases print jobs to it and it doesn't do anything. But, yeah, I'm just waiting for the real estate agent to show up (she should be here within five minutes) and my parents to sign the sale papers so that my mom can drive me to FAB and possibly Campus 5-0. There was no money in my wallet, but there was everything else. Except my passport and SIN card, but you really don't want to carry those around with you. GAH IDENTITY THEFT!!!!!!111!!!!!11
Oh, hey, the real estate agent's here.
But, anyway, I just got a vital message from yourDICK_isSHORT and I am amuzed. ^_^
In other news, we sold our old house last night. We got less than the asking price, but more than we actually wanted for it, so it's all good. They take possession the first of December, which means that we have to get our wine coolers in at the new house and our wine but into them so it's not laying around when the new owners arrive. And I still have some blankets over there, which annoys me because I thought I had all my stuff cleared out, and now I don't know where I'm going to put blankets. Plus, I'm also annoyed that I haven't had them all along because it's cold in my bedroom and I want blankets. :-( My mom actually came into my room last night and remarked about how cold it was in here. She then said that something would have to be done about it and left. I sighed because I've been telling her since we moved in that we need some heavy-ish window coverings because the big picture window is what's making it cold. Plus, when I got out of the shower yesterday, there was a guy driving a Bobcat around our backyard and I was only wearing a towel. B'oh...
Today is the first day of my five-day weekend, but I'm waiting to be taken to the University. My car is, of course, not finished at Fountain Tire, and I can't borrow my mom's car because I have no driver's license because I've lost my wallet. I think I left it in the computer lab in FAB yesterday after I printed off my Policy Studies paper. Stupid 12 cents per page. Did I mention that there's something glitchy with our printer at home? I don't know what, but it doesn't want to work properly. The computer releases print jobs to it and it doesn't do anything. But, yeah, I'm just waiting for the real estate agent to show up (she should be here within five minutes) and my parents to sign the sale papers so that my mom can drive me to FAB and possibly Campus 5-0. There was no money in my wallet, but there was everything else. Except my passport and SIN card, but you really don't want to carry those around with you. GAH IDENTITY THEFT!!!!!!111!!!!!11
Oh, hey, the real estate agent's here.
11/06/2006
Bypass the Release Mechanism
I just caught up on my blog reading. I haven't done that in a while. I hadn't seen any of the enitre front page of Jo's blog. I hope Jazz lives! I actually listened to people have a conversation about how bettas don't die easily today. ^_^ And yay, Morgan, on your job! Working equals money equals being able to live and stuff.
On a similar note, I had a bad weekend. I got Lindsey Coulter to cover my shift on Friday because I just couldn't do it. I woke up just before nine that morning (I don't have class on Fridays) to the sound of my dad yelling. I tried to stay asleep, and he kept yelling. Just after ten, my mom came in to give me the all-clear and started crying. Turns out, the builders had put the duct for the vent hood over our stove in the wrong place in the wall. And they're saying it's my dad's fault. I have no idea what the specifics are, and I don't care to know, but my mom has been coming into my room and crying quite a lot lately. She has trouble dealing with my dad when he gets stressed or upset or anything like that, especially if she's also stressed. Three cheers for being my mother's therapist.
On Saturday I did go to work, and I was angry to discover that I was on reception. I had asked the logistics manager for more shifts in the Jazz and Classical room. The shift Lindsey had taken the night before was a cash shift, and, in total, only 45% of my assigned hours for the month were in CDs. I was not happy. The logistics manager showed up, though, which is worth noting because he doesn't work weekends, usually, and he was chill and whatnot, and he cheered me up. I didn't mention my annoyance to him. He was around to move CD shelves because of renovations that started today. The area that used to house the clearance section, as well as the reception desk and the Entertainment Playground Theatre area is being walled up and converted into backroom area. The Jazz and Classical room is being re-expanded. I was quite excited when Lindsey told me about all of this.
Anyway, so once I cheered up, I was all productive. The general manager asked me to clear out the reception counter because we were moving the reception area that day, but after he told me to do that, he disappeared and the logistics manager went home, so nothing actually got moved. And since I had been all productive and whatnot, I ran out of things to do and got bored. So I sat around being bored for a while. I text messaged Joyce about the ironic contrasts within my work day. And then I got laid off.
Seven people were let go due to budget problems, all from the CD/DVD department. I was not exactly thrilled. It's on good terms, though. They're giving me severance pay, and if I call them on Thursday, the manager says they'll have another job opportunity set up for me with another company. That part surprised me. It makes sense, though, since everybody in the city is desperate for employees. I was especially taken by surprise with the being laid off because I didn't think that happened these days in Alberta. I'm not sure if I'll take another job, though, since I start student teaching on the 20th, and another job probably won't have anything to do with my degree.
I had already made plans to go to dinner with Jenilee and Peter that night, so I did, and I had a good time. I crahsed at Peter's place because my contacts were really bothering me and I didn't have my glasses, so I couldn't drive myself home after taking my lenses out. I woke up the next day and discovered why my leneses were bothering me--the right one, at least, was ripped all to hell. It probably happened when I was rubbing my eyes while crying after losing my job. I made it out the door, though, which at least one girl didn't before she broke down into tears. I feel bad for her. Anyway, Peter drove me home so that I could get my glasses.
My mom was not in a good mood when I got home, and I wound up being stuck there for a while doing cleaning before I could drive Peter home. He was not impressed. My mom had put bedding on my bed, and in the process had switched out my pillows that I had especially chosen and bought and wanted to keep. Getting them all back into my room (and the other ones out of my room) was not something my mom approved of, however, and she tried to kick me out of the house. As in tell me I could no longer live there. Again. She gave up on the notion really easily, though, which makes it kind of worse in a way, since she's throwing around big threats like that more and more casually. She was very affectionate by dinnertime. Three cheers for being my mother's six-year-old.
Today I've been feeling sick. I've been all nauseated and dizzy and I've had this weird kind of fuzzy headache, and I can't tell which of the three is causing me to have trouble focusing with my vision. I nearly asked Peter to drive me home this afternoon, not sure I was feeling well enough to do it myself. I had things to do, though, so setting the precedent that I wasn't good enough to drive would mean that I'd get absolutely nothing done, so I toughed it out. This evening, I went over to Peter's place and we watched Prison Break, and as I was driving him over to his mom's place afterwards, I realized that I have a flat tire. And no spare. So I drove the couple blocks to his moms, left my car there, had Peter drive me home, and tomorrow morning I'm going to get my dad to drive me back to the old house on his way to the hospital (I don't know why he'll be there) so that I can catch a bus to school. There's no bus service out by our new place yet. It'll take a couple of years, at least. *sigh*
On the plus side, I have now moved everything of mine out of the old house. Except for a pair of "boyfriend" pillows that I guess I'll put in the garage sale pile. There was a showing tonight. I have no idea how it went, but hopefully the answer is "well." It'll be nice having all my sweaters and cardigans and whatnot close at hand again, now that I've brought them over. I've been cold lately.
On a similar note, I had a bad weekend. I got Lindsey Coulter to cover my shift on Friday because I just couldn't do it. I woke up just before nine that morning (I don't have class on Fridays) to the sound of my dad yelling. I tried to stay asleep, and he kept yelling. Just after ten, my mom came in to give me the all-clear and started crying. Turns out, the builders had put the duct for the vent hood over our stove in the wrong place in the wall. And they're saying it's my dad's fault. I have no idea what the specifics are, and I don't care to know, but my mom has been coming into my room and crying quite a lot lately. She has trouble dealing with my dad when he gets stressed or upset or anything like that, especially if she's also stressed. Three cheers for being my mother's therapist.
On Saturday I did go to work, and I was angry to discover that I was on reception. I had asked the logistics manager for more shifts in the Jazz and Classical room. The shift Lindsey had taken the night before was a cash shift, and, in total, only 45% of my assigned hours for the month were in CDs. I was not happy. The logistics manager showed up, though, which is worth noting because he doesn't work weekends, usually, and he was chill and whatnot, and he cheered me up. I didn't mention my annoyance to him. He was around to move CD shelves because of renovations that started today. The area that used to house the clearance section, as well as the reception desk and the Entertainment Playground Theatre area is being walled up and converted into backroom area. The Jazz and Classical room is being re-expanded. I was quite excited when Lindsey told me about all of this.
Anyway, so once I cheered up, I was all productive. The general manager asked me to clear out the reception counter because we were moving the reception area that day, but after he told me to do that, he disappeared and the logistics manager went home, so nothing actually got moved. And since I had been all productive and whatnot, I ran out of things to do and got bored. So I sat around being bored for a while. I text messaged Joyce about the ironic contrasts within my work day. And then I got laid off.
Seven people were let go due to budget problems, all from the CD/DVD department. I was not exactly thrilled. It's on good terms, though. They're giving me severance pay, and if I call them on Thursday, the manager says they'll have another job opportunity set up for me with another company. That part surprised me. It makes sense, though, since everybody in the city is desperate for employees. I was especially taken by surprise with the being laid off because I didn't think that happened these days in Alberta. I'm not sure if I'll take another job, though, since I start student teaching on the 20th, and another job probably won't have anything to do with my degree.
I had already made plans to go to dinner with Jenilee and Peter that night, so I did, and I had a good time. I crahsed at Peter's place because my contacts were really bothering me and I didn't have my glasses, so I couldn't drive myself home after taking my lenses out. I woke up the next day and discovered why my leneses were bothering me--the right one, at least, was ripped all to hell. It probably happened when I was rubbing my eyes while crying after losing my job. I made it out the door, though, which at least one girl didn't before she broke down into tears. I feel bad for her. Anyway, Peter drove me home so that I could get my glasses.
My mom was not in a good mood when I got home, and I wound up being stuck there for a while doing cleaning before I could drive Peter home. He was not impressed. My mom had put bedding on my bed, and in the process had switched out my pillows that I had especially chosen and bought and wanted to keep. Getting them all back into my room (and the other ones out of my room) was not something my mom approved of, however, and she tried to kick me out of the house. As in tell me I could no longer live there. Again. She gave up on the notion really easily, though, which makes it kind of worse in a way, since she's throwing around big threats like that more and more casually. She was very affectionate by dinnertime. Three cheers for being my mother's six-year-old.
Today I've been feeling sick. I've been all nauseated and dizzy and I've had this weird kind of fuzzy headache, and I can't tell which of the three is causing me to have trouble focusing with my vision. I nearly asked Peter to drive me home this afternoon, not sure I was feeling well enough to do it myself. I had things to do, though, so setting the precedent that I wasn't good enough to drive would mean that I'd get absolutely nothing done, so I toughed it out. This evening, I went over to Peter's place and we watched Prison Break, and as I was driving him over to his mom's place afterwards, I realized that I have a flat tire. And no spare. So I drove the couple blocks to his moms, left my car there, had Peter drive me home, and tomorrow morning I'm going to get my dad to drive me back to the old house on his way to the hospital (I don't know why he'll be there) so that I can catch a bus to school. There's no bus service out by our new place yet. It'll take a couple of years, at least. *sigh*
On the plus side, I have now moved everything of mine out of the old house. Except for a pair of "boyfriend" pillows that I guess I'll put in the garage sale pile. There was a showing tonight. I have no idea how it went, but hopefully the answer is "well." It'll be nice having all my sweaters and cardigans and whatnot close at hand again, now that I've brought them over. I've been cold lately.
10/31/2006
Ewedscray
I cannot find the articles to which I'm supposed to respond for my Drama journal due tomorrow morning at 9. I am frustrated and probably screwed. The only place I can think that I may not have looked (and that they might be) is the side pockets of my tote bag. Said tote bag, however, is at home, and I've all ready been there this morning looking for these articles. I thought they were tucked inside my journal dutoang, but apparently not. *sigh* And then there's always the paper that's due in that class tomorrow. It'll be an easy paper, just a response to our peer teaching experiece, but it's a pain to have it hanging over my head when I'm stressed about not finding these articles.
On another note, my mom requested that I get her some Valium this morning. Well, actually, she requested Prozac, but I told her that she needed Valium. There was a Russian construction worker at our house at 7:30 this morning and I thought my dad just might kill him. He was calling my parents' complaints about having no [shower stall, mirrors, closet doors or any idea of when any of them might be coming] a "sob story." I amscrayed, but apparently he was working dilligently by the time my mom left and had told her that we'd have a shower stall either today or tomorrow. Here's hoping.
Oh, and Happy Hallowe'en. I will neither be dressing up nor handing out candy, since the latter must be done at my old house and any costume I might have is currently caught in moving limbo. But Megan and Kate are dressed up as a pirate and a skanky kind of fairy, respectively, so there's still some festivity in my day. ^_^
On another note, my mom requested that I get her some Valium this morning. Well, actually, she requested Prozac, but I told her that she needed Valium. There was a Russian construction worker at our house at 7:30 this morning and I thought my dad just might kill him. He was calling my parents' complaints about having no [shower stall, mirrors, closet doors or any idea of when any of them might be coming] a "sob story." I amscrayed, but apparently he was working dilligently by the time my mom left and had told her that we'd have a shower stall either today or tomorrow. Here's hoping.
Oh, and Happy Hallowe'en. I will neither be dressing up nor handing out candy, since the latter must be done at my old house and any costume I might have is currently caught in moving limbo. But Megan and Kate are dressed up as a pirate and a skanky kind of fairy, respectively, so there's still some festivity in my day. ^_^
10/30/2006
Movement
It is Monday and I am considering school a refuge. The past five days have been insane. Wednesday, I painted. I got a fair amount of it done, but I still wound up priming the trim and painting it on Thursday and Friday, respectively.
Thursday, the movers came. 13 hours, many sore muscles and an astonishing amount of money later, almost all of our stuff had been transferred to the new house. And it was all in piles. Very disorganized piles. The upstairs great room and the downstairs rec room (or at least I think that's what we're calling it) were filled with furniture, boxes and a whole bunch of random stuff. I decided that we have an unhealthy amount of stuff. We went for Mikado and then I went to Peter's place to pass out, since my room was in too much disarray to sleep in.
Friday was better, in that I slept in and more or less just came over to the new house to paint the trim in my bedroom. Then I went to work, and it was boring. Stupid being out on the main CD floor on a Friday night. I read Fark for a while, but there's only so long you can get away with that. Then I went to pick up Peter and we went to the History and Classics Graduate Student Association (HCGSA)'s Hallowe'en party. It was at the Iron Horse, as last year, but this year there were a couple of scheduling snafus. We were supposed to have the entire second floor for the party, but they double-booked it. Something about a guy getting fired. Their solution to this was even less helpful--rather than just have the two parties sharing the upstairs, they opened it up entirely. There were lots of younger girls doing their best to show off their sexy costumes. There were three girls in tight orange miniskirts and wifebeater tanktops; I have no idea what they were supposed to be. I had a reasonable amount of fun, considering that we only wound up staying half an hour, but it was still a reminder as to why I don't make a habit of the Whyte Ave bar scene.
Saturday, things were back to being nuts. The dog came back from the vet, where he'd been staying while we did most of the work. He seems somewhat traumatized. He keeps trying to leave the new house, but on the occasions when we've taken him back to the old house, he wanders around wondering where everything is. Also, my dad had a fight with our pantry that had me hiding in the basement for most of the afternoon. See, when the shelves were being put in our pantry, my mom wanted fixed shelves, but my dad vetoed her and insisted on adjustable shelves. So, when my dad was putting food away, one of them collapsed. He did a great deal of cursing and snapped at me when I tried to get some lunch. My mom bought braces and my dad fixed the shelves in place himself. This took several tries, a great deal more cursing, and my mom breaking down in tears more than once. My dad is not a carpenter. First he put the braces on the wrong side of the shelf, then he was mistaken about where a wall stud was, then he had to recalculate the distance between shelves. As far as I can tell, though, he did in fact finish on Saturday, bit I'm not sure because I left to go to the birthday party of this girl named Pam. who is the girlfriend of Greg, one of Peter's officemates. I played Cranium for the first time. It was different than I thought, but very amusing.
Yesterday, I assembled furniture and got my room to actually look like a bedroom. I've now got an assembled new TV stand, complete with now-old TV, and an assembled bookshelf. I also unpacked most of my stuff, and I'm having trouble finding a place for some things. The storage closet I used to have was a lot bigger than this bookshelf, and I didn't have to worry so much about its asthetics, since I could just close the doors, unlike the bookshelf. So, as it currently stands, all of my furniture is in place, but there are half-unpacked boxes all over my room. I'm going to go sort them out later, after I've signed the copy of the IPP we'll be handing in on Wednesday. I have to go do that in an hour. Until then, I'm just killing time. Maybe I'll go to the zoo and chat with people...
Thursday, the movers came. 13 hours, many sore muscles and an astonishing amount of money later, almost all of our stuff had been transferred to the new house. And it was all in piles. Very disorganized piles. The upstairs great room and the downstairs rec room (or at least I think that's what we're calling it) were filled with furniture, boxes and a whole bunch of random stuff. I decided that we have an unhealthy amount of stuff. We went for Mikado and then I went to Peter's place to pass out, since my room was in too much disarray to sleep in.
Friday was better, in that I slept in and more or less just came over to the new house to paint the trim in my bedroom. Then I went to work, and it was boring. Stupid being out on the main CD floor on a Friday night. I read Fark for a while, but there's only so long you can get away with that. Then I went to pick up Peter and we went to the History and Classics Graduate Student Association (HCGSA)'s Hallowe'en party. It was at the Iron Horse, as last year, but this year there were a couple of scheduling snafus. We were supposed to have the entire second floor for the party, but they double-booked it. Something about a guy getting fired. Their solution to this was even less helpful--rather than just have the two parties sharing the upstairs, they opened it up entirely. There were lots of younger girls doing their best to show off their sexy costumes. There were three girls in tight orange miniskirts and wifebeater tanktops; I have no idea what they were supposed to be. I had a reasonable amount of fun, considering that we only wound up staying half an hour, but it was still a reminder as to why I don't make a habit of the Whyte Ave bar scene.
Saturday, things were back to being nuts. The dog came back from the vet, where he'd been staying while we did most of the work. He seems somewhat traumatized. He keeps trying to leave the new house, but on the occasions when we've taken him back to the old house, he wanders around wondering where everything is. Also, my dad had a fight with our pantry that had me hiding in the basement for most of the afternoon. See, when the shelves were being put in our pantry, my mom wanted fixed shelves, but my dad vetoed her and insisted on adjustable shelves. So, when my dad was putting food away, one of them collapsed. He did a great deal of cursing and snapped at me when I tried to get some lunch. My mom bought braces and my dad fixed the shelves in place himself. This took several tries, a great deal more cursing, and my mom breaking down in tears more than once. My dad is not a carpenter. First he put the braces on the wrong side of the shelf, then he was mistaken about where a wall stud was, then he had to recalculate the distance between shelves. As far as I can tell, though, he did in fact finish on Saturday, bit I'm not sure because I left to go to the birthday party of this girl named Pam. who is the girlfriend of Greg, one of Peter's officemates. I played Cranium for the first time. It was different than I thought, but very amusing.
Yesterday, I assembled furniture and got my room to actually look like a bedroom. I've now got an assembled new TV stand, complete with now-old TV, and an assembled bookshelf. I also unpacked most of my stuff, and I'm having trouble finding a place for some things. The storage closet I used to have was a lot bigger than this bookshelf, and I didn't have to worry so much about its asthetics, since I could just close the doors, unlike the bookshelf. So, as it currently stands, all of my furniture is in place, but there are half-unpacked boxes all over my room. I'm going to go sort them out later, after I've signed the copy of the IPP we'll be handing in on Wednesday. I have to go do that in an hour. Until then, I'm just killing time. Maybe I'll go to the zoo and chat with people...
10/24/2006
IPP, IKEA and SM/GM
I have taken the morning off to complete my portion of that evil IPP project. However, I have just realized how easy my portion is, so I'm taking some time off that to update my blog. I'm so responsible. ^_^
We moved stuff over to the new house on Sunday. I'm still kind of sore. The movers come day after tomorrow, which I guess means I should pack my clothes and stationary-ish stuff so that they can move my dresser and desk. I also went to Ikea on Sunday because they were having an anniversary sale. Of course, it applied to nothing I purchased, so my credit card is now maxed out. I am, however, the proud owner of a new bookshelf, TV stand and armchair. :-)
Oooh, I guess I _have_ to go paint tomorrow afternoon if I want to get it done before my furniture is moved. I'd do it tonight, but, after my IPP meeting, I have to do a case study paper for my Drama class. *sigh* At least that, too, will be easy.
In other news... I will actually get a paycheque of substance on Friday, plus a profit-sharing bonus sometime before the end of the month. I thought I'd already gotten it, but apparently it'll be a seperate cheque, so who knows... Oh, and the sales manager at my work who has been going crazy since our general manager left has officially been promoted to the new general manager. *sigh* A lot of people are very unhappy about that. And our Wells-Fargo machine that we use for putting through financing transactions to head office was stolen. It was behind the customer service counter next the the front doors and the cash tills. The sales/general manager went to look for it on Saturday morning and couldn't find it. He asked me where it was and I was like "How the hell should I know?" In retrospect, it was actually kind of funny. However, that's tempered by the possibility that it was stolen by one of the salesmen. They, especially the guy who's second in command at sales, have been saying that if the sales manager were to get the general manager position, they'd make it as difficult for him as they could. But I don't think any of them are stupid enough to steal the Wells-Fargo machine. Part of me is worrying about putting this on my blog, but it really is just wild and unfounded speculation and second-hand venting. Plus, the people at my work use MySpace--they have this network and everything--so I doubt any of them will bother with my little Blogger page. ^_^
We moved stuff over to the new house on Sunday. I'm still kind of sore. The movers come day after tomorrow, which I guess means I should pack my clothes and stationary-ish stuff so that they can move my dresser and desk. I also went to Ikea on Sunday because they were having an anniversary sale. Of course, it applied to nothing I purchased, so my credit card is now maxed out. I am, however, the proud owner of a new bookshelf, TV stand and armchair. :-)
Oooh, I guess I _have_ to go paint tomorrow afternoon if I want to get it done before my furniture is moved. I'd do it tonight, but, after my IPP meeting, I have to do a case study paper for my Drama class. *sigh* At least that, too, will be easy.
In other news... I will actually get a paycheque of substance on Friday, plus a profit-sharing bonus sometime before the end of the month. I thought I'd already gotten it, but apparently it'll be a seperate cheque, so who knows... Oh, and the sales manager at my work who has been going crazy since our general manager left has officially been promoted to the new general manager. *sigh* A lot of people are very unhappy about that. And our Wells-Fargo machine that we use for putting through financing transactions to head office was stolen. It was behind the customer service counter next the the front doors and the cash tills. The sales/general manager went to look for it on Saturday morning and couldn't find it. He asked me where it was and I was like "How the hell should I know?" In retrospect, it was actually kind of funny. However, that's tempered by the possibility that it was stolen by one of the salesmen. They, especially the guy who's second in command at sales, have been saying that if the sales manager were to get the general manager position, they'd make it as difficult for him as they could. But I don't think any of them are stupid enough to steal the Wells-Fargo machine. Part of me is worrying about putting this on my blog, but it really is just wild and unfounded speculation and second-hand venting. Plus, the people at my work use MySpace--they have this network and everything--so I doubt any of them will bother with my little Blogger page. ^_^
10/19/2006
Would You Like a Cookie-Cookie?!?
I just wrote the weirdest midterm. It was in my Assessment class. It went quite well, but, considering that it was a test on testwriting, there was a fair number of mistakes. For instance, one correct answer (C) didn't have a period after the C like A, B and D did. We were supposed to determine the taxonomical level of a hypothetical science class question, but two of the alternatives, including the keyed answer, were invalid. There was a grammatical error with one of the items pertaining to the article-noun relationship of the stem with one of the alternatives. Lots of little things like that--things which teachers do all the time, but that this class teaches us to specifically look out for and avoid. I thought it was kind of ironic.
I also did a group presentation of an article in my Policy Studies class today. It was gravy. We used a clip from "The Office," where they had "Diversity Day (take two)," since the article we were presenting was on "Culturally Responsive Classroom Management," and it was a hit. Steve Carrell is really good at playing a jerk. ^_^
Wow. My bedroom is right above the garage, so you can hear when the garage door opens and when the car door shuts and when somebody opens the door into the house and all that jazz. My mom just came home, and my dog didn't move from beside my bed until the garage door had finished opening, and, even then, he stood at the top of the stairs until my mom came in and shut the door behind her. Farley must be losing some of his hearing. I've noticed it in the past couple of years that there are things that *I* can hear better than he does, which is kind of disheartening. My puppy isn't a puppy anymore... :-(
Tomorrow is Friday and I have no classes. I do, however, have to work tomorrow night, but that's fine, since money is good. :-) I also work on Saturday, and neither shift is a cash shift! Yay!!! Lindsey Coulter told me today that there's going to be a huge rearrangement of the CD floor (again), and that this time we'll be getting back the extra space at the back of the Jazz & Classical room that has been dedicated to storing extra shelves for about the past year. Yay, more room! I wonder if this means that I'll be spending tomorrow night pushing shelves around and transferring CDs...
In any case, I am in a good mood right now. *does little dance*
I also did a group presentation of an article in my Policy Studies class today. It was gravy. We used a clip from "The Office," where they had "Diversity Day (take two)," since the article we were presenting was on "Culturally Responsive Classroom Management," and it was a hit. Steve Carrell is really good at playing a jerk. ^_^
Wow. My bedroom is right above the garage, so you can hear when the garage door opens and when the car door shuts and when somebody opens the door into the house and all that jazz. My mom just came home, and my dog didn't move from beside my bed until the garage door had finished opening, and, even then, he stood at the top of the stairs until my mom came in and shut the door behind her. Farley must be losing some of his hearing. I've noticed it in the past couple of years that there are things that *I* can hear better than he does, which is kind of disheartening. My puppy isn't a puppy anymore... :-(
Tomorrow is Friday and I have no classes. I do, however, have to work tomorrow night, but that's fine, since money is good. :-) I also work on Saturday, and neither shift is a cash shift! Yay!!! Lindsey Coulter told me today that there's going to be a huge rearrangement of the CD floor (again), and that this time we'll be getting back the extra space at the back of the Jazz & Classical room that has been dedicated to storing extra shelves for about the past year. Yay, more room! I wonder if this means that I'll be spending tomorrow night pushing shelves around and transferring CDs...
In any case, I am in a good mood right now. *does little dance*
10/17/2006
The New Busy
It is Tuesday at noon hour and I am at home doing laundry. Speaking of, I should go change the loads while I think of it.
Now that that's done, I can inform you that I've finally caught up on blog reading. I've been a little too busy lately to do that. Hell, I've been going three-day stretches without even checking my e-mail. That's just not a good idea... But, yeah, things are somewhat calmer now. I have to present an article on cultural diversity in my Ed Policy Studies class on Thursday, and I have to dedicate my weeked to doing my part of the IPP for Inclusive Ed, but that's not too much work. Oh, I guess I do have my assessment midterm on Thursday, too. Damn. Oh, well--the presentation doesn't take much, so I can fit both in tomorrow night. Although, I've just checked my work schedule, and I work Friday night and all day Saturday, so that will cut into my IPP time. God, I hate that course.
In happier, non-school-related news... ummm... Oh! I haven't mentioned yet that we've gotten possession of our new house! We got possession on Friday. The appliances were delievered yesterday and installed today. The guy who was supposed to put up closet shelves bailed, so that has to get finished. The vacuum system hasn't arrived yet, because we ordered it on Friday when we realized that the house came with all the plug-ins and whatnot, but no actual central system. I bought paint yesterday to repaint my room. And that's about it. Oh, wait, we're short one built-in soap dispenser. The one's there, but not the other. No idea what's going on with that. But my dad's out of town this week and my mom's been spending all her time at the new house. She has to work tomorrow, though, so hopefully that will temper her madness. Despite the list I just made of things that need to be done in order for the house to actually be inhabitable, it's looking great. The mud and construction surrounding it will take a bit more time, but it's not home without the beeping of tractors in reverse. ^_^
Now that that's done, I can inform you that I've finally caught up on blog reading. I've been a little too busy lately to do that. Hell, I've been going three-day stretches without even checking my e-mail. That's just not a good idea... But, yeah, things are somewhat calmer now. I have to present an article on cultural diversity in my Ed Policy Studies class on Thursday, and I have to dedicate my weeked to doing my part of the IPP for Inclusive Ed, but that's not too much work. Oh, I guess I do have my assessment midterm on Thursday, too. Damn. Oh, well--the presentation doesn't take much, so I can fit both in tomorrow night. Although, I've just checked my work schedule, and I work Friday night and all day Saturday, so that will cut into my IPP time. God, I hate that course.
In happier, non-school-related news... ummm... Oh! I haven't mentioned yet that we've gotten possession of our new house! We got possession on Friday. The appliances were delievered yesterday and installed today. The guy who was supposed to put up closet shelves bailed, so that has to get finished. The vacuum system hasn't arrived yet, because we ordered it on Friday when we realized that the house came with all the plug-ins and whatnot, but no actual central system. I bought paint yesterday to repaint my room. And that's about it. Oh, wait, we're short one built-in soap dispenser. The one's there, but not the other. No idea what's going on with that. But my dad's out of town this week and my mom's been spending all her time at the new house. She has to work tomorrow, though, so hopefully that will temper her madness. Despite the list I just made of things that need to be done in order for the house to actually be inhabitable, it's looking great. The mud and construction surrounding it will take a bit more time, but it's not home without the beeping of tractors in reverse. ^_^
10/13/2006
If Your Toes are Wet, You Have Experience, but if the Back of Your Ears are Wet, You Don't...
So I have survived my observation week. It went pretty well, actually, although I am freaking exhausted. My mentor teacher is good. When I come back, I'll be taking over his two Drama 10 classes. There are only four blocks in a day, and with few exceptions, every day is the same. One of the exceptions is music. The choir and the band are in the same class, so they just alternate days. The music teacher is rather, well, incompetant. I blew him out of the water. It was actually quite sad... Between the fact that he can't conduct a 3 pattern and the fact that half the kids in his one band class were wearing earphones, it just wasn't a good scene.
My mentor teacher teaches two Drama 10 classes, one Drama 20 class, and one CALM 20 class. Almost all of the courses are semestered. Drama 30 is next term. I have no idea how administrators think that Fine Arts courses can be semestered in high school. But that's a whole 'nother can of worms. The Drama classes are radically different from one another. One of the 10 classes does presentations about triple the length of the other, but has more problem students. The 20 class has a lot of skill and a lot of camraderie, but they totally don't keep their energy in check. One of them is totally one of the Weasley twins. The hair, the sense of humour... I keep expecting there to be another of him. He and some other Drama 20s tend to hang around for the afternoon Drama 10 class, so they're around for the second half of the morning, lunch hour and the first half of the afternoon.
My mentor teacher knows my high school Drama teacher, Agrell. Apparantly, Agrell has shaved his beard off. I couldn't believe it. My mentor teacher has a much more game- and activity-oriented approach to teaching Drama than Agrell did. I'm finding myself feeling less confortable in this format, since it's been a long time since I've been in a Drama class that was controlled as much as junior/senior high needs to be, but was also focused on creativity and group work and acting projects. All my university classes on those topics have had much less teacher discipline and have been more academic, so I just don't really know the setting I'm in as well as I'd like to. At least I get to teach a script unit in November. My mentor teaching seems to want to put a lot of emphasis on memorization. I guess this is kind of the flip side of the coin he's working with now. A lot of the scenes done by the Drama 10s have had ideas, but timidly spoken diaglogue because students didn't really know what to say as a character. In script, though, I worry that they'll just stand there with their faces screwed up in concentration and recite their lines in choppy bits. Then again, I guess that's what high school Drama courses are for--practice.
Oh, and one last thing: It takes half an hour to get to the school I'm at in Spruce Grove. It's pretty direct--Terwillegar Drive to Anthony Henday to Highway 16A--but still a long way. It takes me at least 50 minutes from my driveway to my classroom at the University in the mornings. That just... bothers me. At least I'm getting better mileage...
My mentor teacher teaches two Drama 10 classes, one Drama 20 class, and one CALM 20 class. Almost all of the courses are semestered. Drama 30 is next term. I have no idea how administrators think that Fine Arts courses can be semestered in high school. But that's a whole 'nother can of worms. The Drama classes are radically different from one another. One of the 10 classes does presentations about triple the length of the other, but has more problem students. The 20 class has a lot of skill and a lot of camraderie, but they totally don't keep their energy in check. One of them is totally one of the Weasley twins. The hair, the sense of humour... I keep expecting there to be another of him. He and some other Drama 20s tend to hang around for the afternoon Drama 10 class, so they're around for the second half of the morning, lunch hour and the first half of the afternoon.
My mentor teacher knows my high school Drama teacher, Agrell. Apparantly, Agrell has shaved his beard off. I couldn't believe it. My mentor teacher has a much more game- and activity-oriented approach to teaching Drama than Agrell did. I'm finding myself feeling less confortable in this format, since it's been a long time since I've been in a Drama class that was controlled as much as junior/senior high needs to be, but was also focused on creativity and group work and acting projects. All my university classes on those topics have had much less teacher discipline and have been more academic, so I just don't really know the setting I'm in as well as I'd like to. At least I get to teach a script unit in November. My mentor teaching seems to want to put a lot of emphasis on memorization. I guess this is kind of the flip side of the coin he's working with now. A lot of the scenes done by the Drama 10s have had ideas, but timidly spoken diaglogue because students didn't really know what to say as a character. In script, though, I worry that they'll just stand there with their faces screwed up in concentration and recite their lines in choppy bits. Then again, I guess that's what high school Drama courses are for--practice.
Oh, and one last thing: It takes half an hour to get to the school I'm at in Spruce Grove. It's pretty direct--Terwillegar Drive to Anthony Henday to Highway 16A--but still a long way. It takes me at least 50 minutes from my driveway to my classroom at the University in the mornings. That just... bothers me. At least I'm getting better mileage...
10/09/2006
*gobble*
Updating this thing. I am alive and doing reasonably well. I have to write my Dramatic Form paper today, though, because I've put it off for the past three days. I looked through an example-ish thing of what I'm supposed to do, though, and it seems ridiculously easy, so I'm not too worried. The biggest challenge/annoyance will be finding _books_ as sources, rather than other formats or medias. Silly prof with her archaic practices.
Thanksgiving dinner was last night and it was nice. There was just my parents and my brother and I, since Lindsay's not around and Peter went to Calgary. He should be getting back in a couple of hours now, I guess. There was pumpkin flan (pronounced "flawn"), which was essentially a pumpkin pie without the crust. I was quite happy about that. ^_^
I haven't done a test run out to Spruce Grove yet, but I really should. Either that or leave at six thirty tomorrow just in case. But I don't want to do that. *sigh* I don't particularly want to go out there at all right now, really, but that part's not up to me. I wonder what kind of work load I'll have this week...
As for the rest of my life, it's kind of on hiatus for a while. My friend Maura was going to have a party this past Friday in celebration of the end of midterm week, but nobody could come. I, personally, was working, which I wish I was doing a bit more of these days. I'm going to be getting a $30 paycheque on Friday. Let the good times roll...
Thanksgiving dinner was last night and it was nice. There was just my parents and my brother and I, since Lindsay's not around and Peter went to Calgary. He should be getting back in a couple of hours now, I guess. There was pumpkin flan (pronounced "flawn"), which was essentially a pumpkin pie without the crust. I was quite happy about that. ^_^
I haven't done a test run out to Spruce Grove yet, but I really should. Either that or leave at six thirty tomorrow just in case. But I don't want to do that. *sigh* I don't particularly want to go out there at all right now, really, but that part's not up to me. I wonder what kind of work load I'll have this week...
As for the rest of my life, it's kind of on hiatus for a while. My friend Maura was going to have a party this past Friday in celebration of the end of midterm week, but nobody could come. I, personally, was working, which I wish I was doing a bit more of these days. I'm going to be getting a $30 paycheque on Friday. Let the good times roll...
10/02/2006
Don't "Bernie" Me
Bad: The bus driver wouldn't let me on the bus today. Seriously. He just wouldn't open the door. I may write a letter of complaint.
Good: My mom, who came to pick me up, seems to be thinking of buying me a new car.
Bad: I'm very stressed, and so are my classmates. A couple people had mini freakouts/breakdowns in class this morning.
Good: My mom told me to make myself a hot chocolate when I got home.
Bad: We had no peppermint Schnapps to go with it.
Good: So I made myself a little citrus twist appletini before making the hot chocolate.
Bad: I spilled a large amount of the hot chocolate.
Good: What was left was still yummy.
Bad: I have to go write my paper on how technology affects classroom management now.
Good: If you discount my midterms, I only have one thing per night to worry about, now that I've gotten an extention on my Dramatic Form paper.
Good: My mom, who came to pick me up, seems to be thinking of buying me a new car.
Bad: I'm very stressed, and so are my classmates. A couple people had mini freakouts/breakdowns in class this morning.
Good: My mom told me to make myself a hot chocolate when I got home.
Bad: We had no peppermint Schnapps to go with it.
Good: So I made myself a little citrus twist appletini before making the hot chocolate.
Bad: I spilled a large amount of the hot chocolate.
Good: What was left was still yummy.
Bad: I have to go write my paper on how technology affects classroom management now.
Good: If you discount my midterms, I only have one thing per night to worry about, now that I've gotten an extention on my Dramatic Form paper.
10/01/2006
This Isn't a Blog, This is my Daytimer
It's 2pm on Sunday and I'm at school. I'm meeting with my group for my Drama peer teach thing on Wednesday. We're supposed to be writing up our part of the lesson plan for the activity we're leading, and I'm done, and one of our group memembers didn't have a laptop, so we have to wait until she gets back to continue with our meeting. We're teaching Movement and Improv. They're really easy to teach, at least.
I've got some articles together for my Empirical Classroom Management paper for my Policy Studies class. I'll be writing about the effect of technology in the classroom on classroom management. Exciting, eh? I should get most of that sorted out, though...
Let's see... After that, I have my Drama journal to worry about, since it's the next thing due that's not finished. I'll have to just grit my teeth and write it, I think, otherwise I'm going to get frustrated and long-winded about some of the more ridiculous articles my prof has given us to repsond to.
Then that afternoon is my Inclusive Ed midterm. I can't imagine how that would be terribly difficult, but I should study for it. All I basically have to do is choose the multiple choice answer that most closely resembles either the phrase "Other people are evil for not giving Special Needs students ways to be in normal classrooms," or the phrase "Special Needs students are wonderful and we recognize that with every moral and loving fibre of our being."
Once that's done, I have to finish my assessment items. I didn't think I had to specify the level of the taxonomy for each item, but I do. Boo. Once I finish with that, though, there's only the midterm for that class left. Yay! Well, and my Dramatic Form paper, but that's not due until next Tuesday--too far away to worry about now. And now our meeting's done, so I'm going to go home. :-)
I've got some articles together for my Empirical Classroom Management paper for my Policy Studies class. I'll be writing about the effect of technology in the classroom on classroom management. Exciting, eh? I should get most of that sorted out, though...
Let's see... After that, I have my Drama journal to worry about, since it's the next thing due that's not finished. I'll have to just grit my teeth and write it, I think, otherwise I'm going to get frustrated and long-winded about some of the more ridiculous articles my prof has given us to repsond to.
Then that afternoon is my Inclusive Ed midterm. I can't imagine how that would be terribly difficult, but I should study for it. All I basically have to do is choose the multiple choice answer that most closely resembles either the phrase "Other people are evil for not giving Special Needs students ways to be in normal classrooms," or the phrase "Special Needs students are wonderful and we recognize that with every moral and loving fibre of our being."
Once that's done, I have to finish my assessment items. I didn't think I had to specify the level of the taxonomy for each item, but I do. Boo. Once I finish with that, though, there's only the midterm for that class left. Yay! Well, and my Dramatic Form paper, but that's not due until next Tuesday--too far away to worry about now. And now our meeting's done, so I'm going to go home. :-)
9/30/2006
Ugh
So I'm at my parents' computer, printing off Inclusive Ed notes from WebCT so that I can study them for the midterm this week. For some reason, it's taking forever to print off Powerpoint slides (I guess I've never printed them at home before), so I'm killing time by updating this thing.
It has been somewhat of an unpleasant week. I've been ridiculously stressed out by everything that's due next week, and my sleep patterns are off and I'm feeling nauseous and my car is sick, to boot. I think something broke and coolant fluid leaked out. All I know is that the engine is overheating like mad, but I can't get any warm air in the cabin of the car. This happened on Wednesday, and I still haven't called the shop. It's not too bad, though, since my parents are in Banff and I've been able to drive my mom's car. They come back this afternoon, though, so I'm going to have to give it back. ^_^
As I said, my sleep is all messed. I slept over 17 hours on Wednesday night. And then I satayed awake for eight hours and slept for eight more. I made myself get up at nine this morning, because that way I didn't oversleep, and I feel fine, but I felt like hell last night. I'm not sure if it's the smell of the leather interior of my mom's car (which makes me carsick), but I've been really sick to my stomach the past couple of days. Bah. I drove myself home last night in queasy semi-consciousness last night before taking yet more Gravol and passing out. Thank God I feel better after I've slept between six and ten hours.
So, yeah, I'm going to Spruce Grove. I've decided not to mention which school or the name of my mentor teacher, since my Policy Studies prof has convinced me that it's unprofessional, but I do imagine that I will be posting tales of anonymous 15-year-old guys being stupid in CALM class.
I think the reason this is taking so long is that my printer is running out of black ink. Everything's coming out in a pleasant shade of grey.
Let's see... what else is new with me...? Oh, here's something for you guys to balk at with me: Those of you who have been through this will remember having to write an IPP for Inclusive Ed. This is done in groups of five, and it's due November 1st. I wasn't in class the day that the groups met up and whatnot, so I had no say in who our group co-ordinator was. Fine, whatever. It's in the distance, compared to everything else that's about to crush me. However, after being unable to make our first group meeting (I was *so* not about to cancel my doctor's appointment when I'm feeling like this), I get an e-mail sayting that the next group meeting will be October 11th, and I need to have my part of the assignment done by then. October 11th is the Wednesday of our observation week, and the day after the new due date of my Dramatic Forma paper, since I begged my prof for an extention on that one. I haven't written back to my group co-ordinator, but I anticipate my reply being some sort of euphemism for "bite me." There is no reason why this chick should be making me have this assignment done a full three weeks before it's due when there's ten thousand other things that we all have to finish and only a couple hours' worth of editing required.
Grr...
We still haven't sold our house. Still haven't had a viewing, as far as I know. However, there are little things, like the fly that was caught in between the window and the screen that I let free a couple of minutes ago. I haven't been in this room since my parents left (before now, that is), and I'm not sure that fly could have survived trapped since Wednesday. So there may be viewings going on that I'm not being told about. That would be highly rude, especially since I'm not going to keep the house perpetually immaculate when the real estate angent is supposed to call and tell me when somebody will be coming. It's all spiffy-looking now, though, since I'm going to be leaving as soon as I finish printing these notes, and if my parents get back and find it other than spiffy, they're going to have massive strokes/heart attacks/other bad things, and nobody, espeically not me as the recipient, wants that.
It has been somewhat of an unpleasant week. I've been ridiculously stressed out by everything that's due next week, and my sleep patterns are off and I'm feeling nauseous and my car is sick, to boot. I think something broke and coolant fluid leaked out. All I know is that the engine is overheating like mad, but I can't get any warm air in the cabin of the car. This happened on Wednesday, and I still haven't called the shop. It's not too bad, though, since my parents are in Banff and I've been able to drive my mom's car. They come back this afternoon, though, so I'm going to have to give it back. ^_^
As I said, my sleep is all messed. I slept over 17 hours on Wednesday night. And then I satayed awake for eight hours and slept for eight more. I made myself get up at nine this morning, because that way I didn't oversleep, and I feel fine, but I felt like hell last night. I'm not sure if it's the smell of the leather interior of my mom's car (which makes me carsick), but I've been really sick to my stomach the past couple of days. Bah. I drove myself home last night in queasy semi-consciousness last night before taking yet more Gravol and passing out. Thank God I feel better after I've slept between six and ten hours.
So, yeah, I'm going to Spruce Grove. I've decided not to mention which school or the name of my mentor teacher, since my Policy Studies prof has convinced me that it's unprofessional, but I do imagine that I will be posting tales of anonymous 15-year-old guys being stupid in CALM class.
I think the reason this is taking so long is that my printer is running out of black ink. Everything's coming out in a pleasant shade of grey.
Let's see... what else is new with me...? Oh, here's something for you guys to balk at with me: Those of you who have been through this will remember having to write an IPP for Inclusive Ed. This is done in groups of five, and it's due November 1st. I wasn't in class the day that the groups met up and whatnot, so I had no say in who our group co-ordinator was. Fine, whatever. It's in the distance, compared to everything else that's about to crush me. However, after being unable to make our first group meeting (I was *so* not about to cancel my doctor's appointment when I'm feeling like this), I get an e-mail sayting that the next group meeting will be October 11th, and I need to have my part of the assignment done by then. October 11th is the Wednesday of our observation week, and the day after the new due date of my Dramatic Forma paper, since I begged my prof for an extention on that one. I haven't written back to my group co-ordinator, but I anticipate my reply being some sort of euphemism for "bite me." There is no reason why this chick should be making me have this assignment done a full three weeks before it's due when there's ten thousand other things that we all have to finish and only a couple hours' worth of editing required.
Grr...
We still haven't sold our house. Still haven't had a viewing, as far as I know. However, there are little things, like the fly that was caught in between the window and the screen that I let free a couple of minutes ago. I haven't been in this room since my parents left (before now, that is), and I'm not sure that fly could have survived trapped since Wednesday. So there may be viewings going on that I'm not being told about. That would be highly rude, especially since I'm not going to keep the house perpetually immaculate when the real estate angent is supposed to call and tell me when somebody will be coming. It's all spiffy-looking now, though, since I'm going to be leaving as soon as I finish printing these notes, and if my parents get back and find it other than spiffy, they're going to have massive strokes/heart attacks/other bad things, and nobody, espeically not me as the recipient, wants that.
9/29/2006
Not What I'd Hoped For
I'm going to Spruce Grove.
And teaching CALM.
(And Drama 10 and 20, which should be good, but, really, Spruce Grove an CALM??? Yee...)
And teaching CALM.
(And Drama 10 and 20, which should be good, but, really, Spruce Grove an CALM??? Yee...)
9/27/2006
Why Am I Doing This, Again?
To add to next week's lineup from Hell:
October 4th: EDPY 301 (Inclusive Ed) Midterm.
fuckfuckfuck
Also, apparently we have to do an IPP group project. At least it won't be for Drama, although I don't know what it will be for, since I haven't read the case study yet. It's not due until November 1st, so I'm not going to panic about it now. I do, however, have to go to class today to meet with my group. Apparently I missed the mass confusion of Monday's class where that was supposed to happen.
And now I'm going to go get my ass in gear with that Assessment assignment.
October 4th: EDPY 301 (Inclusive Ed) Midterm.
fuckfuckfuck
Also, apparently we have to do an IPP group project. At least it won't be for Drama, although I don't know what it will be for, since I haven't read the case study yet. It's not due until November 1st, so I'm not going to panic about it now. I do, however, have to go to class today to meet with my group. Apparently I missed the mass confusion of Monday's class where that was supposed to happen.
And now I'm going to go get my ass in gear with that Assessment assignment.
9/25/2006
Pseudo-Construction-Paper
Hello, all. it is Monday at noon-time and I am at home. I came home because I need to "stage" my room on the off chance that there's a showing of the house today. My mom is slightly fanatical about some things...
I will be staying home, however, because this is a better work environment than the zoo. I'm going to do some journalling for my Drama class. We got back our first round assessment today. I lost marks on the bit about making my journal "more than a book report." Apparently, I have to break out the construction paper. I'm not sure what to do, though, and not just because I don't care for pseudo-creatively-expressive crap, but also because I'm feeling stubborn. My reflections are expressed just as I want them to be with just words, thankyouverymuch. The idea that I would _need_ many kinds of media is a time-consuming nuisance and an insult to my verbal prowress. ;-p
In other areas of my life, things are pretty uneventful. I did more or less nothing this weekend. I slept a lot. I passed out before nine on Thursday night and woke up after 11 Friday morning. I have adopted my signature come-what-may attitude towards school, which makes it a lot easier to work, but tends to piss off the profs with a large consideration for "may." Either I stress and get one thing done well enough, or I don't stress I get everything done well enough.. The course of action required to get everything done spectacularly is something I'm not considering. A lot of this stuff isn't worth that kind of effort.
Yeah, did I mention that by, staying home and doing work, I'll be missing my Inclusive Ed class? Then again, that's the one class that I don't have anything due in next week. ^_^ I think...
I'm trying to not spend money this week. I ate lunch at home today, and I brought my own coffee and got a free refill courtesy of my Drama prof, who makes a pot every morning. I have five hours tomorrow in which to come home and eat, should I not have time to pack my own lunch before class, which will probably be the case since it's an 8am class. The less money I spend, the more I have to feed Visa, the faster I pay down my debt, the faster I can rack some more up in the form of furniture and possibly a new iPod. My iPod was in a good mood yesterday, so I charged it all up and hopefully it'll stay that way. I don't think there's any hope for my FM transmitter, though. :-(
I should stop stalling and go "stage" my room. And then I can focus exclusively on being annoying about pseudo-creatively-expressive journalling. *glower*
9/21/2006
iPods!
I want a new iPod. "Fixing" mine didn't stick--it's still periodically unhappy. And the 80GB model is cheaper than the old 60GB model. I'm not even that upset that it doesn't have the big screen like I heard it might.
The problem, of course, is money. I owe my dad money, which I will be giving to him when he comes back from... where ever he is this week, and my mom's agreed to let me pay her back by buying new furniture myself, which is nice, because then I owe Visa money, and they don't glare at me every few days about it. I could probably afford the iPod, even after all this, since I'm working and whatnot, but the thing is that the iPod would have the same freakin' memory capacity as my computer. All I have to say about that is Holy Crap! And, of course, that I would have to buy an external hard drvie to store most of the video stuff I'd put in the iPod. My 20GB one is coming up on half full, but I'd be putting a lot of video on the new one, which means that I'd need more than the 30GB the smaller version has.
It's weird, but the idea of being able to keep all my music and (almost) all of my video with me is very comforting. I would have balked at that idea a couple of years ago, but owning my iPod has been like carrying around a little talisman of happiness and resource. I must be messed. ^_^ And if I don't get going soon, I'll also be late for my assessment class.
So! I leave you with this, fine people! What should I have inscribed, should I get a new iPod. I bought the one I have at a store, so it doesn't have an inscription, and I have no idea what to get, other than my name. So help me out, will you?
ETA: Check out my schedule for the week of the 3rd of October:
3rd: EDPS 310 Empirical Classroom Management assignment due.
4th: EDSE 322 Peer Teaching.
EDSE 322 Dramatic Form Paper due.
EDSE 322 Journal submission #2.
5th: EDPS 310 Midterm.
EDPY Assessment Items due.
I... May be a tad bit stressed around that time...
The problem, of course, is money. I owe my dad money, which I will be giving to him when he comes back from... where ever he is this week, and my mom's agreed to let me pay her back by buying new furniture myself, which is nice, because then I owe Visa money, and they don't glare at me every few days about it. I could probably afford the iPod, even after all this, since I'm working and whatnot, but the thing is that the iPod would have the same freakin' memory capacity as my computer. All I have to say about that is Holy Crap! And, of course, that I would have to buy an external hard drvie to store most of the video stuff I'd put in the iPod. My 20GB one is coming up on half full, but I'd be putting a lot of video on the new one, which means that I'd need more than the 30GB the smaller version has.
It's weird, but the idea of being able to keep all my music and (almost) all of my video with me is very comforting. I would have balked at that idea a couple of years ago, but owning my iPod has been like carrying around a little talisman of happiness and resource. I must be messed. ^_^ And if I don't get going soon, I'll also be late for my assessment class.
So! I leave you with this, fine people! What should I have inscribed, should I get a new iPod. I bought the one I have at a store, so it doesn't have an inscription, and I have no idea what to get, other than my name. So help me out, will you?
ETA: Check out my schedule for the week of the 3rd of October:
3rd: EDPS 310 Empirical Classroom Management assignment due.
4th: EDSE 322 Peer Teaching.
EDSE 322 Dramatic Form Paper due.
EDSE 322 Journal submission #2.
5th: EDPS 310 Midterm.
EDPY Assessment Items due.
I... May be a tad bit stressed around that time...
9/20/2006
Not Much to be Done
It is Wednesday and I am lacking in things to do. Normally, my Drama course wouldn't be over for another 45 minutes, but there was a library session on how to find resources, and, since I've been to at least half a dozen of those things in my University career, none of which I found helpful, I just left. I'm in the lab in FAB and I'll be kicked out in about twenty minutes so that Music 245 can learn about MIDI. I wish that I could take the parts of that course that have been updated. For instance, the notation software I learned was Finale and NoteWriter, but they've now replaced the latter with NotAbility Pro, which I assume is a completely different application, since NoteWriter was old and quasi-obsolete when I learned it. It ruled, though. Also, there's no more ProTools on these computers, and I think they've switched to Dreamweaver. I really miss my freeware edition of ProTools, but they don't have one for Windows XP. Or, rather, they didn't a year ago, and I assume they still don't, since it's a Mac program. Or maybe they now use SoundHack. I dunno. There are a lot of audio programs on the dock of this computer that I don't recognize. Or maybe they use SoundStudio...
Hmmm... What to do... Peter will be around in an hour or so, so maybe I'll go practice and see if he shows. Then, I think I have to go home and shower. I lead such an exciting life. I am so not going to Inclusive Ed today. That class is just not worth attending regularly. I'll make myself go at least once a week, though, so I'll get to half of the classes.
Oh, hey, I know what happened that was interesting! During the hour of Drama class I did have this morning, we started on stage fighting. We didn't get through everything, but we covered the fall, the chin punch, and the dragging by the hair, nose and ear. I am so glad that the people in my class aren't as dense as the people in my Drama 149 class. Those people just didn't understand that the person who's being beat up is the one in control of the movements. When I was being restrained by a group of guys in a scene from our final project, I kept getting hurt. And rather badly during our performance, since the guys were giving it their all. I had bruises on my upper arms... *annoyed*
Anyway, to the practice rooms!
Hmmm... What to do... Peter will be around in an hour or so, so maybe I'll go practice and see if he shows. Then, I think I have to go home and shower. I lead such an exciting life. I am so not going to Inclusive Ed today. That class is just not worth attending regularly. I'll make myself go at least once a week, though, so I'll get to half of the classes.
Oh, hey, I know what happened that was interesting! During the hour of Drama class I did have this morning, we started on stage fighting. We didn't get through everything, but we covered the fall, the chin punch, and the dragging by the hair, nose and ear. I am so glad that the people in my class aren't as dense as the people in my Drama 149 class. Those people just didn't understand that the person who's being beat up is the one in control of the movements. When I was being restrained by a group of guys in a scene from our final project, I kept getting hurt. And rather badly during our performance, since the guys were giving it their all. I had bruises on my upper arms... *annoyed*
Anyway, to the practice rooms!
9/19/2006
Tuesday Morning
Huh. It's been a while since my last post. I was kind of hoping that someone would comment on that theory exam question I posted, but, oh, well. :-(
So I totally got hit on by this 40-year-old guy at Starbuck's earlier this morning. He was talking about the rain and was telling me about the umbrellas that he went through while living in Victoria. When I ordered a triple grande, he said he'd hate to see me in a bar. It was somewhat amusing.
I'm currently at Peter's, on my own computer, because my house is being cleaned and photographed so that it can be listed online. I'd be at school, but I missed enough of my Policy Studies class this morning to make it not worth going, and my next class isn't until 3:30. So I came here to putz around and possibly sleep, and I discovered that Peter was here, too, which was an added bonus. ^_^ He's excited because he just found out that he gets to go on a Blackwing Lair run on Friday. For those of you who don't know what that means, count yourselves lucky to have avoided a nasty addiction. ^_^
So our official moving day is October 26th. We get possession of our new house on the 13th (a Friday, of course), but the moving truck will haul all of our big stuff on the 26th. Which is good, because it gives me a chance to repaint my room before stuff goes in it. The painters said that they'd use the brand of paint I wanted if I couldn't find a comparable colour in the brand they used, and I couldn't, so I left my mom the paint chip from the other brand when I went to Uruguay. My mom then went out and found a colour that matched "perfectly," which of course means that it was three shades bluer than the colour I wanted, and gave that to the painters. So now I have to repaint. Oh, well. It shouldn't take more than a couple of coats, since the colours aren't _that_ different. Plus, with no furniture to move around, it'll be a lot easier than usual.
I am beginning to panic about all of the stuff I have to do this term. The week of October 3rd will be hell, with four projects due and one midterm. I made sure I wasn't working the weekend before, or, as much as I could make sure, since there's only a September schedule. I worked last night, and I work tomorrow night, but, after that, next Monday is my only other shift for the rest of the month. This is good, school-wise, but bad money-wise. Stupid money being a requirement of living. *sigh*
I think that's about all that's up with me these days. Inclusive Ed sucks, but the rest of my classes are fine. Work is work. Peter is doing well since getting back. My dog's as poodle-ish as ever. Yeah, my life's pretty dull... ^_^
So I totally got hit on by this 40-year-old guy at Starbuck's earlier this morning. He was talking about the rain and was telling me about the umbrellas that he went through while living in Victoria. When I ordered a triple grande, he said he'd hate to see me in a bar. It was somewhat amusing.
I'm currently at Peter's, on my own computer, because my house is being cleaned and photographed so that it can be listed online. I'd be at school, but I missed enough of my Policy Studies class this morning to make it not worth going, and my next class isn't until 3:30. So I came here to putz around and possibly sleep, and I discovered that Peter was here, too, which was an added bonus. ^_^ He's excited because he just found out that he gets to go on a Blackwing Lair run on Friday. For those of you who don't know what that means, count yourselves lucky to have avoided a nasty addiction. ^_^
So our official moving day is October 26th. We get possession of our new house on the 13th (a Friday, of course), but the moving truck will haul all of our big stuff on the 26th. Which is good, because it gives me a chance to repaint my room before stuff goes in it. The painters said that they'd use the brand of paint I wanted if I couldn't find a comparable colour in the brand they used, and I couldn't, so I left my mom the paint chip from the other brand when I went to Uruguay. My mom then went out and found a colour that matched "perfectly," which of course means that it was three shades bluer than the colour I wanted, and gave that to the painters. So now I have to repaint. Oh, well. It shouldn't take more than a couple of coats, since the colours aren't _that_ different. Plus, with no furniture to move around, it'll be a lot easier than usual.
I am beginning to panic about all of the stuff I have to do this term. The week of October 3rd will be hell, with four projects due and one midterm. I made sure I wasn't working the weekend before, or, as much as I could make sure, since there's only a September schedule. I worked last night, and I work tomorrow night, but, after that, next Monday is my only other shift for the rest of the month. This is good, school-wise, but bad money-wise. Stupid money being a requirement of living. *sigh*
I think that's about all that's up with me these days. Inclusive Ed sucks, but the rest of my classes are fine. Work is work. Peter is doing well since getting back. My dog's as poodle-ish as ever. Yeah, my life's pretty dull... ^_^
9/13/2006
Yes, I Spend Time Thinking About Stuff Like This
At school again. Long breaks and repeated forgetting of my trumpet leave me with not as much else to do I as I would hope.
Anyway, my assessment class yesterday got my mind back on this exam I came up with a couple of years ago as a nifty first-year theory (156) final. I want to hear what you guys think of it. It's not exactly a common type of exam, but it covers a lot of the principles of 155 and 156 and makes students apply them. Plus, I think it's really interesting.
Consider an interval both approached and written as a minor sixth (m6). You will write two short essays (2-3 pages each, handwritten, double-spaced), one arguing that this is a consonnant interval and the other arguing that this is a dissonant interval. You may use different instances of this interval for each essay, and include any existing or potential (TONAL) examples if you wish, either written in English within the essays or on manuscript paper. Each essay must be understandable on its own. Note that I have only specified how the interval is approached and written, not how it is left.
I am such a theory geek. ^_^
Anyway, my assessment class yesterday got my mind back on this exam I came up with a couple of years ago as a nifty first-year theory (156) final. I want to hear what you guys think of it. It's not exactly a common type of exam, but it covers a lot of the principles of 155 and 156 and makes students apply them. Plus, I think it's really interesting.
Consider an interval both approached and written as a minor sixth (m6). You will write two short essays (2-3 pages each, handwritten, double-spaced), one arguing that this is a consonnant interval and the other arguing that this is a dissonant interval. You may use different instances of this interval for each essay, and include any existing or potential (TONAL) examples if you wish, either written in English within the essays or on manuscript paper. Each essay must be understandable on its own. Note that I have only specified how the interval is approached and written, not how it is left.
I am such a theory geek. ^_^
9/12/2006
Boredom
I'm at school and Wind Ensemble is about to start. I am much more jealous than I thought I would be. Between the fact that I know almost nobody in the classes I'm taking, the fact that I don't have rep class or rehearsal to go to, and the fact that there's no more lownjlounge to congregate in, I'm feeling very disconnected from things. I currently don't even have Peter around to hang out with, though I got an e-mail from him today confirming that he'd be home Friday evening. Plus, I went to e-mail people about for Thai food this past Saturday, and there were only four people there because everybody else is out of town having a life. :-(
*pouts and feels lonesome*
Saturday night was good, though. I don't get to see Pri, Morgan and Angela as much as I'd like. Morgan said that she'd be coming to Stylistics in HUB to get her hair cut sometime this week and that she'd drop in to visit while she was around. I am looking forward to that, and I've even decided to hang around for my five hour breaks for it. ^_^
Oh, and, on a related note, 8 am classes are especially bad when they're two and a half hours long and are followed by five hours with nothing to do but read. >-p
In other news, last night was the most boring shift ever at work. It was dead, and I was on cash, so I couldn't even go do busywork. I made duelling fortune tellers. And then I met Joyce at Remedy cafe afterwards and stayed up late enough to make my 8am class feel even worse. At least the prof gives us a coffee break.
Hmmm... Maybe I'll type out my Drama journal entries. The bar for creative presentation of this journal seems to be set very high, so I should at least give my prof something other than looseleaf.
*pouts and feels lonesome*
Saturday night was good, though. I don't get to see Pri, Morgan and Angela as much as I'd like. Morgan said that she'd be coming to Stylistics in HUB to get her hair cut sometime this week and that she'd drop in to visit while she was around. I am looking forward to that, and I've even decided to hang around for my five hour breaks for it. ^_^
Oh, and, on a related note, 8 am classes are especially bad when they're two and a half hours long and are followed by five hours with nothing to do but read. >-p
In other news, last night was the most boring shift ever at work. It was dead, and I was on cash, so I couldn't even go do busywork. I made duelling fortune tellers. And then I met Joyce at Remedy cafe afterwards and stayed up late enough to make my 8am class feel even worse. At least the prof gives us a coffee break.
Hmmm... Maybe I'll type out my Drama journal entries. The bar for creative presentation of this journal seems to be set very high, so I should at least give my prof something other than looseleaf.
9/09/2006
Purge
I just cleaned out and organized my hotmail account. I created two new folders and deleted a whole bunch of crap. There were around 250 e-mails in my inbox half an hour ago. Now there are 9, 8 of which I have gotten from Peter since I got home from Uruguay. The ninth is an e-mail with a Finale attatchment for an arrangement of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen that I did for Wookwind Tech. I'm not sure where to put it in case I don't have a printout of the music. I think I do, but I want to check, and all of that stuff is currently packed and sitting in the garage...
Anyway, I'd like to take a poll: How many of you notice the sub-headings of my blog? I'm talking about the little phrases right underneath the "janitablog" title. I've never been sure if people notice or care or get them. They're usually quotations, from songs or conversations or books or television shows... Sometimes they're references to the post that I've just put up. Sometimes they clarify bits of the post. The one I have up right now is a joke referring to the last sentence of the last post I wrote, "Word." So if you guys could leave a comment as to what you notice/like/dislike, that'd be great. :-)
Anyway, I'd like to take a poll: How many of you notice the sub-headings of my blog? I'm talking about the little phrases right underneath the "janitablog" title. I've never been sure if people notice or care or get them. They're usually quotations, from songs or conversations or books or television shows... Sometimes they're references to the post that I've just put up. Sometimes they clarify bits of the post. The one I have up right now is a joke referring to the last sentence of the last post I wrote, "Word." So if you guys could leave a comment as to what you notice/like/dislike, that'd be great. :-)
9/08/2006
Word
I found the word from my Ed Psych class today, now that the lecture slides are on WebCT. It's pathognomonic. This confuses me, since the definition of the word is a symptom that defines a disease. For instance, a malignant tumor is pathognomonic of cancer. The list of criteria the lecture slide gives for a "pathognomonic" teacher is this:
Learning problem located within student
Role of classroom teacher narrowly defined
Refer to special education for help outside the classroom
Provides little or no instructional accommodation or modification
Tends to work alone
I guess, now that I look at this list outside of class, it's not the list that I match, it's my prof's description of it. That and the fact that I don't particularly fit the other end of the spectrum, called Interventionist and described as this:
I especially don't agree with the first point. Then again, I have a much narrower definition of "learning problems" than my prof seems to. It seems that, in this class, the definition of "learning problem" is something that does not allow a student to learn a concept when taught in a traditional manner and amount of time. I'm picturing an older woman with a yardstick and lots of memorization requirements. Learning differently doesn't mean having a problem. If you're a visual learner or an auditory learner or a tactile learner, that's all fine by me and I intend to include all of those types in my teaching approach. By learning problem, I mean something like an IQ below 60, or being deaf (which isn't always a disability, but in Music and Drama...), or suffering from autism or something along those lines. I'm talking about people who can't be taught the curriculum along with other students because of different capabilities. I'm worried about the educational experience of the majority of the students being negatively affected by the adaptations made for special needs students. And by that, I don't mean kids being uncomfortable around someone who might not have the best control over their speech, I mean a class where a teacher spends 40% of his/her time on one student. Espeicially in classes like Music and Drama, where it's almost always required that the instructor work with the entire class for the whole period, that wouldn't be fair.
Anyways, what got me thinking that I fit the description of the evil teacher was my prof's description of a teacher like that, talking about what they do more than what they believe. They would send a special needs student out with the special ed people. I think I just explained my position on that. They prefer to work alone, implying that they have a way of doing things and require control to execute and maintain that way. My prof said that these are often the teachers who have paper or posters convering up the window beside the door. Except for the paper part, my reply to which is that I've never had a classroom, the working alone thing really does fit me. If I know what I'm doing and I'm doing it properly, then I say leave well enough alone, rather than having extra factors (ie, people) thrown into the mix that I'll have to rethink everything for. Keep in mind, though, that the something I'd be doing is teaching, and doing it properly means that all the students learn well. So it's not that I'm a narrow-minded bitch, it's that if I need help, I'll ask for it, so go away.
Ok, so I can't be entirely nice about that one. But at least I would be not entirely nice to other adults, rather than students. ^_^
But, you know, after all this, I still have no idea why my prof used the word "pathognomonic." Are bad teachers the symptom that defines the disease? What's the disease? I thought difficulty succeeding in school was the disease. If anything, I'd say that failing students were pathognomonic to that. But, then again, I would say that a girl with no thumbs shouldn't play the saxophone, so I'm evil.
Learning problem located within student
Role of classroom teacher narrowly defined
Refer to special education for help outside the classroom
Provides little or no instructional accommodation or modification
Tends to work alone
I guess, now that I look at this list outside of class, it's not the list that I match, it's my prof's description of it. That and the fact that I don't particularly fit the other end of the spectrum, called Interventionist and described as this:
•Learning problems are result of interaction between student and environment
•Role of classroom teacher broadly defined
•Seeks out resources and supports to use within the classroom
•Provides many instructional accommodations or modifications
•Works collaboratively
I especially don't agree with the first point. Then again, I have a much narrower definition of "learning problems" than my prof seems to. It seems that, in this class, the definition of "learning problem" is something that does not allow a student to learn a concept when taught in a traditional manner and amount of time. I'm picturing an older woman with a yardstick and lots of memorization requirements. Learning differently doesn't mean having a problem. If you're a visual learner or an auditory learner or a tactile learner, that's all fine by me and I intend to include all of those types in my teaching approach. By learning problem, I mean something like an IQ below 60, or being deaf (which isn't always a disability, but in Music and Drama...), or suffering from autism or something along those lines. I'm talking about people who can't be taught the curriculum along with other students because of different capabilities. I'm worried about the educational experience of the majority of the students being negatively affected by the adaptations made for special needs students. And by that, I don't mean kids being uncomfortable around someone who might not have the best control over their speech, I mean a class where a teacher spends 40% of his/her time on one student. Espeicially in classes like Music and Drama, where it's almost always required that the instructor work with the entire class for the whole period, that wouldn't be fair.
Anyways, what got me thinking that I fit the description of the evil teacher was my prof's description of a teacher like that, talking about what they do more than what they believe. They would send a special needs student out with the special ed people. I think I just explained my position on that. They prefer to work alone, implying that they have a way of doing things and require control to execute and maintain that way. My prof said that these are often the teachers who have paper or posters convering up the window beside the door. Except for the paper part, my reply to which is that I've never had a classroom, the working alone thing really does fit me. If I know what I'm doing and I'm doing it properly, then I say leave well enough alone, rather than having extra factors (ie, people) thrown into the mix that I'll have to rethink everything for. Keep in mind, though, that the something I'd be doing is teaching, and doing it properly means that all the students learn well. So it's not that I'm a narrow-minded bitch, it's that if I need help, I'll ask for it, so go away.
Ok, so I can't be entirely nice about that one. But at least I would be not entirely nice to other adults, rather than students. ^_^
But, you know, after all this, I still have no idea why my prof used the word "pathognomonic." Are bad teachers the symptom that defines the disease? What's the disease? I thought difficulty succeeding in school was the disease. If anything, I'd say that failing students were pathognomonic to that. But, then again, I would say that a girl with no thumbs shouldn't play the saxophone, so I'm evil.
9/07/2006
Metricumalation
At school. Classes have been all right so far. Long, though. I think my shortest class, except for a couple of labs that I only two of per semester, is two hours. The others are two and a half hours. *sigh* Oh, well. It helps me to focus when I'm not expecting a wind-down for another hour and a half.
My EDSE 322 Drama class that leads into my student teaching is actually pretty good. The prof is totally Francine from American Dad, both in looks and voice. And in sunny disposition, though I'm not sure if she's psychotic underneath yet. I was actually playing "Yes, Let's!" with some energy yesterday morning. Not really with any enthusiasm, but, given that I hate that game with a firey, firey passion, I'd say that energy is impressive enough. Plus, there's a coffee maker in our room that the prof intends to use for us. :-)
My first Ed Psych class wasn't quite as pleasant. It's 301, and it's called something like Inclusive Education and focuses on students with disabilities. The prof has her head a little too far into her own subject, which, as I have said before, leads inevitably to it being up her ass. There was an overhead of a continum of teaching approaches to disabled students, the "best" of which was Inclusionist, the "worst" of which was a word that I've been having trouble remembering. It starts with P and ends with ognomonic. I fit the description of that approach almost to a T. Except that I have a desire to know everything, so if I encounter a disabled student, I'm going to want to know about their disability, even if I can't accomodate them. They way I see it is that, unless your needs are pretty simple, like a wheelchair ramp or some ritalin, it's not practically feasable to include disabled students in regular Music or Drama programs. If it's a class of disabled students, that would be fine, but a normal curriculum for Drama or Music cannot be run to include all types of students. It's just not physically possible in a lot of ways. I don't want to disclude disabled students from these subjects, I'm just saying that they need an approach to them that cannot be done in a curriculum-based environment.
And, to annoy me further, I accidentally bought the wrong textbook for the course--apparently, there are different texts for different sections.
My EDPS 310 class this morning looks like it'l be a lot of work that I won't want to do, but will be overall quite interesting. It's called a Policy Studies class, but it's title is Managing the Learning Environment, or something to that effect, which means that I get a nice little course on what makes students tick, but without the condecention and impracticality that Ed Psych courses offer. The prof is a Scottish woman with an accent. I can understand her just fine, but I noticed today that when she says the word "fair," it comes uot sounding like "fear," so there were lots of times where she seemed to have said "You can't do that--it's not fear." That made me giggle. ^_^
I have to keep a journal for the Drama course. Naturally. My prof said that someone had put it perfectly in that you can't fart in the Drama department without being required to reflect on it. I was considering having my opening entry mention that I am a bad person. I'd avoid terms like Jungian Shadow and go instead for simply stated ambiguity of the sardonic variety. But I like my prof in such a way that means that I don't feel the need to make her wary of me. Her name's Gail. My stage manager friend Lester hadn't heard of her.
I'm half an hour into a five and a half hour break. I'm gonna eat lunch and hang, then go back to the bookstore, then go home and shower before my EDPY 303 class at 3. I'm dressed unusually today because I can't find some of my clothes. I have a hoodie and a cardigan that I can't find. They're not in the wash, nor anywhere in my closet or dresser. I am confused. But when I go home, I won't be in such a rush (I woke up an hour late this morning), and I'll therefore be able to pick out clothes that aren't so hodge-podge. Because it's all about looking cool.
My EDSE 322 Drama class that leads into my student teaching is actually pretty good. The prof is totally Francine from American Dad, both in looks and voice. And in sunny disposition, though I'm not sure if she's psychotic underneath yet. I was actually playing "Yes, Let's!" with some energy yesterday morning. Not really with any enthusiasm, but, given that I hate that game with a firey, firey passion, I'd say that energy is impressive enough. Plus, there's a coffee maker in our room that the prof intends to use for us. :-)
My first Ed Psych class wasn't quite as pleasant. It's 301, and it's called something like Inclusive Education and focuses on students with disabilities. The prof has her head a little too far into her own subject, which, as I have said before, leads inevitably to it being up her ass. There was an overhead of a continum of teaching approaches to disabled students, the "best" of which was Inclusionist, the "worst" of which was a word that I've been having trouble remembering. It starts with P and ends with ognomonic. I fit the description of that approach almost to a T. Except that I have a desire to know everything, so if I encounter a disabled student, I'm going to want to know about their disability, even if I can't accomodate them. They way I see it is that, unless your needs are pretty simple, like a wheelchair ramp or some ritalin, it's not practically feasable to include disabled students in regular Music or Drama programs. If it's a class of disabled students, that would be fine, but a normal curriculum for Drama or Music cannot be run to include all types of students. It's just not physically possible in a lot of ways. I don't want to disclude disabled students from these subjects, I'm just saying that they need an approach to them that cannot be done in a curriculum-based environment.
And, to annoy me further, I accidentally bought the wrong textbook for the course--apparently, there are different texts for different sections.
My EDPS 310 class this morning looks like it'l be a lot of work that I won't want to do, but will be overall quite interesting. It's called a Policy Studies class, but it's title is Managing the Learning Environment, or something to that effect, which means that I get a nice little course on what makes students tick, but without the condecention and impracticality that Ed Psych courses offer. The prof is a Scottish woman with an accent. I can understand her just fine, but I noticed today that when she says the word "fair," it comes uot sounding like "fear," so there were lots of times where she seemed to have said "You can't do that--it's not fear." That made me giggle. ^_^
I have to keep a journal for the Drama course. Naturally. My prof said that someone had put it perfectly in that you can't fart in the Drama department without being required to reflect on it. I was considering having my opening entry mention that I am a bad person. I'd avoid terms like Jungian Shadow and go instead for simply stated ambiguity of the sardonic variety. But I like my prof in such a way that means that I don't feel the need to make her wary of me. Her name's Gail. My stage manager friend Lester hadn't heard of her.
I'm half an hour into a five and a half hour break. I'm gonna eat lunch and hang, then go back to the bookstore, then go home and shower before my EDPY 303 class at 3. I'm dressed unusually today because I can't find some of my clothes. I have a hoodie and a cardigan that I can't find. They're not in the wash, nor anywhere in my closet or dresser. I am confused. But when I go home, I won't be in such a rush (I woke up an hour late this morning), and I'll therefore be able to pick out clothes that aren't so hodge-podge. Because it's all about looking cool.
9/02/2006
Lemurcoons!
It is Saturday night and I have good fresh pizza and Dr. Pepper. This makes me happy.
Lemurcoons also make me happy. :-)
I haven't gone to get my picture CD back from Wendy yet, so I can't post any of the pictures that I took myself, but that's ok, since those didn't turn out well and I found some great ones on Google Images. Here is what a lemurcoon, aka coati, aka coati mundi, looks like:
Now, this picture doesn't look all that cute, but it gives a good idea of how "coati" could be mistranslated into "raccoon," despite not looking all that much like one.
This picture is rather cuter, and shows the lemurcoon in what has come to be its natural habitat, acquiring food in what has come to be its natural form of hunting. Seriously, these things are all over the garbage cans. They may subsist primarily on insects, but they won't turn down an empty Coke bottle.
Now *this* picture showcases their cuteness, especially where the flexible nose is concerned. This is a young coati, of course, and I have no idea what kind of animal its looking at. Maybe a lemur. ^_^
So that is my post for the day. I hope you have all come to appreciate these things as much as I have. ^_^
Lemurcoons also make me happy. :-)
I haven't gone to get my picture CD back from Wendy yet, so I can't post any of the pictures that I took myself, but that's ok, since those didn't turn out well and I found some great ones on Google Images. Here is what a lemurcoon, aka coati, aka coati mundi, looks like:
Now, this picture doesn't look all that cute, but it gives a good idea of how "coati" could be mistranslated into "raccoon," despite not looking all that much like one.
This picture is rather cuter, and shows the lemurcoon in what has come to be its natural habitat, acquiring food in what has come to be its natural form of hunting. Seriously, these things are all over the garbage cans. They may subsist primarily on insects, but they won't turn down an empty Coke bottle.
Now *this* picture showcases their cuteness, especially where the flexible nose is concerned. This is a young coati, of course, and I have no idea what kind of animal its looking at. Maybe a lemur. ^_^So that is my post for the day. I hope you have all come to appreciate these things as much as I have. ^_^
8/31/2006
Note
Just a note to reiterate that I hate Ed students. And stupid first years. And also to say that stupid first-year Ed students have been filling my inbox with ridiculous worries about orientation. *grumble*
8/28/2006
Squee!
Since Peter has not yet decided to put up a post here, I figured I might as well do so for the purpose of exclaiming my happiness at my new "toy": House Season 2 on DVD. ^_^ I have yet to watch it, but oh, I will. :-)
In other news, I'm home, as you may have guessed. Our new house, however, is not ready to be moved into. *sigh* October fifth is the current, somewhat tentative, possesion date. Yee. Oh, well. We went to look at it yesterday, and it's looking pretty nifty, despite lacking things like flooring and countertops and whatnot. I was hoping to get the moving done with before school started, but I guess that's just not going to happen.
Speaking of school, I have been out buying clothes that say "Respect my Authorita!" Apparently my friend Maura has been doing the same thing. See, we're both doing student teaching this year, and, while I'm certainly not early '90s grunge, I do own a pair of ripped jeans and other such clothing that would not be suitable to wear to an evaluation. I found a spiffy black twill blazer that's not too formal. And some grey pinstriped pants. I feel like giving out detentions all ready... ;-p
I stopped in at work today to give my manager my September availability (which is when I picked up my DVDs), and I was given (drumroll, please)... a nametag! I've only worked there for six months... ^_^ I guess they ordered a whole bunch, though, because Lindsay Coulter just got hers, as well, and she's worked there longer than I have.
That's about it, I guess. I've seen people since getting back, which has been fun. For all of you who are curious, the flight back (or, I should say, the four flights and one busride) was/were fine, for the most part. US customs is a bitch, especially after that scare recently, but I had cold medicine that allowed me to sleep, even if I was only allowed to bring one dose of it with me. Without water. *sigh* But I'm home now and caught up on sleep and back to eating food that actually contains fibre and nutrients and whatnot. ^_^ And now I'm going to go watch my House DVDs. :-)
*sings Teardrop*
In other news, I'm home, as you may have guessed. Our new house, however, is not ready to be moved into. *sigh* October fifth is the current, somewhat tentative, possesion date. Yee. Oh, well. We went to look at it yesterday, and it's looking pretty nifty, despite lacking things like flooring and countertops and whatnot. I was hoping to get the moving done with before school started, but I guess that's just not going to happen.
Speaking of school, I have been out buying clothes that say "Respect my Authorita!" Apparently my friend Maura has been doing the same thing. See, we're both doing student teaching this year, and, while I'm certainly not early '90s grunge, I do own a pair of ripped jeans and other such clothing that would not be suitable to wear to an evaluation. I found a spiffy black twill blazer that's not too formal. And some grey pinstriped pants. I feel like giving out detentions all ready... ;-p
I stopped in at work today to give my manager my September availability (which is when I picked up my DVDs), and I was given (drumroll, please)... a nametag! I've only worked there for six months... ^_^ I guess they ordered a whole bunch, though, because Lindsay Coulter just got hers, as well, and she's worked there longer than I have.
That's about it, I guess. I've seen people since getting back, which has been fun. For all of you who are curious, the flight back (or, I should say, the four flights and one busride) was/were fine, for the most part. US customs is a bitch, especially after that scare recently, but I had cold medicine that allowed me to sleep, even if I was only allowed to bring one dose of it with me. Without water. *sigh* But I'm home now and caught up on sleep and back to eating food that actually contains fibre and nutrients and whatnot. ^_^ And now I'm going to go watch my House DVDs. :-)
*sings Teardrop*
8/23/2006
...
It is Wednesday and I am going home tomorrow. I guess that means that there won´t really be anymore updates on the goings-on down here, since Peter doesn´t blog. Maybe I´ll give him my account password anyway, just in case he feels the urge. Which I doubt he will, but you never know... ^_^
Did I mention that I was sick? I don´t think I did. On Saturday I woke up with a sore throat, a sore back and the sniffles. The sniffles are the only thing left now, and my sinuses seem to be draining, but it seems that this little bug will stick around just long enough to make my flight home that much more annoying. Stupid not being allowed to take cold medicine...
Peter is off at one of the University buildings right now meeting with the woman he was put int contact with as a Uruguayan historian. He hopes that she´ll give him the names of some books he can get ahold of down here, as well as a clue as to where to start in his search for relevant primary sources. (Sidebar: The ´a´ key on this keybord is sticky. It is annoying. Or, as I originally typed, nnoying.) This meeting kicks off the nose-to-the-grindstone portion of his trip down here. While I´ve been down, it´s mostly been sightseeing, but now the poor boy actually has to get some work done. *mock pout* You know, for that Masters Degree and all...
We went back to the ¨tango bar¨ for dinner last night. They do good parilla, and we saw a small orchestral ensemble playing tango music. There were about 20 of them, around the age of 16, mostly string players with some Bb and bass clarinets, two oboes, a flute and a french horn. They played La Cumparsita. Or I think that´s how you spell it. Something about killing yourself for the evening. No, wait, that´s different...
Oh, hey, the Spanish word for ¨template¨ is ¨plantilla.¨ Speaking of vaguely confusing Spanish words, I tried to leave a comment on your blog, Angela, but everything was in Spanish and I kept getting error messages. Sorry. Also, I´m sorry if they actually worked and you got multiple comments from me. ^_^
Hey, look, that was the first paragraph of this post that didn´t end in an elypsis (sp?). Or an emoticon following an elypsis. Ok, so I´m bored. I guess I´ll go back to the hotel now where I´m not charged for use of the computer.
ETA: Kaitlyn, I haven´t heard back from my family yet. Family, get back to me. Oh, and Peter and I went to see the place where Artiogas´ remains are kept. It was scary. All dark with two guards at attention. Peter gave the very apt description of ¨An art deco distopia.¨ I couldn´t bring myself to go in. Peter went in a few steps and snapped a picture. Like I said, it was creepy...
Did I mention that I was sick? I don´t think I did. On Saturday I woke up with a sore throat, a sore back and the sniffles. The sniffles are the only thing left now, and my sinuses seem to be draining, but it seems that this little bug will stick around just long enough to make my flight home that much more annoying. Stupid not being allowed to take cold medicine...
Peter is off at one of the University buildings right now meeting with the woman he was put int contact with as a Uruguayan historian. He hopes that she´ll give him the names of some books he can get ahold of down here, as well as a clue as to where to start in his search for relevant primary sources. (Sidebar: The ´a´ key on this keybord is sticky. It is annoying. Or, as I originally typed, nnoying.) This meeting kicks off the nose-to-the-grindstone portion of his trip down here. While I´ve been down, it´s mostly been sightseeing, but now the poor boy actually has to get some work done. *mock pout* You know, for that Masters Degree and all...
We went back to the ¨tango bar¨ for dinner last night. They do good parilla, and we saw a small orchestral ensemble playing tango music. There were about 20 of them, around the age of 16, mostly string players with some Bb and bass clarinets, two oboes, a flute and a french horn. They played La Cumparsita. Or I think that´s how you spell it. Something about killing yourself for the evening. No, wait, that´s different...
Oh, hey, the Spanish word for ¨template¨ is ¨plantilla.¨ Speaking of vaguely confusing Spanish words, I tried to leave a comment on your blog, Angela, but everything was in Spanish and I kept getting error messages. Sorry. Also, I´m sorry if they actually worked and you got multiple comments from me. ^_^
Hey, look, that was the first paragraph of this post that didn´t end in an elypsis (sp?). Or an emoticon following an elypsis. Ok, so I´m bored. I guess I´ll go back to the hotel now where I´m not charged for use of the computer.
ETA: Kaitlyn, I haven´t heard back from my family yet. Family, get back to me. Oh, and Peter and I went to see the place where Artiogas´ remains are kept. It was scary. All dark with two guards at attention. Peter gave the very apt description of ¨An art deco distopia.¨ I couldn´t bring myself to go in. Peter went in a few steps and snapped a picture. Like I said, it was creepy...
8/21/2006
Homecoming
For all you Edmonton folks: It is now official that I will be getting back into town Friday night. I´m pretty sure that I will need to sleep a great deal on Saturday, but, after that, I would love to see people. I would love it even more if you´d help me move boxes! ;-p
8/20/2006
Figures
Oh, sure. *Now* we find a cafe with free wireless internet access. I *heart* using my own keyboard.
(Also, I am getting more and more excited about moving. And about the bookcase and chair I'm going to buy. :-))
(Also, I am getting more and more excited about moving. And about the bookcase and chair I'm going to buy. :-))
8/19/2006
Iguazu
Holy crap, this was an exhausting trip. It was really great, but we did So. Much. Here is a breakdown:
We left Montevideo at about 1pm on Monday after dragging our luggage over ten blocks (ouch). The trip took us about 21 hours, counting stopping for food and customs and whatnot, and we arrived at oiur Hotel in Brazil near the Iguazu National Park at about 10am. We chilled for a couple of hours (I slept), and then we headed out to this bird park. It was actually quite cool. I took a whole bunch of picutres. The highlight of the trip, for lack of a better term, though, was the parrot cage. There were parrots all over the park, but this was a kind of barn-shaped enclosure that you could walk into. All of the birds at the park were friendly, and Peter and I each allowed a parrot to use our arm as a perch (mine liked the buttons on my jean jacket). However, a parrot hanging from the roof of the cage pooped on me. Then we were dive-bombed several times. Seriously. I´m certain the parrots weren´t actually going for us, but they would bicker or something with eachother and then fly across the cage, really low. My poop-stained pants got even dirtier from diving into a crouching position over and over. Mind, now, that these are big birds. From their feet to the top of their heads is about 15 inches. There were smaller ones, too, but those ones were... less energetic.
After the bird park, we went to the Brazilian National Park at Iguazu falls. We took a walk and caught our first glimpse of the falls. Before we started on the walk, though, I bought another disposable camera at the giftshop, so I have pictures of this, too. The gift shop was really cool, and I was looking forward to buying people souvenirs, but, for some reason, this tourist junket did not involve shoppin at souvenir shops. There was other shopping, as I´ll mention later, but I was unable to get the cute lemurcoon shirt I wanted. I have no idea what these animals are actually called. The translation of the guide announcement on the park bus called them raccoons. They´re not raccoons in the Canadian sense. They are, however, ridculously cute. Their noses move so adorably! I got pictures of them, including one where a whole group of them just walked into our midst and flopped into a furpile. That was quite something. ^_^ But, yeah, I thought they looked more like lemurs, although I´m apparantly mistaken in that, because Peter says that a lemur is kind of like a monkey (I´ll go look that up once I´m finished here), but, by the time Peter told me this, they were all ready lemurcoons to me. ^_^
Edit: These things totally look like lemurs, but with longer noses. Peter says that lemurs look like something halfway between a lemurcoon and a monkey. I say that lemurcoons look halfway between between a lemur and a racoon. With slightly longer, remarkably flexible noses that looks insanely cute when they sniff at something. ^_^ Ok, now Peter says that lemurcoons is a good name for them. ^_^
That was it for that day. Most meals were buffets, either at the hotel or at some tourist trough. Luckily, we were doing enough walking for the unhealthy food not to matter one bit. The next day was insane for that. We got up at seven and were out the door at eight to go to the Argentine side of the falls. We bought garbage bag-esque rain ponchos before we left, as it was storming insanely outside, but no camera. I regretted this once I saw the Argentine side of the falls. It was gorgeous. It´s called what translates to ¨The throat of the devil,¨ and that´s quite an appropriate name. The Guarani native myth for the creation of the falls says that the river was angry that a warrior was escaping with a young virgin, so the riverbed dropped out from under them, and you can tell how one might get that impression. Luckily, though, it was around then that I became certain that there was in fact a guy filming us. We were able to buy a DVD with documentaries about the falls and other local attractions, plus a great deal of footage of us throughout the day. There´s a clip of me singing Happy Birthday in French to one of the women on our tour. People on the tour got the idea that I was primarily a French speaker, because, really, when I´m trying to understand Spanish, I compare it to French, and so, often, French is what comes out of my mouth when I reply. Oh, well. We got the documentary DVD in English, not French, so people back home will be able to understand it.
After the walk through the Argentine National Park, some of us went on a ¨safari.¨ This was a jeep ride through the rainforest with a woman talking about neat things around us. Holy crap, that forest was dense. And I now understand why rainforests are irreplaceable; the soil isn´t fertile--in fact, it´s all full of iron and really, really hard rock--but all the plants have shallow roots that draw nutrients from the fallen foliage of other plants, so the rainforest sustains itself because there are so many plants there. Other nifty facts include the one that deer there don´t have antlers because they prevent them from escaping their predators with all those plants hanging around. The vines were something else, too. Anyway, after the jeep ride, we went on a motorboat ride along the Iguzu river. We went as close to the falls as we safely could, which isn´t _that_ close, but still pretty nifty. And then the driver stunted a bit before we returned to shore. The water in the river was warm and only about 3 feet deep, and I got soaked. And since it was rainy a such, I stayed wet for teh rest of the day. It was worth it, though. The 3 feet deep water is something I forgot to mention. It´s one of the things that makes the falls so impressive. Right up until the waterfall, the river is lazy and wide and three feet deep. While I wouldn´t try my luck at walking through it, it looks perfectly calm. Then it falls a couple hundred feet.
After walking back up the stairs to the jeep that didn´t seem so long on the way down, we ate lunch and left the park. On our way out of Argentina (where I did in fact manage to buy a couple of shirts, including a baby-sized lemurcoon one) we stopped at what must be the biggest duty-free shop in the world. It had a car audio section. I was somewhat tempted to buy a cheap digital camera, but all we bought was Peanut M&Ms because we were hungry. And some Droste chocolate pastilles because there was a $10 minimum charge to use a credit card. After that, we returned to the hotel and I slept a bit before we had dinner and left for a show. It was supposed to be of traditional South American music and dancing. It started out with calling people from various countries onto the stage to sing fold songs from those countries, and Peter and I wound up on stage singing Alouette. Then came the scantily-clad women. There were three featured women wh0 each got to do a number featuring their ass, but the star of the show was something else. I mean, I don´t take this stuff the least bit seriously, but this woman had what I have no problem describing as insanely lng legs and a very pert ass. Interspersed were bits by tumblers and musicians and re-enactments of tribal rituals that involved a great many men in hoop skirts. I wound up being brought on stage again to dance with a bunch of other women from the audience. All in all, the show was kind of fun but mediocre, and it went nearly an hour longer than I thought it would. We left at half past midnight, and our wake-up call the next morning was at six.
The next day I could´ve done without. I was sooooo tired. We started out by going into Paraguay to see the Itaipu dam, which is apparantly the biggest or second biggest in the world. It wasn´t in use that day. I have a couple of pictures. Then we went into the ¨City in the East,¨ to shop. This place was what I imagine some less pleasant parts of Hong Kong to look like. The sidewalks were completely lined with hawker stands to the point where you could either walk through their booths or walk on the street. For some reason, the majority of these places sold underwear. And pirated DVDs. Peter and I went to a bank where we could get American currency, which was what worked more or less anywhere outside of Uruguay. I did wind up with some Argentine currency at one point, though, but I spent it on the 5 peso leaving Argentina tax. Down the street from where our bus stopped was a place called Mona Lisa. It was a ridiculously high-end shop. Except that it didn´t sell many clothes, it put Holt Renfrew to shame. We had coffee there because it was a less off-putting place to kill an hour. The coffee was actually reasonably cheap, too, unlike the rest of the stuff they sold. Eventually, though, we wound up back on the bus ignoring the kids who were trying to sell us stuff from outside the bus door. One hawker actually got on the bus with us and came back to Brazil. She was selling towels and dolls and a some shirts. I think somebody even bought something.
That evening there was a meeting for drinks in the hotel bar, but I slept insead. There was also another show, I think, but I never heard anything about it from anyone except Peter, and I slept through it, too. I was tired and rather cranky and did not want to go anywhere. The next morning, our wake up call came at 5:30, and though I wasn´t homicidal anymore, I certainly wasn´t well-rested. We ate breakfast and got on the bus. Around 11, we stopped at the Jesuit ruins in the Misiones province of Argentina. That rocked. Took lots of pictures. Then we got on the bus again and went to Wanda, where they mine all kinds of semi-precious stones. We didn´t tour the mines, but we did stop at a shop where I bought a couple of gifts for people. Did I mention I was sleeping whenever we were on the bus? Yeah, I totally was. Then, well, we drove to Montevideo. We got back around 8 this morning. Went to our new hotel and slept the morning away. It´s now coming up on six o´clock. This post is ridiculously long. And my left wrist is starting to hurt from begin bent in an odd direction because of the size of the desk at the internet cafe. I think I´m gonna stop writing now.
Oh, wait. One last thing: It was warm in Brazil! And Argentina! I was warm yesterday! Now, it´s actually quite nice in Montevideo at about 17 degrees, but it was warm on the tour. I was very happy. *sigh*
We left Montevideo at about 1pm on Monday after dragging our luggage over ten blocks (ouch). The trip took us about 21 hours, counting stopping for food and customs and whatnot, and we arrived at oiur Hotel in Brazil near the Iguazu National Park at about 10am. We chilled for a couple of hours (I slept), and then we headed out to this bird park. It was actually quite cool. I took a whole bunch of picutres. The highlight of the trip, for lack of a better term, though, was the parrot cage. There were parrots all over the park, but this was a kind of barn-shaped enclosure that you could walk into. All of the birds at the park were friendly, and Peter and I each allowed a parrot to use our arm as a perch (mine liked the buttons on my jean jacket). However, a parrot hanging from the roof of the cage pooped on me. Then we were dive-bombed several times. Seriously. I´m certain the parrots weren´t actually going for us, but they would bicker or something with eachother and then fly across the cage, really low. My poop-stained pants got even dirtier from diving into a crouching position over and over. Mind, now, that these are big birds. From their feet to the top of their heads is about 15 inches. There were smaller ones, too, but those ones were... less energetic.
After the bird park, we went to the Brazilian National Park at Iguazu falls. We took a walk and caught our first glimpse of the falls. Before we started on the walk, though, I bought another disposable camera at the giftshop, so I have pictures of this, too. The gift shop was really cool, and I was looking forward to buying people souvenirs, but, for some reason, this tourist junket did not involve shoppin at souvenir shops. There was other shopping, as I´ll mention later, but I was unable to get the cute lemurcoon shirt I wanted. I have no idea what these animals are actually called. The translation of the guide announcement on the park bus called them raccoons. They´re not raccoons in the Canadian sense. They are, however, ridculously cute. Their noses move so adorably! I got pictures of them, including one where a whole group of them just walked into our midst and flopped into a furpile. That was quite something. ^_^ But, yeah, I thought they looked more like lemurs, although I´m apparantly mistaken in that, because Peter says that a lemur is kind of like a monkey (I´ll go look that up once I´m finished here), but, by the time Peter told me this, they were all ready lemurcoons to me. ^_^
Edit: These things totally look like lemurs, but with longer noses. Peter says that lemurs look like something halfway between a lemurcoon and a monkey. I say that lemurcoons look halfway between between a lemur and a racoon. With slightly longer, remarkably flexible noses that looks insanely cute when they sniff at something. ^_^ Ok, now Peter says that lemurcoons is a good name for them. ^_^
That was it for that day. Most meals were buffets, either at the hotel or at some tourist trough. Luckily, we were doing enough walking for the unhealthy food not to matter one bit. The next day was insane for that. We got up at seven and were out the door at eight to go to the Argentine side of the falls. We bought garbage bag-esque rain ponchos before we left, as it was storming insanely outside, but no camera. I regretted this once I saw the Argentine side of the falls. It was gorgeous. It´s called what translates to ¨The throat of the devil,¨ and that´s quite an appropriate name. The Guarani native myth for the creation of the falls says that the river was angry that a warrior was escaping with a young virgin, so the riverbed dropped out from under them, and you can tell how one might get that impression. Luckily, though, it was around then that I became certain that there was in fact a guy filming us. We were able to buy a DVD with documentaries about the falls and other local attractions, plus a great deal of footage of us throughout the day. There´s a clip of me singing Happy Birthday in French to one of the women on our tour. People on the tour got the idea that I was primarily a French speaker, because, really, when I´m trying to understand Spanish, I compare it to French, and so, often, French is what comes out of my mouth when I reply. Oh, well. We got the documentary DVD in English, not French, so people back home will be able to understand it.
After the walk through the Argentine National Park, some of us went on a ¨safari.¨ This was a jeep ride through the rainforest with a woman talking about neat things around us. Holy crap, that forest was dense. And I now understand why rainforests are irreplaceable; the soil isn´t fertile--in fact, it´s all full of iron and really, really hard rock--but all the plants have shallow roots that draw nutrients from the fallen foliage of other plants, so the rainforest sustains itself because there are so many plants there. Other nifty facts include the one that deer there don´t have antlers because they prevent them from escaping their predators with all those plants hanging around. The vines were something else, too. Anyway, after the jeep ride, we went on a motorboat ride along the Iguzu river. We went as close to the falls as we safely could, which isn´t _that_ close, but still pretty nifty. And then the driver stunted a bit before we returned to shore. The water in the river was warm and only about 3 feet deep, and I got soaked. And since it was rainy a such, I stayed wet for teh rest of the day. It was worth it, though. The 3 feet deep water is something I forgot to mention. It´s one of the things that makes the falls so impressive. Right up until the waterfall, the river is lazy and wide and three feet deep. While I wouldn´t try my luck at walking through it, it looks perfectly calm. Then it falls a couple hundred feet.
After walking back up the stairs to the jeep that didn´t seem so long on the way down, we ate lunch and left the park. On our way out of Argentina (where I did in fact manage to buy a couple of shirts, including a baby-sized lemurcoon one) we stopped at what must be the biggest duty-free shop in the world. It had a car audio section. I was somewhat tempted to buy a cheap digital camera, but all we bought was Peanut M&Ms because we were hungry. And some Droste chocolate pastilles because there was a $10 minimum charge to use a credit card. After that, we returned to the hotel and I slept a bit before we had dinner and left for a show. It was supposed to be of traditional South American music and dancing. It started out with calling people from various countries onto the stage to sing fold songs from those countries, and Peter and I wound up on stage singing Alouette. Then came the scantily-clad women. There were three featured women wh0 each got to do a number featuring their ass, but the star of the show was something else. I mean, I don´t take this stuff the least bit seriously, but this woman had what I have no problem describing as insanely lng legs and a very pert ass. Interspersed were bits by tumblers and musicians and re-enactments of tribal rituals that involved a great many men in hoop skirts. I wound up being brought on stage again to dance with a bunch of other women from the audience. All in all, the show was kind of fun but mediocre, and it went nearly an hour longer than I thought it would. We left at half past midnight, and our wake-up call the next morning was at six.
The next day I could´ve done without. I was sooooo tired. We started out by going into Paraguay to see the Itaipu dam, which is apparantly the biggest or second biggest in the world. It wasn´t in use that day. I have a couple of pictures. Then we went into the ¨City in the East,¨ to shop. This place was what I imagine some less pleasant parts of Hong Kong to look like. The sidewalks were completely lined with hawker stands to the point where you could either walk through their booths or walk on the street. For some reason, the majority of these places sold underwear. And pirated DVDs. Peter and I went to a bank where we could get American currency, which was what worked more or less anywhere outside of Uruguay. I did wind up with some Argentine currency at one point, though, but I spent it on the 5 peso leaving Argentina tax. Down the street from where our bus stopped was a place called Mona Lisa. It was a ridiculously high-end shop. Except that it didn´t sell many clothes, it put Holt Renfrew to shame. We had coffee there because it was a less off-putting place to kill an hour. The coffee was actually reasonably cheap, too, unlike the rest of the stuff they sold. Eventually, though, we wound up back on the bus ignoring the kids who were trying to sell us stuff from outside the bus door. One hawker actually got on the bus with us and came back to Brazil. She was selling towels and dolls and a some shirts. I think somebody even bought something.
That evening there was a meeting for drinks in the hotel bar, but I slept insead. There was also another show, I think, but I never heard anything about it from anyone except Peter, and I slept through it, too. I was tired and rather cranky and did not want to go anywhere. The next morning, our wake up call came at 5:30, and though I wasn´t homicidal anymore, I certainly wasn´t well-rested. We ate breakfast and got on the bus. Around 11, we stopped at the Jesuit ruins in the Misiones province of Argentina. That rocked. Took lots of pictures. Then we got on the bus again and went to Wanda, where they mine all kinds of semi-precious stones. We didn´t tour the mines, but we did stop at a shop where I bought a couple of gifts for people. Did I mention I was sleeping whenever we were on the bus? Yeah, I totally was. Then, well, we drove to Montevideo. We got back around 8 this morning. Went to our new hotel and slept the morning away. It´s now coming up on six o´clock. This post is ridiculously long. And my left wrist is starting to hurt from begin bent in an odd direction because of the size of the desk at the internet cafe. I think I´m gonna stop writing now.
Oh, wait. One last thing: It was warm in Brazil! And Argentina! I was warm yesterday! Now, it´s actually quite nice in Montevideo at about 17 degrees, but it was warm on the tour. I was very happy. *sigh*
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