not for your house

After sitting through my final this morning I realised I couldn't handle the pain til tomorrow morning. I mean, the constant pain wasn't so bad, but the random but very regular intervals where someone was stabbing me just weren't working out for me. I started calling around, looking for a walk-in clinic with the shortest waiting time. Somehow, though I'd talked to them yesterday and they suggested waiting til Thursday, this was my regular doctor's office (not my doctor).

The doctor took all of 2.5 seconds to make a diagnosis. I have shingles. The doctor asked me what I'd like to do for the pain. "I'd like it to go away." was my answer. I'm not sure if this was the right answer, or what exactly he was looking for in an answer, but seriously, little man stabbing me, you need to die. Thank god teachers have prescription coverage. I left with 4 different prescriptions - one for the virus, and three for different kinds of pain. If you're hurting in the next month or so, I've likely got something that can help you.

My biggest issue is I'm not allowed to take any of them til later tonight - apparently there's a good chance the nerve pain one will mess me up properly until my body gets used to it. Mess me up more than the lightening bolts in my side? I'm not sure about that.

good thing i'm not dying

It has come to my attention that there may be a few problems with our health care system. I have a health issue - no need to go into details here - but suffice to say, it's painful and is starting to definitely feel like it merits the attention of a doctor. Family, it is not serious, just uncomfortable and I'm hoping they're not going to say something crazy like "you have shingles!"

So, I call my doctor's office and request an appointment with my physician. The receptionist cheerily lets me know that the first available appointment, at any time of day, is February 5th. Seriously people? I squawked at her. You know, that high pitched incredulous "What?!" Waiting 15 days to see a doctor is simple not acceptable. I mean, either I'm going to be dead by then or I'm not going to have an issue any more.

I politely informed the receptionist that it was sort of a pain/severe discomfort issue. She suggested I see one of the walk in doctors. Last time I saw one of their walk in doctors he asked me "What I thought we should do about my illness and treatment?" so I wasn't feeling particularly keen on this thought. I like decisive answers and treatments from my doctors. No worries, even the walk in doctors are booked for the next few days. What is the point of a walk in doctor if they take appointments and are full?

Somehow, she created me an appointment on Wednesday. Chances are this is going to involve a 3 hour wait in a waiting room full of Norovirus. Awesome.

2007 resolutions in review

All of a sudden it's 2008!  Happy New Year everyone.  I thought it might be fun to see how I fared with last year's resolutions before I even consider making new ones.

1. Consume less and consume more intelligently.
I think I did pretty well here.  Honestly, I really kept purchases to a minimum last year.  What I did purchase was clothes and shoes, and most recently my macbook (but it was becoming very needed).  One success!

2. Moisturize more often.
If we look at the year as a whole, I failed.  If we look at November/December, I'm rocking this one.  As the new assessment practices are teaching me, it's only most current behaviour that should be assessed however, and that means I get to say I succeeded with this one.  2 down!

3. Drink more wine.
I said this was going to be my attainable resolution and it most certainly was.  2007 saw the arrival of a wine drinking Chelle.  I now drink wine because I enjoy it, not because I'm trying to make myself like it.  The arrival of Invisible Roommate and her extensive knowledge of good, reasonably priced wine has not hurt my cause any.  3/6!

4. See Nelly Furtado.
I failed.  Miserably.  But not because I didn't try, because I somehow slept in and missed my flight.  A big shout out to Westjet who managed to get me to Montreal on April 5th anyway.  A big boo on me for being in transit during the show.  Sigh.

5. Revamp the way I teach Math 10.
I am happy to say I have more love for Math 10.  I met some fabulous resources and was given some pretty fantastic opportunities this last year in the means of professional development.  I have definitely changed the way I approach the course in a much more concrete way - an I anticipate doing a much better job of marrying my new knowledge and my teaching style when repeat the course next year.  I think it means good things that my grade 11s have been a little jealous that they didn't get to do some of the things this year's 10s are doing.

6. Get out more often.
Just a meh here.  I did alright, but there is certainly room for improvement.  I do have more friends in the city now, and that was a year long project in itself, so I suppose there are small successes here.  I'm looking forward to my new semester (no core french!) and the return of Rach and Jeff to be sure.  JJ and her boy are also moving to the queen city, so I anticipate monthly visits in at least one direction to be sure.

All in all, I'd say 2007 was pretty successful and 2008 is shaping up to be even better.

totally floored

The original desire to win a pizza party, followed by the desire to be the winning class, has somehow lead to my class raising over $500 for the foodbank this Christmas. My class alone raised what the entire school set as its goal this year. The generosity of these 25 students is totally amazing, especially since I know for almost all of them it was their own money they donated.

always amazed

Our annual foodbank drive started Monday. I've found the kids here to be really generous with their money in general, but one kid just blew me away this year. He handed me $100 of his own money. When I asked him if he was sure he wanted to donate that much money he replied "I have more money right now than I have in my entire life and I have nothing to spend it on." This seems like a pretty mature realisation from a 16 year old.

I'm sure a few other students overheard pieces of our conversation, and shortly after asked him how much he'd donated. Again, I was surprised by his reply. "I didn't donate a lot of money just so I could brag about how much I gave." And that was that.

Wow.

brrrrrr!

I walked out of my condo this morning and thought "wow, it's much nicer out today." People, it was -20 degrees plus some added coldness from the windchill. I'm sure that's it for the best that -20 is my new "warm" but still. I don't want global warming, but a little prairie warming likely couldn't hurt...

already?

Seriously, how is it already November? The good news about this must be that Christmas will be here before I've really registered that's it's November.

Things are still just as crazy as previously mentioned. Last week, while running late, I even managed to have a shower and not wash my hair. For those of you who don't know about my self-cleaning policies, on most days this is the only purpose of even having a shower. So by 7:45am, I'd already failed in one of my more important daily goals. Of course, there was no real way to rectify this situation until 6:30pm. Gross.

This is also the time of year when I leave the house in the dark and don't get home until it is dark. If my classroom didn't have windows I could viably look into becoming a vampire and have it not affect my daily routine in the least. This would simplify the difficulty I seem to have finding quick protein sources for one.

Have I mentioned most of my students are grade 10s? Typically lame at the best of times, entering into these thankless weeks before Christmas really brings out the best in them. I mean, currently I'm expecting them to breath AND stay awake at the same time. I know, my expectations, they are too much.

How many days til Christmas?

happy coming out month!

I've been meaning to post about this for a week now, but I have literally been so angry at the whole situation that it just hasn't been possible.

In case you were unaware, October is international coming out month. Now, I don't really know why (and haven't really bothered to look into it too much either...) but regardless, coming out month. My GSA, being the crazy awesome group they are decided my school should celebrate coming out month. True, they didn't ask the school's permission, but who doesn't love a celebration? For the first of the month the decorated the hallways - rather sparsely, it is a huge school - with posters and set up our closet. The closet says "closets are for clothes" and everyday of the month another celebrity "comes out." Huge kudos to the kids in our building - our posters have remained up and our closet remains intact.

Imagine our surprise, when last week, one of our APs approaches my co-advisor with a few concerns. It appears he has had a few complaints from other staff members about the "offensive" posters the GSA has up. Not really wanting to get into this discussion, she politely asked him to our meeting, which just happened to be at noon that day. My co-advisor is a force to be reckoned with so I'm sure he figured that would be a much simpler way to attain his goal.

Our meeting was already underway by the time he decided to grace us with his presence. The girls quickly wrapped up whatever business we were tending to so that our very busy AP could get back to whatever it is APs do. It all went downhill after he stood up. You see, because after he stood up, he opened his mouth. As often happens, words came out. He opened with a long list of people he knew. This is never a good sign, the simultaneous assertion of importance and confirmation of "common allies." He was searching so deep for these common allies that he was bringing out the siblings of my co-advisor. I could barely contain myself from rolling my eyes.

He then launched into full on "it's not me but" mode. He stated that a couple teachers had sought him out to tell him that they found two of our posters offensive. That we needed to be respectful of people of different mind sets then ours. That some people who are not homophobic might take offense to the fact that we are saying there are homophobic people in our school. When he was done talking, there was silence. For a few seconds I was very concerned none of the students were going to be able to say anything, and I was already fuming angry at this man and his ridiculous claims. So I not so respectfully told him, and the room, that those people were ignorant and it was their choice to be mis-interpreting what our group was saying and doing.

Almost as soon as I opened my mouth, the hands started creeping up. It was almost as if they needed a little push, just an "it's okay, we are not going to let this man come in here and undo what we are doing." Never in my life have I been prouder of a group of students. They were polite, they were articulate, they were logical, they were all of the things we worry young people won't be. Our poor AP didn't see it coming. He was completely unprepared to be dealt with in this way. So he started digging himself a hole. A large hole. He gave these kids more ammunition then they ever could have hoped for. Some gems include

• we don't want to encourage the "gay lifestyle"
• he knows gay people
• we don't put up posters about being Christian or Muslim (when really, we do, we have an ISCF)
• well, I had to answer in an "old school" kind of way (when asked how he responded to the complainers)
  

On top of this, he keeps falling back on his argument that he's not telling them they need to do anything, he's not asking us to take down our posters, he really just wanted to come and let us know that he had had two complaints. It is becoming more and more obvious he has no reason to be at our meeting. The kids are far too polite to point this out. So me - now with permanent contract! - asks him flat out "So, Mr. AP, this is a building of 1500 people. We have over 100 staff members. You keep telling us that you have only had 2 people approach you with concerns, and that you aren't asking us to take down our posters. So what are you doing here?" He couldn't answer. There was time for a few last questions and remarks before lunch was over.

I was shaking I was so mad. This man is supposed to be a leader in our school. This man is supposed to set aside his personal beliefs and advocate for students. Instead, he is a bully. A passive aggressive bully. I cannot believe he honestly thought he would walk into that room and magically "deal" with the GSA and their rainbow posters, just in time for Parent-Teacher interviews I might add. It is his own fault, that he never even dreamed this story could have another ending. He has stirred something in these kids that was likely dormant in most of them. You see, until now, it was all fun. Sure, the issues were out there, and there was work to do in raising awareness in our school. But making positive space posters, holding a day of silence, having coffee with other GSAs, bake sales, marching in the pride parade, etc. it was all fun because most of these kids had never really seen what the ugly two faced beast of homophobia looks like in person. He made it personal. He made them see that there is a fight here, and instead of beating them down like he was hoping to, he wound them up.

I'm not sure he's realized his mistake quite yet. But he might by the end of the year when instead of carving themselves a little niche in the school the GSA has permeated the very fabric that it is made of.

SURPRISE!

I think all 8 of you who read this are aware I have a new roommate, she is often not around, but when she is she is full of awesomeness. For the purposes of this blog she shall henceforth be known as Invisible Roommate.

I finally crossed paths with my Invisible Roomate Thursday. She was basically home for a little bit to relax and pick stuff up to be gone again for another couple weeks. We caught up, and then she went to her boyfriend's before starting the marathon tour of SK an AL for work.

While living on my own, I developed habits of not closing doors, and not being particularly concerned about my state of dress. For Invisible Rommates sanity and general peace of mind, I keep my clothes on or close my door when they need to be removed. It's pretty easy to fall back into not doing these things when I know she's not home. Yes, I am aware I just admitted to being too lazy to close a door, even partially.

Imagine my surprise Friday morning as I am bent over a drawer wearing only my underwear to hear a very cheery "Good Morning!" from the hallway. It's not ideal to be scared shitless before you're fully awake in the first place, it's even less ideal if you have no clothes on and are further than an arm's length away from the door. I'm am also sure it's even more less ideal to have the first thing you see in the morning be your naked roommate. I need to work on the whole door thing.

awesome

My conference has been awesome. Practical, useful, insightful, and mostly, real. Maybe I can evolve into a leader. A stealthy leader.

Day 2 tomorrow.

lead who?

I've been identified as an "emerging leader" in my school. This sort of freaks me out. I mean, for now it just means they're going to send me to a conference but what about when they want me to actually be a leader?

done like dinner and other things that are done

As of 15 minutes ago I am finished my calculus course. Ugh. It's funny how you work so hard for something and then it's just over.

The exam was even more of a monster than I expected, full of tricks and exceptions (and things we weren't supposed to know!). There will be no 100% on this one as in my attempt to finish off everything I didn't understand, I forgot to go back and finish a question I did understand but got stuck with. They sure don't mess around with their time restrictions here at McGill! The dude barked at me to "PUT DOWN YOUR PENCIL!" when I tried to finish a sentence I was writing after time had been called. Yipes.

I do know I got at least 2 questions right as they were for the bits we weren't supposed to know and el proferino told me to leave them as is and they were right up to the point I'd done them to.

Marks will be out on Sunday (claims el prof), til then it's shopping and time for more house guests!

UPDATE: It's Tuesday and there are finally marks on my transcript. An A, followed by a GPA of 4. Boo!! Don't get me wrong, both of those things are good things, things that make me happy, but there is a critical piece of information missing. The number. The difference between an 89% and a 92% is huge in my world and I want to know. I really want to know. I know, I'm a teacher and I tell kids not to worry about "their mark" all the time, I'm supposed to be in it for the learning, but goddammit, I want that final number.

lists

Things I really enjoy:

1. Having house guests. They will eventually all merit their own post.
2. People in my calculus class who have started seriously referring to denominators as dominators. People who are native English speakers.
   
3. Our new fan.
4. So You Think You Can Dance. Ya, I went there.
   

Things I don't enjoy:

1. That "due to the high class average on the midterm, the final will be A MONSTER." (okay, he didn't call it a monster, but he did say it would be hard)
2. Anything "polar."
3. Limits.

Things I am indifferent about at the moment:

1. My final. WHAT? I really need to study...
   

OMG!

I got 100% on my calculus midterm. It would appear my 8 hour math days payed off!

I will try for a real update soon!

mcgill vip treatment

Our professor was away today, so we had a guest lecturer. I feel like McGill was feeling rather generous today and gave us suckers taking Cal2 (as it appears they call it here in m-town) a free ticket to the Just for Laughs festival, Calculus style.

This dude was so funny that even Ms Condescending couldn't help but laugh. Often! He started off the morning with a "tip for champions" and just kept getting funnier. Now I know what you're thinking "tip for champions isn't very funny." You clearly have forgotten what your Math 140 class was like. It sucked. Your prof didn't speak English. It was a very very dull hour out of your day 3 times a week where you madly scribbled foreign symbols down hoping you could decipher them later. Maybe you cried, I don't know.

If only all Math teachers were a little ADHD and as obviously in love with math as prof Charbonneau. Then we could fondly look back on our notes and try to remember what exactly "that cloud thing" was...

hallellulah!

I've made school friends! Sure they don't speak French, but they could potentially prove to be valuable resources once the course get harder.

I say potentially, because somehow, I seem to have the best understanding of what's going on. How did this happen? 9 years ago was when I last visited Calculus... I mean, I liked it and stuff, but not enough to have remembered any of it. So at the moment, I'm using the technique of better understanding something through explaining it/my reasoning to others. So far so good. I probably need to run through a forest with my arms outstretched after saying this, but I'm getting it!

At least I'm not annoying know it all girl (she occasionally sit beside me). She has a severe sighing and eye-rolling problem. Anytime anyone asks a questions (be it intelligent or otherwise) or the prof deviates from some imaginary set of strict course material, she cannot help but sigh, roll her eyes or do both. If the question just so happens to be approaching the limit of not so smart, she also mutters. Yesterday, while trying to draw concentric circles, the prof made fun of himself since his circles were less than circular. He took all of 3 seconds to also mention that he's seen a clip on youtube of someone who can infallibly draw perfect circles by hand. I thought she was going to have a seizure. Maybe she did have a petit-mal, it's tough to tell what with her regular state of annoyance.

It's funny that from either side of the teacher's desk, she is the one I always want to sucker punch.

what exactly are we talking about?

My first day of calculus went by surprisingly well considering I haven't touched anything calculus related in 9 years. Deriva-what? That stuff got replaced with phrases from Harry Potter and song lyrics ages ago. In one of my wiser moments (they don't happen very often...) I remembered to snitch one of the new high school calculus texts from the school before I left and spent some time reading it during the drive. Certainly doesn't rank anywhere near recommended reading of any kind, but it was a good warm up stretch before my first class. It kept me from wigging out when my prof started talking about limits anyway. Ya, that's right, my level of confusion is rating somewhere around the wigging out level.

My prof seems alright. His English is passable (thank a random deity!) and his accent rarely throws me off. It took me a few times to realise he pronounces the letter a e (ee). Which is really weird to me. How do you speak really well, yet not know how to say the first letter of the alphabet? Not to mention the letter a comes up a lot, so I am always having to double check what letter he actually means.

There is one little speech issue that I'm having massive difficulties with. We were discussing some kind of function - surprise! - and he kept referring to the nominator. Which, ok, you can't say numerator. It's only a couple vowel sounds. When he started talking about the dominator however, I lost it. Dominator is quite a ways away from denominator. And it's hilarious. Just try and discuss a dominator of x squared without laughing. This might be my pick me up all summer - just thinking about dominators makes me laugh, no matter where I am. Which of course makes me very cool, ie crazy. Thanks professor Laayoumi, I am now crazy laughing metro/walking/random girl because of you.

the not so long day

Day 1 of our drive to Montreal was by far the best. It was also by far the shortest. That was only partly what made it the best day. Really, the bestestness of day 1 was due to the friend factor. Yay friends.

Knowing it would be a short day, we left early which made lots of time for breakfast in Regina. We met up with the NSFG, D, Not so Cambodian couple and their friend from Cambodia, Chourn. (I think) everyone had a good breakfast, specifically Chourn who was served 3 buttermilk pancakes that were each the size of his head. I'm sure this wasn't his first exposure to the ridiculousness that is North American restaurant culture since he'd already been in Canada for a couple weeks, but it was still pretty awesome to watch his try and make his way through one of the mammoth pancakes.

My Human Rights Club wound up choosing the school Chourn and some others started in his home village as our international charity this year. While really all I did was make sure no one got stabbed during meetings (that is why teacher supervisors are necessary for everything isn't it?) I was the only member of the group available for photos. Isn't it amazing that after only 2.5 hours in the car I'm already a greasy mess? Beware my powers folks...

After breakfast we continued on to Brandon, where we were welcomed with extreme hospitality from JJ and Wade. It would appear owning a house transforms you into domestic gods and goddesses. Seriously, JJ has put together a house that looks like it might be showing up in some home magazine any day now. It would be funny to pretend that Wade had participated in any of the decorating... I'm sure his level of participation included approving of the floor colour and requesting that no more vases be purchased...

On top on the fabulous job they've done with the house, the have also stepped up the whole "hosting friends" thing to the next level. JJ had stuffed mushroom cap appetizers ready for us. Seriously, if that's not a huge step in the direction of adulthood, I'm not too sure what it. Shortly after a few drinks, appetizers, and visiting, Wade stepped up to prove he has also entered some realm of domesticity - by cooking a most delicious salmon BBQ. Mmmm.

Trying to prove we haven't yet entered too far into the adult world, we decided we should at least make an attempt at leaving the house - knowing full well at the first side of being bored we'd be back on JJ's couches in a second. Since it was Canada Day, there was hope of decent music followed by fireworks in the park. The music was pretty good (the lead singer was amazing), there were lots of kids to keep us laughing, however, we got there a little too early to really be able to stay entertained until the fireworks. No problemo, Montana's was just right across the street. It was entertainment in itself watching Wade finish off 3/4 of a mile high mud pie all by himself. We were back in the park with lots of time to spare.

Brandon fireworks, expected to be on the very weak side, actually put Saskatoon to shame. They were also accompanied by a very strange death fog that floated in just as quickly as it floated out. JJ is suspecting there were some special circumstances leading to a rather large firework budget, regardless, they were really good! So if you're ever driving through Brandon on Canada Day, it might be worth it to stop. Assuming they've fixed the parking problems by then...

After all the excitement it was time to go back home. The boys crashed almost immediately and JJ and I weren't far behind. It was great to finally have a reason for going to Brandon, if only for half a day.

The rest of the drive was just that, a big, long drive.

save 140$? yes please!

Part of getting ready to leave for Montreal included some rather expensive car repairs. Apparently my brakes needed to be fully replaced (ouch!) so while that was being done I asked the nice folks to make sure nothing else needed to be done before Bluey II attempted a 6000km round trip.

This of course was asking for trouble. A belt needed to be replaced. Or several. They quoted me $160 to change all of them. I sighed, grumbled a bit (a lot), and said fine, do it. My childhood memories are filled with our car breaking down on road trips. None of those memories are particularly fun times. Then I talked to Big Red, grumbled some more. Being the calm, gentle person he is, he insinuated that the car place may be lying to me in a very reasonable tone. I actually quite like my mechanic, and don't think he would lie to me, but none the less, it merited checking out.

So I approached the car guy at my school. Contradictory to what Big Red was screaming into the phone, it would seem it was perfectly plausible that I needed one (or more) belts replaced. He, however, seemed to think it would be no trouble to fix it at the school. He implied this would be much cheaper that having it fixed chez my mechanic. So I called my mechanic back and told him not to fix the belts. Being the nice guy he is, he said no problem and somehow managed to fix my breaks cheaper than originally quoted.

The next day I took Bluey II in to be looked at by Murray's car guy. Indeed my belt was a little frayed, and while it might make the trip there and back, fixing it was most likely a better option. If any of you are curious as to how much a belt costs, it's $15.

So, I took car guy out for lunch, and then we swung by Part Source to pick up the belt. Then we went back to school so it could be replaced. By me. At first, I thought car guy was joking when he told me I was going to fix my own car. And then I realised he wasn't. Ok, well for a savings of $140 I was pretty sure I could get a little dirty.

So car guy pointed at things, handed me tools - mostly wrenches of various sizes, taught me about leverage, and used the lift. I did what he pointed at, loosened bolts mostly, managed to get both belts on myself and then tightened things back up. Car guy double checked everything, and it appeared that all was good to go.

The whole process took me 45 minutes. ME. 45 MINUTES. It is mind blowing that a garage was going to charge me over an hours worth of labour for something I did in 45 minutes. Needless to say, car guy is my new best friend and has volunteered his minions to fix any future car problems I may have. Whoot!

i'm back!

Enough time has been put between me and then end of the semester that I actually feel like blogging again. Which is sorta funny since I'm guessing no one reads this anymore. C'est la vie.

Oh yes, and I'm in Montreal now. So I've got new stuff and old stuff to post about, in whichever order I feel like. Have I mentioned I love summer?