celebrating life

It is with unbelievable sadness that today I'm celebrating the life of Erica Murray. I've posted about Erica quite a few times over the last few years and am still in disbelief that the unthinkable happened - on Thurs Dec 5th Erica lost her long hard battle with cancer.

Erica was an incredible person and friend and it's not an exaggeration when I say that today people across the globe are mourning and celebrating her life together in their own way.

One of the very first times I spent any time with Erica was right after she moved to Japan. I went over to visit her (when she first arrived we lived a couple blocks from one another) and we spent an entire evening chatting and laughing on the floor of her 8 x 10 apartment as they didn't have any furniture yet. It was one of those evenings where your stomach and your face hurt for days and when it's all over you have no idea what was so funny. I think the evening ended in "stealing" furniture from the garbage collection at a strange hour of the morning. We had many more ridiculous times, but the first has stayed with me as it's so rare to find such a connection with someone you barely know.

Erica made me want to be a better person pretty much from the day I met her. She had traveled more, studied more, had better relationships, better decorating sense, better time management, and this outlandishly positive attitude just to start off. Yet there she was, making perverted jokes and down to earth as anyone.

I am very grateful we got to meet up both in Boston and in Montreal - short visits, but we fit quality time into both somehow. Erica's house in Boston was such a home - it was filled to the roof with art, books, games and pictures. If it wasn't for the detailed list in the bathroom of her meds and the container of syringes by the vanity you'd have had no idea someone undergoing chemo far from home lived there. Our Montreal visit was more reminiscent of Japan - we just sort of stumbled around enjoying what Montreal has to offer in the summer. I'm trying not to get to caught up in the visit to California that I had planned that was still yet to come.

E, you fought this right up until the very end and I never for a second thought the cancer would/could win. You are so loved and missed, and now without pain.
Love you always,

evidence

Wondering what I've been up to lately?  Well I've essentially been consumed by two rather large projects.  

The first is my job.  Specifically the task of gather large amounts of evidence to look at with Dr. Anne Davies next Friday.  Learning Leaders and Principals have been assigned this task so we can have a discussion of what quality evidence of change would look like.  While this sounds reasonable, my math background is putting me at odds with the majority of evidence that we have access to.  You see, none of it will reflect improvement over time.  It all shows very lovely snapshots of the fabulous things going on at our school (which is quite valuable), but we do need some way of measuring that there are more fabulous things going on at this time next year.  On the other hand, measuring things just for the sake of measuring them doesn't make much more sense.  So yes, this is what I think about almost all the time.  

The second is wedding planning.  I saved it for second because it is much more fun.  The internet is a deadly trap though - there are so many pretty things to look at that it is easy to lose sight of what's really important to us.  My love of all things paper doesn't help.  However, I find having a budget to be the easiest way to come back down to reality as the thought of spending $1000 on invites, flowers or even a dress makes me a little sick.  Not only is it not budget friendly it just seems so wasteful.  So I spend an equal amount of time trying to negotiate how we can have a wedding that reflects who we are as a couple and lets us spend as much time as possible with our friends and family.

We've also been doing some minor home renos (I have another red wall!).  We might even get our new kitchen in before we get married.  No guarantees about that one though.  The fabulous JJ came to visit, and we will have more company this weekend.  Christmas is almost here and I can't wait for everyone to be home so that I can have a new hobby of staying up too late visiting and trying to cram 6 months of hanging out into 2 weeks.

correction

In the interest of our wedding not costing a million dollars a new date has been chosen.  This makes me a little sad for no rational reason other than I picked the 3rd dammit!  On the plus side we will be married a week earlier.  So, officially, we shall be wed Sept 26th, 2009!  Anyone got a super idea for a ceremony site that is weather friendly?

interviews

This year's parent-teacher interviews were border line fun.  It's my third year at my school, and for many families their second child through my math classroom.  For the most part they come to check in, and just to visit. However, these families have also been watching from the sidelines as I've gone through some pretty significant growth as a teacher.

The only thing I was a little apprehensive about this go round was explaining to all my gr 10 parents how and why I was planning on implementing a no marks classroom.  It was a much easier sell than anticipated.  In fact, almost all of the parents seemed to have no issue whatsoever with the idea.  There was one parent who really reassured me that this is the right thing to be doing.

"So what you're saying is that your class is going to be about learning instead of about marks?"

Exactly sir.  Exactly. 

gulp

So I just took the plunge and decided to run an almost entirely markless math class.  The kids seem into it (shhhh, don't tell them it's more work for them in the long run...) so we'll see how it goes.  It will also be a little bit of work for me to make sure I am keeping up to date in holding kids accountable (not a real strong point for me) so I guess we'll all be working.  Wish me luck!

tales of engagement

I had absolutely no idea how wonderful getting engaged would be.  I mean, I knew it would be a pretty fabulous event in the lives of H and I, but I neglected to imagine just how excited everyone else would be for us.  There was a whole lot of congratulations, hugging, screaming, and even some happy crying going on.  If you combine all that with the whole actually being engaged (!) thing, yeah, pretty awesome.

One group of people who I didn't expect to be excited or even really care was my students.  I knew some of the girls would be excited, but as a whole I just assumed my engagement would go largely unnoticed.  Boy was I wrong.

It was adorable.  My grade 10s had already heard from another teacher, and they entered class Wednesday practically dying of curiosity.  Student after student entered offering congratulations and wanting to know all about it.  Even the boys were totally interested in all the details.  They wanted to know all about H, all about our wedding/life plans (I was continually reminding them that we had just gotten engaged, and no, have not planned out the next 5 years of our life), all about colours, dresses, family, you name it.

At some point in the conversation they asked me if I was going to change my name.  I answered that yes, I was planning on changing my name (groans all around at the prospect of having to call me something different).  So of course they wanted to know what my new name would be.  I told them.  Another questions was asked, and then one boy put up his hand and very sheepishly asked

"Mme, what kind is he?"

I just about fell off my chair laughing, as did the rest of the class.  Several students admitted they were trying to think of a polite way to ask the exact same question.  After I stopped laughing we had a mini history lesson on H's family history, which concluded with another kid exclaiming in an exasperated tone,

"You guys, he's brown!"

I suggested they maybe needed to request some supplementary vocabulary from their history teacher as it's clear it's lacking...  Then I remembered who their history teacher was, and could imagine myself having this exact same conversation with him so, I suppose that explains a lot!

the terms of engagement

This past Tuesday marks an awfully special day - the day H decided to ask me to be his wife!  Of course I (quickly!) has to ask myself if I really wanted to spend the rest of my life with someone who:

• brings me supper every Thursday when I am working.
• has a mother who insists on filling our fridge with food at every available opportunity.
• makes me put my clothes away.
• plans and cooks fabulous meals several times a week.
• suggested we take ballroom dancing together.
• is wonderful to travel with.
• wants to travel.
• re-watches movies a billion times, no matter how terrible they were the first time.
• makes my lunch.
• watches all "my" tv shows with me, even the ones involving dancing.
• uses google calendar for everything - including things like picking up our dry-cleaning.
• washes the dishes at least once a day.
• likes all my friends and family.
• always gets blog posts done faster than me.
• takes care of me when I am sick.
• indulges in my need to pretend to budget.
• bought me season tickets to Persephone just a month after we started dating.
• insists on having no less than 30 bottles of wine on hand at any given time.
• has fabulous friends who have welcomed me into their circle from day 1.
• is always up for a concert, a ballet, a walk, and anything really.
• is worth getting up 20 mins early to go for breakfast with.
• listens to me blabber on and on and on and on about my job.
• supports me unconditionally.
• puts my water glass away before I'm done with it about 3 times a day.
• cracks his knuckles constantly, even when he sleeps.
• tells me he loves me before we fall asleep every night, when we wake up every morning, and multiple times a day.
• is so much more than to me than I can express in a bulleted list.

The answer of course is YES.  Yes I want to be your wife, yes I want to spend the rest of my life with you, yes this post is way to sappy.

Clear your calendars for Oct 3, 2009 folks, that's the day I will officially be a wife!

je ne comprends pas

Yesterday I went to pay a little visit to my old stretch math class.  The one that when I think about it it hurts just a little bit that I don't get to teach it.  It was my baby.  Those kids, I miss them.  True I was super frustrated with them at times, but I love them.  Really wanting to understand their learning issues taught me so much about being a better teacher.  (gag, I'm sorry, I'll stop now.)

So I visited.  And observed a lesson by the teacher who is not me.  Typically the same resource teacher who was in with me would be in the class but she had meetings so I opted to fill in.  Since the beginning of the year we have been trying to support the teacher who took over for moi - securing planning time, bringing in experts who really helped me out in the beginning, etc.  I have been very pleasantly surprised with how easy my replacement has been to work with.  Considering all possibilities, we've had an excellent working relationship.

Now, I'm trying to wrap my brain around what I observed and how to best approach the issue, if I can address it at all.  Said teacher is going through notes with the students, but the vocabulary is way out of their league.  The examples and speed are excellent!  The notes, they are making little to no sense for the kids.  Teacher keeps bringing focus back to how they don't need to worry about the notes, about how the examples are what are important, but is still having them copy out the notes.  The ones that make no sense with the accompanying explanations, and will certainly make no sense later without an explanation.  

So after the lesson we are chatting, this that and the other thing.  I decide I should lightly give a little critisism (after of course complimenting the speed and clarity of examples) and point out how the notes were an obstacle for them - not understanding makes many students shut down before they even arrive at the examples.  Teacher replies with "Oh I know, that's why I kept putting emphasis on how they weren't really important."  I didn't know how to tactfully say that they should have been removed then but couldn't think of a way to approach this.  

Today, I am still annoyed.  Seriously, freaking cross them out with an overhead marker.  Tell them not to copy them.  WHATEVER.   I don't understand why you would have them do things that you know are useless, not just useless actually but counter productive.  Last time I checked one of the learning outcomes was not printing practice.

I know I make tons of mistakes in my teaching.  All the time really.  Likely at least once an hour if not more.  I don't understand purposefully doing things in a way that make your job more difficult in the long run though.  

rocketman!

If you've been living under a rock for the last 3+ months, you maybe weren't aware that Sir Elton John is on a Canadian Tour.  A huge tour where all the shows sold out in 3ish minutes.  I live under a small-ish rock, so it's no wonder I didn't really know when tickets were going on sale in the first place and no real surprise that by the time I realized they were going on sale they were sold out.  So, ummm, no Elton for me.

I was okay with it, I'm not Elton's biggest fan or anything, I don't own anything with his name or face on it except the Lion King DVD.  But, it is Sir Elton John we're talking about here.  So when last minute tickets became available, the only reasonable thing to do seemed to be purchase them.  It's not like he's going to live forever and be back anytime soon.  Or ever.

Arriving at CUC we had no idea what to expect in terms of seats.  The tickets were "bleacher" seats and weren't on any of CUC's seating plans.  I didn't understand how magically, 12 hours before a 100% sold out show, a whole batch of tickets could come available.  Until we found our seats.  Behind. the. stage.  Seriously.  They found some hockey bleachers in a closet somewhere, lifted up the screen a little, and sat us directly behind the stage.  Turns out?  Some of the best seats in the house.

True I have no idea what kind of crazy faces the guitarists may have been making, or what was on the giant screen, but we were second row kind of close, with the bonus of being up a level so we could see everything going on.  We were essentially right on top the percussionists, which was very fun to watch.  I might even have developed a wee crush on the secondary percussion dude - before the show he totally raided an elementary school band room and was playing every gizmo under the sun that you could hit or shake including a set of cowbells, two vases, martini shakers, and more tambourines than any one person should need.  He also liked to entertain himself by making faces at the other band members (or maybe no one) and throwing his various hitting things around.  Fun!

Elton was of course awesome.  40 years later and he's still amazing.  He's pretty entertaining to watch also.  He's quite stiff in his movements and loves to point at himself and then the crowd.  It was a little unreal to see the crowd from almost the band's perspective - 10 000 people is a lot!  The sound quality was fantastic, me thinks Elton and his crew must carry some supplementary equipment or the CUC has really upgraded their stuff since the last time I saw a concert there.  He also finished with my favourite song, so thanks for that E!

time warp

I was thinking of posting a week one back to school update. Then I realized I've been back at school for 2 minus a day weeks. How have I been back at school for two weeks?

If you haven't talked to me, myself and the two other learning leaders were in charge of organising our entire staff PD day on the second day back to school for teachers. This involved hours of meeting time, not sleeping Sunday night, more hours of work, and a general feeling that I may have been just a teeny weeny bit totally batshit crazy when I applied for/accepted this job. Guess what? Success! Everyone totally loved the day (for real, not in a we're just saying this so you don't cry, kind of way)! So at least our staff doesn't hate us from the get go. That part can happen a little later when we really dig into things. Just in case you're thinking when I say "my staff" I mean a happy little elementary school staff of 30ish people I do not. I mean 110 cynical high school teachers who instinctively roll their eyes when I get up to talk at least 50% of the time. The love, I rarely feel it.

So, as I'm sure you can guess, all the typical back to school things are good. My kids are great, classes are good, blah blah blah. The teaching bit, I still love it. I'm also really gaining some appreciation for the comfort factor that has really let me become a better teacher 6 (6!!) years later. My new job, however, is best described as challenging on steroids. It's a very bipolar position - one minute I'm just so excited about the dialogue and things happening, and the next I am beyond frustrated. There are lots of little pockets of very exciting things going on, they just happen to be buried under administrivia and garbage, not to mention a huge lack of time, clarity and real direction. I just hope the good parts are enough to outweigh the million frustrations as the year progresses.

So that's my first two weeks back. I'd be kidding myself if I thought it was going to settle down any in the weeks to come.

it appears i never learn

Today we needed a few last minute groceries for supper so I grabbed my bags and headed out while H attended to the ribs.  And for the umpteenth time I went to Extra Foods.  I have no idea why I do this.  It's just so convenient - across the street and down a path, but it's just so terrible.

Today I had to circle the produce department several times.  They had no cored pineapple, the lemons were gross looking unless you bought a 3lb bag and the carrots were mutants.  When they didn't have any BBQ beans I put my basket down in frustration and abandoned shopping.

Of course I did what I should have done in the first place - walked the extra block and a half to the Co-op.  It's glorious there.  It took me all of 10 minutes to find everything on my list.  So convenient!  Not only do they carry such complicated grocery items like "lemons," "carrots," and "cream of tartar," everything is fresh AND easy to find.  It's clean and organized.  The check-out girl even asked me if I had remembered to check my eggs.  Do you know what the surly check-out girls at Extra Foods do?  They punch your eggs when you're not looking.

I don't know what it is about that extra block and a half walk that turns my brain into mush when deciding where to grocery shop.  Somehow, I always think "I only need a couple things, Extra Foods will have them, it's faster!"  I am always greeted with aisles full of abandoned stock, rotting produce, crazed shoppers with overflowing carts and 15 year old workers that aren't too sure what basil is, let alone where they'd find it in the store (assuming you could find it at all...).  And of course, I must have the craziest taste in food because it's a guarantee that they will not have something.  It baffles my mind that there are always so many shoppers there, do these people eat a solid diet of presidents choice hamburger helper with some frozen dinners thrown in for variety?  I can be 100% certain that if I had to drive for groceries Extra Foods wouldn't occur to me as a possibility.

I'd like to pretend like I've learnt my lesson.  But I know, sometime next month I'll need "just a couple things" and somehow I'll wind up back there.  Wandering dumbly around the aisles,  confused and/or frustrated,  not understanding how a grocery store doesn't carry bread, swearing from now on I'll just go to the Co-op in the first place.

annoying, sir you are it

Yes I'm aware I still have a Chicago post to finish up.  I'm bored with myself.  Sorry.

At the end of the school year a Math conference was offered (for free!) to our division.  I do love the free, and it was going to be facilitated by Florence Glanfield who I have never worked with and is a big guru around these parts.

Drawing closer to conference date I was growing more and more skeptical of my decision.  There was no information about the actual plan except the title "Coming to Know...  Mathematics" and my gut was telling me it was going to be 95% elementary teachers.  Not that I have anything against elementary math teachers, we just typically have different concerns and issues.  Finally, the day before the conference, they posted an agenda - it did not reassure me that this was going to be two awesome days, totally worth giving up precious deck time to.

Whatever.  I got up this morning and was determined to be positive about it.  I was pretty sure I would learn something, even though it might not be as action packed as I have grown accustom to over my last year of absolutely stellar PD.  They were providing early coffee and lunch on both days so if I needed to bail Friday afternoon so what?

I arrived and had my initial concerns somewhat validated - the secondary crew was very petite.  And "the plan" evolved very slowly as our two facilitators appeared to get caught up in vocalizing their own ideas for just over an hour before moving to engage the rest of us.  However, aside for that, I had the good fortune to sit next to a man who was clearly much more  unimpressed than I.  Not only was he unimpressed, he thought the simple commonality of our shared grade level would make us allies in complaint all day long.

After today, I have serious concerns about the future of Math in Regina.  This man could not be appeased!  We had excellent dialogue as grade group specialists all day (on and off topic) and he was just so focused on what he would not do - which was almost everything.  For some reason, he kept trying to draw me into his little world of hate, even after I said I was likely one of those "touchy feely math people" (that he really doesn't like, damn huggy elementary teachers!), said I was very against old evaluation practices, and thought I'd made it very clear that you would use more than just a traditional pencil and paper approach in my room.

I would have been slightly more sympathetic to this man and his hatred of all things not drill related had he simply been an old math teacher.  Old habits are hard to break, change is difficult, these new questions have no real "comprehension" as of yet - math teachers are still really questioning how to marry this new trend to really encourage deeper understanding with being able to do.  I think elementary teachers, little credit we give them, are far more comfortable in this regard, even if it is because their curriculum is less complex and their standards slightly more flexible.  This man, however, isn't an old close to retirement senior math teacher pining away for the good old days when kids would memorize their trig identities and regurgitate math algorithms.  This man, is the math consultant for the entire Catholic School Board.  Someone promoted him into a position where he is supposed to support teachers in getting kids to love math and he is rolling his eyes at the back of the room at the very notion that we should share our ideas on a piece of large paper with everyone else.  He is trying to sabotage professional dialogue because it feels a little too touchy feely for his liking, a little too fluffy.  

I hope he chooses not to come tomorrow.

some random observations about the windy city

H did such a bang up job blogging about the rest of our time downtown I'm going to save myself some time and suggest you go read it here. We totally didn't pay that much attention to detail when we were there - our handy dandy Go Chicago! books filled in some details I think. Instead of paraphrasing I'll take some time to share some of the quirky things we noticed while in Chicago.

The first thing I noticed were the French people everywhere! Les francais, les quebecois, they all seem to have been visiting at the same time as us. I'm not sure what exactly makes Chicago such a hot spot for the French inclined, but it was sort of fun hearing them everywhere we went.

Also, and I'm sure I was supposed to know this and not be surprised by it at all, was the number of black people in Chicago. Yes, this is probably like me being surprised by the number of Asians in Vancouver, or Ukrainians in Saskatchewan but sometimes I forget things while I'm busy living under my little rock.  Visually seen, about 50% of Chicago's population is black.  Nifty.  

People of all races are stupid over Apple stuff. I am a lover of almost everything Apple makes. I own a nano, a macbook, and if my budget allowed I would likely own many more toys from the Apple family. I however, cannot understand how every single time we walked past the Apple store there was a huge lineup just to get in the store. I understand why Apple would want to limit the number of people in their store (hello Vegas Apple Store, you could take a hint here) but I don't understand why you would stand in line to look at stuff you can buy at any larger chain store. Unless of course they give out cookies while you shop, then I would totally understand (and be a little sad I didn't stand in line.)

Marketing has really been taken to the next level in the States.  Wednesday morning before we got started we were too full for breakfast but were looking for a coffee before we headed to the museum.  There was an ING cafe right across the street from our hotel so it seemed easiest.  This cafe totally did its job of making me want to bank with ING.  The baristas and *insert name of male equivalent of barista here* were actually all bankers in disguise.  Friendly  - and one French - bankers.  They cut their schpeel on ING rather short when they realized we couldn't become customers, but they were still super nice and even offered to let us use the free internet.  As we were doctoring up our coffees a regular customer came in for coffee and they knew her name and what she wanted to order.  If my bank wanted to buy me coffee everyday I think I could get behind that!

So I think I should wrap this up here as it's taken me two weeks to finish this post...  I'm definitely looking forward to returning to Chicago and would highly recommend it as an American holiday.  Ok, done now.

downtown - day 1

Tuesday morning we awoke fairly early to catch the 930 train into the city. I knew we had started our trip off right when the train showed up on the opposite platform we were standing on - we had to book it with our luggage over to the other side Amazing Race style. To be fair we were in better shape than the several families with young kids and strollers and the elderly couple to be making such a dash. The train has (likely several) "conductors" on it to sell you your tickets - he was fabulously cliche as he hollered "ALL ABOARD" and patrolled his cars reprimanding teenagers and punching tickets in his conductors cap.

We arrived without other incident at Ogilvie Station and took a cab to our hotel not wanting to deal with walking or public transit and our luggage. We stayed at the Sofitel Water Tower Hotel and were very pleasantly surprised to find our rooms ready for us way before check in time. Our room was pretty crazy - the bathroom was about the same size as the room itself and was 80% marble. The bathtub and shower were separate and there was a speakerphone by the toilet. No saving the planet here by reusing your towels either - they didn't just replace them daily, but twice daily! Once in the am and then as needed at turndown. Seemed a little excessive, but it was fun that they cleaned up the bathroom so often.

As soon as we had ditched our bags and found a restaurant to have a reasonable lunch at (not our hotel!) it was time for our sightseeing extravaganza to commence. We underestimated distances a bit while planning - my guess at a 30min walk turned out to be much closer to 45. Tired of searching for the planetarium, we stopped to take in the Shedd Aquarium. Chicago only appears to do one size - huge. The sheer size of the place was likely the most impressive part, maybe I'm getting cynical, but between Marine Land and the Biodome there wasn't really anything new to see in terms of species or display. We also missed the dolphin show not realizing that they only block off the majority of the entrances to the viewing area but not all. We did run into the people sitting in front of us on the train on the way in to town proving that no matter where you go it's bound you run into someone.

After the Aquarium, we were up for continuing our walk to the Adler Planetarium. It didn't hurt that we clearly saw the planetarium from the inside of the aquarium and were much more confident that we could finish up the last 5 minutes of the walk. The Adler Planetarium was also gianormous with several theatres (two with domes) and all sorts of exhibits and things to see. We rested our feet and took in two shows - one on the seasonal stars above Chicago and one on cosmic collisions. We didn't spend a tonne of time looking at the exhibits as we closed the museum down and they didn't seem too keen on extending their hours for us. The planetarium boasts the best view of the downtown, so we hung out appreciating the skyline and just how far we had walked before hopping on a bus back to the Water Tower area.

This was really the only day we figured we'd have any time to do any shopping, so we started by hitting up Michigan Ave - The Magnificent Mile as they call it. Neither of us had much luck, so we headed over to Macy's since Jeff raved about it on their trip to NY. I've always thought I hated department stores, Macy's solidified my hatred for the gigantic monsters. Unless you're looking for homestuff or make-up, finding anything amongst the 8 floors is just way too frustrating for me. Macy's organises everything by brand instead of by type of clothes. Seriously? You want me to peruse 6 floors of women's apparel for a dress without even sort of grouping like styles of clothes together? As if. H had a little more luck in the adjoining mall and picked up some shirts at Abercrombie and Hollister. I have no idea what they make their shirts out of, but the fabric feels like heaven.

Our last mission of the day was to find someplace to eat. This seemed like it would be a pretty simple task since we were staying in a very busy area. Oh right, simple things rarely are while on vacation. We walked for ages, stopping at every restaurant we saw to look at the menu - it all looked delicious and was priced accordingly. It also all seemed to follow the HUGE rule. The size of the steaks on people's plates as we walked by? About the same size as my head. We also saw a couple with a quarter of a carrot cake, not a short one either, one of those totally ridiculous 4 full layer cakes. Not really what we were looking for... I finally convinced H that the Cheesecake Factory we saw right at the beginning of our trek would have something reasonable and delicious for supper. Not wanting cheesecake for supper he was pretty skeptical, but happily it didn't disappoint. It was huge, but reasonably priced, and H even said it was the best burger he's ever eaten. Point - me. Of course our waiter convinced us to share a dessert and we left to pack it in for the night feeling uncomfortably full.

suburbia here we come!

So we've had an awesome time so far during our trip. H has really been showing me up in the blog department - no real surprise, but he likely has the nanny to thank for finding him some spare moments to update and to edit his photos.

We have been staying in the picturesque town of St. Charles - a suburb of Chicago which boasts rather large, very gorgeous houses that have small parks as backyards. It helps that no one here has fences, and there seem to be pretty strict rules about yard upkeep. Even the houses that are empty and for sale only have weeds in the flower beds and the lawns are still mowed. I'm pretty sure I'd fail the test that lets you into the neighbourhood based on my gardening skills alone.

It's been a bit of a shock to the system to be staying in a house with three kids under the age of 6 - they never stop! To their credit they are insanely cute and aren't nearly as devilish as their mother makes out. This likely half due to the fact that we're new faces and they just LOVE playing with us and half due to the fact that this is temporary so it's okay to have three kids using us as human jungle gyms for a couple days. Since none of the kids have met me before, they seem to be especially smitten with having a girl to play with - you know, between getting scared by their uncle and watching Mickey's Christmas. Until today the youngest (just turned 2) was calling us both "mit-chel" when asked who we were. Tonight when going to bed he did say goodnight to his "Uncle Month" - secretly I hope "mit-chel" sticks.

Since we arrived on Friday, we got a chance to do some family friendly tourist things on the weekend. Saturday everyone but the youngest packed up to go to the Museum of Science and Industry. The Museum is so massive there's an entire airplane and the captured German U boat, among other things, right in the museum. The girls' favourite part by far was the kitchen galley in the sub.  After the museum we drove around downtown a little bit - past Obama's house, through the hood, and to Oprah's studio.

On Sunday we packed the whole family up and headed to the Kane County Fair. The weather was a little intense - these crazy brown people seem to forget that us fairer folk get a little crispy when out in the 30 degree heat for several hours! We started off looking at the animals and taking the kids to the petting zoo where we almost had a casualty when one of the girls got taken out by a couple of goats. After we had an awesome time taking the kids on the rides. I think I'd forgotten how lame most of the little little kids rides are - different vehicles moving either in a circular or oval pattern. Watching them try out some of the more "grown up" rides was hilarious - mostly because of how concerned H and his sister were while the girls were having a total blast screaming and waving their arms around.

Monday everyone was back to work, including the nanny so H and I had a relaxed morning and then went to a nearby box mall to try and find some sandals since I had failed in this mission before leaving home. We went several places, and were eventually successful - I managed to find a pair of flip flops at DSW that I thought would be comfortable enough to make it through our trip into the city. I also might have developed a little crush on a store called Crate and Barrel which sells all sorts of things I don't actually need but sure do think are pretty (and sometimes practical, you know, for those occasions in my life I need a punch bowl). Monday evening we just hung out and visited. H also pulled out his "big camera" (I'm not the only who complains he's always got that thing in my face!) and got some fabulous pics of his nieces and nephew before we headed off.

All in all a very successful visit to Suburbia!

chicago bound!

Well we're in the Saskatoon airport (welcome to the year 2008 Saskatoon, it's about time you got the internet) and so far our trip is going swimmingly.  We're flying AirCanada, always a real treat...  I miss you WestJet, I know you're rapidly expanding could you read my mind and please fly to my next unknown travel destination please?

Customs was super - I was selected for every random security check possible.  Which totally means I got asked if I'd prefer a private room for my groping.  Not wanting H to get the wrong idea, I declined, preferring to get my groping done out in public.  They're thorough!  I can say my chest has never been fondled in such a manner by another female before today.  My ankles either for that matter.  Little known fact - they also check your hair to make sure you're not hiding anything in there either.

H says he will be updating his blog on a daily basis while we're gone.  I plan on keeping us busy enough that there won't be time for such things, but I guess we shall see.  We will be updating our twitter accounts for the duration.

frustration, i am living it

So, among the many things I would like to get done this summer holiday season, close to top of the list actually, is to stain the deck.  Our deck is not huge, it's looking rather worse for wear, and we are having our housewarming this weekend so it seemed a reasonable goal - at the time - to get said staining done before Saturday.  Before Saturday really means before Thursday as that's when the Sidewalk Sale starts and I have agreed to work all day everyday with the promise of pretty underwear dangling over my head.

Not being a fan of manual labour (and an avid watcher of lame commercials) I decided using a pressure washer would be the best way to strip the old paint from the deck.  Borrowing a pressure washer was no problem.  Getting it to work...  For some reason this particular brand of pressure washer has a "male" piece where the garden hose should be attached.  Problem being, the garden hose, on it's free end is also a male bit.  No problem! says boyfriend, just go buy a coupler - turn the garden hose female and voila!  Actually purchasing a functioning coupler?  Two day adventure involving many stores.  Finally, thanks to Canadian Tire, problem solved.  

The pressure washing itself worked almost as good as I hoped.  I was hoping for a slightly higher paint removal ratio, but all the loose ugly stuff did come off.  Now I am totally ready to get my stain on.

Cue rain.  And more rain.  But, there's the sun!  Oh, no more sun, it's summer, what would the sun want to hang around outside drying off my deck for?  How bout grey and cloudy?  Things still dry when it's not rainy so I suppose it's acceptable.

Distraction - make a cheesecake!  (It looks SO good)

Finally, after waiting an entire half a day in the gloom, decide that if you start with the railing it's probably okay to start staining.  Hopefully by the time you get there those not quite dry floorboards and stairs will be ready for you.

The staining, it's easy!  So much better than anticipated.  Sure I'm banging my hand trying to get the sides of the rails, but the stain is covering really well, maybe even one coat well for this part.  Hey, it's the sun!  This isn't so bad, it's nice, it's sunny 50% of the time...

What?  Is that rain?  Serious?  I'm about 6 rails in, you have got to be kidding me.  It is rain.  Frick.

Does anyone know how to create a bubble, with hot air dryer over my deck?  Just til tomorrow...

life lessons

Some things I have learnt recently:

• gardening isn't as bad as I thought, especially if it happens almost by magic
  
• baking scoops are awesome (I bet they have a more technical name, but I don't know it)
  
• Canadian Tire does not sell metal potato mashers
  
• kids are just waiting for someone to call them on their BS, then they will pick up their socks (most of the time)
  
• pink lemonade + cupcakes = delicious
  
• females have to be twice as smart as males, even in the teaching profession, since for some reason we need to trick them into thinking everything was their idea.  this is not fair.
  
• ordering shoes online rules
  
• McNally has fabulous stationary
• who you are willing to cry in front of at work is a good indication of who you trust and respect
• picking my clothes up isn't that bad

Overheard in a basement in Saskatoon

Guy :  You're just like me, except that you're a chick and you're dirty.

(that's not clean dirty, not perverted dirty you bunch of sickos)

a little perspective

I'll admit it, I lost sight of the big picture.  I have become that teacher.  The one who is just. so. frustrated.  Your lack of effort?  It bothers me.  Please, there are 10 days left.  Could you just learn this last unit so we can all move on?

Friday, I followed a girl into the bathroom.  I wasn't particularly mad, but I did know she was going to the bathroom to text someone and I planned to catch her in the act.  You know, make her feel sheepish, cause some mild embarrassment and confiscate a phone for an hour or two.  Fun teacher stuff. (seriously, I LOVE catching kids with phones and making them live without them for a day.)  I was not expecting her to exit the stall in near hysterics.

What ensued was likely one of the hardest things I've had to deal with yet in my teaching career.  It's certainly something they don't prepare you for in University.  No one tells you what to do when a student comes forth and tells you their friend is being abused, mentally and possibly physically.  That your first reaction will be to want to go find that missing student, to make sure they are okay yourself.  That luckily you are slightly smarter than that and you will simply offer hugs and an escort down to student services because you sure hope they know what to do in such a situation.  That you will feel just as helpless as the teenagers themselves.  That you cannot imagine living with such a burden at 15.

Math seems very unimportant at times like these.  Two of my students have been carrying around this terrible knowledge and feeling of helplessness for 6+ months.  One has been living it.  In my naivete I blamed hormones, spring, turning 16, typical teenage stuff.  It's just all so much bigger than me and my classroom...