*cough gag*

Oh my GOD. Arnica gel smells like EVIL. Like EVIL DEATH! Not Evil Dead. Although maybe a zombie...

A Big List of Stuff

(rant)
I'm in this class. We're regurgitating the textbook in presentations and that's all the class is. Grr...the prof hasn't taught us anything all term. Also, we haven't had any feedback on any of our assignments, we're losing out 14+ hours of teaching time (out of a possible 36) and we have a quiz tomorrow. ARGH! Now I have several choices. I can take this quiz tomorrow (Friday) and having a four day weekend and only needing to go to school on Wednesday, taking it next Tuesday and having a three day weekend only needing to go in Wednesday or taking it Friday and needing to go in Tuesday, Wednesday AND Friday. I need to go in tomorrow anyway, so I think I'll decide when I get there. I emailed my prof and hopefully she'll give me my feedback. I'll be a lot less stressed if I know that I had a high enough mark that I could just not take the test and I'd still pass the course. It's only worth 25% of my mark and I need 76% to pass. Yuck.
(/rant)

I followed a raven yesterday. It was pretty cool. :D I also ate vast quantities of huckleberries after picking them myself, walked through a Japanese garden and looked at some beautiful museum objects. I looked at all of these pieces of art that were all so different, but they all had one thing in common. Someone, somewhere had a vision of beauty, and they took materials...clay, paint, wood or wool...and made these incredible representations of their thoughts. This...THIS is what I want to do.

Today I went through a community centre near Chinatown and learned about the work that they do, including a breakfast program for the children in the area. It was awesome. I'd been worried about getting into an inner city school when I finally had my own classroom, but now I'm almost HOPING to be put in a poorer section of the Lower Mainland. I've got a bunch of ideas for how to help my students. We also toured Chinatown, including a Taoist temple. It was really neat! I burned some incense and said a prayer while there were seven or eight people (monks and nuns?) chanting and ringing chimes. It was truly amazing.

This has been a pretty spiritual week. Between ravens and museums and gardens and incense and picking my own food, I'm feeling awfully serene, despite the annoyance of this class. Could this be because I've only got two more class days??? I think it might be!

Also! I have an auction up on ebay via my friend...Phantom of the Opera tickets...fifth row, August 11th. If you're interested, please bid, or let other people know that they're there. Thank you!

Pender-Day 2

Yesterday received a sunburn on my shoulders...not too bad. Yes, I did indeed wear sunscreen. We saw a bald eagle flying, a bunch of jellyfish at the dock, hawks, deer and different types of butterflies. I think one was a swallowtail, but I'd have to look that up. Pretty sure I saw a monarch.

Last night I was asleep before midnight. Dave was cleaning up the kitchen a little bit, then came to get me. We went out to the front patio where I lay down on a reclining chair and looked up at billions of stars. It was incredible.

Today so far we've played nine holes of disc golf, scored some free books at a really nifty recycling centre, saw MORE deer (one of which I got a couple pictures of) and are now eating lunch in preparation for more disc golf later in the day. I'm about to go looking online to see what school distric Pender is in so that I can apply here too. I'm completely enamoured.

Sorry!

The Day post is on its way, I swear.

Last year around this time, Dave gave me a wonderful gift. I had told him at the beginning of our relationship (four years ago, now. wow.) that I didn't like getting cut flowers as presents because I hate watching them die. I don't really have room for potted indoor plants either. So last year, Dave bought me four rose bushes. :D They're potted just outside my front door, so that I can take them with my when I move out. It's awesome to be greeted by a new rose or bud whenever I leave in the morning. :)

Recent roses that have emerged:

Boot Camp Blogging

Assuming my computer doesn't crash, as of this posting, I've managed to turn out at least a little bit of drivel each day this month. Wow. It seems to have flown right by. I've only got a day and a half left this week, so I've now only got three weeks left in my practicum. I've been doing 80-100% for the last three weeks (that's pretty much six lessons with one lesson to do prep each day). I can't believe it's almost over. I've learned so much. I can't believe it. My confidence in my teaching has wavered, then gotten stronger, over and over...each time getting even stronger than previously. I've taught when I was exhausted, sick, exhausted AND sick, upset and euphoric. Generally, I've been patient (I haven't told any stories in this medium about my personal little terror, whom I will refer to as "Subject 392-B" in the future.) with a few exceptions. I don't think I've scarred anyone for life (not even Subject 392-B, who was sent to the "Thinking Chair", and was promptly forgotten for twenty minutes. Oops. In my defense, it was actually quiet for the first time that week. I was slightly delirious.)

Enough with the patting of myself on the back...time for some stuff!

Apparently there's another army themed exercise program. Interesting...I'll have to look into this further. I've actually said in the past that I would like to be in the army, or an actress or stunt double whose job consists of getting into kick ass shape. (yes, I'm grossly oversimplifying all of these jobs. I know. Quiet.)

One of our butterflies came out of its chrysalis today. It was so very cool! It looks like a couple others might crack out tonight, but hopefully they'll hold off until we can watch. I spent a lot of time staring into the tank they're in today and someone commented on it. I'm funny (and in a multitude of other ways) in that I sometimes cannot sit or stand still, but other times I can spend an hour and a half kneeling in front of a fish tank to watch guppies swim around, or chrysalides sit there and "cook" their butterflies.

I got a lot of comments about my outfit today.
R (one of my K's, heavy accent, and speech difficulty...you may remember him from here)
*R points in the vicinity of my belly* "Hey! Nice! Where'd you get, (just my last name pronounced "Hay-bow")?"
"Thank you, R. I got it from a friend of mine."
*R ponders a moment and points at his shoes* "My mom get!"

S (someone I coach at track): "Why do you look so formal?"

Teacher: "You look too nice to coach track today!"
Me: "I know! I mean, thanks! I meant, I know that I'm dressed up...oh, never mind."

According to the ingredient list, the tea I am about to consume includes various plants with sedative properties that I'm familiar with, but it also contains rosebuds. Now correct me if I'm wrong (which I'm not) but isn't it a common practice to put roseHIPs in tea? They're very high in vitamins and other good things, as they're the fruit of the rose tree/bush/plant. The rose bud, however, is the unopened flower of the rose tree/bush/plant. I'm befuddled. Cat? Have you heard anything about using rosebuds? Maybe it's for the colour? I just don't know.

Edit: Well, I'll be damned. Turns out one can learn things all the time. (Those were on the first twelve google results. I'm stopping now, running out of words to link from.)

Sunburns

Yesterday was interesting. My sponsor teacher was sick (whoops.) and so I was supposed to have a substitute because legally I'm not allowed to be in a classroom completely by myself with no one in the school to supervise me. There was a screwup with the system though, and I didn't have a sub for the morning. All was fine, and there were many people checking in on me throughout the morning. I was supposed to teach most of the lessons at that time anyway. The afternoon was interesting as well. There was a district wide earthquake drill which involved us being on the field for 45 minutes. That's a really long time for six year olds. I got a little sunburn on my face. But all was well and the kids were really good while we were out there.

Then today was massive giant garbage pickup day. The whole school got gloves and went around the community picking up litter. It was fun, and got us out of the school between recess and lunch. Then, since it was a half day, the kids all went home.

The End.

Oh, right. Illness update. I took my roofie cold medicine last night, and was out cold in half an hour. Forget sleeping pills! I'm just going to take a Contact-C. I'm feeling better than I did yesterday...I even went out in the garden for an hour and a half and attacked dandelions and planted vegetable seeds. This year I have somewhat of a machinegun/Darwin approach to gardening...ignore how far apart stuff is supposed to be and just scatter seeds around. Something's bound to grow. The last few years I actually tried doing the whole "row" thing, but meh. Too tired and chaotic this year.

And now because I'm completely insane, I'm going to go see a movie with Dave and Jeff. I'd better take a non-roofie pill because otherwise I'll irritate everyone with coughing like crazy. I hope that the popcorn smell isn't going to make me sick...last Monday I was very ill...and I'd just eaten popcorn. Mmm...taste aversion. :P