I wish everyone a happy holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, hava a "Kwazy Kwanzaa" and all the other holidays going on at the same time. Yes, even Festivus(c).
I sent a number of people different sets of photo greetings. Hope you didn't find them too ugly...
A very considerate and thoughtful secondary 5 student, whose 4 or 5 other siblings also attend the school, brought me this cute gingerbread house. He said it was a tradition in his family for each of them to bring their homeroom teachers a gingerbread house. It was so touching I was almost in tears. :') 
I have been working my butt off (or maybe not) with catching up with work. It is mostly figuring out what I am supposed to teach and where exactly we are supposed to be caught up to. I am most afraid of not being able to get everything done by the time exams come around, and not having taught material well enough. Secondly, I am still tearing my hair out at my wild and unruly secondary 4 combined science class (ie. both 416 and 436 physical science). What I am least concerned about is my bedtime. ... Besides, I can always catch up a bit with the hour long bus rides to and fro.
School is out on the 22nd, which means I have about 2 days of Christmas shopping to commence! Fortunately, I have 4 classes in total left to teach, and a talent show in the afternoon of the 22nd to judge.
Additionally, I am going to driving practice, and my third lesson will be tomorrow afternoon. I haven't driven into snowbanks yet, but it seems that this could be a headline within the next few days...
Would you know it? I'm also terrible at games.
Balloon Duel - The great NES game revived as a modern-day Flash tribute. Customizations galore!
Snopes - If you ever send me another chain letter, I will smash your heads in...to this web site, which details how useless thsoe emails are. This site mostly debunks many (if not most) urban legends.
I got so caught up in the customizations for Balloon Duel that I made an ugly sketch of my two characters, the girl Seamus (yes, I know that it's a boy's name), and little Naruto. It is possible to make a Naruto character! Yes!!! 
Note that I am terrible at geography.
Geosense - Compete against others online or play on your own! Possible slow servers. This game is hard because the scores are calculated to how close you are to the city.
Geography Olympics - Represent your country (or mess up other people's countries) and compete up to 3 times a day! This game is not quite as hard as the above, because it only asks for the country. On the other hand, the controls are rather wonky.
If you really have no clue! This is where I started, and it makes for a reasonably good tutor. Now I know the differences between Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan. If I can do it, you can too! Note that I still can't spell, and had to look up the names.
(Mind you, I'm not the one who wanted to write one in the first place. It's for certain parents-in-law-to-be. And I won't guarantee that the items will be anything serious.)
So far, I haven't taught any classes yet. Despite being in class for an entire week, I didn't have the heart to. It's not because I'm not ready (but at this rate I may not be actually ready by Monday), but namely because the teacher whom I am replacing isn't ready to go yet either. It's a sad, sad story only readily told by imaginary and wildly exaggerated dialogue.
Me: Ok, I'm all set! New teacher on her way!
K: Ah, I can't leave teaching! I've only retired twice already!
Me: You're such an excellent teacher, it's a shame you have to go on sick leave...
K: Well, you can sit tight and I'll take up this last week. Besides I have many loose ends that can't be tied by you anyway.
Me: Argh! I'm going to have huge shoes to fill when you go! How the crap will I ever do such miraculous work on these fuxx0red kids?
K: I'll be back intermittently anyway.
School board: [Ominous and booming voice] By the way, we want to shut this school down by the end of this year.
Me: AARRGGHH! OMFGWTFJHCFFF!!!
Yes, you heard right. The school board doesn't have another plan for the high school so they may end up shutting it down. I think it's a really big shame because the kids will have to be shipped off to the downtown schools (which are about 2 hours away and have triple the school population). The atmosphere in this school is much better (virtue of small schools) and the kids get along so well that a majority of lockers don't have locks on them.
There's a meeting for everyone in the community on Saturday about the future of the high school; but since I only started this week on a replacement contract, I don't have any say in the thing. (ie. I could go, but I wouldn't get to do anything there.)
This weekend I'm working on writing lesson plans until December 22. I don't ever remember doing so much stuff in Math 536... WTF indeed!
It took me three hours. :) 
And now my favourite part of taking photos of people: I like my friends so much that I enjoy catching them on camera when they're not watching. 
I had a much better picture previously but I decided to upload this one. (... do you believe me? I wouldn't.) 
I admit, Davie doesn't look like he's sulking in this picture. ;) 
A poor attempt at camera fun. 
Vieux-Quebec is a bit deserted at this time of the year, since it's grey, dull, and quite chilly for a fall. The following pictures are of Rue St-Jean, probably the most frequented tourist street in Vieux-Quebec due to its large number of stores and approximity to the big Gate. 
Rue St Jean 
Even the paving stones were kind of dull. 
Contrary to what you see, there is no snow in Quebec. Really. 
... For a jet-lagged person, she sure has a lot of vile, festering pus-filled words to impart. (It only took a few hours, really.)
Anyway, I still don't have much to say yet so I'll post some pictures instead.
where he owns another dwelling that is vacant or offered for rent on the date fixed for repossession, and that is of the same type as that occupied of the lessee, situated in the same neighbourhood and at equivalent rent.
Having very little to do in the evening and currently very busy hands (despite the blister asplosion), I went about looking for a fix for our old Nintendo system. We have the old "blinking problem" and the "stupid rusted connectors" problem. Many web sites recommend the following things:
I spent the last several days out in the sunny south called Montreal. How warm it was compared to this Quebec. Yeah. No. Well, somewhere in between. Actually, when I got back last night, it had snowed here at some point, so there were some icy patches and white fluff lying about here and there.
I managed to burn myself while making supper on Thursday for us (including Jorgh's brother and girlfriend). Blotches of hot oil will immediately cause burns because it doesn't evaporate and likes to spread itself on your body. You know, like hot oil massages. Mmm mmm... ... I'm not a masochist. Really.
But it was worth it! I made a butternut squash soup, courtesy of the Kraft Kitchens. Basically, since Caroline is vegetarian, I figured that she wouldn't mind a hearty soup made of a local (doubtful) gourd. And I admit that I took a long time to finish cooking the stir fry and the tomato-egg dishes, but only because the stove element seemed to be malfunctioning.
But I was upset with Jorgh's brother's remarks after he volunteered for the dish duty, It fell along the lines of "WTF if I had known it'd be this messy/long/inconvenient then I'd have just ordered out." And my reaction was more like a muffled "OMFGWTF IS HE ASKING FOR A BEATING LATER FFFF???"
Seroiusly, this is *not* what you want to hear after spending 3 hours in the kitchen.
Tho the tables were turned on him on Saturday, because he and his girl friend decided to repay (?) us by making a spinach flaky thing. (I forgot what it's called.) It took them 2 hours to figure out what to buy, and 3 hours to cook it. But strangely (and masochistically) enough, at the end, he also said the same remark as above. I think if his girl friend wasn't seriously second-guessing herself before this incident, then she probably is doing it now.
Or not. I find couples which compose of one strong-minded character will have the other quite complacent and flexible to a point. The stronger one extreme, the more the other will compensate to the other extreme.
At least that's my experience...
I had lots of fun seeing my old SUMS-ite friends on Friday night for supper. Norm, Vito, Derrick, Ivo, Donnah, Jorgh and I partook of the chinatown 8 person peking duck meal (while Davey, Lisa's younger brother, sulked and claimed he wasn't hungry but we forced him to eat something just for the sake of it).
Afterwards, we had a romp in Old Montreal with ice cream, and continued our rampage downtown to Tim Hortons on Rene Levesque, near University. It was a great evening. :D
I think I have pictures. I will get around to uploading a few later on today. (I have an excuse this time!)
So being a nocturnal creature recently, I went to bed this morning at 6 a.m. which turned out to be a very stupid idea. I got a call at 7 a.m. from the nearby (English) elementary school and they asked for me to arrive at 8:30 a.m. It's a good thing it is close by, otherwise I think I'd be dead by now.
It was a replacement for a team teacher (who works on alternate days) whose son was very sick so she had to go home today. The instructions were quite lengthy but comprehensible. I don't think the problem today was the lesson plans.
The kids were grade levels 3 and 4. One of the things I immediately noted was that kids in elementary school are so small and fragile, yet can act so brashly and disastrously. I had to "break up" at least 7 fights during the day, between the same handful of kids. Was it becasue they didn't think they were observed by a teacher? Were they just ignorant of their actions? Or did they think that I didn't know any better?
After getting 3 different people to intervene in the class during the day, the kids still didn't understand that they were driving me STARK RAVING MAD. I tried to start the kids at the "do it for your teacher and her sick kid" level of cooperation, but it quickly escaladed to "OMFGWTF STOP TOUCHING THAT GIRL THERE YOU DISGUSTING LITTLE BOY!!!"
The staff didn't blame me for the disastrous day. I was informed that this class was indeed a "bit tough" and "had problems with a previous substitute," but they didn't learn their lesson so they're going to be forced to each write me a letter of apology tomorrow. That'll teach them. Yeah.
By the way, I can't believe how much BS comes out of kids. Don't ever trust a kid to tell you the truth in a classroom situation.
I tried to get the car started, considering that no one's used it for two weeks and it's been dipping below freezing point. Lo and behold, it had problems. Fortunately, I used my very limited knowledge of cars (actually, I looked in the manual) and managed to get it to start. There's about 4 cm of snow on the car here. 
On Saturday, it snowed in the morning. This is a view of the backyard. (The neighbour cut down the huge tree in his yard during the summer, and this is all that remains of it. Then our landlord decided to do the same thing and cut down another huge tree in the backyard. Now there's way too much sun coming in the building. I can't wait until the winter really comes and blows at us like a hurricane.) 
You may have noticed at the top of many Blogspot pages that there is a bar with a button to the far right, labelled "Next Blog"... But what it really is is a randomizer. I was using this to browse other blogs that choose to be viewed publically within the Blogger sphere.
What I see isn't very pretty.
There are certain categories of blogs that exist; the political blog (usually consisting of American politics), the angsty teen blog, the cutesy incomprehensible teen blog, the one entry blog saying "I'm going to write something soon" dated last year, and the ever disgusting and polluting Google-Spamming Blog. (If you don't know what it is, just try looking up anything on Google. Like maybe "travel", "bargain" and a random country name.)
But not all the blogs are terrible representations of the human psyche. I occasionally stumble upon some interesting (English) blogs whose authors are fascinating, humourous, shocking, heart-wretching, and sometimes intelligent. I won't put any links to these blogs because I tend to just browse, read, and forget where they are later on. (You know me.)
Davy says that reading blogs can be addictive (or I think that's what he said). Although I agree with him, I don't really see why he keeps reading this blog... ;) My fanbase is cute and loyal, but I'm not into writing blog entries because I want to sound smart or inspired. (Far from that... I want to sound like an idiot.)
I watched a program today on TLC called 14 Children and Pregnant Again, a look at Jim Bob Dugger's family from Arkansas. Yes, they have 15 kids. It's a charming but also disturbing look at the logistics and social aspects behind a large family. Just to reiterate some of the FAQ's from the show:
Besides getting up and hearing that those votes were still being counted, I spent the last hour shivering in my room. Where's the heating, dammit?
A piece of good news; the Quebec buses are no longer on strike as of today. So I can technically go outside and enjoy the autumn in old city... but that would require 4.20$ and I need that money to go sub at DDO tomorrow. :) (On the other hand, the fact that the bus drivers are getting a 15% raise is not settling well in my poor-assed commuter belly.)
In other news, my brother and sister should have arrived in HK yesterday evening. I hope they bring back lots of pictures and things because I'm tired of being left behind. :(
I went on a short trip to Montreal and got back to Quebec yesterday evening. I attended a food-filled Hallowe'en party at Lil V's, which was quite refreshing for me because I haven't seen anyone in months. (I wonder if living in real isolation is anything like this.) I'll be posting the pictures from the party in my album later today. :)
Naturally, I wasn't looking forward to coming back here. But I have to. The landlord is getting on my nerves, looking for my mum (who already left two weeks ago). The mail has to be collected. The plants are dying, and that's only after missing one watering. ;_; And on top of that, I'm supposed to be looking for a job, otherwise I'd be in HK with the rest of them already.
This morning I was awoken by the secretary of DDO calling to ask for my references. Good sign. Except I didn't know where they were at the moment, so I said I'd call her back. (Not to mention that I just woke up and was disoriented...) Amazingly, a few seconds later the landlord came knocking on the door again, and I answered. We spent about 10 minutes talking about the situation (omitting that my mum isn't in the country right now). After a few more words of discomfort, he left. I called the secretary afterwards and gave her my references. (Hopefully more-than-a-year-old contacts aren't going to be too outdated.)
Most likely, things look to the up-and-up. The last thing on my agenda today is to clean the house and laundry. The last item on my mind that is making me quite nervous is the obvious item of the day. Perhaps I should turn to a more trusted news source...
My cute Jorghnassen was very nervous the entire trip and back, but he managed to drive us to the cemetery on Thursday to visit papa for his birthday without causing any traffic accidents. One guy honked out of his imbecilic nature, but overall Jorgh did a good job of driving after 4 years of not driving.
On another note, I got a response from the idiots at the french school board. Just as expected, it was a rejection notice (what else could it be?) but I didn't even predict it would be as bad as it is actually written. It's so bad that it's ridiculous. It's a form letter for sure, probably made from a program with a bunch of tick-boxes, which they decided to tick all the negative things. They went into a shitload of BS about how I didn't take into consideration of the students, or their socio-cultural and economic backgrounds, or how I didn't show that I was competent in any shape or form, blah blah blah... This from a 15 minute interview in a language where I have absolutely no possibility of expressing myself properly.
I find this hilarous but also very maddeningly disgusting.
After spending about 6 months back here in Quebec, I am rather disappointed by its offerings. A right-wing (ADQ, leader Mario Dumont) politician was elected in our provincial riding in September. The RTC (formerly the STCUQ) is on strike this week, thereby dooming the entire city of 600 000 to ride the bus during the brief window of rush hour (at 1/3 reduction of service) during the weekdays ONLY.
What I am most disappointed in is the lack of internet-based news sites about Quebec City. I'm not talking about the bullitens that the National Assembly, or other Quebec government sites set out, but just plain effing news.
Montreal Web Blog is a decent enough news/commentary site that is varied enough to keep even me interested in what is going on in Montreal. It has a link to a Quebec City blog, called Québec urbain, that is probably going to be the closest to a news blog there will be in this city.
I don't mind that everyone is French-speaking and probably hardly ever see anglos or immigrants miling around town. I don't even mind that some can't speak English, or hold preconceived notions about other cultures and ethnicities. But posts like the third one down from this thread really piss the living crap out of me. Especially when people like that choose to hide their identity behind the anonimity of the internet.
Fortunately, sentiments like those don't ring true of the majority of the population. I prefer to think that among the people who live in this very bureaucratic city, the majority is in fact highly educated and well-informed... well, except that majority who decided to elect the ADQ. (But this is Vanier, so I don't think there's much to wonder here.)
Today: Hot cocoa the not-so-instant style
Comments: Most people have some inkling for a hot chocolate (a.k.a. drinking chocolate, or even a cup of brown in water), or some sort of hot drink, when the temperature decreases dramatically. In this case, I was bored. Let me impart the details of its creation:
I spent Wednesday to Friday supply teaching at a school in Shannon (ie. Valcartier Base settlement). One of the most obvious things about it is that it's far. Far enough for people to utter "WTF!?" It's a small school with probably 300 students at most, and combined elementary and high schools in one building. The saddest part about the school is that it shows its age, without seemingly much renovation to help it out. I figure that the newest things about the school structurally are the temporary classrooms built at the elementary school section that they've been using for about 2 years.
The kids are generally similar to other kids that I have taught in Montreal, except for the noticeable lack of ethnic diversity. I was bombarded with many "How many languages can you speak?" questions, which naturally accompanied the "Can you speak Chinese for me?" questions. For three straight days.
My favourite part of subbing at this school was the genuine comraderie of the teachers at both levels, along with administration. No one was ever made to feel out of place, even the subs. My least favourite part of subbing (or maybe even teaching for that matter) was my lack of classroom management, especially among the younger grades. I was assured that the students were the ones at fault, but I am stubborn and I refuse to believe that it could be anyone else's fault but my own (except for exceptional circumstances). The only times the students would be calm and follow directions was when a teacher would step in and intervene, or when one of the teachers came to observe.
There is probably no deeper shame I harbour in my profession than not being able to fix my CM problems. I have almost no other problems in teaching; I'm certainly well versed in the maths and sciences (despite my misgivings about the McGill program), and coming up with new ideas and projects is one of the great joys of teaching. I am quite interested in curricular reform, while I still hold in respect the traditional methods of teaching.
So why in the world would a university teaching program not require the CM course? And why the crap isn't there something intuitive about CM? (Well, not intuitive to myself; there are countably many people in the world who are naturally gifted with this quality.)
This is my main stumbling block. My dear readers may be thinking, "WTF!? How in the world did you pass your field experiences then?" Well, the short answer is I didn't... my 3rd year cooperating teacher didn't pass me on that part, which was 1/4 of the categories he was grading me on. But he passed me overall, which led me to the 4th year field experience... where the 4th year cooperating teacher decided that despite my weakness, it would be a shame to prevent me from being a teacher. In fact, I agree with both of these cooperating teachers; for inept duds like myself, it takes time to develop an effective classroom management procedure.
So hopefully by doing enough substitution now, I might get the hang of something that will work for myself. At this school, I tried very ineffetively using the teacher's established discipline procedure with very laughable* results...! (*On hindsight only.)
Why didn't I do this before at the previous field experiences? Well, for the 3rd, it is probably understandable since I never taught before, and for the 4th, the students were rather better-tempered. Since I am now outside my cycle of the education system (and entering into the students' cycles of education) I feel like it's time to really stop moping about and do something about this horrible mess.
What I like the most out of teaching is working with students to help them learn. The most satisfying feeling is when I can see in their faces that they truly understand (and not just pretend to), but the second most satisfying is when they ask me for help.
Time to borrow some books from the library!
After needlessly bawling my brains out yesterday and exchanging some kind words, like the attention whore I usually am, I understand what people's concerns are about. No, I won't be throwing myself off tall structures or anything like that. Heaven forbid I bring everyone I know so much misery after all the pain I caused myself.
I think it suffices to say that I've stayed in Quebec long enough and I'd rather move out. Rather, mind you.
But there's a bit of a catch right now; the landlord is currently evicting us (from this disgusting apartment we stayed in for over 10 years) by June. We need a new place to go. Well, I think that if I ever manage to attain a full time position somewhere, it'd be time to buy ... a HOUSE.
No longer being nomadic or driven insane by landlords, other tenants, crazy drivers... ... ... now I'm just scratching my head...
Anyway, lots of options await me. But in the meantime I have a few intermediate goals:
Warning: Total angst post ahead. If you don't want to read about depressing things, just skip it.
There's something terribly, terribly wrong with me. I know it. Everyone knows it. Even complete strangers who just met me know it. Blame it on society. Blame it on disease, distortion, or demotivation. Hell, if you want you can blame it on my mum.
I refuse to put blame on anything or anyone else anymore. It's all my fault.
I have been stubborn and very decidedly untrue to myself. I have also been a terrible coward. Inside my head is the voice of self-doubt and the fear of rejection and failure.
I chose teaching as a profession at first when I considered it, because I had no other idea what to do. It was clear at the time that I had to choose something that would offer a stable and profitable job with a kind of income that my parents were expecting, and that wouldn't rely on my fading mental capacities.
I was terrible at school despite my marks and despite what talents people attributed to me. I was raised with very high expectations and the fear of disappointment of everyone around me. I underestimated myself when things were moving faster and work was harder, and thus I find myself today completely lost.
Don't get me wrong; I'm saying that it's neither easy nor hard to get a degree in science, nor to pass all the field experiences in a high school. I literally failed my way through university. I worked half-assed through my math courses, walking away with absolutely nothing retained. I struggled painfully through physics courses like walking on glass shards.
But the most painful of all was the field experiences. Going to education classes is a joke, really. I mean, how else could I have passed them all? But the field experiences is the biggest test of all the choices that led me up to those moments.
And lo on the day of judgement, the second child of Man messed up and fuxx0red the interview time. Thus forgiveness bound on breast of the interviewer and rescheduled the damnable thing to the next day, Friday at the eighth and one-half hour of the day.
So I was minding my own business this morning, shuffling around preparing for my family to arrive later this evening. (At this moment, Eddie, Rebecca, and Alex are stuck in traffic out in Montreal, being Thanksgiving weekend and all...) I had just cleaned some dishes, and satisfied with chores at the moment. 
Then suddenly I heard a loud noise, equivalent to a belch. I was unsure what happened so I investigated the sink. It is as you see here. Needless to say, I was not amused. 
I tried to flush it out with water, but as you see here, it didn't help. So I took the plunger and made one mighty plunge... which promptly released the water and crap, but broke the plunger. So much for being handy-dandy. By the way, it smelled as bad as it looks. I don't even want to know what it was.
It appears that the thing I was an extra in this summer is actually going to air this holiday season. Now remember, I was the one in a purple pompom hat and a grey coat. Or the asian girl. Whichever one you might see in one scene. It's supposed to be freaking cold but in real life I was melting in 30 degree weather in a wool coat.
Today: Ms C's craptastic apple pie, a.k.a. cardboard with fruit
Comments: After the (ill-fated?) success of the last blueberry pie, Jorghnassen insisted that we create a pie just for ourselves, while he was in town this weekend. So we (and by "we" I mean "I") set about trying to recreate the pastry with my mum's "recipe" (basically, her shouting out what quantities of which ingredients that seemingly "fits" regardless of the actual recipe) with very traumatic results.
Review: Seeing as the key ingredient in a good pastry is lard (sorry, no vegetable substitute here), we made sure there was plenty. And there was plenty. Which should be the case, as no one ever came up with a "diet pie" that was anything close to the real thing without the good fat.
Overall, the pastry became disgusting and dry... due to me trying to make the pastry become better than a pile of lard and flour. It wouldn't hold together so I finally gave up and spatula-ed the mess onto the pie plate.
Saving grace: egg wash. Makes any gross pastry a golden less-than-eyesore.
Rating: -0.5 / 5 ... it is still edible but barely...
This used to be a patch of bush and such that little birdies and bugs could frolic, make babies, and drive out hawks and crows and such. Then developers bought it and turned it into condo land. This is a growing trend around this area - no longer the boonies, it is now suburbia. :(
FUN FACT!:
In a normal day, whatever that may be around here, I will either piss off or be piss off by mama at least two hundred times.
FUN FACT! #2:
Most, if not all, student-teachers who graduate after university don't give a crap about their parents afterwards and get bombarded with job offers at their desired locations.
FUN FACT!!!11!!:
Ontario teacher certification suxx0rs.
The most retarded thing about living in Quebec is that there are huge bike paths sprawling across the city, but none that actually go from "down" town (which is pretty much anywhere except near the St-Lawrence river) to uptown, which ironcally is downtown. I am left with about 4 paths to hazard...
1) go uphill from St. Sacrement, a huge S-shaped road that weaves itself through some thickets and such, while inclining at about 15% or something huge. The advantage is that you can be relatively assured that no one will run you over from intersections, as there are none. (This leads up to Holland and Chemin Ste Foy, which is relatively busy.)
2) go uphill from Marie l'incarnation, which is like riding a gravel pit. There is an intersection at the first bend, and another one at the second bend, which have neither lights nor very patient drivers. Also has about 15% incline but sprawled out a bit further.
3) go really really far east until the railroad tracks cross with the road, then bear part of the highway south to take a less inclined path (I believe, I haven't tried this yet), then go back west. This would probably take a good hour longer than the first two paths.
4) go really really far west along the smaller tributary river (St Charles) until reaching the old port. Then maniacally head up the old city streets, or head out around the tip to go up the even crazier 30% incline to the Plains of Abraham.
Being the weak bastard I am, I never managed to make it up any of these hills without collapsing after 1 minute of pedalling. What happens is that I end up walking most of the hill, watching most of the Olympic-trained bikers pass by upwards effortlessly, and then relax when I get to the top. The fun part is going down - my brakes don't work very well.
Mama's being all pissy again. This is her point of view.
1) I am too stupid and ignorant of the "real world," I can't communicate properly, and I can't "yell at the kids" to "make them listen to me," thus I will never be a good teacher, or any kind of teacher whatsoever.
2) She has known enough people in her lifetime that she knows how people should act in certain roles. Which is also why I will never be a good teacher.
3) I sit around at home doing godknowswhat because I enjoy it, and I don't do any jobhunting whatsoever.
4) The internet is stupid and high-speed cable is completely useless because it's too expensive.
She went on and on into a huge blanket lecture (yell?) about how I will never amount to any sort of teacher and that I should just do whatever, and sometimes lie in job applications... especially to be hired as a secretary (or whatnot) since it apparently doesn't matter that the job qualifications state that you have to be vocationally trained in secretarial studies.
Today: Nestle Nesquik Strawberry Flavoured Syrup (a.k.a. radioactive red goop)
Comments: I don't know why mama bought it, but it's been in the fridge long enough. Anyway, I went out to buy 4 L of milk and my mama yelled at me for getting so much when I'll be the only one to drink it.
Review: The syrup is translucent, thick, and very red. Kids love eating things that are red or chocolatey-brown. I'm sure if they were told that "natural" red food colouring comes from insects, they'd still eat it. Anyway, the ingredients are basically sugar, corn syrup, glucose/fructose (etc.), water, and red. The bottle is cute though - it's the notorious Quik Bunny (now renamed Nesquik Bunny I suppose), happily guzzling down huge glassfuls of syrup-flavoured milk the same size as itself.
The syrup nestles itself very snugly at the bottom of the glass of milk. Using my cute birthday present from Jorgh's parents, a "milk frother," I very quickly turned my drink a mysterious shade of pink. The overall experience is rather unsettling. Slight strawberry flavour is present, but it tastes like sweet milk. I enjoy chocolate milk as much as the next non-lactose-intolerant individual, but I have frightening memories of receiving a glass of milk with a good inch of undissolved sugar at the bottom of it. Needless to say, I'd rather be having the chocolate-sugar mix.
Rating: 3/5 just for being an interesting distraction.
Eddie asked me to take a picture of myself in the cute jacket set that he and Rebecca gave as a graduation present. I don't have the pants from the set in this photo, but I am wearing some, yes.
Now that I have nearly unlimited uploading and hosting for my Yahoo photo album, and this nifty Hello picture thingy feature, I have noticeably slacked off in the photo editing department. Why? Well, it's time consuming for sure, but it's not like I didn't enjoy doing it. It's because of one thing: this computer is f@#$ing too slow.
Let's say I want to take a picture of about 600 x 400 pixels. That's pretty near the max resolution of my camera anyway. Suppose I take it to Photoshop 7, which takes a minute to load, and then play around with it. A complicated filter that could take about 5 seconds on an average PC of today takes damn near 5 minutes to run on this machine.
I try to tell Photoshop to select certain blobs of an image and it'll sit and think for a moment. "Well," the computer thinks aloud, "I think this person wants me to take this selection, but I'm not sure if th-" The mouse slips and I click by accident something else. "Holy sh#@&$*!" the computer bleeps, "M#$%!#&^?@!!!" Sparks fly, small explosions and mushroom clouds, you know the rest.
In short, I like computers. Even this one. I think I'll take it outside and shoot it.
So just to keep this blog supposedly HIGH OCTANE UPDATED!!!1111! I am uploading another picture of when I was cleaning up my room a few weeks ago. This is how my computer was being used for a week. No desk, no chair. On the upside, I could claim that this configuration drove me to actually start cleaning my room.
Yes I was attempting to post pictures on my blog, since I figure it'll get me more comments to my posts. I'm using Hello (?) software which was bought out by our good friend Google, and this allows me to share photos online with people AND get free hosting for photos in my blog. Isn't that something? :)
I am trying to put together a Hollies collection for my mum since she's such a big fan of them... and other old 60s bands. (That reminds me... SNL and BeeGees made us all sing "Nights on Broadway" like it was hip again.)
One of the songs is "He Ain't Heavy (He's My Brother)." Of course, no one can listen to this without the visual imagery of a boy carrying another boy (at least larger than the former) and get all tingly inside. This pretty much details the origins of this song as well.
"But I'm stroooonnnggg... strong enough to caaarrrrr-rrryyyy him..."
I have my own imagery when I listen to this song; it's of me carrying Big Pu on my back from Shatner to Burnside when he somehow passed out in Shatner, for some odd reason I forget now. I think it was because he forgot to eat or somthing strange.
Indeed, he wasn't that heavy, but mostly because "he's my brooootherrrrrrr."
I hope you're doing well, wherever you are in Japan, Big Pu. :)
After bringing home nearly all of my Montreal effects, save large furniture I loaned to my brother for his use, I realized how much complete crap I have in total. Five years worth of textbooks, notes, course packs, and other looseleaf is accumulated in my living room and quarters. Another lot of papers, electronic equipment, toys :) , presents, and such are scattered around here still.
I'm completely baffled as to how to deal with all this mess. I have a dinky desk with very little space for my computer. On top of that, now I need to get a printer since my brother took his all-in-one.
The bookshelf is so fragile looking and old that I doubt it would hold up all these damn textbooks. I have way too many notes for it to look anything but messy in the bookcase. And I don't even want to think about sticking everything under the bed, like I used to do.
Would I count as a candidate for "Clean Sweep"?
Probably not since I don't have a job. :( And I live in a crap-assed apartment anyway.
A Big Fat Lie?
The more I keep searching for a job (online, which is my only tool at the moment), the more disenfranchised I get. I keep having that nagging thought that everyone @#$!ing lied to me throughout university. Particularly in the Education program.
School boards have a weird hiring policy. They don't take just anyone who waltzes by with qualifications. Really. Despite what newspapers and administration say. They have a list of people they put on the side during the year. When the need arises for a replacement, or something less permanent, they look at the list. The people on top are those who have more experience. The people in the middle are those who sorta have experience. The people on bottom are silly people like myself who decided to start teaching at this time.
And it doesn't even matter what you are qualified to teach. The one school board last month called me for a French teaching position. {I'm not even going to start on that one.)
I have two bachelors. My life is/was? geared towards using these two credentials (and the permit to teach that is hanging on my wall) to get my foot into some position for the betterment of society, through the instruction of the young 'uns. Seriously. It has been this way from as far back as I can remember having concious, non-idiotic, unselfish thoughts. Which didn't happen often, but did happen somewhat during early school years. [If you think I'm BSing this stuff, you should come by and rummage my box 'o crap in the basement.]
But now I am at the barricade. Not the crossroads. Not the freaking superhighway. Not even a stinking orange pylon in the middle of the gravel pit of a path. It's a freaking police barricade.
I contemplate. Surely, a province with supposedly a shortage of qualified mathematics and science teachers would be pounding at the door? And this province would also be crying softly in the corner for the wave upon wave of teachers retiring? And as such, there are even fewer new teachers who wish to isolate themselves in the rural regions of the motherland to teach her children?
All the stuff I pondered about above was fed to us during my several years in this B. Ed. I'm not saying that it couldn't be true. I'm reiterating that I feel like I've been led astray and everyone wanted me to go through this program just to give them an extra ten grand of my life. Or just to laugh at me.
So what I hate the most about working at a buffet? Safety hazards. And skinny people stuffing their faces with deep fried blobs of fat. And bastard coworkers.
Yesterday night I had the misfortune of slipping on the wet floor and smacking the back of my hand on a table corner. It immediately grew into a giant purple bubble that hurt like mad. The traditional chinese method of tending these kinds of injuries, no matter how painful, is to RUB IT HARD UNTIL IT TURNS RED.
Which is what I did.
Then this morning my thumb was no longer swollen in a single bump. No, it was swollen ALL OVER. It's stiff but not too painful. I can't seem to do much with it though. But it doesn't matter. I already broke a small bowl today from my stiff thumb-ness.
Anyway, good news. I get to say I may not be working there much longer because I have applied for a job offer that the Emploi Quebec office finally got around to telling me about. Apparently it's 3 months of office work at downtown Montreal, but I guess I can make do with it because anything would be better than getting smacked around like yesterday... well, maybe not ANYthing (thinking about my bad 3 days of telemarketing.... *shivers*) ... All I need now is to wait for a possible interview.
