The Graduation Caper!

... toned down...

My mother is coming this evening to stay for the week to see my two convocations. Initially, I didn't want to go, but since my sister didn't want to go to hers and my parents forced her to go, I have the same deal. :p

I just got my robe this morning, and it looks real funny... I never realized how revealing the robe becomes in the front. I'd better go wash my nice pants.

The idea of The Graduation Caper (c) is to make a documentary of myself with the stupid robe. Wearing it while doing the most inconceivable things, like buying groceries or shopping for shoes, I was to document the entire week in film format.

Except... no one wanted to film me.

So I revised the plan, to have pictures instead. It seems too artificial that way - posed and even less believable, but I would then compile it into my album.

Except... no one wanted to shoot me.

In fact, I went to SUMS and took pictures of myself, all the way home. And it doesn't have the same effect at all. :( Anyway, once I get things uploaded from the camera, I'll have the album ready.

No thanks to anyone out there, by the way.

In the meantime, I just have to make sure my mum doesn't catch me doing too much. (I had though to go to chinatown with it, but my mum would have caught a fit.)

Foot-long #3

I was told by the school on Thursday, from what I heard, to substitute on Friday for the second period. Well, I heard wrong, and I arrived about 20 minutes *late* (9 am), and after getting called by the secretary, to my chagrin. :(

Anyway, just as I arrive, they informed me that "the bus is just about to leave." Wha-? What bus?

Well, as soon as I hopped onto the bus, it took off with three other ones. All these buses were filled with secondary 1 and 2 students, heading to some religious community center, a building in Sillery, not far from the church and cemetery. Funny enough, I was the only other adult on the bus other than the bus driver... *PANIC!*

"HEY MISS C!!!"
"So... uh..." I stammered. "Do you know where we're going?"

The kids laughed, and I was told we were heading to a sort of leadership conference, organized by a number of different English organizations in the community. There were both QHS and St-Patrick's HS in attendance, at the same grade levels.

But imagine that, 300 squealing and squeamish high octane kids running around and screaming and fighting... with 1 adult per 30 kids... Fortunately, the secretary told me that everything would be potentially taken care of at the conference, with more adults and volunteers in attendance to watch over the kids and participate with them in the activities planned.

At first, the teachers didn't have much to do because we weren't really told anything other than get the kids there and back. Then they realized that the kids didn't listen to anybody (depending on the activity) because they were discouraged by the activities being offered, so they asked the teachers to follow the students to keep some peace.

I was assaulted with a barrage of "HI MISS!" to "MISS! HI!!!" to a lot of crazy kids trying to pilfer the teachers' coffee/tea/juice. Some even got it in their heads that they were there to cause as much misery to their rival schools that they booed each other in presentations of awards.

Fun, for a leadership conference, eh?

I got home in one piece, which is good enough for me... *GASP*

Grief

The greatest sorrow one has to endure is not anything that happens to oneself, at least not directly. One article I once read was that in a survey, most respondents said their greatest sorrow was to lose a parent.

Why, amonst the fears of disease, poverty, disaster, violence, and balloons, would the deepest grief come from the death of a parent? It is because your parents were your guardians, from the very moment you were conceived, and they were your only world.

Even with a father like mine who was not home so often, especially in the later years when he was working out in Sept-Iles and Trois-Rivières for months at a time, it still gave comfort and paternal admiration that he was still working for the betterment of all our lives because he loved us.

In the hospital, we watched this gentle caring man getting pulled away from us, and there was nothing to be done about it. When he died, it felt like part of myself was no longer whole. And it hasn't since then.

That's why on Sunday after church, I crossed the street to the cemetary and I walked almost aimlessly about looking for my father's relatively new monument, took a "shortcut" and lost my way, then finally found it and collapsed in front of it, weeping miserably as I usually do.

I spoke to Sarah on Friday night, about the appropriateness of taking pictures of a tombstone. There was no simple ye or nay, but Sarah had this funny story about Adam Sandler's visit to his father's grave.
His family was planning to go visit his father, and in the Jewish tradition they were to place a stone on top of the grave. Adam had no stone to put, and he voiced his concern with his brother. His brother reassured Adam that he would take care of things. Thus, when the day came, Adam was at the graveside, having his moment, when he saw his brother coming towards him... The brother grabbed a stone off of another grave and gave it to Adam. His justification was, "That guy has so many people who cared enough to put rocks, and he has so many rocks, he won't miss one."

Well, it's funny in a kinda weird way.

Anyway, I took the picture. It's always a nice day when I visit my dad.

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If I can ever get the stupid f#@$ing program to download off HP's website, I'll be able to upload the photo to my album. Otherwise it'll have to wait until probably next week, before convocation.

Complaint #571601 - DSL and Bittorrent

So now that I started watching Naruto, I am compelled to use the Bittorrent client to download more episodes. But this ultra high speed DSL from Bell Sympatico likes to download at the blazing high speeds of 1 kb/s and upload at the completely fair and "tit-for-tat" speeds of 10 kb/s. Just to give you an idea of what this means, the maximum download speed by this basic DSL provider is 10 Mb/s. Big pu sent me over to cnet.com's test for bandwidth speed, and it clocked an average 100 kb/s.

So what the crap is wrong with this stupid connection?

Sub day #2

My second day of substitution involved 3 periods of NON STOP CRAZY-LOCO ACTION of GIGANTIC PROPORTIONS!!! No, seriously, I had a sec 4 class, a sec 5 class, and a sec 3 class. So obviously due to my credentials, I was supply teaching for history, economics, and geography classes.

Since the secondary 3 class was the LAST PERIOD of the day on a FRIDAY before a LONG WEEK-END, they were going nuts! Lots of "Miss! I need to use the washroom bad!" and "Miss! I need to go! It's a girl thing!" (from a guy). One even went as far as cutting himself on *something* somehow.

Kid 1 (who cut himself): Miss, will you kiss it for me?
Kid 2: Yeah miss, will you?
Me: [indicating to kid 2] You first.

Another kept trying to "bribe" me for some reason, with a one dollar coin. Another was bouncing off the walls and then I locked him out of the classroom for a good ten minutes.

Anyway, I can't get paid yet because I need to give the school a voided cheque so no cash for me yet. :( But the best place to get the exact salary of how much a public school teacher gets paid in Quebec is here: The most recent amendment of the teachers' collective agreement.

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Well, off to the movies with my date!

Photos Updated!

There's two new albums! One is from the BURP Party that I neglected to write about, but since I have photos, it pretty much explains it all. The other is a visit by Sam, and we all went to the Parc Lafontaine to hang out.

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In other news, I have another prospective substitution job this Friday at QHS, so I have to get back to Quebec on Thursday. At least I got *something* to do, eh?

Next installment: an investigation on teachers' salaries!

Hurting for Money?

Just for fun, I figure I should be of public service to the ... uh... three readers out there.

If you have unclaimed property (ie. ca$$$h) that you haven't touched in many a year, it would be most likely that the people who managed your accounts (banks, trusts, etc.) have passed it on to the curator general. They keep it safely for a long time, and keep updated records for your perusal.

For Quebec property: https://www.curateur.gouv.qc.ca/cura/html/anglais/unclaimed/unclaim.htm

For Canada in general:
http://ucbswww.bank-banque-canada.ca/scripts/search_english.asp

Happy Hunting!

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In the meanwhile, I'm very pissed that after applying at Emploi Etudiant year after year for, uh, 6 years now, they never even offered me an actual job. In the meanwhile, everyone I know who signed up for it has had jobs thrown at them up to the wazoo.

The Footlong! - No, the Sub.

My first day substituting for QHS. I took the first two periods in the morning: one Ecology with secondary 1, and one French second language, nearly the same secondary ones.

It's so weird because everyone still reacts as though they have never seen a asian-looking teacher... or any asians for that matter. Those kids were utterly clueless. They started calling out "Ms C! Miss Chow! Chow Chow!!!" and then I would wave and walk away. One kid even proclaimed that the chinese "alphabet" has 76 characters.

Anyway, it was fun because they were rather good kids but crazy at the same time. I had the great experience of trying to conduct a FSL class in french, until I gave up midway because I couldn't figure out how to say "Stop talking or I'll toss you outside like trash!" ... civilly.

The vice principal, the resource teacher, and the secretary kept coming by to keep an eye out on me once in a while. This was something rather unexpected, but mostly because I usually was kept to myself during the field experiences (since I'm supposed to know how to handle it at those moments) and the cooperating teacher would sit in the classes once in a while.

Overall, I wouldn't mind going back. But I'm sure the novelty wore off by now anyway...

Naruto, another Anime

So after a three-day downloading experience on this so-called "HIGH SPEED" DSL, I finally got the first Naruto episode. I figure, anything that has 80+ episodes so far and is ongoing can't be that bad, can it?

[Then again, Dragon Ball Z has 300+ and it's complete crap.]

[But then again, Kodomo no Omocha has 101 episodes and it was terrific...]

[But somehow, all those futuristic police anime series has a bigger cult following...]

[Stop digressing.]

[No, you stop.]

So I gave into the hype, and it isn't that bad after all. It's rather reminicent of IY in terms of era, but it doesn't have all the weird time-travelling / real world crosses. I can see the appeal of this series, being that hook of a young boy growing up an orphan and overcoming his fears of abandonmnet, etc. And kids will like it because the boy is a complete pain in the butt.

If I can get more freaking episodes before I go back to Montreal (which will probably take 30 years at this rate, stupid DSL), I'll burn them and we'll watch it and be all up ons.

WTF!?

Blogger changed a lot of its options and settings recently. I'm just beginning to look around today. I haven't posted much about the BURP Party on Saturday because I'm currently in Quebec City and I feel really lazy.

On a brighter note, I called QHS and they have a supply job for me on Friday. So looks like I'll be staying here until Friday at least. Wish me luck!

Oh Yeah!!!

I just checked Minerva, and I got my mark. Pass!!! :D (Although I figure the prof was being a jerk-ass but what am I going to complain about.)

Except... there's no flag saying I'm graduated...

So I guess I'll have to head to the faculty of arts and sciences ASAP to get that checked.