Year-End Update

Dear all,

Amid turkey leftovers, guest-receiving, chocolate overdoses, a new washer arrival, and a terrible, terrible mess to clean up from the delivery, I'm having a wonderful holiday. It lasts for another week, or two, or whenever. As it so happens, my long vacation is a result of a good and/or bad thing - being a supply teacher.

Anyway, I would like to start to end this year's blogging by trying to remind myself what happened over 2005. Uh...

January

Continued to work at the school. Constant reminders of why teaching is a hit-and-miss game pop up everywhere. Also, January tends to be the most depressing month due to nothing happening.

February

Ivo comes to visit and cheers me up immensely. :):):) ... Winter is also starting to look less ugly due to my first trip to the tubing place. Stupid shit happens with the landlord.

March

Nagging thoughts over purpose of obtaining two degrees.

April

The Pope dies. Why is this such a big event to me, I'm not even sure anymore... Waves of strike days further disturb the regularity of the school year at the school, not to mention the teacher turnovers during the year.

May

More of my strike escapades. 3/4 of the school disappears to the wild for a character-building camping trip, while the leftovers like myself are stranded at school to fend for ourselves.

June

Exam corrections, and biking diversions pepper my month. The anniversary of my father's death still hurts.

July

Trip to Cowtown and environs. Weddings strengthen the family bonds. Got to see Wesley. :D Also, got to meet the psycho vampire dog Bobo. :|

August

Disappointed with myself not getting a job for the school year. :( Nonetheless, I made a vow to continue working in Quebec.

September

Amazing training to run 5 km! Well, not really that amazing. I turn 25. Does that mean I'm just an old baby?

October

Amazingly completed the run. @_@ Also, amazingly obtained a driver's licence. @______@ Also, the start of a long supply teaching run...

November

Continued the long supply teaching run. Happily, it means that I shouldn't be as worried as the summer to obtain a job, hopefully for the reasons I'm thinking of. The word "pancake" keeps popping up. Eddie's grandma passes away. :(

December

Birth of PJ the 3rd. :) Along the same lines, I learned the virtues of ordering things online. The possible start of crazy buying sprees... Felix and Rachel separately visit for the holiday break. :D:D:D

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Jorgh visits me every month or so. I also go to Montreal every so often to shower him with gifts and/or food. I mean "and."

I met many interesting people and had lots of memorable experiences. I keep reading more and more manga when I should actually try to read real books, but I find pictures and stories more attractive. Might this be the real start of a different path?

Indeed it is.

A Merry Cleaning Ninja Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Here's PJ the 3rd, with new best friend Mama-Mega-Modem. 

The Aria is Alive!

Finally, after three days of hacking away, PJ the 3rd is connected to the net. But not all is perfect in the cute little box (that now does *not* blind me, having disconnected the infernal light plug)...

Such a quiet, quiet box... but alas, my motherboard is having a completely screwed up time trying to get any sound out of it. No sound driver. And it seems that the culprit is the ever disgusting WinXP (that I had installed from a questionably legal copy).

On top of that, so far I have experienced the SUPER LENGTHY blue screen of death thrice at completely random times in the last few hours. It doesn't give the odd short unintelligible message, no. The entire screen is filled with unreadable blather about how crap just happened and just when you think you're about to read War and Peace on your screen, it flickers off and you're left wondering what happened after the second word.

Oh, PJIII, when shall I be allowed to enjoy the first game of Baldur's Gate upon thine precious hard drive? ;_;

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I had a most disgusting hot chocolate event this evening, when I brought out my suspiciously old box of cocoa and made a cup. Right when I'm about to take a sip, a dozen little floating dark non-cocoa flecks floated up to the top. Little bug-shaped flecks. :(

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Did *anything* happen today that didn't end in tragedy for me? Well, I woke up early to join the teachers up in the hinterland to picket, since all the public school teachers in the region are on strike. I was not obliged to go, as I am not working, but I decided to join in to show my appreciation of everyone.

What I enjoyed the most was one teacher's most clever sled. It looks like a dog sled, but it's actually a kick sled, that was designed in Norway. It's part skiing, part sliding, and all fun. She said it was a gift from her husband, who got it from Ontario. She also said it cost around 400$. I said I would buy a million of those and sell them here if I could.

At the end of picketing this morning, we were treated with coffee and doughnuts by the union. :)

I Feel Totally Stupid.

After the months of research and weeks of buying parts, I finally got them on Wednesday. I have been out of town though since Wednesday, so I only got the chance to put the parts together today.

I was very happy to start cracking on the assembly, thanks to the wonderful Antec Aria case, and the cheapo Asus A8N-VM CSM motherboard. I then realized after several attempts at plugging in a 20-pin power connector to a 24-pin power receiver, that the two are not actually compatible, nor wish to become compatible.

I do not blame Ars this time because they didn't recommend it, and I bought the parts without thinking everything through. Hell, I would have just stuck my old crap in the new box if I didn't read about mATX cases. But let that be a lesson to us all. 20!=24

UPDATE: There exists an adapter for this kind of crap. Good.

UPDATE 2: I feel like an even bigger idiot. There's a way for the 20-pin plug to go into the 24-pin socket, with an extra 4-pin plug. Ok, I don't even know how it works, but it should. ... If my next update starts with "OMG" it means I killed it.

UPDATE 3: Much luck! I put it all together, and now it runs like a blueberry chocolatety potluck with marshmallow fluff... I mean like a dream.

Sub (Last Day)

I finished early and decided to offer my services voluntarily to the elementary sector. It was soooo fricking cute. The kids were in the hallway getting dressed to go out for recess, and they recognized me from the music band's performance.

"Are you the miss who teaches music?" one cute little huggle asked.

"I taught music, yes."

"Oh I love music!" And she went on and on about the things she enjoyed and the activities that she participated in. And it was so fricking cute! I wish my kids could do that... ;_;

(Unfortunately, the teens get more depressing and/or disturbing as they get older.)

My colleague invited me to her class to help her class with their 150 word Christmas stories. The little boy who also came up to me after the Rememberance Day performance was in that class, and he exclaimed, "Oh, it's the music teacher! You're a very good music teacher!" Then he read me his cute story about Santa and Rudolph zipping around the world delivering toys despite the terrible events befallen upon their quest for Christmas cheer.

Actually, all the kids wrote about terrible events befalling Santa and Rudolph. One even suggested that Santa experienced terrible injuries and/or disease, such that Christmas was delayed by four days.

I had to stealthily escape eventually to visit the office, but my colleague informed me that the kids asked when I would go back to visit again.

God, I should just visit that class every day. ;_;

Return to Obscurity

The teacher is returning on Monday, but I have a supply day Monday as well for another teacher so it still means I have to go back there Monday.

I wasn't sure yesterday if I was supposed to return to continue replacing but they told me that morning so I spent all evening at school correcting absolutely everything. It was worse than report card deadline because at least I had weeks to prepare for that. I don't even know if I cleaned up everything in her room... But I'll be able to talk to her on Monday to straighten out certain things, like why there's a chocolate bar in the drawer, and where I left the records because I sure as hell don't know.

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I'm listening to "Christmas in Heaven" from the Monty Python movie The Meaning of Life, and I think it was probably the most exciting Christmas song at the time. Who wouldn't like to watch a song and dance number with a bunch of topless women? Really. '_'

I still have yet to watch Life of Brian. That could probably count as a Christmas-y theme of a movie, no?

I got home last night and started uncontrollably singing a jazz variation of Jingle Bells everywhere. It must have been due to the supression of all holiday spirit I had to endure during the last few months, not necessarily due to the union's pressure tactics.

When my computer parts come, I'm going to go absolutely INSANE.

A Good Day!?

In fact, it was a pretty good day considering how much crap I have to go through in the last few weeks. Students not doing work, students whining for their teacher, students starting fights in class, students shitting up the place... etc. But today it was actually pretty good. My music students did not piss me off by going off into their own musical montage of psychoticland, and the geography class did not (completely) go off the wall. And on top of that, the home economics students did *not* burn one single thing.

If that isn't a call for a "Woo hoo!" then I don't know what.

Mother, where art thou?

I'm still stuck with just the processor. It's been sitting next to me in its box the whole week and I have yet to decide its mama. I have been looking over SFF cases (small form factor) that look like cubes. Unfortunately I am completely befuddled over a million reviews:

Antec Aria
Plastic and aluminum, cube-like, blue (glowing blue!), cute and currently 113 dollars. No motherboard.

• Advantage: It's quiet and has a lot of potential for upgrading. Has an 8-in-1 card reader included.


• Disadvantage: It's a case that is reputedly warm on running because it's not as well ventilated as it should be. I wouldn't be thrilled either if my power supply unit caught on fire as well. But modders gave it a good rating because you could drill holes in it. (Then again, I have no tools to do so.) Also, it has no floppy drive slot.

Aspire X-Qpack
Plastic and aluminum, cube-like, 3 windows (not the OS), comes in a bunch of colours (that also glow that colour), looks like a box that a mofo gaming pimp would use. 116 dollars. No motherboard.

• Advantage: It tells you what the temperature inside the machine is. And it's got freaking plexi-windows on 3 sides!


• Disadvantage: Seems like it has a pos power supply, but that's only what I read. And who wants to see what kind of crap I installed in my computer anyway?

I already have the motherboard chosen for the purposes of buying only the case, so that's not going to be mulled over.
Asus A8N-VM/CSM Whatever that means. It's currently at 107.99.


And then there's the barebones Shuttle boxes... they all have their own proprietary motherboards, so it's more important for me to consider the upgrading capabilities.

Shuttle XPC SN95G5 (V3)
It's quiet and cool. Currently at 378.55

• Advantage: I like it tons and tons. Its performance garners great reviews. I can carry it in a cute (optional) bag if I wanted to go to LAN parties (which I won't). It has more stuff in it than I will probably use.


• Disadvantage: It's unfortunately limited in terms of upgrading potential, as it doesn't have any PCI-E. It also doesn't have a floppy drive, nor does it have a card reader. It's freaking 400 dollars in total. That's like 2 cheap computers. (I know, quality over quantity.)
  

Shuttle XPC SN25P
Currently at 469.94

• Advantage: It's got 3 PCI-E slots, and 350W of power, compared to the 240W in the other box. It's slightly bigger for more space to manoeuver with parts. Actually, I could just keep listing the specs because they're all good.
  


• Disadvantage: This is the biggy. I have to buy a new hard drive (or SATA/ATA connector), and probably a mess of other new things, more than the other Shuttle box, in order to use this case. Overall it would be the one I'd choose if it wasn't so expensive and if it didn't have so much other stuff to buy. God, I feel like crying when I think about it...
  

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I really, really, really like the Swissbit, but it's ridiculously expensive for a knife and 1 GB of flash memory. So I will resort to getting the Corsair Voyager. Merry Christmas to me!

It's Here! It's Here!!!

I nearly fainted today from getting the Athlon 64 3000+. I wasn't expecting it to arrive so soon, since I only ordered it on Monday. This is my first online purchase so I am very happy it came intact. Now it's a matter of getting a motherboard that can test it...

LOST made me cry. Again.

I sound overtired. That's because I spent 13 hours at school today.

Food = Weakness

Besides pancakes (which I can only enjoy once a day or so), I have food favourites that don't seem to come to my mind too easily because I have such a sucky memory.

My worst food craving is rice crackers. I think I established it right now when I just opened this fricking box and inhaled half of it. The (Christie) Rice Thins and those small rice crackers that come in bulk drive me nuts. The snack craving is abated when something is spiced just a little, like some rice crackers, but because the Rice Thins aren't, I have been just killing myself over thsese things. HELP!!!

Uncanny Dream

Last night I had a pretty vivid dream that felt pretty close to reality due to the 100% (or nearly) true occurances. I was sitting in the back of the classroom with my colleague teaching the larger-class-that-everyone-knows-is-hyper (compared to the smaller-class-who-still-think-they're-kindergarteners). It was the total opposite environment than my own experience with the same group; everyone was quietly and attentively listening, talking in turns, discussing in a constructive manner, and actually learning something.

When I woke up I almost started crying. (That hardly happens unless I'm dreaming of my dad.)

It doesn't surprise me that I envy all the teachers at my school for managing each class with such efficiency and style without compromising themselves. I have walked often through the halls while I have been on break, and never hear a peep from any student. Each time I have a class it turns into a madhouse, where I have to strain myself to uncharacteristic anger to maintain some semblance of teaching.

I was hit with so many of those whisps of passing envies that accumulated over time in that dream, that I woke up heartbroken. This moment of truth came to me. Would I let my lifelong aspiration of teaching be defeated by a few short months of painful experience? That moment in the dream, when I watched the kids smiling and chatting confidently, was when I hit the deepest low. My will was weakened to the edge.

...

I won't give up. A dream is not fulfilling if it doesn't require effort. Or pain. Or blood, tears or sweat. Who needs a dream that can be gained with one thought and the wave of a hand?

This must be what it feels like when one is truly starting to understand oneself.

Generation Gap!?

I brought my violin to school today, expecting the last class of the day will be edgy and squirming (due to a long weekend starting tomorrow). A request was made for a Christmas song, but I didn't want to play the conventional carols so I played Christmas Time is Here by Vince Guaraldi.

After the piece was over, everyone had blank looks on their faces. "Miss, what was that?"

"Christmas Time is Here."

"..."

"What?! Haven't you ever watched the Charlie Brown Christmas Special?" (I was trying to figure out if they just didn't recognize the piece.)

The entire class shook their heads. "No."

If my jaw could have dropped into the ground, it would have broken through several layers of concrete.

What is completely paradoxical is that one student asked that I play the Ghostbusters theme (which I did, briefly), and everyone immediately knew it from the first few bars. Let's see... Ghostbusters: 1980's series. Charlie Brown Christmas: 40 years old and shown on every television channel nearly every fricking day, every December. Year of birth of these students: 1993.

Will it Ever End? *confused expression*

I might sound ungrateful or ridiculously stupid because I'm complaining over more work (hence more pay), but I have another week added onto the already long enough substitution stint. My colleague has yet to recover enough to be medically fit to work again. I feel terribly bad that she's still not well, and I want her to recover quickly for her own sake (contrary to what you might think, over my own *wilting* sake).

It seems pretty sad that the kids don't have their teacher, and I have yet to stake a personal claim over the students' lives (since I keep referring the troublemakers to other people rather than stupidly dealing with them myself). It gets harder and harder to justify work when I don't know what my own plans are. I should just start making tests and quizzes every other day or something, just to keep them on their toes.

A Rememberance Day Ceremony

In my colleague's absence, I was in charge of the music band's performance at the ceremony today. They performed O Canada and Amazing Grace for the school, which gained positive reviews from everyone. An elementary school child even came up to me after the performance and said to me, "You're a very good music teacher!" Kawaii!!!

There was a music video shown before the ceremony, A Pittance of Time by Terry Kelly that I think sums up the current sentiments of the general public about Rememberance Day. I'm sure that this song could probably make the coldest, most steeled-face man trickle a few tears in public (given the circumstances).

I actually had a not-too-bad day. Compared to last week, I am ecstatic.

Every Day 5 Is Another Day Alive

To ruin a school day, mix haphazardly:
5 periods of the craziest classes in high school, placed in a row
a few inches of snow, with snowball consistency
pumpkin recipes from hell, assigned to mismatched groups of students
several bags of leftover Hallowe'en candy, thoroughly smuggled

Put in home ec. blender and mess around all day.

Hallowed-out

In a surprise twist of fate, there was one trick-or-treater last night. I recall another year's Hallowe'en when there was exactly one trick-or-treater, wearing the same tiger suit and spewing the same quicklyjumbledhalloweenphrase in order to get the candy as fast as possible... only a little shorter.

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My aunt is in the hospital in Toronto. Looks like I gotta go soon.

What did you do to my pancake!?

This is the hundredth time I mention pancakes. If my blog search worked (which it doesn't, for good reason), it would probably have found more mention of pancakes than any other word in my vocabulary.

I am still supply teaching for the colleague of mine who is now confirmed to be out of comission for a few more weeks. She teaches home economics. Which means that ***PANCAKE*** is to be one of the things the students learn to cook.

So I doubled the recipe for "six 4 inch pancakes" to make enough per group of students to sample them. In my typographical haste, I neglected to include small, inoccuous words in the recipe (like "take a bowl" or "use a whisk to beat the egg first before sticking everything in haphazardly like fools") so there was much chaos and insanity. And this was just making the batter over one period.

It was a pity, in fact, that they were not cooking the pancakes during the same class. One group had a disastrous batter that was discovered only after tasting gobs of (unsuccessfully flipped) pancake. After they shed laughter-induced tears and ended their somewhat nauseating episodes with the garbage bin, I asked them what the matter was.

"Oh, it's salty."

I took a crumb and put it in my mouth. If I could go back in time, I would probably have burned it into cinders with my fiery revenge of pancake anguish. Not only was it salty beyond belief, but it was also dripping with oil. The scarred "non-stick" frying pan laid in ruination on the stovetop, disgusted with itself. (I should really throw that thing out.)

"Um... add some sugar." With the rest of the batter, they added in syrup (which didn't do much). It was also recommended that they added more oil (which turned out to be an even worse idea). Anyway, I will give them due credit despite their sad, sad, sad pancake.

Drive like a Granny

For the majority of the population in this country, driving a car anywhere is as big a deal as getting dressed, or drinking water, or picking your nose. Well, maybe not the last thing. I am nonetheless delighted (or completely naive) to have driven the car alone for the first time today. If you're reading this blog, it's probably safe to say:

a) you've been there, done that, a billion times ago, "Get over yourself,"
b) you're a hippy who believes that a driver's license is getting "too deep into the clammy grips of the man," or
c) you're Jorghnassen. :)

Anyway, my mum has been experiencing a really weird episode of "swollen face" for a week. She had been to the doctor, hoping it was an allergy to something she ate (which is probably right) but the doctor said it was "nothing." The next day after the visit, her face was so swollen that one of her eyes could barely open, so she couldn't go to work that day. So much for "nothing."

It has been pretty swollen for a week now, but it hasn't got much worse. Her eye was unable to open much today. Thus, after trying in vain to talk her into going to another doctor, I gave up and took the car for my own usage. Mwa ha ha ha! I drove alone to the mall and window shopped for three hours. Then I had a hard time getting out of the mall due to the car lineup from hell.

Now I know why people hate going to the mall.

Tiredzzzzz

6 hours a night isn't enough sleep. So I had 11 last night and went to school probably with less crankiness. Doesn't mean that I didn't blow my top again. Just not as often. Heh.

I really hope that the two weeks I took over for my colleague hasn't been wasted for the students. I did try my best to teach and guide what material I could muster and master at the last minute, and I would like to leave the students on a good note so they won't feel like they were stagnant in learning.

Chocolate Chip Pancakes

Do not attempt with crepe recipes.

What I like about my pancake recipe is that I can put any fruit or things in the batter and it will cook thick and fluffy, although the pancake will come out sort of moist and almost gooey in the middle depending on the wetness of the fruit. With chocolate chips though, the pancake will cook much faster, and rise to cover the gigantic blobs of chocolate almost completely. Thus, the pan won't be covered in chocolate goo after flipping and frying.

Crepes won't rise (at all) so if you plan on flipping them, the chocolate will make huge burnt chocolate spots on the crepe and it doesn't ooze like pancakes. Chocolate sauce is more appropriate for crepes.

Ponder Teaching

Read my lips, I'm not the one having the bloody problem, you demented teaching wackos. Two thoughts: I hate the argument that simply because teachers everywhere else have to face total crap means Quebec teachers have to face more crap as well; being the lowest paid to start teaching in the country, it means all the young teachers who aren't intent on staying here for abuse (*cough*) will go elsewhere and be treated (and paid) properly. Also, the BC teachers' strike isn't popular, but imagine the Quebec teachers going on strike too...

I never thought of teaching as a last-resort job. (Indeed, I had once written in an elementary school project that I had intended on becoming either "teacher or violinist.") To me, those who thought that the faculty of education was full of business school or arts student dropouts were terribly, terribly wrong. It's not *full* of them anyway...

Teaching is a very difficult job. The only problems I have are classroom management related, which is common with ~90% of my peers. I am perplexed whenever a student defies me, distracts everyone, or chooses not to work. And this happens all the freaking time. If I really was teaching because I had nothing else I could do, then I'd have dropped out the very first second they put me in the field experience. I know that I am far, far, far from being a competent teacher, but I know in my heart that wanting the vocation and not turning away from it at the very start had me set in the right direction. Who said their development had to be easy or come as second nature? It sounds like a bad anime cliché, but I'm working hard to become the best teacher I can be, no matter what others believe I can't do. (Locke!)

House Party!!!

My colleague and her husband (hi, Martin!) held a housewarming last Friday. I was quite happy to get out of my apartment, but most importantly I was quite excited to see this new house. What a house! Now I wish I had a house (right, Jorghnassen?). House was barely finished a month ago, painted and detailed, and now houses couple and cute, cute bunnies (right, Jorghnassen?). If Jorghnassen comes soon, I'll try to invite ourselves over for another housewarming call. In that case I would drive ourselves over (lOlZ!!!) to the house, as I haven't driven since Thanksgiving.

"House" was written 10 times. "Jorghnassen" 4 times. ;)

Miss, do you even know any music?

...or paraphrased in that manner. Anyway, subbing for my colleage involved conducting two different sets of brass/wind bands that consisted of highly questioning and/or defiant students of all levels. Fortunately, I have had experience conducting with our student choir at cegep (*snif* those were good times, good times). Unfortunately I have very sensitive ears.

But the questions in class were compounded with questioning my abilities. What to do, when half your class is staring at you and wondering if they should trust the non-music teacher to teach music?

So, following Scott's suggestion yesterday (which I will detail later), I went to school today with my violin. The kids didn't see it because I arrived early and hid it in the music room.

After another massively messy music manglement this morning, I had another 3 minutes before the class would shuffle off to their next class. So I calmly took out the violin, which caught the atteniont of a few curious students. The rest were starting to mill outside.

"Miss, play something!"

Ok. So I shakily played with the stiffest and least expressive wrist moments, the very basic of the basics, the Alphabet Song aka. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, or Ah! vous dirai-je maman. A few of them politely clapped, while half of the students wilted from disappointment.

Then I started Bach's double violin concerto, in virtuoso. But much, much, faster.

I don't think I've ever heard my class quiet down as quickly as it did, nor did it stay through the bell as mesmerized.

I must have caused a bit of a stir because the teachers during lunch were asking me about what happened that caused their students to stay in class voluntarily.

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Scott's freak-out plan was similar to this experience. He was teaching a typing class at school, and the students were asking him if he could type.

"Oh, show me where I put my fingers."

They watched with great patience, as he tapped each letter probably at the rate of granny on Sudafed.

"Wait, let me try practice more." Tap... tap...

Egging them on, "Let's do a race then."

So the kids sat at the keyboard, ready to laugh him into the dust. Suddenly, Scott speeds through test after test, at ~61 wpm. The kids never questioned him after that.

Back in (In)Action!

In a series of odd consecutive events, I managed to work (for money) twice today. Unfortunately for my pang of guilt and consciousness, one was to replace my colleague at my school today because her back suddenly went out. I will also go tomorrow because she will be lying on her back unmoving, most probably. But overall I had a pretty good day and I did feel better for having darted back and forth, despite the tinge of envy I directed towards the newbies who occupy the jobs I would have been happy to take if I only had been grubbier.

Spent the whole day on it.

Happy Thanksgiving. Happy birthday, Jorghnassen! I think it's about time, don't you? :)

The rest will come at not as slow a rate.

Yay for Cars!

OMG the picture is always terrible. 

License to Drive You Wild

In other news, the era of childhood is officially gone. :( Here begins the new era of crazy road trips galore! and what the heck did you just run over!? @_@

My mum still won't let me go by myself though.

Ran for the Cure: Thank You! Merci!

My total is actually $300! I want to personally thank everyone who pledged for me, and encoruaged me to run. If you tracked my progress over the last three weeks, you will see just how much that encouragement has given me the motivation to achieve this completely baffling result. (And those of you who don't know me, this is absolutely completely baffling.)

Just because the run is over doesn't mean that the fundraising drive is over.

Anyway, I held up my end of the deal. I dared to slowly and stinkily trot 5 km of the gentle rolling slopes of the old city, and made it in a record time (!?) of 33 minutes. How did I do that? I really don't know. Maybe being last in the running crowd pushed me a bit more than I thought. But, hey, someone has to be last, right?

Here are the results of the Quebec City cohort. ... Well, considering that PEI had about half the amount of participants and about just as much raised...

Run for the Cure 2005

Jorghnassen!

5 km, 33 minutes later!

YOU!!! 

My Pace Daiou

T-2; 7:59: 38 minutes

Avatar

So it rained again. But here's a pic for Jorghnassen's avatar! :D 

You're Gonna Make it After All!

T-4; 11:29 (n number of pluses) 40 minutes. i think it was 5 km. i'll have to check with Google again.

Everybody was Kung-fu Fighting!

T-5; 12:00 p.m. on the dot ++ 33 minutes - felt like i was gonna throw up in the middle of it ++ 500 paces from home ~150 m!

I gave up on the song names. Unless you have ideas.

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"Ah yeah, ah yeah, you gotta believe!" Nostalgia is always a big seller. For instance, Ghostwriter, the series that was on PBS and not the "new" one on CBS, was one of our favourite shows in our pre/early teen days. At least for some of us. Ok, maybe I was the only one who watched the dang thing. Anyway, it was uncanny how sometimes when you look too hard, you find people in reality who look like those on television. Which happened at my school, actually. Well, I thought he did anyway. Not only that, but B also thought our friend's best guy friend in another country looked like Jamal (Sheldon Turnipseed). Should we actually ever get another look at the photo, I would highly doubt it anyway.

I digress. It was a thread on the Something Awful forums a few days ago. But they mentioned on that thread the absolute best math show ever for kids was on PBS, the wonderfully 90s quétaine SQUARE 1. My brother would even watch the "Mathman" segment where a Pac-man clone with a football helmet would mouth-flappingly wander around the board looking for specific numbers or shapes that would satisfy the quest of the day. It was an extremely rare skit where he would actually not fail, since every single other skit he would defiantly eat something wrong and get pulsated to bits by a tornado. We all gasped in unison at that miracle.

What does that have to do with me? Sort of how I expect people to react when I tell them I finish the 5 km run without stopping.

Too cold to run

It is raining cold, blowing, bird doo today.

Addendum: Not only did it pour Rita leftovers all day all over our city (just like Katrina earlier this month, and Ophelia last year), but it flooded the nearby road (boulevard Hamel, if you have any idea where that is) for a "couple" blocks, good and wet. It shut down the road and therefore all the restaurants and businesses there too.

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I came upon the Mario Opera through Boingboing today, and I can't get over how well it is put together so far. If it ever gets put into a show, I swear I'm going to get a passport just so I can see it wherever it's being put on.

Speed

T-6; 13:25 ++ passed the halfway mark, 9 minutes. times 3. BOOYAH! - still ended up in the middle of nowhere + jogged back part of it.

I think I got the number of days wrong though.

---

We went to Trinity at first, then when the service ended at noon we went straight to the cathedral in old Quebec. Why? Because the (outgoing) govenor general was attending the service there for the (last?) time. Thus, we got to see Her Royal Hindquarters'(?!) representative in person. Surprisingly, she wasn't as short as I imagined, but she was still pretty small. My mother told me that despite her taiwanese background, she doesn't know how to speak taiwanese. (She then made the allusion that I was very much like Adrienne Clarkson, but I highly doubt it... right?)

I was going to take a picture, but it was seriously creepy with all those bodyguards and army guys around. Yet, others took pictures, but I figure I don't want to look like a suck-up creep or whatever. Anyway, I'll just say that I dressed up nice for the occasion. (No, I didn't shake hands, it was already creepy enough.)

We arrived after the service, so after about ten minutes of milling around with freaky wannabes and kids (!?!) serving wine and cheese, she finally took off in her convoy of dark shiny cars to her residence (but not for long) in the citadelle. Pretty classy.

Gambatte!

T-7; 13:00 (omg! woke up at 12:40) + 18 minutes - still ended in the middle of nowhere + i can see my muscles!

I can tell how much pesticide is sprayed on the old landfill site that I pass by since those dead or pathetically dying insect bodies are all over the place. If you don't hear crunching in every step, it means that you've left the area.

You Gotta Fight For Your Right...

Oh wait that's not the song...

T-8; 11:25 a.m. + made it to 17 minutes! - stopped halfway at the bank +/-? ended up in the middle of nowhere so I walked back +/-? got called by my school a second ago just to check what things I would supply for

---

Hopefully my mum will be heading to the CIBC soon so I can deposit all the donations that everyone generously gave to me in person. You guys are so great! *snif*

Sounds like a crap post (moreso than usual), but I didn't go outside because it rained like mad. :(

Run with Us

T-10; 11:27 + 10 minutes. - picked up garbage again in the same damn spot. + inspirational words from Rachel :)

---

Oh hell yeah!

Typical attention whoring brother.

Concrete Road...

T-11; 7:40 a.m. + jogged twice around the same loop I usually go. And picked up garbage/shit kids kept tossing around the parking lot. - freaking cold!

I'm so, sooo sorry that the picture came out so badly. :(
From left to right, front row: Stefan, Lisa, Donnah, Cheryl, me, Hana; middle row: Ivo, Derrick, PJ, Felix, Lil V; back row: Jesse, Stephen, Norm, Ivan. Josh was taking the picture. 

I Had A Blast!

I had a great time seeing everyone at the duck supper tonight! Somehow, it turned into a SUMS reunion, whereas everyone from the old school SUMS gang who was in town came. ;)

I have a (sadly poor) group picture that I will post shortly when I get home to Quebec. I will also send it to people who requested it.

We miss you, Davy, Ian, Bert, and everyone else who can't be in Montreal for now. You are in our thoughts and hearts! :)

You'd Better Run Run

T-13; 10:?? a.m. + jogged with Jorgh - Jorgh didn't remember when we started jogging so I haven't a clue how long we jogged for.

Update: fund is now at 255$. If I get to 300, I get a podometer! :)

Run a Little

T-14; 10:40 a.m. - bike 15 minutes for warm up because my back hurts, before jogging for 5 minutes. + got further than the first time - didn't eat beforehand + ate bento afterwards

Still Running

T-15; 11:50 a.m. + jogged to bank, took 5 minutes - walked back + ate sushi bento so everything's ok ;)

Update: 150!

When I started this a few days ago, initially I didn't think anyone would bother to read my email nor maintain any sort of interest in donating to "yet another" charity event. It was another case of me hesitating to open my cursing mouth to dare ask someone for something for myself. (Then Lil V pointed out that it wasn't for my benefit, which is the moment my logic came back from vacation.)

Well, it was a surprisingly quick adventure; in fact a very (!!!) generous donor brought the fund from $0 to $150 while I wasn't looking. Thank you so very much! The CBCF is sure to put it to good use in the continuing research on breast cancer.

It means that everyone else is still free to donate, though I haven't increased the fund goal. And I will continue to keep training for the run (not that I was even thinking of quitting), despite my terrible, terrible shape.

Terry Fox Run 2005

Unbeknownst to me, the Terry Fox run is this Sunday, 18 September. If I had known, I would have prepared earlier. Oh well.

---

T-16; 8:30 a.m. - jogged for about 4 minutes until lungs felt like exploding. or imploding. + danced to Crescendolls as warmup.

(Very Local) Breast Cancer Fundraising Central

Dear form letter recipients,

(If you haven't received the form letter yet, it's because I was tired of copy-pasting individually... How lazy is that, really?)

Yesterday, while waiting tediously at the CIBC for my mum, I picked up a form for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation's annual Run for the Cure brochure. The very first thing it asks is, "Pour qui courez-vous?"
I run for nobody in particular. I just want to do it because it seems like something I should be doing. (And I don't mean the societal-guilt-consciousness "should," but the self-aware-motivation "should.") I will run*** your 5 km!

***subjet to long instances of walking and longer instances of semi-jogging.

So discussing with lil V, I was given my initial push to go for it. I have 19 days to reach my goal of 150$ of donations. (Well, 17 before pre-registration actually.) Donations can be made online with the credit card, or you can pay me in person with cash or cheque. You can also request a tax receipt for donations less than 20$.

I like how they have prizes for different levels of funds. For 3500$ you get an iPod Shuffle... (wishful thinking, I suppose)

Poof!

Oh noes! My (not so) sweet ride! Noooooo!!!


Nabeshinnoooo!!!!!!


A new phone, pie/pie, and a glass of milk! 


I lost my lotto ticket today. :( My mum was kinda peeved.

I got my bike fixed though, so it's alright now. And I bought another ticket, but I'll be constantly thinking "I could have won if I haven't..." for the rest of my life... unless I win with this ticket...

I spent the day out.

Although I don't go outside, I figure it's a good time to do that before tomorrow. Tomorrow is another day.

I went to the mall for four freaking hours and all I got was a present for Jorghnassen. How lucky for him! :)

For those of you who collected the third clue, this doesn't have anything to do with the contest. The Mr. Bean Theme song by Howard Goodall will be my next project!

Part 3?

Ok, nobody seems to want to play the game, so I have a third clue. Unfortunately I can't upload it to my blog since it's not an image file, and I don't have any upload space for non-image files. Anyway, if you know my email or MSN nick (extrametricalsyllable) then just ask and I'll send it your way. ;)

With my precious, precious blueberries. Inside and outside.

Part 2!?

With real maple syrup. 

Part 1!

Free* pancake** for whoever can figure out what song this is supposed to be, arrangement for string quartet and flute. [*Free only if you come by my place.] [**Pancake, not crepe. There's a difference.]


Hint: I already mentioned it before in this blog.

Oh... Peh.

In a fit of frustration yesterday evening, I vowed to get my butt out the door today to do something. But I forgot that I had to stay at home today to wait for the landlord to come by and change the door. Now, where the crap did he get to?

APPEND

The sink is finally unclogged. I don't even want to know what that crap was in the first place.

Heroes of Might and Magic V is in beta! I want to see it but apparently it's been 3Dified so I can't even run it on my computer. Jorgh said before we checked out the screenies that the game would revert to the HOMM3 style somewhat, but just look at it!

>Lose weight now! Ask me wha-?

"I went from 195 lb to 145 lb in just 30 days!...or did I just find a pair of fat pants to make it look like I lost weight?"

"Well, nevermind that my pants got stretched out in the first place when I put them on the first time so that they look this loose now, but I really lost the weight! And I can tell you all my secrets in my new book, Whatsamatta Wichyu? where I tell you the exact proven methods of losing weight by:

• "Getting a haircut!


• "Making food that looks like crap so you won't eat it!


• "Live in the middle of nowhere without a car so you'll have to walk or ride your bike everywhere to survive!"

"All this and more, and you don't have to pay a red cent! Nope, all you have to do is read the book, lose the weight, then I send goons to your door to collect payment!" Cost may change without notice (as goons break down your door) and payment varies proportionally to weight loss, foo!
"Don't wait a minute more! It's my birthday next week! Call now as operators are standing by!" (Can you tell I have way too much time on my hands?)

Old Skool

(Telephony) Kickin' it old skool!


Real old skool! [Expletive deleted] yeah!

Strawberry Shortcake, my sister's old school bed cover that complemented my old school Smurfs bed cover.

The Videotron folks sent two guys over today to migrate my crap Bell service over to the Videotron telephone service. My mum paid 40$/month/something crazy under Bell. Combined with cable modem and basic cable tv service, the new telephone system would cost less than 20$/month/something cheaper. What's the catch? Well, you need to have subscribed to all three of these services to get that price. Thus, I would estimate the cost of everything together to be 80$/month/something sad.

Anyway, they worked around for about 3 hours, trying to figure out where the phone feed was for most of that time, until I finally got the service. And I managed to pick up year-old dustbunnies at the same time. Sadly (!) I have to give up using the old cable modem (with the busted plastic power insert) for this faboo black mega-modem. And on top of that, my (stupid) phone that always got tangled up in everything stopped working properly so I replaced it with this old school black rotary phone. (Now, I have no clue if the rotary thing still works, or if the phone company lets me use pulse dialing, but what the hell - I barely call out anyway.)

The guys were very nice. One of them saw my degrees on the wall and was impressed, and he saw the "Great Baseball" Sega Master System game sitting next to the door and was also impressed. I think the general lack of any sense of self-respect in this apartment was impressive. He was most impressed when he pulled out the phone cord in the kitchen, having found it in a state of complete crapness (ie. holey and exposedy) and found that the phone still worked.

APPEND

I keep checking back on ECN's site for jobs in Quebec, and now it seems that my old school is missing both a phys. ed. teacher and the french teacher.

Manga List

I break my one post a day habit sometimes. Here's a list of manga that I have read or am reading now.

• Naruto - spikey-blond-haired little brat in a ninja village
• Hunter X Hunter - spikey-dark-haired boy who wants to become a hunter to find his father
• Great Teacher Onizuka - spikey-blond-haired former extra-tough gang member who becomes a teacher
• Fruit Basket - gentle girl who gets involved with an unusal family
• 3X3 Eyes - girl runs into guy, guy gets killed by girl's pet, girl eats guy's soul, guy has to protect girl for the rest of their existence, guy falls for girl... classic love story
• Inu Yasha - doggy boy with cute ears
• Cardcaptors Sakura - Sakura captures magical cards, while Syaoran pines for both Sakura and another boy... it gets kinda shounen-ai too
  
• Tsubasa RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE (which is written just as you see it here) - Sakura and Syaoran from Cardcaptors Sakura, back in completely different and convoluted adventures
• Yakitate! Japan - about breadmaking and NO it's not boring.
• Gokusen - a female new teacher who happens to be the granddaughter of a Yakuza leader
• Angel Sanctuary- a brother and a sister... uh... and some weird stuff about angels and demons.
• Kimagure Orange Road - a family with odd powers try to maintain a normal life... with powers...
• Penguin Brothers - spunky girl out to resolve a school gang war
• Haru yo Koi - find out for yourself ;)

I read the end of Chobits, and I read one chapter each of One Piece, Bleach, and Full Metal Alchemist, but they don't strike me with too much interest. Besides, I have all these other manga I have to catch up with. ;)

Quebec City Online?

To sum up my community's internet world:

• Quebec's craigslist, which suffers from settling internet dust.


• Quebec Urbain - for the urbanist in all of us. I guess.


• Le Soleil - the only paper in Quebec City that doesn't suck. (Journal de Quebec, and Chronicle Telegraph. 'Nuf said.)

To find a job... huh... well, I'd have to go on the Education Canada network, that apparently hardly ever works (seeing as with the hundreds of listings for the rest of Canada, nobody ever seems to post from Quebec). Or the ever-so handy Emploi Quebec site that offers a wide range of jobs from dishwasher to telemarketer. Of course, as all else fails, I just went to the schools themselves to give my resume. And then I wait.

---

<start of rant> My mum just came back yesterday, and among the very first things she said was, "DID YOU GET A JOB? NO? THEN YOU'LL HAVE TO MOVE TO ONTARIO!!!"
Among my protestations were: "WHAAAA?" "Are you on crack?" "Why the hell would I do that?!" and "What the hell do you know?!?"

Seriously, it's just a repeat of last year's crap, except she's even crazier now. I would probably attribute it to the fact that she thinks a person can't make a living working as a substitute or replacement (which one can't... if you're a single mother or a homeowner), and she thinks I don't worry enough about my own finances or situation (which I already worry about enough by myself, thank you very much, without some overbearing crazy woman screaming at me).

The Ontario bit... well, I think she figures that there are more jobs there (which there are... if you want to work in Thunder Bay) and they do pay marginally more. But the downside is that one has to join the Ontario Teachers' college, which is a completely separate entity to the union, and the hassle to join that plus the yearly fees makes it complete bullshit. (It doesn't guarantee that you'll be working or not - it just means that you're allowed to work as a teacher.)

I already thought about what I wanted to do this year. I figured that I could just stay in town for another year to supply teach and work as a tutor. It'd be a good opportunity for me to

• practice driving in a non-crazy driving city, when I do get my license,
• function en francais some more, and
• give me time to establish myself properly in town, to decide a long-term future.

If I were still in Montreal, I'd undoubtedly be more active and less cranky, but I would have the more painful guilt of not having been more of a caretaker to my family. (I'm already in doodoo for not going to Toronto a few weeks ago for Eddie and Rebecca's gramma in the hospital, because everyone else was there.) But I don't regret being in Quebec over the last year because I would not have been able to mess around my job and learn much more about myself and others. I would not have been as able to cope as well with the transition between university and work.

As much as I enjoy being with everyone in Montreal, I don't think I could have really advanced with my maturity as much as I would like. There's something about being alone for long periods of time that helps me be more decisive (while at the same time be even more insecure).

---

My sister is apparently house hunting in Montreal. That's a big step! She's apparently looking at one house around Jean-Talon, where she took my mum to look around. My mum then came back and said, "If she buys the house then I'm moving to Montreal."

The first thought that came across my mind was, "What the-!? She's really going to let you move in with her? No effing way!"

I can recall vividly the numerous times my sister exclaimed for everyone to hear, "I'm not letting you move in ever!" That was especially true when she was moving out to Montreal the first time around, while she was nearly frothing in the mouth at the detestable behaviour my mum was exhibiting towards her.

On the other hand, my sister let me live with her for about 8 months in the same apartment she is currently living in, the first year when I went to McGill. I was grateful for the futon and suitcase surface area, but I lacked the 3D volume and privacy that I suppose anyone would need when living out of the house.

So now my sister is buying a house, and letting my mum move in? If that's the case, then I wouldn't mind moving out finally on my own. It would probably still be in Quebec for now, as I made my own personal commitment to stay for another year. On the other hand, would I be able to afford it? (...*reality kicks in*...)

Pancake!

Breakfast at the Chow's. (1 pm) 

I Kick Yo Butt

I want to be able to look at this person and think to myself, "Goddamn I'm going to get the crap kicked out of me by her!" All I can think of when I look at her is, "What the hell are you doing?"

When I'm bored I also take pictures of land development. I was (and still am) pissed off when I found out that they were extending this highway, du Vallon...

The reasons I have for being pissed:

• Most of the recent land development around this neighbourhood disturbed the local flora and fauna for ugly-assed condos (not apartments either) and stupid, useless highways.


• Increased traffic expected on du Vallon, which is already terribly congested, and also has the worst onramp in the freaking city near Charest.


• Urban sprawl. It's pretty gross. The area where you see Walmart in that photo is already the home of a sprawl maul. Right across from that is the Galeries de la Capitale.


• They'll have to either dig the bike path and sidewalk into the underpass at that intersection or make a gigantic overpass. It doesn't seem that they took bikes or people into consideration when they first blocked off pedestrian traffic, forcing them to the other side of the road where no sidewalk nor path existed in the first place... so my guess is that the bike path will be the last thing on anyone's minds when they cut the rope or whatever stupid pat-on-the-back celebration to open the extention.


• Of all the road projects the city could focus on, like fixing the crap up near Loretteville (where I had the bumpiest, most potholey, ass-pounding bike coastings down), or making roads safer for bikes, or putting in sidewalks where there should be some (eg. near schools and hospitals?)... or even putting in more effing trees on that goddamn road near the parliament building or something. Really. The city focuses on building an extention to a highway when better urban planning is needed.

In Calgary, Ed told Wesley and I the most traumatizing thing I think I heard on that trip out west. (And I experienced quite a few things that disturbed me sufficiently.)

Q: What is the sister city of Calgary?
A: Uh... oh goddamn...

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the crazy-assed urban planning of Calgary and the increased urban sprawl of her sister city are related. Fortunately, I don't think Quebec has as much to worry about in terms of suburbia because it's almost 400 years old and the smaller cities here were already established. Calgary, on the other hand, is much younger, and has to deal with the gated communities that sprung up all over the place at the same time.

/I still can't believe that there's a naval museum in Calgary.

One More Step to Freedom of Road Madness!

I just completed my practical driving courses about half an hour ago. All I have left is to (schedule and) take the SAAQ driving exam (and pass it). (So it should be really "3 steps" but whatever.)

Apparently I got 88... I forget exactly what 4 things were wrong.

1. I was too slow in places where there weren't any speed limit signs (so I just went 40 km/h).


2. I hesitated when some teens were about to cross the road, but there was a car behind me. I wasn't sure if they had the right of way but they had stopped. Stupid kids, make up your minds!


3. My right turns were sometimes too wide. I have no excuse.


4. I have to make sure that in some instances where there's 1 lane at an intersection with lights, there's space for someone to turn right. I'm still confused about that one.

No blind spot non-checking errors. ***

***Not to say that I forget to check sometimes...

Any pointers, those with drivers licenses?

Note!

Go visit my comic if you haven't already.

---

Interesting interactive link of the day: The Greatest Adventure of All Time!
Wikipedia for the ridiculous.

Wikitravel!

Anyone checked out Quebec City yet? Felix did. Then he sent me to the site. It was so craptastic that I had to start editing it. It seems that Evan liked that someone would work on it. Now Jorgh is also doing some edits too. ;)

A Half-eaten Tourtiere?

Shoujo style! I've been reading way too many mangas lately. (The poor halfling-chan is definitely not shoujo material.) The two in the middle are my dearies Imoen and Bok-Choy, while the one to the right has yet to be introduced. 

Biking Adventure

I did it!
The actual path was much longer because I cannot take highways by bike, otherwise I'd get run over by irate army guys/berating old fogies looking to score another point in their bike-killing SUVs.

I arrived to find that my school had given the job to another person higher up on the priority list. :( Thus I am stranded for the year or until someone croaks or something. I'll be heading downtown tomorrow to give my resume to the schools there, but *not* by bike (cuz my ass hurts too much from today's ride).

On another note, I updated the comic. I also found out last night that they changed the name "Keenspace" to "Comicgen" back in July, which means I have to change every freaking thing on all the pages to *.comicgen and my banners and images etc. Goddammit, WTF!?

Photoblog a bit

Farmer's market in Chicoutimi. 4 L of blueberries = 20$

Jorgh picking blueberries at the old stomping ground. Notice the (lack of) blue bits around.

Signaling the end of summer. *le sigh*

A Bunch of Posts!

Damn right!

---

Vacation was good and bad in Alberta and TO.


The whole reason why we went to Calgary in the first place. Congratulations, Ilinca and Curtis!

Good: seeing my cousins in TO and Alberta, wedding meal, visiting Wesley, Banff and Lake Louise, Calgary Zoo (hence the sudden red panda craze), no heat wave (thank God), Aki and Betty's "vampire dog" Bobo after it calmed down.


One of four asian elephants at the Calgary Zoo. So cute!

Bad: how sad MH was, crazy urban planning in Cowtown, the misleading provincial-tax-lessness (because of more expensive goods), lack of any actual good chinese food in the two-block Chinatown, homeliness, homelessness, lack of humidity, lack of any plushie cows in the entire freaking city, driving back from MH (I thought I was going to *DIE*), Aki and Betty's "vampire dog" Bobo when it bit Michelle and Brian


Ugly photo of pretty mountains next to Banff. You should go there!

Funny: more pick-up trucks than SUVs in Montreal, "honour system" train, cowboy hats, Albertan accent, crazy freaky people roaming, Aki and betty's "vampire dog" Bobo.


Bobo the "Vampire Dog." Bad dog!

---

Anyway, I thought I would just tell you some projects I am (attempting to start) working on.

Firstly, the webcomic is still stuck in limbo, since I had an idea what to do a long, long time ago before I started drawing the damn thing. Then I lazily forgot what was going to happen, which led to a terrible, terrible standstill. I have every intention to complete the project, but it's massive. (Following the BG1 storyline, without all the sidequests and idiotic backtracking.) So I'm contemplating on that while I'm working on finishing the game. No, I haven't finished the game. Not once. No. Dammit.

I posted those BG portraits some weeks ago, so you're always free to use for your own personal games, or just to stare at and worship, or something equally as hilarious. I am working on some more portraits as well, just to fill out the necessary roles. (Like the triple-classed whatnot... eh, who am I kidding. That one'll probably look like a freak.) What I can't do very well is everything having to do with non-person features. Clothes, weapons, props, backgrounds, etc. - these are the things I will be featuring more often in my drawings.

I have been reading many mangas online. This led me to recall a story years ago I wanted to work on in manga form, though I am afraid to start drawing and stop, due to forgetting the story *coughwebcomiccough* ... so I am writing the whole thing out before drawing. I'll present a draft of a few chapters here when I finish. Just to note, the writing is presented in pseudo-manga form, so don't expect an award-winning novel format.

That's all folks!

One of the cuter things in Cowtown: the red panda. Everything else was kinda *bleah.* 

I bike very little. My butt hurts from doing it two days in a row. 


By the way, this and other photos are now uploaded in the album.

Well, it's about time! 


Dick Pound is nice. He even said my name properly.

So much for a bike ride...

Realize that I haven't been on a bike since last summer, and I haven't done any physical exercise for just as long. I am way too tired to head to Sillery today, for a number of reasons (that just happen to be causational):

1. I have so many freaking bug bites on my legs that were probably caused by mosquitos the size of beachballs, that
2. I went to bed at 4 a.m., dying of itch and then
3. I woke up at 9 a.m. itching like hell.
4. So I was so groggy and itchy that I neglected to eat much of anything, if I even ate at all (though I don't remember)
5. and then I just went biking down to the grocery store and back, but my legs gave up when I got home! Talk about pathetic... :(

I will go biking (further... much much further) tomorrow, as I am determined to get out of this disgusting fat slump.

Prom, Parties, and Prospects?

Damn mosquito bites. I must be covered with about twenty of them all over my body, and most of them on the areas I didn't put any cream on.

I attended my high school's prom last week, with my date-to-end-all-bad-prom-dates Jorghnassen (the story of such bad prom dates which I will recount in their own times). I was wearing the same dress that I have always worn at formal events. (For those of you who have been to these same events - yes, it's the same dress.) It was a good evening that I appreciated very much, especially that Jorgh was there. I didn't appreciate much the lack of people who acknowledged my existence, but it's a common thing for students to ignore their teachers unless they barge into their bubbles.

I went to a supper party at Erik's place the next day, with Jorgh once again. His wife is korean, and prepared a great traditional korean meal. It involves a lot of steak and sauces... We also met Erik's son, who is bright as a whistle but as spoilt as my brother. It's expected, considering that he's an only child and they are such a close family.

Finally, Jorgh and I attended the end-of-year staff party out in Duchesnay (ie. far, far from here). I am now covered in mosquito bites from waist down (?) and I'm quite tired. But seeing everyone and having a last evening together makes me quite content that I had the chance to work at such a unique school.

P.S. I have photos but I'm too tired to upload them.

Is Father's Day the new most depressing day of the year?

Mommy put icing sugar instead of starch in the shrimp dumplings.

More pissed off than 3V4R!!!

Those of you who know me well, know that very little ticks me off. There's the big things that tick me off for sure, like jerk politicians or jerk landlords or jerk idiots driving on the street who think they have priority over little kid pedestrians, but that's stuff that would piss anyone off.

But my biggest, most insane burning anger comes from those who are in the 9th circle of hell. Well, I am less severe in the religious aspect of the judgement in the 9th circle (as I am admittedly less religious than I feel I should be), but the idea is that the hypocrites and traitors piss me off the most. The most aggravating and despicable action is to lie and/or intentionally cause harm towards someone, without them knowing.

My secondary 4s are (surprisingly) ones who are less likely to do such hypocritical things. In fact, they tell me the truth of their boredom, disinterest, anger, frustrations, and detractions from my class, and I do not hold it against them. But there are only two people in the class whom I distrust the most, and one of them just busted my veins today from just this kind of action.

Before I continue, I wanted to mention why I don't think the sec 4s are such a terrible class. They are lively (which is both good and bad), intelligent (when they want to be), talented (in many domains), and certainly much, much, MUCH less lazy than the sec 5s. If they concentrate, and I mean non-zombie-like (which the sec 5s are apt to do), they are quite an enjoyable bunch at times.

But then two new students arrived during the year, within days of each other. One quickly became a noted troublemaker, as he makes vulgar and disparaging remarks and distrupts everyone quite often. He always promises to stop doing it, but it never happens (not that I expect those promises made by students in a classroom to stick). It turns out that he has an obsessive compulsive disorder that makes him wash his arms so often that they are completely red like sunburnt freckled tendrils of flesh hanging from his torso. (Surely that's an excuse, isn't it?)

The other was at first quite tame and quiet in class. She wore makeup and rather revealing clothing that displayed her body to a degree of "almost disruptivity." (I am trying to choose my words here, unsuccessfully due to my loss of vocabulary over the years.) The sec 4 and 5 boys immediately took notice of her of course, but she didn't seem to display any outward attention in that sense for the longest of times (at least in my class anyway). She also had a hard time catching up with 3/4 of a year's course.

Then today I noticed her getting snug with a sec 5 boy, whom I have always wondered about why he didn't have a girlfriend all year, which the others seem to have. I was at first somewhat disturbed because they seem like a mismatched couple, but I also think nearly every couple in this school is mismatched as well. (It disturbs me now to see teens making goo-goo eyes at each other because they really don't have a clue.)

Now, for the thing that ticked me off more than everything and everyone all year. This afternoon, there was a science lab exam held for the secondary 4s, and a French exam for the secondary 5s. The first group of students in my lab exam were forced to stay until the last group entered the laboratory because the schedules overlapped such that I couldn't allow the first group to tell the other two groups what the lab exercise was going to be.

So the girl mentioned prior was in the first group, and couldn't leave the classroom for two hours. Of course, most of the first group were finished much earlier than that, so they sat there mindlessly and started to fidget. I allowed two of them to go to their lockers to get other materials to work on, but I had escorts for those two, and let them go one at a time. (I certainly couldn't leave the invigilation room to itself.)

Unfortunately, when the girl wanted to go, I couldn't find anyone around to escort her. Being the stupid trusting person I am, I allowed her to leave to her locker to get work to do back in the classroom. (It was her suggestion you know, not my own. If I had known, I would have just let them sit there doodling on scrap paper.)

Five minutes later, I was left wondering why it was taking so long. No, I suspected exactly what was taking so long. I heard Johanne (ever expecting, all sorts of hormones raging) yelling down the hall at the girl, with the sec 5 boy, telling everyone that could hear (including the classroom) they were kissing.

Words can't even begin to describe the incredible rage that I was feeling from that moment on. Even worse, they were being lectured by George, also VP, and Erik was standing around watching this terrific spectacle. If Danny had been around by then, he would have been chewing them out long into the afternoon.

She came back into the classroom with her usual blank expression. I think she was expecting me to tell her off, but I was so completely enraged that my words were caught in my throat and I was simply too riled up for an exam period to start ranting and raving...

I told Scott at the end of the exam what had happened. He basically put it into a succinct and memorable statement: "That's why you can't give them this" (he put his fingers close together) "much."

There is no doubt that this girl is much more unworthy of trust than any other person at this school right now. And that just makes me completely sick.

On a whim, I sketched something on MS Paint. Jorgh thought it was nice but too cartoony, so I added some depth (but still retained the glowy thing in the back). Also useful as a Baldur's Gate portrait. 4 times the dimensions of the actual portrait sizes of Baldur's Gate. (Set at 110 X 170 and 24 bit bitmap for the large one, and 39 X 60 and 8 bit for the small one.)

For Jorgh's Baldur's Gate priest character. Although I couldn't find the original background because I never saved it... 

I can believe that they blew up the science teacher. No more an ironic twist of fate is that of a teacher's demo blowing up literally in his or her face... Besides, he was a sad, bitter, and rather annoying man anyway, right?

Ongoing Feature: QHS Alumni 97

The Castonguay twins have a family blog site, which would probably reveal more about their respective current situations.

Dear Vero graduated from McGill in the same ceremony as my education degree, with an MA in English. And here I am having busted my ass for a freaking degree and a half for five years. :(

Mr Z was last spotted online conducting some sort of choir...

Sarah wrote online from her outpost in PEI. I'm certain she's keeping herself busy with research.

Cedric's younger sister attends my school at the secondary 1 level. She approached me with her friend as backup one day (with some sort of fear that I would eat her alive or something) and mentioned his name. I acknowledged that I recognized him, and asked why in particular. She then hurredly uttered "He's my brother" and ran away. Interesting.

A Long, Long, Long Day

Another week, another three weeks left of school. I think the school board and the MEQ are total crap. At least they pay me...

It started with a local union meeting at my alma mater, yesterday after school. Erik commented that the kids are wearing things that are totally banned at our school like baseball caps. I mentioned that when we were students, the caps would stay on in the halls, up to the millisecond they stepped in the classroom. He then commented something that implied that this behaviour was asinine.

Our local union wants to have us vote to let the negotiating team use a 5 day strike, which is why we were all coralled to the big school to listen to one of the members of negotiation desperately convince us to vote yes.

They gave us granola bars and juice boxes (of which I had three of each), but it still didn't convince us to vote for another freaking 5 days of lost wages. It's bad enough I lost like 160 bucks (minus taxes), and stretching it out will just screw over everyone. Except the government.

---

Today, the school committee to save the school (composed of mostly parents and students) tried to organize a rally-trip to the school board office to attend the commissioners' meeting. Erik warned me that he would like to go but can't, because he is a teacher at the school and it would look sort of bad on his part to be at the meeting. So I attended, but as a member of an interested public and a friend of committee members (which is totally legitimate, as long as I don't open my mouth).

Anyway, Glenda (mother of one of my students) briefed me about the meeting and briefed me after the meeting. We tacitly agreed that the commissioners were rather uncompromising, as their only solution was to ask the government for the freaking 1.7 million dollars and nothing else. All we got from the meeting was that the commissioners will attend a meeting with the MNA next Tuesday. Great.

---

The three hours before the meeting, I was in Sillery tending to my father's gravesite. The flowers we bought last week were crying out for water, and the hanging plant that my brother chose was sad and ridiculous sitting on the ground. I planted the little orange flowers around the (currently) dead flower roots from last year, and cleaned the headstone. That took up about an hour, but I still had two left in Sillery before the boring-assed meeting.

I went to the library afterwards, if not for nothing to do then simply because I had to empty the bladder full of the soda I bought from Subway half an hour prior. I was greeted in the lobby with a photo of the church with the churchgoers, and the old reverend from way back when I was still in Quebec. Among the churchgoers were my mum and my brother, back when he wasn't six feet tall. I was laughing silently at him because of his prepubescent dorkiness quite obvious in the photo.

The library is very nice, quite modern, and smelled very little of books (unlike some other musty, dank liberries of yesteryear). I sat and read newspapers for two hours.

I came across a three week old Quebec Chronicle Telegraph where I saw a picture and a headline. Of course I didn't really recognize who it was until two minutes of staring and wondering where I had seen his nose from... Then I figured out he was one of my peers who graduated from high school with our class. Of course, seeing him now doesn't mean much, except that he was once my peer tutee for math 536. He had a hard time integrating well with our class, seeing that he came to our school only for a year, so he didn't go to graduation. I think he came to prom tho.

---

I will eventually compile a class of 97 alumni list. So far, I know that B is in Montreal still working at the McGill bookstore, and my old ex roomie is still in Montreal working on her acting career. Andrea is teaching at an elementary school in Qc.

Poor, Poor Jorghnassen

Dear Jorghnassen,
I'm sorry that you had a harrowing stay with me in Quebec from Thursday to Sunday. I know it was hard for you to be in a massive crowd of thirty thousand teachers on Friday, baking in the sun and consequently obtaining a sunburn. I'm sorry that we ended up missing our bus stop, because of idiots who don't know how to move out of the way on a crowded bus to let other people off, and walked for twenty minutes under the sun to get an even deeper sunburn. And I'm sorry that we went shopping afterwards for four hours to look for shoes... only to find nothing and buying a lotto ticket instead. And I'm sorry that I tricked you on Sunday into getting into the car and having me drive us down the precarious boulevard Hamel, which should have taken at most 10 minutes but ended up going into half an hour or something.
I hope you forgive your silly girlfriend. ;_;

EDIT: He says it's ok.

More About the "Closing?"

My union messenger sent a short news article link to me. Unfortunately I don't have a complete story, nor one written in English, online.

There will be heck this Friday.... To be continued!

Strike! Strike! Strike!

Jorgh got freaked out by the large crowd so we skipped out after an hour of claustrophobic searching through crowds for people I knew and went shopping... On the other hand, I got the sniffles from being outside too long today. :(

Happy Administrative Professionals Day

Formerly called "Secretaries Day," it is a day for national (international?) acknowledgement of all the hard work that these professionals do to let everything run smoothly.

Today also coincides with the day that our union now tells us teachers to *not* pick up anything from administration to communicate with the students. (eg. Report cards.) So much for appreciating our secretaries today.

I baked an apple pie for my secretaries.

And to top it off...

A three day work week, due to a compensation professional development day on Friday, and this crap. I'm not looking optimistically to my next pay cheque.

Impending Death and the Subconscious Mind

News of the Pope's rapidly deteriorating health had been circulating for at least a month. But being "not catholic," it didn't strike me as something of a great spiritual crisis. We all know the guy's a gajillion years old (since everyone tends to poke fun at that, including me) and suffered from a series of ailments over the many years, including Parkinson's.

Today, as I was trying to avoid the chaos of April Fool's pranks that bombarded me in my science class, I felt an incredible wave of sadness. Perhaps it was the weather - the sombre grey of a much too-familiar winter that cast its gloom through the windows. Perhaps it was the moody rain that suddenly transformed into great globs of snowflakes, then mysteriously melted into another spell of rain. Or maybe just because it's Friday. Whatever the case, I thought it was because I was feeling like my usual incompetent self.

When I arrived home and turned on the television set (to watch my daily 3 Simpsons reruns, one in French and two in English), the channel was set to CBC Newsworld. News droned on and on about the Pope and his rapidly ailing self. The story had been all over the school in the last few days, due to our irish (and/or catholic) foundation of teachers and the predominant fear of death that haunts our students, whose parents of the military sort would go on duty for extended periods of time to uncertain areas of the world.

It unnerves the mind when one hears about the fading health or death of a popular and prominent figure of the world. The bit with Mother Theresa was like that briefly, except for the fact that her death was overshadowed by the death of a member of the british royal family, whats-her-name. This time around, it is the story of a man who is dying. Slowly but surely dying.

A medical corespondent started speaking about the most current status of his health. At the moment, she said that he was going through septic shock, which is the point where blood is not reaching the organs thus shutting down the whole body. It then reminded me of the very moment, almost two years ago now, when the doctors at the wretched hospital spewed forth their report on how there was nothing to be done about my father.

Lo and behold, the whole day connected. My heart and my mind agreed upon the feelings were caused by the "spiritual father"'s dying reminding me of my own father's dying. The wave after wave of teary-eyed people on television telling reporters what they were feeling then made sense.

As I write, the pope is dying, probably in some physical pain (but might be numbed from drugs?) or unconscious. Perhaps he's in the deep sleep stage, where no one can follow. I hope that the pope will "walk slowly."

My father... I think that if one has travelled this far, and one has done all one can, one should just let go. So we pulled his respirator and let his heart keep going...

And that is the moment when we look to religion to find answers, or to find comfort, or just to feel something.

Another accident

Afterschool today, a girl in secondary 1 was hit by a school bus coming around the corner towards the school. I believe that she was not watching the traffic as she was crossing the street. Fortunately, there were many, many, many people around available to handle the situation (eg. monitors, teachers, army guys in the city bus). This is indeed a tragedy, and I hope she recovers well. Coincidentally, she's the friend of the girl who fell out of the roller coaster in January.

I drew this for my sister's birthday today. I didn't have much time to decide what colours to use or what her costume would be, so I call her "Gumby." The upside (downside?) is that she's got anime blue hair.