Still Sick

An evening spent at the QPAT convention managed to mangle my healing(?) voice box some more, not to mention develop into coughing spasms that prompted one woman in a 5 person audience to essentially tell me to leave the room. So I decided to forgo the rest of the convention today by inadvertently sleeping in and figuring out what to do for the next few days in Montreal as I have little voice left and a cough threatening to invert my respiratory tract. I had planned to crawl to Waterloo this weekend but Jorgh told me to get better beforehand (as everyone knows that travel + sickness = :(^:( ).

It costed $25 to register for the convention, more or less returned by various samples and things at the exhibitors' booths and the keynote speaker, Stephen Lewis. (The Crayola table and the Sunkist/CHOCOLATESAMPLING table, although popular, don't quite make up $25 on their own.) On the other hand, I felt that the talks I attended weren't as informative as I had initially hoped, which contributed to dissuading me from going to more talks today. I also didn't want to get told off again for coughing up my lungs during another talk.

I was expecting to see a few teachers I recognized, which I did (including Erik), while I was quite surprised to come across my Teaching Mathematics (university course) teacher at the QAMT table. It was surprising not because I remembered his face (but once again, not the name), but that he remembered me. (Though I guess he also cheated and saw my nametag.)

The weirdest thing was arriving at the EMSB table and being told to call them today to tell them I was available to work. Weird because: 1) I could barely talk in the first place and they said they would get back to me if I couldn't call them, and 2) then receiving a call this morning asking me to interview for a substitution card(???) even though I could barely talk on the phone. I pretty much told them I'd have to postpone it until I got better.

The highlight of the evening was indeed, Stephen Lewis. His passioned speech about the work with children he did throughout the years in Africa and elsewhere, was enough to emotionally move all the teachers in the room to physically herd towards him at the end of his talk, bombard the tables selling his book and mob his lineup to sign the book. I had the displeasure of having imbibed too much water (from coughing so violently in the previous talk) and darting out to the washroom in the middle of this inspiring speech. It would have been less embarrassing if I hadn't chosen to sit in the fifth row up front, but infinitely more embarrassing if it had been right in the middle of the row.

Alas, I would have liked to attend more talks today and hang around the exhibitors' stalls, but I think I had enough for now. It's been 5 years since I started wanting to go to one of these conventions and now I have finally arrived, but I guess it has been overshadowed by the depressing lack of employment and being sick sick sick sick sick.

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.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.