There and Back Again

... but with fewer magic rings and giant flaming eyeballs. More girls in it tho. ;)

I prattled around Montreal for two weeks, all of the time being sick to some degree or another. As I discovered, it was the same thing that everyone was going through recently, although in my case I didn't get medical treatment for it (except getting cough syrup, but not for that extreme).



I met up with Jin last Sunday, who was also visiting with her cousin Kevin. Really nice guy, who was patient enough to wait with us while Jin was trying on bras and jeans all afternoon. Initially, Rachel was trying to get the girls together, but Jin's talents (with her cell phone) managed to assemble nearly everyone for dim sum. It was a miraculous, spontaneous gathering that barely involved Rachel's intervention.

The interview mentioned in the previous post went alright; I suppose I was mostly confused, as I was still suffering from a bit of flu, but I hope that I brought across, most of all, the impression of a teacher having grown from the complicated and ill-prepared mess that I was, to being ready and excited to start teaching again. It looks odd from my CV how someone with my background could have spent so much time waiting for a position, but I think it has made me all the better for it. (And if I dwell on it some more, I might end up changing my mind and get depressed again so I won't talk about it any more.)

Davy and I went into the wee hours of Friday night and Saturday morning writing a song. Actually, I would like to claim I helped write the lyrics, but I feel like I mostly guided Davy's words into something that made sense (and all the sillier lines were of his own twists). If we were more serious about the song, I would probably have liked to insert a musical interlude somewhere. ;)

Still Goddamn Si-*koff koff koff*

I spent the last two nights in various states of unsteady sleep and coughing myself awake every hour. My lame treatment of doses of cold water, and attempts at just keeping my eyes open until fatigue set in, don't seem to work, but I am convinced that I will be better soon.

In a surprising twist of fortune, the contact at the EMSB told me to email her my CV "ASAP" this morning (after admitting that she had almost given up on me but then realizing that I had been sick all week), which led to a phone call a few hours later from a principal out in Montréal-Nord, which now leads to an interview tomorrow morning out there. I will probably capitalize on Ian's idea on getting a 100-pak of Fisherman's Friend and at least stumble through the interview without hacking up spittle or whatnot.



In yet another piece of (old) Islands news, my brother published an article in Chart Magazine, September 2006 (page 62). I remember my sister showing us the article earlier this year, and yesterday she had just sent me a pdf scan of the page. It's not about anything in particular (... it's called "Who I Have The Hugest Crush On") but it does have that popsicle picture and a sketch by his friend Sinbad at the bottom of the page.

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.

I Suxx0rs to the nth Power

And lo on the day of judgement, the second child of Man messed up and fuxx0red the interview time. Thus forgiveness bound on breast of the interviewer and rescheduled the damnable thing to the next day, Friday at the eighth and one-half hour of the day.