Montreal Blues

I was sick all of Saturday with a flu-like headache that made my head feel like it was going to explode. On Sunday, I thought I was better, although I still had lingering cold-like sniffles. It got much worse on Monday when I arrived in Montreal, because my voice started to give way to a diseased rasp. I did attend Lil V's convocation, followed by Ivo's birthday supper at Mon Nan, followed by an evening gaterhing at Davy's apartment. By then I was already slipping downhill on the voiceability of my voice box. I wanted to stay indoors for the most part of this trip, but now I think it is too late. :(

So today (and for the next few days), I am refraining from talking at all, which sucks because I spent so much time in Quebec not having anyone to talk to anyway. Ivo, Lil V and I are planning to watch the Inu Yasha movie 4 here though (although all I could manage to scrape up wasd the dub) so less talking needed. I heavily dislike being sick. :(

Above all, I blame the elementary school kids with all those germs and things (pokemon cards) they bring to school to infect everyone else. >:(

On a related note, I am sorry to have to miss my friend's (brem's wife) birthday tomorrow and having (the ability) to call and wish her such greetings.

Popcorn Again and Other Blather

Not two days after my attempt at making caramel popcorn did my mum bring home a bag from Kernels. It seems an acquaintance at the mall who works there brought her the bag in exchange for sushi. And now I know why they call it Kernels - every other bite has a rock-hard pellet in it.

Ms C's Random Food Review, Part Million Twenty-Three

Today: Kernels Popcorn, Caramel

Comments: It arrived in a blue bag, proudly proclaiming it was popped freshly that day. It also arrived with the seal broken, my mum having opened it to eat some. I HOPE. The only contents are popcorn (and kernels, thank you very much Kernels) and caramel coating, so no nuts and other random metal bits to fuss about.

Review: If I hadn't burnt the caramel popcorn in the oven the other day, mine would be much tastier. (Yes, I know, I suck.) Generally speaking, the caramel of the Kernels popcorn is bland. Not much flavour other than sugartastic sweet. The popcorn was decent enough - fluffy, large, and fresh enough to last a day. The disadvantage of old popcorn without flavouring or fancy coating is that it gets gross and stale quickly. Also, anyone who has ever made their own popcorn from kernels and a stovetop or air popper will tell you that microwave popcorn and popcorn sellers are ripping you off into oblivion.

Rating: Three / 5

---

I calculate that a supply teacher in this city can work about four days a month to cover the rent. '_'

Yesterday, I went to an elementary school to supply; this being my second time doing elementary, it was just as I expected from the first time, without all the fights breaking out every ten minutes. Like a hockey game! Furthermore, I have never been in a school that I have become lost in so quickly. It's like one of those dreams where you walk down a hall and up or down stairs, follow random people, and find out you're in a completely different building.

---

Within a few days, Ian should be in town to visit. I had told him to come while the autumn colours were still around, but that rain-and-wind-storm from last weekend pretty much blew off all the leaves around here. Hence, he'll have to settle for drab November and all its dull glories.

Holy carp holy carp holy carper

Dawson College shooting:
I sit at home pretty much all day (except the 1 hour a day I get up and go, as per yesterday's post and I don't have much else to do except look for a job and read the news. Except I didn't read it until 3 pm, after I turned on the TV and there were images of cops running around Montreal downtown and people being loaded up on stretchers.

Donnah lives next to College Lasalle, which is right in the neighborhood. I called her a little while ago and she said she was fine. She was taking the 24 bus from Westmount to home, and first spotted a bunch of students running in the opposite direction. (She thought someone might have bombed one of the jewish temples or schools again.) Then the bus divered its route, but was stalled on the road. The police cordonned the whole area, and there was apparently a dead body on the road. @_@ ... Later, she got off the bus still far from home, but the police denied access to everyone for the whole block. So she got home by taking a (rather long) detour by way of orange line to Sherbrooke and back home by 24 bus in the opposite direction.

Then we chatted about finding jobs again. Life must go on, eh?

I'm freaking out because it happened downtown and everyone I know in Montreal has at some point needed to go downtown to do something, so any one of us could have been a bystander or witness. Also, I'm angry because, and I quote what I told Felix: "kids are still kids and they're stupid!" >:@ (By kids, I am referring to the shooters.)

Montreal residents, please report your status!

MIA for 2 Weeks

I know that there have been some people trying to contact me over the last few weeks. I should have made this more obvious: I was attending two weddings over the last two weeks in completely different cities than the one I currently reside in, and thus I was not in town for those two weeks. I just returned this evening to my home (computer) and have listened to the phone messages (16, a new record) and read my backlog of emails (5 nonspam, wonderful).

Obviously I am terrible at communicating with people via any other sort of means than face-to-face conversation, especially the telephone. And I am also a class triple-A introvert. My choice of career is ironic.

---

I see that Ian is back in Montreal.

A Kid Who Makes One Reconsider Having Kids

Toronto was a massive tropical mess. The sun is stronger with even this slight difference in latitude. The air was laden with so much moisture that the humidex was 37 degrees nearly the whole time I was there. In addition, it was so hot in the morning that I couldn't run longer than half the usual time. (But I did get to see cute animals scurrying about.)

There were good things, like having seafood and more seafood. There was also seeing the cousins and more cousins of cousins. Then there was the terrible things, like filling up on so much water that I felt like one of those controversial fountains. But the thing that I could not understand was the behaviour of that certain ~3 year old baby...

The baby was cute enough. (Cousin of cousin of cousin, I suppose.) He spoke about three languages, all of them chinese, at the same time. Even his mum had a hard time understanding him. His favourite television program must be Thomas the Tank Engine because he had his own Thomas inflatable mattress.

But he had almost no discipline. The mother would restrain him when he hit her or slapped her around, but there was little to no follow-up after restraint, nor any corrective behaviour, so that the kid would just keep doing the bad behaviour. He would also start crying if he was restrained too long or denied anything he wanted. Then the restraint would stop or the adults would give in. In addition, he would slap around my female relatives, but not the male ones.

The boy made a great start when he arrived, as his nose suddenly bled three times in a row, and right onto the rug that Rebecca had just finished scrubbing a few hours prior to the mess. She then commented that the last time he had visited, he had peed on the floor as well. For some reason, one of the adults thought it might be a good idea to stick a piece of chinese green into the nose to stop the bleeding, but thank goodness the kid refused this unorthodox treatment.

But that is not the only thing the kid refused. He also refused to relinquish things that kids aren't supposed to play with, such as the inflatable mattress motor, and he refused to be told to stop beating up the people around him.

I was spared the whiny torment and torture of the boy by interacting as nonchalantly as possible, because I couldn't stand another moment when the mother would allow him yet again to fling a chopstick around. (That didn't mean I was heartless - I still helped him up and down stairs and make sure he didn't run into a pole or something.)

Eddie and Rebecca both work with young children his age, and they had suggested to the parents to leave the kid with them for 3 weeks and they'd straighten him out. (I'm sure everyone deep down inside really hoped the parents would say yes.)

Karma?

It never fails that I get called to go supply for elementary school when I get the least amount of sleep. The first and only other time (two years ago now) that I went for elementary, I had two hours of sleep, at most. That turned out to be a very frustrating day. I think I was only able to function due to adrenaline from breaking up fights and sticking kids out in the corridor.

Today, I had another insomniatic 3-hour-sleep night(although I did take a 3 hour nap the previous evening) and I was called at 7 am. Fortunately, not for the same school as mentioned above. I proceeded to head up to Valcartier again, armed this time with the violin and one bag of tea. Both turned out to be the most useful items during the day.

The elementary French teacher was out today, and had left the (apparently usual) arsenal of wordsearch, connect-the-dots, and coloring pages. I am a bit more experienced now with the much younger kids (after seeing my colleagues up there zipping around with buttloads of activities for one day), so I knew that what was left for these kids was not enough. I spent the busride up and the ten minutes I had before class associating (French?) musical activities with these worksheets.

The first one I had was with the grade 3 class, which turned out really well in my opinion. I assigned the wordsearch and then had them fill in some of the lyrics to a song that Jorgh and I are familiar with... but I had forgotten the real words (especially considering I hadn't planned to dig up such an old memory this morning) so I had to make up for some of the original lyrics:

Rose, rose, comme la fleur
Brun, brun, comme la terre
Bleu, bleu, comme le ciel
Vert, vert, comme la mer

Mauve, mauve, comme la nuit
Rouge, rouge, comme le feu
Jaune, jaune, comme le soleil
Chante, chante les couleurs!

Once again, I forgot all the original lyrics. But it doesn't matter because the kids actually sang the song along with me playing it, whose tune I do recall because that's the only thing I ever remember.

The second class was with grade 6, and that went just as well. I winged the music activity because the students were first given back their French tests that I gave the solutions to, then given the "Les oiseaux" word search... then I played a few songs that were bird themed; "The Thornbirds" (which somehow someone correctly translated because I couldn't remember the French name), "Turkey in the Straw" (which Scott came in and started step dancing to), and the Chicken song.

Then came the grade 1s... I don't think it went as badly that class as the entire day at that other elementary school, but I was still pretty upset. The boys were completely edgy and slipping in curse words at every turn, and they would tell on each other afterwards. It was a nutball class but I could probably attribute it to the absence of the regular teacher and the fact that they were going to go swimming in the afternoon.

I had only about fifteen minutes with the other grade 1 class, so the teacher gave me two English books to read to the class. They were both pretty cute; the first was "When Jeremiah Found Mrs. Ming" and the second one was My Dog is an Elephant." The kids were very appreciative of the reading and I enjoyed it as well. Then the kids were herded off to the swimming pool across the street.

About a half hour later, while I was idling in the teacher's lounge, there was a huge flash of light, and suddenly a great big BOOM. The thick pattering sounds echoed through the room, even penetrating through the closed windows. Five minutes later, as I watched, a river of screaming grade 1, 2 and 3s charged onto the school grounds.

There was one poor kid who had been ridiculously sunburnt on his back during the weekend and thus he couldn't go swimming. But while I was looking after him, the grade 2/3 teacher had asked that he help his friends out at the pool, and so he came back in soaking wet.

I asked him with a concerned tone if he was alright because of the rain, and he said he was okay. He replied with this huge grin, "I went swimming without getting in the pool!" I told him that he would probably feel it later. Not five minutes after I spoke, he became a weeping ball of a kid in the corner, being comforted by the adult volunteers, and the teacher was trying her best to figure out what they could do to comfort his stinging back. (I hope I don't sound smug, because I was feeling rather bad for having let the kid out in the first place when the teacher asked for him.)

Anyway, she told me to pacify the remainder of her class by playing the violin for the rest of the day for them, which I was going to anyway since I was supposed to be in that class.

My favourite moments of the day were the kids singing and dancing along with my playing and listening intently while I was reading; my least favourite moment was when the kid was bawling out the door with a cooled hankie on his back.

The moral of the story? Elementary is fine, I suppose, if one takes each class by dose rather than stay with a class all day.

Otakuthon 2006

Held at Concordia last Saturday and Sunday, this is the first that time the Concordia anime club has attempted to host this convention. Unfortunately, they were very short-handed and stretched to wacky limits, as I don't think they ever expected so many people attending. From what I gathered of forum information, there was about 600 people pre-registered, and most likely a good 1.5 to 2 thousand people attending.

Jorgh and I attended Saturday early afternoon only, as I had to get back to Quebec Sunday. We also got to meet up with Julie and meet her boyfriend Sean. We spent most of the time standing in line, since the chaotic mess of registration prevented anyone from understanding what the crap was going on. Considering my experience from Anime North 2003 volunteering at registration, I forgave the poor organizers for their short tempers, especially that Tsunade cosplayer who was screaming at the attendees from behind the pre-registration table.

Jorgh and I sampled a bit of the sights from the (scant) merchants and artist alley, while suffocating from the lack of air and smells of the unwashed kids dressed in greasy handmade costumes. I appreciated the lack of completely inappropriate costumes among the attendees (except for one particular case that will haunt Jorghnassen for the rest of eternity).

We watched part of an anime called Ginban Kaleidoscope, which featured an olympic athlete girl who is haunted by the ghost of a Canadian boy named Peet Pumps (no, that's not a typo). I have no clue.

We then attended two panels; the first one was given by the editor of Anime News Network, Chris, who gave a combined talk about the website and the state of the anime industry, since no one from the anime industry went to the convention. The second panel was given by Chris and Claude, the editor of the anime magazine, Protoculture Addicts. In both panels, they gave us incentives to ask well-formulated questions to keep the talk moving. The incentives happened to be anime DVDs. (Unfortunately we only found out after viewing them that they weren't particularly good DVDs.)

Jorgh and I, along with the 5 other people in the room, asked sufficient questions to forward the panel interestingly enough for the entire two hours. In fact, we enjoyed asking questions to Chris, especially regarding the anime industry in North America, seeing that someone who was knowledgeable enough to answer the nagging thoughts in our mind. For example, what of fansubs? How does it affect the sales of anime? Which companies in NA makes reasonably good decisions regarding distribution and production? What happened between 2000 and 2006 that screwed up distribution of anime across this continent? (I'm not going to answer these questions here.)

What both Jorghnassen and I found completely inconsiderate and immature was that waiting outside of the panels were kids who were impatiently waiting for the next panel. They were being loud and obnoxious, as only young people can get, and didn't realize that their stupid comments about how boring the panels sounded could be heard by everyone inside the room. Way to make the panelists feel good, jerks. If I had had presence of mind, I would have chewed their heads off made them apologize to Chris and Claude.

In fact, those kids were waiting for the totally awesome and intellectually stimulating panel called "Les anime que vous aimez détester." </sarcasm> The panel apparently consisted of random debates between people intent on pissing everyone else off in the room, and squealing fangirls.

Afterwards, we left the place feeling sufficiently creeped out from too many people, but satisfied with the two DVDs we gained from attending. Until we watched them, that is. Why HOW did they make 26 episodes of that show?!

No, we didn't see Irulanne.

Aishiteruze Baby

You'll have to forgive me for thinking the worse for japanese anime and manga culture. I have been exposed to much too much of the stuff. Anyway, the worst that I have seen involves something so utterly disgusting but apparently popular enough to be called "lolicon" (no, there's much, much worse but I won't say it). The first part of that word stems from "lolita" so you get the idea. When I first watched the first several minutes of Aishiteruze Baby, I had a terrible, terrible feeling it was going to be just that.

Fortunately I was quite wrong. But knowing that there exists something called the internet, there is probably going to be fan-made crap that will twist the entire thing into such trash.

I'll stop thinking so terribly about this show and talk about how cute it is.

Hooray! It's a schoolkid story that's neither boring nor ridiculous! A 15 17 year old boy is put in guardianship of his 5 year old cousin when her mother disappears. It's all a bit disturbing at first because the boy's got some weird relationships with his female friends at school, but it's all innocent. An innocent love at first sight. :)

The story develops with realistic issues that a 5 year old could experience. None of that candy-coated "my friends have better toys than me" crap. More like issues of abandonment, solitude, jealousy, child abuse... on the other hand, the show deals with them at a decent pace and without making you feel like throttling certain characters despite some weighty topics.

Jorgh probably won't like the series too much because it doesn't have any hand-to-hand combat, perpetual powering up, absurd comedy, or boobs. OK, it has boobs. But not naked boobs.

ADD.: So the manga series ends differently, and it's much, much more heart-tugging than the anime ending, although things seemed more rushed.

Something's Coming...

I don't know / what it is / but it is / gonna be greaaaaaat!

There are two beans sprouting!!! And there are other chinese vegetables actually growing!

About an hour ago, I noticed these two kids from the building across the driveway poking around in the tulip garden. Puzzled, I let them play around some more, seeing that they weren't pulling up things or stepping on the bed. Then the girl ran away but the boy spoke up: "Il y a plein de limaces!"

Wha-?

In his palm, the squirming slug struggled slowly in its slime. The boy reported that he had already picked out all the slugs from the flowerbed. I merely acknowledged him and waddled off to water the vegetables.

This explains why there's been a foam baseball bat nearby for the last two weeks.

Another thread popped up (or pooped up) on the SA forums for more covers of video game music. I don't know any of those posted. I think the next one I make will be a bit more obscure for amateurs of old school video games.

Tales of Gardening Feats

My mum, brother and I took the time this afternoon to get some flowers for my dad's grave and plant them. I finally brought the plastic green dividers that I bought from the school's rummage sale last year. I also finally got to dig up old useless roots in the soil and plant living things in the bed. Like LIVE flowers. Anyway, it's looking a lot better now. Such a pretty day...

Some cute LOST gifs made by an SA goon.

---

I was working the last two days so I hadn't posted. One of the things I noticed is that students were definitely going insane. Secondary 1 to secondary 5... they were all going positively insane. It is warm, it is green, and it is SUMMER. I got fed up with having nobody and nothing to back up any discipline cases (especially being a supply teacher), so they were treated to a two-day WTF marathon where anything went. Fortunately, the more sensible ones were plodding along fine, but the crazies were just absolutely crazy. These are 17 year old mental cases I'm talking about.

If it were up to me, I'd have expelled their asses a long time ago, or just let them go out to the workforce and try their stupid antics and see how long they last when their boss asks them to do something and they defiantly yell "NO."

Words cannot convey the anger.

Do it with EMOTICONS. >:( >:o >=( :@ >:t >>>>>>P

Two kids set fire to their geography textbook next to the tree on our lot. Then they took off. Then I ran outside with a bucket of water to put it out. Then I went to school to find the policière but nobody had a goddamn clue where she was. Then I came home and blogged about it.

I'm just waiting for the old lady upstairs to get home so I can get her to find the cop.

ADDENDUM: I finally got hold of the old lady upstairs, whom I successfully related the story to in my terrible, terrible French. She was quite nice about me bothering her on her lunch break and offered to call up the policière from the school and leave a message (since she calls the most often) and I left the bag of smouldering textbook with her.

---

I should probably also tell a bit of backstory to this. During this school year, there have been incidents of drug use and breaking and entering in this building, since the students at lunch and after school have absolutely nowhere to go except other people's private property. They especially like to break in to the basement apartment because the entrance is in the back of the building. The old couple's daughter lives downstairs with her husband and family of three young girls.

Needless to say, there has been almost no action taken by the school or police, other than taking down reports and handling phone calls. Finally, there was enough of the neighbourhood disgusted by this that the policière of the school had a meeting with everyone to inform us what was being done: sensitisation pamphlets. Essentially, NOTHING. GOOD JOB, SCHOOL.

Sketch

I thought I would post a sketch that I made a while ago but forgot about. I think it captures the feeling almost perfectly, which is why I like this one. (On the other hand, it is not a very good quality scan.) 

I Blog Me When...

... either things are going really well, or when things are going really slow. It happens to be neither, but that's because I haven't posted in a few days and I've been a bit busy working.

Anyway, right now things are getting better. I have more or less made slight hints to my more trusted colleagues at school that the board sucks, and I could be leaving if nothing else happens.

Lo and behold, another indeterminate leave occurs. I have a tendency to get upset when I have these indeterminate leaves, mostly because the person who leaves has a really sad reason to need one. This time, it's even sadder (to me) the reason, which happens to be that the teacher's father is gravely ill.

Things go a full circle. Yours truly came back here because of father being struck down by a stroke.

I managed to talk to the teacher in question before he left today, to arrange the rest of the week which happens to be "administer exam, correct them, administer another one, etc." He looked pretty depressed, despite his poker face. It makes me very sad to know his father is ill, and that I am replacing him at one of the most crucial times of the year.

In other news, the kids all keep asking me two things:

1. I got a hair cut??? Really???


2. Why am I not replacing that other teacher who went on paternity leave??? Maybe because I DON'T HAVE A CLUE.

Anyway, this month at that school is going to be insane. There is the yearly camping trip that is coming up in two weeks, a grad kayak trip in the same week, a ped day and a holiday soon, and a load of regular teachers absent or on leaves.

It will look more busy this month than I thought.

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. ;_;

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.

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.

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.

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.

---

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.

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!

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.

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.