Blogging from the Dead

Happily enough, I have enjoyed the last few days (contrasted with the last entire two months). My dear Ivo-san came to Quebec this weekend to a chess tournament being held at Laval U. We spent some time yesterday at the Cochon Dingue on Cartier, which had a nice environment but a rather lacking menu. Anyway, they have fries which I'll try next time (for lunch, because their evening prices are nuts).

So in addition to having gone to a relatively relaxing trip to Village des Sports on Friday with the high school, I had the rather gut-wrenching experience of Parent-Teacher night on Wednesday. That was the first time I conducted it alone, and I was completely terrified. My favourite moments are when the parents vowed upon their wedding bands/mortgage/threat of inexistence of the child, extra work and tutelage for their son or daughter failing miserably in my class, only to have the student in question not really coming forward for any help. Fortunately, these parents do recognize that the teacher isn't one thousand percent responsible for the student's failings.

I also enjoyed feeling mildly depressed over the shortcomings of all my students at the secondary five level. Surely there are hard workers among them, are there not? Indeed, there are exactly 4 who are consistently hard workers, 3 who work sometimes, and 1 who is the class brain but isn't working even to semi-potential. Talented students, yes. Lazy asses, yes. Undesirable group, no. They're quite delightful when they're in class and at 100% working, but this is highly rare, and consequently seems disturbing when it does happen.

I didn't enjoy feeling terribly depressed over the disruptive secondary fours. I am still in pain over ritalin kid's outburst this week, having swore so profusely in class that I very seriously considered kicking him out for the entire week. Instead, I kicked him out for the rest of class, and he was blindsided by the principal outside my door.

Other events like my new two students still adjusting to the class are rather interesting. My recent QHS-departed student is a bit of a nuisance at times for disruptive behaviour, but he doesn't seem to have a strong learning disability (for the moment). The PEI-departed student is quiet and somewhat shy, but she has yet to show difficulty in content. I will be giving them a test this week for them to catch up to the level of the rest of the class.

So there you have it. I came back from the dead to write this, and I'll be rolling over and sleeping for another week or so.

Happy New Year!

Knowing me, the likelihood of me putting up a post on the day when something happens is close to nil. I tend to forget after the big events and end up posting a huge mass of words that make people forget to read my blog.

Just to reiterate holiday greetings (because I miss them already)... 


I'm back at school since Monday. Today was the actual first day of school for kids, and people haven't changed one bit. ;)

One bit of news that was passed around today was that of a secondary 1 girl from our school having fallen off a roller coaster at the mall on Monday, undergoing surgery today. On another note, a lot of people did not sympathize with her, as she was reportedly "changing seats with her friend" on the curve while it was moving. It is also an amazing feat that she landed on the bumper cars grid while it was not electrified, otherwise this would be an obituary link.

Edit: I took out a sentence due to the fact that I don't think before I write.

Merry Vacation from Me!

I wish everyone a happy holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, hava a "Kwazy Kwanzaa" and all the other holidays going on at the same time. Yes, even Festivus(c).

I sent a number of people different sets of photo greetings. Hope you didn't find them too ugly...

A very considerate and thoughtful secondary 5 student, whose 4 or 5 other siblings also attend the school, brought me this cute gingerbread house. He said it was a tradition in his family for each of them to bring their homeroom teachers a gingerbread house. It was so touching I was almost in tears. :') 

Two Days Left..!

I have been working my butt off (or maybe not) with catching up with work. It is mostly figuring out what I am supposed to teach and where exactly we are supposed to be caught up to. I am most afraid of not being able to get everything done by the time exams come around, and not having taught material well enough. Secondly, I am still tearing my hair out at my wild and unruly secondary 4 combined science class (ie. both 416 and 436 physical science). What I am least concerned about is my bedtime. ... Besides, I can always catch up a bit with the hour long bus rides to and fro.

School is out on the 22nd, which means I have about 2 days of Christmas shopping to commence! Fortunately, I have 4 classes in total left to teach, and a talent show in the afternoon of the 22nd to judge.

Additionally, I am going to driving practice, and my third lesson will be tomorrow afternoon. I haven't driven into snowbanks yet, but it seems that this could be a headline within the next few days...

Non-Educational Time-Wasters

Would you know it? I'm also terrible at games.

Balloon Duel - The great NES game revived as a modern-day Flash tribute. Customizations galore!

Snopes - If you ever send me another chain letter, I will smash your heads in...to this web site, which details how useless thsoe emails are. This site mostly debunks many (if not most) urban legends.

I got so caught up in the customizations for Balloon Duel that I made an ugly sketch of my two characters, the girl Seamus (yes, I know that it's a boy's name), and little Naruto. It is possible to make a Naruto character! Yes!!! 

Educational Time-Wasters

Note that I am terrible at geography.

Geosense - Compete against others online or play on your own! Possible slow servers. This game is hard because the scores are calculated to how close you are to the city.
Geography Olympics - Represent your country (or mess up other people's countries) and compete up to 3 times a day! This game is not quite as hard as the above, because it only asks for the country. On the other hand, the controls are rather wonky.
If you really have no clue! This is where I started, and it makes for a reasonably good tutor. Now I know the differences between Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan. If I can do it, you can too! Note that I still can't spell, and had to look up the names.