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.

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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.

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. :(