Let me tell you about last weekend. 
I drove to Milton on Saturday to visit with my Aunt and Uncle who have a few acres which include a pond and parts of a small forest. My aunt had invited me out to try some jewelry making and we sat in the front room creating and talking. While we were talking a man came up to the door. His name is Billy Parker and he told us he was riding his bike all the way to the East coast. He said he was from Edmonton and had got a lift to Winnipeg back in March and then cycled the rest of the way. We thought he might be asking for money for a charity but what he really wanted was to camp on the land. When we said that would be okay he asked if he could sleep in the tent trailer that my aunt and uncle had open in the driveway airing out. Yes of course. And we invited him to join us for BBQ. We sat out on the back enclosed porch and just as we were about to serve up the dinner he requested a paper plate so he could eat it later. We were confused and my aunt asked if he was going to stay for dinner or not. He said he would stay and 'chew the fat' and then eat in the trailer. Weird but whatever. After apparently cycling most of the day he sat there with a huge pile of food on his plate and talked while we ate. Very odd man. He talked about the most random things ever. Every sentence was about a completely different topic. I think he'd be very good at trivial pursuit, but he's not good at conversation. When he'd tell us something like the fact that the Chinese language has 2000 characters (I have no idea if that's true) and he wondered how they used a keyboard. My aunt, knowing I'd lived in Taiwan looked to me. I commented that the keyboards definitely did not have 2000 keys and that they likely used sound symbols that the kids use when first learning Chinese. And then Bill jumped right to a different topic. Couldn't stay on one topic for more than a minute or two. After a bit I think we just gave up trying and just listened. After dinner he went off to the the trailer and was gone in the morning when my uncle went out to offer him coffee.
My aunt and uncle do not have internet so I had to wait till I got home on Sunday to look up Bill online. Turns out he has been cycling around Ontario for 5 years!
http://therecord.blogs.com/take_the_lane/2008/05/corss-country-c.html
So if he one day shows up at your door, he's odd but harmless.

Following that I headed to my friend Angie's baby shower in Toronto. We all met at her brother's amazing home in the Avenue Rd. and Lawrence area. It was the first time I'd met his wife and two beautiful boys. Angie looked great and I think everyone had a good time. I had been asked to come up with a game for the party. I went online and hunted around. I brought 8 jars of baby food and removed the labels. Then anyone who participated had to taste each delicacy and record their best guess on a card which I later checked to see who had gotten the most right. It was funny and more successful than I thought it was. And the left overs went to little Jack who seemed to nap through most of the event. 
I also got to meet Natalia's little one. He is two months old and his name is Lucas Patrick. He has the biggest eyes ever and he can hold his head up! Nat looked great and looked so put together. Turns out she'd been ready at 1:30 but Lucas took charge and she didn't get out of her place till 3pm. I don't have kids but I think with babies, that's pretty normal. 

I'm looking forward to meeting baby Kwan who I believe is due about July 10th. Marvan and Ang are very independent and I think it will be a big shock to have a little being running their lives. 

Lately I have been working quite intensely with a few kids after school tutoring them. One boy is 7 and has been struggling with reading. I am so proud of him because lately he's been showing some distinct advances in his ability to sound out letters, combinations of letters and words. Currently we are working on compound words. It is interesting to see him read big, 'scary' words without reacting to them upon seeing them as too difficult and something he's unable to read. When we talk about compound words he automatically looks for the two smaller words, reads them and then proudly states the one big word. Had I given him these words a month ago he would have melted down fairly quickly as he would have become quickly overwhelmed.
It's interesting to work with kids on their reading and math skills and quickly realize I am working quite a bit on how they view these subjects. Different personalities, experiences and self-beliefs play a huge roll in trying to do the work. In Australia a very common comment both at school and in the culture at large was 'have a go'. Kids were familiar with the idea of 'have a go' and were less afraid of making a mistake than their Canadian counterparts.
When I get my own classroom I'll be sure to put up 'have a go' as one of my posters.

Things kids say

I keep wanting to update this with things my kids have said to me. When I say 'my' kids I mean the hundreds of kids I work with day to day and week to week.
Last week I worked in a grade 3 class and a girl I was giving extra help as she speaks Arabic and is just learning English, started pointing to my freckles (not the first time my freckles have become a topic of conversation) and telling me that they are from God and that they mean that I am very lucky. I thought this was quite cute and wholeheartedly agreed with her.
When greeting this same class I said 'hello, welcome friends'. Something I normally say to a class and a response I got back from one of the kids was 'Salam, I mean Salam a lecume'. Which is an Arabic greeting which I know the response to and gave, with smiles back from a few Arabic speaking kids in the class.

A few things I've made.

Not the most recent photos but here is me :)

Lately

So, have you heard about what's been going on in my province over the last little while?

A little while back our Premiere Dalton McGuinty stepped down as Premiere. And basically shut down the government until a new leader can be decided upon. Elementary and Secondary teachers are in discussions regarding some illegal things he (the gov't) has done with the contracts. A bit of a mess and the teachers are likely to go on strike in about mid-December. (yes, that includes me)

Then the mayor of London, Joe Fontana was charged with using public money to put a down payment on a venue for his son's wedding. He's refusing to step down which I don't really have a problem with. The problem is this charge is going to take up a lot of his time. And I think he's probably guilty and should just deal with it quickly.

And then just the other day the mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford was forced to resign as mayor as he's been charged with putting public money or soliciting public money to go to support his favourite kids football team. It's a charity and he's been asked to pay the money back to the public coffers and is aghast that he should have to do such a thing and is refusing. So the police stepped in and charged him. 

Really not sure whose running anything at the moment.

Now, want to hear about my Monday? Yesterday I was the gym teacher/librarian/computer person at a local school. Because I had a prep first thing I arrived about 10 minutes after the bell. As I was signing in at the office I heard words such as "why won't my phone let me call 911?" and "are you going to call her parents?" which of course peaked my curiosity. S (11 year old grade 6 boy) was standing there out of breath talking to Mr. H a teacher on prep.

And then they both left. Turns out a girl was having an epileptic seizure and they needed an ambulance. I knew exactly who she was. I had taught her when she was in grade 3 and all the teachers know she has epilepsy. But she hadn't had a seizure in years until this past summer so we were now extra aware this year. And she'd never had a seizure at school. When I got way out to the portable to see her, the class had been moved into the music portable with the music teacher who happened to be on prep and her teacher and Mr. H were with her. She was on her side and not moving, which is a good thing. Soon one of the 'first-aider' teachers showed up and I stood outside and directed the ambulance across the field to the correct portable. She was quickly taken to the hospital and almost no students except her class knew this had happened. Pretty amazing team work.

She's fine and back at school today. 

Later on that day a little 4 year old was screaming and crying in class so Mrs. R the support teacher was walking with him in the hallway and trying to get a grade 5 boy to talk to the little one in Russian as it was the little guy's first day at school, first day away from mom and he knows no English. He just kept crying so they hung out in the library for a while. You could hear his crying off and on throughout the day coming from different locations in the school.

Then as I was leaving work I managed to run over a large orange pylon in the parking lot. I got it so good that I couldn't get it out from under my car and a dad had to help me. Ridiculous!

The Flood

So a week ago Sunday my kitchen decided to flood. It was all sorted out by about 11:30pm and two plumbers. The first two floor hallways were damaged so much that some of the carpet was ripped up.

Awesome Burger

After the cottage my parents left me with a few left-over burgers. This is one I made and put everything on it. It was messy but goooood.

More CATAN!!!

Kevin, Ang, Tammy, Eric and Lisa all playing Catan. With me of course. I love being up at the cottage.

Who knew Tammy loved to fish so much?? I mean she's an addict! It was amazing to see all the things she caught.

And Ang is reading. I love reading up at the cottage.

More summer

I love summer long weekends. Here's Eric feeding chipmunks and squirrels. He loved it!

Summer!

I can't believe that it has been almost a year since I posted something. Well actually I can. I figure no one's reading this so it's hard to get psyched to write anything. If anyone is reading this please let me know and I'll write more often!

Super hot summer so far!!! I spent the July long weekend at the cottage with 8 friends. Great time!! I'll post pictures soon.

Ruth