Monday, September 20, 2010

A Game of Inches

Just a week or two ago, we were considering not having the TV hooked up at our new house.  We had put our service on hold for the summer and we were not missing the idiot box after two months without.  I was getting lots of other things done during the time I would have spent staring at the tube.  Then football season started.  This made the decision much more difficult.  I am a very large football and hockey fan and watch lots of games on TV (bless my wife for her patience).  But I still considered doing without.  Eventually, we (mostlly me as my wife was fine either way) decided to have the service hooked back up.

As I sat in front of the TV this evening and my eyes beheld the emerald green turf at Candlestick Park in San Francisco and my ears rang with the dulcet tones of the Monday Night Football theme, I knew I had made the right decision.  AS I watched the game see saw between the two teams, I felt a strange tingling throughout my body.  The visual display was tickling the pleasure centre of my brain.  I was flooded with endorphins as I watched the game go down to a field kick attempt on the final play of the game.

Life is good again.

**Hockey season is only three weeks away.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

I'm On Fire!

We had a great speaker at our district wide professional development day on Friday.  Mark McLeod is an educational speaker from Mississippi.  The man's message is to be on fire about teaching.  He did a pretty good job of getting most people all fired up about going into the classroom and making  a difference with the kids you have.  We have quite an opportunity to influence children's lives as educators, but it's easy to lose sight of that and become negative when you have bad behaviours or trouble with your administrator or co-workers.  Mark's message is to stay positive and the environment around you will become more positive too.  I am definitely susceptible to bouts of extreme negativity, so I'm trying my best to take Mark's advice and be more positive.  At the very least, my wife won't have to live with Mr. Crusty Puss anymore (or as much).

Mark's other main message was the emotional bank account.  Negative actions and words are a withdrawal from one person's account by another and postive or kind actions and words are a deposit.  Those deposits can be called on later when you have to ask for help or come down hard.  I will forever think of that man whenever I hear the words Cha-Ching!

Finally, I'm on fire because I had some simply awesome Indian food last night in the little village of Pouce Coupe.  The food was spicy and fine.  My mouth was on fire!

Friday, September 17, 2010

Wow!

Well, it's been busy.  Starting two new grades at a new school has been challenging to say the least.  In fact, I've been busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest.  Every time I think I'm starting to catch up, another pile ends up on my desk.  I'll be going in again this Sunday for more work.  It helps that the satellite hasn't been fixed, so I don't have access to football.  Otherwise, I'm not sure how much willpower I'd have to make into work for another weekend.  I've even been working in the evening when we get home since I started and that's just not like me.  I like to leave work at work.  Unfortunately, I also like to make sure my kids learn, so something had to give.

My class is interesting this year.  I have a very loud bunch of students.  Now, I'm not one of those teachers that has their students sit in rows silently while they work, but I like it when they aren't talking when I am.  Also, everything they say is shouted to one another.  We are making slow progress on how to behave in class.  The first half of the week I despaired of retaining any shreds of my sanity this year, but by the end of the week there was a glimmer of hope.  Only a glimmer at this point, but that is better than nothing. 

Hopefully, I'll have a better week coming up.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Happy Birthday Jen!

Yesterday was Jen's birthday.  I won't tell you how old she is because I value my life and other extremities too much.  Suffice to say, she is old enough to not like having birthdays much anymore.  So, I threw her a party.  Of course, saying I threw her a party implies that I did everything.  This is not so.  When I floated the idea of having a party for her a couple of weeks back, I had a simple BBQ in mind.  The my wife got hold of it and it had to be a "party".  The only part of my idea that survived the Jennification process was the BBQed hamburgers and hotdogs.  Suddenly we had to have several kinds of salads, dips and deserts to serve our friends.  This was no  longer a guy party. 

Beyond the expansion of the menu, Jen wanted cheese cake for her birthday.  I told her I would buy her one, but she wanted a homemade one because it would feed more people and is cheaper in the end (remember we haven't been paid since June).  Unfortunately, I do not possess the skill to manufacture a cake.  That's why I was willing to pay someone who could.  So, Jen ended up making her own birthday cake.  Did I mention that shortly after this picture was taken, I went off to play hockey while she cooked up several salads.  Am I a prince or what?

Regardless of my husbanding skills, the party went off and our little house was packed to the rafters with friends.  It was noisy, silly and irreverent.  All qualities that make for a high quality gathering.  I would like to point out that I cooked the meat and cleaned up while Jen enjoyed herself at the party.  She seemed happy and is still talking to me, so I assume I did alright.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Hurry Up and Wait

Well, another school year has started.  However, this year has been much different than past years.  My new school is transient enough it turns out that no class lists were made for the first day of school and still haven't been three days in.  I have had the entire grade 2 class of 31 students.  My classroom is quite small and there are some serious crowding issues.  I really hope we get the classes figured out soon.

Beyond the crowding is the sense that the year really hasn't started.  It is hard to start enforcing your routines on a class that it turns out I may only have a couple of in my class.  You do not want to start curricular activities because they aren't really your students (and I dont' have enough desks and supplies).  It's almost like being in purgatory. That feeling has translated into my planning.  You don't know which day you will be getting your class, so you don't plan more than a day in advance.  I find it very tiring flying by the seat of your pants all the time.  I don't mind saying that I'm not a big fan of this system of buying time at the beginning of the year.  Of course, I really don't have much say in it, so I'll just shut up and do my job as best as I can.  You can't fight city hall, as they say.

Tomorrow is behaviour and social responsibility refreshers for all students in the school.  The rest of the day is up to me.  It should be interesting.

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Warhammer 101

It was brought to my attention that I write about Warhammer in this blog, but have not explained what the game actually is.  So, I thought I'd take a minute to give a very brief overview of the Warhammer game.  This is for you Michelle, so you can truly understand what kind of geek I am.

Warhammer is a fantasy miniature wargame produced by Games Workshop.  The game is a loose simulation of a battle between two armies of miniatures that the players bring to the table.  The miniatures are purchased in groups or individually and a player collects the units and heroes he/she will use in their games.  It is not a cheap hobby.  You generally pay $30-40 for 5-10 miniatures.  An army can be composed of 100 -300 miniatures.

There are lots of rules and dice rolls to determine combat and some movement.  There is a great deal of strategy involved and quite a bit of luck considering the amount of dice you throw in the new edition.  There are many races you can choose to create your army from.  I personally play High Elves (different from Dark and Wood Elves).  Each race has it's own specific troop types and racial strengths and weaknesses.  The Warhammer world and each race also has extensive background stories (commonly referred to as fluff).  I don't pay much attention to the fluff, but some players love it and theme their armies around it.   Each model has a points value and the players determine how many points they will play a game at and then put together an army list using some basic composition rules and then consisting of whatever you think will be most effective.  The game is played on a 6'x4' table.  The miniatures in the game are meant to be painted, but don't have to be in order to play the game.

I was introduced to the game a year ago and still am not very good at it.  I am more partial to painting the figures than playing the actual game, but I enjoy playing as well.  My painting has improved over the past year, as I continually try new techniques.

I thought I would post some pictures of my man dollies, so you can have a visual of what kind of grand nerdiness I'm involved in.

Friday, September 3, 2010

Unexpected Pleasures

I am loving living in town again.  We lived 100 km outside of town the past two years at the school we were working at.  Prespatou was a LONG way out of town.  They had a small general store, but it had limited and sometimes random things in stock.  You also had to arrange activities in town in advance and plan all of the week's chores for that same day or afternoon.

I was playing hockey in town twice a week the past two years.  Yes, I love hockey that much.  An hour of hockey would effectively take up an entire evening or afternoon.  Anyway, Wednesday night, while doing the dishes, my friend Bryce called me and asked if I wanted to play hockey that night.  I was very surprised and very happy at this turn of events.  After I had said yes, then I began to wonder if everything that was supposed to be in my bag was still there.  So, I left the dishwater to get cold and ran out to the shed to dig through the stacks of totes, boxes and general crap to find my bag.  I dug it out and quickly rummaged through to make sure the basics were there.  I went back to the dishes and quickly wondered if I had socks and a jersey for the game.  So, I ran out and checked that.  After many such trips I was finished the dishes and finished checking nearly every piece of my equipment one piece at a time.

When I got to the rink, there were not very many spare players.  There was only one sub on the bench.  For the first time out this year, not having many subs spelt disaster.  It was so much fun and very fast (for the first ten minutes) and extremely tiring.  I think I was very close to coughing up a lung at one point.  Interesting how you can have a lot of fun exhausting yourself.

I don't know if this means hockey season has started or if it was a end of summer treat.  My equipment stinking up the furnace room suggests the former.