Hi, friends!

It's been a while, hey!

All is well, more or less.  I will catch you up on the minutiae of my life another day...

Classes are done!  I think I will have an A average unless my final assignments aren't as brilliant as I think they are.  : P

Tomorrow I start at an elementary school working in a Grade 5/6 class.  I am pretty excited about working at this school as it the students come from a different socio-economic background as the schools I was at last year.  They are also quite a bit older--in Canada the 'biggest' kids I've taught have been grade three.  (Neil and Chelle, I don't know what 'form/year' this works out to be, but the Grade 5/6 students are 10-11 (or possibly 12) years old.)

This afternoon I am working at 'Taboo--the naughty but nice sex show'!!  I am volunteering with Calgary Outlink, so I think it will be fun.  Apparently the board agreed that the volunteers at the Outlink booth would dress in a fetish style.  *gulp*  I don't actually own any typically fetish type clothes...

And this morning I am continuing with studying for my correspondence course about Canadian History (pre-contact to 1867, when we officially stopped being a colony and became our own country.)

I anticipate that I will be pretty busy the next four weeks in my practicum but then I have almost a month off until my final semester begins...will try to catch up with all your news then.

Much love!

Gael

PS  Here's a link to a site I made for a school project this semester.  It took me about 30 hours to do so I hope my prof likes it!

PPS  Mower is still around and kicking.  Apparently (a) getting the dental surgery done and (b) buying her special low-protein/high-fat cat food is doing the trick.  Yay!

April 5, 2007: Johari Window

Interesting. I was just linked to a site that has a Johari Window program. I chose six adjectives from a list of 55. These adjectives were ones that I felt described me best out of the list. Almost all of the adjectives are positive. (No, I am NOT going to try the 'Nohari' window, thank you very much!!)
When you click on the link (Xindian Prnicess's Johari Window) you will be shown the same 55 adjectives. You then choose 5 or 6 adjectives that you feel describe me best. They will then be plotted onto four quadrants:

1. Arena: You and I both chose this word (known to self and others)
2. Facade: I chose this word (known to self but not others)
3. Blind spot: You chose this word but I didn't (known to others but not self)
4. Unknown: Neither of us chose these words (not known to self or others)

I think it will be most revealing if you have been following my blog for a while and thus really have a 'feel' for who I am.
Something to play with on a happy Friday!
[A little later] Here's a picture of Mower snoozing on my left arm rendering me a one-armed typist!

March 28, 2007: Thoroughly Thursday

My day today:  I didn’t have any work! Yea! :o) Briefly:
Walked the dogs.
Coffee with Constance in the garden:  first sunny morning for ages.
Mower to vet:  Mower is now MOLAR-LESS. Friends, if you have a cat, keep on top of that tartar! Buy special cat toothpaste and use it!
Went to Constance’s and made a barrier out of old wood for the door, thus preventing Dodo from wiggling back inside the house.
Went to Lourdes: made Chocolate Chip Cookies. Between batches (tiny oven, nine cookies at a time) I cut out squares of fabric to make a ‘samples’ folder. Thus the guys can choose which fabrics they want to use which I will then bring the next week--saves me from bringing all my fabrics up to Lourdes for eight months. Of course, I had to bring a third of it to Lourdes in order to cut sample squares out. I’ve been meaning to do it at home for weeks and haven’t yet: quilts must be finished by November 1^st” tempus fugit, and all that. One guy was folding ‘ghost money’ to burn on ‘Ching Ming Jie’ (Tomb Sweeping Day) which falls on April 5^th this year (I will hopefully do a blog about Tomb Sweeping Day early next week). He was folding the paper into little shoes, similar to Dutch clogs (‘sabots’?) I thought they were pretty neat!

Here’s a photo of cookies from today in a cookie jar that was given to Lourdes by my friend, Jerri. Jerri will be returning to the States at the beginning of May and has kindly donated a bunch of stuff to Lourdes, including a sewing machine (Yes!), a yogurt maker (Yes!) and an ice cream maker (Yes!) We love Jerri!!

Dinner at home (mmm, leftovers!) Dodo is officially installed in her outdoor dog house and not too thrilled about the change in accommodation. She spent a fair bit of this evening alternately whining pathetically and giving short, sharp barks in order to remind me that I had forgotten to let her in. Dodo is the dog who pees anywhere and everywhere. Dodo is not suited to live indoors!
Up to Simon and Constance’s for a glass of wine. I introduced Sophie (8) to the pleasure of the monster drawing game, you know: Each person draws a head on their paper then folds the paper so only the neck is showing. You trade papers and draw a body, folding again so only the bottom of the waist is showing, etc. She thought it is a fabulous game! We watched two episodes of ‘Sean the Sheep’, a claymation show. It is utterly charming and quite amusing. Similar to ‘Wallace and Gromet’ without the dry humor.
It’s 10:23 and time for bed. I have a cloth-back copy of ‘The Man in Brown’ (from the orphan’s book sale) to begin before I turn out the lights. It’s a copy from 1946 and has that musky, old book smell. Happy Amanda!