Tired...
Well, it's Tuesday afternoon and I'm sitting here in the office waiting for the boss to come in. One thing I really detest is the fact that the majority of the work I need to complete for them in terms of presentations is always LAST MINUTE. I'm not really sure why, but it's always the day before when they start to freak out that they are not ready.. and guess who has to get them ready?
Anyways, I guess I'm just a tad cranky as I'd really much rather be taking a nap right now :P
The weather this past weekend was absolutely gorgeous. It went up to a +27C yesterday.. hard to believe that it was snowing a week ago and schools were being canceled. Man, another sign that there are major issues with our earth. I'm not really even completely convinced that spring really has finally come....
I got an email from my past mentor teacher yesterday and I really, really wish I was teaching back at that school! She told me that one of the staff members is actually leaving the school as the school population is decreasing.. that's so sad to hear. I haven't yet found an atmosphere similar to that school in that the staff is so in-tune with one another and that they are so friendly and accepting of the people who come into the school. It'd really be a wonderful place to work, hopefully when (if) I get a teaching job, I'll land in a school like that!
Anyways, time to work.
Finally, the world starts to pay attention
FINALLY. People are waking up and paying attention to the fact our environment is in desperate need of some attention!!!!!
I am watching Oprah (yes, I know, sorry Jordan) right now and the topic is about "going green".
She just talked about "green products" which essentially means that we clean with products that are NOT high in toxic chemicals. Not only are they bad for the environment, but they are bad for us. Have you ever though about how scary it is that we are so dependent on chemicals? There's a website that rates products and food items, check it out (warning: you may end up throwing out all your products!!)
http://www.ewg.org/shopping/
Other suggestions:
Appliances that are plugged in are drawing 40% of the energy that we use!!!! Can you believe that!?!?!?!? Suggestion is to use powerbars and when not in use, turn it off. (It has a very cool term - "phantom power")
Compact florescent bulbs are 70-75% more efficient.
Paper - don't print if you don't need to!!! Use the backs of paper! Don't even bother asking for your ATM receipt if you don't want it!
Bottles of Water - Pete sake! Buy a reusable one! Even though you recycle the plastic bottle, it's still a waste of energy to have to go through the process of recycling it! Did you know it takes five liters of water to cool the plastic. This really goes with your lunch too - stop using brown paper bags, stop using plastic wrap, basically anything disposable. (Take a travel mug to Tims/Star bucks rather than using their cups - you might get a discount too!!)
Wax Paper, Aluminum foil - SUCK. Stop using it. You can't recycle it!
Laundry - Empty the lint filter each time you use your dryer. Better yet, hang your clothes outside - you get a bonus, they smell great when you bring them in!! Use cold water to wash your clothes - better for your clothes and it conserves energy!
Showers - OK shower hogs.. get out! Scrub, get out! Don't waste water because you are reluctant to get out. You know you have to ...
Shopping - Bring your own cloth bags. Even if you can recyle them, it still takes energy to go through the recycling process.
Plant a tree - I see so many trees here in F'ton. Why don't more cities plant more trees!?!?!?
Some environmental related websites:
Green Dimes - For $0.10/day they stop your junk mail from coming to your house. Each month, they plant a tree in your name. Not bad! I'm not sure if this service is being offered in Canada or not... http://www.greendimes.com/
Shaklee - A company that produces all natural (think alfalfa) supplements, cleaning products and beauty products. I personally can vouch for this company, my Uncle sells their products and swears by it. We've used their products before and their cleaning products really do work! http://www.shaklee.ca/
Seventh Generation - A company that produces environmentally safe cleaning products
http://www.seventhgen.com/
Earth 911 - A website that is dedicated to recycling information. Again, not sure if this is applicable to only the States or not. Still useful for recycling ideas. http://www.earth911.org/master.asp
Engines Off - Come'on. It's not that hard to start your engine again! Turn it off when it's idle! http://enginesoff.org/default.aspx
Stop Global Warming - http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/
Carbon Fund - An organization that is trying to help individuals and companies to reduce the amount of carbon in our environment. http://www.carbonfund.org/site/
Long Weekend
Finally, a long weekend! Well, it's day 2 of the long weekend and all I've done is work! Work on CCANB website, work on ECC stuff, cleaning, taxes.. arrrggg..
Anyhow, I finally had a chance to ask the director if I would be working full time in the summer - yea! The answer is 'yes' and actually, they would like it if I could start ASAP full time. Saying that, they understand that I want to supply teach, so I guess I won't be working full time until after school ends. I'll probably do full days on the days I'm not supplying and do some makeup time on the weekend/evenings. I'm also figuring that if I'm working full time this summer, I'll probably drop Kumon as it just sucks to have to work in the evenings.
So my job this summer is probably going to entitle a lot of graphic design and web work. Great! I hope I get to expand on my knowledge and learn more. I have always had the ambition to learn about graphic and web design (especially when I found myself drooling over how cool some websites are or how awesome and creative some graphics can be), but never found the momentum to start learning. Perhaps this was because I didn't have a direction so there was no need to push myself. Anyhow, I'll have a reason, so I'll learn :) (Plus, it's great when you are surrounded by people who are really technology toddlers and will ooo and ahhh over your results ;) )
The other thing I've been up to this weekend is capturing video. Holy cow, it's eating my space! I think there must be at least 60gigs worth of it so far.. :( Unfortunatley, I don't really have the time to go do any video editing so it's going to have to sit there for now. Reason #100000 not to procrastinate :P
Lately, another thing has been on the mind. Where are we going to be when the new school year rolls around? As many of you know, my parents are packing up and heading to Vancouver eventually. So far, no confirmed date, but our house will most likely go on the market sometime this summer. If it sells quickly, they will leave by the end of the year, if not.. then we shall have to wait and see. As for me, I do not know. Chien Ee's contract could possibly go on for another 2 years, but I don't think we plan to stick around that long. Ideally, one of us would have a job waiting on the other side so we'd have at least some source of income, but the question that may end up plaguing us is: what if no job surfaces and you have no home in Fredericton anymore? As it stands now, if that happens, we may end up taking the highway out of here. Next most comfortable place for us? Ottawa. No brainer there.. friends and familiarity... Of course, Vancouver may also be a possibility as well. I do wish to be close to my parents as I consider myself to be a very family oriented kind of gal and am quite glued to my parents :)
Anyhow, that's all for now. Happy Easter to those that celebrate it!
New Experiences
In the past few weeks, I've experienced a couple of new things:
Experience 1: Judge
When I subbed at Forest Hill Elementary earlier in the year, I noticed a STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) Expo poster. When I looked closer, I noticed that Grant Williams, my high school physics teacher (his wife happened to also teach me physics the year before I had Mr. Williams) and neighbor was organizing. I decided that I would email him to find out if he needed any volunteers. A few days later, his response was "would you like to judge? No experience necessary!" I was like.. uhhh.. alright........ SO, I, JY Tan, ended up being a middle-high school judge!! HAHA!! It was a bizarre experience. I walked in, and immediately, noticed, that many of the judges knew each other - awkward for me, nice for them. THEN, I noticed a couple of old high school teachers, Percy Bamford for one.. ok.. he taught me grade 10 science.. super bizarre... Anyhow, it wasn't that hard a job, but it was a bit challenging as I had to come up with questions for the candidates.. I'm not really sure how well I did in judging them, but oh well, I gave it my best shot :)
Experience 2: FSL
For those that don't know what FSL stands for, it means French as a Second Language. I, JY Tan, taught a FSL class for a whole freaking day last week! OMG. I haven't used my french in over 7 years.. needless to say, I think I slaughtered it (with the way people use words these days, slaughtered as in murdered, killed, bad, bad bad!!). Anyhow, it was interesting and I think if I had to keep teaching French, my French would improve. The kids didn't bat an eyelash at me so it was good in that way. By the time the afternoon came, I found it much easier although I still had to struggle in retrieving some vocabulary. One funny story taht came out of it was when we were doing a brainstorm and one student said "une coccinelle" - I was thinking "OMG.. what's that!? How on earth do I spell that? Masculin? Feminin? Ahhh!!! HELP!!" Anyhow, I later found out I spelled it entirely wrong and that it's a lady bug.. DUH Miss Tan!!
Anyhow, I'm tired.. last week was a rough week.. more about it later. I've gotta go take a nap.. I've got large black bags under my eyes...Toddles.
