The Times and Tribulations of JY

Guilty as Charged

2009-10-10T09:01:00.003-07:00

It's been a long while.. I've almost abandoned this blog. Actually, I've got so much work to do that I really have no time to blog on a personal level. I'm already managing my class' blog, so I'm finding that's more than enough :P (Sorry!) However, that being said, this blog has been around for a while.. so I'll try my best to update from time to time.. don't give up on me yet!!

Life is busy. I am currently working at one school but in two positions. One is a job share with the principal - we teach a straight morning Kindergarten class. The other position is learning assistance/learning support/ESL. Yes, I wear many hats! I'm finding that it's a difficult balance between the two jobs.. it's easy to be completely wrapped up in one while neglecting the other. It's been tough! I am getting into the gist of all of it now.. in fact, I'm going to go to school in a bit to get some work done. I'm tired just thinking about it!

My kindergarteners are quite a nice group of children. They are all generally well mannered and most of them already know their ABCs and can count to 10. A far cry from what I worked with (both in terms of what the kids know, behaviour, and even materials that are supplied by the school) in NB. There are a couple of kids that are on our radar though, but I think this is pretty much the norm in all classrooms.

In other news, the school received 3 smartboards this year. Since I worked with Smartboards in NB, the principal has been really keen on me doing some professional development with the staff this year. It's been a bit strange (getting used to it now) to be the presenter rather than being part of the audience. Since I'm the Learning Assistance teacher, I'm also suppose to take a greater leadership role in the school. As such, I have to speak up about best practices and things like that.. it can be a bit intimidating to do because all of the teachers have more experience than me, but I'm handling it.. learning how to get around the experience bit and still getting my point across. I'm still really weary about saying too much though.. I'm sure I could easily offend people if I really said what I thought!

Anyhow, I best be getting ready to go to school. I can hardly believe Halloween is just around the corner.. sometimes I already feel like it's nearing Christmas, but really, I'm so not ready for that yet!!

Ciao!

April, May.. and now June

2009-06-25T16:39:00.002-07:00

Is it a record?? I haven't posted for almost 3 months.. in fact, I have been debating discontinuing this blog altogether considering I have a feeling I don't have any readers??

So the school year is over! It's a bit surreal right now because I feel like I am not nearly as burnt out as I was last year. I suppose it was the half time I put in for most of the year? Anyways, maybe I should recap the last few months.

Following Delta Manour, I went to a school called Jarvis Elementary to take over a maternity leave position as a learning support teacher. This school was quite different from the first I was at.. their model of learning support was more of a team based approach that provided a lot of in-class support. I had a great time at this school and fit in so much better than the first (not that the first school was bad or anything, but Jarvis was just a better fit).

Anyhow, I could go on but it's a bit of a mundane topic, so I'll just summarize. I was laid off at the beginning of April as expected (anyone with less than 4 years was laid off) and my principal really went out on a limb to help me. SO.. as of today, I have a half time as a Mainstream support teacher (resource teacher who focuses on kids who have medical conditions such as cerebral palsy, autism, diabetes; students with behaviour issues and those who have a mild to severe intellectual disability). I'm trying to get out of that job for many, many reasons.. in fact, I'm awaiting the results of a 0.9 position of Learning Support/Kindergarten teacher at another school.

In other news, we've been renovating our new place.. it's still a crazy mess. Nothing is simple here.. we stripped wallpaper and discovered that the previous owners had not primed the walls before putting wallpaper up....so.... now, we have sooo many holes to repair. I'm hoping to get our walls painted ASAP this summer.

Alright. Enough for now. Send me a comment if anyone is out there :)

March.. I mean... Spring Break

2009-03-19T15:42:00.005-07:00

I'm on March break now.. which means.. that I'm finished my learning assistance job. I was feeling sort of low (not depressed, but a tad worried that I didn't have employment) when I left school Thursday afternoon. However, on Friday morning, I received a call from Human resources saying that they had inadvertently left me off the recall list and I didn't get the postings that were sent out the previous week. Because of their faux-pas, they asked me to take a look at the postings that they emailed me (ironically, I had just applied to all of them the previous evening, the day they had been posted) and to select the position that I wanted. SO, no interview, not even an application, and a position would be MINE. BIZARRE! Anyhow, I selected a grade 6 position at a school in North Delta. My story does not finish here however. That afternoon, I received a phone call from the principal of the school that I had selected. He was talking all about the models that they had put in place of the school and how important their learning support teachers were, how they were central to the entire web of the school. While he was talking about all this, I was kind of confused.. wasn't sure why he was telling me all of this. It finally dawned on me that he was trying to ask me to take the learning support position rather than the Grade 6 teaching position. I guess, he knew that through external candidates, there was a slim chance that he'd find anyone that had the qualifications or experience necessary to fill the role. SO, now, I'm sort of.. employed, but not? I don't know 100% what position I'll be in come April 1st. We shall see.

In other news, CE and I have purchased a house. Yes, a house. Not a townhouse, but a house! It's still sort of surreal as we never imagined we would be able to afford a house.. at times, a townhouse was even questionable. The recession has brought the real estate down (not enough, but it's down). The house is over 2000 square feet and is in a quiet residential area that is not near city center (unfortunately). It is however, closer to CE's office and will be less of a drive for me to get to work as well as it's quite close to highway 99 southbound (known as the Massey Tunnel).

It's an "older" house (I say "Older" as it's old to standards in Vancouver, but definitely NOT older compared to houses on the east coast), around 35 years. Very well kept, the owners were extremely clean and have put a lot of effort in upkeep to the place. The downside to the house is it is very outdated. We will have to pull up all flooring, paint, completely renolvate the kitchen, change the electrical system (it's on copper wiring right now), change the siding and the windows, update the washrooms (the master suite has PINK tiles .. PINK!!) and a ton of other small details. It boggles my mind how much we need to do to make this place look more updated, and what gets to me even more is the money we have to sink into it ... all the while paying off our extremely large mortgage!! Now you can see why I was a tad freaked out about not having any employment following the March break.

You'd think I'd be extremely excited with a new job and a new house. The fact is though, life has not been all pink and rosy. My grandfather passed away on Saturday and although I had been trying for a few years to mentally prepare myself for this event, it still hit me pretty hard. To some extent, I'm comforted that he is not suffering any longer, however, since I have not really seen him very often in the last few years, I still remember him as the grandfather who was healthy and active. A lot of memories have surfaced in the last few days and it makes me even more sad as I wish I had been able to spend MORE time with my grandparents. I guess I should be grateful for the time and the memories we have together considering we live so far apart. It's sometimes hard to not be depressed or to find the motivation to do something productive (it could also be that I'm sick). I am just finding it really hard to believe that he has left this world...

2009-02-11T12:32:00.002-08:00

I've recently been in communication with a class from my old school, some of the students were in my class last year. One of the reasons why I wrote them was because their teacher requested it but also because it's a good way for them to learn about the west coast (ya, the teacher in me is speaking).

Anyhow, I got a reply from them that was quite humorous:

Dear Mrs. Tan

We have received your letter and we wanted to say thank you for sending it. We just wanted to know what it is doing in Vancouver, because we wanted to know if you got any snow like we did. Oh we forgot to say we just had a snow storm yesterday so we ended up with a snow day. How is the weather up in Vancouver?

Hi Mrs. Tan if you ever got fired you know where to come! But we know that you won't get fired because we know you are the best teacher! We hope you come back, and we have two new students in the class, Josh. T and Cole which gives us 28 students. We have nine girls and nineteen boys. Anyway we all want you to know that we miss you and we hope that you miss us to.

What grade are you helping in your new school? We hope that you are doing well there and we hope that you can visit us next year some time. What grade do you think you will be teaching in 2010? We hope that you make it as a teacher! We are all sad for you because you are gone. You are very special to us!

Are you crying yet? This class is getting pretty darn crazy, including the kids you had last year! Our class is so happy that you sent us a letter. Are you having fun as a teacher? Do you have any tickets to the 2010 Olympics?

How is British Coulumbia? How is the air there? Can you name all the kids that you are helping? Oh and what types of languages do they speak out there? We really miss you Mrs. Tan. We hope you have a great weekend. Could you please tell the kids out there some great places to visit out here like Fredericton, PEI, the caves. Could you please ask theme what would be some good places to visit out there?

Take care, and please write back soon,
Ms. O'Blenes' grade four class.

Turns out that they wrote sections in groups which is why it's quite repetitive. I found the part about me getting fired particularly funny. It definitely put a smile on my face!

In other news, CE and I went on our first official house hunt with our realtor on Sunday. We took her car and let me tell you, I've never been in one like that before! She owns a Mercedes Benz that has so many "toys". Keyless entry and startup, when she reverses, there is some sort of video camera on her tail that allows her to see it on her LCD that's built into the dashboard. Additionally, that LCD can not only watch videos, but also is hooked up with her phone so she can make phone calls and see who is calling her. Who knows what else that car can do!? Ridiculous! I'd be happy just owning a new car that is not a Chevy! (Actually, I'm pretty happy that I even HAVE a car!).

Anyways, so back to the house hunt. We didn't find anything that was love at first sight, however, we did try to put an offer on a house. Not a townhouse, but a HOUSE. IT was priced for $488K and was actually quite large. We decided to go for it since the market has obviously fallen a great deal and this may be our chance to make a good investment. We hadn't really planned on making any offers that day, but because the realtor of that house was expecting an offer that night and our realtor said that it was "just an offer" and that there would be many loopholes to get us out of it if we didn't want the house (since it's 30+ years old). Anyhow, to make my long story short(er), we didn't get to place the offer because when our realtor called, their realtor was in the middle of presenting the offer to the owners who accepted.

I'm not really hugely disappointed as the house was really dated and I wasn't crazy about the layout. We are going to take a look at a bunch of other houses this weekend, so maybe we'll find something even better. Wish us luck as there are not many houses under $500K in Richmond and surrounding areas!! (I saw a ridiculous one in Richmond listed for...... $24M on MLS.. It has it's own pond and BOWLING ALLEY inside the house!!! A BOWLING ALLEY!! I thought that only happened on the Sims...)

So Valentine's Day is this coming Saturday. I am still a believer that this holiday is such a hallmark holiday and that it should NOT be celebrated for the sake of it being Valentine's day. I believe that we shouldn't HAVE to set aside one day a year to express our love to people we care about. I think the hearts and all that are very sweet and everything, but we should try to make an effort to celebrate it as often as we can.. and not necessarily through buying gifts, but just through caring and helping one another.

Alright. I'm stopping here before I become way to mushy.

Ciao.

Sleep Sucks

2009-01-13T15:19:00.002-08:00

I'm so exhausted! No, not burnt out.. but just can't get a good night's sleep. I think I must wake up at least 5 times each night... it's been at least 2 weeks since I've had a "decent" night's sleep. The definition of decent is debatable. My definition is me waking up 2-3 times and that I'm able to fall back to sleep within minutes of waking up. It SUCKS!

In other news, CNY (Chinese New Year) is just around the corner. What a difference it's been (so far)! We can actually buy CNY stuff here! We were at Walmart on the weekend (a big trip for us as Walmart is not very common over here) and they were selling CNY stuff!! Not food, but decorations. In NB, you barely notice the holiday.. beyond the personal celebrations and those hosted by cultural groups, there is only a slight chance the media will mention it and you can perhaps find a very tiny section dedicated to selling CNY cards in card stores, but that is pretty much it.

Anyhow, we are not planning anything for CNY as it will be a working day. I think we do plan to check out the parade (!!) in China town on the Feb. 1st and maybe go to Aberdeen (Chinese Mall) at some point, but I think that may be the extent of it.

Since my courses have finally finished and I've decided not to take any more until intersession, I've taken up organizing my teaching resources. With this, I've also been "toping up" on resources that were halted mid-way through creation. I only wish that I had more space to drag out the remainder of the boxes (currently stored in hard to reach locations) so that I could sort, organize and perhaps clean! I am so itching for my own classroom...

So, last week, CE and I decided to go to tennis lessons. They were suppose to be every Monday and Wednesday for an hour each time until early February. When we arrived at the lesson, we discovered that the majority of the class had been taking lessons since September! We were the only "newbies" to the class. To top it off, the instructor had a very strong accent and did not really explain what we were suppose to be doing very well. These reasons (or the laziness and the urge to avoid gym class like situations if I really need to be honest) made us drop the class.

To sort of convince myself I'm not a complete failure, we are taking pilates once a week. The instructor is nice and very, very energetic so it's not really too uncomfortable. However, I'm feeling a bit stressed out with the "competition" as there is one lady in there who has already begun to brag about how "in shape" she is..(which she is). I'm also reeeeeeeeeeally tempted to drop it because of this lack of energy problem - I was ready to go to bed as soon as I got up this morning, so you can imagine!

However, I'm still set on getting to the gym more than before. My goal is to work up to doing some sort of cardio least twice a week with another session of yoga/pilates. I'm still trying to convince myself to not drop pilates too!

Anyhow, I'm going to sign off here. Gonna go pick CE up (hopefully I won't have to wait too long for him or I may be completely unconscious by the time he gets out) and head home before pilates tonight. Wish me luck :P

Happy CNY Everyone! :)

Solid White Rain in Vancouver

2008-12-23T15:39:00.002-08:00

Well! I got my wish.. it's going to be a white Christmas afterall!! HEHE!! I don't think the Vancouverites are very happy about it and I can barely blame them. The city (at least Richmond), doesn't seem to have a plan when a storm hits as the main roads are not in terrific condition and the sidewalks are barely walkable.

I was out and about in the last few days and found it difficult to contain my twisted glee at how people here are handling the cold and snowy weather. For example, yesterday, I was at the library and a Mercedes was STUCK and couldn't get out of the driveway.. there wasn't a whole lot of snow, but just enough so that his tires were spinning... I guess he just kept stepping on the gas and digging himself further and further into the snow. I couldn't help but chuckle (silently in my head) that our Chevy didn't have any trouble.... The more admirable side to all this is that everyone who passed by stopped to see if they could help. Another funny thing was that the roads were nearly deserted on Sunday.. the conditions weren't bad, but I guess people are really afraid to be out walking and driving around when the "solid white rain" (as it's fondly called) is coming down.

I guess the amount of snow that's come down is really abnormal. I would say a good 24cm (or more) fell over the weekend. I was so delighted! It was so peaceful and the streets were beautiful Sunday evening. It's too bad they don't get snow like this every year!! HEHEHE!!

Anyhow, this past weekend, I met up with two friends that I haven't seen for quite a number of years. Joanne, an ex-UNB Malaysian student and Clara, a fellow youth group alumni (she was treasurer and on the executive with me the first year we started youth group up). Both of them are now mothers and are settled down into the Vancouver lifestyle. It's great to see familiar people, especially during the holidays. I am greatly missing my annual reunion with the old youth group gang.... not that I don't miss my high school buddies, but the yg gang is a group of friends that I grew up with and now that we are so far from one another, I wonder when we'll have the chance to meet again. The good news is that they are a few of them that live in Vancouver, so I'm not totally lost :)

I had a few "job excursions" in the last few weeks leading up to the holidays. Now that I am finally on the "TOC" (supply) list in Burnaby, I have access to their job postings. I applied to a few positions and even went so far to drop off my applications to the schools. However, no luck came out of it. Some positive feedback, but I think that the timing is just really wrong for me right now. It's the middle of the school year and I'm basically an unknown teacher to them. I'm pretty set against seniority hiring practices - basically what it says is that you will be hired because you've stuck with it long enough and not because you are GOOD. Anyways, I guess Burnaby is controlling that to an extent. They require that you teach a certain number of days within 2 years to qualify for the seniority list. So, if you are a crappy teacher, I assume you won't get called... but schools get desperate when the flu season is in full swing....

Anyhow, the other set of news I have is that Forest Hills (my previous school), had Steven Harper visit. They were selected by the Feds because someone over there saw the initiatives that we had put in place last year. I had organized an Afghanistan supply drive in the Spring (I believe it was in March) and had created a package of information for teachers to present to their students so that it wasn't just a supply drive, it had a lesson attached to it. Anyhow, not all of the teachers actually USED the stuff I gave them, but I also posted the information on the school website. So really, the whole reason why the school was identified was due to my intiatives. Ya.. I know, I'm bragging! Actually, my intention isn't to brag but to b*tch. I was not really acknowledged. That project took up a lot of time too.. the planning and implementation of the whole thing was not just a simple 2 hr project. Argh. Another reason to be seriously annoyed with the whole situation. It's just another thing to make last year a bitter memory (and I can add another dent to it too - went to Chapters today and tried to spend the $10 gift certificate they gave me as a "farewell gift" and guess what.. there was no money on it!?!?!?!). In all honesty, I have such mixed feelings towards last year. I remember the actual year with fondness in how much I learned, the friendships I found and even with my class and the staff in general. However, I really, really did not appreciate how it ended.. I still have the utmost respect for the admin team and like each of them very much, but it's just really hard to wrap my brain around what happened especially since I invested 120% of myself to that job.

Alright. Enough complaining. We were originally going to head to San Francisco for a few days over the holidays but decided against it after realizing it would take about 40 hours in the car (round trip). We then decided to try Seattle as it's only 2 hours away. However, now that the snow has come, we've cancelled everything. It will just be too difficult to drive considering the lack of snow removal over here. Ho hum. Too bad. I was hoping to check out the outlets.. (guess it's not the ideal time anyways with the Cdn $ being the way it is).

Well, that's all for now.. it's a pretty long post. Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday. May 2009 bring everyong lots of good fortune and great health!

A Rite of Passage

2008-12-10T16:56:00.005-08:00

Well, it's been another little while huh? I was getting good at frequently posting, but the last little while has been a bit of a bugger. I've been trying to get my assignments and postings completed ASAP as the due dates are all crammed together. I've had oh... 5 assignments due in a span of 3 weeks.. yeah, that's nothing when you compare it to University, but hey, I'm working too you know!!

Anyways, before the craziness came POURING down on me, CE and I decided to try to climb "The Grind" aka Grouse Grind. It takes you up to Grouse Mountain at an incline of 30°. It's described as “Mother Nature’s Stairmaster,” and is a freaking hard one to climb!! We didn't anticipate it to be as tough as it was otherwise mental preparation would have occurred. Anyhow, apparently it is sort of a right of passage for people living in Vancouver... I somehow don't think the majority of the population living here would face this little monster.

I think I'd take a stab at the mountain again.. this time, carrying only water. The other thing I would do differently is not hike it the day after the first snowfall.. bad, bad, BAD decision. The top half of the mountain was all snowy.. it was starting to melt and get compacted into ice because of all the people who were going up. People were still trying to sprint up though which I questioned.. were they dumb or just really brave?! You don't walk on ice like that buddy!! Anyhow, parts of the mountain were quite scary.. I wonder if there have been any deaths from people slipping.. and you can forget turning back.. going DOWN that thing would be harder than climbing up!! (You take a cable car back down the mountain.. the top part of the mountain is Capilano which is a sky hill).

So besides that, my other news is that my position has been extended to mid March. The teacher I'm replacing has extended her maternity leave until then, so I've been asked to stay on. I was hoping to get another 0.5 position (there was a grade 1 position I applied for in Burnaby) but I didn't receive a phone call for an interview, I'm assuming it's gone..

Speaking of Burnaby, I've also finally set up my "TOC" information so I'm now officially "on call". TOC = teacher on call for those that don't know. I had my first "gig" there last Friday.. just a half day with a grade 3/4 split class. Man, they were trying to be brats.. they knew to push it because their teacher wasn't there. HUMPH! Anyways, I feel much more "armed" with management strategies now than I did two years ago. Anyhow, for that job, I was drove about an hour to get there and an hour to get home.. UGH! I can't imagine what life will be like if I get a permanent position in Burnaby.. I'll be very glad to have a permanent job, but to drive that much each day... oh the gas ... the environment and the energy.....:( Taking the sky train a few days a week wouldn't be bad, but I'm sure I'll be lugging lots of stuff to and from school a couple of times a week, so.... I would still have to drive.... OK.. gotta stop counting the chicks before they hatch.

With the holidays just around the corner, it's sometimes a bit difficult to process that we're living in Vancouver. I'm wondering.. where's the snow? Where are the storms? Where is my HOUSE (BOOOOO)?? I have had a few bouts of homesickness in the last few weeks, but I really shouldn't complain. Afterall, my family is around me and that's what matters the most, right?

Gotta go. Assignments awaiting.. UGH. To think that I am considering taking my Masters....

Dang Assignments!

2008-11-17T16:44:00.003-08:00

I still can't bring myself to really "swear" on my blog ..hahah! SOO... I'm procrastinating again ..hehehe! I really shouldn't be considering I have TWO assignments due next week.. one of which I'm barely halfway through and the other that hasn't been even started.. not to mention, while all these assignments are going on, I need to keep up with my readings, posting and reading other people's posts. ARGH! Actually, I'm enjoying the courses, it's just that it's so hard to read THIS much stuff! OMG... two assignments due next week.. I'm starting to freak. Actually, I think I'm making one assignment MUCH more complicated than it actually is... but I don't really know how to shorten it up...!?

This past weekend was pretty yucky. I ended up spending the majority of the weekend feeling like crap.. sinus headache along with a stiff neck all day Saturday and most of Sunday. Fun. We wanted to go to Granville Island but by the time CE got home from work (ya.. putting in SO much overtime lately) and my brother got ready, it was already past 2. Given the fact that it takes about an hour to go from Richmond to anywhere in Vancouver (traffic), we would have arrived and needed to turn back and go home as my parents expect us for dinner :P

Although living at home has it's bonuses, sometimes it's more work than living on our own. We spend a huge amount of time helping everyone... in fact, I don't think CE & I have taken one weekend to ourselves in a very long time. Because we live with my parents, brother and cousin, we feel this guilt if we don't ask people to come along when we go out. Not that any of them would complain or anything, but it's just that feeling of being mean or selfish. I guess we need to find a better balance. However, we won't be living here forever, so I guess we should enjoy it while we can.

Speaking of not living at my parent's place forever, we are beginning to shop around for Mortgages. Sounds like a fun way to spend the weekend huh? :P

Oh yes. Last thing before I force myself to get back to work. Over the weekend, the house across the street has been in the process of being demolished. The stupid crane thing has been bashing all the broken up pieces and OUR house has been freaking vibrating! I was sleeping on Saturday and started to feel nauseous... why? BECAUSE OF THE SHAKING! Felt like I was on some sort of amusement park ride. When the bus goes by, it vibrates, but not like that! Anyhow, I'm glad that house is gone, it's been a real eyesore and there seems to be a lot of 'activity' that goes on over there. I don't know how many times we've seen the cops drop by to look at it..

OK BYE!

True Sign of Procrastination

2008-11-13T21:37:00.002-08:00

When you see me posting frequently, it probably means I'm avoiding work :P Yes indeed, that is what I am doing. I have one more question on my Special Education assignment that is worth 10 marks and I am really too lazy to open up the document and just finish it. Tisk.

I was talking to my colleague in Saint John on Monday afternoon and she was sort of updating me on how my kids from last year were doing. They did me proud! She is working on rounding numbers and apparently, they were telling her about some car. She said, "You remember the car thing you taught them last year?".. me: "Ummm.... nooo? What car thing!?". The kids described it for her... a car driving up and down a hill.. numbers 1-4 are going up the hill and number 5 in the middle and 6-10 going down a hill. Anyhow, it was just a way to help them remember which way to round. I spent about 10-15 minutes on that!! One of my students stayed afterschool one day to teach my colleague the method we used to round larger numbers.. we circled the number we looked at and ... I forget. I guess it really stuck with them. Go figure! After hearing that, I pretty much floated around for the rest of the day :)

Speaking of Math.. I received the results of the district math assessment from last school year. My colleague kindly forwarded the results to me. It was a breakdown of the results from the grade 3's of our school. I am really proud of my kids.. they all did pretty well and their marks were the highest overall (I think the other class "beat" us in maybe 1 or 2 units out of about 10 units) out of all the grade 3's at that school. I am curious to see how they did in comparison to the rest of the district though. I'm doubtful we even compare to some other schools around, but it would be nice to know whether they faired at least average marks or not.

So CE & I are starting to seriously look into purchasing a house. OMG.. I really should add an "F word" in there :P. Freaking ridiculous!! If you want to purchase a new townhouse, you have to spend at LEAST 400K.. I don't think you would even be able to buy a newer one with that amount even (unless you live waaaaaay out). A bungalow... think half a MILLION. HALF A FREAKING MILLION DOLLARS!?!? WHAT!? A MILLION!! Ok.. you get my point. It's INSANE. It got to the point where I was starting to think perhaps I need to accept that we'll live in a condo for the remainder of our lives and never go on vacation... ever. No eating out, no buying clothes, no vacation, no getting sick allowed. It's sick I tell you! Anyhow, we managed to work our budget so it was more manageable and more realistic. I am not feeling as outraged/depressed as I was a few days ago. We can afford a townhouse.. an old townhouse.... but it's a townhouse. Even average sized condos can cost anywhere from 400-500K. Whoever said there was nothing good about a recession?

Christmas Yet?

2008-11-09T14:04:00.002-08:00

I'm feeling like getting ready for the Christmas season....it's a bit early. Plus, it feels like Christmas will not be Christmas over here. I mean, no snow... no space for a tree... how is that Christmas?! How is it Christmas without SNOW!?

Speaking of snow.... I MISS it. Maybe I shouldn't have written it like that...it seems to be in a way, taboo here. Whenever I say I'm from NB, people respond..."you must be loving the weather over here! It's so mild here! No SNOW!".. umm.. right... I suppose I will love that Spring comes earlier in the season.. but I miss my snow!! I miss seeing it fall, miss feeling cosy, miss the excitement of a big snow STORM!! I love it when the city shuts down and it's so silent and peaceful outside.... no more of that for me.....

Anyways, I'm also feeling like I'm on the countdown to the last few days on the job. I'm just starting to get into it too. I feel like I'm finally starting up a routine (not even completely into the routine) and it's time to finish up. Gee. I'm still not sure I'd like to do resource 100% of the time at the moment. I'm enjoying it in that I'm learning a lot and that it's a lot more of an "academic" challenge than of a management challenge. However, I really miss having my own group of kids and getting to know them and work with them on a daily basis.

My course work is keeping me really busy.. trying to read the endless amounts of notes and the textbooks plus posting and doing assignments is really time consuming! Lately, I've been thinking of going back to do my Masters... for now though, I think I'll wait until I get into a permanent job before heading in that direction. Why am I waiting? I'm not sure... perhaps a very tiny part of me is worried that I may end up leaving this field if I can't find something permanent in a few years.

I'm sure I've mentioned it before... the grass is greener on the other side.. it's so funny that I should miss NB these days. I guess being stuck in traffic all the time and being in a place where I don't really know too many people can be very frustration and isolating sometimes. I catch myself thinking "I should go to Odell park this afternoon" and then quickly realize that, no, that is not possible. I've even been frequently dreaming of my old home... sometimes they are nightmares of moving (literally) or just really weird dreams of strangers living in my house. I mean, I grew up there, spent over 20 years there, knew every nook, cranny, dent... and now, someone else is living there?? It's hard to process sometimes. On the flip side of it, I think back at how excited we were to "start fresh" and I realize that this was a good decision. In reality, I flip on a day-to-day basis if not an hour-to-hour basis. Give it a few years, and I'm sure I'll settle into a good place.

OK.. I've got to get back to my assignment.. as you probably guessed, I've been using this as a distraction from working :P Typical.. .somethings will never change ;)

Concert Packed Week

2008-11-02T13:10:00.002-08:00

Well, coming to Vancouver has it's benefits. Yes, food is a huge one, but the number of concerts and theatre shows that are available to us has grown ten fold.

This past Thursday evening, we headed downtown to see....... no... not Madonna (she was performing her first concert in Vancouver a few blocks away that evening for a sold out audience of 50-60 thousand) but Lang Lang, the famous Chinese concert pianist who performed during the Opening Games this past summer.

It was full house that evening and traffic was a bit crazy that day because of MADONNA. Anyhow, Lang Lang opened with Schubert's Sonata in A which took up about half the program. This piece, in my opinion, really showed off his capacity technically and artistically. His pianissimo and fortissimo range was amazing. I don't think I've ever heard a softer touch. He followed with a Bartok Sonata after intermission which I wasn't too keen on. Mind you, I don't really enjoy playing or listening to Bartok to begin with. Anyhow, another fantastic demonstration of his technical abilities. Makes you really believe in practicing technique (shudder). After the dissonant sound of Bartok, was Debbusy. I originally thought he was going to be playing Au Claire Du Lune but he didn't... it was a variation I think.. but I'm not sure. I'm not all that familiar with Debbusy's work. After Debbusy, the composer I had been waiting for... Chopin! My favourite. He performed Polonaise in A flat Major which I have heard many times before. Unfortunately, it didn't live up to my expectations. I felt he sped through it and did not provide the justice that it deserved. The ornamentals he played flawlessly but they didn't have the opportunity to shine because he was going so fast! I read a review saying the purpose was to "energize" the audience.. but that just .... I don't have words.

I was a tad peeved off that evening with the audience because they were SO restless. During his pianissimo sections (which were very soft), it was extremely hard to really follow along because of all the shuffling, moving and whispering going on in the audience. ARGH. There were many in the crowd who were not frequent classical concert goers because they clapped between movements (in fact, Lang Lang decided not to remove his hands between movements because of this.. he would keep his hands at the piano and just continue on into the next movement). The other thing that irritated me was the stupidity of some of the younger Chinese girls there.. actually, one in particular who took a picture of him WHILE HE WAS PERFORMING even though they explicity said at the beginning of the concert that "pictures are prohibited". It seems like she thought that her boyfriend had turned the flash off, but that was not the case. It made me really want to slap the backside of her head when she proceeded to take ANOTHER picture about 10 minutes later. Ugh.

Anyhow, enough complaining. Onto my next concert adventure. Last night, we went to see Our Chinese Heart at the GM place downtown. There were about 15 celebrity artists including the likes of Kelly Chen. Not a bad concert, better than I expected. I thought there would be a lot more off tune singing than there actually was. HEHEH. The mayor of Vancouver was there and I was really impressed at his attempt to do the interview with the MCs in Chinese. He did a pretty great job, I must say :)

Alright. We are off to view some open houses that we will never ever be able to afford. *sigh*

Signing off from rainy Vancouver!

Update and Thanksgiving

2008-10-20T11:05:00.007-07:00

Hmm.. over a month since I've updated. I've been meaning to write for a while now but every time I sit down in front of the PC, I'm usually working on my course work. Anyways, the job was a bit.... overwhelming in the "academic" sense. It's not as busy as being a homeroom teacher, but it's very heavy in a different way. I'm in charge of 10 students IEPs (Individual Education Plans) and need to ensure that they are receiving the support they require in their classrooms. All the students on my "caseload" are LD (Learning Disabled). LD students can have problems in quite a number of areas... verbal input (understanding what people are saying verbally), written output, verbal output, short term/long term memory, etc... I am finding I've got so much research to do. The downside to all of it is that I started in late September which means I'm behind schedule on everything I need to do. I have to give them assessments (that I'm not trained to do!!), analyse the assessments, write IEPs........ AHH!! My course work is pretty intense as well. As soon as I'm done with one thing, there's another thing due. We are suppose to post every 3 days (minimum), so if you don't login each day to read the posts, you will get overloaded with the number of messages that people leave. Anyhow, enough of that. It's kind of boring (I bore myself) :P On the Thanksgiving weekend, we went to Lynn Valley Canyon for a hike. There was a small suspension bridge there and the hike through the park was gorgeous.

We also took a trip to Burnaby the other week... I think I want to live there! Burnaby seems much "spacier" .. not so closed in. It also reminds me of Ottawa, a city I loved living in. The other bonus to it is that it's pretty central AND the school board already interviewed me to TOC (Teacher on Call .. i.e. supply teach).

Anyways, I have a ton of work to do. Thought I'd briefly post. TATA

Horray?

2008-09-15T14:36:00.003-07:00

Well, mid September is now here and no news from the Richmond district school board. I give up with them. Actually, I feel like they are a bunch of snots because each time I'm in contact with them, they seem to be rude. Anyhow, perhaps that's a temporary feeling or perhaps not?

Anyhow, I have been applying to some jobs in Delta and Surrey. I went for an interview with for a 0.5 position in Delta last week and received the offer on Friday. It is a position called an LST which stands for learning support teacher. Essentially, a resource teacher or special education teacher. I would be pulling students who have LD (learning difficulties) from their classes and working with them in small groups or individually on the areas they have difficulty with. I'm so under qualified for this position! Actually, I didn't even think I'd get an interview as I always felt (and probably still do feel) that special education teachers need to have quite a number of successful years of teaching under their belts in order to really be able to do a great job in this position. However, a job is a job and I will learn a lot from it. There is another LST at this school who is full time so I won't be on my own either. This position also only goes until the end of December which makes me a little less than enthusiastic, but again, a job is a job.

The other downside to my news is that the school board is experiencing declining enrollment. The principal told me that each June, they end up laying off teachers who have less than 3.5 years experience (they all do get placed in positions by the fall, but it's very stressful). I'm hoping that I'll somehow land something in Surrey as they are the 5th largest school board in Canada at the moment. Surrey housing is also not as expensive, so that will be the other bonus. Anyways, I really shouldn't over think my situation right now as I will have a pretty packed schedule between teacher half time and taking two online courses.

Anyways, that's it for now. Just thought I'd update :)

September is a half step away...

2008-08-26T11:12:00.002-07:00

Well, September is next week. I can't believe it for two reasons:
1. It feels like I left Saint John and school only a few weeks ago
2. I am jobless :(

My colleagues at Forest Hills have gone back to work. I am feeling a mixture of emotions. A few weeks ago I began to really feel down on the fact that school is starting up and I don't have a classroom. Now, I feel a little left out... like a distant memory. I'm thinking from the prospective of myself and my students..when I was in elementary school, my teachers from the previous year were always there when I returned to school in the fall, so I'm not really sure how my students will feel next week when they return and I'm not there. No where near being close by. I have had dreams about them in the last little while.

The flip side to all of this is teaching in BC. I have no idea what it will be like. For some reason, I have it in my head that it will be very different. Teaching won't be the same... how? I'm not sure. Perhaps it's not having a group of teachers I can fall back on when I have problems. Can't really explain how important it was for me this past year to have fellow teachers I could go to for advice and to just vent! Anyhow, I'm sure all of this is just my mind playing games with me and making things worse than they are so that I'll be so psyched out that when I actually start supply teaching, I will be super freaked out.

Speaking of supply teaching, I'm also dreading the unknown. Receiving a phone call to go into an unknown school of an unknown teacher to sub for a group of unknown students. To not know the physical layout of the building, the structure of the classroom and the school and probably not even know how to GET to the school! I'm naturally quiet when I don't know anyone so for me, going into such a situation really really sucks. I really hope I don't have to do it for a long time. (Actually, I'd prefer to not have to supply teach at all! Perhaps just walk into a job .. that would be great!)

In the meantime, I'm planning on taking some online courses to tie up my time. I'm probably going to take one course from the University of Western Ontario as I already paid for my Ontario college of teachers dues this year (you have to pay your membership in order to take any teacher courses in Ontario.. it's so stupid!) and maybe another one at UBC (this one depends on whether I get fully licensed in Alberta.. because BC can't make up their own minds! If Alberta does not require that I take English courses, BC won't require it either. That means, I don't need to go to UBC's online course department!!). Anyhow.. part of me is looking forward to taking courses because it means I'll actually have something to do. The other part of me just thinks it's pathetic because I should be working right now rather than reverting back to this student lifestyle. UGH.

Alright. That's it for now. Ciao (YC :P)

Olympics..

2008-08-26T10:52:00.002-07:00

I haven't mentioned anything about the Olympics.. and what a milestone Olympics it's been! I guess I've avoided the topic because of all the "controversy" surrounding it.. it's exhausting to think about it.

I got up at 4am to watch the opening ceremonies.. the result of that was feeling jet legged for the rest of the week. Anyhow, it was amazing and I'm astounded and mind boggled at how they must have organized that! I always have some semblance of how much organization is involved in events (or I think I do), but this one - I can't imagine how much planning went into it. To think of just crowd control for the performers is overwhelming! They did a fantastic job and I really think they are not getting enough praise from the media.

I did not get up to watch the closing ceremonies but did see bits and pieces of it through replays and on the net... *cough cough*. I was super excited to see some celebrities that I knew on global television - no, not David Beckham but Lee Hom, Andy Lau, Emil Chau (!!!), Karen Mok, Jacky Chan... and I think that's it (didn't recognize the rest). I was pretty ticked off with CBC for focusing in on the woman in pink who I didn't recognize and cutting out parts that would have been nice to watch. Anyhow, I did manage to find it online later, so I'm happy now.

The games is not meant to be about politics but about coming together for a common reason and to compete in atheletics. At the beginning, I was only a tad irked that the media kept going at it and picking on things such as the Tibetans and human rights issues when this really had nothing to do with the Olympics. I can understand to a degree why they would bring up things like protests and whether they were occuring or not, but why do so many of the commentators need to be so freaking sarcastic!? I read a piece on the closing ceremonies that really made me annoyed. CBC has really tarnished themselves in my mind. Do they really need to include things like "Somewhere, the ghost of Mao Zedong is really, really pissed." or "If you're a fan of digitally enhanced fireworks and lip-syncing nine-year-olds, well, hold on to your hat." WTF. Can you not think of how much effort was put into this Olympics?! They cleaned up the entire city for pete's sake! In the history of the Olympics, what host has ever gone to such lengths!?

I am not saying that China is perfect. By no means. I just believe that there is a time and place for criticism. Yes, there are things that need to be changed. There are things that need to be changed in ALL countries of this world. I believe I heard it from BBC, but they said that one thing Beijing will take away from the Olympics beyond the new construction and being able to open the doors to the world is the learning experiences of some of the areas they need to work on. (It was worded differently, but you get the idea). Perhaps I'm biased when I judge the media as I'm Chinese (but believe me, this is another complicated issue - Chinese Canadian vs. Chinese from China vs. Chinese from Asia excluding China), but really, I'm so sick of how rude people have been in regards to the Olympics. Some of the comments on the CBC forum made me just sick (hence why I've avoided writing about the Olympics altogether!).

Anyhow, I think I'm going to split up my entries today. Easier reading :)

That was .... interesting?

2008-08-22T16:13:00.002-07:00

YC - I think you are the only one who reads my blog. So this blog has basically become a public email to you?! HAHA!!

Anyways, in the case that I do have other readers (HELLO!!!!), here goes the follow up to the interview. I arrived at the school and the principal greeted me. She started off by asking me if I had any questions. So I asked her if the english teacher had their own classroom or whether the teacher went to the students? To answer, she took me on a tour of the school - my first thought was that didn't she have another candidate lined up after me? Shouldn't we hurry up?

So that took probably about 30 or so minutes. We finally got back to her office and she semi-interviewed me. A lot of the questions were really odd and actually looked for negative scenarios.. like "tell me about when you saw something illegal or unethical - what did you do?" .. I had a hard time answering questions like that because I have not seen anything like that!? Anyhow, she realized the questions were odd as well so she didn't really bother too much. I think at that point she already wanted to offer me the position anyhow, so she really didn't care too much. At the end of the question period, she asked me if I was interested in the position - I said yes. I suspected that was the job offer, but didn't think it was official as we had not really gone through the entire interview - I still had to do the written component and they needed to check my references.

Anyhow, after the whole thing was finished (2.5 hours later), I left the school with a very bizarre feeling. The principal had talked to me a lot about the things I could do and was really enthusiastic about some of the things I had talked about - Tribes for one. She called me later in the afternoon saying that HR had called my references and gave her the OK and that she was "happy to have me with them"... I was thinking OMG!!!! She had even gone to the Tribes website to read more about it and called the centre to find out about getting a person in to train her staff.......

So here I am, freaking out because she assumed I accepted the job offer when I was still flip flopping all over the place. You are probably wondering why I didn't want the job? Well, it's a 0.18 position which means it's only 1 afternoon and 1 morning per week. The other problem with this position is that it's with a French school district which means that this job is "as good as it's going to get". There is only 1 school in Richmond and 2 in Vancouver... the Vancouver schools have an English teacher split between the two of them and I suspect that that position is probably not full time either. However, I have no other offers on the table and September is quickly approaching. I do want to be back in the classroom and this would provide a great opportunity to learn the language arts curriculum across a number of grades all at once. I would also have a local reference..

After a lot of hemming and hawing, I finally decided that I was going to decline the position. It took me all morning to work up the nerve to call her. I still feel bad as I think I'm letting her down but ultimately, I have to do what's best for me. (Ya, that sounds sooooo self absorbed!). Anyhow, what's done is done. I need to try to be positive though it can be difficult sometimes. I am probably going to end up taking courses this fall so I won't be as bored as I have been in the last month or so (man, is it easy to get LAZY!).

It's a bit tough thinking about school starting up. I think about the changes at Forest hills and I am also missing my group from last year. It will become a much sweeter memory once I get a job!

Ciao for now,
JY

ps./ Enjoy the closing ceremonies!

Nerves...?!

2008-08-20T08:48:00.001-07:00

I have about 10 minutes before I need to get going. Actually, I should probably not be doing this right now. I have an interview in about 30 minutes at that French school I was talking about. I met the principal and spoke with her on the phone so there's no real reason to be nervous at all about this. I am not even 100% convinced that if offered the job, I should take it! So why am I nervous!??!?!

GTG!

I'm Not Sure...

2008-08-18T10:56:00.002-07:00

I'm not sure whether I should be hopeful or whether I should be depressed. OK, I know it's a straight forward decision - why be depressed if you can be hopeful? Actually, I should just try to "not care" in a way so that things can fall in place as they are meant to be.

Alright, backing up a step so that people can actually follow what I am trying to say: Last week, I received a phone call from a man from a school board that is located in some remote location in northern BC. I did not apply for any positions up there, but he saw my portfolio on applytoteach (kind of like the teacher version of monster.com). Anyhow, he wanted an interview with me, but after he describe where they were located, I tried to politely decline. I'm after a long term position where I will NOT need to do all this paperwork and shoe licking ever again!!

Last week, we also discovered an ad in the paper for an English teacher (2 mornings a week) at a school in the French school board. I just got off the phone with the principal and she sounded like she was pretty desperate for a qualified teacher. One side of me can see myself becoming excited for this position because it'll allow me to be in the classroom on a regular basis with the same children each time, but the other side of me thinks: what are the long term benefits? Will it make me unavailable for a full time position? I was up front with her in saying that I was ideally looking for something full time, but at this point in time, I would be delighted to teach at her school. Anyhow, I might as well give it a shot as nothing better has come up right now... at least I'll have SOMETHING to do..??

Enough about job hunting. Life in Richmond.. I haven't really said much about what it's like living on the west coast, have I? I'm still not 100% convinced that I love it here. The culture, although we are still in Canada, is a bit different from that of the east coast. I can't quite put my finger on it, but there's something different. Driving around Richmond and even Vancouver/Burnaby/Coquitlam, you can tell you are not on the east coast. The houses are a mixture of different cultures.. you can see some different styles from different countries engrained in the architecture of the homes around this area.

I think the reason I'm not 100% sold on living here yet is because of the job situation and that we have not met very many people. On top of that, CE & I are still living with my parents so it's not like we are being independent at the moment. As much as I want to be close to them and to help them in any way I can, I still want my independence (i.e. freedom). Anyhow, this will come with time.. I just need to find my patience!!

The plus side to life over here is that there's soooo much available here that wasn't available in NB. FOOD. OMG FOOD. So many different things to try, so little money and so few calories available!! haha! I think that it's going to take me quite a while before I can truly determine whether I feel comfortable living here.. I find myself comparing it to life in Ottawa.. why was I able to be so comfortable so quickly over there and not here? Perhaps it was because I met lots of new people right off the bat? Was it the culture? Was it because I had been there numerous times before actually moving there? I wonder...

Anyhow, I think that's all for now. Hopefully I won't wait as long between posts. There's no excuse of being "too busy" as there was last year at this time!

Random Act of Kindness

2008-07-31T15:51:00.003-07:00

I was just on my way back from the mall (it's only a few blocks from where I live) and was waiting for the walk sign to come up. It's a rainy day today so most people were carrying their umbrellas. An older gentleman was waiting behind me - all I noticed about him was that he was tall and skinny and wearing a pair of pink sunglasses. What touched me was that a few minutes later, a younger boy (probably in University of maybe even high school) came up behind him and put his umbrella over the older gentleman's head. The man was very appreciative to say the least.

With the very disturbing news broadcast that I woke up to (that decapitation on a bus in Manitoba), it was a very comforting thing to be reminded that there are still very kind and thoughtful people out there.

What To Do?

2008-07-29T12:40:00.004-07:00

WOW...I didn't realize that a month has passed by since I've last posted. Minus the time since I've been in Vancouver (almost 3 weeks), life was extremely busy and exhausting.

Packing up after I finished work was tedious. So many tiny things to shove into small places in boxes that were already crammed so full that it's surprising none of the burst on the way over here. The great debate... do we bring it and pay for shipping or do we throw it out (bad for environment, waste of money) and buy it again when we get there (waste of money #2)? SO, most of the stuff came with us.... which brought us to another problem (continue reading). Anyhow, I spent Thursday and Friday of that week marking grade 5 provincial math exams which didn't really help much in terms of the massive amount we had to get done before leaving, but it was a good experience and I earned a couple of extra bucks on the side.

We left on Sunday the 29th and maaaan... was the car FULL or what! We had to bring 2 check in bags each plus at least two carry on bags with us on top of the stuff we were going to attempt to ship with the car. I also should mention that we had about 6 boxes that we thought we were going to take to Fredericton to ship out (what on earth were we thinking!? It's only a cavalier!!). All this meant that we had to delay our departure to Fredericton until Staples opened so we could take the 6 boxes to ship from Saint John. The girl who was working at the desk.. not so bright. She gave us a way bill that was for international shipping rather than domestic so, midway through our drive to Ottawa, we received a call from them saying that they wanted us to come back into the store to fill out the proper form. Yah.. sure. We were near Montreal by then!

Back to what I was saying. We eventually left Saint John with the car crammed FULL.. you could barely see out the back window. Heading straight for the Regent Mall (for the very last time ever!), we went to purchase a cell phone for my brother as we THOUGHT there was such thing as a family plan which allowed one person to purchase a plan, let's say $25/month and share it with up to 5 members in their family. YAH RIGHT. They SO ripped us off and lied to us. ARGH. Be very paranoid with Rogers.. they are so full of it.

Anyhow, after visiting our family friend, we had dinner in the park with my brother. Originally, we wanted to go to the Dip, but we couldn't get reservations. Instead, we ordered out and ate at Odell Park. It was really hard to say good bye to the Kan family as we couldn't say the typical "see you later" or "come visit" kind of good-bye (he has ALS).

Skipping over our journey to Ottawa.. we arrive in Ottawa and it is freaking POURING rain out. JUST LOVELY! We were there for Canada Day but didn't actually make it downtown for the celebration during the day. However, we did attend the fireworks. I think it may be something about being in the capital for the national holiday because people were so drunk and so high (you could smell weed everywhere and the place was crawling with cops).

Ottawa was pretty low key. Spent a lot of time with our friends.. couple of BBQs and lots of time on the phone arguing with ROGERS. We found out later that it was really $25 PER phone and not $25 for ALL phones. Plus, we paid for a TWO year contract not a THREE year and they couldn't manage to resolve that until I called them and starting really going on and on about how ineffective they were and how unethical their company was (this was 6 or so phone calls later... at least a good working day was spent on the phone with them).

We departed from Ottawa and headed to Toronto. This is the first time I've been to Toronto and not had a huge list of "to do" or "to buy". We've done the tourist thing and shopping is kind of necessary when you are headed to Vancouver (plus,O space is an issue)....so.... we were actually kind of bored. We did go to the zoo for a day and saw an strich doing some strange dance and then proceed to mate with the other ostrich (ya.. right in front of us!!) and I guess, that was the most interesting thing we did in Toronto!

Being here in Vancouver ... it was sort of dream-like for a while. It's all starting to set in though and not really in a great way. I'm so bored! I don't really know too many people in Richmond. I getting increasingly paranoid about the job situation.. probably because my brain is in overdrive thinking about applications and that there are no suitable job postings AND the worst, re-visiting the feeling of sending in application after application with no response. Being in a new city with no job come September is my current nightmare. So bad, that it makes me think I need to head back to NB (no.. that's not going to happen)......

I'm Unemployed Again...

2008-06-25T07:06:00.002-07:00

So, the last day of work was yesterday. I left school and will not return. I don't think it's fully sunk in yet.

Today is the first day of summer vacation. Sort of. I have to mark Grade 5 provincial math exams tomorrow and Friday which I am oh soooo looking forward to. Talk about PAINFUL. I am only keeping to my commitment because I hear that it's a good experience, it looks nice on the resume and for some extra cash before we officially go on unemployment.

It didn't feel difficult leaving the staff and the building. However, on Friday, the last day of school, it was extremely difficult to say good bye to my kids. I had told them on Tuesday that I would not be returning and that I was moving out west so a lot of them became increasingly clingy as the week went on. I had a few moments where I had to choke back tears as each student came up to receive their last home report of the year from me. (I made each of them give me a hug). I will certainly miss some more than others but they will all hold a dear place in my heart, afterall, they are my first class (perhaps last class ever?!)

I met with my principal yesterday to express how I felt about the whole situation (not being recalled and not receiving my "B" contract (permanent contract)). She did tell me that my colleague and I were the last to find out our placements because they were trying all sorts of ways to keep me. I believe she was being sincere in that she really did feel badly that she couldn't keep me on at the school and that she felt I was a valuable teacher, but it doesn't really make it easier to process this whole situation. I have to try to believe that this is all for the best and that I will be able to land a teaching job again soon. I just dread the frustration of not being able to have my own class or not even being considered for jobs.

Our apartment is slowly getting cleaned up but stuff is still everywhere. Accumulation of STUFF is terrible! I think we've downsized a great deal in the last few years and each time you move, you throw out more and more stuff (to avoid bringing it with you), but it still seems like there's a TON! I think the main reason is because we are packing all sorts of everyday items as it's cheaper to ship than to buy it new. At $1.00/lb, shipping over something like a bottle of lotion (~$2) is cheaper than buying a new bottle for $10. But if you think about it, we've now spent $12 on that lotion!! Anyway, I think you get the picture.

I'm looking forward to a new life in Vancouver. The only thing that is holding me back is the job thing. Hopefully CE lands something quickly and that I'll get something for the fall. That would be the IDEAL situation, but who knows! To be able to settle down and put down new roots is the goal now. No more of this moving around for me, thanks very much!

Alright, I'm done blogging for now. I've got to get back to cleaning up and packing (or maybe a nap is in order?? HAHA!)

8 Days...

2008-06-10T17:24:00.003-07:00

It's been a whirlwind of a few weeks. Lots has changed in a very short period of time. I had been waiting to find out about whether I would get recalled or not to the building but I found out very late in the game that I did not. I was extremely shocked because I put my WHOLE self into this job and from the feedback and the knowledge that others that were of "lesser value" (from the comments from colleagues and even small remarks from administration) were recalled. Anyhow, it turns out that at the very last minute (4:30 on Thursday 2 weeks ago!!) a "B" contract teacher (permanent contract) got transferred into the building therefore bumping me out. I'm still a bit ticked that the whole situation wasn't handled better but I can understand what happened.

Anyhow, all this has made CE and I decide to pack up and leave NB. We are heading out West.. for now, Vancouver. We may end up in Calgary or we may end up somewhere else. Who knows?

SO, along with marking, report cards and general year end stuff, I've been frantically trying to pack, prepare myself for job applications AND try to get our personal stuff organized. OMG it's NUTS! I'm not really stressed out yet, but I'm sure it will come. I must say I've been oddly calm.... bizarre eh?

Back to the whole non-recall thing, quite a lot of teachers approached me to say that they were shocked to hear the news. Some of my colleagues that have become good friends were pretty ticked off. In a twisted way, I was touched to see that they cared so much. I think one of them was more upset than I was! Anyhow, I try not to dwell on it because I'll just get myself all upset. I know that I worked my butt off and that I deserve a teaching position. I usually can't bring myself to state something with 100% certainty, but I can say that with 110% certainty is that I SHOULD be in a teaching position! I was really surprised to hear some of the feedback some of my colleagues had for me.. perhaps they are not genuine, but they seemed sincere.

Anyways, that's my news for now. I'm moving to Vancouver so I won't be around NB any longer. My parents have already head out so the Tan family has officially relocated. Ready or not, here I go!!

JY

ps./ We're leaving at the beginning of July and we're flying out from Toronto on the 10th.

2 More Weekends

2008-04-27T11:44:00.002-07:00

Two more weekends and that's it for home for me. I was more depressed last week and the week before than I am this week, but it's starting to hit me again. This house is so familiar that it's very difficult to imagine someone ELSE living here. I think I'll miss the memories that this house holds for my family and the small things that are all too familiar to me.

We are having a yard sale next weekend and the weekend after will be mostly final packing and moving days. How depressing. The other side of me is really happy that my parents finally get to retire and enjoy themselves in Vancouver. I am hoping to spend the summer over there, but I know when the time comes to leave again, I'll wonder what the heck I'm doing coming all the way back to NB!?

The school year is almost over. I think we must be down to around 30 or so teaching days now. I can hardly believe my first year of teaching is almost over! Where did the time go? I'm in semi-panic mode as I have so much I left that I feel I need to cover (and practice) with them, but there is no time. It's full speed ahead from now until the end of June. My kids have to write a district math exam at the beginning of June and I'm going to be forcing math down their throats for the next little while.

I can't remember whether I mentioned the story about a note I received a few weeks ago. One of my behaviour kids showed up the day after he was out with a note from his mother saying "Dear Ms. Tan, please excuse him from school yesterday. He refused to get dressed for school so I grounded him for the day". Hm... I wonder who won that fight? This is the same parent who was so annoyed at me because her son received a "letter of concern" because of all the days that he's been out this school year. She ranted and raved for about 3 days straight until I called her and then suddenly, all was fine.

During my principal's observation of my teaching a few weeks ago, she had to pull one of my students out of my room because he was just being much too disruptive. I think she realized exactly how bad it can get in my classroom with the combination of students I have. This child, I really don't understand - he was flailing his arms, making noises and making faces and just generally moving in every which way that he could in his seat. He was trying his utmost to get everyone's attention, but the strange thing is, none of my kids were paying attention to him (I don't know whether this is because I told them that if they react, they'll go to the office, or whether it's because they are just so darn used to it that they don't care anymore)! So why would he continue to behave in that manner?!

When our positive behaviour intervention and support coach came to observe this student, she found that it wasn't him that was disruptive, it was the OTHER (not the one with the note, but another one) one that was causing a lot of disruptions. The frustrating thing is, nobody has seen my class in complete "action" when all the behaviours are at it AND the rest of the class thinks it's a free for all. Anyhow, she was also commenting on how she doesn't know how I can teach when I get interrupted at every 2nd word and the class thinks it's time for them to have conversations across the room. UGH! We did this lesson on "Knowing when to quiet down" on Friday, and the lesson stuck in their heads for all of 30 minutes. It's ridiculous!

It's not all bad though. I see their academic improvement and some of them are trying very hard to improve their behaviours. I've seen some children come along extremely well that it's hard to believe that it's the same child that walked into my classroom at the beginning of the year. I'm not saying it's all me, by far, a very large part of it is parental support.

Anyhow, I'd better stop here. Enjoy the weather!

Starting to miss...

2008-04-13T10:57:00.003-07:00

Starting to be forced into packing up the last of my stuff and getting ready to sell things that we can't take with us. I think I haven't mentioned it yet, but our house has been sold and our closing date is around May 18th.

Our house is gradually emptying out and I'm beginning to feel depressed! I can't imagine driving into Fredericton and not being able to come HOME. The thought that this house will soon not be ours and will belong to someone else is really, really weird.

As for the future.. I'm not sure. Half of me hopes to land a contract for the next school year so that I can gain another year of experience but the other half of me hopes that I can move out West this summer. Ideally, I'd move out West and get a job immediately, better yet, have a job offer first! Realistically speaking though, that's not going to happen. I've been dragging me feet when it comes to applying for a BC teacher's license as the freaking application is over 10 pages long! The bigger problem is that I will need my principal to fill out a 2 page evaluation form about my philosophy, my planning and my teaching before I could actually submit it. Although I think she's understand if I asked her to fill it out, I wonder whether it'll make her hesitate when it comes to offering me another year at this school.

Speaking of my principal, she came in to evaluate me on Friday. She was actually suppose to come on Thursday and she accidentally went to my colleague's class instead (my colleague was scheduled for Friday, so she (principal) mixed the two of us up). Anyhow, I was teaching Math when she came in and at first, the kids were being pretty good. As our activity progressed, they started to become chatty (not as chatty as they usually are, but chatty nonetheless). I was kind of shocked (why, I do not know) that they would continue to behave in the way they were behaving even after I asked some in particular to stop talking or to pay attention. At the end of her observation, she actually took one student with her because he was just being disrespectful and very disruptive (he's one of my behaviour kids and was recently diagnosed with Aspergers AND ADHD). Anyhow, I had spoken to him multiple times and he did not stop. I didn't feel too badly about that because I told briefly told her that he has just been diagnosed and that I had requested for the Aspergers/Austism specialist come see me to help me put a plan in place for him but we had no luck with a meeting time yet. I think I didn't do as well as I feel I could do, probably because I was feeling really self conscious with her there. I'm going to have to revisit that lesson, especially after my "personal review" on it.. (I think I'm going through brain block right now because I can't think of what I wanted to fix)

Anyways, that's all for now.

Missing Child...

2008-04-10T15:20:00.002-07:00

Our school's home and school association hosted a movie (Waterhorse) after school this afternoon in the school theatre. I left around 5pm today (early by my standards) and just received a call from my colleague about a half hour ago.

She said, after I left, an announcement came on asking all staff to help search for a student who belonged in my class. Good lord. They were calling and calling him for over 30 minutes and were starting to get frantic as they had searched the entire school, the yard and the vicinity. No student. Finally, one of the parents (or someone) said they were going to drive around to see if they had any luck. Low and behold.. where did they find him?! WALKING home.

Now, this is not just a short walk home for those of you who do not know the area. This would probably take a good 40 minutes for an adult to walk, nevermind a THIRD GRADER!! I can't believe he took it upon himself to walk him because he thought nobody was going to pick him up. It just reinforces our suspicions that he is NOT receiving the proper parenting at home that he needs. (This is the same child that is being referred to mental health) ..

Thank god he is safe is all I can say. I don't know how I would have reacted if I had still been at the school or if he hadn't been found.

What a week... and it's only Thursday

2008-04-10T03:01:00.001-07:00

I've had such a week already. With my kids being extremely chatty and hyperactive, I've had a nasty note from a parent two days in a row. Her first complaint was that we sent a "Letter of Concern" home because of the many excused absences of her son. This being said, she's the mother who allowed him to stay at home because his two brothers were home sick and she thought it wouldn't be fair for him to come to school when they were home. I'm not sure how much was twisted by her son when he told me, but this is the same child who tells me he's not feeling well or he has a "tummy ache" and then goes home and is perfectly fine. This leads me on to her second complaint: the school should not allow students to call home when they are not sick. "As a parent, we feel obligated to come get our child when they call home and say they are sick". UMM.. RIGHT. I'm seriously going to tell your kid that he can't call home when he's telling me he's sick. Are you kidding!? When I phoned her and talked to her about this, she said that if she says no, he begins with the waterworks and the last thing she wants is him crying at school. Ok.. I'm not a parent, but GET A BACKBONE LADY!

The third complaint she had was that I gave him detention. It went on and on about another student and how that student is not disciplined (whether she is talking about at school or at home, I do not know). I didn't really respond to her complaints that day and only wrote that I had talked to her child about the repercussions of getting a "sad face" (sad, yes I know.. HAHA) and he will have detention now that hockey season is over. Her response to this was that she wants to know whether other children receive the same repercussions and that she wants to make sure that her son is being treated fairly and courteously. COURTEOUSLY!? He doesn't treat ME courteously! ARGH!! Each kid has an INDIVIDUALIZED plan because some kids respond well to one thing but not another. Her son does not respond to being sent to the office and the only thing that has worked for me so far is keeping him in to do work.

This is extremely frustrating because all of his behaviour stems from how he is at home. He's a smart boy and has a lot of potential but chooses not to do his work or to behave in class. Anyhow, she calmed down when I called and had many explanations to things that were both relevant and irrelevant to what she wrote. I get she's frustrated, but hey, I don't need to start my day off with a nasty note from a parent! Thank you very much.

The other major thing that's been going on is that I had to call child services. Scary. I didn't anticipate having to do it, but I had two incidents that made us suspect abuse. In all actuality, I feel that it's just a lack of understanding/education on the parents part - not knowing that some things are extremely old school and considered to be a no-no in today's society and that children are NOT like adults and need to be handled a little more gently. I shall not say more for I am paranoid of getting into trouble. It seems like teachers need to be sooooooooo careful about everything we do... it's like walking on bubble wrap and the goal is to not make a sound...

Hopefully today the kids will listen and behave.. I have my 2nd evaluation today (although she did say she didn't need to come in. It's only 15 minutes so I'm not too worried yet). The more important reason for me wanting them to behave is that I have a HEADACHE!

CIAO!

Finally.. a relaxing weekend.. sort of

2008-03-29T14:22:00.002-07:00

It's been a crazy couple of weeks. Report cards went out on the 17th and we just finished parent-teacher interviews yesterday. March was an insane month.. I did not teach one full week at all this month! I had a parent ask me yesterday whether everything is ok because she thought that perhaps I was sick or something with all the different supply teachers my class has had this month.

It has not been good for the kids and I've been experiencing teacher-guilt for being away so much. It did however provide many opportunities for me to collaborate with colleagues, to visit another school to observe another teacher teach (and to realize that there ARE students out there who DO listen and pay attention! It was crazzzzzzzzzy to sit there and hear the teacher count down from 5 and see all eyes on her and nobody chatting.. I was in awe.....), and to get some much needed work done.

Parent teacher conferences went extremely well this time and I'm soooooooo happy. Many of the parents were very supportive and were actually quite pleased with the kids' results this term. Most of them showed improvement in all areas.

The other piece of good news is that I finally got word on a classroom composition grant that I applied for in November. I now have a teacher who will work with my class each Wednesday from now until the end of the year. She works with another teacher the other 4 days of the week. I can use her however I would like - have her take over the class for the day, have her work with small groups, or have the both of us co-teach. I'm still not quite sure what I'd like to do yet because I really have to be able to really trust her in order to leave my kids with her one day a week from now until the end of June. Our philosophies (such as classroom discipline and expectations, how we see learning and teaching, etc..) also have to very similar else things will be difficult.

Anyhow, the last month has left me drained of energy. I'm truly exhausted from all the late nights (this past week, there was not one day that I got home before 8pm or later.. 12+ hr working days...).

Blogmania

2008-03-16T18:25:00.002-07:00

Our school (or perhaps me) is under a blog "attack". We've got about 11 blogs in total! I began a new one for our citizenship facilitator who is currently in Uganda. He wanted me to post his journal entries on our school site but I felt it would be so much easier if he just posted them on a blog.. so another blog was born.

We also have one for our school news which automatically updates to the school website. Since most people are technophobes (some have a hard time just with e-mail), I thought it'd be easier having them post to a blog. The hard part is getting everyone setup with their school accounts. We are actually going to hold an after school session on how to activate their accounts and how to start posting sometime next week.

Each blog is being monitored through goggle analytics and the blogs that ARE active DO have activity. That's so encouraging!

Alright, this post is all an excuse not to go to bed.. I've been so exhausted all week because of all the millions of things going on at school and because report cards go out tomorrow. There has not been one day this week that I have not been to school. It's pathetic. I spent the entire afternoon there yesterday!! One hour always turns into two or three.. or five. SO, GOOD NIGHT.

A Good One

2008-03-13T18:36:00.005-07:00

I had a collaborative release day today and my colleague was reading this aloud to me and another teacher. I was pretty steamed at first...

Teachers' Salary

Teachers' hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or 10 months a year! It's time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do--babysit!

We can get that for less than minimum wage. Right? Let's give them $3.00 an hour and pay them for the hours they actually work, not any of that silly planning time.

That would be $19.50 a day (7:00 AM to 3:30 (or so) PM with just 25 min. off for lunch). Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children.

NOW...How many do they teach in a class, 30? So that's $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day.
However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! We're not going to pay them for any vacations.

LET'S SEE....That's $585 x 180= $105,300 per year. What about those special teachers and the ones with master's degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage, and just to be fair, round it off to $7.00 an hour. That would be $7 x 6 1/2 hours x 30 children x 180 days = $245,700 per year.

Wait a minute--there's something wrong here! Average teacher salary $50,000/180 days = $277/per day/30 students = $9.23/6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student.

A very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even try - with your help - to EDUCATE your kids! WHAT A DEAL.... And the parents don't even have to buy us pizza!

Make a teacher smile; send this to someone else who appreciates teachers.

Procrastinating...yet again...

2008-03-07T07:26:00.003-08:00

As you know, I've been marking their writing for the last few days.. actually, EVERYDAY this week (ARGH!). I've still got two pieces of writing to mark.. may not mark the last one, but I have to mark their writing assessments. Brutal. So I thought I'd post a blog entry :P

I forgot to mention that I was out on a collaborative planning day last week. It was originally to plan some global education lessons that could be implemented at the grade 3-5 level. Sometimes, things just happen and everything falls into place. Saying that, I received an email from a teacher-friend who is now serving in the Canadian forces in Afghanistan. I had originally told him that I'd get my students to write him and his soldier colleagues some letters. He wrote me saying that instead of writing letters, could we send some supplies for the children? He told me that he saw so many children who were living in poverty, not having so many basic items such as shoes, soap, underwear, etc..

SO, I brought this up during my collaborative time and we set forth to quickly plan a supply drive. I did up a package of lesson plans, guiding questions, book list and even found a video that could be shown to the children at our school about the children in Afghanistan. (Found on Youtube: Part I Part II)

This all comes in nicely with the theme that was set forth by our citizenship facilitator, Cory Richardson. I mentioned a couple of posts ago that he is working on a project called "Stitch Uganda Together". (If anyone is interested in finding out more or making a donation, let me know and I'll send you more information). I'm not sure I talked about exactly what he is doing, but he is trying to raise money to purchase sewing machines for a group of Orphans in Uganda (they live on a farm called Opak farms) where they will be making hammocks and selling them in order to become self-sustainable. He's been working with our grade 5-8 students and they have been creating a ton of wonderful things - decorating their own t-shirts, making "wind chimes", hammocks, etc. I'm not really aware of all the mini projects he's doing because my kids are not involved, but I have seen some of the things they've created up and around the school. He made this "wind chime" out of a piece of driftwood and hunt an old fork and a couple of "crystals" on it and hung it from the ceiling over the stairs in the grade 3-5 wing. Something so simple, yet it "beautified" the school. The kids were actually learning over the banister because they really wanted to play with it (it got taken down for fear that we'd have a kid fall over the banister and down the stairs but it will be hung up again in a safer location). Anyhow, there will be a link to all this (Afghanistan and Uganda projects) from our school website someday in the near future.

I probably also forgot to mention that I revamped the school website over the holidays. Lots of positive feedback. I'm also very encouraged because people seem to be actually looking at it and wanting to use it to pass on information to students and the community.

Alright. I really should get back to marking. Enough procrastinating. Ciao.

Breaks my heart...

2008-03-04T12:05:00.003-08:00

I've been marking my class' journals. Each Monday, I ask them to write about their weekends. I really should be checking them more often .. it gives me a sense of what they are experiencing at home..

Some of the entries that are on the verge of making me cry:

"This weekend, I went to my Aunt Karen's to babysit my 2 cousins, Madison and Julia. Madison is 2 and Julia is 10 months old. The reason that I went over is because my Aunt Karen was going crazy because of my god father, Anthony. So, she went out to the bar to get drunk. Then, on Saturday, I went home and Anthony was mad because he thought that me and my mom were going to babysit the kids again, so he was mad."

This is the same child whose mother decided that on her birthday, she wanted to not have her son around.. I mean, I can somewhat understand wanting to celebrate adult style, but .. her son obviously knows she wants a "break" from him. He's also the one who was supposedly ADHD since Kindergarten, and recently discovered that he's Asperger's. He also had a miserable Christmas holiday as his step siblings all got this video game or something and he was the ONLY one that didn't get one. His stepsister spent the remainder of the holidays taunting him about it. :(

Another entry: "On my weekend, I played Poker with my brother and my dad and my dad's girlfriend."

Short and simple but oh so disturbing. A third grader playing POKER!?!?!? WHAT!? He's a bright child.. very quick in Math, but very weak in reading and writing. He's got the sweetest little face, but he's had a lot of problems in school. He has had his moments throughout this year, but I've heard he's improved a great deal since last year. He told me that his MOTHER told him that his 19 year old brother went to a strip club for his birthday and that his older brother is not going to finish school. *Sigh*.

Some entries make me laugh, but these ones, are just plain sad.

Do We Deserve March Break??!

2008-02-28T17:10:00.003-08:00

This winter, we've had MANY storm days.. so many that I've lost count. OK, it hasn't be 2 weeks worth of storm days, but it's been over 5 days at least. Makes me wonder whether we should even be taking another week off when we've missed so many days of school already...

Looking at my calendar in March.. oh my my my. My kids are going to think I've abandoned them. I was out doing a collaborative planning session on Tuesday morning and when I returned at lunch time, I ended up in the middle of a class hug. It was very sweet that they missed me, but at the same time, it's sometimes a little unnerving because you never know which of the darlings has critters in their hair....

Anyhow, I've got another 3 collaborative planning sessions, 1 full day of planning for a open house at our school, 1 day for observing another teacher at another school and 2 days of either planning or observing someone else. Don't forget, we also have next week off because of March break AND Good Friday & Easter Monday both fall in March this year. I will not be teaching a full week at all this coming month.

The downside to March is that our next round of report cards is around the corner. One big reason as to why I haven't written too much lately. I've been spending most of my time gearing up for report cards. So far, I've only gotten behaviour and math comments written.. next to come is marking their writing and inputting grades. UGH. I hate marking their writing.. it's soooooooooo painful.

The other day, one of my students came up to me and said "Ms. Tan, my hair grew this much (about 2-3 inches) last night." LOL. As a teacher, it is critical to learn to keep a straight face. There are times when you find yourself willing yourself to keep a serious face because what the student has just done or said really makes you want to laugh, but it really isn't very acceptable behaviour.

Today, I had an incident where I was walking towards one of my kids who was being very hyper active while we were in an assembly. To get to him, I had to squeeze my way between the chairs and the wall. I stupidly bumped my knee into the heater while trying to get to him. So while I'm trying to tell him to settle down, he's saying "OH! Ms Tan, are you OK???".. ahhhhhhh .. how are you suppose to respond to that???

Anyways, I have a co-op student now and I can't tell you what a difference it makes. Just to be able to hand off things like mounting paper onto cardstock, dealing with bulletin boards, filling in hot lunch money forms, helping answer student questions during a test, photocopying.. it takes a huge load off my back. This is just in the mornings too! It just goes to show that we really are under-supported at school and that TA's are NOT "bandaids" (quoted from a district level supervisor.. he can go !@#)(!*@#)(!*@#)(!@*#)(!@*).

Speaking of such !@)#(!*@#, a few weeks ago, I took part in a Non-violent Physical Intervention crisis training course. The guy who was training was the above mentioned district level supervisor. I don't know if he forgot who he was training or whether he was just plain stupid, but he kept telling us stories like "once, we had a kid come to school with a knife...." US: UMMM.. ya, that kid went to OUR school. "Oh, and once we had a kid try to jump off the roof..." US: Ya, that kid also used to go to our school.... etc. It was extremely frustrating because he was trying to make up all these excuses as to why our school did not receive the TA's we should have. I mean, we have a kid in grade 1 who has MICROWAVED his CAT!! He threatens to KILL his teacher and has also threatened to kill other students! They have a PART TIME TA!!?!?!?! WHAT!? How does THAT work!?!? And the man says TAs are BAND AIDS?! WHAT!? TA's are god sends, TA's are like a lifeline! GAH!!!!! (OK, must stop talking about this before I really start getting into a HUGE rant.. and believe me, there has been a LOT to rant about lately...)

Ciao. To those that get it off, enjoy the March Break!

Just had to share this...

2008-02-21T15:28:00.001-08:00

I gave them a math test today. To the question "write a story for the question 2X2=4" I got this:

Hi! I'm two, so am I! Want to do math? Yes! but after dinner, ok! La la la. Hi What's your name four, I'm two! I'm done dinner said two, great! Two this is four. Oh hi four. Hi, so let's do math said two. great idea said four. I love math. 2X2=4

(This is with a little bit of editing because some of the punctuation and spelling didn't make any sense)

Some of our students are just so out of it...

Another Storm...

2008-02-13T03:39:00.002-08:00

I've lost count. We've had so many snow days this winter it's been pretty SWEET!!! I think the teachers were more excited than the students were yesterday. A huge discussion on the "Red Bar" in the staffroom yesterday at lunch. Even caught one of our VP's keeping an eye on the weather. We were all pretty thrilled to hear that the bar had 'grown' larger by the end of the day. HAHAHA!

Anyways, it's been a busy few weeks. I came down with some bug last week and was pretty miserable. Glad to report that it's gone and life resumes as normal.

The more encouraging news is that I have some release days coming up (release days are when we are able to have a Substitute Teacher in for us) to do some collaborative planning, to plan for a "Tribes" day (since we are the only "Tribes School" in the province, we'll be holding an open house in April and I'm on the planning committee) AND I have 2.5 more days of BTIP (Beginning Teachers Induction Program - they gave us 4 full days to do whatever we want - within reason). All these days being used before March 31st. I'm liking it. The only downfall is having to leave a plan for a substitute.. it's amazing how many tiny, tiny details we have to think about.. it's actually a lot of work.. as some people say, it would probably be easier for us to just go to work rather than do up sub plans.

I'm also hoping to find some time to apply for a Innovative Learning Fund in order to get myself a Smartboard. Since the district is not giving us squat these days, I have to find my own time to figure out how to get one. It's ridiculous.

The other day, I think a bunch of teachers were pretty frustrated (could have been the week of the full moon) and the topic came up that our school is a tough school.. there is another in the district that is very well known for being a rough school, worse than ours, but the huge bonus about their school is that they have Irving as their PALS company (so they get employees to go into the school to do activities with the students, they SPONSOR them - unlimited number of buses.. so field trip galore..etc.). Poor us. We don't even have enough TAs to support our serious behaviour students.

Get this. There is a student in grade 1 who MICROWAVED his CAT AND threatens to kill his teacher on a daily basis. He tried to stab another student with a pair of scissors (got caught before anything happened) and he only has a PART TIME TA. I'm INFURIATED. There are SO MANY cases like this in our school it's ridiculous. We don't get the support we need and the district justifies it by saying "We are here for academics". !@#)(!*@)#(*!@#)*@!# And we are suppose to teach how?!

Another rant I want to go on is about one of my students. He is one of my major behaviours.. in fact, I'd say he's the root of many of my behaviour students. He has already been suspended three times this year ... we also found out he tried to shake his puppy until they thought he'd broken the puppy's neck. When the parents took him to the doctor, the doctor said "He's just being a kid." WTF. Now, I am not really 100% sure whether the parents actually followed through on what they said, but there's just so much frustration on my end because I don't hear from them. I see no change in his behaviour AND he causes chaos in my classroom on a daily basis. UGH!

Anyhow, to balance of the negativity (probably won't balance, but hey, I'll try) in this post, I do have to say that I do love each and every single one of my students. Even the ones that wreck havoc. They all have this innocence about them that is very sweet and lovable. It never fails to astound me how they can be scolded by you one moment and still be giving you a hug and telling you that you are the best teacher in the world the next moment. It makes my job soooo worthwhile and fulfilling.

I'm SO frustrated!

2008-01-17T14:09:00.000-08:00

As soon as I typed this post's title, I knew I shouldn't complain. But I'm going to anyway (briefly).

Today was such an extremely frustrating day. My students are terribly behaved and I've really run out of patience. As much as I hate to say it, it's hard for those that are not teachers to understand what it's like.. just as I'm sure it's hard for me to understand what YOUR jobs are like! Anyhow, these guys just have no sense of .. manners? Common sense? ANY sense!? When the teacher is starting to flip out at the class.. do you keep talking? Would it be a good time to go sharpen your pencil!? If the teacher has just given the whole class 5 minutes of detention because the class is too noisy, wouldn't it be smarter to be QUIET and WORK rather than keep doing what you are doing!??!?!?!?!

I kept the WHOLE class in yesterday at recess time to "practice walking in the halls". Today, on our way back from Music.. guess what? I had about 10 kids TALKING in the halls AGAIN! WHAT!? Did you guys MISS the whole thing!? I just don't get it!!

OK.. enough ranting. I know I'm lucky to have a job so I really shouldn't be so .. bitchy. It's been a long day and I have to keep telling myself that some of these kids just don't have very many positive learning experiences so they don't know any better.

Tomorrow is professional development day. I'm so glad. Sort of. It's our final day of Tribes training (Tribes is a behaviour process (program) where we try to teach the students to respect each other and to work as a community. It's a very well known program across North America and is suppose to have worked on school as tough as NYC. My school is the first school to be a Tribes school in the province. Not all the teachers have bought into it yet and I must admit that I have strayed from it as well. I am not 100% convinced, but I think there is some truth in the philosophy of the program.

Another piece of news I have is that we have a new person at our school who is a "citizen educator" who is working with teachers and students to build citizenship in our school. Pride in their surroundings and in themselves. To better understand our community and our world. I spoke to him for about 1 1/2 hrs last night and he's a very interesting guy. He's traveled to many third world countries and is dedicated to helping those in need. I'm hoping that he can help me get a program together where my class will be communicating with a class in Uganda! It'll be so neat for the kids to learn about another country, culture and about helping others. Can you imagine if you had THAT as a kid!? To be able to teleconference in to another country!??!!? WOW!

Anyway, Cory also has an organization that sews hammocks and sells them. The profits go towards purchasing sewing machines which are then brought over to Uganda to allow THEM to make MORE hammocks. The proceeds of THOSE sales go towards a farm called Opac farms which will house orphans who will live there and learn to farm amongst their fellow orphans who will hopefully become like brothers and sisters to them. It's all about sustainability. If you are interested in learning more, Cory's website is: http://www.actionheronetwork.net/ and if you are on facebook, check out the group "Stitch Uganda Together". Another awesome thing to check out is a video called "Invisible Children" - it will change your outlook forever. I know of many people who've watched it and have said that it's an extremely powerful documentary.

That's it for now!

Christmas Snowstorms

2008-01-14T14:06:00.000-08:00

As my parents are anticipating moving to Vancouver this coming summer, we took some pictures as a 'memoire' of the crazy NB snowstorms to share with people. Mostly those that live in faraway tropical places that have never seen snow, or those that have never seen this MUCH snow before.

My mom, who is around 5'3 - the snow almost up to her waist. The snow BANK, taller than her.

My neighbour, Tony, plowing out another neighbour's driveway. There's so much snow you can barely see his house!

Finally, the snow piled on top of our roof. This is pretty much all from one storm. I'd say that's a good 30 cm worth of snow, wouldn't you?

What a Crazy Thing To Do!

2008-01-14T13:52:00.000-08:00

Near Wellsford

Beyond the fog = ??

I awoke today thinking... just in case, I'd better listen to the radio. Anticipating a snow storm and with the terrible accident that happened in Bathurst this weekend (many teachers heads are spinning over that tragedy), I thought there was a chance that district 8 would cancel school. All I heard was district 6 warning parents that listen to the radio in case they cancelled school in the middle of the day.

I never anticipated it would happen to us.

No big deal, right? WRONG. It was like a zoo (again). With over 800 students in the school, we (mostly elementary teachers) were scampering to make sure the kids 1- were able to get home and 2- someone was at home waiting for them. How does the district expect us to call parents when we have the students with us!? Plus, how many phones do they expect a school to have!? Anyways, I luckily only had to call a few parents and my colleague across the hall was able to provide some relief for me to actually leave the class. All I can say is poor supply teachers and poor teacher who started last week. Talk about panic.. we had to do this all within the hour. From the sound of our VP over the intercom, the office was a very busy and frustrating place to be.

I started a new math program and the amount of preparation that is going into it is kind of a lot of work. I was very happy to have the half day to plan, but I am no where near finished :( I don't think teachers can ever get ahead, we're lucky if we're not surviving day-day! (I also never realized what it meant to "hate marking". Try reading things that make absolutely no sense or when printing is soooo terrible that you can't make out the letters)... it's tedious.

Anyway, I've posting some pictures I shot while driving back to Fredericton on Saturday - what a foggy day! There were some places that really looked much cooler, but I didn't pull my camera out until I had drove past. AND since I haven't posted people pictures in a long while, here's my new haircut :)

Gifts from my Munchkins

2007-12-21T17:53:00.001-08:00

Notice that I received MANY mugs.. 8 of them and a number of candles... 4 of them.. I don't know if I've ever mentioned it before, but mugs are a VERY common gift teachers receive...

Great Things for the Classroom - Part I of Many..?

2007-12-18T17:07:00.000-08:00

The other day I was thinking: what are some good gifts for teachers? I started to think of the numerous shopping trips and thought I'd compile a list. No, I'm not hinting for you to go out and buy me lots of "gifts" (yeaaaa.. things for WORK!!!!), but perhaps someday, when you have kids, it'll come in useful (if you want to be a helpful parent)!

1. Baskets - all sorts of sizes. Dollar store is great (BUT, when you have to buy tons and tons of things to stock your class, I'd rather a penny store).
2. Dice - MATH GAMES
3. Playing cards - MATH GAMES again!
4. Zip lock bags - come in handy in all sorts of ways
5. Stationary of all types - pens, pencils (OMG, pencils.. EXTREMELY useful), paper, etc...
6. Large bowls
5. Empty plastic containers/baby food jars - for arts and crafts, experiments

It's really very sad how much I've spent on my classroom this year. $1000.00 would be a good estimate. I'm not kidding. Between purchasing materials such as school supplies to books for the class library, I've spent way too much of my own money. It's heart breaking. As some of my fellow teachers have pointed out: what profession needs to buy their own tools? I'm sure there are, but when we are government workers.. that's RIDICULOUS! Even for experiments, I end up spending my own money. For example, today, we did this health experiment where I had to use about 1 dozen eggs to prove to the students that coke, vinegar, coffee and tea are bad for your teeth (think egg represents teeth). SO, I had to spend money buying the eggs, clear plastic cups, vinegar, coke, coffee, and tea. Not to mention the time it takes to run around getting all that stuff + the time it takes to boil the eggs.

The tiny stuff doesn't really bother me, but after having to spend THIS much money, on things that really SHOULD be provided, I find it disheartening. PLUS, when the kids don't respect your materials.. it just makes me downright mad. I don't know how many times I've ranted about them just throwing my things back on the shelves or not taking care of things around the classroom because "it costs more than a happy meal at MacDonalds" or "I'm working on this when you guys are at home playing video games or watching tv!"... not that they probably understand what I'm saying. But hey, it seems to be working, I've seen improvement - they don't dare just throw my board games on the shelves anymore (last week I took all of the games away during an indoor recess and they were NOT pleased - it worked though, because they've been neat as a pin ever since.

Anyways, today was cute. We had our Christmas concert. My class chose to sing two songs: Walking in a Winter Wonderland and Rudolph. We had to learn Winter Wonderland from scratch so they weren't super comfortable with the song although they knew the words. Anyways, to keep it short, they sang Winter Wonderland very softly and Rudolph in quite excited voices. Lots of chuckles from the audience. Anyways, I'm glad it's over!!!!!

Ciao!

Almost Christmas...

2007-12-15T16:53:00.000-08:00

Wow.. it's almost been a month since I last posted?! It feels like it was just a week or two ago..

It's now count down to the holidays. 5 more school days left before we have a glorious two week free of ...

School this past week and the week to come have/will be like a ZOO. The kids are EXTREMELY excited about the holidays.. and it's as if someone opened all the cage doors and let the animals OUT. I really felt like that on Thursday during our indoor noon hour (OMG.. indoor recess AND lunch was He**). Kids were all over the place.. loud.. hyper.. bouncing.. I felt like I was escaping into the safety of the staff room!

This coming week is basically a write off. Probably won't get a whole lot out of them because they just can't sit still for 2 minutes. The other day, I, yes I, staged a walk out on them. I wasn't really actually THAT annoyed with them, but I wanted to see if it would work. I told them that I was very frustrated and I needed a break from them, so I left the room. Their first reaction was "_____, it's all your fault!" and then they proceeded to start arguing. 2 minutes later, myself and my colleague across the hall saw the door shut. She went in and gave them a good talking to about how they are NOT suppose to close the door, only teachers are allowed to do that and that they need to LISTEN and be RESPECTFUL. Anyhow, our minds are constantly boggled at how little these children know about manners and respect.

What really irks me is that I happen to know that there are schools out there, in the district, that have MUCH more support than we do. We are basically an inner-city school, high needs children and little support. There are other schools out there, whose "modified" students (students who are on special education plans (known as SEPs) who are not just on accommodated programs, but MODIFIED programs) are considered "average" when compared to the general population of our school. I have a transfer student who is running at a higher level than some of my students who are NOT on SEPs! She came from a school that basically had a TA (Teacher's assistant) in each classroom. WHY DO WE ONLY HAVE 1.5 TAs on our floor!??!! We have a grade 4 classroom that has about 18 SEP students (out of 23!) and a class with 2-3 students who are VIOLENT, as in punching fellow students in front of a teacher! It's ridiculous! Our school also does not have a PALs program (which is when a company "sponsors" a school by sending in their employees once a week to run programs for high risk students - basically mentoring them) and we are not allowed to go out and ask for sponsorship. A school this large with the kind of population we serve not having these basic resources.. ridiculous and completely unacceptable.

The other thing that ticks me off is that our school budget was cut this year. They took those funds and turned them into something called an ILF grant (Innovative learning fund) where we've got to apply in order to get the money back. Most of the ILF grants have gone to schools in Moncton.. so we are basically giving our money to Moncton schools. ARGH. Anyways, if anyone has any great ideas for something innovative that has to do with Smart Boards, let me know.. I really want to apply and get one into my classroom.. permanently!

Anyhow, that's my rant for now. With contract negotiations about to happen in February, we've been warned about speaking out to the media. They only said that we were allowed to tell our friends and family.. and that that may be the only way we can try to get our voices heard.. sad eh?

Yesterday was our staff party.. wow.. I never anticipated teacher's to be so WILD. I think they were only just getting started when I left around 11.. but boy, can some of them party. Dancing in the windows and everything. I had actually been dreading the whole event as I heard that in previous years, people were extremely drunk and crazy, but it actually turned out to be an enjoyable evening. Hung out with my group of teacher friends and left at a half decent hour.. (I've been fighting a cold for the past week so I was quite tired last night).

Alright. I am going to stop here. I've got to get cracking on some things. I'm taking part in a bake swap (12 people participating, everyone bakes 11 batches of something and each person switches their baked goods with what everyone else baked). I am only going to say, this is the first and last time I will do this. Too time consuming, cost of ingredients sucks, AND.. what am I going to do with 11 batches of cookies?! (I'm planning to give them away :P)

If I don't post before Christmas, I wish everyone a safe and happy holiday. May the new year bring some peace into this world. Lastly, as we sometimes tell our students: "Tell someone something that you appreciate about them today!"

A Scary Grandmother

2007-11-24T17:04:00.000-08:00

I'm writing to say that I am officially finished with report cards. Unfortunately, I'm not officially done with the repercussions of report cards. Thursday evening and Friday afternoon were parent teacher conferences. I decided to go the student-conference route - have the kids bring their parents around and lay all the pressure on them rather than me. It's very popular nowadays. Many times, parents come in and see the student's work and .. voila! Questions have disappeared. Their work explains everything.

The only family I had trouble with was from one of my stronger students. Her grandmother was sent in to battle me. She is a retired teacher and I was really upset by the time she left. She said a lot of things that were completely uncalled for such as "that's not acceptable". She left me in a state of disaster.. I felt soooo terrible the rest of the evening that I couldn't enjoy the visits from the rest of my kids. How can they expect this NOT to impact how the teacher feels towards their child? I mean, I won't treat this student any differently, but I'll be super cautious about everything I do that is related to her from here on in. And will I ever look forward to having her family come into my classroom? NO WAY. Oh yes, this all had to do with the one C the student got on her home report. Mind you, C is not like C in university.. a C means that they are performing at grade level.. that it's average. The mother and the grandmother were NOT happy with even a B!!! !)@(#. They pulled everything on me.. "you didn't call on her even though she had her hand up for every question you asked", "maybe she's just not good at art, maybe you are just being too picky", "if you don't call on her, how do you know how much she knows?", etc.. It was a total "diss" to my professionalism. My initial reaction (during the confrontation) was that I was going to faint.. just out of pure fear for this b**tchy lady. This later developed into anger..then depression and back to anger.. which it remains up to this point in time.

****
We had the meeting right after school today. I'm SOOOO glad my vice-principal was sitting there next to me. I also had another colleague in to come back me up as we had done some collaborative grading. I can just say.. both of them (VP and colleague) were pretty ticked off at what the mother and grandmother had to say. Eventually, my VP started to speak and that seemed to do the trick. I think the mother was still pretty pissed at the grade her daughter received, but grandma seemed to calm down. It was just downright insulting some of the things she questioned.. as if I wasn't professional enough to grade the student fairly. ARGH. Anyhow, to make a long winded story short, she was NOT a pleasant one to deal with. SO, if any of you, someday, are angry at your child's teacher, talk to me about it before you go to the teacher.. it's NOT fun, it's actually pretty devastating when a parent attacks you when all you want is what's best for the child.

THE END (Until next term?)

Report Cards and Impending Laryngitis

2007-11-14T17:55:00.000-08:00

Wednesday night, I've got a supply teacher booked for tomorrow. I have been struggling to get my regular voice back for the last two days and thought it would be smarter to just stay home for a day and TRY to recover rather than try to speak over 21 hyperactive kids.

It all comes at a good time (if you can say there is ever a good time to develop Laryngitis) though, report cards are coming out on Monday. My first experience writing and doing report cards: FREAK OUT. First, I thought I had a LOT of time left.. but low and behold.. I only have about 2 weeks to get my butt in gear. That means, gathering assessment, MARKING (I hate marking, especially Language Arts), and trying to find supporting proof that my marking isn't completely insane. It's tough.. I mean, how can you grade a child's "Confidence in own ability to learn"??! I can't really SEE THAT?!! Plus, I'm not altogether happy that I haven't had time to do anecdotal comments on my kids.. just because my class is crazy.. I don't have time to even track the BAD behaviour let alone whether a student knows how to count past 100.. (seriously, many of them don't know how to do this at the age of 8.. it's scary).

Speaking of scary things, students these days are ridiculously.. rude? I get kids that burp and fart without any shame. I get kids who are just plain rude in that they will go behind a piece of fabric covering my shelves and help themselves to whatever they want. I get students who just interrupt me when I'm talking to another teacher or adult. It's hard to believe that at this age, they still don't know their manners. Furthermore, the gyrating I have seen is really disturbing. The girls do these Britney Spears moves and I'm appalled. I've caught some of them wearing makeup and sticking these shiny stickers on their noses to pretend that they have nose rings. What happened to something called CHILDHOOD!?!?!? OH ya.. and why are these children watching movies like Pirates of the Caribbean at the age of 8!?!?!? Anyhow, the result of all of this: schools are expected to teach children: manners, values, social skills.. oh ya, and curriculum?

Anyhow. That's my rant about it all. OH ya, just one thing to end off on. I got a note in a student's agenda the other day, it read "Dear Ms. Tan, please speak to ___________, she is misbehaving at home". I HAVE NO COMMENT.

TGIF

2007-10-25T18:01:00.000-07:00

Well, tomorrow is Friday. We have something called "Curriculum Delivery Day" tomorrow in District 8 - kids are off for the day and we teachers have to go to the district office for PD. *JOY*.
I'm kind of happy though, it's a chance to get out of the classroom, but more importantly, this week was the full moon and the kids are CRAZY. Chatty, hyperactive, inattentive.. etc.. all the teachers have been feeling it... and it seemed to hit harder this time round because their behaviour is starting to improve.

Anyhow. Saturday is the 30th anniversary of CCANB. I'm not sure how many more tickets are left, but last I heard there were about 200 (out of 700). The performance is going to be magnificent. Although it was completely what I or others thought it was going to be, I have to admit that I was pretty blown away at the dress rehearsals. The costumes are extremely colourful and the dances are really very visually appealing. We are also having a Chinese minority costume parade which is great because the costumes are really, really nice. I think that's always been my favorite part of the whole show (well, at least it was for the 20th anniversary).

I'm going to be working backstage.. in fact, I had to drive down on Tuesday night just for the dress rehearsal at the playhouse. Man, was I exhausted on Wednesday or what. Can't say I want to do that again. I was actually extremely reluctant to do it because I knew I had to drive back at either a very late hour on Tuesday or a very early hour on Wednesday. I ended up taking a BTIP (Beginning Teachers Induction Program) day (we get 4 days for a supply, usually to plan, attend a PD session or maybe go to another teacher's classroom to observe) just because of my dilemma. I may add that I DID use a good number of hours to plan - in fact I worked 10 hours.. so don't get any ideas :P

Anyhow, I'm really tired now.. so I'm off to bed. Lots more to write about, but perhaps another day. Ciao.

Honeymoon is Over...

2007-10-11T15:00:00.000-07:00

As a fellow teacher said "after 6 weeks, the honeymoon is over.." in response to me telling her it was painfully difficult to roll out of bed each morning throughout the week. I'm not sure whether it's because of the exhaustion settling in or whether it's because of my body fighting this cold.

Anyways, last weekend, Turkey weekend, I went to Ottawa. Flew out on Friday at 5pm and returned on Monday around 8pm. It was TOO SHORT! It was odd.. perhaps I was just tired, but I felt like I was going to be back in Ottawa in a few short weeks?! Anyways, it was wonderful to see everyone and to be back in Ottawa. It's funny though, everyone has lost weight and either we were just plain tired, or everyone is getting OLD. We were all yawning like crazy by 10pm on Sunday evening. Ha! We also intended to go to the Casino in Hull (spoke of it multiple times), but didn't get anywhere near the casino. Oh well. I did get to go to the few places I was hoping to go (MEC, Ikea, Thousand Villages, etc..) Too bad we didn't have more time.. there is plenty to buy in Ottawa (well, compared to Saint John!!!)

With this new teaching job, I wonder about where I will be situated in the future. If I leave, the cons are that I may not be able to land another teaching job, price of housing is crazy and commute to and from work may be more time consuming. Cons to staying are that Saint John is not the diverse community that I want to live in, there is not as much to do in terms of recreation (not pubs, but things like culture, restaurants, events, etc.), it's expensive to fly ANYWHERE, and I don't want to live in such a SMALL city for the rest of my life! (Perhaps I'll think differently if I live in a larger city and experience those previously mentioned cons for a number of years..)

Anyhow, that's all for now. I was checking out a couple of other people's blogs and it inspired me to post. So there you go. I'm also sharing some new classroom pictures - enjoy!

A Long Short Week

2007-10-03T16:50:00.000-07:00

It feels like the work load is getting lighter.... it just FEELS that way, but it's definitely not. In fact, added to the load of planning (short & long term), is a professional growth plan that I need to run by my principal.. plus an upcoming evaluation at the end of Sept. = STRESS

To be honest, all of the stress from the first month has sort of become faded. I'm just plain TIRED now. I haven't gone into the downward spiral (studies show that 1st year teachers just go downhill after September and things don't look brighter for them until about February) yet.. I'm hoping I am not the typical teacher who had a very "cloud 9" impression of teaching. When I thought of my first teaching job, my thoughts were not fluffy and pretty, but I don't think they were anywhere near what I'm dealing with now. To be more optimistic, I'm seeing some small improvements in the behaviours of the kids.. so it's getting a little bit better.

My biggest concern is not being able to create a positive learning environment. Since I'm constantly watching over a couple of my kids, I feel like I'm not really providing a very positive environment. Calling them out on their actions is questionable - if you do it, it makes them accountable for their actions and lets the rest of the class know that it's not alright; if you don't call them out, does it mean that you are letting the class believe that they can get away with anything? Or are you making another student feel unsafe because they think you may call them out and embarrass them someday? It's a conflict of philosophies and ideas.. so, so, SO many of them!!!

Another small dilemma I have is the whole idea of "rewards system". I don't believe that students should be rewarded for good behaviour. I think it should be expected of them. I don't know how many teachers have suggested using a rewards system with my behaviour kids.. so far, I'm still holding out on trying different things and I really hope I don't cave. It's just really hard to say to someone, "Well, I don't believe in rewarding students for good behaviour." when they have just told you about how they do that in their class.....

Alright. That's it for now. I'm really tired. It's bed time.

Class from...

2007-09-25T17:16:00.000-07:00

Well, my first class ever.. is.. CRAZY! At first, I thought it was all because I had extremely poor classroom management skills.. but... according to the teachers who have taught some of my students in previous years.. I have a class from... well, you can figure that out.

First off, I have to say, I don't feel entirely comfortable posting too much about my students as you never know who will stumble across your blog. SO, I'll keep things vague from here on in.

My class.. I have 21 students and they range from all sorts of abilities to attitudes. I have some extremely sweet and wonderful students and I have quite a number of "handfuls" that are very "energetic". We've been working extremely hard on just trying to get the "raise your hands if you have a question" routine .. and it's still a work in process.

One teacher took pity on me after she saw the makeup of my class.. she actually sent two university volunteers my way! Gah. I really need a TA in my class.. and also, a bigger classroom.
The pictures of my classroom that I posted a month ago no longer look at all like my classroom does today. Lots more is up on the walls and it is definitely NOT as clean. I am still in the phase where I try to tidy things up before I leave at the end of the day .. I wonder how long that will last?

Life is really busy as a first year teacher. I am at school most days before 7:30 and stay until around 6-6:30pm. We have at least one meeting per week .. this week we are at 2 meetings + 2 training sessions. *joy* Meetings suck up so much time that could be spent grading, cleaning up, prepping.. making phone calls, etc.

We get about 30 minutes of prep time per day. That's pretty much enough time to go to the office and MAYBE photocopy a couple of handouts. It's pretty much a nibble of the amount of stuff that needs to get done in one day. *sigh*.

Last week, we had open house which is "Meet the Teacher Night". A few weeks ago I was freaking out about it, but I managed to stay surprisingly calm up to the last minute on the actual day (that was an EXTREMELY long day - around 13 hour+). I didn't have many families come, and the ones that did, it was basically a meet the teacher, see the classroom and chat type of event. So far, parent communication isn't as bad as I anticipated - but I'm still trembling with fear for the day I have to make a really "bad news" phone call....

One such potential cases is a child with ADHD whom we suspect may have something more than just that.. he's to be observed for Autism .. can you imagine what the parent's reaction would be!? On the other hand, if we can properly pinpoint what he needs help in, he will be so much better off..

Anyways, I really need to sleep.. I'm exhausted. Just wanted to let you know that I'm still alive :P

Ciao.

JY

ps./ It's a full moon on Wednesday.. I wish this week would be quickly over. For those that don't know, full moons cause a lot of craziness in children. My class was having a particularly rough day yesterday and this afternoon.... What will it be like tomorrow!?

A Quick Update

2007-08-31T19:44:00.000-07:00

School starts in 3 days. OMG. It feels like time has FLOWN by super quickly.

I started work last Monday. We began with two days of PD with a workshop I've already taken last year. It's a program called Tribes which is a pretty big deal in Ontario and is quickly spreading across the country (it actually originated in Hawaii and I'm hearing is being used in schools all over the US). Anyways, this time around, I found it much more powerful - perhaps it was the staff, perhaps it was the fact that I can actually see a need to apply it now that I have a JOB!!

Anyways, the staff at the school are wonderful. There are at least 25+ new teachers (out of a staff of 60 or so) and most of the previous "seasoned" teachers have been shifted around so everyone is in a new grade and/or new classroom. Nobody knows where anybody is! It's all very exciting though. On top of that, there are also a couple of student teachers in the building, so it makes for a LOT of new faces. I can't tell you how glad I felt when I found out I wasn't the only newbie and when I received such a warm welcome. Lots of teachers dropped by my classroom offering help, materials or just someone to lean on. Of course, this being my first week and all, I'm just hoping that this friendly and welcoming atmosphere will only improve with time.

It's SO bizarre to have a job. Well, not that I didn't have a job before, but a teaching position. I guess because I was rejected so many times, I'm having a bit of a time processing that I've actually been HIRED! Apparently, there were about 70 applicants, from all over Canada that applied for the position I landed.. wow..! I think I'm just insanely lucky.. it's like winning the lottery. I keep reminding myself. Oh ya, back to what I was saying, it's weird having my OWN classroom, my OWN students, my OWN mailbox, my OWN photocopy code.. and being able to say "yes, I'm a TEACHER" without feeling like a wannabe. HEHE!

I've got plenty to say, but no time to say it. I'm moving tomorrow and have not packed at all. Ha! My time has been consumed with driving, classroom setup, lesson planning, material creation and purchasing (trying to set up your own classroom library really is hard work - painful too, because teachers buy their own books for their classes :S). I'm really about to go broke with everything that I need to buy. I've really tried not to spend on things I don't need - but it's hard - especially when you see classrooms around you that are beautifully setup and organized. You don't want your students to feel like they landed in the dump of a classroom. SO, if anyone out there has any old board games and books (esp. picture books) that they don't want.. you know who to call!

Alright. I must get to bed. I'm tired.. my brain and body are not agreeing with one another these days.. my brain is always saying "yo, get up, you have too many things to do to be sleeping!!" and my body says "!@#)(!*23 you brain!!"

Night!
JY

ps./ The pictures of my classroom *before*.

Silently Freaking Out!!!

2007-08-20T10:15:00.000-07:00

AHHH!!! I've got SO MUCH TO DO!! Classroom setup, Unit/Lesson Planning, Classroom management planning, parent communication, assessment, MOVING.. the list goes on and on. I don't know how I'm going to survive! I'm FREAKING.

I spent most of the weekend working on lesson plans.. I'm already so terribly tired.. but I have to push on. I'm excited to meet the students, but I'm not sure if I'm being realistic about what my students will be like?!

Alright.. that's it for now. Short post.

My mind is spinning!!!

2007-08-17T11:45:00.000-07:00

HOLY COW!! The day I've been waiting for has come! I got a teaching job!! OH MY MY MY MY!! I have my very own class! WOW!!!

Ok. I need to calm down. Breathe.

Alright. Last night, I was terribly jittery. I couldn't sleep. I kept waking up, my brain kept thinking "what will you do if you get the job?", "how will you get everything done?", "are you sure you want this job?", "what if you don't get the job?", etc. It just kept going and going. I anticipated that if I got the job, I would get the phone call in the morning. No phone call.

By lunch time today, I was pretty depressed. I really thought I had a great shot! Anyways, Chien Ee suggested I email the principal, so I did. Low and behold, a few hours later, I got a response. "I finally have word that we have 2 positions to offer. I would be pleased to offer you the grade 3 position if you are interested. It is a D contract for the year."

YES! I'm SO interested! SO, now, I have to not only prepare to move (find a place first) but also figure out what I'm going to teach, how I'm going to teach, what my classroom will look like, how I will manage the students, etc.. WOW. I guess you won't be seeing many posts on here for a while...??

How will it turn out?

2007-08-14T11:46:00.000-07:00

OOooo!!! I JUST came back from an interview! I got a call from a principal in Saint John yesterday requesting for an interview for a grade 3 position. She happened to be coming to F'ton today for a conference, so she was able to interview me here in town.

Anyways, it was suppose to be a 15 minute interview, but it turned out to be slightly longer. I think it went WELL. Much better than my interview with the Sudbury district school board. It ended with her saying that I was a strong candidate and that my philosophies were evident in my answers and what I answered her questions well. Wooho! I'm optimistic. Regardless of the outcome, it was a good opportunity to practice and to have some reinforce my philosophies all the while giving me a boost in confidence. She said something that made me feel much better about my first teaching assignment: she said, it's not really about what your skills but about your philosophy - I can teach you the things you need to teach, but I can't change your philosophy and understanding of children. I can see myself being able to work under someone like her and I think that me being honest and open about what I can do and what I am still working on was a good thing!

That's it for now! Will know by Friday... (if the news is good, I'll probably post :P)

Almost a Week...

2007-08-09T17:42:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that this time last week, we were struggling to sleep so that we could drive through the remainder of the night! WOW.. this week flew by fast!

NYC and Boston.. it was "interesting". It was boiling hot and there were MANY people.. NYC was packed. Entering into Times Square was AMAZING. The HUGE billboards, the flashing lights.. it was breathtaking in a very bizarre way. Perhaps overwhelming? We didn't have a whole lot of time to do anything besides visit the main points of interests: Statue of Liberty, Central Park, Times Square, Brooklin Bridge, Trump Tower, Wall Street, Rockefeller Center, Empire State Building, etc. With people crawling everywhere, the subway systems being maintained and our poor exhausted feet, we were lucky that we covered as much as we did! We didn't go up the Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty because it would have taken too long... perhaps another time. I would have also liked to spend more time in the very large central park - it was beautiful! I was particularly fascinated by the trees in Central Park. When I first saw these trees, I thought they had been painted and that the paint was peeling off them. No indeed, this was their natural state! They are called Chinese Elm or Lacebark Elm!

Anyways, besides that, we saw a topless woman standing on the steps of some building (forget what building it was because we were much more focused on the half nude lady!!). I think she was poising for some photographer-artist.. because she quickly put her shirt back on after he took a couple of snaps. She was pretty gracious about it but obviously embarrassed.. I feel kind of bad for her.. who would want to do that and have a tour bus pass by!? Talk about bad timing!!

Alright. I'll write again later.. perhaps it will be slow at the office tomorrow and I'll have more time to get into things.

Ciao!

Reconnecting with the Past

2007-07-30T04:51:00.001-07:00

Last week, there were a few days where both profs were out of the office. As it was hot and I was lazy (the main reason really), I was spending some time on facebook. Now, I'm sure everyone has their own opinion about Facebook, and to me, really, the main reason people are on there is because it's a popularity contest.. who has the most friends, who has the most wall postings, etc.. another reason, which I read from an article and which I agree with, is that people are naturally nosy. We want to find out about the latest gossip and what better way to do it than through facebook, especially since people are competing to see who has the most messages on their "wall"!

I would like to think I'm not snooping on facebook.. but rather, reconnecting with friends I have lost touch with. This brings me to my point. I found a couple of my classmates from Elementary school on there, and have been sent off a couple of messages. One friend (she was one of my best friends way back in Elementary) and I have been sending messages back and forth.. we've now gone into the facebook email rather than post on each others walls. I was quite surprised to find out she remembered quite a lot of things from what I think marks the beginning of our friendship (she invited me on a sleepover sailing trip with her, her dad and her brother!).. and that was back in Grade 3 (so 17 years ago). I'm elated!

This past weekend was pretty warm, I had no energy to move about.. it was all about lazying around and doing the bare minimum. I did get a call on Saturday from my piano teacher (well, former piano teacher really) who asked me to teach one of my old students for a couple of lessons while she was away (when I moved, I recommended my teacher to my student). I had some mixed feelings about teaching again. Not because of the student, I absolutely loved teaching her, she was a great kid and always very well mannered and sweet. I guess the main reason I'm feeling a bit reluctant is that I don't want to do any extra work after I go to work all day :P It's not really a matter of not having taught for over 2 years now, because I'm sure I can pick it back up pretty quickly. Perhaps another reason about teaching piano is that sometimes it can feel really tedious to sit there for hours at a time having one student leave and another one come - and when they don't practice, it's TORTURE!

More exciting news is that my cousin is coming for a visit at the end of September. She has been saying she will come for many, many years now.. at least over 12 years of saying she'd like to visit us. Anyhow, I'm excited! :)

This coming weekend is a long weekend, New Brunswick day. We're heading off to the States for a few days (I'm taking Friday off) and I'm quite excited about that (minus the number of hours of driving we will have to do). We're going to visit NYC and Boston - I've never been to NYC! If only we had more time, I already anticipate not being able to see/do everything that we want to see/do...

Meetings...

2007-07-26T09:31:00.000-07:00

I'm sure I'm not the first one to experience this (nor is this the first time I've experience this!). Have you ever been on a committee that you are suppose to chair, but instead of "chairing" you end up just... struggling?

Last night, the 30th anniversary program committee had a meeting and I believe I finally resorted to just giving in. For those that don't know, I am suppose to be the program director. Perhaps I've taken this title too much to heart, or perhaps I'm taking it too seriously, but MAN, it's freaking hard to convince people that things take a lot of work! The main problem lies in our artistic director.. he's a nice man and everything, but I'm not sure whether it's a lack of experience (?) or something else, but he tends to believe that everything is going to happen very easily. His most common comment is "oh, that's very easy". Personally, I really hate it when people do that. I hate it when people tell me to not worry about it and that it's not that hard. I find it somewhat insulting because it undermines the point that I am trying to get across.

Anyways, I'm tired of this "struggle" and now, knowing I'm not the only one (there is really only 1 other person that I am aware of that finds that the AD is getting a bit too controlling) who is finding it difficult working with him, I'm just going to try to lay low and "go with the flow". I'm tempted to just walk away altogether, but I am afraid I'll end up regretting that decision. Hopefully I can just keep my cool and try to learn from this experience!

Alrighty, that's it for now!

Kim & James' Wedding - July 21, 2007

2007-07-24T14:54:00.001-07:00

The new Mr & Mrs Jame Rioux entering the reception!

Vern singing at the ceremony

Group shot

Our table

A Slow Day at the Office

2007-07-24T14:45:00.000-07:00

I shouldn't complain, nobody was really in today so I had the place all to myself. The only problem is, when you aren't busy, time ticks by really slowly. I could have been more productive, but did I want to be? Not really.. I sort of feel like slack time is owed to me. ..hahahhaha!!! (OK, I know this isn't true, but hey, I can dream, right?)

Anyways, Kim and James got married this past Saturday. Some of us from the "FHS gang" as I like to call us were able to attend the ceremony and reception. It is noted that many of those that were not able to make it were missed! Anyways, she looked beautiful and the wedding reception was very lovely - simple, sweet and a romantic atmosphere (especially when we blew those bubbles). I have to admit it was my first Catholic wedding ceremony, so it was an experience. I also thought Vern sang very nicely, the wedding party looked and performed very well - good job Travis, Trevor & Mon ;) (I also should mention that Jordan read and did it without looking nervous).

Oh, something funny - I got an email from a classmate from last year - she told me during her first week of teaching, she "dropped the f-bomb twice" - this of course made her particularly cool with the grade 8 kids. Hmm.. if I ever teach that age group, I'm really going to have to bring out the sarcasm and the swear words eh?

Ok, that's all for now, I'm going to do some cardio now. Ciao!

Stuffy and Muggy

2007-07-17T07:27:00.000-07:00

The office is so stuffy this week! It doesn't help that I'm feeling tired because I couldn't really sleep on Sunday night.. don't know why.

CCANB 30th anniversary plans are ploughing ahead. I'm finding it somewhat difficult dealing with some of the people on the program committee.. I guess since many of them are older, it's harder for them to swallow that I'm the program director. Or maybe I should say that some of them do not have confidence in my abilities (finding this mostly from those that I have not worked with before). Anyways, I've had one person completely mis-interpret a simple gantt chart and one person propose that he quit the committee.. aie yie yie.. come'on people.. anyhow, it's a learning experience - it's just all rather draining.

Planning a trip to New York this summer.. probably only for two nights though (as if that's enough time). Take in the main attractions and save the rest of the exploration for another trip. It's too bad we don't have a whole lot of time, I would have loved to go to a Broadway musical! Oh well.. you take what you can get!

Work has been somewhat maddening this week.. lots of things happening, but what else is new. I'm probably going to end up staying on for another term (at the very least).. but I recently saw a posting in the Business department that I think I could potentially qualify for.. the only thing is: 1. How do I explain that to my current boss and 2. Do I really want to commit until April of next year? and finally 3. It will mean I can't consider teaching for the coming school year. Not even supply work. I guess that solves my dilemma.

Besides that, I've determined that I need to begin a backup plan in case I need to leave the teaching profession. My employers now seem to think I would do well in the graphic design industry, but come'on, I have no training and don't really have a whole lot of experience besides a few posters, websites and newsletters.. given the competition today, will I really be able to land any jobs!? I looked, and it seems some positions only pay graphic designers $10-12/hr!? EKK!

Anyhow, I'll probably choose something in the lines of Business.. like payroll, human resources, etc.. Who knows. I'm anticipating I'll need to take some more courses.. community college courses that is. I'm hearing that a lot of companies are liking that - besides, University just teaches theory, plus, I've "been there, done that"X2.

Alright. I just thought I would update a bit. I've been rather lazy for a long while.
Ciao.

Acadia National Park

2007-07-02T18:36:00.001-07:00

This past weekend, my brother, Chien Ee and I took a trip down to Maine to camp and shop. My first experience at Acadia National Park was great! Beautiful scenery and such diversity in the people that live there, the things to do, and the landscapes around the island... a great place to visit - something for everyone :)

The first picture is of the beach there - beautiful! The waves were a bit intimidating though.. since they crashed right at the shoreline. It was sort of distracting to try to take a picture there as you didn't really want to turn your back and suddenly have a big wave come crashing down on you (ok.. maybe not crashing down on you, but you know what I mean!). The water is actually quite pretty though and had we more time, i would have enjoyed just sitting there for a couple of hours (or maybe sleeping there :P)

The third picture it is taken at the peak of Cadillac Mountain - can't really say that we climbed all the up because you can actually drive up (the hike says it's like 0.3 km, but really, why bother to even say it's a hiking trail??). Anyways, we didn't spend a whole lot of time up there because we were more anxious to see what the areas when the tide was down (you can see these little tidal pools where there are tiny fish, snails, barnacles and anemones.

Other than that, we also went to Freeport to do a bit of shopping. I guess it was the 4th of July sale or something, but there were lots of things on sale. Didn't really see much that I wanted so I only bought a sweater at LL Bean. My brother on the other hand, found a great deal of discounts at Timberland (discounted prices plus an additional 70% off, so he even purchased a winter coat for about $30USD). There were TONS of people there which made it really unpleasant.. lots of people dropping cash as if it were just nothing.. if only!

Anyways, that's it for now!

Job Hunting Blues, Hues?

2007-06-21T07:59:00.000-07:00

Well, Thursday midi.. can't say I'm particularly enthusiastic about anything nor am I particularly depressed. Somewhere in the middle.

My dedication to staying positive throughout my job hunt for September is starting to waiver. It's depressing not to get any calls for interviews, and now that I've experienced that miserable Sudbury job interview, I'm so intimidated about receiving an interview request! Will I ever find myself in a teaching position? It's scary to lose faith.. The idea of "the day" (the day I get told I have a job) is slowly slipping out of my imagination....

That in itself, brings me to an entirely other scary scenario. If not teaching, then what? I'm not exactly cut out to be some sort of programmer, finance person or whatever. My strength is in organization, working with children. It's not exactly easy finding a job that can fit my skill set.. I don't even know what KIND of occupation my skill set fits!?!?!? =(

Anyways, Canada Day is quickly approaching. Last year I was wondering what I'd be doing this year.. who would have thought I'd be sitting back in my old office doing what I'd been doing pre-BEd? Gah.. let us hope it's better next year.

As you can tell, I don't really have much to say that is very positive, so, I shall stop here.

Grumbles

2007-06-13T10:11:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've last posted (seems like the trend these days). This is due to the insane schedule I have at the office. I've worked OT for the last 2 weeks and I'm sure there is more to come.

This past weekend (or should I say, non-weekend), we hosted an Early Childhood Curriculum Pilot Training Workshop. We had about 9 daycares from across New Brunswick come. It was INSANE. Everyone on the project team was pulling crazy hours and it's not over yet. They have another conference this weekend in Halifax, a proposal meeting on Monday and a proposal submission deadline at the end of the month - this is all on top of the regular day-to-day business.

Lots of work is one thing, but when there is a team member conflict, it becomes draining. I was all fine and dandy on Saturday morning until someone came in with a bunch (6 cups) of Starbucks coffee. I was SO ANNOYED that they only purchased enough to leave out 4 people.. how rude is that!? The excuse was "It was just too much to get one for everyone". Anyways, I'm not saying this person is usually rude or inconsiderate, it was just a bit.. insulting.. as if we were not important or valued. Anyhow, I try not to dwell on such things, but they do grate on my nerves from time to time.

The other tiny ordeal I had was my interview at the Rainbow Valley District School Board in Sudbury Ontario. It was a telephone interview. They called me 20 minutes ahead of schedule - I had actually JUST arrived home (from a very intense work day) and really, really wanted to go to the washroom and collect my thoughts before beginning. Anyhow, no choice.. had to go ahead with the questions. Some questions really threw me off.. they were .. specific yet very general.. I think combining multiple questions into one. I admit that I answered some questions very poorly.. I think I was just too flustered to make myself stop and think.. to take my time. Anyhow, getting a job there is not a possibility this year.. so I might as well learn from my experience (sigh... I guess it just wasn't in the cards). I am trying very hard not to make excuses for myself, but at the same time, I don't want to keep going over it in my mind as I'm afraid I'll get depressed again (like last summer).

I'm heading down to Saint John tonight for this black tie event in celebration of the opening of the Saint John Chinese Commerce Centre. Pretty cool eh? Lots of big shots going to be there apparently.. some delegates from China and community members. I'm actually sort of regretting my decision to say I'd go because I've still got a ton of work to do before the research group leaves for Halifax tomorrow...(and I'm just plain tired).

Anyhow. I'd better stop now.. it's really not the time to be posting. Ciao.

Exams?

2007-05-31T04:24:00.000-07:00

As I post this, I'm relieved to say that I do NOT need to write exams. Ha! While wondering whether my cousin is finished her college exams it got me pondering over the real value of writing finals. Reflecting at my own experience, I can only relate the emotions of stress, exhaustion, and impatience when it comes to exams (although, I hardly think there's a student no the planet who would have anything positive to say about finals).

I wonder: do exams really reflect the amount of material or how much a student has learned throughout the term?

When you give a student five exams to write after a long term of assignments, midtermS (they really need to take a look at changing the name of the term 'midterm' as some profs give 'midterms' up to a few weeks before the final exam), lectures and late nights studying - do students really have the energy (or adrenaline) to prepare and write for the biggest evaluation of the term?? I'm tempted to say no.

On the other hand, teachers DO need to do an evaluation on ALL materials that have been taught through the term.

My suggestion, if it were up to me, would be to have multiple smaller tests throughout the term or to have a end of term project rather than a final exam.

Anyhow.. this little thought has become much too long on this blog entry :P

Another update on my robin story. I FOUND the little guy. Well, saw him really. (I assume it's a him.. perhaps its a her.. who knows). Yesterday morning I was sitting there eating breakfast when I saw this little dude flying and pecking at my neighbor's car windows. He kept flying at the two cars - it looked like he was trying to get in. Then, during dinner time last night, I heard this little "knocking" noise on our deck window.. low and behold, the little guy was doing the same thing that he was doing to the cars!! Perhaps its not a matter of being attracted to the light as much as it's an attraction to his own reflection?? hahaha.. how funny!

I started working full time this week. So now, on top of a full time job, I've got supply teaching and Kumon. *JOY*

This afternoon, I'm attending my first education roundtable. I'm not even sure what that's going to be like. Senator Vivian Poy will be the keynote speaker - it shall be interesting. The topic is on asian heritage resources for our curriculum. I'm participating on behalf of CCANB, CCNC and for my own interest...(just means I need to make up even MORE hours at work as I was supply teaching yesterday..)

Alright. I have to get back to work now. Too much slacking.

Red Robin Faces Anger Issues

2007-05-25T10:30:00.000-07:00

During the past month, some really peculiar events have been occurring on our street. A robin (well, the only suspect so far) has been taking a crap EVERYWHERE.

In particular, ON:
- the car (multiple times - regardless of where the car is parked - under the carport, outside, facing inward, facing outward.. it just doesn't matter)
- the deck (just decides to plop crap randomly
- the BBQ (which is on the deck)
- our sandals (which are also on the deck) - this location is particularly disgusting as it was a TON of poop.. not just the white stuff either.
- our clothes pins.. (why??)
- the windows and doors - OK, I really don't get this one. How does a bird take a s**t on the window!? It looks like it took a dump and then proceeded to flutter/scratch the stuff around...

Ya.. so does anyone have any idea why it would do that!? I know that a robin is nested under our deck and most likely has either eggs or chicks in there.. we are doubtful that it's the robin that previously nested there before.

Anyways. The weather in Freddy Beach is bizarre. Last week, it SNOWED and today, it's 30+C outside! WHAT!? OH ya.. across Canada.. on the west, it's snowing, on the east side, there's a massive heat wave. OMG.

That's it for now! Ciao

Tired...

2007-04-24T09:16:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-20T11:23:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-07T19:33:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-03T09:21:00.000-07:00

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.

Not Another Papercut!!!!

2007-03-25T15:09:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if it's because the weather is dry or my hands are dry or another reason, but I seem to be getting so many papercuts!! ARGHH.. as soon as one heals, I get another.. !)@(#*!@# (maybe it's just because I'm working with so much PAPER..bah)

Life is pretty busy. My to do list is a mile long and people have many requests of me. Not minding the work, the only problem is my energy level. I've been really tired the last few weeks - I think the time adjustment thing really hit me hard.

I recently finished working on two websites. One is for CCANB's 30th anniversary (located at www.ccanb.ca) and the other is a performer's website (click here). The first one took me a long time to do - playing with the colour palette was a big headache as I was trying to work with orange, in the end, I still had to resort to using blue (which I was trying hard to avoid as it's probably the most common colour people use on websites since it's a more neutral and eye pleasing colour). Anyhow, the 2nd website was pretty easy since I used a template to create it, it was just a matter of working with images and doing some coding. I've become a tad anal with website coding ever since Chien Ee taught me to use notepad and not Dreamweaver to do my editing. In fact, taking a look at CCANB's official website (click here) is making me irritated.. I am itching to clean up the code (actually, to be honest, I've already started to work on coverting the code over to CSS but I'm no where near finished and I have a ton of other things that require my attention, so to the backburner it goes!).

Actually, one of the things I've been working on at the ECC is designing posters. They have a bunch of conferences or whatever and they wanted to bring a bunch of information posters along to use. SO, they give me all this random stuff and ask me to try to compile it into a poster for them. I tell you, I procrastinated down to the last minute before I thought of what I could do. I actually had some help from Chien Ee in terms of the technical stuff. Website design & graphics are actually very interesting to work with! I don't know if I would have the patience and the creativity to do it as a full time job, but definitely would like to do it on the side. In fact, when I presented the poster to the director at the centre, she was pretty thrilled with it and even asked me whether I had considered a career in graphics design (HAHAHAHA.. ya right.. I'm basically a copy cat when it comes to doing all this stuff).

This brings me to a new update. I'm probably going to be sticking around the centre for the summer. I don't think I mentioned it before, but they are working on a Early Childhood Curriculum funded by the NB government - worth a couple of million dollars. Anyhow, they've asked me to work on the technical aspects of it, with a graphic designer (who is really great!), so I'm pretty excited to learn from her. I'm also hoping that I'll be able to get more involved with the more educational aspect of it so that I can expand on my teaching knowledge. Before I get ahead of myself, still need to find out if it's full time or not..keeping my fingers crossed.

As some of my loyal fans (haha..just kidding), I mean long term readers, know, way back when I started this blog, Chien Ee, YC and I were attempting to go into freelance webdesign. Recently, I've been thinking of going down that route again. Perhaps this summer.. it'll require a bit of prep work and initiative but even if I could get a project or two, it'd be nice. We would still have to put together a portfolio, but I don't think that'd be hard given the number of sites we've done so far! SOO, if you know of anyone looking for a webdesigner .. you know what to do ;) (I'm not computer programming pro as some of you would happily vouch, but Chien Ee has very strong programming skills).

Anyways, besides that, spring seems to finally be on its way! I'm looking forward to the warmth again. I'm also itching to go outside and jog.. I'm getting sick of the elliptical machine and sometimes it's just such a pain to make it down to the pool as they have such terrible hours for lap swim. Plus, the chlorine is bleaching my hair again! ARGH..

OK, I'd better stop here. I've two posters to try to finish for tomorrow. *YAWN*. Ciao.

Bitterly Cold... Yet Again

2007-03-08T10:33:00.000-08:00

Well, the weather has turned bitter again. Who would have thought we'd be back to -35 degree weather again!? Not I. Anyways, its suppose to warm up this weekend, which is slightly comforting, I suppose.

This week is March Break. Doesn't really feel much like a break to me, but oh well. I'm still working this week at the ECC plus all this March Break dance stuff. I tell you, the schedule is enough to drive ME nuts, nevermind the dancers... some girls are dancing up to about 7.5 hrs per day.. geeshhhh...

I was at the public library for a bit today, and wow. They got a new self-checkout system! I was so excited! They have them at the Ottawa public library (I assume all branches over there have them, I've only really been into one public library branch in Ottawa) and I think they are super! Not only do you get to check yourself out, but it's pretty fun too. HEHEHEHE!

Everytime I go to the public library, I get this sense of ... comfort and security. Odd as that sounds. I just love libraries. I love that libraries are quiet and full of people who are generally not irritatingly rude and flashy. People aren't climbing over each other to get noticed. I love that you can be in the library and be able to be in your own little world....... Perhaps I'm a tad odd, but I also love the smell of new books........

Have you ever noticed that once we get to about midway through the winter, anyone who has a decently clean car gets stares of admiration? I am so bothered by the amount of dirt, salt and water staining that is currently on our car, but it seems pointless to pay for a carwash. The car will be clean for a day or two (if I'm lucky) and it'll be back to square one again. This brings me back to the whole pros and cons of having a dark coloured car (I believe I made a post about this a few years ago). I think I only have one good thing to say about dark coloured cars - you can park it under the sun in the winter and the car can be slightly warmer than a light coloured car would be :P *big deal*

YC: Got your card today, thank you. I agree with your message (both inside and outside) - I hope that it stays true for all of us, especially this year... your wish couldn't have come at a better time for me. Thanks again! :)

Looking Forward to Spring

2007-02-25T05:02:00.000-08:00

Well, I think I've had enough of the cold weather. I'm getting excited for spring.. looking forward to the warm air hitting my face, the SUNSHINE (it's amazing how happy it can make me feel), green grass, the sound of lawn mowers..etc..

I went skiing first thing last Sunday morning. It was GLORIOUS. The BEST day ever! The weather was superb, the conditions were pretty good, all the trails were open, and there weren't that many people. It was awesome! I was on a high... so much that we decided to go skiing at Poley Mountain on on Friday. We went for a night skiing session on Friday, and boy, was it ever the opposite to what I experienced last Sunday. Freaking cold and bad conditions. It was really hard to even turn at times because there would be big patches of compressed icy spots. The snow was really compressed, not very much fresh snow left at all :( Anyhow, it wasn't really worth the effort to drive all the way there and back.. we only got to go down the hill three times.. sigh. (Plus, Poley mountain can look super freaky at night, with it's drop offs .. shiver)

I had my first supply teaching gig last Thursday. It was only half a day, but it was good. I was with a grade one class at Garden Creek. There was a student teacher in the class, so I didn't really have to do much except make sure the students didn't get too out of hand. Had a couple of really distracted children, but all was well. Nothing in comparision to my own practicum experiences when supply teachers were in with me ;)

I took my resume around to a couple of schools yesterday in hopes of meeting principals. No luck. I did talk with the VP at Connaught Street, and I think it's looking good.. afterall, I told her that I was a previous student there and that I was in the band program (Connaught is really big on their Music program, in fact, the VP is a music specialist, so it helps that I have 7 years piano teacher experience). It's funny, I've gone all the way from hoping to get a contract job, to getting excited that I may get called in to supply teach.. hmm.. is it getting pathetic? Am I lowering my standards, or is it just that I'm excited to be back in a teaching environment??

CCANB is having a dance teacher fly in from Toronto for March Break (which is next week). It's all very nice, but it's a lot of work. Especially with me being the program director, I'm feeling a tad worried that we don't have everything organized. I must say though, I have a great crew behind me.. a crew that actually gets things done when they are suppose to!!!

I do think I'll learn a lot from this experience, mostly in terms of people management. It's a bit of an awkward situation as many of them have watched me grow up and are people we consider "elders" of the community.. how do you boss people like that around?? There are/will be times when I will need to "crack the whip" - it's already apparant during meetings.. but a-w-k-w-a-r-d!!!!!

Just got an email from two of my teacher college friends this morning saying that they are engaged! Wow! Again, it's amazing how much can change for people over a course of a year...perhaps next year whoever you are, you will be in a new job? getting married? having a baby? travelling the world? ooo la la.. the possibilities!

Alrighty, that's it for now!

Ciao.

Lost: Motivation, Please Return to Owner

2007-02-13T12:00:00.000-08:00

Ahh.. I still have a ton of boxes sitting in the corner of the room!! Everytime I attempt to clean them up, I always just get this feeling of.. What am I doing!?

It's really hard to part with your own "stuff". If, no when, I get my act together and clean up my "stuff", I'm going to try extremely, extremely hard not to hoard things. Hmm.

Anyways, I had a meeting with the principal of Garden Creek Elementary school on Monday morning. I walked away from that meeting pleasantly surprised. He was extremely nice, friendly and helpful. I'm not sure if he liked me, or whether he's this helpful with all supply teachers? Anyhow, he already scheduled me in for one day as a methods and resource teacher - though it's questionable as to whether I can fulfill the commitment given that I'm still waiting my paperwork. I say he's helpful because he is going to try to help me push my paperwork through faster. Nice of him, eh?

I always feel so incredibly appreciative whenever I meet people like that. There was also another principal in Calgary that I spoke to that was extremely kind and supportive towards me. I will never forget it as it really feels like it's a cut throat "industry". 80% of the time, I meet people who can be of no use to me - well, maybe it's that they don't try to go out of their way to help. Understandable, but at the same time.. ahhh.. !!! Again, hopefully this is just a matter of patience :)

Chinese New Year is just around the corner. This coming Sunday in fact. The year of the Boar. I heard that if it is the sign of the year is the sign you were born under, it's suppose to be a bad year for you. SO, my year is going to be over in a matter of days.. come'on pig, bring me some luck!!

I'm not really planning on celebrating this year. I think mostly because I've been so busy with other things I haven't had time to really even think of Chinese New Year. Probably just the traditional dinner with my family, and that will be it. Last year, it was also pretty low key - just dinner with my friends.

That's all for now. Just wanted to update you on my meeting at Garden Creek :)

JY

ps./ Heard some lucky place in Eastern Canada is going to get a dump of 50cm of snow!!!!

Trying to Stay Warm

2007-02-10T13:30:00.000-08:00

It's still bitterly cold these days.. can't say I'm getting used to it either!

Anyhow, I just finished my first teleconference with CCNC. At times, it felt a tad surreal because the topics on the table weren't just about the typical topics discussed at meetings I tend to have to attend. They were talking actual things such as human rights, Headtax redress concerns, etc. So far, I still don't really know what my role is as a member of the CCNC board of executives, but I guess that it will come.

As I mentioned before, I also am sitting on the 30th anniversary committee. At the last "program" meeting (the group that is in charge of the performance), I was unofficially nominated (appointed rather) to be the program director. A role that they consider to be the most important in the entire gala. YIKES! I'm not really feeling that I can't handle it, I'm sure I can (if I have enough time), but I mainly feel flattered that they have confidence in my abilities. The only thing I feel a bit weary about is that I have to "manage" people who are suppose to be my "elders" - people I have seen me grow up, people that have known me since I was a baby. Can you saw AWKWARD!?

I went to a job fair at UNB this past week. When I first heard about it, I was sort of skeptical that anything would come of it. Then, people kept telling me things like.. "oh yaa.. they are going to be interviewing candidates" and "don't forget your lesson plans and portfolio, they'll probably want to look at it", SO, I sort of got a tad more excited about the whole thing. My original sentiments were right. They were only interviewing French teachers and most of the fair consisted of school boards that were from really remote areas or were companies recruiting teachers to teach overseas. I find that most employers at job fairs are there just to convince the attendees that they have a shot at getting a job at their board or that they are a great board. They aren't really drawing a true picture of what the employment scene is like. Can't say I walked away from the fair with any new information or any real great contacts. I did talk with the man from the Durham school board for quite a while but I doubt it'll help my job search with that board. I had a mixture of sentiments after talking to him. The negative - bitterness that I can't even get an interview, the positive - hopefull that if I do land an interview, I'll do well as I think my ideas and my experiences align with what they are looking for in teachers.

With all this being said (or written), I was watching Oprah the other day. She was talking about a video called "The Secret". NO, it's not some sort of R rated movie. It's actually a philosophy that our attitudes make us who we are and dictate what will happen to us. I'm not really all that into the whole "spirituality" thing, but I'm also not against it - I just don't think it's necessary to revolve your life around being spiritual - it's just not realistic. Anyways, I do agree with the idea that our attitudes and our outlooks affect what will happen to us. If we have a positive outlook in life, it will affect our attitudes and our behaviours, opening doors for new opportunities. SO, I think I need to stay focused on believing.

Speaking of Oprah, she had a really powerful show on yesterday. She had Lisa Ling do a special report about Ghana's fishing children. It was a powerful documentary. It wasn't one that made me feel like I hated the people who used these children as labourers - I can understand that it is part of their culture. All the same, it was still difficult to watch and imagine how much suffering those children went through. At one point, I found myself thinking of some of the children that I taught during my last practicum. The expressions on the faces of those children when they had the opportunity to learn - priceless. It would be every teacher's dream to have students like them.

Last thing about Oprah: why do people mock her!? I know some of her shows can be a bit too much for some people, but think of all the humanitarian acts that she has committed! Not only does she invest a lot of money helping others, but she is providing an invaluable source of education to the fortunate - that our world isn't all peaches and cream, but that there are many people out there suffering who need our attention. Anyhow, I think I'm starting to sound preachy, so I'd better stop :P You get the idea of what I'm saying...

Alrighty, that's it. Time for dinner soon. Ciao.

Brr.. It's Cold In Here!

2007-02-05T11:53:00.000-08:00

I'm finished at the daycare and I miss the children!!!!!!!

Ok.. no dwelling on that, I have to move on to bigger things, right?

Well, on my first day post daycare, I recevied a call from the Early Childhood Centre asking me if I would be available to work a few hours to help them sort out their electronic files (which were in a complete mess). It's now turned in to working 2 days a week for them. SO, if all is well, I could be working full time! That'd be absoluately great - I've been beginning to worry about the whole money issue. Of course, this means, I'll be working at three jobs... mmm

Besides work, I've also become a tad overwhelmed with all that I have to do. CCANB (Chinese Cultural Assoc. of NB) is now into our 30th year of operations, with it, brings a celebration. I have been asked to be on the chairing committee. It was hard to say no considering they only asked a select few to begin organizing. I'm now officially working on that, along with the "website workgroup" and the "program workgroup". Chairing both the program and the general planning committee. AHHH!!!! Oh ya, have I mentioned I've also been recruited to be on the executive of the CCNC?

CCNC stands for Chinese Canadian National Council. They run from Toronto and include chapters from all over Canada - basically the umbrella association of all Chinese associations in Canada. Their main goals are to promote Chinese culture as well as advocate on issues such as the headtax redress, immigration and racism issues, as well as stress equity and diversity. I'm not really sure what my role is in the whole thing, but I'm a tad intimidated at the moment. From my understanding, many of the people who are on the executive, are pretty important people and are quite respected amongst the Chinese community...

Chinese New Year is just around the corner (February 18th for those that don't know), but I haven't really thought about it much. Probably because there are just too many other things on my mind. I think it'll be pretty low key this year.. may not even attend the performances at CCANB or the dinner. Actually, I highly doubt I'll go to the dinner, many of my friends from youth group have moved away, so it'd be pretty sad for me to attend.

Speaking of the youth group, for those that are "alumni", you'll be happy to hear that they are going strong. I guess the few years that they were "lagging" are behind them (for good, hopefully) and things are popping. I have been hearing some gossip about "fatal attraction" and about "giggling" going on between the girls and guys. LOL.

I was actually thinking about it yesterday, and I still believe that the original youth group cannot be beat. Though we were from all over and may not have been the closest pre-youth group, we all managed to form friendships that are still going, even after not being together for so many years. I will always hold my youth group memories near and dear. :)

Alright. That's all for now. I have things to do!!

JY

Poor Grass!!

2007-01-24T19:03:00.000-08:00

Blog Philosophy

2007-01-24T09:26:00.000-08:00

The other day, I was thinking of the whole idea of blogging. It's funny, because I think there are quite a few people out there that frown upon it or even scorn it. I'm not saying that they have no point when the say that blogs are just an invasion of privacy, and why do people publicize their lives to strangers - but I feel the need to defend it (I wonder why) or moreso, myself for my blogging reasons.

I blog for two purposes: 1. To let those that I don't see very often keep up with the comings and goings of my "exciting" life and 2. To rant and rave (i.e. complain and whine) about things that are on my mind. SO THERE.

Anyways, I mentioned the two opportunities that I had - yes, that's past tense. One is definitely gone - they claim that they suddenly had a budget cut and are only hiring teachers with experience; and the second (the Red Cow technologies one) .. I think it's a dead end. Anyways, I'm trying to fight the feeling of hopelessness again.. I will try to keep it at bay for as long as possible. I am just desperately afraid that I will never land a permanent teaching job.... (so far, reports are not promising - the OCT (Ontario College of Teachers) released a report saying that it takes approximately 3-5 years to land an elementary teaching position..).. OMG. The big thing is, I think this is only stating from a supply teacher's perspective.. so if I don't get more experience, I'll definitely not be considered.

My time at the daycare is coming to a close. Next week is the last week. I'm looking forward to it, yet also starting to wonder what it will be like not to see some of those cutie pies all the time.

Some stories:
1. One little girl's grandparents visited over the holidays, and while her grandfather was driving her somewhere, he looked back over his shoulder to see if she was alright. She then said to him "Watch the Road Chuckie!!!" (For some reason, she calls him Chuckie - I assume his name is Chuck or Charles..)

2. One little girl received a tickle me Elmo and this singing dog for Christmas. Absolutely freaks her out. She will tickle her Elmo and run away really quickly.

3. The girls apparantly all got "lip stick" for Christmas. I assume this means that they all received lip balm. Hahah..

4. Ask one little girl what is in her tummy, she will tell you "baby is in there".

Potty Talk:
5. When I asked one little girl where she was going to have her bowel movement, she replied "On mummy's floor"!!!!!

6. If you ask one girl to be patient, she will link her hands together, put them on the table or her lap and sing (with eyes moving back and forth) "I am being patient, I am being patient, I am being patient..." ...

7. One little boy told one of us "It's not so easy for me to pee, my penis isn't as long as his!!"

8. One little girl does not like to have bowel movements and so she's recently been put on fish oil as a laxative. You can tell she needs to go when her dance (which seems like some sort of latin dance since her feet move extremely fast and she twists really quickly) speeds up.

9. One little girl had an accidental bowel movement in her pants, when I took her to the washroom to change her, she said "Sowee Iwene!!" and "don't say yucky" (though I didn't?!?)

That's it for now..ciao!

Extreme Weather Indeed

2007-01-18T02:55:00.000-08:00

If anyone says that this weather is not related to global warming, I swear...

Last week, there were days that it felt like Spring. This week, we are experiencing -30+ degree temperatures (with the windchill) and tomorrow, a snowstorm of 20cm of snow!! (We had a green Christmas and barely any snow this year). Although some people believe that it's a cycle, that we get a odd winter every couple of decades or so.. uhh right. Believe what you want, deny however much you want, but we have serious problems here. I also find it funny because this is the first year I've heard so much news about this issue - which is frankly, pretty sad. It takes such extreme circumstances to make people take notice. AND it has to hit home. Look at the last few years with all the tropical storms we've had and that tsunami. Look at the alarmingly high cases of cancer - how come we aren't doing more about it?!

My philosophy is that people are lazy and selfish. I mean, it's human nature. Heck, I know I can be! Would most of us walk for half an hour if we could drive? Probably. Would most of us rather toss a piece of paper into the garbage can that is next to our feet or get up and put it into the recycling box? I mean, one of the things I've been trying to do this year is to turn off my PC when I'm not using it for a few hours at a time.

Ok, I need to leave now. That's my little rant. Ciao

This time last year.. this time next year???

2007-01-06T13:19:00.000-08:00

Jan 6/07:

Hahaha.. I'm not surprised to find myself making a posting right now (suddenly, the question of "is anyone still reading my blog?" has popped into my mind.. but that's off topic). I'm currently trying to prepare a document to submit to "Learning for a Sustainable Future". I'm applying to a part time job as a reviewer. They are putting together a large database of resources and tools that help teach about sustainable development. Anyhow, I was going through my teacher resources and suddenly this memory of some sort of statistic pooped into my mind - I remember posting about it, but I don't remember when or what the topic was about - HAHHAHA!!! Anyhow, I ended up reading some of my posts from last year. It always makes me think: Last year at this time, I had no idea that this year at this time I would be here AND, where will I be next year??

I finally made the decision to quit my job at the daycare over the holidays. I put in my resignation on Thursday. Unless they find someone to replace me earlier, I will be there until the end of January. This should be OK given that my teaching license and supply teaching application may take that long to process.

There are so many questionables these days. My family and I are considering all going back to Malaysia to see my grandparents in April/May. Before anyone over there gets too excited, nothing is confirmed, right now, it's just a consideration :P. So many variables to consider though: if I get a full time job (be in teaching or something else), how can I leave for a minimum of 3 weeks - I don't think I'd even dare to ask. What happens if we've booked and paid for the plane tickets and I land a job? Then what? If I don't go this year, when will I get the opportunity to go back with my family? It's somewhat important to me that I go with my parents because I know I'll be overwhelmed with trying to remember some of my relatives. It's also important my brother be there because we are the only two who have not been back since... many things happened.. and so it will be less stressful if we go together.

*********

Jan 10/07:
Well, I'm on my lunch break now. Never really did get back to finishing my above post.. I don't even know what I was really trying to say. Anyhow, I just got news of a passing of a professor I knew. I worked with him and his wife on CCANB stuff, and they were an extremely nice couple. It's so sad because it was so sudden and he's also left behind two young boys. *sigh* I feel so terrible.

Anyways, I'll try to post again this weekend. Not really in the mood to write now.

JY

Farewell 2006, WELCOME 2007!!!

2006-12-31T07:01:00.000-08:00

Yuppi!!! Today is the last day of 2006! I'm putting a lot of hope into 2007. For me, it will be a fresh beginning. I am greatly looking forward to putting a lot of negativity behind me. A new year brings new opportunities, new experiences, new outlooks and perhaps new LUCK?? :D Anyway, what I'm really saying, is that by this time next year, I hope to be employed and have a better idea of where my future is going (i.e., where I'll be settling down?). Out of inspiration from a friend who wrote a summary of her year, here goes mine:

Memorable Moments:
-Chinese New Year in Ottawa. Spending the day in Barhaven (fondly known as Farhaven) cooking, hanging around and enjoying. My friends and I all dressed in red...

-Running my first marathon (perhaps my last?). Without any training, I ran an 8km marathon in the middle of the winter. Many firsts for me there: Running outside in the winter, running 8km, and running a marathon!! I was so proud of myself :)

-Beginning and completing my second practicum. My second practicum experience was so much more exciting and reassuring that my decision to become a teacher was the right one :)

-In May, my family suffered the loss of my grandmother on my dad's side. She was 92 years old and the last time I saw her, I was 18. I am spending the last few moments of 2006 remembering her.

-Graduating for the 2nd time. This time a fancier affair - at the NAC. Yuppi! It was more memorable because my family had to make a 11 hour drive to attend, my uncle had to drive in from Toronto, and I got roses from CE & Turtle ;)

-Moving out of my apartment and into a friend's house. OMG. A day I will never forget. It was hot, humid and exhausting. (We got up at 6am to send a friend off to the airport, came back, had breakfast, moved one friend out of the house I was moving into and into his new house, and moved me out of my apartment and into my new location...)

-Canada day in the capital. Finally! After spending so many national holidays in a tiny city, it was time for the big guns.. I wasn't disappointed.

-Taking a "day trip" to Calgary. HA! A very long day, but a day that uplifted my spirits when I found out that I had been accepted into the hiring pool at the Calgary board of education. :) Not that anything came out of it (yet??)... but all the same, it was an experience I will never forget. After all, it was my first teacher interview and it was rigorous!

-Deciding to move back to Fredericton. A horribly difficult decision for me, but a decision I will not regret (mostly because I spent hours agonizing over what to do).

-Spending 1 day at Wandlyn Inn and deciding that I didn't want to work there. The guy who was training me was absolutely cocky and referred to me as "this one" .. ah.. don't get me started.

-Working at a daycare. Enjoying the children but not really liking the whole working situation (again, let's not get started).

There are plenty of more memories, but this post would become very long winded and boring. I'm sure this new year holds many new adventures, hurdles and lessons for me. I believe I will have to take on some things that I've been avoiding for a while, but perhaps it will finally let me be at peace with some things that have occured in the last few years that I still haven't come to terms with.

Anyhow, I hope everyone has a great evening tonight. Don't drink and drive!

ps./ One of my resolutions this year is to conserve more energy. My contribution to helping reduce green house gas. I hope you consider the environment when you make your resolutions this year :)

Frustration, and Illness

2006-12-22T06:40:00.000-08:00

Cheerful title eh? I'm trying, I'm trying!

Last week, I got hit with the flu that I had been fighting for 2 weeks. Fever, aches, and a cough. I took two days off. To make matters worse, the day before I got sick, I asked for the day off so that I could attempt to finish up my course work, so I totalled 3 days off last week. I went back to work on Friday of last week and I guess I wasn't really up to it so I'm sort of sick again. Not really sick, sick, but I've been coughing a lot and it has made me ribs hurt so that it hurts to move in certain ways (sometimes it hurts to breathe). This is sort of a carry over from my bug from last month actually. I had been coughing a lot and my ribs were also pretty sore, was just getting better and then this new bug came. SO, the result? It feels like an open wound and whenever I cough, sneeze or whatever, it's as if someone is punching me in my wound (that's the reaction my body has too, I fold over whenever I cough). Anyways, I hope this makes sense because I feel like I've typed a lot of gibberish?

Anyhow, my point with all of this is that my employer isn't very pleased that I've missed so much work. Each time I phone in to tell them I'm sick, I get this major feeling of guilt (brought on by myself and a lot by them). I also have a feeling that some co-workers are displeased with me as I'm getting this somewhat grumpy look from at least one of them when I'm at work. But come'on, I'm not skipping work (why would I do that? I don't get paid!!!!).. I'm SICK. It's so obvious I'm not faking too.. listen to my voice!! They actually had the guts to tell me that they were considering "letting me go" because of this. WTF. I'm so mad. I'm already pretty fed up working there and have been seriously considering leaving in January. This is pretty much the last straw unless I calm down over the holidays. I can't believe that a person cannot be sick at this job. Does it do any good for them for parents to see that one of their worker's is sick and still taking care of their children?! Is it my fault that you have no back up plan?! ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Alright. Enough complaining. Christmas is in 3 days.. it's hard to believe. Partially because I've been sick, I think I haven't had the energy to think much about the holidays. In fact, I still have about 3 Christmas cards sitting here on my desk waiting to be sent.. ekk.. I've never procrastinated this long! I also haven't written my grandparents yet.. :(

Ha.. that was cheerful. I keep trying to remind myself that it's going to be a new year, and hopefully, with a new year there will be new beginnings. Stupid as it may be, I'm going to wish myself a fresh start, bringing with it, new optimism, lots of good luck, lots of energy, a JOB (PLEASE!!!!!), and a strong immune system (mine seems to have gone missing in the last few years..). I wish all of you the same!

Happy Holidays everyone. May you take this time to have warm, loving, and happy moments with you friends and family!

JY

Travelling back in Time

2006-12-03T11:27:00.000-08:00

I just came back from a walk around Head Hall here at UNB. Walking around the building not only brought back lots of memories, but also made me feel old :P

Quite a few changes around the building. For one, they are adding in a new elevator in old head hall and the stairs have been changed to new ones over there (looks kind of odd since you come down and see all these ancient looking lockers). They've also changed the chairs in some of the Gillin Wing classrooms *gasp*. I spent many hours feeling lost in those classes... hahahah! The library has also changed quite a bit. They've added two sound proof rooms in the "talking section" of the library. There are also more tables in there and the whole setup has been switched around a bit. It still smells the same though.

Head hall holds many, many memories for me. Not all great, not all bad. Much happened in this old building.. can't say I'm fond of it as most of the time I spent here is associated with worry, frustration, boredom, exhaustion, headache, etc.. (you get the idea), but it's nice to be back and not be a student!!! HAHAHA.. the other downside to this new 'status' of mine is that as I look at the old composites, I notice how people have aged and I also notice how much younger some of the undergrad students look.........

Trying to Find My Optimism

2006-11-29T13:46:00.000-08:00

These days, it's sometimes hard to keep a positive outlook (at least, for me it is). Although I know I shouldn't over think my "situation" or allow self-pity, there are days. I've been trying to convince myself to be more optimistic and to pull myself out of this little rut I'm in and get myself into job application mode again, but alas, I had to think really, really hard of the word that was opposite to pessimitic. HA!

Anyway, I've decided that in order to at least try to give you greater insight as to some moments where I do enjoy my job, I'd tell you some funny stories that I've experienced at the daycare.

-Now that the children know me, I'm fondly known to the two's as "Iwene"
-One little girl kept telling me "Lolly (her grandma) & "grumpy" (aka. grampy) are coming to get me today."
-Regarding her older sister who she calls her "baby sister": "Emma have time out.. I don't have time out"
-During walks "Wait for me Iwene!", "Thanks Iwene!" (as if I'd leave her there!)
-Regarding her mother's pregnancy (at the time, we were unaware that her mother was pregnant!) "I have a baby, she's in mommy's tummy"
-A 3 year old tells my co-worker "I woke up in the middle of the night and saw mommy on top of daddy. I scared them and they scared me!" (OMG)
-From a 3 year old "I'm not very happy right now"
-Also from a 3 year old "My life sucks!" (I think he just didn't want to have his diaper changed)
-Another quote from a 3 year old "You've ruined my life!" (oh my, all three years!)
-One of the two's has learned from what we do at nap time. At night, she likes to sit on her parents bed and rub their tummies while singing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" to them.
-Speaking of Twinkle, Twinkle, one two sings it as "Crinkle, crinkle, little star..."
-One of the two's is obsessed with "baby" things - anything small is a "baby ____" and it's "ohh.. sooooooo cute" (crinkle nose, give cute look).
-One two fell down during a walk and another two looks back and says "ohhhh.. poor her.." (give sad look)

For those not afraid of potty talk:
-A little one likes to sit on the toilet after lunch and narrate all that occurs while she has her bowel movement "Iwene, a big one coming out!!!"
-Upon asked where she is suppose to "poop", she promptly tells her mom "at daycare"
-Upon asked who changes her, she responds "Iwene!" (Great)
-While changing, they like to refer to it as "my stinky bum"
-I like to give them a latex glove to play with while I change them (as sometimes, they don't like to be changed), so now, they like to request their "gubby"

It's an adorable yet frustrating age as they learn to socialize, speak, and expand their attention spans. They never fail to make me laugh at least once a day, but there are always days when you just want to go "AHHH!!". It's also fascinating how much they know and can remember.. they can still tell you who came dressed as a witch on Halloween (and they only saw that person for a good 15 minutes).

Hope you've enjoyed some of my tales.. if I remember more, I'll post them :)

ps/ They are all almost toilet trained, so there's much less potty talk these days ;)

Apologies, but I'm still Here!

2006-11-22T09:18:00.000-08:00

Don't know how long this is going to be, but I fear it won't be long.. I am on my lunch break and need to leave soon (or no coffee run for me).

Working at a daycare is exhausting work. The pay sucks and it sucks the energy out of you. I enjoy the children for the most part, but I'm really feeling pretty frustrated today. Patience is wearing thin and I'm tired. Most weeks, I've barely an evening to do what I want to do (i.e., watch tv, veg, or do some cardio). During the weekdays, I'm either working or just too exhausted to do anything productive. On weekends, it's course work time as well as time to do some chores (i.e. laundry, mopping, vacuming, etc..). Life is just .. UGH! I'd be different if I were teaching.. probably even more busy, but at least I'd be earning a decent wage.. a wage that would allow me to consider thinking of buying some things that I want??

Anyways, with Christmas around the corner, I sort of can't believe I'm still working at the daycare. Still applying for more professional jobs that don't have me on my feet all day and don't leave me with the feeling that I may drop dead! Oh, I would miss the children, but OHHHHHH I really don't like the pay.

I don't mind my colleagues, actually, I think they are all very nice and we get along pretty well. Perhaps it's just my mood this week, but sometimes I feel like some people step on other people's toes. The only other minor complaint is that there are differences in perspectives. Them as daycare professionals and me in my teacher prospective.. quite different in many ways, yet similar in some as well. Oh well.. I guess I've just got to grit it and bear it.. all for the sake of a little money.

Sore Feet

2006-10-25T08:55:00.000-07:00

Well, I've been working at this daycare for a little over a month now.. it's not bad.. the only real complaint(s) are the wages and having to clean. On the bright side, the children are really cute.. though it's amazing how much mediating you have to do with two year olds.. ha! Its especially hard trying to teach them what it means when you say "don't do that" because they really don't understand.. they just look up at you with their cute little faces that are SMILING :P

Anyways, I'm still applying for some work.. I have a lead, but I don't want to curse it so I'll just keep it to myself for a while.

I'm throughly exhausted today. Wednesdays are especially hard because all the 2 year olds are in attendance. All five of them. Plus, it's a half day for the after-schoolers and the place is insane. Kids all over the place. Throw rain into the equation, and we have a bunch of pent up, high-energy children running around. On those days, I usually walk out of the place with a headache.

I do have some funny stories from the children. Mostly potty stories which most of you probably may not want to hear about. Just know that they know that it stinks. It's absolutely hilarious what they say about it and their reactions are priceless. Their speech has yet to develop to the point where you fully understand everything they say, so when they say something thats comprehendible, it's such a 'kodak moment'. They now also know my name and are knowing to come to me when they have a problem.. my heart just melts when one of them grabs my leg because they are scared or they just want a hug. Even the naughty ones can melt my heart by doing that.. perhaps I'm just too soft :P

Anyways, it's almost time to head out again. I'm on my lunch break. I'm so tired and the afternoon will probably be the loudest and most hectic part of the day..............

Give Me TIME!

2006-10-02T16:56:00.000-07:00

It's been quite some time since I've last posted.. perhaps most of you think my blog is dead? Maybe I've lost some readers because of this long vacation.. oh well .. sorry :P

Well, I'm back in Fton now.. haven't really had much time to contact anyone.. its been really busy.. pretty much since the day I got back. Had an interview at the Wandlyn Inn and got a job there as a front desk person.. you know, reservations, check ins and such.. Anyhow.. that lasted all of one day because I detested it. I think I had a sour taste in my mouth even before I began .. multiple reasons, but long story short, mostly because I don't think it was where I wanted to be. I'm now working at a daycare .. wages are not much better, but at least I'm working with children & have a provincial bonus every quarter. I'm still hoping for a teaching job to pop up this year.. though given the past few weeks, I just don't think it's in the stars for me this year.

Here's my story:
1. The day after I leave, a high school in Calgary calls my place in Ottawa. They want an interview. A teaching position for a high school information processing teacher. I find out about the interview the following week .. I guess my roommate wasn't in very much so he didn't have time to pass me the message on time. Anyways, when I call, the position has already been filled. The principal was really nice though, asked me what I wanted to do, what my background was, and offered to be an advocate for getting my name out there. He also said "it's too bad you only just found out, I think it would have been an interesting interview".. dang it! Oh well, I'm not really even sure what an information processing teacher does... and high school??

2. Got a request for an interview at a school in Mississauga. Grade 5. I would have LOVED to teach grade 5. Anyways, scheduled it for the 2nd day of interviews, by phone of course. The day of the interview, I sit by the phone waiting for the call. Wait 45 minutes then decide to call the school. The secretary says "ok, I'll let her know you are waiting and she will call you as soon as she's available". OK. Finally, it's about 1.5 hrs later, I go eat dinner. After dinner (approx 2hrs after my scheduled interview time), I call the school AGAIN. The principal answers. She says "oh, you must have not gotten our message.. we weren't sure if you received it. The job has been filled. We called you this morning to cancel your interview. It must have been frustrating just waiting for my phone call." YES IT WAS! I was pretty pissed. Waiting for 2 hrs, them not having the courtesy to call back when I called them to let me know its not happening, them calling my Ottawa number when my phone interview is at a NB number, them not going through with ALL the interviews BEFORE HIRING SOMEONE!!! WTH.. thats... argghh..

Anyhow.. thats my story. I guess I'm a bit more uplifted now.. at least I've had a call for an interview.. though no job.. my luck really sucks this year. What luck I have.. Anyways, perhaps it will change in the new year.

I'm currently looking after 2 year old children. It's quite different from teaching, not as stressful or as busy... but you still have to change diapers (only way around that is to keep taking them to the bathroom so you can avoid dirty diapers :P). The kids are pretty cute though, and since I love children, it's a nice place to be. They always can make me smile and laugh. The only thing is, after investing this much energy trying to teach them, will I even WANT children for myself?? I will probably have no initiative to teach my own children or even have the energy to try?? HAHAHA! It's only a year, so we'll have to see.

Besides that, I'm also taking a professional development course online at University of Western Ontario. I'm already dragging my feet.. and it's only just started 2 weeks ago. Ugh. I think I'm not going to take another one next term.. which is what I initially had planned to do. I need a break from courses. Oh yes, my course is ESL for anyone who was wondering.

On top of that, I'm working at Kumon math and reading two nights a week. So on Monday & Thursday, I go from the daycare directly to Kumon and don't get home until about 8pm. I try to get myself to bed by 10:30 at the absolute latest.. so you can imagine what I can get done those two nights.

Lastly, the other thing that has been keeping me busy is drinking. Kidding!!! Cleaning is actually what it is. Trying to purge my own junk plus our family junk and also just trying to keep up with weekly chores like laundry, bathroom, mopping, etc.. is enough to tie up all my time.

SOOOOOO, as you can see, there is literally 0 time to do anything! Each Monday, I look at my weekend and shake my head.. thinking.. there's still so much to do. Thinking of this long weekend, I think: OH MAAaaaaaaaaaaannnnnn (just like one of the little kids say), I can't get everything done!!

BTW, went to a party on Saturday night (HAHAHA>. after saying I have no time.. :P.. actually, it was a birthday party and since I've skipped so many invitations to this group's gatherings, I kind of felt guilty, so I went :P). It was indeed a pretty interesting mix of people. Thai, French (from France), Malaysians (the minority actually!), and Canadians. It was particularly intriguing to see so many French people together.. I kept trying to evesdrop on them because I was fascinated to hear their accents (those non-Acadian/Quebecer acccents) and also wanted to find out whether I could understand or not. Result: I could barely hear cuz I didn't want to stand overly close since I'd be too obvious, plus, they were all guys.. (perhaps I SHOULD have gotten closer..hahahah!!!!!)

OK.. I'm losing my mind. Good night!

Another Move

2006-08-26T14:41:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since I last updated.. more than a month! Not sure how many people are wondering where I've disappeared to, but oh well :P

A lot changes in a period of a month. I was back in Fton and am now in Ottawa again. A lot of serious contemplating about what this year and next year holds for me. I had barely any luck with my job search .. and sort of know why now (I was applying through this website called applytoteach.com which is what the school boards want us to do, but apparantly because many of the principals don't know how to use it, they have been mainly looking at faxes.. which I did not do.. ARGH!!!). Anyways, no point beating myself over the head about that now, can't do anything about it. Anyhow, I had one sole interview.. in Calgary. I had pretty much given up hope that I'd get any response from them (actually, I was skeptical I'd get a response from them when I mailed my application in March). Calgary is a bit strange in that they don't post their job openings. You have to get through the first interview in order to even be considered for a teaching position. When I first received the call to go for the first round of interviews (about 2.5 weeks ago), I didn't think the interview would be that difficult. I had heard from some of my classmates that the interviews in Ottawa were pretty easy.. 5 questions, all pretty basic, and you got the list of questions before going into the interview! Boy, was I wrong. I had 30 questions and 30 minutes to answer them. They weren't those straight forward ones either, really questioned why you wanted to teach and what your goals were as a teacher. I was somewhat stumped on some of them, but it got better as I become more comfortable.

Long story short, I made it through the first round of interviews. In fact, the lady said that I have a very good chance of landing a permanent position... if I move closer. SO, I plan to do that next year.

Because of all this moving, I've decided not to stay in Ottawa to work as a supply (probably would earn enough to break even on living expenses). I'd definitely have supply work, but it's so random and I need something more consistent. SO, I'm moving back to F'ton for a year to save money working full time (at some sort of job - currently looking).

I'm kind of sad to have to leave Ottawa. I really like this city! There's so much to do and so many different types of people. I love the diversity of it! I like that it's so culture rich. On the other hand, I also really love Fredericton. Ah.. the dilemma.

Anyways, thought I'd update people on my current situation. L8r.

JY

2006-07-18T22:48:00.001-07:00

Who says patriotism isn't alive and thriving?

2006-07-18T22:48:00.000-07:00

How we watched what was happening on the Hill!

2006-07-18T22:47:00.001-07:00

OMG.. TONS of people.. and this was still early in the day...

2006-07-18T22:47:00.000-07:00

Cool EH??

2006-07-18T22:46:00.000-07:00

Canada Day! It's Her Excellency the Right Honourable Micha�lle Jean!

2006-07-18T22:44:00.000-07:00

Some of my classmates and I while we wait backstage

2006-07-18T22:43:00.000-07:00

My Convocation on June 7, 2006 at the NAC

Despondent and Disheartened

2006-07-18T22:26:00.000-07:00

Well, its now mid July and I'm still jobless for September. After a conversation with my mother about my plans for this coming school year, I feel totally and utterly defeated. I hope this feeling goes away. It's just that, after applying to sooooooooooo many jobs, shouldn't I have at least received ONE interview!? I mean, I've had so many people review my resume and cover letter and nobody seems to be able to tell me why I'm not receiving any contact from schools! WHY!? I know I can do the job, just give me a chance! :(

I'm quickly approaching the final few days of my last ABQ (additional basic qualification) course. Can't wait to finish. Just want to get the work done. I resorted to going to Starbucks this morning to doing my work. Yesterday (or I should say the day before yesterday - Monday), I sat down with the ernest intention of doing work, but all I felt was sleepy (and this is me just a bit after getting up - late!). I'm not sure what it is, perhaps the weather (muggy, humid and hot) or perhaps its me not having a proper desk to sit at to do my work?? Anyways, I managed to get quite a bit accomplished at Starbucks today, so I was quite happy with myself.

I can hardly believe that it's already mid July. Though summer vacation has only been a few weeks for people in the public schools, it feels like it's almost over for me. I feel the impending doom of September bearing down on me (what a good title that would have made!). I will be supply teaching in the fall if nothing else comes up. I'm so skeptical at this point that I will land a job. Bugger. I'm not really prepared for supply teaching, but I guess I should get to it. After this week is over I am going to try to tackle some of the tasks I have been putting off (i.e., preparing for interviews and figuring out my plan of action for this coming year (BUDGET!!!)).

Alright. Enough. I'm going to go to sleep and hope my mood drastically changes for the better by tomorrow morning (or afternoon!). As they say, it's a new day!

Tired and Dazed

2006-07-11T20:10:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered why one word should go in front of the other just because it sounds good? Take names for example, why does "Betty and Veronica" sound better than "Veronica and Betty" or "Jane and Andrew" and not "Andrew and Jane"? Hmm..Ok.. that's the end of my random thought for this post.

I'm now back in F'ton. Arrived on Sunday morning.. it was a terribly long trip. I had no idea that many people were coming to the Maritimes (or perhaps it people who took trips out of the Maritimes and are all returning??). When I arrived in Montreal, I really, really thought I wasn't going to be able to get onto the bus! There were sooooooooooooooooooo many people lined up to get on.. in fact, they finished loading one bus load of people and then had to get another bus in order to carry everyone! By the time we got to Edmundston, the bus was probably about 90% full! To make matters worse, they probably stopped at every little stop that they could of between Edmundston and Fredericton.. *sigh*. Oh ya, my other complaints are that we had to switch buses at Edmundston, people should really be aware of their smelly feet and snoring, and to not talk so loud when everyone on the bus is sleeping! Lastly, the bus pulled over to the side of the highway twice (well, two different buses on top separate occassions) for no apparent reason?? I am fearing my return trip to Ottawa.

Now that I'm home, I've got a lot of work to do. Job applications and trying to finish up my course work. I've procrastinated long enough.. tomorrow must get down to business!

On Sunday afternoon, (after my tiny little nap that was no where near long enough), my mom dragged me to a bridal shower. Actually, it was really nice to see everyone but I was just so exhausted that I would have chosen sleep over it if given the choice. The wedding reception is going to be on Friday and I'm assuming that there will be even more people from the community in attendance. Ah.. they are all asking when I will be getting married... eeeee... go away, go away, leave me alone!!! (Though they are sweet, one of the ladies already "booked" my bridal shower so that she can play host!!). Ehmm.. it's weird talking about this on my blog. End of discussion.

Speaking of such life alternating business, many of my friends are having babies these days! Just a few days ago, before leaving Ottawa, I was out at the mall trying to buy baby gifts! I have a friend who just gave birth to her 2nd son (Congrats Clara and Howie!), another friend expecting the arrival of his 1st daughter in August, and finally, another friend who is expecting her first baby (boy or girl???) in November! WOW - baby boom II? (yuppi for me if it is, more students to teach!!!!)

Oh, I'm so unbelievably hungry right now. I had dinner at 5:30PM and it's now 12:30AM. Only had some watermelon after dinner (went with a nice walk with my ma-ma so we were hungry when we got back) and that didn't last long. Ahh.. starviinnnnnngggggggg.. what I would give for a big bowl of noddles.. mmmmmm ... yummy *stomach grumbles*. OK.. must stop talking about food. Should sleep .. must lose more weight!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On the job front, still no luck. I sent my resume and cover letter to my previous associate teacher who replied that they looked great and that she didn't know I had so much teaching experience! I'm really happy I got her as an associate teacher, she was really supportive and seems to be also really impressed with me (??).. anyways, it just feels good to know that she believes in my ability! It's just like when people tell me how much their kids like me, I always feel soooo happy! Oh, and this reminds me that a teacher from Taiwan told my parents that I should become a teacher (this was probably back in 2000??).. interesting how that somewhat came true...

OK.. enough bragging (blush)..I'm really hungry, and my only solution is to go to bed so that I can avoid eating. I hope I don't dream of food, because that has happened before.......................

Gnite!

Post #2

2006-07-04T19:19:00.000-07:00

Oh yes.. amoungst all my ranting and raving (see below), I forgot to talk about Canada Day. Before I go any further, I must tell you that I have lost the cover that allows me to press the comma key..so therefore out of laziness, I shall be skipping all commas in this post (pray that I can find it it's utterly annoying not to have it). *I decided to go back and put in commas because I thought it would be easier to read*

Canada Day turned out to be really hot (as it has been the last few weeks here in Ottawa) and sunny. Headed downtown with my friends at around 9:30am and went straight to Parliament Hill. It was already pretty busy. I can't say there were a ton of interesting things to see (quite similar to Fton but bigger) there was the Musical ride, the changing of guards, and of course, the really exciting part (no, I am not being sarcastic) the arrival of the governor general in a horse drawn carriage. I think that was the highlight of the whole day downtown (the governor general's arrival). I was also pretty excited to see THAT many people out.. and many of them were extremely patriotic.. wearing red and white, flag in hand, maple leaf hats etc. We left the downtown area around 1pm (it was getting really hot and really really really crowded) and went to have dim sum in China town.. At that point, I removed my maple leaf sticker (I bought 5 for $1 as I hadn't worn any red or white and felt very guilty about not being at least a little bit patriotic) and found that I have now got a sun-tan-tatoo!! EEKKKK... needless to say, I was slightly burnt that day. It was stupid not to wear suntan lotion.. I guess I assumed I'd be ok since I normally do not burn that easily.. Hmm.. I guess there is no more of that assumption.. the sun is just too strong nowadays :(

That evening, we went downtown for the fireworks. AHHH.. again.. insane amount of people.. lots of DRUNK people (as you might have heard, some of these drunks urinated over the war memorial downtown). We couldn't find a parking space so we ended up getting out of the car and my friend who drove us, ended up circling around (he had already seen the fireworks so he was OK with that - really nice of him huh!). As I predicted, the fireworks ended as soon as we got to a reasonably good location to view them. Drat it. Oh well, I saw some new ones this year. A smiley face (cool!) and a very wobbly looking heart. I just hope I will eventually be able to attend the international fireworks competition.. I hear that those are REALLY IMPRESSIVE!

While we were downtown on Canada Day, a couple of musicians from the symphony were playing. It reminded me that I have not attended a classical concert for a loooooooooong time now. I really want to go listen to some live classical music!! It's funny, I really miss it now! Anyone want to go?

Thats it for now!

Companies these days!!!

2006-07-04T18:48:00.000-07:00

ARRGGG.. I think there are some major issues in the corporate giant world. Over the past year, I've had so many beefs with some of these companies!!

It all begins with me moving to Ottawa...

1. The night I arrived, I pull my phone out of my overnight bag (packed my phone is a specific place so that I could actually communicate with the outside world upon my arrival at the new apartment), plug it in, and what do I hear? NOTHING. ARGH! I had set up the account with Bell a good week (or more) before my arrival and specifically requested it be ready for that date!!!

2. I set up my computer. Do I have internet? NO! Bloody argh.. need to call them (Bell) to come in and get it fixed. Wait the whole freaking day for them to come and do a 10 minute job.. *sigh*

3. Rogers is no better. I get a cell phone and go into a local rogers store to get it set up. Get slapped with a $60 charge *yea*. Later, I find out I could have done the setup online by myself - for FREE!!! Bloody argh #2, I'm ANGRY. I call the manager of the store and she was bitchy. Fine.. I called customer service and filed a complaint against the store AND the manager. I get a $10 credit to my phone. (Feeling a bit better but still feel bitter for being ripped off).

4. I am about to disconnect my internet. GUESS WHAT! You need to give them a whole 30 days notice for them to pull a plug! It must be some plug they need to pull...

5. I moved but I still need to go back to my apartment to recieve a parcel from Puralator. They say they will deliver the parcel before 5:00pm. I wait for an hour and then call them, they say they will try to track it down and that it will definitely arrive before 5. 5pm rolls around.. I'm getting MAD. WHERE IS MY PARCEL? Nobody can give me an answer. Worse, the customer reps LIE to me. RIDICULOUS.. you can't keep track of your parcels!? You can't even guarentee a pissed off customer that you will deliver it at a specific hour the next day!? WHAT!?

6. I am trying to connect my phone to a long distance plan. World link. Requested the new account THREE weeks ago. I get a call tonight requesting that I set up a pre-authorized payment.. WHY? AND why do you need to do a credit check? For petes sake, do you think I will talk THAT much!? PLUS, where did my application go? AND NO, I'm NOT happy with waiting 7 more business days!!!

PHEEEEWWWww... one heck of a rant. But BOY.. I've been REALLY REALLY TICKED off with these companies. I know I'm not the only one who's been pissed in the past. How are they running their businesses!? Actually, because they are all so huge and popular, I think they just don't give a "rat's ass" about what their customers think of them. HA.. customer service indeed.

Happy Canada Day

2006-07-01T05:53:00.000-07:00

Well, it's that day of the year again. Our nation's birthday. This year, I'm actually in the capital! I'll be heading downtown in a bit to see what's going on.. maybe catch a glimpse of the prime minister and governor general?

It's hard to believe that this time last year I was driving to some city to do a mini parade.. hmm.. I can't even remember what city it was?? Anyhow, I find myself missing the CCANB crowd today as I know they are getting ready to participate in the Canada Day parade in Fredericton again. I think another reason I miss all of the excitement is because I ran into the Meng family (Patricia & Julian) at Loblaws the other night - what a coincidence and how nice it was to see some familiar faces!

The other thing I have to report is that I went jogging on Thursday evening (5km), boy, it was an insane distance to take on when I haven't been to the gym for over 2 months! I'm still aching today :P Actually, that's not what I have to report, I had to report that while jogging, I came across an insane man who was shouting obscene things at me and my friend because we are Chinese!!! He was saying to his dog to hurry up or "those Chinks are going to eat you".. (add a few swear words in there). I was shocked. Then as we kept walking, he kept going!! I was starting to feel my blood boil.. really, really tempted to turn around and yell at him, but decided it was probably unsafe as the guy seemed like he was out of his mind. The last thing he did was yell at us while driving by and shake his fist (or perhaps throw up a middle finger) while he drove away. HOLY COW. Never in my life have I been treated like THAT! And in my ADULT life! I mean, it's not like I didn't know there were people like that, but for him to vocalize that to my face... I'm actually surprised at my own feeligns towards the incidence. I thought I'd be indifferent for some reason, but it turned out I wasn't. I felt fury and at the same time very disturbed .. the incident hasn't left my mind since that evening...

Anyhow, I have to get going. About to leave. Happy Canada Day people!

Where am I?

2006-06-22T10:31:00.000-07:00

These last few days have been like a daze. Perhaps I'm tired and things are just surreal. Moving is surreal.

Anyway, I just realized that tomorrow is the anniversary of the death of a friend. Just taking time to look back and some of his pictures, makes me really sad for his family, but fortunately, his family is strong and has a positive outlook at life.

On a lighter note (perhaps), I attended the Cirque du Soleil for the first time. I was expected a lot, but it didn't live up to my expectations. Perhaps it's just because I've seen a couple of really astounding shows and my bar of expectations has been raised too high? Anyhow, there was one part of the show where they had 4 girls performing the Chinese yo-yo. I was sort of tearing up for some reason, perhaps it just brought back memories of Chinese school and how our group of people were able to perform amazing tricks on the yo yo too. Most of their tricks were recognizable from summer camp, but a couple of them were new and pretty cool. The other thing that brought back memories was skipping! We SO could have done some of that!

Another thing that happened at the Cirque du soleil was me seeing a friend get called up on stage during one of the clown performances. Someone I met at teacher's college who is also very conservative like me. I wasn't 100% sure it was him, but it turned out it was! He was just dying up there (they had them acting for a 'movie' the clown was making.. it was funny) - glad it was him and not me..hehhehehe

Last thing I wanted to post about was the redress of the Chinese head tax in Canada. I think Mr. Harper (or should I say "Honorable Monsieur Harper" (take that Boisclair!! I'm guessing the majority of you have no idea what I'm talking about)) is going to make a public apology tomorrow. I want to attend but have no idea whether it's a private thing and what time it's going to be held. For some reason, I feel like I have an obligation to attend, perhaps representing CCANB?? I don't know. But it would also be cool to be part of something really important to Chinese Canadian history!! Jeff, you going to attend any of the events held in TO?

On the job front, I've heard squat. SIGH. I'm getting depressed. One of my friends has already gotten a permanent position and I haven't even had an interview. This is after sending out over 100 applications. Perhaps there is something wrong with my cover letter, because I know there isn't anything wrong with me as a teacher, I know I can fill a job and do it well (no, I'm not being cocky, I just know this is my calling!!). :( Big bummer.. I so desperately want to teach!!!!!

Anyways, I need to stop procrastinating and get back to work on my final online course. One more month of this....and I'll have no excuse to not be out earning money...

It's Been A While...

2006-06-12T23:18:00.000-07:00

May 25th - it's been a while hasn't it? :P

Convocation is over. My family has come and gone and now it's time to face reality: I'm job-less!!! I'm starting to feel a tad frustrated with the job hunt - I haven't even had ONE interview and I've applied for quite a few jobs (I haven't counted, but it's definitely over 50). It looks like I'll be following the traditional route of supply teaching...and suffering...

Anyhow. I'm also in the middle of trying to pack up my junk to prepare to move. No confirmed moving date as of yet. I'm looking at my stuff and just dreading the whole process of packing.. ugh. I think I'll miss my apartment.. afterall, having a great view, a pool, a gym, a hot tub all in one building is great. On the other hand, living where I'll be moving will have it's benefits too - I'll be living with some friends, within walking distance of a grocery store, have CABLE (WOHO!) and most of all - no lease and cheaper living expenses!!! (I'll be living in a house in a pretty nice neighbourhood)

In the last few days, I've been starting to feel the pressure. Pressure to find a job, finish my course work, pack, etc.. It just seems like my to do list never shrinks :( I'm also feeling exhausted after my 2 weeks of not enough sleep... to think, it's now 2:30am and I haven't gone to bed and I have to get up at around 6:30am on Wednesday - I think I'm screwed!! I'm volunteering one last time this school year for their year end trip to the RA centre - it's going to be a sports day so it'll be more casual. I'm looking forward to chatting with the kids and catching up on what's been going on while I've been away.

Last thing before I go to bed. I've gotta complain about my course work. I feel like I'm working to keep my head above water. Actually, I think it was sort of a bad idea (though I think it's beneficial for me) to take these two courses now. I don't think I have the initiative to do as well as I think I should do in these courses. Plus, two courses is a lot of work!! I feel like I'm the class slacker and that I've been doing a half-ass job when it comes to postings and assignments. Feeling really guilty but at the same time, I'm so freaking tired all the time that I have no drive to do better! ARGH.. I've got to stop being influenced by the 'student' life now. I'm not getting younger!!!

Alright. Bed time NOW. Good Night!

Finally, A Sunny Day

2006-05-25T07:28:00.000-07:00

YAY! The sun is out!! Its been forever since I've seen it. Hopefully it sticks around .. but it's doubtful :P

Anyways, I celebrated my birthday this past Sunday. It was a pretty quiet time.. stayed home for the large part of the day .. did some chores and basically not much else. It wasn't bad. I didn't really have any expectations for people to remember so I was pleasantly surprised to receive messages (though I think it's mostly because of some birthday reminder thing...). Perhaps I didn't really care because I knew all the effort my parents were putting in to make a bunch of food for me.. :D That or I'm starting to go into Birthday denial because of my age.

Headed back to Ottawa this Sunday. There is SOOOOOOOOOOoooooo much to do!! My courses are a huge weight and I've also got to get myself organized to move. Besides packing, I've got to deal with cancelling a bunch of accounts (though that shouldn't be too difficult). Ahhh!! I should probably also try to get my brain into job search mode too. Job serach mode as in any type of job, not just teaching. I've been still applying for those but have had absolutely NO luck. :(

Went to watch Over the Hedge last night. It's pretty funny! The animation is really well done. Definitely worth watching. There is another animation coming out (who knows when) that also looks pretty good though I can't remember the plot.. I just remember laughing at it.. heheheh :P
Sounds retarded, I know. I really got to work on my memory :P (I heard that good memory just requires that you train your brain, but since I'm so lazy......)

Alright, I have to go. Must do work again. Ciao!

51++ More to Go..

2006-05-16T10:14:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting here (while it's pouring outside) going through my online course work, reading one post at a time. So far, the folder I'm under, I still have 51 more posts to read. Mind you, this does not include 2 or 3 other folders I should get through plus my other course.. GAH. I find myself freaking out at times at the thought of the amount of reading I have to catch up on (and also, the amount of posting and writing I've got to get moving on!!!!!!). SIGH

Anyhow, the bus ride from Ottawa over the weekend was excrutiatingly painful. I'm not sure whether it was because I was drifting in and out of consciousness (sleeping) and because we were travelling through the night or whether it was the smell of people's B.O. or whether it was just because it's uncomfortable ...you get my point. I'm wondering whether I can take the plane back..... hmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!

Now that I'm back, I realize how much I miss summers in F'ton. Even at home, looking out at the backyard, I can't get over how GREEN it is back there.. its sooo beautiful and peaceful. At night, you can hear SILENCE, in the morning, you hear the sounds of birds chirping and the noise of children heading to school. Lately, as I've been driving around, I've been trying to imagine what tourists perceive F'ton to be when they come. It must look like such a small, cute, and pretty city. I shall greatly miss this place when we move.. :( (in fact, all this makes me wonder whether I should move back here :P .. at least I can see why people move back here after they've spent years living and working in bigger cities)

It's hard to believe that I'll be growing a year older next week.. err.. I mean this coming week.. whatever. Gee.. when did it come so close to my birthday!? Speaking of such, I'd like to wish my fellow May Birthday geeks Happy Birthday:
- Jeff
- Yeoh
- Chris (even though he has no idea this blog exists because he knows me as Irene :P...heheh)
- Karen
- Yew Chian
- And everyone else who was born in this lovely month! (If I've missed you, I'm probably not aware your birthday is in May, so you should tell me so I can celebrate another May person!!!)

While I am at it, I'd also like to congratulate my friends who are graduating this year (yuppi! you did it!!!):
- Jeff
- Matt
- Crystal
- Nancy
- Elizabeth
- Zau
- Pond
- Leon

Alright, enough procrastinating. This is NOT getting me anywhere!!

Ciao!
JY

Lots to Do and Plan

2006-05-09T11:02:00.000-07:00

It's suppose to be calmer these days! When I think of all the things I need to do, I start to get all tense. Take this morning for example. In the middle of slowly coming to consciousness, a thought popped into my head: I have an assignment due on May 13th which is THIS WEEK. GEE. I thought it was a few weeks from now!! Dang it. More things to do.

On top of my two courses (which take a lot of time keeping up to date - there are some people who seem to live on the website because you can not visit for one day and there will be 30 new posts waiting to be read.. arggg), I'm in the middle of trying to clean up the apartment (we have our pre-move out inspection tomorrow and I'm presuming they will be showing the unit in the next month or so), pack, apply for jobs, and figure out what I'm going to do in terms of living accomodations. Furniture is also another issue. What to do with it ..

Anyhow, I've decided to move in with one of my friends who are living in a house. There are two places I could move into so I've yet to talk to them to figure everything out. Most of them are telling me not to sign a lease since I've no idea where I'll be in the next few months. Man, I hate living in Limbo - me, the obsessive planner!!

I'm planning to head back to Fton this week for about 2 weeks. Stay there for Mother's Day (oh wow.. it's this Sunday isn't it?) and probably for my Birthday as well. I'll have to be back in time for EQAO (provincial testing) as I told my associate teacher that I'd help out during the last week of May. (Last week of May.. gee.. I'm already having a hard time processing that March is finished and that April has said Bye-bye.. don't ask me to say So long to May yet!!!!).

Speaking of flying time, next month is convocation. Actually, by this time next month I will be graduated and Teacher's College will be completely behind me. I don't think I'll be certified yet though. *SIGH*. Anyway, back to convocation. It's a bit different here at Ottawa U than it was at UNB. We are having our ceremony at the National Arts Centre (NAC) and mine is in the evening. I've heard that it's a long ceremony... *yea*. On top of that, we have to have tickets (yes, they will actually check them) so we can only invite 5 guests. Hmm.. that really limits things but I guess it's better than only 2 guests. I'm not really all that excited for convocation actually.. I'm not sure why. Actually, I think it's the thought of sitting through 3 hours of preaching and blabbing that makes me want to groan and stay at home (hehehe.. that rhymes!!)
Alright, I'd better go. Time for a tiny nap and more work. Ciao!