Guilty as Charged
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
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
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...
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
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
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
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 antic
ipate 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....
