Sunday, November 19, 2006

Tune out

The other day I had to turn off the news. It wasn't because I couldn't handle yet more bad news from the middle east or another story that shows the absolute depravity of man. No it was because I couln't handle the fact that Tommy and Katie's wedding was newsworthy enough to open the news broadcast. "Finally TomKat is married. The dream wedding of the year in Rome." GAG!!! Maybe this does show our depravity - a million dollar plus wedding when there is starvation all around. Focus on annoying celebrities instead of the world's problems. AHHHH!!!

OK now that I got that out of my system - Today is a day of cleaning up computer files and backing up information. So thrilling I know. Then hopefully I can compress my computer files, put on new picture files and maybe even try to post some pictures that show the reasons that I love Trout. So stay tuned . . .

Sunday, November 12, 2006

An eventful week

Tuesday was supposed to be staff meeting. At about 2:00, when I was supposed to dismiss my students, My sixth sense picked up a kerfuffle in the hallway. I wondered out of class and into the computer lab. My sense of smell was assailed by the smell of smoke. "What is going on in here?" I asked. One of the assistants answered, "There was a fire in here. There was smoke coming from there." And she pointed to stains on the ceiling. Black stains where last year the ceiling leaked during the spring melt. As I was shaking my head in amazement at our crappy school, one of the other teachers entered the room. "We need to leave the school now!!" Well of course we do. There was smoke coming from out of our ceiling. All of those practice fire drills and we forget to talk about what you do when you actually see one. The answer: Pull the fire alarm.

Anyways I digress. The school was evacuated for the rest of the afternoon until the source of the fire could be determined. Apparently one of the wires was smoldering. One of the wires that is not water protected. The wiring that got wet last spring when our ceiling leaked. So do you think they are going to actually fix the problem this time so that no more fires occur?

There was some interesting images and thoughts that came out of this mini adventure. First was the Trout Lake "fire truck". No lights, no cute firemen, no training. Just a toothless local driving the MD water truck that is also used to deliver water to homes. It is a good thing that there was only smouldering because if there had been flames, the "fireman" would have used water. Not a good thing to do with an electrical problem (or so I am told). The store owner asked us why we didn't phone the MD and ask them to bring a big fan in order to fan the flames and actually let the fire do some damage. Well if the wiring is not fixed and this happens again, we know what to do.

Well enough of that. On to other events. I have a visitor this weekend. One of the teachers from last year is here visiting. Right now she is watching NASCAR. It is so good having her around this weekend as it forces me to be more active. Friday, we went ice skating on the creek with some of our students. It was so nice to lace up my skates for the first time this season and skate outside on natural ice with the snow sparkiling all around us. Having my friend here reminds me of why I love this place. Having her here confirms that once again we are making progress in the school and that we have wonderful staff this year. A great mid fall boost of spirits.

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Away

So I was in Slave Lake this week, hanging out with fellow teachers and learning about the developmental process of learning Math. It was very interesting. It made me want to teach kindergarten where you can start building the knowledge that they need instead of teaching Junior High where the students are so far behind. We looked at math misconceptions and I had a few "AHA" moments. Like, "AHA that is why student X has trouble with decimals" or "AHA I really suck at math. I still use my fingers to add - kind of - it's not as if I count them, I just visualize them. We spent two hours discussing counting and what could go wrong when a student is learning how to count. There is a lot of mistakes and errors that could happen in those little brains.

OK now that I have bored you all to tears with my Mathematic nerdiness, I should really move on. Last week, I told you, my faithful readers, about my difficulties in getting away. Well apparently my difficulties did not end there. I got to my hotel and automatically looked for a hair dryer. I just assume that all hotel rooms will have one available. That is a bad assumption to make. Then I went to brush my teeth. MMmm yeah I had forgotten my toothbrush and toothpaste. Good thing the hotel did have the foresight to provide their clientele with mouthwash. The next morning I woke up and tried to get dressed. I only had my sports bra and had forgotten a T-shirt. Then I tried to get my halloween costume together. Yep I forgot that too. So I decided to phone someone - you guessed it - no cell phone. Every once in awhile I have these episodes where my brain completely dissapates and goes away.

It was fun hanging out with teachers. One night we went to the pub and some teachers got a little intoxicated. One teacher gets really philisophical when drinking so we discussed religion. My friend, after discovering that I was "religious", gave up her crusade of finding someone for me in Red Earth - I already knew that that would be difficult.

Another teacher gets really needy when she is drinking so she exclaimed to the world how she loved men and tried to find me one. "Your life will change when you have a guy around. You need a man." Well anyone who knows me knows how that irks me. I tried to convince those around that in fact I was content being single. Later I thought about what I meant by that. You see, this lady needed someone to tell her that she is beautiful. Her opinion of herself depended on what a guy thought of her. My opinion of myself is dependant on what God thinks of me and He thinks I am very beautiful inside and out. I am content with that heavenly opinion.

So just a reminder to all of my readers (I think there is two of you). You are all gorgeous creations of God.