Filed under: Uncategorized
This morning I woke up and went down to a spot I’ve been going to for over 15 years. In fact, I would say it’s partly responsible for my interest in the Bio and it’s definitely one of my top 3 places to be. I used to go down to the ocean with my sister at low tide where we’d uncover crabs and watch them scamper for shade, check out washed up cnidaria and put things in sea anemones to watch them close. Sometimes it was a finger, but most of the time it was a rock or an unlucky crustacean.
Anyways, the sun was shining so I did some journaling and poked around a little bit. Took some pictures. Here they are.
These two gulls hung out and watched me write for a while.
I like checking out things that wash up on the shore. Most of it is some form of carbonate, but sometimes you find neat pieces of glass and the like. My pops used to put $2 bills in film containers for us to find on the beach. For years we were convinced that we were awesome treasure hunters, and we were I guess.
Victoria is old and white, and you can’t really look in any direction without seeing some kind of condo development or whatever, but if you know where to look, none of that stuff matters.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I don’t have a consistent internet connection and to tell you the truth, I haven’t been up to that much. I’m working with my old man on the island for a bit so the next few days will probably be full of knocking down walls and putting them up again. If anything interesting/relevant happens while I’m here I’ll put it up, but I can’t promise anything.
Filed under: Uncategorized
The best thing about being in another city is having the opportunity to find new things to eat! The vegan teacher plans on spending the week on the hunt for tasty treats. That is the best thing about being on tour with a band. Forget the shows, it doesn’t get much better than being in Southern California and finding a wicked $2 burrito. In Seattle, they have a vegan donut shop as well as a pizzaria. Aww, I miss that town. I’ve made some good friends there over the years. In fact, the last time we played there the promoters fed us a fantastic taco dinner and we ended up having a funny chat with a guy who ended up playing dice one weekend with Guy Picciotto.
Filed under: kind of sad
You know who you are. Thanks for pushing me to fill out my B. Ed. application 2 years ago and do take care of yourself.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I have a ton of great stuff from the student teacher evaluation sheet I had my kids complete for me (including their responses to the question; “what would you do if you were chased by zombies”), but I’m going to post it at another time. Right now, the Vegan Teacher is officially on spring break for TWO weeks. I’m going to keep my binder shut, pack up my car (which has become somewhat routine) and set my alarm for 5 as I plan on driving out to the West Coast bright at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning.
I will update this periodically over the next couple of weeks.
Look for my interview with Muc from SNFU soon as I’ll actually have some time to edit it.
Happy Holidays this weekend.
I woke up this morning feeling like a million bucks. I have no idea why. Maybe I got the perfect amount of sleep, maybe my nutrient levels are well balanced, maybe it has something to do with spring break arriving in two days… regardless, my mood did not change throughout the day. In fact, I had the best time at school in the past 5 weeks. Oh yeah, check this out. Today was the half-way mark AND I just found out that I got an A in my class. That means that I will be graduating with an A-, I believe. Or a B+. Either way, I have never had higher grades, in 20 years of education. So I’m stoked.
I let the 30’s study for their unit test tomorrow. There was a teachable moment in class when one of them asked me how governments control the information citizens are exposed to. I told them about how in some American schools, teachers are only allowed to talk about abstenence as a form of birth control. They responded with “well no wonder pregnancy and STI rates are so high in the States!”.
One of the girls in that class is having some major motivational issues. She’s putting in next to no effort and I’m struggling to get her remotely interested in the class. We’ll see how she does on the Unit test tomorrow, I figure that will determine my next course of action.
So check this out, right after spending a class talking about reproduction, I head on over to give my first lesson to the 10’s. Not 5 minutes into the class, I’m describing how before microscopes people believed in the spontaneous generation of lifeforms and I say something to the effect of “so 400 years ago, you have all these people thinking that orgasms appear out of nowhere!”. The class starts howling and I am satisfied with my introduction.
It went well though, I really let ‘er rip.At this point I am getting comfortable with the fact that making a fool out of myself in front of them is probably the best course of action. Pretending I know it all at this point is futile. They see through it. I think the appreciate it a lot more when I approach the class not so seriously.
The heat is on. I am not coasting into spring break but rather, I’ll be working my little vegan butt off for it. Tomorrow I begin taking on 100% of the workload. I’m excited, but also a little anxious as I don’t want to choke in front of the 10’s on my first day. It’s a pattern though and I recognize it. I worry about it, but it never really goes that bad. In fact, I once had a mentor teacher say that it’s good to be a little nervous about your lesson because that means you care.
Today I got the 12’s to put together pamphlets on specific methods of birth control. It led to some interesting conversations. The student who’s always coming up with interesting questions for me asked me what the evolutionary advantage was to being able to freeze male gametes (or sperm). I didn’t really know, but regaled him with a story about the frogs that can survive winter by freezing. He tells me he knows this, but that as far as he knew, humans produced no glycerol and there’s no sense in having sperm that can freeze if a human dies of exposure. I tell him he is incredibly observant and that I would “look into it”.
Another girl asked me if there was a scientific term for intercourse. I say “how about coitus?”. She says, “interesting. So what, can you make coitus?”. I say, “it depends on if you have the right ingredients, I suppose”. She presses, “seriously, what, do you do coitus? Do you have coitus?”. I try to keep myself from cracking up (and fail miserably), then my mentor teacher and I agreed that one must indeed have the coitus.
I found out that Iron Maiden is coming to my town this summer. Who’s stoked? Me, that’s who. Say what you will, Steve Harris is a fantastic bassist and the falsetto on Aces High is one of the best in recorded history.
Filed under: Students
It’s a beautiful day in the mountains. Snow is falling in the distance in all directions while the sun beams in the valley are causing me to sweat profusely.
Had our last classes in the curling rink and the three boys I’ve been working with came in during the last period of the day. Everything was going well until I decided that they were all ready to play a game with each other. Wrong. 5 minutes into that, there were rocks and cusses flying all over the rink. One of them ended up chasing another who fell on a corner and scraped his hand up pretty badly. Office. Now. Apologies. Understandings. Icepack. He’ll live.
Today a kid who always greets me with a “hi person!” asked me if he could call me Mr. Turkey.
Blastula formation in Bio. Assignment. Pretty mundane. I bought myself a cream soda after school ended. It was probably the best cream soda I’ve ever drank.
3 days until spring break.
I think I’m going to go skateboarding.
Just got back from doing some snowboarding at the hill where I once again rocked the Powerslave album. It was a beautiful day up on the mountain which is more than I can say for the last couple of days I spent at home. Brrrr, cold cold cold. It looks like March is going out like a lion this year. I saw moose on the drive in this morning which was pretty exciting. Usually you get some elk, some sheep, but never moose! Moose and bears are like nature’s b-sides.
Had a productive weekend back home. Taxes, student loan appeals, groceries, workin’, socializin’, eatin’… it was great. I am more than ready for the next four days. This week marks the half-way point of the APT. Time is quickly going by and I’m starting to get excited for summer.
I had my screening interview with a school board on Saturday. It was a bit nerve-racking since I’ve never had a professional interview before. The lady warmed me up with some fluffy questions and then got right into it. 15 “what would you do if”, “why do you want to teach” and “how do you know you’re being effective”-type questions. I answered them as honestly as I could without the help of coffee or a good night’s sleep. I should expect to hear back from them in May.
I am driving to the West Coast this Friday to spend spring break with some family. I’m looking very forward to it and it’s always nice to get some time in by the ocean. No big plans, maybe eat some food, might see a show or two, mostly going to do some serious relaxing. I feel like I haven’t slept in months.
The band is supposed to put out a record in a couple weeks as well. We haven’t played a show since January and I’m eager to try some new songs out in front of some people. We’ve also been asked to play a friend’s wedding this summer. It’s going to be really fun as she wants us to play jams by the Stones, Queen, Blondie, the Kinks, Neil Diamond and the like. For some reason I’ve always wanted to play a wedding but I don’t really know why.
Not much new here. I’m home for the weekend and it’s snowing. Hopefully it’s doing the same in the mountains because I’m planning on hitting the ski-hill Sunday. I have a lot of work to do and errands to run in town, but I’ve been feeling pretty isolated so I think I’m going to try to see as many friends as possible while I’m here. Picked up my ticket to Africa today. Tried to do my taxes, didn’t have the proper form. Went out for lunch, went to band practice. Pretty mundane. I’m feeling very underslept. Had a cohort meeting with my Bio APT class. It was sad, they are a fantastic bunch of people and I doubt we’ll ever be in the same room again. My prof was the most excellent. Bar none. Thank you for that.
Interview with a school board tomorrow. Nervous? Not at all actually.
Over and out.
Filed under: gettin' er done
This just in! The vegan teacher is getting 5K worth in grants! Guess whose plane ticket to Africa is nearly paid for? This guy. Who’s going to be able to pay a certain someone back $2000? Uh huh. And who’s going to be able to afford to live until the degree is done? Well, hopefully me. Eat it CSLs, I’m not going to borrow another dime from you EVER AGAIN.
An excerpt of a conversation between me and a kid who is apparently interested in my love-life:
Kid – “Are you married?”
Me – “No”.
Kid – “Do you have a girlfriend?”
Me – “Nope”.
Kid – “Wow, you’re a loser!”
This after I spent 40 minutes trying to teach his stinky, lippy, post-suspensioned monkey-ass how to curl.
I also spent some more time with the same troubled kid from yesterday who, as soon as he saw me arrive at the rink, practically begged me to work with him on his shots again. Ok, this completely blew my mind. It gets better, he’s actually improving and was giving other kids tips. Well done kid, consider my head exploded. At least until tomorrow I’m sure…
I had the Bio students research STD’s (or, STI’s rather) in class today. Tomorrow they will be presenting their findings in front of my UF. I’m looking forward to it. I’m starting to realize how capable they are, how they only seem to do as much as you expect them to and otherwise know how little effort to expend to make it through. Well, some of them anyways. There are a few who are totally clued in and I’m excited for their adult lives, they’re going to be movers and shakers I’m sure.
Chased a couple kids down today to complete their labs. Tried to explain to them how easy it is to get extra marks and that they only had lousy assignment grades because they were being lazy. I wish someone had the same conversation with me in Chemistry 12.
Read the Lorax with my coffee this morning. What a fantastic book. It made me want to get a tattoo of the Lorax. That would be awesomely nerdy I think. I especially like the line in that book that says “unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, it’s not!”. Oh Dr. Seuss, you were awesome but wait, no, I don’t think I’ll get a tattoo of the Lorax now that I think about it. Cartoon characters make AWFUL tattoos.
Oh yeah! I also forgot to mention that the nearsighted kid from yesterday rocked another triple take-out at the curling rink! He claims it is because of the”weed” he eats before we play. Weed of course referring to these little seaweed strips he fills his pockets with before he leaves home in the morning. He gave me a few and at 9 o’clock this morning, after 3 cups of coffee, I decided that seaweed is not my favorite thing to eat.
Filed under: Students
Alright. Didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. Tossed and turned it away for a variety of reasons. Lately I’ve really been enjoying sleep, it’s a form of escapism for me to the point where I get bummed out when I wake up. That’s ok, I woke up this morning feeling alright, coffee made me feel better.
Curled for the majority of the day. One 8th grader who was assigned to my team is as blind as a bat. He couldn’t really make out any of the hand signals and barely had an idea where the rocks were on the other end of the ice, yet somehow he landed a triple take-out. It was impressive to say the least. High fives all around for our nearsighted friend.
I got some 1 on 1 time with one of the students who was giving me grief last week. He came to class and instantly started acting like a jerk. I did something that in retrospect I think was a bit out of my league, but it ended up totally working. After I witnessed him misbehaving I called him over. “Listen, I don’t want you ragging on (soandso) this afternoon, alright?”. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I didn’t do anything”. “K”, I say, “don’t bullshit me, let’s just have a good time on the ice, are you down?”. For this I got complete compliance out of him. We went through deliveries, we shot the breeze, he wasn’t disruptive and he actually improved his game during the period. “Nice work”, I remark after the lesson and he gives me a fiver. It was a neat moment. Good kid, just easily swayed.
In Bio we talked about the female reproductive system some more. The kids know a lot less about sex than I assumed they did. I thought this was all going to be review for them, but they are more or less clueless. I think tomorrow we go on to STI’s and birth control. Yeah I know, so all of a sudden I’m teaching sex ed, leave it to the Biology teachers, why not? The funny thing is my approach, which is pretty much deadpan and involves using as many scientific terms as possible. I can only imagine them talking with each other after school about my lesson describing the shluffing of the endometrium with references to lutenizing and follicle stimulating hormones. Haha, hopefully these incredibly unstimulating thoughts will keep prevent some buns in ovens. Anyways, I also had a talk with a couple of girls about how the more you understand Biology in a global sense, the harder it is NOT to be vegetarian. One of them was completely on board and the others were really interested in talking about the ethics around pumping hormones into animals that provide food for humans. I really like to be able to have these kinds of forums during class. These are the times when I see them thinking, as opposed to when they’re copying answers from the text. Which is most of the time.
Next week I’m going to max out with my workload as I’ll be taking on the Science 10 class as well as my Bio 12, and Jr. High PE. This week is half over for me. Next week is a short one as well, then I get a 15 day spring break. Things are going full steam and it’s great, but I can’t wait for some time off.
Oh yeah, I found an interesting link on food additives, check it.
Filed under: Students
Ok, here are some photos. I saw these guys on the way home today.
This is my school.
The drive through the mountains.
Daylight Savings Time is messing with me. I couldn’t pry myself out of bed this morning and was nearly late. Played some curling and had to deal with a couple bratty kids by separating them and keeping them active. There is one kid who is picked on pretty harshly and it basically creates this positive feedback loop of crappiness. He gets a raw deal, dishes out garbage, it gets even worse then someone gets the boot. Everyone loses. Kids can be really mean for no reason and I forget about it all the time.
I also did a poor job at explaining the hormones involved in menstruation, so my homework is to get them straight and go through it again with the students tomorrow morning.
Yesterday I went snowboarding for free. It was wicked and I listened to Iron Maiden’s Powerslave more or less the entire time. It was nice because I could enjoy it without pushing myself to “get my monies worth”. I rode until I was done, then I came back to my place to eat.
UPDATE: After a glass of “stress juice” (a term the teachers I’m staying with use to refer to the vino), the vegan teacher is going to put together a lesson plan that includes placentophagy.
Filed under: gettin' er done
I’m back in the City this weekend. It seems like I have a never-ending pile of things to take care of every time I’m here, which leaves me with little time to relax. It’s good though and I’m definitely making a ton of progress in all areas of my life these days.
I got in last night and was called out by my APT group. Being that I ditched out on my birthday, I joined them and we had a good time talking about the last three weeks during a game of sociables. I called it off early as I had to be up with the birds this morning to get my shots. I’ve been dreading it all week as I don’t do well with needles. In fact, the last time I gave blood I passed out and nearly ended up with my face in the post-donation soup. Well, 5 inoculations, 2 prescriptions and $350 dollars later, I should be much less likely to contract Yellow Fever, Meningitis, Hepatitis A & B, Typhoid and Malaria. Apparently the pills I’m getting to fend off Malaria give some people gnarley dreams too, so we’ll see what happens with that.
Other exciting developments include me getting my passport in the mail (after years of putting it off), finding out that I am going to be receiving more funding for my trip than I originally thought (which alleviated some of the stress I was feeling after the hefty bill from the Travel Health Centre), and meeting the chief of the village we’re going to be spending a week in.
Oh yeah, and tomorrow I get to go riding for free. I don’t think this weekend could get any better.
I’m dead-tired. I had a lot of planning to do for today and consequently was up late last night. Plus, it’s mandatory that I watch an episode of Futurama before I fall asleep. One thing about being in the mountains, I’m sleeping like a log. They say it’s the altitude. I say it’s no cats, no ambulances, no roommates or no noisy neighbours. Ah, just joshin’. I can usually sleep through that stuff, well except for the cats. I am basically a slave to them when we share a living space.
Had my university facilitator in again today. He gave me a glowing review which is always nice to hear. I like criticism, but when I hear that what I’m up to is a step in the right direction, it makes me feel like I’ve made the right decision.
The superintendent was in today and I got to sit through a meeting where the staff talked about the pros and cons to refurbishing a 50 year old school as well as building a new one. (Wow, that was a pretty poorly constructed sentence…). Anyways, it was interesting to hear what people had to say regarding the implications either decision will have on the community.
I started my human reproduction unit with the 12’s today. It went over way better than I thought it would, I never give those guys the credit they’re due. There was barely any giggling when I went over the male bits and we had a few discussions involving stem cells, cloning and ethics surrounding abortion. Actually, when I think back on it, it was probably one of the most engaging classes we’ve had so far. Huh. I gave them an assignment to investigate alternative forms of made birth-control. I also told them that, regarding the test they wrote yesterday, they would not get marks for their long answers that consisted of what I call “term-salad”. That is, mashing a bunch of unrelated key terms together hoping for a mark or two. Jokers. I know how that one works, and ten years later it still doesn’t.
Played some more floor hockey with the grade 7’s. My team lost the shoot-out and I had stinky-glove-hand for a portion of the afternoon.
The young man who wants me to help him (with his application for post-secondary) gave me his admittance essay to look over today. It’s pretty rough. He’s a student who speaks English as a second language and it always takes me a bit for me to discern his words and understand the points he’s trying to make. Though I minored in ESLm who would’ve thought it would come into play so early in the game? At any rate, he wants to be a denturist and I have 2 weeks to work with him and get his stuff in order. He’s a good student in my class and I don’t think the language barrier should hold him back.
The girls I tried to get interested in curling yesterday threw snowballs at me after-school. I told them they all had detention tomorrow. They told me they were going partying this weekend and that I wasn’t invited.
The young lad who listens to me drum walked me home and talked my ear off about a bunch of stuff. I’m still trying to convince him to learn how to play an instrument. He says he’ll see me at the upcoming NOFX show.
It’s a beautiful day out there today. I walked home and could smell the melting mountains. There were many streams I passed and it made me a bit homesick. But also, not really. It’s hard to describe, but I almost feel at home away from home here. At any rate, I’m looking forward to being back in the city this weekend. I have some loose ends to tie up and some shots to get.
Oh yeah, the student really dug the new Constantines record.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I gave my science kids a huge unit test today. For the most part I think they did fairly well, but it more or less served as a wake up call that class isn’t going to be a walk in the park for the next couple of months. I enjoy testing though, you see who’s telling the truth when they say they get something during lecture. I don’t know why so many of them are afraid to speak up. Actually, I guess I do know. I’ve been there. You don’t want to seem dumb in front of the rest of your classmates.
Tried to convince some girls to play some curling, they were more interested in my age. I finally gave and told them I was born in ‘55. They bought it until they did the math.
A kid sat in and watched me play drums for half an hour. Then a boy showed up with a bass and we went over some of the stuff he’s practicing for his jazz band. It was cute, I had fun.
Another boy is having me help him put together his application for collage. Kind of makes me feel really responsible all of a sudden. It’s a neat feeling though, he obviously trusts me, and I’m honored to help him.
I forgot my lunch today and I’m sure I probably had the worst coffee breath all afternoon. Whatever, most of the students smell like sweat and cologne so bad it probably didn’t matter.
I’m really enjoying the Grinderman record these days. Did I already mention that? Nick Cave is the bees knees when you’re walking towards a sunrise. Funny story, there’s a lyric about how to try to get close to this woman, Nick goes as far as to pet “her revolting little chihuahua”. Not a moment after listening to this on my walk to school this morning did I pass on yipping at me through a fence. Horray for Coincidence!
The last couple of days, whooooweee, where to begin. Ok, so the vegan teacher has picked himself up and dusted himself off. I have no choice. What, am I going to let extracurricular drama affect my last semester of this? That would be insane, I’ve come too far and can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Besides the content I’ve been going through with the students and some floor hockey I’ve been playing on the side (where I attempt to play goal), a certain experience has caught me off guard. Let me elaborate.
So I’m supervising this student, shooting the breeze with him while he’s chosen not to partake in the day’s activity, when he starts misbehaving. Like, really badly. I tell him to cut it out and he challenges me. “What are YOU going to do?”, he goes. “Send you to the office”, I says and the little hellion replies “you wouldn’t dare”. Really. REALLY, I’m thinking. So I go, “give me one more reason to”. He knocks it off for a moment, then his friend joins him and they start screwing around. I tell them to knock it off and they give me the funniest line. “Why should we listen to you? You wear your pants as high up as they go”. (A note, the boys practically had their pant-waists sitting below their boxers). After I explain to them that when you’re my age, the goal of fashion is to not be at risk of flashing anyone your wiener, I send them to the office. “Alright, get outta here, I’ll see you two after school”. The friend says something to the effect of how I’m not his teacher and blah blah blah, but the broken record technique prevails and both of them head to the office.
After class, I meet with them and ask if they can give me a solid reason why I shouldn’t tell my mentor teacher about their bad deeds (he was away during class due to an appointment). They start going on about how I’m their best friend and how I’m nice or something. “Boys”, I go, “I don’t want you to butter me up and I’m certainly not your friend. I want you to explain to me why I sent you to the office”. They continue not getting it and I end up letting them go and informing the teacher.
Turns out, they’ve both had a hard go of it and after I learned the details, it cast them in a different light.
20 minutes later a teacher walks in and tells me that she just handed out two behavioral slips to one of them. At the end of the school day it’s like, kid, go home already!
Anyways, today I get to school ready to start off new with the two boys when a few minutes after my arrival, I am informed that the two were caught being mean to an animal. It wasn’t even 8:00 yet. Seriously! So my mind is blown, we all know people who abuse animals when they’re young have serious issues that need to be addressed, and the staff are fully aware that this one kid in particular needs some guidance. It was a lot to take and my first real experience with this kind of thing. (On a related note, did you hear the one about the marine that threw the puppy off the cliff? I wish I were joking and could say the military doesn’t strip people of their compassion).
So I don’t know. We’ll see what transpires with this whole thing. The staff are fully aware and no one’s turning a blind eye, so I’m interested to see what will be done about these two boys. They’re good kids but they’re having a rough go of it. Fortunately, they are still young enough that they’ll be able to change if someone gets through to them. But it’s really weird when you’re dealing with kids who don’t respond to any positive feedback and only know how to get attention by being little turds.
So enough about the drama.
At the end of today I caught one kid doing laps in the hallway. I queried him on this behavior. He tells me that they’re watching a movie on racism and the ignorance of the fascists being interviewed is really getting his goat. We get into an extensive conversation about racism, sexism, homophobia, capitalism and the failure of the electoral system in the time span of about 20 minutes. Then he asks me if I can burn the new Constantines record for him. For sure. It makes me happy to know some of them are so passionate about making things right, and these are the moments that keep me hopeful.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I didn’t do a lot this weekend. Went back home, bought groceries, voted… I’m sure the majority of Albertans are going to re-elect the party that’s slowly boiling them. Bummer. Even with people dying of strange cancers in Fort Chip and actual oil companies calling for a moritorium on the oil sands, it’s steady as she goes as far as development is concerned. I get the sinking feeling that it’s going to take something desasterous to get people to change their greedy minds in this province. Why can’t we be two steps ahead of the problem instead of waiting until it’s too late?
Some happy news, after 13 years, I finally have music I made on a piece of vinyl. We got our 7″ test pressings in the other day and they’re sounding great. It’s a neat feeling. Something huge I get to cross off my list of things I wanted to do in this life.
Anyways, the Vegan Teacher needs to take a break from computers for a while. I’m not going to post on this thing until I get my head around a few things in my life right now. Don’t worry, I’m ok and I’ll be back.
But what do they say? If you love someone, set them free? Something like that.
