Sunday, January 28, 2007

A breakfast of failures

My apologies for the infrequency of posts. My days are filled with dusty clouds of chalk and the shaping of minds (probably mine more than anyone else'). In the evening I watch one episode of 'Lost' and then try and figure out my next step. Teaching is like a strategy game. I'm not one for long range planning - I like to have a fuzzy idea of what I'm doing but leave time for whatever may come up. As such free time has become scarce. I have a new appreciation for weekends and, in particular, Friday night - the furthest point away from Monday morning.
This is not to say that I'm not enjoying what I'm doing - it's quite the opposite. In my previous placement I felt like I was being punished for various wrong doings in my life - a lousy cooperating teacher and an impossible to please supervisor (who I probably shouldn't have fought with but did anyway) made for a trying and borderline miserable experience. I don't want to jinx anything but I will say that my current placement has taken a 180 degree turn.
As well, to my surprise I have enjoyed wandering through a unit on poetry. I hated poetry in high school, I didn't care much for it in university and wasn't thrilled about having to pretend to like it in front of students - but I have liked it! Sometimes I feel like a fraud because I spend so much time figuring out the meaning of something and I when I talk about so and so's use of metaphors I think 'do I really get this? are these students really buying this?' I think it helps that I wear glasses.
I will make an effort to post at least once a week - there is time (now I can't help but think of T.S. Eliot when I hear that phrase).

Sunday, January 14, 2007

it was never here

I have not yet established any sort of routine in my life here in Toronto. As such there have been no entries, or even attempted entries on this site for the past two weeks. However, I now have no choice but to start applying some sort of order to how I structure my time. This should have happened one week ago but better late than never.
Moving out of Fenwick was bitter/sweet, but more sweet than anything else. To my surprise the building management bought me a going away gift. Maybe it's because they thought the day would never come.
Christmas was very nice and I surprised even myself for how much I ate over a short period of time.
New Year's Eve was pretty low key as Capital M and I spent it travelling from Halifax to Toronto. It did however mark our six year anniversary which is really crazy (that's 20% of my life for anyone who's statistically inclined). As Mr. von Trapp would say "...I must have done something good."
Cat 1 and cat 2 seemed to remember me. Cat 1 generally hides whenever anyone comes over but she came out from under the bed not long after we returned home.
Alright, I've put off lesson planning long enough - I'm going in. Cover me.
Over and out.

ps- Ikea should change their slogan from "Swedish, for 'common sense' to 'Swedish for 'exhausting'