Last November my truck was delivered to my parents house. We spent some time in the summer up at the farm getting it running and were able to drive it around the farm a few times. Due to it not being road ready, ie no brakes or lights, a friend towed it into town for us. I am getting ready to spend many hours working on it this summer. Hopefully she will be ready for the August show and shine.
Well it has been awhile since I was last on here. I am going to try and keep un on this as I am beginning to get into a more stable time in my life. As well there will likely be some fun new additions to share in the next little while. Bear with me while I try to get some changes made to the layout.
Describe yourself using one band and song titles from that band
Choose a band/artist and answer only in song titles by that band: DMB
Are you male or female: Monkey man
Describe yourself: Proudest monkey
How do some people feel about you: The stone
How do you feel about yourself: Steady as we go
Describe your ex girlfriend/boyfriend: Stolen away on 55th and 3rd
Describe your current girlfriend/boyfriend: Dreamgirl
Describe where you want to be: The dreaming tree
Describe what you want to be:The space between
Describe how you live: Good good time
Describe how you love: Sweet up and down
Share a few words of wisdom:Pantala naga pampa
So I am sitting here, five weeks into teaching, six weeks as a Calgarian, thinking about how things have changed since I got the crazy idea to move here.
Last time I posted I was just getting settled in and things were looking good at my school. I had a great two weeks as a grade three teacher. I had a difficult but rewarding group of students. I was finally getting them settled into my routines when low and behold the evil word “surplus” came out at a staff meeting. Basically this means that there were not enough students to keep all the staff that were hired into that school. Knowing that I was low on the ladder and probably the easiest move to make, I volunteered to be the one who got surplussed. Thankfully I had a great administration and recuitment team that found me a place before I was even done in my old class. Within a matter of two days, parent teacher interview days, I became a grade 1/2 teacher in a science alternative school.
It was a rough change emotionally as I was set to be a grade three teacher and had settled in to my role. However thanks to all the support I had at both schools it has been a successful change over. My new school has been quite a different experience. We are lucky enough to be able to do a lot of thinking outside of the box. No cookie cutters here. We also are lucky in that we can direct a lot of our learning to the community around us creating the opportunity to leave the classroom almost daily, while its nice out.
I quickly became a pro in parent teacher conferences having had more then 40 in two weeks. I am also slowly learning about the inquiry model of education. Basically everything is shaped around asking questions about anything and everything. It is amazing what kids will come up with on there own. I mean we are even discussing fractal patterns and chaos theory in grade 1/2!
As for my personal life, I have been meeting a few people, seeing the city. I have managed to get out fishing a couple times and have some plans to hit the mountains soon. For those of you back home reading this…or at least the one person… I will be back for the long weekend, friday night to monday afternoon I think. Let the crown and fires begin.
Seems that things are coming together for me. Other then changing my phone over I have managed to get everything set up here. There are still some odds and ends to get for the apt but those are waiting until costco on the long weekend.
I visited my school today and am happy to say it felt good. It is an open concept school but still fairly seperated so it should be a neat setting. I will also be team teaching the whole year. While this is a new concept for me, really what’s not, I think it will be great. I was told my partner is great and will be a wonderful support for me. There is a ton of supplies in the room already so I am set that way.
The drive looks alright, I will have to see what it is like at rush hour. At least I will be going the opposite way of everyone else.
I am trying the whole meet people online as I know nobody here yet. I have been chatting with some nice people and am thinking that Calgary is going to be a fun place. I am getting lots of ideas of things to do. Also realizing that a lot of people my age move here to start careers.
I am going to keep my head up and take this energy I have now and try to make it last as long into the school year as I can. Hopefully it will last until xmas when I can refuel.
