November 15 - Is it bedtime yet?

Up at 6:30am
At school by 7:45am
Teach from 8:00 - 9:30
Drive to Rec Centre
Join my Tai Chi class  (10 minutes late)
Finish class at 10:35am
Swim until 11:20am
Home by 11:35am to make lunch
Eat (and watch an episode of Chicago Med)
To school by 1pm to meet with student for 45 minutes
Home by 2pm
Prepping for tomorrow morning's lecture
It's 3pm now and still miles to go before I sleep.

I will head back to the school in about 30 minutes to put up by board work and look over my notes for my 5:20pm class.
Teach until 6:45pm.

And then will it be bedtime?

Probably not because I will need to eat supper (my dh is making chicken soup) and I hope to do a wee bit of knitting.

I plan to be in bed by 10pm.

And then?

And then tomorrow I will do it all over again.

I am tired.  But happy, so that is a good thing.

November 13 - three down, seven to go

Three lessons behind me and seven more to go. 

Up at 6:45am and in the classroom by 7:50. 

The class went well, and after coffee with a student from last summer I headed to the pool.  I like going on Wednesday morning because there is a parent and baby class that happens in the leisure pool beside the river and I get a kick out of the expressions on the babies' faces. 

I was home by 11:30 for lunch and to do dishes and make the bed before heading back to school for tea with a friend.  After a quick catch-up we both settled down to do prep for our up-coming classes. 

By 5:20 pm my students were sitting in front of me and we were off.  The hour and a half flew by and there was laughter along with the learning which is always a good thing. 

Since I had all my prep done I headed home for leftover stew and to watch Survivor. 

It is a two hour special tonight, and we are just one hour in.  I have knitting to do, and as soon as this show is over I am heading to bed for, I hope, a good long sleep. 

Because tomorrow I do it all over again. 

November 9 - Procrastinating

After my CoDA meeting this morning I settled on the couch to do prep for the two courses I am teaching starting next Wednesday. 

I had to eat lunch. 

There were two episodes of New Amsterdam I hadn't seen yet. 

Wordscapes was calling me and I was ranked 10th in the weekend tournament. 

By 3:30 I gave in, turned off the TV and put my mind to sorting out my notes.  (There may have been a few tears).  Ancient Civilizations is in pretty good shape since I have taught it four times already. 

Freehand Geometry needed some attention, which it got, and then I spent an hour learning some geometric forms I can teach the students. 

By 5:45 I decided that a trip to the pool was in order for all my 'hard' work.  I am home now and dinner is on the way. 

And I have to go see where I am now in the tournament. 

On the hip front I think the chiropractor really helped.  I could go up and down the stairs at the pool no problem, and I slept the night through for the first time in what seems like forever. 

Progress people.  Progress. 

I didn't cast anything on last night.  GASP.  I know, right?    But I have decided to make another leaf and a little gnome to curl up inside of it. 

That's it for me.  Day 9 of 9 in NaBloPoMo - good for me. 

Yopping Update #39 - Time to get serious

Okay - I get it. I have to stop knitting.  At least for a while.  I knit on Sunday a little,, and on Monday too much and boy did my arm hurt all through Monday night.  Tuesday I put all my knitting away in the craft room so as not to be tempted while watching TV.  Turns out, TV is not as much fun as when I can knit.

I did finish the drapes on Monday, and hung them Tuesday.  I think putting the hooks in on Monday night attributed to my sore arm - but they are done and hung and I am very pleased with them.

Much better than the very old and broken bamboo curtain that was there for certain.  The colour isn't showing correctly.  The design is in a dark blue, not brown.

I frogged a square where I had lost on yarn chicken. I tried to match it with another yarn but it was too noticeable so I knew I wouldn't be happy for it to go into the blanket.  So I finished one square and frogged one square so that puts me at zero (I did start another, put it is in the time out with my fisherman sweater until my arm is better).

I did spin about 10 gms of fibre, but that too puts too much stress on my arm so instead I spent an evening entering all my fibre into Ravelry so I will be ready to spin again when I am healed.

I have been going to the gym and using the treadmill, stairmaster, elliptical and recumbent bike since I can't swim.  Trying to look at glass half full, but boy do I ever miss my swimming and my knitting.

I have been studying my Croatian and having the answer book is great for checking my progress.

As I write this I am on the little island looking after my sister's two jack russells.  Lots of walks in my future while here, and I have brought a whole bunch of recipes with me that I want to try.  I also have a few novels that I have been neglecting, and I have been thinking about reworking the novel I wrote a couple of years ago.   I can't knit, (did I mention that?), so I need to find other things to do. I also plan to journal daily.

Oh,and  I also have prep for my summer courses, so that is here with me as well.

You can find the other yoppers here.

By the way....

Tomorrow is April first.  Don't get fooled!

PS:  I just changed the bulb in the headlamp of my car - ALL BY MYSELF!  Thanks to youtube and also there may have been some curse words....but I DID IT!

Yopping Update #3 - Wait. What?

Here is a picture of me last a week ago yesterday in the ferry lineup.

The important thing about this picture is that this is the only time and place in the last week that I did any knitting.  I knit about six inches on the sleeve in the lineup to and on the ferry.. 

Wait. 

What?

Yup, that's right.  I was teaching three courses a day from Monday to Friday and when you throw in prep time I was putting in 13 hours days.  I would get home, eat dinner, have a bath and go to bed.

Here I am last Friday before my last two classes.

It all went very well and I am happy to report that after all the evaluations I can confidently state "They like me.  They really really like me."  (You have to read that line in Sally Field's voice.)

Not wanting to leave the high of teaching and face a three or more hour ferry wait I went to visit my brother and his significant other on Friday evening for dinner and a visit to the sand sculpture competition in Parksville. 

My favourite was called family: (We had a pet iguana at home while I was growing up)

and this one called 'children are a handful' I sent to my daughter who is expecting her first in December.

I made it to my sister's little island early saturday morning and what with the market, the grocery store, and a LONG nap I didn't do any knitting at all. 

Wait.  What?

Yup.  All true. 

During my courses the class was asked to come up with a motto for each grade from 1 - 8. 

Wait. What?  was the motto for grade seven. 

It caused gales of laughter and has been my go-to  line for the last few days.  I am sure I will grow up and get past it sometime soon.  (not).

So, next week I promise I will have knitting and spinning to show you, probably a finished sweater, and I am currently unraveling a partially finished crochet garment I found at the Free Store made with a gorgeous mohair blend that I will make into a Prairie shawl. 

Stay tuned. 

To follow other Yoppers (who are probably much more prolific than I am this past week) go here. 

Yopping numero vingt

Hooray I have a finished object to show you except I can't until Knitterarium gives me the okay!

Still - a pair of finished socks.

I have been working on my Spice shawl and I am so happy with how it is coming together.

Remember my Year of Projects list?  It included editing my novel.  Well I have chosen to work on it everyday in November as part of the Nanowrimo challenge.

I have edited fourteen chapters already which is almost half way through.  I have added about 2800 more words and I am tightening up some of the plot pieces as well as fixing grammar (why do I use the word 'that' soooooo much?) and spelling and typos.    I am feeling very good about my progress and I have been posting excerpts daily on my blog (well, except for one day when I forgot).

To be fair I have been teaching every morning since October 10, and this morning was the last morning of the 6:30 alarm for a while.

I am looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow, and getting to some errands I have been putting off the last month.

Yesterday after teaching I went to the cenotaph for the Remembrance Day ceremony and then to a funeral for a friend's father.

Last night was my last night of school prep, but mostly I just sat and knit and watched Netflix.

Today I have no prep to do but, oh my, do the floors ever need my attention.

But after that I am knitting!

To follow other yoppers visit the link to their posts here.

The human and the divine

Okay, technically I am procrastinating because I have to teach tomorrow morning - but hey this excerpt is about teaching so that counts, right?  

She pulled down a book on ancient civilizations and flipped through settling on the story of Gilgamesh and Enkidu.  She had loved teaching that story to her students.  There was something about the love those two men shared – even beyond death – that spoke to her.  

Enkidu had been raised by the animals, and was more animal that human.  Gilgamesh was a king.  Their friendship had arisen after they had fought for supremacy.  They had gone through life together having many adventures, and when Enkidu died, Gilgamesh was shattered.  Despondent, he had searched for immortality, but at every turn his  humanness had impeded his progress.  He finally realized that it is their friendship that is immortal, and that they will re-unite in the after life.  That realization does bring him some peace, and he becomes a kinder, gentler king because of his relationship with Enkidu.

She leaned her head back, rubbing her eyes, and thought about what the moral of the story was.

“Our humanness impedes our ability to be divine.” 

Is that because the divine is supposed to be just out of our reach?  Is it because we are supposed to learn in this human form  things we cannot learn in the spiritual word so that when we cross over we will understand the divine? Was Enkidu closer to the divine when he was more animal than human?  When he was one with nature? Was Gilgamesh closer to the divine once he lost his best friend?

It was just all too confusing. 

All Soul's Day

So far so good.  Day two and I am still editing my novel and blogging.

Before I share a small excerpt from chapter two of my novel, which is about All Soul's Day I have to tell you about a delightful moment in Grade Seven this morning.

One of the students is a boy from Korea.  He came up to me this morning before class and asked me if I knew the song 'Moon River'.

Well of course I did!  I remember the Andy Williams show and his rendition of the song, and I told him so.

"I can play it on the ukelele,"  he announced.

"Really?" I asked, "Do you have your ukelele here?"

Well, he did and at recess time he was at my desk, music book and ukelele in hand.

I figured he would strum the chords, but no, he picked out the melody and I began singing along.

It was so lovely.

Then he turned to another page and started to play a lullaby.

I recognized it as 'Edelweiss' from The Sound of Music and so I sang along to that and told him it came from the movie.

"Oh," he says, "I have another song I can play from The Sound of Music," and he turns the page and starts playing Doe a Deer a female deer.... so of course I sang along.

That's it.  Five minutes of pure delight with a ukelele, a student and a teacher.

He smiled broadly as he left my desk, and headed out for recess.

That moment has made me feel good all day. 

Thirteen year olds - they can surprise you!



and now for the excerpt in an entirely different mood:

Lost. 

That is such a stupid euphemism for death.  It reminded her of that line of Lady Bracknell’s from The Importance of Being Earnest. 

 ‘To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.’

She still could hear the high-pitched, proper English accented voice of a grade eight student uttering that line in a school play a few years before.  It was hilarious at the time, especially when one knew the reticence of the student playing that part.

But she hadn’t ‘lost’ her parents.  She hadn’t been careless.  One had been taken by cancer, the other through illness.  She hadn’t ‘lost’ her aunt.  Alzheimer’s had stolen her away.  Her actual death was merely a date on the calendar.  She had been ‘lost’ for some time. 

People are not going to ‘lose’ her, because perhaps they never really 'had’ her to begin with. 

Z is for Zion

The star of David. Another reference to our Grade Three year together when we learned about the Hebrew people trying to find a home.

This form was also one we learned to draw free-hand in Grade Five and then with compass in Grade Six.


and this square fits in with today's theme too:




Every year I brought a Menorah into the classroom to light the candles and to tell the story of the miracle of the oil. Hannukah would fall in and around the time of Advent so in December our classroom was full of candle light in the morning while we would sing our favourite Hannukah and Christmas songs.

It was such a magical time of year.

All that music.

All that light.

All that hope.

All that peace.

And miracles.

There is always room in our lives for miracles.


And so the A to Z(ed) challenge has come to an end. It has been wonderful, and healing, to recollect my eight years together with this class. It also reminded me of the years I had with my first class as many of the adventures were the same.

This quilt is so precious to me.

I am sure if you have been following this month you will understand why.

I have met some new bloggers on this challenge, so now my morning coffee and blog reading time is very full. I love that I have made new friends from far away in this blogosphere.

Thanks again to Wendy of the Rock for talking me into this. And for Edwina for making our threesome complete.

I couldn't have done it without you two.

Y is for You (with Me)

This square is also known as 'The Hug'.

I wonder how many hugs I shared with those thirty-seven students over the years?

Hundreds.

And I can not have a hug.

Without a you.

And a me.

X is for X

Don't those oars make a perfect X?

This was a square depicting our white-water rafting trip that was part of our Grade Seven camping trip. Every grade has a theme for their camping trips, and the Grade Seven theme is water.

This was an eXciting, eXhilerating, eXpedition. We did this trip the day after our hike up and down the Stawamus Chief, so I was eXtra stiff and sore.

It was an eXtraordinary day.

In every way.

W is for World

In Grade Four we studied local geography.
In Grade Five - North America (with major focus on Canada!)
In Grade Six - South America
In Grade Seven - Europe and Africa

and by Grade Eight World Geography. The way I presented it that year was through economics. We looked at all the goods we use and where in the world they all come from. Then each student did a project on a product they use and all the people involved in its production.

We had projects on nail polish, cashews, jelly beans, and hemp to name a few.

We put pins into the world map where all our food came from and where the clothes we were wearing originated.

It was very illuminating.

We learned we are world citizens even if we have never left our own neighbourhood.

We learned that by the time we had arrived at school there were many people we had to thank for the food, clothes, transportation and gadgets we had used before 8:20 in the morning.

Now, that is something to think about.

V is for Volcano

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Robert Frost.

And so began our Grade Six Geology block, learning the words of Robert Frost.

Students love to hear about volcanoes, and lava, and earthquakes, and the forming of mountains.

It just makes us feel so.....

small.


It just makes us feel how powerful and huge nature is.

It makes us think, and ponder, and be in awe of it all.

And besides, how fun is it to learn how to spell and say Popocatepetl?

We learned a musical spoken word piece in Grade Eight called the Geographical Fugue.

One of our favourite lines was:

Popocatepetl is not in Canada, rather in Mexico, Mexico, Mexico!

U is for Underground

Ah, yes, caving in Grade Six.

We had learned all about the limestone cycle and about stalagmites and stalactites, so for our camping trip that year we had to experience it all first hand.

Cave exploration is not for the weak of heart, or weak of body. It is very strenuous, and some of the small crevices and rock ledges were, well, shall we say, a bit of a tight squeeze for this old girl.

However, I did it! and when I had hoisted myself up the last ledge of a waterfall we were climbing I heard my class singing a Gregorian chant in this gorgeous limestone cavern.

It was heaven, or at least what I imagine heaven to be.

T is for Teepee

Every Grade Three takes on a building project. We decided to build a teepee. We were donated the teepee, and the poles from a ranch in the interior.

I had an aboriginal elder come and teach us how to erect the teepee and to bless it. It was a magical day. We set it up in the Grade 2/3 playyard. It was glorious.

Then, later that year, we had our first sleepover together. Parents came and put tents on the school ground and eleven of the students slept in the teepee with me.

This is when they learned their beloved teacher snores.

The next morning we had a pancake breakfast and celebrated our first 'camping' trip.



T is also for the Tudor Rose.



Grade Seven history was so exciting. We learned about Michelangelo, and Leonardo Da Vinci, Raphael and Galileo. We also learned all about the life and times (and marriages) of Henry the VIII. Most of the students agreed it was their favourite history block.

Divorced, beheaded, died. Divorced, beheaded, survived...

And, of course, that led us very neatly into the Reformation and the beginnings of the Anglican Church.

What some people will do to marry the next young thing, eh?

S is for Stawamus Chief

The class and I hiked to the top of Stawamus Chief on our Grade Seven camping trip. It is 3km return with a 600 metre elevation change. They did it - up and down in about four hours.

I took seven.

I was sore for days.

But we did it. Every one of us.

Here is a picture proving I still had a sense of humour on the way down.

If you want to read the full story of this trip you can....mountains and molehills.





The Sun, with loving light
makes bright for me each day....

These lines were the beginning of the verse we started with every day from grades one to four.

From grades five to eight we started this way:


I look into the world
In which the sun in shining....

So the sun featured prominently in our years together.

Illuminating all we did.

R is for Recorder

This square is so perfect.

I started them in grade one on a recorder that only had one hole which meant the recorder only played two notes. There were three versions of that recorder so in all we had six notes we could play. I could conduct them to play when I pointed at them and you would be surprised with how many songs you can play with only six notes.

We progressed to a pentatonic recorder and finally by grade three to a diatonic recorder.

In grade six we all learned the alto recorder.

In grade seven and eight we had all four recorders available to us - soprano, alto, tenor and bass.

We played renaissance music in four parts.

This class was so keen on recorder that at recess time, when left on their own, I would come back into the classroom and they would be standing around a student's desk playing four part songs together on their recorders.

One student started to bring in music from other places - christmas carols for one, and they would sight read their way through it.

This is one of my fondest memories of these fourteen year olds. They were cool. They could be tough. They were definitely teenagers and uber fashion conscious.

But, what did they like to do in their free time in the classroom when they could be gossiping, or playing cards?

They played early music in four parts on their recorders.

What's not to love?

Q is for Quilters

So there are all their names. Thirteen of them. In cursive no less! And not only that but around the outside of the quilt they stitched the name of every student who had ever been in the class through our years together. That is another twenty-four. It was a very special addition.

Here it is in all its glory. They made me promise to sleep under it and not just hang it on a wall.

I do.

Every single night.

P is for Prince

The class always loved to hear stories about me. If they thought I was going to tell them a story from my childhood (or just from the day before) they would shush each other and pay rapt attention.

So it was inevitable that one day they would learn their teacher has a thing for Prince, or as this square depicts, the artist formally known as Prince.

In Grade Eight Prince was in town. I went alone and had front row seats! It was an amazing evening. This square is a reminder that even at 56 I wasn't too old to dance the night away in front of one of my idols.



P is also for Pi.

Grade Eight math is not for the weak of heart what with Pythagoras's theorem, square root algorithms, and learning how to calculate the area of a circle.

This square reminds me of all our math lessons, starting in grade one when we look at the quality of numbers before venturing into the four processes.

It is interesting and a bit serendipitous that as I come to this square on the quilt I have just finished knitting a pi shawl. A shawl where the stitches are calculated using pi.

So, of course, I need to include that picture here too!

O is for Owl hat

I think this hat made its first appearance in grade four. It belonged to one of the girls who had joined the class in grade one.

That hat came on every field trip, every camping trip, right through grade eight.

Usually she was wearing it, but often other students would be seen in it.

It became our mascot.

I am so glad they thought to include it on this quilt.