Tuesday, October 31, 2006
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9:19 p.m.
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 Iza-pumpkin!
Happy Halloween!
Sorry for the incredibly lame joke. It just seemed like the right time to make one. Time for a quick post to let you guys know how things are going.
I'm tired. Damn tired. I mean, I KNEW how much work being a teacher was, but actually doing it, even on this strange practicum, it's REALLY hard work. Totally mind blowing. I have a totally new level of respect for Nicole and Lindsey. Less respect for Jeromy, but that's just because I have to balance out those cosmic scales.
I'm teaching Grade 9 Applied English and Grade 11 Sociology. So far so good as my associate teacher thinks I'm ready to teach now, but that still hasn't stopped me from spazzing and stressing out. Catherine says I put too much pressure on myself and she's probably right.
I just need more sleep. Week 1 is done, Week 2 (now) is going to be easy, then I've just got two weeks more to go. To reward myself at the end of this whole thing, I'm going to get a Wii.
Though I'll be too tired to play it.
Monday, October 23, 2006
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6:46 p.m.
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 If there were an easier way to do things, most likely I'd still pick the hard way. It's just in my nature. It's also just my luck. On the bright side, when strange things happen to me it's almost always amusing to others.
Friday night was no exception. My unanswered call to Jeromy to spend some quality time together left me with nothing to do. Catherine had gone home to Brantford and I was procrastinating on doing my first lesson plan.
Instead, I wound up watching Deadwood, playing Megaman X4, and hanging out with Truffle.
Then I heard a very strange sound. I muted the television to listen for it and within seconds a "whoop" sound, very similar to an 80's-style video game lazer, came from my radiator.
Truffle freaked out and hid in a tube. I, on the other, got closer.
"Whoop!" Again, I had no idea what this sound was. I could hear a scratching, so I figured it was an animal of some sort. I called my dad who promptly suggested "racoon or squirrel." It was an emotional conversation.
I had two problems with this. One, after the mouse that invaded our apartment a year or two ago I swore never to put up with an uninvited guest again. That mouse was LOUD and it was tiny. I'm fairly certain that both squirrels and racoons are smaller.
The heating vent it was currently in was secure against the floor and wall. The problem was that the vent goes through the living room wall into the bedroom and the small pipe that connects them has an opening four times too big for it. The heater in the bedroom is secure against the wall, but NOT against the floor. In other words, that squirrel could soon be among us.
So I decided to fight back. I was going to plug that hole as best I could, then try and scare off my house guest. I was talking to my father on the phone at the time who found all of this amusing, because I had to move my bed out of the way in a very small room to access the pipe.
This failed because I broke the bed.
I was pulling on it and one of the support joints creaked then broke. Part of the bed collapsed. I was not pleased at this. The metal pin holding the two sections together was badly bent and I couldn't remove it. I also couldn't think because my dad was laughing at me.
I hung up on him.
Then I got a hammer and fixed that bitch. I straightened out the pin, set the frame in place, then called Catherine because I needed an alan key to tighten the joint and I didn't know where they were.
I quickly explained to her and David what the problem was, and once they stopped laughing, I was told where the key was.
I got the bed fixed, the hole plugged, and all was well. Although all the hammering, yelling, stuffing, and everything else in between scared off the squirrel anyway. I plan to tell people that this was my expected outcome all along.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
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3:09 p.m.
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Or is it?
I found this great program online as I was making up my lesson plan in short fiction next week. It's just a filler exercise should I need to make up a bit of time, but it's handy anyway.
My orientation days at the school went quite well. My associate teacher, Scott, is fantastic and assures me that I won't feel any stress at all. I accepted his statement and wondered where my intense stress headache was coming from.
"Don't be stressed," he said. Pfft. He doesn't know me very well.
But you guys do, so enjoy the crossword!
Monday, October 16, 2006
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4:54 p.m.
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 Due to mounting pressure from the Dom, I gave in and got a Zipcar membership. For those of you who don't know, Zipcar is a service offered in many cities, including Toronto, that allows you to take one of their cars out for whatever you want.
You need to reserve the car, but included in your hourly fee of roughly $11 is gas and insurance. It's great for local trips because if you want anything longer or farther you're better off with a traditional rental.
At any rate, we got the membership several weeks ago, but only yesterday did we exercise our newfound power. Catherine finally got to driver her Mini Cooper.
She's obsessed with the make. There's a car lot around the corner where one is parked all the time and we booked it for a round-trip to Ikea yesterday. For three hours, we acted like Mini Cooper owners.
It's a pretty cool little car. The break is super sensitive, and the "go" as Catherine calls it needs a bit of coercing at first, but it's fun. As you can see, we had to take a few pictures.
We have no need for a car (usually) but having the option to drive one around is nice. Besides, how else we were going to get to drive one?
Tomorrow, the practicum starts. Or at least the orientation. I already have a bit of insider info and I'm approaching the whole process with a mixture of excitement and dread.
I'll do my best to pull through.
Monday, October 09, 2006
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6:09 p.m.
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 Hell, I am too.
I've been in hiding. Well, no, not really. Just busy with busy work. Teacher's college, for the two or three of you who know, isn't really about tough work, tons of essays, and late nights. What it IS about is a lot of busy work. You're always busy with some little assignment or another.
This doesn't always mean the assignments make sense. My first week I was asked to bring in a poem to read to the class. The next week, I was asked to write a poem about myself. I tried going the angsty-teen route, but it didn't work.
The third week, we had to bring in newspapers to tear up and create found poetry. Then my prof sent me home to put my group's poem on paper. Well, one of them I did properly. The other one, well, see below. In my defense, it was mostly my idea.
I know that's not a defense. The REAL defense is that I'm friends with all of you people.
Or am I still? I wasn't able to go to Jer's housewarming which I'm sure was a lovely time. I still need to get my butt over there as soon as possible. I'm also going to invite Jer and Megan (as well as anyone else who is interested) to join Catherine and I for a candlelit tour of Casa Loma at Halloween. We did it last year and it was fantastic. Much better than the day time with a focus on the castle's ghosts.
Aaron at least is coming down this weekend. I need to write him about that as it seems that depending on when he gets here, I may not be able to spend as much time with him. On Saturday, Catherine's aunt from England is going to visit us. There's only so much of me to go around, but I feel a tremendous need to share all things geek with Aaron. Besides, out of everyone who reads this blog, I get the feeling he needs a break more than most.
Aaron, don't give up your blog. I read that thing. You're depriving me of minutes a day as I invest in your life. Think about ME before you make such decisions.
My back hurts and I'm hungry. Tired, too.
But Heroes is on tonight. You guys should be watching that show. It's quite interesting. Lost is looking interesting this year, as is Veronica Mars. But the winner of all the premieres is Battlestar Galactica. I promise I'm TiVoing all the new eps for those of you who aren't caught up. It's just SO damn good. Season 3 is kicking my ass already and they've only aired the first two episodes.
Monday, October 02, 2006
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4:34 p.m.
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 One of the biggest drawbacks to no longer having a job is that I no longer have a stable, powerful computer to do all of my work on. My computer at work was a sizeable beast of a Mac, but my PC laptop has had five years of hard living and it's starting to show.
The internet will crap out for no reason whatsoever. It's not the cable box, it's the computer. All of a sudden, it just won't recognize the internet. I have to reboot.
Then there's the harddrive. If it isn't having some catastrophic failure it's slowly eating itself. During a marathon session of photoshop crapping out on me and my deleting a ton of things off the drive to free up space, the new issue is that after having freed up more than 2 gigs of space it now seems to have all disappeared.
Nothing new was put on the drive, but I'm down to 400 mgs of free space.
My hard drive is eating itself.
The easiest thing to do, I suppose, would be to wipe the whole thing and start over again. However, seeing as I am not possessed of a great deal of funds nor do I have a copy of Word readily available, I'm not about to do this now that I'm actually dependent on my machine to help me produce works that will enable me to graduate.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the source of my frustration this week.
Catherine keeps telling me I need to relax. BAH to that, I say. BAH.
Sunday, October 01, 2006
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11:23 a.m.
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October
And the trees are stripped bare
Of all they wear
What do I care
October
And kingdoms rise
And kingdoms fall
But you go on
Is anyone else astonished that it's October already? How does that happen? How is it possible that I've been in school for three weeks, not had that job for three weeks, and all the other crazy life changes that have been going on lately.
And why is no one else blogging?
I know Aaron has no life any more considering he's pulling the reigns at The Ontarion, but Jer has no excuse. Nor Josh. Nor Nicole. Heck, what does SHE have to do all day?
Oh. Right.
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