Yukon Chatter Bug

Before heading to Japan, we were understandably apprehensive. We had booked our flights and hotels before the disaster struck, and despite the fact that Kyoto hadn’t been directly affected, the whole country was in crisis. We decided to wait things out, and once in Korea, we made necessary phone calls and were reassured that all was well in Kyoto. Actually, once there, one would never have known what was going on in the north aside from the news casts.

At our hotel, there were events happening in the ballrooms which afforded us a glimpse of beautiful Japanese women dressed in traditional garb. After asking to take her photo, she asked the same of us.

These three young ladies were more than happy to pose for a photo:

Every evening we saw many women dressed up like this. It was stunning.

Walking through the streets of Kyoto, there are temples and shrines absolutely everywhere. In fact, it feels like every block has a couple of shrines and or temples. This one we found as we were exploring the Nishiki Market which I’ll write about later.

The first night in Korea, Iain (Dave’s brother) and Anne (his partner) brought us out for a Korean BBQ. Again, as in most Korean restaurants, the tables are low and we sit on flat square cushions on the floor. You remove your shoes at the door, so the floors are squeaky clean. You are always served a wet towelette to start, and then lots and lots of accompaniements like kimchi, greens, garlic slices, mushrooms, and other.

Anne did all the work for us, and even with his sesame allergy, Dave was able to join in the feast as you have much control over the food. You decide on the cut, whether it’s marinated, and what you put on it. It put a smile on his face.

At the entrance, there is a refrigerated display of different meat cuts to choose from. After a bit of browning, you pick up the slab of meat with tongs and cut it into smaller, bite-sized pieces using scissors, a required utensil in all kitchens. After cooking, you can either eat it as is, or season it with salt, wrapped in a sesame or lettuce leaf, topped with kimchi, sprouts, garlic, or any other condiment you want.

Korean utensils are a pair of metal chopsticks and a long-handled soup spoon. The metal chopsticks take a little getting used to as they don’t have the grip that wooden ones have, but with a little practice (and thank god for the spoon), we managed very well.

and take in the warm breezes of the Caribbean.

Carnival Spirit (similar to The Legend)

I snapped this photo of the Carnival Spirit arriving in Skagway, Alaska in August 2004 while I was on the Ethan B. tugboat (fodder for a later post). On the outside, it looks identical to The Legend which I’ll be sailing on in less than two weeks.

Lately, I haven’t suffered from any kind of medical condition affecting my ability to breathe, unless you consider writing up a little over a hundred report cards an asphyxiating-inducing condition. Which I did.

I calculated over 40  hours of work outside the teaching, planning, and kid-managing. Instead of putting in a full day’s work on weekends as usual, I spent a couple of full weekends at work in addition to late nights during the week.

Add to that student-teacher-parent conferences which went on until after 9pm on Thursday and all day Friday.

I could not and would not continue to work in this field if it weren’t for the time off such as the Christmas holidays that are just around the corner. Much too intense to be year-round.

There are two weeks left before my Christmas holidays, and I am sailing off to where the sun can feed my vitamin D deficiency, to where getting into bed doesn’t involve wool socks, to where daylight peeks through the curtains to wake me out of my slumber.

This adventure is a 65th birthday gift to my mom from my sis and me, but neither one of us has been on one before. So it’s a big treat for all of us.

The countdown is on: 12 more sleeps.

Corsets and fishnet stockings. Rice and confetti. Toasts. These were only some of the props from last night’s screening of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Though I had seen the movie before, I had never attended a screening with audience participation, hence being considered a virgin. Thank goodness I was spared from undergoing any kind of ritual for such matters as is the case at some screenings.

For all the other virgins out there, attending the show is more about participation than plot (if there is one). Even if you don’t know any of the lines, you soon learn some of the comebacks to yell at certain moments, and you can sit back and laugh at comments from “more experienced” addicts.

I came prepared with a bag of rice, some newspapers, and a deck of cards. Added to the table were a roll of toilet paper, confetti, noise-makers, and party hats. At specific moments during the show, audience members use the props that make for a huge mess to clean up afterwards. I’m glad people were discouraged from bringing anything wet (meatloaf and hotdogs), though one table did bring water-pistols, so the newspapers sure came in handy.

The event was a smashing success, and I can’t wait until next year’s screening for which I’ll be even better prepared.

I like Weight Watchers. Of all the plans, diets, and fads I’ve tried, Weight Watchers seems the most sensible, healthy plan that I’ve come across. There’s no gimmick where you have to buy their food or avoid a whole food group or anything crazy like that. In essence, you control portions and account for everything that your teeth bite into, be it a healthy salad or that small piece of frosted cake you’ve been craving.

Although I’ve been to their weekly meetings and successfully lost some of the weight, of course with summer and change in routines, I’ve been off plan for a while. I haven’t really gained much back, but I’ve decided to try the online tools without the meetings. These give you access to a number of recipes, and you can keep track of what you eat on a daily basis.

There is a catch, however, that really irks me.

You have a choice between a monthly plan at $17.95 per month or you can pay on a three-month basis at $39.95. Paying every three months saves $13.90. So far so good, but…

here’s the catch:

For your convenience, your subscription will be automatically renewed at the end of your payment plan at the standard monthly rate (currently C $17.95 per month) until you notify us.

Get it?

How is this for MY convenience, I ask, when I manually have to change my plan after each billing (every three months) in order to keep the same 3-month plan? Thank goodness for reminders on my Google calendar.

Sans entrer dans les détails, ces temps-ci je me trouve dans un bas. Et quand je me sens comme ça, je dois trouver un moyen de me nourrir, c’est-à-dire, de nourrir mon âme.

Ce soir j’ai assisté à un spectacle donné par Sylvie Painchaud, et oui, mon âme n’a pas manqué de bonnes choses. Sylvie a chanté plusieurs chansons tout en jouant du piano. Mais ce n’était pas juste des chansons, c’était un narratif – une histoire – dont on peut tous faire le lien: l’amour, la mort, les enfants, les parents, la musique, et les amis. Bref, la vie.

La passion dans sa voix ainsi que l’énergie qui émanait de son corps m’a fait pleurer, rire, penser, chanter. Je trouve difficile exprimer cette expérience avec de simples mots. (En plus, je me rend compte que ça fait quand même longtemps que je n’ai pas écrit en français, ce qui rend la tâche doublement difficile).

La chanson qui m’a le plus touché était inspirée, comme toutes les autres, d’une expérience dont Sylvie a témoigné. Un jour, en allant chercher ses enfants à la garderie qui se situait près d’une rivière, elle aperçu des policiers dans la rue devant celle-ci. Évidemment, elle a perdu le souffle, mais heureusement, ses enfants étaient en train de s’amuser au sous-sol. Ils étaient sains et saufs.

Le voisin, par contre, après avoir perdu trop d’argent dans une machine casino-vidéo chez un bar pas loin, a décidé de mettre fin à ses jours dans son garage. Sylvie connaissait ce cher monsieur, qui, apparemment, avait une femme et des enfants.

Les paroles de la chanson étaient de la perspective de l’épouse, un an après cette tragédie.

Pour la première fois de ma vie, j’ai pu voir ma chère grand-mère sous un angle très différent. On a tendance à oublier que nos grands-parents ont été jeunes, comme nous, et ont aimé, versé des larmes, et vécu, comme nous. Mais tout en écoutant cette chanson triste, je ne pouvais m’empêcher de penser à ma grand-mère qui a vécu la mort de mon grand-père dans des circonstances semblables. Non, il n’avait pas perdu d’argent; il souffrait énormément d’une mauvaise santé: l’emphysème résultant du travail dans les mines, ainsi que des problèmes de cœur. Il reste que pour la première fois, je la voyait là, une jeune femme, qui perdit son amant pour la deuxième fois dans sa courte vie, le premier étant décédé avec deux enfants la couche aux fesses. Elle avait plus de vécu à l’âge de trente ans que j’en ai présentement à quarante.

Ses chansons n’étaient pas toutes tristes, mais elles touchaient toutes le plus profond de l’âme.

Donc merci, Sylvie, d’avoir nourrit mon âme en cette période difficile pour moi.

J’ai bien hâte à ton prochain spectacle.

(Désolée pour mes fautes d’orthographes.)

One of my most memorable days touring St. John’s was visiting an area just below Signal Hill called The Battery: ambling along its winding roads; climbing the steep slopes; and photographing its antique character. This mural, one of many around St. John’s and painted on the concrete sides of a walkway,  greets us as we turn on to Outer Battery Rd. These murals throughout the city are painted by Derek Holmes and April Norman.

Here’s the other end of the above mural from Google Streetview:

View Larger Map

As the street is getting narrower, tucked away in a corner is this yellow eccentric structure with signs and odds and ends nailed to it:

Everything was painted bright yellow.

To give you an idea of just how narrow the streets are in The Battery:

Between some of the crammed houses, you can see the harbour along with some very antique-looking wharves…perfect Jim Robb fodder:

Behind all the rickety structures and ramshackle buildings are signs of life:

And here is just more of the same. Notice the curved roof:

As a teacher, I spend April Fools’ Day getting pokes and slaps on the back hard enough to send me into a fit, and I’m not supposed to notice. As I go about my business handing out paper and pencils for our weekly dictation, I hear little whispers, ignore muffled laughs, and notice conspiring eyes throughout the room. In keeping with the French tradition of poisson d’avril, students write notes on fish-shaped paper cut-outs and surreptitiously stick them on the backs of others, so I’m beginning to look like a human fish tree. One note read, “Made in China”.

After dictation, I hand  out a second piece of paper and tell the kids to read all the questions before starting. These are francophone students in an English class, so I tell them that these are very simple instructions designed to evaluate their ability to understand simple English directions, and even if it’s super easy, they should still complete the test.  You know where this is going, I know, but I couldn’t help myself.

It was the old classic:

#1: Read all the questions before beginning the test.

#2-6: Random instructions about drawing shapes in certain corners, underlining this or that. You know the kind.

#7: Now that you have finished reading the test, only do question #1.

In one of my high school classes, we just finished reading A Midsummer Night’s Dream, so I drew up a list of questions for an open-book pop quiz. No one caught on that I never, I repeat, never give pop quizzes, and I told them so at the beginning of the year.

Again, the first instruction was to read the whole test before beginning to write. The last question was, “Copy any verse from Act V, Scene 1, and do not complete any other question. Rather, work on your assignment that is due for next week.”

At first I wondered how long I should let this go considering we’re using precious in-class time. Then I thought to myself that the questions were good review of what we had learned, so it wasn’t a loss.

Every single student was busy answering review questions from the play.

And this was after I told them twice to read all the questions first, AND after I read the test instructions out loud to them, AND after I listed reasons why they should read it first (jogs your memory so that when you get to the question again, your brain has already been activated…easier to answer…blah blah blah). On second thought, maybe it was the monotonous blah-blah-blah that made them tune me out.

I’m not sure I’m anxious for next year’s poisson d’avril. I have the feeling I’ll get smoked. Yikes!

Duh! Don’t you just love it when you realize, after it’s too late, that you had a brain fart and made a complete fool of yourself?

While on the phone with Air Canada trying to negotiate a refund for Dave’s unused ticket due to bereavement, yes, I asked the stupid question about when the credit would expire. For some reason, I was thinking the refund and credit were one and the same, and for a brief moment it all seemed to make sense in my head.  “You can’t have both,” said the (very patient) rep.

“Oh…Okay.”

Only after I hung up did I realize my error. That day, I’m sure I made their equivalent list of Clients from Hell?

Yesterday, our school had the privilege of having a guest speak to students about her experience as an Olympic athlete, and she exemplifies the true spirit that seems to be lacking in this year’s Olympic Games so far. Lucy Steele, the first Yukon athlete to compete in Olympic Games, participated as a cross-country skier in 1992. Of course, one of the questions that students asked was, “Did you win a medal?”

So she answers, “No, but how many athletes do you think participated in my category?”

The answer? About 90. “And how many medals are given?”

“Three,” many students answer.

She pulls out a medal and says, “I didn’t win one of those three, but this medal is one that is given to all Olympic athletes for participating in the Olympics. We become part of a big family, and in my case, I did win in a way, because I beat my own international record. I was also the first woman from here to participate in the Olympics.” (So far, only three Yukonners are Olympians.)

I may not have gotten all the details straight, but that was the gist of it. Lucy Steele truly embodies the true spirit of the Games. This was refreshing considering that twice, so far, I have heard in the news how a Canadian athlete “just” got the silver. I’m tired of this lack of appreciation not only from the media, but from some of the athletes themselves.

It’s not just a silver people! I wonder what percentage of the world population Olympic athletes represent. What a privilege it is, indeed, just to participate!

Thank you, Lucy.