i haven't had students in my classroom since june 8th.  i have been in school pretty much every day since then for longer than i normally spent at school (as well as after school commitments).... it has been pretty crazy.

week 1 without kids involved marking and report card comments
week 2 without kids involved moving, organizing, cataloguing, alphabetizing all the school's music
week 3 without kids has involved meetings, lesson planning, course planning, organizing various rooms in the school

that's a very simplistic list, but i've actually been quite busy... mixed in with the boring work we've gone out for lunch as a staff, mike and i went shopping for good bye presents, we've played hour long 3 on 3 basketball games (that took DAYS to recover from), hilary jason and i went shopping for grad food, we've had hour + long lunches as a staff which never happens during the year, and today i learned to change my oil... basically fun times all around tho now i smell a lot like oil.

tomorrow i need to pack up my stuff here and friday i'm heading home, saturday is jason and maddy's wedding and that night i'm moving back to london where i begin my semi-homeless living for the next 2 months... we'll see how this summer goes...

my to do list was excessively long for this weekend... so far i've accomplished 2 things off of it - this is a little problematic as i do want to complete it all...i'm so not interested in marking any longer... guess i should have avoided procrastination a little better... at this point i am done marking my band stuff... just need to mark little women papers and drama portfolios and combine marks for drama summatives and i'll be done for marking... i plan to write report card comments on monday (if all the marking is completed)... this post clearly has no point other than to prolong the procrastination... adios

i went camping this weekend with a bunch of people from church. i still feel very much on the fringe of the group - but this was a good start in the right direction to becoming more integrated. i definitely feel like i'm part of the group - just not IN it? i don't even know...
highlight of the weekend was being canoed UP stream / UP rapids by a fireman/rower in their underwear discussing disney princesses... that and winning a bunch of hands of euchre.
in other news - school is almost done for the year - crazy.

today i biked to work - it took four or five minutes - it takes me between three and fifteen minutes to drive to work... i biked home from work with dan... it was nice to chat and it meant that i couldn't be super lazy - it prolly took us five or six minutes to bike to my place because of the crazy wind- but i did it.. and hated it. i really do not enjoy biking - but i'm going to try to bike to work for the rest of the year.

the rest of the day was fun - it was "grandfriends day" so it was great to meet the grandparents of these kids. i had a bunch come visit us in drama class which was madness today because the kids were working on 15 minute hamlet productions in a tiny room (we usually split up but today all the classrooms were occupied due to grandfriends day). i think it went well - the kids stayed mostly on task.

i ended up eating lunch with dan, dave, hilary, four students and 2 grandfriends. one of the students was not connected to either of the grandparents so he hung out on our side of the table and we frightened him with just how insane his teachers are when we hang out in a group... today we planned the teacher band band... a concert band made up of teachers who play terribly... the boys want to play jurassic park - they sound like my students...

after getting home i made dinner (another plus of biking - eliminates the temptation of picking up dinner on the way home from school - especially with dan biking with me) and then went to zumba. i have never had this teacher before - it was a lot more dance-y than workout-y i think... so when i got home i went for a walk/run... i'm attempting to complete the learn to run thing - in 10 weeks i should be able to comfortably run a 5k... we'll see if that happens - but day 1 of the plan was successful. my goal for the next 2 months while i have a lot less teaching is to get into shape - or at least in a habit of exercise. i just need to fight the temptation of collapsing on the couch and watching netflix/dvds as soon as i walk through the door... so hard to find that motivation these days.

oh well - i'm off to sleep now... all the exercise today did make me exhausted so that's a good thing for me :)
g'nite

Last week was good - I spent Wednesday to Saturday hanging out with the grade 12 students in New York - it was great to experience the city through their eyes. I have decided to go back in August to actually see the city for myself - but this was a great introduction (the 9 hours last summer not withstanding)... Sunday I got to hang out with Brandon and Danielle - they joined me in church and then we went for lunch - it was great to catch up - I haven't seen either of them in a long while.
The rest of the week has been interesting... I finally had time to come crashing down from the stresses of the play and the exhaustion of New York and have been feeling a little tired and blah and alone in this city.

Lately I've been noticing that God fills my life with what I need to know or needed to be reminded of. Bible passages that are read in church are repeated in chapel and then again in homeroom. Songs pop into my head that fit the situation. This has been the song of the week... it seems that whenever the lonely has been creeping in this song pops in my head and fills the void...

Never Once by Matt Redman

Standing on this mountaintop
Looking just how far we’ve come
Knowing that for every step
You were with us

Kneeling on this battle ground
Seeing just how much You’ve done
Knowing every victory
Was Your power in us

Scars and struggles on the way
But with joy our hearts can say
Yes, our hearts can say

Never once did we ever walk alone
Never once did You leave us on our own
You are faithful, God, You are faithful

Kneeling on this battle ground
Seeing just how much You’ve done
Knowing every victory
Was Your power in us

Scars and struggles on the way
But with joy our hearts can say
Yes, our hearts can say

Never once did we ever walk alone
Never once did You leave us on our own
You are faithful, God, You are faithful
You are faithful, God, You are faithful

Scars and struggles on the way
But with joy our hearts can say
Never once did we ever walk alone
Carried by Your constant grace
Held within Your perfect peace
Never once, no, we never walk alone

Never once did we ever walk alone
Never once did You leave us on our own
You are faithful, God, You are faithful

Every step we are breathing in Your grace
Evermore we’ll be breathing out Your praise
You are faithful, God, You are faithful
You are faithful, God, You are faithful

You are faithful, God, You are faithful
You are faithful, God, You are faithful

update: it is 2:22 am and i have figured out how to consolidate so the email address i use most often is now associated with this blog - perhaps this means i will update more since i don't have to remember what other combination of things i have to do...

life is going well - very busy - but still going well...
it's 2 am and i am currently wide awake - it has been a stressful couple of weeks with the play and now that it's over my body still can't figure out how to stop the constant flow long enough to sleep despite the fact that i now have time during the day to figure it all out. i leave for nyc with the grade 12s super early on wednesday so that should be fun - especially pumped for seeing phantom on broadway - which means i get to cross see a musical on broadway off my bucketlist... woot!
my goal is to get back into blogging more regularly - but i may have to change my blog title as i'm sick of having to sign in to this account when i can just associate something with another email address which seems easier - unless i can figure out how to switch this one over...
i hope all is well with the 2 people that read my blog :)

so 2011 is ending in like 3 hours... it has been an odd year.
here's to 2012 being a little less odd..
have a good evening everyone who reads this...

I'm sitting in Starbucks yet again... attempting to write my final research proposal paper for this course I'm taking... I'm thinking that I may move to school later where I can stretch out on a couch and write without being able to access facebook or blogs or youtube or netflix or really anything fun...
There are 2 weeks left in school before Christmas break and I'm looking forward to the break. I'm not really looking forward to the end of the semester - I am seriously going to miss my grade 9 music class... they are such a cool bunch of kids. The grade 10 drama class is also fun - but not in the same way. I still feel like I have no idea what I'm doing sometimes in that class... whereas in music I'm confident that I'm doing a good job.
Christmas concert is on Wednesday - I'm not feeling ready on that front either... the music is - the rest is not... I need to learn how to deligate more... Guess I'll have to try that next year...
Oh well - off to somewhere more comfortable than this chair... Will return later - when this paper is complete :)

it's been a while.
ghana was fantastic - it was such a cool experience to just learn west african drumming and dancing in west africa. the group i went with was really cool - about 20 of us - 3 canadians the rest from mostly north eastern states and then one from florida, tennessee, and louisiana. i don't even really know how to get into the experience still and be able to sum it up in a few words because i would need a really long post, but i did will 100$ in a photo contest - i'll post that picture here soon.
i started at my new school in ottawa in september - went to a staff retreat 3 days after returning from ghana and it's been a whirlwind ever since.
i head to school most mornings by 8 - do devotions with my gr 12 homeroom and then prep until 1130 when i start band or choir, then i teach drama, then music, then prep some more. i return home around 4 or 5 and then start work on my masters... it's busy - hard to meet people - but i'm slowly finding my way around this city...
currently i have a paper due in 5.5 hours and i should have finished it on wednesday but it just doesn't seem to be writing itself... i should get back at that now...