I am savouring my fleeting holiday, and learning to appreciate the fresh wet reality of B.C Christmas's. Snow and ice are in short supply, which means noone wastes time thinking about pond hockey, but squash courts are easy to come by, and James and his bro's spent the morning playing squash and having male bonding time. James' mom (whom I will now be referring to as just plain "mom" ) and I had our bonding time while knocking off all the items on our lists at the nearest mall. It was fun.
Today has been the first sunny day, and on our way to pick up Ali from the airport, I fell in love again with the beauty of snow capped mountains, which had been obscured by cloud and rain up until now. The boys' capitalized on the weather, and the recent dump of powder on Mount Baker, and are currently spending the day skiing/snowboarding, and I'll venture to say carrying on their male bonding time. The girls (Leah, mom, Ali, and I) took a drive to Steveson (?) to take in the sites of a bustling harbour/fishing town, and to grab some fish and chips at the Blue Canoe. A very cute restaurant overlooking the water.
I've come to the realization that you simply cannot go wrong with fish and chips.
Although Christmas day is officially over, I feel like the party is just getting started over here. I consider Christmas more of a season anyways, which, fortunately, will not be over until I step back into my job on Monday morning. Until then, I am entitled (and expected) to eat frequently, play a lot of games, watch episodes of MadMen, and deliciously curl up at any time of the day to just read. It's a beautiful thing.
Tonight is family Christmas with the immediate Harskamp clan, which is going to be a lot of fun. Apparently there are some home videos of the fam worth watching, and I have to say, I'm excited to see what my husband was like at 5 years old. Something tells me not so very different. I say this from the experience of my own home videos, where a mini Ree at the age of 5 is incredibly telling of the person I am today. I find this very amusing. How is it that education and conditioning and being 20 years older still can't iron out my 5 year old mood swings?! I'm no emotional roller coaster or anything, but I'm still the Ree I was at 5. That's a fact.
Anyways, I'm looking forward to the next few days, one of which will be spent having a family photo shoot downtown Vancouver and going to Science World. That's right. I married a scientist, and this is the price I have to pay :) But I am really looking forward to it.
And now, I am looking forward to my book.
Merry Christmas everyone!
Monday, December 27, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Niagara Falls--free B & B!
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
I am close to the end.
Two days until I am deprived of my "2 job" status and lumped in with normal people who work one job full time.
A moment to reflect:
Columbia International College was awesome.
Things that were awesome:
Teaching students from Nigeria, Kazakhstan, Senegal, China, Vietnam, Russia, and Korea.
Learning how to say "hello, how are you?" in every one of those languages.
Having my eyes opened to my student's realities, and what life is like for a foreign student
Reading Romeo and Juliet for the first time
Hearing my students heatedly debate the rules of war
Student papers :) (broken English cracks me up)
Getting a good taste of this career
Tomorrow is a study day, and Thursday they write their final exam. Then they move on to Grade 11 English and I never see them again. I don't get to see if they ever change their minds about the importance of money. I don't know if they ever go back home again, or if they end up settling here in Canada. Which ones will make it into their top universities? I have my guesses, but I'll really never know.
Strange to be so involved in a kids life every morning for 9 straight weeks, and then they drop off the face of the earth. I know it's just a part of life, and not really all that unique to teaching, but I think that because the volume of people that come and go through a classroom is higher than most other places, it seems like a bigger deal.
Oh well.
Good luck to them all!
Only two weeks until Christmas holidays!!
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