Pretty Uneventful Weekend

I spent my second last weekend in the country doing pretty casual uneventful stuff. Some of the "highlights" include:

- Stopping by Jude's place (my DP) to borrow her bike and lock (so I can start to pack mine away) and having a cuppa with her and her partner Tony (mom and dad - he wanted me to say "hi" to you folk!)

- Picking up a really cool and hip sweathshirt for dad as a souvenir (it was a good pick, dad!)

- Dropping in on the Highland dance championships that were being held at the convention centre here in Blenheim

- Spending Saturday evening at a 40th birthday party for a coworker (and drinking a few too many glasses of bubbles resulting in a pretty massive headache later that night)

- Doing more house cleaning in anticipation of the hand-over at the end of this week

- Doing more packing/sorting in anticipation of my upcoming move home

- Visiting the NEW Recycling Centre for Marlborough and offloading all of my recycling from the past 8 weeks (YES! As of recently, Marlborough opened up a new and improved recycling centre that is now a "one-stop-shop" for all of your recycling needs! And we have my running friend, Willy, to thank for this since she worked on this project.)


Oh yes... and how could I forget? This weekend was the school formal which meant the girls' college and the boys' college met up in fancy attire at the Marlborough Convention Centre and had a fun night of dinner and dancing on Friday night. I thought the dresses this year were very tasteful and everyone looked fantastic! Apart from the DJ being a bit of a sleeze and the dinner having to be split into two settings (someone decided it would be a good idea to make the teachers have to wait for the second sitting), the rest of the evening was great. Here's a few pictures to remember it by:

Country Calendar

I think I may have already mentioned this in a previous blog post, but there is a fantastic tv show here in NZ called Country Calendar. For whatever reason, I love watching it. Kind of like for some strange reason, I love watching Bob Villa at home (I blame that one on my oldest brother, Mark, forcing me to watch it when I was younger and we were both still living at home).

Anywho... I've been seeing ads on tv for a DVD of The Best of Country Calendar. I have probably mentioned to a few people that I've been thinking about buying myself a copy to take home with me as a "souvenir".

Well, last night I had Tineke and Donna-Marie and Matt and Mat over for "coffee and cake". When Tineke and Donna-Marie arrived, they surprised me with a slightly belated birthday gift. In addition to receiving an Express Facial from the local salon, Exfoliate, they also gave me a copy of the Country Calendar DVD. Tineke went on to further explain that this wasn't just *any* best of disc (I was probably going to buy msyelf the 2008 edition), but it was THE best of disc - meaning it had some pretty old-school episodes on it that were sure to make me laugh.

Here's an example of just one of the clips from this DVD. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!...

Great Commercials

Here's a couple of really great commercials that have recently popped up on the small screen here in NZ. I think they are fantastic! They make me laugh so much. Each for their own reasons...

From Cadbury (they seem to have some really weird commercials here!)...



From Toyota (I absolutely LOVE this one!)...

Niagara Escarpment Challenge

One of my friends from highschool (Jack Van Dorp) has been posting some of the craziest status updates on Facebook that I've seen in a while. The progression (over several days) went as follows:

Solid first run, gearing up for #2! On track for Skinner's Bluff by 08.30!

2 stages down, 5 to go. starting to feel the hip flexors. Next run 2AM in the Beaver Valley.

3 stages down, 4 to go. Beaver Valley Felt Great, a bit tough to find the blazes on the ski hills.

Found a new weight loss program - down 5 lbs after 5 stages / 100+ km. quads are sore sore but everything else is in great shape. Next run is 25k in waterdown early this evening!

Stage 6: 24.1km in 2.09.23. Thanks Jesus, powerbar, and massage therapy for keeping things together. Going to sleep by a waterfall until 02.15 wakeup for a 4 AM stage near grimsby. We are through the hammer and on track to finish around 10 AM.

Last run yesterday, finished 08.15 in st catharines. wedding was awesome!

Home safe and mostly sound. In the final tally, he ran 135km of the 895km race, which took 3 days, 23 hours, and 25 minutes. go muscles! go mitochondria!

Thankful for real food! 4 days of Ibuprofen q4h, Bars, Gels, powders, and anything else with high caloric density kept me going, but wreaked havoc on my 'system'.


Totally perplexed about what on earth Jack could possibly be up to, a little Facebook stalking resulted in a link to a news article that explained it all:
http://www.owensoundsuntimes.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1611212

Sounds like a pretty cool challenge. Running the length of the Niagara Escarpment, 894km, in 5 days and nights, in teams of 10. And to top if all off, Jack arrived in Niagara just in time for a friends wedding. According to a news article that dad just sent me in an email today, Jack was still able to dance a few dances that night!

I'd love to give this a shot if they were to do this event again next year! Wonder how I go about signing myself up???... :)

Laura P is Pregnant!

Growing up, I was best friends with a girl named Laura Price. But given that she shared the same name as my sister, she inherently acquired the nick-name "Laura P" in my household. Seriously - every member of my family referred to her as (and still does for that matter) "Laura P". And if we weren't referring to her as "Laura P", we sometimes used the more affection term, "Pricey".

To make matters even more confusing, Laura P married a guy named Mike Neves. This is confusing because my sister, Laura E (yes, my family has often referred to my sister as Laura E just to keep things straight), married a guy named Mike Nevill. So technically, Laura P should now be called Laura N, but for obvious reasons that just won't work. Confusing enough for you? I thought so!

On my birthday I received an email from Laura P, containing the following bit of exciting news:

I also have some pretty exciting news to share... I'm preggers! June 12 is actually the exact three-month mark, so we're starting to spread the news now. I'm due December 17 but they say it could be 2 weeks either side of that, so I could have a Christmas baby or a my-birthday baby :) We'll just have to see. My parents are pretty excited and so are Mike's.

At her request, I held off posting about it until she had a chance to tell everyone that she wanted to. After logging into Facebook this morning, I noticed her brother, John's, status update read:

My sister is now "officially" pregnant (she was only "unofficially" pregnant before).

...to which I commented...

Woo hoo! so does this mean I can finally blog about it?? :)

Only to scroll down a bit further to find Laura's status update read:

Laura Price Neves is officially preggers. Ok Heather, you can blog now!

...to which I responded...

ooops! lol.... I read this after I read John's status update... blog entry is on it's way!

So... in case you can't tell, I'm super excited for Laura & Mike. Even more stoked that I get to be around for the lead-up to this one! Congratulations guys!

First Official Goodbye Tears

I experienced my first official set of "good-bye" tears last night at church. And it all started during communion.

It just so happened that when I went up for communion, Peter was the one serving me my wafer. After giving me my blessing he started to move sideways towards Donna Marie who was standing beside me, but paused and stepped back towards me. "Heather", he said. "Since this is the last communion I will be serving to you, I will take this opportunity to give my goodbye blessings". He then placed his hand on my shoulder and prayed for me. I don't remember his exact words but I do remember him saying something about thanking God for bringing me to Nativity and also something about me finding a new church back at home where I can continue to experience God's love.

Once again, I'm not really sure why, but I started to cry. And I knew I wasn't going to be able to hold it back. The tears welled as I took my cup from the other communion assistant and returned back to my seat. A few seconds later, Donna Marie sat back down beside me. Suprisingly, I discovered that she was in tears too. Crazy!

Upon reflection, I'm pretty sure that my tears were a result of my realization of where I have come to so far. I feel fortunate to have stumbled upon Peter and the Nativity Church and the growth and experiences I have had to-date. It brings me weepy joy to reflect upon this all and I can only hope that this journey continues for me when I get home.

When I realized that Donna Marie was moved by this moment in time, I cried even more because I was reminded of the great friends that I have made and will now have to say goodbye to.

Man... it's really starting to feel real. For someone who HATES goodbyes, I can only imagine how horribly painfully terrible these next 2 weeks are going to feel.

Anywho... on a slightly different note...

There is a controversial referendum taking place here in NZ about the "anti-smacking law" that was initiated last year. It is controversial for a number of reasons, one of which has to do with the cost, another having to do with the wording of the question. All households received the following flyer in the mail the other day explaining what it's all about.



Interestingly enough, this topic was addressed by Peter tonight on the pew bulletin (you can click on the image to enlarge it).



In some ways I feel that this pondering of thought summarizes why I have enjoyed my time following Peter and his words. I am so anti-fundamentalist, that I appreciate simple but important thoughts like this one: "keep your noses clean".

Countdown Is Really On Now...

Most of this weekend has been spent thinking about and preparing for my upcoming move home. I spent a good chunk of time on Saturday cleaning the house and preparing it for when Ray and Margaret get back in less than two weeks. I plan to leave the house even cleaner than when I moved in which means scrubbing toilets, vacuuming cob-webs, cleaning windows, and lots of dusting. I also took some time to mow the lawn and make it look nicely well-groomed. (side note: it's amazing how much satisfaction I feel when looking out the window at the fruits of my labour outside!)

In addition to all of this cleaning, I've also been working on the packing side of things. Although I did manage to send a good chunk of stuff home with mom and dad last year when they came to visit, I've certainly accumulated a whole lot more than what I originally came with. It is my mission to get everything back down to the exact size that I came with: one large suitcase, one small suitcase, and a bike box filled to capacity. We shall see if it all fits, and what the final weight ends up being! (I fear the overage fees on check-in at the airport!)

Part of this process involves me getting rid of stuff. I've been giving heaps away to people but also making use of the local online trading system here called Trade-Me. So far I've managed to sell my bed for $150 which was pretty sweet. I'm now working on selling off a whole slew of other items.

Saturday night I rewarded myself for all my hard work and headed out to Cornerstone to catch the Rugby game with Claire and Emily. It was an exciting game, and I was quite happy to be watching it from the warmth and shelter of the bar we were sitting in, as the weather in Wellington that night (where the game was held) strongly reminded me of the bone-chilling experience that Claire and I shared last year when we went to watch the Rugby live.

This morning I was up early and off to the Wither Hills with Grant to run the Mt. Vernon Grand Traverse - an 18km run sponsored by the local Harrier team. It was a very frosty start (even at 10am!) but the sun shone brightly the entire morning and it turned out to be some perfect racing conditions. I ran it in 2hours 5mins which was a slight improvement from my time last year. This time even includes a couple extra minutes lost when I took a wrong turn with several other competitors in the race. I pushed myself pretty hard and my muscles are definitely feeling it now. Well worth it indeed!

After the race, I rushed home for a shower, and headed back out to Raupo Cafe to meet up with Ken and Margaret Peacock. My co-worker, Peter, has been trying to arrange a meeting between us for several months now, after he discovered that Ken is also originally from Owen Sound. We finally touched base and shared a lovely afternoon tea together. It was great to hear their story and to reminisce about Owen Sound. Ken even brought along a copy of the OS Sun Times - something he subscribes to and has sent to him once a week (looks like OS is being hit by the Swine Flu too!). Apparently Ken & Marge lived out near Red Bay for nearly 10 years. They are also still good friends with Ross & Helen Boyce who live in the apartment building behind my old high school. I am supposed to look them up and say hi from the Peacock's when I get home. I look forward to doing this for them! Mom, dad?... Do you know these people? You seem to always know everyone in OS...

Nephew Updates

As of recently, I've been communicating on an almost daily basis with my sister, Laura. It's been wonderful actually. I've heard more from her in the past month than I did during the entire of last year.

With all this communication, I have learned lots about how little Mattie is progressing. Here's the latest two updates:

Update #1: Last night I would say that Matthew was walking more than he was crawling for the first time. He does kind of a mix, depending on what he feels like. Every day he walks a little more, but never on command. He is very slow and methodical and has a few pauses to catch his balance, but has not tried Nathan’s technique of walking with his hands up in the air, over his head.

Oddly enough, I got an email from mom (the day she was organizing my bday call) telling me the same thing with some added detail...
Hi Heather,
We will call you at 5:45 Friday your time which will be 1:45 Thursday our time. Will talk to you then. I was talking to Laura tonight and Matthew is walking all the time now. He walks a bit like Nathan did at first, like godzilla.
Love, Mom

To which I responded (and CCd Laura)...
Oh man! I have GOT to see that! Please send a video along!!!

To which Laura responded with...
I would have said it was more Frankenstein then Godzilla…

I can't wait to see all of my little nephews (and big ones now too!) when I get home. I hear from Anita that Nathan is talking lots now, and I can't even begin to imagine how tall Andrew must be now!

Update #2: You missed a rocking Smith family picnic on Sunday. At least Jenn was there to make it a little more interesting. Matthew had one of the most poopy diapers ever at it, and we just picked him up, chair and all and carted him to the bathroom where we gave him a bath in the bread bowl. Lots of fun.

Oh... sounds like fun. Glad it wasn't me having to deal with that mess!

Thanks for all the emails, buddy. I love you!

Happy Birthday To Me...

So far it's been a good day. Much better than the past few that's for sure. I still can't get over how much I'm struggling these days. I'm not sure what it is, but I'm fairly certain most of it relates to how unhappy I am at my job these days. I'm beyond sick of working with students that don't care and can pretty much get away with anything in my classroom (and at school for that matter) since the systems at the school I'm working at seem to have no consequences.

Alas... today has been a very good day so far. I took short Nic's recommendation and wrote "happy birthday to me" on my board right beside the date, and it has resulted in many birthday wishes from smiling students. It's amazing how excited they get about knowing that it's your birthday. And of course, I continue to have fun playing the "mystery game" and not tell them how old I am. I love hearing their guesses. Most guess me to be 24 or 25. Fantastic! I'll take it!

At this exact moment, I'm taking a break on my non-contact after marking my most recent Year 9 unit test. I'm grinning from ear to ear at the results. I'm soooo proud of how well they are doing now in this course. The last few unit tests have gone AMAZING. Very few people failing and heaps of girls getting nearly perfect. Todays' test had an average of 72% and it wasn't easy stuff - for those who care, it was on angles and using angle properties to find missing angles. This is a LONG haul from the start of the year where the first few tests (on basic topics like number skills and fractions) had average marks of 66% and 58%.

Another thing that I'm reflecting on right now is how much the behaviour in this Year 9 class has improved. As of recently, in an effort to keep my spirits lifted, I've been taking time to focus on the positive things that happen in my classes rather than the negative. To facilitate this, I've been jotting down 2 or 3 bullet points of things that I can say went well during each class. Thinking about my Year 9's and how *almost* beautifully they can sit and listen during my lesson as well as work at a tollerable noise level afterwards is mindblowing - enough to make me feel slightly ecstatic! Phew... We've certainly had some growing pains, but we're getting there. It is pretty darn satisfying seeing it come together with good marks.

On a different note... I woke up this morning to a phone call from mom and dad that we had prearranged last night. They wanted to chat with me on my actual birthday, and with the time-differences and my busy day, 5:45am my time was the only time that would work. It was great to chat with them and catch up. Thanks mom and dad. I love you!

Tonight I'm off to Hanmer Springs with Donna-Marie for a relaxing weekend away. We were meant to go last week with Tineke, but Donna-Marie was sick and Tineke is now tied up every weekend until after I leave, so we we are going just the two of us this weekend. Definitely looking forward to it. I certainly need the break.

Thanks to so many people for the happy birthday emails and Facebook messages. They are warmly received.

Swine Flu

It appears that the swine flu has made a comeback in the news as of recently here in NZ. According to the public health, it is now a matter of when (not if) the H1N1 virus appears in our community. As a result, our school has been required to develop a plan of action that we will follow should we have to close.

Below is a copy of the newsletter that we sent home with our students today, explaining our contingency plan. Oh... how sweet it would be if we had to close for two weeks! I'll start praying tonight!

Swine Flu Epidemic

MGC has received NOTIFICATION FROM MINISTRY OF EDUCATION & PUBLIC HEALTH:

At this particular time, all evidence suggests it will be a matter of when, rather than if, the Influenza A (H1N1) - Swine Flu virus appears in our community.

The Ministry of Health has urged schools and their communities to be prepared for a potential spread to the Swine Flu virus. Schools are particularly susceptible places for the spreads of viruses.

There is evidence to suggest that some basic measures will slow down the spread of viruses like influenza. In addition to potential school closure, these include basic but effective initiatives including:
• promoting basic hygiene measures like very regular hand washing (before anyone puts anything in their mouths)
• student and staff covering their coughs and sneezes
• Any students (and staff) with symptoms of possible influenza staying home until they are well
• If you are being kept home, for whatever reason, your parents or caregivers must inform the school immediately.

Girls with symptoms of possible influenza should stay at home until they are well.

Medical officers of Health have the authority to close schools if there is a significant spread of the virus in New Zealand.

In the event of the school being directed to close, this would happen very quickly. Girls would be sent home at the end of the school day and told not to return. The length of closure will depend on circumstances, but it would initially be for at least 7 days.

For this reason the school needs your CURRENT email address and home number so that if you need to be taught remotely we can send work to you.

If Marlborough Girls’ College is to be closed parents will be notified by e-mail (where possible) or through media releases via the Radio Network, The Breeze or More FM. Buses will run as normal on the day the school is closed.

MGC staff will communicate with students and parents in several different ways:
• Those on email (70% if the school) will receive electronic notification.
• All students during period 5 will be given a paper copy of instructions.
• For Years 9—10 this will also include a 7 day work pack of academic work if time allows.
• Local radio stations will carry updates of the closure.
• Years 11—13 students will be told by their teachers how to access work electronically.

SOOOOOO Cold!

It's really cold here. It has been for the past couple of weeks actually. Apparently this is not normal. I can't remember when the cold snap really hit last year, but apparently it's not typically supposed to be this cold until next month.

Brrrrrr... the prospect of coming home to a hot summer in Ontario is sounding even more inviting as the cold begins to seep into my bones. Only 4 more weeks to go today...

Another Running Buddy

Last night I went running with a friend of Tineke's. He's 40 years old and an ultra marathoner. I learned about him the other night when Tineke happened to mention that she has volunteered to support a friend's ultra marathon at the end of August. My response to her was "What?! You've got an ultra marathon running friend that lives in Blenheim that I don't know about???" So... needless to say, I made sure that I got connected with Grant just so that I could have one more running buddy to call on in the few short weeks that I've got left here.

I can't help but think about how cool it would have been to have met this guy sooner - he would have made an amazing running partner. Last summer he participated in a challenge/competition that was put on by a NZ magazine. The purpose of this challenge was to visit as many back-country DOC huts as possible in a designated period of time. I think he said that he managed to visit over 100 huts from November to March. Most of them he simply ran into and then ran back out in a day. Some days were over 10 hours long, but well worth it he said. I think this would be a fantastic thing to do when training for an ultra marathon. It all of a sudden changes endless kms of pointless running into some sort of achievable goal. It's one thing to go out and run for 50 or 80km, but it's a totally different story if you've got a destination and a purpose mixed with it!

Anywho... The run last night was great. We went running in the Withers with our torches (headlamps). It was great to get up to the hills - I've been missing them! It's just too hard to get to them without the use of a car anymore.

I think we are going to try making it out for a few more runs before I leave. I'm looking for any possible way to get some of this cellulite off my body!

Twitter

So I've joined Twitter. I have very little clue as to what it is, or what it does, but I hear it's all the rage. I created my account during a really boring ICT PD session today. Time well spent, I suppose!

So... my username is mathgeekgirl314 and that's about all I know. Oh wait... and within a few mins of joining, I received a message telling me that someone named pinkjill is "following" me. I have no idea who this person is, but apparently there is a button for me to press that blocks her if I feel the need to do so.

I have to say, as the years (or possibly even months!) go by, I feel more and more out of touch with technology. Looking back on my days at RIM where I proudly kept up with the latest and greatest technological advances, I am certainly nowhere near that state now. Nowadays, I find myself not even knowing how to use some of the basic functionality on my cell phone!

Crazy how times change...

GM Bankrupt

Got the following email from dad today:

The Canadian Dollar is at $.9166 US - the highest in ages. It is time to convert your Kiwi $.
Love,
Dad

PS General Motors US declared bankruptcy today OUCH! The government is helping to bail them out.

If only the kiwi $ related to the CDN $ in the same manner. The exchange rate is still quite dismal here on my end...

On a different note - it's CRAZY to think about the massiveness of what's happening to our economy these days. Wonder what's next to come... Will be interesting to see how it all pans out and when/how we start to rise up and out of this slump we are in.