Hello World!

I sure have been having a great couple of days so far this week. I have been substitute teaching for one of the other teachers in the LEAP program, and it has been great getting to know all of the students who are studying in level four in our English program. I hope they have been enjoying my classes! Anyway, it's over now, and it's back to normal for me . . .

It has been so hot in Calgary! It always amazes me when it gets to be above 30 degrees in Alberta. I never really associate Canada with hot weather. I have been dying at night because it is so hot. Luckily I have two fans that I blow onto my bed from different directions. I sort of lie in the crossfire of my fans and imagine myself sleeping inside of a fridge. It kind of helps. It is just that the fans are so noisy that I need to use ear plugs to block them out. It's too bad that Calgary can't be an even 20 degrees all year round. That would be awesome!

One thing I like about the summer is Calgary is the long evenings. I wonder if any of my students did anything special for the summer solstice. The sun didn't set until almost 10 pm. I celebrated by going to Banff and hiking up Tunnel Mountain. It was amazing to be out hiking at 9 pm with the sun still high in the sky.

Anyway, I am going to lie down in front of my fan now . . .

Stay cool!

Happy Father's Day!

I'm soooooooooo exhausted today. It was Father's Day yesterday, and my mum and dad came over to my house to celebrate. It was great having my parents over, but the problem was that my house was incredibly messy, so I had to spend all day Sunday cleaning it. By the time I was finished cleaning the house, I was really tired. Then on top of being tired from cleaning the house, my parents arrived an hour early. I hadn't even begun cooking dinner. My parents were supposed to come over to my house at 6 pm, but they actually came over at 5 pm. Anyway, I made a big dinner for everyone. I cooked a lamb roast on the barbecue. It was delicious. I love lamb, even if I do feel bad sometimes for eating a baby sheep. I also made lots of vegetables. We had peas, carrots, zucchini, red peppers, green peppers, yellow peppers, mushrooms, and potatoes. Yum. There were lots of vegetables left over after dinner, so maybe I over did it a bit. I guess the best part was the lamb, because that was all eaten. We ate the lamb in the traditional English style with mint sauce. It was really good!

My dad also gave me two presents yesterday. It was funny because I was supposed to give him a present, and instead he gave me some presents. I got a metal thing for holding wood for my fireplace, and I got an old map of London that my grandfather had brought over to Canada when he emmigrated from England. It's a really cool map, and my dad got it framed and everthing. If I remember, I'll take a picture and post it on my blog. Anyway, I really want to sleep now . . . but I have to go and mark essays. If I don't give my students their essays back tomorrow in class there might be a revolution!

Look at the funny cartoon that Sally sent me!

Sometimes I feel exactly like this . . . please leave me some comments :-)

What should I do about my garbage?

It happened again! My garbage was strewn all over the back alley behind my house. Somebody keeps opening my black garbage bags and throwing my stuff all over the place. It is really starting to get annoying because there is nothing more gross than picking up decaying banana peels and used paper towels. It's not just be either. This is happening to my neighbours too. The problem is that I think I know who it is, and I really feel bad for them. You see, I live in Kensington, and we get a lot of homeless people walking up and down our back alleys picking through the garbage. Most of them are looking for bottles and cans so they can take them to the bottle depot and get the deposit money for them. The reason I get frustrated with homeless people ripping apart my garbage is that I NEVER put bottles or cans in the garbage. I always put all my bottles and cans into clear blue plastic bags so that everyone can see what is inside of them. I then put my bottles and cans into the alley so that they can be picked up by whoever wants them. Usually my bottles and cans are gone within an hour or two. I guess there is such heavy competition for these bottles and cans that people are driven to ripping open people's garbage to see what they can find.

Anyway, I guess my point is that it is terrible that there are so many homeless people in Calgary when we are supposed to be going through an economic boom. Currently the Alberta government has a surplus of billions of dollars every year, but we don't seem to be able to solve the problem of homelessness. In fact, the problem is getting worse and worse. I just read that the average price of a home in Calgary is over $350,000. How many people can afford that? Also, because so many people are moving to Calgary every month (last I heard there are 20,000 new Calgarians every month!) there are getting to be less and less apartments available for rent. Rents are starting to get very expensive. Thus, even people with jobs can barely afford to rent an apartment. Something has to be done. My garbage is just one symptom of a big problem that is facing our city.

My Students are going to be Stars!

It was so cool yesterday, a television crew came to my class and did some filming for Access Television. Okay, i guess it is really local television, but it is still kind of cool. Initially, I thought they were going to be taping me teaching the class, so the night before I bought a new shirt and I got my haircut. However, I guess I didn't need to go to all that trouble, because I wasn't filmed at all. Instead they interview some of the students, and also taped them while they worked on a worksheet. Phew, I'm glad I had some worksheets in my binder. Anyway, I still can't wait until I can see all of my students on TV. I guess the show will be coming out this summer on channel 13. I guess I'll have to find another opportunity to become a big TV star . . .