Halifax

Dad and I were walking along the waterfront in Halifax this afternoon, and it was beautiful enough to take a picture of, so I guess I have something to blog!
And while I'm at it, here are some favourite photos of hummingbirds I took last time I was at Grammie's house. I have to say, you really need to have a lot of patience and a good chunk of free time to get a clear shot. Those buggers move fast!

Summer in Halifax is great. I finished one week of full-time teaching last week, but I'll be down to part time for the rest of June. I'll be happy to have a lighter workload of grading and lesson planning! Other than that, my big news to report is that I bought my Olympics tickets yesterday. The website was open at 2pm, and you were put into a virtual waiting room to be randomly selected to be able to buy tickets. I had to wait about an hour, but got on in time to get almost all the tickets I wanted. Of course, this was the second phase, so the cheap seats for the big events like the Opening Ceremonies and figure skating were long gone, and I couldn't bring myself to plunk down $500 to watch the Pairs short program. I ended up buying a ticket to the Victory Ceremony three nights; medals, flags, anthems and a concert! Plus I'll be going to three events; women's hockey (Canada vs Switzerland), women's halfpipe snowboarding finals, and doubles luge. I might try to get figure skating or speed skating tickets later on. I booked my hostel bed, so the whole thing won't be too expensive, and I planned it for the week of study/reading days at university, so the timing is perfect. I'm so excited, I love the Olympics more than anyone else I've ever met (well, Carole's a tie!)

Week in Ontario

Well, it's been a while since my last post, I know. Jill suggested that I blog, though, so here it is! My posts may be sporadic over the summer just because I'm in Nova Scotia now and the majority of my readers are probably hearing my news from me or via the family gossip line. Here are some pictures from my week in Ontario, including brunch with the family, days wandering the Art Gallery and the Royal Ontario Museum, and Niagara Falls with Louise.
The new skyline with that amazing cube building on the left.
Always my favourite section at the ROM (or any other museum), the fine jewelry.
A new favourite section: cultures from around the world, including this South African beaded doll.
Beautiful graffiti
The new look of a favourite mall in Thornhill, Promenade
Sitting in a giant chair at the Ripley's museum. Not quite sure what it was, but they said it was a photo opportunity so...
The Falls
As for my summer so far in Nova Scotia, it's been great! My latest news would be that I joined the gym so I can do my favourite fitness classes that I loved in Taiwan and Sydney. Also today I found out that my Hollywood in Halifax camp I was supposed to direct is officially cancelled. Thankfully I've had a few weeks to get used to the idea (we had only a few students register), and I think this will make for a better summer. I'm starting substitute teaching on Monday, full time for a week and then part time for all June (a writing class!) It will be nice getting the experience with university aged students and the pay is better than camp, with fewer hours and weekends free. I guess the only other news is that it is freezing in Halifax this weekend, around 8 degrees Celcius today. Brr.

Almost Finished

Only a weekend left in Edmonton! Thankfully I have a road trip to some national park called Elk Island (to see Elk, Bison, etc.) and a free K-Os concert to keep me occupied. I am so looking forward to my week in Toronto, especially seeing Michelle, Aunt Carole & Bill, playing tourist with Louise and spending all day wandering the ROM and AGO. Oh, and just travelling is good enough for me... put me on a plane! As for the flu pandemic, it's not on my mind at the moment, and I don't think I'll be wearing a mask on the plane. I am glad that I thought to buy that Nectarine Mint antibacterial hand gel when I was last at Bath and Body Works, though!

Anyway, these last few weeks have been pretty intense school-wise, including preparing for my very first presentation at an academic conference (well, we were co-presenters). It was the Alberta TESL mini-conference and my pronunciation instructor spoke about how to teach pronunciation and then each of the students in my class spoke for 5-10 minutes about some successful tasks we used in out tutoring sessions this semester. I think we all did a great job, and I was thankful that, as Carole pointed out, we were forced to get over our fear of public speaking at as teenagers. I felt anticipation but no nerves, and I trusted my memorization to remember what I was supposed to say. Anyway, this is our pronunciation class after the presentation, and also my closest friends in the TESL program:
Dr. Tracey Derwing, Miao, Me, Sabine, Amy, Bonnie & Jun

The nice thing about all the hard work this semester is that it paid off! And, since I don't think anyone from the UofA reads this, I think this is a safe place for one sentence of bragging? I got an A+ in Teaching Pronunciation and in my Education Research class, and an A- in my Statistics class! I was relieved with the stats grade (I didn't understand 90% of what the professor said) and really proud of the research grade because it was such a difficult class. Of course, grades really don't matter that much, but at least I'm leaving the opportunity open if I want to go for a doctorate ten years down the road.

Anyway, this week has been one giant to-do list. I've crossed almost everything off, including handwashing all my winter sweaters, going for a physical at the student health centre (I just walked in: convenient and free) and figuring out the Canadian tax system. I'm celebrating my first free "nothing-that-I-should-be-doing" afternoon by watching Funny Face.
If you haven't seen Funny Face in a while, I highly recommend renting it and singing along: it's such a cheerful movie. I was also considering Roman Holiday, but that always makes me melancholy at the end.

Last random thing to report: the opera. This week I went to see La Traviata by the Edmonton Opera Company. I splurged a bit and sat in the very front row, centre, about six inches to the left of the conductors head. It was worth it! I felt like I was the only person in the audience, I could see every expression and the voices were so much more intense than they are from the speakers in the second balcony. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of the second balcony and obstructed view seats- I would never have been able to see all of the arts performances I've seen around the world if I had to pay full price! Next year they are putting on Rigoletto, Othello and the Pirates of Penzance, and I'll be back to the nosebleed section where starving students belong.

I was thinking I should put a clip of the opera on here, and this is one I stumbled upon. The song is an aria from La Traviata, but the Muppets make it more interesting!

Calgary Tower

Last set of overdue pictures from the weekend in Calgary. We had a gorgeous dinner in the revolving restaurant atop Calgary Tower. The longer days of spring meant that we arrived in sunlight at 8pm and watched it set before we left a few hours later.

The food was incredible too. When I saw that "Digby scallops" were on the menu, I had to order them. There was something very surreal about eating them in such glamorous surrounds compared to the "charm" of Digby, NS where they came from (that's where camp was last summer, and I have many fond memories of scallops by the Bay of Fundy). Yes, there are only three scallops on my plate... a reminder to eat slowly.
And crème brûlée for dessert! Obviously that's my friend Amy in the picture with me, she's one of the few students who started the program full-time in the fall with me.
The weekend passed quickly, but it was a great first introduction to Calgary.

More of Calgary

Here are the pictures of the hotel. It might not seem like something worthy of it's own blog post, but you have to remember that I often sleep in a bunk bed in a shared room at a dingy youth hostel. The only hostel in Calgary was $30 a bed, so I ended up convincing Amy that if we put that $60 towards a real hotel room, it would be worth it. The Fairmont Palliser downtown had an amazing deal, and the location was perfect (that's the hotel and the Calgary tower in the picture above).
The lobby had a great marble-and-warm-lighting kind of atmosphere.
And the room was "cozy" with all the nice toiletries and cushy bathrobes.
I also loved the pool! (though I didn't take this picture)

I really should be studying for finals, but it's more fun to put up pictures from my weekend trip to Calgary. Overall it was a nice weekend away with my friend Amy, and the highlights were the zoo, dinner at the revolving restaurant in the tower and staying at an elegant hotel downtown. Oh, and Denny's for breakfast, but that's just cause it brought back memories of childhood roadtrips in the States with my family!

Anyway, for today, some pictures from the zoo. I really enjoy zoos, and Calgary's was small enough to walk around in a couple of hours with a pretty good range of animals. If you've ever been to the zoo with me, you know I've developed a bit of a fixation with monkey exhibits in my adult life. Picture from Ebay where an unloved Gundy is selling for $115 USD!

Who knows why- Mom thought maybe it was because Carole and I had much loved identical stuffed monkeys named Gundy and Mindy (yes, Gundy comes from the brand name Gund, and Mindy rhymes with it). My orange Wrinkles slippers were named "pumpkin" and "pie", and due to an inability to reach a compromise, both Carole and I named our polar bears "Pola." Good thing we developed some creativity later in life!

Anyway, as for the real monkeys, four of the species had adorable babies born within the last three months. And, of course, I took pictures.
The one above is my favourite. A bit alien-looking but so cute when she ran around.
The spider monkey is above, and the one below was so tiny, the babies head seemed about the size of a quarter.
Of course, there were other animals too.



More to come tomorrow (that is, if I survive the statistics exam...)

Still here

I'm still alive and in Edmonton. All I can think about is my schoolwork that has to be finished over the next few weeks and my trips to Toronto and Halifax for the summer. Especially now that spring has come to Alberta, it just makes me want to jump on a plane. But first I have to finish this beast of a research report. It was quite discouraging Wednesday when I realized I had written 20 pages and had only done the appendixes, references list and title page. If you're wondering why I start with the stuff people usually do last, it's because I like to get the "easy" stuff out of the way and have the satisfaction of crossing four things off my to-write list. For example, writing the "meat" today took the whole day for six pages. Yikes- it feels like wading through mud. I'm hoping that if I work non-stop tomorrow I can finish most of it so I can relax a bit on Easter Sunday. And then I have Monday for final proof-reading. I'm learning a lot- did I mention that? It's slow going because it actually requires thought (instead of just typing whatever comes into my head and relying on my writing ability to make it sound intelligent even if it isn't). I don't know if anyone would be interested, but here are the research hypotheses (which condensed, means I'm looking at ways that teaching and classroom management affect classes like Carole's where all the kids just talk in Turkish instead of listening or participating in English :)
Among Turkish Preparatory Year students in English language classes, the higher the quality of teaching that the teacher provides and the more collaborative the teacher’s approach to classroom management, the less the unsolicited use of the first language in the classroom. This effect will occur because the higher the quality of teaching the teacher provides and the more collaborative the teacher’s approach to classroom management, the greater the students’ perception of class robustness will be, and the greater the perception of robustness, the less the unsolicited use of the first language in the classroom. However this relationship between perception of class robustness and unsolicited use of the first language will be larger for students with high self-efficacy in the class than for students with low self-efficacy.