Photos will be back...soonish

Agh, my blog is suffering from lack of visual..ness again! Why? Because I'm using my brand new computer and I haven't uploaded any photos as of yet. Plus, I want to take some new photos displaying the beauty of Spring 2010 and put them up.

Dine Out Vancouver is happening right now and I really want to go and eat some tasty food! All three (well-priced) courses of it :) Vancouver is full of some fantastic restaurants, some of them in obvious locations and others hidden away, just waiting to be discovered. I don't eat out very often so when I do, I like to go for something special - flavourful, properly cooked, and made of high quality ingredients. Mmmm, thinking of food is making me want to eat a second dinner :) Speaking of flavourful, high quality ingredients - today I ate pita pizza for dinner for the third day in a row, eek! On the plus side, I had some healthy zucchini soup along with it...but really, three days of pizza (even if it's homemade) is a bit much.

Are there any foods that you could eat every single day without ever getting sick of them? I never get tired of my delicious oatmeal. I also like nuts, bread, brie, and soup ever so much :)

Mmmm, yummy food... :)

Cheerio!

An addition has been made...

...and it happens to be a gorgeous new computer! It was definitely time for the old one to gracefully retire (before exploding completely...or just crawling to a permanent stop). Now I have a lovely Mac with a ginormous screen (and it's the smaller of the two options!!) and way more desk space.

This weekend was chock full of chores. Mostly shopping-type chores. And hopping on over to the bakery :) I got more ESL books so now my resource collection is almost completely complete. Oh, and I indulged and got the first volume of the Glee soundtrack. Not the kind of music I normally listen to but, kind of surprisingly, I've really been enjoying the show and I like all the theatricality and modern choir sounds. Plus, it's just oodles of fun and I can use it in class. Yup, for educational purposes.

It was quite sunny and warm today, so I strolled around admiring all the flowers that are blooming so beautifully right now. My neighbourhood is bursting with gorgeous colours - it's such a treat!

Well, hopefully I can figure out a lot of the fantastic features on this lovely computer. I'm sure it's very useful in addition to being pretty :)

Cheerio!

It's Friday?!

Wowza, time has flown by like a hummingbird this week!! It was a really fun week, filled with laughs and surprises and (hopefully) some learning and a field trip to Whole Foods :) The students seemed to like it and they completed their shopping list + write down some new foods you'd like to try assignments but they agreed that it's uber expensive (as everything tends to be in Vancouver). I also showed a couple of DVDs at the end of the week - one class watched a hilarious episode of Fawlty Towers (such a great show! John Cleese always makes me laugh with enthusiasm :) ) and another class watched a bit of Wallace and Gromit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit, a lovely and also hilarious film.

So I've been teaching for a month now! Crazy! It feels good, I'm really loving it. And I haven't laughed quite this hard in a long time - it's beautiful how even when a bunch of people come from different places and don't really understand each other easily they can come together and bond and laugh...a lot :) Hooray :) Seriously, the students in my classes are so sweet and funny and wonderful it makes it seem like this isn't really work at all - it's too fun to be work :)

In other news, I might buy a new desktop computer this weekend. The one I have now is, oh, a decade old. It's pretty ancient and getting to be completely un-usable. So I want to buy a nice Mac :) I've done some research on the internet and will head on over to an Apple store tomorrow. Eek.

Do you enjoy buying technological gadgets and things or is it something that you avoid?

Happy weekend!!

Weekend over...

...and it was oodles of fun :) I went to Vancouver and found a neat little Russian store (filled with sooo much chocolate!), also bought some good ESL resource books for 30% off. I love buying books on sale. Well, I just love buying books in general, but getting them on sale brings an extra layer of satisfaction :)

Today I got to soak up lots of sunshine and I finally played tennis, hooray! The tennis courts were packed with eager players, it was awesome. I tried to go to the beach later but there were no parking spaces and it was just way too busy - no room to walk!

Alrighty, it's time for some sleeep. Oh, I tried homemade pizza baked on panini bread today - it was delicious! Lots of mushrooms and red onion, yum yum.

Sweet dreams!

Hooray for the Weekend!!

Ahhhhh. How splendid to sleep in, relax, and have a leisurely day. It's dark and gloomy at the moment...and I think it will probably rain...but that doesn't put a stop to a fun day :)

Yesterday was absolutely gorgeous and summery. I took my D block class on a bit of a field trip. We had a lovely walk by the water, surrounded by magnolia trees, flowers, and boats (and people walking their dogs!). The last stop was Granville Island but we didn't have enough time to explore it much, which was fine by me because I'm directionally challenged and would have gotten us lost :)

After school, I met up with a friend who just recently returned from Panama. She was there for many months and I missed her a lot, so it was wonderful to catch up over tea and share our adventures.

The best part of dinner last night was a creamy zucchini soup. There was no cream in it - just the magic of an immersion blender. I looove soups with a thick texture. Watery soups just don't do anything for me :)

Cheerio and have a magical weekend!

A Gorgeous Spring Day

Wow, I need to whip out my camera and take some photos - it is sooo beautiful outside! After all the recent storms, wind, hail, coldness, power outages all this sunshine feels fantastic!

The week is flying by - a blur of textbooks, photocopies, classrooms, sandwiches, mountain views, buses, newspapers, and students' bright faces :) Seriously though, I can't believe how quickly time goes by these days! Perhaps I need to do some grounding exercises :)

Today at lunch time one of the teachers was telling us about a class he used to teach called the Book Club class. He would choose a simple novel (like a Roald Dahl book, or other children's books such as Charlotte's Web, Anne of Green Gables, etc.) and each student would be assigned a character. So everyday they would read the book aloud, with every single student playing one of the parts. That sounds like my dream class! Teaching + reading + acting + children's literature = oodles of fun! I hope one day I get to teach a class like that :) Well, at this point I'm just hoping I'll be given the chance to keep teaching for a long time :)

Today I also learned something interesting from my Korean students - April 14 is Black Day in South Korea. Traditionally, people who are single (as in they have not found their other half just yet :) ) eat noodles with black bean sauce on this day and it's kind of sad. On Wikipedia it says that single people get together and celebrate their singledom, but my students made it sound like a less-than-happy event. It sounds like everyone wants to get married :)

Do people in North America celebrate their singledom? I think for the most part people prefer not to be single, but we do have a lot of individual freedom and it's okay to be single as well. Although men are seen as attractive bachelors while women quickly become old maids. Anywho, time for me to eat a nice, juicy orange :)

Cheerio!

A Little Bit of Procrastination...

Here I am, sitting on the edge of my seat...ready to type up some lesson plans but not really delving in just yet :) The past weekend was glorious - so warm, sunny, and wonderfully relaxing! I went to the beach and it was absolutely packed. I didn't mind, I love seeing people enjoying themselves outdoors and I'm glad to be part of the fresh air bunch :) It's much more fun than being a TV watching mole person :) Not that I don't watch my share of quality television sometimes...

Monday mornings can feel a bit rusty since it's all about getting back into the swing of things - the routine of your regular work. I feel so lucky to have lovely teachers around me. Hanging out in the teachers' lounge and chatting away while admiring a gorgeous ocean + mountain view = loads of good fun and laughs :) I also take my breaks there and it helps so much to take that breather between classes, connect with other teachers, and re-focus for the next class. I find that just about any experience is way better when you share it with somebody. Treading a new path on your own can be difficult, but going on an adventure with lots of friends beside you feels much better. Of course, there are some tasks that we have to tackle on our own. Like making a perfect sandwich :) But really, independence and self-sufficiency are super important too.

Ramble, ramble, ramble...see what procrastination can do?! I'm in need of some focus right now, methinks!

Do you find Mondays to be more difficult than other work days? Or is it all pretty much the same?

Happy Monday!