Sunday, November 20, 2011

Hugs Not Drugs

Christmas break is fast approaching. Claire and I are busy getting the grade 8s ready for their Christmas play. Last week we finished midterm exams for the grade 9s and all did pretty well.
Last week was also National Aboriginal Addictions Awareness Week (NAAAW). It is designed to raise awareness over the growing percentage of drug/alcohol/tobacco use among Aboriginals. The entire school, save the grade 9s who were writing exams, created posters and walked them to the Band Office, which took about 45 minutes. It was pretty cool seeing over 200 students in a parade fashion going through the street of Deer Lake. Along the way, people were coming out of their houses to take pictures and read the signs. There were some pretty neat posters. "Hugs not drugs!" "For every cigarette, there is a nicorette" "I'd rather eat bugs than do drugs"

A couple ironic parts along the walk. First, we were passing one house that had a homemade sign advertising cigarettes for $5. Second occured at the Band Office. While the students were entering the door they had to pass the 5 or so people (including some councillors) smoking outside the building.

The mercury is quickly dropping as we are experiencing minus-15 to -20 days. It seems cold, but not really that bad yet. Maybe it is because we know the worse is still coming.

On a sad note, we had to put a puppy down today. Missy, the amazing dog who has been unofficially adopted by Amanda and was around the teacherages since we arrived last year, had a litter (11) of puppies last May. Only 1 was left and disappeared last week. When he finally returned he could barely walk and had lost too much weight. Amanda tried to nurse him back to life, but made the difficult decision that a quick death was the best option. I asked our Education Director to come by and help put the dog down. Not something I want to do twice in life.

I had my dad send up a box of dog food for Edgar because we were running a little short. It took one day shy of two weeks to go from St. Catharines to Deer Lake, so not that bad at all. When it arrived, the Postal Worker warned me that it didn't arrive in perfect condition. Here are some pictures of the parcel.
















My dad figured the box must have sat in a warehouse and some mice or rats smelled the food inside. I don't think Edgar is going to notice a difference.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Out for a Walk!!

Today has been a nice relaxing day. We really haven't done much of anything. Greg and I prepared our midterms for next week and tomorrow we will run over to the school quickly and photocopy them. This evening we decided to go out for a walk and Edgar wore his new coat and boots for the first time. It is hilarious watching him walk in his boots because one they are a little to big for him and two he just trips all over the place and is doing a lot of face plants. It is so funny to watch. Enjoy some pictures from out walk.





Wednesday, November 2, 2011

The Fifth Estate

For those interested, this Friday's episode of CBC's The Fifth Estate is featuring several of our students from last year. They are showing a documentary of the challenges facing Northern Ontario's First Nation teenagers in their attempt to complete high school. I believe it is on at 9:00 pm (EDT).

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

A Sign of the Times

Wow! November is already here, as October flew by. It has been a busy month. With Julia gone, the fundraising is being completed entirely by the two of us (with the help of the staff). We are organizing all of the events. This month we had two Bingos, two Flea Markets, Cake Auction, Haunted House, and a Adult Dance. In total we have fundraised more than $3,500 in just 4 weeks.

We welcomed November with a beautiful day. The high was probably around 5 degrees celsius with a wonderful sun. If I had had the grade 9s in the afternoon for gym, we would have gone outside for some baseball. Obviously the weather won't last, but we are enjoying it all the same. The lack of sunlight in the morning is quite annoying. It has been getting hard to get up in the morning with it pitch black outside. The time shifting will help, but it only means we have less sunlight after school. We aren't quite ready for that yet (walking home from school with the sun already set), but you can't have it both ways.


While at the dance someone brought a costume in a bag. It was a basketball that was to be worn like a shirt. I thought the instructions/cover was different. See if you can notice:



I remember the slogan used to say, "One Size Fits All." Apparently all was incorrect. Might sound stupid, but I thought it was a little funny/sad.