A full tummy is a happy tummy!

And when that tummy is filled with sushi, it's an even happier tummy. Tonight's sushi was particularly yummy, and I even experimented with some fruit: a kiwi apple compote sushi and an apple apricot sushi. If my experiments turn out this well every time, I should go into business. Isa's Sassy Sushis... I think there are too many s's in there.

Onto school related stuff, my leadership class is becoming a wonderfully zany little family (complete with the crazy, always in a daze uncle/cousin/step brother, played by Sam in this case). There are coming up with really great ideas for school projects and it's contagious because when they get an idea, I invariable end up with a parallel idea to compliement or add on to theirs. Some of them are showing off a side of them you rarely, if never see and I'm hearing about it from people outside of school. For instance, 4 students from our class were sent to the schoolboard for a meeting, but arrived too early. They ended up helping the orgnizers with the younger kids. Apparently, according to our principal who was at the board at the same time, many adults were amazed by the degree of maturity and initiative the Beurling Acadmey students were showing. I shall pause here to smile and sigh contentedly.

*smile*
*sigh*

My students. My leadership class. Yeah, ok I'm a tad possessive about it... who wouldn't? So 3 cheers to Caitlin, Christine, Dave and Shibly who proved to the schoolboard that being from Beurling Academy does not make you ghetto. It makes you great.

Serenity and Sushi

I saw a commercial for it in French last night. It was a bit weird but it still made me smile and tingle.

Note to self: must send out email to the gang to go watch it on Saturday night. I'd go see it on Friday but it's sushi night, and that, friends, is most sacred.

And speaking of tingling my thighs are no longer that odd shade of purplish red... I never knew a soccer ball could sting so much, especially when kicked by Mr. "New-Zealand-All-Black" Beck...

Miss A.'s Leadership class

They are crazy... Just Dave and Sam alone can drive me absolutely batty... and if you add Britany and Caitlyn's enthousiam (among others!), I can wind up with a pretty roudy bunch.

But they are great, they are fantastic. They remind me of my drama class from 2 years ago, the group that presented Brownies to Die For. So even if they are sometimes (nay often) overly peppy, they still put a smile on my face and that makes my day.

By the by, we raised close to 680$ for Terry Fox Day and about 100$ for the Katrina Relief Fund (Red Cross). Pretty good amount raised considering that it's only the 3rd week of September. I didn't think that kids were this generous so early in the year.

Delay in updates

It has been a busy weekend... My Saturday was totally booked which meant that my Sunday was filled with much correcting and school prep. Bleh.

All I can say is that Terry Fox Day went really well. I think my leadership was great in supervising and helping. I'll post some pictures by tomorrow *crosses fingers*

Meanwhile, I am playing catch up with work...Tag, I'm it.

Mother Nature, have we pissed you off?

OK. I can understand 30 degrees celcius (with a humidex factor of 36) being somewhat normal for June, but we are now close to mid September and this is the 2nd 30 degree day (once agian, in celcius, for you non-metric folks). And there is a humidex AND smog warning to boot? And we all know how biatchy I can get when stuck in a classroom with these conditions...

...so this makes me wonder how badly we have fudged up our planet to get such warm weather in September.

Just so you know, when asked the question do I prefer this heat to 3 feet of snow, I will always answer snow. You might not even finish the friggin' question, and I will answer snow. You can always add a layer when you're cold, but you can't take off a layer of skin to cool off.

This one is for Môôôssieu Carlôôô

Because the man revels in the planning of worst case scenarios, when I heard about what happended in L.A. today, I could only imagine the child-like smile on his face... L.A. blacked-out? That's what you get when you boast too much about your all-perfect weather!

Speaking of all-perfect weather (or close to perfect), I might be going to Florida during for Spring Break for a conference (so that's what they are calling them these days... riiiiiight). If flights are cheap and I get reimbursed by the school, I could be in Fort Lauderdale in March.

It's back! It's back!

I got my laptop back! Woot! I can now post from school. I must admit, I did feel somewhat nekkid without my laptop. I guess I have become somewhat dependant, I did use it a lot last year... and yes, it was for pedagogical purposes.

Why I became anorexic

Many years ago, when I was 13, I became anorexic: I ate very little and exercised all day. Although I never took laxatives or induced vomitting, it was still a severe case of anorexia. I went from 135lbs to a skeletal 95lbs in the span of more or less 6 months. Right before I got into therapy, I had huge mood swings and even had some bodily function issues (yeah, let's not go into that one right now). I think I even had some kind of memory-loss becuse there are parts of that summer that I don't quite remember. So, it makes sense that researchers have found a link between eating-disorders and chemical imbalances in the brain. I still don't quite understand how that chemical mix-up can occur, but I can believe how fudged up my system was when I was anorexic. I had this perversed image of food and of my body, and although it is not as extreme as it was back then, I still have moments where I question my shape and mentally calculate how many calories are in a muffin. But then again, how doesn't in this day and age.

My only problem with this new research is not with the finding itself, but with the absence of other factors causing anorexia. Sure, you can blame many problems of society with what goes on between your ears, but there are many things going on in front of your own eyes that can warp someome's psyche. The media has a large part in planting the seed of fat-fearing attitudes. And yes, many of those messages are informative and necessary (aren't we gettign fatter and fatter every year according to those number crunching honchos?), but there are also many other images and messages that are misinterpreted by young girls who end up becoming anorexic or bulimic. There might be a new drug to cure anorexia, but will there be a drug to cure whatever is making the media sick?

Those crazy grrrlz!

I was a bit disappointed... ok I lie, I was very disappointed that I didn't get Français 56 this year (enriched, advanced french groups). I was really looking forward to work with the kids I got to know last year. We laughed, we complained, we teased (oh how we teased, much to Joey's chagrin) and we created a bond that would be carried over to their final year of highschool.

Meh. Things didn't quite happen they way I had hoped...

But, on occasion I do get the chance to talk to those students and such an encounter occured today at lunch. I sat with Faye, Steph, Karen and Navin and had fun just talking about movies, which would have happened last year on account of I was teaching. They also kindly reminded me that I owe them a prize from last year's scavenger hunt. Now that I think of it, they are the kind of girls I hung out with when I was in highschool.

Random acts of criminality

Not even a month has passed and someone has already stolen from me. My mini air freshner (orange scent) has disappeared from my classroom. It was in my drawer, but now it's gone and I am quite frustrated because I kept on smelling oranges all day... You have to wonder the scene on the black market when someone steals an air freshner. How do you brag about it? "Dude, I got myself an air freshner!" "Really, is it like, vanilla or potpourri?" "No dude, better... it's orange." " Cooool"

On an other topic not completely unrelated to this act of quasi-criminality, the governement is at it again, trying to be all Big Brother-like and ending up being more like Annoying- Big-Sister-Snooping-in-my-Diary. This piece of news scares me, mostly because almost no one has heard of this in the news.

And YAY to Môôôssieu Carlôôô who has started watching Firefly. Movie is in 22 days. Woot!

No news is...no news

Yes, I know, I haven't updated in a while. Until I get my laptop back from the capable hands of our lab tech (our updates are done on a yearly basis... we can't do them on our own... schoolboard policy, not the tech's), I can only update from home and lately I have been busy. My hubby nbeeds help cataloging his Magic cards and I'm trying as much as possible to help him. This lengthy procedure should be done by tomorrow.

As for school, things are going well. My groups aren't that bad. My leadership class is as popular as hotcakes drenched in maple syrup, so I have to start refusing new students. The class is already making a good name for themsleves, but they can be pretty wacky and I did catch myself swearing under my breath. You know it's gonna be a special year when Miss Alarie swears this early in the year!