That was exciting!

Not the election so much – PC majority leaves me feeling the “same old same old” vibe. But my riding! Whoo! Total nailbiter. Only 9 votes for the win!!! It was great fun to watch.

Provincial Election day

Well, it’s the Provincial Election.  And I voted!  Woo!  Democracy is fun!

But that said, I have never felt more disenfranchised in an election.  There is no real issue – it’s an election that was called due to a fixed date, not for any particular reason.

I don’t feel like I can support the current government, I feel they have been guilty in the last four years of at best negligence and at worse gross mismanagement of the province.  Starting with their trying to shut down UNBSJ and continuing right through the mess they’ve made of Education to the proposed sale of NB Power.  It’s been a comedy of errors.  Frat boys running our government like it’s a Saturday night kegger.

I have no confidence that the current opposition is any better.  Performance in the provincial leadership debate would suggest they offer only more of the same; past performance would dictate a distinct bias in the policies they espouse.  Between the PCs and the Liberals in New Brunswick the difference seems to be nothing but semantics.  And it is exceptionally frustrating to me as I want to care about the election, I want to care about the candidates and the issues on the plate.  But. I. Just. Don’t. Give. A. Rat’s. Ass. About. These. Two. Parties.

Fortunately for me, in my riding there exists a strong NDP candidate, who is a viable alternative.  So you can guess where my vote went.

I will be watching the election closely.  It is my fervent hope that there will be a real opposition voice in the legislature this time.  But, only time will tell.

Three yesterday, two today

Cruise ships in port.

Oh, to be independently wealthy.  I’d love to take a cruise.  I’ve never been to the Caribbean.  It sounds like such fun.  And there’s even time after Christmas this year before I head back to work in January… but money is tight, and I still have to pay off this Summer.  I guess I’ll just have to dream another year away.

On being a responsible pet owner

So, I have two ginormous cats, as most everyone knows.

They are proper sized lads.

But since I’ve been here, and frankly even before, they’d not been to a vet.  When I went to France this year their not having a regular vet really bugged me.  What would happen if they got in a fight with each other and one of them (read: Giles) got hurt?

So I made an appointment with the vet clinic that had looked after Felix.  Felix was the family cat at my parents’ home.  We got him when I was 15 (I selected him at the ARL) and we had to put him down when I was 31.  He had a long and grumpy life.  He was a truly curmudgeonly cat.  But the vets were really great with him when he’d fly off the handle, and that made an impression on me.

I was going to take them both.  The insanity of this plan was impressed on me by my Dad.

In fact it took two people just to get one cat to the vet tonight.  I took Dalton, figuring he was the most easy going.

He cried all the way there.

He peed himself in the car.

He worked himself into a state of utter, miserable, panic.

Poor lad.

But when he was there, he was such a trooper!  I’m so proud.  I was ready, given, well, Felix, to be scratched and hissed at and to have to provide backup.  Dalton was great!  He allowed the vet to stroke his chin, he hardly tried to get away, and not once did he either hiss or scratch, not even when he got his rabies shot.   And then, I had to give him a bath when he got home .  He didn’t cry or scratch there either, he was so good.  I’d give him a treat if I kept any in the house.

He’s grooming himself now, trying to get himself cleaned up.  What a good lad.

And I feel much better now that there is a vet that has them on record.

Wardrobe Upgrade!

So, I’m trying to present a more professional appearance at work this year.  I’m upgrading my wardrobe to do that to my best:  colourful new dresses from Joe Fresh (Superstore ftw!) and dress pants in my favourite cut from RW & Co in grey and chocolate brown.  I’m even considering going the pantsuit route.

You can get so much out of a classic pair of dress pants.  They are just so easy to wear.  Throw on a blazer and go, or a nice cardigan and a dressy tee.  I haven’t had proper dress pants that fit in so long: the last pair I bought practically fall off my hips.  They were a poor choice, for sure.

But let me tell you the annoying part.  I got my nice new grey pants hemmed, quickly because I had to go to the funeral home last night for Steph’s grandmum.  Well, in less than half a day the hem began to come undone.  I had to restitch the hem by hand before heading out last night.  It was a real nuisance.

And then my shoes gave my feet blisters, so I had to wear flipflops today with my suit.  It’s frickin’ cold out there in the morning!  Brrr.

Anyway.  It’s nice to be looking like a professional again.  It’s starting the year off on a positive note.

And we’re back in business

Oh my word, I’m exhausted.  Two days down.  Completely knackered.

Last night I came home and collapsed for about three hours before I was able to do anything.  Even take out the garbage.  It was seriously bad.  I don’t remember ever feeling steamrolled like this from the back to school grind before.  I don’t ever remember looking forward so to a weekend, simply for the recovery.  I’m all Loverboy-ing it up.  Working for the weekend, get it

It will pass, but until it does I feel completely exhausted at the end of the day.  It’s ok though.  I have an indian cauliflower dish bubbling away on the stove, and am getting back into the swing of things.  Lots of housekeeping to do around here, and lots to do for work.

But I’m really glad to be back.  Good kids, for the most part.  Loving teaching History back to back.  If I could do that for the rest of my career I’d be a happy lady.

And Friday is payday.  I can suck it up.

Hey, Earl.

So, um, I’ve had the Dixie Chicks “Goodbye Earl” in my head all week.  It’s all that damn hurricane’s fault.  See?

See that track?  The one that’s going right up the Bay of Fundy?  Yeah, that’s likely to suck donkey balls.

I’ve been obsessively reading the National Hurricane Center’s forecast discussions all week to see if he stays on track.  He weeble wobbles a bit around Fundy.  Now it’s showing landfall at Yarmouth – awhile ago it was Grand Manan.  I’m not sure which way it’s going to go.  Just that there will be rain.

On the up side, Earl is for sure going to break this heat wave.  It’s been insane, all week.  The hottest I can ever remember my birthday, without a doubt.  Yesterday it was 40 degrees with the humidex.  FORTY!  DEGREES!  CELSIUS!  For the love of crap, there’s a reason I live on the coast.  I melt!  Melt, I tell you!  And not in an “oh look, I’m glowing, swoon” kind of way.  No, I melt in a most indelicate fashion.  Thank goodness for the Vortex in Millidgeville, I’ve been able to spend the past couple of evenings floating in a cool pool instead of sweltering in my sauna of a third-floor non-air-conditioned apartment.  Why would I have A/C?  I have fog!  BUT NOT THIS WEEK, OH NO.  And the heat wave is the wild card for the hurricane, I should add.

Anyway.  Hurricane.  Batten down the hatches.  Earl’s a comin’, tomorrow night.

The next big thing

I’m thinking – seriously – of going back to school for a PhD.

You may be asking yourself what kind of crack am I smoking, to be considering such a project.  I mean, sure, it’s several years of my life.  It’s a year out of the classroom (and that has to happen sooner rather than later, given the fact that my wonderful department head isn’t going to be with us forever).  It’s more tuition.  And the most frightening thing of all is not the dissertation, that I can handle.  No, comprehensive exams scare the bejeezus out of me.  ETA:  did I mention I’m considering doing this whole thing in my SECOND language?  Yeah, there’s that too.  I’m out of my frakking mind.

So why am I looking at this?

Well, it all comes back to a conversation I had a year ago June.  I was very upset and stressed at having to teach a class that I have no business teaching (and they gave it to me again – I am very upset and stressed, and have no desire to wreck these kids lives by teaching them a subject that frankly I hate with the firey passion of a thousand suns).  I was expressing my disappointment and my feeling of stagnation.  It had been a rough year, that year, and I was feeling more than a little broken.  But the VP who does the scheduling said something that hit.  Decide what kind of career I want, and go after that.

Which is what I’ve been doing ever since.

I don’t know if I’m going to be in the classroom my entire career.  I think I have a lot of brains, and I’m an asset to any discussion about curriculum.  I can see myself being an asset in mentoring, or in developing curriculum when the government remembers History is important.  I mean, Cultural Literacy. I’m rebranding, ha ha.

I also teach academic courses, and want to continue teaching the more advanced academic courses.  I love the discussions of the higher level courses.  Challenging these kids makes my day.

A PhD in History is subject expertise, in the curriculum that I teach. And I’m not looking to move on to the university level, I want that knowledge to stay in the school where I feel it will do the most good, and in the public school system.  It’s not the only thing I’m doing to take my career where I want it to go.  I’m also in my school district’s leadership programme, which is an administrator development stream.

I’ve been teaching a few years now, and I am getting to the point that either I stagnate and become bitter, or I move to the next big thing and challenge myself.

Having realized at Courcelette this summer that I had myself a topic brought on the realization of how ready I was for the next big thing.  It’s going to be tough.  Financially, it’s going to be tough, and there are a lot of things I have to look at.  Mentally it’s going to be exhausting.  But I can do it.

On the up side, I’ve been reading up on WW1 for 13 years now.  I’m a walking encyclopedia.  So that’s one comp down, two to go.

This blog, by the way, is a response to this one:  a very well-reasoned and not unpersuasive argument for NOT doing a PhD when you already have a perfectly good job.

Thirty-five

I hear it’s the new 25.

I certainly don’t feel like I’m 35, but my birth certificate assures me tis so. Of course maybe everyone feels that way at 35. I thought I’d be more responsible maybe? Own a house?

I like my life though and am eagerly anticipating the projects ahead of me. Especially returning to school and starting my doctoral work.

Happy new year, me.