Week 11 - I Don't have the Powaaa!

This week was a pretty average week, aside from one major difference.  The Village shut down power to the school and our apartments from 8:30 - 10:30 on both Wednesday and Friday.  As a result, there were no classes until after lunch.  This was a little bit weird to me since I ended up missing 8 periods.  It was kind of nice though since my Wednesday and Friday classes are both usually very busy.

Last Friday I started tumbling some rocks using the schools Lortone Big Rock 3lb Tumbler.  Over September I collected a bunch of rocks on my walks and decided that it might be nice to smooth them out and make them shiny!  I finished the first round using the course grit this Friday and it was amazing how smooth they already are.  I started the medium grit and I have high hopes for the final result.  I think I may even order one off of amazon.  They usually run around $160 on amazon, but it seems like it would be a worthy investment.


Another interesting thing that we did in the lab was to try out our new static electricity generator.  Heather was using it for her physical science class, but I thought my sec.5 Science class could probably learn something from this experience as well.  Here's a picture of one student using the ball.

I also used the static ball.  We used a chair to elevate ourselves off of the ground as recommended in the guide.  Unfortunately standing too close to the metal parts of the chair tended to cause static shocks that started to feel fairly uncomfortable.  I'm not sure why but I ended up getting shocked 5 times more than everyone else!


Early in the week it was actually a little exciting.  The weather started to warm up and reached around +2C.  This was great since it was warm and sunny, and also caused a lot of the snow to melt!  Unfortunately, after this it cooled down to -6C and all of the water generated from melting snow solidified into ice.  This started to make by walk to school a little more interesting, but it would soon be followed by the following:

This storm dropped about 3-4 inches of snow in a very short period of time. It sucked having a bunch of snow back, but at least I didn't have to worry about falling on my face crossing the road anymore!  I should mention that this picture was taken around 2:45pm.  It's a little bit depressing, but it starts to get dark around 3 and is usually completely dark by 3:30-3:45.


On another plus side I got my second grocery order from Marche Daoust, and all I have to say is this place rocks! Aside from the fact that I asked for 12" tortillas and got 8" ones, everything else was spot on.  Also, unlike IGA online their produce and meat are FRESH.  In addition, as a result of the Northern Healthy Eating Program, my $185 bill ended up costing me $82.  Which is great considering I bought all kinds of meat, vegetables, fruit and meat.  My grocery bills are in fact cheaper here than they are in the South!  I'm just afraid of the fact that I will definitely run out of food cargo well before the end of the year.


Since this month is Movember I have decided to grow a mustache in honor of prostate cancer awareness.  I cheated a little bit though and grew a goatee with it.   

It feels weird having this again.  I can't wait to shave, my face is itchy!!


On a last note, only 4 more weeks until I go and get a Big Mac :)

Week 10 - A Long Weekend...

This was a bit of a boring week in that nothing terribly interesting happened.  Friday was Remembrance Day/James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement anniversary.  As a result Friday was a holiday and it was only a 4 day week at school.

On Friday I went in to school to try and get some work done.  I had been coming down with a cold on Tuesday night so I didn't stay for too long on Friday since I was still pretty tired.  There was a bit of a storm on Friday morning and Heather was worried that her Circus guest may not be able to get on the plane for Montreal.  The storm dissipated for a while though and everyone got out no problem!  Although I did find it quite humorous that the weather network said it was 3C and partly cloudy and then when I looked out my window it was friggin' snowing!

Anyway, I ended up going for a walk on Saturday and Sunday.  Saturday it snowed too much and the dogs were hiding underneath the houses.  On Sunday though it was much nicer out and I was joined by this happy little fellow:

I made a few steaks for dinner this week and I saved the fat and grissel for him.  He seemed more than happy to have it! I figure that the dogs here have pretty low body fat and they can always use more, especially since Winter will soon be here in full force.

While I was out I came across a traditional tent.  Apparently people just set them up and leave them as they sometimes just go out and sleep in the tent on nice days.

Since I had so much time off I decided that I would do some baking as well :)  I still had a bunch of wild blueberries left from when I first went picking.

Here is one of two bags that I collected off of the slopes.  I decided that I would use them to make myself some danishes.

Finally, I figured I would give everyone a snow update.  It's been a little difficult to gauge exactly how much snow is on the ground since the winds blow it around so much.  The least amount is probably 4-6 inches and the deepest is about 8-10 inches.  I was a little tempted to build a snow dragon or something since we had all this wet snow, but I got too lazy and played Mass Effect 2 instead.  Here is what the country side looks like now.

This week should be busy since we all have to get ready for report cards.  Term 1 ends on November 23.  It should also be interesting since Mark and Nancy will be away for meetings next week.  Hopefully everything will run okay without them!

Week 9 - Snowed In!!

So this week started off with a Bang with our Halloween event at school and lil trick or treaters at night.  In the afternoon on Monday all classes were cancelled and the kids had a Jack O Lantern carving and Scarecrow making competition.  Since I don't have a homeroom I helped out with three of the classes that I usually see.  It was pretty fun and the kids had a pretty good time.  I lent one class my carving implement and let them go at it.  They did a great job and ended up winning the best pumpkin!

After that we went home and got ready for the little kids.  We figured it would be more effective to have Halloween as a group so then we could pool our resources.  I had a Zombie Costume, Heather was a mad scientist and Jeanne was a Smirf (too bad I didn't get a picture of that).  I still recall being mad as a kid when mom used to make me wear a coat over my costume.  Well....in George River EVERYONE was wearing a coat! (That's what happens when it's -8 outside and there's 6" of snow on the ground).

At about 8:00pm there was a gathering in the community centre for their Halloween event.  Basically a ton of people get dressed up and kinda hang out in a big circle.  The Centre community judges the best costumes and give away prizes.  First place was $800, Second was $600 and third was $400.  They also had a bunch of $100 and $200 prizes.

If you look closely there is someone near the middle wearing a blue bathing suit and bunny ears.  That was actually one of my students and he won second prize! It was a complete surprise to everyone since he's such a tough guy.  We all got a pretty good laugh out of it though. :)

Later on in the week I decided to give the gym another try (I had to wait a few days and heal from my first time).  It's been 2 months since I've done any weight lifting and it was a little rough getting back into it.  I think I'll be okay to restart my 3 day program in a couple of weeks.  It's nice that the gym is soo close to my house.  It's actually even close than the one that I went to in Burlington; I can walk there in 4 minutes.  The place is set up pretty good too! Although I do think that they tried to cram as much possible equipment into this room as possible!!

At school I got my Secondary 5 class (they are the ones in their last year of school) to design and execute an experiment on their own.  I was happy to see that they did a great job of it! They're finally starting to take a step towards independence!

Minimaali was very proud of her first experiment!

The last thing that I did last week was to go for a walk to the fire site.  This time I was joined by a new dog.  Not sure what his name was, but he was nice! I've decided that from now on instead of chucking my bread ends in the garbage I'm going to save them for my canine companions.  Better for them to eat it than for it to go to waste in the dump.

Anyway, it was another exciting week in George River, but the countdown is on!! Only 6 more weeks to go until I head South for Christmas break.  Also, the Christmas shopping has begun! Oh how I love the internet :D