Around the World in 32 Days!

Well, the new year and the next trip will both be here soon!

Planning has now moved to the details.

Airline tickets bought    ü

Hostels / Hotels booked   ü

Working on the visas now

Bought some cool travel stuff at Camper’s Village in Edmonton    ü

Itinerary (Destinations are in bold, others are just airport transfers):

Grande Prairie / Edmonton / Vancouver / Beijing, China  -  

Bangkok / Negombo, Sri Lanka  -  Chennai, India  -  Dubai, UAE  - 

Muscat, Oman  -  Doha, Qatar  -  Istanbul, Turkey  -  Copenhagen, Denmark  -  Reykjiavik, Iceland  -  Edmonton / Grande Prairie

It’s real now!!! Yippee!!!

Tweenior!

 A new word created by me,

Definition:

• old enough to act more like a senior than a responsible adult, and to be rewarded by receiving discounts on food and services in some establishments, but not yet a senior citizen. 

Thank you to Julia, Laurel, Lisa & Dave, who gave me a wonderfully enjoyable evening to celebrate my tweeniorhood! Good food, good drinks and ,most importantly, good company!

School's Out!

Well, that was one of the most intense months ever!  I passed, and will soon have my CELTA certification.  I will receive my provisional grades in about a week then, once Cambridge University has approved them, they will issue my Certificate to the school in Toronto who will send it to me (in 4 to 6 weeks).

Here I am with 3 of my fellow teacher trainees and some of our students.

After our last sessions half of us went out to dinner with our tutors, Patrick & James (on either side of me). Yummy Mexican food and drinks were very welcome at this point!






After a 2 day layover in Calgary to visit with Tanya, Cliff et al, I will be home monday night & back at work on Wednesday.

Busy in Toronto!

There will not be much blogging on this trip! I knew that this course was would dominate my days but when you add the commute, it's just nuts. I am in school from 8:30 until 5:30 (or even 6 pm!). 

This is my schedule:

8:30 - 9:00     print out any assignments, lesson plans, photocopy requests and have them in by 9.

9:00 - 12:45   our classes and observations of other teachers

12:45 - 1:45   lunch and a chance to work on our homework

1:45 - 2:30     lesson planning for next day, time with our tutors, tweaking last minute details for today

2:45 - 4:45     we teach English classes, right now we are doing 30 min blocks, later this week it becomes 45 min, an the last week and a half it will be 60 min each. We have 5 student teachers in my group and we rotate turns, 2 hours per day

4:45 - 5:15   (or even till 6) feedback from out tutor on our teaching and suggestions on how to address any problem areas.

Since I am staying with Padma & Ramesh in Whitby, I have to add a commute. It's about an hour and a half in the morning and about 2 hours at night. I take the subway and the GO Train. So I leave the house by 6:50 each day and get back between 7:30 and 8. Each night I have about an hour of homework and this weekend I have done about 7 hours. I'm going to do a bit more so I can get a head start on next week because the lesson planning gets longer each week as they add more elements that we are expected to include. Last week the focus was on classroom management: giving clear instructions; reducing teacher talk; increasing student participation time; and using gestures, the interactive whiteboard and other materials in our lessons.

This coming week we are focusing on the lesson content as well as classroom management. We have to use different approaches depending on the type of lesson (receptive, lexis, grammar, pronunciation, etc.) and we have to complete a lexis analysis on each new vocabulary item we are teaching or a syntax analysis on each grammatical structure we will teach.

Done!

I'm done!
I did what I wanted to in Las Vegas and, unless there is a special event here that I want to attend, I have no reason to return. Yes, Vegas is colourful, exciting, fun, etc. but it's also crowded and LOUD, oh so very loud, and the loudness is everywhere.

So it will be no surprise that my favourite day was Thursday, when I went to Red Rock Canyon. Very peaceful!  It is a 13 mile scenic loop about 45 min West of the city, with a beautiful display of contrasting sandstone and limestone among the other types of rock in the area.

The conference that I attended was fabulous! I was able to learn from some of my favourite experts in our profession. This year it was Jim Coyle and Edythe Strand.  Both are, not only experts in their areas, but they are also excellent and interesting speakers. They are practicing clinicians as well as researchers and can relate their information to its practical application.

In the evenings, I walked a small portion of the strip on my way to or from dinner.

Saw the beautiful fountain display at the Bellagio which was choreographed to music broadcast while the water danced.

And ate wonderful meals at:
 - Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill where I had the most succulent  Scallops ever! Caramelized and sweet on top and barely cooked inside. An initial crunch then they just melted in my mouth.

- and SEA Thai (SEA = South East Asian). They had really cool bench seats around a small pool. I tried duck for the first time, not my favourite but okay, it's a slightly gamey version of dark meat poultry.

Today, I had a brunch to die for at another celebrity chef restaurant, Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger's Border Grill.  They serve tapas style small plates so a colleague I met here and I tried almost everything on the list, splitting each of the small plates into 2-3 bites each.

The items were very intriguing spins on both Mexican and North American foods. Especially good were the biscuit with egg, bacon, PB & J, and a thin jalapeno ring, as well as the sweet corn tamales.
So Yummy!




On my way home now, and ready for it.
Good trip.

What Happens In Vegas . . .

. . . goes on the blog

Let me start by saying, " I sooo love my timeshare! I had a resort coupon from the vacation club that covered most of my stay so for just $400, I have a 1 bedroom apartment with a huge jetted tub for 1 week. In addition, for attending a 90 minute update presentation I was given $75 in dining vouchers and a free ticket to one of the shows that I want to see.

I write this as Isit at a table in Gordon Ramsay Steak at the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas. After being TOTALLY floored by the prices (OMG), I have just been presented with a plate of little breads, 4 kinds and they are amazing! On the shrimp cocktail appetizer they had little Cubes of Compressed watermelon with a tobasco gelee, Meyer lemon curd and Cucumber cocktail Sauce - amazing flavour combinations!

Then, of course, I had to try the signature dishes, beef wellington and sticky toffee pudding. So full! Wallet so empty (or would be if I weren't using $50 in the dining vouchers that I was given by the resort. Easily the most expensive dinner that I have splurged on anywhere.

Well, I've seen 2 shows, Cirque du Soleil's Zumanity at New York, New York and Jubilee at Bally's, They were both really well done and very entertaining . I 've also walked part of The Strip and the south outlet mall and have the blister on the ball of one foot to show for it.

Life is a Masquerade

I like pretending to be other people.

I discovered drama class in junior high and joined the community theatre group in high school, sometimes front of house, sometimes on stage. This led to 2 1/2 years with a Christian theatre company in the USA called the Covenant Players.

We performed in churches, schools, universities & military bases all over the US. I loved the travel, especially meeting new people. We were billeted in people's homes so we got an insider's view of their town or state. That is really the way to get to know a new place - through the life of someone from there.

Through this experience I travelled the length and breadth of most of the USA. I have now been to or driven through 48 of the 50 states. The 2 I am missing are a little out of the way for through travel. Yes Hawaii is one that I have never been to but, no, Alaska is not the other. I have been there twice. I recently saw the coastal ports during a two week Alaska cruise and about 10 yrs ago I got a free ticket with Alaska Air by being bumped and went to the northern most point in Alaska, Barrow. It is 330 miles north of the Arctic Circle. There, I got to ride dogsled (and help harness the dogs) watch the processing by hand of a whale caught a few days earlier, an found wonderful Korean and Mexican food - go figure!

The other state I'm missing is Rhode Island. It's so small that you have to go there on purpose.