autumn busy-ness

So I have been rather busy with school work lately. My classes this year look to be made up of decent secular heathen kids. Intellectually my classes seem more capable than in my previous years; this is primarily because my junior level grade 8 blocks are filled with kids from only French Immersion. French Immersion kids are generally more capable than regular stream kids in my school. As well, they tend to be more dedicated to achieving good grades. But on the whole my 5 blocks of senior English are absolutely fabulous and fun to teach; the downside is that, despite the recent CBA which stipulated class sizes of 30 and maximum special needs students of 2 per block, I do still have a few classes over 30 and one English 11 class with 4 autistic students jammed into it. I am enjoying going through All Quiet on the Western Front with my 12's this month. We will move on to The Taming of the Shrew around the third week of October; we will all be 'full-gorged' with the Bard by Christmas.

This last week we had beautiful, clear and sunny afternoons and evenings. On Thursday our Gr.12s had a boat cruise dinner and dance around Vancouver's False Creek, English Bay, Stanley Park and Coal Harbour. It was joyful for me to see them take such delight in the dancing, the breath-taking views and in one another's company outside of the school. For myself it was tiring to start work at 7 am and work to 4:30 pm, and then boogie on the boat until 10 pm. I arrived home to my welcoming bed at 11:30ish; accordingly work yesterday was unusually yawny. It was cool to be in charge of the digital SLR; I went truly wild taking over 2 gigabytes of photos during the cruise.

In other news, Ramone's llama notebook bit the dust after only 9 months! Never buy a computer from Costco, as they only warranty computers for 6 months. Accordingly, so that Ramone can do her accounting work for the Church, I have graciously permitted her to purchase another notebook; this time it will be a MacBook as in the above image. Those of you that know how teeny and tiny my heart is, will perhaps note the great and far-reaching self-sacrifice of this gesture.

In still other news, I am thinking of buying a digital camera in the next few years. The model I am thinking of saving for is the Leica M8, a digital range finder camera. Here is a review of it. I am still continuing with my cycling 3 or 4 times per week; some have even noticed my reduced girth, so the girth-control measures seem to be making both an aesthetic and a healthy difference!