Sunday, May 31, 2009

Grad 09 - From Friday evening

There's a tradition at our school that during the graduation ceremony the grad class sings a song. For many years it was a lame but somewhat cute butchering of something like "Stand By Me" or the theme from Cheers.

Last year the grads had a small musical ensemble who played instruments and actually prepared a song--theirs was a cut above what came before.

This year's grad class, while maybe not the stellar crew we said goodbye to in '08, probably can claim an even better song; it was a nice moment in a rather ordinary ceremony (apologies for the video quality--it was just my digitial "still" camera):





If you want to see some photos from Friday--the ceremony--or the dinner/dance last night, you can to photobucket:
http://s11.photobucket.com/albums/a152/jpurple/22-Grad%202009/
The two albums can be accessed on the left. The password is my first name and my last name all spelled as one word.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

For those who need a little motivation right now...

...40 inspirational speeches in 2 minutes. Brilliant!

Sunday, May 03, 2009

not dead yet

...but still haven't been posting much.

My wife and I were watching something this evening on a Detroit station; along the bottom of the screen was scrolling a list of schools closed for the next week--one or two even longer. It's all because of the swine flu scare. Many of these schools don't have a single case of the flu, but are closing for precautionary reasons or precautionary cleaning.

It's getting ridiculous. Last I heard the only fatality in Canada or the U.S. was a boy who'd come to the U.S. from Mexico for treatment. While that's a tragic event, it pales in comparison to thousands killed by "regular" flu each year and by other diseases.

The media is having a field day with this and I wonder if they've crossed the line into irresponsible and perhaps dangerous behaviour.

My student teacher finished her practicum last week, so tomorrow I have all my classes back. Wouldn't you know it; my dad's doctor's office calls and it's tomorrow morning they need him in to get hooked up to the 24-hour heart monitor thing and my wife's working so she can't take him (it would be probably a 50+ dollar cab ride each way and last time he ordered a cab for an appointment he booked it the night before and it never showed up) so I've got to try to get him there and hope he can get a cab home.

My son badly sprained his ankle yesterday so I have to drop him at school an hour early on my way to get my dad.

If this stuff had happened at ANY TIME IN THE LAST 12 WEEKS my student teacher could have covered things and I could've helped make it all work.

Figures.

Now a few pics from this afternoon:















I liked the flags blowing in this one; interesting that there are two of each--Canada, U.S & British Columbia. It was taken down by the cruise ship terminal

















These two are what got us there--we were out taking my in-laws for a Sunday drive and saw the submarine strapped onto the freighter.
















I have some pics of my student teacher taken with some of the students on her last day I might post elsewhere. Sorry I've sucked at posting lately, for any who might have been checking at all.