Along the Merry Way....

Last year at this time, my former fiancé and I had recently gone separate ways. Feeling pretty grief-stricken, I decided to do something constructive: Operation Spread the Love . I made valentines and gave them out to strangers - street bums, lonely-looking people, and anyone who appeared sad in downtown Ottawa. It was so much fun, that I decided to do it all over again here in the new and lovely city of Victoria on Valentine’s Day this year. It's a lot easier on the laid-back West Coast! I gave out almost two dozen of them within a very short time, and people glowed and laughed and thanked me! One lady was a bit defensive at first, thinking I was targeting only lonely-looking people, but she thawed a bit when I said they were for anyone! Another couple chased me down afterwards and asked me why ? So I explained that it was a tradition to Spread the Love a little bit. Another ricketty old man, sitting alone, was really happy to get one, but only after I assured him that there was...

I was walking down the street today and hit a wall of perfume! Flowers! Growing on February 1st :) It made me love you even more, Victoria :) Actually, they started blooming on January 1st, to be more precise. You know it's Victoria when......double decker buses drop you off closer to your home just because...it's closer to your house. Flowers bloom almost all year round. You can look at the mountains of Washington across the strait and clamber onto a tall ship if they invite you on board. People play keyboard in the park or double-bass on the beach just for kicks. There is always someone more oddly dressed than you. Elizabethan homes with stained glass windows! Veggie gardens and obssessive-composting everywhere. Little mountains poke up throughout the city, shaking off the homes near the top, hard-core rock-climbers and joggers still clinging to the top. You can sit by the ocean and have a chat with an inquisitive harbor seal. It's the abode of healthy neo-hippies...

Well, several people have been asking lately that I tell them about the swing-dancing here. The specific style is called Lindy-Hop, which originated in Harlem, New York, and involves a pulsing foot-work that is almost primal. The dance is upbeat and fun, and the dancers tend to be upbeat and cheery too. You can't help being a bit bouncy and happy when you spend several hours a week dancing to Big Band music :) The dance itself is all about connection between partners: sending and receiving subtle messages so that you have effortless transitions between moves. Then there are the aerials, or “air-steps”, which means lifting, jumping, and being hurled in the air. This is terrifically fun and involves a lot of hilarity when things go wrong! We usually try to have "spotters" (people to catch) just in case anyone slips when working on the flips! Here are pictures of some of them: Fancy Dip: The Frankie Flip: The starfish: Once you develop a taste for swing-danc...

Well it has been a while since I posted! I decided to try my luck in the lovely, funky city of Victoria until my money ran out. Here, I have had so many adventures that I'll have to write a book about it at some point :) The first few weeks I lived in a boarding house that would have been inspiration for a Dickens novel. My fellow in-mates (as I fondly think of them) were for the most part completely crazy, and I arrived once to find the police rummaging about the place and investigating a theft. At some point or other, I was pulled aside by almost every boarder, who warned and gossiped against each other: "Don't trust Bill," or "Never leave your door unlocked or Nancy will get in," and "Never make a deal with Tom." People's food was going missing, and at least one person was well, how to put this politely.....not entirely trustworthy, so I rigged up an alarm system for my bedroom door (I was quite proud of myself) to prevent against theft. ...

We were able to substitute the regular morning phonics class for a "baking class" and made apple crisp together. The children were super excited that they got to mix the topping with their bare hands. Clumps of butter-sugar topping seemed to keep on mysteriously going missing. The little imps: Nick and Louis! Tony, learning how to peel an apple: Tony and Martin (fondly known as To-to and Fartin'): Here is the very simple recipe: Apple Crisp 1 half a bag of apples, preferrably old, soft ones (peeled, cored, and diced) A few sprinkles of cinnamon One tablespoon of lemon juice Topping : 1 cup of butter 1 cup of sugar 3-4 cups of rolled oats 1/2 cup of flour A sprinkle of cinnamon Mix the topping together with your hands until it's crumbly. You can add other things like milk and honey if it is too dry. If you want more topping, then just add more sugar, butter, and oats. The good thing is that you can use just about any kind of fruit that is starting t...

The children are incredibly enthusiastic and excitable. After classes are finished, they work together on their journals, and during this time, they are supposed to be quiet and focused. However, the moment all is silent, a little head inevitably pops up like a gopher out of its hole. Someone will deliver a quote from Shrek that sends the rest of them into hysterics. Then a scuffle breaks out between two of the boys. Jane (the other teacher) and I smooth things out. Silence returns, then another gopher pops out of its hole. Someone asks, "Do you know the muffin man?" and little voices chirp back, "The muffin man?" Then another scuffle breaks out. Jane and I restore order; there might even be a few mild threats. They resume their writing quietly until a third gopher bursts out, "Teacher! Do you remember what happened yesterday? Tony and Louis fell in the pond!" Suddenly every gopher in the field is dying with laughter, and Tony has turned bright red. When t...

Two bedraggled children – Tony and Louis – shuffled into the living room yesterday, leaving little damp foot-prints behind them. They stared shamefacedly down at their feet, shoulders slumped and hands behind them, as water dripped off their noses and trickled through their sodden clothes onto the floor. “Teacher,” Tony confessed to Jonquil, not daring to look up, “Teacher......we........went in the pond.” The pond is a deep and wide pool behind the house. It is the muddy home of crayfish, salamanders, frogs, and turtles and seems to have a magnetic pull on the little boys. They are fascinated by all the exotic creepy-crawlies that they can find there. “Teacher,” Tony continued, “We were trying to catch crayfish, and..........we....... fell in .” They were so afraid of getting in trouble that they could hardly believe it when all the adults started laughing at their sorry plight. Louis gave me his version: “Teacher, we were walking in the water and very fast it was deep." So, I...