Another busy week

Well, I’ve fallen behind a bit when it comes to telling my tales and recounting my adventures so I will do my best.

When I last wrote I was off to Dundee for the match between the Stars and the Tigers. The game itself was largely no issue. The Stars won 6-2 and handled the Tigers with ease. However, for the first time since I have arrived we played on an honest sheet of ice. Boards, plexi glass, lots of seating…the works. Apparently Dundee had a brand new rink built a few years back so it looks brand new. I got to play a bit of the tourist and I bought myself a Dundee Stars scarf as a souvenir. We ended up getting home by 10:30pm and I crawled into bed and tried to get ready for school the next morning.

When Monday morning rolled around I was still pooped from my game in Dundee, but duty calls. So, I got up and headed off to school, through the pouring rain. As a little aside, this country has now rained for 3 weeks straight. And I don’t just mean a little drizzle, or a light rain, or even a steady rain…no…it pours…all the time…with crazy wind…so the rain actually falls side ways. Anyway, I went into my school and continued to help out in my class. I taught a gymnastics lesson on Monday, was asked only to help out on Tuesday and Thursday, and on Wednesday spent half of my day helping out a little p4 class. The p4 class was the highlight of my week. They are about 8 years old and really well behaved. One little girl, Iona, drew a picture of me. Check it out. She did a super job.

Well, Thursday came along and that meant that Friday was going to be spent back at the university doing some in service training. Friday was slated as an ‘expressive arts’ workshop, meaning art, music, drama, and just about anything the least bit artsy. So, I got to take a break from all my crazy planning and go and share a drink or two with some of the other Canadians suffering through this 6 week block. We all agree that this is about the hardest thing any of us have ever done. Friday was the expressive arts day and it was lots of fun. They always get us doing lots of crafts and my team is funny. I seem to always get paired with the ladies who are a little bit older, who have families, and are trying to get into teaching because they want to change professions. One would think that these women would be decidedly less fun than, say, the younger girls, but such is not the case. The women are a riot! They crack jokes with no end, and really enjoy giving me a hard time. It was a great day and loads of fun.

It has become the weekly tradition that on Friday all the boys in the flat wander down to the Chinese take out spot at the bottom of the hill. We all go down and have roughly the same order. We all get an order of chicken balls with either chips (fries) or fried rice and your choice of sweet and sour sauce, gravy, or spicy curry sauce. It’s a line up of 8 guys deep and we all want our chicken balls! The girls upstairs think we’re nuts…until they get one sniff of it and then they too are off for some chicken balls. Add in an 8 pack of pint sized Carlsberg beer (our new favourite) and we have the beginnings of a very relaxing evening. The side effect of our feast and a few cans of beer is that everybody is too tired to do anything…and we are soon all in bed. In fact, Ed has been in bed by 9pm each of the last 2 Fridays.

Saturday saw me get up early and go and down my grocery shopping. I tend to like going down early on Saturday because it allows me to get fresh stuff like bagels and such. However, on Saturday I was also supposed to go out with one of my team members for lunch. I was fully expecting just to go for a pub lunch or something, but when she met me at the train station she told me to hop in her car because we were headed back to her place. She took me back and I met her husband and two daughters, one of which is a student at my school, and had a nice Sunday dinner for me. It was super nice. Roasted chicken, oatmeal stuffing, roasted vegetables, the whole works. She then drove me back into Glasgow so I could head off for my hockey game in Fife.

The game in Fife was a joke. They were playing in a cross over pool with teams from the North of England. Billingham was supposed to be a top team down in England, but they were no match for the mighty Fife Flyers (widely believed to be the top amateur team in the UK) and were soundly drubbed 10-0. Yeah…I can assure you I did nothing but watch Fife destroy Billingham.

Sunday was going to be my day of rest. I had my big evaluation coming up on Monday so I was going to spend the day making sure that I had everything all ready. Well, my plans changed in a hurry when I got a call from the Elite league. They needed a guy to work Sunday night in Edinburgh at the Capitals game and they wanted me on the game. I jumped at the chance and was on a bus going over to Edinburgh mid-afternoon for the 6pm start. Edinburgh was hosting Belfast and the game was quite good. Belfast won 7-5 in a bit of sloppy affair, but it was a fun game to work. Of course, it being my first game, I had to make at least one glaring error. The Elite league plays with touch icing, and I was fully aware of this fact, but there I was on my first icing call in my first pro game calling automatic icing because I just plum forgot. The worst part was, nobody said anything…until the other linesman pointed it out about 2 minutes later. Once I got that detail sorted out I fared much better. I’m optimistic that I might get another game before too long.

Last, but not least, was my evaluation today at school. I didn’t sleep much after I got home from Edinburgh and got up extra early to go into school so that I was all ready. Well, 10:45am rolled around and it was time to put all those lessons this fall to the test. I delivered my lesson as my tutor took notes. The kids were super well behaved…in part because Mr. Nicolson scared them with a threat of ‘dealing very, very severely with any non-sense’…and Robbie, the resident trouble maker wasn’t in class (he was off sick). After the lesson my tutor pulled me into an office and spoke to me for about 40 minutes. He was pleased by my actual lesson. He could see lots of good things happening. He wanted me to improve my lesson planning…not in that it wasn’t good, I just tend to mix up some of the things he wants to see in my lessons. Yeah having lesson aims, learning intentions, key teaching points, and lesson outcomes…when I swear that they are all really just the same thing…but they aren’t, so now I need to unmuddle them. At least I’m not the only person in that predicament and I can recover. He left and was sufficiently pleased to pass me on my crit (since its all pass/fail anyway…I’ll take it).

Anyway, that’s the week. It’s been busy. I’m pretty worn out right now. Its 3 weeks until I’ll be home for Christmas. I’m getting super excited. I can hardly wait.

Anyway, take care, from rainy, windy, Scotland.

Bruce






p.s. Here are a couple of photos so you can see where I live. Solid student housing. Very spacious...well...perhaps not.