Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Birth and Resurrection

Well...I'm turning 24 this Friday. Friday the 13th.

Talked to my sponsor teachers today at Kelly Road. Looks like I'll be teaching Computers 9 and 11, and core math 9 for the 10 weeks. It should be fun....but I'm sure it'll be a challenge. I guess I'll know for sure if I want to be a teacher at the end of this practicum. The dilemma in my mind is whether I'll be happy as a teacher...I've already established that I can do it...but the question is whether I would be happier doing something else. We'll see.

I just found a replacement motherboard for my old laptop on ebay. Imagine that! You really can find anything on ebay. So it will be shipped to me tomorrow and hopefully arrive next week. If everything goes according to plan, I will be able to resurrect my laptop before the end of this month. I'm a little depressed that I didn't look on ebay earlier, but I'm still pretty happy with my new laptop....and maybe now I can sell my old one and use the money to make payments on my new one.

So I was in class the other day...actually it was before class, and decided to fire up msn to see who was online. Then I realized that I had my mini webcam in my bag which clips on my laptop screen, so I hooked it up. I started chatting with Jane and got to show her my classroom and the view that I had of the admin building. It was cool to be sitting in class...connected to the internet wirelessly...and chatting on msn. I don't know...maybe only other computer geeks can understand why I think it's so cool.

Adios for now,
Andrew

Monday, January 09, 2006

Many things to be said....

OK, so even though I've had lots of free time in the last little while I still haven't updated my blog. But why you say? Well...a lot of things have been happening and I've been filling all my free time with things that don't have to do with computers or sitting at desks....there will be plenty of that to come over the next month.

First, I want to talk about my new laptop. I am really enjoying it. I actually got it on December 18th which was a really great early Christmas present. I'm loving the wide screen....it makes me feel so free....there's so much room....I don't fee cramped like I used to on a square monitor. Now, granted this machine is not much faster (1.8GHz instead of 1.6GHz) than my last laptop, it has a substantial upgrade on RAM (1 GB) and hard disk space (100 GB). I think that it will last me a long time. I've already installed Battlefield 2 on it and it runs like a dream. Also, during the break when I was out at Camp Morice Pete and I got a chance to play some Warcraft II using our wireless cards and setting them up to run ad hoc (with out a base station for all you non geeks out there). It was tons of fun and I managed to wallop him twice and Matt once. It was lots of fun.

Second, I'd like to tell you about my (not relaxing at all) month off. I finished classes on December 1st and didn't have to come back until January 3rd. It was nice, but I didn't relax very much....I filled all my time with decorating, buying gifts, playing hockey, organizing Warcraft tournaments, cleaning the house, and hanging out with friends. I'm actually surprised at the small amount of time I spent on the computer during the holidays. I espessially am surprised at how little I've used my laptop. But, now that I'm in school I'm sure that I'll be using it lots. Anyways, the days surrounding Christmas were filled with marathon after marathon of eating. Big dinner at my house, turkey dinner at the Parrish house, a ham dinner at our house, plenty of food at the retreat at Camp Morice, and another ham dinner at Camp. I loved it. Food is my second favourite part of Christmas....the first being the birth of Jesus (of course). For Christmas, I got a new pair of hiking boots that look like they are more than adequate to climb Everest....they are pretty skookem.

Third, I'd like to tell you how much fun I had after the retreat at Camp Morice. The Daigles, Bagnalls and myself stayed out at camp for new years and had lots of fun. The best part was when Pete, Matt, and myself went out on the lake and cleanned off a full sized hockey rink on the ice. Later that day we all played hockey out on the rink until it was so dark that we couldn't see the puck....it was a blast! To bring in the new year, we took a whole lot of wood out to the sand on the beach and started a huge bon fire which was lit about 10 minutes before midnight. We stacked the kinling about 2 feet high and then pilled on the regular firewood after that. It was a pretty sweet fire.

Lastly, the start of another university semester....and acutally my last university semester. I'll be finished at the end of this April. When all is said and done, I'll have been at UNBC for 6 years which is 12 semesters which translates into $24,000 in tuition and about $6,000 in books for my university career. That's a whole lot of money! That's about 40 different professors, 50 different classrooms, 66 different courses, and over $400 spent on hashbrowns for breakfast. It sure adds up when you think about it. This semester I'll be in classes until the end of the month of January, and then I begin teaching in February at Kelly Road Senior Secondary. I'll be teaching 2 computer classes and one math class for about 10 weeks. I think it's going to be a lot of fun.

Adios for now,
Andrew