Wednesday, January 10, 2007

The Year In Review (part 1)

I guess it's time for a bit of reflection on the year...and a wonderful year it was. For me, there have been a few life changing decisions made and a whole lot of life changing experiences.

The year started off with one month of school at UNBC to finish up the course requirements of the teaching program (except for the practicum course). Then began a grueling 10 week practicum where I was teaching 3 classes a day full time (Math 9, Computers 9, and Infotech 11). Infotech 11 was pretty easy to teach since most of the teenagers were mature and wanted to be there, but Math 9 and Computers 9 were a real challenge. In particular the Math 9 course was a Core Math 9 which means its a really basic version of the standard course. The kids in this class were pretty rough and had a whole lot of attitude. It took a lot for me to balance teaching them and managing their erratic behavior. One class, this kid stood up while everyone was busy working on their homework assignment and stuck his hand down his pants and back out through his zipper in his jeans and started waving it around. It was pretty hilarious actually, but it pretty much took away everyone's concentration and there was no other work done that class. What was even worse was that I had a supervisor from the university observing me that class, but he thought it was pretty funny too and it was a good chance for him to see just what I was dealing with on a day to day basis.

So those 10 weeks were pretty tough for me. And, although I love a challenge, I was beginning to realize that this wasn't going to be a career that I would enjoy day in and day out. You see, since the beginning of the education program I had some nervousness while in the practicum, but I thought that I would eventually get used to things and the nervousness would go away. But even on the last day of my 10 week practicum I still had a strange feeling in my stomach and I didn't know why.

After the practicum came the beginning of another tree planting season and my continuing mission to seek out new processes and new technologies to make the season go as smooth as possible for my employer Nata Reforestation. This past season was my 5th year working for Nata and it came with many more responsibilities. I told them at the beginning of the season that I would like to work a whole lot so I could save money for Europe and they were more than willing to give me more to do in order to facilitate that. During the season I managed to work a bunch of 16 hour days and several 10+ hour days. Those first two months of the season were great for getting my pocket book ready for the up coming trip to Europe.

Midway through May we decided to take the youth group to Victoria for a youth conference at St Andrew's High School. Let me tell you....that was quite the trip. Driving through the night, burning out the breaks on the 15 passenger van, missing the ferry.....it was pretty crazy. But we still made it to the conference in time and everyone that came said it was one of the most memorable trips they'd ever been on.

(to be continued....)

4 comments:

Adam Ethier said...

hurry up and finish. It was just getting good :P. Part to should be interesting caus you have to put in your trip to europe in there also. and lots of details. and no part three caus e the suspence is killing me :P. and go to either my sisters or my blog and do a wand test will you. gezz who doesn't do wand tests :P. I'll tty in about a week. peace.

Andrew said...

There is probably going to be a part 3...I've got a bunch to write. But for now, part 2 is almost ready.

Rosser said...

"my continuing mission to seek out new processes and new technologies to make the season go as smooth as possible for my employer Nata Reforestation"....? Alright Captain Johnson! I caught that allusion to Star Trek. I look forward to hearing/reading part two.

Andrew said...

well done....only a true Star Trek fan would have caught that.