All posts by Beth

I'm a Canadian crochet-obsessed mum living in the UK who used to make a living teaching English to teenagers. Current distractions: babies, baking and baby sign language!
General

Reflecting on friends (not Friends…)

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Just been checking my email, as now that I’ve got a laptop from work and my husband has thoughtfully (and rather gleefully, I might add) installed a wireless network in our house, I don’t actually get upstairs to check my email as often as I should nowadays. And I just want to thank all of my friends who have been kind-hearted and generous enough to keep emailing me when there has been a singular lack of communication from my side of the conversation. Most especially, but not exclusively, Pene, a friend in Australia who has emailed me regularly over several years without many replies, and Tanya, a fellow teacher and immigrant to the UK who’s just as bogged down as I am with end of the year marking crap, and still finds the time to send out cheery (and often hilarious) greetings. I think I’m feeling especially guilty because both of these lovely ladies are also raising children, while I just have to look after the hubby and an occasionally stroppy moggy…

Friends are important to everyone, and I dont think we realise how important they are until you are in a situation where you are cut off from your friends for one reason or another. I found this out when I moved to the UK four years ago. Even though I had (and still have) several amazing friends who helped me through the transition, most of them (all really, save one, and he’s now my hubby) were in Canada. I felt really isolated and alone for the first few weeks, especially on the first day when I got up and realised that a) I was out of toothpaste, b) I didn’t know where to go to buy any, and c) I didn’t know who to call to find out! I mean, there’s only so many stupid questions you can ask your boyfriend before he really gives up on you! (Thank goodness I knew when to stop asking! 😉 ) I must say that my landlady, Julie, was also incredible, as she had an amazing store of knowledge about the most incredible things, and was perfectly willing to go to battle with BT on my behalf when it was going to take 3 weeks to get the phone hooked up, etc. (Note – the phone hookup took 3 days. She really should work for a lobby group…)

So, thank you everyone who supported me though that difficult time, and thank you also to everyone who still hasn’t given up hope that I will, someday, actually reply to any emails that they have sent me. I will get around to it!

Someday.

If I EVER get this marking done…

General

It’s Canada Day!!

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Canada Flag

For those who don’t know, July 1 is Canada Day! What’s it all about, you may ask? Isn’t it the same as July 4th in the States?? In fact, no, and here’s why…

(Ahem. Just putting on my pontificating historian voice…)

July 1, 1867. Canada woke up a colony of the British Empire, and went to sleep a country in its own right. This was the day on which a rather drunken Scot, John A. Macdonald, became our first Prime Minister. Now, this is different to Independance Day in the US, because of what it symbolizes. Canada Day (formerly known as Dominion Day) celebrates a continuing, but different relationship with Britain and the Empire (or Commonwealth, as it is known today). Independance Day in the States is the day that they celebrate kicking the British out of their country. Slightly different ethos there. However, both countries take it as an opportunity for a good party, as both are statuatory holidays and are full of patriotic fervor.

So today, pull out those maple leaves, put on something red and white and listen to a great Canadian musician, read a great Canadian author, watch some great Canadian actors, or look at some great Canadian art today. Here are some suggestions:

Music:
Bryan Adams
Shania Twain
Barenaked Ladies
Blue Rodeo
Jann Arden

Authors:
Margaret Atwood
Robertson Davies
Stephen Leacock
Timothy Findlay
Margaret Laurence

Artists:
Emily Carr
Robert Bateman
The Group of Seven

Actors:
Mike Myers
Dan Ackroyd
Pamela Andersen
Megan Follows
Fay Wray

You could also read some stuff by a mate ‘o’ mine, another displaced Canadian, Carla. She’s got a blog called Across the Pond.

Or, if you’re in London, join the celebrations at The Maple Leaf pub

You could even buy Canadian products at the online Canada Shop in the UK.

MobLog

Pictures of School

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For those of you who haven’t visited me yet, here’s some pictures of my classroom. It’s usually a lot busier than this! I have 10 computers in my room because I’m the ICT coordiator for the department. These computers, plus 8 in the adjoining library (through the wooden doors) are the ‘computer lab’ for the English department. The state of my desk is a bit worse than normal – end of the year and all that…

Beth's Reading Log, Books

The Education of Teacher Beth

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Since my hubby has created this opportunity to share my thoughts about books, thought I’d do so…

Now, books are very close to my heart. Having grown up in a fairly remote part of Canada where TV was not readily available until satellite dishes were invented, I grew up on books. I can remember the first time I read a book to my mom and dad (an ‘I Can Read’ book called ‘Small Pig’), and my mother still glows with pride when asked about her children’s early reading ability. Both my brother and I read before we went to school, something that was actually frowned upon at the time; parents did not know how to teach their children how to read, of course – that was the school’s job! Good thing my mom was a teacher then…

It also helped that, as already mentioned, there was a conspicuous lack of a television until I was about 10 (at which time I’m sure I made up for all those lost years…) but I think my love of books can be traced back to my mother and my family. All of my aunts and uncles on both sides of my family are well-educated, and I can include several teachers and even university professors amongst those ranks. All of which meant that reading and learning have always been valued in my family. And this was undoubtedly one of the reasons I chose to become an English teacher. And being an English teacher, it’s actually part of my job to read novels and plays! Some things in life do work out well, don’t they??

Regrettably, with all the afore-mentioned marking (see previous post…), I haven’t had the time of late to pick up a book, but I did get some great novels for my birthday. And one of them that I’m really looking forward to is ‘Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister’ by Gregory Maguire. I ran across his work on the plane home from Canada in October – Air Canada had a channel that was running excerpts from recently published books. One of them was a book called ‘Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West’. It’s a re-telling of the Wizard of Oz from the point of view of said witch. It opens with the witch spying on Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman and the Cowardly Lion as they are on their way to defeat her. The close description of Dorothy and the other characters from the witch’s point of view was startling, as was the concept. I hadn’t thought of taking such a well-known story and looking at it from another pointof view. And of course the shoes really did belong to the witch- they had belonged to her sister, and her sister had no other living relatives – she was the next of kin. So much is made of the witches being evil that you assume in the original story that Dorothy is, of course, in the right to take the shoes. But what if the witches weren’t evil, but just had a different point of view or belief system to the majority of the population? What light does that put Dorothy in? She becomes, at worst, a murderer, or at best, a foolish and naive girl. The most intriguing thing I found about the book was the fleshing out of the rather one-dimensional society that Frank Baum created in the Wizard of OZ books. What would happen to that society if Animals (those who could speak and were intelligent, as opposed to the common sort, animals) were discriminated against, and there was a movement (that eventually became underground and miliant) that fought for Animal Rights? Or if the Wizard was a dictator who ruled OZ with a fascist-like government?

This book was intricate and detailed, a close examination of an unsual person who became misunderstood and persecuted because of her differences in looks (she was born with pale green skin and very sharp teeth), and in belief. It is a sharp portrayal of how being ostracized can affect someone of intelligence and sensitivity. It was one of those books that I couldn’t put down, which was unfortunate in some ways because it’s too long to read at one sitting (without days off and a lot of coffee, that is…) and I didn’t get much work done while reading it. Which is one reason why I’m going to leave ‘Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister’ to the summer holiday – I can’t afford to skive off work at the moment!!

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (Gregory Maguire, Douglas Smith)