02:55 - 16.02.08
Ancient History
For those with children in this city, the past few days have been taken over by teacher's convention. Two days of classroom workshops meant to build up skills and collegiality among all of our teachers, librarians and support staff. Not surprisingly one of the most consistently popular subjects is stress management - for them, as well as for their students. When my guys were young and I was volunteering/living in their classrooms, the gift of free access to those workshops was extended to me through their principals. I really enjoyed the extra training. The seminars that still stick out in my mind today are the ones on how to teach high school math and physics. I'm not going to be doing that during this lifetime, but they dealt with a variety of techniques to engage others who might not be as interested or conversant in the subject at hand as you are. There are numerous ways to apply those concepts.
In addition, this province's annual Family Day holiday always follows the Monday after the convention. Means that, including the weekend, students have a five day break from school. As a result, my oldest son arrived at my home with his two children in tow. It was quite warm today with a strong chinook wind blowing, so they were happy with being less burdened with all that extra clothing needed in winter. They were busy running errands so they just paused long enough to have lunch with me before moving on. The children were excited because they had spotted one or two of their teachers heading off for "class" while they travelled through the downtown core. There are so many teachers and workshops, that every available conference room space seems to be filled with them for the two days. My son had made up breaded chicken and brought it along with fruit and drinks for all. Yummy, and a nice surprise at that. I showed him and his children some of the photos I had scanned into my computer, which resulted in some stories about their Dad as a child. They were quite intrigued by some of the "ancient" technology - the photo of their Dad holding a Smurfs LP album had them completely foxed. "Is that a pizza?" "What are Smurfs?" Owwww. My oldest said they would be back for a longer visit on Sunday.
I spent most of the rest of the day building up the data in an on-line family tree I started just before the last election. I'd forgotten about it in all the personal drama that has been going on since that time. The service I am using allows for one to invite family members to access it too. I haven't done that yet, because I want to be certain that the core information is all in place and as accurate as possible. Given the amount of information I have to key in it could be a while longer because each step in the process requires one to review and verify the data. That is a good thing, because the extra effort promises greater historical accuracy and precision. The service also has a paid component where one can add citations of an individual's entries, drawing from census data and other data sources such as military records and immigration documents, but that is too costly for me. Some of the stories contained within that material are fascinating and harrowing of themselves, though. My one grandfather's encounter with the Titanic (he wasn't on it), another great .... grandfather being gassed in the trenches during World War I, things like that. Sent a couple of emails out to specific family members, who are keepers of parts of the family history from their side of the family, asking for more information from them.
As you might guess, I am using the task as a way to keep my morale up. It has become increasingly difficult not to be depressed about my jobless state. No positive responses yet, you see. One employer today saying no to the position I had interviewed for, but could they consider me for another position instead. I would really like the other position, but I need to be working now, so I can pay my basic bills. Time is running out you see, otherwise I would be quite content with being at home working on family related tasks. Read out loud to the cats - receiving the ten commandments we are, so they have no more excuses about not knowing the rules. Soaked my feet as I read, preparing for the next activity - chasing the cats. They were quite excited about that - "chase Mom" up and down the stairs. Guess that's all good too. Anyway good night for now dear diary.
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