Introduction
12 days it has been since our last update. Shame on us. Of course we updated some pictures, but if we keep updating like this, we’ll end up with long stories every time we update. Like you saw in the last update, I have been supply teaching a lot, which is only partially the reason why we did not update earlier. But enough self remorse, on y va!
November 19
Judiths morning was spent volunteering at Mildred Hall. Although the kids are not always as sweet and adorable as she initially thought, she stills enjoys it a lot. Then again, she is sure that she will not very likely pursue a teaching career. Some people thought she would possibly turn over to the less paying, more stressful and demanding side of the job spectrum, but I am happy she will continue doing what she is good at. Talaria Communications is still doing well and having an average of 10 hours paid work per week. Not bad at all and combined with my salary it should be suffcient to pay the bills.
November 20
The day of my pre-birthday party. 🙂 In the morning I had to work, the afternoon I spent cooking and preparing. I started a bit late, which caused us to be late in the Elks’ Club. Fortunally, Travis was prepared to pick us up. So after a few drinks and a few more invites, we went back. Some last preparations before the crew joined us. We had invited more people than we did at Judiths birthday, since we knew more people, and we had quite a few people attending. Enough to get the room filled and vibrant. I made meatballs in peanutbutter sauce, pizza with home made dough, patatas bravas, “kruidcake” and my goat cheese “bonbons”. Accompanied by lots of vegetables, dippings, chips and what not more.
I got some nice presents as well: a cheese grinder, Monopoly, chocolate bonbons, beer (Heineken and Grolsch), wine, moose jerky, moose sausage, a nice pan and more kitchen stuff Judith bought me, a fur hat…… Nice! But the biggest present was of course the nice evening.
November 21
The day of the Santa Claus parade. We already posted some pictures, but like the “intocht van Sinterklaas” (the arrival of Sinterklaas in NL) this is a huge event in Canada. There were a lot of people (well, a lot is relative of course, but half the population of Yellowknife was there). When the actual parade went by, it was somewhat less impressive than the amount of people that gathered would make one suspect it would be. But still, it is all about the experience. (That phrase starts to become our motto)
After the parade we were invited at Travis and Robyns place, for perogies, moose sausage and a real home-made to yours truly self addressed birthday cake! So nice! The food was delicious and the birthday cake, unbelievable!
November 22
My actual birthday! After some calls from the Netherlands (nice!) we went with some left-overs to Sir John Franklin High. Travis and Robyn had plans for the morning and they had to be at school in the afternoon. And they needed lunch! So we brought some meatballs, some french bread, some chives and garlic butter and some goat cheese bonbons! Afterwards we walked back and we took some pictures after quite a climb to the top of the hill next to our apartment building.
November 23
My last day of teaching car mechanics and fabrication studies. Since the teacher I substituted may be absent for quite a while, a more permanent solution needed to be found. That solution presented itself. A teacher with a thorough hands-on experience with cars (yet a completely different Bachelor of Education) walked in on the YK1 office and was immediately sent to Sir John Franklin High. I worked with him for one afternoon to update him. So I am free to work on other subjects again! I cannot say I am sad about that!
November 24
Judith went for another day volunteering at Mildred Hall and to her choir practice in the evening. I went to the Roman Catholic Schoolboard in the morning, to bring my application package there to broaden my horizons and increase my chances of working as a supply teacher on a regular base and perhaps, more in my own subjects. The afternoon I was at home, working on administration of my hours and more. I also installed an obsolete printer we got as a gift. Because the printer was made around 1994, it was quite something to get it working. But, after some perseverance, blood, sweat, but no tears, it worked for both Judiths and my computer. Yay! A free Laserjet printer! Especially Judith is happy with it, since she doesn’t have to rely on me anymore for printing her invoices for customers. She can do it right away!
November 25
I went to École Willam MacDonald Middle School, to introduce myself there and get my name on their list of supply teachers. The walk was a bit further than I thought it would be, so I am not sure how to get there if I should be hired there. On the way back I walked by Sir John Franklin High to find out nobody was there, since everybody had the afternoon off to cheer for the school (Ice)Hockey team. I also found out the Salsa classes that were taught to the students there, which I wanted to see, where not that night, but the night before. Double bummer!
Later that afternoon, I tried to install two Linux distributions in dualboot on the obsolete computer I also got for free. (Ain’t that nice?) Since I brought a book for Linux studies with me for days I don’t supply, I figured I needed to make work on that as well. And I need a testing computer to try stuff on. The studies will result in being able to get two official certificates, so I get multiple benefits out of our Canadian adventure. Since the computer had no DVD drive and I bought DVD’s to install the OS from, I tried a USB install, but the computer did not have USB boot available in the BIOS, not even after I flashed and updated the BIOS as well. Slightly annoyed I had to give up until I got some new parts.
That night I put my bicycle with bicycle trainer in front of the television and cycled for 1,5-2 hours. Judith in the meantime went to the gym she works out.
November 26
Judith was invited for a Rotary Lunch that day, which was very enjoyable. She thought it was really nice to get a taste of the Rotary spirit again, since she was in Rotarian exchange program 13 years ago (also in Canada, yet in Ontario) She got involved in the Rotary reading program, to battle illiteracy in Yellowknife, which is quite a problem here actually, especially on the aboriginal part of the population.
I went off to get a DVD drive (yes, for free as well) for the computer. I also walked by Sir John Franklin (something I have done all the days I haven’t worked, to keep in touch and hopefully be the first to be considered for supply teaching when a new opportunity is there) When I ran into Pat, who missed my pre-birthday party, who thought out loud about the possibility of going out for a beer, I anticipated quickly to get involved in that plan. So we came up with the excellent idea of going out for beer and dinner. Pat picked us up at our place and we went to “The Monkey Tree”, a bar we hadn’t been before. Since it was B&B night (Beer and Burgers) we were not the only people there. We sat at a table with some people we already knew: a teacher from Sir John Franklin and a girl we met for the third time on a random location (we borrowed her laundry card when we lived for 2 days in Fraser Arms, she is in Judiths choir as well and now we saw her in a third random scenario) Also at the table some new people, which would have a cookie swap the next week, for which I am now invited and will make “speculaas” cookies. The things we get ourselves into, eh? 😀 Anyways, the beer was good and the burgers were free and the company was pleasant. It pays to have initiative!
Afterwards, I installed Debian and OpenSuse on my test computer. It took me quite some time and I went to bed at 2 am. That was the exact same time Judith got up to call a customer in the Netherlands. Without much luck, though, the chap had no time so they made an appointment to call again at Monday, noon for Judith, 8 pm for him, since he “would have more time in the evening”. Luckily, Judith had to make some more calls (insurance, new contacts and another business call). But that is the risk when you go abroad and continue working for Dutch customers. 🙂
November 27
It was a day of no classes at Sir John Franklin: there were parent-teacher-interviews. After school hours, we went to the Elks’ Club, where Robyns pre-birthday party started. After a few drinks, some cake and some more drinks we went to the Black Knight Pub, for burgers (yes I know, again, two days of burgers in a row, shame on us). The evening ended in the Monkey Tree, which at night is a bar where one can dance as well. After a bit of dancing, juice and ice tea we went home.
November 28
We were brutally woken up by our phone. I was too late answering it. After listening to the voicemail it turned out to be Travis. We had promised (on Facebook) to go the crafts’ sale of the organisation he works with, which works with mentally challenged adults. If I just used an incorrect term, so be it; not too long ago we could still call them “idiots”, nowadays, the designation for these people seems to change every week. Regardless of all that, they were a happy bunch of troopers and it was really enjoyable.
We continued going to a sale in St. Pats (the school) and then to yet another one in some home for the elderly. The afternoon ended by going to the old town, to two galleries and Weaver & Devore. One of the galleries we certainly visit again, since we saw nice stuff to bring home. We had some lunch and went off for some groceries. Later that night Robyn picked us up to have dinner at their place. I brought the dessert (crêpes with custard with Grand Marnier). Travis had prepared a delicious moose stew. We had an enjoyable evening, watched some television and played some cards. After that, we brought Judith home. Robyn, Travis and myself went to see the movie “A Clockwork Orange”, which started at midnight in the theatre. It was better than Judith told me, since she did not feel like seeing it since she saw a play with the same title which she did not enjoyed that much. After the movie, Travis and Robyn dropped me off at Ciara Manor, where I crashed into bed next to Judith.
November 29
A lazy Sunday. Up late and I spent the afternoon toying around with the fresh installations on my test computer. We did some groceries and I made my own bread again. It was the third time I made my own dough and I am getting quite good at it. I made three ciabattas out of my dough. While they were rising a second time, we went to the Salsa classes I wanted to check out. We had been unlucky since the first class I was sort of ill, the second class Judith was not feeling well and the third class we forgot to go. Our luck hadn’t changed, because after our 15 minute walk, it turned out the class for that night was cancelled. Later on, it even became clear all remaining classes were cancelled as well. There goes another of the already few opportunities of dancing in Yellowknife. 🙁
The ciabattas were risen and baked immediately after we came back. I made a nice bacon-mushroom-omelette to put on the bread. It was truly one of the best meals we have had so far in Yellowknife, a good end to a nice weekend.
November 30
Judith had to call the customer she called last Thursday. Finally she got the answers on the interview she prepared, so she could start working on the website texts for this company. She also had a translation job to finish, so she had a good day of working. I went to school to help out in Ed’s class, like I did before I had the work permit. The students were pleased to see me again. After some thorough questioning they were OK with the fact that I had been in other classes and not in theirs, since they understood the financial motivation of that choice ;-). It was nice to hear them say they enjoyed me being there though. I was by myself with the students the last 15-20 minutes of the class by myself, since Ed had to leave early for a meeting. Nice! 🙂
Concluding
I can only imagine the length of the text I just wrote. Updating more often gives smaller amounts of texts, I am aware of that and so is Judith. Still we fail to update more regularly. But then again, we do update you guys and I’d say you get a good idea of what we’re doing here, what we’re experiencing. I do hope that makes up for the long lengths of texts we produce from time to time!
