Departure

My flight leaves Toronto at 7:15 am on May 5^th. Gramma, according to her plan, leaves for Toronto on the 13^th.

What an adventure.

 

-Laur

Running over...

On Wednesday March 12th, at 4:48 pm Edmonton time (6:48 pm Toronto time), my second-cousin Erica Kay Bell came squalling into the world, 2 weeks early but welcomed and appreciated nonetheless.

This is the closest I think I'll ever come to being an aunt. I'll be spending my whole summer close to this blond cherub, this tiny gorgeous being with incredibly skinny fingers and a squished face from her quick journey into the world. I'm going to take pictures like a fiend.

My cup runneth over.

-Laur

Approaching

Canada Blooms 2008

Enjoy the slideshow. Mom and I had a lot of fun.

-Laur

10 degrees Celsius to my happiness

The weather, as some of you Torontonians may have noticed, was just delightful today. On Friday as it snowed and blustered outside the bus on my way from school to work I just about cried, longing for the days of frozen precipitation and temperature drops to be over. Today, apparently, I got my wish :D

Next Thursday my mom and I are going to Canada Blooms at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Nothing shrieks SPRING! like Canada Blooms to me, and I'm so glad we're going this year. Last year we didn't go because Mom didn't want to (ergo was too overwhelmed with her newly single life) and I really missed it. Canada Blooms, for those of you who don't know, is a huge flower and garden show that takes place in the middle of March every year in Toronto. It's a multi-faceted show, with landscaping companies, horticultural societies, and big home and garden stores like Home Depot and Rona presenting their best garden and outdoor living designs. The flowers are GORGEOUS and the designs are breathtaking. Since I won't be around to help maintain the garden this summer I wanted to do this with Mom more than ever. And I want to test out my new camera on the flowers, to see if I can hone my photography skills just a little more.

I'll post some of the pictures after the show. For now I have to get back to work on my Filming Literature essay.

Cheers!

-Laur

The Ethics of Attending an Ed Class and other moral conundrums

I'm in my ISIP class again and you know what? I hate it. It is a useless class with a useless teacher and I feel cheated having taken it. I feel this way about other Ed classes as well, and I don't really know what to do about it. I'm going to graduate with a BEd next year and what will I have actually learned about the theory behind teaching? I've learned from the practise part at this point, but that's about it. So should I even bother going to class when I so clearly do not learn anything? Should I bother getting up at 6:30 in the morning to attend my ISIP course to talk about cheating and how we SHOULDN'T deal with it? Useless.

Another problem I'm coming up against is the issue of my professional development portfolio. I'm not upset about this or anything because I know I can do it, but I'm just wondering about the technical aspects of it. I'm going to do a blog just like this one, but more professional. I need to figure out how to organize the blog so that it's not just all post and surplus; I need more text and less crap. I don't want to move to Wordpress because I don't think I know how to use it, but perhaps it's the smartest route to take at this point? Hopefully I'll find out enough about Blogger in the next month that my portfolio is bang up fantastic.

Class is over in 45 minutes. Excellent.

 

-Laur

As much as I dislike winter, when you can get a scene like this at 6 pm, not a moving vehicle in sight, I tend to appreciate it more.
Still working on the blogging from Word sans pictures problem, but it will soon be solved.
There's a lunar eclipse going on outside right now. It's pretty awesome.
Nature astounds, unendingly.

-Laur

A Luddite I am Not

I downloaded Microsoft Office 2007 on Monday, mostly because I think I'm going to be getting a new laptop this summer and I would rather have an office suite that is Vista compatible (ugh). Most of the time I'm averse to new technologies; I like the comfort of knowing exactly how to open a file, insert a header or footer, or double space a paragraph without having to search for the commands each time. I knew that it would be better if I switched to the new Office now and became familiar with it rather than having to fight both a new office suite AND a new operating system at the same time, so Mom and I decided to split the cost and go in on this together (as soon as the optional DVD arrives, I'll install it on her computer, too).

I love this new version of Office, and I'll admit it now. I can't get enough of it! I could play on Publisher, newly included in this version of Microsoft Office Home and Student Edition 2007, for days, creating fliers, brochures, business cards and labels to my heart's content. The new Word is fabulously beautiful to look at, and does MORE and BETTER than the old version used to. As long as I remember to save everything in compatibility mode (so I can share notes with the poor saps out there who don't have this wondrously amazing program yet), I could rule the world with documents.

Now I'm trying something different in OneNote; I'm going to compose all my blogs here and see if I can upload them to Blogger this way.

We'll see if it works!

 
 

 
 

-Laur