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Saturday, October 27, 2007

Organ Donation

While you're waiting for a kidney you think
about the guy who told you he always wanted
to be president, or a doctor but never did. But never
did anything but sell day old bread.
You list your accomplishments, picture obituaries,
and send out emails urging your friends to drink
and drive but to remember to sign their organ donation cards.
Any day now the call about kidneys available,
any day you might stumble onto something.
While reading the paper you might see an ad
for a Matzo Ball eating contest and be suddenly certain
you'll be remembered and you'll receive a pancreas
and a perfect kidney. For you there is greatness
and both your parents are still alive to see it. Any day now
like it happened for the day-old bread store owner
who became somebody in the competitive eating circuit.

-Larissa Andrusyshun
(A friend of mine & Fred)

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Changes

My apologies for not having posted anything particularly interesting in the last few weeks. I've been crazy busy. I've had only one day off since August, so I haven't really felt like doing much but sleeping. In September, I started subbing at a school for learning disabled kids (did I post about this already, maybe I did...). I've been there at least once a week for the past couple months. Not wanting to ditch Brother just yet, I was switching shifts with people and coming in on Sundays. Saturdays I'm still working at the yoga studio. So things have been hectic. I completely unintentionally ended up with three jobs. The last couple weeks, my phone has been ringing off the hook with calls from a various schools looking for English or Drama teachers and I've been ditching shifts at Brother left, right and center to go to interviews. So I decided it may be time to pack it in at Brother, and my last day is tomorrow. I've accepted a part time teaching contract at a school in the east end, where I work on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I'm going to spend this week circulating my resume to various other schools, hoping to pick up more substitution work for the next little while and completing my applications for the school board. I thought I had already finished with this, but then I received a notice in the mail that they were in fact serious about wanting my official transcripts from high school and my diploma. Silly me, I didn't think these things would matter after University...

Amidst all this insanity, I came to the realization that it was time for me to go back to school. So I've applied to do my Bachelor of Social Work online through the University of Victoria starting in January and hopefully should heard back from them soon. I discovered while ordering my high school transcripts from Alberta Education, that I never paid the fee for my diploma exams, which I had rewritten purely out of pride. I was shocked and disgusted when I received my mark back on my English exam and I had been given 77% on my essay- probably the lowest mark I've ever gotten in English. I rewrote that same exam six months later, agreeing to pay the forty something dollars to do so-- only to receive the exact same mark in the mail. For the last ten years, I have successfully quashed the desire to retake that same exam, concluding instead that Alberta Education doesn't know its ass from its elbow. This makes me feel better.

Monday, October 08, 2007

Blog Action Day-October 15th

Bloggers Unite - Blog Action Day


October 15th is blog action day. Bloggers from around the world are posting about the environment as a call to action for people and governments around the world. Currently there are 12 316 bloggers involved, expecting to reach an audience of
11 284 000 people.

Saturday, October 06, 2007

Post for Burma

Free Burma!

Myanmar (or Burma) is ruled by a military junta, leaving the people with impoverished and with little freedom. The human rights violations are astounding, and the Burmese people are speaking out for the first time since 1988. Though many face torture and death for their political activism, Buddhist monks have been the voice of change in Myanmar in recent weeks. Officially, pro-democracy Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi was elected by a landslide in 1990, but has never been allowed to govern. The country has benefited from increased tourist overflows from Thailand and Laos, but little of the incoming funds have touched the people.