One flu over the cuckoo's nest

I know the blog's been a bit neglected recently, but not purposely so. As I've mentioned before, my internet connection has been decidedly unreliable of late, but at the moment it appears to be on a good footing so I'll take advantage whilst we're all still on the planet to read the damn thing.

I say that because there seems to be a real sense of end of days around at the moment. The economy has tanked, 2012 is looming large - can't wait to see the film by the way; not just one national monument destroyed, but ALL OF THEM! - Iran and North Korea are on the verge of going nuclear, there are earthquakes almost every day and H1N1 is going to kill us all before any of the other stuff matters anyway.

Vaccinations are now rolling out around Canada - we have ours slated for the beginning of next week - but at the moment, I don't think I'm going to get one. Regular readers will know all about my cynicism regarding the Swine Flu, and nothing I've seen or read has done anything to change my mind. Yes, there have been tragic fatalities but they have been exceptionally rare, and there are many more tragic fatalities as a result of other diseases, including the 'regular' flu, that simply go unreported. I still believe that the 24 hour news media has played a huge part in whipping up the current wave of hysteria regarding the virus, and that the true epidemic is in fact an epidemic of fear.

And to cap it all, that self-same media is now able to fill its airtime with reports on the ridiculously massive queues of people waiting to get their shots. In Kingston, a number of children were absent from Melanie's school today as their parents had taken them to get vaccinated, with one family joining the line at 7.30 in the morning and not getting to the front until 3.30 in the afternoon; maybe the health authority should have sold fast passes à la Disney, although I doubt you'd have got many punters going round again for a second ride. As for me, well I'm not even going round for a first ride. At this moment in time I'm not prepared to be injected with an under-tested, rush-released vaccine, and I shall take my chances with my own immune system, thank you very much. Granted, we should be concerned by the whole situation, but not afraid; after all, the only thing we really have to fear is fear itself.

And perhaps spiders.

Stan's the man

It's been a busy week thus far. My internet connection continues to be consistent only in its inconsistency, so deprived of a regular web fix I've been catching up on work and on the myriad of TV shows that I've recorded but yet to watch. At least we've had no further power cuts.

It's also been a good week weather-wise, and today some of my students came out with me to take some photographs of a Flat Stanley we'd made for The Grade 1s and 2s at Melanie's school in Kingston. We decided that a more appropriate, Inuit style name for him would be Stanwillie, and it was interesting to learn from my students that there is no real word in Inuttitut for 'flat.'

Both the students and myself enjoyed taking Stanwillie around town and we took some good photos, but none as good as this one, which shows the one-dimensional, cardboard figure in Washington D.C.:

Not sure who the small guy with the green tie is, though.

Food for thought

My internet connection has been more down than up over the last few days, and yesterday morning we had a power cut, not an uncommon feature in these parts. Normally the power comes back after a few minutes, but this time it was out for over an hour, which is really hardly any time at all, but it was enough time to make me frustrated.

There was no TV, no internet, no phone and no running water (everything is interdependent here).

I of course went outside to make sure that it was not just my house that was affected, and when I found out that it was indeed a village-wide blackout I was able to take some sort of sadistic pleasure in the fact that everyone was in the same boat. The power eventually came back, but I think the whole episode has made me realise that perhaps I have not become as detached from my material needs as I believed I had.

Food for thought indeed (but not the type of food that needs an oven to cook it in case the power goes down again).

Maybe a cheese sandwich for thought...

I don't like Mondays

Not that anyone should ever simply wish their time away, but it's already Thursday tomorrow, which means that we're only a couple of days away from the weekend. I've felt very tired this week so I'm looking forward to Friday evening, and I'm grateful for the fact that the Thanksgiving holiday on Monday made this a shorter work week.

Many of the staff at school have commented on how having the Monday off is psychologically far better than having a Friday off instead - although it must be said that either is better than neither - and my response to such comments has normally involved quoting a line or two from I Don't Like Mondays, such as "yeah, I don't like Mondays; I just want to shoot the whole day down."

Now, maybe it's an age thing again, maybe it's cultural, or maybe it's both, but such asides have universally flown straight over everyone's heads, probably leaving the other person thinking how strange that English guy is. I suppose that song is 30 years old now though, which is scary in itself ,and even scarier is the fact that this makes it almost as old, if not older, than many of the staff with whom I teach. Add into the mix that it was recorded by an Irish band that probably had very little impact on this side of the Atlantic, then I guess I'm probably deluding myself in thinking that anyone here is going to get the reference. Never mind; it keeps me happy.

Oh, and speaking of music, my 'song lyrics as poetry' project has been continuing apace, with outings today for Peter Gabriel and the Dave Matthews Band. Gabriel's Here Comes The Flood, always one of my favourite recordings, went down pretty well - the students were interested in the lyrics but were not 100% sold on the music - whilst DMB received a round of applause for Funny The Way It Is, which seemed to strike a chord both lyrically and musically. However, after two relatively contemporary, conventional tracks, I feel the need for something a little more esoteric next lesson.

I don't think I have the courage to play Ernie, but how about some John Cage...?

Walk out to winter

Well, I think it's safe to say that our winter is now well and truly here to stay. It snowed all day Friday, and we had a bit of a blizzard yesterday, making it virtually impossible to see the mountain/hill that I climbed only last weekend. To be honest, I don't really mind it once the snow is thick on the ground; what I don't like is the transition period when it snows one day and rains the next, turning the town into a slushy grey mess, but it looks like our transition period has been a short one this year.

I hosted a potluck evening at my house yesterday; despite the weather there was a good turnout, and thanks to everyone's efforts we had an obscene amount of wonderful food to enjoy. The only thing that didn't really get eaten was my Spaghetti Bolognese, but Tupperware and freezers are wonderful things and I now have plenty of leftovers to enjoy at my leisure. It's Thanksgiving Day tomorrow so I should be eating turkey, but I think that some of the Spag Bol could be getting an outing, unless I decide to defrost another slab of 'mystery meat' instead.

Choices, choices.

Le moment de vérité

Le moment de vérité (moment of truth) is a challenge-based game show on Radio-Canada (confusingly a television station), and it was the moment of truth for Dominick, Céline, Sandra and Pascal last night. Regular readers will have met Dominick and Céline before, whilst Pascal is Dominick's brother and Sandra is a former teaching colleague in Inukjuak.

The foursome tried out for the show earlier this year (or maybe late last year, I lose track of time so easily these days), and in the summer they got invited on and made their recording, which was finally broadcast light night. Sandra was selected to perform their challenge, which seemed to involve developing the ability to distinguish one red wine from another. I say seemed, because as the whole show was in French I wasn't 100% sure what was going on; Sandra certainly did a lot of smelling, swilling and spitting though, so she was either wine tasting or testing mouthwash.

From what I could make out, the group were given a few days, or possibly weeks (remember what I said about time?) before the show taped to 'train' Sandra for the task, and the training paid off because Sandra aced the challenge on the night, correctly identifying the five wines on display in the two minutes allowed and winning some very handy prizes for herself and the team. She and Pascal both walked away with a variety of computing and photography equipment, whilst it looked as though Dominick and Céline won a holiday to Scandinavia; either that or they won a photograph of a fjord, which wouldn't have been so impressive.

It was great to see my friends on TV, and even greater to see them emerge victorious. It's a good job they didn't have me on the team instead of Sandra though. The only time I've tried my hand at wine tasting was at a vineyard just outside of Cape Town a few years back, and after sampling a number of the local products all I was able to proclaim was, "yep, tastes like wine alright." My lack of a sense of smell would have reduced the challenge to guesswork, whilst my minimal grasp of French would most probably have led to a complete misunderstanding of the rules and seen me attempt to drink the entire contents of all five bottles in the allotted two minutes before collapsing in a drunken heap on the floor.

Now that would be a game show...

The surreal life

One of the projects I'm currently working on in class is a poetry unit where we are examining the lyrics of rock and pop songs. Not the most original idea I know, but it's a good way to introduce concepts such as simile, metaphor, alliteration and irony - none of which are all that familiar to my students - and so far everything seems to be going well. It also allows me to go off on Dead Poets Society style tangents, although I haven't had any students standing on desks yet and referring to me as their Captain. Give it time though...

I started out with Eleanor Rigby, standard fare in a project such as this, and we've also listened to If You Could Read My Mind, a heartfelt song by Gordon Lightfoot that those of you in the UK might remember from Trigger Happy TV. I like to branch out on left field limbs as well though, and I also had my students listen to Empire State Human by The Human League today, which I'm pretty certain has never hit the airwaves north of 60 before. It was quite a surreal experience to see my Inuit students listening to a piece of seminal late seventies British synthpop but they seemed to like it, and I'm now planning the next instalment of my lyrical mystery tour.

Ernie The Fastest Milkman In The West, perhaps...?

Making mountains out of molehills

Still feeling somewhat pleased with myself following my dalliance with mountaineering at the weekend, I decided to tell my class all about my experience today. However, rather than receiving congratulations and plaudits for my escapade, my story was greeted with comments such as "so you walked up the small hill, eh?" and "maybe next time you can try the big one" (Mr C., you were right!).

I immediately realised that my feat was distinctly less impressive than I'd imagined, and as a result perhaps my previous post would have been better off being titled The Englishman who thought he'd gone up a mountain only to be informed that he'd really just walked up a large hill. This realisation was confirmed when Sarah, a colleague of mine here (hi Sarah!), left a comment on that post explaining that she and her husband had climbed the same peak two weeks ago, sharing their baby carrier between them.

So, weather permitting, I shall attempt to scale Kangiqsujuaq's east peak this coming weekend, although given the fact that we now have snow forecast every day between now and then, I can't promise anything; I'm such a fair weather mountaineer!

The Englishman who went up a hill but came down a mountain

After a week when I've hardly been able to get online - problems with my laptop and router rather than Tamaani on this occasion - everything seems to have magically corrected itself today, so I can at last fill you in on my activities over the last few days.

My back is much better now, but I've saved some of the pills they gave me at the nursing station just in case I suffer I relapse, which is a distinct possibility at my time of life; Sophie next door put my age at 34 when we initially met though, so I think I'll let her be the judge of chronological matters from now on.

Given my relative sprightliness I finally decided to tackle the mountain that lies to the west yesterday, and armed with sandwiches and flask I set off on what was one of the most adventuresome things I've done for some time. OK, it was hardly Man Against Wild, Bear Grylls-style survival, but it was a challenge nonetheless, and I felt a great sense of achievement upon reaching the summit. Parts of the climb were quite steep and I must admit that I had to take a few breathers on the way up, but the effort was well worth it in the end.

(click to enlarge)

Whether the edifice that I climbed is actually a mountain or nothing more than a very steep hill I really can't say with 100% certainty, but at approximately 1100 feet it certainly meets some people's requirements for mountain status so it's a mountain for me and besides, mountain climbing sounds far more rugged than hill walking. On more than one occasion it looked as though I'd reached the final peak, only for a whole new climb to appear once I'd made what I thought to be the top, and for a brief moment I was able to get a little inkling as to how the survivors of the plane that crashed in the Andes back in the early 70s must have felt, only without the need to resort to cannibalism.

Speaking of strange meat I'm currently defrosting a slab of something that I got from the community freezer earlier in the term; I've no idea what it is - could be caribou, could be whale - but I'm going to eat it tonight and I'm determined to enjoy it no matter what. I think I deserve it after my expedition!