Bits and bites

Last week I neglected to mention that Neha had her baby, a beautiful tiny boy! His name is Parth and we still need to meet. Mom and baby are doing just fine. Look at this awesome photo a photographer at the hospital took. So excited to be Janice masi!!


Work is going really well. I feel like I have developed some kind of routine for my class, and I can see what I want to work on with them. Putting it all into action is daunting, but, one day at a time, right? Today we were talking about safety in the workplace, and how you have the right to safe work. If you are a welder and your boss asks you to do a small job, but he doesn't have a mask for you, should you do it? Seven people said "no way" and one kid said "yeah, of course. He's the boss. In my country, I did it." Okay. Which led to a somewhat condescending discussion about how some things that were okay in your country are not okay in Canada. Like, for instance, in your country, hanging on to the outside of a bus or sitting on top of a train is totally cool, but in Canada it's not. Is it safe to hang on to the side of a bus? Two students shrug their shoulders - I guess not, but we did it every day. To which someone else said "But it's a free ride, right?" Nope, we still had to pay. Really? And so on... Can you imagine people just hanging on to the top of the c-train on their commute home from work? It makes me laugh just thinking about it, but it's so common elsewhere. Today I was invited to be a guest blogger on our work's ESL Literacy Network website in February, so I'm looking forward to that opportunity. I know you're thinking that I barely pay attention to my own blog, how will a manage a second? I'm wondering the same thing...

Here are some photos that belong with last week's post:

Snow shoeing at Lake Louise


Skiing at Sunshine