Happy Hallowe'en

Happy [Belated] Hallowe’en!

Hey - It's Jill

Most important news: Mike and I are…not teaching yet. I overheard the Principal talking to the Furniture guys about coming for the Grade 5-8 portables on November 19, which means school won't start until November 26th. That’s only 2 ½ weeks before Christmas Break. I’m going to take a wild guess and suggest Grade 3-4 won’t start until after Christmas. And I’ll do the math for you; that’s only 111 days of school. If there are no school closures due to weather, power loss, or deaths. Today was one of those days, which is why I have time to post. Mike said he had about 3 closures a month last year…

I’m going to blame our scanty updates on a lack of content. It’s not that we don’t have time, we just do very little of anything worth mentioning. But, just in case that explanation doesn’t suffice, here’s what I’ve been recording through pictures so far. Mike didn’t nearly do justice to the first day of school, so I’ve included a few more pictures.

First day of High School:

Kids are waiting for school to start. There is still no bell, so the teachers yell and blow whistles.

There have been a few mornings where the power has gone out, but school always starts on time.

There is still no central heat. Teacher use space heaters. All of the duct work is exposed under the portables. Hopefully they'll be insulated soon, before it gets too cold.

King of cool, Mickey the Principal, helps direct students along with the high school math teacher. I still get confused which class is in which portable. In the background, you can see the portables. Two classrooms are connected by a hallway containing a washroom and maintenance room.

Later that week, Mike and I went for a walk through the construction site. The crews were on lunch, so why not?

This is the Pre-fab portable #2 as of October 24th.

Our portable is coming along: the walls are up and the plumbing is in. The door was locked and the windows boarded up (the crew is learning
from previous lax security!) so I couldn't take any pictures.

Cool bridge, eh mom? Don't you love the added touch of the extension cord running across it? Hope the ends don't fall in the water/sludge/quicksand. I bet it's real safe, and I walked across it!

The day of our walk, the power went out a few times in the morning, we soon found out why: Once at school, we saw a plume of smoke in the distance and learned that an abandoned house had burned down. Arson. I swear Mike and I just stumbled across the site on our walk. We didn't go looking for it. But once there, we might as well take pictures, right? There were only a few flames, still safe...

The arena. Currently a storage area. The baseball diamond/flag football/soccer field is across the street.













Here are a few kids playing soccer with a few teachers. They're using the new soccer balls courtesy of Doon Presbyterian Church.















Innovation is an instinct up here. You don't have a playground? Build one.
Here's a good (i.e. safe) example, I've seen worse.
















Playing in a mud puddle! The water came within an inch of the top of my boots.
Along this road/trail we saw a pair of snow buntings, a red squirrel, and two dogs.















This is Buster. He's the favourite of the teachers. Very friendly, not aggressive at all (I stuck my hand in his mouth when I was feeding him once, long story for next post). But he's huge and he really likes to hold your hand - in his mouth - so his presence bothers a few people.
We learned recently that he's not the puppy we thought he was; his owner brought him into the community. Nor is he the poor Oliver Twist who needs nourishment and attention; other teachers feed him and attend to him! He's a clever con is what he is.
















But I still pet him when he comes around. He's too cute - and too insistent - to ignore.


I tried to take a picture of Mike. For ignoring Buster, I got two palm-size muddy paw prints on my jacket...
















Hanging around in the am waiting for class to start with a few teachers and Buster. Incidently, everyone (except the student with the red binder) is a Nipissing Grad...
















Happy Halloween!
Mr. T carving up a pumpkin.

I prefer his alterego. There's only so much 'I pity the foo!' I can handle.

The kids - and staff - loved Mike's costume and our pumpkin. I think we were the only ones with a pumpkin.
















I dressed up as Kim Possible. It's a cartoon. Really I just wanted to dye my hair orange.
















The kids around here arrive in style!
It wouldn't have been a real Canadian Halloween without snow.
















Mr. T handing out candy.
I was mean: I made the older kids say 'Trick or Treat'. Luckily most of them didn't know what they were saying so we didn't have to worry about kids 'tricking' us when we ran out of candy.
We had about 150 pieces of candy, and we ran out after 1hr! And there were still more kids walking around 1 hour later!
Everyone I talked to also ran out of candy. I'm sure a lot of people in the community pass out candy, but everyone brings their kids to 'Central' where most of the teachers and PEA employees live. And I don't know about everyone else, but I didn't buy enough candy for +750 kids.

So that's it. You're all caught up now. It takes a long time to upload photos, so if you want more - and I have a lot - then you'll have to find me on Facebook where I post all my pictures.