Zub Tales

Well, here’s the Stampede wrap-up. All in all, it wasn’t that bad. Although my venomous rant about Stampede last week probably scared most of you, I’m not out to completely destroy Calgary or its big money maker. I didn’t go to Stampede, but I did enjoy some of the other related festivities.

The week was pretty relaxed. Good things came early in the week as we received news that the new version of the Animation course was fully approved by the Alberta Private School Board. That’s quite the feather in my cap because I wrote the curriculum and set up the marking structure for it. That coupled with the fact that one of my students is a semi-finalist for this year’s Teletoon scholarship really makes me feel good about what I’m teaching out here. Seeing one of my student’s names up with several of the Sheridan kids made me proud. I’m having a blast as a teacher.

On Thursday I went to a steak lunch for Tanya’s staff which was a mixed affair. The people were nice and the alcohol was free flowing, but the meal was badly organized. Stuffing almost 1000 people in a place with seating for maybe 300 doesn’t work well for eating a meal. Neither does having only one line for those people. Instead of waiting the 2 and a half hours for food, we dashed down the road to a pub for a bite to eat. It was neat having a mid-afternoon Thursday date 🙂

Friday night was a BBQ at my boss’ house for the school staff and friends. My boss Bohdan is a weird but wonderful guy. When I mentioned that I would meet up with him later after Tanya got off work, he insisted that I take his car to pick her up. I then remembered that he drives a $32,000 Prelude. Needless to say, I treated it like gold. It was fun getting back behind the wheel considering I haven’t had a car since ’98. The BBQ was quite a bit of fun. A good way to feel more comfortable with the people who you work with.

Saturday was relaxed. A bunch of us went out to see the X-Men movie and I was actually really impressed. It wasn’t embarrassing like most comic book related films. I left the theater pretty juiced and the audience responded really well to it. The way I figured it, you’d have to be a real nit-picky comic geek to think that they didn’t adapt the story well for the screen. Crunching bits and pieces of 20 years worth of comics into a coherent 2 hours has go to be tough. Lo and behold, I talked to the biggest comic book fan boy I know this morning and he hated it. He started pointing out the tiniest discrepancies from the comics and I just shook my head. I guess you can’t please everyone.

Saturday night turned into a heated debate at a pub with one of Jordie’s friends. The subject jumped from poverty, to corrupt companies, to movies and corporations. This guy travels quite a bit and is going for his PhD in anthropology. That’s impressive, but it doesn’t mean you’re infallible. No matter what I said, I felt this air of superiority to the whole thing, like you don’t have a valid opinion unless you’ve traveled all over the world and sat in a lecture hall for 4 years of your life. I’d love to say it was jealousy, and I would love to travel, but I’m in no rush for a university degree. I walked away from the whole thing wondering why we’d argued in the first place. It’s not like two guys in a bar are going to change foreign governments, bring down corrupt multi-billion dollar companies or solve world hunger. Yeesh.

Talking with friends long distance yesterday got me laughing, but left me feeling a little homesick. Thinking of Sheridan, residence and the friends I have in Toronto made me think of how different things would be if it would have started now. I’ve learned so much and gained a hell of a lot of confidence these last few years. This week really proved that. So many different social situations and responsibilities, but I made my way through them without losing my head. That makes me feel great. If I had this mindset when I started school, I would’ve been a whirlwind. I guess I’ll just have to be thankful for the growth and translate that thinking into the here and now.

Tanya’s parents arrived yesterday afternoon and the whole meeting was really nonchalant. We grabbed dinner, hung out and talked. It looks like they’ll be coming by the school at lunch time, so we’ll see how that all goes. I was nervous, but so far it’s gone without a hitch. I must say, I’m surprised and quite relieved.

Anyways, that’s the week in a nutshell. I hope you’re not too bored with my ramblings. I’ll have to see what tales I can cook up this week as the summer rumbles onward.