Saturday, December 04, 2004
An annual holiday tradition for us for several years running now. The local Lions club does a nice job of setting up some lights in a couple of trees in Kew Beach park, and invites everyone in the neighbourhood to come around and sing carols by the stage. All the local dignitaries come out (the local MP, MPP, and the trusties of the school boards) and for several years running local musician Lenny Graf leads the sing-a-longs. For the kids Santa himself and Mrs. Claus put in an appearance at the end, handing out candy-canes to all the kids and singing the final "We Wish You a Merry Xmas" carol.
No Erika this year, as she was out practicing her trumpet for one of several upcoming recitals coming up, so it was a solo Dad effort to take the girls to the event.
The turn-out this year was smaller than in previous years, mainly due to the fact that up until an hour before, it was pouring rain. This ended up being a boon for those who did turn out, and I manage to stake out a spot close to the stage. Got both girls one of those chemical glow-sticks the Lions were handing out for a donation, so I had Annie perched on my shoulders waving her purple glow stick and singing along to the songs while. (A local photographer took some shots of Annie and me, so will have to see if anything turns up in the local paper). Vanessa was up by the fence in front of the stage with some of her friends. Vanessa had made a picture especially for Santa and tried to hand it to him when he came to the stage, but he was too busy to take it. She was understandably a bit upset about that, but I told her that we would leave it out for him when he came by on Xmas day.
A fun, hokey ceremony that had everybody happy by the end of it. Annie walked home singing the words she remembered to the Xmas carols (and made up words where she didn't know them) all the way home.
Part of the reason why I haven't been posting much here of late is because the majority of any spare time I've had over the past couple of months has been eaten up entirely by the prep I've had to do for the three classes I have been teaching for the PLC. I've since decided that that is one more course than I can easily handle, especially since one of them is a wholly new course for me.
Today is something of a milestone however, as I finished teaching my one of my courses -- the one on Information Architecture -- early this afternoon. There's still the marking to be done, but at least I now have my Saturday mornings back.
I am very happy with this course I've just finished teaching for the past eight weeks -- I think it has been about as satisfying as it gets. The information was solid, I pretty much knew it cold and the two sets of guest speakers I had come in (one from the Web/Communications department at the City of Toronto, the other on the Web team for President's Choice Financial) went over really well and generated a lot of discussion.
The student presentations were more over the map than I would have liked -- telling me that next time I need to provided a demo as to what I am looking for (which is exactly what I did at last Thursday's Information Management course). But the learning was there. The student evaluations were practically glowing, and the few critical points (too many students equals too much time eaten up by student presentations, some of the info a bit dated) are valid and will try to improve upon for the next go around.
Definitely my favourite of the three courses I've been teaching -- the subject is the one I am the most interested in.
Oh yeah, and as for teaching three courses at once -- never again!
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