Somebody played a cruel joke on me today.  While I was at the hairdresser's, getting my hair cut, someone sprinkled a few grey strands amidst the dirty blond peices falling on my lap while the hairdresser and his scissors did their job. 

I wonder, was this the same person who -- when I put on an upbeat first movement of a Mozart concerto at home last night while one of my babies was colouring -- took over his mouth and mind and asked for "something sadder, please, Mommy, it helps me colour better"?  (I know my little tiny baby could not possibly yet have developed the depth and personality to have acquired such distinct taste in music already.  Could he have?)

I have reason to believe that this person also tampered with my calendar, for when I looked at it the other day, the date alleged that my dear husband and I, who just met yesterday while teaching grade 6 together, had been married for ten years, and that my mother, who just last week was sending me off to the corner store to buy cigarettes for my grandmother had in fact been dead for 16 years!!!

It would appear that, despite ample warning from all those around me, I seem to have not appreciated just how quickly time marches on. 

My boys and I got into a bit of an interesting conversation the other day... they wanted to know about "Auntie" Jeanette, a close family friend who has played a bit of a surrogate grandmother role to Alex and Simon, since my own mother died long before they were born...

They were intrigued to discover

My lunch date yesterday asked me "what makes a good teacher?", and I am ashamed and embarrassed to report that I did not have a succinct and brilliant response!  All my years of teaching, and more recently, drilling the value of just such a response into my student teachers, and there I was, floundering for the right words to describe the incredibly complex and important work we do each day!!!

Hindsight is always 20/20, so after reflecting all evening and into the night, here is what I've come up with:

Effective teachers are combined servants, scientists and artists. A "good" teacher posesses a servant heart; he strives to understand, and is not "above" serving the specific needs of his students, their parents and his colleagues, indeed, he lives for it!  In addition, he has grasp of a decent instructional repertoire and a reasonable understanding of how the  brain works, so that he knows when to paint with which colour in his pallette.

For some, the results of such characteristics may appear to come naturally, however it is critical that we can articulate the traits of a good teacher, so that we can constantly strive towards excellence.

Teaching is an important and often lonely profession.  We need to know why we do what we do, and how to do it well.

Last night was the final night of Ground School.  We celebrated by taking a group photo and heading out for a drink afterwards.

The photographer promised to send me photos afterwards.

I eagerly checked my inbox, looking forward to the photos of the people in our little group -- we future pilots.  The photographer did not lie -- he sent me photos.  12 of them.  The first several, giant files that took huge amounts of time to download, were of mags, carb heat and other mechanical parts of the plane.  It wasn't until the next day that he finally got around to sending the IMPORTANT pictures -- the group shots we had taken in the hanger after class!!!

Had a woman been sending the photos, the group pics would have come first, and the engine shots much, much, much later!!!

Those who are up at 5:45 on a cool November morning in the Northern Hemisphere have the disctinct privilege of enjoying quite a heavenly display, provided the sky is clear and the moon is not full.

This morning, while out with the dog, I located several constellations, including the big dipper, and was reminded of its "different" position in contrast to when I last saw it in the much starrier sky at our place out east.  Here in Toronto, this morning's sliver of a moon made up somewhat for the extensive light pollution our urban sky is now subject to.

A telesope helps... the other night, a colleague brought one to the university, and we enjoyed the moons of jupiter, whose light takes 40 minutes to travel to earth!