Monday, October 16 Getting Ready

Monday, October 16th

At present, I continue to work half time, and I will go to my therapy sessions in the afternoon. I will try to keep this up as long as I can. I shall keep you informed. Today I worked a full morning and saw 3 teacher candidates teach. I debriefed with one of them. I then provided a quick input session on Classroom Management with them before running off to the dentist and having a band placed on a tooth with a hairline fracture. I had to do it before RT since once the treatment starts it is not a good idea to do dental work. The cap felt odd and but it is okay now, however, I can easily get used to having the entire right side of my jaw being shifted one centimeter to the left ;-) Nothing serious…

Then I headed over to my M.D. to discuss my stom…ache problems. He put me on new meds…

My middle child came home today to say, "Hello" and to load up on food. He has obviously dropped some weight. The 'frosh 15' is now over, besides he has to cook for himself. You can see that he is a student once again and is being frugal.

I cannot believe how thoughtful one of my colleagues and friends could be. I was totally humbled yesterday as she drove downtown and dropped me off a ton of gifts in an amazing gift box. There was no need to go out and spend all that time hunting for goodies, for me. And what a great collection of goodies she sent. Each part of the gift was a gift of its own.

- The Vinyl Café Stories, by Alistair McLean
- The Toronto Life, The Fall Edition
- A Writing Pad with Food for Thought and Ideas on the Fly
- A Double Card Playing Set, equipped with pen and paper
- IQ Sudoku, 300 Fiendish Japanese Puzzles
- Rich Steven’s Italian Phrase Book… including this restaurant comment, “Ritomano i vostri cliente.” “Do any of your customers return?”
- Lindt, Chocolate Minis and
- an amazing box to keep it in.

They will keep me occupied for hours. I am feeling pretty good right now and my friends have been such an enormous boost for me. I really don't know how to thank my friend, Vidya. All I can repeat is how wonderful it was to work with her for 2 years, how much I learned from her and how much I continue to benefit from her wisdom, kindness and generosity. How lucky can a guy get?

I will make it though this difficult time and in the words of Mary-Louise Heideman a student in my first year of teaching at the Faculty who used to drive 100 km., fall, winter and spring, to class every morning. She would say that when she became overwhelmed, she would just think to herself, “one foot in front of the other!!"

I will use this a mantra tomorrow if I need it.