There I was. Here I am! What now?

So, after the "Minions" graduated, there was a huge gap to fill! That following September, I truly realized how much time those kids had spent with me over the last 3 years when I had no one in my room at lunch; no one bugging me on my off block and I didn't know anyone in the halls. Thus the "Squad" came to be for the next 2 years! My door had always been open to any student who needed a place to hang at lunch, and so they trickled in. Kenzie, Thomas, Alex, Emily, Danielle, Jacalyn, Joseph, Ece, Max, Ryan, Olivia, Brianne, Ethan and many others who drifted in and out during lunch hours and off blocks. They were a different bunch; much needier than the Minions, but wonderful, quirky kids full of ideals and dreams. They were the Political junkies and History geeks, so it was a natural fit. We railed over Trump; got through a Teachers' sort of strike; turned Liberals into Conservatives after they realized that cute doesn't cut it in politics..lol!We

Many times in my classes, students would ask me whom I considered to be a modern day hero. Someone to look up to like Martin Luther King Jr. or Oscar Schindler. As the years wore on, it became harder and harder for me to come up with a living human being whom embodied the qualities that I would consider heroic. That is, until I began to teach about the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. The hero who arose from that horrific event is a flawed, human hero who, under unimaginable stress and conditions did the best he could to save as many people as he could while battling a bureaucratic nightmare that essentially crippled any effective actions he could have made. His name is General Romeo Dallaire; he was the leader of the United Nations mission to Rwanda and effectively had his hands tied by said organization forcing him to stand by and watch as 800,000 ++ people were slaughtered in 100 days. Yet, I consider him a hero. Dallaire did have choices; in Holocaust Education, we call them &qu

"How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard!" Winnie the Pooh Lucky, blessed, privileged, humbled, loved, scared. These are just a few of the emotions that I felt during my last week and a half in Nova Scotia. I returned from Africa (more on that later!) on the 23rd of August; we had to be out of the house on the 25th, so we checked into a hotel for 4 days. Our Real Estate agent, Julie Ricketts, was an angel and took the dogs for us until we were ready to hit the road. And so we began the process of leaving. The place meant very little; the people meant everything. Let's backtrack to 2011. The last year that Ancient History 10 was taught at Prince Andrew High School. It was my favourite course to teach, and i was more than upset that it was being displaced by political correctness and more Math! Anyway, I had 65 students in two classes. My first impression was that these kids were going to fun! As the time progressed, I was proven more than

So! November 20, 2017. Here I am in Panama..wow! The last 3 months have been....busy...yah..good, neutral way to put it! When I last was able to post, I was still living in Halifax hoping that the house would sell quickly, but, in my heart, figured that we would still be there at least until October. So, I was confident that my August jaunt to Kenya would pose no problem. Riiiight! What is that old saying, "Be careful what you wish for! You just might get it!"? Yah..Ok...I got the memo! Within a week of listing it, we had 2 showings in one day. So on July 8, Darren and I drove the dogs around for a few hours and wondered if the selling process was going to be easy. Excuse me while I hack up a fur ball from laughing! July 9 - another showing! More driving with dogs. Darren was grumbling already. And we were just in the early stages...sigh! Well, at least Tessa and Charlie were happy; they love car rides and walkies! So it began. One of the offers was way too low;