Snow Days
Today my car started with reluctance. The high tech on board thermometer told me erroneously that it was -25C. My Blackberry told me, by googling a weather web site, that the temperature was actually -34C without a wind chill. A modern enigma, who do I believe my car or my phone?
It just felt cold and if ever there was a reason to stay home from school this was it. Now I am vexed with a moral dilemma and of course I had to go to school. I am a teacher. Right? I would leap buildings with a single bound etc if it came to that, however, when I get to school I find that I can’t even trust my Blackberry for accurate weather forecasting, it was -38C the buses weren’t running and 60% of the student population was not to be found.
I also discovered that on this day the winter road had just been declared officially open, the gates to freedom and consumerism had lifted and half the town had driven South to balmy, exotic Fort McMurray. I pondered this development for a moment and wondered about the apparent irony as to how kids could not get to school, but with their families they could travel 280 km south to the Oil Sands Capital of the World.
I had just moved from the Middle East to Northern Alberta and my body and soul were still in transition and shock. My Kuwaiti students were masters at finding ways and means to miss school in a school year already 20 days shorter than out own. If the severe dust storms, high humidity and debilitating temperatures did not keep the kids away the Kuwaiti parliament would, by declaring, at the last possible moment, yet another national holiday. Missing school is universal and cross cultural and we only have ourselves and nature to thank.
In all fairness I have to admit I was no better as a kid. I prayed to the Christian God and many pagan gods, whoever was listening and available at the time, for snow days. In a world with only 13 channels one could not flip to the weather channel to determine if school was likely to be cancelled. We had to rely on first hand observations. If the snow drifts covered the front stairs and the kitchen door to the back porch was blocked by snow there was a good chance that I would not be going to school that day. In practical, logistical terms there was always a margin for error and so I often found it prudent, as I made subtle comments about the depth and breadth of the snow drifts and added a few insights about the end of times, to add a small convincing and persistent hacking cough, in a desperate bid to influence my mom to rule the day as a no fly zone, official stay at home and play day.
A chill ran through me, independent of the weather, as my mother turned from the window, reached for her coat and advised me to do the same. I had no recourse to justice. I wanted to hide in a bunker. I was going to school. The argument about the other kids not going to school had no merit at this juncture as my mom would know I was just making it up, like most of my stories. I was mortified as mom bundled me up and loaded me into a sleigh, the type with the curved metal runners. To my great embarrassment, consider I was in grade three at the time, she pulled me through the mighty drifts all the way to Prince Phillip Public School. I felt like Dr Zhivago, when Lara had been taken from him.
I find that in the here and now, on those frequent high pressure, blue sky minus 40 days in beautiful Alberta when the wind may subtract a few degrees of warmth for good measure, I think of my mom and her Protestant, German work ethic which I have grown to respect and sometimes emulate. I have to admit that when tensions are high, the work load deep, the students onerous I find myself in my classroom looking out the window patiently studying cloud patterns in the hopes of predicting a snow day, or if nature has its unpredictable way a sand storm of Biblical proportions would due.
When is Ramadan this year?
Marty Rempel
Today my car started with reluctance. The high tech on board thermometer told me erroneously that it was -25C. My Blackberry told me, by googling a weather web site, that the temperature was actually -34C without a wind chill. A modern enigma, who do I believe my car or my phone?
It just felt cold and if ever there was a reason to stay home from school this was it. Now I am vexed with a moral dilemma and of course I had to go to school. I am a teacher. Right? I would leap buildings with a single bound etc if it came to that, however, when I get to school I find that I can’t even trust my Blackberry for accurate weather forecasting, it was -38C the buses weren’t running and 60% of the student population was not to be found.
I also discovered that on this day the winter road had just been declared officially open, the gates to freedom and consumerism had lifted and half the town had driven South to balmy, exotic Fort McMurray. I pondered this development for a moment and wondered about the apparent irony as to how kids could not get to school, but with their families they could travel 280 km south to the Oil Sands Capital of the World.
I had just moved from the Middle East to Northern Alberta and my body and soul were still in transition and shock. My Kuwaiti students were masters at finding ways and means to miss school in a school year already 20 days shorter than out own. If the severe dust storms, high humidity and debilitating temperatures did not keep the kids away the Kuwaiti parliament would, by declaring, at the last possible moment, yet another national holiday. Missing school is universal and cross cultural and we only have ourselves and nature to thank.
In all fairness I have to admit I was no better as a kid. I prayed to the Christian God and many pagan gods, whoever was listening and available at the time, for snow days. In a world with only 13 channels one could not flip to the weather channel to determine if school was likely to be cancelled. We had to rely on first hand observations. If the snow drifts covered the front stairs and the kitchen door to the back porch was blocked by snow there was a good chance that I would not be going to school that day. In practical, logistical terms there was always a margin for error and so I often found it prudent, as I made subtle comments about the depth and breadth of the snow drifts and added a few insights about the end of times, to add a small convincing and persistent hacking cough, in a desperate bid to influence my mom to rule the day as a no fly zone, official stay at home and play day.
A chill ran through me, independent of the weather, as my mother turned from the window, reached for her coat and advised me to do the same. I had no recourse to justice. I wanted to hide in a bunker. I was going to school. The argument about the other kids not going to school had no merit at this juncture as my mom would know I was just making it up, like most of my stories. I was mortified as mom bundled me up and loaded me into a sleigh, the type with the curved metal runners. To my great embarrassment, consider I was in grade three at the time, she pulled me through the mighty drifts all the way to Prince Phillip Public School. I felt like Dr Zhivago, when Lara had been taken from him.
I find that in the here and now, on those frequent high pressure, blue sky minus 40 days in beautiful Alberta when the wind may subtract a few degrees of warmth for good measure, I think of my mom and her Protestant, German work ethic which I have grown to respect and sometimes emulate. I have to admit that when tensions are high, the work load deep, the students onerous I find myself in my classroom looking out the window patiently studying cloud patterns in the hopes of predicting a snow day, or if nature has its unpredictable way a sand storm of Biblical proportions would due.
When is Ramadan this year?
Marty Rempel
No comments:
Post a Comment