If you check out my wife’s blog, you will be able to catch up on our latest news as a family. It’s been an interesting few months. Four weeks in a tent sounds romantic but I can tell you once it gets cold and wet it’s anything but.
The main reason that there’s been so little action on my blog, even for me, is since the 3rd of September I have been beavering (Canadian for working hard eh?) away at the University of Alberta. Arriving around 7am (trying to get space in the park and ride at Century Park LRT station after 6.30am is nigh on impossible) and leaving between 6pm and 7pm. There’s four hours of lectures on subjects as diverse as Historical Thinking and contour drawing, puppet making to Constructivisim and it’s place in Social studies. That’s not to say there’s isn’t any academic studies in art, far from it but it’s a much more practical course and provides a nice balance to the theory in Social Studies.
I can’t speak for the other departments, and indeed can’t really speak for the whole education department, but those professors I have been in contact with, namely my Art and Social Studies profs, have been great. We are doing condensed versions of these courses. Essentially trying to fit a fourteen week course into four weeks. As you can imagine, it’s a lot of work. I’m sure that the profs don’t really like it as there is obviously a whole heap more they could and would like to say.
The beginning of Derrick the Dragon.
Now we’re into the last week, and there is a lot of work to do. Unit plans for Art, revision for our Social Studies final, art journals to complete, art assignments and on top of all that we need to start thinking about our practicum, which starts on the 14th of October. We’ve just received our placements. Mine is here in Red Deer at the Glendale Science and Technology School. It sounds rather impressive and I am excited to be learning there. I have a G2 class. So one more week at University, and I know Christa is looking forward to having me home, and access to a vehicle, then an intense week prepping for my AFX (which is short for Advanced Field Experience I think) before into school.
