Tag Archives: powwow

Sabbatical Day 16 – Busy Weekend

This weekend has been non-stop!  Sat morning was our normal rush of groceries and other errands, but on top of it, both Haifa and Verity are taking horse riding lessons.  Then in the afternoon, we drove to Toronto for my mother-in-law’s birthday dinner.  We ate at Congee Queen on Steeles near Hwy 404.  My sister-in-law, Kristine and her husband Matt and daughter Jade were there along with Melanie’s grandmother.  It was a nice dinner.  One perk is that my mother-in-law knows the manager there and so I was able to keep a nice pair of chopsticks (some practice from my Math 3020 class in the background).

Congee Queen Chopsticks

Congee Queen Chopsticks - Detail

Speaking of math, I’ve been doing the exercises in my math textbooks in addition to any homework assigned.  I figure this is a reasonable way of studying.  I don’t really know how to study since in my previous attempt at university-level “studies” I neither attended classes reliably, nor read the textbooks, nor took good notes.  So, I’m finding that as an adult I have a much much higher level of responsibility and capability to study.  It’s fun.  That said, I’m also a bit worried; the time it takes me to do many of the problems presented is quite long and so when exams come, I fear that I won’t be able to do math fast enough.  That was never a problem before.  In times past, I would complete math exams in ⅓ the time given and always get over 90% on them.  Now, I’m not so certain.  Slower brain may make my exams a challenge. The good side is that so far I’m finding the exercises and homework easy.  Maybe that will change too!

Anyway, continuing with my busy weekend, today was also full.  In the morning, first thing, we went to a powwow held at the Museum of Ontario Archaeology.  Verity and I shot some arrows, and Ocean got a little painted tattoo on her arm.  Then we went inside for the Hand Drumming Workshop which was actually a very beautiful experience led by Bill Hill.  We stayed for some of the dancing of the powwow and then went home.  At home, we had a number of young people visiting in the afternoon and early evening to watch the third movie in the Harry Potter series.  My daughter Haifa is a big fan and every year leading up to Halloween she watches the whole series.  There was also lots of housework and driving around today.  Even though it was brief, one nice bit was taking Justice to Staples to pick up some of the artwork he had printed.  He’s done a really nice job on several drawings and they turned out well printed.  He had to make a bunch of adjustments to his monitor to get it so that what he sees on the monitor matches what he prints (the first couple prints were way too dark).

I’ve made some good progress on my projects for the sabbatical.  This is an updated view of my personal Kanban board.  Compare it to last week’s.

Personal Kanban Board 20180916