I didn't get a call to supply teach Wednesday, so I went in to Kawungan to see if Terri wanted me to go over her students' writing task we did Tuesday with each of them. I was only able to get to a couple on that day as were two other teachers who came in to assist for a bit. Terri is such a lovely person and she was so appreciative of me helping her out. All day she kept saying "if you need to do something else, that's fine". I kept telling her that I was there for as long as she needed me. I didn't tell Luise I was there cuz I figured that I would only be with Terri for a little bit and then I would go and help Luise, but I didn't want to tell Luise I would be there in case things went differently than I imagined. Well, it sure did - it took me all day to go over the students' work with them. I was basically looking at how they had copied their corrected work on to a good copy. There was only one student who did it really well and a few who did it pretty well. Some teachers will just fix up the mistakes the students make when copying from rough copy to good copy, but I think it's more beneficial for the students if they do it themselves. Of course, if you are the classroom teacher, it's hard to find the time to do that. So having me do it would be a big help to Terri, I knew - I made notes as I went along as well so that she could use the comments if she wanted.
Dad spent the day at home doing the dreaded taxes. Man, the poor guy has really struggled with these. This is the Canadian taxes and there are no computer programs that Dad knows of which can do the taxes for him (like he used to do in Canada). He had to download pages and pages of information on how to fill out the forms - it literally took him all day and evening to finish them. I was so appreciative of him spending so much time to do this nasty job. He is going to contact the company which made the program he used to use to do his taxes in Canada to see if they have anything which might make it easier for him to do them next year. When we get back to Canada, we are going to take our info into H and R Block to make sure that he has done it the best way possible since there was so much information to go through and it was like legalese.
I didn't get a call to go in today, either (didn't think I would since it's the last day before the Easter holidays) and so I was able to go with Dad to do Meals on Wheels which I really enjoy doing. We were given a short route, so we were done quite quickly. Dad is so good with remembering where streets are - he can go on route one time and remember so much of the way we have to go - he's always been able to do that and it's a pretty amazing talent, I think.
This afternoon, our friends, Geoff and Robyn, came over. Geoff has a motorcycle license and he is allowed to drive behind us while we go on the scooter and practice riding. I went first and felt really comfortable riding it in our area of town (out in the boonies :-) Then, I rode down towards town, past the Anglican College, through the roundabout, and turned right (away from town) and drove with some of the traffic. When I got to the end of the street, I got off. I was starting to feel a little overwhelmed and so I let Dad have a turn. What I found was that it was hard to get into traffic and ride and think about everything at the same time. I also found it hard to go above 50km - it just seemed too fast for me. Dad got on and didn't seem to have any issues - fearless, he was. :-) Watching him, I wondered if part of my problem is that I have not driven over here in over a year - Dad seemed so comfortable in traffic. Riding the scooter itself is not a problem - it's easy to do - it's just that I didn't feel comfortable around the traffic and I wonder if that's cuz Dad always drives. I found it hard to guage the passenger side of the car here and so I stopped driving. I told Dad that I need to get more practice in driving so that I feel comfortable about it again. It was great being on the bike out in the country, though - I even got up to 60km/hr when I was on my second ride. That felt great! :-)
Robyn and I went visiting teaching today. We visited with a woman whose husband is not a member. She is a lovely woman and we enjoy visiting with her. We have good discussions and get a good yak in as well. I feel for her, though, as her life at home is not easy. She goes to work full-time and then has to come home and do all the home stuff. Today, she had started dinner and stopped it to visit with us. After about a half hour visit, she said she had to go and finish making dinner - her husband wouldn't even do that. I asked her if she could come out one day for dinner or lunch in town instead of us coming out to her house - thought she might like to get out and let someone else do the cooking for her. She made a bunch of excuses and then said that it was hard for her to even get out to Relief Society, basically telling us that her husband didn't like her going out to church stuff or with church people. I tell you what - it sure make me appreciate your Dad even more.
Tonight at SES, Dad joined in with the newbie group today as he missed the second half of that class while we were in Canada. So, tonight he was a team leader in a communication exercise. His task was to 'find the fox'. 'The fox' was another SES person in an SES truck - each of the four teams had a grid map of a 10 square block radius. In turn, each team could ask 'the fox' one question which could only be answered affirmative or negative and the question had to be based on compass point directions. So, through listening to the answers to the questions, they were to narrow down the area of focus until they could pinpoint 'the fox's' exact location. This was all done by walking the grid and listening to the answers/asking the questions via radio (walkie talkie). They repeated the exercise four or five times and Dad's team was able to locate 'the fox' once before the other teams were able to. Dad really enjoyed the exercise and found it was good practice to get on the radio.
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