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<-- my life, by webgoddesscathy -->


:: Thursday, October 26, 2006 ::
I've been doing literacy training for the past two nights. You know, learning how to teach others to read and write.

It's something I've been thinking about doing for a long time, so I finally signed on with a group near my house.

First step is the training and we're learning interesting things about different types of learning styles.

Interesting thing is, even though there is a lot of research on the subject, I was discussing it with colleagues and they brought up a point I was trying to suppress in my own mind: aren't we just giving people excuses?

I mean, how hard is it to learn to read and write? How do we know they're not just lazy or don't want to learn?

My training discusses these questions.
But it can be hard to overcome your own biases.

These thoughts have made me realize how I have a hard time understanding that other people just THINK DIFFERENTLY than I do. And at times, I just want to tell them they're wrong -- that my way is clearly better and they should just DO it. That they're just being lazy or stupid or inefficient.

This is something huge that I have to overcome. I like to pretend that I'm very open minded about different strokes for different folks. It's the enlightened way, afterall. But I really do have to realize that I make unconscious judgements about this kind of thing all the time.

I'm striving to remain aware, at least. It's the first step to making a change.

I'm not the most patient person, but I have to learn to be patient with myself in this. Attitudes are not altered overnight.


:: Cathy 7:33 PM [+] :: 0 comments




:: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 ::

boutonniere
Originally uploaded by webgoddesscathy.
The first of many wedding photos to be posted, i suspect.

I love this one. Taken by my cousin, Chris, of me putting on my brother Will's boutonniere.

You can click to view a few more wedding photos (with me and my dress!) that I've uploaded to my Flickr account.

Otherwise, I recommend you view Chris' online album. He has some gorgeous ones! And you can see the ceremony, the signing of documents, the kiss, the speeches, the dancing, the ties around the heads.

Check it out here: http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=2100322101


:: Cathy 8:06 PM [+] :: 0 comments




:: Tuesday, October 24, 2006 ::

Silliness
Originally uploaded by ronestar.
Pictures from Sharon's birthday on Sept 29th at Pogue Mahone's are up!

You can visit Sharon's Flickr account to see the rest. There are one or two of me and a lot of other friends.

I always love meeting up with Sharon and of course Sarah. (You did know that, given the chance, Sarah WILL stick her tongue out at you?) But it was even better to see a bunch of other friends that I haven't seen in a VERY long time (years, some of them).

My favourite part of the night was when my old rez friend Derek says, "Cathy, you are aging really well. Like, not at all. You look the same or better than in university."

Huh!
Yay for good genes and decent haircuts!


:: Cathy 1:46 PM [+] :: 2 comments




:: Monday, October 23, 2006 ::
There was an interesting event at MaRS on the weekend: Alphabet City: Garbage Town Hall.

You can get some context about the event from this article, written in UofT's The Varsity:
Fixing Toronto's trash dilemma.

Now, I was at a wedding over the weekend, but this is something that interests me. I really DO want to know what's happening to our garbage.

Sadly, when I went to "www.readingt.readingcities.com" there was a blog error and I can't read the proceedings.

I find it odd that so many people are so blase about their trash. They don't even think about it. It goes much further than just junk mail or boxes or apple cores. I think it has a lot to do with our rampant consumerism.

Think about it: if you need to buy that cooler phone or that nicer couch, then you're going to throw out that old one. Now, this is perfectly fine if your phone or your couch is broken. Not so fine when it's because the new one is just cooler.

We think: I can afford that.
We think we can afford it because we've saved up a couple hundred bucks.

But we're not being charged for the disposal of the old one - for the resources that we are putting out of commission just to consume another. (To be clear: I realize the taxes we pay taxes are for just this sort of thing. I don't think this blanket tax system sufficiently forces us to consider the impact of our actions.)

I strongly believe that the government should make "disposal of the old" a factor in our consumer behaviour. There are many ways to accomplish it (taxes, polluter-pays, incentives, etc).

But it's not popular. So what politician who wants to be elected (or re-elected) will impose such measures?

It's a sad story that can only be fixed by tax payers asking for the penalty. And how many people are going to ask to pay more?

Discouraging situation.

I'd like to know what this guy suggested as the answer in this talk. Or someday, we'll be drowning our neighbours and inevitably ourselves, in our own greed.


:: Cathy 1:28 PM [+] :: 0 comments





Well, the Matt and Kendra Show is over.

Exhausting!

I am left with a serious migraine, but it was damn good fun!

I got a lot of compliments on my dress, at least, so I worried for nothing about it being too big and not nice.

Sad that it's over, actually. It was so nice seeing all my family together. Although I didn't get to talk to everyone nearly as much as I'd have liked. And I didn't even get to talk to some people at all!

I was happy about my cheap car rental. I was not so happy about the double bed hotel room that Alex and I ended up with. But all in all, it was a great time.

Pictures to follow soon, I hope!


:: Cathy 5:50 AM [+] :: 0 comments



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