Right brain, left brain, no brain*

I was listening to a report this week about bilingual people. The researchers with the Rotman Research Institute at the Baycrest Research Centre for Aging and the Brain in Toronto (how's that for a mouthful) did the study and found that the onset of dementia symptoms was on average four years later for us bilingual people (71.5 for unilingual and 75.5 for bilingual). What was really interesting was what they found about the language center in the brain. You would think that all languages would be using the same part of the brain but no. For your second language a different part is used so the brain must coordinate the two parts so you can use one or the other language. This exercising of the frontal lobes (your cognitive part.... the part that thinks... the part that is you) builds up cognitive reserve (more brain cells/connections) so when the old brain starts to go you have enough reserve to keep going for a while longer.
Rather interesting... good thing I've always been bilingual. I guess I'll be able to be an irasible old codger and bug people for the longest time. Only in Canada would we find such a good reason for being bilingual.
* I know the title has nothing to do with the blog besides the word brain, but it sounded nice.

13 photographs that changed the world

Came across this site while surfing, 13 photographs that changed the world.
Very interesting photos. I might have included a few more such as the picture of Armstrong on the moon with the earth in the background, a picture of the first atomic blast, but interesting none the less.

Bike paths and ski trails

In Montréal we pride ourselves in being an open cosmopolitain city but when you get right down to it, it is pretty much like any other big american style city, many roads, many cars and not much in the way of safe paths for walking or biking.
Last week I was staying in Gatineau, the little city on the other side of the river from our nations capital, Ottawa. I was amazed by the amount of green space and bike paths that exist in that one small town. The picture on the left is a picture of Parc Gatineau bike path. It's also used as a cross country skiing trail when there is enough snow. This is only one of the many bike paths that crisscross the city, not just a sign saying that cars must share the road with bikes, but real bike trails just for bikes. The bike paths not only crisscross the city but they also join up to each other and to the kilometers of bike paths in Ottawa. In Ottawa the same thing is the case, all along the Ottawa river there is a green space that has a bike path that stretches its whole length.
What do we have in Montreal? An autoroute that cuts off the city from the St. Lawrence River. There are bike paths, the canal Lachine path being one, but it is not joined to any others. To get to the bike path you must go down Lakeshore road with the automobile traffic. Lakeshore road not being in the best of conditions, this sometimes can be quite perilous especially when you share with buses and trucks. Even getting down to Lakeshore road is dangerous since you have to cross over autoroutes, where cars won't give you any chances as they get on or off the autoroute...(cloverleafs)
On the southshore, off the island, there are also many bike paths, but to get to them from the island is to say the least a rather dangerous undertaking since getting across the bridges is almost impossible. The only really safe way to cross is the "Estacade" (a kind of small bridge that is used to break up the ice before it gets to the bigger bridges) but that is kilometers out of the way. In Gatineau-Ottawa the bridges all have a dedicated path for bikes, nice and large not squeezed between the railing and the cars.
We are always talking about how people take their cars to work instead of using their bikes or the transit system. Well if you have an alternate system that works then people will use it. If there are safe paths then people will be more likely to use their bikes. In Ottawa there are there are thousands of workers who bike to work. In fact all the government buildings have bike racks, enough for all the workers who wish to bike in. They also have showers and a place to change. Quite a different mentality.

Thoughts on Christmas and kids

It was the last day of school before the Christmas vacations, so today was very relaxed. We had a basketball tournament between the classes. For the tournament they got themselves organized and even wrote a theme song in English (their second language). My homeroom won the tournament by 2 points. The kids were ecstatic, group hug, cheers, the whole nine yards. It's funny because we were certainely not the favorites, but our team spirit won the day.
Often these days kids get a bad rap, but it's stange that all the kids that I teach (and have taught) are good kids, not perfect, but good hearted and willing to do their best for something they believe in. (I can count on the fingers of my hands the really bad kids and I've been teaching for 30 years.) This year, secondary 2 (grade 8 for the rest of you) wrote over 400 Christmas cards for Amnesty International political prisoners throughout the world. So there is hope for the future, maybe they'll do a better job than my generation and there will finally be "peace on earth and good will amoungst men".
So as that famous poem says, "Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night!"

Joyeux Noël (the film)

Saw a great film on the weekend called Joyeux Noël. This little gem of a film got a nomination for the Oscar for best foreign film and it is really worth seeing. It takes place during the First World War on December 24-25 1914, when the British, French, and German troops declared an unofficial cease fire and crawled out of their trenches to celebrate Christmas. This really happened, it has been well documented. The story really brings out the futility and stupidity of war and shows how the most enthusiastic proponants of "kill the enemy" are all people who stay safely way behind the lines. I won't say anymore because I don't want to ruin the film for you, but if you want to see a great little film rent or buy it at your nearesr DVD place of purchase. I got mine at Costco. It is really worth it.

Montréal winters

Winter has finally come with a vengeance. When I left for school on Thrusday it was raining and the temperature was about +2 degrees C, when I got home the temperature had dropped to -11 degrees C. That's what I hate about winter in Montréal, not the cold, not the snow but the variations from damp, wet to freezing cold.
To the contrary of my sister Jazz, I like winter sports. I like the cold, clear days of winter where the temperatures hovers in the minus teens. The air is like champagne, the snow is dry and squeeks under our boots. I am a great fan of cross country skiing (nordic, not downhill). I love the sensation of flying over the snow on my skis, of the stinging sensation of the wind on my face and the sun in my eyes. There is no sensation like it especially when you have the exact combination of wax, temperature and snow. Unfortunately in the last couple of years we have been having yo-yo weather. We get a nice drop of snow and then the temperature warms up, it rains, sleets and the temperature then drops drastically. What happens to the cross country ski trails? They become ice. It is possible to cross country ski in icy conditions, but it is a pain in the keaster. You have to use klister, a gooey kind of wax that sticks to everything and is a real pain to clean up after.
What I would like is a real winter, nice and cold, with plenty of snow, no sleet, rain, and damp. I can live with the cold, in fact I prefer cold dry weather to overly hot weather, but this type of winter, the kind that can't make up its mind is awful. You can't do warm weather sports, such a bicycling or inline skating and you can't do winter sports cuz there's not enough snow and what there is has turned to ice. :o(

Black Friday

The U.S. Thanksgiving was last Thursday, so now they are free to start their Christmas shopping... Black Friday, the start of the shopping season, is not called that because of the negative connotations of shopping for the Christmas holidays, it is so named because that is when stores go from red ink to black ink and start to turn a profit. In fact some stores make 50% of their profits during the Christmas shopping season... frightening isn't it.
But even more frightening is the fact that stores in the States open their doors at midnight after Thanksgiving to start off Christmas shopping and there are people who line up starting at 7pm on Thanksgiving to be the first through the doors. They actually eat their Thanksgiving turkey sitting in the parking lot of their local mall. This year one man even brought his Glock with a pocket full of bullets in case of trouble. A rather extreme way of dealing with line jumpers!
Tell you the truth some people really, really need to get a life.

SUN, GLORIOUS SUN

Finally after what seems to be years of grey clouds, we finally had sun today. There was a large yellow ball in the blue sky. The light was magnificent. We have had a really wet and gloomy autumn this year. I think it has been weeks since we saw some clear skies. In fact the weathermen were saying that it has been the wettest autumn on record. The dark, gloomy weather just gets us down. This morning when I saw the sun, I felt like a plant. I just felt like standing there, face to the sun drinking in the light. It seems that the weather will be clear for the rest of the week... maybe enough time to pick up a little energy.

Later... went out and actually saw some stars, you know those twinkly things in the night sky. We were discussing the lousy weather this afternoon with my fellow teachers, seems to me that we hadn't had sun for at least 2-3 weeks correct me if I'm wrong.

Thoughts about Thanksgiving, roads and such things

For once we had a really nice Thanksgiving weekend. The weather was superb, warm and sunny. Almost made you think it was summer again. Haven't written in a while cuz I'm just lazy I guess. A lot has happened since the last time I wrote, an overpass fell down in Laval. That is the second one in the last 5-6 years, mind you the last one wasn't the government's fault since it was the construction company that f****d up. Of course, I'm sure that that fact doesn't really matter all that much to the victims. There was also the highway 40 incident where a good chunk of road kind of fell into a huge hole when the culvert collapsed. Who says that driving in Québec can't be an adventure? Makes you wonder where all the gas tax ended up.
So here we are in the automne, where Québec has made it into international news for being a place where crazed killers roam the crumbling infrastructure. (seems almost post-apocalyptic) Not exactly the kind of PR we need. Good thing we have old Kimmy to take the media scrutiny away from us. And yes little sister (that's Jazz to the rest of you) the politicians should be forced to drive wherever they go instead of flying. Then at least they would have an idea about how our roads are. We could even get them to test drive all the overpasses, at least they would be useful. Only wish our roads were half as nice as those I drove on this summer in Britain.

The Dawson Tragedy

Since I am from Montreal I'll put in my 2 cents worth about the tragedy. The first thing that I will say is that the young man (I won't even mention his name, the faster he is consigned to oblivion the better) was a grade "A" loser. He wanted to be someone, thought weapons gave him power, posed with pictures of his weapons as if it was cool, but basically he was a loser. So much so that he should have had "LOSER" tatooed on his forehead. Face it, at 25 still living with mom and dad, wearing a long black coat and combat boots, playing violent first person shooter video games, wanting to go out in a hail of bullets, is not the most mature mindset. More like something you would find amoung adolescents. The reason that he hated those young men and women in Dawson was basically because they were not losers, they were making something of themselves so they would be able to contribute something to society. We must not forget the victims... but the shooter, put the curse of oblivion on him. He wanted to be known, well deny him recognition, make him a non person.
The second point is about the weapons. He had legally bought a semi-automatic rifle (can't even be used for hunting), a 45 caliber pistol and another weapon. He even registered them. What is wrong in this scenario? I really think that ALL semi-automatic weapons should be banned. Don't go tell me about the poor little hunters... if a hunter isn't a good enough marksman to kill his animal with a bolt action rifle he shouldn't be allowed in the woods... he's a menace. The only legitimate use for a pistol is target practice and competition. For that a 22 caliber pistol will do just fine. So all other calibers of pistols should also be banned. As for the target pistols, they should only be used on a range as a member of a shooting club and the pistols locked up in the shooting club's vault after the member has finished using them. Sounds drastic, yes it is but I'm tired of people saying "it's not the gun that kills, it's the person who pulls the trigger" well having no trigger to pull makes it a lot harder to plan a massacre using a baseball bat or a kitchen knife.

On liars and damned liars.

Part two of the US Senate's Intelligence Committee's report (now there is an oxymoron if ever I heard one, linking politicians with intelligence) has come out today. Part one stated that there had never been any weapons of mass destruction in Irak. Part two states that after investigation there is no evidence of any link between Sadam Hussein and al-Qaeda.
I think that the US constitution gives Congress and the Senate the right and the duty to impeach a president who deliberately lies, obstructs justice, goes against the US constitution. I just wonder what they are waiting for. What does he have to do, shoot the justices of the Supreme Court?
Ironic, the Republicans wanted to impeach Clinton about Monica, and here we have a president that has broken just about every US and international law and nothing. There is an old saying that says that we get the government that we deserve... well if that is true, then the Amercicans are in a bad way.
There are however many Americans that are not sitting idle. If you wish to learn more about what they are doing go to http://impeachcentral.com/ maybe with a bit of luck they will succeed.

Back to school

It has been way too long since the last time I posted must be jet lag..;o) Well school started this week and my brain is still insisting that I should still be on vacation. I have realised, as time goes on, that I could easily get used to being a person of leisure. Do you know those people who say, "If ever I won 10 million dollars nothing would change, I'd keep right on working.. " well they are full of it. That is a load of BS. I'd stop working in the next micro-second and leave my job to some deserving young person. This said, I haven't won the lottery so I'm back to school.
This year I am starting my thirtieth year of teaching... that's right 30 years. That's probably longer than some of you have been on this green earth, and to tell the truth, despite all the grumbling, I still love what I do... so that's my confession for the day.
The adolescents of today are often maligned, but the vast majority of them are good people, growing up in a world that can't be easy to grow up in. After all they are the product of their upbringing... and we are the ones who did the upbringing. So if they are so awful, we have only to look in a mirror to see who is to blame. We adults seem to have a selective memory when it comes to our youth... I seem to remember some rather weird and wacky things that I did at that age. ;o)
That said, I met my new batch of students yesterday and they seem to be a good bunch of kids...should be fun.

I'm back from a great vacation

Well our vacation in the UK is over. snif snif... I guess we have to come back someday. It was great fun and we saw and did some fantastic things.
Hiking on Dartmoor and seeing the wild ponies on the other side of a tor. Such a beautiful place.
Seeing Stonehenge, awe inspiring.
Driving around Cornwall and Wales with the ocean cliffs on one side and the hedgerows on the other. Sleeping at a campground in Tewksbury close to Tewksbury abbey. Staying at another canpground beside Castle Howard (the house shown in the film Brideshead Revisted) and realising people still live there. Visiting numerous castles, abbeys, and churches that date back almost 1000 years (I'm rabid amateur historian. I'm facinated by piles of old stones ;o). Visiting neolithique sites such as a flint mine or a copper mine that date back 4000-5000 years (first industrial revolution?). The Batttle of Hastings, Dover Castle, The city of York (just loved it), Stratford on Avon and old William Shakespeare, the British Museum and it goes on and on. There is so much history in that one small island, it is amazing.
The weather was superbe, we only really had 3 days of rain in 5 weeks. The British meterological service said that it was the warmest and sunniest July since they have records. Must have known we were coming.
Was there something we didn't like as much... well to tell the truth London was disappointing. There are some fantastic things to see but we felt that the wild cat developement was ruining what would have otherwise been a very beautiful city. There were beautiful little Wren churches surrounded by huge, ugly, cement and glass buildings. Some of them were truly ugly, like the Modern Tate (looks like what Dartmoor prison should look like), the glass pineapple etc. For once I think that Prince Charles was right and that the developpers are killing the soul of the city. London should have taken a page from Paris and forced the developement outside the city. Oh well that's my gripe for the day. (As you can see I'm not a great fan of big cities)
But we did have loads of fun and we met some really extraordinarily nice people, like the taxi driver in Liverpool, who when we asked him for directions to drive to a certain road, told us to follow him and led us to the address that we needed to go. There were many other people who took the time to explain things when we had questions, who were patient with us when we were lost and searching, and chatted with us when they noticed that we were Canadians. We'll always keep a fond memory of the people of the UK.

Vacation Time :o)

Ah vacation time. Now that school is finally out and the horrendous piles of corrections are done. :o) (Really happy all my kids passed and got pretty good marks, and no I didn't make up the exam, someone else did, so it's not me being nice. Anyhow they tell me that my exams are usually way harder. ;o) ) I finally have time to write this. This one will probably be the last one for a while since Mrs. Big Brother and I are leaving on Saturday for Merry Olde England for a month. London, the Tower of London, the British Museum, Stonehenge, the cathedrals and castles, Cornwall, Wales, climbing Snowdon, walking on the moors, York, the Cotswald, Dover, and last but not least, the pubs and the beer.(Already did all of Scotland, all the way to John O'Groats, the Orkneys, Cape Wrath, the Hebrides, the Highlands and also spent a month exploring Ireland)

I am a Guiness

Took the test and this is what came out. Seems to work cuz I love Guiness. Even went all the way to Dublin to drink a Guiness where it is made (from Canada that's quite a ways) ;o)

What Type of Alcoholic Beverage Are You?

You're a Pint of Guinness!
Take this quiz!

Coffee for me!

I tried this and I found it rather fun... thank you Hagletoast.

You are a Black Coffee

At your best, you are: low maintenance, friendly, and adaptable At your worst, you are: cheap and angsty You drink coffee when: you can get your hands on it Your caffeine addiction level: high

What Kind of Coffee Are You?

The number of the beast the day after

Yesterday was 666 day, Damien the remake was launched and I went to my physio whose telephone number ends in 0666. Nope nothing happened, the only joint twisting was done by the physiotherapist... oh well maybe in another hundred years or better still in 4460 years it'll be the real thing. Believe it or not the secretary was telling me that when some people see the phone number they refuse to come to the clinic... talk about weird.
We must however remember that for the Chinese the number 666 is lucky, so lucky in fact that I heard that Chinese couples were getting married on that date for luck. In fact if you add the numbers up the sum is 18 and in Chinese the character for 18 means "to be rich".
So all things considered I'd rather be rich than power puking and twisting my head around 360 degrees... remember "The Exorcist"?. As for Damien, the anti-christ, he'll probably end up getting blown up in a terrorist attack. ;o)

Same old thing :o(

I know it happened last week but I just didn't have time to write about it. Last week we had a little upset where Joe Volpe, a candidate for the leadership of the Liberal party, received 29 donations amounting to $152,700. Most of them came from twenty $5,400 donations from executives of Apotex Inc., and members of their families. He finally had to give back some of the funds because they had been donated by minor children. Amoung them, $10800 from two 11 year old twins and $5400 from their 14 year old brother. (Boy, don't I wish I had had that kind of cash when I was a kid... in fact don't I wish I had that kind of cash now! LOL)
While this is probably not illegal in the strict sense of the law, it surely contravenes the spirit of it. It seems that the Liberals just have not learned anything. No wonder people don't trust politicians... it's not that we are cynical, we are just being realistic...

PS I'm sure that the Conservatives and others are just as bad... just give them some time and it will all come out. ;0(

Snail Mail

How's this for slow? I was reading that the French postal service just delivered a postcard that was mailed September 29th 1910. It only took 96 years to get delivered to the recipient's daughter-in-law since the recipient had died in 1978.
Think about it, when the card (a picture of the Sémois valley in Belgium) was mailed the Titanic was not even completed, much less sunk. It was mailed four years before the First World War and 29 years before the start of the Second. The airplane was in its infancy and men walking on the moon was just a story by Jules Verne. Email? Forget it. There were telegrams, the telephone (if you didn't mind the neighbours and the operator listening in) and the Postal Service.
Gives a whole new dimension to the term "Snail-mail"

Been absent...

Finally got my cast off last Monday... it feels so good to be free of the weight and the hassle. Makes you appreciate having two hands, there are so many things in our world that can only work well with two hands.
I haven't written in a while since last week I was in Washington with my students. We went to see old uncle George. ;o) Mind you, I did see him in a big cavalcade riding down Constitution Avenue, with a huge police escort. There were police cars blocking traffic at each intersection, a motorcycle escort to make sure the way was clear, a bunch of big black SUV's with men armed with automatic weapons hanging out the windows. It was like watching an emperor driving by. I found the situation ironic in the land that professes that everyone is equal. Here in Canada the Prime Minister walks his children to school and then walks off to his office. I know that the need for security is different, but it is ironic none the less.
I must say however that Americans really know how to do a capital city. As the students said, "It's like walking in ancient Rome". The museums are really magnificent and they are all free. The Aerospace museum, the Museum of Natural History , the National Gallery, the Museum Of American History etc. We also saw the National Archives with the original Declaration of Independance and the US Constitution, and the Library of Congress and finally all the memorials. We also visited Arlington National Cemetery and the Holocaust Memorial Museum. (If you only visit one museum, visit that one. It isn't an easy museum to visit, my students came away from there somber and quiet, and for 14 year olds that's saying a lot, but I can guarantee that that it will touch you.) We were also impressed by the cleanliness of the streets and the flowers everywhere. You can see that they take care of the city. The people were also nice and very patient since the student's English was sometimes mangled. (They are French speaking and English is their second language) There was even an employee of the metro system that lent a student his cell phone to call his mom after seeing him trying to use a pay phone. We warned him that we came from Montreal and it was a long distance call but he said that it was OK. That was really generous of him and we greatly appreciated it. That is one of the nicest things about travelling, meeting nice people. :o)
There was really only one point that bugged me and that was the "over the top" security. At the Capitol there was a group of students with their teacher talking to a someone that worked there. They seemed to be trying to arrange a visit (something that is pretty much impossible since 9/11). On the top of the steps overlooking them were two soldiers? security? armed with automatic weapons and one of them had his weapon aimed at the group. Not casually pointing but deliberately aimed. That is frightening. Where they expecting the group of high school students to storm the Capitol and take the senate hostage. That's almost paranoid. God knows that after 9/11 they had to beef up security, but there is a point where it become a bit much. Thank goodness my students didn't notice. I am really glad to live in a country where that type of paranoia is not needed, and I hope that one day the American people will also be able to live without that kind of security.