Spiky

I started the day feeling really rather spiky. I think it was a combination of getting in very late and having to wake up really early to take Kevin to the airport - he had to go to Calgary for the day and since he had to take a bunch of electronics with him, it turns out he had some serious security to clear.

Someone, somewhere has coined the term 'Canglish'. On the one hand, there is something satisfying about this term, on the other, quite sad. The people in my writers' group are every bit as committed as I am to correct usage of the language. But for the parts of the day when I am constantly biting my tongue and not correcting people, no seriously, I actually can't do that here, the ability to mentally square it away as 'Canglish' soothes the torment somewhat.

And then, today, I was humbled. My obsession with protecting the English language became irrelevant.

The first group of the day to arrive for the programme was an entire class of recent immigrant Chinese children with limited English.
I'm often stopped short by the recent Chinese immigrants, many of them have experienced every bit as much difficulty having their qualifications recognised as I have, but unlike me, they don't piss and moan, they get on with becoming re-qualified.

Today's children were quiet. They didn't understand the verbal humour in the play, so Rob and I worked hard to up the physical humour, just to make them smile. They were obedient children, and they easily form a line, and yet they are scared. The line is a support for them, something they can do and understand, it's more of a linear huddle.
Our task now becomes to interpret nature for them by reinforcing what we say by using as many non-verbal cues as possible. In contrast with the class from yesterday, what one little boy couldn't believe today was that I was showing him a real frog.

The first word they probably learn is their English name. In some cases, it gets well used within the course of one programme. There was one boy whose name I had had to use constantly to get him to concentrate.

And then I was floored.

There is a point where we have flapped like bees. I then put on my tiara and tell them I am the queen bee and I am going to lead them to a new hive. I leave them with the parents or teacher, whichever adults have accompanied us and they have to count to 15 before coming to find me, a few yards further down the straight trail. The boy suddenly crumpled his face.
'You leave us?' he asked. I was pole-axed. Here they were in a forest in a strange country where they hardly spoke the language. They had given up their Chinese names. And now the person who had led them boldly into this forest was going to leave them out there. My god did that make me think.

Fortunately I was able to reassure him. The parent I was leaving with the group looked as though she could manage a Maori rugby team in her spare time, so when I had redirected his attention to her he was able to let me buzz off and happily flapped down the trail to find the new hive.

My British friend Dave, one of our friends that we went out with last night, is doing a PhD at Simon Fraser university, thus it had never occurred to me that he might have experienced any of the problems I had encountered. Dave's first degree is from Imperial College, London. The name alone is enough to draw reverence. And Dave is much younger than me, so he actually has transcripts. But what was news to me was that this itself can become a hurdle.
Dave has a good honours degree and an MSc. But he told me that when people look at his transcripts they see marks of 70%, 68%. He had gained the highest marks in his class in some of the papers, but British papers are marked differently. And he's right, often a grade A will start at 65%. But here papers are marked so that scores in the 90's are possible. Now THIS had never occurred to me.

It has been stinking hot the last three days. This afternoon was about staying inside the Nature House and then scuttling for shade. The turtles, frogs and snakes are staying somewhere cool.
So I was somewhat p-o'ed yesterday to read an article in the Graun, dissing the profligate wearing of sunglasses.
To be fair, it was one of those non-articles, a space filler, no substance, but on the other hand, I think it's a bad message to be putting out even tongue-in-cheek. I for one CANNOT go out in the sun without my shades, I find the glare too much. I have a friend here who never wears them and yet complains of severe headaches all the time.
I feel that some of the problem is that people do perceive the wearing of sunnies as slightly pseud and so don't. We can do without bad journalism making matters worse.

This morning on the news, David Beckham, a man I consider to have NO redeeming features and whose open mouth gives cause for national humiliation, was appealing for the British kiddie kidnapped in Portugal to be returned to her parents.
Again, I am humbled.

Collecting Kevin from the airport, the legendary appalling drivers of Richmond attempted to kill us.
A car from my right, attempted to occupy the exact space our car was in at the precise moment when to to my left, a taxi overtook me at breakneck speed. I'm not entirely sure how I got out of that one, but it seemed to involve some stunt driving.
Saving lives is all in a day's work. Hmm....humility was short-lived, at least it would be if only I could feel comfortable that I'd be able to do it again.