A Few Quick Notes 160

-Today has been a beautiful day. The temperature has also been quite reasonable today, not like some of the frigid days of this winter. Unfortunately, some of the streets are still filled with snow from Saturday’s storm. This makes walking around town a little more difficult than normal.

-If my count is correct, I am now 6/25 on my Roll Up the Rim coffee cups. So far I have won one donut and a number of coffees. The general consensus among my fellow classmates seems to be that winning a boat would just be a pain in the ass, particularly as most of us don’t have anywhere to store such an item, or a car with which to move it.

-The aforementioned storm caused most of the schools in Montreal to be closed today. Apparently, they had to do some work on snow removal before they were willing to send kids outdoors.

While I think that this was probably overkill, this isn’t as bad as the fact that CBC is reporting that the extreme number of school closures this year (3) is making it difficult for teachers to fit in the year’s required content. At the moment, at least this is what is being reported, the schools will likely re-schedule in-service days rather than add days to the end of the school year.

I can’t believe that this is an issue (though I know that it is in many jurisdictions), as we all know that elementary school isn’t so much about learning a list of things, but about socialization and day-care. Missing 3 days, or even several weeks, really isn’t that big a deal at the elementary school level, one has years to make it up, and likely will without problem. I know that missing the last six weeks of grade six because of a teachers strike has not been a problem for me (though it may explain why I still can’t do long division).

-Last night I was doing some reading about library education and thought that it was somewhat disappointing that many of the complaints people had about such education many years ago are largely the same complaints that my classmates have today. I guess people like me are at least partly to blame, we see these problems and then proceed to do absolutely nothing about them (except complain privately).

-A few weeks ago I tried to make some falafel from scratch. While the final product was edible, it certainly was nothing that I would want on a regular basis. This did get me thinking about home-prepared falafel options though.

A few days ago, while shopping in Lobos, I saw a falafel mix for $1.20. Not only was this about the same amount of money that I would pay for the raw ingredients, but it was also in a format that would give me some sense of what the pre-cooked product should be. At the moment I am in the midst of letting it stand, which is to be done before the cooking process is to take place, but after the mixing process has occurred.

My current concern is that the resulting mixture will not be thick enough to form patties, as directed on the box. I may have to add some flour, or other thickening agent, to achieve the desired consistency (though this would then screw up my chance at figuring our the desired consistency based on the pre-made mix).

-As some of you, our vast readership, may have noticed, we now have new buttons at the top of the right side bar of the blog. These buttons, when pushed, allow you to contact us (we each have our own buttons). At least in my case, this button will direct you to a voicemail service. We should be able to post particularly good voicemail messages to the blog for others to hear.