Saturday 30 June 2018

Now Teaching: Week 43

"Now Teaching: Week 43" is also "Now Parenting: Week 2"

On Sunday, nearly didn’t get a star, but forced it. Slept an hour in the evening then two hours overnight, to get through (most) 4U Summatives. Sleepwalking through the day. On Monday, got five hours sleep in anticipation of a busy Tuesday, which it was - didn’t leave school until almost 10pm, only to come home to finish mark calculations. Got about three hours sleep, then into the report card comments and final adjustments. Finished a bit before 9am.

Took Alexandra to school that morning, which went pretty well. Stopped by the Grad garden party but mostly just got questions about marks. That night, slept in my own bed - had been sleeping in the basement to ensure a stretch of uninterrupted sleep though suspect Anne-Lise got more sleep than me overall. Thursday was busy because I had to get things done in time for another doctor visit.

Anyway, somehow it all got done. Without crying. Even got some signatures in the yearbook on Commencement day, which is important to me, having the tangibles. Yay. Now, a heat wave, and time with the little one. She’s been registered for birth and benefits now. Some items have already come through the mail for her (from relatives, and from SirWil family). Oh, and I’ve tried to fix the faucet, mostly unsuccessfully.
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*
Item counts run Sunday (June 24) to Saturday (June 30).

Step Count 2017: About 64,350 (22 stars).
STEP COUNT 2018: Over 66,600. 14 stars.
Sunday and Tuesday were largely grading, with under 7000 steps. Four other days were over 10k.

THIS TIME LAST YEAR:
-Tried to get all projects done, emailed for CompSci resources.

SchoolMail 2017: 52 (4 sent)
SCHOOL EMAIL 2018: 72 New (21 sent)
So that’s 195194 days, even though it should be 196194. I don’t know where I went wrong.


WEDNESDAY, before cleanup

TEACHING RELATED ITEMS:
 -Graded all remaining 4U Summative Projects
 -Graded 4U Probability extra projects
 -Mary C retirement Mon
 -Graded 3U exams
 -Graded 3U exams Set2
 -Graded last part of 3U Summatives
 -Graded last part of 3U Summatives Set2
 -Final mark calculations, comments (3 classes)
 -Parent emails, failure calls, Commencement fruit/names

WRITING + ART RELATED ITEMS:
 -Some CHAMPS art for Mharz’s comic

OTHER ITEMS:
 -Daughter Doctor Apt Thursday
 -Dinner with in-laws Thursday
 -Brunch during France game Saturday
 -7 more tips of “25 Things Every New Dad Should Know”
 -Lotus Prince’s “House 4”, “Overblood”, “Time Crisises”, “White Day”

UPCOMING FOR SURE:
 -Signed up for CampNaNo, lawn care, dentist apt

STUFF TO SCHEDULE FOR 2018:
 -Recap for OAME 2018
 -Recap for ConBravo 2017
 -Recap for CanCon 2017
 -Write a TANDQ article on Polling and Bias
 -Write a post about types of praise/encouragement
 -Catching up with web serials
 -Read some of the books sitting at my desk


RH Stress Level: 9 (Blaster Mode, Full Power)

Saturday 23 June 2018

Now Teaching: Week 42

"Now Teaching: Week 42" is also "Now Parenting: Week 1"

Sunday. Still being sick, I wake up around 11am (though was up for an hour or so around 7:30am). We get the call shortly after to come in for noon. We’re in room 11, the procedure starts a bit after 2pm. (I grade papers when we wait.) A-L’s parents come in, I pop home to pick up pills, iPad, and to have another attempt at a nap, return for 6pm. Stay until about 10pm.

Shortly after I get home, 10:30pm, balloon fell out, things are happening. (I’d started eating cold pizza and watching a video before bed.) Another call before 11pm, and then after - I should come in, nurse is continually monitoring, could go to Caesarian. I arrive by 11:45pm just before the epidural begins, help out. Contractions are sporadic.

Then, a waiting game. Nurses trade off. A-L gets some sleep, I must have been unconscious for a bit as the helicopter arrival at 3am stirs me. Around 4am I go to trade an empty tissue box for the one in my car. By about 4:45am there’s been issues. Caesarian is called just before 4:50am, Alexandra is born at 5:02am, then after cutting the cord I stay with her as they X-Ray Anne-Lise for instruments (routine).

Moved to a private room about 8:30am, call both sets of parents, I leave after 9:30am dead on my feet. Paternity leave for Monday (champagne in the hospital) and Tuesday (first bath), return Wednesday for first exam, and then leave to pick up my best ladies from hospital. Stress levels vary from a 9 when I’m trying to gas up the car after a long day to a 1 when I’m holding her in my arms. Be that at 7pm or 2am.

All those medical appointments in Sept/Oct might make more sense now. Oh, and Anne-Lise gave me an amazing Father’s Day gift. So yeah, how was your week?
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*
Item counts run Sunday (June 17) to Saturday (June 23).

Step Count 2017: About 55,400 (22 stars).
STEP COUNT 2018: Over 63,000. 14 stars.

THIS TIME LAST YEAR:
-Wrote stats parody, caught up in reading serials/comics.

SchoolMail 2017: 38 (2 sent)
SCHOOL EMAIL 2018: 147 New (28 sent)
Up to Day 190189, or something. (Oh, 30+ msgs about kiddo.)



TEACHING RELATED ITEMS:
 -Graded large part of 3U Summatives
 -Graded large part of 3U Summatives Set2
 -Graded Finance tasks for 3U
 -Graded Finance tasks for 3U Set2
 -Phone calls/Emails to 3U danger cases
 -Graded 4U Exams
 -Graded some 4U Summative Projects
 -Mei-Len retirement Thurs
 -Co retirement (& songwriting) Fri

WRITING + ART RELATED ITEMS:
 -Thursday stArt Faire Comic Chat
 -Short post to start off next “Epsilon”

OTHER ITEMS:
 -Birth of Daughter, several hospital trips
 -Dinner with parents Monday
 -Breakfast with parents Tuesday
 -With A-L parents Wed/Sat (+DQ)
 -Daughter Doctor Apt Friday
 -10 tips of “25 Things Every New Dad Should Know”
 -Lotus Prince’s “Typing/House of the Dead” (except 4)

UPCOMING FOR SURE:
 -EVERYTHING IS DUE AND HAPPENING WHAT

STUFF TO SCHEDULE FOR 2018:
 -Recap for OAME 2018
 -Recap for ConBravo 2017
 -Recap for CanCon 2017
 -Write a TANDQ article on Polling and Bias
 -Write a post about types of praise/encouragement
 -Catching up with web serials
 -Read some of the books sitting at my desk


RH Stress Level: 7 (Starlight Breaker)

Saturday 16 June 2018

Now Teaching: Week 41

"Now Teaching: Week 41" is also "Now Parenting: Week 0"

Everything’s normal so far, aside from the fact that now I’m sick. Might be the same illness Anne-Lise had last week. Great timing. Her parents are now in town, and I have a ton of marking. I don’t know what’s normal any more. Oh, StArt Faire is ending in August. And we’re on the Induction List now.
Previous INDEX Next

*
Item counts run Sunday (June 10) to Saturday (June 16).

Step Count 2017: About 69,700 (28 stars).
STEP COUNT 2018: Over 65,100. 14 stars.

THIS TIME LAST YEAR:
-Made it to the Ottawa RallyCross and Fringe Festival, saw anime.

SchoolMail 2017: 67 (1 sent)
SCHOOL EMAIL 2018: 67 New (15 sent)
Up to Day 185184, I guess? Last anime club yesterday, last day of classes Tuesday.



TEACHING RELATED ITEMS:
 -Graded rest of the 3U tests
 -Graded the 4U tests
 -Council Meeting Thurs
 -From emails to printouts, it probably took an hour to deal with all the students who were away for tests, for legit (concussion) or other reasons (??).

WRITING + ART RELATED ITEMS:
 -Finished “Paradox Girl” column, with images
 -Wrote post about Ontario’s 2018 Election
 -Thursday stArt Faire Comic Chat

OTHER ITEMS:
 -Friday dinner with Anne-Lise’s parents (+phoned mine)
 -Lotus Prince’s “Alice: Madness Returns” and Deadpool livestream

UPCOMING FOR SURE:
 -Retirement gatherings and marks

STUFF TO SCHEDULE FOR 2018:
 -Recap for OAME 2018
 -Recap for ConBravo 2017
 -Recap for CanCon 2017
 -Write a TANDQ article on Polling and Bias
 -Write a post about types of praise/encouragement
 -Catching up with web serials
 -Read some of the books sitting at my desk


RH Stress Level: 7 (Starlight Breaker)

Thursday 14 June 2018

Ontario Election 2018

*record scratch*

I suppose you’re wondering how we got here. Having Doug Ford as the premier of the province of Ontario, I mean. Given all the shenanigans in Toronto with his brother Rob Ford, not to mention the “businessmen running government” problems elsewhere in the world.

Well, I’m going to try to provide some context. I hope you’ll follow me on this journey. Quick intro about Canadian politics, for those unaware: We have 5 national parties. The Liberals, the Conservatives (not Progressive Conservatives, they merged with the Reform party in 2003 to create that party), the NDP (New Democratic Party), the Bloc Quebecois (not a factor in Ontario) and the Green party (who have one seat federally).

To understand the rise of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives, we first need to consider the fall of the Liberals.


FIFTEEN LIBERAL YEARS


Dalton McGuinty led the Liberal party to victory over the Conservatives in 2003, with 72 seats. In fact, the NDP lost official party status at the time (despite an increase in the popular vote), winning only 7 seats. (Eight are needed - they regained status in 2004 when Andrea Horwath won a by-election.)

McGuinty won again in 2007, with 71 seats. Then in 2011, with 53 seats - which was one short of a majority government (in the 107 seat legislature of the time). This is, I believe, where things started to deteriorate. I previously blogged about how the Liberals didn’t negotiate with teachers in good faith in 2012, manufacturing a crisis in education. There was also the “gas plant scandal”, where a campaign promise to cancel construction on two natural gas plants was eventually revealed to have costed over $650 million more than reported.

Premier Dalton McGuinty stepped down in 2012, replaced by Kathleen Wynne in February 2013. In the subsequent election in 2014 - she won a majority, with 58 seats. Making her the first gay woman to lead her party to a majority victory in Ontario. How did Wynne win, after everything that had happened? Part of it may have been the platform of her main opponent, Tim Hudak, leader of the Progressive Conservatives. He promised “a million jobs” while “cutting public sector” positions (among other things), resulting in his math being challenged.

Of note, the Conservative solution for 2018 seems to have been to run without any real platform at all. We’ll come back to that.



The deal breaker for the Liberals after the election was the selling off of a majority in Hydro One, a major electricity agency. They revealed this plan (which hadn’t been part of their re-election platform) in 2015, as a means of funding infrastructure, among other things. There’s a good explanation of what that meant at that link. No one seemed to like the idea, and the Canadian Union of Public Employees even sued the Liberals. (The suit was dismissed without trial.)

The argument that the Liberals were putting “short-term political gain before good policy” might have merit. Granted, I say that because on a more personal note, taking away teachers’ bankable sick days because “it looks bad on the books” was another odd decision (that seems to have backfired, more teachers need mental health days lately), and earlier in 2018 the Liberals paid out $31 million to Catholic Teachers, even though they weren’t even part of a court challenge about violating teachers’ Charter rights in 2012. This helped further alienate the Liberal party from public education workers.

The Liberals were going to have an uphill battle in 2018. Polls a month before the election even put the Liberals in third place. The people wanted a change. Meanwhile...


CONSERVATIVE UPHEAVAL


Tim Hudak resigned as the leader of the Conservative party after losing in 2014. (He would later resign his seat in the legislature, in 2016, to become an executive of the Ontario Real Estate Association.) It might even be more accurate to say he was forced to step aside - a new leader had not yet been chosen when he did. Jim Wilson served as interim leader of the party, until a leadership election in May 2015 chose Patrick Brown as the successor.

At the start of 2018, the Ontario election was seen as Patrick Brown’s to lose. Then January 2018 happened. Here’s the rundown:

CTV broadcast a story about sexual misconduct. Brown denied it, but six of his senior aides publicly resigned, and then he himself resigned the next day. Vic Fedeli was appointed interim leader, but said he would not be running for the leadership. Candidates instead included Doug Ford, Christine Elliott, Caroline Mulroney, Tanya Allen, and... Patrick Brown?

Brown later claimed his resignation was posted without his permission, the allegations were false, and he would end up suing CTV for $8 million dollars. (No results on that yet, as far as I know.) But Brown would need to be vetted by the party, which is when more stories came out about money impropriety, and an investigation was opened into his finances. Still, he was vetted, but then withdrew anyway, citing family reasons.

Patrick Brown is, of course, writing a book about all this, due to come out in November.

Having been led by an interim leader, a resigned(?) leader, and an interim leader, the Conservative leadership race continued - FOUR MONTHS before the election - with the other four candidates. The voting would be done by ranked ballot. Meaning if no one had 50%+, the lowest person would be dropped off, and their votes redistributed to the second choice, the process continuing until one candidate received a majority of electoral votes.

Christine Elliot won the popular vote. She also won the majority of ridings. She lost the leadership to Doug Ford, by one percentage point, 51%-49%. So now we have to get into THAT situation.



Ontario presently has 124 ridings (up from 107). As the prior linked article says, “regardless of whether a riding has 100 or 1,000 members, a candidate who receives 40 percent support from that riding gets 40 electoral votes”. (Any riding with under than 100 ballots counts as one vote.) There was apparently a delay in announcing Ford’s victory because 1,300 postal codes had been assigned to the wrong riding.

After an initial dispute, Christine Elliott conceded to Doug Ford on March 11, 2018. One wonders if it’s because sending the case to court less than three months before an election would be sub-optimal. So, in a leadership race between three woman and one white guy, guess who came out ahead.

Doug Ford could now claim to be cleaning up the mess of the party. Perhaps that’s why the Conservatives didn’t have a budgeted platform? At all?


THE ELECTION


To be sure, the Conservatives did make promises, and eventually revealed how much they would cost, but had no information about how they would pay for it. (Beyond eliminating “inefficiencies”.) I don’t really feel that’s a platform? And scrapping the minimum wage hike, offering cheaper gas, and firing the CEO of Hydro One (which is now in private hands, soooo... can’t do that) didn’t strike me as reasons to vote Ford either. Oh, he’s also planning to “scrap discovery math”, whatever that means, aside from meddling in my job.

Can a party shuffling through leaders, who had only 51% support for the guy who would be premier, really be blamed for not having a clear plan though? (One might hope?) Heck, an economist who looked into the Conservative promises said their plan would run larger deficits than the Liberals or the NDP.

Oh yeah, hey, the NDP - we haven’t talked about them yet. I mentioned Andrea Horwath above with the 2004 by-election. She won the party’s leadership in 2009, and the 2011 election saw an increase in seats, giving her added credibility.

Parts of the NDP platform for 2018 included buying back Hydro One shares, investing in transit, and dealing with student debt. Many thought Horwath did the best in the first debate held on May 7, 2018. Admittedly, Horwath’s financial plan did hit a road bump when a $1.4 billion dollar costing mistake was found, but she came clean and things eventually became a showdown between NDP and Conservatives. Wynne even conceded the election a week before, urging voters to elect Liberal so that the other parties wouldn’t get a majority.

Also in the week before, Rob Ford’s widow sued Doug Ford, stating that he mismanaged their affairs in the family business. Probably a calculated move, but honestly, I’m not sure who made the calculation, because it didn’t matter. (Ford of course said that the claims were false.)

I mean, who would you pick in this scenario, Ford or Horwath? One is a new leader by 51% of the party vote after a scandal, who makes promises that are occasionally impossible, with no plan for how to pay for them. The other is... not that. (Yes, I'm obviously troubled by how this played out. Alternatively, there is always Wynne, or the Green Party, or a host of smaller parties.)



But this is about individual ridings, you say, not party leaders. And the truth of it was, rural voters were going to go Conservative. I heard/read some of the interviews, referencing how they wanted change, and they liked how relatable Ford was. Or if not him personally, at least the PC candidate in their riding. Meanwhile, many urban voters were going NDP or Liberal. The question, at least in my mind, was how people in places like the outlying areas of Toronto would go.

Somehow, Patrick Brown’s election to lose had become Doug Ford’s election to lose. And the day of the election, I didn’t think he would lose. I was hoping he would be tempered by a minority government.

No such luck.

As Peter Lynn said on Twitter, “I hated that Doug Ford just assumed he could become premier out of sheer rich white male entitlement, without any particular experience or expertise, and I hated it even more that he was right”. As Scott Reid said in his column, “after the election of Doug Ford, do campaigns even matter?”

I fear that they don’t. That’s the thing that almost scares me the most about this whole debacle. Because I’m a white guy who doesn’t need medicinal drugs, so (I hope) I don’t have other things to worry about, like my livelihood.

Either way, here we are.

Doug Ford has already said he’ll repeal sex education, that he wants Toronto Pride to include police before he attends, and oh right, he has been endorsed by white nationalists (which fortunately the Conservatives disavow). Bright spots: Ford’s sticking with PM Trudeau after the US attacks from Trump, he seems to be surrounded by sensible people, and the voter turnout for this election was 58% of eligible voters, up from 2014. (Ford only won 40% of the vote, incidentally.) Guess we’ll see who ends up on his cabinet.

Oh, at the same time, Ontario elected their first Green Party representative. And in an interesting turn, it’s the Liberals who lose party status by being at 7 seats, versus the NDP in 2003.

In conclusion: The future’s looking shaky, at least as far as elections are concerned.

Random follow-up thoughts: Is our hatred of math translating into no need for costed platforms, and/or a greater rise of populist votes? To what degree is the “Backfire Effect” prevalent in politics? And of course, other people also have their own opinions on how Ontario got this result, feel free to compare and contrast.

Thanks for reading.

Saturday 9 June 2018

Now Teaching: Week 40

I’m stress eating comfort food again. That time of year at work. Anne-Lise implies she’d help me if she wasn’t on her strict diet. ^.- I THINK I’m ready for what’s to come this week? Which means probably not at all. I already jumped to a conclusion when I got a phone call at the end of Thursday (a parent, not my wife). Thursday was just bad, what with the Ontario election. On the lighter side, colleagues threw me a surprise shower at end of day Monday with some big ticket items, that was so nice.
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Item counts run Sunday (June 3) to Saturday (June 9).

Step Count 2017: About 59,800 (26 stars).
STEP COUNT 2018: Over 61,500. 14 stars.

THIS TIME LAST YEAR:
-Felt depressed, hooked into the comic community on Discord.

SchoolMail 2017: 65 (0 sent)
SCHOOL EMAIL 2018: 92 New (16 sent)
Up to Day 180179, barring time for fact-checking.



TEACHING RELATED ITEMS:
 -Finalized exam for 4U
 -Staff Meeting Tues
 -“Relay for Life” supervision Tues
 -Finalized 2 exams and summative for 3U
 -Graded 2/3 of 3U classes tests

WRITING + ART RELATED ITEMS:
 -Drew, inked, coloured comic for June 4
 -Drew, inked, coloured comic for June 18
 -Thursday stArt Faire Comic Chat

OTHER ITEMS:
 -Food delivery and dealing with soup error
 -Car Seat clinic and buying BabiesRUs items
 -Lotus Prince’s “Clock Tower (PS1)” and “American McGee’s Alice”

UPCOMING FOR SURE:
 -Uhmmmm?? Council maybe?

STUFF TO SCHEDULE FOR 2018:
 -Recap for OAME 2018
 -Recap for ConBravo 2017
 -Recap for CanCon 2017
 -Write a TANDQ article on Polling and Bias
 -Write a post about types of praise/encouragement
 -Catching up with web serials
 -Read some of the books sitting at my desk


RH Stress Level: 5 (ACS Standby)

Saturday 2 June 2018

Now Teaching: Week 39

Somehow it’s June. Last post marked two full years of doing these updates. O.o New this week, got complimentary Post Anime North tickets thanks to Scott, sent in another Ink & Insights submission, and turned the air conditioning on at home. Kiddo is moving inside Anne-Lise, and we’ve known for a week now that it won’t be a C-section unless necessary. Life will get interesting. Maybe that’s why not much got accomplished today.
Previous INDEX Next

*
Item counts run Sunday (May 27) to Saturday (June 2).

Step Count 2017: About 59,250 (22 stars).
STEP COUNT 2018: Over 66,000. 14 stars.

THIS TIME LAST YEAR:
-T&T ended. Thought about plans for summer.

SchoolMail 2017: 81 (2 sent)
SCHOOL EMAIL 2018: 104 New (11 sent)
Up to Day 175174. 20 days left? Shouldn’t it be 21, to 196? Uhhh. (ED: Ok, no, to 194) Anyway, had an on-call.



TEACHING RELATED ITEMS:
 -Cappies Gala Sunday (1:30pm-10pm)
 -Finished grading 4U Probability tests
 -Finished grading 3U Discrete tests
 -Created “Distracted Math” meme for Meme day

WRITING + ART RELATED ITEMS:
 -Thursday stArt Faire Comic Chat
 -Drew a Squiddy for InkDropCafe contest
 -Wrote up a short post on May Stats
 -Preliminary work on “Paradox Girl” post

OTHER ITEMS:
 -COMA meeting and dinner Monday
 -Weeding and lawn cutting
 -Provincial voting research and early vote Wed
 -OSSTF political gathering Friday
 -Brunch with friends Saturday
 -Lotus Prince’s “Until Dawn” end and “Clock Tower (SNES)”

UPCOMING FOR SURE:
 -Finalize exams, install car seat, staff mtg

STUFF TO SCHEDULE FOR 2018:
 -Recap for OAME 2018
 -Recap for ConBravo 2017
 -Recap for CanCon 2017
 -Write a TANDQ article on Polling and Bias
 -Write a post about types of praise/encouragement
 -Catching up with web serials
 -Read some of the books sitting at my desk


RH Stress Level: 5 (ACS Standby)