Too Cold for Skiing!?!

Hullo ladies and gentlemen, it has been a while I see. November has flown by like 1999. So let me start by explaining the title of today’s blog: too cold for skiing. Earlier this month, or perhaps it was late October, I joined the Hay River ski club. It is cross country skiing, so langlaufen, so not all that exciting and to be honest have only been skiing once. The other time I went snow shoeing and that was hilarious so I totally want to do that again, if it were not for the strange weather rules. They saw skiing and outdoor sports are dangerous when the wind-chill is colder than -23. This may sounds reasonable but the truth is that for example this morning it is -28 with a wind-chill of -39 and usually the wind-chill is much colder than the actual temperature, even when it is a “warm” –18. So I am not sure when I can snowshoe again, I hope it is not April. To conclude this introduction, yes, temperatures have dropped. I usually only go outside now for a run to the store or to aerobics at the other school but even on those short walks it feels like my nose will come off, the wind really “burns”. This was the weather, now the other news.


Hockey.
Hockey is still a lot of fun and there is practise once or twice a week. We had practise on Saturday night and several of the women had brought their children, so we played a game together with a bunch f 7 year olds which was very scary. You are so afraid to crush them and they are so not afraid of anything that mainly the women were the ones falling over. I got whacked in the leg by my own teammate because apparently the boy wanted to puck more than me and so I fell on my butt and it hurt a lot so from now on I will always wear my protective underwear I promise. Also, just last week I scored my first goal! It was kind of an accident and happened when I was kind of falling over and my stick as well as the puck ended up behind the goalie. Go Mathilde.


Curling
One sport that is simply hilarious to watch is curling, especially when they take out the little broomsticks and move it in front of the rock. My housemate Kate does curling and sometimes on Fridays I go to the curling bar to watch it. I could never have imagined the amount of people whose number one sport is curling and they take it so seriously! I have by now learned all of the rules and have become very good at mini curling, a game like sjoelen where you move the rocks with your hands and well, try to score as many points as possible. Maybe one day I will try curling for real, when they need a substitute.

Crocheting
Since I have no television or internet at home and do not always feel like reading I have picked up the art of crocheting. I started with scarves but am now also doing headbands and hats. I had a very nice yarn for headbands and yesterday I sold four of them at the winter market at our school. Of course I spend my earnings on new yarn to make more, I am getting special requests from teachers, lol, and me and my two housemates wear matching headbands now. Whoop.

Christmas
Christmas markets are happening, every weekend. The town has been decorated with lights and people are trying to outchristmas the neughbours. This is America after all. I have also bought lights for the house and tinsel. I am looking forward to spending my Christmas in Yellowknife, I am bringing my skates and who knows what will happen!! I am also celebrating Christmas a little with the other beaver volunteers before the holidays, we will do a secret santa too. And I am very happy to have received many dutch goodies to get into the sinterklaas mood. Thank you Sinterklaasje!!!


Beavers
Two new beavers have arrived instead of my favourite beaver Laura because she is leaving. For the time being she stays at our house and sleeps behind the couch. I am very sad that she is going because she is my crochet mate and hockey buddy and she is kind of crazy like me. The two new beavers are very nice though, they are from England and had been stuck in Alberta for a long time because the foundation kind of placed them somewhere where nobody knew where they were and there was no house for them etc. They will work at the kindergarten with the little ones.

School
At DJ high school everything is going well. I am enjoying my work there a lot, the kids are hilarious. Because one students had asked me where in Mexico I was from, I decided to do a presentation about the Netherlands. They enjoyed it a lot and I will probably do the presentation in more classrooms next week. Even adults here do not know whether Europe is above or below the equator, so, let’s educate. Other than that I am very busy helping out in the kitchen with cooking lessons, in English lessons where students are doing a little Macbeth play for Goat Fest, which I am still organising with my students council. And there will be an improve show on Goat Fest too, and my three students (just enough for the three headed expert) are very excited and so good at it, I hope somebody can film their performance. And also I am trying to write fake articles for the school news paper because not a lot of students have handed stuff in so I am adding anonymous entries. LOL. So I have to work on my Christmas Horoscope now and shall probably give you a new update during the Christmas holidays…! Ho ho ho..!! :)