Nuit Blanche 2013

We attended the Nuit Blanche - 2013 in the downtown area.

Ai Wei Wei's Forever Bicycles Sculpture

We had a couple of other events to attend to

during the day. By the time we got to the Nuit Blanch on Saturday, it was after 10:30pm. Our first stop was at Dundas Square where was packed with lots and lots lots of people. 

Sculpture made of Colourful Paper

Who would think that you could create such nice art work with toilet paper?

The exhibits were all over the downtown area. We caught one walking over to the City Hall.

An installation made up of socks!!!

Some sculptures were made out of wooden picnic tables such as these ones:

When it comes to play, adults could be just like kids, wanting to explore and experiment with new toys and structures.

Music and entertainment abound at various venues and it was a fun night to walk around. We were glad that the weather held out and we did not have a drop of rain when we were walking around to and from the various exhibits. We did not have time to catch too many exhibits and it was well past 3a.m. by the time we got home. Way past our normal bedtime but it was worthy it!

R.T. 

Toronto

Nuit Blanche 2013 - Sculpture by Ai Wei Wei

Ai Wei Wei's Forever Bicycles at Nathan Philips Square

Toronto is a city of festivals!  There are festivals throughout the year and at certain times of the year, there are so many concerts and special events taking place that one cannot keep track or attend them all.

Forever Bicycles at night!

Last year was our first time attending the Nuit Blanche in downtown Toronto - an all night arts event featuring artists from around the world. Free admission for the entire night for everyone!

We had such good time that we are now hooked.







The 2013 Nuit Blanche took place this weekend, Oct. 6 from sun down to sunrise. We were there!

I was in downtown Toronto this afternoon and I took a sneak preview at some of the exhibitions at both the Nathan Philip Square and Dundas Square.

I like  Ai Wei Wei's (  a Chinese dissident artist)  Forever bicycles, a huge piece of work made up of 3,144 bicycles  and  turned into a 3-dimensional structure. I always marvel at the creativity and imagination of artists who can use simple everyday objects and turned them into some awesome spectacular art work.  In this piece, the artist wanted to convey the rapid change in the social environment both in China and around the globe.

Another art display I saw was a poem written with fluorescent lights called The Rose is Without Why. The sculpture was done by Boris Achour - Paris, France. It will be very nice to see this at night when the lights are on.

The Holy Trinity Church, Downtown Toronto

As I strolled over to the Dundas Square, I came across this beautiful  building just across from City Hall.

I look forward to the 2013 Nuit Blanche exhibitions this Saturday. It will be a nice change for a couch potato like me to walk around downtown Toronto, get some exercises and admire all those wonderful art pieces at the same time.

Can't wait! Just hope that the weather will hold out for the night.

R.T.
Toronto

Squirrels Change their coat to get ready for winter!

One of the enjoyment of living in a house with many trees is the opportunity  provided to observe some of the wildlife in its habitat. Every morning, I wake up, coffee or tea in my hand, have my breakfast and watch the little animals scurrying around in the backyard.

Since we are very close to a ravine, we are frequented by many visitors to our backyard. One of our little visitors are the squirrels.

Normally these little fellows are agile, fast runner with dark brown fur. They can climb up and down trees with lightning speed and it is not easy to get a clear good shots of them.They are also very sensitive and cautious to their environment.

I was observing them from my kitchen window for a long time and I wanted to get a closer look at these cute little animals.

 As soon as I opened the patio door leading to the backyard ( despite my cautious efforts in trying to be extremely quiet), these little guys ran away swiftly.

I noticed that some of the dark furry squirrels have started to change their colour to adapt to the coming winter season. Their colour has changed to a grayish white especially at the tails

Coffee mug in hand, I was enjoying my squirrel watching activity and taking pictures from my kitchen. This little guy's sat on the fence for a little while and something seemed to have caught its attention.

All of a sudden, it started wagging its tail very fast!

It continued to wag its tail like crazy for a little while and appeared very excited and seemed to have discovered something!

Finally, the excited squirrel jumped off the fence disappeared into the leave pile on the ground.

The same squirrel reappeared in a few seconds and jumped back onto the fence with something in his hands.

The reason for his excitement - he found himself a delicious treat!



R.T.
Toronto

Good Bye to Our 140 Years Old Ash Tree!

We love these trees !

Our Beloved Tree

We love trees! This was the reason we fell in love with the current house where we live. Over thirty years ago, when we were young and starting a family, we decided to buy this house because we loved the trees in our backyard and in our neighbourhood.

These beautiful  old trees have been providing us with shade, and beautiful foliage while making our house cool and comfortable in the heat of summer.

However, good thing cannot last forever. Slowly, some of these majestic trees started dying and a couple of them were downed by either wind storms or severe weather a couple of years ago.








There was one tree in particular that we loved the most - a 140 year old Ash tree sitting at the back corner of our yard and gracing our property.

Unfortunately, there seemed to be an ash tree epidemic in Toronto and many ash tree have been infected with diseases.  The ash tree in our backyard was no exception, infected with diseases and started dying a couple of years ago. Last summer, lots of branches broke and fell off the trunk into the next yard.















Our neighbour kept complaining to us fearing that the tree would fall soon and land on his house while the family slept. We resisted the notion of cutting our beloved tree.

However, upon the relentless complaints expressed by our neighbour, we had no choice but applied to have permission to have the tree removed.

Andy - our tree cutter

In Toronto, we cannot cut down any trees we want once when the tree is over a certain size. Since this tree was a huge tree, we must applied at City Hall and obtain permission to have it removed.


Andy, our tree cutter came with his team of assistants and started cutting the tree down.











My heart ached as I watched each branch being hacked away and dropped to the ground.

Using a gigantic chainsaw with a blade about a meter long, Andy skillfully cut the huge trunk into pieces.

As each piece of wood was carted away, a part of me was taken with it.

This huge tree has stood in our backyard long before we moved into the house and it has been a part of our lives:

It witnessed the birth of our younger son;
it accompanied our two sons grown from infants to teens,
and the branches waved them goodbye when they left home for university.

This same tree has been with us for more than three decades and saw us through life's ups and downs along with the changing seasons:

Every spring, it gave me much joy when I puddled around under its leaves and did my planting.
In the summer, its abundant  foliage served us well and protected us from the scorching sun while we enjoyed many of the family barbecues and gatherings.
When autumn arrived the fallen leaves from the tree formed huge piles where our young sons played hide and seek rolling in them and had so much fun.
Every winter, the trunk covered with glistening snow welcome our grown sons home each Christmas for our family reunion.








Whenever our friends came to visit, they gazed in amazement at the beauty of this magnificent tree and marveled at the much needed shade and cooling effect it had on our house.

How could I bear to see this faithful tree gone forever from my life?

As the tree started to disappear in front of my eyes, my eyes started to tear and I wanted to hold onto this tree forever.

Wood - Nature's Gift to Us

I wanted to be reminded of the fond memory hidden in this tree. Instead of letting all the wood pieces taken away and burned for fuel in someone's homes, I wanted to keep some pieces of the tree. Though our children are grown men now, I would like other kids to enjoy this tree and have a great experience playing outside when they come to visit at our house.

Keeping some of the wood from our tree

I asked the tree cutter, if he could ( for an extra charge)  cut the wood pieces and create a special woodsy area for us and for the little ones. He did!

Kids and adults will have fun and quiet time here

Andy did a great job and we are pleased with our Flintstones style outdoor seats. Can't wait until the kids are here at Thanksgiving and have fun playing outside!

R.T.
Toronto

Celebration Dinner - Teens Shared What They Have Learned as Volunteers in Summer Camp

The summer camp was successfully concluded near the end of August!

This year we made history as the teens officially and capably assumed the leadership and running of the camp for the later half of the camp while I was away.






The fun time and fond memories of the summer camp were still fresh on our minds and we were glad that we had the opportunity to serve the Waterloo community again.

At the end of our Children's Summer Camp, we usually hold a Celebration/ Thank You dinner for our volunteers.







This year was no exception. Since I flew to Japan before the end of our summer camp, we decided to have that celebratory dinner upon my return to Canada.

Celebrated we did!!!    We had a reunion of all the camp volunteers including two parents who gave a lot of assistance to us. Jean, one of the three leaders who looked after the camp while I was away, made the arrangement of booking a restaurant and inviting all the volunteers for a dinner in Waterloo on the first Saturday in September.

The teens were happy to see each other again catching up with the friends they have made

We had a delicious dinner at a all you could eat buffet Sushi restaurant and the teens had a blast ordering their favorite dishes.

I always feel that if we want to see our teens returning to volunteer in the next VBS, we need to make sure they have learned something in the camp as well as recognizing their contributions as volunteers.

After the teens finished eating all they wanted from the Sushi bar, the BBQ and desserts, we gave out a small token of our appreciation to each of them and asked them about what they had learned from their volunteer experience.

Thomas shared what he learned from volunteersing

Thomas's hand shot up and answered immediately without hesitation.

" I  learned three things:

a.  Not to make hasty decision. At the beginning, I thought of quitting because we got no pay. But I was so glad that I stuck with it because I really enjoyed working with the kids and the camp experience.

b. I was not working too hard sometime and I was playing games with my cell phone and other volunteers were also doing the same thing. R. T. was very upset and she gave us a big talk. I had never seen her being so upset before. I learned that we cannot get distracted and play with our cells because the children's safety depended on us. We have to watch them all the time.

Thomas working with one of the campers

c. We have to teach kids being independent and let them do things and take responsibility for themselves. I wished I came to this camp when I was younger so that I could learn to do things on my own and be more independent."

Wow!!! I was absolutely blown away by what Thomas said. Other volunteers talked about what they had learned as well, But what Thomas said stood out for me because he was a brand new volunteer coming  from nowhere. Nobody knew him. He came because he heard about our camp and needed his 40 hour volunteer hours for his secondary school graduation diploma.

I was happy to hear from the young people what they learned from the summer camp. This made my volunteer work with them all worthwhile.

R.T.
Director - TECA
Toronto Education &
Communications Associates
Celebrating with Youth Leaders
Waterloo, Ontario
Sept. 7, 2013

Be Sure to Attend Your Child's IPRC Meeting

Last weekend, a mother called and told me that the family had gone to an IPRC meeting in June and now the school asked them for their input in her son's IEP - Individual Education Plan. By law in Ontario, if a student has been identified as exceptional with special needs, an individual education plan should be written up within thirty school days when the student starts a new school year This mother did not know what to do but was smart enough to seek professional help.

I wish I did that and  had gone to all the IPRC meetings for my older son, Er, who was identified as a gifted student way back when he was in Grade Three in a Toronto elementary school.

As a mother with two young children and holding down a full time job, I was very aware of the fact that I needed to save my sick days for my children in case they were sick and I needed to stay at home to look after them. Therefor, I did not take any days off lightly. Even when I was sick, I still dragged myself to work so that I would not be absent too many times.

I regret not attending every one of these annual meeting at our son's school and advocating for him. Some people, including some school personnel told me" You don't have to attend this meeting. Your son is in the gifted program and he is fine. It's a matter of formality that the school has to go through each year."

How wrong was that? I noticed that for a few times  on the report that came back to us about our son's areas to be improved were - social skills and confidence. Had I known as much as I know now, I would definitely have gone and attended the meeting and done the following:

1. Discuss with the school about our son's progress
2. Learn as much as I could about the areas in which our child needed to improve
3. Work with the school to come up with a plan of action to help our son to develop skills and confidence in the areas needed

I wished I had spoken to more people and learn about the importance of attending the annual IPRC meetings for our son.  Regardless of whether a student is gifted or not, an IPRC meeting is an important one where parents can learn, ask questions and give input to the school about their child's program in school.

Don't miss it and make an effort to attend the annual review meeting at your child's school\!

R.T.
Toronto

Fall - The Best Time to Buy a Used Canoe

On Our Way up to Algonquin Park

Fall is a beautiful time of the year in Canada. September is always my favourite month because the weather is not cold, not too hot and the bugs are all gone. With a sweater to keep us from the evening chill, we can sit outside without worrying about being bitten by any mosquitoes.

Beautiful scenery in Algonquin Park anytime of the year!!! The vibrant colours in the fall is something else to behold. .

We took advantage of the changing colour of the trees and drove north to enjoy the tranquility and beauty of autumn.

One of the Algonquin Outfitters

 Another good reason for us going up to Algonquin Park last weekend was to shop for a good quality used canoe.
 
At the end of each summer, many outfitters in Algonquin Park and canoe rental places often try to get rid of their older model canoes to make way for their new inventory.

For those who are looking for a good canoe but don't want to break your bank account like us, autumn is is a good time to look for one.

The Best Time to Buy a Used Canoe is at the end of Summer at One of these Algonquin Outfitters

 We were at one of these places a few weeks ago and almost bought an used canoe. After we took one out to try it, we found that it was too low. So we were back last weekend to look for a better one. This time there was a bigger and better selection.

 We took a canoe out to try and paddled around the lake, The colour of the trees was spectacular! 

When we were out on the lake two weekends ago, the leaves on the trees were dark green all around the lake.

This time, it was a myriad of orange, yellow, pink and red, quite a different feel from merely a fortnight ago.


The best part about this trip - we got a very good quality used canoe at a very affordable price!

The price for a  new quality brand name canoe costs about $2000.00 - $3000.00, a little too steep for us. This time we got ours at a fraction of the cost! 


We loaded the canoe onto the top of our vehicle and the staff at the canoe shop showed us how to secure a canoe properly and safely before transporting it:


1. Make sure the canoe is tied with good quality straps at a v both at the front and rear of the car.

 2.  Tie the canoe securely onto something that's metal, never plastic, under the hood or under the vehicle.

3.  Using good quality ropes, secure the canoe in the middle two sections to ensure the canoe would not move.

We drove home with the canoe on the roof rack and the it hardly moved at all.

Next summer we will take the canoe to our cabin by the lake and  enjoy our ride on the water!



R.T.
Algonquin Park