A Short Post

It's been almost two years since my last post. Many things have happened. Let me list them briefly:

-I have taught for two years at a school where most of the students are Dutch and taller than me
-Chrissy and I had our first real vacation (summers are awesome for teachers) and we visited family out East
-Chrissy and I have moved from our cramped apartment to a cozy little townhouse (Katie also lives there, in our dungeon - I mean, basement)
-I have bought an iPad (yes, I included this in the list)
-Chrissy and I have had another baby (Janna). She actually is the cutest baby ever.
-Jesse has learned to walk, speak... and lick people. No joke, he's licked me twice in the last two hours

I plan to write a bit more often now, but I need some major ISSUES to write about. So if you have some, let me know.

Dave

Concerning Katie the Usurper, her Henchman Seth, and my Beautiful Family

Behold: The Usurper, Katie Vance

So. Everyone has been reading Katie's blog, and hearing about her phenomenal experiences in South Korea, fraternizing with Jehovah's witnesses, Koreans, and fellow North American (mis)adventurers. Innocently, you say. Even humorous and well-written. Well, everybody, I'm here to make a startling revelation - despite it's apparently innocuous nature, Katie's blog is actually a particularly vicious electronic attack against yours truly. Read on, my 4 friends, and know the truth. Fortunately, Katie is not the only one who can pose nuanced intellectual warfare over the inter-web.

Unfortunately, for several months, I have not been able to find my blog to write in it. I accidentally deleted my bookmarks, and with them any trace of the location of my beloved "Apartment 1004". But friends, friends, your long wait is over. I have since relocated my highly-intellectual musings and have returned to present Katie with direct competition to her overrated Korean escapades.

It seems to me that Katie is trying to directly challenge my established position of "teacher" within the Vance family. First, for those of you who don't know (among my 4 loyal followers), I recently secured a contract as a teacher for Redeemer Christian High School. Furthermore, I have spent the last year studying to become a teacher at a reputable university called University of Ottawa. Furthermore, I am older than Katie. Surely, of the two of us I am more established as "the" teacher of the Vance family. But the usurper, Katie, has seen fit to overshadow me by not only becoming a teacher AS WELL, but by beginning to teach IMMEDIATELY, and to teach children who DON'T EVEN SPEAK ENGLISH. How am I supposed to compete with this? She is obviously trying to ruin me.

The logo of my school.

The logo of Katie's school. Note that they are CONFIDENT of their success. There is nothing innocent about this...

Secondly, Katie has evidently decided to challenge me in my role as "childbearer" for the Vance family. That's right, dear friends. Recently I became a father to an awesome baby boy named Jesse David. He is truly a great kid. However, upon reflecting on the blessings of parenthood, I realized that even here Katie is trying to steal my thunder. I have a baby, true, but Katie has gone and gotten herself DOZENS of babies - KOREAN babies. We're trying to teach our baby how to speak, she is teaching her multitudes of babies how to speak ENGLISH. The parallels are so striking I can't believe I didn't see them at first. Once again, Katie is attacking me subtly through her blog, further incriminating herself as the usurper she is.

My baby.



Katie's babies.

On a deceptively unrelated note, my so-called friend Seth Potter has been relentlessly and subliminally trying to convert me to the quasi religion of reformed theology. On his July 27th, 2009 post, he writes on spiritual matters concerning Israel and the Church. As usual, Seth presents his opinions with zeal and intellectual precision (dangerous tools when in wrong hands!). His post, however, is not as innocent as it seems. Cast your glance to the bottom of his post, to the "Tags" section. Yes, Seth has "tagged" me in his superficially innocuous posting. What does this mean? Some might call this an "innocent mistake" or a "simple joke", but I see purposes far more sinister here. This is a direct hark back to KATIE's own experiences with the Jehovah's Witnesses in S. Korea. Katie, having learned of the dark attraction of abberational religion, decided to apply this lesson to her own life in an effort to ELIMINATE the most direct competition to her own blog - me. It seems obvious now that she recruited Seth for her own cause and persuaded him to begin a campaign of malicious propaganda against me. At best, I suppose, she and Seth believed that I might somehow believe that it was DESTINY for my blog to be overshadowed by Katie's own. A valiant effort, if only I were so naive.

Seth "Calvin" Potter

Having adequately refuted Katie (and Seth's) weak efforts to dispose of me, I'd like to end this post on a positive note. I want to give a shout out to my beautiful new family, which is now composed of my incredibly attractive and patient wife Chrissy, my mighty son Jesse, and my consistently neglected dog, Cooper. The Ottawa chapter of the Vance family is thriving, and looking forward to the coming months.

Isn't Chrissy beautiful???? Jesse was happier in the next picture, but I love this picture of Chrissy.

Until next time,
Combatatively yours,

Dave

Something DEEP

Ok, so in my last little update I promised something deep in my next post. Truthfully, I have nothing. This either makes me shallow, or way too busy (practicum ends in 1 week!). But to whet your doubtlessly voracious appetites to hear what important things I have to say, I am going to post the lyrics to a song I've been trying to write for a long time. There are gaps because I need some help with it, so any suggestions would be appreciated.

"When You're Next to Me"

If I had the words to write you a song

I'd make it a masterpiece;

With lyrics like fire, my heart would aspire

to move you with pure melodies

If you gave me sight, I'd look straight to you,

Where else could my eyes find their rest?

I'd search the whole earth, and for all that it's worth

___________________????? (Something that sounds like rest?)

Chorus:

Hey, hey, I feel the sky

I hear the stars when you're next to me

Hey, hey, I feel you breathe

and I tune my soul to your heartbeat.

Second verse and bridge: I got nothin!!! 

That's it for today.
Daver

Best CBC Interview Ever

By the way, this is really funny. And it just gets better and better.

Billy Bob Thornton!!!!

Mid-Praticum Update

Hello, little blog-readers. Well, it's been almost a month since my last post, which is horribly uncommitted of me. It's been so busy I've barely had time to think. A bunch of stuff is happening:

• Practicum: The legend continues. I'm just about done my 5-week stint at molding young minds at Glebe Collegiate. The reports are good, except I need to crack down on discipline a little. Any innovative ideas for discipline techniques???
  
  
• Pre-natal classes: Yikes. All the "female" words that I have avoided throughout my time as a man have made a dramatic comeback in these classes. Plus, all the other guys there are avid readers of pregnancy literature. For example, I was one of the only guys there who hasn't read "The Baby Whisperer" or "Eighteen Short Birth Stories". What is this? Should I be reading this stuff? My heart says no, but my "pregnancy buddies" (??!) say yes....
  
  
• Chrissy has reorganized our apartment. This might sound uneventful if you don't know my wife, but she takes a task like this to heart. After drawing to-scale diagrams of each individual piece of our furniture, she has used them to create an absolutely stellar layout for everything. If I knew how to post pictures I would. But trust me, it's awesome.

That's about it for this post. I think blogs are supposed to be a bit more intellectual or something, so next time I'll try to write something DEEP. Prepare yourselves, my (3?) friends.

Celiacs strike back

This is perhaps the most exciting article I've ever read:

http://www.financialpost.com/related/links/story.html?id=1149060

For all of us who suffer from Celiac disease (an inability to digest gluten, and therefore eat anything with wheat in it), this is a much needed glimmer of hope on the horizon. The end will come soon, fellow celiacs... 

Caffeine!! Yaaahh!

Ever stay up all night working on a project, and then drink coffee all the next day to keep yourself awake? You get that sort of exhausted/wired combo that can only end badly. That's where I am right now. My foot is currently tapping on the floor really fast, and I've been typing erratically. To make matters worse, my "Y" key fell off, but I think I fixed it. 

It's nice to be able to record these thoughts. I should probably stop now though, because I'm in class. Ciao!