Lactose-Free Fun in Halifax, Nova Scotia

Flashback to my Early Childhood:
All of the neighbourhood's children were playing in the street. I was playing the lute, as I often did, and was quite good. All of a sudden, a familiar jingly music started playing from afar that interrupted my lute-playing. Silence came across the neighbourhood and with eyes open wide, the neighbourhood children furrowed their brows in an attempt to understand whether or not this was a false alarm.

Suddenly, the silence was broken. "Ice Cream Man! Ice Cream Man!" shrieked one child as the truck came into view. The children scampered to their houses to empty their piggy-banks and probably pawn their jewelry. They emerged from their houses with crisp dollar bills as they chased down the ice cream truck to secure their favorite dairy snack.

I stood, frozen with fear, unable to make a move or play a bar on my lute. Suddenly, adrenaline hit me and I disappeared into my house, foudn a large, empty bucket, and climbed inside, trembling with fear.

Six hours later, Momma came by, explaining my disappearance to a concerned neighbourhood mother who was eager to hear more majestic lute tunes. "Y'see, God don' want him drink no milk," barked Momma, matter-of-factedly. "My son ain't like no other sons on the block. He can't eat no whippin' cream, he can't drink no whole milk... he... he be alhurgenic to the dairy. He weak." My own mother... called me weak. What a day! But those were troubled times...

Ok, maybe that wasn't a real childhood memory, but since I found out that I'm lactose intolerant, I've been having to make up a lifetime of background stories as to how I've had to cope with such a serious illness. I may have told you this already, but when I got back from Japan, I found that the milk, which I once drank by the Swedish gallon, now makes my stomach angry.

Unfortunately, the same rang true for other milk products. This included caffè latte and ice cream, explaining why I had started feeling sick everyday in Japan. From what I can see, the only really safe dairy product for me is yogurt, which I consume every morning with granola and honey. What a breakfast! (Sorry, one of my students asked me today about the meaning of "What a ...!" and I'm trying to pretend we actually use this in English).

So, I'm lactose intolerant. Canadian society has been less than eager to cater towards this disability. The coffee shop in the mall below which I used to teach, for example, would not make their drinks with lactose-free milk. "We have soy milk," they would unhelpfully suggest everyday. And soy milk tastes like clay, for those of you who haven't had the pleasure.

Even less helpful in this matter has been the Children's Wish Foundation. They assert that lactose-intolerance is not life-threatening enough and that I'm not really a child, so I'm going to have to go elsewhere to get my date with Whoopi Goldberg. I just don't think that they should turn down a disabled boy like that and am seeking legal representation.

No, when it comes down to these types of "untouchable" diseases, one can only count on friends who really know how one feels. Tonight, Kelsey and I made lactose-free chocolate milkshakes.

Delicious.

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

I can't wait for winter to be over; this weekend was too cold.

In early January, Halifax saw record-high temperatures. It was perfect jogging weather: no snow, no iciness, and exotic birds such as toucans. At the time, I was a little annoyed beacuse whiners were trying to pin the blame on one of our greatest allies against winter: Global Warming.

Time went by and the whiners got their wish: cold, cold, horrible temperatures. At least it's not me out there waiting for the bus everyday. The extreme coldness funny for the first day or two, then it got boring. Then terrible.

Nevertheless, I decided to walk downtown Friday night. A while back, I had heard that Halifax was going to play host to a Guiness World Record-breaking event. On February 9th, 2007, Halifax broke the world record for largest pub crawl ever. 3200 people pre-bought pub crawl t-shirts and split up into 19 drunken groups. This event obliterated the previous record of 2,237 people, set by bustling Australian megalopolis of "Maryborough" in June 2006.

Although I didn't find out about it in time to buy a t-shirt and participate (I doubt I would have actually done so anyway), I still wanted to be able to say that I partook. I'm a little lacking on the Guiness World Record front and it makes me feel like I'm not a man. So Friday evening I called everyone I knew to try to assemble my own small pub crawl force. Not surprisingly, nobody wanted to come. Eventually, I won over my friend Mike and a couple of my Japanese students and we were on our way.

There was almost no sign of the pub crawl. Until we arrived deep into the downtown core, the streets were deserted due to the post-apocalyptic temperatures. When we finally did get into a bar, we grabbed a table under the stairs and kept it until it was time to brave the cold again in order to hunt down pizza. On the way home, I saw two people standing on a street corner with what appeared to be pub crawl t-shirts. They looked like they weren't having fun.

And that's the story of the world's largest pub crawl.

Saturday was the eve of my friend Kelsey's birthday, so we scrambled to throw together a respectable Mardi Gras-themed party. We acquired a large number of beads, but other, more indecent party staples unfortunately fell through. I'm sure we'll find another occasion for strippers (perhaps a Chinese New Year party is in order afterall).

As the Mardi Gras party progressed, my voice started disappearing (not from yelling, rather from having a terrible cold). When I woke up this morning, it was completely gone. I've had really sore throats before and it was painful to talk, but I've never had a cold like this, during which my voice just disappeared. I have the sneaking suspicion that my voice is gone forever. What am I going to do? And how will this affect my dream of winning a Latin Grammy?

Well, tomorrow I go back to being a substitute ESL teacher and if my voice isn't better by then, I'll have to be creative for my lessons... summersaults, those new dance moves I've been dying to try out, maybe "tambourine-time"... I'll play it by ear and let you know.

Berta...

Today I got my hair cut. I look like a mentally challenged Polish woman from the 1920s.

Instead of posting pictures, I've decided to go back to get it cut again tomorrow. I live a very flashy, fast-paced lifestyle.

ESL Students say the Darndest Things

As difficult as it was getting used to teaching non-Japanese students, it certainly has added to class discussion.

Most of what I taught in Japan was conversational English. This doesn't mean conversation expressions ("How are you?", "I am fine.", etc.); it means that our lessons were taught in the manner that we were supposed to base the lessons around casual chatting.

"So, Seiko, what are your hobbies?"
"My hobby is sleeping."
"Do you like to do anything else?"
BLANK STARE (they don't understand the word 'else')
"Do you like to do another thing?"
"No, I am so tired always."
"Well, have you ever slept anywhere exciting?"
"No, only on my futon."
"Did you know that in Canada we think that futons are funny?"
BLANK STARE
"Have you ever been to Hawaii?"
"Yes. Four times."
"Do you sleep in a futon in Hawaii?"
"No, I sleep in hotel bed."
"Well... that's exciting! I hate my job!"

Anyway, you can imagine how interesting it is to try to make conversation in a nation full of people whose poor English skills are surpassed only by their inability to speak English. But to be fair to the people of Japan, some of them would surprise you with shocking stories (especially the elderly) and some were such a delight to teach that it didn't matter that they had nothing to talk about except "going to shopping" and that they like cats because they are "cuto".

Coming back to Canada, on the other hand, I have encountered many exciting class discussions. The Saudi Arabians, wow! They have something interesting to say no matter how boring the course material! For example, one day, the lesson was on animals.

Does anyone own a dog?
No one responds.

Did any of you own a dog in your home country?
Saudi Arabian : "Yes, I owned fifteen."

Wow! You must love dogs!
"No, they were not for being friends with. They were only for fighting."

Do you mean they were guard dogs?
"No."

So who did they fight, then?
"Other people's dogs!"

The conversation soon turned to pigs. The same Saudi Arabian guy got a disgusted look on his face. He pointed at the board where I had drawn a picture of a pig. "Teacher, do you eat that?"

"Yes, I like to eat bacon."

The disgust on his face continued to grow. "That is a dirty animal."

"Yes, but it's delicious!" I replied.

He had some insder information for me. "You know what those things eat?"

I didn't want to know, so I just smiled and nodded.

"They are dirty and disgusting and someone from my country would never eat that animal," he conculded.

"I think they are delicious too!" piped in a Taiwanese girl, causing an awkward silence. I don't really feel right arguing over trivial cultural differences with my students (during class time at least), so thank you, Republic of China.

By the end of the day, the conversation finally got to horses. And there was no shortage of horse stories. My favorite one:

"One day, I went riding on my horse and when I got home, there were five people with wooden bats. They were beating my family's other horses. I said 'Don't move!' And then I made my horse kick one of them. Then they left."