12 Days of Christmas

Last year I attended Teacher Convention and sat in on a session that I signed up for only because it was the only thing that sounded remotely interesting for the time slot I still had to fill. I don't even remember exactly what the session was all about--something like "incorporating technology into the classroom"--but one thing caught my attention and made me go Hmmmmm. A lot of the session was way over my head, talking about web 2.0 tools and such; but one idea was about podcasting.

I'm sure most of you have heard about podcasts; if you haven't, look it up. No, but I wouldn't trust my explanation either: Basically a podcast, to my understanding, is an audio recording that an individual puts on the internet for others to listen to. You start a podcast and can put on new episodes that form sort of an online audio blog. People can download the podcast to their ipods or other players and listen to your thoughts. I know I am not doing the concept justice, but my knowledge of this is extremely limited.

I began exploring podcasts after the convention and was never able to become proficient at the technology. One thing that I got out of the session, however, was a site by the name of gcast. The great thing about this site, I was told, is that you can record your episode over the phone and gcast will automatically publish it to the podcast you began on their site. I thought this was brilliant and would be an interesting idea to bring into the classroom. Like I said though, I have yet to gain the skills in figuring out exactly how all this works, and so it will not make it into my classroom for a year or two yet.

BUT I do enjoy playing around with this neat technology from time to time and thought I would try to upload an audio recording of my own to this blog. Jen decided that today was the day to be putting up Christmas lights, and the tree, and such, so I went to the computer to find my Christmas music only to discover the file had been deleted. Long story short, I got The 12 Days of Christmas stuck in my head, and began thinking about other versions of the song I have heard over the years (some funny, others not so much) and began to create my own version in my head. Throughout the day the lyrics began to loosely form. A bit of research later--into the song, the syllables of the lines, a tune-only version, and some lyric specific items--and I had my very own version of the song, audio and all, published to the internet.

The idea began from a stray, and now forgotten thought in my mind, and evolved into a searing commentary on my skills, or lack thereof, in an extremely popular sport in the Peace Country (where I now live). Give it a listen.

***Caution: This is a song, and is sung by me, and I don't sing, and when Jen heard me singing she asked why and I said "no reason" and she said uh-oh, because I don't sing, but I am singing here, so . . . Caution!***



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Hunting is very popular here in Grande Prairie and the surrounding area. I first discovered this when a student had been missing from my class for a week and when he came back I asked where he had been and he said hunting. Wow! You miss a whole week of school to go hunting? I had never heard of that. But apparently that's what you do when you're in Peace Country. When I told another teacher about this he simply said he wished he could take a week off and go hunting. Since then I have heard speeches about hunting, read stories about hunting, and viewed student blogs dedicated to hunting. It is big business out here, and most kids at school either own a gun or are looking forward to when they are old enough to own a gun; but be assured they have all fired a gun. Even the girls. I was asked by a student what the biggest gun I ever fired was. I said I had fired a 9mm Glock at the shooting range in WEM, once. He laughed and said "that's it?" Then he proceeded to tell all the other students this as they walked in.

At the risk of, again, sounding like "city-folk" (which I am) I am quite certain that as cool as I think it would be to go hunting and track an animal and have it in my sights, I would never actually be able to pull the trigger and kill it. Around here I would be laughed at for such a statement, but it wasn't long ago that I came from a place that would have laughed at the "red-neck" who made such a statement.

Anyway, this song evolved into a list of weapons the gun store would sell me to help me kill the buck in my sights; though none of the weapons actually would enable me to do it, which is why they keep compounding and culminate in a death-ray.

By the way, laugh all you like at the song, my singing, or whatever else you want, but until you write your own song, sing it to the music from this site, and have the guts to post it on your own blog for me to listen to, I will be proud of my efforts.

Merry Christmas!