Ici ca bouge!

I can't write the title correctly in French on this iPad.  The iPhone I have allows me to hold down the 'c' key and choose from a selection the 'c' that suits the language I want, but this is a Korean pad which offers only a choice between English and Korean alphabets right on the keys; unless, and this is quite likely, I just don't know how to call up other alphabets. At any rate it's immaterial because I'm going to write in English.

Things are moving around here.  Jay continues to work long days, often with overtime, at On Side.  He really likes the work and continues to hope he will get hired on full time.  May has got and left two jobs, one in a coffee shop and the other in an Indian restaurant.  She doesn't think the service industry is for her, and I'm inclined to agree; although, it seems to me that the two places and their problems were a bit exceptional.  Now she is studying for hours on end trying to prepare for 2 tests, one which she is required to pass if she wants to work in the Boys' and Girls' Club Daycare and the other if she wants to get a licence to drive the new car Jay bought last weekend.  Now that Jay is working in the building trades, he needs a truck.  He found one of the kind he's been interested in for many years.  It's an old and supposedly unkillable Toyota.  He came to an arrangement with a local Kia dealership that might qualify him to work in an Arab bazar.  They took the Toyota car he had bought when they first arrived in Vernon in exchange for the truck,which was on their lot and a Kia family car for May.  A bit of money changed hands too.  This account of the deal lacks detail because I know nothing about trucks and cars so can't give model names, and of course the amount of money that changed hands in the deal is none of my business.  The same can be said for lots of what goes on among Jay, May and the girls.  We live well in close proximity mostly because they manage their affairs and I stick to mine, as much as possible.  It's working.  The girls have their teenage problems, especially Min Hee, but they are doing well, considering the turmoil they have experienced in the past months.  It's incredible to think that the family has been here fewer than 8 months and accomplished so much.  

The climate in Vernon continues to delight me.  There's hardly any snow in town and it's been raining lightly for days, but the cross country skiing at both Sovereign and Silver Star is excellent.  They've had snow. I got right back onto it as soon as I was home.  I'm more of a cool weather, fresh water and snow person than a hot climate, ocean and beach one.  

My Korean friend Lusia's daughter has a Korean friend at school who needs help with English, so I am going to tutor her for an hour and a half twice a week for the next few months.  I'm still tutoring Yulia, the determined Russian, for about an hour and a half twice a week too.  I really want to help her because the combination of her forceful nature and the college's excessively academic language program has put her into a very frustrating situation.  She can hardly speak English and yet she's in a course where she has to read complex sentences, write paragraphs and work until her brain aches without getting much of a sense of accomplishment.  Her family is working hard as is Jay's.  The immigrant experience is hopeful but not easy.

 

Skiing at Silver Star on Monday. That night I got drenched by rain walking home from the Towne Cinema.