I have a confession to make: when I was in high school, I received hundreds of chain letters (no exaggeration), and I didn’t reply to any of them. I’m still around to write about this today, so I take that as good news, but I don’t want to press my luck. 🙂 In the past couple of weeks, I received mentions on three blog posts to partake in what James Cowper best describes as a “digital chain letter.” This meme has made its way to me thanks to Brian Harrison (post here), Karen Lirenman (post here), and James Cowper (post here), so today I decided to reply to all of them with this one post. As a true teacher, I love making rules but not always following them, so here’s my modified version of this challenge!

All three posts ask me to acknowledge the nominating blogger. Check: I’ve done that! Next, I have to share 11 random facts about myself. Here we go:

1) I love coffee! That’s right. I honestly can’t get enough of it. Tim Horton’s, Second Cup, Starbucks, brew your own, and even the dreaded instant — I will drink it all! Well, I do draw the line at decaffeinated, but hey, that’s just wrong! 🙂

2) I love to read! I almost love books as much as I love coffee. And I will truly read anything: from a good mystery to a romance to a fiction story to real literature. There’s very few books that I don’t enjoy.

3) I’m a very fast reader too. (Okay, I’m cheating a bit here, as this point probably belongs under point #2, but it’s hard to think of 11 things about me. :)) Over the holidays, I’ll usually average 1 1/2 to 2 books a day, and we’re talking books of 300-500 pages. I just can’t get enough to read!

4) I’m obsessed with punctuation. One of my favourite books is Eats, Shoots and Leaves, and I think of the book often as I work with students on their punctuation. I think that I know every comma rule and apostrophe rule around — even though I don’t always follow them. As I said before, I’m a teacher … 🙂

5) I love to laugh, and I’m incredibly sarcastic. I have to be careful about this sometimes. I know what people say about sarcasm, but one of my closest friends and a roommate from university, was very sarcastic, and I needed to have my comeback lines ready. Old habits are hard to break!

6) I met many of my closest friends in university, and we’ve stayed friends ever since. We don’t live that close to each other, and we don’t see each other often, but email and phone calls make keeping in touch easy. I’m glad we’ve made these friendships work.

7) I have one sister, and she’s 13 months younger than me. She skipped Grade 1 though, so we went through school together. It was neat growing up with a “twin sister,” who wasn’t quite a twin.

8) I have two dogs, Toby and Zoe, and I love both of them very much. They’re kind of like my children. They bark a lot though … especially at Halloween! They also ruined my blinds by flinging themselves into them numerous times — like every time somebody walks by and/or the door bell rings. My house is a fun place! 🙂

9) I love country music! It’s not the slow, sorrowful songs that I like, but the fast-paced, toe-tapping songs that I enjoy. I blare the radio every day on my car ride to school, and you can probably catch me singing every once in a while. I’ll never admit to it though! 🙂

10) All I ever wanted to be in life was a teacher. I hate that question of, “What would you do if you couldn’t teach?” I can’t even imagine an answer to that. There’s even a wall somewhere in an old house in Thornhill that has an anchor chart on it thanks to a bleeding marker. I was seven at the time! 🙂

11) Despite my love of technology, I may own the oldest phone in existence. It’s a flip phone, pay-as-you-go model. Some students were using it yesterday to call a Food Bank for a Math/Media Activity, and they needed directions on how to turn it on. Yes, sometimes I’m like one big contradiction! 🙂

Next, I have to answer the 11 questions posed by the nominating blogger. Instead of answering 33 questions, I’ve decided to pick and choose questions from all three bloggers to make up my 11. Here we go:

1) How did you get your name? In the Jewish religion, you’re supposed to be named after someone who’s passed away. My first name is “Aviva,” and it’s after my grandfather Alfie. My middle name is “Frima,” and it’s after my grandmother Flo. Aviva actually means Spring in Hebrew, and I was born in “almost the springtime,” so the name seems very fitting.

2) Name something you couldn’t live without. Assuming here that we’re talking an object and not a person, I’d say coffee. I say that because I tried to give it up once, and I got the most brutal headache. Coffee is here to stay! 

3) Where were you on 9/11/2001? I was driving on my way to Woodward Avenue School. At the time, I was only working part-time there as a Grade 1 teacher, and I was in my car heading to school for the afternoon. I heard the news on the radio just as I arrived, and then walked in to see students and staff congregating in the front hallway watching the news unfold. I will never forget this day!

4) What is a powerful lesson you learned from a parental figure? This lesson would definitely be from my mom, and it would be, “to work hard and never give up.” I’m so glad that she taught me the power of perseverance, or I would not be in teaching today.

5) What was your first part-time job? My first part-time job was working as a counsellor at my parents’ summer camp/summer school. I got this job over 20 years ago, and I’ve worked with them in the summer ever since. 

6) When do you usually write your blog posts? I tend to write them in the evening after reflecting about my day. Sometimes I write them very late at night. If I really feel the need to blog, I’m going to make it work, even if the timing is not ideal.

7) What was the topic of your first blog post? It was on reading and some of my favourite authors. At the time, I think that my plan was going to be to have my blog as a place to share what I read. That plan didn’t take long to change! 

8) Did you ever own an 8-track cassette? I wanted to answer this question just so that I could write, “What’s an 8-track cassette?” 🙂 Seriously, I’ve never seen one. I did own many records though. I think those came next. 

9) Have you ever broken any bones? If so, which ones? How? Yes, I broke my arm when I was in Grade 2. I fell off the monkey bars. I think that I’ve been scared of heights ever since.

10) What’s the furthest you’ve been away from home? I think that would have to be Arizona. I love going there: it’s really hot, and I can walk in the water and read all day long. Have I mentioned that I’m not much of a traveller and have almost no interest in sight seeing? I guess this could have gone under my 11 random facts about me. 🙂

11) What’s the biggest surprise of your life? This would be finding out that I won the Prime Minister’s Award For Teaching Excellence. I still can’t believe it. This is the kind of surprise, I’ll probably never forget!

Next comes listing 11 bloggers. I’m skipping this part. So many people that I would list have already done this challenge, and I don’t know how they would feel about doing it again. Instead I’m going to open this up to all interested bloggers. Feel free to answer my 11 questions and link your post in the comments below. I’d love to know more about you! (As I said before, I’m not much of one for rules … )

So here’s the last part of this challenge. Here are my 11 questions:

1) What do you like the most about teaching?

2) What makes you laugh? 

3) Sweet foods, salty foods, or both — why?

4) What’s your favourite book? Why do you like it so much?

5) If you could invite anyone in the world over for dinner, whom would you invite? What would you discuss?

6) How do you feel about snow?

7) What’s the song that makes you want to dance?

8) How do you have fun at school each day?

9) How do you inspire people to change?

10) Who’s someone from Twitter that you’ve never met and would love to meet? What would you discuss?

11) What’s your favourite coffee drink? (Tell me all about it! I love coffee! :))

Happy writing! 🙂

Aviva