Saturday at the TESL Ontario Conference

Last Saturday I spent the day at the posh Sheraton hotel downtown attending the annual TESL Ontario Conference. Although I missed the free lunch, given only to those who signed up for the plenary session--as the rest of us found out later!!--I was glad to have found some useful resources that I acquired using the generous budget allotted. Among these were conversation books, storybooks with audio CDs, and "English Verb Discs," which cost $3 for those with Chinese captions and $4 for those without. Asked why, the sales guy said that it's cheaper to make them in China, which is where those $3 ones came from. So I picked up all of them, all five discs that he had, which, with GST, came to $15.75.

I'd intended to go to the Art Gallery of Ontario after that, but having marched over there in the relentless rain, all I could see was a snake of people encircling the AGO. Even though entrance was free Friday through Sunday, worth $18 per person, there was no way I was going to queue up for the next couple of hours. I resolved to tour the place via youtube, which I did (see clip).


Instead, I kept going northwest, to Chinatown for lunch and then to Honest Ed's, where I picked up two pairs of winter gloves. By the time I got home, I was totally wasted. I'm glad to be back in my normal habitat of the LINC classroom, and to welcome two new students this morning--Tao and Mersedeh!