Network Drops, Databases, Snowstorms, OHMY!
This has been a very busy week for me. I spent the weekend in Onion Lake visiting with my brother since it was his birthday on Friday.
Well, it’s busy in general, but that’s life these days.
This week though … IT SNOWED. Crazy lots! The weather sites say it snowed about 15-20cm (3-4″ for those of you south of the border). And it’s still snowing. It will probably snow a bit more throughout the day, with it tapering off a bit by tonight. Oi.
But before the snow, I got to do a network drop on Monday which was awesome. I haven’t the opportunity to do that in a long time. We ran cable from the server cabinet to the room, installed a wall jack, punched down the line, and made cable ends. Pretty sweet. I even got to use the power drill for a bit. The worst part, though, was running the cable through the ceiling. Those tiles drop all sorts of crap on your face and hair. Ugh. We have safety goggles, but still. Ew.
And then the storm hit, so we have been office bound since then. I have gotten a lot of paper work done since then. I am in the middle of training people on inputting DRA data and attendance on Open Office, using SMART Notebook for the SMART Board, and using the new email system. Then on top of all that, there’s the regular hardware repair and software maintenance I do.
I love my job. :D
Which I should probably get back to. Haha I mostly just wanted to share the fun snow times. (Already, I’m certain we’ve had more snow in the past 2 days than we did all of last winter! Not even an exaggeration which I am prone to do.)
ETA: I just spent my morning and part of the afternoon climbing around IN the ceiling running cable for our new enterprise level access point! Aside from the insane amount of dust, it was aaaaaaaawesome. I even got to use the headlamp and walkie talkie. lol Best week EVER! XD
Truth & Reconciliation
For the child taken,
For the parent left behind.
– trc.ca
Definition of RECONCILIATION
1: the action of reconciling : the state of being reconciled
2: the Roman Catholic sacrament of penance
reconciling: to restore friendship or harmony
On my birthday in 2008, PM Stephen Harper stood before all of Canada and issued a public apology. He apologized to the former students of residential schools and their families for the treatment of the children, and the aftermath that it wrought.
The effects of which are still being felt today.
Growing up, I remember so many kids from town asking “Why don’t your people just stop drinking?” Or “Alcohol was introduced to your culture over a hundred years ago, why aren’t they like us? It’s just a part of every day life now, not like … drunk all the time.”
I remember feeling so much rage and yet, not fully understanding the real issues and the truth. My parents hid a lot of what happened to them and their friends and families and their parents from us. I know they were trying to protect us, but keeping the truth from us, keeping a means of defense from us, was the same as lying.
And you know what? We may as well have been doing the same to the rest of the country. But it wasn’t just us, it is the lack of education for everyone. And therefore, a lack of understanding.
Then again, for a lot of people, it wasn’t just a matter of protecting their children from the truth and harm, it was self-protection as well. So many years of being afraid to tell the truth, of being thought of as victims, or liars, or weak.
If anyone thought that of these people, these survivors … remember … they were children taken from their mothers and fathers and grandparents, placed in these schools and separated from their brothers and sisters. They were kept apart from their families as much as possible. Even when the residential school was in the community, families were not allowed to see their own children except for three or four times a year, if they were lucky.
Imagine being in that family. Having your children taken from you. Having no loving arms to comfort you when you wake from a bad dream. And then being forced to speak a foreign language, and smacked when you speak your own. Being forced to pray in another’s religion and beaten for praying in your own. That was their reality. For years.
And then add physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. Some got lucky and were spared. But not everyone.
The Truth & Reconciliation Commission has undertaken to record and, hopefully, aide in the healing process of as many survivors as possible. Survivors have come to the events in communities and told their stories, shared their pain.
Mind you, not everyone. I know of a few who still refuse to talk to anyone. They’d rather forget and pretend it never happened.
The crazy thing is, this continued well into the 70s. And then a First Nation-run residential school continued to run until the 90s. Unfortunately, when you have a residential school run by victims of abuse, the cycle is a bit perpetuating.
Back in June of this year, I attended the TRC event in Saskatoon. It was a great event. Seeing so many survivors together, working on getting their stories told, overcoming their fears. There were a lot of tears.
I picked up a few prints, one of the speech by PM Harper, and one of a map of all the church-run schools in Canada. My uncles and a few of their friends were pointing out the schools they went to. It was sad to see they didn’t even all get to go to the same schools. Or schools that were even remotely close to their communities.
They even had free books. I picked up two copies of one called “Speaking my Truth: Reflections on Reconciliation & Residential School.” One for me, and one as a blog giveaway. If you’d like this copy, leave a comment and your name will be entered into the draw. Deadline will be Sunday at midnight, Saskatchewan time.
IT Summit 12
I had a lot of fun at this year’s IT Summit put up by Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation. I’m told most years the summit can be geared more toward the educational resource side of things, but this year, I got lucky and they decided to make it all about IT. It was all about incorporating IT into classrooms (and keeping it out when appropriate lol), supporting school networks, network security in an educational institution, and planned expansion and upgrades to the Saskatchewan school networks, both mainstream and non (the non being the Christian school system and on-reserve school system).
I got to hang with other techs who support schools, see some great presentations, pick up some sweet swag, and I came to a very important conclusion about my own personal career goals.
2012 Saskatchewan First Nation Winter Games
Yes, yes, yes. I am aware of how woefully behind I am in posting this.
We had a good time. I was there to be a gopher for the Director of Education at BATC Ed who was the hockey guy at the Jemini Arenas for the Games. What ended up happening instead was that I ended up being food delivery for everyone. It was sort of awesome.
My daughter also got to play on the actual badminton mats used in the Olympic Games or something like that. It was pretty cool for her. She almost made it to the playoffs, but got distracted in the last game. Ah well … she made me so proud. XD
My boy did awesome as an aide to my sister who was a chaperon for Thunderchild. He even got a security badge with his name and picture that listed him as a chaperon. It was so cute. (more…)
THERE! I UPDATED!
Either my blog is talking to me, or my friend Jenn has turned a little schizophrenic. :P
So I’m updating to make the voices stop.
In the time I’ve been silent, I have attended and worked at the Winter Games, my daughter got to play on the very same badminton mats that were used at the Olympic games (ooooooooh!), my daughter turned THIRTEEN, I turned 35, my job got insane, then I went on a week long vacation, cleaned and played tons of World of Warcraft AND finished reading a novel.
YAAAAAAY!
I really enjoyed the novel. SO much so, I just spent half an hour tracking down a way to get my grubby little hands the next in the series. And I just have managed to get a hold of the ebook on Kobo, so I am off to start it now. LATER!
CREEHAWK 