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By Ms. G, July 15, 2015 7:38 pm

I have long repressed a portion of my early teenage life. Back then, 1983 to be precise, I was obsessed with the band Def Leppard.

Thirteen is supposed to be a memorable age. I definitely do remember some parts of that year such as my Bat Mitzvah and the two pretty dresses I had for the service and the evening party at our house for which my mom made all the food. We (meaning my brother and I) still joke about her having leftover rice pilaf and chicken cacciatore in the freezer.

It was also the first year of junior high – new friends, new school subjects, new routines. And a locker! I had pretty much the same locker and homeroom on the first floor of St. Andrew’s Junior High for the next three years so that hasn’t left me: 7-8-9-G.

The part I have tried to keep bottled up in the past is that I was a giddy little girl who taped pictures from teenie magazines to her walls. Not just the walls, the cabinets, too. And the inside of the cabinets. Not just any band. Only Def Leppard. Joe Elliott in his Union Jack sleeveless shirt was my man.

Why? I have no idea. I guess because he was cute. Sure I liked the music. I guess.

Why has that moment from my past been so hard for me to deal with over the years? It makes me shudder to have been that girl in 1983. Over the years when Def Leppard songs have come on the radio I would quickly turn them off. Classic repression symptoms.

My interest in Def Leppard only lasted a short while. Soon after – I can still remember the day in grade eight – a friend introduced me to U2. So I moved on. In grade ten my English teacher, Mr. Polley, introduced me to music history through Simon and Garfunkel and I never looked forward again in my musical tastes.

In psychological parlance, I went home last night; Val and I went to a Def Leppard concert. Having been married to Val for nearly ten years now, I am aware of his own past with Def Leppard. He apparently went to a concert of theirs at Maple Leaf Gardens in 1991 and he has many of their albums (which seem to be constant re-releases of their previous two big albums) among his MP3 files.

So, was last night a terrifying Freudian moment of truth? No, I unabashedly enjoyed it along with the other 10 000 or so people. No more repression. Musical geniuses they are not (at one point I yelled in Val’s ear that they are a ‘lyrical tour de force’) but they do put on an enjoyably loud and energetic show. Val even remarked that the set was almost exactly the same as in 1991. Whatever. We didn’t go for the intellectual experience.

It seemed that the band (or at least their production company) was in the mood for memory lane as well as the backdrop to most of their show was still photos and video from their own vault. Looking at those photos, many of them from 1983 or thereabouts, was nostalgic; it felt like an invisible psychologist had arranged the whole therapeutic thing for me.

It turns out that memory lane is a good place to visit once in a while.

Note: I would go on the Def Leppard Hysteria on the High Seas Caribbean cruise with Val but I get vertigo.

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By Ms. G, June 16, 2015 8:54 pm

Here we were on the last two days of class. Sort of working:)

Thanks for everything. Do the course evaluation survey (the tab is on the top left)!!!!!

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By Ms. G, May 18, 2015 11:52 am

Great weather gave us all a great day.

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By Ms. G, May 12, 2015 9:17 pm

Wade Davis, Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest. Knopf Canada, 2011.

I don’t like the thought of mountain climbing; it makes my palms sweat. I do like Wade Davis.  That would explain why I picked up a hard cover edition of this 578-page behemoth a few years ago at my local Book City. Thinking back, I was probably also very attracted to the “Great War” part of the title having been on a World War One kick.

Despite the subject matter’s initial lack of appeal, it grew on me. Remembering back to The Wayfinders (which I sometimes use in HSB class – Challenge and Change in Society – to introduce the discipline of anthropology) I recall Davis’ beautiful way with words. Sentence construction, or rather, poor sentence construction, can be a real stumbling block for me in getting through a book. Not so this one. Davis is sleek and clever without being pretentious. Even when the subject matter is pretentious it doesn’t seem so, such as the detailed descriptions of the snooty English public school educations of the lead characters. Or the champagne that they ship across the world to be carried up Mount Everest by Sherpas.

The Great War is part of the subtitle but really deserves top billing. The war in which most of the climbers of the first three British expeditions in the 1920s fought is the glue that binds them all and sets their characters.  In that sense it’s the context of the story. However, it builds to so much more. Getting to the summit becomes a battle in itself, three times: classic “man versus nature” stuff (weren’t we all taught that it’s one of the universal themes of literature back in grade seven?). It turns out that it does make for a gripping theme. At first the mountain-climbing-phobic reader finds little interest in the actual expedition. Drawn in bit by bit, or rather foot by foot or camp by camp, the loyal reader is nearly cheering for Mallory to reach the summit even though the tragic end is already known. Biting wind, blinding sun on snow, inept supply chains, broken oxygen apparatus – they cannot defeat the experience and sheer will of Mallory.

In the end it’s not about conquest of nature. It’s about respecting the power of the mountain. Without shoving that theme in the reader’s face Davis makes the point.

Davis also uses an anthropologist’s eye combined with a historian’s brain to reveal the ways the British perceived the Tibetans and their seemingly strange rituals. Being the master of all trades, Davis additionally highlights the photographic firsts that occurred on the mountain and the lengths that photographers went to to take and develop their breathtaking shots.

Since I read The Wayfinders I have said that Wade Davis has the perfect job: National Geographic writer and photographer. As a history teacher, sometimes anthropology teacher, and very amateur photographer, I am jealous.

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By Ms. G, March 29, 2015 1:23 pm

Sadly, Val and I felt that we were alone in observing Earth Hour Saturday evening.

We live at the intersection of a few streets and a large apartment building so we can see a lot of homes from our front window. There was no change in the light level at 8:30 pm.

We are loyalists, having marked the event from its inception in 2009. We made the most of it, at least I did. Val had to listen to me play guitar for an hour.

The Toronto Star reports this morning that energy usage only dropped by three per cent. In the first year of Earth Hour it went down 15 per cent.

What does that say?

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By Ms. G, March 17, 2015 10:40 am

Even a nice sunny day at the cottage did not reveal very much colour.

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By Ms. G, February 12, 2015 9:22 pm

Hello. Thanks for attending. Here are my presentations.

SWSH_Feb_2015_Vocab_CHC2D8

SWSH_Feb_2015_Assessing_Historical_Thinking

Here is the Idle No More lesson. Thanks to my co-writer, Rick Chang, also from York Mills. We’d love to hear your feedback.

Aboriginal_Canadians_Historical_Perspectives

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By Ms. G, January 24, 2015 3:13 pm

Just in anticipation of a new semester, and thus new readers who will be introduced to Fletch, Shadow and Bailey, I want to boil each cat down to its essence. I’m watching a cooking show right now so that’s where the boiling reference comes from.

Fletch is 15 years old. He has been a diabetic for nearly 10 years. Until recently, that is. He has not had any insulin shots for the last 3 weeks. However, what I have noticed is that he still craves the shot. Sometimes he’ll stand over his bowl waiting for it. The other day I had to simulate the shot by poking him to get him to eat. Therefore, Fletch’s characteristic is hypochondriac.

Shadow is about 5 years old. She pretty much sleeps all the time atop the heating grate. She is a playful if lazy cat who enjoys lying under a newspaper. As she gets bigger and lazier she has acquired her chief characteristic; I call it stop and drop. She will lie anywhere, at the drop of a hat.

Bailey, of unknown age but probably about 8 years old, is a timid guy. His only other trait of note is that he is major whiner. He is like an alarm clock – wakes me up if he is ready for his food and I’m not.

I love them all.

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By Ms. G, December 31, 2014 5:20 pm

An impending new year makes you reflect on the year gone by. I have been remiss in not honouring the end of a lovely friendship. The horse I rode most regularly over my years at Sunnybrook was retired this fall. She was a complicated, challenging horse, always trotting away with her head in the air and her will power at full blast. I will miss her.

Here are Skye and I after a ride in the summer.