The teacher union of Vancouver has been striking for a week already. I had finished school a long time ago, I thought teachers strike shouldn’t affect me, but I was wrong. The school workers support the teachers and went on strike as well. As a result, all schools in Vancouver is closed down, including the one we go to play badminton every thursday. I think unions are evil in Canada, since they have way too much power. The union already deviated from the original idea of protecting the welfare of the workers and becomes more like a company. It exists only to maximize its own benefit, without taking any social responsbility. The teacher union is holding the student as hostage in their illegal strike to ask for more money from the government. Everyone want to ask for a raise, but they don’t have to go this far affecting almost one in Vancouer. One of the root cause of this problem is the union executives are paid handsomely, instead of volunteer member from the workers the union represent. Those fat pocket union executives need to do something big once a while to jusitfy their heavy pay checks, and stirke is the best demostration. I think the law should change that only non-paid volunteer members from the trade it represents are allowed to run the union.

Pat bought me a small Nici keychain to hang on my backpack when she was in HK. Nici is a new European band that makes stuff animals. The characters are very cute and it is getting popular in these few years. Normally a guy like me won’t be crazy for stuff toys. However this particular one got my attention. It is a promotional item from Ferrari, a cute version of the Ferrari mascot. This cute little horse is dressed in bright red T-shirt with the word “Horse Power”. I fall for this character instantly. I had ordered several more “Horse Power” items from eBay, a cushon and a shaving bag. Unfortunately, I havn’t seen these stuff sold anywhere here in Canada, the only way getting them is order online.

Please check out my small Nici Ferrari collection here

Censorship is one of the biggest threat to freedom. When one is not allowed to express his thought freely, he may soon lose the freedom of his mind.

Now, I must keep telling myself that Pat is a very nice girlfriend, she has a good temper, she does not get upset easily or I will get into trouble by slip of touge, or pen, or keyboard accidentally. I had spent time fixing the “errors” in my World Youth Day journal, edited out the sentences that she feels not right.

There ain’t much energy left in me to write today’s blog. I have spent half of the night writing the final chapter of my world youth day journal. (The other half of the night went to cook dinner, wash dishes and ns2) I had wrote 7 articles in total since I came back from the trip. The first one is an introduction, then 5 articles one for each stop in my trip, and the last one for some thoughts and feedbacks of the trip. I think I had wrote at least ten thousand words, or maybe even more. That is almost as many words as a real book. The only difference between my World Youth Day Journal is my writting is kinda bad, not good enough for publish.

Pat made a very tasty thanksgiving dinner tonight. It has salad, turkey, grill mushroom and japanese tea rice, quite an interesting combination. After dinner, I baked cookies for the WYD auction, where each of us promised to take turn and bake two dozen of cookies each month for a whole year. It is my first time making cookies, I cheated a bit by using ready made doughs bought from super market. The only thing I did was use cookie cutter to make the shape. The first dozen looks pretty good, it has two kinds, round and heart shape. The second dozen is looks quite odd, since I underestimated the expansion of the cookie in the oven. The cookies turned out filling all the empty spaces on the plate and pressing each other. Oh well, although the shape is irregular, the second dozen actually taste better, because I used a named brand instead of Superstore brand in the first dozen. Last month Pat baked some really fancy pretzel-like cookies and raised the bar of our donor’s expectation. This month my first-time cookies should set the standard of our donor back to normal.