TWISTED ROSE DESIGNS

I was at the Calgary Teachers' Convention and was monitoring a booth for Merit Travel in the Telus Convention Centre.  During my break, I took a tour of all the display booths and discovered a lovely jewellery display booth operated Vi Parker , the owner of Twisted Rose Designs.  Vi creates custom jewellery using wire and semi-precious stones to make customized necklaces, bracelets and ear rings. Her designs are her own creations.  She was clearing out loose bags of semi-precious stones and beads that I purchased for my daughter who loves to make jewellery. I had a lovely chat with Vi Parker who was more than willing to talk about the art of making jewellery. I asked her to give a little presentation about her craft that I could place in my blog and she was more than willing to participate.  Crochet necklaces are her specialty with only a few people who make such a unique jewellery.

If you wish to purchase any of Vi Parker's jewellery she can be contacted at:
TWISTED ROSE DESIGNS
Creative Jewelry
Pandora Style Charms
Crochet Necklaces
Phone:   587-351-0610
website: www.twistedrosedesigns.esty.com
email: twistedrosedesigns@shaw.ca

Merit Travel/Travel Cuts

I have been hired by Travel Cuts a subsidiary of Merit Travel that is the largest independent travel company in Canada with over 40 locations. I am an independent travel agent that helps people customize their travel plans. In helping clients make their travel plans, I have access to all the land packages made available by all the reputable travel operators around the world. I show the clients the different brochures from the tour operators and then have the office staff at Travel Cuts book the appropriate tour. I can also completely customize tours for groups as small as two people to large groups .  I am able to use the Travel Cuts office that is located in McEwan Hall Student Centre located on the University of Calgary campus.   It is quite amazing all the tour packages that are available to any place in the world.  I periodically meet the tour operators who fly into Calgary to promote their land packages.   I am going to show you a brief video of some of the different land packages that are available such as tours of Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Middle East, Latin America,  Cruises, and specialty tours.   Next week, I will be running a booth at the Calgary Teacher's Convention for Merit Travel.   I just finished writing my final immigration exam and will know in four weeks whether I passed the government exam and be eligible to become a registered certified ICCRC immigration consultant. I will then have two part time jobs to keep me occupied during my retirement from teaching.

Breeding Jewel Cichlids

The two breeding cichlids that I took out of the five gallon tank and placed in the community tank a week later laid a number of eggs on a rock slab and began protecting the eggs from the other fish in the tank.  The female and male took turns hovering over the eggs to protect them.

Jewel Cichlids

I purchased five jewel cichlids from Gold's Aquarium and placed them in a five gallon aquarium.  For the environment in the aquarium, I placed a small gravel substrate on the bottom. Since Cichlids like to hide , placed a limestone rock with holes in front of a small clay pot turned on its side to simulate a cave. At the other end of the aquarium , I placed a ceramic blue cup on its side to simulate another cave. An alpha male and an alpha female paired up. The male would chase the female around the tank and would bend his body in front of the female in a courtship ritual. The two cichlids took refuge in the clay pot where the female laid her eggs that were fertilized by the male. The female hovered over the eggs to protect them from being eaten by the other cichlids. Eventually, the male and female alpha cichlids harassed and bit the three other cichlids who all eventually died. I would find a dead cichlid once a week floating in the tank and I would fish it out. I did not know that I had a breeding pair in the tank and just assumed that the cichlids were demonstrating their typical aggressive behaviour to one another.  Over 21 days, the three cichlids were killed and shortly after the eggs hatched and low and behold swimming on the bottom of the tank were 100 fish fry cichlids with the female and male hovering over the fry in a protective posture. The two adults did not eat their young and still were in their parental protective mode. I netted out the two parents and placed them in my large tank with my other cichlids and they immediately set up a territory in their new environment.  I purchased a package of brine shrimp that is microscopic food for the cichlid fish fry who need nourishment once their egg yolk sacks have disappeared. I will feed the cichlid fry the microscopic brine shrimp for one week until they will be a large enough size to eat fine dry fish flakes.   With a 100 fish fry, I will eventually need to get another tank as the fish grow.

Laura and Ainsley

Now that I am a retired school teacher, I have embarked on other careers to fill the void of not having to go to school to teach on a regular basis. I am now a independent travel agent for Merit Travel , the largest independent travel company in Canada with over 40 locations.  I am also studying to pass my ICCRC full skills exam to become a certified immigration agent. I also spend time in my greenhouse experimenting with trying to breed tropical fish. I have 9 tropical fish tanks in my greenhouse. Today, I decided to visit two of my former teaching colleagues at Forest Lawn High. In my last two years of teaching, I was located in the science wing because I was teaching horticulture in the greenhouse and biology lab. I taught across the hall from two science teachers----Ainsley T. and Laura K. The two lady teachers would walk into my horticulture class during their preparation periods to see what kind of lessons I was teaching.  I taught floral arrangements,  propagation of tropical house plants and bedding plants. I even showed the students how to make home made apple pies that we baked in the commercial cooking ovens.  When we made flower bouquets for sale, I would periodically send my students to deliver complimentary bouquets to Laura and Ainsley which caused them to squeal with delight. Their students thought I was trying to date them which was hilarious. During my preparation period, I would return the favor and walk into their classes to observe their science lessons and was impressed with their teaching approach to teaching chemistry and biology. These two ladies are two great teachers who are able to motivate students to learn in an enjoyable environment. I do not miss the politics of teaching but I do miss the camaraderie of my fellow teachers so I just dropped by during exam week to visit Laura and Ainsley who I consider good friends even though they are much younger than me we shared many laughs over the five years that we taught together.

Patricia's Birthday Party

During the Christmas holidays, I received a surprize email from Michelle Phillips from her home in London England, inviting me to attend her older sister's  surprize birthday party to be held in Calgary at the Angel and Ox restaurant on 17th avenue southwest.  Thirty years ago, I was the private tutor to these two girls when one was 18 and the other was 13.  I tutored the girls on their private estate in Springbank. I also took the girls to their skating lessons at the Glencoe club where I learned about the elements of figure skating. I also recall driving Michelle to Sunshine to go skiing. Michelle took me to the top of the black diamond run for my first attempt at downhill skiing that was one of the most horrifying experiences of my life since it was my first time on downhill skis.  How time flies. One of the girls is turning fifty and she now has a 17 year old daughter and the other sister has a nine year old daughter. The two girls I tutored thirty years ago are still the same nice effervescent and high spirited girls who are now successful business entrepreneurs.  The birthday party at the Angel and Ox was held in the private room with unlimited bottles of chilled wine being served,  plates of tapas circulated the room with waiters explaining the nature of the appetizers . The signature entrée was the paella.  It was a great evening of meeting the friends of the two girls. I was introduced to everyone by their mother as the girls' high school tutor much to the surprise of the guests.

True Buddha Pai Yuin: True Buddha School

Back in November, a friend asked me to help her find a Buddhist monk to say a prayer for her grandmother who had recently passed away in China. I took her to the True Buddha Pai Yuin temple that is located on Centre Street in Calgary.  There are traditional Buddhist monks and nuns and a Buddha master that live on the premises of the temple. The temple is open to the general public and all are welcome to attend their services.  The Buddha ceremonies at the temple have English translation of the written text and even have English translators who you can listen  to on a wireless headset.  I attended a couple of their services that can last for two to three hours that consists of chanting and bowing and meditation.  One of the nuns provided me a detailed explanation of all the different Buddhas, , and deities. I discovered that the statues are used to help you to visualize and internalize your spiritual feelings of inner peace. True Buddha School (TBS) was found by Living Buddha Lian-sheng, Sheng-yen Lu. The drive  fro TBS is to bring Buddhist ideology into contemporary society, help sentient beings achieve spiritual realization, see their Buddha nature, and end the cycle of death and rebirth using distinct practices from Taoism, Sutrayana and Vajrayana Buddhism. TBS currently has more than five million disciples and four hundred establishments ( temples, chapters, and cultivation groups) spreading the Buddhadharma.