A Great Weekend

What an awesome weekend so far. Last night, my mother and I took dd (age 7) to see the closing concert for International Week at the University of Alberta. I-Week, as it is now called, has been an annual event for the last 22 years, and it always culminates with a variety-show type of concert on Friday night. I LOVE IT. Last night's show featured a Japanese drum group called Kita No Taiko, aerial acrobats from Firefly Theatre, a Sufi music ensemble, some other stuff I can't remember right now, and a performance by Kinnie Starr, the most incredible poet/singer/performer that I have ever seen.

What I love the most is that almost all of the performers are local groups, based in Edmonton, and yet they either come from all over the world, or they are inspired by music or art from all over the world. It is such a wonderful opportunity to see a lot of local talent perform, and at an incredibly reasonable cost (only $12 a ticket!). From the home-schooling perspective, it is also an amazing opportunity to show my daughter all kinds of different performing arts, and possibly inspire her to try something new.

I think about all the crap we consume on television, on the internet, at the movie theatre, and on the radio, and I wonder why we are so addicted to it, when there is this incredible, vibrant, richly varied culture all around us, right here in Edmonton. I mean, these are LOCAL artists, living and working and performing HERE, and what do we spend most of our free time on? Movies, television, internet, radio. Oh, and video games. I suppose it's partly because I have to go to a bit of effort to find out about these great performances and events in the city and figure out how to get there and so on. It's not just streaming into my house.

I remember my sister-in-law making a joke about NEVER wanting to live in "dead-monton" and I was slightly hurt at the time. Now, years later, I just think that most people just don't know about the rich variety of cultural, spiritual, and artistic communities that exist here.

The International Week concert was only the beginning of my awesome weekend. This morning I slept in until almost 10 o'clock - a miracle. Okay, ds did wake me up at 8, and dd woke me up at 9, but I didn't actually get out of bed until 10am. I'll take what I can get. What is unusual about today was that I had no plans. I always have plans. Almost every day of the month is planned. Today, however, had absolutely nothing scheduled.

I sat around drinking coffee and reading the latest Maclean's magazine. There is an interview of David Walsh, author of No: Why Kids-Of All Ages-Need to Hear It and Ways Parents Can Say It. This is an absurdly long title for a book, but the author sounds like an absolute genius. He seems to really understand why parents cave to their kids all the time: guilt, pressure, being busy, being tired, trying to keep the peace. He acknowledges how much time and energy goes into effective parenting, but he also talks about how important self-discipline is. By saying no to our kids, and forcing them to deal with boredom, dissatisfaction, and even high expectations, we help them develop self-discipline. This is my kind of guy. I already tried to reserve the book at the library, but they don't seem to have it yet.

I ended up calling up a friend to go for a walk this afternoon. I drove to her house, then we walked to Starbucks, had a coffee, and walked back. It was a bit on the cold side (about -15), but at least we got some exercise. When I got home, my daughter was invited over to a friend's house to play, so I went with her and sat around chatting with the mom for an hour and a half. We finally got home at 6:30 and ordered pizza.

I couldn't have had a better day if I had planned it all out. Tomorrow doesn't have much on the schedule, but I am going to have to do some laundry and housework. Maybe I'll squeeze in a trip to the library. I am dying to get started on Little House in the Big Woods with dd right away. My weirdness post got me thinking about it.