Lorethian . 2024-10-31 Lorethian . 2024-10-31

Happy Halloween!

Hello again everyone! Another quick post here to show you all what Halloween looks like in my neighbourhood! Many houses get very excited about the season, and put a lot of effort into their decorations. Here are some from my neighbourhood:

Unfortunately ,we didn’t have the time or energy to decorate our house, but we got some candy to give out to the trick-or-treaters who are coming around tonight!

These are tiny version of the full-size bars. Do you recognize any? ;)
I hope you all had a spooky time! Even though for many of you it’s November 1st now. Maybe you can get discount Halloween candy in many stores now!

Lorethian . 2024-10-29 Lorethian . 2024-10-29

Hail to November!

Hello everyone! How are you all feeling?
My October was a bit low energy. My ankle is still feeling sore, so my motivation is pretty low. That’s the reason (or at least my excuse!) for not posting much content here this month.

The website has changed a little bit, if you haven’t seen it already:

The scheduling page has changed. The company that does it decided to change things suddenly, with no warning! So I’m sorry if it’s been annoying for anyone. I’ve posted some videos about how to use the new page here!
I added hidden pages that are only accessible to my students! I have 50 lessons for each level posted on the website, so check your email, you should have links to each level!

Otherwise, not much news! It’s pretty cold recently, of course… and we’ve already had snow!

Actually, this is hail. Hail is small balls of ice. They can hurt a little bit if you’re outside, and it makes a little bit of noise in the house!

“Hail” is an interesting word because it also means “hello!” in older English. So the title of this blog, “Hail to November!” means “Hello, November!” It’s a kind of English pun. :)

I hope you all enjoy yourselves wherever you are! Try to stay warm as winter comes closer and closer!

Lorethian . 2024-10-07 Lorethian . 2024-10-07

Fall has fallen

Hello everyone! Another little update on my life here! Nothing so exciting, because I’m still waiting on my ankles to recover. They’re much better than before, but they’re not 100% yet, so I might not get a chance to hike any more this year…

As for other aches and pains, maybe some of you know about my shoulder problems that have been bothering me for years. I also have been having elbow problems since March (the last snowstorm we had!) when I tweaked my muscles shoveling heavy snow. So last week, I went for an acupuncture consultation.

I’ve never done acupuncture before, and I’m skeptical of it honestly. But we tried a little bit of it on my elbow, and I was very surprised; there was no pain at all! And after it was finished, my elbow felt pretty good for a few days.

I hope that with regular sessions, it can have time to heal. Tomorrow I'll go for another session (which will target my back as well!), so here's hoping it can give me a little bit of relief!
Other than that, nothing so special! I've been slowly making lessons (low motivation lately!) and trying to diet (with mixed results!), so it's just more of my boring life! :)

Lorethian . 2024-09-19 Lorethian . 2024-09-19

My birthday hike!

Hey everyone! It’s been a little while! I’ve been a bit distracted with things that you might see as you read this blog!

So, the next part of my trip continued along the same stretch of trail. It’s my first overnight hike, and I was SUPER excited (and a little nervous!)

Most places on these trails haven't been great for camping; too many bushes, too many rocks, too many trees, etc. But some trails have suitable camping spots and when you look at the trail information on the East Coast Trail website, it will tell you which trails have camp sites, so you can plan pretty well.

Here was my pack! Similar to last time, it was about 15 kilograms. Quite heavy, but because I practiced last time, I knew I could handle it!

Here's my starting point in a small town called Petty Harbour. You can see in the top-right where I hiked last time!

It's difficult to see here, but the trail length is listed as about 14km. But at the end of the trail, there's about a 6km hike out along a rocky dirt road, so in total, it's about 20km!

After climbing the first hill, you can see the other side of the harbour, where I hiked last time!

A beautiful little river I had to hop over. I love seeing flowing, trickling water, it's always so soothing!

Some of the food I brought on the hike. This is called "hard tack". It's a kind of survival food. It's very hard, very dense bread, and it's super dry, so it doesn't really spoil. The recommended way to eat it is to soak it in water first. It's very hard to eat raw, it can hurt your teeth!

Here, I sat down for a while to rest. This is pretty far along the hike, and the camp site is a little bit nearby!

It's on the other side of that hill; we can't see it yet, but that hill is the last climb I need to do!

Here's a crazy gap! About 1.5 meters wide, with a kind of scary drop beneath.

I'm tired, but excited! I'm almost at the campsite!

This is my favourite picture of the whole trip! Now you can see where my camp site is in the distance, about 1 hour away!

And there’s still a long way to go… now I was limping, using my poles (I thought I broke one, but thank God, it was alright). The path wasn’t very friendly looking anymore.

This was the most dangerous part, right before my camp site. The rock were very uneven, and they moved whenever I stepped on them. If it weren't for my poles, I'd probably have to crawl across these!

But finally, I made it! I was so relieved to see mostly flat grass!

Other people were here too, so it gave me a feeling of safety. My first task was to set up my tent for the night...

That went by with mostly no problems! I bent some tent pegs, but it didn't matter, it wasn't windy, and the trees in the area protected us.
It was a little difficult to sleep, because I was worried about my foot, and how I would get out of here the next day, but I did get a couple hours of sleep.

Doesn't look so bad so far, but it's pretty swollen there. And VERY painful to step on.

But I'm determined to continue.
Under normal situations, it's about 2 hours to walk out of here. But because of my foot, it will take me about 5. And yesterday, that 1-hour walk to the camp from the last good picture I took, became 3 hours. The extra time and the stress and strain on my body meant that I was drinking more water than I had planned. So I actually ran out of water as I tried to stagger out. It was pretty hot, and I was really worried about dehydration, but I had an idea - it was raining the night before, and the pine trees had a lot of water on them.

So I put my (Sweaty) cloth underneath the wet needles, and shook the water off.

So when I squeezed the cloth, the water came out. I could squeeze and suck the water out of it to stay hydrated, because the sun was starting to come out, and I was feeling hot and worried about my water. I'm sure I would be fine, but I wanted to make sure I didn't put myself in even more danger. The method worked okay!

So I got out okay! I waited at the end of the trail, in a quiet neighbourhood for my husband to pick me up. He came to get me, and I drank (a lot!) of energy drink!

This was the result of my injury the next day.

This was my birthday, too; September 2nd! I spent it sweating and groaning and struggling to get to safety. But it was unforgettable, and I'm glad I went!
A week later, I went to the hospital to get an x-ray of my foot to make sure it wasn't broken. They told me it wasn't, so I just need to wait for my foot to fully heal before I go out again, but I hope it will be ready before winter comes this year. I want to do one more hike before it gets too cold!
Now, it's the 19th, and my foot is still pretty painful. It feels much better, but I still can't walk 100%. But at least I can still teach! ;)

BONUS! Pikachu came along for this hike! Check out her photos!

Lorethian . 2024-08-24 Lorethian . 2024-08-24

Another hike!

Alright! Here is the last update to catch up on previous hikes! This time, I continued on the route that me and my friend had started! Here is what we did previously:

And below is the hike that I did this time, August 11th!

It's much longer, but the first 75% of it was very flat and easy.

I started at Cape Spear at 9 AM! I wanted to test my new backpack for overnight camping, so all of my gear was in it. It weighed about 15 kg!

It was a cloudy, overcast day, and some gentle rain came down. It made me a little wet, but it was felt great as my body heated up from walking. You can see the starting point in the distant behind me.

This was about halfway through; I was going to Maddox Cove! Normally, you can see the ocean behind me, but it was so foggy, it was totally covered.

This was the way forward from the same point. You can see that it's pretty easy walking here too. No big hills, no difficult rocks, it was very pleasant!

You can see where I'm going faaaaar in the distance. But when the forest starts, that's where the path started to be very difficult!

After this picture, the ground started to become rocky, and the wet weather made the rocks slippery. It was difficult, so I didn't take any pictures until close to the end, unfortunately. It was all quite beautiful, though!

Here, you can see the town I was going towards. The sun had come out, so I put my hat back on. I was very tired in this picture, but the difficult part was over!

When I finished my hike, I found an interesting little box! It was full of hiking goods, so that if someone needed something, they could take it (for free!). It was good to see a nice hiking culture here!
And that's all for my updates! I'll continue along the coast of my home province, and I hope to have new pictures for you all soon! Thanks for reading!

Lorethian . 2024-08-19 Lorethian . 2024-08-19

A boatrace!

Hello again everyone! I’m still catching up on the busy early August that I had! After the trail maintenance at the beginning of the month, on August 7th, I went to the Royal St. John’s Regatta!

I started at the arrow in the above picture, and the video below is what I saw!

It’s a yearly event where many vendors come. The main attraction isn’t even really the boatrace, it’s the games and the crowds and the “spectacle” (“Spectacle” means some unusual or wonderful thing to see).

Shaved ice and cotton candy, very common sites at fairs! The portions are MUCH smaller than Japan's kakigoori!

Domino's even had a booth, so I got some pizza! (I don't trust many of the smaller vendors, I didn't want to get sick...)

Later, I had some french fries, though I had to wait a long time for the ketchup...

And later on, I had a samosa, an Indian dish! You can see Signal Hill in the distance!

As for the vendors, there were many types! Many were fundraising for some group, volunteering, or just families looking to earn some money.

This is called a "dunk tank", you want to throw a ball at the target, and if you hit, the girl in the cage falls in the water! (It was a warm day, and she volunteered to be there, so it's okay!)

Of course, many games of skill... though it's usually known that these types of games are "rigged", they are designed to be VERY difficult to actually do (like "crane games", or UFO catchers!).

And I bought some fudge (I didn't take pictures... I was too busy eaying it!). They were soooo sweet!

I managed to catch the beginning of one of the races, but I hardly even paid attention to any of them! But it is rather famous; people from different countries come to compete!

And that was about it for my time at the Regatta. Do you have any events like this in your hometown? Let me know! :)

Lorethian . 2024-08-13 Lorethian . 2024-08-13

Trail maintenance

Hey everyone! I’m still catching up on the events that have happened to me over the summer, so this blog post (and the next one!) are a little bit behind. But since coming back, as you probably saw in the previous blog, I’ve started to hike local trails. There is a long, continuous trail in the area around my hometown, called the East Coast Trail (ECT for short!)

So far, my friend and I hiked the purple parts of the trail below!

I plan to continue through the rest of the trail, even alone! So when the organization that maintains the trail was looking for volunteers, I thought it would be an exciting chance to give back to nature, and help other hikers like me! It was a bit far away, at a place called Tors Cove, and it was about a 45 minute drive away! (The organizer picked me up, thankfully!)

We started out from the parking lot, and hiked about 1 hour into the path. It was quite beautiful, but had some tricky points that made my feet hurt a bit!

We got to work with big clippers (called “loppers”), and smaller hand-clippers, as well as saws. We had to trim branches and trees that were growing into the path making it difficult for other hikers.

I don’t have many pictures of myself, because it was difficult to wear those gloves, and cut trees, and take a picture at the same time! But we all worked for about 5 hours, stopping once for lunch. We had to carry heavy piles of branches deep into the woods to dump them out of sight.

By the time we were done, I was exhausted, as you can see here, haha! I was very sore the next day, but it was all worth it! I hope I’ll have a chance to go again next month!

Lorethian . 2024-08-02 Lorethian . 2024-08-02

Some summer hikes!

Hello everyone! Happy August! I hope you’ve all been well! As for me, I spent most of July with my friend who was visiting, so I haven’t been so active making blog posts or videos. I’ll slowly “get back in the saddle”! It’s an idiom that means “start doing something again, after stopping for some time".”

So after our camping, the next thing we did was go hiking . In my hometown, there are a series of trails called the “East Coast Trail”. Of course, it’s on the east coast of my home province!

Our first trek was from the top of Signal Hill to the bottom. It’s pretty short, but there were beautiful views!

You can see Signal Hill on the right, with Cabot Tower on top! And to the left is the harbour. The entrance to the harbour is called The Narrows, where every ship needs to pass to get to the dock.

This is the scariest part of the trail, only a chain to hold on to, and it was VERY windy!

But Signal Hill was just a warm up! Next, we wanted to walk to Cape Spear, the most eastern point in North America!

But Google Maps is VERY misleading; it was NOT a 3.5 hour hike! It took us 6 hours to get 75% of the way there! We ended up stopping in a tiny village called Blackhead.

Can you see Cabot Tower in the far distance?

This type of land is called a “sandbar” (even though these are rocks, not sand!). It allowed us to take a shortcut through the bay, instead of walking all the way around. However, the rocks were very uneven, and we were a bit scared!

After many hours of some difficult hiking, we found Blachead! Can you see it in the distance?

After 6 hours of hiking, we were both pretty tired, but in high spirits. I was happy I could still do a long hike, since the last time I did was at Mt. Fuji in Japan! (1 year ago!)

The next weekend, we decided to finish the hike, from Blackhead to Cape Spear!

I didn’t take many pictures, but you can see the iconic lighthouse in the distance!

That was about it for me! I plan on going hiking and camping some more during the summer, but I need to get better at taking pictures… I never spent much time in my life trying to take pictures, but recently I’ve tried to get better at it.

But I hope you enjoy some of the beautiful spots in my home province! :)

Lorethian . 2024-07-02 Lorethian . 2024-07-02

A camping excursion!

Hey everyone! I’m back from my vacation! It was a wet and rainy one, so let’s talk about it in stages!

We went to a national park called Gros Morne. It’s a beautiful section of land on the west coast of Newfoundland, that I’d never been to before! However, to get there, it was a VERY long drive:

So for the long trip, we stocked up on supplies; donuts! Maybe you know this famous Canadian cafe chain, Tim Hortons! (My friend took many of these photos, so you’ll see me in many!)

It was a wet drive, but we wanted to make a quick stop at a famous tourist place to see Newfoundland’s provincial bird, the puffin!

We’d been trying to see puffins for a while, and when we got there, it seemed we wouldn’t see any… but we got to the end of the path and we saw so many!!

After this detour, we continued on our way to Gros Morne. There was a lot of beauitful nature on the way. In my area, there are NO mountains, only hills. So when I saw these mountains in the distance, I was shocked!

Finally, we got to the camp site, and the first step was to set up the tent. It had rained a few times, so we wanted to make sure we set it up before it started to rain again! Sorry I don’t have any in-progress pictures, but here it is!

There was also a HUGE sandy beach, also VERY rare in Newfoundland, so it was so special for me to see! You can see the Atlantic Ocean there (it was very cold!)

The next day, we got up and had breakfast. But I realized that I forgot a few things, so it made the process more difficult… But I made it work!

Then we spent the day walking around some local trails. Here are some pictures!

The next day, we wanted to go to one of the most famous places in Canada, L’anse aux Meadows. It’s famous as the site where the Vikings landed in 1,000 AD! It’s the first proven European contact with North America! It was another long drive away, but it was worth it!

Unfortunately, that’s about the most exciting parts of the trip. We saw that the weather for the next few days would be really rainy, so we decided it wouldn’t be worth it to stay in the tent for 2 days in the heavy rain. We returned home directly from L’anse aux Meadows, which was a REALLY long drive:

But we eventually made it home! It wasn’t a very successful trip, but I learned a lot from it, and had some unforgettable experiences! I’m looking forward to the chance when I can go camping again, maybe a bit closer next time!

Lorethian . 2024-06-07 Lorethian . 2024-06-07

Summer Vacation~!

Hello everyone! It’s summer time! … Almost anyway. Some days are still pretty cold, but we’re finally getting some days above 10 C! But it’s VERY rainy here, more rainy than usual!

Anyway, I did some yardwork a few days ago, and I was attacked by black flies. You can see their bites on my arms , and they’re very itchy, but they’re getting better. The black flies are still outside though, so I need to be careful haha!

Some of you may have noticed, but for the last week of June, I will take some days off for a camping trip with my husband and my friend! It will be the first time for me camping since I was a child, so I’m very excited for the experience! Of course, I’ll be posting photos as well.
But also for most of July, I will not work on Mondays (Canada time, Tuesdays Japan time), and only work 5 days a week. When August comes, I’ll be back to a regular schedule! :) Sorry if the change is invonvenient, but I’ll be back to normal in a few weeks!!

Lorethian . 2024-05-28 Lorethian . 2024-05-28

A loooong walk~

Hello again everyone! How is your May? It’s almost June, so hopefully that means nice summer weather!
As for me, this past weekend, I participate in “MS Walk”. It’s a charity walk to support people with the disease called “multiple sclerosis”, or “MS”. In Japanese, you say

多発性硬化症

Some of you know already, but I have this disease (it’s not so bad for me, so please don’t worry!) so I wanted to support research about it since I’m back in Canada. Hopefully I can make this a yearly tradition!

My friend joined me for the walk to support me. I also got a t-shirt. Unfortunately, it was too cold out to wear it, so I had to wear my sweater.

You can see that my spirits are high~! Hahaha
After about 30 minutes, we stopped at a McDonald’s to warm up a bit, and I got a sandwich. The breakfast sandwiches in Japan are actually much tastier, I was surprised!

After that, we turned off the main street and went through a nature trail. I was surprised, because I didn’t know about it. Here are some pictures from it; remember that this is in the middle of a city!

I’m glad I found a nice trail to hike when the weather gets warmer!
In the end, I walked over 8 kilometers for a bout 2 hours and 15 minutes!

It was a tough walk, especially at the end because it was allll uphill @.@ But I’m glad I did it!

Lorethian . 2024-05-16 Lorethian . 2024-05-16

I’m positive!

This is a confusing expression in English. Usually, when something is “positive”, it’s a good thing. But for a disease, if you are “positive”, that means you have that disease. And unfortunately, that’s what happened with me this week:

I caught coronavirus! :( I went to the hospital to visit my dad (He had knee surgery done, he’s okay!), and I must have caught it there.
Luckily, I’m okay, the symptoms aren’t so bad. :) I had 1 night of difficult sleep, but now everything is fine. Just gotta wait for me to not be contagious anymore.
When I’m 100%, I’ll be going to my dad’s house for a week or two to help him move around, so maybe you’ll see me with a different background than usual! ;)
Lesson learned… even though covid is less scary than before, it’s still around, and still a problem! Be careful out there everyone! <3

Lorethian . 2024-05-10 Lorethian . 2024-05-10

Spring has sprung!

Hello everyone! It looks like we’re finally out of the wintery weather (although I won’t be surprised if it snows again soon!), and things are starting to be a bit warm (that means about 10 C here!).

My father had knee surgery a few days ago, so I’ve been trying to help out as much as I can. He’s in the hospital now recovering, and when he gets out, I’ll go to my dad’s place for a little while to help out. I’ll still teach, but maybe you’ll see me in a different location! ;)

It was my step-mom’s birthday yesterday, and I took her to my favourite restaurant, Jungle Jim’s. Since it was her birthday, they gave her a free dessert, called a “Chimi Cheesecake”… it’s a deep-fried pastry with chocolate cheesecake filling. They’re quite delicious (and very unhealthy!)

She’s a very positive person, and she helps my father so much. I’m glad I was able to do something nice for her!

Lorethian . 2024-04-24 Lorethian . 2024-04-24

Dental Visit

So I went to the dentist on Monday for a checkup. This was a new dentist, so they took many pictures of my teeth. Here’s an x-ray!

One of my molars - the big teeth at the back of your mouth - had a cavity, and my first dentist recommended getting it filled. I went to another dentist (closer too!) to get a second opinion, and he agreed. So today, I had my cavity filled!

It was really painless, but it felt weird… when the anesthetic (the drug they use to have no pain) was used on my mouth, my teeth felt very strange and loose!

But in general, it was a very short procedure. How about any of you? Do you have much dental work done? Do you hate going to the dentist? (I don’t mind, I’m just lazy! @.@ )

Lorethian . 2024-04-19 Lorethian . 2024-04-19

Is Spring finally here?

Hello everyone! I hope my Japanese students have been enjoying sakura season! As for me, the snow is finally almost all melted! Although, of course, even yesterday we had some light snow…

As for me, I’ve hit the 150-lesson mark! So many lessons, and I’m happy you’re all keeping me busy after 5 months!! I’ve also been posting over on the new Facebook page, so go check it out if you haven’t already!

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61556965881363

I’m so excited to set up my new tent… I’m looking forward to doing a timelapse video to show the setup!

I’ve been doing lots of back exercises recently. Every day, I do some different kind of stretch, and, slowly but surely, the pain is disappearing…

Another small update this time! Hopefully more exciting stuff next time! See you then! :D

Lorethian . 2024-04-02 Lorethian . 2024-04-02

Happy April!

Hi everyone! Another update here, but nothing too exciting; That snowstorm really took me out of action, so the past few weeks have been focusing on physiotherapy and making lessons. So I don’t have many pictures of my life recently, sorry! ^^;

I’ve also been trying different strategies with Facebook advertising to spread the word around about my lessons!

The grass is starting to finally appear through the snow! I’m very excited for this summer because I’ll go tent-camping for the first time in a very long time! I’ll set up my new tent in the back yard to test it out , so you’d better believe I’ll have pictures of that process!!

See you all in class! :D

Lorethian . 2024-03-13 Lorethian . 2024-03-13

Another blog, another snowstorm!

Hello everyone! Are you tired of hearing me talk about snow? Because I am! Haha! This past weekend, we had a MAJOR snow storm, even worse than from a few weeks ago. It lasted for over 2 days, and this was the result:

My back and hands were still very sore from the previous storm, so my room mate and I agreed to call a company to take care of most of it for us. He came in a machine like this:

…but it was MUCH bigger. And thankfully, this was the result:

So then I had to shovel the rest, which still wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t so bad.

So now, my body is VERY sore. I started to go to physiotherapy. (“physio” comes from “physical”, which means “of the body”.)

Here are the stretches I was told to do every day:

I’m not sure if it’s working, but I’m trying my best to do them all every day!
And after the snow storm, it rained for a whole day, and it was VERY heavy rain. So the warmer weather melted a lot of the snow, and this is what it looks like now:

I hope this is the last time I will update you all on a snow storm D: I’m so tired of winter, haha!

Lorethian . 2024-03-06 Lorethian . 2024-03-06

“Putting my nose to the grindstone”

The title of this entry is an idiom! It means to start working at a hard pace! And that’s what March is for me. I’ve started advertising on Facebook (have any of you seen them?? :) ) and continued focusing on making new lessons. I’m almost at a big landmark; 100 lessons!

My plan is to have 20 lessons available from each level on the website, and when you make it past lesson 20, you can send me a request, and I’ll email the next batch to you! Some of you have already reached lesson 12 or 13 in your level - WOW! You’re really committed to English, and to helping me out. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you SO much! If you continue supporting me, I promise to continue working on English with you!

I’m thinking of starting to record some videos as well. Some short videos about English. Does anyone have any ideas, or points you’d like to see in a video? Let me know down below! :)

I’ll see you in class!

Lorethian . 2024-03-01 Lorethian . 2024-03-01

A difficult February!

Hello everyone! I’m sorry my blog has been quiet recently. We got hit with a killer snow storm; I’ve already shown some of you this picture, but here is what my driveway looked like the day after a 3-day storm!

So I had to shovel several times, and since then - about two weeks ago - my back has been super sore! @.@
In happier news, I was lucky enough to get some wonderful Chocolates from my students that I had in Japan! They were DELICIOUS, probably the best chocolates I’ve ever eaten from Japan!

I’m so lucky to have amazing students, both in the past, and right now! So if you’re reading this, you’ve made my life happier! :)
Finally, a bit of good news! I did some research on taxes in Canada, and I was able to get out of paying some tax! That’s why all of my prices are now 10% cheaper! It’s not a huge difference, but it saves you all a bit of money, and makes book keeping a little easier for me! :)
Now, it’s snowing again, so I need to go to bed and hope I don’t need to shovel so much tomorrow @.@
Let me know how the weather is in your area!! :D

Oh! I almost forgot! I’m dieting again, and I started January 2024 at 115 kilos. But now I’m at 105! My goal is to get back to 100 kilos by the end of March, here’s hoping!

Lorethian . 2024-02-08 Lorethian . 2024-02-08

Happy February!

Hello everyone! I hope you’ve all been well! I’ve been okay. Some tough weather here recently, but some rain got rid of a lot of snow, so now there’s more room in the driveway. More room for me to throw more snow during our next storm :(

Not so much interesting in my life the past two weeks! I’ve been a bit sick, but I’m mostly recovered now. But here’s a peek at one of my favourite dishes to make: mini-pizzas!