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30: Born in Mississauga, Ontario. |
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Began school at St. Clare Catholic School in Mississauga, Ontario. |
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Began Grade 3. Was placed in Mrs. Smiley's gifted class because I was too bored in math class and a few others. Introduced to Games Magazine.
Thank you, Mrs. Smiley, on both counts.
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Taught kindergarteners in their classroom math and logic from a kit called "What's in the Square". My first teaching gig. |
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Placed in St. Jerome's School in a gifted class for students from around the whole area for Grade 8. |
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Graduated from grade school. No ceremony. |
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Began attending St. Ignatius Loyola High School in Mississauga, Ontario. |
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Family moved to Oakville, Ontario. Began attending White Oaks Secondary School.
I wasn't put into the local Catholic high school (which, strangely, was also called St. Ignatius Loyola) because the school focussed too much on athletics for my parents' tastes. As a result, the one half-credit in physical education that I'd received in my first year of high school in Mississauga was essentially worthless: in Ontario, you need a full credit, and my new school didn't offer half-credits in anything. Most kids like me took their first year and ran far, far away. End result: to save me from being put in a school full of jocks, I had to go into a class full of them.
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In Grade 10, I tool the Pascal Grade 11 Math Contest from the University of Waterloo, and got the 11th highest score in Canada. |
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Attended ceremony for the year's scholastic achievements.
My 11th-in-Canada finish is glossed over. Most of the ceremony is focussed on athletics. Although I continue to be honoured for highest achievement in math in my grade, my family and I stop attending the annual ceremonies.
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Winners of various math contests attend seminars at the University of Waterloo.
I decide that this is where I want to go to school.
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Graduated as an Ontario Scholar. Did not attend the graduation ceremony. See next entry.
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24-28: Competed in the inaugural World Puzzle Team Championships in New York City. Achieved second-highest indivdual score at the event.
I got around 560 points, I believe, and my roommate there, also a Canadian, beat me by 5 points. I beat the person in third place by less than 10. I got my photo in the accompanying article of Games Magazine.
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Attended the University of Waterloo. |
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30: Competed in the second World Puzzle Team Championships in Brno, Czech Republic. Team Canada got third place overall.
I tanked on one of the questions myself, which greatly lowered my score for the event. In later years, I did not compete because I either qualified for the team, but didn't have the money to pay my way, or I didn't qualify and didn't have the money anyway. This was my one trip outside of North America. So far.
Saw the magazine for the National Puzzler's League for the first time.
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Started a puzzle column in mathNEWS, the U(W) mathematics student newspaper. Followed by a biweekly cryptic/American-style crossword dual puzzle in later years. |
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Graduated from the University of Waterloo with a Bachelor of Mathematics. Did not attend convocation in May, 1998. See next entry. |
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Moved to Vancouver, British Columbia with two friends. Travelled by car. |
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Worked in Chapters at Robson & Howe in downtown Vancouver. Was not at work for the night of hostage-taking. Seasonal work ended in January, 1999. |
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Worked at International Travel Maps and Books, as retail clerk and producing their catalogue. Uncomfortable work environment ended in December, 1999. |
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22-25: Attended my first NPL convention in Big Sky, Montana. went on harrowing whitewater rafting trip that convinced seven of us that we were all gonna die. |
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Downloaded Font Creator Program and started making typefaces. |
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Began taking day courses at New Horizons Computer Learning Centre in various pieces of software. |
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31: Demonstrated great faith in humanity by spending Y2K night in the Washington, D.C., area, where theoretically the bulk of old Russian nukes were aimed. |
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Began doing various temp jobs. Placed in banks often because of my math degree. Did mostly arithmetic and typing there. |
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11-14: Co-hosted the annual NPL convention here in Vancouver. Was approached to be webmaster for the NPL.
Also helped to create the multi-puzzle extravaganza that year. My picture later appeared in Games Magazine for the second time as Mountie Banque. (You had to be there.)
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Created Arithmetricks exhibit for Science World along with fellow Vancouverite NPL mathie, Jonathan Berkowitz. |
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Taught math (statistics, financial, calculus) at KTC Learning Institute, an ESL school, teaching the GAC program to a group of very frightened students. Welcome to the real world. |
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Finally got to go to a graduation: my first class's. It was worth the wait. |
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Got traded to a second ESL school, the Canadian College of the English Language.
Taught math, science, computer studies, personal development and Intermediate English. Exhausting work environment ended in December, 2005.
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1: First book published.
Sit 'n' Solve Commuter Anagram Puzzles is compiled from material that I used for the JumbleTime website. It costs only $4.95 US / $6.95 CDN, and, to my great relief, it is not in the shape of a toilet seat. You should check it out. No really, you should.
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Working as a workplace educator, teaching math to apprentice tradespeople and creating and editing teaching materials. Unfortunately underfunded work environment had to let me go in December, 2006. |
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Now: Working as an instructional tutor at a community college, tutoring math, physics, chemistry, biology, ESL and writing, both in person and in instant messenger format. |