Mars

The short answer is: yes, we picked a new vehicle!

Where we started

I started this journey after selling my car kind of on a spur-of-the-moment decision. My husband and I planned to purchase a new vehicle at the end of 2022 once I graduate. He was given a work vehicle (2022 Tacoma which is gorgeous), and my car was needing some repairs so we decided we could try having only 1 personal vehicle. Knowing that there is a vehicle shortage we decided to research vehicles and order one so that we had one when needed… Well this may have been a mistake

What I have learned

I started by researching whether we should go electric, stay with gas or hybrid. Looking into the price of electric vehicles we immediately decided to go with gas or hybrid if possible. This lead me to look into the price of replacing hybrid batteries. I found the cost of replacement quite affordable, especially with the length of time batteries last.

Throughout this inquiry process, I learned all about the vehicle shortage. The shortage is mainly due to a shortage in chips, that is chips that run the computer for the engine of the vehicle. Pretty important, but also such a small thing to be causing so much of an issue.

This shortage has caused huge inflation of used car prices, making used vehicles more expensive than buying new ones. Because of this, we decided to plan to buy new. At the start of this process when I inquired about the new vehicle we decided on in early February I was told it would be about a 3-month wait. When I contacted the dealership last week I was told a 9-15month wait.. Cue the stress!!! How can we wait for 9-15months?!

Due to this we are once again looking into different vehicles.

What vehicle did we choose?!

We chose a 2022 Hybrid Rav4!! I have always wanted a Rav4, so having the research point us in the direction of one was amazing! However, due to the 9-15 month wait for the Hybrid Rav4, we have decided to look into some other options. Those options include Hybrid Ford Escape, Plug-in Sante Fe, Toyota HR-V, and the Nissan Rogue.

Now what?

• Figure out if we are staying in Victoria with my husband staying at his current job (aka has a work truck and would be able to wait for the Rav4)
• Are we moving to Ottawa? Could my husband use one of his familes vehicles while we wait for a new one?
• Do we try to wait out the shortage and hope that when we need a new vehicle they will be more accsessible?
• Do we simply wing it and just buy a vehicle when we need even if its not what we truly want
• We should probably go and actually test drive some vehicles!

In preparation for this week’s blog post, I decided that I should reach out to see what the wait currently is for Rav4’s and if they have any at the dealership that we could come test drive. This conversation did not go as planned and has left me quite stressed. The transcript is attached below…

9 to 15 months is a really long wait time. Alot can change in that period of time. We are hoping to go test drive the Rav4 and discuss our options either tomorrow or during the week! Tune in to the blog next week to see what happens!

Well, technology did it again. I get so excited to try new programs, and then I get stuck on the second step. Today I was following the instructions to make my name which you see above, and boom! Right away there is a step that I cannot figure out. So what happens? I try and try, try a different way, reread the instructions and I still cannot figure it out. Eventually, with help from a classmate, I figure it out. That process made me so frustrated, mainly frustrated because every time I try something new with technology it seems so simple but then I can’t do it. Or it takes longer than I feel it should.

Do I feel this way because I grew up in the country and did not use technology as much as other millenials? Do I feel this way because I am not great at having patience? Or is it because I feel stupid when I try to learn it? Hmmm maybe I should talk to my therapist about this one!

Multi-Access Learning / Blended / Flipped Learning 

Today in class we had a great guest speak! The speaker really got me thinking about all the pros and cons of utilizing technology in the classroom. For the sake of this post I am going to reflect on this class and how it is HyFlex.

I am very grateful for how flexible this course is. We can attend face to face, we can attend on zoom, and we also have open access to the plan for the week. So if zoom or in-person do not work you are still able to complete all coursework and miss a minimal amount. Today I was reflecting on how amazing this is for us as students, but also how difficult it is for our professor. Maybe difficult is not the right word, but more time-consuming for sure! My professor has to spend time each week preparing pre-class activities, during class time activities, and helpful points for our homework. In theory, after the course work is created, it should be easier to repeat this course, only having to make minor changes along the way. However, it is ALOT of work getting the course up and running. However, I know my classmates and I are very grateful. This approach takes the stress off when you are feeling unwell or maybe you have a sick dog to attend to. This works due to the nature of the course and the demographic (everyone has access to wifi and a laptop). Below I have inserted pictures from activities completed during our guest lecture.

By watching the above video you can see that Anna only finishes half of the snowflake. Why is that you ask? That is because at that point I was frustrated with how long it took me to do step 6. Coding is an amazing thing, and I do wish that I had the patience for it!

Reflecting on link to practice

In the fall I was observing at Journey Middle School in Sooke, in a grade 6 classroom. The teacher I was observing was great at using all possible tools available for them. One particular day students were using laptops to create a google slides presentation with classmates. I went over to check on a student, right away I could tell that she wasn’t working on the assigned task, I knew that she knew that but oh did she play me. I asked her to click on her assignment so that we could get started and out of nowhere a cartoon character with a sword comes running across the screen and chops up her entire assignment! And then it starts fighting with someone, running all across the screen having a sword fight. Then everything disappears! She had somehow coded her mouse to become this character, chop up her assignment, and then have a sword fight. I could not hide how impressed I was, which was her goal. She knew that someone was going to come over and ask her to get started on her assignment and then she would be able to show off her coding. This made me think about how we could allow her to use her skills while still completing the assigned task.

I have not come to a conclusion on that yet, but I do know it is important to find a way. The world around us is becoming more technology-driven by the day. However, as a millennial, I do not know as much about technology/coding as I probably should. Final story prior to chatting about computation. In the observation, class talked about previously the teacher had used coding to make her life much easier. This teacher was HUGE on student self-reflections, so at the end of the unit, she would send all the students google forms where they filled out questions on how they felt they did in the unit, their favorite part, and how they could improve. She had then made a code/ran a program, that would pull their answers and put them into a google doc. She would look over these google docs and then send them directly to the parents for the student’s point of progress! On the front end it was quite time-consuming to set up, but once the code was written it saved her tons of time!

I may have lied..Thinking about my observation classroom again the teacher was also very open about allowing students to use calculators. I found this very interesting, this was very helpful for all students. I found it interesting as some students did not attempt the operations in their heads prior to using the calculator. That is probably a discussion for another post though!

Well, we are in a holding pattern right now. The two jobs my husband applied for closed this past Thursday, March 10th, so now we wait. At this point in his discussions, he has decided that he will take the military job in Ottawa if it is offered to him, and he will take the Navy job in Victoria if it is offered and the Ottawa job is not. Meaning that if both, or either of them is offered to him he will be leaving his job with Rowing Canada. As I am typing this I am realizing that maybe this post should not be public, but that’s okay! What this means is, if he gets offered either job, he will no longer have a work truck and we will have to buy a new vehicle. Will that vehicle be purchased in Victoria or Ottawa, will it be a used vehicle or a new vehicle? I am somewhat stuck on what to do my post on this week as it seems like my entire life is in a holding pattern right now. Doing our biweekly costco haul this week felt slightly different because Matt may have to move to Ottawa in 3 weeks, which significantly changes how I would grocery shop. However because I must make a post this week, I am going to research the new Tuscon hybrid that we saw downtown yesterday.

Watch the below video to learn all about the new Tucson! Below the video are two screenshots from be building and pricing out what the vehicle would cost us. It would be $3000-$4000 more expensive than the hyrbid Rav4. This puts it as a contender but the Rav4 still wins!