Hello everybody and welcome to this week's edition of the newsletter! :D

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It's not as cold but it is still snowy here in Winnipeg, Canada. I've basically spent the last two weeks either fighting a cold or shovelling snow outside. Is this really life in Canada?

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It was a busy week as we were able to restart posting short form videos onto the language vlog once again. In addition to the shorts listed below, we also published one long form video

1. Canadian Herbal Remedies
2. What I miss about my hometown: The Sun, The Sky, The Snow
3. What do you do with your old books?
4. What are Sun Dogs?
5. Herodotus and His Histories
6. Who was Saint Nicholas?

And the long form walk'n'talk:

Why not China? Why not Canada?

Quite the week! And we're preparing for next week already!

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Canadian Herbal Remedies is all about the new method for Canadians to chill out at home and no longer need to go to the bar to "Get away from it all". Instead, they can now visit a local dispensary (and there are a lot!) and get any number of products from early in the morning till late at night. However, in considering this, much like alcohol, I'm not sure how much these products will help language acquisition and maintenance. Use with caution!

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What I miss about my hometown: The Sun, The Sky, The Snow is a little bit of a look at what Winnipeg CAN look like (much) of the year. And it's something that I do miss from time to time. Maybe not the cold, but certainly that definite change of seasons is something to be admired - when you know winter has come, Christmas is on its way, and by February you're like... it's still here.

The one good thing about a place like Winnipeg is that there is a lot of sunshine even during the winter months so it's not a very depressing place to be in that regard. However, since the temperature drops substantially, going outside proves its own sort of challenge.

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What do you do with your old books? This is a very good question because, as many young university students, it seemed like such a good idea to have a collection of books that I could refer to over my time. The problem became, however, when do you have the time? And, if you do have the time, what do you do with the book afterwards?

This video touched on the topic of having a "library" and what it means to actually hold onto books that you've either read, used as textbooks, or, even worse, didn't read!

So that begs the question: what do you do with your old books?

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What are Sun Dogs? Another clip of life from Canada as it generally only happens in the wintertime: the Sun Dogs.

Although there are some historical references to the Sun Dogs, particularly from Ancient Greece wherein people described the phenomenon as Zeus walking his dogs across the sky, all I know is that these rainbow-like spots in the sky appear close to the sun on the horizon only when it's really cold.

That happens because, according to space.com, the sunlight needs to pass through ice crystals that are hanging in the air and that cause the rainbow effect we see.

Nice to see, but a reminder that it's cold outside.

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Herodotus and His Histories touched on one of the books and authors that partly inspired me to travel. Written in Ancient Greek, The Histories of Herodotus is one author's quest to find out why the Greeks and the Persians went to war in the first place. What was the riff between them? Why did the Persians march all the way to Greece to conquer them? How did the Greeks end up winning? And, most importantly, what is it like "over there?" That, is, over there in Persia? Why would they do something like that?

It's always been a book I've returned to (in English translation) but I simply like the idea that Herodotus had: go travel, talk to people, and write down what they say. Neat idea.

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Who was Saint Nicholas? Our final YouTube Short for the week took a look at a Ukrainian-Canadian tradition celebrating the feast day of Saint Nicholas, the real-life saint who is the basis for the modern Santa Claus.

Originally from Turkey, Saint Nicholas was known to be a very generous soul and came from a bit of money. As legend has it, he gave a satchel of gold to a family to prevent the daughters from being taken away.

As a result, to commemorate this saint, on December 6th, kids would wake up and find Mandarin oranges (the easy-peel type of fruit) and chocolate gold coins. Of course, we'd also sing a verse from the traditional Ukrainian song, Oy kto kto:

Ой, хто, хто Миколая любить,

Ой, хто, хто Миколаю служить,

Тому святий Миколай, На всякий час помагай,

Миколає!

Nicholas, who is it you love?

Nicholas, who is it you serve?

He will lovingly receive,

And give in time of need,

Saint Nicholas!

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Why not China? Why not Canada? And finally finally, another long form video that discusses some of the pros and cons of staying or leaving your hometown.

I realized after making this video it's very much targeted towards the "older" crowd in that I talk a lot about finances n stuff, things that become a little bit more prominent later on in life (hello +30s).

I'll have to make a follow up video targeted more towards the "younger" crowd who might be up against some opposition to their desire to work and travel the world.

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Comments? Questions? Concerns? Suggestions? Get in touch! We'd love to hear from you! You can email us here or follow us on YouTube and post a comment, we'll get back to you!

Thanks for reading and let us know if there's anything we can help you with!

-Steve

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