Reading Text: Read "Olivia helps with Christmas" to your niece and nephew. When your nephew points out, "Olivia sounds just like Mommy!" your heart explodes, just a bit.
Document Use: Overhear the Japanese exchange student who boards with you (in Vancouver) planning a day trip to Banff to see the Rockies in winter. Get out a map of Canada and a map of Japan, and explain how to read the scale guide.
Numeracy: Spend all afternoon with a calculator to figure out that on a 1440 watt circuit, at 4.8 watts per string of LED lights, you can have 300 strings of lights plugged into one circuit. Get 100 strings of lights hooked up. When the house goes dark, realize that you've plugged into the same circuit that runs your son's gaming PC. Writing: Decide that you are going to write down Nana's sacred family recipes for posterity. Is "about yay much flour" a metric or Imperial measurement?
Oral Communication: Explain to your nine-year-old why becoming Jewish would not result in her receiving eight times the presents.
Working With Others: After an epic, three-hour battle between your sister and your wife over which stuffing recipe to serve at Christmas dinner, finally persuade them to solve the problem like adults: let Rock, Paper, Scissors decide.
Continuous Learning: Spend an hour researching the connection between shovelling snow and heart attacks. Leave the information open on the computer screen where your wife can see it. Relax with a malt beverage and the hockey game while she orders your teen to clear the driveway.
Thinking Skills: Solve the following: You live in Kamloops. Your sister Susan lives in Comox; Uncle Gil lives in Prince George. The BC weather forecast for the holidays calls for -10 to -15 with chance of flurries, and possible white-out conditions. Susan has three kids under five; Gil drinks too much. Where do you spend Christmas? Answer: Las Vegas.
Computer Use:
- Decide you are going to order books online for everyone's presents.
- Browse the website, select books, and try to pay.
- The system says you have an account already, and must log in. You don't remember an account, but click "password reminder" anyway.
- It says you don't have an account, but you are a rewards member, so "click here" to configure your rewards account.
- Click there.
- It asks for a bunch of numbers you don't have, from some junk mail you tossed.
- Keep clicking around for 10 minutes before you realize the truth: there is no way to give the store money, and get goods in return.
- Google "symptoms of an aneurysm".
