Sitting in the Library..

I'm working on my tutorial presentation and response paper for "Women Writers" which are due tomorrow and I can't help wanting to keep you posted about our topics of discussion in the class. We are reading texts from an Anthology and the way these women write is incredible!  There is always so much strength, passion, feeling and emotion in their words it's hard to stop reading.

Take for example the writer Mary Rowlandson who had to lose children and herself to captivity by natives back in the US of the 1600's.  Her trauma and grief are provided an outlet in her writing.  She has to endure the death of one child, her youngest and can only survive it through her Puritan belief  in God and the Greater Good.  Her tale is the common one of "motherhood lost" which is continually occurring in society even now.  She provides a great example for mothers who have lost children to wars or other social injustices such as abortion or slave labour.  One must endure for the sake of her children and keep the flame of hope alive for the futurity of the generations to come. 

Think about it.. What would the world do without mothers?

XoXo
C

Where the Heck Did September Go!?!?!

Wow.  Its already the last week of September. And as you can see, I have yet to increase my posting. Oh well, we'll get there some how. 

I have a TON of reading to do and so many assignments coming up, due dates looming over my head and much preparation to be done.

SO are you doing anything fun this week?

I need to stop procrastinating but I figured I'd at least give you a taste of my week to come.

So for Tuesday I have to finish reading Plato's Republic for night class and find out when the essay for that class is due.. can't find it anyone where on the syllabus or on Dr. C's website... gah. oh well

Wednesday bring a quiz in tutorial -Ugh! hate second year classes.. honestly? I think if your in upper years taking level 2 classes then you should be exempt from tutorial.  Seriously, these TA's make Seminar's look like a joke. Almost.  ALSO I have to go to our city's Cathedral for rehearsal.. my cousin, along with two friends and myself are all performing a liturgical dance at a very special mass this upcoming Sunday... we are finally going to be able to practice in the right church. let's hope it goes well. *fingers crossed*

Thursday is going to be a real blast.. Not!  I have a 2 page response paper due, which is fine considering the TA made us go around the room on the spot last week and tell us about our ideas for response.  SO I'm happy because now I just have to write it up.  Now we also signed up for tutorial presentations and since my name wasn't on the TA's initial list she just added me to the bottom and than picked a day for me to present. And as is my luck, I got September 29th.. the same day the response paper is due.  Which also means I am the first presentation.  Yay.  It's only 2-3 minutes and kinda just discussing the weekly reading, making a connection of sorts.. and at least the stars were on my side because the weeks reading is a poem!  Woo! 

So for the time being i am at a comfortable work load level but I have so much reading to do to catch up and get ahead it's going to have me bogged down for a while. Just hope I can get my stuff together before October really starts because then it's non stop one assignment, midterm or presentation after another.. and this ain't your ordinary 2% worth tutorial stuff either.. we're talking the full monty presentations of seminars worth 40% each.. *runs screaming around the room arms flailing*.

Wish me Luck. i'm gonna need it

XOXO
C

First Week Done...Countless More to Go

I cannot believe that school has already been going on one whole week!  I will never cease to be astonished by time and how quickly it can pass while one is otherwise occupied. 

I have yet to achieve my goal level of work but tomorrow I am fortunate enough not to have classes scheduled and therefore I intend to catch up on as much (if not all) of my work so I will be on schedule for Monday.  Already I have tasks to complete, assignments to hand in, presentations and seminars to prepare for.  I am terrified!  Am I really cut out for this? Honestly, my mind has been hosting nothing but Doubt for the last 5 days.. It's terrifying and I hate it!  This year will really make or break me and I fear the latter.  I just have to keep "trying" to be strong I suppose.  A good friend of mine told me that "trying" isn't good enough.. that it is now All or Nothing.. and that I have to Do it because there is no other option but to.  Fair enough advice right? *sigh*

Anyway.. going to bed so I can get rest and work diligently tomorrow..

tottles,

XOXO
C

Gotta Love Procrastination..

Today I went to school for seminar number two and then sat around on the longest break of life... from 11:30am until 7pm when i had night class which lasted half an hour and as usual managed to intimidate the heck out of me.  If you knew my prof you'd know why.  Dr. Clark is a pretty crazy smart guy but dang his classes are tough!  Day 1 and we've already gotta start reading like mad.. and of course the class is the history of critical theory so of course we're starting off by reading Plato's Republic of course he would do that us! *sigh*  Gonna be an even tougher semester now.  Im kinda terrified not gonna lie.

I spent the better part of my big break today doing kind of nothing lol.. I brought the laptop with me and listened to music on 'grooveshark' for 6 hours.  In fact I spent much of my time finding and adding new music to my new "chill out" list.. got about 120 sounds from artists like Bjork!, Muse, Linkin Park, Tool, Perfect Circle, Marilyn Manson..etc.  SO yeah  that wasted a good couple of hours.  I also chatted on msn with people i'd met in Spain lol which was totally awesome and I love technology!  I did do some school stuff also though, I watched he videos on youtube my prof had requested we see and listened to a TED talk by Chamamanda Adichie on "the danger of a single story".. super cool a'll should check her out and check out TED talks if you don't know what they are.. good stuff.   I also listened to Toni Morrison's Nobel prize speech- well half of it.. before i got interrupted by a good friend who not only provided some much needed comical relief but also some positive energy for me to get working again.  We read for about 3 hours side by side today and then went to night class together.. Thank God i'm not alone to suffer!

Seminar 2 sounds good.. It's at 9:30am until 11:20 and is run by the same prof as another course and seems like its going to be good fun and great reads.  And minimal work in comparison to other courses of lesser weight... going to be interesting.

So here's my course list, for those of you who might be interested in the hell i'm going to be experiencing between now and December:

 4th level Seminars:
 -Cultural studies critical theory 4CF3 "contemporary fiction" with my favorite prof of all time, Dr James King.. he's adorable! he is self promoting his mad writing skills by putting one of his fiction novels on the reading list.. hehe awww!! soo cute!
- English 4AA3 "African-American Women Writers" with Dr. O'Conner who is super cool for an older lady lol naw i like her already.. she seems like a good lecturer so im sure she'll be a great seminar leader.

The Rest of It:
- CSCT 2K06 "women writers"- dr O'Conner again... nice to get to see her in two semi-related variably different settings... she's all about journals and response assignments though so i have to do them for this class and her seminar as well... oh well.  there's also the joys of tutorial to contend with. hmm
-CSCT 2M03 "concepts of culture" with Dr. Sarah Brophy who is soo adorable too!  Gonna be a "funsie" course i think.. probably easy.  It has tutorial as well.
-CSCT 3Q03 "the history of cultural studies" with Dr David Clark ( who i had last year for Gender and Sexuality..) and im slightly intimidated especially since he said he remembers me doing well in his last class.. great. A lot of heavy and hard reading to do.. should i have expected any less? nope.

So thats it this semester... tons of reading, tons of speaking, assignments big and small, only three exams tho thank God... but big big big essays in seminar.. eep!  Don't know if I'll be able to make it through this one, going to have to work my butt off like never before.. just gotta stay positive! I think I can.. I think I can.. do I? Yes!

So onward to Wednesday.. only one class tomorrow at 11:30 so i can sleep in and thanks to tutorials not starting until Thursday, i'm done at 12:20 tomorrow :)

XOXO
C

September Already... and I wish it was May.

Wow how the summer flew.  I know I have yet to finish posting about my summer.. I assure you there is a post sitting there waiting to be edited and had pictures added to it.  It should be posted by the end of the week.  I'm going to try to keep up my daily posts but it might turn into weekly posting since this year I've got 4th level Seminars to worry about getting A's in and I'm overloading a class next term.. EEP! SOS!!! 

So School started up again last Thursday.  I lucked out and don't have class Fridays all term 1- Woo! Hopefully I won't procrastinate and I will actually use that class free day to keep ahead of my work- even though right now it looks like i'll be playing catch-up all week til then.  *sigh* oh well.

I've been to 3 out of 5 classes, including in those 3 one of 2 4th level seminars!! Woo! Love Dr King.. anywho, tomorrow morning I've got seminar 2 of 2 for the term and I'm super excited to see what it's going to be like.  I'm taking mostly (as in 85%) cultural studies classes this year to finish off my combined honours degree which is excellent except for the fact that they are mostly 2nd year classes which are rather large (80-130 students) and entail 2 hours of lecture plus an hour of tutorial which is mandatory and has assignments.. ugh! Like I won't have enough going on with Seminars? Seriously what am I thinking? Gonna be fun, I can tell already. . .

My profs so far are pretty cool, and the one TA I met seems super awesome (She's from Winnipeg in the Manitoba area of this grand country, (Dr&Mrs Smarty-Pants+The Fins- and she knows people who went to Prov!!).  So i'm hoping it's not going to be too much of a train wreck semester but here's hoping!

I'll give you a full course list after I've had my remaining two classes tomorrow and can look at my concise syllabi (sp?) and tell you all the fun stuff I'll be learning and reading.

I can't wait to be finished.  This year just started and I really want it to be ending.. although then lies the impending doom of "big girl world" which sort of terrifies me- just as much,if not more than- my final year of university life.  Don't know how I'm going to get through it but I can't stop fighting now, we're soo close! (must be something in this bag to calm my gitters...eek!).  Well I guess all I can do is tighten my seat belt, pull up my boot straps and secure my baggage as I speed on forward... it looks like we're launching into yet another year folks and it's gonna be a bumpy ride!

More to follow.  Comment if your reading.

XOXO
C

It's August Already???

 On July 19th I got told that the following morning my sisters and I had to get up very early.  We got surprised by our parents and older sister and bro-in-law with airplane tickets from Buffalo to Orlando... We were floored! We were going to meet our sister, husband and niece to stay or 8 nights, 9 days in Disney World!!!  You can just imagine our excitement, no? I'm not half the Disney Freak my family is but oh my gosh I was soo stoked.  My entire family and I had been to Disney World once before, but I have very little to no recollection of this trip as I had yet to reach the age of 4.  So there we were, July 20th, 8am and loading up the van with roughly packed suitcases and one backpack (into which all our ''necessities'' were thrown).  It took just over an hour to get to Niagara and crossing the border into the US wasn't terrible.  We arrived at the Buffalo airport with a few hours before our flight, so we checked our baggage, grabbed some grub and settled in for the seemingly endless wait.

The first thing I was told on the momentous day of the 19th while packing was "your cell phone stays home... you're going to try a technology free experiment.  So there will be no accessing the internet or communicating with anyone."  Great.   After I got over that shock, I also realised I wouldn't be able to blog at all during the trip.. so I rushed out to he nearest paper goods store and got myself a lovely note book. (pictures to come)

Yep, I was back to using the tried and true paper and pen method of journal writing.  Which come to think of it, didn't actually work out as terrible as I had somewhat anticipated. I found it kind of nice being able to just flip the book open and start writing.. no internet loading time, no fear of having things erase or reset.. I think I'm going to try writing my next epic in a notebook.  I even got all into writing in journal entry form starting with the date and signing off at the end. I have decided to set a goal for myself  before I have to leave for WYD Madrid (in 6 days..AHH!!) and that goal is to transcribe everything I wrote down in my travel journal onto my blog.  SO starting from this post onward, I will be attaching my submissions to my blog posts :D


SO lets go back in time, back to the far away days that were my July Vacation, out of reality and into the past!

                                                  . . . Enroute To Orlando. . .

 The plane left on time and we boarded easily but it was not assigned seating.  My sisters and I sat together and one in the seats adjacent to us.  Take off went well, forgot to put in the "earplanes" but it was all good.  Occasional popping but no pressure from the SARPE so i'm happy.  The lack of assigned seating is a bit lame but at least we are all near each other. There are a lot of young families with children- most seem to be heading to Disney World like us!   We are all so stoked to get there but excited just as much to see our sister, bro-in-law and niece.  Mickey and Minnie are a bonus. 

While we were in the airport, we went to the restroom 3 times and each one was different in size... weird I know..clean floors though and nice no-touch sinks and paper towel dispensers and blow dryers.  I know what you must be thinking. how long is she going to be talking about air port washrooms?  Well, I assure you, not too much longer.  I just want to comment on the fact that the toilet paper i n the stalls was thin enough to see my hand through, which means you have to use a lot  more to feel clean enough.. I know- Too Much Info.

So it's 1:45 pm and we've been flying for just shy of an hour now.. about another hour and a bit to go.. (in British accent) I'm SO Excited! Took some gravol before we boarded and it seems to be holding because even though the rides a little bumpy i'm feeling sick.  I was a tad bit on the panicky side  before and during take off but I've gotten over it *high five for conquering fears!* There's a fifteen year old girl named Colleen sitting beside my sister who is making bracelets out of thread.  Her pattern is crazy.  She's talkative but very nice and polite, she's flying on her own.  I'm glad she's with us in the row because it's helping her not be so nervous... and us too!  It's nice to know that American teens are still 'good' and friendly these days.  The A/C is on max and the plane is comfy considering how many people are in here (2 rows of 3 seats with approximately 25 roms in the whole plane- do the math 3X2X25...150?)

Anyway, we're doing well except for the constant cold air that's being blown on our heads.  We are flying above the clouds and it's completely surreal until you look out the window.  This is what it must feel like for birds I guess.. Ah! to be a bird...

Well that's all for now, gotta remember to put the "earplanes" in before descending.  Bit of turbulance but it's okay, i'm still writing and trying to remain calm.  Going to read some more from Laura Kate's novel "Torment" (book two of the Fallen series)- oh! am so excited to find that most of the signs and stuff in the airport is in English and Spanish!!!!!

XOXO
C

Hottest Monday of Life!!!!

As I sit here typing I am literally dripping sweat! It's soo gross!  This fan overhead is scarcely relieving the heat in this room.  My house is becoming a puddle, even my piano is sweating... Eww. i know.. So nasty.  Gotta love this country we live in.. O Canada, where crazy weather snows, provinces flood and everything where else burns" .. no.. don't like my new rendition of  our national anthem? hehe

I spent a wonderful weekend out in the sun, going to the beach at P. D and misting it up at "the Falls"..  I guess we shouldn't complain too much.. we could be stuck in the middle of the Sahara desert with no water.. it could always be worse (thx MC).. or it could be 40 degree below zero with blizzarding snow.. I guess for 2 months it's easy enough to handle the heat.. and they say sweating is good for your skin.. right?

Right now i'm listening to this Christian musical group called Starfield and they are pretty awesome!!  I think you should check them out and listen to their stuff.. whether or not Christian contemporary worship music interests you at all *giggles* It is all reallly awesome!! Talk about rocking out with JC! God Bless guys!  I'm listening to their album I Will Go and I'm totally hooked on them!! Gonna go out and get me their other albums (i'm borrowing this one from one of my totally awesome "crazy" christian friends who intru'd me to this amazingly talented worship group ... XOXO)

Here's their wiki page so you can read all about them and their site+ youtube vids so give em a listen if you've got a few mins <3

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfield

http://www.starfieldonline.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omQPs9nVDfw

Did you know that there is Christian rock, rap, alternative and scream-o?? No really, you should listen to the band called Skillet, they are also awesome!!!  So is the group HillSong.. Amazing vocal and musical talents working together to praise God, it's just Awesome!

Anyway I've got to go change shirts cuz my current one is soaked and I've gotta put my 'darks' into the washer cuz I'm now running out of clean shirts.. the heat won't last much longer.. right?

Stay Frosty my friends.. and please leave me your comments (with an initial or identifier) cuz so far lately the only one reading me is  allegedly Mr. O. Wilde and i'm pretty sure he's been dead a long time :P THX

XOXO
C