The time to hesitate is through

Spring skiing

2007-03-26T09:25:00.000-04:00

I've been slaving over my thesis and other coursework for the past few weeks, finally getting somewhere but not fast enough. On Friday though, I handed in 35 pages of sheer effort and put papers and projects behind me for the weekend. A couple of my friends had organized a ski trip to Wentworth, and although it was almost 15 degrees out, some of us were determined to still make the trip.

If you're from the Maritimes, you'll probably remember this past weekend fondly - it was warm, sunny, and truly felt like spring. These are the hardest weekends to get any work done - thankfully, I wasn't even going to try.

I hopped on a bus with about 50 friends, acquaintances, and strangers - which is always a fun feeling. One great thing about university is the ability to truly make your own decisions. You know how much work you have to do, you know how much time you have left, and if you want to jeopardize any of that, you can. Before I came to Mt. A, a friend of mine who'd only missed two classes in three years gave me the surprising advice that "if you have to choose between something fun and work, do the fun thing. Your work will always get done." Well, the night before I'd chosen school first, missing probably the best show ever with Jon-Rae and the Constantines. Once my work was actually handed in, I regretted not going to the show. So I planned to make up for that on Friday.

The skiing part of my day was pretty funny - I've done cross-country since I could walk but my downhill experience is definitely lacking. More than it should be to attempt a descent on a day as warm as this one. I spent a lot of time face planting and snow plowing, and eventually made it to the bottom without breaking any bones or equipment. However, with the easy runs closed, I decided that once was enough and I would use this extra time to hop on the beer train a little early.

Fortunately for me, skiing wasn't the only point of this excursion. There was also a competition (which I would clearly be watching and not entering!) and a concert. The competition was really fun to watch, and a Mt. A alum and friend of mine won the skiing portion of it! And the concert, well... definitely in my top 10 of show experiences at Mt. A.

The band was Two Hours Traffic, one of my local-ish faves. The great thing was, there were a few people from Halifax, about 50 of us from Mt. A, and then some older people who were there for wing night more than anything. An invested audience of about 60, in any case. At first there were less than 10 of us up front, but by the end of the show, most of the Mt. A contingent was on its feet and singing along to songs they'd never heard before. THT gained quite a few fans on Friday night, responding kindly to our drunken shoutings of "Sackville!!" and "Two Hours Traffic!" in case they'd forgotten who they were. They also promised to come to Sackville soon, haha.

Around 1 am we clambered back onto the bus, and had a simply awful singalong all the way home. I have videos of most of this stuff, but when I watched the return trip stuff (which I taped because of its hilarity), it was even worse than I remembered. You do not want to hear 19- and 20-year olds singing Wonderwall and Backstreet's Back a capella.

For a while now I've been wanting to give you guys a glimpse of the university social life, but since I've been spending all my time with my books lately, it seemed like torture to write about anything fun.

Anyway, the great thing about university, and I imagine this applies anywhere, is that the opportunities are there. If you want to organize a bus trip to a ski hill, you can. If you want to organize a bus tour (aka, drink for 10 hours and then bar hop until 3am Quebec time and then sleep for 10 hours on the way home) to Quebec City, you can. If you want to book an auditorium and show The Wizard of OZ synced with Dark Side of the Moon, you can. These things happen every year, and it's up to you to either start the initiatives you want to see, or participate in the things you enjoy and find worthwhile. While you might feel like you're the only person in your high school who watches Veronica Mars or Cowboy Bebop, guaranteed when you get to university you'll find more people who love what you do.

I've taken the month off from bartending and a few of my other jobs, since I seriously needed some dedicated thesis time. Anyway, I'll be back to work soon and once that happens, I'll happily share the regular in-Sackville party scene with you all. It's spring time. And as the quote of the day in Bridge Street Cafe said this weekend - "Spring is nature's way of saying 'let's party!'"

Classes

2007-03-07T12:11:00.000-04:00

This semester is completely different from the other nine I've spent at Mt. A, mostly because I only have one actual class. I'm taking a correspondence course and working on my thesis, but those are both kind of lonely pursuits. :) My one class happens to be a seminar, so we only meet once a week, for about three hours. You'd be surprised how quickly that time goes by! I've always found that the Tuesday-Thursday classes, which are 80 minutes long, feel like they drag on forever - even longer than a three-hour seminar.

My class is pretty much the highlight of my week. And it's great to be able to look forward to going, instead of dreading it when you're underprepared or way too busy. If I could have done a whole degree one class at a time, I think it would have been such a different experience in terms of decreased stress and increased learning and participation. Of course, I would have also been 43 by the time I graduated!

This year is such a transition for me - ever since second year, I've been taking six classes per semester. The normal workload is five, but since Mt. A doesn't charge per course (you pay a part-time fee for 1-2 classes, and a full-time fee for 3+ classes), you can take 6 classes for the same price you'd be paying to take 3, 4, or 5 classes. It's a nice way to fit some extra courses in, especially if you're like me and you can never make up your mind. I have a biology minor, but I also took several physics classes along the way. I've also got a history minor. I wouldn't have been able to do two minors plus an honours degree if it wasn't for the opportunity to overload.

In a weird way though, taking fewer classes is more difficult. I feel a lot more responsibilty toward my work, and for the first time ever, I actually have every last one of my readings done for class. The more work you do, the more work you realize you should have been doing all along. I've also taken on a lot more in terms of employment this year, which makes it hard to do schoolwork, especially given the conflicting nature of some of my jobs (teaching a course + bartending? Not exactly easy to get to bed early or get work done during the day).

Anyway, I've been wanting to write about this class of mine for a while. We're studying medieval comedy, but even if we weren't, I know the class would be hilarious anyway. There are only nine of us in it, so you can work pretty closely with other class members and everyone gets to know at least a few things about each other. We spend a lot of time laughing - about the material, completely off-topic jokes, each other, our mistakes, funny stories our prof tells us - pretty much everything. The nice thing you'll find about being in upper year courses is that some professors honestly tell you what it's like to be a prof. You get to hear about the funny stuff their first-year classes are doing, as well as crazy situations they've encountered in academia. I had a great professor last year who would take a few minutes of every seminar to update us on the inner workings of Mount Allison, from the faculty point-of-view. It can be very eye-opening.

When our class manages to stay on topic, we have a lot of fairly productive discussion about medieval comedy. Not everyone in the class is an English major, which is cool because it's a chance for each person to appreciate the texts from a different perspective. Some people in the class bring a strong Latin background, while others approach it with more knowledge of history or literature. With only nine people in the class, I don't think anyone is intimidated, which can happen in bigger classes or if the wrong personalities are present.

Each week, someone in the class does a presentation. This usually means that the student examines extra articles dealing with a more specific aspect of the work than in the normal process of preparing for class. My presentation was at the end of January, and I researched the origin and analogues of Chaucer's Reeve's Tale. In examining other stories that were similar to it, I was able to show the class which parts of the tale were Chaucer's own creation, and which parts were already well-known and widely-repeated in other humourous stories. Because I presented my findings to my classmates, they came away with most of the same knowledge that I did, but without having to do all that extra reading themselves. Learning from your classmates is a really great way to learn, and because it's all self-directed, everyone's topics are quite varied. Some people research a particular idea or event mentioned in the work, while others concentrate on the author or the creative process.

The other interesting thing about this class is that we all got to arrange our own assignments and due dates. Our prof had a couple of guidelines for us - everyone had to do at least one paper and at least one presentation, since that's stuff we'll all have to do and do well in grad school. Apart from that, everything was fair game, and we got to set the values of our assignments ourselves. We also had to make a list of our academic strengths and weaknesses, and do at least one thing from each list. I wanted to get the bulk of my work out of the way early, so I made my presentation and my paper worth 25% each, and assigned myself very early due dates. Now all I have left is a play and a few short assignments! It's a great system to have in your third or fourth year, when you're aware of your strengths and weaknesses and what kind of assignment schedule will suit you best.

Anyway, one thing I really do need to work on is my thesis...so that's enough writing about class for now! Time to actually do some work. :)

Oh, just to keep everyone updated on the grad school front, I found out yesterday that I got in to Education at STU! I still haven't applied for my Master's at Dal yet though, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do. Regardless, it's nice that the labourious application process has started to pay off.

"Spring break! WHOOOO!"

2007-02-26T11:12:00.000-04:00

Ah, spring break. For frosh: a week in which to return home, relax after close encounters with mid-terms, spend time with family and friends, or maybe visit friends at nearby universities to compare. For second-years: largely the same, but with a nagging feeling that they should be doing some work. For third-years: a compromise between break and "not getting any farther behind", days at the library and nights out. Or, after having done nothing exciting for two previous "spring break! WHOOOOO!"s, perhaps a trip. For fourth- (and fifth-) years: by and large, chained to Sackville by a pile of all the reading that should have been done, and the weight of papers and projects sure to come while you are trying to enjoy your last month of your undergrad.

I had a pretty frantic break myself - the first weekend was spent at home, helping to run the New Brunswick Cross-Country Provincial Championship races, as well as our club's annual loppet. It was fun, but tiring, and I came back to Sackville just happy to be able to sleep in again. The MASSIE program co-ordinator was leaving for Japan during the break, so work at the office was pretty all-consuming. I always double-book myself in my head - or sometimes, triple book. I was going to do my correspondence course over the break. I was also going to write a lot of thesis. But instead, I ended up working in the employment sense, and then heading to Halifax to do a little research and also check out some schools.

Surprisingly, while I didn't get as much done as I ~~wanted~~ needed to, this was possibly my most productive spring break ever. I forced myself to go to the library in Halifax, and found some really good stuff for my thesis. I only abandoned the library once in favour of playing the Wii and hanging out with my friends.

It was kind of weird though, to be in prospective school mode again. There are so many variables. Foremost right now is cost. Grad school tuition is pretty crazy, and I'm going to miss the application deadline for scholarships. Also crazy is the cost of living in Halifax, after I've been spoiled by Sackville for 5 years. If I go there, it'll be quite the transition.

My Halifax friends were surprised when I said I've lived places in Sackville for which I've never had a house key. Literally, never saw one, let alone used it. In Halifax, my friends locked their doors behind them as soon as they came in, and definitely locked them when leaving.

Anyway, it's more than just cost...deciding what to do and where to go has to be one of the toughest choices in life. A lot of things about Halifax felt right, as did the program to which I'm thinking about appyling. But not everything, so there will always be doubts.

I haven't heard anything from any of the education programs I applied to either. I need to get serious about this application. I need to get away from the internet! Haha. Here's a picture my friend showed me today, that pretty much sums up university:

Working with the independent student press

2007-02-07T14:47:00.000-04:00

I've mentioned the Argosy, Mount Allison's independent student newspaper, a couple of times so far, and it's a pretty big part of my life at Mt. A, so I thought I'd dedicate an entry to "Sackville's fish wrapper of choice since 1875."

Many universities have student publications, but not all of them are independent. What does independence mean? Well, it means that the Argosy is not affiliated with either Mt. A's administration, or with the SAC, Mt. A's Students' Administrative Council. Being independent from both of those organizations is really important. It means that the paper is free to report openly and honestly, without fear of reprisal from either administrators or council members or executives.

Of course, this does not mean the paper is free from criticism. Working for the student press isn't easy, and sometimes mistakes are made. Being independent also ensures that we take responsibility for the things we publish. Yup, we have insurance!

While it is true that student papers tend to be more cynical and critical than say, the local paper, it's still important to bring student perspective to issues ranging from regional to international. Besides, contrary to the belief that all the student press does is complain, we do celebrate the accomplishments of our school and our peers (such as this recent victory).

Public perception aside, working at the Argosy is interesting, challenging, frustrating, and fun. I'll take you through a typical week.

On Wednesday afternoon, we have a meeting with all the section editors to share story ideas and plan the upcoming issue. Our sections are News (mostly campus but sometimes provincial, national, and international, usually with a strong emphasis on how the story affects students, such as the recent announcement to raise water prices in Sackville), Opinions/Editorials (letters to the paper concerning articles and issues in general, weekly editorials from our EIC), Features (usually longer, researched pieces as well as recurring articles like the crossword, and the sex column), Humour (comics, humourous writing, funny drawings, lots of swearing), Science and Technology (self-explanatory), Arts (reviews and previews of art openings, performances, books, etc.), and Entertainment (reviews and previews of shows, films, CDs, etc.). Each section has an editor who assigns stories, writes stories of his or her own, edits stories received from writers and contributors, and lays out his or her section on the computer.

If you think that sounds like a lot of work - you're right! But it's incredibly rewarding and satisfying, too.

During Wednesday's section editor meetings, we also get feedback on our section from the week before. Then, on Thursday afternoon, there's a general meeting with everyone - photo editors, contributors, people with questions or complaints, writers, etc. It can be a little chaotic, but that's fun! I remember in my first year looking around a general meeting and noticing how diverse the crowd was. While not always a completely happy family, the Argosy family has young keeners, old matriarchs (that's me this year), cranky aunts and uncles, rebellious teens, hard-working reliable cousins, brilliant cousins who are only sometimes reliable... you name it. Although I was living in a really welcoming and fun residence, I felt even more at home in the Arogsy office. It was a great way to meet people in third, fourth, and fifth year who were involved in so many things at Mt. A.

After the Thursday meetings, everyone goes their separate ways to work on their stories. During the week, the ad and business team also write checks, make sure no one's been stealing from the bank account, create ads, and find new clients. The weekend passes quickly, and if you're working on a News article, you've probably already completed a couple of interviews. If you're me, you just wait for people to pick up the previous week's paper (we put it together on Monday and Tuesday, and it comes out on Thursday) and write letters about it. Letters trickle in over the weekend, and I read them to make sure nothing libelous has been included.

On Monday and Tuesday, the office is busy again with section editors reading articles and sending things to be copy-edited. I save every letter to a file on my office computer, and once I've read it and edited it for content (libel/slander), length, and clarity (not often, though we have had some doozies), I save it onto the server so that our three copy-editors can read it. They check for spelling and grammar mistakes, and also for style. For example, when reading official Mt. A documents, you will see Mt. A spelled as "Mount Allison" or abbreviated to "MTA". At the Argosy, we spell Mount Allison out the first time it is mentioned in an article, and abbreviate to Mt. A in subsequent uses. So if a writer has written "Mount A", the section editor or copy editor will change it accordingly.

You also have to worry about indentations, hard returns, and other annoying changes that come about when an article has been copied and pasted from an e-mail into a document.

This week, I had 15 letters to print, which is quite a lot! That was enough to fill three pages of the paper. After everything has been copy-edited, the section editors lay out their sections. This can be frustrating on many levels. First of all, computers are great, but the mac minis we use in the office can be a little slow sometimes. They're probably not supposed to be running the version of InDesign that we have. When laying out my section, the programs I use most frequently are Safari (to get articles and information from my webmail), NeoOffice (to edit and save articles), Photoshop (to turn colour photos black and white for the interior of the paper), and InDesign. Well, on the mac minis, you're lucky if you can get two of those programs running simultaneously. So, if I'm laying out the CHMA page (also part of my job), and I need to include the Top 31 Charts provided by the music director, I have to shut down InDesign, open Safari, copy the charts, shut down Safari, open NeoOffice (this one takes FOREVER, you could probably go downstairs and get a beer from the pub and come back and still be waiting), paste the charts, shut down NeoOffice, re-open InDesign (also slow), and then place the file on the page.

Second of all, the process of laying out itself is hard, even when nothing goes wrong. We're pretty lucky to be able to do everything on computers - doing stuff by hand would probably take a lot longer - but putting a section together is like completing a puzzle whose pieces change size. Sometimes you get everything placed and you've got awkward white spaces trapped between articles. Other times, you have a huge amount of white space - ie not enough content. Then you have to start begging your also-stressed peers to draw you a political cartoon or write you a letter. Sometimes, you run out of space and have to cut an article, which is never nice, considering all the work that's gone into it.

Then, sometimes things go wrong. Sometimes it's your fault - last night, I was laying out my section on the master templates instead of on the pages, and I needed the EIC to fix everything for me (luckily, he's a nice guy!). Sometimes it's not your fault - someone else will have been using your computer, and files will be missing or settings will be changed. Sometimes, it's a combination. One night, I hadn't hit "Save" yet although I was almost done. One of my roommates unplugged her laptop from the shared power bar, and in doing that, unplugged the power bar from the wall by mistake. Mac mini turns off, section goes away, Kathleen stays at the office until 2am redoing work that was almost finished. Now, we all check that everyone has saved before we unplug something. Lesson learned. I save a lot more now.

Putting together a weekly paper is a very long process that requires a lot of time from everyone involved. If someone is late to do something even at the very beginning of the process, it can slow things down for everyone. Even when I'm done laying out my section, it still has to go through some changes. Last night, I finished my section around 12:30am. Often I'm not done 'til around 1:30am, so I guess I was a little early. After I've finished it, I save and close the file. Lindsay, our prod manager, has a look at it to make sure all the fonts are correct and that everything fits together nicely. If I've forgotten to put a border on a photo or if I've put something in the wrong font, she'll fix it. She also has to put up with lots more annoying stuff, but it's way better than in previous years when she and one other person had to lay out the entire paper themselves! After Lindsay's checked it from a design perspective, the EIC and our head copy-editor have a look over each page one last time, just to catch any mistakes that may exist even after four other pairs of eyes have seen the articles on the page.

Most of the time, mistakes are caught. But at this point, when Will and Rave are looking over the pages, it's usually between 1 and 3am. One week in first semester, the big headline on the front page read "Flying A to closes its doors". So we don't catch everything. :) However, I've read that one big paper in the States, notorious for its errors, implemented a number of systems and changes to minimize errors. After a few months, their EIC concluded that the very best a paper can seek to achieve is an average of 4 errors per page, even with extra resources geared toward error reduction. I guess you just have to hope that those errors don't happen in the headlines!

Late nights in the office, while inconvenient if you have an 8:30 the next morning, are integral to the Argosy experience. Fueled by Bawls, coffee, and sometimes wine or beer, everyone starts to go a little crazy around midnight. Generally, one person in the office is having a bad night (it'll be someone different every week). Everyone else just gets silly. We have a quote board for those times that someone blurts something out that just makes everyone stop and fall off their chairs laughing. We also eat a lot of candy, dance in our office chairs to good and bad music, and sometimes take a break as a group to go down to the pub and play trivia for free beer.

The atmosphere in the office is extremely supportive, with the occasional friendly rivalry. Although sometimes I dread Tuesdays because I know I'll be spending 5-10 hours in the office (we get paid a small honouraria for our positions, but it works out to be like $2/hr or less), by the end of the night I'm walking home with a smile on my face, having spent those hours doing something worthwhile - allowing the voices of my fellow students to be heard far and wide - with people who make it enjoyable and memorable.

Wherever I end up working for real, I doubt I'll be able to write whatever I want and have 3000 people read it. I also doubt I'll be able to insert an image of a ninja turtle or a cow growing out of a planter if I need to fill space. The Argosy allows you to balance responsible reporting with a sense of humour and silliness that couldn't be achieved elsewhere.

I've been on staff for five years, and I haven't really thought much about what will happen after my time there is up, until lately. I have spent Tuesday nights of the past five years in a grody office with permanent marker on the walls, LAN cables everywhere, ceiling beams lined with the carcasses of energy drinks, and some of the most dedicated, talented, and interesting people I've ever met. And I'm sure that on Tuesday nights for the rest of my life, while I'll be happy to be making more than $2 an hour, I'll miss my job, the office, and especially the people.

The joys of deadlines and applications

2007-02-01T11:43:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was the deadline for applying to education at UNB, and at 4:50pm, I was standing in line at the post office, glad to have one thing crossed off my to do list. Applying for grad schools/other degrees has brought back so many memories of gr. 12. Sometimes, it doesn't feel very long ago at all. Filling out applications is one of those times. Last year I remember thinking "ack, I have to do this again? Didn't I just finish writing entrance essays and finding referees?"

However, like most things in life, filling out applications is easier once you just start doing it. To be honest, this time last year, not only did I have no idea what I wanted to do, I didn't know where to start. It was a lot easier to just do nothing, and I felt like there would be more for me to do at Mt. A, so I just let the application deadlines go by without really looking at the forms all that much.

This year, I knew I couldn't just let the deadlines go by again. I'm not sure if I'm any closer to knowing what I want to do, but I know that I at least need to have options for September!

That's the weird thing about this part of life: in December or January, you might not feel like leaving Sackville or starting a new, intimidating degree. However, by the following September, if you haven't applied anywhere, you probably won't feel like living at home. But it's too late to do anything about it then. So you have to anticipate your future feelings and interests, and apply to places even if you're not sure it's what you want to do.

Anyway, the other funny thing about this is that when I was in High School, I was always doing things at the last minute. Filling out scholarship applications, university applications, etc. Every deadline ended in a sprint to the post office. One day I left my house at like quarter to 5, with my mom telling me I'd never make it to the post office on time! I ran through back yards, jumped fences, hopped across train tracks, racing the clock just so I could spend heaps of hard-earned cash to purolate my applications.

I never did get any of those big scholarships I scrambled to apply for, but I managed to make it to Mt. A anyway.

This time around, I'm looking more in the direction of student loans than scholarships, and still frantically sending in my university applications on the day they're due. And I thought I'd grow out of procrastination... :)

Oh well, I've still got a couple of months left to get the process right. I've sent off all my education applications, but the deadlines for other things aren't 'til March. How are you doing on your applications? Feel free to share your horror stories with me!

I had a little bit of a scare with my application to Saint Thomas - I had finished it on a Friday, and was planning to mail it on Monday. All the bits and pieces (reference letters, resume, letter of intent, application, cheque) were in a big, yellow envelope. I was so proud of myself for being finished early and for having everything in one place! I was so proud that I didn't think about the application all weekend, confident that I had things under control. On Monday I was running around trying to finish another application, completely unconcerned about my Saint Thomas one. At 4pm, having not found my application in the Argosy office where I'd been working on it, I began a leisurely walk home, certain that it was waiting for me on my chair.

Half an hour later, I'd torn my room apart and that yellow envelope was nowhere to be found. I was starting to panic! I called the Argosy office, the MASSIE office, everywhere I'd been since Friday. No one could find it.

At 4:50, I ran back to campus to look for myself. At this point, I couldn't realistically get to the post office on time, but I had to know where I'd misplaced my application! Unfortunately, I'd never really thought about it before that day, but every office I work in is on the top floor of its building. Finally, when I made my way to the 3rd floor of the student centre, I dumped out the contents of my desk at the Argosy. Still nothing. I just couldn't figure out where this envelope had gone!

Giving up, I walked down a flight of stairs for the first time in an hour. My boyfriend, whom I'd enlisted earlier to help find this stupid application, was on his way up. I would never have gone back upstairs if he hadn't suggested we look in the Argosy office one last time.

This time, I only half-heartedly turned papers over, not expecting to find it now. I went to sit down on one of the couches in the office, when I noticed something weird about one of them. There was something sticking out of one of the gross, mustard-yellow cushions. A gross, mustard-yellow envelope. The colours matched almost perfectly, and with the flat envelope sitting up against the cushion, no one had noticed it!

It was my application. It was 5:10pm.

Thinking back to Thursday night, we'd ordered pizza to the office while working. I moved the envelope over to the couch when I sat down to eat.

I was happy to have found it, but what could I do now? The applications had to be post-marked by today. The post office was closed.

This is when having a Sackville native for a boyfriend comes in handy. "We can go to the Middle Sackville convenience store! It has a post office in it, and it's open late!" I would have never known.

Relieved, we drove out to Middle Sackville, where triumphantly, I bought a stamp and gave the cursed mustard-yellow envelope to the woman working. She set it aside, and I wanted to make sure. All the effort that had gone into crafting that application, and then finding it again... I would hate for it to be wasted! "That's all I need? It'll be sent off?" She gave me a funny look and said "Yeah, it'll get posted tonight." Part of me wanted to see her put it in the bag with the rest of the letters. But most of me just wanted to go home and sleep!

I hope you have an easier time with your applications than I did. I don't even mind the waiting part, now that they're out of my hands!

Hi!

2007-01-21T22:55:00.000-04:00

Writing about yourself isn't the easiest thing. In fact, I'm finding it so difficult that I asked my roommates to introduce me instead, but it didn't go so well ("Kathleen is a girl..." "I downloaded viruses on her computer!"), so I guess I'll have to do it myself!

Right now I'm cleaning my room and listening to Saturday Night from Dance Mix '95. Cleaning my room is a never-ending process, and there are probably more pressing things I should be doing, but I want to start the week off with a good place to get some work done.

Technically, I've already graduated, but I'm back this year to complete my honours certificate. I'm writing my thesis on The Canterbury Tales, taking a medieval comedy class, bartending, editing the Opinions section of The Argosy (our independent student newspaper), teaching swimming lessons, and lots of other fun things you'll get to hear about this semester!

I'm also applying to grad schools, working on a presentation for class on Thursday, and trying to enjoy my actual, for serious last semester at Mt. A. If you're getting ready to go to university in the fall, our next few months might be pretty similar, with lots of stress, parties, applications, and goodbyes.

My hometown is Miramichi, NB, and my degree (so far) is a major in English lit, and minors in Biology and History. As for my interests, I've managed to turn a lot of them into part-time jobs, like working at the paper and the pub. I also enjoy playing nintendo, catching local-ish bands at George's, skiing, and attempting to make sushi!

I'll update again on Thursday to tell you more about my week, because I doubt you want me to go into detail about cleaning my room - but you might like to know if I survive my presentation, if I get anything done on my applications, and how I'm doing at the MASSIE office as we prepare for a new group of exchange students from Japan.

Until then, have a good week, and thanks for reading!