Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone! (or as I've started to say at Bishop's - Happy Halloweek!) I hope you all have your costumes and candy ready for tonight! However, if you are in need of some last minute inspiration, read on to hear all about my first Halloween in Lennoxville!

As always, last week did not disappoint in terms of things to do! From Monday to Thursday, I volunteered with the Residence Events Committee selling candy grams throughout the day to raise money for our upcoming events. There was also a poster sale happening and I had to restrain myself everyday from buying a Keep Calm and Carry On poster (wink wink nudge nudge Christmas present). My one friend, Nathan, however did not restrain himself and ended up spending $300 on posters!! Now, our residence rooms are bigger than normal, but certainly not big enough for $300 worth of posters. I think he ended up mailing some home!

Thursday was the real kick off of Halloween. Since Halloween was still a week away, I did not think that everyone would dress up - I assumed it would just be a regular Thursday night. Well, I was wrong (That's a first)! It was 90s night at the Gait so there were two costume options - 1) You could wear 90s themed clothing or 2) You could wear a regular costume. Hannah and I dressed up as Jack and the Beanststalk, Elizabeth dressed up as a unicorn and Jocelyn dressed up as the girl from the TV show Clueless. Beyond that, there were people dressed up in anything and everything - ranging from the Spice Girls to Vikings! I was highly impressed with the costume quality and the night ended up being a lot of fun. 

Jack and the Beanstalk! And a unicorn...

Simon holding up his ticket and our new friends - the BU Vikings!

90s night at the Gait!

On Friday, my friends and I went for a walk through Lennoxville and started scouting out places to live for next year. I am still trying to process the idea that I will be living in a house without my parents next year. Searching for a house is extremely stressful and but it's comforting to know that everyone is going through the same thing. Later that night, REC hosted pumpkin carving and my role for the evening was cooking up pumpkin seeds. After that, we spent the night with some of our new friends from NoPo (a different residence on campus) where they were celebrating our friend Dave's birthday!

Michelle and I cooking in the kitchen on Friday night!

Happy Birthday Dave!

Hannah and I as kitty cats!

Saturday was game day and the Gaiters squared off against the Montreal Carabins. Unfortunately, the Gaiters were not successful and did not earn a place in this year's playoffs. Later that night, Halloweekend continued with the Newside Ghost Walk, on which our RAs took us around campus telling us "real" ghost stories. Following that, my friends and I dressed up as presents and then spent the night venturing around to different celebrations in Lennoxville. 

Elizabeth, Hannah, myself and Jocelyn as presents at Animal House!

Our Abbott family!

The presents with the NHL Lockout!

Sunday was a pretty stressful day for me as I had not done very much homework over the course of the weekend and I had a major presentation in Philosophy the next day. Luckily, my friends are very good at telling me to calm down and it all ended up going very well! That night, Elizabeth, Kirsten and I dressed up for the fourth night and participated in the campus Trick or Eat campaign, in which we went around the houses in the neighbourhood collecting canned goods for the local women's shelter. It was a very successful campaign and it was so much fun getting to trick or treat again! 

In other exciting news, yesterday (Tuesday), Justin Trudeau came to my school! Yes, you read that correctly, Justin Trudeau came to give a lecture at my school and the entire student body was invited. Before attending, I did not know much about Mr. Trudeau so I went into the lecture without any preconceived ideas and I was very impressed with his presentation. He was very well spoken and very intelligent and really sees the value that young people bring to the table (probably because he was a formal high school teacher!). 

Justin Trudeau at Bishop's!

Finally, I just wanted to take a minute and boast about my university (as if I don`t do that enough already)! The Globe and Mail recently released their 2013 University Review and I want to share the results with you! Bishop`s was the only university in the entire review to receive an "A" grade in the category of Work-Play Balance, the highest grade given to any school. The ranking for work-play balance measures students' satisfaction with respect to working hard on academic challenges, balanced with meeting social needs as part of the university experience. We also received high grades in Student Faculty Interaction (A+), Class Sizes (A+), Campus Atmosphere (A+), Most Satisfied Students (A) and Quality of Teaching and Learning (A-). For all of you future university applicants, I highly recommend that you take a look at this survey, which can be found at: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/education/canadian-university-report/canadian-university-report-2013-student-satisfaction-survey-results/article4631980/ 

So that's all from me for now! If you've made it to this point of the post, congratulations and thank you for reading through! Writing this has actually become one of the high points of my week and I look forward to getting to share all the fun that I am having with everyone that reads this! Have fun trick or treating tonight! Feel free to send some candy my way!

All my love! Love, Erica xoxoxo

Never a Dull Moment

Hello hello hello! I have come out from hiding in the library and have successfully completed my first set of university midterms! Life is picking up here again and the topic of the moment is Halloween or as they apparently say at BU - Halloweekend! We have been warned that we will need 4-5 costumes and that they better be creative! With only 4 days left until celebration begins, the pressure is on to come up with the best costumes ideas!

So looking back on this past week, as always, it was fantastic! Last Saturday night, Wolf Pack (my frosh group) had another reunion party, this time as a pre-party before Frosh Reunion night at the Gait. So sure enough, we all went to the Den together and since a lot of other frosh houses did not open up their doors, we had a lot of visitors from other groups too! Following that, we all headed to the Gait and then home to bed to rest up for midterms! On Sunday, one of our RAs, Lily, ran tye dying in the basement so Jocelyn and I tye-dyed our frosh shirts purple! Just one more article to add to my growing collection of purple clothing!

Hannah, myself and Elizabeth at the Wolf Den!

Two of my favourite senior students - my frosh leaders, Sam and Denise!

During the week, I had three midterms - Math, Psychology and Environmental Studies. On Monday night, I spent 4 hours at the library (a new personal best) and luckily, I feel like all of my studying paid off because my exams went really well! So now I've got a month's break until we've got to do it all again!

On Tuesday,  after my psych midterm, another one of our RAs, Ryan, booked a room in the arts room for a photography session. You could go in small groups or solo and have some really professional looking photos done! Jocelyn and I went together and we wore our new matching shirts and then we got our friends Elizabeth and Hannah to make an appearance too! I don't have any of the pictures yet but when I do I will post them on here!

Our matching tye-dye shirts!

Thursday was definitely the high point of my week! The SRC organized the first "Frosh in a Can" event of the year, aka a bus trip to McGill to watch the guy's lacrosse team play the Redmen. The bus ride there, which lasted 3 and a half hours, was the definition of a party bus. There was music and dancing from the minute we left campus until we pulled on to the McGill campus! It was so much fun! Then, when we got to McGill, I met up with my friend Natasha and coincidentally it was her 18th birthday! It was really great to see a familiar face from back home, especially since I hadn't seen her since our high school graduation back in June! On the athletic side of things, the Gaiters unfortunately lost the game, their first loss of the season but they placed second overall in their championship cup! 

A selection of photos from Frosh in a Can: 

Me and the Birthday Girl!

Natasha and her birthday present - a BU shot glass!

On Friday, my education class went on our third trip to Lennoxville Elementary and this time I was in a grade 1/2 split class. This was my favourite class so far. In their gym class, we played floor hockey and it ended up being the three Bishop's students versus the entire class. We managed to win one game! When we were leaving, one of the little girls gave me a picture she had coloured for me and it is now hanging up in my residence room!

Later that night, the Residence Events Committee had a cult movie showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I had never seen the movie before but I volunteered to help out anyway. It ended up being a lot of fun! A lot of people showed up and we spent a good two hours throwing toast, rice, toilet paper, etc, dancing along to the Time Warp and yelling and laughing at the characters in the show!

On Saturday, Jocelyn, Hannah and their liberal arts class were in Montreal for the day, so Elizabeth and I spent a good chunk of time at the library. She was very focused on her work and she thought I was too...until she found out later that I had actually been watching the Bachelor Canada for over an hour! (PS How cute is the Canadian Bachelor? And I'm sorry, but Whitney needs to go) Later that night, we decorated our floor for the Abbott decorating contest, for which we were inspired by the Burn Book in the movie Mean Girls, but ours was a positive version! We posted a picture of everyone with something nice written about them underneath. Later that night, Elizabeth and I ventured all around Lennoxville, making an appearance at the Gait, the Lion, the lacrosse party and at the Later Gaiter for some 2 am poutine!

Elizabeth having fun with her glitter glue!

The "Burn Book" posts drying on my bulletin board!

All in all, it was a very jam packed week! After reading this, you may be doubtful that I actually do any schoolwork here, but rest assured, I have been keeping on top of all of my work (except for a paper that is now calling my name!) The next time you hear from me will probably be sometime after Halloweekend, so which me luck as I prepare for my first BU Halloween! Hope you all have your costumes ready! 

All my love, Erica xoxoxo

PS Here is a fun picture that I found in Mackinnon. It is the oldest known photo of Bishop's University!

Cramming for Midterms

Hello everyone! Sorry for the lack of updates recently! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving without overloading on too much turkey! I had a great time at home but I am back on campus and as I'm sure you guessed from the title, studying for my fast approaching midterm exams. 

So I guess I left off in the middle of the week before Thanksgiving. Nothing too exciting happened last week as everyone was looking forward to going home for the weekend. However, I got my first official university assignment back from my Environmental Studies professor and my group ended up doing really well! On Friday, my education class went on our second trip to the local elementary school. This time I was in the Grade 4 classroom, or as they call it here in Quebec, the Cycle 2 Year 2 cycle. There are a lot of differences in the Quebec Education system and it has been really neat to study and observe the different program that is in place here. 

Me with our ESG group project!

After the morning at LES, myself and 5 of my friends began our treks home for Thanksgiving. At 1:00, we boarded the first bus, which took us to downtown Montreal. Then, three of us got on a second bus that took us to the Montreal airport. Following that, I boarded my plane and I met my mom at the Toronto airport and drove back to Ancaster. The entire trek took 8.5 hours! That is almost the same amount of time that it took us to drive out here in August!

Jason and I on the Trans Dev Limo Car en route to Montreal!

My traveling crew!

And so began my short stay in Ancaster. On Friday night, my mom, sister and I went to see the new movie Pitch Perfect. It was hilarious! If you haven't already seen it, go now! We were killing ourselves with laugther through the entire movie! On Saturday, my mom and I spent some time at the mall and then I spent the afternoon with my dad. I went to my brother's hockey game (my first hockey game of the season!) and then we all had dinner together. Later that night, I went to see some of my friends from my high school cross country team! 

On Sunday, I went out for breakfast with one of my best friends from skating and my neighbour tagged along. That afternoon,  I went to my brother's hockey game again and then my mom, brother and sister and I went out for dinner at the Hamilton Golf and Country Club. Monday morning, my cousins came over for breakfast and then I began the trek back to BU! Lessons learned from the weekend: Don't forget about school work! Just because you're not on campus doesn't mean your homework goes away! 

When I got back to campus on Monday night, I went upstairs to say hello to my friends on the floors above me. The boys on the third floor crack me up - Two of them had taken it upon themselves to re-arrange the furniture in their bogmates' rooms! One of the "victims" did not get back until 2am in the morning and so he came home to a nice surprise! Jocelyn had better keep her door locked when she goes home for graduation!

The rest of the week went by pretty slowly with everyone trying to get some serious studying in. However, last night was 80's night at the Lion and tomorrow we have another frosh group reunion so I'm sure things are about to get back to the BU normal! In other exciting news, today we had our first snowfall; this unfortunately occurred while Hannah and I were out running! Luckily, we were dressed warmly and weren't too far from our warm residence rooms! But I must get back to the books now! Wish me luck on my three midterms this week!

Hannah and I going for a run in matching outfits!

80's night at the Lion!

 All my love, Erica xoxoxox

A Mid-week Special: My First Recruitment Letter

Hello everyone! I know that I just posted recently but this is a special case! The other day, my friend from high school, Brianne sent me a message telling me that she is interested in coming to Bishop’s and asked if I could tell her a little bit about BU! I was extremely excited and jumped at the chance to tell her all about this wonderful place! I didn’t realize until after I sent the message that it had turned into a 500 word novel! Anyway, I wanted to share what I wrote with all of you and if any of you are also thinking about BU let this be my recruitment letter to you too!

Hey Brianne!

I was actually so excited when I got this message, you have no idea! I had just been telling my friends that I want to work for recruitment so that I can spend all day telling everyone how awesome BU is! So to answer your questions, here we go: I love it here! I don't know the extent to which you've looked into Bishop's so I will tell you everything I know. The campus and student body are pretty small, with this year's incoming class being the biggest yet! However, it doesn't feel "small" - we have everything that the big schools have (intramurals, student council, a student bar, Tim Hortons!) and there is a real community feel to everything. We are like one big family! I really like the small class sizes because the profs actually get to know your name and face and you also get to know the other people in your classes. Another benefit to the small student population is the fact that we don't have TAs, so everything we learn comes right from the prof. Also, profs choose to teach here because they like teaching, as opposed to some big schools where they are only there for their research. My biggest class is 100 people, which is small compared to large universities.

There are three styles of residence here - traditional, apartment and bogstyle. I live in bogstyle, meaning I have a single room attached to a bathroom which is attached to another girl's room. The two of us are already best friends and we act like roommates but it's nice to have my own space for my stuff and for studying. Bogstyle is definitely the best, but the other two styles cost less and are still a lot of fun! Dewies (the meal hall) is fantastic! The food is amazing and the meal plans are all unlimited access so I have been spending way too much time there! As to town life, Lennoxville is pretty small and most of the students live on the same streets all pretty close to campus, but we have a grocery store, liquor store, drug store etc in walking distance from campus and the city bus will take you to the mall or to downtown Sherbrooke. The parties here are crazy but so much fun and frosh week was unforgettable!

You should definitely come out here for a tour if you can and I would love to show you around! If you have any more questions I will be happy to answer them! Sorry that this turned into a novel but I hope it helps with your decision making! Also, I have been writing a blog about university so if you want a look at my day to day life you can check it out:
http://mylifeatbishops.blogspot.ca/

-Erica :)