Essays, Term Papers, and More Essays

Hey Everyone! 

As you can tell from the title of this post, we are getting down to the crunch time here at BU! With only 2 weeks left of first semester, finishing term essays and studying for finals are at the top of everyone's to-do list! I am currently in the middle of two essays and one major assignment but I am well on my way to finishing them. It's hard to believe that my first semester of university is almost over. Time has flown by!!

So last week, approximately one hour after my last blog post, I received a message from a third year student who works for Recruitment here on campus. She is the head of the school blog project and she asked me if I wanted to be a part of this project. The Blog Project is a select group of current students, recent graduates, and faculty who regularly blog about their lives, their Bishop's experiences, what they are doing now, etc. My name had been forward as the first year blogger by Stephanie Higgins, a recruitment employee who gave me a tour back in March and by my Frosh Leader, Denise! I am super excited that I get to be a part of this and I sent my first post in last night! It hasn't been posted yet but it should be up soon! The link to get there is on the side bar of this blog under "Check it Out" and here it is as well: http://blog.ubishops.ca/blog/

Myself and Stephanie on my tour back in March!

Alrighty, so last Wednesday I had my second math midterm. I think it went fairly well but I will find out my mark this Wednesday, so keep your fingers crossed for me! Also, last Wednesday night, we had our first Donald Lecture Series speaker, Susan Cain. Susan is the author of the book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. She was here promoting her book and discussing the value of introverts that is quite commonly overlooked in today's society. From a future teacher's perspective, I found this talk really informative, because everything she said was very true - we often mistake the people that are quiet and reserved as unengaged, unmotivated or unintelligent, when in reality, they could be having the same, if not more complex and insightful thoughts and ideas as us but are containing them inside their head. I think that everyone benefited from hearing her message and we can all take something away from what she had to say. On a side note, Santa, please bring me Susan Cain's book for Christmas. I promise I tried my best to be on the nice list this year!

Susan Cain during her lecture last Wednesday!

On Thursday, Champlain College, the CEGEP school that we share a campus with, had a screening of The Bully Project, which is a documentary movie about bullying in America. I had been dying to see this movie since my work on anti-bullying and Pink Shirt Day last year in high school and I jumped at the chance to see the film. The movie had about 7 different stories of bullying cases, including two stories of kids who took their lives because of bullying, one girl who was put in a juvenile detention centre for standing up to her bullies and one girl who had dropped out of her school for coming out as a lesbian. The stories were heartbreaking but the messages within the movie were very powerful and I strongly encourage everyone to watch this movie and to take the pledge to end bullying today. 

Also on Thursday, Jocelyn and I went to a yoga session in the Foreman Art Gallery. You would never think to have yoga in an art gallery but surprisingly, I found it a great place for it! It was so nice to look at the paintings and pictures on the wall while doing the poses instead of looking in a mirror or at brown gym walls. Yoga is being offered there every Thursday from now until exams so Jocelyn and I will definitely be making more appearances there in the near future!

On Friday, my Education class had our final visit to LES. From my final observation, I was in the English kindergarten classroom. The kids were super cute and super fun to be around but I definitely do not see myself teaching kindergarten. Later that day, I volunteered with the BUMT's Reading Circle. For this, we took a group of kids from LES after school to the community centre where we played games, read stories and did crafts with them for an hour and a half. I brought Jocelyn along and while we both had a lot of fun helping out, we both noticed that kids have way too much energy on a Friday afternoon to want to sit still and read books!

On Saturday morning, I helped with the BUMT's Pancake Breakfast at the local church. The food was delicious and a lot of the kids from LES and from the Reading Circle came by with their families to support the club. A lot of BU students made an appearance too and the fundraiser was a huge success! Thank you to everyone who came out to support BUMT!

Later that day, Elizabeth and I met our two friends, Vicki and Kasey at the mall in Sherbrooke. It was a busy day at the mall because Santa Claus was there for his first day of photos and visits! We did not want to wait in the line but we are highly considering going back there and having a photo with Santa in our Christmas sweaters. Later that night, Elizabeth and I had a girls' night in - she painted my nails and we watched the Bachelor Canada and Glee! Now I am all caught up and ready for the Bachelor finale on Wednesday! 

Sunday was a library day because we all had some serious essay writing to do. I also wrote my first blog post for the BU Blog Project and had a nice Skype chat with one of my best friends from high school. Jocelyn came back from her weekend excursion to Montreal to see the Santa Claus Parade and guess what? She ran into another one of my best friends from high school, Natasha by complete chance! They even took a picture as photographic evidence of their encounter to send to me!

Finally, today was exciting because I got a nice package from my Grandma (who is currently in Disney World!). A few weeks ago, I asked for a purple knit headband and to my surprise and complete joy, she knit me two! I have been modelling them around campus all day and everyone is super jealous! Myself and my ears are super thankful for these nice additions to my winter outerwear collection!

My headbands and some candy from my lovely Grandma!

So that's all from me for now, folks! To keep the countdown going, I have 11 classes, 1 interview and 3 exams left of my semester and 18 days until I return home for the holidays! I wish you all a wonderful week!

All my love, Erica xoxo

PS As a part of my blog post for the school, I made a collage of some of my favourite memories here so far! Take a look!

PPS I'd love to know who has been taking the time to read my posts because I am super thankful to you for reading! Feel free to leave a comment below! I'd love to hear from you!