Hitting the Slopes

And just like that, another week has flown by! Jocelyn and I have started measuring time in relation to the next episode of the Bachelor, so by our calendar, it's "the day before Bachelor night" but it still does not seem possible that it's already been a week since the last one! This semester is flying by and the biggest challenge in my life right now is making time to fit everything in!

This week, the average temperature here was probably around -25 degrees Celsius. With the wind chill, some days it felt like -40! So needless to say, I walked around with my fur hood on all week. I am very jealous of my grandparents right now who are enjoying the warm, sunny weather of Palm Springs but I've got about 50 more years ahead of me before I can enjoy their lifestyle. 

One really great thing about Bishop's is that there always seems to be guest speakers coming to visit and everyone is always invited to go to their talks. So far this year, I have gone to talks from Susan Cain (an author), Norman Cornett (a former McGill professor), Justin Trudeau and the list goes on! One of the advantages to being at Bishop's is that the small number of students allows for dialogue between the speaker and the audience. This week, we had a visit from Judy Rebick, an activist who is currently travelling around talking about her Occupy Education movement. She talked a lot about different movements that have gone on in the past few years, such as Occupy Wall Street, Les Printemps Erable and Idle No More and spoke to the idea that protesting is becoming "cool" again. She encouraged all the future teachers in the audience to not be afraid to fight for change and look for new opportunities within the framework of the school. 

On Thursday, my History class had the first day of our simulation. I am a part of France so on Thursday, my group began making alliances with other major countries, such as Britain and the USA and other smaller countries such as the British Dominions, Belgium and Japan. Despite my initial hestiance, I am really liking this assignment. This is situational learning at its best. At what other school would you have a first year class small enough to simulate this kind of scenario? We have had to learn not only what happened to our own country in 1919 but also about what the other countries want and will support in order to get what we want at the "Peace Conference" which begins this Tuesday. The simulation is going to be in process for two weeks so I will let you know if we are able to come up with a better treaty than our ancestors!

Jules Cambon, the French Ambassador I am playing in class!

 On Friday night, my friends and I went to the new outdoor ice rink for the first time. This is a student run initiative in which they have made a rink over top of the tennis courts. It's open 24/7 which was extremely convenient for us as we didn't decide to go over until midnight! Not all of us had skates but it was still a wonderful time. 

Skating on the outdoor rink!

 And now for the super exciting part! On Saturday, I went skiing in Quebec for the first time. Originally, my friend and I were supposed to go down to Jay Peaks but really early in the morning our ride bailed. Luckily for me, three of my other friends were going to Mt Sutton for the day and had space for me in their car so I was able to go with them. Sutton was about an hour drive away and the skiing was great. The boys I was skiing with decided that they would ignore the "Trail Closed" signs so I had to be a bit rebellious to keep up with them but it was definitely worth it. We skiied for over 5 hours straight before heading back to campus. I can't wait to go skiing again!

Saturday night, Jocelyn, Hannah and I went to a "housewarming party" for two girls who used to live in Abbott with us but moved into Paterson at the start of the semester. They love living in their new apartment and have settled in quite nicely. One of the girls is from France and her boyfriend had flown in for a visit. Somehow that night, I ended up with a group of international students at the outdoor rink again. Some of them had never been on ice before so it was neat to watch them try out sliding around for the first time. I had only met two or three of the international students that I was with before that night but that just goes to show that you never stop making new friends here at Bishop's.  

Jocelyn, Hannah and I at the housewarming party!

Looking ahead, there is lots to look forward to in the upcoming weeks. This week is the start of Theatre Active, a series of Student Plays put on in the Turner Studio Theatre. And on Friday, my friends and I are heading to Quebec City for a trip to the Carnivale! Finally, I will leave you with this little video that my friend Erin sent to me earlier today. His message brought a smile to my face, especially his first line "The world needs you to stop being boring." Keep his message in mind as you head into this next week! Remember what and who encourages you and that it's everybody's duty to give the world a reason to dance! Have a great week everyone! All my love, Erica xoxoxoxo

A New Kind of Winterfest!

Hello all you wonderful people! I hope that you had a wonderful week (and a half)! My week began on a very stressful note, but with the exception of a few ups and downs, it was overall pretty great! As per usual, there was lots happening here on campus, most notably, it was Winterfest! 2013 For the past 7 years, Winterfest to me was always a skating competition, but it has a whole new meaning here at Bishop's! But before we get to that, let me fill you in on exactly what I've been up to. 

So first and foremost, my friends and I signed our first lease! We will now officially be living on William-Page Street next year which is about a 10-15 walk from campus. The house is really nice (as I think I have said in the past few posts) and it will get even nicer after our landlord does some renovations over the summer. Our next challenge: dividing up the bedrooms!

As well, last week I mentioned that my schedule was still not finalized but I am happy to report that it has worked itself out! My classes for this semester are: Conversational French, Biology and a Lab, History, French Grammar and Teaching Ethics and Religious Culture (ERC). I feel very ambitious taking two French courses but I think that it will be for the best as I get to work on both my written and spoken French. In fact, I gave my first presentation on Monday and my prof said "C'est fantisque!" after I was done, so I'm off to a good start! In History, our prof has chosen to run the class through simulations. We are going to be acting out 3 of the major conferences in the 20th century. Our first was is Paris 1919 and I am playing Jules Cambon, a French ambassador. Over the next few weeks, we are going to be simulating the post WWI international conference. For my ERC class, right now we are reading The Year of Living Biblically and to my surprise, I am really enjoying it. I chose to buy the audiobook, so every night Jocelyn and I have been listening to it together. The audiobook definitely has its advantages, my personal favourite being the fact that I can do other things while listening such as fold my laundry, paint my nails, etc. It's a win-win situation!

Our prof found out that Vicki is American and gave her this Presidential mug as a gift!

And of course, lots has been going on outside of the classroom. Last Sunday, Elizabeth, Gaby and I went to the mall. I have recently developed an obsession for David's Tea, and there is a David's Tea store at the Carrefour, so we spent a good amount of time in there. On Monday, we had a Bachelor watching party in the Abbott common room, and to our surprise, we even had two male viewers. On Tuesday night, there was an event called the Purple Games at the Lion, sponsored by Red Bull. It was a series of bar games played on the Lion patio, such as pin the tail on the Red bull, bobbing for beer cans, etc. Our friends Paul and Simon were competing so we went to cheer them on. On Wednesday, Gaby and I went to a free Zumba class being offered at the gym. On Thursday, my friends and I booked a trip to Quebec City to go to the Carnaval in two weeks time. I am super excited for that! Our friend Kevin lives in Quebec City so he is going to be our tour guide for the weekend!

Mall Round 1!

Friday was an extremely busy day for me! I had my first bio lab in the morning, in which we were testing different foods for the presence of macromolecules (carbs, proteins, fats, etc). It was surprisingly really fun, especially because we got to be in the actual lab with actual scientific equipment (unlike at Ancaster High). However, I would recommend not choosing liver pate as one of your food items if you ever do this experiment, as it has quite the odor to it! After that, I went to a STEP seminar on using SMART Boards. It was really neat to learn about all that the SMART technology is capable of. For example, students can do a full virtual frog disection on a SMART board! How cool is that? After that, the Leadership Floor had an MBTI workshop, which was the same workshop that I went to on my Leadership Retreat in November. Despite having done the workshop already, I was still able to learn a lot as I was with a group of completely different people. Every time I do these workshops, I am impressed at how perfectly they are able to pinpoint my personality type! And it's even stranger to think that there are people out there that are the exact same as me, in terms of our preference type! ESTJs all the way!

After our workshop, Hannah, Jocelyn and I went to the mall (two trips in one week for me, uh oh) and I ended up purchasing a new winter coat. It gets really cold here sometimes, especially when I am walking to my early morning classes, so it was time to upgrade to a longer jacket. After that, our friend Tim's girlfriend was visiting from Carlton so we all went to Boston Pizza for dinner. 

On Saturday, Winterfest really kicked off with a rail jam in the Quad. Now, if you are like me, you have no idea what I am talking about when I say "rail jam". Essentially, there was a huge scaffolding set up in our Quad and on it was a ski hill type slope that had two rails on it. One rail was straight and one had a kink in it. Skiers and snowboarders would climb up the back of the set up and then ride down the slope and try to get up on the rail. It was amazing to watch! After they had a "jam session" for warm up, it turned into a competition. There were some pretty impressive skiers and boarders. Also in the Quad, there was an ice bar, an inflatable jousting set, a DJ and free snowshoeing. It was a really fun afternoon! After that, it was time for the hockey game! There was a huge group of us watching the Leafs vs Habs game in the common room and there was certainly some team rivalry going on!

Pre-Rail Jam Hike!

The best bogmate there is!

Poutine eating contest!

Gaby and I at the Rail Jam!

One of the snowboards taking on the kink rail!

And so after all that, today was a day for resting and catching up on homework not done throughout the week. Last night turned into a very late night so I am going to make certain that tonight is an early one as tomorrow morning marks the first of five early morning classes. On a side note, I sent another blog post to the Bishop's blog so be on the lookout for that, though it might not be posted for a while! I think I have covered just about everything, so have a great week everyone! All my love, Erica xoxoxox

PS Congratulations to the Nexxice Junior team who placed second in the Berlin Cup in Germany this weekend! I may have teared up while watching their two beautiful skates! Good luck in Finland ladies!    

Back in the Bubble: Bishop's Part 2

Hello everyone! First of all, I want to wish you all a Happy New Year and a Happy Back to School/Work! I hope that your holiday was both fun and relaxing and made you ready to take on 2013! Fun fact for you - 2013 is the first year since 1987 to be composed of 4 different numbers and we will have 4 different numbers from now until 2020! So here's to the new year and to keeping all of those resolutions that you've probably already forgotten about!

Here's to the New Year! (Wine glass courtesy of Jamie)

As you've probably guessed, I am back in Lennoxville in my cozy little residence room! I got back on Monday night after a long and busy holiday break. With my exam schedule, I lucked out and had over a month of vacation and over that time I was busy as usual. I worked a lot at a store in Ancaster called Benix where I made a lot of new friends and learned a lot about houseware products. I saw a lot of my family, including my grandparents who flew in from Winnipeg and my cousins who drove in from Ottawa. I saw my old skating team compete in two competitions and watched as many of my old teammates qualified for the Junior World Championships held in Finland in March. I saw my friends and coworkers from the summer at our Camp Staff Christmas Party. I celebrated New Year's in Waterloo with my best friend and bogmate, Jocelyn. And I spent a week in Lake Placid with my dad and siblings, where we skied at Whiteface Mountain and skated on the Olympic Speed Skating Oval. And finally, I ended the break the same way I started, with a 6 hour bus ride back to Montreal!

Me working at Benix and Co!

Hannah, myself and Sara on our way to the Camp X-mas Party!

Jocelyn and me on New Year's Eve!

Skiing on Whiteface Mountain, Lake Placid, NY.

My dad and me on the Olympic Speed Skating Oval!

So as I said, I came back to campus on Monday night and I am so happy to be back!  It was great to see all of my new friends and hear all about their holidays! One thing that I am still getting used to is the cold - there is so much snow here! I am definitely going out to buy a long winter parka sometime soon! Last night, we had an Abbott Block 1 and 2 reunion dinner and we got to meet all of the new people in our building. We lost a few international students who went back to their home countries as well as some people who moved to different residences but I am really looking forward to getting to know our new inhabitants! 

Abbott Reunion Dinner!

Yesterday morning marked the official start of semester 2 classes! I attended 5 classes yesterday for a total of 9 hours of class, so it was a very, very long day. I am going to 2 classes today that I am not yet registered for just to try them out and hopefully switch into in order to balance out my schedule. Over the break, my schedule was moved around a lot (not by my doing) and so it has been a bit stressful trying to figure everything out! But hopefully by the end of the week, all will be good again! 

In other news, today I am (hopefully) going to see my house that I will potentially be living in next year! My fellow future housemates have already seen it and they are super excited for me to see it for the first time! Hopefully, it will be a keeper and I can put the house hunting stress behind me!

Looking ahead, this semester is sure to be just as exciting as the last! I am going to be blogging for BU Recruitment again, so be on the lookout for that! I am hoping to get out skiing a few times at Jay Peaks and try out our new outdoor ice rink! In a week or two, we have Winterfest 2013, which includes a ski trip, a poutine eating contest and a sledding obstacle course! In February, my friends and I are planning on going to Carnaval, the big winter carnival in Quebec City. It's going to be a great semester!

So that's all I've got for now but I will keep you updated on everything happening here in Lennoxville as time goes on! On a side note, I just want to thank all of the you who have been reading my blog. Over the holidays, I heard lots of people say that they have been reading this and loving it, so thank you very much!!! Best of luck in the New Year everyone!

All my love, Erica xoxoxoxox

PS The Bishop's Magazine came out over the break and my Environmental Studies class was featured in it! I am the person in the pink sweater to the left with my head down!