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!