Good evening everyone! Erica here, surfacing from beneath my giant pile of never ending school work! The end of the semester is officially insight and I have so much to do in the next two weeks!! Also, if anyone can tell me exactly where this past week went, I will give you a giant prize as I feel like I blinked and we went from last Sunday to today! So much happened and frankly, I am exhausted but as I said to Hannah earlier this week, sleep is for the weak - I must keep ploughing ahead! So now, here is a look back on one of the busiest weeks I have had this year.
Monday was very typical, with my regular classes and a swim at the pool. I made my weekly trip to the grocery store and made bruschetta for dinner, which was delicious, if I do say so myself. After dinner, I buried myself in homework and spent a lot of time rehearsing my lesson for practicum. My friends thought that I was just talking to myself in my room, which I kind of was, but I promise it was for a purpose! It didn't help that I was also running around the house collecting random objects in a bag but I needed everything to be prepared, as my supervisor was coming in to watch me the next day!
Tuesday, I rolled out of bed at 6:30 to undergo my first practicum evaluation. I really need to start going to bed earlier otherwise it won't be my students falling asleep in my class - it will be me! Now I see why all teaches drink coffee! Anyway, I had a meeting with my supervisor when I got school, and we went over the lesson that I would be teaching and she gave me some suggestions. I then did some photocopying and went upstairs to prepare for my lesson. I was teaching my grade 3/4 ELA class. We started with a drama game for which I passed around my bag of random objects and the students picked an object out of the bag. They then had to perform an action using the object as a prop but they could not use the object for its intended purpose. We had a lot of fun playing the game and guessing what everyone was doing and my students got pretty creative. Then for the main lesson, we made the cubes that I posted a picture of last week. They wrote a mini autobiography on the cube template, then cut it out and folded it into a cube. At the end of the class, we played a game where we each took a turn rolling our cube and then shared the information on the side that the cube landed on. Overall, the lesson went really well and my supervisor was really pleased. She gave me such nice feedback, saying that everything seemed to come naturally to me (little did she know of my Monday night rehearsal) and that it looked like the students really enjoyed the lesson, which I was super happy to hear. Good thing she left the room when my students decided to practice their duck noises!
I got back to school and went to class and the gym and then the free student dinner with Jocelyn, all before astronomy. We were learning about stars, which I found really interesting. After class, I went back to my friend Vicki's rez room to watch Glee. Her residents must think that we are crazy because we make so much noise while we are watching and squealing over the male cast members. Oh well, they would understand if they watched with us. Maybe. After Glee, I came home and worked late into the night on various tasks and assignments before crawling into bed.
Wednesday, I had a busy day of classes and then spent the afternoon working on my astronomy poster with Maddy and Vicki. For our astronomy class, we have to make a poster presentation on an assigned topic and ours is the Pleiades Open Star Cluster, which is a star cluster in the Taurus constellation. We have been working on this project forever, and we met on Wednesday to cut everything out and organize our poster board. I stayed with them until about 4:30 but then had to come home and quickly get ready for my Golden Key Induction Dinner. I think I talked about this back in September, but because I finished in the top 15% of my program after first year, I was invited to join the Golden Key Honours Society and we had our official welcome dinner on Wednesday. Before the dinner, I only knew of three other people in the society: my friend Gaby, who had seen on my blog that I was accepted so she told me that she had joined too; my friend Sarah, who guessed that I had qualified and told me that she had too; and my friend Julia, who the GK had forgotten to blind copy on the emails so I had seen that she was in. At the dinner though, I saw some more of my friends (Matt, Kevin, Arianne) and saw in the program that my friend Julie had also become a member. I've got some pretty smart friends, hmm? I also got to bring two guests, so Jocelyn and Hannah came with me. At the dinner, we were seated by department, so along with Jocelyn and Hannah, I was at a table with my friend Sarah, two other girls from elementary education in upper years, and the education dean, Dr. Aitken. It was a really nice night, with great food and great company. I also got to learn about some of the opportunities available for Golden Key members and I am excited to get involved with the society. Also at the dinner, three new honourary (non-student) members were inducted: the first was my professor from last semester Dr. Stonebanks, and the other two were the couple who started the free Tuesday night dinners. With members like these three, it is truly an honour to be a part of the Golden Key and I am happy that I decided to join.
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| The new education Golden Key members! |
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| Julia, Gaby, myself and Sarah at the Golden Key dinner! |
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| Me tagging in Mackinnon residence! |
Thursday morning, I had an appointment at the Sports Medicine centre for my ankle that has been bothering me. It turns out that what I thought was a sprain is actually achilles tendinitis. I spent two hours with an athletic therapist undergoing various tests and ultrasounds and learning how to do some exercises to stretch and strength my left leg so keep your fingers crossed that I heal quickly! I then had class and went to help at the LES Outdoor Club, where we again went for a walk and played Camouflage (which all the students loooveeee). While walking, I talked with one girl in grade 6 and she was telling me about everything from basketball to taking her French exams to asking for boy advice. At the end, she told me that she is really happy that I joined Outdoor Club because she likes to have someone to talk to. This was so nice to hear!! Following that, I went to Hope Church to the first meeting of the BU Knitting Club where I learned how to knit! I can only do one type of stitch so far, but it's a start. We are going to be knitting toques to donate to a local charity. Hopefully, I will be able to squeeze in some time to practice. I then came home, but as soon as I got home, I got a text from my friend Sydney, who is the daughter of one of my mom's university housemates and also a co-worker from the summer, that she was in Lennoxville for a high school basketball tournament. She was at Jerry's Pizzeria so I literally took off running down the road to go see her! I was in shock to see her in Lennoxville but it turns out that BCS, the private school across the river from BU was hosting a tournament and so her team was playing in it. How crazy that they came all the way from Hamilton to Lennoxville for a tournament! After promising to go to her game the next day, I left her with her teammates to enjoy their pizza and came home to watch the Great Gatsby with my housemates.
Friday, I got up to go to the gym by myself, but when I got there, I saw my frosh leader going into a cross fit class and she invited me to come with her. The instructor said that I could try it out, so I accepted the invitation and underwent a very tough workout. I almost couldn't move by the end of it! It was great though, and I think I might sign up to take the class next semester. Following that, I went to the School of Education's Individual Differences Conference, which is where students in their BEd year present their research projects that they have been working on all semester. I learned a lot and ended up winning a door prize! I then went with my friends Jared and Gavin, who know Sydney because we all worked together in the summer, to watch Sydney's basketball game at BSC. Unfortunately, they didn't win, but they only lost by one point!!
Following the game, I did homework until it was time to go to my friend Gaby's birthday party. She had about 20 of her girlfriends over for a classic girls' night, complete with a grilled cheese bar, cupcakes, goodie bags and sparklers. Her best friend from home Maggy was visiting and the two of them had put together a Jeopardy game for us to play, which was super fun! It was a great night - the food was delicious and the company was even better! So Gaby, happy birthday and thank you for a wonderful evening!
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| My housemates and me enjoying our grilled cheese! |
Saturday, I again went to the gym and then to watch another basketball game. This time, they won and Sydney even got some playing time in! After the game, I met up with Vicki to work on our Pleiades poster a bit more and we got some ideas generated for our video project. Then I went back to BCS to watch another basketball game, which again, they won. At the game on Friday, neither team was from Quebec, so there were not a lot of fans, but both games on Saturday were against local teams (BCS and Stanstead College, which is about an hour away) so I was the lone Hillfield fan in the stands. After a very busy day, I came home to do some more work and help get ready for a party we were throwing as a pre-party to the Gait Gatsby party at the Gait. We called ours "The Great J(ulia) Gabs-by" in honour of our friends' Julia and Gaby's birthdays. We had Christmas lights and birthday cake (courtesy of Hannah) and the soundtrack from the movie playing all night. I then headed to the Gait with my friend Jason and later met up with Jocelyn, Vicki and some more friends who all came out for Gatsby night. The Gait was decorated with streamers and balloons, there was a black and white silent film playing in the background and there was a photo booth set up outside the Gait with props to take pictures with. To top it off, the DJ was great too. It was overall a fantastic night.
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| Myself, Gaby, Maggy and Jocelyn glomming it up for Gatsby! |
After a late night movie with Jocelyn, I dragged myself out of bed this morning to go watch Sydney's final game and I am glad I did, as I was able to watch them capture the bronze medal for the tournament. At the game, I was the ONLY fan in the stands for almost the entire game, and was joined only by a group of girls waiting to play in the next game. I deserve a #1 fan award or something. I think I watched more basketball this weekend than in the rest of my life combined. Anyway, it was great to see Sydney and while I wish I could have seen more of her, it was exactly the boost I needed at the end of a very busy and stressful week. Following the game, I went to the library for a bit and then Hannah and I WENT SKATING!!!! Pre-skating, I was almost crying tears of excitement I was so happy to be going skating. While there, I do not think that I stopped smiling once - I was like a kid on Christmas morning. So hopefully, this will become a weekly occurrence and maybe we will pick up some more skating buddies to come with us.
As for the rest of the day, I have been working away and have been fairly productive. I have finished my big poster project, completed my homework for tomorrow and now just have a lesson plan to finish for Tuesday before I can go join in on the mini Christmas party going on in my living room right now. Oh yes, in other exciting news: 1) I called my manager from Benix last year and will now be working at Bowring in Ancaster over Christmas break and 2) My wonderful grandma sent me the David's Tea advent calendar and it arrived in the mail this week, so now I can't wait for December 1st. But I've got a lot to do before then so I must get back to work! Have a wonderful week everyone!
All my love,
Erica xoxoxoxoxoxoxxo
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