Halloweekend 2.0

Happy Halloweekend, Happy Daylight Savings and Happy November everyone! Hasn't today just felt like the longest day of the year? (Sorry, classic Daylight Savings joke, I had to). I do not know about you, but I certainly needed that extra hour, especially over the busiest weekend of the year. This week was probably one of my best yet this year - I had an absolute blast doing everything this week, from teaching to dressing up. There are very few ways in which it could have been any better! So let's quit the small talk and begin the recap! (Lots of pictures this time, I promise).

Monday was a typical day: I went to class, went swimming and then worked on a project with my friend Vicki. However, there was a slight change up in the fact that I did not make dinner, as Jocelyn and I switched nights. I still made my weekly trip to Provigo and ended up spending over $130! However, I did buy two and half night worth of dinners, my own groceries and Halloween candy, so it was money that needed to be spent. Two bonuses came of that grocery trip though - I got 10% for spending over $50 on a Monday and learned that if you spend over $50 on any day, you can take a cab anywhere in Sherbrooke for $2, so Jocelyn and I took a cab home from the grocery store! Waiting for the cab was longer than the actual ride but I honestly don't think we would have made it home with everything we bought. 

Tuesday, I had practicum in the morning. I taught the grade 3/4s again and I taught them about autobiographies. I then had them fill in a worksheet about themselves; I read through them all today and was super impressed with what they wrote about themselves and I learnt a lot about them as well, which will help me with my lesson planning (Example: over 50% of them prefer working in pairs). This week, we will be going over the difference between a physical description and personality traits, so wish me luck! We also had the second pink shirt day which was led by my grade 6 class. They performed a play called Stone Soup for the school at the assembly and then again in front of community members as it was also the school's annual soup day, where they make soup for everyone with the vegetables grown in the school garden. I unfortunately only got to see and smell the soup in the making and did not get to try it. 

After practicum, I went to class for the rest of day and also to the last Empty Bowls meeting of the year. We ended up raising almost $5000 for the three local charities which was pretty impressive for our first year. After a bit of debrief and doing a draw for our raffle prizes, we started planning for next year! Mark your calendars everyone - it will be the weekend after Thanksgiving 2014. I then had astronomy,  during which, we tried to go to the observatory but the observatory team could not get the technology to work so we could not see anything. I came home and did some arts and crafts for my Halloween costume - I constructed a cotton ball beard and a tall red hat to wear the next day for Trick or Eat. Trick or Eat is a national campaign to help replenish food banks during which volunteers go "trick or treating" but instead of collecting candy, we ask for canned goods and non-perishable food items. Jocelyn, Elizabeth, Gaby and I all went, dressed as a tourist (Jocelyn), a cat (Elizabeth), a whoopee cushion (Gaby) and the Travelocity gnome (me - hence the beard and hat). I do not know the exact count but I think we collected quite a bit of food. Funny story though - at one house, Gaby and I knocked on the door and waited for someone to come to answer. We heard a lady in the house banging on the window so we looked and she started shooing us away. When we started to leave, she came to the door and began to lecture us about how we were a day early for trick or treating and that Halloween was tomorrow. Mid-sentence she realized that we were not kids and that we were carrying bags of cans around. Her jaw dropped and we all started laughing as she went to get us some cans. She apologized for thinking that we were clueless kids and we went on our way. While she was the only one to remind us that it was not yet Halloween, several times we were mistaken for kids - who knew beards could make you look younger? 

Thursday, I got up and did some homework and went for a run before class. After class, I ran some errands on campus and then came home to make the funnest Halloween dinner for my housemates! Every year at home, we always have mummies (hot dogs wrapped in Pilsbury croissants) so I made those, as well as a veggie tray in the shape of a Jack-o-lantern, eyeballs (hardboiled eggs with olives and red pepper on top) and worms and dirt (pudding and gummy worms) and my friend Gaby came over for our spooky feast! We also got to hand out Halloween candy to kids who came to our door! Unfortunately, due to being students on a budget, we were the house that only gave one candy per kid but it was a good thing we did or we would have run out! It was an awful night too, with rain and mist so good work to all those kids who toughed it out to collect the candy. We then got dressed up for night one (see picture below) and went to our friend's apartment and the Gait. Jocelyn and I, dressed as Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen got a lot of heat for our costume, but we did not care because we thought we looked great!

Mummies!

Our spooky feast!

MK&A - Passport to Paris 

Happy Halloween! 

I spent some of Friday doing homework and then went to the free church dinner with Vicki. As a special treat, the nice ladies gave me a whole bunch of leftovers to bring home! As I was walking home,  there was a huge wind storm and IT KNOCKED OUT OUR POWER!!! Of course it happened as I was heading home to get into costume #3! Luckily, I had a headlamp (to all those people i.e. my mother and housemates, who laughed at my headlamp back in September, look who's laughing now) which I used to get ready to go to the rugby game. Unfortunately, the Gaiters were not victorious against McGill, but it was still fun to watch and gave us something to do while our power was out. We were hoping it would be back on by the time the game was over, but as we were walking home, we passed the Couche-tard that was still without lights and our hearts sunk </3. So I put the headlamp back on and got to work constructing my costume which was the Twitter bird. Thanks to me, our house and our friends' apartment are now covered in feathers, but what can I say - I was a bird, I moulted. I wore a blue dress, yellow tights, 3 feather boas and an @ sign. I was going to draw a hashtag on my cheek but the lack of light made it a little difficult to see in the mirror. We went to a party where we saw one of the guys who used to live in our house and he said that it was not uncommon for us to lose power but that it should go back on by the end of the night. And sure enough, after ending the night at the the bar Mullie's, which was a lot of fun (better DJ than at the Gait) and we came home to POWER! All in all, a great night. 

Tweet at me! 

Hannah as Gretchen from Recess, and Jocelyn and Elizabeth as Party Animals!

Saturday morning I got up to do more arts and crafts and then Jocelyn, Hannah and I went to the football game. The Gaiters made the RSEQ semi-finals this year and hosted a home playoff game for the first time in my lifetime! (The last one was in November 1994). Since it was my first football game of the year, I pulled out everything purple that I own and we trekked down to Coulter field to support the team as they took on Universite de Montreal. It was so cold at the the game; I had to go into the Sports Plex a few times to warm up. Unfortunately, the Gaiters lost 51-8, but they still deserve a lot of congratulations for just making it to the semi-finals! Hopefully, there will be more RSEQ final games to come next season. 

Go Gaiters Go!

After a long sleep-in, Elizabeth joined us for the last quarter!

I then came home to finish making my costume, have dinner and get ready to go out. All 5 of us made homemade tutus because we dressed up as the hit TLC show Toddlers and Tiaras! I got to fulfill my (and my sister's) lifelong dream of being a pageant princess! I was on cloud nine the entire night! Our house is now covered in tulle but slaving over those tutus was well worth it! We all looked fabulous! I honestly think that I was born to be in beauty pageants - I have the walk and the poses perfected to a tee (that, or I need to spend less time watching the show and taking notes). Also, I am convinced that half the fun of going out is getting ready to go (except when the power is out), as I had so much fun doing my own hair and make-up, modelling different outfit combos and doing my friends' hair! We then also had a housemate photo shoot and took so many cute pictures. If you look at my Halloween photos, you probably won't believe that I talked to people other than my housemates, however I promise that I did, it just was not documented. 

My life is now complete - if only I could dress like this more often!

So much sass!  

We tried to recruit our friends to be a crazy mom in the audience - no one took us up on the offer!

We pageant-walked over to the boys' apartment (hands pressed, hand up, perm-smile) and spent a good chunk of the night there. Kevin and Mike both had friends from home visiting, and most had been here before so it was fun to see all of them again. There was a huge party in the backyard of Animal House (a student house) which we visited for a bit, but there were so many people there it was impossible to not get squished! We went back to the apartment for a bit before walking over to the Gait BUT for the first time ever, the Gait was over capacity! They could not let anyone else in! I got in twice somehow (my small stature enables me to be very sneaky), but my friends never did, so I kept leaving and getting back in line, hoping that we would all make it in.  Unfortunately, we all never did, which was not the best way to end the weekend, but it was probably best for my pageant wear that it not get squished in the crowd of people. We stopped at the apartment for a third time that night but didn't stay too long as all the boys' guests were passed out in various places around the apartment. We came home, had a snack, turned our clocks back and went to bed. 

The soother pout - a definite must for any toddler in a tiara!

HOWEVER, GET READY FOR THE BEST PART OF MY SATURDAY NIGHT!! At the boys' apartment, I decided to be social and introduce myself to some of the people I did not know. I introduced myself to a guy sitting on the couch, but after I said "Hi, I'm Erica" he said "I already know that." I instantly felt horrible, thinking that I had met him and forgot about it BUT NO! Guess how he knew me? From reading my blog!!! He is in first year, and last year, he read my blogs that I wrote for the school which linked him to this one and has been reading them ever since! So this is a shout out to you Amir, for being an awesome person! He was so sweet, saying that he loves reading it and was inspired to get involved at school after reading it, and I was tearing up because I was so flattered. I am so glad that I got meet him and who knows, maybe I have more unknown readers that are helping me become a minor internet celebrity. Watch out Perez Hilton! 

Today has been a bit of a recovery day, in terms of sleeping, eating, cleaning and catching up on neglected school work. I am not exempt from this and must now return to my stack of projects waiting for me upstairs. However, despite the long nights ahead of me, I had a fabulous Halloweekend so thank you to all of the people who made it so. I honestly do not know how I am going to top my costumes from this year, so I will have to start brainstorming soon! Send any ideas my way! 

Sending all my love to wherever you are! Erica xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo