End of 2015: Part 1

Hello everyone, Merry (belated) Christmas and Happy Holidays! I hope that you are having a lovely break and enjoying the last few days of 2015. My break has been crazy, which is fitting, as the last four months of my life have been crazy busy as well - why end my year in any other way? So, I will use the next few posts to recap the end of my semester, my break so far and look ahead to the new year.

Part 1: School

So much to my own disappointment, I have not been a very active blogger this semester, which is a shame, because this blog has become my university journal of sorts. I also don’t have my handy dandy agenda at my side right now to help me ensure I cover everything that happened. However, since I haven’t written since Thanksgiving, writing about everything might become the next not-so-great Canadian novel. So, we will stick to the highlights.

October Open House: I had originally planned to go to Queen’s Homecoming this weekend, but when those plans fell through, I stayed and volunteered at the Recruitment Fall Open House instead (coordinated by my stellar roommate Hannah). I was mainly in charge of covering social media throughout the event, but also served as a campus tour guide. While waiting to be assigned my tour group, I saw a familiar face in the crowd – it was my Camp Wenonah Period 5 co-counselor Paige (#ItsASmallWenonahWorld)! I therefore made sure that she and her mom were in my tour group, which made my tour a lot more fun. A unique feature of our open houses is that students who have applied to Bishop’s receive admission updates, and so I would like to extend a huge congratulations to Paige who was accepted to BU at the Open House!

Halloweekend: The following weekend was Halloweekend. On the Thursday, Golden Key ran a Spark a Change fundraiser at the campus Happy Hour, raising money for the local library. We had a photo booth, a candy sale, a pizza sale and a jar filled with candy that people could pay to guess how many candies were inside. Our fundraiser was a huge success, raising almost $300 for our chosen cause. For Happy Hour, my roommates and I dressed up as Bishop’s Girl Scouts, with Jen as our den mother. On the Friday, Jocelyn and I participated in the Trick or Eat campaign, in which we went around the local neighbourhood asking for canned donations for the local food bank.  On the Saturday, the actual day of Halloween, we spent the day making our costumes and went out that night as the royal family, complete with the King and Queen, Will and Kate, Pippa, Diana, and baby Charlotte.

Golden Key New Member Dinner: On Tuesday, November 10^th, we had our New Member Recognition Event for our new Golden Key members. We were fortunate to induct 86 new members to the Golden Key Society this year, with about half of them present at the dinner. We also welcomed two new honourary members, Dr. Dale Wood, the professor who founded the campus microbrewery and Dr. Heather Lawford, the psychology professor in charge of the health and well-being lab and also my favourite psych professor. We changed the venue for the dinner this year, hosting it in McGreer in the Cleghorn Room, a decision that was well-received. At the event, we organized a book drive to kick off our yearlong campaign for Better World Books, a Golden Key partner organization. The event was a huge success, though organizing it made me realize that event planning is much too stressful for me!

Maddy’s Visit to Bishop’s: For those who follow me on Instagram, you may remember a photo of my good friend and now co-worker Madision Bradshaw coming to visit me at Bishop’s. Maddy and I work at Camp Wenonah together, and have known each other since Maddy was born. You can ask any of my housemates about how excited I was for Maddy and her mom Renata to visit – I think I talked about it all week leading up to the visit! I met up with Maddy and Renata after their campus tour and we went to Dewies for lunch together, so I could answer any questions they had. We walked around campus for a bit after lunch and I showed them my office and student house. To my surprise, my mother had sent a care package along with them for me, complete with a bottle of wine, chocolate and my David’s Tea advent calendar! Renata and Maddy have always been like family to me, so it was so great to share my university with them!

Golden Key Potluck: That same weekend, we had the Golden Key potluck at Dean Murray’s house. We had 20 members attend the event, in addition to Michele and her husband, who is also a professor at BU, and their dog, Marley. Dr. Murray had just returned from a trip to China, so she shared stories of her travels with us. It was great to mingle with new and returning Golden Key members, and taste the delicious food that everyone prepared! GK members aren’t just book smart – we can cook/bake, too!

Granny’s Birthday Party: The following weekend, I traveled to Kingston to spend a night with Tyler and then attend my Granny’s birthday party at the Drake Devonshire Inn in Prince Edward County. The Drake Dev is actually where my housemate Elizabeth worked last summer, and it was absolutely breathtaking! It is beautiful country style restaurant and hotel right on the edge of Lake Ontario. Everyone on my dad’s side of the family came to the Inn for the day – my family, my dad’s two brothers, my granny and all of my cousins. We had the Pavilion Room for our party, which was equipped with a ping pong table, board games, a dining room table and seating area by a large fireplace. We all ate brunch together, took family photos on the lakeshore and finished the party with champagne and cake. Just a few short hours later, it was time to get back on the train and return to Lennoxville. Happy Birthday Granny!

End of Classes and Exams: This semester was my busiest and craziest semester so far, and I finally learned the consequences of taking on too much. At the start of my last week of classes, I did not actually think I could get all of my work done, study for my finals, run my club, do my job and sleep. It actually became a bit scary to look at my zombie-self in the mirror. I had a presentation each day, and my art portfolio due at the end of the week. However, as each day went by, I was able to check item by item off the to-do list, hand in my portfolio, study for my exam and squeeze in a bit of time for myself. I had two final exams and one term project completed in the exam period and on December 8^th I was done my last fall semester of my undergraduate degree!

Education Snowball to celebrate the end of term! 

21^st Birthday: On December 3^rd, I turned 21 and started an almost month-long celebration of my birthday. Well, actually, I started celebrating on the 2^nd when my group project group went out to celebrate handing in our last project of the semester. On my birthday, I actually did have to do some schoolwork, but came home at the end of the day to a make your own pizza bar organized by my fantastic roommates. Vicki and Gavin joined the six of us for a really fun dinner, and then Jocelyn, Hannah and Gavin blindfolded me and put me in the back of Hannah’s car. While being very secretive, they drove me to our destination and as soon as I inhaled I knew where we were! We were at Cacao 70, the Sherbrooke location of the chocolate restaurant I went to in Montreal in first year. I had being dying to go and my pleas were answered! And the restaurant did not disappoint! While we were there, Joce and Han gave me a birthday present – a Bluetooth headset for my cell phone to support my addiction of talking on the phone! Another great birthday/Hanukkah gift I received from Vicki was Olaf pyjamas! I loved them so much I wore them home from Vicki’s apartment (good thing it was dark)!

Following my birthday, one by one, my roommates started to leave. The saddest goodbye was to Sarah, who was graduating and thus will not be returning to us in January. 4 of us were left to celebrate Hannah’s birthday on the 10^th, and then I left for Ancaster on the morning of the 11^th. We did our best to clean out the fridge and kitchen before we left, so hopefully we don’t have any rodent renters over the break!

So I will end this post here and part 2 about my trip to Disney World and my holiday break will come soon!

All my love,

Erica xoxoxoxo