Hope everyone had a great first week back to school. A crazy thought that occurred to me over this past week is that this was (ideally) my last first day back to school as a student! This time next year hopefully I'll be the teacher welcoming my students to a new school year - an incredible thought to ponder.
Another thought that occurred to me is that my blog seriously needs an updated. It looked great for a blog in 2012 but 4 years later, it is looking a bit outdated. So a side project in my non-existent spare time will be to update. Maybe I'll set a tentative goal for January 2017. However, I will need to revamp it completely when I become a teacher, so we will see where this side project takes me.
As you can tell by my lack of posting, the past 5 or so months of my life have been crazy! Phenomenal but crazy. So to bring you (my loyal readers) and myself up to speed, this post will take a slightly different format than usual. I will share a photo or two from all the different occurrences and then write a little blurb (read: overly long, detailed accounts) of what happened and hopefully give you some insight to everything I have been up to.
March-April
Practicum: 6 weeks teaching at Ayer's Cliff Elementary School
Starting after Reading Week, I began a 6 week teaching placement in a Grade 4 class at Ayer's Cliff Elementary School. My associate teacher was fantastic, a great teacher and professional mentor. My class had 15 students, 12 boys and 3 girls. Throughout the 6 weeks, I took on 40% of the teaching load, including daily lessons, long term projects, implementing a unit plan and assessing and evaluating the students. I did two complete unit plans, one on narrative story writing and one on long division (tough stuff). My housemates never want to hear the long division songs I found on YouTube ever again! I taught art, dance, language arts and math. I went on their weekly field trips to the town library and I went with them to Stanstead College for a golf clinic field trip. I taught them 2 dances which they performed at their Spring Fling carnival. I brought in a guest speaker (see below) which my students loved! It was a busy, stressful, incredibly rewarding learning experience and I am grateful to my students, my associatee teacher and the entire ACES community for welcoming me with open arms into their school.
Weekend Trip with Dad: Montreal, Jay Peak and Special Guest Presentation
My dad came to visit me the first weekend after Reading Week. We spent a day in Montreal and went to a spa in Old Montreal, saw a Habs game and ate some great fondue. We spent the second day on the slopes of Jay Peak for a great day skiing. Finally, my dad came with me to school to do a guest presentation about dentistry to my Grade 4 class. They loved it! Here's to the first of many dentist lists to come!
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| A select photo from his presentation. |
Happy Birthday Gavin! - Blue Jays Game in Montreal
Back in December, I got Gavin tickets to the Blue Jays exhibition game against the Red Sox in Montreal. Unfortunately, the Blue Jays did not win, but it was a great day in the city nonetheless!
Completion of University Degree and Good-bye to William-Paige
On April 22nd, I gave the last presentation of my B.A. on the unit plan I carried out in my classroom. April 23rd was a very sad day, as I packed up my life at 27 William-Paige and officially moved out of my Lennoxville-home from the past 3 years. Elizabeth's dad had shirts made for us so we can always have a little piece of 27WP with us wherever we go.
May-June
Camp Wenonah Outdoor Education Centre
On April 28th, after 3 short days at home, I packed up my life again and moved up to Camp for 4 months. During May and June, I was the Outdoor Centre Assistant Director, along with my co-assistant director, straight from Ireland, Brian, who I became great friends with over the course of the spring. We had a bigger spring staff team than last year, with 2 people brand new to Wenonah. Tito was back as the director and it was as per usual fantastic working with him and the other staff. Gavin was there as well as the Property Director, and many of my other close friends were there, too but there are too many to list here! We had a great two months and had a lot of fun with the different schools and groups that came to the Outdoor Centre. Some personal highlights for me included: 1) One of my longest camp friends Hannah coming up for the first week before heading out to Lake Louise, 2) Attending my first staff alumni weekend over the long weekend, 3) my former middle school coming up for a stretch in June, and 4) the unforgettable performances of Natasha Natashovich, rhythmic gymnastics national champion, reminding us to keep our food waste down!
Meeting the Giant Pandas
Day trip to the Toronto Zoo to finally meet the twin giant panda cubs!
Justin Bieber Purpose Tour in Toronto with Lauren
B.A. Convocation
A very special weekend in June that started with the Chancellor's Dinner on the Friday night, my convocation Saturday morning, a great dinner with mine and Gavin's parents on Saturday night and a fun night celebrating with my many friends made over my 4 years at Bishop's!
July-August
Camp Wenonah
This summer at camp was very special because it was Camp Wenonah's 20th anniversary. All throughout the year, there are events taking place to celebrate 20 years, everything from a gala night to runs around Clear Lake to contests for campers and alumni. As well, the owner of Wenonah, Jeff, recently purchased the campground beside the Wenonah property, so Camp will undergo a huge expansion in the next few years! I worked as the Program Director this summer so was in charge of signing campers up for their daily activities, training and organizing staff, ordering supplies, planning the optional activities every day and the occasional theme dinner. By far the best part of my job was overseeing the Program Area Heads, which are the staff in charge of watching over the specific program areas in camp. There were 7 Program Area Heads and they were an absolute pleasure to work with! We had so much fun during sign ups, planning our various skits and songs and planning our wacky, but fun theme dinners. Our highlight of the summer was our fantastic Medieval Times themed dinner with a finger jousting competition for dining entertainment.
My sister was the Office Staff this summer, so it was great to be at camp with her again. Gavin was the property director too and many of my really good friends were still at camp in various roles, such as Sage and Maddy as the Girls Section Directors, Ben and Cam as the Boys Section Directors, Jacqueline as the Tripping Director, Ally and John as the WCIT directors and Jared and Steph as the Assistant Directors. My partner in crime Brian was travelling across Canada for the summer but came back for the last week of August.
Some other highlights from the summer included:
-Getting to play Rocket Racoon in the August Theme Day
-Playing a cow for the hit Girls Section Game, Soak the Cow
-Seeing the 4 Wenonah Live concerts
-Watching my wonderful POLARIS from last year thriving in the WCIT program
-Planning and executing a complete Backwards Day, called Yadnom (Do I hear pizza for breakfast?)
-Winning the Mickle Island Canoe Race in August with my all star boat, Ethan and Paige and being only the second female staff to ever do so
Trips to Toronto
Day off trip to the Ripley's Aquarium and Sweet Jesus Ice Cream!
Celebrating Mom's 50th Birthday at the CN Tower 360' restaurant (and Sweet Jesus for dessert)!
September (So Far)
So after an incredible 17 weeks at Camp, I was home for 3 days, then packed up and came back to school. I moved into my new place on Speid Street, so a bit of a longer walk to campus but a really nice place to live. I live with 2 graduated students, one from BU and one from UdeS and one international student currently at Bishop's. I have 6 classes this semester, so I will be very busy with schoolwork, but I am looking forward to them all. My classes are: Individual Differences (looking at students with exceptionalities), Education Law and Policy, Experiential and Interdisciplinary Learning (we go on field trips), Methods for Social Studies and Inquiry, Methods for Scientific Inquiry and Readings to Promote Critical Thinking. Just 36 credits stand in the way of be becoming a full fledged teacher! It is weird not walking home to 27 WP anymore, but I am fortunate to have many of my good friends still in town, such as Vicki, Sara, Jocelyn and Sarah. It is also strange not having my favourite redhead around but I'll see him at Thanksgiving. Gavin actually drove me out to school and stayed for the weekend (see below) and we had a lot of fun before he had to leave to go back to camp. School is off to a great start and I am looking forward to completing my Bachelor of Education!
Quebec City
Over Labour Day weekend, Gavin and I went to Quebec City. We stayed at a cute AirBnB in Lac Delage, about 20 minutes outside of Old Quebec, and it was a beautiful area and place to stay. We went for a walk one morning around the lake and the landscape with the water and mountains in the background was just breathtaking. We then went to les Chutes Montmorency (waterfalls), a waterfall that is 30m higher than Niagara Falls. We walked all the way down to the bottom of the falls (and then had to trudge back up the hundreds of stairs). We had a picnic in front of Chateau Frontenac and spent the afternoon in Old Quebec. There were buskers everywhere and it was also Pride Weekend, so we watched a drag show while we ate gelato. On Sunday, we went to Parc Jacques-Cartier, the national park outside of Quebec City and hiked around. It was a beautiful place too. Then it was back home to Lennoxville for me and back to Port Hope for Gavin.
North Hatley Beach
Trip to the beach on Labour Day! So long summer vacation!
Climbed Mont Pinacle with Vicki for the first time on Friday! Another great landscape view and the perfect spot for a picnic!
Fête des Vendanges
To celebrate Vicki's 22nd birthday, we went to a wine festival in Magog! It was so much fun! We tried wine, ice wine, ciders, cheese, meat, foie gros, chocolate, nougat...the list goes on! A great way to celebrate one of my best friend's birthdays!
That's a wrap! I hope you enjoyed this little trip through my life over the past few months and stay tuned for everything I will get up to this semester! I'm off to the gym and then class all afternoon and evening, wish me luck! Wishing you all a wonderful week! And if anyone sees or hears anything from my little sister, she is refusing to respond to my texts so I'd love an update on her life!
All my love,
Erica xoxoxoxo
P.S. No time to edit this for spelling and grammar now. Will return to it at another time! Just enjoy for now!
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