Winter is upon us...

Somehow summer dissapeared when I wasn't looking. Mittens and scarves are being pulled from their boxes, and people are no longer lounging on the grass after class. After last weekend's thanksgiving things have suddenly started to become festive, and punpkin pie is now a permanent fixture in the cafeteria. The snow line is hovering on the mountains just above us, and driving all the skiiers into a frenzy. I expect that soon thier prayers will be answered and campus will be transformed into the winter wonderland everyone is hoping for.



Meanwhile I am enjoying the falling leaves and the mud puddles. Chemistry is slowly intensifying and our last exam was fairly brutal. One more test, one more assignment, and one more presentation to go. 3 more days of class. I think that our teacher Penny will be just as relieved as we all will to be done. This is her first block teaching and she was shocked at how intense it became. Lots of learning in little time.

The autumn leaves outside are brilliant, coloring the sidewalks red and orange. hooray for changing seasons!

Thanksgiving? In October?!

Who ever heard of thanksgiving in October? November definitly deserves to have a holiday. I mean, October already has Haloween. Does any month really need two holidays?

In any case, people think that Thanksgiving is in October here in Canada, and I suppose that if it means I get to celebrate the holiday twice than I really shouldn't complain. This fake thanksgiving is this weekend, and we have Monday off. I am excited to be going to Kamloops with my friend Michaela to eat dinner with her family, I miss cooking dinners with my mom, and hopefully this will be a good substitute. I have also never been anywhere in BC other than Vancouver, Tofino, and Squamish, so traveling will be good for me.

Class is going well, I passed our first test. No complaints. More later on that....

Fall?

A new block, a new class, and FINALLY some rain. I was starting to miss wearing my rubber boots and I was happy last night when it began to pour. So much sunshine is unnatural.

Block break was beautiful and relaxing, an included lots of laying on balconies listening to ridiculous pop music from the late 90's. On friday the school ran a shuttle to Vancouver, so we had a girls day out in the city-- complete with shopping, magic shows, long drawn out chai lattes, and a disposable camera. Unfortunatly I got car sick on the ride back and spent the rest of the day in bed, but it was a fantastic day regardless.

The Adventure Club hiked up to Elfin Lakes in Garbaldi Provincial Park over the weekend (its right above campus), and I joined on Saturday for the last night of camping. Me and my lovely roomie Rosalind hiked up late in the afternoon and reached the top just in time to watch the sun set over squamish. The rest of the night was good, but was made slightly less enjoyable because I had forgotten that the change in altitude would cause the temperature to drop considerably. The sweltering heat of Squamish was replaced by frost, and I was left in shorts and a tee shirt.
The blueberries were unbelievable-- more blueberries than I have ever seen in my life. The whole mountain was DRIPPING with beautiful blue blueberries. Needless to say blueberry pie was abundant in residence on Sunday night.

Yesterday I began Energy & Matter, and my brain is now creaking slowly back into chemistry mode-- a place it has not been since sophomore year of high school. Atomical structure... ahhh.
The new Chem teacher is precious, and has the most endearing New Zealand accent.

On the other side of my life, floor repping is going pretty well. I have been trying to find a balance between coddling and neglecting my people on floor 2. They all seem to be adjusting well, and we have a mexican fiesta planned for this weekend.

adios...

Back to the Books..

So I'm back here at the reception desk, exactly where I was five months ago when I last updated this blog. Looking at the same computer screen, the same post-it notes, sitting in the same chair, it almost seems like I never left... almost. The one-hundred new faces that have been meandering past the desk here are a sure sign that a new school year has begun.



We have just started week three of the first block, and everyone is starting to settle back into a rhythm of school and play. There was an enormous boom of excitement and energy and parties and hugs and screams that began on move in day and lasted through the first few weeks, but that is tapering off. Well, the screams and hugs and parties are (maybe?) but hopefully the wonderful energy lasts through the whole year. New clubs are being formed, old clubs are being expanded and returning students are getting used to sharing their space.

My first class--neuroscience-- scared the daylights out of me all summer. I was terrified to get back to school and get totally slammed with the hardest class ever. I was pleasantly surprised however. It is definitely hard, but its also AWESOME. The brain is sooo crazy. Everyone in my class is so into it we are like a little neuroscience cult that is always turning every situation into something to do with neuroscience. It helps that the new psych teacher Megan is teaching it and she is one of the most excited, personable, charismatic, stylishly spiky-haired teachers ever. Everyone in my class has a secret crush on her... I guess now that I put it on the Internet it wont be so secret...oops.

In any case, things are going well. The sun has been shining (usually) and campus is alive again. It feels good to be back.

Crazy Days

The crazy days of the last two weeks have begun. Registration, housing applications, final projects, travel arrangements, and the end of year Music Festival are all beginning to take shape... Everyone is stressed and excited and the general mood on campus is very happy.

Whenever I have writer's block I like to revert to lists.

Things I am excited about RIGHT NOW:

1) Being a floor rep next year. The residence council team is going to be sweet, and I can't wait to get to know the new students and begin a new year.

2) The Dancing Bear Music Festival! A bunch of people have worked really hard to get so many great bands up on campus.... The Paperboys, the Fugitives... and I am hoping to run a tye-dye table. I think tye-dye is my calling.

3)Planning my Olympic Break next year ( we can't stay on campus during the Olympics, so its a great excuse to travel). I think I am going to look at living in some eco-village in the southwestern states, I need a cheap, warm, fun, winter excursion.

4) Springtime in Squamish.... is gorgeous.

5) Getting back home to Juneau and getting my cavities filled. I can feel them in my teeth and its terrible.

6) My final project in History of Math. I am reading the Edwin Abbott novella "Flatland" and trying to make a skit or a puppet show that would be rel event to show to my class. I'm a little stuck at the moment, but I've still got time.

MATH!

I arrived back at school from Tofino last Sunday dirty, tired, happy, and very very smelly. The trip went great and we all got sunburned, which was unexpected because its only ever been rainy when we have been in Tofino before. The meal plan I created was a success- we ate a lot of beans. Beans for breakfast, chili for lunch, burritos for dinner. Needless to say the tents and the cars were very smelly for pretty much the entire trip-- all that gas has to come out sometime.

We all made it back happily in one piece, and fell into bed (after a shower) to rest up for the first day of our last block. For me it was History of Math, with the legendary Glen Van Brummelen. I have been in class for a week now, and can honestly say it has blown me off me feet. I have never been more excited about math. We have been doing Egyptian arithmetic, Babylonian geometry, and learning about the hometown of Pythagoras in Samos, Greece. There have been so many Ah Ha! moments for me so far in this block, I feel like I am getting smarter everyday.

I have also fallen completely in love with Glen Van Brummelen, and would love to listen to his lectures forever. He is the cutest grown-up nerd ever. I feel like my life would be complete if I was as passionate about anything as he is about math. He LOVES math. It melts my heart. On our first day of class we had " math therapy" where we all talked about our relationship with math, and all the math traumas that we had gone through in the past years. Glen was very sympathetic and nodded and smiled and I think everyone felt a little happier about math after that.

Today we are on a field trip to Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. We are here to check books out of the library for our final projects, but I have found that my attention span for that lasted only just till lunch time, and since then I have been looking around the campus. Simon Fraser is HUGE, its like its own city. It has movie stores and hairdresser, Greek food and bubble tea. I am finding it quite unnerving to be honest, there are so many people, like 10,000! It gives me a whole new appreciation for the familiarity of Quest. I like knowing everyone I bump into, and the fact that everyone talks to each other and eats dinner together. It's so cliche, but we are such a big family at Quest. Perhaps I should stop... I'm getting sentimental.

Adventure once again...

The Adventure Club Lives! And as we have all been scrambling to finish our final homework assignments, the last surf trip of the year has also been slowly coming together. The weather looks good in Tofino this weekend, and the waves are calling to all our resident adventure junkies. I have been preparing the meal plan, writing up grocery lists, and budgeting our limited funds all afternoon. Grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup on the beach? sounds pretty nice to me.

Sometimes I wish I was a little more cold tolerant, and could actually enjoy bobbing around in the freezing cold waters of Vancouver Island. But I have tried, and failed, to be a passionate surfer. I am instead a passionate chef. I'm okay with that. After all, everyone has to eat.

In addition to planning the Adventure Club trip, I have been mulling over, at great length, my housing plans for next year. Should I run for floor rep? Should I apply to move into the new condos across campus? I would really like to start a dinner co-op next year, and have been talking about it with a few other students. It would save everyone money, and allow us to cook together as a group. On the meal plan, though the cafeteria is really good, I waste a huge amount of money cooking for myself, while still having to spend my whole budget at the Caf.

I have been dreaming of summer....

Things to look forward to:

1. Gardening. My own big huge vegetable garden with carrots and broccoli...and much more.

2. Solitude. I am living in the middle of nowhere. No city, no car, no Internet, no cell phone service... It will be my own Walden.

3.Home. I miss Alaska.

4. Bonfires on the beach catching fish, skipping rocks, and playing in tide pools.

Homesick? Naw.