Grad school!

Happy news everyone! On Saturday night at 10:30pm (while I was slightly drunk) I received an acceptance email to the University of Ottawa. That's right baby, I'm going to grad school in September! I've been accepted to the MA: Globalization and International Development program. I honestly don't know that much about the program - the U of Ottawa website sucks, but I'm excited nonetheless. It's such a relief to know what I'll be doing after the summer. I hated being stuck in limbo.

To be honest, I'm rather numb to the idea of actually being in grad school - I think I'm more excited by the idea of living in Ottawa again instead. I love that city. I'm also happy because this is one step closer to my goal of getting an international job that makes a difference in the world.

While I would have preferred to go to Carleton U for grad school, I'm quite happy taking Ottawa's offer. It's rather strange for me right now about this whole Ottawa vs. Carleton thing. I can't think of a time when I wanted to get accepted to something and not gotten it. Usually when I apply to something it's just a matter of me working up courage to go for it... This time, I actually wanted into Carleton U, and despite my best efforts, I've been waitlisted until June. Even when I was applying to my undergrad schools I never had a problem with acceptance. I think Western U was the only place to waitlist me. I'm not really upset by not being accepted. I just don't know how to react. Should I be resigned? Sad? It's not like I can blame them. I'm not used to actually having to work hard to get something. This makes me wonder how I'll fare when working with other grad students... Time will tell.

Exam drunkenness

Egads. The 21st was a day of total fun. Even though I had finished my exams the day before, I trekked back to school the next day so I could work on my Hong Kong essay. I started off the day in the library, but then Victoria came to collect me and dragged me to work outside.

It was such a gorgeous day!!! We nabbed a picnic table outside the SLC and set up shop. It was hard to concentrate for me, both because of the good weather and because the sunshine made it hard to see my laptop's screen, but it was totally worth it. We were outside for so long that I got majorly sunburned - I didn't even realize it was so hot/sunny outside! Luckily the burn has faded now... But I was seriously scorched.

The plan for the evening was for Victoria to write her last exam then come over to my place so we could go out to Fubar for the evening. I ended up going home, finishing packing, and making dinner. Victoria also decided to crash at my apartment so that we could taxi it over to the bar instead of making her stay sober and driving. Needless to say, we got in a lot of pre-drinking before going out.

We met up with Sher outside of Fubar and managed to skip the line thanks to one of Victoria's connections. We had such a blast! I was already tipsy before even arriving at the bar, and within the hour I had had two more shots and another drink! There was much dancing and all around goodness.

Sher and I went to the bar again later in the evening. I had been intending to get some water but she ended up buying me more alcohol. While standing around, I saw a guy that looked kinda familiar, but I wasn't sure if it was who I thought it was. The next thing I know, I'm being tackled by Melanie and her school friend Grant! Of all the places to run into my sister! This is the first time I've ever seen her at a club or anything, so I was a bit weirded out, but it was all good. She was even drunker than I was. (Check out her porn dance shot!)

After last call Sher, Victoria, and I ended up going to Mel's Diner for some post-drinking food. After some much needed food, we went out separate ways. I think it was about 4am by the time Victoria and I went to sleep - normally I wouldn't have cared, but my parents were coming the next day to pick me up and help me move... Yikes.

All in all, it was a fantastic night! (Pics can be found here.)

Giving up pretense

I had every intention of coming to campus to work on my history paper today, but here I am, sitting outside the SLC basking in the sun with my laptop. I did some work (namely grammar) but my creativity is being sapped by the sunny rays and the fact that natural sunlight makes it hard to look at my laptop screen. Anyways...

I'm done my exams! Yay! I kept telling everyone that my last exam (Humanities) was going to be my easiest, but it turned out that it was the exact opposite. My history exam went really well - I think I did well... But I know the prof is a really hard marker in that class, so I don't know how my final mark will turn out. (e.g. I thought I rocked the midterm but only got 75% on the thing!) As for my political science exam... I walked into the room, made the exam into my bitch, and spat on it on my way out of the room. I've never written an exam essay and known my stuff so well. It helped that the prof had given us the exam questions ahead of time, so we knew what to study.

My final exam was ridiculous. Our prof told us that three quarters of the questions on the exam would come directly from our online quizzes, so we knew to memorize the questions and answers to the quizzes. The rest of the questions would come from the chapters that we hadn't covered in class. Oh my god. I sat down at my table, and within 15 minutes I had answered 111 of the 160 multiple choice questions on the exam. I could not believe how fast I went through them! LOL. Then when I went to do question 112, it was like I ran into a brick wall - that was the start of the new information, so I actually had to stop and think about my answers. I finished answer the entire exam in 30 minutes... But the pain in the ass thing was that the university won't allow students to leave the exam room until at least an hour has passed. So I had to spend the next 30 sitting at my desk being bored. (Yes I did check over my answers, but it didn't take long at all.) Oi!

I've also been busy saying goodbye to my various friends who are graduating. It's strange - I don't feel like it's really a goodbye - I've known them for so long that it feels surreal that I might never see them again. This reminds me of when I was leaving Hong Kong - I had a hard time grasping that I would never see some of those people again either. Anyways, Tao and I went out for dinner on Wednesday as a goodbye, and Stacy and I did the same last night.

Speaking of last night, Agnes and I decided to go see "Hot Fuzz" at the movie theatre. That movie is so frickin' hilarious. It's a British film and is totally over the top. The funny thing about the whole movie-going experience happened while Agnes and I were in line to buy tickets. I was trying to tell her about an actor in a movie and when she recognized the name, I thought her answer was sarcastic. I told her, "Oh, I thought you were being facetious!" Suddenly this guy in line in front of us chuckled, turned to me, and said, "Excellent use of vocabulary!" It was so unexpected and random that I didn't know what to make of it. LOL.

I think I'm getting a little sunburnt now. I should get going - my laptop is melting in the sun, and I still have to finish packing so I can move home tomorrow.

Fare well!

Let them eat cake!

I don't know WHAT possessed me to do this. I've only been home for Easter Weekend for about 4 hours. We had just finished eating dinner and then we broke out some maple sponge cake for dessert. My sister, mom, and I were sitting around eating and chatting... I went still.

Suddenly I took the cake that was in my hand, launched myself at my mom and smashed my cake into the side of her face. LOL LOL LOL. I of course immediately ran like hell afterwards, but as I was making my getaway, I realized my mom was grabbing the rest of the cake (3/4 of it was still left). I panicked, thinking she was going to retaliate, and grabbed at it too. I managed to snatch the cake away, but as I was running out of the dining room, it slipped off the plate and fell all over the carpet. LOL

I was laughing so hard that I was crying and couldn't talk. I'm in pain still from laughing so much.

The Bomber That Wasn't

So Wednesday was Bomber's last pub night. To make the evening more fun, the pub decided it would be a no-clothes event... Patrons were encouraged to make innovative costumes. I had managed to talk Victoria into wearing togas, but due to the sudden change in weather which brought snow and ice I wimped out.

Victoria picked me up but before we could go to her house to get ready, we had to stop off at a church so she could go to confession. I had already gotten dressed to go to the bar - so there I am standing in a church in my low-cut top and bitch heels. LOL, luckily I had my long jacket on so I could feel a bit more presentable in the house of the lord. :)

Anyways, we got ready for the bar, picked up Sher, and ran to the SLC. We got there just a bit after 9pm, but the lineup was insanely long! We waited in line and had a blast for an hour and a half just goofing around. (Check out the pictures!) Only about 10% of the people were dressed up - this group was one of the more innovative ones. We kept trying to trick people into leaving the line by loudly exclaiming, "What?! It's a 2 hour wait?!" (Actually, some girls near us nearly did believe us, except they had heard us planning this ploy outloud and laughed at us instead.)

Around 11pm we finally got tired of waiting and decided to leave and grab a bite and some drinks elsewhere. We tried going to the Flying Dog, but it was closed. So we ended up going to Symposium. Sher and I paid for Victoria since she was being our chauffeur. We had such a great time just goofing around and striking stupid poses.

One more term to go!

So yesterday was the official end of classes at UW. All my friends are so excited because they're either graduating or have the summer off to party. They keep asking me what my plans are and I gently have to remind them that alas, I'm stuck in Waterloo for yet another term. Doh!

I wasn't very enamored with my classes this term.

• My Humanities class was absolutely useless, and I told them so on the course evaluation. It's a 3rd year class, but it's stupid easy and the only reason ANYONE takes it is because it's mandatory!
  
• Introduction to International Development has been mediocre. I think I learned a lot more stuff in my Intro to International Studies class last semester that was more useful than in this one. The prof only scratches the bare surface of our topics. I guess I just don't like the feeling that I still don't know a think about international development.
  
• I did enjoy my American history class. It wasn't so much the topic that pleased so much as the prof. (No there is no innuendo there so stop snickering.) My prof was fabulous - you knew exactly what you were supposed to get out of each class and his viewpoints and presentation methods were totally effective. I would totally take more of his classes just because he was terrific.
  
• Last but not least was my Canadian history seminar. I've enjoyed that class a great deal because our prof tells us a lot of random stuff about academic life that we've never heard of before. He's also taught us how to write a damned good paper. The only infuriating thing about the class has been trying to schedule meetings with him. He never has time for his students! The one time I did get an appointment with him, he ended up missing it. I finally did get to see him, but it was only because one of the people he was supposed to meet had to cancel.
  

So now I have exams on the 16th, 17th, and 20th, and my Canadian history paper is due on April 28th. I shall worry about that stuff tomorrow though because tonight I'm going to the Bomber for the last Bomber night of the term! (Crazy! Some of the people I'll be seeing tonight will never go to Bomber again after this...)

Party hardy for a sibling

So last week was my middle sister's birthday. We had made plans to get together for dinner on Thursday, but after a mis-communication (or should I say lack of communication - something went funky between our cell phones and we couldn't get through to each other) we ended up postponing the dinner to Friday. I'm happy to report though that dinner was great - lots of fun.

Since several of Mel's friends also had parties around the same time, they decided to have a party at her place and then go out for a pub crawl. Apparently there's a clause in our sisterly contract that demands that the little sister be present for such events. I had only met two of the people before, so it was a bit awkward.

I ended up going to Mel's on Saturday evening and was there for the party. It's a bit odd seeing my sister get all liquored up with her friends. I don't really drink with her that often, and when I do it's usually with the rest of our family. So when I watch my sister get drunk and start directing porn pictures with her friends, you can understand how I could be weirded out.

Around 11 we ended up going out to the Heuther pub in Waterloo. It was a lot of fun - we all ordered food and alcohol. The best part of the evening though was that they messed up our bill and totally undercharged us. Rock on! For a group of 18 people, our bill only came to $115. I totally dug that.