Officially withdrawn

I called the Grad Studies office at Carleton today. It's official - I'm no longer a Carleton U student. Umm, yay?

I have to admit, now that I'm over the shock of deciding to withdraw from grad school, part of me regrets it. I think it's like the trauma of childbirth. At the time it hurts and scares you so much that you never want to have a child again, but then time fades the memories and you're willing to go through it again.

At the time of my original decision to withdraw, I was so stressed out and then so relieved when I "escaped" from grad studies, but now I miss going to classes, reading articles, and so on. I remember being miserable and struggling, but it's like there's a fog between myself and the misery I experienced.

On a more positive note, I have another interview on Monday! Yay me!

Perils of being a grad student

Last night I helped my friend Meg find our professor's office so she could drop off a paper. We couldn't find the professor's drop box, so she decided to slide the paper under the prof's office door. Her paper was 25 pages long and was in a file folder.

It wouldn't slide under the door.

We started laughing hysterically. "Holy shit! It's too thick! It won't fit under the door!!!" She managed to slide it under finally, but she had to remove the file folder and even then it was a tight squeeze.

It's crazy when your final papers are so big they won't even slide under a door anymore.

Apologies

I owe an apology to the masses. For years, I've been hearing stories of "the web/application ate my homework!" I've always assumed it was sheer incompetence on their part.

I hereby formally apologize, because I finally understand that even the technically savvy (aka: me) can suffer glitches.

I had to submit my final paper over the internet to my professor. We have to use this online software, WebCT, to do so. So I submitted my paper on Wednesday and chilled out for the rest of the night, basking in the glory that is having nothing to do.

The next day one of my classmates mentioned that the prof had already started submitting grades online. I spent all of Thursday morning/afternoon stalking WebCT, hoping for a mark. Finally I thought, "Maybe my mark is appearing on a different page..." I navigated through the site and found myself on the "Assignment Submission" page. That's when I noticed that beside the submission link, it read, "Status: Individual Not Started (Due December 5, 2007 15:00 Late)". Wait! What the hell?!

I immediately emailed my prof to ask whether he received my paper... I pounced on my computer everytime I heard the "Ding, you've got new mail" sound. Finally I got a reply and discovered that no, my prof hadn't received my assignment. Talk about a freakout. Luckily he accepted my assignment as on time anyways.

Therefore, I would like to apologize to everyone I've ever doubted before.

Last week of classes

Today was my last Human Security class. Even though I had a hard time keeping up with the workload and contributing to the class discussions, I'm really happy that I took the course. It was was very enlightening, both about Human Security and the International community in general.

Our prof did his best to instill a sense of responsibility and humility in us, warning us that we need to be careful, because our decisions don't affect us - someone in some developing country pays for our errors. I feel like that was the most important thing I've learned all term. Heck, that's probably the most important thing I've learned since I've started school in general. It's easy to think about what *I* want to do, or how *I'll* decide to do things... But I've never truly considered the potential ramifications of my decisions beyond, "Oh, I might get in shit and get fired."

There was some amusement in our final class though. There were three final student presentations. When our prof was making the presentation topics, he randomly chose issues he knew about, and other ones he didn't know about. Well, today one girl had to do a presentation about a topic the prof wasn't aware of.

Her topic was about gangs recruiting children in India. She presented the different ideas of gangs, recruitment methods in general, etc... And then she had a slide in the middle of her presentation entitled, "Understanding Gaps in Human Security Research (Or: My Very Bad Day at The Library)." While trying to research gang recruitment in the Indian context, she could not find any resources on children in Indian gangs. She ended up talking to the prof and they changed her topic to be about why there's a dearth of information on the topic. She had three hypotheses and the first one listed was, "Hypothesis #1: I am not very good at researching." We all laughed and laughed. Her other hypotheses were interesting too, and the class discussion was also fascinating as we tried to figure out why there could be no information, or how we could look for the information in other ways.

This lack of information on gang recruitment of children in India is one of the things our prof was trying to warn us about. As he told us today, if there truly is no information available on this topic, it means that all other generalizations in the world on gang recruitment of children are made moot - India is the second most populous country in the world, so lacking information on this country means that we don't have all the necessary information to make a well-rounded hypothesis... I don't know if this makes sense to you, but to me, it was a pretty amazing concept.

By the power of Grey Skull!

Sometimes when I think over the past 5 years of undergrad, and where I am now, I can't help but feel like this... http://applegeeks.com/lite/index.php?aglitecomic=2006-06-23

Names changes and other occurrences

Huzzah! I finished my other presentation yesterday! I had to talk for 20 minutes on an indigenous group I found interesting. I decided to research and study the Aboriginal tribes in Taiwan. My presentation revolved around their changing status through History under the different governments of Taiwan.

The night before the presentation I had a ridiculously hard time concentrating and preparing for my talk. I ended up staying up till 2:30am trying to finish my outline, and then I could not not not fall asleep. I probably drifted off around 3:30 and woke up around 6am. When I heard Nasrin get up for her shower at 6:30, I finally gave up and also got up so I could practice a few time. The presentation went really well - I wasn't completely smooth in my delivery, but I felt it went a hell of a lot better than my Human Security presentation did. :)

To celebrate, I decided to go to St. Laurent Centre with Laura. (I keep forgetting her name is spelled Laura even though it's pronounced Lauda.) We wanted to go to East Side Mario's for dinner... It took us forever to get to the bloody mall! Because we were cold, we hopped on the first bus we saw that was heading to St. Laurent. This bus ended up taking us all the way out into the middle of nowhere, past every single hospital in Ottawa and only then did we get to the mall. Lesson learned: Always take the express buses.

Upon arriving at East Side Mario's, I gave the hostess my name because there was a wait time of 20 minutes. I turned around to talk to Laura when the hostess suddenly calls me back over. I swear to God, this is what she said, "Can you please listen for the name Maria? I forgot what name you gave me." I blinked and informed her that she could just call for Mo or Laura and the chick vaguely acknowledged me. 5 minutes later, I hear the name "Maria" belted out. Laura was laughing her ass off with me. I know these teeny-bopper waiters/waitresses aren't paid to give a damn, but really, to assign customers new names just to make their own lives easier? That was hilarious.

Another amusing happenstance was that a sales clerk at a clothing store tried to hook Laura up with one of her sons. Laura was trying on some outfits for a wedding she was attending and I was teasing her about being able to use the clothes for interviews. The sales clerk suddenly starts asking Laura if she's looking for a job and Laura explains how she already has a job because she recently graduated etc... Next thing we know, the lady's asking Laura how old she is and casually mentions, "Oh, I have a son who's 24." We waited until the lady disappeared before cracking up.

A whole bunch of nothing

It's been awhile since I've updated, so I thought I'd toss out a bunch of random stuff that's happened lately... And not so lately.

As many of you know, I went back to Waterloo from October 18th to the 20th for convocation. I had such a blast. I love Ottawa, but it was nice to be back in a city that I know like the back of my hand. I'm not going to recap the whole trip, but it was terrific getting together with Shruthi and Victoria to go dancing, seeing Alyssa for breakfast, harassing Stacy after her convocation, and dragging my mother to restaurants that she didn't want to eat at.

Amusing anecdotes:
When my family and I went to the Rude Native for my "convocation dinner," my mom told the waitress that she would just like water to drink. Right away the waitress asked if my mom would like bottled, distilled, or perrier to drink. The look on my mom's face was hilarious - it was a mixture of horror, indignation, and exasperation. "Uhh, tap?"

Just before I graduated from UW, it decided to implement a mandatory bus pass system. Students just have to show their UW id to get on the bus. Since my ID is valid until 2011, I thought I'd try to use and abuse the new system, and it worked! However, the one morning I wasn't paying attention and got on the bus using my ID... It wasn't until I had to transfer buses that I realized I had used my Carleton ID to get on the bus. Yup, them bus drivers check out the ID reeeeal good.

I gave my first presentation in my Human Security class last Wednesday. I have to admit, I had been dreading the presentation A LOT. Much of my dread stemmed from the fact that I didn't have a very good grasp on my research - I had tried to take on too broad of a topic. I managed to stumble through my presentation but it was a difficult process at best. It wasn't until afterwards that I found out that my prof was a veritable expert on my topic too - he had written a major (controversial) report on it before, so he started going on about all these things that I didn't even know about my own topic. Thankfully I managed to get a great mark anyways. Phew!

On Friday Carleton held a co-op information session for all interested Master's students. After the session, all I can think is, "Sheesh! UW soooo spoiled me co-op-wise." I'm so used to UW's massive and efficient co-op machine that Carleton's seems dinky. LOL. The lady holding the info session was so proud that they have 6 dedicated interview rooms. Meanwhile I'm laughing behind my hand because hell, UW just built a brand new building with 100 interview rooms. Oh well. I'm totally signing up for the co-op program just because it's a good opportunity.

After the co-op session I went to Lauda's to cook her dinner and go out for a night on the town. We went to Caliente nightclub again, the salsa club. I really like the mix of music there - it has the regular bachata, salsa, and merengue, but it also plays reggaeton, soca, cumbia, and regular dance music. I had a lot of fun, but by 1:30 I was exhausted and Lauda was unwilling to go home.

The very end of the night was beyond awkward too. By 2ish the club was practically deserted, maybe only 15 people left, none of whom were dancing. Some random guy came up to Lauda and asked her to dance, and she told him to come back when the DJ wasn't playing salsa. Well, two seconds later the music switches to merengue, so the guy comes back, but he brings along his friend who drags me on to the dance floor. My dance partner wasn't bad looking - probably a bit older than me, but dancing with him was like being on a non-stop merry-go-round. He did the same 4 moves over and over, in the exact same order and everything. I was so tired that it was hard not to laugh (he actually caught me smirking once and asked me why). When the music finally changed to reggaeton we ended dancing together still... But it was really awkward because it was only the four of us on the dance floor, and when some guy tries to grind with me while people are watching and I don't have the cover of anonymity, I weird out. LOL. Thankfully some bachata came on and we sprang apart like opposite poles on a magnet.

Oh, Lauda and I also found this fantastic mexican restaurant at the corner of Bank and Second. I forget the name, but it's the only latin restaurant there. It even met with Lauda's seal of approval, so it must have been semi-authentic in her books. :) I highly recommend it.

Lastly, I have been totally geeking out lately on Asian television shows (more popularly known as "dramas"). When I was in HK, I never watched much television because it didn't have English subtitles. But I was always intrigued by the dramas that were playing - I could watch them and create my own storylines in my head... Well I recently found a website where you can download subtitled dramas. I've been totally enamored with all the bad acting, cheesy plots, and hilarious hijinks.

I guess that's it for my randomness. I need to go grocery shopping today - I have noooo fresh food left in my house. Hell, I don't even think I have packaged food to contribute to my meals... And the frozen dinners in my freezer are for emergency/lazy purposes only, so it's time to drag my butt out.

Being one of the big kids

I'll admit, I was getting a little worried about how grad school and I were going to mix. I have three classes:

• INAF 5209 - Conflict and Development
  
• INAF 5606 - Indigenous Peoples and Cultures
  
• INAF 5704 - Human Security
  

My Conflict and Development class was pretty intimidating for the first two lectures. The prof seemed to expect us to already be experts on the subject, and me, with my Canadian/European History background was certainly not feelin' the topic. Some of the readings made sense to me, and even enlightened me, but overall I was still feeling out of my depth. Talking to my classmates though, I realize I'm not the only one. A lot of people were freaked out by how intense the first lectures were. I'm heartened by this.

As for my Indigenous Peoples and Cultures class, I was a bit leery as to how much I'd learn in it. Our prof has admitted that he's an economist with next to no background in the subject, and that he's only teaching it because he was the one who suggested the course and therefore couldn't back out of it. He does seem amiable to new ideas and is interested in what the students have to say though, so that's a plus.

I did make the mistake of self-identifying as a Native Canadian though. And I made it clear (or so I thought) that I have no real ties to my culture, and that many people know more about Native life than me. Unfortunately he seemed to gloss over this fact and in the first lecture, kept asking me random stuff about being Native. I mostly made up answers or told him flat out that I didn't know the answer. LOL

My last class though, Human Security, is making up for everything else. I'm specializing in Human Security and Development, but to be honest, when I chose that specialization, I didn't really know what it meant. Our first "real" lecture was spent discussing just exactly what Human Security was. (FYI, the general definition is "The freedom from fear, and the freedom from want and need.")

Our prof is hilarious and speaks really really fast when he gets excited (which he seems to be all the time). His summary of the lecture was to go over his conspiracy theories of what's happening in the field of Human Security. He generated a lot of student discussion, and made the process easier by paraphrasing what we're trying to say. (That's a huge lifesaver for me, because sometimes I'll be trying to make a point, but I get confused and start rambling on, so he's able to get the general point I'm trying to make and clear it up.) He set us against one another, because it seemed like there were three different camps of thought in the classroom (and I created one of them).

Oh, I'm also amused to note that I only read 3 of the 4 readings for the Human Security class. While I was waiting for the class to begin, my classmates were complaining about the fourth article and how it was confusing and weird. As we nearing the end of the class itself, our prof suddenly mentions the article as well and says something to the effect of, "What did you guys think of that Brysk article? Wasn't that the most useless, ambivalent, and stupid thing you've ever read?!" Ha ha, glad I didn't waste my time with it then.

So yeah, those are my thoughts about my classes thus far. They're scary, but manageable I think. And I have to admit, I do look forward to that Human Security class.

Life as a grad student

So I've been at Carleton University for a grand total of 7 days. It's been fraught with activities and problems already. There's nothing like starting your graduate career off with a violent rape the day orientation begins as well as a strike by the administrative staff.

On our first night of orientation, all the grad students went for a Haunted Walk tour of Ottawa. I forgot how much fun those things were! We had a really good guide named Margo who made the evening really fun for us. Afterwards we all tromped over to a pub for a meet and greet.

Other fun activities have included campus tours (and yes, I classified this as fun), pizza parties, more pub activities (I don't think we've had a single activity that hasn't included alcohol), trips to Dow's lake, movies, BBQs, and so on.

Last night was the "highlight" of orientation week - it was a boat cruise along the Rideau River. It was so much fun! We had free food and could buy alcohol. The top floor was reserved for dancing and boy, did we dance! They even had a contest to find the worst dancer, who then won $500 in dance lessons. (The contest was done to "Dancing Queen" by Abba.)

After the three hour cruise, we ended up moving to the Byward Market to a bar named Helsinki. The place was uber-swank, but also expensive. :S It was nearly $9 for a martini! (Mind you, they were absolutely delicious!) By this time, I was losing my voice and getting tired of having to repeat the whole spiel of, "Hi, my name is so and so, this is my program, etc."

Another grad student, Clarissa and I ended up leaving the bar and going to a salsa club nearby with some of her roommates and their friends. I had such a blast. The place was called Rumba, and it had a terrific live band!

Luckily the bus system here runs really late, so I was able to catch a bus home around 1:15am. Huzzah!

On the academic side of things, life has been a bit chaotic. Because of the strike, students in my program cannot add or drop classes. Therefore people (like myself) are locked in classes they don't want to take, and can't find out if there's even room in the classes they do want to be in.

I went to my program's resource centre to try and get some of the readings that I are due for tomorrow's classes... That was such an ordeal! You have to photocopy the readings, and the only way to photocopy is to use your campus card... Which I don't have.

You see, technically I'm not registered with Carelton University yet. They still need to see my official grades from Waterloo which won't be available until September 21. So until then, I can't register for courses, get student bus passes, access the wireless networks, my school email accounts, do laundry, or anything! It's such an ordeal.

So that's what I'm dealing with right now. I guess I should go and finish my readings for class tomorrow. Wish me luck with my first day of classes as a graduate student!

The 411 +1 on Mau's future

So you may recall from this post that I had decided to go off to France to work for a year and reapply to grad school in 2008.

I was going along with this plan happily. I had purchased photos for my French visa, filled out the application forms as necessary. Yesterday I even applied for a new passport so that I'd have more pages (I only had two blank pages left in mine.)

Well, yesterday afternoon I checked my email and there's a message from the fellow in charge of admissions at Carleton University. It turns out they're willing to waiver the requirement for my microeconomics credit and let me into the school as long as I complete my microeconomics before I graduate.

MOTHERFUCKINGHELLGODDAMNSHITFORBRAINSCOCKSUCKERS!

This means that I CAN go to the graduate school that I want to in September!!! My first instinct was to say, "Fuck it, I'm going to Europe anyways!" But after talking with my family and friends, and to my own conscience, I've decided to go to graduate school. Europe was my backup plan for grad school anyways, so I might as well get this stuff over with.

I still have to talk to the grad school guy - it's a long weekend so I'm still not "officially" registered, but apparently it's only a matter of time.

The 411 on Mau's future

Howdy folks!

For the past year or so, I've been contemplating what to do with my future. Since about 2004 I've been toying with the idea of going to graduate school and obtaining a Master of Arts (MA) degree. I wanted to get my MA even more after I did my exchange to Hong Kong - I was hell bent on studying International Affairs/Relations. Meeting all the exchanges students from around the world really inspired me to get involved internationally.

I therefore applied to a couple of graduate schools here in Canada. Throughout the application process I kept flipping back and forth on whether I really wanted to pursue a Master's degree or not, but in the end I applied to the University of Ottawa and Carleton University, both located in Canada's capital city.

I didn't realize until after I applied that Carleton's program was the #2 school in North America... Meaning competition for admittance was very tough! I realized this when I was wait listed by Carleton. I did however receive an offer of admission to the University of Ottawa back in April. I sent in my acceptance letter to them practically right away. I figured that there was no hope in hell of me being admitted to Carleton, so I should just give up. (I also suspect that one of my letters of reference weren't exactly the greatest because I didn't know my profs all that well.)

I was quite happy with going to U of Ottawa until about a month ago when I realized I didn't really know what the program ("Globalization and International Development") was about. On the other hand, when I had been applying to Carleton University, I had been totally in love with what they were offering as it seemed to be right up my alley! I discussed it with my parents and told them that if I didn't get accepted to Carleton University this year, I'd prefer to wait for one more year and then reapply. My parents endorsed my decision and that made me happy.

Well, much to my surprise, several days ago, Carleton University sent me an email saying that yes, I had been accepted to the program. HOWEVER! One of the requirements for being accepted was that I need an introductory microeconomics class... Which I don't have. I had been enrolled in Econ 101 at the beginning of this term, but when I gave up on the idea of being accepted to Carleton, I had dropped the course. Now it's too late to enroll in it (especially considering there's only like 2 weeks till exams).

I talked to one of the admissions officers at Carleton and they said that I could probably take a distance education course through Athabasca University (an online university) and complete it before the end of August... But that would be pretty stressful - I'm taking a full course load right now, my exams don't end until August 9th, and the online course has like 10 assignments in the meantime.

Also, even though life tends to be easier as a student, I have to admit that I'm tired at this point of my life. I've been in school for 5 years now, and I've done 3 academic terms in a row. The idea of going on to do two more years of hardcore school right away does NOT appeal to me in the slightest. I've had fun in these past few years, but I need to have a break from textbooks (well, I still need to take Econ 101 through distance education, but ignore that).

So now I have a year before I reapply to Carleton University. I toyed around with the idea of going back over to Asia and teaching English for a year, but it would take forever to get a visa and paperwork, etc. Plus I don't know if I could hack dealing with kids everyday. They're cute to see, but not to interact with. (My niece being the exception.)

Yesterday I suddenly remembered the Student Work Abroad Program (www.swap.ca)... Essentially it's a program where you obtain a work visa for a European country, fly over, and do temporary/casual work until your visa expires. Since I want to work for the Canadian government when I graduate, I figure that practicing my French would be a good choice... Therefore I'm seriously contemplating going to France for a year to work and travel. My parents are totally in love with the idea (since it means they could visit me - plane tickets to France are a hell of a lot cheaper than to Asia!).

So that's my plan for now. Work in France for a year, take my Econ 101 class through distance education), and travel. Comments and suggestions are welcome!

Rebel without a cause

Le gasp! I skipped a Chinese class today! (Okay, so I was a good girl and made sure to check and make sure that I wasn't going to be missing out an any new/confusing grammar points... But I skipped none the less!)

Fearing to obtain gainful employment

Our Human Resources professor had a slight problem communicating with us in class last night.

We were talking about Health and Safety in the workplace, and then she mentioned problems with workplace violence. She told us, "Workplace violence is the #2 cause of death in North America."

We were shocked. One girl even asked for clarification and the prof repeated her statement. The prof started lecturing again, but someone else finally interrupted her and asked again... Then she realized she had forgotten to mention that "Workplace violence is the #2 cause of death in the workplace in North America." Ha ha! Whoops. The entire class started laughing with relief because she had totally freaked us out.

Soggy Bottom Mau

I'm soaked from the knees down right now. That makes for a very unpleasant class. That's right, I'm in class as I type this. It's easier to have my laptop here because my East Asian Culture prof provides online slides, and I can just type up my own notes as I go. Anyawys, back to being wet. Outside it's flipping between downpours and clear air. I walked from my apartment to the SLC and it was clear as a bell. 5 minutes later as I departed the SLC, it was downpouring. I got soaked!

The term is going terrifically so far. Again I'm taking four courses:

• European Colonial History
  
• East Asian Culture
  
• Human Resources Management
  
• Advanced Beginner Chinese
  

European History is pretty intense - we're doing a lot of theoretical discussions which I've never done before, so on one hand it's a bit intimidating since I don't have the background in the theories we're talking about, but on the other it's kind of exhilarating to make the connections.

(Oh god, it's raining so heavily we can't see out the windows! And the lights are flickering from lightening! Wowsers!)

East Asian Culture is pretty much a survey course so far. I've studied all the things we've talked about before, but it's just being applied to an Asian context now. (e.g. Right now he's talking about national self-determination. Been there, done that.) Long live my laptop, so at least I can keep myself occupied for the next 3 hours.

The only reason I'm taking Human Resources Management is because my mother has been pestering (and yes, "pester" is definitely the word I'm looking for) to take it for the past 5 years. I've only had 2 classes so far, and I'm shocked to admit that it's not quite the burden that I thought it would be. Actually, in our last class, there was nearly a lynching. We were discussing the wage gender gap and one guy tried to claim that the gap existed because women were more maternal and family-oriented and men were more business-oriented. You could hear the women growling in their chairs. Myself included.

My fave class of the term must be my Advance Beginner Chinese class! I know that "Advanced Beginner" is an oxymoron, but it's true. This class is for anyone who has some experience with any form of Chinese. This means that the majority of my class either speaks Mandarin and can't write Chinese characters, or they speak Cantonese and CAN write Chinese characters. Then there's Mau who just has a smattering of everything.

Unsurprisingly I'm the only non-Asian in my class. It's okay though. I actually feel like I have a bit of an advantage because I've studied Mandarin before using the same methods we're using now, and so far our vocabulary consists of the same stuff I learned in Hong Kong, with a few differences. I was eavesdropping on some of the other students and it seems as though I'm also doing better on the oral/writing homework than some of them too. Tee hee!

I should also mention that I've finally completed my Chinese name. When I was in Hong Kong, my professor named me "Mo-Lin"... Now I have a last name, so now I'm "Bai Mo-Lin." (白莫琳) (Roughly translated it means "White Jade Forest." Ha ha!

Okay, I'm not paying attention to my class anymore. I should go back to my notes.

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.

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!

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...)

The library is now closed.

Remember this post back in February? The one with the picture of the ridiculously large amount of books on my desk? Yeah. That's no longer the case.

I finished my research for my Hong Kong paper tonight! Yippee!!! I have 33 pages of pure quotes and research from all my resources... 33 pages of single-spaced research at that. And it's all for a 30 page paper that's going to be double-spaced and have footnotes! YEAH baby!!!

A library near me

Is it possible to measure one's intellect by the amount of books they have borrowed from the library? If so, I'm getting to be a freakin' genius!



(This mountain of books looks a lot more impressive in real life than in the picture. :( )

New everything

It seems as though yet another new term has begun. I'm enjoying my term so far. My new apartment is a lot nicer than my last one which makes a big difference. My landlady/landlord are from Wuhan China and they're so nice! They keep trying to talk in Chinese to me. I'm able to understand a lot of what they're saying, after I stop to think about it first. I'm also picking up a few new words, and relearning stuff I had forgotten. There's another guy living in the house, a second year who lives in the basement. He seems nice, but I rarely see him or talk to him. I probably couldn't pick him out of a crowd either.

My classes seem a lot duller than the ones last term. I'm taking a lot of required courses that I missed while off on co-op and while abroad. Therefore I'm taking the continuation of my Canadian History Senior Seminar, American History since 1877, Arts in the Humanities, and The Global South.

My history seminar seems really interesting so far. My prof for that course is also the Dean of Arts, and he's very enthusiastic about teaching us how to write a proper history paper. The course requires that we write a 25-30 page history paper using lots of primary sources, and give a 15 minute oral presentation of the paper. Yikes! That's not the difficult part though. The hard part of this course had already passed - choosing a topic! We were allowed to choose ANY topic we wanted from Canadian history. That seems easy enough, but how do you know what you can talk about for 30 pages???

I ended up choosing to write about the Suez Canal Crisis. I figured that was something I'd be interested in, it was international in scope and so on. However, after our second lecture meeting, I realized just how many primary sources (original documents from the event in question) the prof wanted, and I also realized that I didn't feel like reading through a bunch of old government documents on the topic! By the time the lecture was over, I had decided to switch my topic. I'm now going to write about the experience of Canadian prisoners of war in Hong Kong in 1941. Ha! Now there's a topic I'm interested in!

I don't have much to say about my American History class. So far it's pretty mundane. Essentially I can take anything I've learned about in Canadian history and substitute "America" for "Canada" and get it right. Let's face it, Americans did everything before we Canadians did, and earlier too! I proved this point in my first discussion class when I drew upon my knowledge of the Canadian reform movement and simply applied it to the American context we were talking about and got kudos from the prof. Ha ha. Little does he know...

I had been pretty worried about my Arts in the Humanities class. I've heard terrible things about it from all my friends who've taken it - they've said it's boring, useless, no one goes to lectures, etc. Essentially the course covers the topics of humanities in every major culture/age in history. (e.g. We've already moved from the Paleolithic period to the Egyptians to the Greeks.) While I'll admit that the course is dry and not presenting any amazing revelations, the prof is funny and enthusiastic about teaching us. (e.g. When discussing the unification of Egypt, the prof flashed a photo from the Scorpion King and mentioned the legends behind him. He also recited Egyptian love poetry for us.) Time will tell if this turns out to be the terrible class everyone has told me it is.

As for my final course, The Global South, I'm enjoying it, but having a hard time with it. The course is essentially an introduction to International Development with a focus on Kenya, China, and some South American country I can't remember. It's neat because we're learning the background as to how the world has become so screwed up. However, I'm having a hard time because the prof has a thick Russian accent and is very soft spoken... The accent isn't as much of a problem as the soft spoken part is. I'll be following the lecture easily, then suddenly I'll miss something she says and have a hard time getting back on track.

Okay, I guess this is a good enough summary of my life so far. Make sure you check out my "Holiday Summary" post below that I just put online. :) I'll add some more funny stories and a few more posts that aren't novel-length when I've had a rest. :)