A Left-Over from Christmas

I was going through some of my photos yesterday afternoon and found this one glowing at me amidst photos of textbooks and coffee cups.

I think there was something slightly wrong with my brain by the end of last semester. :)

Travellers Through The Snow

I've been listening to quite a bit of the Wailin' Jennies lately. They make great study music. And then, they inspire you to take lovely breaks to go walk through the lovely frozen lands outside your door.

And then, they comfort you as you defrost your nose over a cuppa or two. *Emerson's Walden is a suggested reading with this step*


*I realised I haven't posted photos of me in nearly a year- so here's my update*

January: A Schooled Summation

I mentioned going back to work at school and then I disappeared. Naughty me. 

Work has gone well, I really love being back at my job. I have fantastic co-workers and a wonderful boss and supervisor. In the past weeks, I've been computer data girl, tea-girl, receptionist, telephone operator, student interface, and PR printer. (Basically, everything with public interface that needs any printing-work done, I do it!) I was told when I first took the job that I'd be bored out of my mind with the tedious parts of the job. So wrong: I flourish on the details and am really quite pleased when my boss notices that I'm in a good mood while doing the jobs that all the rest of them hate. I now work on Mondays and Wednesdays, the exact opposite of last semester, and have filled in a few Fridays. I may begin every other Friday, if my boss can get the funding cleared for my extra hours. 

School is busy, as usual, and slightly more stressful than it was last semester, although I'm in classes I love and that makes a world of difference in my ability to hand that stress. 

Russian: It wasn't cancelled! I'm loving every moment of this class. The teacher (a Bela Bartok look-a-like) is fantastic, understanding and hilarious. After reading my last name correctly - an occurance that has never happened before - he cornered me as the only actual Slav in the room. Everyone else is taking it either because they didn't want Spanish or because they're in Engineering and it will help them get a job. When he heard my legal first name was Laura, he was quite disappointed in me. For now, he switches between Zuzana for me - which was apparently nearly my name - and Lark or Larka, which he explained is a nick-name for Lara in Russian. He's completely dropped the 'U' I guess. :) Now none of my classmates can actually remember what my real name is. 

Social Welfare: Once again, wonderful teacher. This class is late at night, after I get off of work, and it would be easy to be quite bored. But I like the subject, the holistic approach and the practical application of the teacher's own experiences as teaching tools make this class an absolute blast. It's making me think of taking more sociology/human services classes in the future, which the professor is encouraging as much as possible. 

Rise of Civilizations (Anthropology): I already love anthropology, so this class is easy, and fun. The teacher is a mild-mannered quiet man, and tells the best stories to relate theories to realities for the class. So he butchers my name on a daily-basis - he also brings me coffee when I'm at work to make up for it. And he let me help make labels for some of his artifact bins. Yes, I'm nerdy enough to make that one of the highlights of my month. He said he might let me accompany him on one his digs this spring; but only if I bring my camera as the official photographer for the trip. I guess I can't actually do the digging until I've had more classes. 

Short Story: So, this class is taught by my favourite professor of all time. I met her when I signed up for my first college class seven years ago. She still remembers me as the quiet thirteen year old kid who lit up and began talking a mile a minute about her poetry collection. However, this class is both my favourite of the semester, and the one that makes me want to cry most.

It's literary analysis, which isn't overly my favourite thing to do to writing. But we get to discuss great stories and how the author put them together and what the messages they were sending are and what they meant by them. It does help my own writing. So I'm actually starting to like analysis. I know, someone had better stop me before a monster is created!

The funny part about the class is that on my schedule, it said the course didn't start until February 1st. I was a little unsure about that, but I didn't mind not having an extremely hectic schedule right away. Then, on January 11, the second day of class, I got a call at nine in the morning. From the professor. (As I mentioned before, she already knew me, and has had me in a few courses before.) The schedule was wrong, and it started that day. So, I missed the very first day of a 300 level course. I felt absolutely brilliant, of course. The pace of the course is insane; it's a full credit course in eight and a half weeks; which means we'll be finishing it at mid-terms time. My last half of the semester will be much easier and relaxed, of course, but it does add quite a bit of pressure for this first bit.

And did I mention the class is at nine in the morning? 

Yes, I love English, but this is pushing it.

And now you've had a summation of my life at school and work for the past month... and let's hope I don't do something similar to that next month. I need to practice being regular again. ;)

How Time Flies!

As I got ready for bed tonight, I realised that tomorrow I go back to work. Now, since I'm employed through my college, that means that I don't have to work on hols. I worked one full week after finals, then had off for two solid weeks.

But now, I am heading back for another week of work, and I'm not sure how many days, or hours, that I'll be putting in. This of course means that the next semester is coming up soon.

In fact, it starts on Monday. In the evening. I don't really cherish evening classes. But Monday seems to be the day for them.

As far as I know for now, unless a class gets dropped, I'm taking a Social Welfare class, Russian (like I was going to last semester and it got dropped, I'm hoping that doesn't happen again), Anthropology and the Rise of Civilizations, and then my last class is on Short Stories, and is taught by my one of my absolute favourite college professors of all time.

And working, somewhere in that mix. And hopefully, spending more time writing on here. At least it has warmed up a great deal here: today was mostly a balmy 8C. I know that it does sound cold to some of you, but think of how much warmer it is now than at Christmas time when our daily highs were -19C.