the Gloaming (softly open our mouths in the cold)

Tuesday 6 – I had the MOST HECTIC geochemisty assignment due. It involved pages and pages of integration calculations. The tricky part was the mistakes made if you even messed up just one number in this lengthy calculation. So I had spent the better part of my Monday night working on this assignment, I work up early on Tuesday to churn it out. I thought I was done - but no. I really shouldn’t have chosen to discuss my results with my fellow class-mates. Everyone had a different answer. I didn’t think I cared that much, but it turns out I did. After class, I sat with a friend in the geology lounge and tried working some mistakes out! Oh god! The problems just kept appearing, and then other people would walk in and give their input, which would conflict with what we thought and make us rethink our approaches. Anyway after an hour and a half she had a class, and I was set to meet my friend Nick for a study date in the library. He is not in any of my classes, but it is always nice to hang with someone in the library, even if they can’t give you the answers to your geochem assignment. I worked on this assignment more-so, for about two hours, until my lack of graphical calculator and the internets lack of easy to use graphical calculator drove me to Burnside. This is the geography building with a computer lab down the bottom. It is the home of the science student. It has the science student lounge, has a general dingy science-y feel that I have come to appreciate after being down there. By simply flaunting the fact that I am a science student I get free printing (on computers that I have since found out don’t have Microsoft word, so when I want to print my documents, the computer doesn’t recognise the format and won’t print it out). I met up with Eric and borrowed his graphical calculator and managed to meet a lot of people down in this Burnside basement, it truly seems like the place to hang. The best person I met was Harry Potter boy! Oh, the glory, he helped me through the last question of the assignment in a mere five minutes and then showed me the glory of the Burnside tunnel!!! I could of died of happiness. This tunnel connects my chemistry, geology and geography building. I won’t have to surface for hours on end. I am ecstatic! Thank you Harry Potter boy – whose name in pronounced Cereal by Anglophone Canadians and something much better by the Francophone community, I don’t even know how I would pronounce it I am too afraid to say it if people can’t even understand me when I attempt my own name. Any way we hung out until it was time for the geochem lab, where I could finally rid myself of this assignment for good. Geology is really feeling good at the moment, the class has really bonded, and we can all talk to each other and get along in general. I am quite happy! Coffee and cookies were really good today too, there were brownies and I think I had about 5! I couldn’t stop myself! Oh geez. I am glad I don’t do more geology classes that run through 3 o’clock otherwise I would put on some serious weight. The lab finished dead on 5:30 so I raced home and back for quidditch. It was a pretty good practise, though the nights are getting so cold, so it is bad when you are subbed out. After quidditch Eric and I got some crepes and hung out a bit - eek!

Wednesday 7 – had too many activities in the afternoon to even be able to attend. I had my usual history, chemistry and geography line up, and then I needed to do a bit of shopping. I bought some football boots, or cleets as they are known here. I tried to get advice from the shop assistant. Were the boots I was buying appropriate for the type of sport I was doing? The shop assistant didn’t seem to understand when I tried to explain the glory that was quidditch, which might require boots like rugby boots? Well she was no help what so ever. But I bought some using my better judgement. I had my gym class with Sara, Sarah and Catherine, then I had an exchange student hang at Gertz. Gertz is the university bar and its appeal is that has cheap drinks on Wednesday nights. Some of my friends have organised a Wednesday catch-up type event for exchange students every Wednesday night at Gertz (until it hurts – ha ha – but you can be exempt from the illing if you have a mid-term). So I chose drinking over going to the outdoors club meeting. Why do we all want to hang out on Wednesday!!! I had to leave at 9:00 as all the guys from my residence were all going to fajitas for Amanda’s birthday. When it is your birthday they give you free cake and a sombrero at the Three Amigos. Fajitas were really good, but the free slice that Amanda got was not so amazing. It was so un-amazing she offered us all a bite, and yes, I could agree that it wasn’t great.

Thursday 8 – had some geology, where everyne is the class is becoming brave enough to tell Willy they don’t quite understand whats going on. He always asks, “so do we all get it?” and there are always a few feeble nods. But now, he asks us, and we say no, so he explains and re-explains to little avail, as we are all just so overwhelmed by the entity of geochem. After GIs I had ice cream happy hour with my friend Nick today. It was great – we strutted on down to Ben and Jerry’s (an American chain with AUSTRALIANS serving, we could tell by there accents). The deal is three scoops for three dollars between 4 and 7 - how could I resist. I then popped home to get ready for quidditch. This was a good training session as training is getting more intense in preparation for the cup. We even got to do passing and tackling drills to my excitement. It was Amanda’s actual birthday today so we all went out clubbing on Crescent street. The majority of the social people from the residence came along. We went to a place called sir Winston Churchill’s – so you know it was good, ha ha. The sad thing was Amanda wasn’t even ID’ed so she couldn’t put her real ID to the test. At the pub they tried to charge us $10 each entry fee, so we all looked disappointed and poor and started to walk away - the bouncer said we could all go in for free! Yay! There were $3 beers, so naturally I obliged. We partied the night away.

Friday 9 – I slept through my alarm and woke up just in time to be able to dash out the door and make it to my history discussion, which over time adds up to 10% of my grade! Oh my! I had some chemistry, environmental systems and pilates. I then raced home to do my washing and do my numerous household jobs before leaeving for Ottawa, many of which did not get completed.

Tuesday 13 – I had some geology in the morning. I did some quality chemistry study for my midterm that night. For a break I met up with Jeny, Nick and Amy for luncheon before a study date in the library! We all discussed our Canadaian Thanksgivings, and Nick had the privilege of the legendary turducken! He could not accurately describe the taste or how sensational it was, but I can only imagine the conquest. In the geochemistry lab I gorged myself at coffee and cookies for energy for the 6:00 midterm that was to follow. There were the most tasty mini cinnamon scrolls! I also had a wanky vanilla latte! Everyone is continually bonding and still calling me Kite (just because I can’t pronounce my name doesn’t mean you have to either). The midterm took place in a lecture theatre, which is rather uncomfortable, as you only have a tiny little space to write and nowhere to put all your belongings. I find I am hunched over the tiny fold out writing board the entire time. The midterm ran right through dinnertime and through quidditch practise. On the plus side my body is thanking me for my lack of quidditch attendance, first Saturday and now this. My bruises - slightly healing, and I am experiencing much reduced stiffness! I stopped by the pitch on my way out of the exam, and watched until everyone finished. I felt it my duty in a way.

Wednesday 14 – only experienced -3 to 5 degrees! !!! In fact some would say it snowed. Only the type of snow you get in Canberra, where it falls and melts straight away - but it was snow in the middle of October none-the-less. Oh my god! I am busting out my thermals these days due to the intensity of the weather. I mean 5 isn’t a lot of degrees. At least the weather encourages inside activity, like studying for a midterm the next day. I had my usual classes and studied manically for GIS. Tonight 2 more girls from Sara’s residence came along to punching, kicking, jamming, and jiving. The teacher must surely notice this boom in attendance, and the fact that these girls did not quite know the moves and combos we have been practising the past lot of weeks. Or maybe she just thinks they are crazily uncoordinated like the other half of the class. After class Sara invited me to meal plan dinner with the residence gang. I tired to decline, not wanting to spend more money, and perhaps I would make a small dinner with Lucy instead of going out to fajitas, as we both had exams the next day. But the deal with the meal plans is, you pay about $2000 for a semester worth of meals, and the money you don’t use simply disappears at the end of term! So she was eager to get someone else to help her use up the money, as crafty McGill naturally makes you put too much money on your card, to a point where you would have to be eating about 4 or 5 meals a day. SO I got a free dinner, and got the check out the residence cafeteria.

I studied a bit then had some hot chocolate with Annabel at starbucks. I think they might soon recognise us. I came hoem and panicked a bit for the GIS mid-term that would be.

Thursday 15 - I had a GIS mid-term today. Oh it was such a struggle. There were fill in the blanks, I was quite blank about, and I had to draw a map of Canada. Potentially an easy task for all the Canadians in the room, I mean I could give you a rough sketch of Australia no worries, but Canada! Oh geez. And this is a course about mapping, so I am sure some elements of the map, may have wanted to be somewhat accurate. But I answered every question, no matter how dodgey my response may have been, or how poor my drawing abilities were (there were a lot of diagrams to fill in!!). I guess the AST really did prepare me for the challenges of uni, with its diagram and drawing questions I so fully heartedly mocked back in the day. I went to geology, then spent most of the day in full study mode, in the map library (for inspiration) with my francophone friend Nicolas. After the exam – freedom, at least for the next week and a half! So after quidditch to celebrate Lucy, Annabel and I went out for crepes and then bought some rum (or Rhum as the packing told us) and made mojitos. We had all finished a hard week of exams. I didn’t go to bed to late, as I was SO tired from a week of hardcore study.

Friday 16 - this morning the cleaner approached me during my breakfast, to let me know the entire residence was using too much toilet paper. Well this is not my problem, and I should not be held responsible for everyone’s toilet paper usage. He said in all his years of cleaning he had never seen people go through so much toilet paper – well sorry! He then proceeded to tell me that he would not be putting down more toilet paper, and perhaps, I could go around, collect money and but some more toilet paper! NO WAY! How much do I pay in rent for this place, and they want me to buy toilet paper! Thank goodness Phillip wandered into the kitchen, he got the same spiel, about never had there been such reckless usage of toilet paper. Phillip didn’t quite know either how to petition back for our fundamental right to toilet paper! We just looked shocked, said oh no, said we weren’t the ones responsible for this travesty, and tried to look very needy. He didn’t give in, and told Arty on his way out! Lucky, I had stolen a roll once should such a situation occur. But I had to keep this secret, as clearly if I were to leave it out, it would be gone in moments due to our record usage. I felt bad that I was one of the people that was going to have to spread the bad news. The outrage that ensued was intense. Tim went so crazy he wrote on the communal white board: give us toilet paper for our sh*t otherwise we will sh*t all over the house. I suspected he would have such emotion when he heard about this. I had history, chemistry, environmental systems and Pilates as usual. I went home to meet up with Annabel, so we could head on back to uni for Blues Bar (the engineering run bar, with cheap drinks). Today they were fundraising for breast cancer, so the mixer type drink was called a pink drink, and it was a lot of vodka, pink lemonade and water. Needless to say it was not the tastiest of beverages. We hung out at Blues Bar for about 2 hours before heading off to the McGill vs. Concordia ice hockey match. The attendance for hockey night seems mainly to comprise of exchange students (I think I knew or at least recgonised three quarters of the McGill supporters) and girlfriends, friends and family. I don’t think “real” McGill students go. But it was a lot of fun, and really intense. I must say it was quite scary when the hockey players would slam up against the glass! Annabel and I got front row seats as we were some of the few that arrived on time! There wasn’t as much chanting as I had hoped either but it was an entertaining night.