Springtime in the shadows

Lately I've forgotten about a lot of the things that I enjoy. I feel like I'm constantly struggling to keep up with just about all the normal everyday things I usually do around now. Maybe it's because my body feels like I should be gearing up for a teaching block, or exams. But this year is an anomaly, and neither of those things will be happening.
A lot of stuff has happened since I last blogged. For example, I returned to class from after exams. I did a presentation, the last of the academic-Arts class ones this year, on Austin Clarke's Love and Sweet Food and Stuart Hall's "Cultural Identity and Diaspora". I wrote my first essay for Inspiration, and was once again published in EDible News. I also got my convocation dates, and for 24 hours freaked right out about what was to be done.
We're having a big 85th birthday party for my awesome Gramma in Edmonton during the last weekend in June. It worked out really well because Mom would be done school, I would be done the AQ course I thought I was taking (more on that later) and Auntie Brenda would have been all moved home from Russia. The date was set for Sunday June 28th and it was going to be great. Auntie Bren bought our tickets using Aeroplan miles from Thursday the 25th to July 1st so we could all have some time together to visit; Auntie Reta, Uncle Jim and Maggie are coming over from Vancouver Island for the party so it would be the first time my mom and uncle had seen each other since we interred my grampa's ashes 7 years ago. I had been told convocation wouldn't be until July because of the messed up year, so we thought everything would be fine.
Well, turns out the powers that be at York managed to organize some tomfoolery and made the convocation ceremonies start on June 24th. My BA ceremony is on June 26th and my BEd ceremony, the one that is really important to me, is on June 29th. I would be in Edmonton over the whole convocation period. Crap.
After those 24 excruciating hours were up, everything had been rearranged. The party is now on Saturday June 27th and Mom and I fly back to Toronto on the red-eye flight on Monday morning. We'll sleep, shower, do our hair and makeup, and drive to school for 1:30 so I can get robed and put into the procession; the ceremony begins at 3:30, and we're invited to the Faculty of Education graduates reception afterward. Gramma, who was originally supposed to attend, will no longer be coming; it's too much excitement for her in too short a time and what if some of the out-of-towners stick around for a while after the party? It's not fair, of course, but it's what's right.
So like I said, I've forgotten about a lot of the things that I enjoy. This craziness has sucked all the fun right out of me, until last week when I randomly created the above image in Inspiration class during a particularly uninspiring discussion on plagiarism. I love to mess around with pictures and I thought the contrast between sunlight and shadows, caught on an afternoon in the watery spring sunshine, was particularly captivating. I also went out with friends for someone's birthday this weekend and my face hurts from laughing.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel, kids.

-Laur

Third-World Myths Dispelled

Check out this awesome video we just watched in my Teaching Geography class. It's long, but the first 6 minutes are simultaneously hilarious and enlightening:



Let me know what you think. Maybe I'm just a geography nerd but this stuff is gold, especially with his hilarious accent.

-Laur

P.S.

It's not just men. It's women too. There's one talking right now. Showboaters.

-Laur

Blow haaaaard

You ever meet a person who looks so good and so awesome and then he opens his mouth and he's just a bloooow haaaard? I'm listening to one of them right now. He says "I" and "me" a lot and goes off on strange tangents and to tell you the truth, as cute as he is, I'm not interested anymore. He's expressing admiration for his mother right now, and that's all fine and good but he's still a big talker.
Anywho, I don't care.

Today FESA had a cupcake sale organized by yours truly (and Adrienne, she was awesome about baking and setting up and booking the room) and it was a SMASHING SUCCESS! We made $366 for Wikondiek school in Kenya and that just makes me so happy. Part of my job description is to raise money for that school and I take pride in going the extra mile to really help them out when they are in so much need. Lindsay R says it's the best FESA bakesale to date, and that's AWESOME! Woohoo!

Now back to Bryna's house to exercise the bunnies and clean up. Not that I left it messy. Not at all, I just need to take out the garbage and collect the rest of my stuff.

-Laur

Back to school, back to school

Back to school. After 3 long, bitter months, Queens Park legislated CUPE 3903 back to work. They should have done it 4 weeks into the strike when it was crystal clear that neither side was going to budge, but I guess we can just hope that the mistake will be a lesson.
SO, yesterday morning I woke up extra early and went to class (sick to my stomach on the bus, not sure if that had to do with the early morning or the dread) and surprisingly, it wasn't so bad. Acting was nice because I saw all my friends that I had missed for so much of the strike and being together again felt natural. Afterwards I rushed to my Teaching Geography class and my spirits began to flag because usually it sucks; not the case yesterday, however. We did mapping activities for 3 hours and it rocked. Halfway through that class I opened my FirstClass email account to the most amazing and ground-shaking news: our 4-week, 20-day teaching block, the one that we're supposed to do at the end of the school year, had been cancelled. I was overjoyed because I hate my placement; my MT is a cold, unhelpful woman who dislikes me and I think probably finds me tedious. The thought of teaching in her school for 20 straight days sent me skating toward the edge of a nervous breakdown. This is fantastic. This is the best news ever.
After class we had a Town Hall meeting in the Winters college dining hall to clear up any confusion about the Ed year. It was short but full of information, and to celebrate we (being a pile of FESA members who just kept getting bigger) went to Blueberry Hill (or Blueberry Mountain, according to Steve) for dinner before Mean Girls movie night. Move night was great, and then I came home.
Today is Tuesday. I lesson planned, went to the gym, and now I'm in class watching a video that suggests that breathing is God. Ha.
I don't need God to tell me that despite my doubts, everything is going to be okay. I just need me to say it.

-Laur

Snowy snow

I'm tired of the snow. But this picture, taken in the bus shelter at Clark and New Westminster during that last intense cold snap, brings the beauty of winter to life.

Now I'm ready for spring. Come on, spring!

-Laur

P.S. To those of you reading this in Facebook, you'll probably have to go to the source for the picture: www.lauraadventure.blogspot.com

Legen- wait for it- dary!

So this strike has been really hard on me. I didn't realize how hard until my mom pointed something out to me earlier this evening.
I've been going to the gym pretty solidly since the beginning of December, and semi watching what I eat (which is saying something because I usually don't watch at ALL) but since the beginning of January I've felt this general malaise sinking in. It really began to bother me a few weeks ago when I noticed I was tired all the time, actually exhausted when I was getting lots of sleep, enough exercise and pretty okay nutrition.
It got so bad that I felt like I could barely function; going out with friends felt like work when it used to be something I enjoyed, and the other day when I had a cup of coffee I bounced off the walls like a pixy on crack for 3 hours and then crashed and burned when the caffeine wore off.
I made a doctors appointment because I really thought something was wrong, but wound up having to cancel the appointment when the Education students were called back to placement with very little warning. I probably should have just told my MT I couldn't come in because of the appointment, but I decided against it because I wanted to make a good impression. Another whatever when it comes to my MT, but that's another story for another post.
Anyways, I bought some vitamin-type stuff today before I worked out because I figured maybe I should get a little more of the things I was lacking. I take a women's one-a-day vitamin every morning, but perhaps I'm lacking B12 or something, so we'll see how that works out. But when I told my mom about it, she had another idea: depression.
I hate that word. It's a dirty word in my books because I have a side of the family that suffers from mental illness, and it often goes untreated. Depression isn't a problem that I want to have to face right now, but when I thought it for a minute, I realized Mom might be on to something. If I am depressed right now, I'm damn well entitled to be. I'm watching my graduation, the pieces of paper that right now define my future, slide slowly and greasily down the drain as this CUPE strike drags on and on. My work hours are being cut back because of the economic crisis, my job options getting cut in half, and my school work is entirely unappealing. If I am going through some sort of mental health crisis, it is not without catalyst.
Something has been kind of helping me through it, though; this show, a half hour sitcom from CBS called How I Met Your Mother, never fails to crack me up and make me feel a little more in control of my world. That, and Neil Patrick Harris (the blonde guy sitting in the bathtub) rocks my world with his hilarious hijinks. The cast looks all hipster in that photo but in the show they're actually kind of real. The writing is brilliant, the storylines terrific and not too unbelievable, and the acting is right on par. I've worked my way through the first, second and third seasons and am just about ready to start the 4th and current season; who knows, I might even be able to start watching it in real time on LOL Mondays. It's preceded by another comedic jem called The Big Bang Theory, which started last season and I'm also caught up on, but that's another story as well.
Premier Dalton McGuinty introduced a bill for back to work legislation regarding the strike today, so I could be back in school by February 2nd. All is not lost, and I hope that once I get back into it this depression, or whatever it is, goes away. For now I think I'll just keep watching HIMYM and laugh my head off the next time Marshall slaps Barney.

-Laur