Stranded

Hello there.

The city is in ruins today. It's awful: there's a gas leak at one of the train stations downtown and there're accidents halfway up both of the major roads that take you from the south end to the University.

So as it stands I'm stuck on campus for a good long while here. I was supposed to be home by now! AND we were finally going to go to archery tonight, which we now aren't because by the time we get our asses in gear it'll be far too late to bother any more. So that shall have to wait for another day.

I've already gotten my online German textbook substitute since I've been waiting and most of the other homework I need to do needs to be done at home, so I'm just kind of waiting. Mom will be coming to pick me up at some point and take me back home where I'm safe from all this nonsense of disasters and such.

I'm really enjoying everything I'm doing here so far, it's actually captured my interest, which is more than I can say for IB. I'm understanding everything that I'm being taught and I feel really confident about heading into my assignments and tests. Speaking of which I have my first one tomorrow: a Russian quiz.

Wasting time isn't working as well as I'd hoped. Oh well. Tomorrow I've got a solid 4 hours to study between German and my first book club meeting. We're doing a meet & greet idea with Crave cupcakes and everything, and we're deciding what to read for our first meeting. Hope it's something awesome!

I'm going to go and waste time playing solitaire. Lots of love guys!
~Alexandra

Awesome week!

Hey guys!

I've had an awesome week! I actually made an intelligent contribution in my English class, subsequently earning favour with my professor, which I deem to be awesome, and I've made a friend which, if you don't know me very well, is a huge accomplishment given my current situation. I'm very bad at interaction with people, girls especially. Yes, boys, girls confound other girls too. You'll never understand them and neither will I. Anyway, I've made a new (girl) friend; also awesome.

The work hasn't been piling up per se, most of my classes are based on non-practicable concepts. What I mean by that is in math you learn about the concept of derivatives and then you open the textbook and do 100 derivatives for practice. In biology you open the textbook and there's a rehash of what you learned in class. Take notes if you like, but there aren't piles of questions to practice with. Which I like. I'm reading through my bio textbook and my poli sci text book to take notes, I do the practice for my languages and I read and contemplate my junk for English. It's really very easy work, but I'm a few chapters behind in bio and poli sci so that work needs to be completed today.

I am now regretting wasting the last two hours on the computer and polishing my nails. I really should get working because I have a date with the lake tomorrow since the temperature has gone back up. Summer is hitting Calgary hard and it's been officially autumn for 3 days now. I am totally okay with this. One more day of shenanigans before it's game over for the winter. Don't you just love Canadian weather?

Well, I'm going to go procrastinate some more then I'm going to get to my work.

I hope you're all doing well!
~Alexandra

Halfway through another week

Hey guys,

Today I decided to go in early to get some studying done. It went better than I expected even though I totally spent a solid 1/4 of the time on Facebook. Did get through a few subsections of my Bio chapter though. I call it a small victory.

I have done something halfway blasphemous this week. I have joined Twitter. I suppose you can follow me if you like @MlleEcrivaine I'm actually having a lot of fun with it. I'm starting to like branching out on the internet and trying some new stuff. I think that a lot of people (myself included) need to get over the thought that we shouldn't join things on the internet because they're too "mainstream". Like Twitter. I think people should have a legitimate reason not to like something.

Take Apple for instance. As it stands I don't like Mac. Before you ask: yes, I have used one. The only thing that kept me from tossing it into traffic was the fact that it wasn't mine. 4 years ago, my 9th grade class did a Mockumentary project and each group was supplied with a Mac laptop. Granted, I only used the video editing software and that's what made me so angry. I never had the opportunity to browse the system further than that, so I think I'm going to have to give it a second chance. I won't go so far as to say that I'll switch if I like it; I've been using Windows since I was maybe 6 and because of that I don't even have to think when I'm using this OS. But I think I can come to terms with Mac at the very least.

I'm trying to be more open minded this year. My reasons include, but are not limited to, the fact that I am in a department of the University inhabited almost exclusively by hipsters. I'll be mainstream if I damn well want to.

I will leave you with this: if you're looking for some different music try E Nomine, you can search them on YouTube. I recommend "Vater Unser" or "Laetitia." Such good music!

Take care everyone!
~Alexandra

First Week Done

Hey guys,

So I'm finally done my first week of University. It's been going pretty well, I'm staying relatively unstressed so far. I'd like to think that it's because of my experience with IB but I'm pretty sure it's because I haven't been working to my full potential yet. It shall become clear soon.

My bio class is pretty much a rehash of IB bio, we're going over all of the same experiments that we talked about including Darwin's finches and the pepper moths. I'm hoping a get some kind of new information out of this course. Even if I don't, at least that means I'll do really well on the tests.

My Russian class is going well, we're doing the alphabet right now which has taken 2 solid classes so far. I need to work on practicing writing the letters because she's making us cursive write in Cyrillic, we're not allowed to print at all. It kind of sucks, but I'll learn.

I'm making good progress in German as well. We've gone over basic greetings and numbers and things and today we did addresses. It's quite fun and I feel very excited to finally be learning the language that's stealing my heart. I really think that between the 1/2 of my blood that's German and 1/4 of my blood that's Austrian my brain is basically hard-wired to speak German. I can't wait to get back in class on Monday!

My English class is... I don't know how it's going actually. We haven't really done anything English related yet except going over citing protocol.

Political Science is going quite well. We went over the history of democracy the other day for our Introduction to Ideologies. It's going to be a very interesting class I think.

Clubs week is this coming week so I'm going to join the belly dance club finally. It should be awesome!

I hope that everyone else is settling into school nicely and I will post more soon!
~Alexandra

The End of Frosh Week

Hey guys,

Frosh week at U of C came to a close today with the Dinos Kickoff football game in which we beat UBC 30-25. It was pretty epic.

So all week we've been being introduced to ways to get involved on campus and make the most out of our university career and I've already come out of it with a few things.

Number one: I've joined a club. I joined the Scribe and Muse club which is basically a multifaceted literature club. I've joined for the Book Club and the Creative Writing circle.

Number two: I went on a tour of the campus media department. We have a TV station, a radio station and a magazine. I'm trying to decide between getting involved with the radio and working my way up to eventually being on air, or joining the magazine as a proofreader and possibly as a writer. I would love to do both, but I can't spread myself too thin, I do have my studies to focus on after all.

I'm also planning on joining the belly dance club when clubs week happens in two weeks here.

I'm really excited to get going with my classes on Monday, but even so I still have one weekend of freedom left. Saturday I'm just going to chill and Sunday we're going to the lake! It will be awesome!

I hope everyone else is getting settled in well at school and is doing well!
~Alexandra

Mrrargh

Hello people.

I'm tired. I got 4 hours of sleep last night then got up super early to work as a chip runner for a charity casino for the archery club. Not hard, just lots of being awake after not much being asleep.

I'm plowing my way through Vol de Nuit by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry for my 2nd year French course. Well, plowing might not be the right word. I started yesterday and I'm 2 pages in. I'm struggling but I'm also getting used to it, so it should pick up soon. We did little decent reading in high school so it's really quite difficult. Doesn't help that it's from the 30s.

Needless to say, I'm very tired. I think I'm going to do some more of the book and then go to bed. One more day of summer and then orientation on Tuesday!

Tschüs!
~Alexandra

University News

Hey guys!

I finally enrolled in the University's orientation week. I hope I don't have to go to everything, most of it shall suck muchly. There's some kind of play on sexuality... I don't really think I need to see that at this point in my life. I am comfortably heterosexual and I don't plan on sleeping with infected people at any point in the future, so I think I can skip it.

I do get to go to an hour long elective on campus media and another on internationalizing my degree which might mean that there's a way I can travel cheaply in the near future, which I would love more than anything else in the world right now.

I got my books all in order, it looks like I'm set to go. I just need to fine a thin sleeve for my laptop or something so that my notebook rings don't scratch her. I'd like the pretty lid to stay pretty. And I don't want to haul my netbook around because it overheats too easily, the keyboard officially sucks in comparison to this one, the battery sucks and the cord is heavier than it should be. And the battery is one of the ones that stick out from the bottom of the device, so it's a little oddly shaped to be putting in my backpack.

I'm split on my feelings about going back to school. On one hand, it'll be nice to get out and do something with my time instead of sitting here pretending to write but on the other hand I like the sleep schedule I've got going now and it's just not going to be possible to keep that going when I'm in school.

As well, I'm fearing the infamous "Freshman 15". I'm already not in good shape and I really don't need another 15 pounds tacked on. I need to figure out how to stay in shape during school, because God knows I didn't put the slightest effort in last year. Granted, I was also incapped due to my stupid knee, but regardless, I still did nothing.

So, yeah, mixed feelings about school and all that. The Sephora thing didn't end up working out because they need people with flexible schedules and as I student I don't have one of those. So I'll likely be working at Olsen Europe for the winter because they need a Christmas employee and the manager loves me to death, so I have an in.

I hope everyone's September has started off well!
~Alexandra