Life Update – Mid-Terms and Snow

I know I have been a little bit too relaxed with posting regularly on my blog so far this year. To share how things are going at the moment and where I am right now in my life, I thought I would just do a quick Life Update post.

·         As of Monday I am now in the midst of Mid-Terms. This semester I have three mid-terms and I have already done the one that I was most worried about so it’s not too bad.

·         It has been snowing again. I talked more about Canadian winter in January here. To be honest at this point I am just getting a bit bored of winter, the constant cold is just getting tiring.

·         I am a vegetarian at the moment, I talked more about that in this post.

·         Academically things are going well, the classes I am taking this semester are all interesting. I have also been working on my proposal for my dissertation which should be really interesting.

·         To be honest, things have generally been a bit quieter this semester. I am still enjoying being in Canada to Study Abroad but it seems like there is not as much is happening as there was back in September and October.

Nearly a Week Back in Canada

I arrived back in Canada on Friday last week and I thought it was about time to write a quick post about what has happened since then.

First off, the weather. It is definitely winter right now in Canada. Travelling from Toronto airport when I arrived was not fun, it was seriously cold! I think it got to around - 20 °C. This sort of weather would probably have brought the country to a standstill back in England but here in Canada everyone just keeps going about their business. On Monday there was some pretty deep snow and I even had to walk to class as it was snowing, I was listening to the Frozen soundtrack whilst walking to class. Fortunately since then it has warmed up a little, today it was even + 2 °C. I’m pretty sure that next winter when I’m back in England I am going to be completely insufferable about the weather (so apologies in advance to whoever I’m living with).

There’s not a Fresher’s week/O-Week at the start of this semester so it has been just straight back into classes. To be honest even after three years of being a student I’m still not entirely sure if I like that or not! However I am glad that I had the weekend to adjust to the time zone, get over the jet lag and have chance to settle back in before getting back into classes.

I have now been through at least one class of all the classes that I’m taking this semester and I’m happy with what I’ve chosen. From that point of view this is definitely going to be a very interesting semester. I only have one night class instead of two this time round, even though I don’t find night classes too bad it’s preferable to just have one.

So I’m back in Canada and so far everything has been going good for me.

Halloween is Over

Well it’s the start of November today which means that it is the beginning of Christmas season and the end of Halloween 2017. But before we completely say goodbye to Halloween I wanted to share a few thoughts about my Halloween in Canada.

In the weeks running up to Halloween there was quite a lot of anticipation amongst most people I know. Especially after Thanksgiving there seemed to be a lot of excitement building for Halloween. To be honest in the end more things seemed to be happening over the weekend instead of on Halloween itself, in the UK at uni we tend to do Halloween stuff both on the weekend and on the night itself.

For me Halloween really began on Saturday with my trip to Haunt at Canada’s Wonderland which was undoubtedly the highlight of my Halloween this year. I had a really good time.

Tuesday, Halloween Day went more or less as a normal day for me. This year for Halloween I was Clark Kent/Superman, I was actually going around all day in my costume just with the shirt buttoned up for most of the day. I guess the glasses really do mean that Superman can hide in plain sight.

It was more or less a normal day until I went to my night lecture, then suddenly about 5-10 minutes into the lecture the lights suddenly went out and there was a powercut. I’m 90% sure that the powercut must have been caused by ghosts. Either that or it was karma for scheduling classes on Halloween night. We got let out of the lecture and I walked across a darkened campus to my residence. Everyone was just gathering together and hanging out in the dark. Usually we’re a very social group in my accommodation however something about the dark made us all even more sociable than usually, maybe it was because without power we were all forced away from our screens. This was not how I expected my Halloween night to go but honestly it was actually a lot of fun. There’s something inherently spooky about being in the dark without power but then when you’re enjoying spending time with friend it’s even better.

So maybe I did not have the Halloween I had been anticipating but I have had a good one this year.

Turns Out Night Classes Are Not So Bad

Studying Abroad in Canada has changed slightly in the past week because I’ve started my classes now. I mentioned this briefly in my last post but now classes have really started so I thought I’d write a brief post about it.

I have no 9 AMs this semester! Even though some classes even begin at 8:30 AM over here. I am probably the only student in the world who doesn’t mind getting up for a 9 AM, in fact it’s unusual for me to wake up after 7:00 AM!  But that’s part of the problem with 9 AMs for me because generally I tend to find that with independent studying I am more productive after lunch time.

On the other end of the day over here in Canada I now have classes that begin at 7 PM and run until 9:50 PM! When I initially saw those times I was shocked however both of my 7 PM classes are on subjects which I really wanted to take which might end up influencing my dissertation, so I gritted my teeth and chose them anyway. Now that I’ve actually had my two evening classes I’ve found that it’s nowhere near as bad as I initially thought that they might be. Probably the only downside is that at the moment it’s still light when I go in but it is dark and beginning to get cold when I leave the class room.

One thing that I know that my family and friends back in the UK are probably wondering is what are classes like in Canada? Are they easier or harder than they are back in the UK? Well I’ve mainly had introductory classes so far but I will say that rather than being easier or harder Canadian classes are different. For example there’s more assignments throughout the semester however they’re generally not as long as assignments in the UK and having multiple ones contributing to the overall grade throughout the semester means that the pressure is taken off the final exam.

So overall even though classes have begun I am still really enjoying being in Canada and studying abroad. And it turns out that night classes are not so bad.