A Relatively Easy Coursework Season To Survive

So it seems to have become a thing for me to write about Coursework Season everytime it comes around again. Previously I wrote ‘Student Life - Surviving Coursework Season’ about Spring semester 2017 and I also wrote ‘Surviving Coursework Season – In Canada!’ about Fall 2017.

This semester I had a bit of a different approach to managing coursework season. Ultimately it has meant that I’ve manged to avoid the worst of the stress that usually sets in as a result of coursework season, anything that helps me avoid stress has to be good for me.

I always write out all my deadlines on a calendar at the start of the semester so that I know what I have due when. This is a great way to get a good idea of when you need to start working on an assignment. It’s also very satisfying to cross off an assignment with a Sharpie after it’s been submitted.

Because of writing my deadlines on my calendar I realised that March was going to be a pretty heavy month for me. I’ve had something due literally every week this month and most of them have been quite lengthy assignments. It was obvious that I wouldn’t be able to go through them all at my usual pace.

Back in January I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do for Reading Week, knowing March was going to be busy I decided that I was going to get started on my coursework in advance. I also knew back then that I was going to Toronto ComiCon and I did not want to be worrying about having to do work over that weekend which further pushed me to get started in advance. 

In Canada most classes seem to have less weekly reading and more assignments. Back in the UK I was definitely doing more reading but on the other hand I was doing nowhere near the same amount of assignments. I think there’s something that I like about both ways off teaching, but I do know it’s going to be slightly strange for me to adjust back into the UK system for next semester.

So basically that’s how being smugly organised has given me a relatively easy coursework season to survive this semester.

February Reading Week in Canada

For the past week it has been Reading Week, classes resume on Monday and so as the week is coming to an end I thought I would do a blog post about it.

At one point I had been considering going off for a holiday over Reading Week, however in the end I decided not to. I decided that the best use of my Reading Week would be to really push myself to get ahead on my work load. Partially because I have a lot of work due over the course of March, I am naturally organised and I always like to be ahead in my work whenever possible. I also wanted to get some of my assignments done because in March I am going to be away over a weekend to staying overnight for a Comic Con.

I was actually very surprised to see just how many people left on Friday – the last day of class before Reading Week. Usually when I’m at Uni back in the UK a few people will leave for Reading Week but the majority of people tend to stay. The university also tends to run events throughout the week so that there’s something going on. But here in Canada the campus and residence has been pretty much deserted for the entire week. To be honest it has been weird seeing the campus so empty but it also has been pretty quiet which has given me a good working environment.

I haven’t just been doing work, I did go to Toronto on Monday and I did have a good day.

Also over the course of Reading Week I have decided to give up being vegetarian. I just missed eating meat a little too much. In fairness my New Year’s Resolution was only to try being vegetarian, I never intended to make it a lifelong commitment and I did manage to be completely vegetarian for a decent amount of time. I do plan to keep on cooking veggie meals, I’m just going to be having meat every so often. My plan now is to treat meat as more of a luxury item than an everyday foodstuff.

So in conclusion, I definitely had a productive Reading Week and even if it was maybe not the busiest I still had a good time.

Little Differences

The 5^th of November, back in the U.K it is Bonfire Night. But here in Canada it’s just the Sunday that the clocks go back.

Generally I have been pretty lucky in that I have not experienced home sickness or culture shock. In the run up to going to study abroad I heard so many things about how ‘you will get home sick’ but honestly I haven’t and this far into my exchange I think that it’s unlikely it ever will hit me. However that doesn’t mean there aren’t some little differences which when I come across make me miss home.

·         As I mentioned at the start of this post, Bonfire Night. I want to go see a firework display tonight but there isn’t one.

·         Halloween, yes I had an awesome Halloween but at the same time I did miss going to the Halloween event that I have been to every year at my UK uni.

·         Tea. I haven’t had a single cup of proper English Breakfast tea since I’ve been here because the ones imported from Britain are too pricey and I don’t like the look of any of the other brands.

·         Instant coffee, you can’t buy decent instant coffee over here. As I need my coffee every morning I had to buy a coffee maker.

·         Halloumi, it’s not available in Walmart.

·         Having a full reading week, we don’t have one in the fall semester but it’s nice to have a break.

·         Money, I’m fine with saying dollars instead of pounds and using notes but the coins keep confusing me. This is awkward if you’re at a till when there’s a queue behind you and you’re faffing around trying to figure out what’s a 10 cent and what’s a 5 cent.

This isn’t a list of all the differences between being a student in the UK and Canada or everything that I miss but it’s just a few things that have stood out to me.

Thanksgiving Weekend

I celebrated my first ever Thanksgiving!

Here in Canada we just had a long weekend (7^th – 10^th of October) to celebrate Thanksgiving. In Canada Thanksgiving takes place in early October instead of in November like it does over in America. The reason why is apparently because Thanksgiving is more about celebrating the Harvest over here in Canada. Going into the long weekend I didn’t really know what to expect because I have never experienced Thanksgiving before. But it turned out that I had a really great time and I really enjoyed myself.

Most people on my floor in my accommodation either went home for the long weekend or went off exploring places. As I’ve mentioned before usually my accommodation is very sociable so it was weird to find it so quiet, though it was kind of a refreshing change! I spent nearly the entire weekend with a couple of friends who live on the same floor as me and were staying for the long weekend. The three of us had a really good time together.

On Saturday we didn’t do too much, though I did go to a local farmers market which was really nice. I spent a lot of Saturday chatting, hanging out and just generally enjoying spending time with my friends.

On Sunday evening we had been invited to go to one of our other friends (she’s also one of my suitemates) home to join her family for Thanksgiving Dinner. It was a really good meal with lots of good food. We just had a really nice evening. Beforehand I know we’d been worried that it might be a little awkward but there wasn’t really any awkwardness. Once more the stereotype about Canadians being friendly welcoming people was proven to be true!

On Monday a lot of places were closed - as it was a public holiday - but we wanted to get out and do something. We found a local farm with a Corn Maze and a Pumpkin Patch was open and so we went there for a little outing. We managed to get lost in the Corn Maze but that’s part of the fun! It was a good harvest themed attraction which was nice to visit over Thanksgiving.

On Tuesday we had pancakes, we hung out some more and we went for a walk. There was also a second Thanksgiving dinner on a smaller scale than the big meal but on by the university. In the evening more or less everyone who had gone home returned, even though we’d all seen each other on Friday it was still good to have a reunion with all the friends I’ve made on this floor!

So that was my first ever Thanksgiving, as you can probably guess, I really enjoyed myself. I kind of want to bring celebrating Thanksgiving with me next year when I am back in the UK.

Piecing Together The City

So I’ve recently arrived in Canada for my year abroad and for me one of the most important things to get sorted (after all the admin stuff) is to start to piece the city where I’m going to be living together in my head.

By piecing together the city what I mean is the way that as you start to get more used to a new city it becomes pieced together in your mind. For example how the university is situated in location to the nearest grocery store and then how that’s located in relation to the main shopping area and the mall.

I’m not sure if I’m just misremembering but it seems as if it’s harder to piece together the layout of a Canadian city than the city I go to uni in back in the UK. It could partially be because I haven’t fully explored all of the city yet. I think there’s also a part of it that’s harder for me to piece the city together because it’s just different from the UK! Definitely the roads are wider than they are in the UK. Canadian cities – a lot like American cities – are laid out in a grid system, this makes it quite easy to navigate.

On Friday a couple of friends and me had decided we want to go to Wendy’s for dinner (we don’t have Wendy’s in the UK so this is exciting to us!). However we’d assumed that Wendy’s was quite far away and given we’d had a long day we weren’t sure about walking that far. But it turned out that the nearest Wendy’s was only a couple of minutes further a long from Walmart which we’d been going to a lot since we’d arrived!

I don’t know if this is a general thing with cities in Canada but here it seems as if the Downtown area is mainly full of independent stores. The chain stores are mainly in the mall and on the street surrounding the mall. This is an interesting change from UK cities where chain stores are increasingly pushing the independent stores out of business and away from the Downtown/City Centre areas.

Also, I have now located the comic store which I am obviously very pleased about!

Probably The Last Study Abroad Post Before I Set Off

Well the title says it all, this is probably going to be the last post about me studying abroad before I set off for Canada.

So, what’s happening right now? Well as far as I know I have now got more or less everything I needed to do in the UK before I set off done. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out that something unforeseen comes up in the next few days, but hopefully not. The whole process from right back when it started seems to have involved not much happening and then suddenly loads of things to do at once!

At the moment the main thing I’m feeling is that I am just ready to go. It’s like when you’ve been revising heavily for an exam and you get to that point a day or two beforehand when you feel like there’s not really much more you can do and you just want to get on with it.

I have previously talked about what I’m looking forward to doing once I’m there so I won’t go over that again. It’s just going to be a really interesting experience.

I will continue to blog once I am out in Canada actually finally doing it. There’s probably going to be lots of posts about me getting used to cultural differences! However I think this is probably going to be the last post before I fly out on Tuesday.