Confessions of a Self-Proclaimed Geek

12. The Best and Worst of Sackville and goodbye

2007-04-26T08:48:00.000-04:00

As I wrap up my stay in Sackville, I figured it might be useful to make a list of what I found to be the best and the worst things about being here.

The Best Things

- The People: I met so many wonderful people while I was here. Without a doubt, that was the best part of my time here. I loved hanging with them and talking and participating in various activities and I know I’ll miss everyone so much. The thing I’m most terrified of right now is being away from them all and losing touch, though I don’t plan on letting that happen without a fight.

- The School: I have been fairly obvious about this: I love Mount Allison. Sure, sometimes things happen that are weird or sketchy, but I have had such a great time in this environment that I’m able to overlook those and strongly recommend the school to anyone looking for a place to get a great education and be part of a great legacy. While I didn’t love every class or every professor I had, I loved most of them and don’t have any regrets about coming here.

- The Community: Sackville is a university town and it really shows, in things like the Friday night “Twoonie movie” and all the “Welcome Back Students” signs on the doors. This place is designed to help students live their lives and it does a wonderful job. There are so many great spots, like Joey’s Pizza or the Bridget Street Café that you really can enjoy yourself. Oh, and there are a decent number of bars too.

- The Size: I come from a small village (maybe 1000 population?) and so Sackville has always seemed decently big to me in comparison, but not too big. You can walk pretty much anywhere you need to get, though if you want to see more you will need to bike or get access to a car somehow (that’s what cabs are for). There is a real convenience about things.

The Worst Things

- The Isolation: Let’s face it, there are things that you just can’t get in Sackville and then you’re paying bus fare/taxi far/gas money to a friend with a car just to get out and have your computer upgraded because there is more selection out there in civilization than in good ole Bagtown.

- The Wind: The Sackville wind is infamous for a reason. It can be brutal, especially in winter. I used to have a pair of ski goggles just so I could see where I was going (then I broke them, oops). The snow can also get pretty high sometimes, which leads to a general lack of wanting to do anything outside in the winter, which is bad when you have to venture out to get to class. But then again, this is Canada so I expect most places have this issue. Of course, a fair amount of those places also have public transportation, though it isn’t really necessary here.

This is going to be my last entry here. It’s been really fun to write this blog and I’m going to miss it. I’ve also really enjoyed reading the other Mt A bloggers and learning about what they’re doing too.

I have all my marks in now so I know that I have graduated. Next week I start the program at Humber. And then after that, I’m out in the job market. That should be interesting.

I hope that my blog has helped people learn more about Mt A and student life there. If it has, then my job is done.

Goodbye and best of luck to you all.

11. Last Week of Class

2007-04-05T15:09:00.000-04:00

It is the last week of classes. My goal for this week is to not skip any class, because I’ll admit I’ve been getting a bit bad about that of late. It’s actually fairly upsetting to me, but I just seem to be losing steam as things finally end. However excitement over the Humber program and my acceptance has made things seem a bit better at least.

Because it is end of term it means my life is very busy, to say the least. I have essays due in four out of five classes (the only reason it’s not five for five is because Canadian Women’s Literature had the paper due a few weeks back). I also have four regular exams and one take-home. Plus I have to pack because I’ll be leaving Sackville in just under two weeks. No rest for the wicked.

This Saturday my aunt came up and we went into Moncton together. I now have a new video card in my computer which is making me very happy, plus I bought a new game for my Nintendo DS, Elite Beat Agents (which is far too addictive), along with some more printer ink, printer paper, and supplies for filing because I have a file cabinet here that it is desperate need of some organization.

Finally, the only other thing really going on in my life (as clubs are really closing down now, which is sad…last anime club meeting was this last Saturday and G&G had it’s last meeting of the year the previous Wednesday) is work, which I’m almost done (the 8^th, which is this Sunday, is my last day). One of my supervisors seems to want to keep me around though; she keeps giving me more shifts. I even have one for Friday night, which hasn’t happened since first term because of my class schedule, but since there are no classes it really isn’t an issue. But soon I shall bid Tim Hortons farewell and shall be very happy for it, though I will miss the people. Well, some of them.

I’m going to try to get in a fair number of last blogs though, especially since I will be graduating and thus leaving the blog behind. It’s been a lot of fun, so I definitely want to go out strong.

Addition:

I wrote the above stuff at the beginning of the week but am posting a bit letter since Margaret was busy and didn’t have a chance to edit until today.

I just got back from my last ever class at Mount Allison University. This is really weird.

Still busy though, because most of those papers listed above are still looming over me. But no more class.

10. Humber

2007-03-28T16:16:00.000-04:00

I continue to get closer to the finish line. It’s been an interesting journey, and one I will talk about more in the future. However, I have more exciting news for this entry.

I was accepted into the Creative Book Publishing Program at Humber College for this summer! I had a phone interview for it on Friday, at the end of which I was told that I had a spot. I am very excited about it, even though it means that I’ll have two weeks out of school between the end of Mt A exams and the beginning of this program (it starts May 1^st).

The program also does sound a bit intense class-wise: from Monday to Thursday, I’ll be in class from 9-5, with some breaks obviously. Friday starts earlier (7:30, I think) so you get out earlier and can have a longer weekend break. Cynthia Good, the program director who does the interviews, said that there isn’t too much work outside of class at least. So I’ll have time in which to detox from the school overload. But I’m still really excited for the challenge.

The main reason I want to be in this program is to learn more skills for the publishing world, but even more importantly figure out what exactly it is that I want to do. Right now I am drawn to editing, but it’s the only area I have experience in. The program deals with literary agents and marketing as well, so I’ll get to learn more about that.

Hopefully I’ll come out of this with a nice job, most likely in Toronto since most of the publishers are there. And that’s going to be a big change after Sackville. I have to admit, TO (an Ontario-ism for Toronto…at least I think it’s still restricted to Ontario mainly) wouldn’t really be my first choice, if I could choose any place, but it still has its advantages. I’ll be closer to my family back in Ottawa and Margaret will be in London which isn’t too far, plus I have a lot of other friends from pre-university that are in Ontario somewhere, including Shannon, who has been one of my closest friends for seventeen years now.

Right now the main focus for this is trying to get a place to live. This is a bit more complicated because of Elphaba, since I need a place that will allow pets. But that’s okay too, because I love my kitty very much and would be sad to be without her.

So that’s my exciting news. I really could not be happier, especially considering I didn’t really have a Plan B for if I didn’t get accepted.

For more info, here's the program's website: http://creativeandperformingarts.humber.ca/bookpublishing/index.html (also now included in my blog's list of links).

9. DOOMtime

2007-03-19T22:36:00.001-04:00

It’s the final crunch time here right now, with essays and reports and presentations and a million things piling up on top of each other. I’m trying not to get too stressed out, but it’s not working so well at times. It can be easy to be overwhelmed and I think the best approach, or at least the best for me, is just to take a step back and figure out what needs to be done in small steps. Focus on one thing at a time and get that done, then move on. The larger picture is just too big sometimes.

I have thankfully had time to do more than stress. The anime club had our annual post-Animaritime trip to Moncton last Saturday. It was really fun and I spent all my birthday money before my birthday (which was the 13^th, by the way). I bought a new purse and wallet, some manga, some stuff for my cat, and a new game for my DS. We also had a very yummy dinner at the Chinese buffet there, which I must say is much better than the Hong Kong Kitchen here in Sackville, especially the buffet which I feel is a bit overpriced here. The Moncton one however was wonderful.

The only other news right now is another source of stress: my application to the Creative Book Publishing Program at Humber College. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but I really want to get into this program, which runs from May to August. I mainly want to develop more skills in the area of book publishing as well as get a better idea of what the various careers are because beyond editors I don’t really know too much.

There was a bit of a mix-up with my application however, as somehow my transcripts got lost in the trip from OCAS to Humber. Which I found out about last week and was freaking out over. Luckily I got that cleared up so now I just have to do a one-page write up on a recently published, Canadian authored book, focusing not on content but on the physicality of the book and the implications of the publication decisions made, and I need to put together a detailed resume. Then I send those in and schedule an interview. And then I wait.

I really thought all this application business was over when I got into Mount A. Apparently I was wrong. The worst part is that if I don’t get into the program I don’t really have a solid Plan B. So really, REALLY hoping on Plan A. But I have a generally good feeling about it, which usually is a decent sign. Hopefully I don’t have to wait too long after I finish all the final application business though, because the waiting is always the worst part (though there is a sense of relief when things are out of your hands).

So that’s life right now, trying to balance stress with fun and succeeding most of the time, but sadly not all of it. I’m going to try to start being a bit more regular in my posts here, if I can, but life doesn’t seem to like me doing such things.

8. Animaritime Report

2007-03-02T19:50:00.000-04:00

I’m not dead yet!

Really!

Okay, so once again I’ve gone awhile without new posts. This time however I have a more valid reason: being sick. Nothing too serious, just a cold though it gets nasty enough that I’ve missed some classes. Sadly, I have also decided that I cannot attend the English Society’s Wine & Cheese event tonight which is very upsetting because I was looking forward to it. But the cold air doesn’t mix well with my lungs right now so it’s probably for the best.

Other than being sick, the big news in my life is Animaritime 2007. It went amazing. Really amazing. I definitely think it was the best con so far. It also of course will be the last where I have this level of involvement in the planning, since next year I’m fairly certain I will be in Ontario and thus might not even be at the con (though I am going to try my best) and, if I am, will be a low-level staffer who sets up and stuff.

We estimate that there were about 600 attendees during the three days. On Saturday we ended up having to turn away about 100 or so because we had hit the capacity limit of 500 people at a time. It’s so incredible to see how much our “baby” has grown in the last four years: this year, before the con opened, we had more people waiting in line to get in than we had at the first convention back in 2004.

I could go on and on about all the stuff that happened because there was so much and it was very awesome. But that would take up a lot of time and personally I’m thinking that I’ll go with the saying a picture is worth 1000 words. So enjoy the pictures.

(Basically all of these pictures are examples of “cosplay” which basically means dressing up in character and often being able to imitate said characters are well. Thanks to my friend Lindsay who took most of the pictures.)

(Last brackets, I swear...for additional con info, here's an awesome article written by William Wolfe-Wylie for Mount A's student newspaper, The Argosy: http://www.argosy.ca/view.php?aid=39583)

This is from the pre-convention meeting, a nice stack of registration booklets that we had to fold and assemble.

The lovely staff t-shirts, in a great shade of orange (reminds me of frosh week...my residence has orange frosh shirts)

Here I am, in most of my costume (I'm missing the jacket because it was hot), posing with an X-Men comicbook. As mentioned before, I went as Dark Phoenix from the third X-Men movie.

And now, random cosplay, don't ask me who the characters are, just enjoy that they look cool.

7. Animaritime

2007-02-21T14:08:00.000-04:00

I’d like to say that the reason for the longer than usual gap between entries was because I’ve been productive. Sadly, this is not the case; I just haven’t felt up to writing an entry. But because I really do want to get an entry up before Animaritime, which is this weekend, I better actually go and do it before it’s too late.

(I have been somewhat productive this Reading Week though! Just not so productive that it would keep me from doing anything else).

Alright, Animaritime. First off, what the heck is it, you ask? It is the only anime convention in Atlantic Canada and it is run by the Mount Allison anime club (also known as the [Insert Catchy Name Here] Anime Club). We started four years ago (the same year as the club was founded) and haven’t looked back since. We are also pretty insane, which has been helpful.

The main things that go down at an anime convention are lots of anime showings, panels for discussion of various aspects about anime ranging from “Bishounen Survivor” (basically a battle of the anime pretty boys) to celebrating the good dubs (and not talking about the bad ones) to looking at gender issues and other more academic stuff. We also have events like trivia and we have a plushie making event (plushies = little plush toys that attendees sew and stuff and decorate) and piñatas. There are vendors selling stuff, amateur artists selling/showing their work, an auction, a masquerade of costumes, a garage sale, and much more stuff. All packed into three days of geeky fun. It’s a good time, if exhausting for the poor staff (we run on Bawls, one of those high energy drinks).

This is the fourth year of the con, as I mentioned before. It’s actually a bit sad, because it will be my last on staff. Of course, I’m also somewhat excited/liberated at the thought of not having to run it last year, because it does involve a lot of work, even for those who have less work than others, like yours truly. But it’s also really fun and definitely one of the highlights of the year (and the reason why I haven’t gone home for Reading Week since first year).

I think that covers the basics, for more info check out the website: http://animaritime.mtaanime.org

Other than Animaritime, not much has been going on so far this week. I went to Saint John on the weekend to make my costume with help from my aunt; it’s Dark Phoenix from the X-Men 3 movie. It turned out nicely, I am happy (especially because it’s finally done…I originally wanted this done for Halloween but that didn’t happen). I got back to an empty house and a very affectionate cat (it was the first time she’d been alone for so long and she’s a people-loving kitty). Monday consisted mainly of doing some cleaning, chilling out, and buying food that only I like to eat because I can. I also rented the movies Marie Antoinette (staring Kirsten Dunst) and the aforementioned X-Men 3. Both were enjoyable, I’d seen the latter before but wanted to check out the costume again. Marie Antoinette was actually more historically accurate than I had expected. I don’t think it’s something I’d need to see again though; it was okay but not wonderful.

Tuesday I watched X-Men 3 and went to a meeting about the Animaritime opening ceremony (despite the fact that I won’t be there since I’m scheduled on the registration table during it I think). I also bought ice cream (I had enough groceries on Monday that I couldn’t buy it then). I also actually got some work done, finally. Hopefully I’ll do more of that today.

I’ve also been playing lots of the Sims 2. Love that game. And I’ve been catching up on some of my Asian dramas (I’m following one from Korea called The Snow Queen and another from Japan, Hana Yori Dango 2 Returns).

Oh, and I have a cold. Which is less than fun. And that’s it, I think. I’ve been enjoying myself a bit more than maybe I should, but hey, this is my vacation, I might as well have a good time.

6. Dreaming of Reading Week

2007-02-14T19:52:00.000-04:00

Reading Week will soon be upon us, hurrah! Of course, right now I’m really wishing it was now. I’m getting fairly stressed with stuff this week. I am still working on my Linguistics survey which should have been done last Friday and has caused me a lot of frustration so far, especially because I had to basically get an extension on an extension, which just sucks and looks bad and makes me feel pretty lousy too. Especially since it’s my own fault for not starting earlier.

I also have two mid-terms at the end of the week to worry about; Canadian Women’s Lit and Japanese. Plus there is just trying to keep up-to-date with all my regular class work, which I’ve been proven to be bad at, though not so bad that I fail. In the end, I’m just not dedicated enough to cut back on the things I love to do which aren’t academic. I sometimes wish I was a bit more, though I don’t want to be one of those people who have no extra-curricular life because of their need for straight A’s. But in general I’m pretty happy with things; I get my assignments done and do well on them. It’s not perfect but hey, neither am I.

But after all this, Reading Week. Which probably will include some reading because I have a fair amount of school stuff I want to do, plus reading for pleasure is something I refuse to give up (and often do at the expense of other readings, admittedly…but it makes me happy and that’s important too). What are my big plans? Well, on Friday I have to skip my Linguistics class to catch a bus to go out to Hampton, where my aunt Diane will pick me up and take to me to her home in Quispamsis. While I’m there, we shall finish my costume that originally was going to be for Halloween but ended up being for Animaritime instead. The costume is Dark Phoenix from the X-Men 3 movie because who doesn’t love a metallic red trench coat? I’ll be back in Sackville on Sunday and then from Monday to Thursday I will be hopefully working at Tim Horton’s and doing stuff for school. Oh yeah, and getting ready for Animaritime, because it’s the next Friday, Saturday, Sunday (I promise a post shortly giving background info on the convention).

And then Reading Week will be over, alas. It never is long enough, but hopefully it will be productive and a nice break.

And then I have a midterm the day school starts again. Joy.

Oh, and even better than all this, I just discovered that I have a paper due on Friday. That I haven’t started. Oops. Note to self (and everyone): CHECK YOUR DUE DATES!

This is a pretty short entry, because well, I should go and get to work writing that paper/studying/doing something productive.

Happy Valentine’s Day to all!

5. Various Life Stuffs

2007-02-11T20:23:00.000-04:00

(Yes, I know stuffs isn't a word. But it should be...well, okay, maybe not. But I'm tired and that gives me the priveledge of making words up. Or it does now.)

To break away from the Vicki rambles/rants on about some topic that we’ve been having, this entry will have a more standard blogging subject: my life. Enjoy.

I’ve been having a big issue with my schedule lately. My Thursday is so long that I end up skipping my Japanese lab because I just want to stay in bed longer. And the four hour block between my Japanese class and Linguistics on MWF ends up with me skipping one class because I don’t want to walk back and forth between campus and home. This is bad. The worst thing is that I enjoy both classes and even the lab but I just don’t enjoy the timing.

I’ve been trying to figure out ways to work on this. On Wednesday I ended up going to the Admissions office (I’m staff there because of this blogging thing) and folding posters. For three and half hours. In this time, I folded roughly 1500 of the things. So my hands were dead and I never wanted to see another poster in my life. On the plus side, I got to actually see my “boss” of sorts and ended up talking with Dr Brown, who is on sabbatical, for a bit after I was done before going off to Linguistics. And I got chocolate. Chocolate is good.

But I don’t know if I can do that all the time. So I have to figure out other ways of either getting myself back on campus or finding something to do that lets me stay there. So far, I don’t have many ideas.

I’ve never been a person who really cared much about my schedule before – I took classes because I wanted to take them, rather than worrying about when they were. Because of this, I’ve had both the first class on Monday (8:30-9:20) and the last class on Friday (4:30-5:20) (the Monday class was worst, I like my sleep!). But now I’m really seeing why maybe it’s not such a bad idea to care somewhat.

I still would have wanted to take Japanese and Linguistics though. Maybe I could have found a class in between them or something.

Anyway, other than schedules and readings which I am sadly quite far behind in (especially my Christianity and Rome, which makes me sad because Dr Wilson is really good at guilting us about it), I did have a very interesting academic experience Wednesday night, with one of English Society’s “Prof Talks.” I’ve really enjoyed English Society this year because of these events, where one of the English professors comes and talks to us about his/her research. I’ve learned some really interesting stuff and it’s the closest I’ve come to having class with Dr Marcovitch (she’s the only English prof I have not had).

This week, Dr Rogers was talking to us. It was originally going to be on Tuesday, but then had to be moved very last minute, but I made sure to have time because Dr Rogers is one of my favourite professors and possibly the one who has had the most effect on me, though it’s hard to tell (I know I’ll never look at Shakespeare without thinking about economics, thanks to Dr Blagrave’s lovely Advanced Shakespeare class…it was really interesting to look at things that way and there’s a LOT in there, but that’s another story altogether).

So, Dr Rogers was there to talk to us about her work in Literature and Science. It was really interesting to look at things that are “interdisciplinary” and debate what actually IS interdisciplinary and what just claims to be. She also talked a lot about how there are very few people out there who can teach both English and Science, but if you look at writers who have dealt with Science in their work, you can find hundreds if not thousands.

The whole talk basically focused on how things are not as binary as they seem and that Arts and Sciences aren’t by definition opposites. She also really stressed how people should take more risks in their courses and worry less about sticking in their comfort zone or maintaining a high GPA.

It really made me wish I had taken more diverse classes when I had the chance. Being that I’m now in my last semester of my last year however…I really can’t. But for people who are reading this who aren’t in this situation, think about taking something random. Like if you’re in English, take Biology (unless you don’t want to dissect things, which is why I never took Bio…then go with something else). Or the other way around. Don’t think that just because it’s not a part of your major that it isn’t something you should care about. The emphasis on specialization can be detrimental when you become too closed off to other things.

Wow, that’s heavy stuff there. But that’s Dr Rogers. I definitely recommend taking one of her classes, especially since she teaches the two interdisciplinary English classes at the 1000-level (I took Literature, Arts and Humanities, I am now wishing I had also taking the Literature and Science class, especially since Dr Rogers is sad that only one English major has ever taken it). She’s a professor that you will either love or hate, I think. I love her very much.

And no, I’m not in one of her classes right now so don’t accuse me of brownnosing.

Not too much else has happened. We had Grey’s Anatomy night here Thursday, cursing the evil cliff-hanger. That show can be really stressful to watch sometimes. But so fun too, especially with a lot of people (I know there are various Grey’s Anatomy nights throughout the student body).

Friday night was originally going to contain a marathon of the anime Paradise Kiss, a series written by one of my favourite mangaka (the Japanese word for a manga artist), Yazawa Ai. Sadly, this feel through as both Patricia and Sara both had too much work. So instead I spent the night playing the Sims 2 University, my current computer obsession. Very exciting times, let me tell you.

The weekend was mostly highlighted by work, with Animaritime planning and anime club in there too, but I was really exhausted for those so I don’t think they should count. Now I’m back after my 9-5 shift and plan to enjoy a nice, relaxing evening with the Internet, some anime, and a new episode of Desperate Housewives which should be interesting.

Yep, I live the high life.

(also, I promise to try and get some pictures in a post soon. I have a roll getting developed of Elphaba (my cat) so you'll probably get subjected to those, and maybe a discussion of getting pets when you live off-campus since it could be an interesting topic)

4. Work, work, WORK!

2007-02-07T21:53:00.001-04:00

On a less ranty note than the last journal, this is going to be the first of what I imagine to be a small series about university life in general. Because I like to talk/write and (hopefully) you like to hear it (why would you be reading this otherwise?).

Today’s topic: working during the school year. I think I am a decent authority on this, because I went three years without work and now this year I have been pulling 1-2 shifts a week at Tim Horton’s on top of school work and activities.

So Sunday was my first day back after a two-month break for exams, Christmas, and G&G. Shift from 8-4, which was nice since it meant I didn’t have to leave the house at 6:30 like I usually do when I have the 7-3 shift. I got there and first ended up on counter, a position I dislike, but then was moved over the drive-through about an hour later which made me much happier. I was the person who takes the money and hands food/drinks out, which is a nice position because you don’t have to try and hear what people are saying (though I had to do some of that too) and you don’t have to actually make any coffee (though while the maker was on break I got to do some of that as well). At the end I was moved over to making coffee for one of the new girls on counter for the last hour, then finally got to go home. It was an exhausting day and there were times when the shift really dragged on, but overall it was fairly nice to be back, although a bit disorientating because there were a lot of people there whom I didn’t know.

The best thing about work of course is the money. It’s the only reason anyone puts up with jobs in fast food because they are hard work for little reward, but it’s reward enough, I guess. I definitely have been enjoying having a little extra spending money.

The reason I got the job in the first place was I wanted to stay in Sackville over the summer because a lot of my friends were going to be here, plus I’d found the previous two summers to be rather difficult at home, because I was used to doing things my own way which didn’t always work so well when I was living with my parents again. I love them dearly, but I don’t really like living with them anymore. At least not for more than two weeks at a time (and even then, there are definitely going to be some lovely fights, mostly with my mom). I was pretty lucky to find a job in Sackville because I know it can be tough for people who aren’t working in some capacity for the school/have academic funding, like most of my friends. And when summer ended, I decided to keep it.

The one thing I was really worried about was whether or not I could balance working alongside schoolwork and activities and other stuff. I eventually found out that I couldn’t really, but I ended up dropping some activities I had been involved in, concentrating pretty much solely on anime club and G&G (with some karate, which is fun but not as prominent as it was the year before). I also go to English Society fairly regularly, but it doesn’t have regular meetings like the others did. As for school, I actually found last semester to be one of the best I’ve had here, both enjoyment-wise and mark-wise (my GPA got a nice little boost, back up to 3.2, I think). Of course, I am only working 1-2 shifts a week, so the time commitment wasn’t as much as others have, plus I have the benefit of not strictly needing a job, while some others who work during the school year do, meaning that they have to make more money and thus work more (obviously). This freedom also allowed me to take so much time off for G&G, since I could live with or without the money (but preferably with).

So, basically, work and activities and good grades are possible. You just need to keep an eye on your calendar and try to be as productive as possible when you can be. Of course, I’ll admit I’m not necessarily the best example of this, but what I do does work for me. Granted, it may not be so good for others, especially those who need to get high grades for scholarships or other reasons.

I don’t know what conclusion I’m making now though. I guess this is just some additional information to float around out there, when people are deciding if they want to have a job during the school year or not.

3. The Joys of the Annotated Bibliography

2007-02-05T21:07:00.001-04:00

(Note: I wrote this a few days ago but didn't get it up until now because things have been busy plus Margaret forgot to get back to me to say that it had passed her editing round)

Now that G&G is done with, I’ve had time to focus a bit more on schoolwork. The main work I have been looking at recently is an annotated bibliography for my Japanese History class, which I mentioned briefly in my last entry.

During my four years at Mt A, I have had to do a number of annotated bibliographies, and I must admit that I find them to be one of the most useless assignments that I have been given. To be quite honest, with the exception of the assignment in question (and I honestly mean it, I’m not just saying it because the professor might read this), I have pretty much never put any effort into these assignments, yet still do well on them. This is the main reason why I think they are ridiculous.

My typical methodology for the assignments has been writing a summary that can be extremely wordy to meet minimum word counts and then using the library catalogue to look for books that I think might be useful. Then I look for these books on the internet, find out what they are about, and use that for the annotation. That’s it. It usually takes me a night.

This of course defeats the purpose of the assignment, I realize, but usually when these things are assigned I haven’t really begun to think about the actual paper I’m proposing. If I have a clear topic, then I’m happy, but especially with research essays this often is not the case, since I figure out what exactly I will write about during the researching process. And so even an in-depth proposal seems a waste of time, since I’m just making things up a lot of the time.

What I personally like is when there is a brief proposal, just a few lines to give a basic idea and to let your professor know if what you’ve picked is appropriate or not. Then I like a non-annotated bibliography that has a list of books that might be useful, for the professor to see and possible recommend (and sometimes suggest other sources if they know of any). This would be much more useful, in my opinion, because you don’t get too involved in a topic which might not work and, especially useful for me, you have a list of sources that you can later go look up in the library and find out if they are actually useful at all.

But instead, I find myself having to write a 400 word abstract for this paper that I have just started research (it’s going to be on kabuki in Japan and how it changed during and after the Meiji Restoration, for anyone who knows anything about Japanese History) and then give annotations for the sources that I have looked at. I will admit that I somewhat like having looked at them for once, it is better, but I still don’t think that this assignment really helps me that much, besides giving me some marks.

Thus, I don’t like annotated bibliographies…but you probably already got that.

End rant. Now for a brief synopsis of my life of late. I’m behind in readings for my one English class, shock. I was doing so well the first week, then The Diviners hit us and hard (even people who weren’t busy with G&G had to struggle to get this done and I know a fair number who didn’t at all). Linguistics I have to stop missing, it’s hard because I have a four hour gap between it and Japanese, which makes it hard to get back into campus when it’s cold, despite the fact that I love both classes. Japanese History is covered in the rant, Japanese is going well though I need to work on my vocabulary a lot, and my Christianity and Rome is also going well though once again behind in readings. Story of my life, that.

The highlight is that now I have time for non-school stuff at night, which means things like the weekly Grey’s Anatomy Night with friends can happen again (we go to their place or they come here and we eat junk food and watch the show…good times). I also have a friend coming over here Friday to escape her house party and we’re going to watch some anime, possibly a marathon of Pretear but we’ll see more when it happens. Finally, on Saturday I can go to a full anime meeting again! So life is going back to normal, though Saturday also has panic over Animaritime considering it’s getting really close. But other than that, very normal.

Which is a bit frightening, come to think of it.

2. The Show

2007-01-31T12:34:00.000-04:00

I finally have time to write up about the musical here. It really has been hectic the last few days, though last night I pretty much chilled and watched lots of TV on TLC (Little People, Big World at first, I love Amy so much!; then Children by the Dozen, a program on the Jeubs, a family that has 12 children). And by last night, I now mean Monday night…I meant to get this up on Tuesday but then ended up being busy with stuff that you’ll hear about later most likely (I have a chance to rant about annotated bibliographies and I am going to take it!).

So, The Wizard of Oz went fantastically. I’ve heard nothing but good feedback from it and we had fun and it was so awesome and I really can’t believe that it’s over now. Especially since that was my last show for G&G, which is really sad. It’s been awhile since some of the shows so I might not remember all the details, but I’ll go through highlights of each! And by highlights, I mean things that went wrong, because the stuff that went right was always awesome and thus it’s hard to choose a highlight from it.

Thursday matinee: Don’t you love having call for 7AM? I know I don’t. With the assistance of the Bawls drink (which has the same caffeine content of 6-8 cups of coffee), Margaret and I got there and ready. This is our only matinee and it is for area schools. Usually we just have a handful turn out, but this time there was about 700 of them, I think. It was really fun to see their reaction and compare it to that of the adult audience. The children actually gasped when Dorothy stepped forward wearing the ruby slippers. They didn’t get a lot of the jokes, sadly, but they were still great.

This performance also marks the first balloon mishap: when we tried to push out the platform which the Wizard’s balloon was on, the platform got stuck and so it didn’t manage to get all the way out. There were a few missed lines and some singing that wasn’t heard as well as it should have been, but all and all it was a very good first show (which was the confidence boost we needed, because some of the last rehearsals didn’t go as smoothly as we would have liked).

Thursday night: Our opening night, where we had about 400 people in attendance, which is really good for Sackville on a Thursday (and apparently the biggest opening G&G has had in memory!). Things ran a bit smoother than the matinee, there were less missed lines though there were still some that didn’t come out quite like they should, but everyone was great at dealing with that so I bet the audience didn’t notice. Also, once again the balloon platform got stuck. We made some plans to avoid this for Friday.

Friday night: I don’t know how many people were there, but it was a lot, I’m pretty sure it was the biggest crowd. This crowd included my parents, which was very exciting since they flew in from Ottawa to see it (they hadn’t been able to see the other shows, except on the DVD/video that we get afterwards). Tonight was very smooth and good and I talked to my parents about whether they could hear the singing and they said yes, so that was very good.

This also was a night of the funniest mishaps. The first needs some set-up: when the Witch tries to set the Scarecrow on fire, which she does twice, a fire extinguisher was used to create the effect (Jason, who played the Scarecrow, was amused to note that a fire extinguisher was being used to set him on fire). In the scene with the Winkies (the Witch’s minions, the ones that go Oh-We-Oh-We-Oh-Wo), the general had the extinguisher under his cloak. Well, after the witch was dead and we were about to celebrate…he leaned on it and it went off, creating a very uh…fart-like situation. While such humour usually isn’t my thing…it was quite funny (and got the award for Best On-Stage Moment, tied with moment number two!). Moment number two was the damn balloon: before we pushed the platform on, we had been hugging and stroking and even “kissing” it, to try and make it go on right. And it did…but halfway through, the balloon fell right over. After struggling to get it somewhat upright (and having someone holding it on), we were able to do the scene. It was made awesome though because Brett, our wizard, made it actually look like the balloon was supposed to fall (I know this because my parents asked me about it later). Which is why it got an award for Best On-Stage Moment as well. It was great and we had such a hard time not laughing on stage.

Saturday night: The last show and I think it may have been the best. There weren’t really many gags pulled tonight, which is unusual because usually they are, but it was also good because the gags in Oklahoma last year caused a lot of tension, especially between the cast and tech crew. The only thing I noticed this time was that the sound people played the 20^th Century Fox music at the beginning of the show, which they did last time and which still amuses me and doesn’t take away from the performance at all. The highlight of the show for me was getting the balloon on perfectly (this time we hugged/kissed/etc…the balloon AND the platform). There was much jumping around for joy after that.

At the end of this show, it was really clear who the G&G lifers were (lifer means someone who has been in G&G for all four years they were at Mount A). The three of us were the ones bawling our eyes out and needing hugs from everyone. It was really sad (and still is) to know that our G&G show days were over. Garnet & Gold was one of the first clubs I joined back in first-year and it’s one of two clubs that I’ve stuck with all my four years.

Next time I’m on that stage will (very likely) be Convocation. Scary.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention the cast party after the last show. Good times, we squeezed a lot of people into not so much space and sang lots of songs (a fair amount from musicals, others from Disney, some Queen, even Spice Girls!) though we usually didn’t actually finish singing any of them, instead moving on to another song because we forgot the words or whatever. There was also pizza and drinking and a good time by all.

That’s about it for my life this weekend. It was awesome fun, I think this has been my favourite play that we’ve done. I loved the others, but there was something about this play that made it my favourite. Mainly, there was the fact that the play itself had a solid plot and awesome music. Also the cast was great and I think this year we all knew each other better than other years, including knowing the tech crew and the kids.

No entry could be complete without a whole bunch of pictures, so here you go (I REALLY wish I had a picture of the Witch, but I don't right now...hopefully later I can get one, he was great. And yes, I meant to type "he."):

^ The Four Friends, who were just so awesome. The cast this year was so excellent.

^ Margaret, Erin (our president), and me. We were the three castmember lifers this year (there were others who did prod/tech). This is after the last show, so post-crying session, hence some makeup not looking so wonderful (plus stage makeup doesn't look that great close up anyway).

^ The gates of the Emerald City. I always loved how the guard's head looked poking out of the curtain so high.

^ I hang out backstage with Sara (Miss Gulch) and Jason (Scarecrow). Massages are fun.

^ Merry Old Land of Oz, the scene that had almost the whole cast in it (minus Glinda, the Wicked Witch, and the girl who played Zeke who decided to only be in the Kansas scenes).

^ a close-up of the ruby slippers, which Anita's (Dorothy) mom made. I am so in love with them because they are so pretty. Too bad they weren't my size.

1. Busy G&G Weekend

2007-01-22T23:07:00.000-04:00

This weekend has been a perfect example of doing far too much than you should. It was fun and I wouldn't have it any other way, but it also has been quite tiring. I've been really exhausted lately as well, probably from all the rehearsing for Garnet & Gold (the musical theatre society here at Mount A, which is performing The Wizard of Oz next weekend, usually just called G&G because it’s shorter). There have been some intense days of that, plus of course there’s that school thing to be done.

So let’s start with Saturday. Rehearsal started at the ungodly hour of 10AM. I had my alarm set for 8:30 but didn’t manage to get myself out of bed until 9:30. This ended up with Margaret and I being late to rehearsal, which is never a good thing. The first bit of the rehearsal was just working on a few scenes, so a lot of us just got to hang around, deal with costumes and sets or just socialize. Oh, and probably some people (not me) worked on that aforementioned school thing.

At about 2 I think we started a run-through, which went okay. Not perfect, but things are beginning to fall into place for an awesome show, which is good since the first performance is this coming Thursday (there is also a performance on Friday and Saturday, starting at 8PM, tickets at $10 for students/seniors, $12 for adults, over at Convocation Hall, for more info go here: http://www.mta.ca/news/index.cgi?id=1195 and that’s the end of my advertising).

The run-through and rehearsal as a whole ended at 5 and then Margaret and I got to go home, ditch our rehearsal stuff, change clothes, have very nutritional pizza pops for dinner, and then head back to campus for the Animaritime meeting at 6 (you’ll hear more about Animaritime later, more details are available here: http://www.mtaanime.org/animaritime/). After the meeting (and cookies from President Katie that were very yummy), we headed over to the Pub (aka the Tantramarsh Club though no one actually calls it that) for the G&G Pub Night. From 7-9 the under 19 crowd was allowed in, which is fun since there are a lot of first-years in the club, then after 9 the Pub was open to all so everyone had to be legal. Luckily, being the ripe old age of 21, I’m legal everywhere.

It was a very fun night, better than last year’s where we ended up the same night as a singing performance, which was all well and good but meant that we couldn’t do as much dancing. There was also lots of pool playing (I lost to Margaret because I scratched on the 8-ball, but right before that happened I sunk 3 in a row so that was okay) and foosball, not to mention drinking and general fun. Margaret and I ended up leaving around 11 because she had to go to church the next day and I needed to work on a project. So we went home and slept. Sleep is good.

So that was Saturday. Very busy but very fun. Here are some pictures, taken by Margaret, from the Pub Night:

Me playing pool, before I scratched on the 8-ball. In case people are wondering, the tattoo on my back is two wings, one "demon" and one "angel." Maybe I'll post a picture of it sometime, not right now though because this post has enough on its own.

Jess & Brian, two very cool G&Gers that I've had the pleasure of working with this year and in last year's Oklahoma. I also went to get pizza with them around 8 or so, over at Jack's where you can get huge slices for $4 ($2 on Mondays).

The aftermath of an intense foosball game. Shown are the victors, Kevin, Jill, and Aaron.

What would a Pub Night be without some crazy drunk antics. Here I have bought myself a pitcher of the night's specialty drink, Kansas City Water (there was lemonlime, Sprite, and vodka in it I think), chosen in honour of G&G and not being in Kansas anymore. And yes, I drank the whole pitcher myself. Good times.

Sunday I woke up and started working on this entry instead of my linguistics presentation which I have to give tomorrow. I did start it though, which is good (presented it today, things went well for the most part; it wasn’t too hard which is also nice since we weren’t getting marked for it). At 3PM we had rehearsal again, and this time it was the dreaded cue-to-cue (though only for Act 1).

For those not in drama, cue-to-cue is where each scene is run sort of, but only the parts of it which are cues for a change in lighting or set or for music, etc…It’s also the rehearsal that just goes on and on until you want to gauge out your eyes or something. But it is necessary evil, because it’s very important for the tech people. Though even they find it tedious, I’m sure.

We had a dinner break, during which Danielle and Robin (they play Zeke and Hunk) and I went to Mel’s Tearoom for food and to talk character. Margaret tagged along which was good because I didn’t have my wallet with me (every time I decide I don’t need my wallet I end up needing it for something…or else I need my glasses and don’t have my purse with them). Had a yummy chocolate milkshake (Mel has the best milkshakes in town) and some very healthy poutine. Then we went over to Save Easy for dessert. I bought some chocolate which I ended up giving away to the rest of the cast/crew mostly, which was actually really fun and much better than eating it all by myself. Then we finished the cue-to-cue and got to go home around 8.

The rest of evening was nice and calm, hanging on the computer and watching Desperate Housewives. Then sleep.

As Margaret said (as I told her about what the contents of this entry were to be): you know you've been busy when you ask yourself There was a weekend?

Thus ends this instalment of The Busy Student Weekend. Tune in next week, when it’s performance/cast party/tear-down time and when my parents are up and possibly some other friends of mine and my house becomes party central (except not really).

0. Introductions

2007-01-19T23:13:00.001-04:00

Hello and welcome to my blog. I debated having a nice little introduction paragraph or two,“My Life in 500 Words” or something like that, but in the end it seemed more sensible to just give some barebones facts, because this information is probably the least interesting thing that I’ll have up here (or so I hope at any rate) and felt I should save you the trouble of reading a few blocks of unnecessary text.

Name: Vicki Martin (no relation to Ricky Martin and that joke is old)

Age: 21 (turning 22 on March 13^th)

Year of Study: 4 (scary)

Major: English

Minor: History

Clubs I’m involved in (and stuff you’ll be reading about here): Anime Club, Garnet & Gold Musical Theatre Society

Other interests: Reading, writing, no arithmetic please, art, music, movies, TV, and many other things, I’m a fairly eclectic person (at least I think I am)

Hometown: Carp (a village that’s technically part of the City of Ottawa because of amalgamation)

Future Plans: see below

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s get to some of the more interesting things. Mainly, questions I imagine you might have (and ones I get asked often enough).

Why did you choose to go to Mount Allison University?

First off, I’m not here to sell Mount Allison to you, just to give information about it to help people make informed choices about the university they go to. While I personally love the school and couldn’t imagine going anywhere else, it definitely isn’t for everyone.

Back to the question: I was part of Ontario’s “double-cohort” year (when the last class of grade thirteen’s graduated, along with the first graduating class of grade twelve’s, which I was a part of). Because of this, everyone was very worried about whether Ontario universities could support everyone who graduated, which led to a bunch of very scared high school seniors. And so a number of us started looking out of province. Because I knew I was going into English, which is a fairly generic program that is offered at almost any university, I ended up asking my guidance councillor about what schools would be good out of province. She suggested Mount A and I soon fell in love. I’ve always grown up in fairly small schools/communities so I really liked that the university was small. I also knew I really liked the Maritimes, as I had visited Halifax in grade eleven for Atlantic Band Fest and found the people here to be very friendly, more so than in Ontario (to make a sweeping generalization to which there are of course many exceptions).

And so I figured out how to apply and did so. I actually had a bit of a scare when I first got my acceptance letter, because it came in a small envelope which, traditionally, is what rejection letters are in. However it turns out that Mount A just likes giving new students heart attacks or something and I, obviously, accepted the offer and here I am, four years later, about to graduate.

The distance from home was something that both appealed to and scared me. I wasn’t sure how I would manage on my own and it is an awfully long trip back, but I’ve done quite well, in my opinion at least.

On a side note, I did get accepted to the three Ontario universities I applied to, including the ever prestigious Queen’s (which had been my first choice at one point, but I eventually decided that the environment wasn’t the one which was best for me).

So, what are you going to do with your BA in English?

Another good question (and one I am a bit sick of so let’s get it out of the way). No, I am not going into teaching; I decided a few years back that it wasn’t for me. My main goal is to become a writer, however I am being realistic about that and I know it will be something I do on the side, rather than something I make a job out of (unless I become the new Anne Rice or something).

It took me until third year to finally figure out what I wanted to do and my decision was this: publishing. Not only will this be conducive for my own desires to be a published author, but I love the book industry and getting paid to work in it sounds like something I would really enjoy. To help with this career plan, I have applied to a summer program at Humber College in Toronto that is in Book Publishing. I won’t know about that until around March, but I am hopeful. After the program I expect to start working, most likely in the Toronto area because that is where most of the publishers in Canada are.

I think this should about end my first blog entry. Kudos to anyone who is still reading after all that. There are a few more little facts that I want to state before I start really going at this endeavour. I stayed in Sackville over the summer, which I found to be quite fun, and during this time I got a job at Tim Horton’s. Once school started, I kept the job, working usually two shifts a week. This has led to an interesting balancing act. I took all of January off however, because the musical theatre society mentioned about, Garnet & Gold, is performing The Wizard of Oz at the end of the month and I have rehearsals more days than not. Lots of work but lots of fun (I’ll definitely be talking more about this in the future).

Finally, just a note on living situation: I have two roommates, Margaret and Sam, who will undoubtedly be mentioned many times and whose proofreading skills I will undoubtedly be using to check these entries (after all, I am an English student!). Finally, I have a six-month old kitten named Elphaba (pronounced El-Fa-Ba), after the title character of the book/musical Wicked (we call her Elphie for short).

Here's a picture of all of us:

Going from left to right you have me with Elphie (not the best picture of me, but oh well), Margaret, and Sam.

That’s all for now!