YEG

Hey good lookin'. Long time no see.

After graduation I spent most of the summer job hunting. At the end of July I began a research position (one-year contract) in Edmonton working on improving walking in people living with Parkinson's Disease. Here is a VIDEO (made by the original pilot program in Calgary) that will give you a general overview of what we're doing. There are four different sites in Canada and multiple sites around the world working with this technology and contributing to a central database. Each Canadian site has a different focus - ours is cognition. Our participants go through a thorough clinical and cognitive assessment before, during, and after their participation in the program. So far the results have been really positive!

Concurrently, I've been working on an application to the U of A's Master of Public Health in Health Promotion degree program. Applications are due January 15th and I have everything ready to go - just waiting on one of my professors to submit a reference. The program is extremely competitive. Last year 800 applicants applied for 80 spots and the competitive GPA for successful applicants was 3.8.

Edmonton has been really good to me so far. Still though, I'm itching to visit my best friend in St. Maarten and my brother in Taiwan.

Soon...

- JB

January 2013: T-Minus 3...

Hello All,

I am already a month into my final semester... only 3 more to go until I have a degree to my name. All that stands between me and that fancy piece of paper are the following 5 courses:

1) Drama - Exploring Creativity
2) Music - Music in Recital
3) Music - History of Jazz
4) French - Advanced Language I
5) Kinesiology - Physical Activity and Health

If a four year degree program ends up taking five years to complete, the fifth year is cheekily referred to as a "victory lap". Usually a victory lap is like any other year in course load and difficulty. I however, have finished my core degree requirements and now need only to acquire more credits to graduate. As such, I wound up with an entire semester of interesting electives mostly outside of my major. I am very thankful that I don't have any core courses left. Maintaining motivation near graduation is one thing. Maintaining motivation near graduation in a victory lap year almost deserves another degree.

Things I have going for me:
- The new roommate isn't crazy! Yay!
- My first three classes all have reputations as interesting and GPA boosting
- I scored awesome groups for my huge French and Kinesiology term projects

Things I have going against me:
- I'm struggling to focus on the here-and-now knowing that the post-graduation transition phase is looming
- Everything I own is on the verge of breaking down (i.e., computer, car, sanity) but must last until May
- Poor-weather and classroom induced cabin fever

Wish me luck! If all goes well and my life gets more interesting after graduation, I will have reasons to blog regularly again.

Cheers,

Jacqueline


 

 

September 2013

Hello Friends,

September is already drawing to a close - indicative of my descent into madness with school work. Actually, most of the madness stems from the ever-looming graduation in the spring. I have heard it referred to as senior-itis and usually it doesn't hit until second semester, but the longing to be done school has taken an early hold on me.

Unfortunately, this means planning for post-school has also hit and it is probably more difficult than anything my teachers have thrown at me. I have changed my plans about 12 times in the last 3 weeks alone. Everything from Finland to Toronto to Montreal to Edmonton to Vancouver to Calgary to staying in Lethbridge... and I'm no closer to figuring it out. Well, I must admit I have a leaning. But as those who spend any amount of time with me know, that is likely to change in the very near future.

Highlights of September include attending a potluck held by my religious studies professor. There's nothing quite like watching sober on the sidelines while a whole faculty slips into the realm of drunken shenanigans. I also met a lovely lesbian couple with an adorable infant. It was an interesting night to say the least. Other highlights of the month included being recruited by my chiropractor to work his booth at student events and getting paid to do so and attending a birthday party that was comprised of people who wanted nothing more than to play Yahtzee around a fire. I yahtzee'd on my first roll.

October promises to be cold, windy, but really just more of same.

FYI: Today's wind was 74 km/h and I walked home from school. Never again.

Cheers,

Jacqueline

PS: If you want to read the entertaining blog of my brother's adventures of teaching in Taiwan, I would highly recommend it. He updates more frequently which is another bonus! Click here!

One more go around...

Hello Everyone!

Back in the bridge and back to blogging!

School starts on Wednesday. I have 8 courses left in my degree and will knock four off in each semester. This first semester will consist mostly of night classes which will be strange to get used to after a summer of 9:00 am - 5:30 pm work days.

Summer highlights included: family trips to Virginia, Missouri, and California, hiking with friends, lots of time out at the farm, lots of hot yoga, biking, getting last second passes to the international fireworks competition finale, and time with my brothers (incoming and outgoing).

There are two major factors that are going to make this year particularly interesting.

1. I finally sucked it up and bought a car. Or rather, a car was practically given to me. The bf got a new car and is selling his old one to me for next to nothing. It is going to be quite a different experience having such mobility and freedom after 22 years of being restricted to wherever I could walk, bike, or bus to.
2.  The bf is moving down to Lethbridge. He's finishing one more work tour and then will join me for 8 months here before we decide what our next move is. 

My goals for this post-secondary victory lap are to maintain my GPA, get a good gig volunteering, get heavy into the Lethbridge hot yoga scene, and make lots of time for my family down here - because after this, I'm outta here!

I'll keep you posted.

Jacqueline

Summer 2013 Part 1

Hi Crew,

Summer is half over already!

The last two weeks have been one graduation ceremony after the next. Steven, Justin, and Ryan all graduated within 5 days of each other. So what's next for our heroes? Steven has moved back down to Calgary to start his residency at the new South Calgary Health Campus, Justin leaves for Taiwan in August to teach ESL, and Ryan has decided to move to Lethbridge with me in the fall.

In other fun news, Jason just got back from a trip to South Korea and Japan. It started as a work/school conference in South Korea where he presented a poster of his research and snowballed from there.

All this travel makes me jealous... which is why I have jumped on the invitation to go to Virginia with my dad and step mom this year. I leave in 8 days and will be gone for just over a week. In August, I will also be doing an annual camping trip with friends and then attending a family reunion in Missouri before spending a few days over in California. It's not Europe but it'll do :-)

In the meantime, I've just been working away. As always, nothing inspires returning to education quite like temporary summer jobs. I've been filling my evenings with my latest addiction: Hot Yoga. Ohhhhhhmigosh. Who would've thought sweating it out in a 35C room would be not only enjoyable but addictive? I went once, took the next day off to see how I was feeling, and then went the next three days consecutively. It is the single most incredible workout I have ever experienced in my life. The whole holistic approach to exercise, incredible teachers, a great facility near my house, solid results, and an enthusiastic partner in crime has made this one of the greatest physical activity opportunities I have had to date. If I had to pick right now, I'd say the discovery of this studio has been the greatest part of my summer so far and will be the thing I miss most when I'm back in Lethbridge where hot yoga is extremely limited.

Of course, summer is filled with lots of small things to look forward to. This weekend there is a housewarming party, a graduation party for a friend who just finished optometry (and was super lucky and got to do a practicum in Stockholm), an anniversary, and hot yoga before hosting a friend of mine who is in town for Sunday night.

Now if only the rain would stop. The only thing missing this summer has been the sun.

Cheers,

Jacqueline

At Justin's Grad: Some things never change :)

Summer Kick Off 2013

Hi Friends,

I have settled back home in Calgary for the summer and really look forward to spending the next four months with family and friends in the city. I'm working as an optometric assistant this summer and have had my first 5 shifts already. Lots to learn but should be quite manageable. The fantastic news is that it is close to my house, the hours are steady, and the pay is good. Unfortunately, that means that my days off are a little wonky  and not always consecutive but that's okay. It just means my work weeks get broken up a little more :)

I've been back in Calgary for a total of 6 days and already managed to get out on a 5 hour hike in Kananaskis country and been walking and biking through Fish Creek Provincial Park. My goal is to be outside and active as much as possible this summer. The boyfriend got a new canoe as a grad gift and we're already planning some pretty neat trips. Apparently there is an island in the middle of a nearby river that is a campground. Pretty tempting! Sounds like the annual camping trip with my high school friends will happen too. Otherwise, the only big trip planned this summer is a family reunion in Missouri.

Booo. I was going to upload some pictures from the hike yesterday but apparently I have left the connector cable for my camera in Lethbridge. I'll figure something out later.

As for the semester... finished up great. Got marks that far exceeded my expectations in every subject. Quite a little ego boost as I head into my final year.

Cheers,

Jacqueline

March 2013 Update

Hello Crew,

March is sure a busy time of year, isn't it?

Only 5 weeks of school left. I'm done all exams except finals, only one more lab, 3 more assignments, and one term paper left. I'm starting to feel the crunch of the semester coming to a close. If I get a good head start on things now, I should be okay. Motivation, come to me - please!

The last couple weeks have been mostly dominated by my independent study. Which I realize I never really explained to you in any detail. The official purpose of the study is determine baseline physical activity rates in full-time employed women over the age of 55. This demographic is of particular interest to us because not only do they have the lowest physical activity rates of any other but they also happen to be the most rapidly expanding demographic in the labour force. Coincidence? Who knows. It is quite possible that retaining employment past the traditional retirement age may contribute to keeping people active. Although retirement is commonly thought of as a time when people will be more active, enjoy their leisure time, and so on, it is often not the case. So anyway, how it works is that my professor spearheads a big research project and creates little mini projects within the big project for students to do as independent studies. My study is what I described above. In her study, my study is just a tiny piece. She's looking at functional fitness levels, job satisfaction, how much physical activity and sedentary time these women are engaging in, general health, field of employment, and functional balance. Myself and another student doing an independent study do all the testing for everything and just select what we need for our studies. Basically we've become lab rats. We're testing about 8 women twice a week for hour long appointments each. We send them away with accelerometers which record all their physical activity (like hypersensitive pedometers), have them do questionnaires, record some anthropometric measurements, and test them on the dynanometer and the neurocom machines.

The dynanometer is a functional strength test. They do leg extensions using the knee as the rotational axis on this machine and it controls how many degrees of flexion or extension that they can move through per second. It is a fixed rate so the harder they push against the machine, the harder it pushes back on them to maintain the speed. Here is a picture:

Fun times in the Physiology lab.

We get to buckle and strap them all in so that they are only producing the motion from their knee and not their hip, back, abs, etc. It often really intimidates the women before they know what to expect which can be slightly entertaining for us.

Another funny point that is entertaining is that the lab next door does sprint-interval training for metabolism research on self-propelled treadmills. These things are the noisiest lab equipment you've ever heard. If our participants hear trials going on in the other lab they often get concerned and nervously ask if they will be put through the same high-intensity testing :)

Here's a picture of our lab:

This is only half of our space. There's actually another room off to the left but it wouldn't fit in the picture.

Because I have keys and 24-hour access to the lab, I end up spending a lot of time in there. It is quiet, private, has a bathroom, sinks, tons of counter space, and only my prof and the other independent study student have access. Not going to lie, I feel pretty VIP whenever I'm in there.

Anyway, other than school work I've been trying to do lots of reading lately. Been working on classic authors that I've never had any exposure to but feel I need to be familiar with. In particular, I read "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac and "Old man and the Sea" by Ernest Hemingway.

Also, I ran the 10 km Moonlight Run on March 9th. The weather was much worse than last year and I saw that reflected in my time. I ran 2 minutes and 15 minutes slower than the previous year for a time of 54 minutes exact. I'm still happy with that time though. Running with 2500 people in pitch black through mud and ice isn't exactly the time to be trying for a personal best. The fun thing was that both my independent study prof and the other independent study student in my lab were running it too. The three of us had fun joking that it would count towards are grade at the end of the semester :)

Well, hopefully you were able to understand a bit more about my study and what I've been up to.

Cheers and take care,

Jacqueline

PS: Check out the beautiful flowers a friend of mine sent me. The timing was impeccable - I was really needing a pick-me-up and less than 24 hours later, these showed up on my doorstep despite the fact that I hadn't said anything. I am SO grateful for the people in my life :)

When I first got them...

...a day or two later when they opened up :)

Reading Week 2013

Hi Crew!

Quick update because life is not overly exciting presently.

School is in full swing. I've already had midterms, group projects, and my independent study is going full throttle. This week I'm up in Calgary hanging out with family and the boyfriend for the week off.

In other news, I officially signed up for the Calgary Marathon on May 26, 2013. Training has been going well so far (minus this holiday week where Calgary weather has been pretty cold) and I'll also be running the 10 km Moonlight Run again this year as a prep run. That one is March 9 so the clock is ticking. I need to squeeze in some hill training because last year the big hill at the end is what did me in. Live and learn :)

Jacqueline

Bye Bye Vacation!

Hello Crew!

Today as a last hurrah before school starts on Wednesday I hit the slopes for the first time this season. Last year I managed to get out once but it was so spur of the moment that I ended up renting all my gear and borrowing outer wear. This time around I had my board newly serviced, new gloves, and the whole hill practically to ourselves. We never had to wait in line for a chair lift and had almost perfect weather (give or take a little wind). My only complaint was that there could've been more snow. Quite a few patches were icy. Not impossible to board on but just loud and scrapes up your board.

Me and Loren whizzing around Darren

No place like the Rockies

It felt amazing to be on the hill but I am wiped out now. Last Friday I ran 5 km and yesterday I ran for 45 minutes including hill training (got something in the works but before I announce it I have to wait for some clearance). Regardless I was sore before I even did up my bindings. Suffice it to say, I will sleep well tonight.

Tomorrow I head back to Lethbridge with my roommate and the new semester starts the next day. I already have meetings with my independent study supervisor booked so no denying it any longer. Vacation is over!

Here we go.

Jacqueline

Christmas 2012 & New Years 2013

Hello Everyone!

Belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I spent Christmas with my mother and step family in small town Alberta. My stepfather's family (he is the 5th of 7 children) is rather on the large side and accordingly, our house was overflowing with relatives. It was very high energy with lots of people doing so many different things at once. I only had to slip away for some solitude once in the four days spent there. Not too bad, right? The joy for me of course comes from being with my brothers who I very seldom get to see (let alone see all together). Steven, basking in the glory of his new i-pad, downloaded the Yahtzee game app (best 99 cents ever spent!) and kept me well entertained for a very considerable amount of time.

The tree was just a little too small...

 For New Years I went to downtown Calgary with my boyfriend and some friends to check out Olympic Plaza and pub hop up and down Stephen Avenue. All in all a good time was had. I even ran into a random friend of mine from Lethbridge by the LRT.

Otherwise, my break has been pretty uneventful. I've spent a lot of time with the boyfriend, my best friend, and family doing everything and nothing all at once. The grades I got back from last semester were encouraging and the best I could've hoped for given the circumstances.

Although I'm ready to be back doing productive things, I'm not ready to go back to Lethbridge. Having served my share of time, I'm ready to return to Calgary and start the next chapter of my life.

Out with the old, in with the new.

Jacqueline

Chocolate Dipping & School Wrapping Up

Hey Gang,

Today is November 23rd. How did this happen?!

I've already done my first group assignment presentation, booked all my final exam slots, finished all non-semester exams as of last Tuesday, and have two weeks left of classes. Only two group projects, two labs, and 5 exams to go until the semester is over for me. My last exam is December 13th and then we're on to Christmas holidays! In the meantime, here's a fun little ditty. This was a quiz I had in my biomechanics class. You had to use the software to make your model do two swings and land a triple flip combination. It's a lot harder than you'd think. You have to account for the motion of each joint in every single frame, find the right release time, and make sure your little buddy doesn't land on his face. Our prof is marking by international standards which means points are lost for bad technique and falling but also granted for aesthetics, sticking the landing, and the higher the difficulty, the more points your tricks are worth. Fun, hey?

(It is easier to see what's going on if you make it full screen by clicking on the box in the bottom right corner of the video player)

One other exciting piece of news: My physiology professor asked me if I wanted to do an independent study with her next semester. What this boils down to is I will be earning credits to help her with her research. Pretty sweet gig! I'm also pretty stoked because generally independent studies are student driven where you have to come up with a study idea or literature review topic, approach a professor, request that they supervise you, and do all the leg work to make it happen. I'm really quite honored that she said she had "had [me] in mind" for this project. We're working out the details now but I'll let you know what the extent of the study will be. The professor is one of my favorite professors too - glad she thinks highly of me as well!

Other fun news, last weekend I was in Calgary to do annual Burt Family Chocolate making. Yay! My grandparents, my brother, a family friend, and myself spent a good 9 hours in the kitchen up to our elbows in chocolate, fondant, nuts, coconut, and candies. As always it was great company, lots of laughs, lots of blood sugar spikes, and every year my technique gets a little better :) Here are the few pictures I snagged off my pa's iPhone. I'll post real camera pictures when I get them.

Not much counter space was left when all was said and done :) Happy problem to have!

My brother is amusing me just out of the frame :)

She's a pro! Been at it for 40 years!

Of course the Party Pants are appropriate attire for the occasion.

 Love to all and catch you after finals! :)

Jacqueline

October 2012

Hello Everyone!

This month has gone by in an absolute flash. In fact, the semester is half over.

This past week I had 5 midterms in 3 consecutive days and 3 midterms were on the same day. I can legitimately say I have NEVER studied so much in my entire life. The exam stress was actually giving me unpleasant dreams. Literally nothing but class, the library, the gym, and my desk for over a week straight. Throughout the course of that week it went from beautiful to blizzard. Behold:

River valley picture taken October 18, 2012

Slightly different shot of the same river valley only 5 days later.

A group mate and I cramming in a library study room.

Suffice it to say I couldn't be happier to be done. This weekend I'm headed up to Calgary just to get away from Lethbridge and relax out at the Boyfriend's place in the country. Some fresh air and playing with the dogs should do some much needed good for the soul :)

More later!

Jacqueline

21st birthday - Spoiled Rotten!

Hey Gang,

Last Friday, September 14th, was my 21st birthday. The whole weekend was phenomenal and definitely gave me insight into how caring my friends and family are.

Friday flew by so fast. I had a morning class, birthday lunch with my mother, and another class. After class ended I whipped up to Calgary to spend the evening with my closest high school buddies. We kept it pretty low key and stayed in which was nice after a very busy and long week. They got me a strange assortment of treasures. I think the highlight is the package of paper clips and each one is shaped like a different style of mustache. They're too funny!

Saturday I spent with the boyfriend. He's house-sitting for a relative out near Cochrane so it was nice to go spend time walking the dogs through the woods and sit out on the porch and enjoy the sunshine without the hustle and bustle of the city. He surprised me with flowers, my favorite cake, and an awesome owl necklace. Considering I told him not to get me anything (repeatedly), he really outdid himself. He even forgave me when I fell asleep watching one of his favorite movies later that night ;)

Sunday was a lovely BBQ with the family. At my request, we had bbq teryaki chicken, garlic parmesan quinoa, grilled zucchini... yummy. Earlier that day, my pa had stopped by the farmer's market and scooped up an absolutely out of this world carrot cake. It was SO good and it was the only occasion all weekend that I got candles and sung to. Thankfully, it was an absolutely honking enormous cake and there are leftovers in the freezer for whenever I visit next :) The birthday that keeps on giving!

I'm glad I have such happy memories to relive because this week has been piling up on me. I just about dropped out of school today when our group sat down to work on our physiology lab. What we learned several hours later after the 8 of us had given up is that the prof hadn't given us all the data we needed to complete the lab. *Sigh*

I know there is no way I'm stopping now but it does make me entertain the thought of taking a bit of time off before I do a master's degree. This semester is going to burn me right out. Fortunately, I am able to look at it as only 3.5 months. I've lived through many 3.5 month periods of time in my life and I can think of several that were guaranteed worse than this. Hurray for the brightside!

Cheers,

Jacqueline

And We're Back

Howdy Folks,

Classes started last Wednesday and I have one doozy of a semester ahead of me. I was right to think that physiology would be one of my tougher courses. The first thing the prof says to us is how important it is that we have the prerequisite course because of all the references to that material that we will be making. Thankfully I have taken it... two years ago. To put it mildly, I am rusty. Some reviewing will definitely be required.

My semester will basically boil down to the balancing act of labs, classes, studying, and reading. I am fortunate in that only 3 of my classes have required textbooks and I was able to acquire them extremely cheaply compared to other years. My roommate was not so fortunate. She ended up paying over $800 for hers. Yikes.

So speaking of roommates - I really like the place I'm living in. That townhouse is really nice, really well taken care of, modern, and a great deal. Only down side is that it is slightly farther from campus than I would like. Thank heaven for bicycles. I may be singing a different tune in December when it is 4 feet of snow but we will get there when we get there.

View from my room: picture of the sunrise taken by my (very poor quality) camera phone

My roommates seem like a pretty level bunch. Both girls are serious students and fairly clean. We're still in the stage of learning one another so I don't want to form too strong of an impression one way or the other but I think I will only go minorly crazy in comparison to other years.

So far I've managed to get involved in a bunch of little things. For example, I helped tour the new international exchange students around the campus, volunteered (for class credit -woo!) at a Parkinson's disease fundraiser, rebooted my healthy eating/working out lifestyle (down 2 lbs already!) and have been catching up with my Lethbridge peers. Tomorrow evening I'm doing dinner with a bunch of friends celebrating a Baha'i festival. It's all been nice and I know this doesn't really make sense but honestly something feels like it is missing and a little piece of my happiness is missing with it.

Wish I knew what it was.

Jacqueline

Fourth Year

Hi Everyone!

After talking to some family lately I learned that there are actually people reading this blog. Right on! Thanks guys! Might as well keep you up to date.

September 5th marks the first day of classes for the 4th year of my degree. I have a pretty heavy semester ahead of me (3 of my courses have labs) but my schedule is pretty alright. Check out the names of my courses:

• Epidemiology: The Ecology of Health and Disease
• Physical Basis of Ergonomics  
• Exercise Physiology
• Biomechanics
• Therapeutic Exercise Foundations and Techniques

Physiology and biomechanics are guaranteed to be my toughies and time consumers. Thank goodness I have a really good set up for accommodations this year. My roommates are both really studious and mature, the house has a decent location, the rent is really good, and it is all new and fully furnished. Can't believe how much I lucked out. Even my landlords are great.

Actually, funny story. My landlords are the parents of one of the girls I'm living with and they decided they wanted to meet me to make sure I was a good fit for the house. I've never been interviewed by a landlord before but it basically boiled down to my landlords invited my boyfriend and I out for dinner at a golf course club house just outside of Calgary. It was a weird situation and honestly kind of felt like a blind date. Ultimately, however, we had an absolute blast! It was great conversation, good food, I got to meet my roommate and all her family, and we all conversed for about two and a half hours. Too cool.

I've only got 9 more work days left (yay!) and then will head up to Calgary for the long weekend to help my friends move into their new place and spend one last care free summer weekend. Should be good.

In the meantime, since returning from Quebec, I've just been working, managed to hit up Stampede for the 100th anniversary, went camping with some friends, learned how to drive standard, and have spent every other weekend up in Calgary visiting friends and family. Here's a good picture of our camping crew in Dinosaur Provincial Park and one of me at Stampede pouring salt on some french fries :) Nom nom.

I absolutely love the face Brian is making behind Meghan (third from left)

Getting my cowgirl on ;)

So I will keep up on posting through the school year. Knowing me, I'll probably end up traveling at some point anyway.

Love to all!

Jacqueline

Montreal encore and Home again

Hello all,

The adventure is over but what an excellent ending.

In what can only be described as seamless, Kat, Ryan, and I departed Trois-Rivieres and got to our Montreal hotel by 3:30 pm on Friday. After a quick fresh up, we hit the downtown to meet up with Ryan's cousin, Sam, who is living in Montreal for the next couple months. Considering they're only cousins, the family resemblance was really strong - both tall, blonde, blue-eyed, boys with ridiculous stories and a skill for telling them. Sam took us on a quick tour of his neighborhood and to this mobster owned restaurant where we had a great time trading stories and eating good food. Afterwards, we spent a big chunk of the evening wandering the Fringe Festival which consists of live music and Ste. Catherine Street is turned into a big pedestrian walk with all sorts of stalls set up of all sorts of jewelry, clothes, etc. We ended up turning in early (on a relative student scale) since Kat had a 3:30 am wake up time and last metro was at 12:30 am anyway.

Yay! We figured out the metro!

Kat made it off just fine and Ryan and I crashed pretty hard, not getting up until around noon. By the time we got up, wandered back downtown, ate breakfast/lunch, and met up with Sam and his friend from New Zealand, it was solidly the afternoon. We climbed Mont Royal which is a huge hill (the locals call it a mountain...) in the middle of the city with awesome views and hung out until we got hungry. After some good Thai food we went our separate ways so that Ryan and I could wander more of the festival while the other boys prepared for some anticipated nightlife.

View from the top of Mont Royal with the boys

Ryan and I wandered until we got peopled out, returned home, repacked our bags, and hit the hay in anticipation of the early morning flight. Although we underestimated our flight time by 30 minutes, we still made it with 15 minutes to spare prior to boarding (still cutting it too close for comfort) and had a good flight back to Calgary where Meghan and Ry's mom were waiting for us.

And just like that, 5 weeks completely completed.

What an amazing program and experience. I would absolutely recommend it to anyone and will apply to do it again next year if at all possible - especially since I've possibly convinced Meghan to give it a shot :)

Thank you all for following along. Knowing I have friends and family reading my blog keeps the lonelies away.

Love & Light,

Jacqueline

Au Revoir Trois-Rivieres!

Hi Everyone!

FINISHED!

I don't think 5 weeks have ever passed so quickly.

Monday was our last day of actual lesson and she presented us with our oral presentation topic. It was actually a really cool set up. The class was divided into two teams, the defense and the crown, and every person was assigned a role as either a judge (3 people), witness (9 people including the doctor who performs the autopsy, the police investigator of the crime scene, the neighbor, concierge, two secret witnesses, the best friend, a bar employee, and the person who discovers the body), the accused (1 people), or a lawyer (8 people). In its own way, it was a brilliant idea for an oral examination; not only did it allow us to practice material as we memorized our stories and learned new vocabulary, but on the day of the presentation, a lot of improvisation was required. By doing this, each student had a chance to really shine if they put the time into it or if they were naturally good speakers by nature.

I was assigned to be a witness and thankfully got a really easy role. As the doctor who performed the autopsy on the victim, I had no story to keep straight and merely had to answer questions relative to the facts that I was given for my character. It was probably pretty strange for Steven though. I used him as my consultant the night before and he got a handful of texts asking about being stabbed in the lung without being given a context.  In my role I was a member of the defense.

All day Tuesday was devoted to preparing our final oral examination in our teams and it took us the whole 3.5 hours. The twist in the case is that each team has a secret witness that they get to create the story for and that doesn't get revealed to the opposing team until the witness is on the stand. It was actually more difficult than expected to create a story that didn't clash with the statements of all the other witnesses while creating a plausible alibi for the accused.

All class Wednesday was the court case itself. I'm pleased to say that the defense got the accused off by establishing a lack of distinctive evidence and a lack of valid crown witnesses. We got pretty lucky though. One of the crown's witnesses did an absolutely abysmal job of his story; it was as if he didn't read over his statement at all and decided to freelance it. Oh man did it blow up in his face. His team was of course pretty choked and tried to recover but the damage was done. What was particularly interesting though was the comment our teacher made. I guess every year she has a problem with people getting disrespectful with each other (one year someone even stormed out and slammed the door) but this was the first year that both teams kept it together. Kind of a compliment but hard to imagine how worked up some people can get over fiction! Mind you, it is fiction that is worth 20% of your grade... it is a little understandable that if someone is making you look bad you'd be upset.

Thursday was a double exam day. We had our course exam in the morning and the program post-test in the afternoon. As far as the morning exam went I was surprised by how easy the grammar section was and was surprised by the vocabulary and expressions. Especially because I studied in inverse and felt really well prepped for the vocab/expressions and was ready to accept my fate with the grammar. For the second exam, it is for the program to perform comparative analysis of our progress, hence it was the same exam as the placement test. It was kind of neat to the see the test again and recognize and be able to apply the concepts we've been learning. At the same time it was difficult because now that you're aware of the concepts, you're aware of how you don't know them as thoroughly as you would like. Regardless, it was relatively short (1 hour) and relatively painless. And that's it! Courses finished and credit transfer applied for.

Last night they actually held a little certificate ceremony (they called it a diploma ceremony but let's be real... they were participation certificates at best) for the students. Everyone dressed up nice and got called up on stage individually to be given the certificate by the program director. It was a nice touch and a little tedious as any of those ceremonies are but it was nice to sit together as a class one last time. And then of course, with it being the last night, people went out, partied, stayed up fairly late, and of course regret it today. I'm feeling my 3 am bed time right about now but am looking forward to the nap I can take on the bus from TR to Montreal at 12:30 pm.

Group S - looking fancy at the diploma ceremony

This morning has been spent finishing packing and cleaning in preparation for our departure inspection and deposit return. Wish me luck on getting back to Calgary. When I flew here the gate attendant let the fact that my bag was 9 lbs overweight slide but now I'm sweating it out thinking that my next check-in won't be so lenient. I've managed to whittle down the weight be a couple pounds but not nearly enough. Fingers crossed that Ryan as some extra room and can help me out!

See you soon!

Jacqueline

Class Picture & Flash Mob

Bonjour!

For your entertainment, here is my class picture :)

Back Row L-R: Justin, Sarah, Me, Graham, Sophie (Prof), Catherine, Fatima, Graham, Larissa, Robert, Alex, Kevinrae
Front Row L-R: Rebecca, Emma, Cassandra, Sydney, Lakshmi, Claudia, Christina, Lisa, Joanna, Aliya

Although it isn't overly apparent, they had a bunch of things for us to dress up with. All the hats, flags, sunglasses, tiaras, etc., made it pretty fun.

Also, today was the flash mob in the cafeteria. The video has already made the youtube rounds. It was particularly entertaining to watch it because they had to go in and edit... At one point in the real thing, a table breaks and a couple kids go down. In this video, they (unfortunately) edit it out (but if you look at the tables as he's doing the last quick pan of the room you'll see it). In the version my roommate has you definitely hear it and see some heads disappear from a distance. Also, to my disgrace, they have a really good shot of me forgetting what comes next. To be fair, we learned it last Thursday and haven't really gone over it since. That was a good 5 days ago, sheesh! You're watching for lots of curls and a royal blue shirt who is roughly the front row about 20 people deep on the right hand side of the screen... Enjoy :)

Cafeteria Flashmob

Cross it off the bucket list!

Jacqueline

Montreal & T-Minus One week

Hello All!

Marks came in for our first course. It is a mixed feeling of relief and disappointment. Although I did well on the final exams from last week, all things said and done I ended up with a B+. Not awful but truth be told it is my first B and I'm a little disappointed. To be fair though, the marking scheme here is shifted differently... had this been a U of L course I think it would've been an A-. Regardless, it is nice to be moving on to new material. The past week was more oral presentations, more tests (two on the same day... one of which we ran out of time for and had to continue the next day), and our teacher constantly reminding us to have courage. Yikes.

Yesterday was the program's day trip to Montreal which was incredibly enjoyable. The morning was a guided tour of old Montreal, we had a couple free hours for lunch, had our choice of an afternoon activity, and then had some free wandering time for dinner before heading back. For lunch we hit up this crepe place where Kat and I split a chicken/brie/asparagus crepe and a dulche de lece crepe with strawberries and bananas. Mmmm. For our afternoon activity, we selected the Biodome. It is kind of like an indoor zoo where you move through different biospheres like the rain forest, woodlands, etc. It was really well done with a surprising variety of animals and different views into their habitats. That being said, the best part of the trip was definitely the last couple hours. We selected an outdoor patio for dinner and right as we sat down, an absolutely fantastic duo set up for busking right beside our restaurant, facing us and the crowded walk way in front of the patio. Dinner and a show in 23 C sunny weather. Couldn't have asked for better. From there on out all the street performers came on full force and we dwindled our final hour and a half eating ice cream and watching the super diverse entertainers. It is a very very cool city with a distinctly European flavor.

Side note: On the guided tour we saw the Notre Dame Basilica which was raised to Basilica status by none other than John Paul II and is the site where Celine Dion got married and Maurice Richard's funeral was held. Unfortunately it was closed for some event but if you look at pictures of the inside online, it reminds me so much of Europe.

Picture time!

This week is going to whirl by. Everything is shifted to make room for the wrap up events such as the student talent show, what appears to be some sort of certificate ceremony, departure day, and various inspections and check outs.

Home in one week!

Love and Light,

Jacqueline

Rain, Rain, go away...

Hello!

It has been pretty much nonstop raining for the past 4 days and unfortunately our trip to the national park was delayed and ultimately canceled. I am quite disappointed - I have a buddy here who is a pretty hardcore canoe guru and he was going to show me the ropes on this gorgeous lake. Dang. Instead, I ended up playing lots of cards with the roommates and the boys across the street, watching the series finale of House, cooking a really makeshift soup with Ryan, and doing P90X with the girls. Although it was nice to have a more laid back weekend, I'm here to see Quebec - not the inside of the residence!

Today we jumped straight back into our class work and received more homework than ever. It is interesting to ask our prof to compare what we are learning to when kids in French grade schools would work on similar things. For example, last week we covered some things that were probably 4th grade level. This week we're touching high school material. It is intense to think that we only have 6 more days of actual class. Next week the Wednesday will be an oral exam and the Thursday will be the written. After that, Friday is departure day. Kat, Ryan, and I went ahead and booked our stay in Montreal for the two nights we have to spend there at the very end of the program. I'm looking immensely forward to it.

Love & Light,

Jacqueline