Blogging

Wow, I'm a terrible blogger any more.

And it is not really that I don't have time - I could make time for it. At least the blogging part; not likely to ever get back to spending much time dropping or promoting - but I could write 'em.

Haven't been - especially this one - mostly because I don't figure anyone wants to listen to me whine.

I am not having fun with this school thing right now. I will be very, very glad when I get through April - well, assuming I DO get through it; at this point I am not confident.

IF I manage to survive this first year, the rest should be doable. Just have to make it through, that's all. Minor details.

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yay me

didn't think I was ever going to get it done - but it's 4:20 a.m. and my paper is DONE (but for printing) and I get to go to bed now.

Deciding to change my thesis statement at the ~last~ minute probably wasn't such a great idea - but I'm much happier with the paper now .... I think - too tired to know for sure!

Whatever - can't change it any more tonight; it's bedtime.

And I'm giving a seminar in the morning. yikes!

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Serendipity

Sometimes things just work out so well!

Yesterday, I was on my way to lead my seminars - we're talking about social issues and politics in Canada - last week was poverty, this week the main theme was health care.

There was a table outside one of the lecture halls I passed - lots of flyers, etc - for a number of different ~issues~ ... and piles and piles of buttons. They had 2/3 different buttons for race-related causes, several re: environmental issues, and then others re: tuition fees and poverty.

I grabbed bunches of each. When my students' came in I asked them to choose a button from the mess of 'em on the table. Had them get into groups with others who had the same button and discuss their issue, and potential solutions.

Each group reported back to the whole group and from there it was an easy segue into everything else .... led beautifully into the content of the assigned readings and the lecture.

I was, you may have guessed, very pleased with how it went.

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Almost time

I'm sitting outside at school - got here way early so that I could find the room, have dinner, and smoke before my seminars start. Done all that now though - and it's almost time to go in.

MY seminars. I have 2 groups; the first at 6 has 11 people registered for it, my 7 pm group is smaller. Producing Canada - tonight we are doing mostly introductory stuff (index cards and lots of coloured markers; yay!) and talking about how to make our seminar times effective.

And then, if there is time, we will talk about homelessness and poverty.

This is the second week of classes - last week we didn't have seminars though, so I haven't met my students yet; am looking forward to it.

My own classes are off to a good start - SO relieved to have my first paper submitted for our core course - although still hating it. I get especially stressed out when we have to send them to everyone in the course, not just the prof; presumably will get over that eventually.

The other class I'm taking is REALLY interesting, and even though it too is a lot of reading, I think it is going to be time well spent. It's on issues of citizenship in Canada.

So - basically everything I'm doing these days is learning about Canada. Who knew there was so much that I didn't know!

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Orientation Week

So ... first week of school was actually quite a bit more interesting than I expected.

Last year, when I started my MA, I alternated between frustrated because I was not getting information I needed and bored out of my mind during most of the orientation sessions. I honestly expected this year to be even more tiresome, since I've got the year behind me.

But it wasn't. Oh, there were a few bits of the program orientation that I really didn't need and didn't get much from - but on the whole, I felt that my time was well spent and that the PTB were conscious of the range of people they were dealing with - not addressing everyone at the lowest level. I REALLY appreciated that..... especially when it came to the TA training session I went to. Last year I did several days worth of sessions - and all of them presumed we knew nothing. This year the one I went to assumed that we did in fact have a clue and something to offer - and it was very worthwhile.

Off to a very good start, I think.

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