A Wonderfull Ending

This week I had may last ever experience as a Carleton University student. This final bid experience was supposed to be my final exam on Monday and this was a bitter sweet experience because I was extremely glad to have finished all my exams and to not have to study anymore but I was also really sad that I would never really be back to work at this wonderful university again.

 

However as I said this is what I though my last activity as a Carleton student would be instead I was invited by my lecturer in the exam if I wanted to come on a field trip on Thursday. Of course there is only one answer to the question do you want to have a free trip into the countryside to play with rocks and GPS and that is yes! This unfortunately did mean that on my first day of what was essentially my summer holidays I had to get up at 7am drive two and a half hours to play in the mud. It was brilliant. We arrived to a hillside just outside a tiny town with nothing much but a convenience store, a gas station and a few houses. We drove bumpily along a narrow forestry trail until we couldn’t get any further in the van because beavers had built a dam across the road. I was pretty excited to see the dam whereas everyone else was just annoyed at the inconvenience. To Canadians a beaver dam is irritating but to me it is crazy new and exciting. The dam was surprisingly sturdy looking and holding back allot of water that sat a foot and a half deep on the other side. All around trees were gnawed into pointed stumps where the beavers had chewed through them in ways I thought was purely the invention of cartoonists.

 

We spent a pleasant day mainly surveying the site to help make base maps for the second year field camp and spent our time scrambling through the overgrown forest, climbing hills and wading knee deep into the bogs to get the exact location of all the buildings and mine pits in the areas. It was a beautiful day as summer seems to have arrived and we are having hot clear sunny days. We sat on the crest of one of the hills to eat lunch overlooking the panoramic view of the incredibly vast country side. Bellow us stretching out for what seemed like forever were trees and fields and rivers, scattered with the odd building and criss-crossed by the winding maze of roads.

 

On the way back tired and muddy we stopped for ice cream at a tiny roadside diner off highway 7. The sun was setting over the horizon stretching out before me casting an orange glow over the scenery. As we sat laughing and talking in the cooling evening sun I realised that it was a beautiful and perfect way to end my time at Carleton University.

Busy Busy Busy

Compared to the last few weeks this week has been a whole lot busier than I’m used to. I am currently in the middle of three days of exam hell however after tomorrow I will only have one left and I get a few days to chill out and study before I have to sit it. Time to chill out between exams unfortunately hasn’t been a privilege I’ve been afforded this week. I had an exam Tuesday, today and have another tomorrow. So for the past week most of my spare time has been spent cramming for three different subjects and I’m worried that soon my head will explode.

However I haven’t actually had that much spare time because my parents came to visit Canada and spent the weekend in Ottawa. So my spare time for studying was in mornings and evenings as well as of course on busses to and from. We crammed a whole lot into our weekend. We visited the Canadian Museum of Civilisation and watched “Roving Mars” on the huge curved screen of the IMAX cinema. The sun was shining so we spent most our time out in the sunshine exploring the little shops and cafes in the Glebe and walking the entire length of the Rideau Canal all the way from downtown to Carleton University Campus. Apart from a few still snowed over patches and a huge flooded muddy puddle the walk was beautiful and calm and it was almost had to think of it as the same canal I was ice skating on only a month ago. The rest of our time was spent eating at the best restaurants Ottawa has to offer. One of the brilliant benefits of Canada being such a multicultural place is that you get a huge variety of food and this weekend I ate at a local fish place, a Thai restaurant, an Indian buffet and of course a gourmet burger joint. The Works is the best place for a burger in town and they offer over 60 different varieties and will put just about anything in just about any combination from peanut butter to avocado. The burgers themselves are massive and come with huge side servings of chips. We ordered a stack of onion rings to start and left full to bursting with good greasy food. We finished out last night together in Ottawa in a particularly Canadian way and followed our Canadian delicacy of gourmet burgers with watching the hockey game in a bar that brews its own beer. So we watched the Ottawa Senators get smashed by the Pittsburgh Penguins and I caught the bus home to study some more. It has been a pretty eventful weekend with the parents and I can not quite believe how soon I will be seeing them again as I will be flying home in just a little over six weeks. Even more amazingly I can not believe how much I am cramming into the time in between then and now. But before I get into this travelling business I have to get through a few more pesky exams!

Sping has arrived

So spring is has finally reached the fine country of Canada and it’s about time! If I had had a choice it would have been here about a month ago. Anyway the snow although still lying all over every available surface has definitely stopped falling from the sky and started to melt away exposing the brown and muddy grass that was first hidden over four months ago. Unfortunately the melting snow had also reviled the huge amount of rubbish that has been dropped onto the streets over the winter. So now instead of wading through knee deep snow I now find myself battling my way through discarded sprite bottles and crisp packets. Despite this rather unfortunate downside there are a lot of wonderful things that come with the warming weather. I can walk outside without first having to put on my entire wardrobe and then rushing to find the nearest shelter before my fingers fall off. The air is cool and fresh and the wind a gentle warm breeze. The first brave flowers have started to sprout out of the patched of expose muddy grass opening their petals to the week sun that shines for longer and longer everyday. The Canada geese are returning from their winter migration spots further south and all this gives the world a sudden feeling of life. Our flat has also been filled with renewed excitement as our sole Canadian flatmate has been accepted into a study abroad program in the UK and will be living in London for a semester next year. The prospect of this and our knowledge that she wont be too far from us again soon is creating a lighter atmosphere as we head into our finial few weeks at Carleton. It is nice to know that at the end of term when we say goodbye it will not be forever.

 

With this new fresh feel the city has once again come alive to me. I find myself with renewed excitement for exploring where I live, whether that is the streets of downtown or the footpaths surrounding the canal. It seams that everyone if in the same joyful mindset as the sun shines down bringing life and energy to us all after a cold dark winter. Unfortunately this beautiful and glorious spring has arrived at a fairly inopportune time with everyone’s exams fast approaching. With the end of term barely behind us and the pressure of essays only just over it is now time to worry about final exams. I have three next week and then one more after that and with so much work to do it is hard to justify time out in the beautiful sunshine. However they will soon be over and I will be free to bask in the wonder of the beautiful weather. Although knowing my luck the spring rain showers will have started by them and I will be face with the prospect of grey skies and soggy shoes to celebrate the end of term.

The Masquerade Gala

This week is the last week of term and apart from the sudden pressure of essays and exam deadlines drawing ever closer it had brought a few ‘lasts’ for me. I had my last ever class at Carleton today which left me with mixed feelings because on the one hand it’s nice to know that the term is over and there is nothing new to learn but on the other hand it’s very sad because I will never have another Carleton class. One of my friends said that it’s like graduation but with all of the sad and none of the excitement. Although since neither of us have ever graduated I don’t know how he can be so sure. I am acutely aware of trying to not get too bogged down with this thought and that I shouldn’t get too caught up in the thought of it ending that I forget to enjoy these last few weeks. However it is ever present in my mind these days and I guess it’s because everyone is looking towards the end, everybody is celebrating there last class, can’t wait to hand in their last paper and are counting the days until their last exam. Of course this is exactly the mentality I would have and do have when I’m at home but because these are all the last time I will do these things ever the joy in them is tinged in a little bit of sadness. My final last for this week was the final event run by the international centre which was the Masquerade Gala.

The Masquerade Gala was an event and a half and definitely one of the most enjoyable ‘lasts’ of the week. The evening started as most evenings do with the mad rush to get ready. It was a formal event so we were all dressed up in dresses and heals and of course masks. The only trouble with masks is that since I only own glasses and have not contact lenses I had to choose between a mask and being able to see- I chose the mask! The event was being held at a fairly unique venue, the Ottawa War Museum so we arrived in out finery to be greeted by a banquet hall filled with tanks and half destroyed vehicles. After briefly hanging around at the cocktail bar we quickly claimed a table for our large group and before long the buffet was open. Now I completely object to buffets at formal events, not because I feel it’s not classy enough but because it is impossible to get your money’s work while wearing a very neat fitting dress. After we had all eaten out fill or at least our dresses fill the entertainment began. As the event was run by the international society the performers reflected this with singers and dancers from all corners of the globe. There were African dancers jumping to the sounds of the drums, Chinese dancers swaying daintily to soft music and an amazing array of singers who wowed the audience into silence. The evening was rounded off by a DJ and our bizarre banquet hall was transformed into an even stranger nightclub and we danced the rest of the night away.