Convocation

Well after 7 years, well only about 5 years of actually attending classes, I (Tamara), finally graduated from University. I am now the proud degree owner of a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science, with a Concentration in Geographical Information Science. It took a long time, and many detours, but it is complete!



Convocation was Thursday, May 29th, and my parents, brother, and his girlfriend Anh, all came out for it. We had a good visit, and had a couple days of celebration (also being my 25th birthday on the 30th). I think my parents were hoping for Paisley's arrival that weekend as well.

Here are a few pictures of grad:

My good friend Jen (Geography) and myself- she photographs very well... so lots of photos:




With other good friends Rachelle and Marissa (both Environmental Science)


Just with Rachelle:


On stage - look at the awkwardness. Convocation Regalia is not flattering on a 9 month pregnant woman:





Feeling hot and exhausted.....


Glad it's over.....

Today was the international Buy Nothing Day. Convieniently it is the same day as Black Friday. Our club had a stuff swap on campus. It was a store set up, but no money was exchanged.. just items. Kinda cool. Unfortunately today was also the big Country Christmas Craft Show at the Exhibition Grounds. Over 177 craft booths! :) I did go, and I did buy a couple of items (as gifts of course). I also wanted to scout it out, since I plan to have a booth next year for my cards. Last year I had said I wanted a booth this year... but I'm still in school. So next year... I have it in writing now... that I WILL have a booth at the craft show. There were 2 other card booths there this year. One of which the cards weren't very nice and they were charging $4 a card. The other one had great cards. :) I would considered mine to be on the same level as theirs. They were charging $3.50 a card. So I scouted it out, and both booths were selling a number of cards while we were there, so YAY!

My cats have been fantastic lately. I thought they'd be all over the tree, but they just leave it alone. Actaully they've been napping under it, but not disturbing it. Which is wonderful.

At this point, I think there is no way I can fail any of my classes. I think I'll even get through chem with a somewhat decent mark (my lab is definately going to drag up my mark). In lecture I'm sitting at 56% (higher than I thought), and she gave out a make up assignment which is able to add 6%to the top of my mark. So say I only get 50% on the assignment, I will be sitting at 59%. Which means I only need above a 40% on the final. :) which I can guarentee I'll get. So YAY!!! No chem worries anymore. With th lab factored in, I should get 65-75% on the course in the end. YAY for lab, even though it is a very brutal lab.

Ohh and I charged up my cell phone for the first time in,.... 8 or 9 months! They're threatening to cut me off if I don't use it soon. So I figure I'll carry it this week, and one day I'll call Josh to get him to pick me up!

I was reading yesterday about christmas trees and the environment. Artificial trees (which I have) are bad in that they have so many chemicals in them. Which really isn't bad, until it hits the land fill. Real trees, well.. you're cutting them down and killing them. Now being a christmas freak, christmas just isn't christmas without a christmas tree. So it gave a solution. In some cities you can rent a tree. It's a really neat idea. You pay a rental fee, and the tree comes burlapped up (roots), and after the holidays, the tree is picked up and gets planted within the city, whether it be a park, a schoolyard or something! It's brilliant! Right now this program is available in San Fransisco and Portland. Hopefully it takes off elsewhere for next year. If you have a real tree... make sure to recycle it at the end of the season!

Halloween... I guess.

I think it's halloween, there are some strangely dressed people here at the University today. Which really isn't that weird.. there's quite a few of those drama-type people in this area of the U. I was excited about Halloween, the way the scheduling of my night class was, it looked like he was going to give us this evening off... but not so.. he decided to drag out his lecture last class. So Halloween.. it may be out there, but I'll never know. School from 8 am til 9 pm. Plus the extra time after my night class that I wait for Josh to finish his night class.. and meetings. SO I figure tonight I'll be out of here by 10 pm. Unfortunately I don't get to see all the tykes dressed up and banging on my door. Don't get to set up my tombstones, pumpkins, floodlights and fog machine. Unfortunate. Last year I enjoyed the fascination of the kids as they came to the door. I left a candy stash just inside the door.. in case some kids come by while we're out and a roomate answers the door. It's a sad night. I love costumes, and enjoy seeing the kids. They're adorable. Instead I get to listen to my prof talk for 3 hours, while not covering any of the course material (it fascinates me every week... he'll lecture for 3 hours on nothing related to the course... the whole course is learned from the textbook). You may ask... why do you attend class then? Well 20% of my mark comes from GROUP tests. Yes... group tests. We have one every class. We sit in our groups, we discuss the question (which is usually straight from the text) and then we write down the answer (oh.. and we can confer with other groups), with all our names. Great testing strategy. Other than that our tests are all WEBCT, meaning online, and multiple choice. Yes... I know what you're thinking... what on earth does this prof do? He doesn't have to mark anything. It's all done by computer, he doesn't really lecture.. he just stands in front of 100 students once a week and tells jokes and rattles on about different environmental projects that are going on in Alberta. I wouldn't consider him a great prof... but his actual lecture period is entertaining, just not related. So we go to class. Plus, I am one of about 5 students in the class that he knows, he would notice if I am not there. He was the prof that led the SouthWest Trip I went on this summer.

Tomorrow is a scary day. I have to present to my class for 15 minutes. All alone at the front with control of PowerPoint. It's the scariest thing for me. I feel sick, I fidget and I refuse to look at the group. I even shake. Presenting is not a good thing. The most I've ever done before is 5 minutes.. and usually that is with other people. I do know the content of my presentation thoroughly, but I am nervous that someone will ask a question. Actually in this class I know at least 5 people will ask questions. I'm scared that it'll be questions that I do not know the answer to. I am also one of the first 3 to present in this class, so I have no idea if I even approached this from the right angle. Guess we'll find out tomorrow. I already found a mistake in the handout that has been sent to the entire class already.

On the plus side, I have received 2 more orders for Christmas cards. One is a rush order that needs to be done for next week, so after tomorrow's presentation I will start in on them. :) Very exciting. There are only 55 days left til Christmas. And tomorrow you are officially allowed to decorate for Christmas. I don't think my tree will get put up for a couple weeks yet, since I have so much to do prior to that. But Christmas music is free to be played everywhere now... not just in my IPOD.

I think I should quit my rambling now. I have class again soon. This was a quick break, and I finally got another blog in.

I will leave you with the following image.....

Why me. My thoughts when I first got up this morning.

First a little history. Every year at University I have had something go wrong that is not my fault. At U of A I had problems, with registration.....(they booted me out of a class... saying I didn't have the pre-req, when I did), I had problems with my tuition (I had paid, they decided I hadn't). At LCC, I had a problem with my accomodation, they screwed up something, and I had to go and straighten it out. U of L, I NEEDED a course (required), and the class was still half empty, yet I couldn't register for it... because of my major, even though it's required for my major. It tooks like 2 months to get that one sorted out. Everything goes wrong with the Universities, I'm really fed up with it.

This morning I wake up to get an e-mail that reads "There have been changes to your registration in the last 24 hours. You are not registered in any courses". First reaction.. .maybe it's an error message. SO I log onto my registration pages, just to realize that I am not registered in any classes as of the middle of the night. Here I am in the midst of writing midterms, turning in papers... and I'm not registered in any classes?

My first question is WHY? I have no holds on my account, I have been a good diligent student, I've even determined that U of L is really a good school... I'm not holding grudges. But this. I need to sort it out. I have a scholarship dependent on me having full time status, I have a billion papers and midterms in the next few weeks, and they removed me from school.

I'm not a happy camper this morning, and I plan to go to the Registrar when they open at 9. Until then I just stew and freak out and wonder, with all the troubles Universities give me, maybe this isn't where I should be. Maybe I should just find a job.... and forget this all together.

School has started.

I'm really looking forward to being done school.

Although one of my classes should be fun. Weather and Climate. I've always been fascinated with weather, loving storms and such. For the tornado in Lethbridge last year, while everyone else was running indoors. I was outside watching funnel clouds and hoping to glimpse the tornado. I was at work at the time.. so I could not go to my basement as recommended. Same is true for thunder storms. Love watching them through the window. It's just amazing the power of weather. I'm very excited about this class.

Another class that will be intereseting is my River Science class. It is a 4000/5000/7000 level course, meaning that it is undergraduates, masters students and phds all in one class. We have to adopt a river, analyze and interpret data and give a presentation to the class on our river. I have decided to do the Illecillewaet River. It will be a lot of work. There's a very large paper, and the presentation is long as well. A lot of information. I think it will take at least 2 months to gather data and another month to interpret it. Overall it will be interesting. The class is a 6 hour class once a week. We don't spend much time in the classroom, mostly on field trips.

My other classes will just be brutal. I have Analytical Chemistry (the hardest and brutalist Chemistry class that is offered at the U) and Geographical Statistical Data Analysis (or somethign like that). Both are going to be harsh.

I joined the Be-Aware club - the environmental science club. Most of the people I got to know on my trip are in the club, and more peopel from my program that I have not met. So we'll see if I actually get time to attend the events this year.

Anyway... my new battery arrived today.... I just put it in, so I'm happy. Yay for free replacements!

Having being unable to meet up with my partner for the paper on our trip, I have been at it all day. He is working out of town and has had a busier schedule than planned. So we've had little time. What does this all mean.

It means I arrived at the University at 8:30 am this morning.... went home for dinner for around 6:30... and came back for 9pm. I am still here. It is 3:30am. We are plugging away. And it's not that we're writing our paper right now, we've been editing and adding references and combining our writing. It's a big mess. I probably have a few hours left to go. 3:30!!!!

Tyler drove here straight from work. He is leaving here at 4am (at the latest) in order to get to work on time in the morning. That is just crazy. I work at 10am, but I have to get the printing done and adding figures and graphs. Oh fun times.