A year in the life of KarinAlyssa

January Blah

I understand why people have more depressions in January than in other months. The month is just starting and already I want to sleep all day and eat Haagen-Dazs's triple chocolate ice cream which is not good for my body. At least, I'm going to the gym every 3 days or so, so it's okay.

Life here is the same as usual, I go to my classes which seem harder than last semester for the moment. The only excitement was that my teacher for International public law was sacked, so I don't have that class this week. Otherwise, my Civil responsability teacher seems too young to teach and has high expectations from her class. She asked for close to 75 pages [legal size] to be read in 2 days. Can't you guess that I haven't read a single page yet and it's for tomorrow ? Oh well, I'll read some at the gym tomorrow, that way it'll pass faster. I love to do my boring reading when I'm on the treadmill, I seem to finish it more quickly ;) Plus, I'm getting fit at the same time, so it's great !

Frost week has started and the event I was organizing is already over. It was a kind of supermarket sweepstake called Loeb Quest. People had fun and I got to meet all those new international students coming from Norway, Mexico, Belgium, Australia, Netherlands, France, Sweden, ... Of course, there was the odd kid from Saskatchewan or Quebec, but eh, what can you do ? Afterwards, I came back home to watch the debates in French. I had watched parts of it in English last night, but Canada is really in a bad place ! We know that the government will be either conservative or liberal, but I don't want to vote for any of those parties. As I'm from Quebec, I could vote for the Bloc Québécois, but I don't agree with this party's existence. I could always vote NDP or Green as my vote doesn't really count in my riding as the Bloc will pass with 75% of the ballots. As much as I love politics, sometimes I think it's entirely useless especially when I look at politicians. I'd love to represent a riding and to make a difference, but I know I will never do that because of the state in which politics are now.

My reading is not doing good, I'm still reading the same book and I'm not even making a dent in it... Oh well, I better read for my classes for the moment anyway. Now, I need to sleep as I have a class at 8 this morning, did I say that I am not a morning person ? No control whatsoever on my schedule it seems...

posted by KarinAlyssa @ 23:53 0 comments

School has already started !

I have already have 2 days of school although my first class of civil responsability was cancelled. Nonetheless, I had the chance to have a class of criminal law, procedural law and international public law. The first one was fun, the professor looks like my librarian when I was younger and she was so nice. The procedural law class seems boring, but the teacher seems interesting enough. As for internation public law, I could have cried when the class ended. This is the class I was the most excited for and it was a huge disappointment. Like almost everyone from my class, I couldn't understand most of what the teacher was saying. He had a weird accent and everytime he mentionned important names, all the class was struggling to guess how it was spelled. Some girl asked him to write the names to the blackboard and we saw how he wrote, we decided it wasn't worth it as we could not read it. This is a new professor at my faculty and he asked for one big paper [about 15 to 20 pages on a specic topic] which is a lot as we're first years and don't even know how to do his mini-mémoire. Afterwards, people tried to switch classes, but it was impossible; the other classes were fulled ! So, we're stucked with him, I hope he'll enunciate more in the next class.

At my residence, we're organising a Frost Week next week. I live in an international residence, so some of the residents are only in Ottawa for one semester. This Frost week is like the Frosh/101 Week that we had in September, but it will be for our residence only. I'm organizing a kind of Supermarket Sweeptstake on Tuesday and a International Pot-Luck for Sunday. I can't wait for that week to unfold. There will also be a Senator's hockey game, a Scavenger's Hunt, a Snow Day including skating on the Canal, making snowmen and snowballs fights, a supper opened to everyone in the rez and more... This is going to be an amazing week. I'm planning to participate in most activities except the Sens' game as I'm not a fan of hockey.

The choir has the first 2006 show on Sunday. Now, I really have to sing more. Since I lost my voice during the holidays, my voice is squeaky at notes I used to reach without troubles, so I'll stretch it. It's already better than 1 week ago, but I'd like it to be better even if Sunday is really close...

As for reading, I just finished Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides and I'm shocked. I don't think the book deserved the Pulitzer because Jeffrey Eugenides always get lost somewhere in the plot as if there wasn't one or if I had one, he forgot it for a couple of chapters. Then, he ended up with over 500 pages; most of which should have been edited. If you take alone the story of Calliope or Cal, this is not only disturbing, but really surprising. To see her/his life and to try to put you in the same place is almost impossible. I remember how I was at that age and there is no way I could have accepted something like that if someone albeit over-qualified might have told me on who I truly was. On a entirely different topic, the Dilbert was a hoot like always. I love to read Scott Adam's strips; they are so hilarious.

I even practiced some of my German by going over my notes from my last class and talking aloud in German. I also went to the library to check out some books on german grammar, so I could get better. The only bad thing is that I can't audit a German class as it's impossible to audit a language class. I would gladly add the German class to my schedule, but I can't because I'm a first year in law. I was really frustrated as I could make it to all the classes in one section and that section was not full. They told me I could go to the Goethe Institute which is kinda expensive and far from where I live. I guess I'll take an intensive class during the summer, so I can study in a more advanced class this fall.

posted by KarinAlyssa @ 23:42 0 comments

New Year !!!

2006 is already there and I came back to my room in Ottawa. I spent only 2 weeks at home where I work 6 days, held a dinner party at home, went out too much and didn't see my friends as much as I would like. Sometimes, I wish I was studying in Montreal, so I could just call one of them for a coffee in 40 minutes. Now, it's planning at least 2 weeks in advance and missing stuff because I can't come back for an evening. OK, I do it sometimes, but it start to get expensive to take the train that often. My friend's boyfriend plays the sax in a band and has a show on the 8th which I'll miss... We wanted to do another dinner party, but I can't go... Ottawa is only 90 minutes away from Montreal, but sometimes I feel like I am in another country altogether. At least, I broke up with Stéphane just before coming to live in Ottawa, having a long distance relationship would have been quite disastrous... The worst is that I'm thinking of doing my masters somewhere far away like Oxford... They have a great MPhil in International Relations, so that'd be great especially if my friend is doing hers there too in Mathematics. She was accepted as an undergraduate but opted for the MIT instead, but she could do her masters in Oxford and we would be together.

Anyway, I better start worrying about 2006 instead of 2009, right ? I have not made real resolutions, but I have some goals for this year. I decided to have this blog like I used to have in highschool because I have some time on my hands and writing or in that case typing allows me to reflect on my life. Also, I want to get more in shape. Since May, I've lost some weight and have been in a better form, but I want to do real activities like aerobics, Pilates and more yoga. Of course, I want to work on my German, so I can go in Germany and Austria in Summer 2007 and speak it fluently. Plus, I want to write like I used to do in high school. I stopped because I didn't have time which is not the case anymore. I want to write short stories, work on the novel I started and write new songs.

As for books, I'm doing a challenge on BookCrossing.com to read twice 26 new authors both in English and in French in the ABC Challenge 2006. This challenge was done last year by BreakEveryRule and Mostly-Harmless took the idea and proposed it to the French forum. I'm planning to read most of my classics in French and some books in my TBR. I have already read two. I read letter B (Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451) and letter D (Diane Mott Davidson - Dying for Chocolate)

Otherwise, I am reading Excuse while I wag by Scott Adams, a great Dilbert and I'm enjoying it. I read 2 great books during the holidays, both left something in me. It was Balzac and the little chinese seamstress by Dai Sijie and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. The former is during the cultural revolution in China and talks about reeducation and the love the books while the latter is set in Irak and starts just before the soviet invasion of 1979 and finishes around 9-11.

I'm off to bed to enjoy the Dilbert, so Bonne nuit !

posted by KarinAlyssa @ 21:55 0 comments