School

Ok, so school has started and it's great!  My classes are interesting and I have great teachers.  I think my favourite class will be Airline Operations.  I'm starting to adjust to my schedule of work and school, so that's good too.  I have started with my French again - I'm now in level 2!  My goal with that is to go through the levels and eventually get my certificate that says I'm officially bilingual - I think that would certainly help when it comes to getting a job!

Lots of my classes have online components.  It's difficult to keep track of for me because the last time I was in school, nothing was online.  Now I find myself handing in assignments, doing quizzes and participating in discussions all online!  It is a bit confusing to get used to, but I think I will become more and more comfortable with that as time goes by.

Today I went to a discount store and bought a board game for myself called "13 Dead End Drive".  I used to have it when I was a kid and I was so excited to find it today!  It cost me $1.25 and I'm thrilled!!  I played it today with Steph - it was like stepping back in time!  While I was there, I also bought a board game version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire ($1.25), a sort of logic word puzzle game for $1.25, and 2 books - a guide to Europe ($1.00) and Tours of North America ($2.00).  That last book is about driving tours you can do in North America which I thought might be a good resource.

Right, so as you can see I bought a lot of things for next to nothing!

Ok, that's my update for now.  Not much else has happened with me!

Stay warm and enjoy the rest of January!

My first day of school

I dreamt I was late.  I woke up at 5:45 a little excited... or nervous.  I'm not sure.  Maybe it was the other dream I had - I lost my favourite scarf.  It was terrible.  Anyway...

After I had my coffee, visited with my roommate and got my backpack ready for the first day of school, I felt better.  This, of course, wasn't my very first day of post-secondary school.  I went to UWO for Music.  That was an awesome 4 years.  Then I went to Nipissing for Education.  That was less awesome, but I still met great people.

This first day brought me back to being a student again - something I haven't been for 4 years now.  It's not a long time, but spending lots of those 4 years teaching, I found it hard to listen to people telling me what to do rather than being the one on the other side of the desk!  It was fun though, and I think I'm really going to get a lot out of the program.

I entered into a draw.  I want to win.

Right, well my classes seem like they will be interesting.  The ones I'm looking forward to most are the travel related ones.  I've got Airline Operations, Independent Tours, Introduction to Tourism and Travel Geography.  I'm taking an online Communications course, and also a course called Office Software Applications.  Just like last semester, I'm in a night class too - La Pratique du Français 2.  This will be the second level of the series, but I'll have the same teacher, which is good.

The less exciting part of all of this are the prices of the text books.  I stopped in at the bookstore on my way out of the College.  I almost had a stroke when I saw that one of my required books is $147.  $147!!!  Who makes these books?!  Blind virgins?!

Anyway, when all is said, done, and in the past, I will probably have learned a lot and will be thankful that I have a job dealing with what I love - travel.

That said, I have 2 classes tomorrow.  I start at 10am so hopefully I don't wake up as early as I did today!  (Unless of course I have some terrible scarf-related dream again).

I hope everyone's well - we're having such a mild winter it's hard for me to remember it's January sometimes!

Have a great week everyone!

Christmas & New Years!

Alright, now that it's 2012, I think it's time to put my post up about Christmas and I'll combine it with New Years.  Every Christmas we have certain traditions.  Christmas Eve we go to my Aunt & Uncle's house for a big family dinner.  I don't use the word 'big' loosely here, there were 26 people there this year!  The food is always really good and it's nice to get together like that.  Some of those people I only see once a year so the Christmas Eve dinner is something I really look forward to.  Then comes Christmas.  This year, our family did the big Christmas things (presents, dinner etc.) on the 26th.

Here are some pictures of those Christmas traditions.

This picture shows almost everyone who was at the big dinner.  There are 2 people not visible.

My house - this is my first attempt at Christmas lights ever!

This is my best friend Steph and I at my parent's house for Christmas dinner

Then came New Years.  Every year, at least 4 of us go to Niagara Falls for our New Years celebration.  We have been going since 2007 I think.  We usually go to the casino, although the first year we went to the outdoor concert.  Anyway, here are some pictures of that night!

It was a fun night!  Well, here we are in 2012.  I'm glancing out the window to see light snow and patches of blue sky.  It's kind of nice actually!  Alright, that's that.  Happy 2012 everyone!