Hello all!

The last couple of weeks have been an odd mix of hell and super awesome happy fun times! Haha It's been midterm time here at SFU ie. Mega stress. It's particularly tricky cause A) I'm not actually used to having midterm exams, and B) Back home at UWA we get a week off in the middle of semester to kinda catch out breath, get on top of things etc etc. what I think of as the "oh s***" week haha =P but having that week makes like SO much easier and here at SFU we have no breaks - not now, not before exams at the end of semester. So you're sitting exams, but still attending all your lectures and whatever and have assignments due in at the same time =S

I survived though! And have had plenty of good times along the way to keep things interesting…Last Thursday the Ski and Snowboard club put on a Tight, Bright, & White party at the Highlander (the campus pub). I had just finished my stats exam (blah!) so I was in need of some serious partying! We met in Jessie's room as per usual with Helle and Veronique, then Sebastion and Heiko joined us (quite a large group of people for such a teeny tiny room hehe) then we headed over to the pub round 830. They showed this AMAZING snowboarding movie called "That's It That's All" and even though it was snowboarding and I'm a skier…wow. Just, wow. The footage of the mountains was just amazing. They did all this heli-skiing (well, heli-snowboarding I suppose) where they'd get dropped off right at the very tip top of a mountain and be coming down this totally untouched terrain on the most amazing fresh powder. God, I just wanted to put on a pair of skis and get on a mountain right then and there.

After that Helle, Jessie and I jumped straight up and hit the d-floor, which was non-existent at the time but lets be serious - when has that ever bothered me?? Haha We tried out some interesting moves ie. The sprinkler, and the stomping the ground we hate stupid boys from Sweden dance (haha Jessie will understand…) and basically stayed there for the rest of the night. People laughed at my "flip flops" but I've never been so glad not to be wearing heels! The following day was totally unproductive of course but I did meet the girls in the evening for a little movie watching sesh - Bridget Jones' Diary! Never gets old…hehe

On Saturday I went down town to see JL cause she'd surfaced from 3 weeks of night shift a few days before. I was basically a boring old woman and sat around studying and she went out and did lots of fun things haha No, but I did have a lovely time just being down there and I was totally spoilt on Sunday night with the most beautiful steak from Granville Island. I'd been lamenting about the lack of red meat in my life (yes, the poor travelling student thing again…plus, the meat at the dining hall often seems kinda…questionable to met…) so JL was kind enough to give me my iron fix for the month haha I barely slept that night trying to cram my head full of cognitive neuroscience information and after I sat the exam the next day I basically zombied my way back to my room and holed up in bed with chicken soup for the rest of the day. One thing I noticed down at JL's, because I haven't been down in nearly a month, was how many leaves were on the street! It was amazing, I've never seen an autumn quite like this. The red colour is really intense and everything is just covered in fallen leaves. But at the same time there's still so much greenery because they have so many evergreens here as well. Pretty spectacular.

Last night I spent about 2 hours being incredibly indecisive and at the very last minute I put on heels and red lipstick and decided to go out! Haha It was a very good split second decision…there was a "Suit Up" event at the pub ie. Guys wear suits, girls wear nice dresses - kinda tricky for all us exchange students, the guys are like, OK you pack one suitcase…that doesn't include a suit! But it was really fun none the less. I went down to the town houses beforehand to Daniel's place for a few drinks, met heaps of cool exchangers from all over, including a Perth boy, Kim, I have somehow not met up until now!

Hmm…what else is there to report…I spoke to a rep from L'Occitane the other day who loves my resume and wants me to get in touch closer to my time in Whis so that's groovy. I also had training for the Nannies on Call job yesterday which went well so I'm all up and running and can start working for them basically whenever I like - although it pays to be working in Whis, literally, $2 more per hour than I'd be getting down here in Van! And I gather there's some pretty sweet money to be made from tips…after all, these are the kids of the parents staying in the Fairmont Chateau! I also went back to my favourite store ever - Urban Outfitters - and bought some gorgeous jeans that I plan to introduce to the world on Saturday night when we go down town for Kim's birthday. And then next weekend…Halloween!!! It's gonna be MASSIVE!! =D

LIVxo