☼ + T = ♥

I miss lifeguarding outside.

I miss my pool.

I miss it how it was 5 years ago.

Best job, by far.

Sorry for any confusion - I am leaving two days early because I wanted to go to my family campout and I figured why not - the last two days are just testing and I get to do it on the 30th now and get the best of both world, I am not leaving until then.

Thursday the 17th to Friday the 18th

Thursday was the first day of our second course here in Moncton. It proved to be very similar to the first, same class, same seat, same enthusiastic professor. All in all uneventful but still good.

I was surprised that I wasn't too tired because generally I am always tired here. That is until the afternoon activity. We were making posters about issues. My group did ours on slums. It was pretty sweet, and it stood out because everyone else's seemed colourful and happy, ours was black and brown. I thought I had done so well by avoiding a nap between lunch and 2pm activity but after poster making I was pooped - I returned to res and napped for at least an hour before dinner.

Our evening activity was showing a number of the pictures from our previous scavenger hunt and the announcement of the winners. My group had tons of our pictures in so I thought we stood a pretty good chance but in the end the box of giant freezies went to another group. It was ok because it was awfully funny. We were also told about a 'gala' that we will be having next friday to celebrate the end...? I don't really know why but we get dressed up and eat somewhere. I signed up for decorating because it seemed the least French/labour intensive.

We've been having some great weather lately so after we were let out I didn't really feel like sitting around my room and dinner had been less than appetizing leaving me slightly hungry. I was in the mood for a patio and a beer and a few others were headed to Calactus - the vegetarian restaurant I was at the night before - so I joined in. It is a short walk away. I got potato leek soup that was both delicious and reminded me of my brother, I also got a blueberry beer - they served it with a generous serving of blueberries at the bottom of my glass. The beer was from a local brewhouse - the brewhouse that we visited earlier in fact (Pumphouse). It was delicious!

Upon returning it was time to go to bed.

Friday the 18th

Getting up in the morning is an awful grueling experience that usually leaves me with little time to eat breakfast. Not that I don't have enough time but 6:30am just isn't getting any easier.

Class was fine, we learned about a hundred new words, a generous handful of verbs, and their conjugation in past tense - these will all be on our test on Monday.

It was a gorgeous day here, I believe it reached 30℃ and was sunny! Awesome. I spent some time creating que cards to study for.

Our afternoon activity was a huge campus wide game of capture the flag. This is the kind of thing I love. It was hot and beautiful and I think that Mexico prepared me for running around in 30ish weather because it was so hot there that this felt like nothing. It took about an hour before team rouge (aka my team) brought the other teams flag home! It was great. I played defense which is clearly my strong suit. I don't know what it is about shutting someone down that feels so fabulous but I would rather do that than bringing the flag home. No, no one was cheering my name but I like the feeling of defeating others more, ha.

After it was so nice out so I didn't really want to go inside. We just hung out in the sun for a while before we tried to organize something. Nothing really came to fruition though. I ended up showering and changing and hanging out until dinner time. (I was mighty sweaty).

Our evening activity was split into two groups so the level 3-5s were hearing a storyteller talk about Acadian myths, us 1s and 2s played games outside. It was ok. It was followed by an optional movie. Although I would have been up for a movie it was a horror. I can't watch scary movies. So I came home. Now I am just hanging out for a while until we head out to a local pub for the night. I hear there is karaoke and as much as I detest karaoke (save for drunken PartyTyme karaoke on Christmas Eve with the fam) it is hard to persuade a large group of people you don't really know to do something more to your style. I'm sure it'll be a great time. Well if nothing else there will be some people I can talk to.

Tomorrow we have the morning free and then we are headed to Shediac to go on a boat, something about lobsters. I'd tell you more if I knew more but what little information we are given is in French. We don't really ever know what we are doing.

So now that week 3 has come and gone you can tell that people's patience is wearing thin. The person who you thought was kind of crazy is becoming annoying. I can see why our prof in mexico thought that three weeks was long enough. It is because unless you get a really great group of people together they start to be too much. I think our group in Colima could have lasted for 5 weeks. I know I was sad to see them all go their separate ways when we landed in Calgary. Perhaps because the group is bigger here it is more difficult to connect with people, especially outside of residences (EN FRANCAIS!!). It is interesting because of the group of girls I mostly hang out with here there are a number I would rather distance myself from. I try to avoid people that bring you down or that will bring out the bad in me. Unfortunately that is not always the easiest task to accomplish. There are with the bad quite a few really great genuine people I've met here too. Those are the people I try and spend my time with.

Today I learned:

• How much I really miss team sports - especially rugby
• That as much fun physical activity is, I might be done, because muscle relaxants are only funny the first few times

I am grateful for:

• My saaa-weet defense skills
• My hair straightener
• Funny, sincere new friends
• Silence and a room to myself
• My tan from Mexico! People keep telling me I look tanned.. that's right, me!
• My itunes on my desktop - I wish I had more on my laptop, specifically, at this moment I wish I had my Coldplay albums

A shot of the entrance to campus, the building in the middle is my home,

the rest of the campus is up the hill

MMmmm! Blueberry Beer!

*And no, this has not been edited