Midterms

Midterms, also known as the bane of any student's existence, are plaguing me right now but I am thankfully almost finished! 

This is me, minus the energy drink and clean desk

My first midterm was for my online history class, European Civilization: the Ancient World until the Enlightenment. This appeared to be my hardest of the bunch as the professor provided the class with 15 terms, 5 of which would be on the midterm and we had to chose three. That was the first part. The second part included 5 essay questions, 3 of which would be on the midterm and we had to pick one. This seemed to be so much information and the large amount of options did not really leave me much choice other than the study all of the options. I apparently studied the right things because I felt really confident after writing it! 1 down, 4 more to go! 

My next midterm was for Media in the Global World, which was fill in the blanks and multiple choice. I stressed over this one because the material was really hard to study. Some concepts seemed common sense while other concepts were very obscure. Some of the questions really surprised me with the detail they required but I was able to answer the majority of the questions with no hesitation. 2 down, 3 to go!!

Next was my other history class, European Civilizations: the Enlightenment to the Present Day. This was 50 multiple choice questions and 30 true and false questions. This midterm caused me a lot of stress because I had to study for Media and then this class at the same time. There is obviously so much to remember in a history class, but the professor made it seem easy as he said there would be no trick questions. While I was able to answer the majority of the questions with no hesitation, I did some pretty tricky questions! For example: Mary Theresa was the mother-in-law to Louis XVI. I was so disappointed when I saw this!! It also means that I might have missed a few other trick questions but I feel really good about it! I was also able to to finish all 80 questions within 30 minutes, which never happens! 3 down, 2 to go!!!

Right after history I had Applied Democracy, which caused me the most issues since I barely had time to study for it! In between studying for three exams within such a short period of time in addition to classes, it is no surprise I ran out of time to study hard for this class. There were 10 multiple choice and 3 short answer. The multiple choice gave me some headache but I was able to answer the short answers with plenty of detail! 4 down, 1 to go!!!!

Tomorrow night is The Politics of Transgression and Desire, which I have honestly not started to study for. I do have the majority of tomorrow to do so and I feel pretty confident about the material. Wish me luck though! 

I now cannot wait for my marks!! As positive as I feel about the midterm, the professor might have a completely different idea! I guess time will tell. 

James Bond Day

The James Bond franchise turned 50 on October 5th and so I thought I would share some fantastic Bond finds. 

The first is the newly released single for the new movie, Skyfall. Adele is the perfect voice for a James Bond theme song and I just love this song! It is really a throwback to the older theme songs and is actually good, unlike the recent songs. 

I am comparing Skyfall to the theme song for Casino Royale (2006), which is my favourite James Bond movie. The opening sequence of Casino Royale was amazing, I remember sitting in the theatre being in awe. The song, however, is strange and I don't think fits the Bond style. 

The ultimate Bond song is, in my humble opinion, not up for debate. When I think of Bond songs, this one is the first one to pop into my head. It is an old one but still a goodie! 

Besides the scantly clad dancing women, the other imagine that comes to mind when thinking about James Bond is martinis. Although this might be a thing of the past now. According to an article I found, Heineken is helping finance Skyfall and as a result of this Bond will be seen drinking beer. That's right, James Bond is swapping his martinis for beer. Somehow I don't think the 'shaken, not stirred' line will really work if Bond is ordering a beer. Daniel Craig is defending this, saying that the money is promote the film needs to come from somewhere. I realize the need for money but this almost seems like blasphemy. The martinis are equivalent to the fancy cars, cool gadgets and sophisticated suits. You aren't going to see Bond dressed in jeans while driving a Honda Civic so why should we see him drinking anything other than his signature drink? Ok, rant over! All of this said, I cannot wait to see Skyfall which comes out soon! November 9th! 

What do you think about the Heineken product placement? Is just part of the necessary changes that occur overtime? Or is it a step away from the essence of a James Bond movie?  

Videos for a busy day

As October begins, so does the massive amount of work that is due. Practically every week I have at least two things due and that is not including midterm week, where I have a midterm in every single class.

In order to stay sane, I go on various websites that have produced these two fantastic videos. The first is a twist on Gotye's song, 'Somebody That I Used to Know'. It is highly inventive and really cool to listen to. The second is of a wonderful little girl that had memorized a ballet piece. It brought a huge smile to my face. 

I hope you enjoyed the videos! I am always on the lookout for other wonderful videos so be sure to pass along your favourites!

A crafty frame of mind

It was about a year ago that I purchased a frame that had most likely held a mirror. I had seen some great projects on Pinterest for frames but it took about a year before I actually did something with it! I had even purchased the spray paint last year, but it sat in my room gathering dust.

Jennifer helped me spray paint it with a heirloom white then Kirk helped staple chicken wire to the back. The original Pin had pieces of wire hung across but I thought using chicken wire would provide more room to display pictures. I used wooden clothes pins and paper clips to hold the pictures on.

 
 

I am so pleased with how it turned out!! I love how easy it is to change the pictures around and how great it looks in my room. A successful Pinterest attempt!

Crayon Art

Anyone on Pinterest will recognize the famous 'melting crayon' art and I decided recently that on my day off I would also attempt this wickedly cool craft. 

I am not someone that normally ends up with a successful craft, I have great ambitions but my end results rarely measure up. This time, however, I was so impressed with my craft!! 

All lined up

Starting to melt!

The finished product!

It was such an easy craft and so fun! 

Materials needed: Crayola crayons, a hair dryer, and a canvas.

I emphasis Crayola because we attempted this at camp with different crayons and they didn't melt! It was quite disappointing. 

Now I have to find some place to hang this up. 

A letter to my cat

It is time for bed so I call your name but only your brother comes running, with a sad look in his eyes.
My bed is only covered in black hair now. I know I complained, but I would love my bed to be covered with your grey hair right now. 
The spot you loved to lie in is where your brother now stays.
I miss your purr and the way you would keep me company. 
I still expect you to come around the corner, or be sitting on the couch. 
When I open the door in the morning I wait a bit before I remember that you are not going to come running out. 
For one so small, you filled a large part of my heart. 

CiCi, Cognac, CiCi-bear. I miss you. 

Breakfast - overnight oatmeal

Breakfast - a necessary evil. 
Most of the time I can barely get out the door and the added stress of making a breakfast that is delicious and quick is not something I enjoy. 

Thanks to Pinterest, I found this recipe, Overnight Fridge Berry Oatmeal. I don't normally eat oatmeal in the mornings but this looks so delicious and easy that I had to give it a try! 

I had to change parts of the recipe so I will have to let you know how it turned out tomorrow. As you can see from the pictures, it made a lot! Even though I cut down on the proportions, I had better like it because I have enough for a month of Sundays.

Below is the original recipe with my changes in bold.

Overnight Fridge Berry Oatmeal

3 cups Old Fashioned Oats - We didn't have Old Fashioned Oats so I used Quaker Quick Oats, and only 2 cups because 3 seemed like a huge amount! 

2 cups Vanilla Yogurt (I prefer vanilla, but you could use any flavor) - I used 1 cup of vanilla 

1-2 cups frozen mixed berries - We had fresh raspberries in the fridge so I throw some in! I tried a small handful, and then added more until I was happy with the amount. 

1/2 cup apple juice (apple juice is more subtle, but you can use any juice you like) - I didn't have apple juice so I used orange. I did put 1/2 cups of juice in, but from the bit I sampled this might have been too much. 

Optional mix-ins: 1/2 tsp. cinnamon, 1 Tbls. ground flaxseed. - I added some cinnamon, but I only a touch. I used the Korintje Cinnamon from The Pampered Chef, which is really strong so I added a small amount. 

Mix all ingredients in medium sized tupperware container with lid. Keep in the fridge overnight. Top oatmeal with a drizzle of honey, cinnamon, granola, roasted nuts, or coconut. Serve cold.

2 cups instead of 3

Adding the 1 cup of yogurt.

Adding the orange juice. I mixed the yogurt and oatmeal together first, then mixed the orange juice in.

It was a bit runny, so I added a bit more oatmeal. 

Adding the first bunch of raspberries but I added quite a bit more later.

This is practically all of the cinnamon I added. I mixed this in and then added a tiny bit more. 

It filled this entire container, so it had better be delicious!!

I will update this later with the results! Hopefully it turns out better than the rainbow cake, which I still have to write about....

My super, awesome, fantastic birthday

I recently celebrated my birthday and I honestly cannot remember having a better birthday! Kirk came over on Friday after work for my 'party' as I was visiting my aunt for my actual birthday. 
This is what Kirk saw when he went around back. 

Yes, I did go to Wal-Mart and buy three water guns for my birthday. Jen, Kirk and I used the new guns, and Dad found the large pump-up one in the shed. And it was awesome! You should all be jealous that you were not here. I created two safe zones at the hoses so we could fill them up without getting attacked, but Kirk did not read the signs and sprayed us anyways. 

I missed the memo about making a menacing look

 Trying to take a picture was a challenge. 

Attempt 1 - Jen! Stop that!

Attempt 2 - Hey! Who sprayed me?!

Attempt 3 - Good enough

This is my attempt at making a rainbow cake. It clearly was a disaster, but that is a story for another day. 
 

I took the train to visit my lovely aunt and had a wonderful time for my birthday! I was able to see my cousin's piano recital, and my other cousin's swimming lesson. I had a fantastic lunch my birthday and was given a beautiful sundress! It was a great birthday! 

What fun and fantastic things have you done for your birthday? 

Share in the comments! 

Things I would have Tweeted if I wanted to bombard everyone with Tweets all day

And I don't even like tweeting that much. I am never sure if I need to include a #hashtag, or if it is ok not to include one. So these are more of..... 'short remarks on events that occurred throughout my day'. Maybe you won't feel so bad about your day after reading these, or you will become super jealous on how awesome my days are if they are like this everyday. {Which they are not, it is actually very hard to describe a 'typical' day here so I am going to include a disclaimer that says this is not a portrayal of a typical day}


Disclaimer: The following 'short remarks on events that occurred throughout my day' are in no way a portrayal of a 'typical' day for me.

• Maybe I should just pretend to still be asleep so I can continue reading my book.

• SOMEONE STOLE THE WHEELBARROW! (You know, the one we take the garbage down to the street in). Oh wait, Jen just put it away this morning.

• I hope we have stock in a paper towel company: these cats make a huge mess.

• Nothing says ‘change your baking plans’ more than finding an entire mouse skeleton in the container you were planning on using.

• Being surprised to find something where it should be is never a good way to show your appreciation for your mum’s cleaning.

• Standing at the door for three minutes, waiting for the dog to come in, finally giving up only to have that same dog bark one minute later to be let in.

• I am not embarrassed to admit that I am so very excited to register for my classes! 

• Nor am I embarrassed to admit that I have three different schedules laid out in case I can’t get into a certain course.

• Does asking your boyfriend to quit work so you can spend every single day together qualify as being too clingy?

• Taking rain jackets on a beautiful, sunny day with no clouds in sight is sadly not the craziest thing my mum has done.

• Quote of the day: 'Now that is an aggressive fountain'.

• Cherry passion Tic Tacs, why are you so tasty?

• You know your baking skills are atrocious when you don’t think twice about purchasing a cake mix in case baking the cake from scratch doesn’t work out.

• Buying clothes at the grocery store; something just feels so wrong about it but that certainly didn’t stop me!

• And no, that wasn’t me buying shoes from the children’s section. 

• 
  

Baby, let's cruise away from here

I have been busy recently editing a video for Father's Day of the cruise and I finally finished on the weekend. I will be posting the video shortly, but I am going to also be posting pictures and details from each port, which I am assuming will take me a long time. The plan is to do a cruise post every Monday {Yes, I realize I posted this on Tuesday instead of Monday, but I will normally posting on Mondays}.


Let's begin with the beginning......


Barcelona, Spain. 
On May 4th we departed the Toronto airport on a 8 hour flight to Barcelona. The cruise did not depart until the 6th so we had an extra day and night in Barcelona to see the city. What we realized very quickly when we got out of the taxi that dropped us off 'just down the street' from our hotel was that we were nowhere near our hotel. It also took about three minutes of pulling suitcases up a cobblestone street that may or may not have been the correct street that we were on one heck of an adventure!

We clearly do not travel light!

Barcelona streets

Park Guell

Park Guell

One of the many flower stands in La Rambla

Sagrada Familia

The subway system - it is a wonder we didn't get lost!

Walking to the port! 

I have 497 pictures from Barcelona so this is only a taste, but I think this provides enough of a feel for the port without being too photo heavy.


Thoughts on Barcelona:
We ran into a few hiccups in Barcelona, from a 30 minute walk to our hotel to churches being closed earlier than normal, but we were able to see a lot more of the city in a more relaxed pace than the majority of the other ports. That being said, I did not really appreciate the Gaudi architecture which was the majority of the sites we visited. I loved walking through the tiny streets and realizing that we were actually in Barcelona! Our hotel was near La Rambla, which is a huge pedestrian street full of vendors and people. We mainly used the subway system around there and enjoyed those streets. It was a great location to enjoy the atmosphere. Maybe it was jet lag, maybe I was just anxious to get the cruise started but I only enjoyed Barcelona, not loved it. 


Next time I will post about Monte Carlo, Monaco! 

A crazy homecoming

This has been a crazy month! As the month draws to an end I am finally finding time to sit down and write a bit,  so hopefully I will be more frequent on the posting. 


As soon as school finished with my last week of practicum  {which was really sad}, Jennifer came home {which was great} and then we packed for a 12 day Mediterranean cruise {which was beyond words}. As soon as we got home our wonderful friends from Alberta where back 'home' for a week, so there was no rest for the wicked. 


Throughout all of that there were sick days, job interviews and babysitting Avelee. Not to mention trying to adjust back to 'normal' life. That is to say, not waking up everyday to eat a buffet breakfast then to visit ports that I had only dreamed of seeing and to go back each night for fantastic suppers and amazing entertainment. 


I am working slowly through the thousands {yes, thousands} of pictures I took, trying to decide which ones to post to Facebook and which ones to put on here. So I am working on it, just slowly! 


Until next time! 

Texts From Dog

As I have just finished another exam and my final one isn't until Thursday, I decided to reward myself and do nothing all afternoon! It was a good way to spend the day, I watched an episode of How I Met Your Mother, wrote a poem and then found THIS!! 


What is THIS you ask? Well, I will tell you! THIS is only the most hilarious thing I have seen in a very long time! THIS is now my reason for living! (Sorry friends and family! You have been replaced by this blog) THIS is Text From Dog! {INSERT EPIC MUSIC} Ok, I just did a YouTube search for Epic Music, and guess what?! It is really is epic! So play this song and then go back and reread this paragraph, it flows nicely with the music. 

Back to Text From Dog. It is blog that features this guy has received from his dog. I was actually laughing so hard I was crying, just ask Paige! I was cackling in my room so much she was actually starting to laugh as well. This is my favourite one so far.

I am now going to attempt to clean my room as it is getting hard to walk from one side of the room to the other without tripping over something. 

And that's the way it is - Walter Cronkite 

(I am looking for a catchphrase, any suggestions? Since the one above has already been taken, I need something unique and witty, like me. Tell me your suggestions in the comments!) 

Still here!

Final essays and now exams have reduced my available time to almost nil, and while I want to post, it is not high on my priority list. 

This is going to be a random posting, as I have some pictures I have been wanting to post and things I want to share with Jennifer!! 

So get ready for picture overload! 

Adventures with Kirk

Kirk isn't very strong

But I am!! One finger lift! 

 -Jennifer!! When are you coming home??

This is as unfuzzy as I could get!

I don't have time to write any reviews right now but if anyone is looking for some fantastic books to read, I just finished some great ones!

The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern

The Violets of March - Sarah Jio

The Language of Flowers - Vanessa Diffenbaugh

And now back to studying!!