Thanksgiving fun

Woah, it's almost November already.. really? I have no idea what's happened to time, all I know is it's now almost 3 weeks since Thanksgiving, and also all that work I was talking about before, well it hasn't stopped. At all.

       Anyway I said I'd write about my first ever Thanksgiving! Some people who I told that it was going to be my first Thanksgiving found that a little strange, "You don't get Thanksgiving in Scotland? Why?"  What could I say... we have nothing to be thankful for? The truth is I don't really even know what Thanksgiving celebrates, and nobody who I asked seemed to know too much either. I'm not complaining though, it meant a day off of uni and lots of food, beginning on Thursday evening when mealhall closed all of the different food stations which are normally there, and instead everyone ate from the Thanksgiving buffet.

        One of my friends from residence, Shannon, invited me to go to stay with her family in New Brunswick for the weekend and of course I said yes. Most people went home for the holiday unless they live too far away. New Brunswick is the province next to Nova Scotia. Looking on a map I thought St Stephen (Canada's chocolate town :)  ) the town where I was headed, looked pretty close. I guess I forgot I'm currently living in the world's second largest country, so it actually took 6 hours to get there. Shannon has an uncle who lives in Nova Scotia and pretty close to Wolfville so he came to pick us up on Friday afternoon. I was so excited, it felt quite like Christmas since it was cold and everyone was leaving for the weekend. On the drive we stopped for food and ate in Wendy's for the first time. A Frosty is a delicious and thick milkshake which I highly recommend. Arrived in St Stephen at around 7 o'clock and met Shannon's parents, plus her three sisters, her brother, some cousins, an aunt and an uncle. She told me before that she was related to most of the town, and she really wasn't lying. There were also some very tiny kittens, which one of the cats in the house had given birth to a few weeks before, and they were they cutest little things! I wanted to steal one of them so badly., but unfortunately pets aren't allowed in residence.                                               

Me and Shannon



Vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner



              On Saturday Shannon and some of her friends from school were meeting up to play a softball game, so I went along to watch. Softball is basically the same as Baseball, and as far I as I can tell that's not too dissimilar to rounders, although I'm sure I'm probably wrong about that. I was extremely cold watching the game, even with my coat on and two blankets plus a Tim Horton's hot chocolate. So instead of going to watch the high school football game with Shannon, I went back with one of her sisters and played with the kittens to get warm! During this time I was asked many many questions about life in Scotland, and of what I knew about Canada. It's pretty fun when people ask stuff like this, and I also enjoy when my accent is laughed at since I've always wanted to actually have a Scottish voice! (apparently the funniest words are those with a double o - book, cook, cool, look.. etc.)  In the evening we had Thanksgiving dinner, which both sets of Shannon's grandparents came over for. The main course is pretty similar to Christmas dinner, and being vegetarian I skipped the turkey, but ate a lot of other food especially PIE! There were so many types of pie for dessert, my favourite being chocolate followed by pumpkin. Yummm! Shannon had a lot of people she wanted to see, which included a trip over the border to America. It's just a drive over a bridge to reach the state of Maine, although with my no student permit and my British passport we weren't sure if I would be able to leave Canada and return. Luckily border patrols on both sides said it was ok, and all I had to do was pay $6 for entry in the states. Then we visited Shannon's friend, and also took a trip to McDonald's and Wal-Mart, where there are different types of junk food which I just had to buy (example, strawberry milkshake oreos).



USA!



         Sunday involved a trip to Shannon’s grandparent’s house to eat seafood chowder and macaroni cheese, plus more pie (it was Thanksgiving after all...) Met a lot more family, who were all so nice and made me feel so welcome as if I was a part of their family. One of Shannon’s friends then took us for a drive around St Stephen and the countryside and I appreciated the autumn colours – the trees are soo pretty! Then on Monday the six hour journey back to Acadia, home sweet home!



Fall is pretty



me near St Stephen



Kitttiieeesss!



So that pretty much sums up my Thanksgiving weekend – food and family! Although I’ve never experienced an American Thanksgiving, I think it’s a bigger deal there. I know that universities get a whole week off of classes and I think maybe the meal is had on the same day by all families, whereas different people who I spoke to all said different things about when they eat and what they do. It was definitely a nice thing to experience... maybe in Scotland we should find something to be thankful for and celebrate it too! Next thing to look forward to, HALLOWEEN!!

Busy busy busy!

I am so glad it’s the weekend, this has been such a busy week with so many tests and assignments due. Although it’s not the most exciting topic I feel it’s kind of important to write a bit about classes, since the whole reason I am here in Canada is to study, although I did kind of forget that after all the excitement of Frosh week and actually I’m pretty sure I slightly forgot how to write after 4 months of summer holidays.

Anyway, for the course credits to match to the modules I would otherwise be taking in Dundee, I had to take 5 3 hour courses for the semester. I’m a psychology student, so it was necessary to take a course in Research & Design Methods, basically about how to write psychology papers, which I did do during first year in Dundee meaning that this class has been pretty easy so far. I also had to take a statistics course, which most psychology majors here take in their first year but which can also be taken in second year. I’m so bad at any kind of maths, but there’s a lot of help available if needed so I’m hoping this class won’t get too difficult. Then I had a choice of other psychology courses to take, there was a choice of four and I was advised to choose cognitive psychology and physiological psychology, since these were the closest to the topics I would have studied had I been in Dundee for this semester. My final choice could be pretty much anything in the faculty of arts, so I originally chose Spanish which I began to learn in my first year. However after I arrived at Acadia I decided to change that as there wasn’t really a class which matched the basic level of Spanish I already have, without going back into the beginner course. Instead I’m taking Canadian sociology which takes place from 7-10 on a Tuesday night. I like this class but if it was on a different night it would be even better, since it means I miss watching Glee! Oh well..

There are a few differences between lectures here at Acadia and at home. Most of the classes are 1 ½ hours long, although they’re usually only 1 hour 15 minutes so travelling time is accounted for (even though the campus is really small so 15 minutes to travel isn’t really necessary). The class sizes are also much smaller, so even for a course which a lot of students are taking we’re split into different groups. For my stats course there are 3 different classes at different times. I quite like the smaller classes, the professors actually try to get to know your name and it is easier to participate in discussions or ask questions. The lectures are given through PowerPoint and so the slides are available on the internet, however I’ve found that there is a bigger reliance on books. The information given in lectures is taken from the books we are expected to buy. These books are necessary as there often aren’t any in the library to borrow and besides that most of the information needed for quizzes and midterms is taken directly from the books. The price of these books did make me feel a little ill - I ended up spending over £300, but everyone is in the same boat and actually the prices I paid were a bit less than a lot of others I spoke to, plus there’s the option of selling them back to the bookstore at the end of the semester. The cost of education here makes me so grateful to be Scottish, where all I have to pay for as a student is rent and food etc. Here there’s the tuition fees (which I get paid by SAAS for this semester since I’m still a student at Dundee), plus medical insurance, dental insurance, a place to stay, as much food as you want from meal hall, contributions to the student union… I suppose that’s why most of my lectures are still pretty full, people take university pretty seriously, and realise how much they’ve paid to be here. Most of the classes consist of quizzes, which are just mini tests of the work covered in certain chapters, midterms, tests of a larger amount of work, assignments and a final exam.   

There are other, more fun reasons as to why this has been a busy week.



Sake with sushi



Last Saturday I took a trip along with about 30 other international first years to Halifax, the biggest city in Nova Scotia. Halifax is about an hours drive away and the bus left at 10 o’clock, dropping us off at Halifax shopping centre at 11. The group of girls I was with, (3 of who are also on exchange for one semester, from France, Germany and Spain) decided that there wasn’t really anywhere in the mall we wanted to shop apart from the dollar store, so once we had been there we took a cab to another shopping area to go to a shop which one of the Canadians recommended – Value Village. I’m so glad she did recommend it; it’s just a giant second hand store where they have some really cool clothes and books for very cheap. Then we took a cab to the area of Halifax called

Spring Garden Road

, which is a busy area with more shops and restaurants and bars. We wandered around some more shops and then went to a Japanese restaurant for some sushi which was delicious, and sake, a very strong wine, before taking the bus back to Wolfville. Because this trip was a shopping trip I didn’t really get to see too much of the city, plus it was a very foggy day, so I’m hoping to go back again soon and see some more of the sights!



Spring Garden Road



I went to see some sporting events too this week, mainly intramurals which are between the different residences on campus. I saw my first ever ice hockey match, which Dennis won (yay!) but I’ve been told that a real hockey match will be much more exciting. Also watched some “soccer” and rugby matches. Although not many really turn up to watch the intramural games, when Acadia is playing another university the stadium is so busy and there is such a good atmosphere which I love!



Intramural hockey



That’s about it for this week, and I should probably stop writing this and do some homework - two more midterms this week plus a few assignments... fun. Never mind, next weekend is Thanksgiving so we get Monday off, plus I’m taking a trip to stay with my friend and her family in New Brunswick. First ever Thanksgiving, that’s definitely going to be the subject for my next blog post. I am so excited!

P.S.  This is the link to a video made of frosh week, it's quite cheesy but I can see myself at a couple of places! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3aBzvrWrp8