Friday, September 9, 2011

First week recap, Bridesmaids, and a s'more cupcake

I have officially completed my first week of Graduate School!  I think I've already gone a bit funny in the head, sadly.  I'm reading an article called, "Information as Thing" and it's a bit of a torturous process.  It literally took me several hours to read four pages.  Maybe the fact that I was super tired and having a hard time focusing might have had something to do with it.  And then the author started talking about antelopes. Yes, antelopes.  What do antelopes have to do with library science, you may ask? I am still wondering.  The author used an analogy that if an antelope is in the wild, it is not a document, but if it is in a zoo being studied and researched, and we are learning from it, then it is a document.  He then proceeded to compare antelopes and ships.  I swear a PhD is just a license to write paragraph-long sentences that make up 20 pages of complete nonsense.  I find this especially frustrating as we are taught the importance of not being wordy and not padding our essays in undergrad.  But get to the doctoral level apparently, and it's the more words the better! Harumph.  Clearly I have already reached the status of cranky bitter grad student.  But you couldn't tell, right?  As further evidence:

On Wednesday a few friends and I went to see the movie Bridesmaids at the on-campus theatre.  Yep, there's a movie theatre on campus.  And two Tim Horton's in the SAME building.  Big schools do have their advantages I suppose.  Coming from a school with a total population of 2000 this is freaking amazing.   Anyways being the first week, and seeing as how the undergrads didn't start classes until Thursday, there were many people in the student centre for various frosh-related activities.  As we were walking out a frosh leader (I presume) said something along the lines of, "aww they're just coming out of a movie" in the most annoying "isn't that quaint? how sad and pathetic that they are not 18 and drunk out of their minds" voice.  For real.  As Jen and I said, we are (not) surprisingly ok with not being 18 and drunk out of minds during the first week of classes.  I'm too freaking old for that :P

One awesome thing about grad school: I don't feel (so) old anymore! In fact, I dare say I may be one of the younger ones! Or at least, many people are the same age as me.  Quite a few already have Master's degrees in fields such as history and literature, and there are several older people who are going back to school after being in the workforce for some time.  Oh and yesterday we got to play with yarn.  That totally makes up for the snowstorm of assignments that will be my life until December.  Right?

I also got cupcakes at this fancy cupcake place in the market on the way home as a treat for my roommate and I.  She just finished her first week of co-op.  I got a s'mores one for me and a milk & cookies one for her.  Pictures to follow, but we decided to wait until she gets home from dinner with a friend to eat them together  : )

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Les boulangeries

In France I developped a daily (ok, sometimes three times a day) boulangerie habit.  A tarte aux framboise for breakfast eaten on the way to la fac (that's the university, fyi), a petit pain aux trois chocolats for a mid-afternoun snack (did I ever tell you about the time I stopped into my favourite bakery RIGHT AS THEY WERE COMING OUT OF THE OVEN?!?!), and a little something for dessert.  I was obsessed.  And the best part? I didn't gain a SINGLE pound the entire 3.5 months I lived there.  It. Was. Heaven.  Needless to say when I moved to Ontario and discovered a little French bakery located in an indoor market about 60 seconds from my apartment, I nearly cried.  At 2.25$ for a little macaron, I definitely cried.  But Oh. My. Lord.  I got a pistachio one and it just about melted in my mouth. Definitely not something I'll be getting very often :( Donations to the Poor Grad Student Macaron fund are currently being accepted :D Oh, and I asked if they ever had tarte aux framboises (my all time fav) and they said not usually, but I could order them.  For my birthday instead of cake? I think so.