Friends and Frosh

Alright guys, I've been looking through the Facebook group last night and this morning, and I've decided that the next few blogs I'm going to write are going to deal with the issues that most new students are wondering and worrying about. Things like roommates, making friends, studying, keeping scholarships and frosh week are definitely a big part of the university experience and are all a pretty big change from what we're used to in high school. So, I hope to be able to share a bit about my experiences with these things and help calm a few of your nervous feelings and fears. Sound good? Wicked! Let's get going!

Edwards Does the Eras Party!

So, if you can guess by the look of this first picture, the first thing I'm going to write about is making friends. For the most part, I really liked high school, and I was friends with a lot of different people from a lot of different social groups, but I only had a few really close friends, which I think is the case with most people. Going away to university really allowed me to realize who my real and meaningful friends were, and with those people I'm still very close. But university does a funny yet great thing to people. Most people seem to grow up from high school (though of course, that's not always the case) and you're able to have a fresh start. You're meeting all new people who don't know anything about you, so this is your chance to be who you always wanted to be, with no past judgments or reputations getting in the way. No matter where you from or what your high school was like, you will meet people who come from similar places, but also from very different backgrounds. MTA is an incredibly diverse school for being so small, so there is someone for everyone here :) Frosh week is the best place to meet people; you'll be meeting people in your residence, your frosh group and at the activities that happen all week long, and you'll soon realize that these people will become closer and better friends than any others you've ever had. This is because at university, your friends are your family, and you spend every waking, and sometimes sleeping, moment together. You study, party, eat, laugh, cry, procrastinate and live together. It's amazing and wonderful!

Harper Frosh Initiation 2006/2007

Harper Hall at Spirit Night!

These are a couple of my favorite pictures from Frosh Week, and I think that they really capture the feeling and point of Frosh Week. The first one is from the Harper Frosh Initiation. That was probably my favorite part of Frosh Week, just because I don't think I've ever felt more excited and welcome as a part of a group. Sure, the actual initiation was gross (down a huge slide of condiments, puffed wheat, etc... and then rolling in flour to make it good and sticky) but being totally sick as part of a group with all the frosh and upperclassmen cheering you on is a pretty powerful feeling. Definitely a bonding experience as a house and hey, just make sure you bring some clothes you can throw out, and then you all get hosed off and showered and you're back to normal :) The rules for initiation activities are very strict at MTA; no meat products, no dangerous activities, no discrimination, no forced activities, etc... So yeah, you don't have to do anything that you're really uncomfortable doing, but sometimes, stepping out of your comfort zone is a good thing. And, all your great new friends are there to cheer you on and laugh with you.

The second picture is from Spirit Night, which is an evening where both frosh and upperclassmen get together as a House, have themed costumes and compete in the gymnasium for the Golden Sneaker, the prestigious Spirit Award. The games are hilarious, there's tons of cheering and just a grand old time to be had! Harper dressed up like a deck of cards, complete with a magic top hat made out of an old ping pong table and of course, a magic bunny (me)!

Roommates are also a big part of the friend situation here at MTA. As for me, I lived in Harper last year, which has all singles, so I've never actually experienced the whole roommate situation. However, I do know a bit about it, so I'll see what I can do for you. Having a roommate is great for some people because it's an automatic first friend. Some roommates get along so well that they become best friends and will live together every year after that, and others, not so much. Some become more just acquaintances, and unfortunately, some people just really don't get along very well at all. In these cases, you are not sentenced to an unhappy year with a roommate that you really don't like. There is the possibility of switching rooms, either in the same house, or to another, so don't worry about being miserable with the wrong roommate. There are back up plans, haha. But the whole point of having a roommate is to work to get along, to respect one another and put aside your differences, so who knows, if you give it some time and work at it, they just may become your new best friend!

The Waterfowl Park

So, I hope that this gave you a bit of perspective on making friends and Frosh Week at MTA... Of course, no one's experience at Mount Allison is the same, so by all means, you may have a completely different one than me. But this is just a bit of a glimpse to get you ready :) As always, please feel free to e-mail me or comment on my blog! Until next time!

Much love,

Sue

sjhumphrey@mta.ca

Days 1, 2 and 3... I survived!

The 2007 Summer Guides!

Ah, the Guide Program... What can't it do? It can make you smile, make your stomach knot, make you cringe, make you step outside of your comfort zone, and make you laugh so hard it hurts. And on your first day of actual work, you get to experience alllll of these things, haha. First off, you're super excited, so you're smiling like a mad man, and if you're like me, you are almost late, so you are sweating quite profusely after power walking a 20-25 minute walk in 15 minutes. But yeah, you're smiling nonetheless! And then, oh then, you find out when your very first tour will be. You're hoping with all your might that it's in your first language, and that it is not a group of uninterested grade eight students from Toronto. Now, don't get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with Toronto, nor the people from Toronto.. In fact, I've never even really visited there, so I've no opinion, and there are a few super cool guides from Toronto. But it is the inside joke among Guides about how grade eight students from Toronto are consistently (and consistently mainly because it is a massive city that is so close) very uninterested and well, just not very attentive during tours.

So yeah, you hope for first language, and not grade eights from Toronto. And lo and behold, yay! I had an English public tour, no grade eights, not even one! I had a few members of an Italian wedding party, some lovely ladies from Ireland, an Australian woman, a few visitors from China, and of course, a large number of Canadians. The tour went relatively well for my first tour, except when we got to the part where it made me cringe... Like I said, I had some lovely women from Ireland on my tour; real sweethearts. So when I was discussing the symbols on the ceiling of the Senate, I mixed up a few of them, including the symbols for Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Of course, the Irish women knew, and they came up to me at the end of the tour saying, "Darling, you were brilliant, but...", and proceeded to correct my silly mistakes. But they were so wonderful and kind that I couldn't help laughing at myself. But at least now, I know those darn symbols on the ceiling of the Senate, and hopefully I don't mess them up again, haha.

Ben (Ottawa, ON), Me (Campbellton, NB), Abbas (Toronto, ON), Liz (Ottawa, ON).
Yes, our uniforms are extremely sexy.

So that was my first tour of life! Not so bad; only one little screw-up, and fortunately, I had a pretty attentive and interested audience, which makes all the difference in how you feel about a tour. Now what really surprised me, was how much better I felt about my second tour, which was in French, my second language. Don't get me wrong, I love French, and I'm comfortable and fluent in it, but it is certainly a lot easier to forget and stumble over words in your second language. But again, I was so, so lucky with my group. There were only six people on my tour; one of them was from France, one from Canada, and four people from Chile, who were pretty good with their French! What was nice about that tour was that the building was almost deserted as it was one of the last tours of the evening, so we could linger as long as we wanted in most of the areas, without having to be concerned about holding up other groups behind us. It was more like a really interesting discussion and question session, which really gave me the chance to build up my confidence in my French tour :)

Me (Campbellton, NB) and Tejas (Vancouver, BC), doing some serious dancing in our spare time, haha.

The next day I was on the Tower & Acceuil Shift, meaning that for the morning I was working in the Peace Tower, putting people onto the elevator, bringing people up in the elevator and doing some informal interpretation and question answering in the Memorial Chamber. In the afternoon/evening I was outside welcoming people to the Hill and handing out tickets for tours with a few other guides. Those jobs are pretty good positions as your sole responsibility is really just talking to visitors and giving them the information that they need. I met visitors from all over the world, and even got to practice a little bit of my German with a few visitors from Germany and Switzerland. Very cool day!

Today I was again on guiding duty, and I stopped by the kiosk to find out what my assignment for the day was... Grade eights from Toronto. Noooooooooooooo. Please, not me, anyone else, they scare me, honest! But no luck. They were allllll mine. Well, fifty of them anyway. The other fifty were going with another guide, Caroline, who was pretty much as excited as I was. But, we decided that it wasn't really fair to judge the kids before they even got here, so we thought it would be best to keep open minds. But then, they arrived. And well, they were just like everyone said; grade eights students, uninterested, always talking, and mainly, just wanting to be with their friends in a place other than school. I guess I can't really blame them. I mean, when I was in grade eight, I had the exact same mentality. But nonetheless, they were certainly not my best tour, just because I felt rather useless and boring, even though I tried to present some of the more interesting and startling facts about Parliament (yes, there are some). And when I talked to Caroline about her group after the tour she agreed that they simply weren't interested. Ah well, what can you do? Not everyone is as in love with Parliament as I am, and I suppose I can try to understand that, haha.

Much love,

Sue

sjhumphrey@mta.ca

Workin' on Parliament Hill

Parliament Hill with Jenna (Bridgewater, NS) and Maryse (Charlo, NB).

The Library of Parliament

Now I know that again, I have not been incredibly regular in my blogging duties... And again, I have an excuse? I suppose it will be up to you to decide if it is legitimate or not... Well, here it is: I've been living in Ottawa and working at Parliament Hill!! How freaking exciting is that! And in all seriousness, it has been keeping me really, really busy, requiring copious amounts of sleep, which I have been having a hard time to get during the week, so I decided to do a little catching up this weekend. So please, do forgive me, but please do enjoy what blogging I am able to do :)

I moved to Ottawa a little over two weeks ago, and it sure has been busy! I'm sharing an apartment with a girl who is currently guiding at Parliament, Martha, and I'm so lucky that we get along so well! In the short amount of time that we've lived together, we've already become great friends, which is awesome :) The apartment is in a fantastic location too... Only 3 blocks from downtown (Rideau Street) and 20 minutes from Parliament Hill. Though the building is slightly sketchy, the apartment itself is very nice, which is all that really matters I guess :)

The Guides outside of Rideau Hall, residence of the Govenor General.

Peter Milliken, Speaker of the House of Commons, and I.

As for training, we've been hard at work these past two weeks. There was a great mix of real work and good laughs, intense sessions and fun field-trips. We had some presentations on lots of historical aspects of government, such as social progress, confederation and constitutional evolution, as well as some other important issues such as important people, architecture, art, process and learning styles. We've also had presentations from both Speakers of the House of Commons and the Senate, as well as both Clerks of the House of Commons and Senate. We met with Toronto MP Bill Graham, and Alberta Senator Claudette Tardif, as well as the Parliamentary Carillonneur, Gordon Slater, who is the person that plays the enormous set of bells in the Peace Tower. And luckily for me, I've see famous faces such as those of Michael Ignatieff, Stéphane Dion, Gilles Duceppe, Stockwell Day, Jim Flaherty and Gordon O'Connor, which really excites me, haha. Nerd, nerd, I know, I've heard it before.

Carleen (Edmonton, AB), Me (Campbellton, NB), Ben (Ottawa, ON), Julie (Jean-Côté, AB), Julie (Gatineau, QC) and Zsuzsi (Toronto, ON).

As for the social side of things, the people in the Guide Program are absolutely fantastic. There are students from all across the country who are incredibly outgoing, funny and wonderful. Our managers, or Interpretation Officers (IOs) as they are called, are also great! They're young, hilarious, understanding and helpful, and they're all in favor of having an awesome summer :) Us guides have gotten together a number of times for themed parties, nights of dancing, cheering for the Ottawa Senators, and studying the famed Interprakit, the enormous binder full of everything you could ever possibly need to know about Parliament.

The four MTA students! Jenna (Bridgewater, NS), Stephen (Ottawa, ON), Liz (Ottawa, ON), Me (Campbellton, NB).

Some lovely ladies in uniform! Me (Campbellton, NB), Tejas (Vancouver, BC), Liz (Ottawa, ON), Julie (Gatineau, QC), Melissa (Hamilton, ON).

And now I should really get back to working on my tour! My first shift is tomorrow morning, and I can hardly believe I'm supposed to be able to give a complete tour of Parliament on my own, no notes, no help, nothing, haha. A bit of an overwhelming feeling, but I'm sure it will be an interesting day nonetheless! Talk soon!

Much love,

Sue

sjhumphrey@mta.ca