You know what makes me happy?

Swing dancing! I love swing dancing. Yes, yes I do. I love the music, the people, the spinning, the jumping, the laughing, the falling and the awkward moments. I love teaching new people moves that they’re so excited about. I love messing up and falling to the floor laughing. I love sometimes not knowing what I’m doing and not knowing what’s coming next. I love sweating like a pig and not caring about it. I love how many people are coming to the classes. I love swing – it makes me so, so happy.

No matter what kind of day or week I’m having, I look forward to Thursday nights at 9:00 when I can put on my dancing shoes and dance, dance, dance for a whoooole hour. It’s a little bit different this year since I’m teaching the class with a few other instructors, but teaching is also so much fun! I love watching new students’ first few awkward basic steps, watching them turn the wrong way and getting tangled up and looking confused. I love laughing with them, helping them work it out and then seeing them get it right and look so, so excited and proud of themselves. Haha, I just realized that I’m even smiling while I write this. Never mind boys, I dream of and am in love with swing!

And it’s not even just the wonderful funness (yes, I know “funness” isn’t a word but it’s really appropriate so I’m going to use it anyway) of swing that I love. It’s the opportunity for release that makes me feel so good and refreshed. Like last night after class, a few of the instructors and students stuck around just to dance around a bit more and at one point, my friend Aldous and I ended up just throwing our arms in the air, jumping, shaking and twisting around to the music. As silly as that may sound, it actually made me feel so liberated and refreshed – shaking off the stress and seriousness of the school week and letting loose. Finding something like this in university is so very important. If you spend all of your time in the library (like I and so many other students do during the week), you’ll go crazy and just become really unhappy without some kind of really engaging and fun activity.

University life is all about balance. I know you’ve probably already heard that from friends, cousins or siblings who are already at university and think that balance comes pretty easily. Well in high school, it’s definitely a lot easier to achieve balance in your life; your parents are around to make sure you eat relatively well, get enough sleep, and they’re there to take care of you when you’re sick. Your teachers get after you to get your work (of which there isn’t very much) done, and your friends are there for you to lean on and have fun with. So, work, play, health and all that good stuff just naturally fall into place. But in university, you sometimes have to actually make a conscious effort to find time to relax, have fun, sleep enough, exercise, and keep in touch with friends and family. You have to be careful to take some time for you. Swing is my time, my favorite time of the week and one of the only chances I have to forget about everything else and have ridiculous amounts of fun!

Much love,

Sue

sjhumphrey@mta.ca

So long sweet summer...

Summer, my friends, is officially over. Some of you may be thinking that’s a bit sad – and it is. After the wonderful summer I had, livin’ the life in Ottawa, it’s definitely sad to see that come to an end and say goodbye to so many friends. But, at the same time, autumn is such an exciting time in my and many other students’ lives. Especially for those of us at Mount A... because Mount A, well, it’s kind of awesome. Coming back here in the fall was absolutely wonderful – moving back into Harper, meeting all the new frosh, lying in the sun by the Swan Pond, strolling through the Waterfowl Park, chatting over tea at Bridgestreet annnnd remembering how the Library makes me feel. It’s so weird how smells are, for me, the most powerful memory triggers. And with the library, as soon as you walk through the front doors and step inside, it smells like “Oh, no. I have so much work to get done.” That’s what the library smells like for me – how sad. And, what’s crazy, is that I used to only have to spend a lot of time at the library during exam period – but this year, I’m here almost every day (and if I’m not here, I feel like I should be and really, I should be). I’m stunned at the difference between the beginning of first year and the beginning of second year. In first year, I honestly felt like I was at a wicked awesome summer camp for the first... oh, I don’t know, 2 months. This year, I arrived, had Residence Assistant training, Frosh Week and bam! mother of a workload. The first week of class I actually had about 275 pages of reading. Say what? I probably read that much in a month last year! Maybe it has to do with the three third-year courses I’m taking this semester... Silly, silly me. One of those classes, a third year International Relations (IR) class, I actually feel like a grade 9 student sitting in on a grade 12 class. Some of the people in that class just have so much more experience and just plain knowledge than I do, which makes it pretty intimidating. We have to give a 10 minute presentation on a United Nations agency and I feel like some fourth year IR guru is going to ask a question during mine and I’ll have no choice but to answer, “Oh, sorry, I’ve actually never heard of that”, while watching my professor trace a nice, big, oval zero on the piece of paper in front of him. Gulp.

My friend Sam and I at The Joel Plaskett Emergency frosh concert!

Okay, so I’m sorry if that was utterly terrifying or depressing for any of you. But really, second year is proving to be a step up from first year, while first year really wasn’t that big of a leap from high school for me. At the same time though, it’s refreshing to be challenged in a big way, even though it can be really hard to think of it like that at times. Like now – I’m writing this blog and I actually have two books and three articles stacked next to me, waiting to be read. Thank goodness it’s interesting material or I’d really be out of luck then.

Me and Rowan, an exchange student from New Zealand, at the infamous SACKVEGAS!

So my transition back to Mount A has been both wonderful and eye opening in the way that it is so good to reconnect with the fantastic people here, get back into my old activities and get involved with some new ones, while at the same time, realizing that second year isn’t going to be as much of a cake walk as first year was. But you know what? That’s okay, I’m ready for it, bring it on. I don’t want to get to philosophical with you but I found a really great quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. the other day: “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” You need to step out of your comfort zone to realized what you are capable of, and that’s where I’m at right now. I can’t wait to see what happens.

Much love,

Sue

sjhumphrey@mta.ca