Happy Halloweeeeeeeen!

Greetings all you ghosts and ghouls! Are you having a wonderful Halloween so far? I'm not sure if I am or not... I even forgot that it was Halloween today until I went downstairs to meal hall and saw a wonnnnderful sight! Who was it but Carol, the wonderful checker with her face painted green, donning purple hair, a witch hat and complete set of witch robes. The counter was completely covered in black garbage bags, Halloween glitter as well as moving and shrieking hounds and witches. Awesome! It got me into the Halloween spirit, which I feel I have definitely been lacking these past few years. Halloween was always one of the funnest days I had growing up, and I definitely went trick-or-treating until I was in grade 11. It seems as though since I've stopped trick-or-treating that Halloween has lost its lust for me, especially now that I'm no longer at home. At home, my Mom and I were the ones who would get pretty hyped up about Halloween. Mom always said that I was the holiday spirit in the house because I was the one who got everyone else pumped about whatever we were celebrating. So yeah, I would put up all our traditional decorations: the ceramic pumpkin with a tea light on the dining room table, the plastic ghosts on the lights outside the garage, the Dracula face on the entry way doorknob, the cackling witch and her cauldron by the main door and a couple other spooky witches and cool candles around the house. Ahhh, that was so much fun.

Now, I just don't find there's enough hype for me anymore, especially at university. Last year I spent Halloween night in the Library, studying for my Astronomy midterm. Booooo. This year I might go to a little Halloween-themed gathering at Cuthbertson House, the sustainable residence, which will probably end up being a bunch of us with minimal costumes, lots of tea and sweet treats. Sounds good to me! I did, however, get dressed up this year for a party. Thalloween is the big party on campus for Halloween, and it's put on by Thornton House, one of the South side residences. (See the name, Thalloween, it's a clever combination of 'Thornton' and 'Halloween', get it?) I hadn't been planning on going to the part, buuuuut some of the wonderful people on my floor and a good friend Kyle convinced me to go. I had no costume, but what the heck. Ahhh, but then, then I remembered... ANDY'S COSTUME DRAWER! I don't know how many people bring costume drawers to university, but wonderful Andy on my floor did and man, is it awesome. So I found a huuuuge pair of bright yellow baller pants and a faded Sussex basketball jersey, threw on my signature blond wig, some ballin' trainers and a sports bra (clearly visible on the sides, obviously) and voila! instant gangster. It was a pretty sweet costume, I'm not going to lie. Definitely the most comfortable one I've ever worn.

We also had some wicked awesome wing-decorating in my residence, Harper Hall. Each wing got $30 from the House Council to spend on decorations for their wing and the best wing is going to win a prize! Not sure what the prize is, and I don't think we won, but we had a ton of fun doing it anyway! Here are a couple pictures from the decorating extravaganza :)

Some of the girls in intense decoration deliberations...

Zack climbing the walls to put up cobwebs. Very Spiderman-ish...

The finished hallway! Creepy, huh?

Well I'd best be off to German class, but I hope that you all have a happy Halloween! No... wait... not a happy Halloween... a terrifying, spooky, cackling and ghoulish Halloween!

Much love,

Sue

sjhumphrey@mta.ca

What do you do after the hardest week of life...?

Soooo yeah. Last week: le shitty. Big time. Why you ask? Well maybe it was because I had two midterms, a research paper, an assignment and a quiz! Do you think that's cause for a crappy week? I think so. Gross gross gross.

I honestly don't think I've ever worked so hard in my life. I clocked about 6 hours at the library every day, sometimes more. Not only did I have all that to do, but for one of the classes (Economic Growth, with a midterm and assignment for it) I had absolutely no clue as to what was happening in the class. So, I spent two full days attempting to learn all of the material I didn't understand, and then I ended up knowing it really well. But, lo and behold, none of that stuff was on the test!!!! Baaaaah, of course that would happen. But I have to admit, learning all the math really helped me understand the theory, which was what the test focused on. But man, I was so ready for that math. Poop! Hopefully it went well nonetheless - cross your fingers for me.

And so finally, Friday came, and I was soooo happy. And not only was it Friday, it was planned to be a wicked awesome Friday. My friend Alex (he's the co-social chair of Campbell Hall) was celebrating his 19th birthday on Friday and decided to throw himself a little floor crawl, haha. And on top of that, two of my best friends, Kyle and Colin, came to MTA from UNB to visit and celebrate :) How wicked! The floor crawl was a time warp theme, so I got all decked out in my 80s aerobics instructor outfit and hit the dance floor with great passion. A much needed and well deserved break if you ask me! This is a picture of (back row) me (yes, I'm a natural blond), Carolyn, Alla, (front row), Sacha and Laurie in our sexy 80s gear for the Campbell Floor Crawl. How much more attractive could you get? Damn, it was so much fun, haha. Here's another one of (back row) Colin (UNB), me, Alex (birthday boy!), Kyle (UNB) and (front row) Mayme (co-president of Campbell Hall). All these lovely people, straight from Campbellton, NB, having a wonderful reunion at Mount A, and in style, might I add.

Now you may think that that sounds so fantastic that it just couldn't get any better than that... Well, not necessarily better, but there was certainly more fun to come! I managed to sleep in until 11:30 on both Saturday and Sunday (aaaaamazing) and on Saturday afternoon I did... nothing (which was wonderful), followed by a cozy dinner at Joey's with the Campbellton gang (plus Ryan and Niall from Nova Scotia, haha). And then, I spent the evening at Ducky's, a very chill pub in downtown Sackville (yes, I said "downtown Sackville" haha) with my German lab TA, Raphael (on exchange from Marburg, Germany) and ran into some other friends as well. Ahhh, how... nice. And relaxing. And not working. And not in the Library. And yeah. Just not in the Library. I am so, so sick of that place, haha. And well, unfortunately, I'll still be spending a lot of time there this week because I'm now behind on all my readings because of studying for my midterms. And I have a paper proposal for Canadian Federalism due on Friday. Annnnd I haven't started. Boo, why won't work just... stop. For a few days. Just, one or two, really, that's all I want.

Ah well, so you see, this week has been prettttttty draining, but it was followed by a wicked fun weekend. And I made it through that week. I survived and I didn't fail anything (well I really don't think so anyway! Frig, that would suck.) So the lessons to be learned from this week are:

• No matter how bad the week looks to be, you can and will get through it.
• No matter how impossible the work seems to be, you are capable of it.
• You can do nothing more than your best.
• You are a human being, not a superhero. Do what you can and leave the rest.

Much love,

Sue

sjhumphrey@mta.ca

(As always, feel free to e-mail me, add me to Facebook or MSN if you have questions or just to chat :D)

Thanksgiving...? That happend already? Really?

So yeah, Thanksgiving... That's already happened? Come and gone? Done like dinner? But how is that even possible? There's no way it's already the middle of October, and there's definitely no way that I'm accccctually in the middle of midterms and papers. Nah, can't be true. I mean afterall, I just got to Mount A a few weeks ago. Yeah... a few weeks ago... Holy cow, where did the time go? Well, to be corny... Nah, I can't say it, it's too lame. What? You want to hear it? I'm telling you it's bad... Okay fine: I guess it's true what they say, time flies when you're having fun! Like all of these Harperites in this wonderful picture! (Particularly Brent, our House President, the one in the yellow, hahaha.) And just think, this could be you! Living in Harper Hall, the best house on campus (obviously... don't listen to what anyone else says!), screaming yourself silly at Spirit Night, pretty much one of the most fun nights in residence life :) All the houses get decked out to the max in their house colors, bring banners, mascots, props, the whole shabang, and dance, cheer and indulge in ridiculousness all night long! There are also wicked obstacle course games, and man, are they a good time, haha.

What else has been going on here in Mountie Land? Well of course, there was the BIG DAY... HOMECOMING! And you know what was the craziest part?? MOUNT ALLISON WON THE FOOTBALL GAME! Isn't that mad?! I'm really sorry if any Mount A football players are taking offense to this, but please, if you are, don't. I mean, if we're honest and take a look at the facts, Mount A just hasn't won many football games, let alone Homecoming, for quite some time. It was hilarious that when Mount A beat St. FX (yeah, that's right!) no one quite knew what to do because well... we're just not used to winning, haha. People were like, should we rush the field? Should we stand here and clap? Should we cheer? Should we just go home? Haha, very funny indeed. Here's a shot of the scoreboard, just to make the win final in everyone's mind, haha. 25-13, baby! Now that's what I'm talking about!

But, other than the actual win of the football game, it was wicked awesome to see soooo many people out for the game. Everyone was wearing garnet and gold, everyone was at the game, and everyone was having an awesome time. Some of the houses made big banners to support the Mounties and all the residences met up in the Quad and headed over to the game together. It always feels like I'm in a movie when I go to a football game here, particularly at Homecoming, because we didn't have football at my high school and the atmosphere is just kind of... magical and surreal, haha. Everyone's cheering, the home team is actually winning... how fairytale-ish!
And finally, here's one last Homecoming photo, of Mayme (co-president of Campbell Hall), me, and Emily. Both girls are best friends whom I grew up with and are now loving the life with me at Mount
A :) And hey, how perfect is this photo? You've got the Mount Allison University sweater, the two ladies in garnet, the crowd of people in the background, the crisp blue sky... Ah, Mount A is a fairytale indeed, hehe.

So yes, the time up until Thanksgiving was wonderful - lots of friends, fun events and good times :) Thanksgiving itself was also really nice... I was definitely feeling like I could use a break from school and all the work that was going on. And it was just really wonderful to be able to see so much of my family - many of them that I hadn't seen in quite a long time. Going home for the first time since coming to school is always so wonderful, especially if it's your first time living away from home. Mmm, here's a fun picture from my Thanksgiving in Moncton this year! My dad, me and my aunt Kay, acting crazy during Thanksgiving dinner, as per usual.

But alas, it's now back to the grindstone... This past week and this coming week are gross... After this two week period I'll have had 4 midterms, 1 paper, 1 assignment and 1 quiz. Gross gross gross! Buuuuut, if I can make it until Friday, everything will be a-okay, because it's my good friend Alex's 19th birthday, and since he's the co-social chair of Campbell Hall, he's decided to throw himself a nice little floor crawl to celebrate, haha. And, added bonus, two of my best friends from UNB, Colin and Kyle, might be coming to MTA to celebrate as well! Huzzah! Time to buckle down and get to it... wish me luck!

Much love,

Sue

sjhumphrey@mta.ca