Student Blog: Briana

If you’re not on Twitter and you’re a social media fan, you definitely should be!! #jtl11 was the hashtag that the U, the attendees and the volunteers used on Friday and Saturday to tweet about the awesomeness that was this year’s Jump the Line!!

Due to wedding rehearsal complications, I was only there on the Saturday, but I heard the Friday was lots of fun, with Eric speaking about “25 minutes of University truth,” as he called it, and some fun times being had – including s’more making!

I arrived at the PE track Saturday morning just in time for the session on preparing for academic success. I know that’s a dry topic, but it was exceptionally well delivered and is crucial to your University career. We want you to have fun, absolutely! But never forget that the reason you’re here is also to earn your degree, which takes determination and lots of planning. Another important thing that was brought up was the idea of controlling what you post on social media – because those statuses and pictures don’t get deleted. Even if you think they are, that stuff is cataloged and backed up on Facebook, and can come back to haunt you a year from now or even 25 years down the road. This is especially relevant for degrees that are in the public eye, like Education or Management.

So now that I’ve given you the serious part, let’s talk about the awesome! I was given a camera, and my job was to walk around and take pictures of everyone enjoying themselves. And in all seriousness, that wasn’t difficult. Everyone was smiling and chatting, touring the booths set up, reserving textbooks, getting ID cards or even buying some U of L merchandise to get ready for fall! I had the privilege of speaking to numerous future students and I have to say it was an absolute treat. I met a girl all the way from Brandon, MB, coming in the fall to take Addictions Counselling (which is the only program of its kind in Canada, by the way). I answered some questions at the Faculty of Education booth when it was a little busy, and met a wonderful girl from Calgary who wanted to know about a Spanish minor (great idea for a boost in this job market). I also met a group of three hilarious boys who, even though they had to get up at 5:30 a.m. to drive in from Airdrie, were very excited about the sessions and especially coming here this fall!

I met people who were living off-campus and in Res alike – one girl was a little nervous about living in UHall, but I promise once you’re down there, it’s actually lots of fun. I met people from Alberta, BC, Saskatchewan, Manitoba. It was so exciting to hear how far people were coming to attend the U of L, and I promise it’s an amazing decision!!

There was also a tour, which I was lucky enough to quickly breeze through. I saw Markin Hall, our newest building, which I’ve never been into before. It’s so beautiful! Huge windows and comfortable couches and natural wood… I’ll be spending more time there for sure. I also learned some fascinating U of L facts:

1. The University Theatre has a 50 foot “fly tower,” which extends above the theatre. This is used in productions to give actors and actresses the illusion of flying above the stage. From what I understand, it’s a very complicated pulley system, and one of very few in any Canadian universities.

2. The University built brand new digital recording studios, and one of them contains a $150,000 soundboard that is one of only two in all of North America.

3. The University of Lethbridge houses one of the most important art collections in all of Canada, which has over 13,000 pieces of art from the 19th to 21st centuries. We even have a Picasso and an Andy Warhol!! All these pieces are available for students to see, you just have to place a request if they’re not currently in the exhibit.

There’s so much more, but I can’t bore you with every minute detail of the whole day! I had a blast, the organizers had a blast, the volunteers had a blast, and from what I heard from the participants and the spouses and parents who accompanied them, they had a great time as well.

Whew! All this excitement makes me look forward to NSO!!

Bri

There are some very important things happening this week! Very busy, very exciting.

First: my birthday! Happy birthday to meeeee TODAY. I have an exam and then I work 10 hours. So should be a good day, haha. But hopefully Thursday I can go for wings or white chocolate brownies.

Second: My boyfriend’s brother’s wedding is on Saturday, and the rehearsal dinner is on Friday. I’m really excited. He and his fiance are just the most wonderful people and their wedding is going to be a blast. Can’t wait for the whole family to be there.

Third: JUMP THE LINE 2011!!

You can find all the information on the ULeth Recruitment website here: https://discover.ulethbridge.ca/events/jumptheline.ezc. Jump the Line is our June event for all you new students!  It’s a whirlwind event that includes a brief introduction to campus, campus life, and some awesome U of L mentor students like yours truly. You’ll get a tour of campus, which is really helpful even though we have a nice, small campus and you’ll get your ID card and beat the September lines. These are some things you can get out of the way before the summer, leaving you more relaxed when September rolls around! You also get to try Sodexo’s campus foods, which is nice because if you live in Res your first year, you’ll be eating a lot of Sodexo, so you might as well find out now what they offer! There are also some great keynote speakers – this year one is delivered by Eric Hawthorne, former blogger.

You’re really in for a treat. Jump the Line is a great way to get a head start on all those things that will make your September a bit crazy (even though crazy can be fun!) and leave you to kick back and get your game face on for New Student Orientation and Fresh Fest. So I hope to see you out there! I’ll be wandering around with my video camera, taking clips and meeting you wonderful new U of L students as I welcome you to the beautiful campus that has been my home for the past four years. I know you’ll love this place like I do if you give it a shot and get involved!

See you Friday!

Bri

Well, I’m back! For another year! I was fortunate enough to be re-signed on to blog for the U, and I really am just thrilled. I’m representing the Education faculty, even though I’m not taking any professional semesters this year. I do have some big plans, though! This year’s goal: blog once a week (like I’m supposed to)!

This past semester was really rough. I had a really hard time with my PSII, and I decided to finish my degree in 6 years instead of 5, and receive a 40-course Bachelor of Arts instead of a 30 course combined degree. That’s all pretty technical, especially if you’re just starting to look into what you’ll be taking at the U, so basically it means that I’ll have a full 4 year degree and I’ll be eligible for grad school. That’s right, I’m interested in two more years of school after the six I’ll spend here. It’s a lot to think about.

But this summer! I’m excited to be a part of Jump The Line 2011, which is happening June 10. I’ll be paired with a new student touring campus and I’ll be videotaping the experience and hanging out and making friends and doing the activities… should be an awesome time! I really can’t wait! And then that weekend, I have a wedding. I’m so excited, it’s the cutest bride and groom ever, so we’ll have just a blast. And then! The Royal Tyrell Museum. Yup. This cowgirl is spending a whoooole day in Drumheller, climbing hoodoos and looking at old bones and taking a zillion pictures. Very exciting!!

Anyway, this is a great start on my whole “blog more frequently” goal. Can’t wait for these next couple weeks! Talk soon!

Bri

So SWATCA is the South-Western Alberta Teacher’s Convention, and it is held every year for two days on what is the University’s Reading Week. (You all remember getting that extra long weekend for Teacher’s Convention, don’t you? I loved it as a student.) It’s usually held at the U since it’s so big – obviously.

So it’s mandatory for all PSII and PSIII students to attend, as well as all teachers who are members of the ATA. You even have to show your nametag (for student teachers) or your ATA card to get into the sessions. They were alright. The sessions, I mean. But the most amazing part of the entire two days was the opening keynote speech.

Craig Kielburger started Free the Children when he was 12 years old. He read an article in the newspaper about another 12 year old boy from Pakistan who had been sold into slavery when he was 4 years old. Iqbal Masih was handcuffed to a carpet loom and forced to tie thousands of tiny knots every day. He later escaped and began to tell his story, which gained international recognition. He then moved back to Pakistan and, as Kielburger tells is, was riding his bike in front of his house when he was shot and assassinated for speaking out.

Kielburger rushed into his Social Studies teacher’s classroom, holding this crumpled news article that had enraged him at its blatant injustice. His teacher agreed to help him out, and so was born Free the Children, starting in 1995 with twelve 12-year-olds. Today, Free the Children boasts impressive numbers, like: 1 million people now having access to clean water, 15 million US dollars worth of medical supplies sent to Asia and Africa, and 305,000 youth engaged in helping others around the world.

Could we have had a better speaker?

I feel lucky to have been able to hear Kielburger’s speech anywhere, let alone at the teacher’s conference. When he finished speaking, 1,500 teachers from Southern Alberta rose and gave him a standing ovation. It left me aching to learn more and feeling inspired to go out and change the world for the better – a “shameless idealist” like Kielburger himself.

Anyway, I’m drowning in unit plans and unit assessments and unit tests and all sorts of nonsense. Update soon! But in the meantime… check out the websites!

Much end-of-PSII love!

www.freethechildren.com
www.metowe.com

So yesterday was Orientation Day for PSII!! I left my house on the West Side at 6:45am, leaving me enough time to grab some Starbucks and then drive the hour north-east to Lomond, Alberta. If you have never heard of Lomond (as I hadn’t), it’s about a half-hour east of Vulcan and 40 minutes north of Coaldale. In the 2006 census, it was discovered that there are 175 people that live there. Exciting.

Lomond is the kind of small town where drivers always wave at other drivers, even when they don’t know them, because it’s the neighbourly thing to do. This makes small-town people feel at home, and makes city folk like me feel wildly out of place. There are about 7 roads, and only one large building – Lomond Community School.

So I got there for Orientation at about 8am. I met the principal on the way in from the parking lot and he introduced me to a bunch of teachers just inside the doors. Everyone was so friendly and welcoming! Then he walked me downstairs to my Teacher Associate’s classroom.

There are two huge bookshelves on the right as soon as you walk through the door. They are chock-full of books. Not textbooks, not necessarily even novel study book, just books. Any books. Any wonderful, amazing type of books. For the students to just take out! I knew right away we’d hit it off.

So I had a great day out in Lomond. My TA is wonderful and creative and supportive. She sent me home with three bags full of resources to get ready on my planning for March 9 – I start teaching Social 7/8 (unit on Confederation), Computers 7/8/9 (how to use Excel) and Language Arts 9/English 10-1 (novel studies on To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee and And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie).

So busy! And classes aren’t even over… they finish on March 4, which means I’m in crunch time right now. I have a Wiki project/presentation to do, a Current Events Analysis (1000 words), an individual IPP, and a 35-page unit plan outline, all due within the next three weeks. If you don’t hear from me, it means the giant pile that is my homework has toppled and crushed me beneath it. Let’s hope not!

Enjoy reading week – relax, work, take time for yourself! Much love. <3

So my boys had their very first tournament this week. We played a one-day tournament at the Rally Pointe facility on the southern edge of Calgary. The head of the tournament structured it so that start times were staggered by proximity to Calgary, so we got to start at 11.15. The downside to this was that we played three games back-to-back to start the tournament.

There were only six teams there – three from Calgary, two from Red Deer (including my little brother’s team) and us from Lethbridge. There were two round robin games and then we headed straight into play-offs. Not to ruin the ending here, but we definitely got fourth. We lost both round robin games, won the quarter-final (can you call it that if there are only six teams total?) and then went to to lose the semis and the bronze match.

The boys played amazing. The scores didn’t always reflect how well they played. They mastered the 3-man serve receive we’ve been pushing on them, they got some practice running a 6-back defense and they finally wrapped their heads around what it means to be in free ball position. We learned a lot. I also learned a lot about coaching and the coaching dynamics that will be happening on the team. The other coach and I don’t necessarily see eye-to-eye on all coaching decisions. My firm belief is that coaches are responsible for setting players up for success (oh wait, does this sound similar to my beliefs about teaching, where teachers set students up for success?) and not in a position where they will fail. You do not make your players do something in an important situation that they are worried about, that they are not good at, that they are not confident with. These are 12- and 13-year-old boys. They can be, and for the most part are, overly sensitive.

I feel like that was not the case.

But there are lots of tournaments left and we need to work on improving for our first Premier in March! Should be nerve-wracking and exciting.

In other news, I’m off to my Orientation tomorrow! Can’t wait to tell you all about it!

<3 Bri

I know I’ve been a little biased when it comes to pushing clubs on campus. I’ve never tried to hide the fact that I shamelessly advocate the Rotaract Club – because of it’s pure awesomeness. Rotaract is the University level of Rotary International, which is a humanitarian group that believes in Service Above Self. So Rotaract here at the University of Lethbridge is committed to helping various local and international groups through fund-raising and volunteering. Cool, right?! It has over 60 active members, who are all just delightful. If you’re looking for a way to get involved in the community, meet new friends, help people, even add to the resume… this is it.

But wait! I haven’t told you the best part. Every year for the past six years, we do a Dinner and Silent Auction night at the Lethbridge Lodge. This event has raised over $100,000 since its inception in 2006, all going to different charities. This year the theme was Siaqtuut – A Journey Together, raising money for a charity in Canada for the first time! The Tasiuqtigiit (Hand in Hand) Society in Iqaluit provides many different services to residents, such as education programs for residents and a bilingual preschool, instructing in English and Inuktitut! It was a very worthwhile cause and we had a great time supporting it.

The adorable programs were shaped like polar bears and the table centerpieces were tiny little Inukshuks. There was also a giant Inukshuk set up for pictures! The places at the tables were marked with little stones, labeled with a word in Inuktitut and the English translation on the back.

In all, the night was a smashing success. The Lodge was packed with guests from the community, mostly Rotarians from Lethbridge’s four Rotary clubs, as well as Rotaractors from the University and other family and friends. Everyone had a great evening and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. The silent auction and raffle prizes had everyone excited and feeling a bit competitive! It was a great experience for my second time there – first time as an official Rotaract member – and I am so grateful to the dedicated students who made this happen.

Just in case that wasn’t enough to convince you… did I mention there’s not one, but TWO chocolate fountains? Oh that’s right.

So, let’s. I work 35 hours a week. I write a blog for the University (though not as often as I should!), I coach a team with the Lethbridge Volleyball Club, I do yoga at the Canadian Yoga Institute downtown and I’m in my PSII in the Faculty of Education. Those are just the thing I’m committed to. I also lift weights three times a week and try to have a social life. I am BUSY.

And I know I’m busy, but I’ve been doing this for the last three and a half years, so I feel confident that this is just how my life goes. Whenever people hear about all the commitments I have, they are shocked, but I’ve never really thought about it before. That was my normal.

Until I had an episode where I lost vision in a portion of my left eye for a couple hours. I started getting intense headaches every morning and then one day I went to do my class readings – and I couldn’t. Every time I tried to focus on the words, they would slip away from my eyes and mix themselves up in front of me. I couldn’t make it more than two lines into a chapter before this started happening and I had to give up.

Now, as I’m sure you can imagine, in your fourth year of University, there are a lot of readings. In your fourth year of Education, there are about a thousand. Reading is pretty crucial for a student, and pretty crucial for a teacher.

My mom told me I had to see a doctor, no exceptions. Unfortunately, sitting at the walk-in clinic for hours when I have work, school and coaching to attend to wasn’t feasible. I kept putting the appointment off until I remembered a key piece of information – the University Health Centre. So I headed down to the basement of the Student’s Union Building and made an appointment for the next day.

To my vast surprise, the doctor on call on Tuesday mornings didn’t dismiss me as crazy and tell me to “get more sleep,” as has been my experience in Lethbridge walk-ins. She asked questions, listened to my answers and took over two pages of notes on my symptoms (which include the headaches, a lack of appetite, exhaustion and loss of balance) and then gave me my prescription: stress leave. From work. For minimum one month.

I burst into tears. I have never not worked. I got a job when I was 14 and have had at least one ever since – usually two at a time, and occasionally three. Stress leave. I couldn’t believe it.

So I’m currently on stress leave. I’ve had a CT scan, an ophthalmologist appointment and I have an MRI on Monday. I am not working, so I have all this free time, to do strange things like relax, do homework, buy groceries instead of always buying food on the go, cook, bake, watch TV with my roommates, blog for the University…

On Sunday I slept for 17 hours. SEVENTEEN HOURS. That’s how exhausted I was.

So this is my public confession, that I am not Superwoman, and I’ve finally learned that I can’t do it all. And that’s okay. But the kicker is that maybe if I’d taken some time to myself in the past two months, I could have avoided this.

Take care of yourselves. University is a great experience, but it can easily sneak up on you and ambush you when you really need to be staying focused. Take naps. Take baths. Watch TV. Go to the gym. Read a non-academic book. Anything. Just know your limits and put yourself first, or you’ll end up like me – burnt out and forced to quit things, instead of being able to make that choice for myself.

-Bri

Well, we’re all back and ready for a new semester and a new year! I know everyone’s as excited as I am, and if not for classes, then at least to see everyone around the U and catch up on how holidays were and what classes they’re taking and whatever else is going on! I’ve been running into old friends every time I head down the hallway or every time I head to the gym or when I sit down for lunch in the cafeteria. It’s nice to catch up and fall back into the campus community.

The other thing that was going on this week was January RUSH WEEK in the Atrium. While noticeably smaller than September Rush, it’s nice to have a refresher on what clubs U of L offers (and it’s a lot) and have a second chance at getting involved. Some clubs even a veteran like me didn’t know about: The Ba’hai Study Circle and the Philosophy Club! Also: shameless Rotaract plug! It’s so fun to be volunteering and meeting people and making a global difference, so come check us out!!

As for me, I started my PSII on Monday. It’s a little sad to be mixed up from the group I grew so close to in PSI, but I’m meeting new people and having a ball so far! The main difference between PSI and PSII is that in the latter, you are broken into groups based on subject, meaning my group has a ton of other Social Studies majors. It breaks down into major-specific classes, too, and I’m taking Curriculum and Instruction for Social Studies Education, which is a mouthful and also a lot of work! It’s good so far though. The class I’m most looking forward to is the Social Context of Learning, which seems to be a sociology course disguised as an Ed course… right up my alley!

So there are lots of cool things happening soon, like Meltdown (more info to come, or check the ULSU’s Facebook page for more info!) as well as ULSU elections, an important democratic process on our liberal education campus. So I encourage you to get informed, get involved and have even more fun this semester.

Stay warm, and stick to your resolutions!!

– Bri

So practicum finishes up in the classroom tomorrow. I am sick to my stomach at the thought of leaving my 22 eight-year-old kids. I mean, they’re in the hands of a wonderful, extremely caring and competent teacher, but I’ll miss them. And yes, every single one of them.

PSI has been a crazy five weeks. It’s a crash course in what teaching truly is, and I know a couple people who decided to withdraw from practicum and also from the faculty, so it’s not necessarily what everyone thinks it will be when they go in. I was lucky enough to have a fabulous school and an amazing teacher associate, which really helped my practicum go smoothly. I’ve loved everything I’ve participated in, like Turkey Bingo and especially Christmas concert.

I imagine Christmas concert is a lot like Glee club, but with more small children, less organization and a lot less talent. It’s been hectic, trying to fit two rehearsals into every day in this final week of school and have the concert ready to perform for Thursday night. The teacher organizing it is in her PSIII and she’s doing a fabulous job with what is obviously a lot of work.

But anyway. It’s a nice way to close out my practicum. Luckily my friend is going to come with me, because I’m positive I’m going to cry when I remember that Christmas concert is the last time I’ll see all my kidlets!!

In other news, my life is hectic. I teach everyday from 7am – 4pm, and then work every weekday from 5 -11 at one of my two jobs, then Saturdays I work 7am – 3pm and 3.30pm – 9.30pm and Sundays 11.30am – 5.30pm. I am begging for Christmas to come for some time off. Attention students: DO NOT DO THIS TO YOURSELVES. It’s not any fun.

But soon I’ll be home for the holidays, relaxing, not working, not teaching… I’m excited for the break and excited for what 2011 will bring me in my PSII!!

Much love,

Bri