End of term

Finally! It is the end of term. I have handed in my last project and hope that last night was the last for at least 2 months that I'll get less than 5 hours sleep.

Looking back over the term, I feel like it was a tough and long road. Academic challenges and workload were much greater than I expected. Although in the beginning I was hyper-energised by the joy of being back at university, the continuous pressure and lack of sleep eventually wore me down. Pretty much by the middle of term I was exhausted and there was still so much in front of me!

Besides work, I had the challenge of dealing with a very tough class to TA. Besides not being entirely comfortable with the subject matter, meaning that I had to work extra hard to prepare for tutorials and mark fairly, the students were intimidating, especially one of them. It is his self-given job to give people a rough time, to be rude, aggressive and generally very demanding. The fact is I was intimidated by him despite not liking his tactics and not thinking highly of him as a result. I think my strength is building up though and as my confidence in this new country grows, I will be able to dismiss his aggression. Unfortunately I will have to TA the same class in Fall (September to December).

On a personal level, I met a lot of great people but as the work pressure increased the opportunities to socialize diminished. South Africa was 9 hours and now 8 hours ahead of Calgary, meaning that many times that I wished to communicate with friends and family they were asleep. So I felt myself getting lonely and missing home and special people there immensely. I still do. Fortunately I will be coming home in June! I am so excited.

Despite all these challenges and difficulties which made me very unhappy at times, I am still glad that I am here. I don't regret my decision to come here. I know that already my mind has been enriched from the academic education but also from the exposure to other cultures, not just Canadian, but also German, Chinese and Persian.

So for May, I wish nothing more than to relax and explore, but I do still have other tasks ahead of me, like TA'ing a week survey course next week, testing equipment and preparing for my Swedish trip where I'll film brown bears.

I also believe that Estee will be visiting for a-week-and-a-half just around around our birthdays. What a treat!