maverick's truth

Proof of our spontenaity!

So...

Friday night, J comes home from work...

J: "Wanna go out for dinner?"
Me: "um... sure?"
J: "I won a gift certificate for East Side Mario's in the draw at work!"
Me: "Okay, sounds good. But isn't the only ESM's far away?"

Turns out that it was in the North East, not so bad. So we went, had food, had fun, and then wandered Sunridge mall for a bit. On the drive home, we decided it was kinda nice just being out, driving, so we thought we'd keep driving. So we drove around town a bit, got lost in a residential area, decided that "this isn't much fun, let's go out on the highway or something." So we stopped at home, got our coats and put on some more comfy clothes, and decided to go for a drive...

And ended up in Canmore. Yay for spontanaity, we decided to spend the night rather than driving all the way back, and then we went to Banff today, since J has never been (and I've only ever been for choir stuff, which doesn't really count.)

So yeah... day trip to Banff... and we got back here around 5:00.

I think I could get into this whole "spontananeous living" thing. Go out for dinner, end up in Banff!

Maybe.

So anyways....

It's cold. Too cold. And snowy. The snow can leave, any time now. And the roads are icky. Made yesterday's trip to Costco interesting to say the least. Speaking of Costco, have I mentioned lately how much I love that Costco is 10 minutes away? I mean really... Triangle Buns at my disposal? It's like heaven.

Okay so maybe not so much. But Costco is supercool. Not to mention that on their website they have a sweet digital piano. Oh, and it's on a discount. If only I had money... and a place to put it. We have too much furniture. I'm sure I could find a place to put it. But hey, a girl can dream, can't she? I even went and looked at all the reviews, and it (apparently) has a beautiful action and feels "real", and sounds pretty good, too.

Oh well.

I should be reading Plato rather than dreaming about pianos anyways.

Brrr... I'm still cold.

How is it that only one week into the semester, I already am feeling behind?

Four courses this go arounnd, so I'll do my typical pre-semester review...

Women in Western Religion: this course should be alright, the texts (novels) are interesting, the prof is fantabulous, but I just can't get excited about the material. Maybe that will change, but for now, I give it a cautious B+

Saints, Holy Men and Martyrs: again, fantabulous prof, and the material should be interesting, but what's sad is that the thing I'm most excited about for this course is that for my final project I'm going to be applying math to the study of religion. Yup, a definite geek. Let's give this class an A, though I'm tempted to give it an A-. Not sure yet.

Greek (Translating Plato's Apology and the New Testament): we're starting out with Plato, which isn't exactly my cup of tea, although it's not bad (yet!). I'm excited to get to the New Testament translation though, since... y'know.... religious studies is what I do? A- for this one.

Honors Thesis: it's time to write and defend this sucker, and I honestly couldn't want to do it less! :-) In all seriousness, I'll be glad when this project is over, if only because I've been working on it since last summer. It's just not captivating enough or something, I guess. I'm tempted to give this course a C- just out of spite, but I'll be generous and say that it's a B-.

So that's how my semester looks. Plus working and whatnot.

But... onto something that scores a definite A+++ in my books. One of the girls in my Women in Western course and I were talking about the Flames before class on Monday. Turns out she works for the team, and so gets tickets to games throughout the season. She can't go to the game this Friday, so she asked if I'd like her pair of tickets. Of course, who was I to refuse! So that will be fun, and a nice break.

Pictures of our visit to Zoolights can be found below. It was chilly, but well worth it. For some reason, the pictures seem to be out of order, but you'll get the idea, I'm sure!

So I've decided that I'm not going to apply for graduate school for this coming September. Not only is the deadline in less than a month -- I really don't think that I could give the proper attention to the application, to finding a supervisor or to finding opportunities for setting up the interdisciplinary program given everything else that I've got going on. Even besides that though, I think I need to take some time away from school.

The current plan is to re-evaluate my position before the 2008 SSHRC (ie. the equivalent of the NSERC) deadline, and make a decision at that point about whether grad school really is for me. I hope that a year away from school will help me to see whether this "square peg" really can fit into a "round hole." At this point, I can't be sure if it's burn-out talking, or if the academic world is just too "academic" for me. I hate being boxed into certain ways of thinking and certain ways of doing things, and it feels as though that's what the academic world is about. Then again, I know that even the thought of one more semester is daunting, and that if there were courses I could drop and still graduate, I would -- but there just simply aren't.

So that's where I stand. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a couple exams to study for...