Fall in Nova Scotia!

Righto! And wee blogging break to hopefully stave off a statistics related meltdown. I realized the assignment I thought I just finished basically needs to be redone because I'm an idiot and put numbers into the formula incorrectly. Awesome. And just what I wanted to do with my day when my motivation is already at rock bottom. Anyway...

So this trail. It is very pretty and goes past several lakes. The internet tells me it's about 2 hours to get the whole way along it so I certainly haven't explored the length of it yet but I did go out for a good stroll the other day. And got nice sunset and fall foliage pictures to share.

Lake #1:

When I went out the leaves were starting to change colour but hadn't hit full glory yet. 

And there was a little waterfall off to the side of the trail! 

Sunset over the water to finish it off.

Chez Hermit

My place is finally liveable and (mostly) set up! So here is the grand tour while it still looks clean and tidy.

View standing at front door. On the left is the coat closet/storage room thing. To the right is the kitchen. The next door on the left is the bathroom and the angled door goes into the bedroom.

The kitchen:

It has a weird little window thing that looks into the living room (and you can see my work station/calendar of doom).

Because I am sure you are all so interested in seeing said calendar of doom: And I feel like this heads into bragging about busyness territory, however I signed up for this so it's my own fault? (I'll keep complaining about it though!)

But October and November being so horrific makes December look all that much more glorious!! Looking forward to this!:

And back to the tour - Living room. The floor was a pleasant surprise. The other unit I had was carpeted and I assumed this one would be too but they had to rip out the carpet because the previous tenant had cats that peed all over the floor, apparently, and I guess they decided not to put new carpet down. Bonus upgrade for me!:

Bathroom:

Bedroom. with my justforlooks drapes and abundance of furniture. Mom made those for my bedroom in Carlisle so they brought them up. This window is significantly longer than that one was... I was pretty pleased with the little dresser - snagged it online for $10!:

Ta da! Please note the amount of empty floor space in the living room. I also have an inflatable mattress in the storage closet. Just saying... ;)

Official Documentation

Last week Merlin and I both became official Nova Scotians. I still think it's lame that NS doesn't allow students to retain their home license but anyhow. On the plus side, they let you smile in your photo over here! It's kind of novel having a license that doesn't make me look like a convicted felon.
So, bye bye BC for Merlin (SO many bug guts on that BC plate! ;)):

And a new, smiling, mugshot for me! Also, they print your license right in front of you out here. None of this waiting for a week with a hunk of paper business. 

I also discovered a nice walking trail pretty close to my house (might be in competition with Goldstream for signage, MW's! Nothing and no parking either. Possibly why I barely ran into anyone on the trail.). And apartment is largely finished and liveable now which is pretty exciting but pictures get to wait. I might have a 25% paper due tomorrow that should probably be addressed. So much for dealing with the procrastination problem...

Edumacation

Because I'm sure you are all so interested in hearing about le school, but since this is (maybe?) sort of acting as my online journal, I figure it warrants a mention.

SO, it has definitely been an adjustment. MSVU is very different from Guelph, I think a lot because of the size difference (Wikipedia says UofG has about 23000 students + staff, and MSVU has 4220 students). Which isn't necessarily all bad but definitely something to get used to. I took a lot of the things at UofG for granted - 'this is how Universities are'. Things like medical coverage. I found out a bit ago that grad students here aren't covered by student medical because there wasn't enough interest. But that definitely wasn't made clear (to me anyway!). On the plus side, all my classes top out at about 20 students and the profs seem to have a vested interest in getting to know you and helping you in whatever way they can.

I'm taking pretty much all of my required courses this semester which leaves next semester open for electives that are supposed to augment my thesis topic. Heh, a thing that is kind of stressing me out. The epic decision making!! More on that later.. All but stats are once a week 2.5 hour classes with a crap ton of readings on the side. And so many assignments! I made myself a beautiful sticky note calendar with pink post its for days when stuff is due and basically all the weekdays are pink. Procrastination begone! Except not really... but it really needs to take a hike. Anyway, maybe this will finally force me to make progress in that department. Here's hoping!

So last week we had some graduate students who are further along in the program (second year +) come into one of our classes to talk about their process in working on their thesis. Um, commence all the panicking! Listening to them talk about how much their research topics changed over the course of working on the proposal, the troubles they encountered with ethics approval etc. and how those sorts of things set them back in their timeline stressed me out. And I think the rest of my class. I may or may not have had some great "what the heck am I doing here!?" moments during their presentation. At any rate, I have great plans to try to nail down a supervisor and get moving on this. I have no desire to end up taking three plus years to finish just because the thesis stuff got dragged out. I'm hoping, probably naively, that the professor I'm hoping to work with will end up being a good choice in the ease of thesis selection department. The way he works is that he has grad students take on a segment of a big project that he is undertaking, so in that way the thesis topic is largely already set out and chosen for you (perfect for those indecisive sorts!). So now I just need to convince him to take me on as a student!

Also, I just went to an information session about graduate scholarships (the big government ones -$17500/year) and while I'm hoping I complete the application, it didn't make me feel too optimistic about the odds of receiving one. What I really want to know is where these amazing undergraduate students hide out. Publications already, really!? Clearly I missed the memo on that...

So, all in all, feeling a bit overwhelmed and underqualified/skilled. Hopefully this will change!

Apartment Success!

Hurrah! I am officially moved into the new apartment (with power and internet I might add!) and have finally started the process of getting things set up to look like something other than a squatters locale. Parents + Merlin have arrived avec my stuff (side note: how do I have so much stuff that isn't even furniture!?) - it's nice to have parents around to help out with stuff and to be people I know. Everything would take so much longer if it was just me trying to juggle that plus regular school and work commitments.
There is a bit of a bug thing in the new unit (it never ends...) and dad has taken it upon himself to ERADICATE THE BUGS. He arrived back from Canadian Tire this afternoon with no less than four different bug killing products and clear silicone caulk to stop up all the cracks between the floors and baseboards (that's where they seem to be hiding out in). I think it's hilarious he has made this his mission. Will report back on success. Fingers crossed!
Everything is in unpacking mode at the moment but I'll do pictures soon.