Another month of Canadian living has gone by which means I am a quarter of the way through international exchange. In some walks of life everything out here still seems very new and confusing but others are routine and provide a massive sense of normality.
Right now I’m sat at my desk thoroughly unimpressed by the excess of rain which seems to have settled in for the weekend. Whilst this makes the great outdoors rather unappealing it does mean my first rugby game in six months will hopefully be slightly less painful as there will be plenty of mud to cushion me every time I end up on the floor. I’m really enjoying rugby at the moment, the junior varsity team don’t take things too seriously which is nice and all the girls are really easy to get along with. My only issue with it is the cost which, until yesterday, I was blissfully unaware of. It seems I now owe the club $300 (about £150) and as I seem to be spending rather frightening amounts of money at the moment that doesn’t help!
Last weekend I dented the bank balance by heading to a gig downtown. Matt Mays & El Torpedo are a Canadian rock band who before Saturday I had never heard of. By recommendation of my housemate I joined her at the gig and it was well worth it! Through sheer luck we ended up right at the front and I attempted to jump around at all the right moments and give the impression I had a vague idea what some of the words were. It seems I was convincing enough and halfway through the gig the guitarist offered me his water for my efforts. The award for the first crowd surfer to make it on to the state went to a Celtic fan which amused me greatly! Honestly, given the choice I would have probably swapped the gig for seeing Feeder at the Barrowlands (Glasgow) last Friday but with the Atlantic Ocean being in the way I think I managed to find a pretty good second best!
This week started horribly with two lab exams, an assessed tutorial and a mid term exam worth more than the final but I made it through without too many disasters and have spent the latter part of the week thinking about Halloween costumes…. with little success. It seems that the 31st October seems to apply to about a two week period of partying and an excuse to be in fancy dress. I’m pretty determined to stick to it being a one night thing. Last night there was an outdoors clubs social with lots of food and entertaining banter. Randomly, I also ended up playing in a string trio trying to recreate various Halloween ‘classics’ although I think its fair to say most of them were unrecognisable due to a combination of our playing skills and the arrangements.
Plans for the rest of the day include laundry (I have run out of socks), costume design, journal reading, and wishing the ex-flatmate of the burgh a very happy birthday!!! It’s at times like this when being closer to home would have its advantages but this year is flying and I’m sure I’ll be back before I know it!
