Life moves quickly!
Hello everyone! It's such a cliché to say it, but time really does fly! I've been hard at work preparing for and teaching English classes, but this week I had several other things on my mind.
First, on a sad note, I think that for the first November since I started NaNoWriMo, I am not going to make it to 50k. :( I have fallen several days behind, and now with point #3, I likely won't finish a novel this month. I am still going to work on them, but at a much more, ah, leisurely pace. I feel quite disappointed with myself. However, I did have good reasons for falling behind, if you can have a "good" reason for this situation...
Secondly: yesterday's pseudo-Thanksgiving dinner party went off spectacularly! I've been planning this with my main teacher, Claudine, since the first week or two of October. We put off the date (Canadian Thanksgiving was October 10th this year) because of the school holidays (so more people could come) and then by a few weeks so we could plan and prepare it properly, so it ended up being only a week before American Thanksgiving. Still, it went wonderfully!
Claudine ordered two fresh turkeys in specially from her butcher (who got them from Paris - we got them with their heads still attached!). I made stuffing (an American teaching assistant who attended said that before trying my stuffing she'd thought the dish was disgusting, but she really liked mine, so I've convinced her of the merit of stuffing!), mashed sweet potatoes (many people asked me for its recipe, as the French don't cook very often with patates douces - I made mine with milk, butter, cinnamon and brown sugar), mashed potatoes (with minced garlic, butter and milk), carrots and garlic, and so on. The starters (the "nibbles" as Claudine called them) were all French, and delicious, and we had cheese and bread afterwards. All of the guests (18 of them! We served the food in an assembly line!) brought either wine, champagne or desserts, including one amazing apple crumble.
I admit that when Claudine, Christie - my friend the Scottish assistant - and I began cooking at 3:30 in the afternoon, we had a few glasses of white wine as we went. By the time midnight rolled around, aside from all of the food we'd eaten, I think I'd had at least eight drinks over the course of the evening. As I have discovered last week, when I have drunk a few glasses of wine or cider, I get much more fluent in French! I don't hesitate nearly as much.
Anyway, a few weeks ago I finally decided that yes, I was going to pursue a Master's degree in History. This morning, I began the application process. I am applying to the same university at which I did my undergraduate degree, though of course if I continue with a PHD later on I'll switch schools. (One of my teachers once called doing your PHD and your undergraduate at the same institution "academic incest"!) I have contacted two teachers for reference letters, though I still need to find a third... I think, probably, the one I worked for as a research assistant the summer before last. He knows my work. Anyway, now I'm stressing out about it! The deadline isn't until mid-January, and almost all of it is online at my university, but now my professors are asking me if I've thought about applying at other institutions too and maybe I should but I don't even know where to start and...! D:
Deadlines do come up fast. I'm sure that some of them have already passed. I know that there's no way I'd be able to apply to a school in the states. Am I just picking the U of A because I'm unadventurous?
First, on a sad note, I think that for the first November since I started NaNoWriMo, I am not going to make it to 50k. :( I have fallen several days behind, and now with point #3, I likely won't finish a novel this month. I am still going to work on them, but at a much more, ah, leisurely pace. I feel quite disappointed with myself. However, I did have good reasons for falling behind, if you can have a "good" reason for this situation...
Secondly: yesterday's pseudo-Thanksgiving dinner party went off spectacularly! I've been planning this with my main teacher, Claudine, since the first week or two of October. We put off the date (Canadian Thanksgiving was October 10th this year) because of the school holidays (so more people could come) and then by a few weeks so we could plan and prepare it properly, so it ended up being only a week before American Thanksgiving. Still, it went wonderfully!
Claudine ordered two fresh turkeys in specially from her butcher (who got them from Paris - we got them with their heads still attached!). I made stuffing (an American teaching assistant who attended said that before trying my stuffing she'd thought the dish was disgusting, but she really liked mine, so I've convinced her of the merit of stuffing!), mashed sweet potatoes (many people asked me for its recipe, as the French don't cook very often with patates douces - I made mine with milk, butter, cinnamon and brown sugar), mashed potatoes (with minced garlic, butter and milk), carrots and garlic, and so on. The starters (the "nibbles" as Claudine called them) were all French, and delicious, and we had cheese and bread afterwards. All of the guests (18 of them! We served the food in an assembly line!) brought either wine, champagne or desserts, including one amazing apple crumble.
I admit that when Claudine, Christie - my friend the Scottish assistant - and I began cooking at 3:30 in the afternoon, we had a few glasses of white wine as we went. By the time midnight rolled around, aside from all of the food we'd eaten, I think I'd had at least eight drinks over the course of the evening. As I have discovered last week, when I have drunk a few glasses of wine or cider, I get much more fluent in French! I don't hesitate nearly as much.
Anyway, a few weeks ago I finally decided that yes, I was going to pursue a Master's degree in History. This morning, I began the application process. I am applying to the same university at which I did my undergraduate degree, though of course if I continue with a PHD later on I'll switch schools. (One of my teachers once called doing your PHD and your undergraduate at the same institution "academic incest"!) I have contacted two teachers for reference letters, though I still need to find a third... I think, probably, the one I worked for as a research assistant the summer before last. He knows my work. Anyway, now I'm stressing out about it! The deadline isn't until mid-January, and almost all of it is online at my university, but now my professors are asking me if I've thought about applying at other institutions too and maybe I should but I don't even know where to start and...! D:
Deadlines do come up fast. I'm sure that some of them have already passed. I know that there's no way I'd be able to apply to a school in the states. Am I just picking the U of A because I'm unadventurous?