New Year, New Semester

Last time I posted I had said the next time you heard from me it would be from the US, but I guess I lied. I had planned on posting the past two Sundays, but by the time the first Sunday of my break rolled around, the blog had moved to the back of my mind and by the time I realized, it was Tuesday. I decided I would take a little break from the blog while home for the holidays, then come back today to reassure everyone that I haven’t stopped writing completely! I love writing this blog, but taking a few weeks off was nice and gives me plenty to write about today.

A lot has happened in the few weeks since I last wrote: I took my last two finals of the semester, took a slightly detoured flight home, celebrated the holidays with family, spent lots of time with friends and relaxing, and took yet another slightly dramatic flight back to Vancouver. Despite the travel hang-ups, I had a great winter break, but found myself ready to get back to Van and my friends at UBC by the end. Many of my friends that go to school in the northeast have two or more weeks left of their break, and while I wouldn’t complain about having some more time without homework, I think it’s a good sign that I was excited to go back to school.

As to not drive everyone reading this to complete confusion, I’ll try to cover the past few weeks somewhat chronologically. Monday the 17th and Tuesday the 18th I had my last two finals, chem and bio, both of which went well. It was nice to leave those exams knowing more or less how I did, especially after the total enigmas of my physics and comp sci finals. By the time I finished my bio final, which was at the lovely hour of 9 pm, most of campus had gone home for break, and the emptiness of the dining halls and walkways kept catching me off guard. I had gotten used to the size of the school quite quickly, so seeing only a few people eating during the mealtime rush hours continued to shock me, even after several meals. 

On Wednesday morning I headed to the airport to catch my first flight from Vancouver to Montreal. With a tight connection in Montreal already, receiving a notification that the flight was delayed half an hour added a bit of stress. When we finally got in the air, I spent a while trying to figure out if there was any way I could make my connection to Boston. About half an hour before we landed, the crew told us that anyone connecting to the US would have to spend the night in Montreal due to American customs closing at 8 pm. While I was bummed to have any delay in getting home, not having to stress about sprinting through customs to my next gate was a bit of a relief. After hours of standing in lines for hotel vouchers and shuttles, I finally made it to a hotel by 11:30 pm. I got up early the next morning to catch the first flight out of Montreal to Boston, and ended up getting home in time to visit some friends still in high school for their lunch break.

Over the days leading up to Christmas I took care of several appointments and spent time catching up with friends and on sleep. We hosted our annual holiday party and went to a Christmas service as per tradition, although this year’s was especially…entertaining due to some enthusiastic choir members. We celebrated Christmas the way we have every year, with immediate family in the morning and dinner with my grandparents that evening. I continued my break between Christmas and New Year’s, and we went down to Boston for an appointment with my GI specialists to attempt to fix my stomach, yet again. I celebrated New Year’s Eve with friends, and over the next couple of days, saw some more of friends, many of which I had to say goodbye to again, and enjoyed my last days of freedom. 

This morning at the lively hour of 2:30 am I got up to head to the airport to come back to Van. It was relatively smooth sailing until we landed in Toronto and sat on the tarmac for about an hour waiting for a ground crew to come park us. The boarding time got closer, and finally arrived, as we waited on the plane, and the travel stress returned. I started researching later flights I could catch if this one left without us. Thankfully, due to some very nice women from Air Canada, we (Naomi, another girl from NH who goes to UBC that went through both sides of this crazy break travel with me, and I) were able to sprint onto the plane after the gate had closed and made it on just in time. I’m writing this on the flight from Toronto to Vancouver, but hopefully when this goes up it will be from the comfort of my room, and hopefully I will have been able to reunite with the friends I had to spend two and a half whole weeks (truly tragic) without.

Yearly Christmas tree decorating

Spritz making (gluten free this year, which was much appreciated)

My friend got a kitten and it's too cute