Blogs from McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, North America

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no, i put the bar in the pride section. you know, stuff you are proud of.... read more

North America » Canada » Ontario » Hamilton » McMaster University January 7th 2010

alright so I bought my ticket today. I am leaving the hamilton airport Sunday Feburary 7th at 6:45pm and arriving in Edmonton at 8:47 their time (4.7 hr flight) . I will hang out with dallas for a couple days which will be really nice, I do miss him. I will leave Edmonton the 10th at 6am and head on down to San Fransico (3.20 hr) and a 5 hour stop over which should be hell of baggage and passenger checks with these recent terroist attacks over christmas. Next a quick stop in Seol to pick-up/drop-off people (after a13 hr flight) then to Singapore (6.30 hr) where I will enjoy a 8hr stop over which I hope is eventful or unconscious. Fianly I will be leaving at 930 am and arriving in Perth at 235pm after ... read more

North America » Canada » Ontario » Hamilton » McMaster University October 27th 2008

My plans to go to a friend’s for thanksgiving unfortunately fell through and so spent the weekend on campus. Luckily enough however, my friend Anna also stayed here and so one crisp, autumn, Sunday afternoon we went for a walk into Coots Paradise, the nature reserve adjacent to the campus. We followed a path behind one of the residences into the woods and down to the lake. Now I’d heard that autumn in Canada was amazing but to be honest it didn’t exactly sound that remarkable; I mean leaves change colour in England too. However, when you put thousands of these trees together and then place them all next to a lake, well I have to admit, it’s pretty spectacular. It wasn’t just that however, but the colours of the leaves themselves seemed a lot brighter ... read more
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North America » Canada » Ontario » Hamilton » McMaster University October 14th 2008

So as some of you have pointed out (in one case repeatedly; thanks), I haven’t actually written that much since welcome week. The reason for this is simple; not that much has happened. I am living in a country where students actually work. Where people will choose homework over going out. Where pretty much everyone goes home for the weekend. Coming from a country where procrastination is considered both a sport and an art form, and where getting out of your home is the main reason people go to university, this is a bit of a culture shock for me. It has also meant I haven’t been doing as much with my free time as I thought I would have done. The fact that you can’t walk into the town, and reports that it is “sketchy ... read more

North America » Canada » Ontario » Hamilton » McMaster University September 7th 2008

So Thursday came, and with it came classes. Somehow in all the madness of the first few days I’d managed to forget about the whole work side of Uni; the real reason why I was here. Every building at Mac has an acronym so asking for directions made me sound like some sort Bond girl. My Thursday timetable said I was in TSH, BSB, MDCL and PC. Not only that, but every building has a ridiculous number of rooms and apparently very little logic to them. (I’m still trying to work out how BSB340 isn’t the room immediately above BSB240.) Luckily enough my first class was with Sarah, one of my flatmates who’d not only been to the campus before, but also had a map. We set off in search of TSH120 a good half an ... read more

North America » Canada » Ontario » Hamilton » McMaster University September 3rd 2008

Everyday on the wall by the main doors to the building, the reps put up a poster showing the day’s activities list. On Wednesday’s written besides 3pm-6pm (after the clubs fest and before the pj parade) were written the two magic words we’d been longing to hear all week: “Free Time”. So, after going around the campus and signing up for all the groups we wanted to, we had lunch and then tried to decide what to do with our free time. Funnily enough, because every minute of every day had been organised so rigidly for us over the first few days, it was actually quite hard to think what to do. But someone eventually suggested we explore the basement to our building. Here we discovered a widescreen TV, table football, a pool table, and a ... read more

North America » Canada » Ontario » Hamilton » McMaster University September 2nd 2008

Tuesday, faculty day, and because I was being a first year that week it meant I was in social science. Woo! We all arrived at the football field in our blue t-shirts and had to register. Here we were given a coloured headband and told our team name. You would have thought these would have been fairly simple like Team A, Team 4, or even Team Light Green. It wasn’t. For some reason the organisers like to confuse things a lot so when my coloured head band was called I was welcomed to team “Alpha Sigma Beta”. My thoughts exactly! We sat down in our respective groups and introduced ourselves. As usual this involved some fun introductory games and, as usual, there was a 5 minute pause when it got to me and I had to ... read more

North America » Canada » Ontario » Hamilton » McMaster University September 1st 2008

I’m not sure if I mentioned this before but Mac likes cheering. And the annual “Bed Race” is the focal point for this. An hour before the race we had a Pep Rally. Everyone from our halls met up outside and we literally covered ourselves in purple paint from head to toe, writing Bates on any skin available. Whilst doing this we practised our cheers, learnt even more, and generally got high on excitement and paint fumes. We then walked down to where the race was being held and queued up with the other Halls. This lead to more cheer-offs, including one with SOCS, the off campus students and biggest group by far. However we held our own thanks to some ridiculously loud Australians and before we knew it, we were running down the course to ... read more
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North America » Canada » Ontario » Hamilton » McMaster University August 31st 2008

We were awoken at a ridiculous time Sunday morning, by the reps shouting and banging on our door. We all dressed in our purple Bates t-shirts and they took us all down to the student centre where I had my first Canadian pancakes. Having been told by far too many people that Canadian pancakes are the nicest in the world I was pretty excited. They were obviously nothing like “real” pancakes; they were too small and too fat, plus it wasn’t Shrove Tuesday, but after loading them up with fruit and cream and avoiding the maple syrup at all costs, I dug in. They were delicious, there’s no denying it (although to be absolutely honest, I prefer my mum’s). Welcome to Cheer Camp Having eaten, we all returned to Bates where we were split up into ... read more

North America » Canada » Ontario » Hamilton » McMaster University August 30th 2008

As the plane started to descend below the clouds we could see Canada properly for the first time. It was really, really, flat! Any height was given by buildings like the CN Tower, although, there was a whopping great lake. I knew Lake Ontario was huge but I'd never imagined it to be that big. At first I thought it was the horizon but as the plane tilted in to land I realised that I could see America faintly in the distance on the other shore. All the housing estates were built in identical, neat patterns and the roads were ridiculously straight and just went on and on forever into the horizon. Where the roads did cross each other it was done in a nice, neat, symmetrical pattern. If the rest of Canada was as organised ... read more




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