I need a bigger umbrella, and other lessons learned on a rainy day

It rained today. A lot. I know, big shock since I'm in Nova Scotia, but I'm still unused to rain kind of coming out of nowhere. Here are a few things I learned today, some because of the rain and some just coincidentally on the same day as the rain.

1. I need a bigger umbrella. I have a great little umbrella that folds up and fits in a purse, but it is kind of too small for the intense amounts of rain that fall from the sky here. It keeps my head dry, but that's about it. I keep passing people with these awesome giant umbrella and thinking, "Man, I need one of those. I wonder where you get one."

2. I need a rain coat. Like an actual, full-on, waterproof, hooded rain jacket. I know, it's shocking to hear me say that. I have actively fought against wearing rain jackets for as long as I can remember. They are generally kind of ugly and don't breathe really well so I get seriously sweaty. But there is just no way I am going to survive out here without one. That being said, does anyone know where I can get a good, cute rain jacket?

3. I need to invest in a second pair of wellies to leave in my office. See, the rain today didn't start until mid-afternoon so I was already on campus. I was wearing ballet flats, which really aren't the best footwear when the street has become more like a river. If I had an extra pair of wellies stashed in my office, I could just pop them on when there is a surprise rain storm.

4. I can't type the word "nature." This is a problem since my thesis is on the depiction of landscape and how it influences identity. I have to type "nature" fairly frequently. I keep typing "natuer." I finally set my Pages auto-correct to just change it automatically.

5. I can remind myself of why I'm here by simply reading Anne Michaels. All doubts that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing are immediately erased. Even if the stress remains.

An Apple A Day Keeps The Doctor Away

Everyone around me is getting sick. Well, okay, that is a bit of an overstatement, but it certainly seems as if an unusually large number of people are ill at the moment. Since I have next to no immune system (if someone I spend time with gets sick I am almost guaranteed to get whatever they have) this concerns me. I've already been sick once this semester so I have no real desire to get another cold. Maybe I'll be lucky and whatever is going around right now is what I already had.

I'm allergic to apples though, so this particular adage doesn't really help me out too much. But it does make for a decent blog post. I took this picture in Lacombe and am rather fond of it. I enjoy playing around with different ways of framing things, and find that I am a particular fan of having the focus of a picture off to the side or in a corner. That's definitely one of the reasons that I like this picture. I also like that it is a slightly different subject than I typically photograph. Any time I take a lot of pictures you can almost guarantee that most of them will be of flowers, and although this isn't the biggest departure from that (still being a plant and in a garden and all) I like having some different things to photograph.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

Today was the first day back at school. I absolutely love this time of year. Everyone is still excited to see each other, classes haven't started to get stressful yet, it's autumn so the weather is lovely and the fashion is awesome, there are new books and notebooks and pens...everything about this part of the year makes me smile. I know I'm a dork, but I'm totally okay with that. Besides, someone has to be excited about academics. Although apparently once you get into senior level classes the profs stop taking it easy the first few days. In first year classes the first day is usually just going through the syllabus, maybe having a minor class discussion, but that is pretty much it. Second year is similar. By third year you usually have to stay for the full class time and have an actual intellectual discussion. But in fourth year they apparently start assigning homework on the first day. It's like the profs figure you've been at this long enough that you no longer need an adjustment period. For example, in the one class I had today I was informed that I need to read all of Great Expectations and write a one page reflection on the character of Pip by next Wednesday. Crikey.

Funny story from class today. Well, I think it is funny at least. So since I'm at a small school and there are not that many four year English majors, we pretty much all know each other (there are only nine people in the class I had today). We are all sitting there at the start of class and our prof (who we also know really well) comes in and jokingly says "Well, you guys don't know each other at all! You should really introduce yourselves." We are all laughing about this when suddenly some random guy walks into the class. I turned to the girl next to me and asked "How is there someone in this class we don't know?" and you could see that everyone else was asking each other the same thing. We were floored. Turns out he was a first year who was lost and looking for his intro English class. I would have felt bad for the guy except that when he discovered he was in the wrong class he made it seem like it was somehow our fault for being in that classroom. That attitude lost him my sympathy. I just thought the timing of that was too great not to share though.

In honour of back-to-school, I have here a picture of an apple. A crab apple on my parents' neighbours' tree to be specific. How did apples get associated with teachers anyway? Whenever I think about apples the first thing that pops into my head is "An apple a day keeps the doctor away". So why is it traditional to give your teacher an apple? Why are there so many ridiculous knick knacky gifts for teacher that are apple shaped or have pictures of apples on them? Intriguing...

By the way, sorry about the sparse posting lately. Since moving I've been dealing with unpacking, catching up with people, slow internet (the thought of uploading pictures scares me, although this situation should be remedied on Saturday when we get our high-speed installed), working Regestration Confirmation and the ensuing exhaustion, and a delightful cold to top it all off. Hopefully I will soon be resuming a more normal posting schedule.