I'm going through this terrible awkward stage of being fed up with group work. Maybe it's just my ego but I just want to take parts of the project they've done and re-do them all. And this is coming from someone who has very little confidence in her own work. I just feel like our paper at the moment isn't saying anything and it's driving me crazy. If I re-do it it's like the group member who wrote it did almost nothing for this project. And she's lovely as a friend so I don't want to make it awkward by doing something like that. This is making me way more stressed out about this project then I should be.

Other than that things are fine. I just want another study break to make up for these last few days of intense studying/homework I've been doing. I got nothing done at home and if it weren't for the extension given in one class I would really be loosing it right now.

Either way, the database project ends tomorrow. But the whole week is going to be crazy still. Trivia night on Tuesday, Swing on Wednesday, Social on Thursday and midterm on Friday. Then this weekend will be devoted to the postponed paper. This program is becoming an actual challenge of time management. But only because of my own choices, the only thing on this weeks list that isn't option is the midterm but that won't stop me from going to all the other things.

I need things to write about in my library blog. I haven't even cooked anything new since I haven't had time or energy to go buy more supplies.

The last two days have been brutal technologically wise.

( Technological Difficulties Story )

Tomorrow is the first SLA committee meeting (Special Library Association). This is the only student group that coincides with my interests and my availability so I'm going to it with the hopes of running for one of the open positions. Or all of the positions, we'll see how it goes. So I'm pretty nervous about it because people keep saying that library school can be pretty flat so it's best to get experience working on a committee to add to your resume and if I don't get in here I'm kind of out of options. But also on Tuesday there is a SLA kick off that involves professionals and students in a formal setting which I'm attending. Sadly my blazer apparently didn't make it to Montreal with the rest of my wardrobe :( Now I need to find another way to dress formally. Bridesmaid dress? Too formal? Augh, fashion choices.

So that's me trying to be a part of the library community. And now all the class projects are starting to become real, which means meeting with group members and getting stuff done. I've never really worked in a group for a university project, so this will take some getting used too.

And now that September is here my brain has pretty much turned NaNo brainstorming on full blast. It's been a while since I've written anything, I've had very few new ideas in the last few months and many doubts about even participating. But I guess this time of year just brings back that rush of November excitement and now I'm stoked to be writing again. Even if I do fail miserably due to school commitments. Which adds an extra dimension to the challenge, since I found that I had plenty of time during a normal November. But everything has changed now, now failure seems like a real possibility.

Strangest feeling while emailing with my mom about flights back to Winnipeg for Thanksgiving. I started to debate with myself about how long I wanted to be there and I thought it was strange to not just go for the longest amount of time possible. But I remembered that staying past the weekend means that everyone is just going to be back to work and school and I would just be sitting around at home, without most of my things.

Yes, it would be good sugar glider time, but would I feel like it was wasted time I could be spending at the library? Will I be able to be productive at home? Is staying longer just going to make it harder to leave again? Or am I going to be over come with that strange feeling that accompanies returning home, that feeling of not really belonging?

It's been way to short of a time to be contemplating these feelings already :/

So life is starting to take shape now. Routines are starting to form. (I love/hate routine but at the moment it's nice to have something to build off of).

I felt really crappy and homesick last weekend when I realized that I had a 4 day weekend to kill and no one to hang out with. So that was painful for a few days, especially when there wasn't much school work to be a distraction. But I got through Game of Thrones 3 and the long weekend.

I've been doing my best to latch onto any social library kids outings in my on going effort to make friends. My issue if that I can be terribly shy and a bad conversationalist at times. So first time conversations with someone don't go so well but second time conversation are pretty good! So I do my best to force myself out of the apartment and go to strange places that I've never been to. Like tonight I'm making my way down to the Botanical Gardens to see the Lantern Festival while only knowing the name of one of the people I'm meeting up with.

School is going okay I think. Doing my best to engross myself in the material, which is slowly starting to come together in my head. It's just a little frustrating to go from anthropology readings that are easy to grasp to having to learn a whole new field. My back has started to tense up already, which is normal for the start of the school year for me. Going from active summer to sitting around all day reading articles. Super happy that I packed my back heater thing!

On Friday night I tagged along to an Archives kids party. (The library program breaks down into 3 streams; Librarianship, Archives, and Knowledge Management (I'm in KM)). I've spent more time with kids outside my stream so far, they just come to the gatherings more often and are a little younger than the median age of the people in KM, I think. There are only a handful of us who are fresh out of undergrad in the whole program. The fun thing about library kids is that your conversation can somehow flow from True Blood to Ayn Rand. I've also met two people with Winnipeg backgrounds so far, it's kind of funny.

But now I need to actually find the best way to get to the gardens, read another article, make something for dinner and if I have time maybe write up a library blog post.

So this would be the list of questions I would ask new possible replacement friends if it didn't make me sound so crazy;

-How are you with personal space? Do you need it?
-Do you have a friend we can make fun of for being a pedophile but who is most certainly not a pedophile?
-What's your position on survival cannibalism?
-Does an afternoon spent watching cartoons and colouring with markers sound like fun to you?
-Do you like wearing costumes?

Given that today was the first day there were no definite answers to any of these questions.

I'm coming to understand that I should probably think of what I'm going to eat for dinner before leaving the house. Half the stuff I own is frozen and could use a day to defrost. And if I know there's no food in the house I can stop by the grocery store on the way back from school.

So far during orientation I've learnt which teachers I don't want to take classes with. And that I may be in the best subdivision!

Okay, last two days, let's finish this.

( Buenos Aires - Day 7 & 8 )

Met a bunch of new people last night, they're all nice and pretty cool, but at the same time being in a large group like that just made me miss my group. *wistful sigh* But the core of my group are set to show up late tomorrow night, so super excited about that \o/

I'm also starting to learn, after having been feeding myself for the last few days, is that it's not my lack of cooking experience that worries me food wise. It's that I look at food, wonder how long it's been in the fridge, contemplate if it's still edible, then eat it. So if I give myself food poisoning, I won't be too surprised :p

So I'm working on these travel posts without my travel journal so I hope I'm not missing anything interesting. Now that I think about it I don't think I even packed my travel journal...

( Buenos Aires - Day 6 )

So I'm just sitting around hoping to catch the FedEx guy to get what ever parcel they tried to drop off yesterday. Fingers crossed that it might be my Ikea desk delivery. I'm giving him till noon, after that I'm out of here, places to see, groceries to buy. But for now, I'll try and put another dent in travel posts.

( Buenos Aires - Weekend - Day 4 & 5 )