SORRY I HAVEN'T UPDATED IN A WHILE GUYS.

I have been waiting until I had some free time and was also in a fairly good mood, since I feel like my last couple of entries were particularly whiny. Sorry about that guys. I still love Canada. Promise.

The last three weeks have also been incredibly hectic. First I had the last week of classes, which included three 1500 word essays and frantically trying to catch up on my reading so that I wouldn't have to still be finishing it when I was supposed to be studying for my exams. That didn't work out so well. But I managed to finish the essays to an acceptable standard and get them in on time, so I was pretty proud of myself.

The weekend after that was more or less a non-event. I slept a lot. I went out with some friends. I finished one of the aforementioned books. There is still quite some reading to be done.

But I have now finished my two hardest exams, and I'm in such a great mood! My first exam was American Literature, last friday - it was tough, but I thought I did okay. My professor is a genius and a huge troll. Either that or he just genuinely doesn't realise that most of us don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of all nine texts on our course after our first readings. So his exam was pretty intense, and involved three hours of more or less straight writing, but I finished it and did not die. Today I had Canadian History at 8.30 in the morning after five days of studying with my friend. I honestly had almost given up on that one last night when I was still reading through my flashcards and blanking on things. The course was like a blur. But unlike Mr American Lit this professor was very, very gentle with us and basically all the essay questions were things like 'describe things about the economy in the 19th century'. So given the circumstances the essay was necessarily going to involve some level of bluffing, but I actually knew most of what I was writing about, and that exam could have been a lot, lot worse.

After the exam I was sort of exhausted, having gotten up at 6.45, so I sat in the library and read for a while. Then one of my best friends came to meet me, and we talked for a while, and then another of my best friends happened upon us and the two of them got to meet for the first time, which was excellent, and then a while later I went to hang out with another of my very good friends and talk about the exam and get some delicious Mexican food. Later we stopped by the Salvation Army and I found some excellent shoes and then I came home to find out I got an A- on one of the shocking essays I handed in last week, which I'd been really worried about, and this is fantastic news because it means I've already passed Canadian History and I don't have to worry about it any more :) Now I just have to finish Northanger Abbey and madly revise all my English notes for my two exams on Monday, and then I'll finally be done for the year.

I had to say goodbye to someone for the first time a couple of days ago, and it was tough. This person was not a BEST friend, but a good friend, and since he's going back to Japan now and we have no real plans to be in the same place in the foreseeable future, it was a somewhat permanent kind of goodbye. My first of that kind. It made me very sad and it made it hard to study that night. This really worries me because I just know when Melanie leaves in a couple of days I'm going to be really gutted, even though I'll only have a couple of days here without her, and then before long I'll be saying goodbye to everyone and it will just break my heart. But what can you do? This is why there is skype I suppose.

In the meantime I am doing my best to stay cheerful and enjoy my last few days here, even with the on-going hot water issues (on the bright side I just got issued a cheque for $220 in compensation - couldn't have come at a better time, that's my christmas budget pretty much) and the fact that honestly, I'm a bit sick of this room now. I try to do all my studying in communal spaces and libraries, because being alone in my room just makes me depressed and unproductive. I end up on facebook a lot.

Almost done with the semester, and before long I will being seeing all of you again!