Plant Ag xmas party!

Our departmental "holiday party" was mid December, just a few days after my defense. It was a busy week for me, because I was prepping for my defense, then I had to organize a baking party to get our Christmas treats ready, then there was our annual Secret Santa party where said treats were disseminated, and then there was the Christmas party.

The party was being held at Atmosphere cafe this year, and although I was a bit hesitant because of the layout of the restaurant (long and skinny), it seemed to work out pretty well. We had our projector set up for a rotating picture slideshow.

And a fun addition was the return of Santa himself! He had been amiss for a couple years, but we decided to bring him back, with Greta and myself as his personal elf assistants!

Rudolph managed to make it in to enjoy some of the festivities as well!
There was good food (although I hardly got to eat any of it) and a great crowd of people. We gave away door prizes and prizes to go with our trivia questions. There was some fun dancing in the back of the restaurant, and of course heading downtown afterwards for more drinks and dancing!

My post-defense self was a lot more relaxed and definitely excited about being able to drink and celebrate, but my regular self didn't allow myself up later than 1am, so I definitely had to go home and call it a night.

United Way baked goodness

Every year, my university has a campus wide Fall semester campaign to raise money for United Way. It's sort of a competition between departments/colleges on campus where we each have campaigning goals to reach. I always partake in the events that involve food and prizes. This one had both.

Jeremy and Greta came over to make some delicious treats to have at our International Coffee Break.

Greta wasn't going to make anything but Jeremy was stoked about these oreo chocolate truffle things. Whatevs, I can help him make stuff but am not in charge of what he wanted to make. I, however, wanted to make a Linzer torte.

blackberry Linzer torte bars

There were some mistakes made but I'd say they turned out great! My tortes were a little denser than I think they're supposed to be, but I used all whole wheat flour to make it a little bit healthier. The oreo truffles turned into white chocolate oreo truffles, but they worked fantastic.

We also raised over $300 for United Way with our coffee break! Go us!

Ice cream social!

This year, the GSLC decided to hold an ice cream social fundraiser to get some money for the upcoming orientation BBQ.

It was quite a success, although there was a lot of ice cream leftover. Nothing is better than $1 ice cream cones being served to you from right outside the front steps of your building!

Plant Ag BBQ!

Our yearly summer BBQ has come and gone. This year, we were lucky enough to get Eric Lyons back with his magnificent pulled pork. Unfortunately, that meant that the entire BBQ this year was catered by us and a lot of prep work had to go into it.

I spent the night before the BBQ in the kitchen lab making the potato salad. I spent 4 hours on my feet to make it, and Adam helped me for 3 hours as well. 7 hours of combined labour later, I was so spent I fell right asleep, only to have to actually organize the BBQ the next day.

Everyone did such a great job with everything, it was perfectly organized and we had so many prizes and games for everyone's enjoyment. Plus we sold out of tickets, and actually went over our expected count!

Hurray for the beautiful cooperative weather and another great summer event =)

Relay for Life

Another year, another Relay.

I'm so glad it's over for this year! No more hectic planning and rushing to answer dozens of emails!

It was a huge success (on my part, at least). With 47 registered survivors as of 9pm Thursday night, we welcomed a whopping 57 survivors on Friday at by 7pm! And with handfuls of pre-registered survivors not being in attending, that pushed our registration numbers to nearly 70! So close to our set goal of 75 registered survivors!


Thank you to all the wonderful survivors for coming, to everyone for helping out and getting such wonderful food to serve and for making the organization a success!

Halloween corn ma(i)ze

For Halloween, Ildi and I organized a trip to the corn maze through the GSLC. We had it all planned out with pizza dinner being provided before we all headed out the 15 minute drive to Strom's Farm between Guelph and K-W.

It was a lot of fun, and it wasn't too cold out either. A bit nippy outside, but running around in the (albiet very wet) maze in the dark with just flashlights made it that much more fun. A total of 12 of us went to the maze, and I think we ended up breaking off into 4 groups: Kris and Amy, Raj and Chut, a very big group of Ildi, Kendra, Carolyne, Ann, Siobhan and Rob, and Adam and myself. Not to step up on a high horse or anything, but we definitely finished well ahead of the pack - I think it took us less than 25 minutes to get through it all and solve the scrambled word. woohoo!

After waiting to gather the troops, we all gathered around a picnic table with our random collection of apple cider cups and (HUGE) home made ice cream sandwiches before heading back to campus.

Although the corn maze wasn't decorated haunted like the one down the road, it was still a lot of fun. Running around the maze with friends trying to 'beat' each other, and the friendly sneers as we pass each other in the maze. =]

Hope in the City

Ann and I both volunteer with the Canadian Cancer Society as committee members for Relay for Life. On top of that though, we sometimes get called to help out on other events. One such one would be the Hope in the City evening event for ladies. It was being held October 27 at the Holiday Inn, and it was a dinner/dance event thing for cancer survivors, with the overarching theme of beating cancer and keeping the hope.

As part of the evening, there is a fashion show courtesy of Bianca Nygard fashion line. Ann and I were part of this line up, so we got to spend the evening changing in and out of a couple outfits and strutting out stuff on the "runway"!

We had a lot of fun doing so, despite not really liking the clothes that much. It's always fun to play dress up and have people look at you in pretty clothes! =)

beeeeezeeeeee

I know I post about this a lot, but I actually am really busy. Aside from this past Thursday until now, I have spent most of the last 3 weeks in the lab. Aka., I have 12+ hour days indoors where I wouldn't see the sun if it weren't for windows.

On top of doing work in the lab, it's pedal to the metal for orientation day in my department. Ildiko has been super busy doing her work, so I've been pushing my limit and doing GSLC logistical and organizational things in the evenings.

When I'm not doing either of those things, I can either be found sleeping, or sacrificing my sleep to hang out with friendse and catch up. Talk about not having a moment to spare!

I will get back into the blogging when I come up with the time. In the meantime, filler posts will take up most of my webspace.

Stay tuned...

School!

It's been a busy week!

Monday: I was interviewed by one of the communications people on campus for the newsletter AtGuelph. I had completely forgot about it, so I wore the stupidest of all shirts this day. A complete "fmylife" moment, as he needed photos of me for the article.

Tuesday: Potato Research Day at Elora Research Station, I was scheduled for a presentation. Although not a scientific meeting, it still marks my first public presentation on my work, in a setting outside the department/school.

Wednesday: I had to weed my plot site at Simcoe today without any help because everyone was seconded to the daffodil plot. Difficult! It was super hot and it was super weedy. But at the end of the day, I was able to pick up a big bag of peaches and edamame beans to take home. Rob stopped by later too and dropped of a bunch of ears of corn for me too. Yay!

Thursday: The social committee hosting the annual summer BBQ today, there was a ton of work to do. I decided to sleep in a bit after a few early starts this week already. I got everything packed up and loaded in Gale's car as we zip over to the GTI to set up. It was super busy and I was running around trying to get everything done and keep everyone pre-occupied with games after the BBQ. I'd say it was a success as everyone had a good time, and a couple of the prizes of wine were cracked open in the intense heat.

Friday: yay for tomorrow and going to the cottage! I'm excited to spend the weekend at the lake soaking up some sun and relaxing!

Relay for Life

Relay for Life happened Friday 7pm to Saturday 7am at Guelph Conversation Lake. Ann and I got there just before 330 and started helping out randomly - her at registration and myself at survivors. It was going to be a long long night...

I was so glad the reception turned out well. Our food arrived to us safely and everyone indulged in that. The flower arrangements donated by Sweet Violets were cute little things that we decorated the tables with. All the survivors were happy to have our little reception for them, and our manicurist did a great job treating them right!

Group photo of the survivors group!

Alisha arrived some time after 6 to get ready for her 630 set. Unfortunately, there weren't as many people as I thought to be milling about ready with open ears to listen to her. The up side, is that since she was singing the anthem and some other songs afterward too, she got her nice little introduction read by Kevin the Magic FM personality and everyone was definitely there to listen to her sing then.


Some of the committee went on stage to do the warm up dances as well, to get everyone pepped up and ready to get on the track. We did the "cha cha slide" and a Black Eyed Peas number. Some cute little kids ended up on stage with Kim too, dancing around for the warm up.

The survivor and caregivers' laps were completed with the help of the bag piper Neil Forbes, Alisha for singing some inspirational songs, and the cancer survivors namelist was read aloud. Start your relay!

Throughout the evening there were plenty of activities to keep everyone going. We have volleyball nets set up, frisbees, arts and crafts and the like. I found this crazy blue-man at the volleyball nets early in the night goofing around playing badminton. I don't know how he could see me!

There were plenty more activies during the night, which is the main causal agent of my sleep deprivation. I am not part of the activities committee but I somehow ended up seconded to that area. Ann was keeping the movies in the survivor tent down pat, since she wanted to watch them all anyways. She was popping them all in and out and going through them like nothing. I ended up helping Greg and Alex out with activities, rounding up kids, going around the track with the megaphone and announcing activities on the microphone.

The kids were so energetic! After I announced the scavenger hunt on the mic, I thought they would be far enough and widespread enough for me to catch some precious zzzs. I headed to the volunteer sleep tent, but couldn't get to sleep (#37 of my DayZero list). I must have dozed off for a bit, because I was woken up at 330 to Alex and Shauna in the next tent. Greeaatt...

I got up and headed back to the activities field where Greg was still up, looking absolutely exhausted. Jordan was there as well and he was a great help to everything. Greg wanted a break, so he went off and I tried to rally the troops again for some more fun. We did egg carrying races and they wanted to play Simon Says. Finally, to get out of having to hand out prizes, I got them all playing Red Rover. BAD idea with kids nowadays. They are STRONG!

Greg eventually came back, as did Alex and Shauna, when the sun was coming up. I sent some of the girls off with a soccer ball and we began take down. We made it through the night!

Take down was quicker than normal years. We were virtually done by 8am! That meant... free time to goof around! We went around to pick up all the stakes marking the parking spots, and decided it would be fun to have the caution tape drag like a veil at the back of the golf cart. We also weren't supposed to let Jordan ride on the cart like that for safety violations, but we never "told" him to do that...


Can't wait for next year's Relay!