Seeing the Light at the End of the Tunnel

As most of you know this semester has been the hardest yet for all of us! But I'm feeling that we can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. Last week was filled with three research papers and an essay take-home final due (YES, all in one week!!). In the midst of all these projects being written, there were other activities that occurred. I seriously didn't know how much more I could handle. So last week that "light" felt like the light was on the train that had just hit me! But as I turned that last paper in on Friday, I felt a huge weight lift off my shoulders. I feel like this whole semester I have been very spread thin and my classes have pulled me in every direction. Basically, I feel like I have put my life on hold. Now all that's left of this semester is Finals Week (one final on Monday and one on Wednesday). Pray for all of us as we had all reached our ropes' end last week and we're trying to recover to make it through this last week!

TMBA 2009-2010 Enrollment!!!

Its that time of year again. AH, April. The time for deadlines--not just for taxes, but also for the 2009-2010 TMBA program!! April 15 is the soft deadline for the program to get things turned in such as resume, letter of intent, transcripts, etc. If you are at all interested, please go talk to me or someone in the MBA office at WKU! Dr. Hatfield and I will be on WBKO AM Live tomorrow morning promoting the program! It won't hurt you to wake up a little bit earlier in the morning to listen to what WKU's MBA programs have to offer you to further your education to enhance your future careers!!!

In addition, I would like to re-post a comment made on my blog by one of my awesome friends, who happens to be one of the Canadian students in the TMBA program this year:

"Hey everyone, if you’re thinking about signing up, please do! It’s an awesome experience, especially if you haven’t travelled that much in your life. It’s the perfect time to do it, and for those of you who have a girlfriend/boyfriend and are scared of the distance … almost all of us have left someone back home and it only makes your relationship stronger and more meaningful, honestly! I look forward in meeting the new TMBA group in September 2009; I will be in Moncton New Brunswick so you will see me around :)" --Shannon, TMBA 2008-2009

Thanks Shannon for your comment! And everyone else, feel free to comment...it encourages me to post more often. ;)

Remember, WBKO AM Live tomorrow, April 14!!

Updates from WKU

I'd like to take this time to update all my blog readers on what has been going on this semester. And I'd like to apologize for not updating as frequently as I did in Canada...its quite different to write about things happening in my home country versus the new experiences that happened daily in Canada! haha! Here's the rundown:

One of our first activities as a group here in the States was venturing to Mariah's--my favorite restaurant in Bowling Green. It was nice for us all to get together before classes started without the added stress of coursework looming on our shoulders. Every restaurant that they go to here, they make the same comment about how LARGE American portions are!

They also experienced their VERY FIRST basketball game EVER!! Its awesome to witness some of these "first" experiences. Here's Shannon and me at halftime:

One unusually warm day in February, one of the WKU full-time MBA students, Tom, took us caving in a cave he has in his backyard. Unfortunately for us, it had rained the day before and once we had climbed through the cave for a while the water got up to our chests! Needless to say, we couldn't go further...unless we wanted to swim in super cold cave water with fish and cave crickets! =/ Check out our super cool headlamps...yeah, we're pro splunkers!

St. Patty's Day, some 0f my Kappa Delta friends were getting together at Double Dogs. So I brought the girls there with me. And guess what--they don't celebrate St. Patrick's Day in Canada...and they didn't have ANY green clothing! We refrained from pinching them--only cause they were new to the holiday.

March also brought three TMBA birthdays: Shannon, David, and Pepe. We had a birthday celebration POUTINE-STYLE! If you can remember, poutine is the amazing food they have in Canada (fries, gravy, and cheese curds). Julie had gotten the special poutine gravy sauce brought to her by some of her visiting friends. Can I just say, OH how I have missed poutine!! Here's David cutting his cake, sporting the WKU Sunbelt Champs shirt that us girls got him! GO TOPS!

One week, the Canadian girls were quite stressed...so I decided to brighten their moods and take them shopping in Nashville. Retail therapy always works! We had an awesome time shopping, exploring downtown Nashville, eating dessert at the Melting Pot, and pretending to be cowgirls! Gen, don't kill me for putting this up--I still think you should be in a country music video with that look!

We're trying to fit in as many things as we can with school going on. We're gonna keep on exploring, and hopefully I can keep witnessing their "first" experiences!

A New Semester

After a VERY long break (1 month and 1 week!!!) and several personal travels in-between, we are back in school for our second semester of the TMBA! This semester brings us to my home court: WKU!!! And although I absolutely LOVED being in Canada, I must admit that I am happy to be in familiar settings with familiar people. School started last Monday, which ended up being a very busy week.



But the week before was even crazier with all the Canadian students and Mexican students arriving to the States. Each one seemed to have an adventurous story of their travels to the States, my favorite one being where one of the Canadian girls got stuck in the Toronto airport because the lady at UdeM told her that she needed the COPY of her Student Visa to go through customs (not the original). This caused her to be in a "holding room" for what seemed like hours with U.S. customs staring at her like she was a criminal. After a while, they finally let her go through, but by that time she had already missed her flight. In the meantime, I was already in Nashville ready to pick her up from the airport when I got a call from her (she was unable to use her phone in the "holding" room)! Since there are only two flights that go to Nashville from Toronto each day, she had to wait at the airport for 10 hours!!!

All the students seem to really love Bowling Green (and the States in general...they think Nashville looks like Vegas...NASHVegas!). They are living in really nice, off-campus apartments, but they are so close to campus that they are able to walk to class--a huge plus since (just like me in Canada) they have no cars here. But they have met a friend here that owns a limo...so that has been their preferred method of travel! The Mexicans even went to WalMart in the limo...I wish I had a picture to post from that!

This semester already seems a bit harder than the Canadian semester. We have research papers in almost all of our classes. The other students have already expressed concern about this because, as you know, English is not their first language. Time will tell what this semester has in store for us!

Trilingual Birthday

Bonne Fete-Happy Birthday-Feliz Cumpleanos

Today is my birthday--and I'm celebrating it here in Canada by studying for a final! Last night the whole TMBA group went to eat at The Keg--an awesome restaurant in downtown Moncton--to celebrate my birthday. It was so great for us to have a really nice meal all together. It will probably be our last meal all together before the spring semester. I was treated to wine, dinner, dessert, and a UdeM hoodie. But my favorite moment was the group singing me "Happy Birthday" in 3 languages! You can't get that from just a regular MBA program...

Have a wonderful day!!!

WOW! Can you believe this semester is almost over? My last class at the Universite de Moncton was yesterday. Now only two finals--Wednesday and Friday--and its over. This semester went by so fast and I've had so much fun here in Canada! I'm sad to be leaving it in 11 days...there's so many more things that I wish we could have had time to do up here--like the Bay of Fundy, Hopewell Rocks, snowboarding, etc. But I'm also very excited to see everyone at home!

I know that I have two "A's" so far (which I'm very proud of), and I'm very anxious to see how these next two finals go to determine my grade for those classes. Yesterday we had lunch with the Dean, Assistant Dean, and the head honcho of the MBA programs at UdeM. We had a very nice lunch at Graffiti's. It was great to get together and hear their feelings on how the semester went. The faculty up here has been so warm and welcoming. Their openness really helped foster a great learning environment and made it easy to go to them with questions or concerns. Big thanks to them for being so wonderful!!

Now, back to studying for my last two finals!

Adding to my list...

I have a few things I'd like to add to my list of "Things I Find Funny in Canada" from a previous post...

• I saw my first moose...dead on the side of the road!


• Runners will still run in 2 feet of snow (witnessed this today)...pure dedication!


• No salt on sidewalks...does everyone have spikes on their shoes or what?


• Bus system still runs even when the roads have not been plowed yet


• Snow plowers clear driveways, not just streets!


• People wear ice skates to work...ok, just kidding about that one, although it might not be a bad idea!

Where's the SnowBird Report?

The first snow in Moncton is much different than the first snow in Bowling Green. We had our first snow this week--about 6 inches! I'm pretty sure this was the same day that I saw every Facebook profile from Bowling Green saying it was snowing there too. So while the dusting MIGHT have stuck a little bit on the ground in BG, we got a heap of it! It felt very strange going to class with this much snow...in KY I would be anxiously watching the SnowBird report to see what all was cancelled! The university had not put salt or anything on the sidewalks so they were complete sheets of ice. Couple that with the hill I have to walk up to get to class--not a safe combination!

Last night we went to a Junior Hockey League game...guys 16-20 years old participate in this league right before they get drafted by the NHL. So it was a lot of fun...well, minus the part where someone's head got slashed open by a skate! When we were leaving the game, you could tell from the sky that another snow storm was waiting to unleash its fury! I woke up this morning to what looks like 2 feet of snow. I say "looks like" because I haven't actually been out in it...my inner KY self has kept me inside the safe quarters of my room just like I would if it had snowed 2 feet in KY; while I know that normal Canadian citizens are going about their normal lives--because this is normal to them! I've said it once, and I'll say it again: it looks like its going to be a cold winter!

While its so white and pristine outside, I know the ice is there...let's just say that beauty can sometimes be treacherous!

The Adventure to Mont Tremblant

Warning: This is a long story...

Fall Break provided a little bit more adventure than any of us expected. Ten hours of driving to get to Montreal was enough, but we had no idea that our journey had just begun!! We spent the first couple of days in downtown Montreal. Such a beautiful place teeming with people! And lots of great shopping! The wind was intense there, so the extreme chill in the air was almost painful. None of us were prepared for that much cold...and then it started snowing. No big deal, not too much snow...in the city. But as we started to drive towards the mountains to reach Mont Tremblant, the snow in the air got thicker and the ground got whiter. We were definitely not equipped for this unexpected encounter with snow--no snowshoes, no heavy coats, no shovels, no ice-scraper, and of course, our rental van wasn't equipped with winter tires! As we reached the top of the mountain where our cabin was, we realized the snow was pretty deep--about 18 inches (or more in some places)! It was very hard to find our cabin's driveway and as we pulled into the drive, through a large snowbank (at least 2.5 feet deep), our van got stuck! At midnight! With no other occupied cabins nearby! As we were using our MBA brains to plan how to get the van unstuck, Genevieve realized we were at the wrong cabin! So, us girls started walking in the deep snow to find the correct cabin. This was straight out of one of those "20/20" specials where you see the abandoned hikers lost in the snow and an avalanche comes down and buries them alive...I will admit, I was scared! My imagination was going wild. With the thick snow clouds covering the moon, there was nothing to guide us, only pure white all around...very easy to lose your sense of direction! We finally find the correct cabin, only to realize there was no power!! And the lighter we found (by using our cell phones for light) was out of fluid...so we couldn't even light a fire in the fireplace! The boys ended up giving up on the van, so we had to go search for them to show the the way to the correct cabin. We decided this crazy nightmare would go away much quicker if we all just went to sleep and we would at least have sunlight in the morning. The power ended up coming back on the next day...and we had a wonderful fall break there. We had lots of studying to do (a huge midterm was the following week), but also had a lot of fun building snowmen, having snow fights, and visiting the ski village.

How's that for a Canadian experience?

Coming Soon, but Never Soon Enough: Fall Break...

Next week is fall break. WKU, learn from UdeM and give students a whole week for fall...that would be so lovely! Our group is packing our bags and heading west...west to Quebec!! I'm very excited about this trip. People say its beautiful. We will be staying in downtown Montreal for a couple nights, and then traveling up north to stay in the scenic mountains for a few days. I believe this is where a lot of Quebec-natives go vacationing to snowboard in the winter. We're staying close to a small village (the way they described this to me reminds me of those small ski resorts in Colorado). I don't think there will be any snow when we're there. Although, the weather forecast for Moncton has snow in it for Wednesday (yes, THIS Wednesday!). This is the perfect time to figure out if my Ugg boots are waterproof...before we get a big snow! Be ready for tons of pictures from Fall Break, Quebec-style!

Oh, and you know that huge paper I was stressin' about? I got a 99%...

YES!!!!