Today is Day 12 of my winter holiday break.

Tomorrow is Day 13 of my winter holiday break.

Which is also my last day of winter holiday break as term 2 (which has, as of today, been paid for!) starts on Monday.

Which means I’ll be waking up at 5:00am in order to go to school (on time) because I have a class at 8am.

(Which also means that I will cry as I will no longer be able to sleep in, and I’ll have to go to bed at a decent time. And also cry because I only had 13 days off. I know many someones who had 20+ days off. I hate loathe dislike envy you all.)

Actually, I start at 8am on Tuesdays as well. Along with Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Fudge.*

I’m taking four classes this (very) upcoming term:

Invertebrates biology – really looking forward to this class as it involves awesome things like worms, insects, crustaceans, etc. I took Vertebrates Biology last year, term 1, and absolutely loved the class – this one is similarly structured

Vascular plants biology – also really looking forward to this class, I took the ‘sister class’ [Non-Vascular Plants] in term 1 and loved it, and the teaching team!

Cell Biology II– essentially an introduction to biochemistry – I liked Cell Biology I, which I had just finished, so this should be interesting!

Calculus – ahem, retaking this and incredibly determined to kick ass**, and abuse my professor’s office hours and tutorial time, for this class

12 hours of lectures per week, along with 6 hours of lab time (for Invertebrates and Vascular Plants). Coupled with a total of 5.5 hours of breaks (spread out throughout all days, of course) and 3 hours of travel time per day. Making it a grand total of 38.5 hours per week for school and travel. Not including studying time, of course. Haven’t bought any of my textbooks yet (still waiting for the booklist to update, as there’s no textbook listed for Cell Biology II) and I know I will have to at least buy a textbook for calculus (a little difficult to do my homework without it, I would think).

And now, the end of my school talk – because I’ll be posting about what I think of my new professors on Monday/Tuesday.

I went out with one of my sisters (D) and my mom today, we had to go to the bank (to pay for my tuition – my school is, thankfully, awesome and hooked up with one of the major banking institutions so I can authorize a direct deposit into the school’s account with my money… I also suddenly feel poor) and then to the mall.

First off, at Zellers there was still some holiday stuff that hadn’t been sold yet. On Boxing Day, my mom said it was at 50% off. Today, well, being as it is January 2nd… everything was at 90%.

Look! Gnome ornaments! From left to right: gnome with frog, gnome with turtle and mushroom, gnome with mushrooms, gnome with squirrel and mushroom. Original price was $1.99/each, they rang up at $0.20/each. Swoon. I love these. When I first found them (found the one with the squirrel first) I held it up to my sister and went “LOOK! It’s a denomic looking gnome with a squirrel and a SHROOM!”. Now I no longer think they look denomic, they just look awesome.

Other wonderful holiday goodies that were deeply discounted including a snowman nightlight (my mom found it, it rang up at $0.01 but apparently they weren’t supposed to sell it at that price and it wasn’t even supposed to be available to us, but we got it for $0.20 as well), a door hanger that says ‘Welcome’ and has a snowman, a penguin and a ‘Santa’ hanging below it in a row (original $12.99, paid $1.30), two boxes of dull silver glass ornaments (original $3.99, paid $0.40/box), taper candles! (original $1.50, paid $0.10/each) and, the best find of all, this musical figurine! When you wind it up, a little penguin spins around and it plays the tune of “We Wish You A Merry Christmas”. We later found out that it was missing another ‘dancer’, but the original price was $24.99 and we paid $2.50 for it so my mom just said that the other dancer was too expensive for us (given that it was nearly $22, hehehe).

We had 4 bags of things. All of the things mentioned above plus 6 boxes of cereal. In total, we spent < $18 at Zellars (and $12 was on the cereal). Oh, how I love discounted holiday goodies. Especially formerly referred to as denomic gnomes with squirrels on their backs holding onto giant shrooms.

Besides holiday goodies shopping, the Disney Store in the mall was closing.

So naturally I went in. And naturally I ooohed and ahhhed over cute Disney-related things.

And naturally I may have bought some things.

Like those? The mini Wall-E in the front I had originally (I actually bought two! One was given to Clay as part of his birthday gift last year and I kept the other one, because I wanted one.). I got Eve (Eeeee-vah?), “U-Repair Wall-E” (which has fully articulated hands! and opens up! and can move his head up and down and tilt all the way back! and zomg awesomeness!) and also Mo (Microbe Obliterator). I figured if I was getting a (bigger) Wall-E and wanted to get an Eve to go with him, I couldn’t leave Mo behind, right?

After all, it’s really funny to hold him up to my sister and go “foreign contaminant” in a robotic-ish voice. I am an awesome sister, she threw a cushion at my head.

But they are just so much fun. My sister arranged this scene after they were all out of their packaging:

Clearly Eve looks like she’s hormonal and looking to kill something.

Other purchases include clothes (boring things, you wouldn’t be interested and I wouldn’t want you to be all like “omg, you bought WHAT? You cannot wear those in public” like my sister did) and grocery-type foods.

All in all, it was a fairly good day. Got to spend with my sister and my mom, pay for school (bleh), ransack the dregs of holiday clearance, hunt through Disney Store goods and go clothes shopping. Oh, as well as getting the most delicious ice cream ever in a waffle cone (chocolate hazelnut with a sprinkling of chocolate shavings on top… in a waffle cone).

Anyways…. I hope everyone had an awesome day today. And if you’ve read all of this, you deserve a cookie (or two).

* Honestly, I should have used something stronger here, but my sister has made me a bet that I can’t a day without swearing. So I’m trying my darnest not to swear. It’s not working out very well for me as now I really want fudge.

** I don’t consider ‘ass’ to be a curse word. I know some people do, and more power to you. But honestly, another phrase for a donkey is an ass. And that thing you sit on? Same thing. Cheers!