Grad School...

Hmm...where do I begin? Well, moving here to Hamilton was sorta hectic as most of you know. However, since the title of this post says "Grad School," I feel obliged to specifically write about grad school. How is grad school so far you ask?

Well...McMaster had a TA Day this past Wednesday (a day of workshops organized to help TAs better improve their pedagogy) and I met a lot of other grad students. At the end of the day, each grad department had their own departmental session so I was able to meet the other 20 students in my program as well as the director and associate director of the Institute of Globalization and the Human Condition. People came from pretty impressive backgrounds so I was a little bit intimidated but there was a free dinner offered for TAs at one of the campus' pubs so I went.

It turned out that most of the people from my program also went so I sat with them. I must say, we had some intense/interesting conversations already on the first day. Well, maybe not terribly intense but it was interesting. We talked about some of the issues and questions I've had since my undergrad so I was relieved to hear other people being concern about the same things as I was.

And then today was a night of good fortune. So I attend this workshop the other day about CUPE 3906 (the union I belong to now that I'm a TA) and it incited my interest about joining. I knew from their flyers and announcements that they were having a social tonight so I decided against returning home to collect some of the things I forgot last weekend and decided instead to attend this social. I was pretty nervous about it because I knew that I would know no one. And you know what? I really didn't know a single bloody person when I walked into that door. It was so awkward at first that I automatically considered walking back out. The only thing that kept me from doing so was the fact that someone had already seen me walk in.

Anyway, after a long period of awkwardness and standing by myself with my spring roll and samosa and bottle of water, people started coming up to me to ask me questions. And before long, it got a lot better! I met a whole bunch of other grad students in other fields. I found two grad students who were alumni from my Globalization program so it was immensely interesting to hear their perspectives about the program. So I made some friends tonight but the best thing was that I won the raffle for an ipod shuffle!!! Can you believe my turn of good fortune? (Oh, I also won a beer mug at the TA Bash)

Annnnd, that's not all. I now have plans for tomorrow morning. And I thought I was going to sit home all day on Saturday and stare at my walls. Yay for me!