Merry Christmas and a Happy End of the Semester

This semester was AWESOME to say the least. I had some really amazing class and all the new students were so QUEST!!!! I never thought that first years would mold into the community as easily and fast as this group of students did. It was absolutely wonderful. And now seeing my fellow third years in their concentration program and pursuing their academic interests is definitely one of my favorite memories of this semester. All of them are so passionate about their questions and eager to tell fellow students about it.

I can't believe it's already Winter break! But I'll be back soon. But for now, I just want to wish everyone a happy holiday and new year....or decade even. Wow!

Sshhh.......It's a secret!

Now that the holidays are right around the corner, it's time to start all the holiday traditions.....Quest style. Yay!

We just had the traditional "decorating of the tree" at the Adventure Center downtown where quest students got together to decorate a tree to represent the quest community.



This year we also have a food donation for the local community happening on campus. I'm really excited for this because I love how the Quest community is trying to give back to the Squamish community. It's definitely a good way to use up the extra cafeteria meal money because you know it's going to a good cause.

Lastly, SECRET SANTA! yay! This year we are having a Quest Secret Santa. But oh no no, it's not like the normal secret santa where you buy gifts for your secret person. Nope, this is Quest style. Instead, through the month of December, each person participating has to do "Random Acts of Kindness" for their secret person. How awesome is that! Since it started, I have seen soooo many awesome acts of kindness around campus...some kinda odd. hahaha. Some include telling the cafeteria ladies to charge their secret person's meals to the secret santa's meal plan, poster's with comments about people on the walls, balloons and candy in the middle on the doors people's doors. It's truly amazing! It feels like we are coming closer as a community (if that is even possible, hahaha).

I love the Christmas season and having it at Quest makes it feel like I'm not missing out on it back home. I love it!

I'm feeling the Chemistry with Block 4!

So right now I'm in my final block of the semester, Organic Chemistry. And I have to tell you, I LOVE THIS COURSE!!!! I never thought I would EVER say that about Organic Chemistry especially after how terrible I did on that section in my last block but I'm finally getting it. Bob Perkins has to be my favorite teacher now, hahaha I say that after every block I have with a professor. It's pretty cool because there is only 7 students in the class. That is definitely the smallest class I have had here and it's awesome. We all work together on assignments and we are getting to know each other really well. And Bob is so helpful. He's always checking in on us to make sure we understand everything. It's funny because even when we don't want to admit that we are struggling at a topic, he can see right through us and will stop and not continue until all 7 of us understand. It's really cool. And I'm learning so much! Every once and a while Bob will give random facts on how what we are learning about relates to everyday life. And I can relate what we are learning to "My Question." I love it! I kinda don't want this class to end. It's super intense and a lot of work but I'm having so much fun! It's like the perfect class to have at the end of the semester and during the holiday season. I can see I've found my niche. Yay! :)

So you think you can....Sing?

One of the big highlights of this semester was the lip-singing contest we had in November. It was outright HILARIOUS! It was organized as one of the many spirit cup events we have at Quest. To briefly explain what the "spirit cup" is (and no it's not like the spirit cup trophy the cheerleaders in Bring It On win), it is a trophy given each year to the floor (determined by the dorms) wins the most spirit cup events. The events are awesome because they bring the community together to do fun and exciting things, some of which I would never have done if it wasn't an event (i.e. Curling). So yeah, Below I have added some links to 2 of the videos of the lip-singing contest. It was SO much fun!

Whistler Weekend

As the weather gets colder and colder, my desire to snowboard once again is growing bigger and bigger. So this weekend, I finally had some spare time to go up to Whistler and hit the slopes. It was AMAZING! I love that whistler so close and that Quest students got a discount on the season passes! It's crazy being up there any knowing that in a couple months people from all around the world are going to fill up the city for the Winter Olympics. I can't wait for all the excitement to happen! But for now, I'll continue to enjoy the quite slopes on the weekends :)

Go Team USA....and Canada hahahaha

Trick or Treat

Halloween at Quest is always an adventure and this year was no exception. One of the spirit challenges was for each floor of the dorms to get together and decorate the floor. Let me tell ya, there were some crazy floors! My floor, 4th North (the best, cough cough, hahaha) didn't really create a haunted house or anything. But I had so much fun putting up cobwebs, making a "dead person" out of clothes and pumpkins, carving pumpkins. It was a lot of fun. One of the floors created this insane haunted house where all the people living on that floor create a skit and everything. It was awesome! And everyone was dressed up. It was so cool. I went as a mobster hahaha. It was really cool seeing everyone dressed up. And most people created their own costumes. The artsy side of quest :).

There was even a "Zombie hunt" the night before where students dressed up as zombies and chased other students around campus. hahaha crazy fun!

But enough fun, now back to studying :)

BLOCK BREAK

Block break is finally here! The first break of the year! I'm so excited that I don't know what I'm going to do. I'll probably go down to Vancouver for a day or two and just hang out in the city.

But I'm really going to miss Stats! This has to be one of my favorite courses so far. And I finally got to do something related to my Question. For my final project, I did a statistical analysis on how healthy Quest students ate. It was so much fun and very interesting.

On Monday, I start Musical Neuroscience. I really loved the Neuroscience course I took during first year so I hope I'll enjoy this class just as much. Plus, I love music! It should be good.

But for now, I'm going to rest. It can get kind of stressful at the end of the block.

Block 1 - A New Year begins!

I'm so excited to be back at Quest. And it's my third year. WOW! How time flies! But I am so excited to start the year off studying one of my all time favorite subjects...MATH! Yay! I know, it's weird. People usually don't like math, but I love it. And better yet, it's with one of my favorite professors, Glen Van Brummlen. One thing that's really fun with Glen is that he has this challege (I guess you can call it that) every block that if he makes ten mistakes of more while teaching, he will buy the whole class pizza on the last day of the block. I always look forward to catching him on his mistakes hahaha. And it's not so much as in givng us false information, more like if the equation asks for subtraction and he writes addition on the board, he gets a mistake. And Glen is fun. He really likes to invlove the students in the lessons. I've never taken Statistics before but I'm sure I'll have a blast!