So, it's 1am and I'm supposed to be finishing my PA which is due in 35 hours, but as it usually happens when deadline looms and caffeine courses through the veins at full momentum, I decided to write a song instead (taking a page from the book of my good friend, the incredibly talented Scotty Rocket).

 

Anyways, there are somethings I usually don't do on a blog. Sharing private thoughts is one of them. There are some things I usually don't do in life. Sharing my songs is one of those. But, alas! Rules were made to be broken. And as I've grown up a little these past five years, I've come to realize a couple of things.

 

Firstly, music is a beautiful thing, and should be shared. I used to be so incredibly shy when it came playing my own stuff anywhere other than within the comfort of a sealed, isolated chamber. This is me being stupid, and jamming with some incredibly talented musicians and listening to some of the stuff my super-talented friends has confirmed this. So I share music a little bit more freely these days - not like Napster free, but if you are a musician or music lover, you're in luck.

 

The second thing I have realized - and the crux of this post - is this: society is incredibly stupid - discrimatory, even - when it comes to discussing private emotions. Especially the deep, dark stuff. You know what I'm talking about. And that just makes it that much harder for all those suffering in their own private infernos - I mean it's not enough that depression is a crushing force of its own (thank-you for teaching me that much, Psych 339 - "Abnormal Psychology" - why is it called 'abnormal' when it affects so many??) - but to have to go through your day pretending like everything's okay?? Call me crazy, but doesn't that make things better.

 

University and the real world have taught me a lot about the harsh realities of life. It's never easy to watch people you care about suffer so deeply - and there are so, so many of you! so why do you suffer alone?? I blame society. All I've wanted all along is to take you away from your pain and somehow make things better, even if for a little bit. I've never known how exactly (I don't think anyone does, otherwise Prozac would be off the market), but there is always, always, ALWAYS light in the darkest places. But only if you are willing both to try, and to believe. Because whether you are at the top of your game or swimming through the dregs of life, it is always you and you alone inside that skull of yours - you always decide the next move, whether you fight or fall.

 

That's what "Overcome" is about, and I wrote it thinking of you all. Maybe, just maybe, it will bring somebody somewhere an ounce of comfort, or some fighting strength. If so, think of it everytime you think you've reached the bottom. If not - le reste, c'est a vous.

 

Overcome (Black isn’t all there is)

The worst of life

Is true when

 

...34 hours until PA deadline.

 

S. over and out.

I know I haven’t been in contact in about a million years (no exaggeration, really), but I have been thinking about you all a lot, I promise. These past months have been insane – living in France is like living in a fairytale. A friend of mine, when we first got here, referred to our year at ISU like “a year at Hogwarts” – and despite the insane assignments and crazy workload (or maybe because of them), I have to say that that assessment still stands, given the opportunities and experiences I’ve had…

 

I know my blog has been MIA since November, and I still plan on updating it (with photos!), but here is a brief synopsis in the meantime:

 

Let’s see… ISU-wise: Anousheh Ansari, the world’s first female space tourist, came to visit us in November, and talking to her about business, her experience on the International Space Station and social responsibility was amazing. Since then, we also had several Astronaut-roundtables with astronauts from the Japanese, Canadian and European space agencies – we pretty much got to ask them anything. Sadly, Canadian astronaut Bob Thirsk does not agree with my assessment that the Oilers are Canada’s best hope for bringing the Cup back home :p. I made a bet with my roommate Israel (who is actually from Mexico, don’t be fooled) today – he is convinced that I will someday be an astronaut, I am not so sure – so we will see in 30 years’ time who is right – the loser has to pay the winners’ fare to meet up in Strasbourg for a reunion.

So it's win-win for me either way - get to be an astronaut or get a free trip to good ol' Strasbourg.

 

On our second week back after Christmas, we took part in ISU’s annual robotics competition – basically we were given 24 hours to design and build a robot that could navigate an obstacle course and pick up gems – and, potentially, return to its starting point. Insanity, I tell you.

 

Our assignments are super-insane as usual – e.g. “design a satellite-broadcasting business along with a legal, economic and technical analysis – you have 3 days – go! Crikey…” – and our Team Project Phase I (before Christmas) was unreal – I slept about 10 hours over 6 days in that last week… I think I’m actually sleeping less than that these days. Yeah yeah yeah, I know I know, sleep is important. Trust me, Luisa, my best friend and other roommate tells me this regularly.

We’ve also had some more cool professional visits to facilities (mostly have to do with satellites – I swear, by the end of this year, I will be so sick of them, *shakes fist at the sky*) in Luxembourg, France and Germany.

 

What else? On the subject of travel… the amazing AMAZING travels! The family – Mom, Dad, and my brother hopped over the Atlantic to visit, and we visited Brussels (Belgium), Venice (Italy), Zurich, Lucerne (Switzerland) and of course Paris & Strasbourg (France). For the record, Belgian chocolates are ALL they are made out to be – all that and much much more. Later in the vacation, my mom and I went to India to stay with my relatives for 10 days – we didn’t tell them I was coming so they were floored when they saw me!  Indian food is beyond fantastic – I think I gained 3 kilos in India alone.

 

Last weekend saw me do something I’ve wanted to do all my life – I skied in the Alps!!!! It was beautiful, exotic, exhilarating and excellent. I even skied a double black diamond while there (for those of you who know my skiing abilities, this is in fact an accomplishment). As a result, I am bruised and battered now :D.

These days, I am trying to be more well-rounded because I miss doing the million activities I used to do in Canada – it’s not going so well because of our hectic academic schedule, so my Spanish lessons and stick-fighting classes are sporadic at best. The gym and Student Council are much better – I’m pretty much a regular attendee.

 

There is just so much to tell, but I think I will end here with two anecdotes, the first being about the Moon Symposium. Every year, ISU hosts a conference on a different theme, with this year’s topic being “Why the Moon?” (given that just about every space agency from NASA to India is headed there). Experts from all fields and nationalities come to partake and it is a pretty ritzy event (don’t even ask me how much I’ve eaten today…although I have given up cookies for Lent. Don’t ask. :p). The amount of knowledge stored in these people is amazing. The Symposium ran last week from Wed-Fri, and to give you an idea of what it was like, over the course of the symposium, I talked to members of NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency, as well as developers of nanotechnology, venture capitalists and robotics developers on subjects as varied as Operational Medical Space Flight, entrepreneurship in the space sector and the use of space resources on-location. My favorite encounter was a conversation I held with a Swiss nanotechnology developer on the American, Indian and Swiss political systems and the Indian caste system – entirely in French.

 

Lastly, to give you an idea of just how unreal this place can seem at times, let me tell you about one of our lecturers today, who ended up talking to us about a) dealing with the media and b) entrepreneurship. This guy was insane! He actually was one of Bush's speech-writers/debate prep guys in the 2004 election, has done media prep for the likes of Bush AND Gore, started numerous space-related business, married an astronaut, was a director of the 3.4 Billion space operations at Lockheed-Martin at one point, works the UN on Space Policy, is an ambassador for his country, the Isle of Man... like insane. And hilarious - the types of media tricks they play in politics is crazy, I tell you - for example, if you want people to focus on your message when delivering a political speech, wear a blue shirt (if you are a man) and muted solid tie. Otherwise, wear a white shirt and  ugly patterned tie. I'm not even joking. Go back and look at what Bush was wearing when he had to announce the Iraq war and didn't really want people paying attention...

Okay, so I have typed up a storm, so the time for good-byes draws near. For those of you who have been enquiring, I am actually working in Germany for my internship this summer - I will be working at the European Space Agency’s European Astronaut Corps, where they train astronauts for upcoming missions – so I won’t be home until September yet!

 

TKD folk – I miss you all and hope your training is going swimmingly. I’ve started cardio but wonder if I remember how to spar ;) Drop me a line and tell me how you are. To the usual suspects, you know where to go (I have to be polite, my mom will see this).

 

SU hacks – Elections rumors! PSST…pass them on this way! Who is running this year??? Hee hee, you can take a hack out of the SU, but you can’t take the SU out of the hack – guess who ran her own preferential-style elections this year?

 

MWC ladies – I hope you are all well. I see that some of you are competing at MUC this year – best of luck, and do Canada proud!!!

 

Neuro/Science/Med nerds - Don't worry, the science geekiness is still alive and thriving like E. coli on a plate of warm, juicy agar - or a neuron on growth cones ;)

 

To the high school gang – it’s been so long! Are you still alive??? Drop me a line and let me know where you ended up in this crazy world!

 

Everyone – friends, families and foes (<-- I don’t even know why you are on this list :p) – I miss you all and hope you are all doing excellently. France is fantastic, funderful and fabulous – it has beyond surpassed my expectations.

 

So, there you have it – 3 or so months update in 3 or so MS word pages. Make sure you all write back and let me know how you are!

Lots of love,
Shawna

 

So, some of you will recall that not too long ago, I posted that I am a sissy since I am unable to sleep without a Theodore bear (come on, I have to make it sound at least quasi-mature).

 

Well the situation has since rectified itself, because Luisa recently returned from a conference to the United States, during which time she was able to pick up some (and by some, I mean the equivalent of a small nation's GDP) personal affects from Puerto Rico, amongst them, a rather large and handsome Theodore specimen of a healthy golden sheen and engineered so as to bear (sorry, couldn't resist )  the perfect degree of huggableness.

 

I sleep much better these days. 

As in the Ninja Turtle, not the Sculptor.

 

I've taken up Stick Fighting! Who would have that whacking people with bamboo sticks could be so much fun?

This past Tuesday (November 7th), we began the real hell-project (forget assignment 2-1...): the Team Projects Part 1, of which there are 2 to choose from: Remote Sensing for Heritage Conservation and Helium-3 and Other Interplanetary Resources: For Humanity or Folly?

 

I, along with 2/3 of the class (that's 34 people, for those keeping count...), am on the Helium-3 project. Over the next month, along with our personal assignment decision and assignment 2-2, we have to complete Phase I: the 120-paged literature review and hour-long presentation of what has occurred in the field of Helium-3/Celestial energy resources exploitation for energy use thus far.

 

Then, in Module 4 (starting in March), we move on to Phase II: we need to take our information, and come up with an innovative and painstakingly detailed method for actually exploiting our resource - this includes all considerations from what we will mine, to the locale (the Moon is a potential candidate), to how exactly we would do this (that is, designing a long-term space mission and everything that goes with it, including the vehicles, the orbital trajectories needed to get there, the design of a life-support system to support a long-term stay in outer space) and goodness knows what else.

 

Suddenly, I yearn for the sweet embrace of Assignment 2-1. In fact, while I'm yearning for things, I'm yearning to know why I volunteered to co-manage the project. Dear sweet God, why?

Following the death that was Assignment 2-1, 10 of us (it would have been more, if a good percentage of the class wasn't still hung over from the night before ) took last Saturday (November 4th) - and the glorious fact that we had no assignment to work on - to put together a mini-bike trip to Molsheim, the next town over.

 

It was amazing, amazing, amazing: 31 km either way, according to Antonio's speedometer/pedometer - 5 of us did the entire 62 km trip  - biking alongside a picturesque canal and the gorgeous greenery and fantastic fauna surrounding the entire way. Yes, the all the alliteration and assonance is merited, it was just that amazing.

 

The ride was teeming with swans, storks, horses, sheep and reindeer, all freely roaming about the vibrant green pastures and lazily rolling hills of landscape. Nestled in the trees were these gorgeous private residences and farms, all very obviously belonging to the very wealthy (the private lakes and fenced-off oodles of acres gave that away pretty easily): the architecture was pure Alsatian (think DuLoc from Shrek) - quaint and colloquial, yet charming in its own easy-going fashion. It was all so perfect.

 

It didn't even matter that the day was somewhere in the vicinity of 6-10 degrees (and much colder with the wind blowing in your face) - it was impossible to notice in those surroundings and that company (5 guys (John [Ireland], Rodolphe [Belgium], Israel [Mexico], Antonio [Italy], William [Indonesia]) and 5 girls (myself, Marianne [Canada], Luisa [Columbia/Puerto Rico], Renee [Canada], Laure-Helene [France]). Plus, on the way there, Renee rediscovered the restaurant of the Lost Liaigeois - a locale she had discovered during the Summer Session Program (SSP) which she swore sold the region's best vanilla ice-cream-hot chocolate-whipped cream-chocolate sauce combination (i.e., a liaigeois) - so of course we had to stop in.

 

Molsheim itself was so tiny that we finished a bike tour of the important points of the city in 15 minutes. It was so European with its notably absent modern architecture and notably present cobblestones (not the most pleasant thing to bike on, that's for sure). I'll post pictures of castle, noble residences and church later.

 

We had such great conversation on the way back too - on everything from Shrek 2 to photography to Engineering Physics. Between the 62km, plus the satellite from hell/not sleeping/3 hours of soccer/coming home and cleaning the apartment from top to bottom it was, I was the best kind of tired you can possibly be - knowing you are about to collapse from sheer exhaustion, but that you would do it all in the very next instant if someone asked you to - and slept for a glorious thirteen hours that night.

 

Forget good times, this was beyond phenomenal.

"Your next assignment is to design a satellite for launch in to lunar polar orbit. Your design should include the satellite payload, bus/power, spin stabilization, launch site, launch vehicle, propellant, launch trajectory, mission cost, approximate timeline, ground system architecture and political/legal considerations. We want a 10 paged-report [most groups' were 20], 15-minute presentation and 3-D model.

 

 

...You have 6 days."

 

Suffice to say, I did not sleep the night before the project was due. Neither did many others. Some even stayed at ISU overnight. But then we played soccer for close to 3 hours, North America vs. The World so all was good.

 

(Except for the next day, when one our professors commented:

 

"I was here on the weekend and saw you all working on the project. I stopped by on November 1st, a public holiday here in France, and saw you all working - why are you all working so hard? Remember, there is more life than education!"

 

 - you could hear people digging their nails into their skin, trying furiously to hang on to their last shred of sanity while simultaneously trying to prevent their brains from hemmorhaging from the aneurysm all 50-odd of us suffered at that exact moment

 

 

From the last meeting of Students' Council:

 

William: So I was looking into getting a television for the Students' Lounge by maybe be getting a computer to use as a TV...

 

Brian: Yeah, but then there are issues with leaving it unmonitored!

 

*hears the groans*

"Let me just begin the Sports' Commissioner's report by noting that both the Flames and the Oilers are being trounced right now..." - the clearly inept ISU Sports Commissioner, Harish, who really can't talk since Vancouver was just eaten alive by the Ducks, 6-zilch.

 

Also, in that vein, I would like to take this post to make a very strong statement, which is as follows:

...no joke. Batman, Catwoman (x2), Galaxy Girl, Wonder Woman, Superman, Santa Claus, Gene Simmons, Bono and an array of mummies, vampires and pirates were also in attendance. The best part about Hallowe'en is that November 1st is a public holiday in France

...as in "YouTube" - below, find links to

 

1) Our September boat tour of Strasbourg via the Canals

2) A video montage of our September Tarte Flambee party at ISU

3) A video of the Tarte Flambee Party

Photo courtesy of Alex (from the September 3rd Museum visit), artwork courtesy of Harish.

 

Not pictured: “Shawna, reincarnated as a [four-legged] duck,” later inserted as an after-thought.

So Wednesday night was cultural night, and we all had to bring dishes from our respective cultures for the others to sample. I’ve never eaten that much in my life. Oh. My. God. Between the Cameroon Spicy Fish, Irish potato pancakes, Nigerian bean soups, Indian apple korma, American Deviled eggs, Chinese dumplings, Polish perogies, Turkish Delight, Greek tzatzi and goodness knows what else, the food was amazing. Afterwards, a bunch of us danced it off in the Student Lounge with KJ acting as DJ (lol, worst DJ ever - he’d cut of the music in the middle of one song and then skip to another!) – the best part was when Professor Tolyarenko, our Russian 60-something satellite and rocket engineering professor broke out the dance moves while wearing his suit. Totally awesome.

Okay, so some trouble-makers (namely, Kavita and Jo) have vehemently protested that “Frog” is derogatory term to the French, to which I say:

 

a)       You aren’t French, nerd-faces, so stop causing trouble

b)       “FrOg” in the context of this blog is derived from “FRance in a blOG” – the derivation is pure coincidental, much like the naming of the sport Cricket after a terrible celestial tragedy in a remote part of the universe (bonus points if you catch the reference), so your point is entirely moot anyways. So there!

So, I’ve complained about my bed on this blog before, and how I don’t sleep that well, but I think I’ve discovered part of the reason for this: I am a sissy. Yes, I know this totally ruins your impression of my bleak, black, withered soul, but we aren’t all of us perfect. See, I need to cuddle up to something to sleep. In Canada, this need was satisfied by a giant white teddy bear wearing the jersey of the best NHL team ever, the Edmonton Oilers (not Vancover – take that, Harish! Not Calgary – take that, Scott! And never in a 1/Planck Second will it ever be Toronto – take that, Richard!). Here there is nothing: I’ve had to take to cuddling up with my pillow. In fact, here is photographic evidence from the Paris trip, where I’ve pilfered someone’s inflatable pillow (which Alex tried to steal to harass me L). Good lord, I need to find myself an ours en pelouche. Preferably in Oilers colors.

So, I’ve admitted that I have an addiction. I didn’t say I’d do anything about it.  Well, except maybe feed it.

1) As soon as our exam was over, I went out and bought 22 cups of yogurt.

2) In French class Monday, we were asked about the previous day. Here is a smattering of my answers:

Q: What did you eat for breakfast yesterday?

Me: Two Yogurts.

Q: What did you drink yesterday?

Me: Um, liquid yogurt that my roommate bought me.

Q: What did you do yesterday?

Me: I talked to my dad on the phone, who tried to convince me that the dairy farmers of France had gone on strike and that they were no longer producing yogurt.

3) Whenever I anger Harish, he threatens to dump liters of yogurt into a pond.

4) Whenever Scott needs to appease my volcanic fury, he promises yogurt.

5) A snippet of a conversation I had with Russ:

Me: You know, I’ve been really cranky today, and I don’t know why…

Russ: Did you have your yogurt today?

Me, in a small voice: No…

Russ: You see?

Realistically, though, what do you expect me to in a country where they have apple, pear, coconut and pineapple yogurt???

But I am not so mono-foodic as that. I have also declared an automatic vendetta against everyone at ISU unless they give me chocolate. So far, only KJ, Harish, Israel, Luisa, Marianne, Scott, William, Rodolphe, Kieran and Alma have redeemed themselves. I need to make this vendetta more public…

Just to clarify, I actually do input these records in my offline log on a regular basis and post them whenever I get a nice long stretch of internet time, which is almost never. So no, I don’t actually sit down to write 8 pages at once. Well, except for today, where I actually DID do that – it’s taken several hours, but hopefully I can upload the posts today and related links and photos tomorrow… (in this one afternoon, my MS Word document has gone from 7 to 20 pages…)

So yesterday, to celebrate the beginning of Module 2 (i.e. that we have no assignments and actually have free time right now), about 25 of us went skating (but still no group rate because our group wasn’t big enough…go figure) for a glorious 2.5 hours. The Canadians were speed demons, I’m proud to say.

 

On another note, let me just say that before last night, I thought skating rinks to be free of strobe lights/DJ booths/blaring music. Now I know better.

Today (Monday, October 23^rd), we started Module 2 – and met with the summer session kids, who didn’t have to do the first Module. With this new infusion of fresh blood, the conspiracy to convert the International Space University into the Canadian Space University edges ever closer to reality, as approximately 12-13 of us in this class of 52-55 are Canadian (and the rest of the class come from 30 countries). Plus the Romanian studied in Eastern Ontario, the Brazilian studied at Ryerson and one of the French did his Masters’ at the U of A (making four of us now with a U of A connection)…

 

Soon, precious, soon…