Graduation

On March 31st I graduated from my program! Grandma, Mom and Dad drove over to attend the banquet and dance. It was a short trip for them as they were only here for one day, but it was great to have the family support for one of the most important days of my life. I gave the Toast the Parents and Mom gave the reply. We brought tears to the eyes of my friends and my friends' parents!

I spent the previous 6 months organizing the banquet and dance with a friend of mine. We put in lots (100's?) of hours fund raising, finding a venue, picking the menu, organizing speeches and the program, etc. There were a lot of stressful moments and some (slightly) sleepless nights associated with the fund raising, but in the end it worked out that our club (the Environmental Conservation Sciences Students' Association - as grad organizers we are execs in the club) made about $200 when all was said and done.

Vicki and Brenda - organizers of the event

Vicki and I receiving flowers and telling stories about
organizing the event.

It was a great night. I've been to the last three banquets (to support friends and because I thought that I was done, before I decided to come back for another year), and this one was the best.

Brenda and Bryce

Dad being weird. As usual.

Me and my two best friends, Leah and Tianna, who were both on the
Range Team with me in Reno.

It's Tina Turner!

Next on the list of things to do: I'm starting an MSc right away. Field work starts next month in Ft. McMurray! The project is an investigation into several areas of natural succession on mining overburden that was excavated, dumped out in the bush, and left for the past 25 years because there were no regulations at the time to say that it had to be cleaned up/reclaimed. Now there's native vegetation growing on these sites, so the question is: what's going on? I will compare the veg and the soil in the disturbed sites to undisturbed adjacent sites. I'm really looking forward to it. At the beginning of Sept I wasn't so sure that I would like Land Rec, but now that I'm done I realize that I love it. It's fascinating what you can grow plants on, and how you can reclaim significant disturbances like the Oil Sands. There will for sure be lots of pictures to come in the future!