The End is in Sight (a brief update)

This past week has been filled with a slew of different events and the realization that I am leaving in just six short days.

To begin, I scheduled 8 interviews between two lecturers and 6 students.  I had thought this would be the last week of interviews (fingers were crossed) but one of the lecturers got sick so she was unable to make her interview so my last one will be early Monday morning.  As for the students, I had 6 interviews setup and two of them stood me up; however, they restored my faith in students by showing up to my office to apologize and then sit down for an interview (I was impressed in the end).  I also had one student come up to me when I came into the 1st-year class to help facilitate an activity and ask me if he could still be interviewed (I was not about to say no). As of this moment, I have 24 interviews (5 lecturers and 19 students), which is way more than I had thought but not looking forward to having to transcribe them all.  Who knows more  students might show up at my office next week! I am still focused on my research and what needs to be done but once that last interview has been completed I have an inkling that I will have more to say about them.

On Wednesday night, Pekka and Henry were nice enough to throw Noelia and I a goodbye party (which included bottles of wine, brandy and coke (brandywine as it is called here) and beer).  Everyone in the house participated as well as an honorary member of the house, Jurie (one of the guys friends here).  Also, one of Pekka and Henry's professors is here doing some guest lecturing so he joined in with the celebration as well as the other roommates and friend.  We just sat around and drank for awhile and then decided that we needed to eat, which turned into more drinks and dancing hte night away. A crazy and unexpected goodbye night, which made working and doing things I needed to do the last two days a bit rougher (but well worth it).

Today, I had a lunch with Professor Roux, who once again is just lovely.  We discussed my future plans (dissertation, research, fellowships), my experience here at North-West and the possibility of me coming back at some other point.  I also had the chance to do a short presentation on content area reading to the chair of the department, Professor Nel as well as a few of her students.  It was a small presentation but good practice for the future.  I have a meeting with Professor Nel next week to ask a few questions about the program at North-West as well as just to talk with her one last time before I leave.

It is crazy to think that 10 weeks have flown by and I am back to MD in less than a week.  At the moment, I am excited to come home but sort of sad to leave here.  I am looking forward to my last weekend here (have plans to explore one more area) and wrapping up my research.

Still more to write before this blog takes a break!