Comments (0)

By Katie Kish, May 21, 2007 1:29 am

Samie and I took a trip down to Hilton Falls on Sunday. The area is part of Conservation Halton a community and area that is based on environmental agency. This helps protect and restore the Halton area of the Escarpment. The forest that we were in is currently the largest natural forest in all of Ontario, which was very cool.

More specifically, the people who run the Halton Conservation area are devoted to having a healty watershed, which reaches out to strong, clean and natural streams forests and green space.

Here is a map of the area that we were in:

We got a few pictures, but they’re all on my camera…. and I didn’t bring my camera cord here to Sam’s to get the pictures off of it, so you’ll have to wait until I get home for those pictures to be up. Here is a picture that someone else took of the actual waterfall…

It wasn’t all that big, but the walk there and back was so quiet and beautiful that it was worth the trip just for the trails. It really made me miss BC. The Niagara Escarpment is pretty much the closest thing we have out this way to mountains and BC like scenery.

It is the logest escarpment in the US and Canada running for New York up to through Ontario, Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois. It was formed by unequal erosion in the Silurian age and is mostly dolostone, shale and granite. The Bruce Trial runs along the escarpment from the Niagara Peninsual up to the Bruce Beninsula up in Tobermory… something I would most definitely like to hike one day. I had a geography teacher back in grade 11 who had hiked it, he said it was really amazing and makes you appreciate the geography, topography and landscape of Ontario a lot more… Maybe some day.

Comments (0)

By Samantha Drover, May 14, 2007 12:58 pm

Sometimes when I have nothing to do, I look up words on dictionary.com . . . They have a word of the day! Whoooop. Today’s word of the day is not a very happy one, but … a word nonetheless.

internecine \in-tuhr-NES-een; -NEE-syn; -NEE-sin\, adjective:
1. Of or relating to conflict within a nation, an organization, or a group.
2. Mutually destructive; involving or accompanied by mutual slaughter.
3. Deadly; destructive; marked by slaughter.

Comments (9)

By Samantha Drover, May 13, 2007 6:35 pm

My 3 close friends and I made a pact to have a new adventure at least once a week this summer. This means doing something we’ve never done before, or going somewhere we’ve never been.

My new adventure for this week would definitely be getting my first car!

Isn’t she a beauty? Her name’s Darcy. She’s a ’94 Audi… And yes, Audi was definitely on Katie’s black list of car companies… but she needs to be recycled.

I don’t know how long I’ll keep it – I originally thought it would just be for the summer, to get back and forth to work. But we’ll see how much I fall in love with the independence.

So, many of my upcoming summer adventures will definitely be achieved in my baby. This upcoming week Im going to Whitby – not a very exciting place in Ontario, but I’ve never been before – therefore it counts.

Comments (1)

By Katie Kish, May 1, 2007 10:01 pm

Today, Samie and I went to the Ontario Science Centre. We had lots of science fun. Above is a picture of me with an elephant heart… Probably my favorite part of the science centre. There was a special exhibit on using electronic waste parts as art… so there were telephones all over pulled apart as art and such, and a station where you could make shoes! Samie liked making shoes:

She was pretty dangerous with that glue gun. I feared for my life more than once. We also saw the live earth exhibit which had a snake and a dead rat. There were also big ugly cockroaches. We were in the rainforest for a while, where I was terribly afraid of walking over a not so fantastic looking bridge. We also made ourselves skinnier and fatter with a cool circus like mirror.

The worst part was by far eating there… gah. Bad news. The people who work there need to learn how to smile, and be friendly… and learn how to do basic math. The lady needed a calculator to do $8.57 – $5.57. … And it took her about 3 minutes, even with the calculator.

Anyway, it was a good time. And it was nice to hang out with my bestest! Woo!

Comments (2)

By Samantha Drover, March 28, 2007 9:09 pm

Well, my name is Samie. Short for Samantha, although the only people who really call me by my full name are my mother and stepfather, whom I live with currently. I live in their basement, eat their food, drive their cars and in return, I go to school, cook, clean, do laundry, you know the normal trade off for such circumstances.

I attend UofT – which is supposed to be one of the most highly regarded universities in Canada. At first, the whole idea of attending this university was surreal to me. When I got in, it reassured something in myself, my admission letter was like a certificate congratulating me, telling me I’m smart, and that all my hard work in high school actually paid off (not to brag or anything, but I also got into all of the other universities I applied to: York, Ryerson, Memorial University of Newfoundland and St. Mary’s <3 – but for reasons that seem to confuse me sometimes, I picked UofT as the base for my undergrad degree). However, after almost two years of tuition, books and hard work put into furthering my education at the University of Toronto, I’m left wondering why I even bothered going there in the first place. But, in the end, I appericate how far I’ve come, and defintiely am honoured to even be in university. One of my favourite things to do is walk around campus and watch people, wondering to myself, is this person the future of this university? Or how about the one that’s going to find a cure for cancer, or AIDS? Prime Minister of Canada, even? I often doubt my place in this school, especially after working my ass off on a paper, only to discover my TA (who really can’t communicate ideas in English very well) thought it was “inadequate”. I got accepted into UofT for Criminology, something that I’ve wanted to study since middle school because really, law is a passion of mine. However, I wasn’t actually accepted into the program, just the school. Which sucks, since I’m currently still working my ass off for the chance to finally take some classes that excite me and make me tingle.

I’m not going to lie, I love this school. The city life has definitely grown on me. I love the old buildings, I love the hidden treasures, I love the many pubs on campus, the dozen libraries scattered all over the place, the people that swarm from class to class totally oblivious to everyone around them and I love the subway. One of the downfalls being the long ol’ commute I make everyday, it gets to me sometimes. I also love how I looked up yesterday, while riding the subway, and my psych prof was sitting next to me. And I love how he didn’t know I skipped this lecture to go to a study group. I love the profs that come to class and give lectures on material that excites them! Excitement seems to be contagious when one knows how to convey it correctly. For example, this year I’ve taken political theory by Professor Lippincott. This man is a genius and has made the likes of Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes and Locke a newfound passion of mine. He’s witty, energetic and so full of knowledge that for the remainder of my years at UofT I’m going to take one of his classes. He found a way to strike something in me, to make these philosophers and I connect somehow. And I think that is what university is all about. Finding something you are passionate about, and going with it. (oh, and switching your major every time you take a class that strikes this passion in you)

Another passion of mine is definitely English. I didn’t take any English courses first year, but second year I decided to take a second year Canadian Short Stories class. And just as I suspected, I’m hooked. I’m driven to change my major, or at the very least to add ANOTHER minor. We shall see what the summer brings, and evidently whether or not I am allowed to enroll in some criminology courses next semester.
So I guess that’s just a little bit about me. I’m a very honest and laid-back person and I’m definitely still trying to find my “place” in this world. So I will try my best to bring something new – right after I get a midterm out of the way tomorrow