Madam Vice President....

As a condition of our scholarships we are required to volunteer 150 hours per annum teaching tutorials, helping with local science fairs or serving on various committees throughout campus. I taught tutorials when we first arrived and continued to do so last trimester but let's face it, even with enthusiasm exuding from every pore, I found them rather boring. In an effort to maintain uniformity of material the Psych Department has these tutorials scheduled to the last detail and many of them involve watching the students as they complete computer simulations. Kill. Me. Now. When I taught Intro Psych I had my students dissecting sheep brains to study neuroanatomy or building record players out of random materials as an exercise in problem solving. So yes, I'm a snoot when it comes to these rather dry Intro tutorials at Victoria. But the problem is I still need to work on my volunteer hours so in an effort to avoid tutorials, at least for awhile, I decided to join the Post Graduate Student Association Executive Board (PGSA Exec). In short, they represent the interests of all post grads (Honors, Diploma, Certificate, Master and PhD students) here at Victoria. At the end of last week I attended a training meeting as I just joined the PGSA Exec the week before. Among the various things we did was elect officers (President, VP and Treasurer). And for reasons still unknown to me I put my name on the ballot for the VP position. In the end two VPs were elected, a PhD student from Hydrology, Monique, and myself! To this very moment I'm not exactly sure what I've gotten myself into but we'll see how it goes. I am looking forward to better understanding the inner workings of the university and to chip away at those volunteer hours. Currently, I've completed 120 leaving only 330 to go! In jest, ever since he found out about my status as one of two VPs, Tim has been calling me Madam Vice President. While it makes me laugh I guess it is technically correct.