There are a lot of things I think of as I say/write/type “pushing forward”. It stimulates reflection on the past, and visions of the (immediate) future.

I spent this past Wednesday at the Aquarium, volunteering for the school program I am involved with. Due  to a busy semester and a bit of re-prioritization (I gotta graduate sometime!) it was only my 3rd time doing the program in about 10-12 weeks of programming. All day I was very aware of the stark contrast between my experiences on Wednesday and this time last year. One year ago (1-2 months into this weekly volunteering job) I was terrified to take a small group of students and lead them on my own. Each week I would hope to team-teach or shadow someone because I just didn’t feel comfortable. On Wednesday I was team-teaching, and found it very challenging. It’s interesting how your attitude can completely change once experience or “expertliness” is added to the equation. Now that I feel comfortable teaching the program, it’s more challenging to share the dissemination of knowledge with a partner.

Could it be that I’m already an old curmudgeon at this program? If that’s true, I think my fellow volunteers are guilty of this as well. More likely, I felt uncomfortable because I’ve rarely been around this term or because we didn’t discuss our approach very much before jumping in. My approach was to let the newer volunteers do their thing and hold out on the urge to add or (on one or two occasions) correct. I found that sometimes, when I would chime in with a new idea or comment, I would meet some resistance from my partner. It was very interesting. I remember well being nervous of leading, and now it seems I wanted more talk time. At some point in the last year, I pushed through the comfort zone of fading into the background.

Beyond my volunteering experiences, “pushing forward” also makes me think of my recent teaching opportunity – the one in which I gave a 50-minute lecture to 200 undergraduates. I had discussed the possibility of teaching with one of the Instructors a month before, and we had decided to revisit the idea next semester. Lo and behold, an opportunity arose out of the blue, and I had only a week and a half to prepare (though really, what would I have done with more time?). I decided I simply had to dive in and just get ‘er done. It was scary, but it was time to take the next step. And I received such positive feedback as a reward.

Finally, I think of “pushing forward” through the next thesis hump which is to: start writing and continue?/finish up experimenting and analyzing. I’m currently frustrated with an important data set I feel like I can’t resolve without another huge push, and I want to start writing but get overwhelmed. I feel like in order to write more than I’ve got, I have to read, and I am afraid of reading.

So all in all, I this thesis data/writing push is what’s next/now on my agenda; hopefully I can draw from my previous push-throughs as inspiration. I’ll let you know how it goes….

Today I discovered what the best job in all the world is:

Answering letters written to Santa – or, in my case – Scuba Claus.

Scuba Claus is what we call the Vancouver Aquarium’s version of Santa – did you know that up until Christmas Eve he feeds fish, whilst swimming alongside them? This year, Aquarium visitors can leave a pledge to help the environment for Scuba Claus, and I help Scuba Claus write his responses back to the letter writers. It is so fantastic.

More broadly, volunteering keeps me sane. I believe strongly in volunteerism (and it’s ability to foster positive and strong connections to community) and have been doing so since high school. My first volunteer experience was required in order to graduate high school (seriously: excellent idea, Ontario school system!), which I spent running my hometown’s Community Services office at night during weekly legal aid sessions. Since then I’ve volunteered for a number of causes over the years, and now I spend my time at the Vancouver Aquarium. Volunteering for VanAqua has been such a wonderful experience; I’ve been able to flex so many muscles: imagination, play, curriculum development, leadership, teaching, learning. Yowza. What could be better?

I take great pride in my VanAqua Volunteer shirt.

Hi all (everyone and no one?),

I have created this blog with the intention of writing reflections on what it’s like to be a M.Sc., or more specifically, a M.Sc. student who is pursuing a decent load of extracurriculars, and has already realized her ideal career aligns better with a different subject than that of her thesis.

Let me fill this out with a little more detail.

I’m working towards my M.Sc. in Biological Oceanography in the Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences. I love Oceanography and I love the fieldwork; I’ve been lucky enough to go on 2 research expeditions to the Arctic Ocean (more specifically, the Beaufort Sea)  and the North Pacific. I’m less enthusiastic about the lab work and intimidated by the reading, but it’s going okay. I hope to finish in a little while – but I won’t jinx myself by saying when.

I volunteer at the Vancouver Aquarium, which is a wonderful experience. This came about by my desire to get a little teaching experience. In my first semester as a M.Sc., I took a course called Teaching and Learning in the Earth and Ocean Sciences (EOSC516) which I fell in love with. I knew quite quickly my ideal career path involved pedagogy, but I didn’t know if I was into teaching kids, teens, adults….or simply discussing the theory, more “behind the scenes”. What I do at the Aquarium is volunteer with a School Program that brings in 2 classes from grades 5 to 12 weekly. I’ve been volunteering with this program since October 2009, and have gained experience teaching this wide range of ages. I have since concluded that although I love interacting with these students and seeing their excitement over the animals, I am more interested in teaching/”behind the scenes” work in higher education.

For the past 2 fall semesters, I have T.A.ed the course I mentioned above. Not only this, but I also did a T.A.ship for EOSC516 this past summer, in which I got to organize the course for the upcoming semester, including design a Vista site and design assignments. The course is finishing up this Friday, and I’m nervous for some of the feedback on that…but I’ll write a reflection on that later! I routinely write reflections about my facilitating successes/challenges after course sessions, so I’ll post some up on this blog soon.

Finally, I keep myself busy with EOS Grad Council, I fairly-regularly take teaching & learning professional development sessions/workshops at the Centre for Teaching and Learning Technology on campus, and I try to keep active, but fail miserably.