The Busiest Summer

To pick up where I last left off…

We made it down to Vegas and checked into the Luxor (which people told us was no good but we liked it) and hit the town. It was so long ago now that I can’t really remember the order we did anything in but since we were there for so long we got to do a lot. We went to two different Cirque Du Soleil shows (Mystere & KA), went to Freemont St., shopped like crazy, gambled like crazy, rode rides, went on a city tour, went to the circus, checked out pretty much every hotel and casino, hung out by the pool, went to the M&M’s store and went on a big bar crawl. Brit got lit up during the bar crawl and the next day was pretty much a write off of just lounging by the pool which I didn’t mind! The Cirque shows were absolutely ridiculous and if you haven’t seen one I really suggest you go and have your mind blown. We met up with a couple from Australia when we were on the bar crawl and spent a few days hanging with them at their hotel and going to the pool and gambling the night away. We played for hours on one game that was a table with plastic horses on a track, you bet on which horse you thought was going to win. It was pretty hilarious seeing grown people hammering the table and shouting at a few tiny plastic horses. One of the main things we wanted to do when we were there was to see the Grand Canyon and I definitely screwed that one up. We had planned on booking a trip to it before we got there but I figured it would be cheaper once we got there. During our time there we got caught up doing other things and when we went to book the tour near the end they were full and we wouldn’t have time to go the next day so it got nixed from our trip…bummer, sorry Brit!

While we were in Vegas I got some good news from a couple schools. I got accepted to the law programs at both UVIC and TRU! I was both happy, scared, nervous and sad all at the same time. Happy that I achieved it but very worried about actually have to go back to school and potentially having to work for the rest of my life as a lawyer, ugh. 

The acceptances to those schools came with a catch though. Since I am part First nations the acceptance letters told me I had to go to Saskatoon over the summer to complete the Program of Legal Studies for Native People (PLSNP). It was a pre-requisite that I pass this course which was actually first year property law over the course of 10 weeks through May and June. 

So when I got back from vacation I got to tell my employers I’d be leaving soon! Not only did I take a vacation very soon after starting working there but then I turned around and bailed on them pretty much immediately after I got back ha! I worked a couple more weeks at DeMara then finished and had to pack my bags for Saskatoon. 

I should mention that when I got my acceptance to UVIC I had lots of time to apply of the PLSNP but never did because I was still on the fence about going to law school. When I got accepted to TRU though I was more into it as I wouldn’t have to move away again for school, especially to Victoria which I moved away from after 1 year my first time living there. Problem was, my acceptance to TRU was after the deadline for applying to the PLSNP. I had to email back and forth, get references sorted out and get my transcripts and application package in ASAP if I wanted to get in. It was a super stressful time but it all got sorted out. However, I had applied to live in the dorms on campus and never heard anything back, despite emailing them numerous times.

When it came time to leave Brit took me to the airport and after our goodbyes I was off to Saskatoon without even knowing if I would have a place to live. Thankfully, my boy Tyler Flood was living there and said I could stay with him for the first few days. 

So upon arrival he picked me up and I spent the first couple nights before the program started sleeping on his couch. Once the program started I got set up in the dorms there and moved my gear from Tyler’s over to the dorms. Dorm room was nice, they were brand new and had a large cooking area/living room, 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. I was expecting much less. I also lucked out the first few weeks and didn’t have a roommate so I had the whole place to myself. Originally, I thought this program was going to be a hassle for me just because I had to move to Saskatoon for 10 weeks and didn’t really think about the classes themselves as being anything more than attendance and handing in some assignments. How wrong I was. It was actually a first year law course crammed into a couple months with numerous assignments, presentations and tests. We were at school usually from 8:30-4:30 and had tons of reading every night that I had very little free time to even go to the gym, let alone go out and check out Saskatoon or hang with Tyler. I slugged through it though with much struggle and some very real fear that I was going to fail. While I was there I got an acceptance notice from UBC that I got into their law program as well and I didn’t need to pass the PLSNP as a condition to get in. So that took some pressure off me, but I still wanted to pass because I for damn sure didn’t want to do property law all over again. The 10 weeks seemed super slow for me, especially considering it was over summer and all my friends back at home were having loads of fun. I made it through though and caught my flight back home after what was probably the worst couple months I’d had up until that point. 

While I was gone our cat Girb passed away which was very sad and I couldn’t be there for Brit when she had to say goodbye to her little fuzzball. A few weeks later she ended up getting a new cat to keep her company and picked up Pino! I didn’t get to meet her till I got home so she was a few weeks older by then but Brit brought her to the airport to show me when I arrived and she was so tiny, could fit in the palm of my hand! When I got back there was about 2-3 weeks left of summer and I debated getting a job for a couple weeks but figured by the time I actually got one I’d maybe work a week and a half or so and then have to quit so I decided to take the remaining summer time off (much to the chagrin of Brit). A few days after getting back home I got the good news from Saskatoon that I passed the course! So I had to decide now which school I wanted to go to as I was currently holding spots in all of them. I eventually decided I didn’t want to move away again for school so I nixed UBC and UVIC which was a decision most people think I was crazy for since both those schools are more prestigious and well established than TRU. Honestly though, Brit couldn’t move and I didn’t want to do the long distance thing and I don’t think I would have made it through school being so far from home again after doing it for years during my undergrad and then experiencing it again in Saskatoon. I probably would have ended up dropping out. So I made the decision to go to TRU instead and be able to come visit on weekends or whenever I had some time off. 

We went for one weekend on a trip to Nelson for one of Brit’s friend’s wedding. We spent the weekend in a nice golf resort/lodge and got to spend the weekend hanging out in Nelson which is a place I’ve never really been before. The wedding was nice despite the fact I only knew Brit and Joe there…

Over the next couple weeks I just hung out with other friends who had some time off and hit the beach a bunch. We also picked up another cat to give Pino some company. His name is Toba and came from a Bengal breeder that Brit knows, he is very lazy and smells bad a lot of the time. Closer to the end of summer my friend Cory was getting married and he gave me the honour of being his best man. I had never really been involved with a wedding before so I didn’t know what I had to do (sorry for being a terrible best man Cory). Apparently I was supposed to plan the bachelor party and needed to give a speech at the wedding. Cory originally wanted to go camping for his party and we invited all our old friends. Unfortunately, all our friends suck and bailed literally the day before the planned party. So with some quick planning and inviting I got us booked into a hotel in Whistler and booked bungee jumping for our group which turned out to be myself, Cory, Connor, Tyler Flood and Dave Burroughs. Tyler and Dave were some late additions that called up from the minors to join us in the partying, glad they came along though. On the way to Whistler we had Cory dressed up in some skimpy lingerie that we hoped he would wear the entire weekend. He started off strong, wearing it to Scandia in the batting cages and the go-karts, also wearing it at restaurants when we stopped for food. When we got to Whistler though he wouldn’t wear it out to dinner or to the club, wimped out big. We spent the night party at some club where Dave showed off his dance moves on the stripper pole all night before leaving early due to the 3 drinkers in the crew going to hard throughout the day and needing to be brought home. 

In the morning we hit up the bungee jump and Cory had the honor of going first in his dress. It was a sight to behold. Everyone was acting tough before the jump but when they saw it everyone got quite nervous for it. We all went through with no one trying to back out of it. Since it was my second time I opted to go backwards which is apparently scarier but I didn’t think so and wished I had gone for the headfirst dive again. 

The wedding itself was very fun with all our friends there to show support for Cory and Kara. I was super nervous for my speech but I think it went off quite well. Kept it short and sweet. We had a good time all night and everyone went for a midnight skinny dip/wrestle in the lake. 

During the last few weeks of summer I was trying to get things sorted out with TRU (they were not honoring my property law credits from Saskatoon which they said they would), and I had to find somewhere to live during the week in Kamloops. I eventually got things sorted out with the school but after numerous excursions to check places out in Kamloops I couldn’t find somewhere to live. Most places in my price range were very far from the school and not on bus routes. Since I didn’t have a car that was going to be a problem. I applied for the dorms but they were already full and I even began to look at monthly rentals at some grungy hotels. School eventually started and I still didn’t have a place to live. So for the first week of school I was borrowing Brits car and driving back and forth from Kamloops every day, lots of driving. The following week though I ended up finding a place to stay that was near bus routes and I could actually get to school so I moved all my stuff down that week and got into my first year of law school. 

That’s all I’ve got for now so thanks again for reading! Next time I’ll be writing about my first year in Law school and the time Brit and I spent island hopping in the Philippines!

Dan