I really embarrassed myself in class today by putting my hand up in front of about 100 people and forgetting what I was going to say.

It's one thing to ask a question that the rest of the class might also be wondering as it's helpful for everyone overall, but it's another thing to try to look smart and answer a question only to draw a complete blank! Awkward.

At lunch, I really needed to go outside for some fresh air and walk off my embarrassment, but I wore the wrong shoes and it didn't take long for my feet to hurt.

By lunch time it was raining as I tried to find my way on foot to the bookstore on campus but I somehow got turned around and lost.

I felt ridiculous having to rely on the map on my phone to help me find my way back to my class. It's not as if I were lost in the woods.

I feel like I'm already starting to get acclimatized to the weather here as well. I'm always cold, yet people think I should be able to handle the cold because I'm a Northerner.
At least, the morning started off in a good way though. Our professor, John Borrows, told us the Anishinaabe story of the Sky Woman which I admire so much.

Something about that story just makes so much sense for me and I relearn something new every time I hear it.

It's a beautiful creation story that everyone should educate themselves with. In summary, Sky Spirit woman falls from the sky to our earth, still covered in water and the animals come together to find a way to save her.

One by one, the water animals try to dive to the bottom of the water to see if there is something they can bring up for her but no one is able to until muskrat comes along.
Muskrat is highly doubted by his peers that he can swim better than others but he dives deep and doesn't come up for a long time.

When he does come up to the surface he is lifeless but holding a small piece of root in his hand that Sky Spirit woman and the animals use to place on the turtles back and dance around on it until it turns into land, thus we stand on what is known as Turtle Island (North America).

I feel that this story has a strong connection to our Dene culture as well because of how highly we regard Rat Root as a traditional healing medicine.

Indigenous creation stories have been lost through colonization and Catholicism but they are still alive and need to be told because they are full of aesthetics, community, resignation and hope and we can apply these stories to whatever we are going through in our lives and perceive them differently each time we hear them.