Further research tells me that it’s alder pollen in particular that is rampant at the moment. Alder trees are apparently abundant in the Pacific Northwest, which maybe explains why I did not grow up with this problem in the spring. I looked outside our apartment but I can’t tell which tree is which because none of them have leaves yet, but I would not be surprised if some of them are alder. I looked through my blog from last year around this time and found nothing, but thinking back there weren’t any trees close to our windows at our old house since our entire yard was paved over, Vancouver style.

Of possible interest:

Hehe.

Well that explains it, I’m allergic to trees. Anti-histamines here I come!

from telegraph.co.uk

I went and saw my doctor today for help with my eyes. We all thought it was a bit early for hay fever, and were correct, but he told me it’s tree pollen season at the moment. There ARE quite a lot of trees around our apartment. Bah. NATURE.

In other exciting news I got a big cheque in the mail because I now qualify for assistance in paying for my provincial health care and they refunded me all the money I paid last year. Also our tax returns have been processed and I’m getting quite a lot back from that. AND, I re-qualify for the GST refund thingies again and a big one of those is on its way in early April. THANK YOU GOVERNMENT FOR SENDING ME LOTS OF MONEY.

Back to school today was OK.

Well my March Break is nearly over and I’m dreading school tomorrow. I have not been feeling very well so that is not helping. I had two naps today!! That never happens! I’ve also never had allergies before, which I think is what is causing my itchy eyes and mouth, and general malaise. Scott picked me up some Claritin so I’ve started taking that and hopefully it helps.

In more positive news, I got my hair cut the other day and I really like it. Sorry that the picture is so blurry… that’s an Ubuntu issue, since my webcam looks a lot better when I’m using Windows. Not sure how to fix that.

I did my Transport of Dangerous Goods online training today. I am now certified to handle radioactive stuff. Kind of cool.

We went out for St. Paddy’s day yesterday but ended up just hanging out with Brian at his house and then going out for dinner at a non-Irish place because we didn’t want to wait in line and also pay cover to get into a crowded pub. It was fun anyway and my chicken burger was tasty.

OH also on Friday we went to the Eatery with Rosemarie and Rob but I’ll save talking about that for another entry because the camera is too far away from me right now.

We all had to put in our top 3 choices for our summer placements this week. It was a difficult choice, I had to make a pros and cons list and I asked a lot of people for advice.

I ended up choosing Surrey Memorial, VGH, and Lion’s Gate.

Why? The outpatient clinic at Surrey Memorial is brand new and SO nice. Plus everyone was friendly there and it seemed like a great place to learn. It’s also pretty accessible by transit. VGH is Vancouver’s main hospital, it would be very busy and I’d get to see a large variety of patients every day. And I chose Lion’s Gate because they do a lot of brain scans and I still really like brains, but I kind of hope I don’t actually get placed there because it would mean commuting an hour each way every day to North Vancouver. Ew.

It was really hard to come up with a third choice. Every option had at least one significant downside.

I don’t know, we’ll see what I end up getting. Probably every one of us has 2 out of 3 choices the same as everyone else. :/ If they can’t find a way to make everyone happy it ends up going to a draw so I still have a chance of having to go to Vancouver Island for the summer.

We are supposed to find out by the end of this month.

I guess it’s been a while since I wrote a real update. The last few days before March Break were absolutely killer. I had three midterms and I think know I did terribly on two of them. Everything I looked up in my notes after the test I got wrong. And wrong in a way that I don’t even think I will get many part marks. I’m great at assignments, terrible at tests! It wasn’t ALL bad though because the third midterm was easy and I’m pretty sure I’ll get nearly perfect on that. Unfortunately the two I did bad on are our two most important subjects and the one I did well on is a pretty puny course. Bleh.

Anyway now I’m on March Break and have just been bumming around. I love being at home, I wish I could just be a housewife. What delicious food we would eat every day!

We went out for cheapo sushi on Friday, over to Rob’s house for a boardgame night on Saturday, relaxed on Sunday, skied on Monday, went to go see Goon last night, and I went shopping today. I bought a few pieces of exercise clothes since we do seem to be sticking to our new exercise plan. We’re now on level 2 of the 30 Day Shred and it’s pretty hard. So many planks.

I’ve also spent a lot of time on this new website. It’s been pretty easy to set up everything how I want, but it does take some time.

Something is wrong with my eyes. They’ve been really sore and itchy for the past week. I think it might have been from spending too much time on the computer and reading notes? I got some better eye drops under recommendation from my optometrist friend, and have been wearing my glasses pretty much all the time now. This seems to be helping a bit but they still don’t feel totally better. Perhaps it’s time to make an appointment with an eye doctor.