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BLaghghhHhhh this week has been rough. Three midterms! I still have one tomorrow at 8:15 AM (BARF) but I’ve finished up my cheat sheet and just can’t make myself do any more reviewing tonight. Today I had 2 hours of anatomy, a chemistry midterm, then 1 hr of chemistry lecture that actually felt like 8 hours, then a hospital visit in North Vancouver, then home to study, so now that my sheet is done I just want to veg out.

This week’s midterms went well. Better than last week. Especially radiopharmaceuticals. I am pleased.

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it, but Scott leaves for his trip to Melbourne this Saturday! He’ll be gone for a week and a half. I’m kinda looking forward to KATRINA WEEK, but not looking forward to being all alone-y and having to do chores. Pfft HOUSEWORK. I am glad that Scott gets to see his family and friends though, since we’ve been here a year and a half now without a visit. I hope he has an awesome time, and I’ve put in a request for some white chocolate Tim Tams when he gets back.

Today’s hospital visit was good. They do a lot of brain scans at that hospital, which is pretty cool. It’s kind of far from here though since I’d have to take public transit. I don’t think I’m going to put it for any of my choices for this coming summer placement. But we have placements all through second year, and of course the second summer, so hopefully I will end up working there at some point for a bit.

Can’t wait for school to be over tomorrow. My aunt and uncle are coming over and Rosemarie, Scott and I are cooking up a nice meal for them. We all finish our school/work/meetings in the early afternoon so that means LOTS OF SISTER TIME and hopefully some games! Yayyyyyy. Then I have 8 million things to do over the weekend, but lets deal with that later.

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We continued our tradition of Mexican food for Valentine’s Day, but it wasn’t a good experience this year. We went to Dona Cata, a restaurant that someone from the Vancouver Livejournal community recommended to me last year. It was supposed to be really tasty and authentic.

We each ordered something that was basically a plate of mixed up meat and vegetables and cheese that comes with corn tortillas on the side.

Ugh it was SO greasy. Scott’s chicken was also extremely bland and flavourless.

I don’t know, maybe the food was more like what regular Mexican people eat for dinner at home? Maybe the issue was that it was TOO authentic for us? I’m not sure. I missed guacamole and beans and rice. :( I felt like we would have had a nicer meal had we just cooked our own dinner at home.

The service was also really slow, which was unfortunate because I was hoping for a quick dinner so I could get home and study more. It ended up taking a pretty long time, and then when I got home I felt so gross and greasy that I didn’t even do much more school work. Luckily the midterm still went extremely well today.

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Scott and I went out for hot chocolate this morning at Mink Chocolates. Kits seemed a bit far so I chose this one instead. We were the only ones there at 10:30 AM.

I brought my camera but didn’t take any pictures because it just looked like brown liquid in a white mug. It was tasty though for sure!!

I had milk chocolate ganache hot chocolate with salted caramel and hint of rosemary, and Scott had milk chocolate ganache hot chocolate with pistachio. I couldn’t taste the rosemary in mine, but I could definitely taste the salt. It was yummy. Scott’s was nice too but I forget what pistachios taste like, so I can’t say much about that.

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Oops at not posting very much this week. I’ve been really busy with school. Midterms have started. I had anatomy yesterday, and physics today. ONLY 21 more midterms to go. :/

from physicians.fraserhealth.ca/

We have been doing some fun things too though. Yesterday afternoon I had my first hospital visit. Gillian, Lesley and I went to tour the outpatient nuclear medicine unit in Surrey. They split the three of us up and we each followed a technologist who was doing their regular work. I saw a few bone scans and heart scans, and a couple others. I got to ask lots of questions, listen to all the things the technologists say to the patients, and see how they position the patients and the cameras and things. It was really neat. I even had to call in the next patient and ask them to use the bathroom and help them get out after the scan was done.

That department is soooooooooo nice. Everything is brand new and clean and fast. They can do a CT scan in 13 seconds! I would consider doing one of my clinical placements there just because it is so modern and nice there, and all the people were really friendly and treated us students well.

from sellesmedical.co.uk

Then today in nursing class we learned about vitals. We learned how to take blood pressure the old fashioned way! I did not get it all the first time: I opened the valve too fast so the cuff deflated really fast, and all I could hear in the stethoscope was my fingers moving around. But then the second time I heard what I was supposed to hear. I’d say I was within ±10. More practice needed next week.

My blood pressure was quite low, but my heart was beating fast. I think I was a bit stressed out again about the morning’s midterm. Plus a little more exercise probably wouldn’t hurt.

So happy that it’s the weekend. Unfortunately I have three difficult midterms next week so I’m probably going to spend the whole weekend studying. It would be nice to get out to try a hot chocolate from the Hot Chocolate Festival before it ends though! I have my eye on a salted caramel hot chocolate, or a  hazelnut hot chocolate (hopefully Scott will also want to try one of those so I can taste both) from Thomas Haas, but it’s all the way in Kitsilano so we’ll see.

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from quantifiedself.com/

Today at school I learned about butter.

We dissolved butter in ether and water. The fat and other fat-soluble components (like Vitamin A) dissolve in the ether, and the milk solids and salt and other stuff stay in the water. Then we separated it by draining out the water, and then evaporated off the ether. This left us with a lovely dish of fat.

About 84% of butter is fat!!!

The internet tells me about 1-2% of salted butter is salt.

No wonder it tastes good.