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Back in June it rained a lot here in Vancouver. It rained so much I finally decided to replace my dingy worn-out not-that-waterproof-any-more raincoat that I got in university. It was actually raining the day I went shopping.


I picked out this lovely long raincoat from MEC, in black. As I swiped my credit card at the checkout… IT STOPPED RAINING.

And then it never rained again.

I HAVE CHANGED VANCOUVER. IT IS NOW THE PERFECT CITY because we still have all the good stuff, and it doesn’t even rain here any more.

OK I exaggerate slightly, but not REALLY. There was an article in the newspaper today that said it only rained 8 mm in August and September this year, whereas the average amount for that time is 93 mm. NINETY THREE.

I still have not actually worn my raincoat in the rain because the only time it actually rained this summer I didn’t have to go outside anyway. Hahahaha. The raincoat has never gotten wet and is still hanging up in the closet, untouched.

And check out that amazing forecast for the next two weeks!!

Of course now that I’ve blogged about this it’ll probably start pouring. But I secretly(?) don’t care cuz I want to test out my snazzy new raincoat…..

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For some reason I decided that for the month of September I would take a picture of my dinner every day. I guess because I am often curious about what other people eat for “normal” dinners. I definitely didn’t remember to do it every day, but here are the 17 pictures I DID remember to take. Let me know if you want recipes of anything, almost all of it is homemade.

September 5th, 2012

September 6th, 2012

September 7th, 2012

September 9th, 2012

More after the jump…

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For the third (!!) year in a row we watched the AFL Grand Final at Moose’s. I cannot believe we’ve been here that long!! Also the name Moose’s Down Under really doesn’t make any sense. Shouldn’t it be called something like Wombat’s Up North or something?? Also why does it look like a cantina?

We didn’t win. Also Scott drank about 900 of those Boag’s.

GOAL.

I didn’t really care about either of the teams but it was still fun. I like seeing a bunch of riled up Australians. I didn’t see anyone crying this year though…

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I completed another one of my life goals: working with glass. I got the groupon for an intro to glass class at Braden Hammond Glass for my birthday and I finally got to redeem it this weekend.

His apprentice did a cool demo where he made a pendant with a mushroom inside of it and then there was a safety talk and a demonstration of how to make beads. We were allowed to make as many beads as we wanted in the time we were there.

First we made clear beads to get the hang of the technique. It was much harder than he made it look. Some of our beads looked pretty crappy.

Then he showed us how to use the coloured glass, the shaping stone, and how to make dots.

It was REALLY HARD to make the glass do what I wanted it to do. I think my beads look kind of neat but they were not what I imagined in my mind at all. Haha. All three of those were supposed to be something completely different and then just ended up as blobs of glass smushed down on the shaping stone. I still like them a lot though!!

This one started off as a small bead with dots on it. Then my hand jerked and one of the dots attached back on to the metal stick. Oops. Now it’s a nice SHARP bead… yeah.

After you are happy with what your bead looks like you put it in a kiln to temper it and make it durable.

All in all it was awesome. I really appreciated that they were encouraging us to make lots of beads. He wasn’t stingy with the supplies at all.

Now that I’ve done the beginner class I am allowed to just book time at the studio to practice if I want. The supplies are fairly cheap. We also can now do the intermediate classes (one of them is actually glass blowing) but the problem is that they are super expensive. With the groupon the beginner class was pretty reasonable, but now the intermediate classes are like $200-$300. And the beginner class is $135 so a bit expensive for Scott to do it now, otherwise after that we could just split our supplies and book our own studio time to try and figure stuff out.

So I don’t know if/when I will get to do this again, but if you ever see a groupon for something along these lines I highly recommend it! (And please let me know too…)

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Whataweek what a week.

Monday through Thursday I was out at clinical at my new hospital. While they definitely do a few things differently, it wasn’t a huge adjustment from what I got used to in the summer. Most of the routines and protocols seem to be the same. It’s a smaller department but they’re still very busy.

The patient population that goes to St. Pauls is a little different than VGH even though it’s not really that far away though. (St. Pauls is right in the downtown core of Vancouver). There are a lot more no-shows and we often can’t just call them and see where they are because they don’t have phones (or addresses).

I’m on the stress lab rotation where we get the patients up on the treadmill so we can give them the tracer while their hearts are being stressed. It is not my favourite rotation because there is a lot going on at once and I don’t get to sit down at all. I will be happy when these two weeks are over.

On Friday’s we have school, even if we are out at clinical for the rest of the week. It’s the only time we get to see the other set. Our classes kind of stink on Friday but I love seeing everyone and getting to compare our clinical experiences. We had a good long gossip session at lunch today, haha. Today felt really weird, like an odd mix of a Monday and a Friday and I keep getting mixed up. 

Well this is getting long and it’s text-only so I guess I’ll just wrap up here for now. Happy Grand Final day and GO HAWTHORNE (I guess??). We’re off to Moose’s Down Under for Grand Final 2012 Aussie fun.