What intense week of uni news. I did my first BCIT interview, scheduled my Michener interview and booked flights to Toronto, then found out I also got an interview at NAIT!

The BCIT interview went well. It was an hour long and I felt confident about my answers. Maybe I shouldn’t have said we want to stay in BC though – I thought that would be a plus for them, but then she said there aren’t that many jobs so you have to be open to moving anywhere in Canada.

For the last part of the interview she brought me down to the lab and showed me how to (fake) take blood. Then we switched spots and I had to do it to her. I was confident and did it without shaky hands, but then later on I realized I forgot to get her to squeeze her hand. Ugh. Hopefully it was more about being comfortable than getting it exactly right. Hopefully.

I booked my Michener interview for the last Friday in April and booked the flights so that I would have a quick T.O. weekend hopefully squeezing in a visit with Janine, and my cousins. The day after I booked I got another email saying I had been selected for an interview for MRI at NAIT on the Monday after Toronto! Very luckily though my flight back from T.O. stops in Edmonton!

Now this was probably a bit dumb but I called up Air Miles and changed my flight to the next day so I would have more time in Toronto, but now my flight leaves at 7:00 AM which is really annoying. I should have just left everything as it was because that change was not worth $84+waking up extremely early. I am seriously kicking myself. WHY DID I DO THAT? Anyway now I still have to buy one more one way ticket from Edmonton to Vancouver but all-in-all it comes out to under $500 to go to two different interviews, which is really not THAT bad I guess. THANK YOU DAFOE’S!!!!

I really wasn’t expecting to get that NAIT interview. They give priority to Albertans, and I hadn’t heard from them AT ALL since I applied. But now that I got short-listed I have started to get really excited. It’s the only school in Canada that lets you go straight in to MRI and it’s only a two year program. MRI is my end-goal, so it would be super amazing to just do it right away. I think NAIT is my top choice, even before BCIT. I think Scott is a bit bummed out about that, but he is still being supportive. Anyway the NAIT interview will be my last one so hopefully with all the experience from doing 4 interviews before then I will be able to totally rock it.

The most informal save-the-date possible:

If you didn’t know already, our wedding-ish party will be on Sunday June 26th, in Ottawa. Invitations and more detailed plans to come later. We hope you can make it!!

In other news:

I’m just finishing up week 2 of the Couch to 5K running program and will start week 3. I bought running shoes. My face gets so so so red and I definitely struggle with the program, but I’m proud of myself for actually doing real exercise multiple times a week. I go right after work. Scott has been using his work gym too.

Are you also having an eggplant shortage where you are?? We haven’t been able to get eggplant in a couple weeks now and that is really sad. I love that stuff!!! Rosemarie came over on Friday and we were planning on making Sichuan Spicy Eggplant with pork but I couldn’t find any eggplant anywhere!! :( We made pirogie pizza instead.

Last weekend I went over to an internet friends’ house for a ‘Space Shirt Crafternoon’. It was fun and I got to meet a bunch of new people who were all nice so that was really good. It’s funny, my shirt wasn’t working properly while we were making them… it didn’t bleach or absorb dye very well and it was making me quietly angry, but actually when it was all done, I ended up pretty pleased. It’s more subtle and I don’t mind that! Here is a picture I stole from Tanie, I hope she doesn’t mind.

I got another Groupon last week- for a restaurant that makes grilled cheese hamburgers! Haha.

And I’m keeping an eye out for a 10-pass yoga one so I can start that. They come out pretty frequently so hopefully I don’t have to wait too much longer.

I have not been sleeping well all week. It takes me SO long to fall asleep and I’ve been waking up at 3 am and 5 am almost every night. It’s weird because I think I’ve been doing everything right…. eating well with smaller portions, and actually exercising (I’ve started running(!!!)). Too much stress in my life, I think.

JUST TELL ME WHERE WE’RE GOING TO BE LIVING NEXT YEAR. LET ME INTO SCHOOL!!!!

I had another doctors appointment on Friday. All my tests came back negative again, and due to how I felt the night before the appointment with definitely no dairy- dairy issues were ruled out as well. The doc seems pretty content to say I have ‘stress-induced IBS’. Bummer.

I might try yoga. Mom seemed to like it. I’m just shy about learning it in a group. I’ll look for beginners classes or something. And probiotics.

To celebrate being able to eat dairy Scott and I stopped for ice cream on the way back from our very unsuccessful shopping trip in the city (couldn’t find anything we were looking for). This ice cream shop always intrigued me, because it’s open very late every day and is always busy, even though it’s winter and it’s in a weird industrial-type location not close to any houses at all, and strangely has Chinese writing on the sign, as well as Italian.

Anyway we went in and saw that they have 218 flavours of ice cream, including very weird ones like balsamic vinegar, garlic, curry, durian, fennel, corn etc. etc. You’re allowed to try them so I tried the ‘pear gorgonzola’ ice cream which was not surprisingly quite strange. It really did taste like cheese. Cold cheese.

They also had many many many normal flavours. Scott settled on mint Oreo, and I got hazelnut fudge.

This isn’t my picture but this is half of the inside of the store.

SO COLD THIS WEEK.

Not only has Vancouver been having colder than usual weather (-3°C?????!!!), it was -15°C in Calgary on Wednesday. I forgot how going out into super cold air makes you cough. Ha.

I am super spoiled and was lucky enough to have my friend from Dal not only pick me up from the airport, but give me a mini tour of Calgary, stop for hot chocolate, AND pick me up from the school and drive me back to the airport!!!!! So nice! It was awesome to catch up with her, after like three years!

However the interview was not as nice. I was expecting one-on-one traditional style interviews but 30 seconds before I had to go in I found out it was MMI style. I was SO not prepared. There were 4 of us and we had to go to 5 different tables. At each table you got 2 minutes to read over a scenario and some questions, and then 4 minutes to answer. The problem was I thought some of the scenarios were so simple that there is no possible way at all I could talk about it for 4 minutes (ex. You are an imaging technologist at a small clinic with one other technician and a secretary. You notice the secretary has been repeatedly making the same mistake. What do you do? Ummmm…. nicely go over the mistake with the secretary?? WHAT ELSE COULD I SAY?? If I notice a mistake I’m not going to creep around it.)

This made me very nervous and a little rambly and just… unsure. Which is probably the exact opposite of what I should have been. It is REALLY weird talking to someone who is totally unresponsive. I only figured out they were probably told to me like that several hours later.

Anyway after the last table that was it. ‘Interview’ over.

Blargh. It’s really frustrating that I don’t feel like I rocked it. I knew about this style of interview (they use it at Michener) but I just didn’t know this one would be like that and instead of practicing public speaking I focused more on my history, my customer service experience, the course requirements, and challenging situations I have had to deal with.

Who knows, maybe I did ok. The other girls didn’t use up the whole 4 minutes each time either.

My flight back ended up being delayed 2.5 hours. The worst part was that no other flight seemed to have been affected. Even the next WestJet flight ended up leaving 15 minutes before mine. :( So instead of getting home at a reasonable 7:30 I got home at 10:00 and talked with Scott a bit and went straight to bed. I was so tired and had super bleary eyes at work the next day.

Work is challenging again. I’m not doing the old forms I am so used to that I could do in my sleep, and now have to learn 50 million new rules and things. Maybe soon I won’t have to type any more.

Oh and I’m still off dairy. I had some when I was in Calgary and I did feel a little sick that day so I went off it again. It’s just really hard to tell if I feel better without dairy or the same. The differences are so slight and inconsistent I still haven’t been able to reach any conclusions. I made quiche this morning with a store-bought crust (it uses cheapo oils instead of butter), and soy milk. It was good.