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I am sorry for not writing anything personal in so long. For the past few weeks I’ve been going through some kind of career and life crisis and maniacally wondering if I am really doing the right thing or maybe I should quit BCIT and go to med school instead, and I wasn’t really ready to talk about it. End result: I’m just going to keep doing my nuclear medicine/MRI thing for now. There are approximately 8 billion different factors involved in this decision and I still don’t feel 100% confident that it is the right decision, but at this point I think it makes the most sense.

I may write the MCAT at some point in the next year or so though anyway… just to see.

Things that have been on my mind: student life, stress levels, insomnia, mental health, $300K salaries, personal life, debt, moving, Canada, Australia, babies, traveling, 8 years, careers, boredom, prestige, homework, rotations, pre-requisites………… and on and on and on.

In other news Rob was back in town for a few days so we had him and Rose over for a little pizza and games night. We ate homemade chicken basil pizza and played 4 player Carcassonne (with 2 expansions) and MAGNETS. It was delightfully nerdy.

AND>> today we had venipuncture training at work and I am now allowed to inject patients starting tomorrow. SO SCARED. I hope my patients have gigantic veins. I will keep you posted. So far I DO have a 100% success rate, hehe. All four pokes.

Well that’s pretty much me all updated. What’snewwit’you?

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Today is the first day of summer, which seems like a very appropriate time to make a list of SUMMER GOALS.

  1. Finally paint the cheapo wooden drawers we got from IKEA.
  2. Make delicious popsicles in my new popsicle mold.
  3. Go swimming in the ocean for the first time in Vancouver.
  4. Ride the rides at the PNE.
  5. Watch fireworks.
  6. Finish my Settlers paintings.
  7. Sell a pair of shoes or a shirt or a painting.
  8. Go to one of the night markets in Richmond. already done!
  9. Regularly visit the farmers market on Saturday mornings.
  10. Read some books while I actually have the time.
  11. Make a nicer looking menu planning board.
  12. Find a new person to play board games with.
  13. Try a new fruit.
  14. Do a successful venipuncture on a real patient.
  15. Make a new blog header.
  16. Take more pictures.

Summer lasts until September 22, so I’ve got until then to complete my list. We’ll see how I go!

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We had a nice Easter dinner with Rosemarie and Rob on Monday night. Rosemarie came over in the afternoon so we could have some sister-time while Scott was at work. Gotta squeeze in as much sister-time before she leaves!! By the way, have I mentioned that she’s going to FIJI FOR A WHOLE YEAR ON EXCHANGE???????!!!! SO jealous, although hopefully Scott and I will be able to visit her at some point so that is pretty exciting. She has started up her own blog so check that out: http://threepiece.wordpress.com/

Anyway back to last Monday.

Rosemarie and I made a tourtiere (French Canadian meat pie). It was actually extremely simple to make, and very tasty. Pie dinners are so tasty.

We also had salad, mashed potatoes, peas and gravvvvvy. Om nom nom.

Rob made us a nice fruity dessert. I liked the strawberry sauce a lot.

We played some Dominion, but that game kind of annoys me. Why are the rules so vague?? I always have this feeling like we are not playing the game correctly. We also played a couple games of cribbage with my new crib board that I found in the mail room. Scott thinks I’m gross for taking it, but I think it’s ok!!!

I had a big midterm yesterday and had a lot of work due this week so I’ve been studying all week. Very boring. We have today off though because BCIT is having an Open House. I have to go in tomorrow for two hours to help out. I plan on getting a big chunk on one of my papers that is due in a couple weeks today, but so far I’ve just been procrastinating. Oops.

I got volunteered to make a poster for the Open House about nuclear medicine heart imaging. I didn’t have a lot of time to spend on it due to midterm, so I just kept it extremely extremely basic. Does the poster explain anything new to you? Scott coloured in the letters for me while watching hockey.

Speaking of hockey, my dream of a Canucks-Senators final is not off to a great start. :/ I will continue to believe it could actually happen though, until one of the teams gets knocked out.

Ok really I should do something productive now. This is a busy busy weekend so I should not be wasting precious time.

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On Friday night we watched The Descendants, last night In Time, and tonight we will go see Hunger Games!

The Descendants was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SAD. I cried A LOT. That did not help the swollen eyes situation. I miss my mom. To counteract the sob-fest we chose a dumb movie for yesterday, and yeah… it was dumb. I’m very excited for the Hunger Games movie tonight though!

We’ve seen a lot of Rosemarie lately. It’s so nice. Yesterday she came over to pick up her sushi helmet and her and Scott went to play basketball for a bit and then they played the NHL game while I worked on some homework and rubbed my eyes.

I like seeing them doing stuff together without me. :’)

We also played a game of Carcassonne and ate the dinner that Scott made (slow cooker potato soup and olive bread).

I’m feeling a bit better today. I’m well stocked with Halls and Claritin and anti-histamines and eye drops, plus I’ve been putting a damp wash cloth over my eyes when I would usually rub them and that feels really good. We’ll see how tomorrow goes– the forecasted alder pollen count is THREE HUNDRED (>85 is considered HIGH)!!!

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My second day of skeleton was really awesome. I woke up pumped and ready for another session. My first four runs I got 99.72, 99.58, 98.99, 99.42 km/hr. Frustrating. That 98.99 km/hr run was when my coach pushed me straight into the wall at the very top. I heard him yell ‘OH NO!!’ as I disappeared around the first corner. I recovered from the bump though, luckily. Sometimes in skeleton you hit an edge near the beginning of the run and end up bashing back and forth the whole way down. They usually get a speed in the 80’s or low 90’s at the speed trap. Luckily I have not had a run like that yet!

Anyway after the fourth run we were told that the next one would be our last. I told myself ‘OK Katrina, you really need to focus and have a perfect run’. The run right before that I thought was pretty good too but I still didn’t get that 100 km/hr that I wanted. I got the other people to help smooth down the back of my sweater, tuck my gloves into my sleeves and I smoothed down my tights on my legs. Coach Ivo gave me a slightly bigger push than before. He really wanted to see me get 100 km/hr too but often giving a bigger push at our level means less control on the way down and a slower speed and time. I relaxed as fully as I could and concentrated on keeping my chin out and my shoulders down and my toes pointed and I made sure to lean into the one corner I sometimes bumped on the way down.

It felt like an awesome smooth run and when they announced my speed at the bottom we all cheered. I was so happy!! 100.60 km/hr and a finish time of less than 30 seconds. A perfect way to end the session.

Dang Brian beat me by 0.09 s on my perfect run, so I actually still only came in second. Achieving my personal goal feels really really good though.

That’s the view from the finishing area. When we do skeleton we only get about half way up and then the crew helps pick up your sled and pass it to you.

Later that day Dylan, Brian and I also got a chance to do a bobsled run! Sometimes you really do just need to ask. Tourists pay a lot of money to do one bobsled run but we got to do it for free. Woohoo.

Bobsled was freaking bumpy. My head bounced around all over the place and I couldn’t even hold it up in the last corner. So much force. It was just like a really rough rollercoaster. I like skeleton better.

I don’t have any pictures of me doing bobsled because I went at a different time than Dylan and Brian. But I tried to take pictures for them…. and failed. That is the best picture I got, and that’s with Rosemarie’s camera! They were going about 125 km/hr.

Dylan and Brian after bobsled. The guy on the far left is the one that took me down as well. I guess he’s always trying to get more track hours so he has room to take other sliding association members down before and after tourist sessions.


Oh and here is a creepy picture of me in a hotel robe playing Settlers in between hot tub sessions. What a life.

I sure wish I was going again this weekend. Instead I’m going to be studying… a lot! We have three midterms next week again. Then holy cow it’s already March Break. Insane. We have to put in our top three choices for hospital placements this week and soon that will be decided as well. First year… coming along!