by ·0 Comments

I achieved another one of my summer goals this weekend! We had some friends-of-a-friend to come over to play board games with us on Friday night and it was fun. We played two games of Wasabi and one game of Ticket To Ride. I totally smashed them at Ticket To Ride, I somehow managed to complete Vancouver to Montreal, Seattle to New York, AND Los Angeles to New York. That’s a lot of points.

We went to the Vancouver farmers market again yesterday. We didn’t buy that much because it is SO EXPENSIVE! We just bought 6 figs, a loaf of cheddar jalapeno bread, and one corn cob (Scott doesn’t really like corn). I am extremely excited to try cooking with figs for the first time. I’m going to make a pizza with figs, goat cheese, and prosciutto.

The farmers market is nice because everything is good quality, but I’m not at the point where I want to spend a lot of money to get organic products and fancy stuff. I would prefer a farmers market where everything is dirty, I don’t need perfectly lined up tents and neatly stacked up pyramids. I just want cheap produce!!

We also went swimming at the outdoor pool near our house. It’s a pretty big pool, and it wasn’t crowded. Too bad we didn’t really know about it until the very end of the summer!

by ·0 Comments

We have been mega busy in the last four days. I’m pooped.

While Scott looks happy in this picture, Canada Day in downtown Vancouver was a disappointment. It was crowded and there was nothing good going on. There were some food carts but they were too expensive and there were trucks giving out samples of chocolate milk and stuff but the lines were too long. And the lumberjack show was too slow paced and boring. So we went home.

On the Monday of the long weekend Scott and I went mattress shopping. Our old mattress has just gotten too soft unfortunately, even though it’s only two years old. I have been waking up with a sore back for a while, from sleeping in a canyon, and Scott snores more now!!! >:( So we got a way more firm mattress on mega sale and it gets delivered on Sunday. I CAN’T WAIT. We checked out all the stores nearby to get the best deal.

We also played many many games of Agricola over the weekend. THE BEST GAME!! Check out this game where Scott sucked so bad he lost 38 to 10. Even if you don’t know the game you can see how badly Scott did. He doesn’t even know what went so so wrong, hahaha.

My board.

Scott’s board. HAHAHA.

Tuesday was MY BIRTHDAY! We had a really good dinner at Phnom Penh. We had tons of food including their famous chicken wings and butter beef. My favourite dish of the night was the deep fried squid though… man oh man it was SO TENDER. That was the softest, non-chewy squid I have ever had. I don’t know how they do it! Unfortunately a lot of the dishes (including the squid) were extremely salty though so while I’m glad we finally tried it, I don’t know if I will go back again.

Rosemarie got me a nanaimo square cake and Scott made cookies. I got awesome presents this year including Ticket To Ride from my Aussie family, and a Kindle from Scott!!! I am spoiled!!!

Us playing Ticket To Ride on my birthday. Rosemarie won.

Then yesterday was Rosemarie’s goodbye party. I had parmesan and herb wings and a cocktail called a Rocket Pop. It was good but I think I ate too fast and felt really nauseous so that’s all I had. Rosemarie had a lot of friends show up. I think it was a good goodbye party for her.

I’ve still been having to wake up at 5:45 AM for work this week too, but tomorrow is the last day of that for a while. I don’t think anyone should ever have to wake up at anything before 6:00 AM. Cardiac stress lab has been my hardest rotation so far. There is lots of stuff happening and the same time and you don’t really get to stop moving until the afternoon. I’ve done 5 injections so far but that’s it. Not the right rotations to do a lot of injections unfortunately. And next week won’t have many either. Boo.

ANYWAY that’s me all caught up I think! I’m looking forward to this evening bumming around with Scott and playing some more Ticket To Ride once Rosemarie gets back from her errands.

by ·8 Comments

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?

by ·0 Comments

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!

by ·0 Comments

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.