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+ Scott and I figured out how to make kettle corn at home. It’s super easy. I may never eat anything else again. I will take some pics and post the recipe the next time we make it (probably tomorrow, haha).

+ I won a scholarship for my performance at school last year. YAY! It’s the Brenda Clark Nuclear Medicine Technology Scholarship. How fancy.

+ I was thinking maybe I could do some posts about nuclear medicine. I could write up some of the explanations that I give to patients and show you some of the equipment and maybe some of the types of pictures we take? I am tired of people having no idea at all about what I am studying. Would you be interested in some “intro to nuclear medicine” posts at all?

+ Scott and I are (probably) renting a car this coming weekend and going up to Whistler. Brian and I are going to do skeleton school. And Brian and Morgan have moved up there permanently now, so Scott and I get to stay with them. :) Was that confusing? Hope not. Anyway of course I am super pumped about skeleton and if we get to do the course we will be able to join any training sessions now instead of relying on the SFU ones. WOOOO. Brian really got hooked last year so he’s probably going to be doing it a lot this season!! Hopefully I get to go a few times as well.


+ H&M has SPACE PANTS and I really want a pair. The H&M at Metrotown didn’t have any though. I’ll have to check out the store downtown.


+ And this is the best sweater ever. They only have it at the American Forever 21 though. Bummer.

+ My hospital placement is going fine. Not great, but fine. I don’t think I could ever be loud enough to fit in there, really.

OK BACK TO BUMMING AROUND. BYE BYE!

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I am so glad it is the weekend because I had a super busy last two days.

Thursday

  • Worked 7 to 3 in the stress lab. Stress lab is my least favourite rotation because it is really busy all day long and can get really chaotic and hectic at certain points. The tech I was working with got me to run the whole thing with no help. IT WAS HARD!! I did manage to do it though, which I think is a pretty good accomplishment. I got a pretty good evaluation for the week.
  • Then I walked around downtown for an hour.
  • Met up with Scott near his work, then walked over to Meat & Bread for dinner. Unfortunately they were out of porchetta so we decided to walk all the way back to Davie Street to try out the American Cheesesteak Co instead.
  • Ate a delicious classic cheesesteak with beef, American cheese, and sautéed mushrooms.
  • Killed time in a coffee shop for an hour or so.
  • Went to Zsofi and Dylan’s apartment for Dylan’s birthday party! Drank some wine and got to try Dylan’s homemade ice cream sandwiches. Really good.
  • Finally went home and went immediately to bed.

Friday

  • Scott went to Edmonton for 4 hours. Seriously. He had to wake up at 4:30 AM to do that.
  • I went to school. Human Behaviour class was extra uncomfortable and awkward. So much second hand embarrassment. Wasted two hours of my life in Research Methods learning about maybe using highlighters as a research aid, and some other stuff that we already went over in another class last year. Then a couple hours of Communications, which was actually fine. I don’t mind that class.
  • Went out for bubble tea with most of the people from the other set. I miss them. I had milky strawberry slush with pearls and it was yummo.
  • Went home for a couple hours. Scott arrived with sushi in hand. The best.
  • Took public transit for 1.25 hours to get to SFU to help out at the skeleton club Gangnam Style pub night. I helped sell tickets and do coat check for three hours. It wasn’t the best night for a fundraiser (Thanksgiving weekend!) but I think we still made a bit of money for the club, which is really good news.
  • Bussed home and collapsed into bed for the night.

Today is homework and chores day. We have to get the apartment ready to host the 2nd Annual Orphan Thanksgiving Potluck on Monday night. I think we have 12 people coming, and I’m making turkey again. :D

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I’ve got a few new pictures from our skeleton weekend at Whistler Sliding Centre a few weeks ago. Tink was there for the whole session taking pictures so we all got a few new ones of ourselves from different vantage points than what we can do on our own, which is pretty neat.


This picture shows Maple Leaf start. That’s our coach in the red jacket. You can see the launching board  on the ground that we put our sleds on to get ready to slide (then he pushes us off by our feet). To the right of the picture is a shipping container that we can stand in to keep a little warmer while waiting.


Me carrying my sled over to the launching board and getting myself mentally prepared.

Ready to go, just waiting for the all-clear from the people up in the box. At this point I would just be exhaling deeply to relax my whole upper body.

A nice shot of the Whistler sliding track.

Happy after another skeleton run!

Can’t wait till next year.

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I don’t know if I mentioned it, but last weekend the BCIT nuc med department had a curling night. I couldn’t go, because I was at Whistler. Well one of my classmates went, and fell, and broke her arm! No one got injured at skeleton…… just saying………

So obviously curling is the far more dangerous sport. :P

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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!