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whistler sliding centre

Like I said before, my long weekend was AWESOME. Originally I was only planning on sliding on Saturday, but (1) I couldn’t find a ride home and (2) a guy in the club (that Rosemarie is already friends with) said we could stay at his cabin at Whistler for free, so I ended up staying for the Sunday session as well. That meant I had to do MEGA HOMEWORK all day Friday. Worth it.

super excited

SKELETON WAS SUPER AWESOME.

In the truck going up for our first run!

We all met up with our coach (he is from Latvia) and he picked out sleds for us and we got helmets. We changed into our tightest clothes and then eagerly awaited instructions. None came. We all get in the truck and get a ride to the Maple Leaf start (at curve 11 out of 16) and eagerly await instruction. Still nothing. Time for the first run. He tells us “Just go! Do nothing! It steers itself!” Okeedoke.

Our coach + launching board thing + Rob going around the first corner

Sam goes down first and thirty seconds later we hear his speed. NINETY ONE KM/H!!! Whoa that was way faster than I expected. Anyway quick quick quick we get lined up as soon as the person before leaves and next thing I know I’m lying on my stomach about to get pushed down the ice slide.

EEEEE IT WAS FUN! So fast! G FORCES! AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN!

We got to do 5 runs each the first day, and my top speed was 95.4 km/h. I was the speediest in our group hehe (not counting the club girl who has been doing it for a year now).

The way to succeed seems to be just being relaxed, focused, with your shoulders down and your face as close to the ice as you can (my chin guard scraped the ice a few times). The bottom straightaway was the hardest part, because once you start going crooked you kind of ricochet off the sides worse and worse each time. A little painful.

bounce

Fun fun fun. I’ve got more pictures but it’s time for relaxation time before trying to sleep. This is a tough week. Part II to come soon.

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Today was much better than yesterday. Yesterday we got back our microbiology midterms. The whole class did pretty poorly. I passed, but not by much. Pass is 60% in our program. Today I wrote another anatomy and physiology midterm. She was nice to us!! It was filled with “choose 1 of these 2 questions to answer”, or “choose 4 of these 6”. Sweeeet. I studied a lot for it, and I think I did well.

Last night was very quiet around the Jorna household. Scott was working on his math and I was studying. He’s writing his math test right now.

I went to Metrotown after school today to look for track shoes. I need shoes with metal spikes on them for skeleton this weekend. No one had any! After a bunch of telephoning I think I tracked some down (pun intended). They cost more than I thought though. :( I guess track & field equipment isn’t huge in the winter.

from euronuclear.org

I am really liking nuclear medicine more and more. Sometimes I think it’s totally inefficient and stupid to have to study nuclear medicine before studying MRI, but really I love the whole diagnostic imaging field. And nuclear medicine is pretty awesome. I mean, using specific radioactive drugs to label active areas of the body is pretty neat. In the end it will probably be useful to have two specialties anyway because I think all the technologies are converging into one piece of equipment. Ideally I would get nuc med + MRI + CT + PET.

By the way that kid is growing. All those dark black bits are bone cells dividing in the growth plates.

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Extreme homework weekend!

Yesterday I sat at my desk for like ten hours. I listened to the entire Triple J Hottest 100 from 2010 playlist which is nearly seven hours long! And then I still did more work after that. And today I’ve spent all morning working on a paper and I still want to start my anatomy midterm notes. I’m hoping that if I do all this stuff now I will have a relatively easy week.

Paper Draft1 is now complete and printed out for proofreading! Woot.

Also banana muffins are in the oven.

Our freezer was getting a little full of frozen bananas so I decided to make up a batch of mom’s choc chip banana bread (in muffin format). Really I might as well stop trying to bring bananas to school because they get SO smashed before I am ready to eat them, so I end up bringing them home and putting them in the freezer.

I really need a banana case.

I saw some at the Granville Market (I think) but they were hard plastic in only one shape, so if your banana doesn’t fit you are out of luck. In my mind I have invented a banana case made of flexible but sturdy tubing (maybe corrugated bendable tubing?) that you can slip over any banana.

New plan: drop out of school and manufacture banana cases while training up for the 2018 Olympics. Yes?

 

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Mondays and Tuesdays are very long days at school for me. Unfortunately I was unable to get credit for chemistry because my chem 101 course was SEVEN YEARS AGO. The cut-off is five years, even though the course we have to take here is very very basic. Anyway there are only 7 (out of 15) of us who still have to take chem and that means we have the full 30 hours of class a week as opposed to 26 with less homework.

Between yesterday and today I had:

  • 2 hours of anatomy and physiology lecture
  • 2 hours chem lab
  • 2 hours of nuclear physics
  • 2 hours of radiopharmaceuticals
  • 2 hours of microbiology
  • a chem midterm (which I already got back, I am pleased)
  • 1 hour of chemistry lecture
  • 1 hour of medical terminology (and got another midterm back, quite pleased)
  • and 1 hour of technical math

Needless to say I am pooped. But still 2 assignments, 2 labs, and 2 midterms to work on and study for. Sigh.

Christmas vacation is going to feel so good. We get a full three weeks off. And it’s official: I’m going to Ottawa from Dec 27th to Jan 5th!! Unfortunately Scott won’t be coming with me, since 1) he can’t get the time off work 2) it’s too much money and 3) he gets to go to Australia in February.

I’m a bit bummed I’m going to miss the New Years Day polar bear swim!!! Natasha, maybe we should do it at your house??? jk we would actually get frozen.

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Remember my last update where I said it was super dark outside and therefore super dark inside? Well, 3 minutes after posting it actually became SUNNY! Scott rushed to put his bamboo plant in the sun and I rushed around taking pictures of some parts of our house.

I don’t have time to post all the pictures now but I have prepared one of my desk area and one of my new painting series that I finished in those two weeks I had off before school started.

My work area. New desk, Craigslist chair, new computer, new printer, new desk lamp! Lucky me!!

I think we hung the paintings slightly too high. Oh well, too late now.

Do you like my paintings? I am pretty pleased with them! I especially like the middle one, because I only used red, yellow, and blue paint and mixed all the other shades. It was kind of mathematical!

I like rainbows. Also evidenced (is that a word???) by my latest nails.

I find it reallllllly hard to put my hands the right way when I use my webcam. SO confusing!! I had to get Scott to come press the button. Oh and my pinky looks blue but it’s purple in real life. I promise I know my rainbow order.

OK I really must get to my homework now. I had a EUREKA moment at school today with a classmate and need to get pen on paper before I forget. (It’s a question about elastic collisions of alpha particles and a gold nucleus, in case you were curious.