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I survived my first day of school. After nearly 4.5 years off, I realized last night. Wow.

Today was orientation. We listened to a welcome speech and a seriously unfunny comedian. That was awkward. Then they split us off into our programs and we met our profs and got some more info, but it was mostly boring stuff like not to cheat and not to be a jerk and other obvious things like that. My program has 16 people. I think I am one of the oldest and pretty sure I’m the only married person. Everyone was pretty shy (inluding me!) and scared (24 hours of lectures + 6 hours of labs a week!!!!).

A guy came to take us on a campus tour, which would have been good if I could figure out which direction we were facing at the start. It was concrete in all directions!! Very confusing. Luckily all of us have the exact same class schedule so really only one of us needs to memorize it and where our classes are, haha.

The tour guide dropped us off in the GREAT HALL where they had all sorts of booths with semi-useful stuff. Best part: free popcorn. Really delicious popcorn actually. I am attending every event from now on that advertises free popcorn!!! I also got some info about the health plan and something called Harvest Box (cheap veg) and free dental cleanings and stuff.

It’s kind of funny how BCIT uses students in different areas of the school. The IT desk is full of IT students. You can get cheap massages and free dental cleanings. Media made by media students. I bet you could get your car fixed for cheap.

See, they should have picked me to be the BCIT Health Science blogger: my first day and I’ve already done a post. FOR FREE. Grrr.

Yippee, two hours of radiopharmaceuticals lab and two hours of anatomy and physiology lecture tomorrow!

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So I went from not sleeping at all to sleeping A LOT. Last week I went to the doc again and he prescribed me some drugs to help me fall asleep, since melatonin wasn’t working. No, not sleeping pills– there is no way I would agree to that! Apparently a very low dose of an anti-depressant (like a 7% dose) helps with insomnia. Well I’ve been taking it for a little over a week now and I feel a lot better! I fall asleep quicker and I don’t wake up as much. My energy is back up and I just feel a lot better physically and mentally.

The only problem now is that it seems to be really easy to sleep in. Fine now since I’m on holiday but getting back in to the school schedule is going to hurt for a while. Hopefully once I’m back on a regular schedule I’ll be able to do it all: sleep and live life.

I can’t believe I’m finally starting school tomorrow. After two years of applying I am finally about to start! Amazing. Two years and I’ll be a nuclear medicine technologist. Another one or two after that I could be an MRI technologist!

Which may actually happen, since apparently citizenship applications take about 15 months to get approved. (3 years residence + 15 months application times = staying here a while). Hopefully we have enough money to send Scott home to see his family a few times.

I am spending today fixing Rosemarie’s computer, working on my last painting, doing back to school type chores, and relaxing. We didn’t do too much this holiday weekend but that’s ok. We’re off to Seattle next weekend and then I’ll be deep into school stuff so I will just cherish this free time now.

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Last week was pretty stressful. I was really starting to get worried that we were going to get stuck at the end of the month with no where to live. I really didn’t want to end up signing a year long lease for a mediocre place. Anyway, the place we had applied for and then gave up on (because we hadn’t heard from them in the 1-2 days they said) called us back after 5 days and said it was ours. So we went over and on Friday and signed the lease.

It’s in the Metrotown area. 2 min from Patterson skytrain station. 10 minute bike ride to BCIT. 15 minute train ride to downtown. Twice as big as our apartment now, plus a balcony (ground floor though). Move in at the end of this month!

Do you like my artwork?

Other weekend highlights have been playing Carcasonne and Dominion (Rosemarie, please come back to Vancouver NOW!!), seeing Harry Potter 7.2, and checking out the local market (although it was POURING rain). We bought 2 things of strawberries and 1 of raspberries for $10. I was relieved to see some local strawberries still because I don’t feel like I ate enough this summer. Should have had more Shouldice while in Ottawa, doh doh doh.

I also reassembled my bike with the few tools that we have, except for the handle bars. Need allen keys for that. I can’t wait to ride it!!

Scott is still looking for work. I hope he gets something soooooon.

Here are some pictures from last week at the free concerts in Stanley Park. Jess was in town finding an apartment for when she starts at law school in Sept. Wooo a new friend in Vancouver!!

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Yesterday was such an awesome day!

Well it didn’t start off that way. Work was boring as usual and I still couldn’t get in touch with the BCIT lady. I had to email Toronto by about lunchtime to accept my offer and time was ticking. I never reached her so I had no choice but to accept Toronto.

Scott got an interview this week for a new job that pays quite well. Even more reasons why I desperately wanted to get in to BCIT! Also I’d looked up truck rentals and gas prices the night before and it looked like it would cost $2500+ to drive across to Toronto. Ack.

I actually started tearing up at work because I was so frustrated and anxious with anticipation.

At 4:30PM I left work to head to Brian’s to watch the hockey game. I’d just left the building and saw that I had a missed call and a voice mail on my phone, and it was from the BCIT lady!!!! I went back up to the office to use the phone and hyperventilated! She said that she had been away on a conference and didn’t get back until today and that YES they considered me a strong applicant and wanted to offer me admission! She left me her cell phone number so I called her back and she repeated all that stuff and said she will get my offer sent out on Monday IF I WANTED IT. I was like YESSS YES YES YES I WANT IT!

I was giddy with excitement as I fought through the crowds in the city (CBC.ca says estimated 100,000 people gathered on the streets!!!) We all watched the game at Brian’s. It was incredibly stressful. We were all tense right up to the last second of the game since I think we were all remembering all the other games where horrible things happened in the last moments of the games. Canucks did it though and won! Everyone expects them to lose again in Boston though and then we’ll have game 7 here in Vancouver on Wednesday.

They might lose though because Scott has to shave his playoff beard on Tuesday night now for the interview!! ;)

After the game we went out to the streets for a few minutes but everyone was really moving around a lot and it was a bit rough in the crowds so I didn’t like it. I tried Japadog (and loved it) and then we went home. My mouth is burnt and scraped from the delicious hotdog but I’m so relieved and so much less stressed and feeling a lot better than I have in a long time. Oh and the Toronto dude wrote back and cancelled my acceptance so we don’t have to pay $500.

More later.

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Yesterday was really fun! I had such good luck and things seemed to just keep working out!

I had a relaxed morning (although we got woken up by noisy birds, grrrr) and then I went to the Pacific Centre to try and find a decent bathing suit. No more online shopping for me. I couldn’t find anything at first but then at the last minute I did. Good ol’ H&M. I love you H&M.

Then I headed through extreme hockey craziness downtown to meet up for an ultra Canadian girls night. Granville Street was already packed at 4:00PM. We met up at La Belle Patate for delicious poutine, and since it wasn’t too crowded and they had a TV and cheap drinks we stayed and watched the hockey game there.

Burrows scored the first goal. I always say that Burrows is going to score the first goal. Then Boston scored twice and I started to worry that things were going to go very bad for the Canucks. Then a Sedin tied the game and the game went into OVERTIME! Overtime is SO stressful, but this was THE BEST OVERTIME EVER cuz it only lasted 11 seconds before BURROWS scored and won the game!! OMG we were so excited! Everyone was screaming and high fiving, it was awesome. I believe it was all due to the new Burrows t-shirt that Scott bought me on Friday. Lucky t-shirt! I am not going to wash it.

After the game we chilled at Tanie’s house for a bit and then I headed over to meet Scott at Brian’s house. The boys were very silly and I won my first ever game of Wits and Wagers. Brian got a new deck of questions and instead of them all being about 1900-1930 American history they are about things like swimming pools and Rubik’s cubes and I was getting question after question right.

People were still honking and screaming FOUR HOURS AFTER THE GAME WAS OVER! It is intense in Vancouver these days. So much fun.

Oh and I also got 8 out of 8 footy tips right this weekend. I should have bet on my sports predictions this week, jeeze!!

Anyway wow it’s nearly lunchtime already and I still haven’t got up. Time to study some physics. Oh I’m planning on calling BCIT tomorrow to see what’s going on since Friday is my deadline for Michener. AHHH! Cross your fingers for me please!!