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What intense week of uni news. I did my first BCIT interview, scheduled my Michener interview and booked flights to Toronto, then found out I also got an interview at NAIT!

The BCIT interview went well. It was an hour long and I felt confident about my answers. Maybe I shouldn’t have said we want to stay in BC though – I thought that would be a plus for them, but then she said there aren’t that many jobs so you have to be open to moving anywhere in Canada.

For the last part of the interview she brought me down to the lab and showed me how to (fake) take blood. Then we switched spots and I had to do it to her. I was confident and did it without shaky hands, but then later on I realized I forgot to get her to squeeze her hand. Ugh. Hopefully it was more about being comfortable than getting it exactly right. Hopefully.

I booked my Michener interview for the last Friday in April and booked the flights so that I would have a quick T.O. weekend hopefully squeezing in a visit with Janine, and my cousins. The day after I booked I got another email saying I had been selected for an interview for MRI at NAIT on the Monday after Toronto! Very luckily though my flight back from T.O. stops in Edmonton!

Now this was probably a bit dumb but I called up Air Miles and changed my flight to the next day so I would have more time in Toronto, but now my flight leaves at 7:00 AM which is really annoying. I should have just left everything as it was because that change was not worth $84+waking up extremely early. I am seriously kicking myself. WHY DID I DO THAT? Anyway now I still have to buy one more one way ticket from Edmonton to Vancouver but all-in-all it comes out to under $500 to go to two different interviews, which is really not THAT bad I guess. THANK YOU DAFOE’S!!!!

I really wasn’t expecting to get that NAIT interview. They give priority to Albertans, and I hadn’t heard from them AT ALL since I applied. But now that I got short-listed I have started to get really excited. It’s the only school in Canada that lets you go straight in to MRI and it’s only a two year program. MRI is my end-goal, so it would be super amazing to just do it right away. I think NAIT is my top choice, even before BCIT. I think Scott is a bit bummed out about that, but he is still being supportive. Anyway the NAIT interview will be my last one so hopefully with all the experience from doing 4 interviews before then I will be able to totally rock it.

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SO COLD THIS WEEK.

Not only has Vancouver been having colder than usual weather (-3°C?????!!!), it was -15°C in Calgary on Wednesday. I forgot how going out into super cold air makes you cough. Ha.

I am super spoiled and was lucky enough to have my friend from Dal not only pick me up from the airport, but give me a mini tour of Calgary, stop for hot chocolate, AND pick me up from the school and drive me back to the airport!!!!! So nice! It was awesome to catch up with her, after like three years!

However the interview was not as nice. I was expecting one-on-one traditional style interviews but 30 seconds before I had to go in I found out it was MMI style. I was SO not prepared. There were 4 of us and we had to go to 5 different tables. At each table you got 2 minutes to read over a scenario and some questions, and then 4 minutes to answer. The problem was I thought some of the scenarios were so simple that there is no possible way at all I could talk about it for 4 minutes (ex. You are an imaging technologist at a small clinic with one other technician and a secretary. You notice the secretary has been repeatedly making the same mistake. What do you do? Ummmm…. nicely go over the mistake with the secretary?? WHAT ELSE COULD I SAY?? If I notice a mistake I’m not going to creep around it.)

This made me very nervous and a little rambly and just… unsure. Which is probably the exact opposite of what I should have been. It is REALLY weird talking to someone who is totally unresponsive. I only figured out they were probably told to me like that several hours later.

Anyway after the last table that was it. ‘Interview’ over.

Blargh. It’s really frustrating that I don’t feel like I rocked it. I knew about this style of interview (they use it at Michener) but I just didn’t know this one would be like that and instead of practicing public speaking I focused more on my history, my customer service experience, the course requirements, and challenging situations I have had to deal with.

Who knows, maybe I did ok. The other girls didn’t use up the whole 4 minutes each time either.

My flight back ended up being delayed 2.5 hours. The worst part was that no other flight seemed to have been affected. Even the next WestJet flight ended up leaving 15 minutes before mine. :( So instead of getting home at a reasonable 7:30 I got home at 10:00 and talked with Scott a bit and went straight to bed. I was so tired and had super bleary eyes at work the next day.

Work is challenging again. I’m not doing the old forms I am so used to that I could do in my sleep, and now have to learn 50 million new rules and things. Maybe soon I won’t have to type any more.

Oh and I’m still off dairy. I had some when I was in Calgary and I did feel a little sick that day so I went off it again. It’s just really hard to tell if I feel better without dairy or the same. The differences are so slight and inconsistent I still haven’t been able to reach any conclusions. I made quiche this morning with a store-bought crust (it uses cheapo oils instead of butter), and soy milk. It was good.

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My mind is a bit jumbly so I think I’ll just do point form today.

++++++++++++ I got a raise at work!!!

++++++++++++++++++ I got a uni interview at SAIT in Calgary!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
— they only gave me a week notice! It’s next Wednesday!
+ I still managed to get cheapish flights
+ my boss didn’t seem to mind giving me the day off

That email had perfect timing. I had come from work all anxious and stressed and feeling like a failure because sometimes I feel like I screw everything up in life and then I saw the ‘Congratulations!’ in my inbox. I’ve been really worried lately that I wasn’t even getting considered anywhere and now I feel a bit more optimistic about that, which is good.

++ playing Settlers with new friends was fun. I hope they invite us over again (HINT HINT haha) and I’ll bring baked goods and we can try the expansion pack.
+ we also bought our 4th Groupon this week for a games store so we can buy our own set for cheap.

++ we finally gave Agricola a try and it’s fun. After playing it three times neither of us have any idea how to actually win (even though I won twice and and tied once). It’s not as complex as we thought though and both of us like it.

—- As I mentioned before I am off dairy this week to see if I am lactose intolerant. This makes me very sad. I thought breakfast was going to be difficult but actually I quite enjoyed my english muffin with hummus, and my egg wraps with salsa and avocado. I just learned this week that you can cook ‘scrambled’ eggs in the microwave in 60 seconds. Yes they are kind of spongy, but if I’m mixing them with something else it’s ok.

Dessert is difficult though! Rosemarie is coming over tomorrow and I am in charge of dessert. Brownies (cocoa, egg, oil, water etc.) seems like it could work, but I may have to make them from scratch. And other than that I’ve got no ideas except jello. Doesn’t help that I don’t like coconut or cooked fruit.

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Things I wish someone would invent soon:

1) Brain notepad.
Like the notepad I have on my phone, but IN MY BRAIN. No need for typing.

2) A nutritional information tracker in my mouth.
Calories and fibre and protein and all that stuff. No more need for estimating how many grams of cheese I ate… it just calculates from what you actually put in your mouth (har har).

3) Teleportation

4) Temperature adjusting blanket.
No more sticking your leg out from the side of the blanket, or throwing it on the floor only to wake up cold later. This blanket would regulate everything from night to morning and keep you at the right temperature.

In other news, I received this email from Ms. Fisher of BCIT today:

“In addition to post secondary transcripts, we will review evidence of any recent advanced applications (work or project based) that provide proof of current knowledge and practice related to the program prequisite courses.
Kind regards
Lorie”

Good news. This is very different than what Saxxxxxony told me last year. I think now being a BC resident helps a lot, or maybe my pestering actually did some good. Anyway I think I’ll leave it at that for now, but once the selection process starts in January I will call again just to make sure my application is in the right pile.

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I’m so sorry for leaving my blog for so long. I didn’t want my family/friends to find out the big news via my blog, so I was waiting to post for a while. Spreading the news has been exhausting so anyway, enough emailing… here it is.

Scott and I are getting married next month!

It’s just going to be a tiny ceremony, 8 guests, on July 14th, and then a party on the weekend for other friends. It sucks but it looks like none of my family will be able to make it. I know we didn’t give much notice.

I need to get to British Columbia ASAP to start establishing my residency so I can actually get into BCIT next year. We know it’s going to be a struggle for a while, we are going to be very poor. This is why we haven’t planned any Ottawa party yet… I really don’t know when we will have the cash to fly anywhere. I really WANT to bring Scott home, but we don’t really know when. We will keep you posted, and eventually there will be a Canadian celebration.

At least Rosemarie gets to meet him soon.

Our friends and family here are very excited for us. Scott and I are great together and they all see that. We are so happy and very confident in our decisions. It has been a very stressful month but we’re getting through it. We’re a great team.