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I completed another one of my life goals: working with glass. I got the groupon for an intro to glass class at Braden Hammond Glass for my birthday and I finally got to redeem it this weekend.

His apprentice did a cool demo where he made a pendant with a mushroom inside of it and then there was a safety talk and a demonstration of how to make beads. We were allowed to make as many beads as we wanted in the time we were there.

First we made clear beads to get the hang of the technique. It was much harder than he made it look. Some of our beads looked pretty crappy.

Then he showed us how to use the coloured glass, the shaping stone, and how to make dots.

It was REALLY HARD to make the glass do what I wanted it to do. I think my beads look kind of neat but they were not what I imagined in my mind at all. Haha. All three of those were supposed to be something completely different and then just ended up as blobs of glass smushed down on the shaping stone. I still like them a lot though!!

This one started off as a small bead with dots on it. Then my hand jerked and one of the dots attached back on to the metal stick. Oops. Now it’s a nice SHARP bead… yeah.

After you are happy with what your bead looks like you put it in a kiln to temper it and make it durable.

All in all it was awesome. I really appreciated that they were encouraging us to make lots of beads. He wasn’t stingy with the supplies at all.

Now that I’ve done the beginner class I am allowed to just book time at the studio to practice if I want. The supplies are fairly cheap. We also can now do the intermediate classes (one of them is actually glass blowing) but the problem is that they are super expensive. With the groupon the beginner class was pretty reasonable, but now the intermediate classes are like $200-$300. And the beginner class is $135 so a bit expensive for Scott to do it now, otherwise after that we could just split our supplies and book our own studio time to try and figure stuff out.

So I don’t know if/when I will get to do this again, but if you ever see a groupon for something along these lines I highly recommend it! (And please let me know too…)

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Whataweek what a week.

Monday through Thursday I was out at clinical at my new hospital. While they definitely do a few things differently, it wasn’t a huge adjustment from what I got used to in the summer. Most of the routines and protocols seem to be the same. It’s a smaller department but they’re still very busy.

The patient population that goes to St. Pauls is a little different than VGH even though it’s not really that far away though. (St. Pauls is right in the downtown core of Vancouver). There are a lot more no-shows and we often can’t just call them and see where they are because they don’t have phones (or addresses).

I’m on the stress lab rotation where we get the patients up on the treadmill so we can give them the tracer while their hearts are being stressed. It is not my favourite rotation because there is a lot going on at once and I don’t get to sit down at all. I will be happy when these two weeks are over.

On Friday’s we have school, even if we are out at clinical for the rest of the week. It’s the only time we get to see the other set. Our classes kind of stink on Friday but I love seeing everyone and getting to compare our clinical experiences. We had a good long gossip session at lunch today, haha. Today felt really weird, like an odd mix of a Monday and a Friday and I keep getting mixed up. 

Well this is getting long and it’s text-only so I guess I’ll just wrap up here for now. Happy Grand Final day and GO HAWTHORNE (I guess??). We’re off to Moose’s Down Under for Grand Final 2012 Aussie fun.

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Well summer is now over. :( I didn’t actually complete all my summer goals but I’m ok with this. I did do a lot of them! I think it was a pretty successful way of keeping me motivated and off the couch this summer.

  1. Finally paint the cheapo wooden drawers we got from IKEA. done.
  2. Make delicious popsicles in my new popsicle mold. once (strawberry lemonade). twice (strawberry frozen yogurt). thrice (strawberry raspberry vanilla frozen yogurt).
  3. Go swimming in the ocean for the first time in Vancouver. done!
  4. Ride the rides at the PNE. well we went on ONE ride. :/
  5. Watch fireworks. done.
  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. done. twice, actually!
  9. Regularly visit the farmers market on Saturday mornings. once. twice. thrice.
  10. Read some books while I actually have the time. Insurgent (Veronica Roth), Let’s Pretend This Never Happened (Jenny Lawson), The Art of Fielding: A Novel (Chad Harbach), Geek Love (Katherine Dunn), Gone Girl (Gillian Flynn), currently reading The Night Circus (Erin Morgenstern).
  11. Make a nicer looking menu planning board. done!
  12. Find a new person to play board games with. done!
  13. Try a new fruit. I guess fresh figs counts for this one.
  14. Do a successful venipuncture on a real patient. I’ve done about 75 now.
  15. Make a new blog header.
  16. Take more pictures. nope.

Basically the things I didn’t finish are the more major art projects. I need the perfect combination of time and space and inspiration to get those done!

I don’t think I will make a new goals list immediately because I’m too busy with school now. But I’ll definitely do this again next summer!

Our house is a total disaster area right now. We’ve got some serious cleaning to do this morning. Happy weekend.

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I’ve slept about 22 hours in the last two nights. And I’m still beat! Being sick is the worst! I think I’m on the mend now though, my stuffed nose has turned into a cough which is better because at least I can breathe again. I seriously don’t get why our bodies would think constricting our nose so it is entirely SHUT is a good idea.

Tomorrow is the last day of our first school rotation. I am definitely looking forward to going to the hospital next week because studying and homework sucks. Well I have a bazillion labs I have to finish up then but hopefully I’ll be a good girl and just get them all finished this weekend.

OK this is really the boringest entry of all time. I’m going to bed.

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Oh glorious weekend after a long week at school. We haven’t actually gotten that much homework yet, but being at school sucks compared to working at the hospital. I am looking forward to my first rotation at St. Pauls Hospital, next next week.


For some reason we decided to cook all sorts of things this afternoon.

I made oatmeal choc chip muffins, nutella stuffed choc chip cookies, and two mushroom spinach bacon quiches (although I should have just made one, they turned out really thin). I kind of want to cut out a circle out of one of the quiche and just put it on top of the other quiche. :/

Scott made that amazing looking cheddar jalapeno bread in the middle of the picture, and also tempered some chocolate to make chocolate covered strawberries. OM NOM NOM.

Now every single dish that we have is dirty. Also I have no idea where we are going to put all of this food. Scott said we should have a bake sale.

I think my nails turned out pretty cool last week. I used my nail stickers again. I like the bare nail parts. Pretty handy that this manicure doesn’t get messed up when your nails grow!

Well……… I don’t have much more to talk about at the moment so I guess I’m off to start the dishes now.

P.S. Thank you very much for all your nice comments on my last post. I appreciate them very much. <3