School was pretty tame today. Got to see a bunch of videos of Celphalopods (squid, cuttlefish, octopuses, etc.) doing crazy things. Seriously, glow-in-the-dark eyes of an octopus are pretty darn creepy. But the videos were pretty awesome. I didn’t learn too much in math, only because some idiot in the front kept on trying to argue with the prof that the math was wrong [(1/√2)² = ½ but the student kept on arguing that it was really ¼]. Oy. Plants biology was pretty fun… Once my prof could actually connect his laptop (which had the powerpoint file) to the podium (connected to the projection system). So overall, school was pretty tame today. Nothing out of the ordinary. My scheduled (mandatory!) biochemisty tutorial was canceled for the week (I only have it on Mondays, and it got canceled for all tutorials). And since I wasn’t expected home until later anyways… I went shopping. But not before a classmate in my plants biology class asked me this question:

Are you Team Edward or Team Jacob?

I expected a question like “Do you have white-out I can borrow?” or “What did the prof just say about [insert figure here]?”. She’s friends with my friend, R, so I don’t really know her all that well. She said that she just “discovered” Twilight and really wanted to know if I was more for Edward or more for Jacob (she’s still reading the series and just finished New Moon). And all I could say was “Erm…” Definitely not Team Edward and definitely not Team Jacob. And it would have been narcissistic to claim to be Team Me (lol), so I just claimed to be on my boyfriend’s team and that satisfied her curiosity. She was wearing a Team Jacob shirt today (and said she had an Team Edward shirt that she was going to wear on Wednesday. And that it was covered in glitter, ack.)

Ahem, moving on… My thrifted hoodie (from Saturday!) in the most cheerful print ever. There’s hearts, trees, suns, clouds, flowers, stars, ducks and just so much all over it. They look like doodles, but it is an actual print (not just the product of a bored person’s imagination with a few permanent markers). It’s definitely a wear-to-school hoodie. Or a sit-at-home-on-the-laptop hoodie. =) Which is just fine by me, since I’m at school 5 days of the week anyways (might as well wear something that I like! Just need to remember not to wear on lab days, I would consider crying if I got toluidine blue on this hoodie).

Close-up of the scribble-doodle print! Can you tell why I love it? ♥

And today’s little yarn shopping trip… Regia sock yarn! The one in the top left hand corner is 100g, all the others are 50g. The three balls of yarn on the top are for my sister (enough for 2 pairs of adult-sized socks!) and the bottom four balls (in bright, subdued and pastel!) are for dolly knitting projects. I also bought the most massive roll of twill tape ever for making my own DIY fabric labels to put my name on my projects.

Questions for you:

1. What kind of craft supplies do you buy (if any)? What kind of crafts do you do?
2. What is one of your pet peeves when it comes to tweets from someone that you’re following on Twitter? (Only applies if you use Twitter, of course.)
3. What’s the dorkiest thing that you’ve done today?

My answers:

1. Yarn, beads, wire, paints, cardstock, ribbon, fabric squares, thread. Crocheting, knitting, jewellery making/design, paper crafts (card making), sewing.
2. If people constantly swear repeatedly. If people whine over stupid stuff (constantly). If people just bitch and moan about stuff and never explain it (I know it’s not a blog, but seriously, a little explanation if you’re going to curse someone out would be awesome). Or if someone does all of the above and never says anything else. Twitter ≠ place for angsty (and boring) teenagers to complain on. Thanks.
3. Recited the first 20-ish digits of π.

I got my stitches removed at the dentist, it was a very quick procedure (maybe ~3 minutes!) but I had to wait about 15 minutes for the dentist to be done with his other patient before getting to me. But luckily, it wasn’t too long before he was done just snipping and pulling the stitches out before telling me that I was good to go and that all I had to do was continue to rinse with salt water for about another week or two and then it should be fine. Still doing pretty okay in terms of chewing, but still nothing too solid because I can’t use my back molars too much yet (no pain in general, but if I accidentally clamp down on food over the healed incision sites, it’s a world of pain for me).

Also visited the other medical professional that I’ve visited so far in the last few weeks (in just under 3 weeks, I’ve visited the dentist 3 times, optometrist 2 times and family doctor once), my optometrist. But no big deal, I was just picking up my new glasses and he was telling me to walk in a straight line and making sure that the lenses were centred correctly for my eyes. Nice thing is that this time I got a new case! Last time, I got my glasses at a place that didn’t give me a case when I got my new glasses, which was disappointing because I always need somewhere to put my old pair. But because my prescription didn’t change (I got new ones because my old ones had a few scratches that were making it a *bit* blurry), I can still use both pairs and I’m planning on doing that (the old pair comes with magnetic clip-on sunglasses attachment, the new ones don’t).

My sisters and I went to the thrift store…. I went with the full intention of only looking through the books, toys and glassware (looking for Pyrex prints in good condition – I found one that was in the print that I wanted, but it was so scratched up that it was just not worth it). I ended up going through racks of sweaters, in hopes of finding something good to take apart for the yarn (didn’t find anything nice that wasn’t acrylic) and I ended up with a new hoodie. My sisters both thought it was the most busy-looking hoodie that they’ve ever seen, but I like it. I’ll take a photo of it after it gets cleaned in the wash, but it’s green and the print all over it is of sketches and doodles. I’m quite infatuated with the print. Photos to follow soon! It’s a bit big on me, but it’s a hoodie so I don’t care too much.

My parents commented on the fact that I’ve gone to so many medical professionals lately… And to be fair, it is the most I’ve ever gone to see doctors in such a short period of time. I mean, I went to the dentist three times in under 3 weeks (twice for teeth extraction, once for final removal of stitches!) but it’s just so many. The receptionist totally knows me by face and name now. She looked up and just went “Michelle! How are you today?” without even looking down to see the schedule list or asking me who I was. Gah… Clearly, I go to the dentist too often. When I went back to the optometrist today because both of my sisters had appointments, there was nothing to indicate to him that I was supposed to even be there (no appointment made, since I was just picking up my new glasses) and he goes “Hey Michelle, here to pick up your glasses?” <- That coming from a man that I see once every two years. Or maybe I’m just amazed that they can remember my name because I can barely remember the names of people that I’m supposed to know. Just the other day, I called one of my TAs by the wrong name and I see her 4 times a week! That might be it.

Questions for you:

1. Do you ever go shopping in thrift stores? (If yes, what sort of things do you look for?)
2. Do you wear glasses or contacts? If no, do you need them?
3. If you were stranded on a deserted island and someone came along and offered you one of two desserts (coconut cream pie or chocolate cream pie), which would you choose and why?

My answers:

1. Yup. I look for doll clothes/accessories (sometimes get lucky with things that fit Blythe), Pyrex (especially in prints that I want) and clothes (sweaters for the yarn, clothes for myself).
2. I wear glasses. I’ve considered contacts, but insurance wouldn’t cover all of it ($200 for 2 years).
3. Coconut cream pie. Because I had a small slice of both tonight (lol) and I liked that one better.

Wednesday, March 3rd
I had my second math midterm… I did prepare for this, and felt pretty okay with the questions that were on the test. My problem, however, is when my professor decided to start the midterm. The class doesn’t start until 9am. The previous class period is from 8:00am to 8:50am, giving people 10 minutes to get from points A to B. This is fine, I can get to the building where I have my math class in about 5 minutes. My issue is that I arrived at the lecture hall where I have my math class at 8:55am and everyone is already seated and writing their midterms. I had a serious “WTF” moment when I thought I either walked incredibly slow or the clock in the lecture hall I was in previously had stopped or was behind. Turns out that my prof had issued out the midterms at 8:50am and had allowed people to start writing then. Gah. I felt rushed with that midterm, mostly because everyone was already writing while I was entering into the room, finding the TA to get a midterm and then finding a seat somewhere in the room. Ugh.

I went thrift store shopping yesterday – picked up a non-Blythe doll with a near complete set of clothes (missing one shoe!) that turned out to be a doll that goes for $50+ (NRFB) on eBay. Go figure. But now she’s sitting on my shelf, completely naked as a jaybird as I’ve swiped her outfit (poor Hermione, all without her Gryffindor clothes) for my other dolls. I also picked up another awesome find (more about that later) and then went to visit K, who invited me over after my thrifting adventure for the day. Hadn’t seen her in a while, so it was great to catch up! Plus I got to show off my thrift store finds, which is always fun! She was studying/procrastinating/taking a break from studying when I arrived, so it was all good.

Thursday, March 4th – Today!
I had the biochemistry lecture from hell today. While I understand the concepts and such, it was just so damn boring! My prof kept on repeating herself for the people who didn’t get it the second time and because she kept on forgetting that she had already said some of the stuff that she was saying! Ugh.

In my plants biology lab, I got my lab midterm and my (first) lecture midterm back! I did surprisingly well on the lab midterm. See, it was the first of the three midterms that I had in just under a 24 hour period, so I did not have high hopes for those test scores (who would?) but turns out that I did much better than the class average (yay!). I was totally cringing at the thought of getting the lab midterm back that I was so regretting even going up to my TA to get it from her. Also, got my lecture midterm back as well… I did fairly good on it too! My prof drew a smiley face on the bottom of one of my pages because I doodled a flower (it was next to a question asking about roses, so I drew a rose after finishing my essay and waiting a moment before going over everything, again).

School has been keeping me pretty busy since it started up again on Monday (guessing two midterms on consecutive days will give me that feeling!). I’m still keeping up with my 365 photo project – I’m at 10/365 now! Hehe. I’ve been taking stock, pretty much, of things lately. Trying to get myself grounded, eating more healthy, exercising (hello running? My legs hate me again), watching a little bit less of television (but to be fair, I don’t really follow that many shows religiously anymore) and just trying my best to be happy overall. There’s been a lot of things going on lately that I cannot change, but I have realized that I can change my outlook on the things that occur in my life. It’s either that or be miserable and cry all the time.

I hope everyone has been having a marvelous week so far! Are you looking forward to the weekend? I am!

My invertebrate biology prof actually applauded us for showing up to class on time, mostly because he was personally having a pretty bad headache from being hung over from drinking too much the day before (claiming it was a symptom of watching the gold medal hockey game).

My math prof got straight down to business, throwing examples at us. Not much fun there.

My plants biology profs… Well, one of them brought in cookies for us (maple-leaf shapes with red icing), wearing a Team Canada hockey jersey while she passed a make-shift torch to the ‘new’ prof, who will be teaching the second half of the class. The torch was made from a (brand new) toilet plunger with coloured cellophane taped at the top in the shape of a flame. She passed it to him and then he ran up the stairs and out of the lecture hall (and then came back in via the other set of doors and ran back down). Apparently he had a hangover-induced headache as well.

Ahhh, I like my professors this term. My biochem TA asked for a show of hands of who watched the gold medal hockey game. One girl didn’t have her hand up and he wanted to know why. Her answer was “I was on an airplane coming back to Canada!” and that “excuse” (as my TA called it) was acceptable.

But speaking of going back to school… I managed to wake up at 5:30am this morning (yay!) but there was literally nothing “Michelle friendly” to eat for breakfast. While I can eat solid food, I’m wary of cereal and bread still because there’s such small particles and even thought the swelling is now completely gone it doesn’t mean that small particles of food (especially sharp crumbs, ouch!) can’t cause any pain! I did, however, eat a banana (after I found one hidden behind the cereal box).

Plans for this week are:

Monday: Going back to school (lol)
Tuesday: invertebrates biology lab midterm, doctor’s appointment
Wednesday: math midterm (second one)
Thursday: (nothing…?)
Friday: volunteering!!
Saturday: dentist appointment (in the morning, getting stitches removed!)

Two days post-wisdom teeth extraction, swelling is way down and I’m already eating solid food!

And to think last time, it took about 4 days before I got to that point (it was mostly the waiting for the swelling to go down before I could manage to chew properly). This time it’s been 2 days. Yay!

And it freaked me the hell out. Like, did they screw up? Did the x-ray not show badly mutated roots for that tooth? Did the tooth have tentacles or had teeth (lol) and was coming after them?

None of the above, thankfully. I just had a bit of a bleeding issue in which there was no end to the bleeding for a few minutes. Mouths heal quickly, and the dentist mentioned that last week, the left top socket (no stitches because there was no incision) stopped bleeding fairly quickly except for a small amount. This time, no such luck. The now-empty socket ended up getting packed with some kind of material (that I don’t need to remove, it’ll “come out on its own”, how nice for it) and I was given a (crappy) cold compress (which was not that cold) and then went home.

I’m back to icing my swollen jaw (whoot…) and not eating solid food again. Luckily I know what to do this time around instead of fumbling about with the instructions sheet that the dentist provided me with. They gave me another bag full of packets of sterilized gauze that I just… don’t use. They said to only use it when I’m bleeding (but only change it out once ever 30 minutes and if bleeding persists past 2 hours, to go back in to get it looked at), but I haven’t had a need beyond changing it out once or twice and that’s about it. Which is nice, because I don’t like the feeling of gauze in my mouth.

After I got home, I napped for a little bit and then turned on my laptop (lol) and unboxed Blythe #4 (of 5, one of them skipped the queue) and there’s some photos up on Flickr and commentary on my dolly blog. Her name is Bennett and I love her (granted, I love all my Blythes… My second cousin actually sent me a very serious-sounding email the other day to inform me that I desperately need to seek therapy for my “issues” due to my dolls.). I watched some of the recorded Olympics events from yesterday (awesome moment for Canadian athletes!) and today’s episode of General Hospital (ahh, GH love). My mom came home and the first thing she said was “Aww, Michelle, you look like a chipmunk!”. My sister, when she arrived home, she look one look at me and said “So… Guess what I bought today!”. Ahh, last Tuesday when I got my two left wisdom teeth removed, she brought home the Mukmuk plushie on a keychain. Today, she came home with a bunch of yarn (and here I thought we were both yarn dieting unless we had a very specific project in mind and were going to use it ASAP). Yum, yarn.

Anyways… Time for bed for me. Feeling pretty out of it. All the stuff from the needles given at the dentist have worn off (a whooping 14 injections this time – 2 of them were into the roof of my mouth, and those hurt like hell) so I’m just on… antibiotics and good old generic ibuprofen right now. They decided to not give me antiinflammatories this time, I did ask about it.

Just need sleep… and rest. =)

There was some interesting entertainment while my friends and I were waiting in the line-ups. People dressed in gold, silver and bronze were living statues. The gold statue was a skier, I’m not sure what the bronze woman was (possibly figure skating, sans skates?) and silver was a snowboarder.

Gold living statue at LiveCity Yaletown – golden skier.

Photo of the line to get into LiveCity Yaletown.

My friends and I wanted to go into the Happiness House (the Coca Cola Pavilion) first, but the staff person at the entrance to the line told us that the line was now closed (their way of ensuring that they don’t have massive wait times, I suppose?). We wandered off to go see other things first.

Happiness House, aka the Coca Cola Pavilion, at LiveCity Yaletown.

At the Panasonic Pavilion, we waited in line for tickets for a 3D movie and also got to check out some of the new technology, get our photos taken with Olympic mascot plushies and write our own eco-friendly tips that get scanned in to be added to all the other submitted tips.

Outside of the Panasonic Pavilion while waiting in line for movie tickets.

Mascot cubes inside of the Panasonic Pavilion.

After we left the Panasonic Pavilion, the lines were still closed to the Coke Pavilion, so we lined up for Samsung (another Olympics sponsor). Inside there was live entertainment, a lot of cell phones to try out and some activities to do in order to earn stickers in a passport to exchange for a scratch card. Despite having full passports, we couldn’t get any scratchcards because they had ran out for the day.

Outside of the Samsung Pavilion

After that, we went back to the Coca Cola Pavilion and the lineups for open! So we lined up. While in the lines, we watched the hockey game (Canada vs. USA). (Which was an incredibly disappointing game, I must say.) The inside of the Coca Cola Pavilion was fun though! We had to snake through this area that displayed all the styles of Coke bottles that were ever made and even clothing from Coca Cola sponsored Olympics. Even the people working in the Coke Pavilion were wearing clothes that were made from recycled plastic bottles, which I thought was pretty awesome. We got to watch a movie about Coke’s involvement with the Vancouver 2010 torch relay and then after that we got a free drink, did some activities (I got my photo taken with a Vancouver 2010 torch) and then I exchanged my empty Coke bottle for a plastic bottle that changes colour when it’s turned on – very cool indeed.

Outside of the Happiness House, about to enter.

Display of the different looks for Olympics-specific Coca Cola bottles/cans.

Display of the different looks for Olympics-specific Coca Cola bottles.

At this point, it was around 7:30pm and we made our way to a McDonald’s (I’m still on the hunt for some of the more elusive Olympics Happy Meal toys) and we made our way to one that had security at the doors, which was insane in my opinion (but it made going in pretty nice, since they only allowed a maximum of three people lining up at each cash register at any time). I got Happy Meal toy #1 (now I’m only missing #2 and #3) and we ate dinner there before wandering some more.

It was at this point we decided to make our way to Ontario House and the map that I had was missing the street that we were on (go figure) so we asked a pair of police officers how to get to where we wanted to go. In their opinion, my map was crappy and they directed us to the general direction that we should go. Problem was is that even they couldn’t remember which roads were closed to pedestrians! We eventually made our way there and got to Ontario House and we watched the 4D movie (the chairs moved, there were bubbles, fake snow, water being sprayed in our faces and also smells of hot chocolate, trees, snow, etc.) which showcased the province of Ontario, but it was really fun, since there was so much going on.

On our way to Ontario House, spotted an amazing view of Science World (a.k.a. Sochi World) with the lights reflecting on False Creek.

Inside of Ontario House, waiting a very short amount of time to watch a 4D movie.

It was a really fun day, getting to see so much with different people (Royal Canadian Mint Pavilion and Northern House,with my sisters, and LiveCity Yaletown and Ontario House with two of my friends). It was definitely a fun-filled day but now I’m just glad to have a day to relax for a bit I did do a lot of exercise yesterday and my legs could use a bit of a rest.

That line up was an estimated 7.5 hours – just for viewing the medals, on top of everything else!

We switched to the second line up, as that was 45 minutes to an hour wait (we waited for an hour and maybe 20 minutes). During this wait, J stayed in the line while D and I walked across the street to get food from Subway – solid food! I’m so happy, haha.

This was the insane lineup. On the right was the ’shorter’ line for the pavilion, sans medals. On the left is the massive lineup (7.5 hours!) to see and touch the medals (wearing gloves!) as well as the rest of the pavilion.

Super insane lines for the Royal Canadian Mint Pavilion.

I got to see some really beautiful coins – there are so many. I also learned that the Royal Canadian Mint has made currency for over half of the world’s countries, including the United States of America at one point. Plus, the mint runs 24/7, making new coins all the time. I thought this was really cool. All the ‘limited run’ coins are made in Ottawa (they only produce ~8,000 coins per day), while the general minting occurs in Winnipeg, Manitoba (and they produce a lot).

Entrance to the Royal Canadian Mint Pavilion.

Tails side of the Million Dollar Coin

Heads side of the Million Dollar Coin

A block or so away from the Royal Canadian Mint Pavilion was Northern House, representing Yukon Territory, Northwest Territories and Nunavut. Sunday was Nunavut day! I got two pins (one with Nunavut, the other with Northern House), which was nice. There were demonstrations of games that children play, as well as displays of mining, transportation, traditional clothing and shoes as well as artwork.

It was well-worth the wait to get in, just to see everything! There was this impressive mountain of food, the sign said that it was approximately 6 months of food for an average family and most families only get the chance to order food twice a year and that if they forgot something, they would have to either go without or trade with another family. It really put things into perspective, considering how lucky I am and a lot of others are to be able to go to a grocery store on a whim to get whatever food we want while some people need to plan for months in advanced. Also, a dollar for a can of pop in Vancouver, BC is nearly $3 for a can of pop in Nunavut.

I also got to say hi to John Furlong (the CEO of VANOC!) while I was in the Northern House, but he couldn’t pose for a photo because he was constantly having mothers shove children into his hands for photo opportunities. The artwork there was amazing. The small gift shop that was there had a sweater that was made from 100% qivuit (for those who aren’t completely fibre geeks, it’s the fibre that comes from a muskox which is incredibly expensive because the animals aren’t sheared like sheep) that was adult-sized and priced at well over $2000 for one sweater. But it felt like a complete dream.

Caribou at the Northern House

Muskox at the Northern House – this is the animal that qivuit comes from!

Polar bear (squee!) at Northern House

Wednesday
This was the day that it really hit that I got my wisdom teeth pulled. I woke up very tired and sore. The swelling really started to hit. Also, I didn’t eat very much with the medication that my dentist prescribed and it said ‘Take With Food’. Apparently half of a mushed up banana wasn’t enough and my body really did not like the medication and basically rejected it. Which sucked. I got incredibly cranky and ended up sleeping with an ice pack against my face (don’t worry, I pushed it off sometime during my sleep). I watched some of the Olympic events, fell asleep during it though. I didn’t realize that I’d get so tired from getting my teeth pulled. I guess it’s my body’s way of saying that I need to sleep, rest and let my immune system deal with the trauma of minor oral surgery.

Thursday
So Thursday I actually left my house. I went to No Frills just to buy bananas and generic ibuprofen, which was fun. I swear the cashier looked at me funny when she eyed what I had and went “Is that all?” like she was expecting me to have a shopping cart full of stuff. I watched some Olympic events again. I find that I like the ‘racing’ type events the best, or the ones that have the most aerobatic things. So far, I’ve enjoyed watching the moguls (each run is fast and plus they do neat tricks), snowboard cross (racing!), halfpipe (men’s is so much more entertaining that women’s, only because they do more interesting tricks) and some of the figure skating events. Went to bed relatively early (just to wake up again and stayed up until around 1am). Studied for my biology lab midterm (the Tuesday I go back to school) and did some math problems.

Friday (today!)
So far, I’ve taken some photos of my dolls (who’ve been neglected), some things I’ve made for the Blythe Spring Swap (criteria is that everything needs to be handcrafted) and of my sister’s Vancouver 2010 Olympic plushies. I adore them, Quatchi is super cuddly. I plan on repotting my bean plant as it’s outgrown the small pot I initially planted it in, as well was watching Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice (I didn’t last night because I was feeling tired, that’s a first!). I also plan on trying food that’s a little bit more solid today! Since getting my two left wisdom teeth pulled on Tuesday, I’ve consumed: congee (rice porridge), peanut butter, mushed bananas, apple sauce, cream of mushroom soup and clear chicken broth. Mushed bananas are the best since even if I don’t get the pieces really small, I can swallow them straight down. Peanut butter took a lot of effort, the swelling didn’t allow for very good movement of my tongue (TMI?). Cream of mushroom soup was delightful. I’m pleased to be able to say that the swelling has gone down quite considerably, there’s barely a difference between the two sides of my cheeks now (yay!). I’m also able to brush my teeth without being in pain (whoot!) and the incision site for my bottom left wisdom tooth is healing quite nicely!

These are my sister’s plushies. At the back (in the earmuffs) is Quatchi. In the front row, from left to right, is Sumi (Paralympics mascot), Mukmuk (sidekick) and Miga (whom I personally consider to be the mascot who transfers the worst from drawings to plushie form):

And this is my favourite photo that I’ve taken today, it’s of Sophie (my first Blythe doll):