Family – Imaginary Sunshine

Holidays! Future Thoughts!

Michelle — Sat, 13 Dec 2014 07:21:30 +0000

I am currently on holidays – sort of. I don’t have clinical or classes anymore as I’ve officially finished and passed my Level 5 term of nursing school, which makes me happy! I found out my placement already for Level 6 (I will have two 8.5 week placements), but there is a lot of preparation work to be done. Level 6 means that it’s my preceptorship (1 and 2), I’ll have a mentor for each preceptorship who will be a registered nurse who essentially supervises me and teaches me. So exciting. My first placement is well over an hour’s drive away, so I will be temporarily moving to a relative’s place for those 8.5 weeks (although I will be going to and from home as well). I’m very excited, but a bit nervous. Gaining a teeny bit of independence? What do I need to bring? I’m trying to decide how much yarn I’ll need, what food I should convince my parents to purchase for me so I won’t have to be completely independent just yet. Having literally zero income makes me pinch pennies like no tomorrow.

But I am on holidays! Technically. Officially. 25 days of no school, no clinical days. 25 days to do whatever I want, whenever I want – while still doing preparation for Level 6. 25 days. Well, 23 more days now. A few months ago I mused about going away on a trip somewhere, but then that never really took off. I’ve been on holidays since 12pm on December 10th, and I’ve been busy with crafting presents. I’m so happy with the ideas that I’ve had this year, and I’m really glad that I got quite a bit of it done in November. I knit a pair socks for my mom, and a cowl for my sister. The Boy’s gift is done, and the one for his family is almost done. I bought a present for my other sister because she asked for small kitchen gadgets (I wasn’t able to hammer out for a vegetable peeler), and then there’s my dad. I have no clue what I’m going to get him for Christmas. He isn’t very receptive to hand crafted goods, he sometimes makes comment on how ‘cheap’ it seems because it is handmade (which is sad, considering me spending time on a present for his is clearly priceless). So generic father gift is shall be, once I figure out what it is.

I’m really excited for this year’s holidays though, since next year I’ll (fingers crossed) be employed and likely working during the weekends or possibly even over Christmas. I’m very excited for 2015. It means Level 6 (my next and final term of nursing school!), it means graduation (in June), it means writing the most expensive test of my life (NCLEX-RN), it means being done my post-secondary education experience (for now?), and it means becoming a Registered Nurse and doing something that I absolutely love.

I need a blanket fort

Michelle — Sun, 29 Dec 2013 08:07:32 +0000

Sometimes it makes me sad that I don’t blog more. Blogging used to be my passion and I’d come up with a new theme nearly every month. Pretty sure that this one has been up for forever by now… And yet, I really cannot bring myself to care that I haven’t changed from the pixel girl with the heart-shaped balloon. It’s a bit fitting, since I had modeled the image after my favicon image that I had made much earlier than this theme. But blogging as a whole? I didn’t realize that I had pretty much dropped off the face of the planet in terms of the internet. Or maybe I had, and just didn’t notice?

I, for one, had an alright Christmas. The thing about Christmas is that it is a very family-oriented holiday. The unfortunate thing about Christmas is that it is a very family-oriented holiday. Some gems that I’ve been asked this holiday season by relatives (immediate and extended) include:

Why aren’t you done school yet?

Why didn’t you go to medical school?

How much weight have you gained? (Which was followed by: How much do you weigh now?)

The answers: because I’m not, because I don’t want to become a doctor (medical or otherwise), none of your business, see previous answer.

Oh family. What would I do without them? (Answer: Probably be a lot more sane, and non-existent.)

I’m already looking forward to going back to school – primarily so I won’t need to spend so much time with the members of my family that are driving me crazy with their repetitive questions. That and I want to learn ALL THE THINGS! I’ve been doing a bit of winter break reading and just finished the Hyperbole and a Half book by Allie Brosh. It has delightfully thick pages and full-colour illustrations. What else would a girl want in a book full of fun stories? I still have a few more books in my pile to read. Now that my familial holiday obligations have been met and there are no more family gatherings in the near future (as far as I know, anyways), I’m happy to really get to enjoy my time off and spend time with the people that I choose to spend time with. (A.k.a. not the crazy relatives, or the select individuals that I live with who are driving me crazy.)

Winter Break (Finally!)

Michelle — Sat, 14 Dec 2013 17:30:03 +0000

I finished final exams for my third term of nursing school on Thursday and I couldn’t be more happier! This means that I’m officially halfway through the program! I’m that much closer to becoming a registered nurse and I’m still excited about my future career – this is how I know that I made the right decision with this program/profession/career choice. It was this or actually, you know, using my first degree. But then I’d be working in a lab or something for the rest of my life, and that’d just make me sad.

But you guys – I’m that much closer to becoming an RN. This is the dream. Next term, I’ll be on a medical or surgical ward. Then I’ll be in community or public health in August-December. And then come January 2015? My last term of nursing school. I get to have a say in what kind of ward(s) I’ll be on and, even better, I get paid to do it. Real money! Income! My income may be higher than my expenses for the first time since my first university experience! This is awesome! I’m likely to request my preceptorships to be in: surgical (post-operative), emergency or… pediatrics. I fell in love with pediatrics during my rotation. Sick babies, toddlers, young kids, teenagers. It’s such a different feeling and I loved it. But I only get two different preceptorship spots, so I’m likely going to choose surgical and emergency. This is because pediatrics is a specialty (more so than the others, although emergency/trauma is one too…) and I’d lose some of the skills that I could develop early on in a medical or surgical ward.

The last few weeks have been full of knitting, jewellery making and studying. Oh, and drinking Chai tea lattes. I’m honestly half-convinced that I am made of Chai tea at times. I’ve recently made the switch at home from regular tea (typically a green tea or Orange Pekoe) to hot chocolate, which also meant that I had to make the switch from my usual mug to this one:

Why yes, my snowman mug that wants you to believe in the magic of Christmas does have a hat for a cover! It’s the most awesome thing ever. I only use it in the month of December. You know, to preserve the magic of the holidays. And because it holds a decent amount of hot chocolate.

My plans for the holidays include a lot of baking (shortbread, sugar cookies – iced and uniced, (cup)cakes, and possibly a pie or two. I love holiday baking! As well as some reading (for fun), knitting and crocheting (holiday gifts) and possibly making some more jewellery. I actually made quite a bit during the term (21 pairs of earrings and 1 bracelet), so I may not. But my holiday plans do not include going shopping for presents as I already finished that. Back in November. Last year I didn’t do any present shopping until I was done finals and it was just awful. This year I learned from that mistake and got it done early.

Hopefully I’ll be better at blogging during my break, fingers crossed!

Reasons Not to Move to Hong Kong

Michelle — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 03:42:59 +0000

I haven’t blogged in a while, but I swear I have a good reason for it! Since I last blogged, I was busy with:

Packing for a four week trip overseas
Spending a week in China
Spending three weeks in Hong Kong
Spending a week as a ‘vacation from my vacation’ at home doing absolutely nothing (mostly sleeping)
And working on my online courses (mandatory for the nursing program I’m in)

Online classes are very different at this school than my last one. I only had one online course at my old school (Human Sexuality – still one of the most interesting classes I’ve ever taken!). These ones are more structured in a way that requires more deadlines. The other one only had deadlines for the midterm and final (all online). These ones, if they have finals, are on campus. But the midterms were online, so it was alright (I guess…).

Hong Kong was great in the sense that I got to see relatives and meet them for the first time (I do not count the time when I was under the age of two). But on the other hand, visiting Hong Kong reinforced the decision that I had made to never move there permanently. Ever. I couldn’t handle it, for so many reasons. The weather is awful – the day I arrived was mid-30s (Celsius!) and 85% humidity. It’s like having someone slap you in the face with a hot wet towel when you leave the airport. It was difficult to breathe properly at first because it was so much like being in a sauna and I didn’t like that at all. A lot of indoor places have air conditioning, which I took advantage of and it made things barely. July and August are supposed to be even hotter (!) with the same level of humidity or higher. I’ll stick to my milder weather at home, thank you.

Nurses in Hong Kong are greatly under-appreciated. They are expected to have higher education (post-secondary), but they make a third of what I would make in Canada in an equivalent currency for entry level (here). My aunt has friends who work as nurses and and they make ~$12,000-15,000HKD/month – which is less than or around $2000CDN. They also have no over-time. They are expected to work over-time and are not monetarily compensated for their work. Also, I visited an elderly aunt in a convalescence home (recovering from a stroke) and the nurses there were very old-fashioned looking dress uniforms. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, think about the Halloween “nurse” costumes that you seen (white dress, buttoned down the front, with pockets, etc.). It’s like that, only the dress isn’t low cut and it ends at below the knees. I didn’t go to a hospital in Hong Kong, so I’m unsure if nurses there wear similar uniforms, but it’s a possibility. I like my scrub pants and tops just fine, thank you.

Lastly – body image. They have a very specific body image that they like in Hong Kong and clearly I do not fit it. I was told (multiple times, by various people who are related to me) that I’m very pretty girl (thanks!) but I’m too fat (oh…). Yes, the size of my body was brought up. Many, many, many times. I was beginning to understand where my parents got the idea that I’m fat from[1. Yes, my parents have told me in the past that I’m fat or overweight, ever since I was a preteen.]. Keep in mind that I am 5’1″ and weigh around 110-115lbs (last I checked). And this is considered to be fat. I tried on tops and I was still a “small” there, but my legs were (apparently) an issue. I’m not short compared to the average height of women there, but my width was an issue for my relatives. They’d tsk their tongues and mention how I’d just look so much better if I dropped maybe 10-15lbs…

Additionally, I was inappropriately spoken to (and grabbed!) on public transit while I was in Hong Kong. Because apparently if you wear short shorts (by Hong Kong standards, lets not discuss how prudish their clothing is) it is an open invitation for skeevy grown men to grab your ass on public transit. And they tell you that it’s okay because you’re asking for it.

I’ll be posting more about the fun and adventure of traveling ~ and with more pictures!

Vista and 8

Michelle — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 23:02:12 +0000

For Christmas, I got a lovely gift from my parents. They asked me what I wanted (another Blythe), but they refused to buy me another one as I have “enough” (says them). So instead my parents offered to buy me another laptop as my current laptop (HP Pavilion dv6000-series laptop) is now 5+ years old and it thinks that gifting me a Blue Screen of Death once every week (or so) is funny. So I got this lovely machine as it was on sale for Boxing Week (but the store had the sale start on the 24th, go figure):

My HP runs Windows Vista, I got it in 2007 and that was the available Windows OS at the time. The one the left is my new baby, an Asus ultrabook running Windows 8. For some reason, I was (and still am) the only person in my family with a computer running Vista. Now I’m the only one running Win 8. Everyone else has a different OS than me (one sister has XP, the other sister and my dad run Windows 7 on their laptops, the desktops run XP).

I never had the issues that people had with Windows Vista. I really didn’t. I ran programs that were available for Vista, I had enough memory to handle the resource hog. I just never had the issues that everyone else seemed to have. After all, the most memory intensive thing that I do is run Photoshop. Other programs I run are Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint) and then the internet, email and messaging programs. It’s not like I’m running several resources hogs at one go.

And then there’s Windows 8. My new laptop is not a touch screen so I’m not actually that found of their start menu. I’m also not fond of the fact that they hid the shut down options. The start button was removed, they have a weird blocky colourful menu instead and it takes several mouse swipes to get to the shut down options (charm menu > settings > power > shut down). Why it’s under settings, I don’t know. I’m also not fond of the charm menu and I prefer staying on my desktop at all times, which was difficult because it’s hard to actually find programs unless you’re on the stupid start menu.

So Clay turned me onto the idea of downloading a start button and it works. I can easily access my regular options (including shutting things down….) and I can get to my programs list a lot easier, as well as the control panel. All in all, ‘reverting’ Windows 8 to look more familiar to me is the good way to go. At least it makes finding things a lot easier for me!

Reflections & A New Year

Michelle — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 02:55:04 +0000

2012 was the year that I…

Took classes that I truly enjoyed in university
Took my first distance education course (purely online, even the final!)
Finished off my very last semester in university with high grades (!)
Graduated. Walked across a stage. Have a funny cap and a piece of paper with my name on it that says that I accomplished something (sort of)
Went on vacation for the first time in years (because apparently a 4 day trip where I spent most of it on a bus doesn’t count)
Went spelunking for the first time and had a lot of fun
Got into nursing school
Yet again worked as a customer service rep
Stood up for myself and reported my supervisor to Human Resources (yeah, that did not work out well – still glad I did it)
Started nursing school – met so many people, learned so many things about myself and others – finished with an A average for term 1
Turned 23

And what’s in store for me for 2013?

I start up at school again on Monday, I have a new clinical placement that’s going to be mildly hellish to get to for morning shifts if I start at 6:30am (7:00am won’t be as big of a problem). I’m taking 6 courses (pharmacology [online], pathophysiology, microbiology, clinical skills, group learning, and clinical). I’m going to be on campus three days a week, thank goodness I have a locker in a decent location (already got my schedule – that I still need to print out). Of all the classes, the one that’s new to me is microbiology- so that shall be interesting. The only new textbook that I need to get is the one for microbiology, and the instructor is really pushing for the ebook because we need to do online quizzes (via the publisher’s website) anyways. The website says it’s $70, which isn’t bad at all… But the thing I dislike the most is that I can’t resell it when I’m done! The reason it’s so cheap isn’t actually because it’s an ebook, it’s because we’re not getting all of the content. The ebook of the entire text is the exact same cost as a physical book. Which is ridiculous (in my opinion) because they should have saved some money on not printing and binding the damn thing and made the ebook cheaper. So I’m glad we don’t need the entire book, because it would have been $200 otherwise.

Other excitements in my life include getting a new laptop, a new bag (purse, not backpack) and a couple new dvds. The non-excitement is learning how to use Windows 8 because it’s a new operating system and I’m not used to it at all. My new laptop is not a touchscreen, so I find the Start Menu a bit tedious, to be honest, and I miss having a Start button. Also, it actually took me a while to find the ‘shut down’ button and I ended up having to read in the book where it is! They’ve completely hidden it (under Settings, FFS), not user friendly at all. One thing I do like about it is the Instant On feature. Takes seconds for my computer to go from black screen to the me being able to log in – which is pretty awesome, if you ask me!

Baking, Christmas, Boxing Day

Michelle — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 02:48:40 +0000

I did some more baking recently (sugar cookies and chocolate chip & oatmeal cookies). I made another batch of sugar cookies, but because I used smaller cookie cutters (the dinosaur ones are about double the size of my Christmas-themed cutters), I got almost 11 dozen cookies out of one batch of dough. The recipe is really for half of that (if you use cutters in the size it calls for). Nom nom, cookies are delicious. Too bad I don’t get to eat as much as I’d like – nobody in my family helps with baking or decorating, but they insist on giving them away. “Oh, Michelle baked cookies. Good, I need to bring cookies for a pot luck” or “Oh good! You baked! I need to give something to someone for Christmas!”.

I also did some knitting. I’ve been spending some time watching some favourite movies that I hadn’t seen in a while (the entire trilogy of The Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of Black Pearl, The Princess Bride) and then some tv shows (The Big Bang Theory, Grey’s Anatomy). Good fun all around. I’m getting quite a bit of knitting done – here’s what I did on the 18th:

And here is what I had on December 25th (yesterday):

Christmas was primarily uneventful in my house! My family isn’t the kind to go all out. Yes, we generally have an artificial tree up (this year we didn’t because I was the only one willing to put it up!), and I do a all the baking. Which is fitting as I was the one who received baking goodies for Christmas this year! I got 2 Wilton cookie sheets (or pans, whatever you want to call them) and 2 Wilton mini muffin/cupcake tins (in total I can made 2 dozen mini muffins). I am going to have to buy mini muffin liners, but I’m excited for that. I also got the Wilton 3-in-1 cake caddy. Which was great fun!

There were a lot of great sales today. My personal favourite purchases from today included a Monster High doll (Venus McFlytrap) that was 50% off ($14.99) and some adorable prints ($3.99 for the cupcakes and $2.79 for the castle). Oh! Also the four-pack of Kinder Surprise – $2.67 for the 4 when it was also $0.89/ea. (Did you know there’s pink Kinder Surprise eggs now? Pink because all the toys inside are “Just for girls!”)

My online Boxing “Day” shopping was taken care of on December 24th. My parents paid for a new laptop for me (!) as mine (a 5 year old HP DV6000-series laptop) is currently dying… I’ve experienced Blue Screens lately that haven’t entirely rendered me unable to restart the computer, but still – Blue Screens (of Death) are not good when I haven’t made any hardware or software changes (and my anti-virus isn’t being triggered by anything). I’ll be getting an ASUS S series ultrabook (running Windows 8) – it’s only 2 kg – 4.4lbs. My current laptop is ~7.5lbs (it has an extended battery – 12 cells). I also ordered myself a 16gb micro SD card for my phone as I currently have a 2gb card in there. The great thing about shopping online is that they can send it directly from the warehouse to the closest store and you just go and pick it up! Overall it’s been a good couple of days.

Finishing term 1 of Nursing School & Winter Holidays!

Michelle — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 00:50:32 +0000

It’s been so long since I last blogged and I apologize! I’ve been super busy with school and then finals (which ended last Thursday!). Since the last time I blogged, I had:

Written my last pathophysiology midterm
Completed & got my professional portfolio back (93%)
Did my presentation on MRSA[1. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus]
Handed in and got my last paper back (95%)
Completed clinical (and passed – it’s a pass-fail course)
Attended pharmacology seminars (so boring…)
Wrote five finals

I’ve waiting on my final grades to come back, but I had done a little bit of math work and if I had gotten 0% on all my finals, I’d still be sitting at a 65% GPA so… I’m not entirely too worried about passing or not! It’s nice to finally get a decently long break (just over three weeks) of doing nothingness. Or rather, doing nothing related to nursing and nursing school!

My first day off from school, I went to the mall at 9:30am and was out by about 11:00am. I got almost all of my shopping done in one day, didn’t spend as much as I thought I was going to (always a good thing!). The last bit of shopping I needed to do (I needed candy canes) was done at the dollar store near my house. Of course I ended up buying more than a $1 box of candy canes… I also bought holiday-themed cupcake liners, translucent gift bags (for cookie gifting) and Christmas-themed and Angry Birds colouring books (not for myself…). I love the dollar store by my house though, the ladies that work there know me by face now so we chat a bit whenever I’m at the register or poking around the store.

Because it’s the holidays, I’ve been doing a lot of baking, which is both good and bad. I somehow got roped into doing a cookie exchange at my summer work place (where my mom works), so I got to bake 6 dozen cookies and I get 6 dozen cookies back, each dozen is made by someone different. So today I got a bunch of delicious things. Some had chocolates and marshmallows, some you could just smell the ginger. Delicious! I’m quite pleased, although I did notice that I had the best presentation overall. I made dinosaur and dinosaur print sugar cookies:

The recipe is from Betty Crocker’s The Big Book of Cookies that I got for my birthday back in November but I did adjust it a bit (taking out some ingredients because I didn’t have them on hand) and they still turned out pretty good. The icing is just royal icing (alternatively, you can buy premade icing that comes in containers that look like school glue bottles). I was originally going to individually ice the cookies and then flood them to give them the nice icing layer, but I added a wee bit too much water to my powdered sugar, so it was too watery. So instead, I just picked up each cookie, lightly dip the surface into the icing and then let any excess drip off before putting them onto the wax paper to dry. It worked out well and was a lot faster than individually icing and flooding 6 dozen cookies.

In other baking news, I’ve also made 2 dozen shortbread (will make more!) and have also made one and a half dozen chocolate fudge cupcakes. So much baking! I love baking though, and I don’t often get the chance (or have the time!) to do it during the school year. Especially not with nursing school.

I’ve also spent some time this past weekend with a lovely group of ladies who also share a love of dollies. We had fun exchanging Santa Swap presents. I got a new mug and a bunch of lovely miniature ornaments, chocolates and stationary. I gave a box of chocolates, some handmade things for the dolls, a cute toque with a pompom, a miniature art easel and a Littlest Pet Shop Teensies set that was very well received! I just love shopping for other people, it’s a lot more fun (and easier to spend money!) when it’s not for me.

But today Value Village was having a 50% off clothing (and some other departments) sale for those who have membership cards (and of course, I have one). I went with my sister, who was going to look for pants. I went through housewares, crafts and toys before making my way to the clothing section. I ended up getting 4 cardigans (some looked like they’d never been worn – two still had original store price tags) and 1 sweater for $17 before taxes. My sister got a pair of Guess jeans for $3 (remnants of the original paper tag were still on the jeans, they didn’t look worn at all!). There’ll be other 50% off days – last time there was one, I focused only on pants and it’s a good thing too because I find myself getting overwhelmed if I go and really look through more than one clothing section. There’s just too much stuff everywhere!

Overall it was a good shopping day at VV. The only sweater I bought today is a fairly thin one (100% cotton, probably more meant for spring or summer) that’s light green and from Banana Republic – I generally don’t find Banana Republic at low prices at VV or in good condition, but this one fit the bill as it was originally $4.99 (so down to $2.50) and it was in great condition with no pilling whatsoever. One of my cardigans is 100% cream-coloured lambswool from Great Britain and it was my most expensive buy today at $5 (down from $9.99). I love cardigans, but I’ve had to get rid of some recently due to them being too threadbare and really well-loved. I’ll have photos of what I bought after everything’s gone through the wash!

Lastly that’s new is that I actually redeemed some points! I think most credit cards attached to banks have this, but whenever I use my credit card, I got a point for every dollar that I spend. I’ve had my credit card since I was 19 (and could have my own), but I hadn’t used any points at all. There were bonus points for the first month that I had it, bonus for my first transaction, etc. I ended up redeeming for gift cards (none of the merchandise options seemed good). I ended up redeeming for a $100 gift card for Sears (as my half of my joint present to my mom for Christmas – my sister is chipping in $100 cash as my mom wants to buy a new vacuum cleaner) and a $50 gift card for La Vie en Rose (for me!) and I still have points left over. I’m pretty sure I’ll end up redeeming more points late for more gift cards for myself (I really want to get an e-reader and I’ve been eyeing the Kobo Glo but I don’t have enough in gift cards just yet), alternatively I’d redeem for “financial rewards” and just get it in cash for general shopping purposes. It’s kind of like getting “free money” – which is nice considering I never leave a balance on my card so they’ve never gotten any interest from me. Always very nice to be responsible!

Oh, and I did my nails for the first time since August (when I started school). It’s nice being able to keep nail polish on for more than 5 days (seeing as how I can’t have polish on my nails at the hospital). Very nice indeed!

Say what now?

Michelle — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 06:40:59 +0000

I’ve been getting a lot of mail lately. Some of it was solicited (TEXTBOOKS!!#$%!) and others was not (dear playhouse that I purchased musical tickets from you 2 years ago, you’d think because I haven’t bought tickets in 2 years, that would be a hint to stop wasting paper). Unfortunately, I’m still unable to intercept the mail so my dad always sees it first.

Dad: Why are you getting mail from [insert name of local community college]?
Me: I applied there.
D: long pause. What program?
M: Their 4 year nursing program.
D: longer pause, I can practically see the wheels churning inside of his head. Is it the same program as at [insert name of big university/the one that I attend]?
M: Yes.
D: hands over the envelope, finally. Okay.

Because even nearly 5 years after I graduated from high school and even after he even admitted that trades was an “appropriate” career choice, he still has a problem with smaller schools, or not internationally recognized institutions, even if they’re public, government funded & approved schools.

My sister J started school this week. She graduated from said Big University in either 2006 and is just going back to school now for a trades program. Granted, it’s a medical-relate program, so it’s not like she’s becoming a mechanic. But J is the Golden Child and can never do anything wrong. So because she applied (and was accepted into) a trades program, suddenly trades is the Best Thing Ever.

And my father had the nerve to ask me:

D: Why didn’t you go into trades as well?

Well, dad, maybe it’s because you spent the first 17 years of my life telling me that I need to go to university and get a degree because it’s what I’m fucking supposed to do. That and I get to live rent-free at home provided I stay in school, so it was kind of no brainer. But I have friends who graduated on time (unlike me) and are woefully unemployed. A friend of my sister’s has been out of university since 2006 and just got a full-time job in her field (she has an education degree and spent 5 years being a substitute teacher, filling in when people were sick or on maternity leave and having very uncertain employment). Having a Bachelors, regardless of what it is in doesn’t mean a whole lot these days. Mostly because a lot of people have a Bachelors degree. Which is really depressing to think about, considering I’ll be graduating with one at the end of May. And it’s going to be fantastic. The word “Science” will be mentioned on that piece of paper 4 times in my degree title. Not because I wanted them to emphasize how much I love science, but because of what my program was. (A lot of science.)

But really. Having my dad tell me when I’m 9 credits away from finishing my BSc that I should have gone into some sort of trades instead? Like a knife through the heart. Maybe he should have been pushing that for the first 17 years of my life instead. Or maybe he should just keep his opinions to himself.

A sitting duck, Christmas and other thoughts

Michelle — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 05:00:04 +0000

Hello, hello. *wave* I don’t blog very much, do I?

Since the 10th, I had: completed all of my finals (I’ve received final grades for 3 of 4 courses so far), baked (a lot: a dozen dozen cookies!), slept in (mmm) and I did something absolutely horrid to my left foot. From the moment I woke up Friday morning until today (and still continuing), my foot hurts whenever I put weight on it. Which means that walking more than five steps is pretty much out of the question. It has gotten better (so I can walk more than five steps!) and it’s gone from a sharp pain of my foot trying to go “WTF are you doing, woman? SIT DOWN NOW before I make you sit down!” to a dull ache. I got new shoes during Boxing Day sales (the only day since last Thursday/22nd) that I had left my house and those have actually really helped. I was overdue for a new pair of shoes and having new shoes with very cushy arch support has helped a lot. But I was home from the 23rd-25th and did absolutely nothing beyond leaving my room to go and sit at the dinner table and such things like that. I also laid on the couch a lot, because my foot hated me immensely. I don’t know what I did to my foot to make it hate me so, but not putting weight on it has helped. Whatever happened, it has gotten a little bit better.

I’ve been doing a lot of sitting, laying down and just resting in general. The unfortunate thing is that the nerves decide at times that it doesn’t like all the rest and I get the feeling of pins and needles on the bottom of my foot. I can’t win, I swear.

Christmas was lovely with my family. My sisters and I got my mom a designer handbag that she was wistful over in the store but then set aside when she saw how much money it cost (my sister went back later to buy it, we went in 3-ways on it because it was so pricey). For sister J, I got her Sock Innovation by Cookie A and a skein of deliciously squishy alpaca sock-weight yarn. For sister D, J and I got her a floor lamp for her condo along with a box of energy saving lightbulbs (no sense in buying her a lamp without them as the box said, in big bold letters, No Lightbulbs Included. My dad finally told me two days before Christmas what he wanted, but I hadn’t been able to go shopping, so he got a fancy I.O.U. (and a tin of cookies that was just for him that he didn’t have to share with anyone in the family!) for 2 photo frames that he wanted for these odd-sized photos of his parents (I never met them, both of them died by the time he was in his early teens). I had never seen larger photos of my paternal grandmother (most of the photos my dad has of her are fairly small or not that clear) and she looks just like one of my aunts, and I have the same cheekbones as her! It’s kind of cool to see that in a photo, just the family resemblance and what of me I can see that I got from her.

I got some fun gifts this year. My parents got me (another) Blythe doll, she’s #9. Has fantastic blue hair and I’ve named her Mollie (short for Molybdenum, which is element #42 on the periodic table). I also got chocolates! My favourite: hazelnut hedgehogs. Noms. One sister crocheted a doll hat for me and also gave me a lot of knee-high socks (store bought, not hand knit). I’d been lamenting the fact that I hadn’t gotten around to shopping for socks, so it’s nice that she did that for me! She got all argyle patterns because most of my knee highs are in argyle. My other sister got me a gift certificate to a spa, which I’ve never been to before. It’s a certificate for a pedicure session, which I’ve never gotten one before. So fancy. I need to book my appointment!

In other news, I’ve been working on applications for nursing programs. I’ve also been doing a lot of knitting. Pictured above – I finally finished my first pair of handknit socks! Unfortunately they were a little bit too short in the heel for me but they fit my mom perfectly, so she got another present for Christmas and she loves them!

Plans in the near future include finishing application essays and whatnot, getting things ready to hand into the schools in January. I’ve also got a few textbooks to buy (least number of classes ever for a term for me but yet this may be my most expensive term yet when it comes to books!). I’m also working on being a lot more positive about things in my life, and that will be including the removal of the negative people, because I really don’t need that. Like that quote from Eleanor Roosevelt says, no one can make me feel inferior without my consent. (I mostly wish I could cut my aunt out of my life, but I really can’t, seeing as how she’s married to my uncle and my parents wouldn’t go with it.)

Happy holidays!