unavoided disasters – Imaginary Sunshine

Nose bleeds are appropriately named

Michelle — Thu, 03 Jul 2014 06:49:03 +0000

So I’m sitting in bed, in front of my laptop, and I would be asleep right now if not for the fact that there seems to be a fountain of blood coming from my nose. That’s probably a bit of a hyperbole because if it were a fountain, I probably would be asleep, or at least unconscious. But I’m awake (and typing! coherently!) so clearly a fountain is an overstatement. But I digress. Holding tissues to my nose in hopes that eventually it will stop bleeding is great. I’m currently typing with one hand – what a great time to decide to blog, eh?

Yesterday was Canada Day – Happy 147th to my favourite country in the whole wide world.

Life in the World of Michelle is going well. I’m still taking 3 online classes, one of them is ending soonish, which means that I really need to be studying for that (maybe in the morning?). High acuity is going very well. I’ve gotten 100% on all 3 of my papers for that class (two were group papers, one was all me). Super pleased with that. I’m secretly brilliant? Mastermind of essay writing? Is my instructor uber-lax on the marking scheme? All of the above? My other two classes are not going as well. I’m just not that found of reading a million journal articles every week, I’m not going to lie. A million is also a hyperbole, much like fountain was earlier. It’s more like 4-6 for one class and 5-7 for the other. It really sucks. Really, really, really sucks.

But lately for me, life has been okay. I worked for 5 weeks, earned some money. I’ve been doing some odd projects here and there, working on planning a convention for next summer (super stoked about that!). I started knitting a lot more lately, even though it’s been very hot out lately. Summer temperatures are here, what I wouldn’t give right now for those horrible stereotypes about how Canadians have snow year-round to be true, just for a few hours. I’m melting here, you guys. Melting[1. Not literally.].

I got my clinical placement for the fall term. We had a choice of 13 different locations/types (choices between various cities/locations and between home health and public health). So I ranked them all – choose public health over home health, but location also placed a roll into it as well. And I got my number one choice. Of course, this means that I will be driving twice a week for my clinical placement because I picked one that I am a) unable to take public transit to and b) we are are not allowed to take public transit due to the possibility of having to travel between sites with patient files. Which means driving! In a city that I’m not that familiar with! But it’ll be okay, because I have Google Maps on my phone, and I got myself a car charger so my phone won’t die on me whilst trying to navigate myself around.

So, so, so excited for things coming soon! So excited. More on that later, after things have happened. Exciting things! Yarny things! And doll-related things!

And hey, my nose has stopped bleeding!

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.)

The things that I do when I’m not blogging…

Michelle — Sun, 22 Sep 2013 02:20:30 +0000

Since my last post, school started. I started my third term of nursing school in mid-August and I couldn’t be happier about it. School’s been going really well and I’m liking my clinical group this term. A lot of the people I’ve worked with before in previous clinical groups, so I knew going in that I could work well with them. I just finished week 5 of my 8 week Mental Health rotation. I’m really liking the hospital that I’m at right now. Later this term I have a 4 week rotation in Maternity/Obstetrics and a 4 week rotation in Pediatrics. I change clinical instructors with each rotation, but I stay with the same clinical group, so it should be good!

I’ve already finished one presentation so far this term (only 1-2 more to go for one class, 1 group presentation for another), so I’m feeling pretty good about how the term is going. I hate presentations with a dying passion, but the people in the class I need to do presentations in front of are a good bunch.

I’m trying to be good about staying on top of all my readings, but it can be difficult at times. I’ve been spending a lot of time in the library studying and doing readings – about as fun as it sounds. And I have renewed my love for Chai tea lattes (courtesy of Starbucks) and I discovered that it is possible to reload my Starbucks card on my phone with Paypal. This is a bad thing for me to have the knowledge of. But I’ve actually been fairly good about not spending too much money. I took out a part-student loan for the summer May-August term, as I was only taking 3 courses, and it’s a government loan so it wasn’t supposed to incrue interest until after I was done school. But it started counting interest pretty much straightaway (I didn’t catch it until nearly a month later). Turns out, part-time student loans start counting interest right away, even though payments aren’t required until 6 months later. I kind of said “fuck that noise” and paid it off, in full, the next business day. The problem with doing that is that I’m fairly broke at the moment. Luckily, I still like at home and don’t have that many expenses – but my bank account is still looking a bit tiny at the moment.

In other news though, I got an extra day off from clinical because my instructor was ill. I got a lot of work done that day. I also went to Value Village that day on a tip my classmate gave me because they had scrubs for sale. And the scrubs had original tags on still (some were donated samples from a Vancouver-based company that normally sells them for $65 a piece!) and others were donated from a chain uniform store. I snagged some super comfy scrubs pants that could probably double as yoga pants, if I so choose to wear them as such. I also got a light pink scrub top because it looked cute on. They were being sold at $6/piece, which isn’t bad at all consider the original price and how much I’d paid in the past for scrubs (a lot more than that!) and they’ll be used for ages to come.

I quite recently got myself back into counseling. I used to go to a regular counselor at my old university because it was offered as a student service. It is at my current school as well, but they cannot guarantee that I can see the same person all the time and their hours aren’t as useful to me based on my clinical hours. I’ve been struggling with body image, eating (or lack thereof) and just self-acceptance of my body for years now and the thing is that this time I was able to recognize when I stopped eating as much or eating less and less. And while I’m certainly more comfortable with the way I feel about myself now, there’s always been thoughts that it’s just not good enough for me. So I got myself into counseling to talk to someone about that. The unfortunate (fortunate?) thing is that I’m unable to qualify for an outpatient eating disorder program because it’s not severe enough (and there’s a waiting list). If I hadn’t been so good at covering it up when I was a preteen, I probably would have been able to get in then (there’s a % weight-loss requirement). But right now, because I am aware of the fact that I’m eating less, I’m also forcing myself to eat even when I’m not hungry because I know that I need to. Guess that is an improvement from what I used to be like!

Protected: You called me up again just to break me like a promise

Michelle — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 02:57:55 +0000

All it takes is a little something…

Michelle — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 00:46:09 +0000

All it takes is a little something to make you question everything about what you thought you understood, knew and trusted.

For me, it was a phone call. And the week that occurred before the phone call.

Questioning everything, hiding away from social media. Because if I turn to social media now, I’m a bit afraid of what I might say, or do.

Wait, March?

Michelle — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 03:47:29 +0000

I really did think that I would post more during February, but apparently I didn’t. Hello, March! We’re getting closer to spring (yay!).

Since my last post I have gotten my grad portraits done. It ended up being about 18 shots of me looking incredibly awkward (in my opinion) in a cap and gown holding onto a rather nice looking folder with my school’s name on it in gold. I’m pretty sure the bookstore sells them too, they’re pretty sweet. I’ve gotten the proofs (online) and have been trying to decide which one I’m going to get. I’ll probably only be getting one print, and it’ll be a similar size to the one that my sisters had gotten when they graduated from university. (My ego isn’t that big that I’m going to get one double the size of theirs, haha.)

Reading Week also has come and gone. I spent it studying and working on my upgrade courses (Biology 12 and Chemistry 11) and got a lot more of both classes done. I’m currently getting high 90s for both classes and my grades are based solely on the test scores, which is fine by me. I get worksheets for chemistry and practice problems for biology, but I don’t get marks based on those. I just go in and write as many tests as I’ve prepared for and move onto the next units as I go, which is pretty nice. I’ve gone through over half of each class so far in about a month and half. I’m planning on getting them all done by the end of March, which should be interesting as the teachers in BC are striking for three days (March 5-7) and I can’t go in take tests during that time, and then they get two weeks off (!) for spring break, so no test taking then either! So while they’re busy striking, I’ll be just working to get my notes ready and to just know everything so when they reopen, I can just go in and take all the tests and get it over with.

I need to start working on my term project soon (due at the beginning of April), but we all know how well that will probably go… I have to do a 10-15 page paper on an animal welfare topic of my choice (topic that I’m going to be doing is the justifiable welfare issues with the use of Merino sheep in fibre production) and then I’m doing a web presentation (as opposed to an oral presentation). My school has this blog system where we use WordPress and we have to use it, which I’m fine with because clearly I have experience using WordPress. But we have to sit through a class on learning how to use WordPress (seriously) and I’m not entirely sure if we get to change the themes or add plugins or not (if it’s on school servers, I’m thinking it’s probably a no for the plugins…).

And… yeah. That’s my life and what I did during February. I went to a doll meet in the middle of February and I’m currently on working on restoring two vintage Blythes, which is quite fun and they’re great new additions to my collection (a blonde and a brunette). I’ve been knitting a bunch, but not working on the sock that I started in January (horrible, I know, I’m planning on working on the sock this month though!) and I’ve been doing a lot of doll-sized knits. So some of the knits I did in February:

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!

Stress happens, and then I sleep.

Michelle — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 05:17:24 +0000

It’s coming down to the last 2 weeks of school (classes end on December 2nd for me) so that it is crunch time! All of my midterms are thankfully done (I have a friend who has a midterm the last week of classes, ew) and I’ve just been working away on research for a few more papers (I have two drafts done and I’m waiting for a professor to review one of them – I have another paper that I have yet to write, but I think I’ve finished all of my research for it). Besides that, I also have a lab final to study for (boo) and 3 finals to start to study for. I’m taking four classes, but one of my classes (Parasitology) has a take home final. I’ve never been able to grasp the brilliance of this concept because generally science courses do not have take home/open book finals. We get two full weeks to work on the final ‘exam’, we’re encouraged to use the textbook and we’re allowed to work in groups, ask the professor questions… Brilliant, absolutely. I just hope he’s making us do incredibly difficult essays as I know it’s supposed to be long-answer type of questions.

So I’m going to be doing a lot of studying… Starting soon. I need to get that last paper written (and then editing the other two) before I feel like I can “really” study (except for my lab final – I need to study for my lab final because that is important as well, even if it’s not worth a whole lot).

I feel like it’s important to note that today was Election Day in British Columbia. All of the municipal elections in the province happen on the same day – we elect for the mayors, city councillors, school trustees and whatnot. I did not head out to the polls today (although my other family members did). I feel bad about this because I almost always go to vote when there’s an election. I had to go out a little bit after lunch to the bank and when I was walking up my driveway to get back into the house, I slipped and fell flat on my back. My driveway is black and there was ice on the driveway that hadn’t melted yet (it was in the shadows casted by the bushes). So I slipped and fell. I’m sure if there were witnesses, they would have told me that my fall was spectacular (it sure felt that way, anyways). But that really isn’t the point. I managed to get back up on my feet and stiffly walked up the steps to get back into the house. I’ve remained indoors for the rest of the day because my lower back is sore. I’ve also been limiting my walking around, because movement is bad (heh). I normally bruise very easily but no (visible) bruising as of yet. There’s also no swelling, I just hurt.

Life happens, I guess. Here’s to the next four weeks! My last final is on December 16th (Friday), meep.

Mastering Procrastination

Michelle — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 04:40:21 +0000

It’s always when I have a million and one things to do that I end up blogging. Why? Probably because I could be one of the many Queens of Procrastination. Next week I have a couple of midterms and a lab quiz. I’m more worried for my lab quiz than I am the midterms. Why? Mostly because I did very poorly (but not a failing grade) on the first lab quiz (worth 5% of my total grade, so I’m not entirely nervous about it yet). And the other two midterms? Multiple choice. Yes, I know, be happy for me that I ended up taking 300-level courses for my secondary concentration that ended up with fully multiple choice tests. (Have I also mentioned that I’m horrible at multiple choice because I generally second guess myself?) Luckily I like my professors and they’re fairly approachable. Even if they’re dropping F-bombs in lecture because their ancient laptop freezes for the umpteenth time while connected to the school’s “secure” wifi network.

In other news, I bought candy on November 1st because that’s when it’s cheap. I bought Tootsie Roll pops, mini Hershey chocolate bars, mini Kit-Kat bars, little boxes of Smarties, a bag of mini lollis, Halloween-themed Lindt chocolate balls, Halloween-themed Kinder Surprise Eggs and a box of 120 mini chocolate bars. Nom nom nom. I knew I always loved November. And it’s not just for the sugar rush either.

I was told by my friend’s mom that I’m a (and I quote) “horrible influence” on her daughter this week. Why? Because I told her daughter to do what makes her happy and that it’s okay to kiss a boy that she’s dating. Zomg. You would have thought I told my friend that it’s perfectly okay to shoot up drugs and get wasted during a midterm or something. Public enemy no. 1, that’s me. Then again, I may have said to her face that she was crazy. Because I honestly do believe that she is. Which also did not help her perception of me as being a horrible influence. But really, who tells their daughter that they have to marry a guy first and then date him? And that if you hold hands, you’d better be married first? Crack pots, that’s who. Even my own mother thinks that it’s really weird and completely backwards (I found someone with parents more traditional/strict than mine, with an extra helping of crazy-pants added in there).

Now I’m going back to studying because I have lots of things to do! I also get invited to my sister’s birthday party, which was very generous of her considering she’s having it at the house that I live in and I plan to be in the house at the time of the party anyways. I’m only going for the food though. And if her friends start singing karaoke again, my ears may bleed. (There is very few things worse than listening to grown men trying to sing soprano when they really should never ever ever try to hit those notes because their range is not that high. Also, they sing 90’s pop songs, because what’s what we have in terms of karaoke discs.)

How updating a program made me hate my printer

Michelle — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 18:15:39 +0000

The last week, I’d been tweeting about how much of a pain my printer was being. It just flat out refused to print anything for a it. Then I uninstalled and reinstalled my printer’s programs and associated drivers. Awesome, my printer will print anything that is not in PDF format. This was a problem for me. Why?

All of the lecture material, lab material, journal articles that I need to analyze and charts that I need to be able to know for my classes? They are only available in PDF format.

At first I thought that it was a Windows Vista issue (yes, I use Vista, please laugh it up). The error that I was getting said this:

Spooler subsystem app has stopped working and was closed.

I had uninstalled and reinstalled my printer drivers multiple times over the last week. I searched for many different combinations of ‘printer spooler error’ with ‘Vista’ and my printer model (HP, by the way – besides this issue, I rather like it, it’s not that heavy to move around, for starters). Until yesterday (after the third or fourth reinstall), I finally decided to look up the error that I was getting with “adobe reader”.

Guess what the problem was?

Not my printer, my laptop, my operating system or any of the drivers. It was because I had updated Adobe Reader after being prompted to. And then it just killed my computer’s ability to print PDF files. What-the-ever-loving-fudge.

After tweeting about finding a solution, a few people thanked me (because they had also developed hateful relationships with their printers). What I did to “fix” the problem was download another PDF reader and use that to print from instead of Adobe Reader. I’m now using Foxit Reader, which you can download (for free) from the official Foxit website or the CNET website (and read their review on the program as well!). (Note that when you’re installing the reader that you need to pay attention to all the check boxes, it’ll as if you want to make certain websites your home page or if you want to install extra toolbars onto your web browser, ew.)

Problem solved!

A Michelle who can print off her lecture and lab notes is a happy Michelle!