Chronologically Backwards

Yesterday was my last day at CanTEST. It was probably the most interesting day in the whole week actually. I filed some workloads, went to the instrument room, prepped some vitamins, and then followed Lynn around doing inventory and sticking little red dots on everything haha. She also took me on a mini tour of the building while we were searching for one of the vitamin samples that was being tested for E-coli. We went to the microbiology lab which was cool because that's somewhat related to what I'm actually interested in doing and then there was another lab where they tested hospital gas & scuba diving air tanks which was really cool. That's something I'd want to do instead of trace metals.














This one I took just after Rob was like "I don't want to be in the picture!" and then proceeds to stand there right in front of me haha.







And these are some from a few weeks ago when we had that one sunny day in the midst of a snow apocalypse (no kidding). I haven't seen nice natural light through that window in forever. I want spring/summer now, please!




In between, before and after these pictures, I also went to the Gladstone play "Food For Thought" with Desiree on the 23rd. We also had our Fashion Show on the 22nd which was a fantastic success! It was so good & I can't believe we got such a great response. It all came together SEAMLESSLY! It was worth it! We also had midterm exams that week which killed me. KILLED ME.

Now I need to spend the rest of this weekend doing homework and catching up on what they did at school while we were on career prep. Completely unfair! The ones who didn't have career prep probably had a slack week while we had to work 8 hours everyday AND try to learn all this stuff by ourselves and do all the homework assigned? You'd think when half the grade is gone for the week, they'd stop teaching or at least exempt us from doing the same work. RIDICULOUS.

Career Prep @ CanTEST

This week is career prep week. I've been at CanTEST doing work experience for the past few days and it's alright. Sometimes it's mildly fun learning something new and feeling like an important chemist but other times when we run out of things to do, it's extremely boring. I'm in the trace metals department and basically what they do is test food, water, and soil samples for traces of (potentially problematic) metals. On Monday, I prepped a batch of 50 fruit samples. Tuesday, I prepped a batch of 80 meat samples that took forever. Today, I cleaned, re-shelved samples, put filters into tubes, poured three water sample batches for Edwin (there was a water sample collected from the Inlet that was brown and smelled of rotten eggs - fantastic!), made new filters, and was really bored because Rob didn't show up to work and so he wasn't there to boss me around. Lynn isn't as hard on us which is good, but that basically = boring.

Steps to prep a batch of samples:
1) Find samples & enter ID into Labware, also creating four controls & duplicates for every 10 samples.
2) Print labels for digestion tubes.
3) Fill digestion racks with tubes & stick labels on each [must go in order].
4) Go through the tedious process of matching the IDs on the empty tube with the ID on the sample with the ID on the computer for each before weighing 5-7g of sample into tubes.
5) Enter weight to 4 decimal places in Labware.
6) Repeat a million times.
7) Bring digestion racks to fume hood & fill each tube with nitric acid.
8) Put "lids" on each tube and wait for someone to heat the samples in hot block (aka: leave to go home & let someone else pick up after my mess)
9) Bulk up digested samples to 50mL with water.
10) Screw lids onto each tube & finis!

Tomorrow or Friday, I think we (Karen, the other work exp student from Gleneagle, and I) will get to go do stuff in the instrument lab where they actually test the samples that we (prep lab) make for them. I don't really care though, the people in there seem kind of bitchy. Prep is chilll though :) We run out of things to do and we usually get to leave at 3pm/4pm instead of 5pm. Today I left at 3:30pm!

I don't have pictures of this week yet because I haven't brought my camera with me. But I think I'll bring it in tomorrow. I have to prepare some visuals for the presentation thing at school after career prep is over anyway.

Other than that, I've been trying to get a move on my dance for grad showcase. I vowed before this week started that I was going to finish my routine this week since I don't have school and just cp. Uhh, yeah. So far, I've barely even decided on the song. I think I'm leaning towards Nothing by Nikki Costa but I don't know! I'm so indecisive! I can't pick one knowing that I'm sacrificing the others and knowing that I might come up with a better routine with any of the other songs I'm considering!

OBAMA DAY #2

HAPPY INAUGURATION DAY!!! It's finally come! I couldn't be happier and I'm not even American! It doesn't even feel like he's become the President of the United States. It feels like he's become the President of the World.






Haaaaale yeah.

Look at this qt!


White House gone black. LOL, I love it.

I was watching CBC's coverage and they were talking about Obama's international visit to Canada! I really hope he comes to Vancouver and not just Ottawa. It would be INCREDIBLE seeing him in the flesh. I need to be assured that he's real.

GOOD LUCK, PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA.

Breakpoint

School and life in general has slumped back into what it was kind of like before winter break. I am ridiculously overworked. Tired. Stressed. Too many people want too many things from me all at the same time. !!!! Now that the tests for this week are over, I just have to survive through midterms and then there's a week of career prep and I should be alright for a little while. SPEAKING OF MIDTERMS!! I have 5 or 6(? depending if I have a Calculus one or not) exams over 2 days. That is absolutely ridiculous. SURVIVE, SURVIVE, SURVIVE. That's all I have to do. :\

This is my collection of magazine clippings and inspiration. I'm still in the process (that I started like a year ago!) of organizing them. I changed my mind from putting them into plastic sleeves and putting them in a binder to cutting them up and making a scrapbook of inspiring things. I could never bear to cut them up (that's why I haven't started to) but we'll see what happens to them. I'm going to have to find free time to do it though, something I have absolutely none of right now.







I've been put in charge of taking pictures of the fashion show rehearsals & things and here are a few from Monday's grade 10&12 rehearsal. I liked the bunch! They were so much livelier & fun.

Back From The Dead

I am extremely disappointed that I missed/am going to miss seeing the Quadrantid meteor shower these few days (specifically the 3rd & 4th of January) because it's snowing. Again. The cloud cover is indestructible and opaque, giving me no chance at catching a glimpse of this wonderful burning debris hurtling towards Earth. The next major shower isn't going to be until April with the Lyrids, I believe. Major downer!


Night Sky Over Country House by Neil Creek. (which has no relation to the Quadrantids - I just flickr'd his photostream today and saw this beauty)

It's okay though because tonight, I rediscovered my love of astronomy and dance and everything that inspired me in the early part of 2008. I think I'm finally getting back to what it's like to FEEL. The past few months have been awful and I only lived for the sake of living and surviving and just getting through those godawful days without declaring myself a failure. It's all coming back to me, I know it.

I have a lot of ideas in my head for some photographs I want to do. But seeing as I am my only model at this point, next on my shopping list is an ML-L3 Wireless Remote. Unfortunately, I have realized that shipping to Canada is outrageous! So, I've been creeping craiglist (with no luck) because I refuse to pay for shipping that costs twice as much as the item itself!

First Things First

Happy 2nd day of 2009. I just finished applying to the remainder of my post-secondary school choices: UBC, SFU, and UVIC, in addition to Langara which I applied to back in October. I'm deathly afraid of what happens from here. I think I might have even screwed myself over on my UBC application because I changed my graduation date from high school from July 2009 to June 2009. Because technically, we do have our commencement ceremony and last day of class in June but I don't know if they count it as June 1, 2009 or July 1, 2009 - in which case I should have selected July. I hope my future isn't completely ruined by that. That's what happens when I try to be a smartass and get all technical with the system.





O hai, I thought I'd introduce you to my face and my D40, Horatio.