Days 1 and 2: Survived!

I don't think it had quite penetrated my brain until I was sitting in my first class yesterday but I finally realized: I'm a vet student!

I'll try not to born you with the blow-by-blow of all of the classes. My subjects are physiology, anatomy, histology, animal behavior/welfare, animal production systems, immunology and "intro to veterinary medicine". All of the classes are pretty self-explanatory, although intro to vet med deals more with us as students/people/future professionals than animals. So far my favorite is histology, but I haven't been to immunology yet so that may change. I came home yesterday and reviewed everything which I will do again today after posting. Doing my best to ingrain the habit of reviewing after every class in hopes it will make it easier on myself at the midterm and finals!

In an attempt to figure out myself as a vet student, I think I've found a new way to take notes: on my iPad! I have a note-taking app that I type notes on (all organized by class and lecture with the option to record) and then doodle down any diagrams in class in a paper notebook. When I get home to review, I copy the diagram into my electronic notes. So far so good, although it's only been two days, haha. I also need to figure out how to see flash animation on my iPad...

The magic of the internet.

When people first heard that I would be coming to live in the Great White North, they asked if my boyfriend would be coming with me. While a sad decision to make, we had decided that it would be best for both of us if he stayed put. The question then became how would we keep in touch? It seemed simple enough to me: talk on the phone every night like we always have, even with only twenty miles between us. There was, of course, the matter of getting my cell phone plan to cover me in Canada, but no big deal, right?

Wrong. The people at the Verizon store I visited were absolutely clueless as to how I should go about arranging my plan. They handed me a brochure (an exact replica of the information online, which I promise I can read) and told me to call customer service. Awesome. Overwhelmed with the myriad other things I had to do before leaving the country, I set aside my cell service for another day. I figured I would pay the $70+ per month to have a single line with 900 minutes a month to talk to friends and family back home.

Yesterday, my neighbor stopped by and suggested I try Skype. (So as not to sound like a complete idiot, I'll say that I know what Skype is and vaguely how it works. I'd just never tried it before.) After a bit of fiddling around, I've got a Skype account and subscription so that I can video chat and call phones back home and in Canada without limit. For $2.99 per month. Sure, I have to call on my iPad, but I think there's a way I can call from my cell phone and use my Skype subscription instead of the plan. I feel like I've stuck gold here, people!

Anyway, that was my major accomplishment of the day yesterday. I was rather worthless otherwise, although I stopped by the orientation barbecue for an hour. I'm torn about these orientation events because I feel as though I should go, to meet people and stuff, but can't help but feel as though there's no rush to make new friends. I'll see them every day for the next couple of months and that'll probably be rather enough for me. Speaking of which, school starts tomorrow!

Orientation and Blue Coat Ceremony

As the title suggests, our orientation and coating ceremony were yesterday. Being the always-early person that I am, I was still the first one to arrive despite being on time. I chatted with the security guard, whose shift finished at 8am. Apparently they always have a guard wakling around the building to watch over the students who have 24hr access to study and what-not. People started to trickle in around 8am, and I made my way over to the welcome table to find that I was not on the list - yikes! It got sorted out, though, and I filled out my forms, ate breakfast and met a few classmates. We were then summoned to the lecture hall ("B", which I think will be our permanent classroom while in school) where we heard a few brief speeches from Important People. After that we were split into groups for ice-breakers and I was pleasantly surprised how un-cheesy it was. After that we went on a tour of campus (saw the library, got our ID pictures taken) and the teaching hospital and then met up with our guests (my parents and Danny came) for lunch.

After lunch we had a couple more icebreakers and were released around 2:45pm. Danny picked me up and we came home where I decided a little too late that I wanted a nap, haha. I got a quick power-nap in, though, and then got up to dress myself for the coating ceremony that started at 6:30pm. We met up with my parents outside and went to our table that we shared with another incoming student, their guests, a faculty mentor and a staff mentor. We had some kind of garden salad followed by chicken with vegetables. The chicken had some sort of coating on it that I heard was spinach and feta or something - so good! We had a little piece of brownie with whipped cream and fruit topping for dessert.

During dessert, the coating actually started. We went up to the stage in groups of ten with our "presenter" (mine was Danny) and they said your name, your presenter's name and relation to you. Your presenter actually put your coat on, then you left the stage and had your picture taken right afterwards. The actual ceremony wasn't too long or speech-y, which was nice. Danny and I came home, sat on the deck for a while talking and then went to bed early.

He had to be up at 5:30am to meet my parents, who are taking him home. I did cry, of course, but I'm not panicked. He'll be back again in October for Canadian Thanksgiving, which seems like a long time but really isn't, especially when classes start up and I'm flooded with information!

PEI Park, Parents and Adventure, oh my.

Danny and I were awake by 8am yesterday morning (Atlantic Canadian time, anyway) and decided to hit the Prince Edward Island National Park which is maybe a ten minute drive from my house. We had swung by the day before but noted there were toll booth-esque structures and turned around. I researched the park and learned that a day fee for one adult is $7.80. Well upon our return yesterday morning, there was no one in the booths! So after making sure there was no one to pay, we went on through and into the park.

Our first stop was the beach. A solid wooden staircase brought us up and over the enormous sand dunes and then down the other side where a typical beach scene was laid out. Granted, being so early, there was only one family and an older couple but we saw a couple more people coming down as we left. We strolled along the beach (mostly sand, but some small and beautiful stones mixed in) for a little ways. The water was freezing - not sure how the kids playing in the waves didn't have hypothermia! - but nice. We doubled back and hopped back in the car to drive a little bit further to a hiking trailhead. The trail started there and then branched into to separate trails: Bubbling Springs and Farmlands. We opted for Bubbling Springs, not much more than a mile long, and set off. Being in the woods, instead of in the open farmland and beachy shores, made me feel more at home and I was really happy just to walk in the quiet. It doesn't really get hot here, but the morning was literally the perfect temperature for walking through the woods, which were nice and shady in some parts and more open and sunny in others. In fact, many animals seemed to appreciate the weather because we saw one fox (prey in mouth!), a small garter snake, a small frog, a larger frog, a couple of finches and one or two female Downy (or Hairy, we weren't close enough to tell) woodpeckers! So an exciting morning activity.

We also had the chance to visit the Charlottetown Farmer's Market and the Meat Market store a bit further past the university. Since seeing the prices on food in the stores I've been trying to find alternative sources. The farmer's market was nice but I would have liked to see a bigger variety of meat (seemed like only lamb and sausage) and some fruit! The vegetables were good, with good prices on them, and I bought some really excellent green beans. The Meat Market store was better, with a huge selection of meats to choose from, as well as varieties of seasonings/marinades. I think I'll most likely go back there to buy my meat.

My parents arrived on the island yesterday evening and we invited them here for dinner. The ribeyes and green beans went to make that dinner which turned out really nicely. It was good to see my parents and catch up with them even though they were tired from travelling. We swapped our vehicles so I have my truck back, yay! Today they came by and picked us up and we went into the countryside to hunt down a tourist attraction my mom had found in her AAA book. Unfortunately, being nine years old, the AAA book was not at all recent and we went to find the site (supposedly gardens and miniature castle recreations..?) abandoned and overgrown. But that didn't stop us from trekking in and exploring! There was a life-sized castle (for sale for $119,000 if anyone's interested) and behind it a complex of some sort, built in mimic of the real-life London buildings like the White Tower, etc. Being completely deserted and overgrown, silent as a tomb, it was slighly creepy. It really was like going back in time and wandering through. My mom got creeped out too much and we left. Lunch on the way home was a superb seafood chowder. Overall an adventure of an afternoon!

Orientation is tomorrow; I'm sure I'll have plenty to write about that, too!

Day 2 on the island.

Yesterday finished uneventfully. It rained through the afternoon into the evening so I spent the time inside and did some more unpacking. The kitchen was more thoroughly furnished that I had expected so I'll be sending home the bulk of my kitchen items with my parents and Danny when they head back next weekend. There are a couple of things that will be staying with me, though, including my rice cooker and digital pressure cooker. I've loved my pressure cooker since I got it at Christmas and I can't imagine being without it up here.

Speaking of kitchens, allow me to talk briefly about the grocery stores up here. While they have a nice variety of foodstuffs, they are ridiculously expensive compared to back home. $7 for a gallon of milk, $25+ for a couple of medium sized chicken breasts and almost $6 for one pineapple! I also learned (by sneaking glances at the pricing labels) that things are sold in grams. So when I got lunch meat at the deli counter I ordered in grams, hehe. We did our shopping yesterday and I ended up paying $73 for what I hope will be enough for the week. I budgeted for $100 per week so with yesterdays purchases and some extra purchases today at another (better?) store, I ended up at $110. That includes some stuff for Danny, too, so I'm cautiously optimistic for staying within my food budget.

In addition to the grocery store, Danny and I went to the UPEI bookstore, the farmer's market across from the school, Mark's Work Wearhouse and the "Bulk Barn". At the bookstore I got my school supplies: dissection kit with scapel blades, a penlight, a digital thermometer (in Celcius, ack!) and a box of nitrile gloves. I'm going to hold off on the textbooks until I've researched a list of the ones I want but I'd like to have them before starting on Monday.

The farmer's market is across the street from the school but is only open Wednesdays and Saturdays, so Danny and I will go back tomorrow. I'm hoping produce and meat is somewhat cheaper there because it's expensive in the stores. It's nice to support local farmers too, which was significantly harder to do in urban College Park. Anyway, we left there and headed to Mark's Work Wearhouse, where I purchased my coveralls for the year. The lady there was really nice and guessed my size accurately (because they're in men's sizes I had no idea what I needed). She advised that I wash them once and bring them back for alterations which I think are free - yay!

Between Mark's and the grocery store was a place called the Bulk Barn that sells a huge variety of stuff in bulk. I'm planning to get pasta and soup mix there at the very least, which should help with my ridiculous grocery bills. No meat or produce there though, unfortunately, and the dried fruit is no less expensive. I may need to find new recipes so I can eat a little more cheaply.

Anyway, we've been busy, which is good. The island is lovely and the people very nice. I do feel conspicuously foreign here - I have to ask if they accept certain credit cards, have to fiddle over their coin money, and so on - but so far I've managed my way around without too much clumsiness. My parents should be here tomorrow or the next day and I'm looking forward to showing them my place. I'm hoping Danny and I can make it up to the beach sometime soon and hike in the national park. So much to do keeps my mind off the fact that I'll be on my own in less than a week.

Prince Edward Island!

So after a long and harrowing journey, Danny, Ella and myself have arrived and settled in my little house north of Charlottetown. We got in last night around 7:30pm, met the landlord and lady (who are super nice!) and got ourselves a pizza in town. The house is fairly rural but it's only a 20min ride into Charlottetown so I'm not complaining. We weren't long for the world after that and went to bed.

Ella was a bit restless last night (as she was in the hotel on Saturday night) and figuring she had to go out, bundled up against the cool night air and took her outside. Used to the lights and sounds and activities of an urban city, I was blown away by the utter silence I was met with! I literally felt like I was the only one in the world out there in my PJs, haha. Anyway, Ella finally settled back down and I was able to sleep in a bit.

Woke up this morning to a beautiful day. Last night the land people(?) were telling us how hot it was and it couldn't have been more than 75F, which is positively lovely weather in DC! Today is pretty breezy but probably in the low 70s and sunny. (As a side note, I'll need to get used to using Celcius instead of Farenheit, eek.) So Danny and I ate breakfast at Tim Horton's, which is a breakfast/lunch fast food type place up here. I ordered a ham and cheese tea biscuit, just because it's such a cool name. We then went to the bank where I set up a checking account, which will likely come in handy when I need to you know, pay bills and such! We're now watching The Price is Right (I can't sever all American ties just yet) and will be headed out to the grocery store in a little while. There's still so much to write about (and pictures to take) but I've about exhausted my typing skills for now. More later!

Another day of packing.

Fortunately for myself, I've been much more productive today that the past two just about combined. There's still a ton to do, unaided by the fact that my boyfriend still has a lot of stuff here that he needs to move out. I'm not really sure when that will happen, but I suppose it just will. He'll be taking some stuff (hopefully all of it) tomorrow, so that will help with the amount of stuff I perceive I need to pack, versus what I actually need to pack.

Anyway. About half the dishes are packed up, the kitchen looks like someone ransacked it, my closet is empty of my clothes, the hallway closet is emptied of jackets and such and the things that will be coming with me is a growing pile in the living room. I've been labeling the boxes as I go, which may be useful in the unpacking. May not, either, but better an extra organizing step, eh?

I've been feeling off the past few days, both physically and mentally but I think I've crested the hill to the other side (which is titled Just Do It, in my mind). Ella's picked up that something is going on and seems a bit restless too. Ah, well. Not much to do but keep packing and get up there.

Last weekend State-side.

So this past weekend was my last one at home for a good while and it was pretty nice. Turns out that my surprise (referenced a couple of posts ago) was a going away party for me with a handful of family and friends and quite a bit more than a handful of amazing food. My father is an excellent cook and made a variety of stuff - pesto pasta, swordfish chunks, rice salad, regular salad, pork loin, rib roast...there's never a shortage when he cooks. I should have taken a picture of the cake (complete with pink, from-scratch icing!) they made me but it's long gone by now.

On Sunday I managed to move the couch and chair to my parents garage with Danny's help (by which I mean Danny did everything but I drove!) and then proceeded to the county fair to browse the animals and eat some fair food. It was bittersweet because the fair always marks the end of summer in my mind and now it isn't only the end of summer, it's the end of this...period of my life, I guess you could say. Fitting but also kind of sad. The whole weekend was a little sad if I'm being honest, but that's what this change is about in some ways. So I'm not dwelling.

Today was my first day of actual packing and I didn't do much. I kind of drift around my apartment wondering where to start and it's probably a little more than pathetic. Today I managed to pack up the bathroom and ended up tossing a ton of lotion/spritz/etc that people seem to buy as default gifts for girls. I felt bad but if I haven't used it in the years since I've had it, it isn't worth lugging to Canada. In fact, I have to be a little severe with myself when it comes to what to keep and what to toss, but it isn't too bad just yet. So the bathroom is packed as well as my desk contents (pens, paper, etc) and neatly labeled in my plastic drawers. I took the desk and little end table that Danny's grandfather built himself over to my parents to store as well as a box of shoes, purses and paperwork.

I think the next biggest project is going to be the kitchen, what with all of the dishes and such, but I have all week. I can't bring myself to take down my art or disassemble anything in my bedroom just yet, so that will be left until Friday. Tomorrow I think I'll tackle my Visa paperwork and bring some more stuff to my parents. Going to be a busy week!

Panic sets in.

I sit here as a big, beautiful thunderstorm rolls in. Rain and thunderstorms are my favorite kind of weather, for some reason, and I feel quite cozy in my apartment looking out (nevermind that soon the dog will start to freak out).

To be honest with you, I'm procrastinating the start of packing up my things. My boyfriend and I are headed over to my parents this afternoon and I'm planning to bring some things over with me. I don't even know where to start, looking at it all. I know generally what needs to stay and what needs to go, but a part of my brain is arguing that I still have a week left here and what-if this and what about that are floating all around. I don't think it really hit me until yesterday (my last day of work) that I'm going to be leaving and will be gone for big chunks of time. I felt the first stabs of panic, thinking about my dad's surgery, my mom's birthday, my parents getting a dog, my boyfriend taking his engineer's test and Thanksgiving all passing by without my being there. I'm not sure if it's because this is my first time actually moving away from home (although I haven't lived with my parents for years I've been only a 30min drive away) or because it's another country...but I'm feeling a little green around the gills at the thought of it all. I know once school starts up I'll be too busy to even think about it but for now, it's looming.

Anyway, I didn't mean for this to be a pessimistic post. I'm excited about getting up there and settling in, spending that last week with my boyfriend and starting school. I know it'll be worth it. But for now, on this side of the biggest change in my life thus far, it's a wee bit intimidating.

In which I return.

I don't think I've even been on a computer (or my iPad) since I last posted here what, nine days ago?

Last weekend was busy: I had lunch with my mom's side of the family for my grandmother's birthday on Saturday, then went shopping for a couple of school things (jeans, mainly, though I ended up with a super-cute umbrella. What would I do without Target?) and then headed up to Frederick to visit friends with Danny. Sunday I went to the barn, where I had a mostly quiet trail ride on a crusty old pony called Patch. The shady woods and walking pace were a nice contrast to our normal lessons, even if I was still hot and sweaty upon our arrival back to the barn. Oh, and Patch tried to buck me off cantering up a hill. No big deal, right? I'd probably be the only person in the history of the earth to fall off that old man. Carolyn, my instructor, even told me I'd have to fill out the incident report, which I would be far too embarassed to do. Saved myself before ending face-first into the mud, though- whew! Later that evening Danny and I went out to Buca di Beppo (an Italian place), since he had to stop by work in DC to check on something and there's one not a block away. They have THE BEST salad (apple gorgonzola, which sounds strange, I admit, but is really, really excellent) and we ended up with plenty of leftovers for a delicious lunch on Monday.

Speaking of Monday, this work week has been pretty hectic. My last day is Friday - how the heck did the summer go by so fast?! - and while I'll definitely miss everyone I can't say I won't appreciate the break. Yesterday was particularly bad in all aspects so my fingers are crossed for a normal, quiet Friday. Today is my day off for the week, and well-placed it is. I don't have all too much to do and already wasted a couple of hours reading my most favorite book ever (Outlander, by Diana Gabboldan). There's really nothing quite like waking up and reading until oh hello, it's lunch time! I finally forced myself out of bed, got some Potbelly's (a sub place) and visited the Verizon store to discuss my options for when I move to Canada. They were most unhelpful, but oh well. Best go off to investigate some more.

Ella versus the Kong

My dog, Ella, is an old dog. I got her from the humane society four years ago at which point we estimated her to be five years old. Shortly thereafter we discovered that both hips were in extremely bad condition - arthritis, trauma, something had happened in her past. My vet told me we should add on five to seven years on whatever age we thought she was, making her anywhere from ten to twelve at that point. Four years ago, remember. So I expect Ella is anywhere above the age of twelve, although if I'm being honest I think that's a kind estimate. She's gone almost entirely deaf since I got her, though her health is otherwise pretty good (knock on wood!) It took her a bit longer to recover from her dental a couple of weeks ago and we discovered a grade I heart murmur just after she went down under the gas.

Anyway. Ella is not only old, she's an interesting character. She has an aloofness to her around most other people, a sort of old lady, prissy dog dignity that makes her come across as too good for a lot of things. Such as romping with my sister's adorable Boston Terrier pup Trudy, playing with toys, coming immediately when called, overt displays of enthusiasm and the like. She isn't an overly affectionate dog to anyone (myself included) but she has her ways of showing that she does in fact love some people more than others. Although the 'some people' group is very limited!

Being so dignified (or snooty), she doesn't much care for toys. But today we went to Petco and I bought her a treat-dispensing Kong, hoping it'll give her something exciting to do while I'm away at school for hours on end. And to my surprise, she actually worked on it! Not in a crazed, starved, wild dog fashion but far moreso than I expected. I may end up altering the toy to make it a little easier (she's given up now) but overall I'm kind of happy about it all. Ella is not above everything in this life! And because I can, here's a picture of Ella scoping out the toy (obviously I'm no photographer, but you get the idea).