Really, 2009 is over? I know it's cliche to say "where did it go?" but really...where did it go?! The past few months in particular have felt like no time at all, and if things keep going this way...well...bring on 2010!
So far, as a year, it looks promising. I get to intern at the animal hospital that I've been daydreaming about and drooling over since before I even moved to Portland (in fact, it was one of the reasons I chose Portland in the first place!). I get to graduate and take my boards, and then (hopefully) start working at some awesome and wonderful new job (see previous comment re: amazing internship opportunity). I get to move back to NE Portland, leaving behind the hick-filled, middle-of-nowhere Aloha neigbourhood I've been calling home. Not having to travel 90 minutes to see friends, being walking distance from actual restaurants, and not putting up with my Mexican karaoke loving neighbours anymore will be a thrill, let me tell you.
I get to spend more time with the lovely group of people down here that have become both friends and a surrogate family to me. I'm looking forward to curry buffets, gaming, movie nights, mushroom hunting, coast trips, gaming, pho dinners, gaming, tea drinking, and even more gaming. I'll get to see my actual family when they come down in June for my grad, and I'll get to see Bunny when she comes to visit in March.
Overall, if 2010 can be as good as the second half of 2009 has been for me, I'll count myself very lucky. To have such fantastic people in my life, amazing opportunities, and to be doing something I love? Yeah, I can't complain.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Monday, December 14, 2009
Good Stuff
Alright.
It has come to my attention that Kim will be visiting me in only a few days, and if I haven't updated my blog before then, I'm not sure what she'll do to me. So here we go. When did I last update? Oh my...that long ago, huh? I'm really awesome at this blogging thing. Lets see....
I did end up getting H1N1 this fall, just in time for my second set of midterms. I had to take two of them late, and the 3rd is such a blur I'm amazed I passed it (90% in fact! wow). I can confidently say that having that flu was one of the worst experiences of my life. After 3 days of fever, muscle aches, sore throat and coughing I finally worked up the energy to have a shower, and after 15 minutes had to get out and lie on the bathroom floor because I was too exhausted to stand anymore. Charming, huh? Anyway, I lived, passed my midterms, and managed to be nice and healthy for American thanksgiving. Which was good, because Mom was visiting me!
We had a great time while she was here, eating out at yummy restaurants with my friends, shopping, walking school dogs, playing with the KittyBunny (who is growing up so fast!), and having long chats. It was great to have her all to myself for a week, and I loved being able to introduce her to my friends and show her what my life here in Portland looks like. I've been so happy here, and I love being able to share that with her.
Final exams were this past week, and while I have one mark back (92.3% in pharmacology), I'm still waiting for the others. I'm not sure how I did, since those finals were probably two of the hardest tests I've ever taken in my life. Most of the class seemed to feel the same as I did about them, so we'll see how they get graded.
So, that brings me up to this weekend! I gamed Friday night (KT managed to not kill us all. Thanks KT!), and spent Saturday making tourtiere and lemon bars. Shad came over last night and we ate said tourtiere and lemon bars, watched White Christmas, decorated my Christmas tree (with help from the cats), and drank hot buttered rum. I'd say it was one of the better weekends I've had in a very long time, and as a bonus - I'm still on vacation tomorrow!
Kim arrives Wednesday, and I can't wait!
It has come to my attention that Kim will be visiting me in only a few days, and if I haven't updated my blog before then, I'm not sure what she'll do to me. So here we go. When did I last update? Oh my...that long ago, huh? I'm really awesome at this blogging thing. Lets see....
I did end up getting H1N1 this fall, just in time for my second set of midterms. I had to take two of them late, and the 3rd is such a blur I'm amazed I passed it (90% in fact! wow). I can confidently say that having that flu was one of the worst experiences of my life. After 3 days of fever, muscle aches, sore throat and coughing I finally worked up the energy to have a shower, and after 15 minutes had to get out and lie on the bathroom floor because I was too exhausted to stand anymore. Charming, huh? Anyway, I lived, passed my midterms, and managed to be nice and healthy for American thanksgiving. Which was good, because Mom was visiting me!
We had a great time while she was here, eating out at yummy restaurants with my friends, shopping, walking school dogs, playing with the KittyBunny (who is growing up so fast!), and having long chats. It was great to have her all to myself for a week, and I loved being able to introduce her to my friends and show her what my life here in Portland looks like. I've been so happy here, and I love being able to share that with her.
Final exams were this past week, and while I have one mark back (92.3% in pharmacology), I'm still waiting for the others. I'm not sure how I did, since those finals were probably two of the hardest tests I've ever taken in my life. Most of the class seemed to feel the same as I did about them, so we'll see how they get graded.
So, that brings me up to this weekend! I gamed Friday night (KT managed to not kill us all. Thanks KT!), and spent Saturday making tourtiere and lemon bars. Shad came over last night and we ate said tourtiere and lemon bars, watched White Christmas, decorated my Christmas tree (with help from the cats), and drank hot buttered rum. I'd say it was one of the better weekends I've had in a very long time, and as a bonus - I'm still on vacation tomorrow!
Kim arrives Wednesday, and I can't wait!
Monday, October 26, 2009
Stew and tea and viruses!
Despite my fervent wishing, I didn't manage to dodge the multitude of germs flying around school lately. I think I'm lucky in that this only seems to be a cold (and not the dreaded pig death!) but it still means staying home today. I actually don't feel too badly but I didn't want to risk getting lynched by classmates for showing up sick. We're all just a leetle bit paranoid right now.
Anyway, I'm sure this is mostly my own fault for staying up til 3:30am on Friday, but a combination of hot wing veggie bites with bleu cheese sauce, french fries and deep fried oreos (oh yes, I did!) kept us all up til midnight and then BP pulled out the Oolong. If you've never had oolong brewed the right way, you don't know what you're missing. No way was I going to bed before that was done. I think we got about six pours out of ours, and after all that caffeine..well..yeah. I regret nothing.
I think I forgot to mention that we got more Chanterelles this Tuesday?
Well, anyway....on Saturday I cooked them up and made a yummy veggie stew. The mushrooms were just gorgeous, and the end result made me very happy. Now that I'm sick, having a big container of it leftover in my fridge is making me even happier.
So, have a recipe!
Chanterelle and Vegetable Stew
2 cups sliced chanterelles
1 small onion
1 tbsp diced fresh thyme
1 clove garlic
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil
All purpose flour
1 tetra pack veggie stock (too lazy to make my own!)
1 cup half & half
4 small potatoes, skin on, cubed
1 sweet potato, cubed
3 large carrots, chopped (or equivalent baby carrots)
1/2 cups peas
If chanterelles are dry, skip the dry sautee part. If chanterelles are wet -
Dry sautee first set of ingredients (minus the olive oil) over medium heat until chanterelles are wilted and most of the liquid has been cooked out of them. Drain off liquid and set aside, then add a little bit of olive oil and sautee another minute or two. Add flour, 1 tbsp at a time until you have a roux then add drained off mushroom broth slowly, stirring as you go. Next, add veggie broth slowly, then half and half.
Add in veggies, reduce heat and simmer for 1 hour or more. Don't let it reach a boil.
Serve with crusty bread (or, if you're Shad, pour over leftover tourtiere and then proceed to die a little bit from happiness)
Anyway, I'm sure this is mostly my own fault for staying up til 3:30am on Friday, but a combination of hot wing veggie bites with bleu cheese sauce, french fries and deep fried oreos (oh yes, I did!) kept us all up til midnight and then BP pulled out the Oolong. If you've never had oolong brewed the right way, you don't know what you're missing. No way was I going to bed before that was done. I think we got about six pours out of ours, and after all that caffeine..well..yeah. I regret nothing.
I think I forgot to mention that we got more Chanterelles this Tuesday?
Well, anyway....on Saturday I cooked them up and made a yummy veggie stew. The mushrooms were just gorgeous, and the end result made me very happy. Now that I'm sick, having a big container of it leftover in my fridge is making me even happier.
So, have a recipe!Chanterelle and Vegetable Stew
2 cups sliced chanterelles
1 small onion
1 tbsp diced fresh thyme
1 clove garlic
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil
All purpose flour
1 tetra pack veggie stock (too lazy to make my own!)
1 cup half & half
4 small potatoes, skin on, cubed
1 sweet potato, cubed
3 large carrots, chopped (or equivalent baby carrots)
1/2 cups peas
If chanterelles are dry, skip the dry sautee part. If chanterelles are wet -
Dry sautee first set of ingredients (minus the olive oil) over medium heat until chanterelles are wilted and most of the liquid has been cooked out of them. Drain off liquid and set aside, then add a little bit of olive oil and sautee another minute or two. Add flour, 1 tbsp at a time until you have a roux then add drained off mushroom broth slowly, stirring as you go. Next, add veggie broth slowly, then half and half.
Add in veggies, reduce heat and simmer for 1 hour or more. Don't let it reach a boil.
Serve with crusty bread (or, if you're Shad, pour over leftover tourtiere and then proceed to die a little bit from happiness)
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Happiness
I think I might have previously mentioned that I enjoy fall. That everything about it - the way it smells, feels, looks - makes me happy. I've finally closed all of my windows and turned my heat on (the cats are grateful), I'm eyeing root vegetables at the store, daydreaming about baking things with pumpkin, and I'm going through tea so fast it's a wonder I'm capable of sleep. Love it! Adore it!
This Sunday I had a Canadian Thanksgiving dinner for my friends here in Portland. I made Tourtiere from Aunt Lynda's recipe (and everyone loved it!) and spiced apple cider, which was complemented nicely by the roasted squash and baked apples stuffed with figs (yum!) brought by one of my friends. Oh, and I can't forget the pink wine. We are a classy establishment, after all.
Monday was my first set of midterms, and while I'm cautious of sounding too optimistic, I really felt like I rocked them. Granted, I don't know yet how this instructor marks, but I certainly felt good about them when I walked out. We'll see!
Yesterday was my weekly Kitty Bunny fix, and since she was doing her usual NotTired!™ performance, we loaded her into the car and drove out to Crown Point. Where the wind appeared to be going about 60mph. Have I mentioned that whole loving fall thing?
This photo is amazingly clear, given that I got knocked off the sidewalk twice while trying to take it. Anyway, the round trip provided Kitty Bunny with enough car time to get a good nap in, and I was just happy to see the gorge on such a lovely day.
Last night was a repeat of Tourtiere leftovers, good movie and great company. It poured rain all night, and today was a beautiful sunny fall day with just enough bite in the air to keep me happy. How could life be any more perfect?
Well, maybe if I didn't have to be researching questions like "How do phenothiazine derivative tranquilizers induce hypothermia?" and "What does it mean when an opioid is described as a mixed agonist/antagonist?" for tomorrow. Yuck. On the upside, this means I will be sticking animals with needles tomorrow to give said "phenothiazine derivatives" and "agonist/antagonist opioids". Yay! Acepromazine and Butorphanol for everyone!
(1: By causing peripheral vasodilation. 2: Because they block one type of opioid receptor while stimulating another)
This Sunday I had a Canadian Thanksgiving dinner for my friends here in Portland. I made Tourtiere from Aunt Lynda's recipe (and everyone loved it!) and spiced apple cider, which was complemented nicely by the roasted squash and baked apples stuffed with figs (yum!) brought by one of my friends. Oh, and I can't forget the pink wine. We are a classy establishment, after all.
Monday was my first set of midterms, and while I'm cautious of sounding too optimistic, I really felt like I rocked them. Granted, I don't know yet how this instructor marks, but I certainly felt good about them when I walked out. We'll see!
Yesterday was my weekly Kitty Bunny fix, and since she was doing her usual NotTired!™ performance, we loaded her into the car and drove out to Crown Point. Where the wind appeared to be going about 60mph. Have I mentioned that whole loving fall thing?
This photo is amazingly clear, given that I got knocked off the sidewalk twice while trying to take it. Anyway, the round trip provided Kitty Bunny with enough car time to get a good nap in, and I was just happy to see the gorge on such a lovely day.
Last night was a repeat of Tourtiere leftovers, good movie and great company. It poured rain all night, and today was a beautiful sunny fall day with just enough bite in the air to keep me happy. How could life be any more perfect?
Well, maybe if I didn't have to be researching questions like "How do phenothiazine derivative tranquilizers induce hypothermia?" and "What does it mean when an opioid is described as a mixed agonist/antagonist?" for tomorrow. Yuck. On the upside, this means I will be sticking animals with needles tomorrow to give said "phenothiazine derivatives" and "agonist/antagonist opioids". Yay! Acepromazine and Butorphanol for everyone!
(1: By causing peripheral vasodilation. 2: Because they block one type of opioid receptor while stimulating another)
Sunday, October 4, 2009
BP turns 65
So, all those tasty mushrooms we've been gathering over the past few weeks? Yes, we got to eat them last night! BP's annual birthday bash is the event of the year, and to miss it is practically criminal. Friday night he started simmering the fresh picked tomatoes from the garden into a sauce, and on Saturday a horde of us converged on their kitchen to chop wild mushrooms, work pizza dough, mince thyme from the garden, and then gorge ourselves on the best pizza in the universe.
Just look at that! Isn't it beautiful?
Of course, while the food was amazing, it was really the people that made the night.
So, Happy Birthday B! Strange, you don't look a day over 39.....
Just look at that! Isn't it beautiful?
Of course, while the food was amazing, it was really the people that made the night.
So, Happy Birthday B! Strange, you don't look a day over 39.....
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Mushrooms never get boring, right?
Once more into the woods!
We ventured out again yesterday in search of tasty fungus, but I'm a little lower on photographic evidence. A combination of rough hiking (lots of blow downs in our way, and I'm not the most graceful of people even on flat surfaces), cold (numb fingers!), and rain (generally bad for cameras) meant that I really only took pictures before and after our trek.
And what am I going to take pictures of? Why, the cutest thing around, of course. In fact, she was so cute I completely forgot to take photos of the amazing mushrooms we gathered. I think our final estimate was around 8lbs, and while it was mostly chanterelles there were a couple chicken of the woods and lobster mushrooms in there too. Yum.
Aside from wild edible gathering I've been busy studying my butt off for school. The assigned reading this term is intense, and I'm still having a tough time adjusting. My brain seems to want to stay on vacation, so I'll read 10 pages of anesthesiology and then suddenly wonder what in the world it said. Good job, brain. Thanks.
We ventured out again yesterday in search of tasty fungus, but I'm a little lower on photographic evidence. A combination of rough hiking (lots of blow downs in our way, and I'm not the most graceful of people even on flat surfaces), cold (numb fingers!), and rain (generally bad for cameras) meant that I really only took pictures before and after our trek.
And what am I going to take pictures of? Why, the cutest thing around, of course. In fact, she was so cute I completely forgot to take photos of the amazing mushrooms we gathered. I think our final estimate was around 8lbs, and while it was mostly chanterelles there were a couple chicken of the woods and lobster mushrooms in there too. Yum.
Aside from wild edible gathering I've been busy studying my butt off for school. The assigned reading this term is intense, and I'm still having a tough time adjusting. My brain seems to want to stay on vacation, so I'll read 10 pages of anesthesiology and then suddenly wonder what in the world it said. Good job, brain. Thanks.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Cop-out Post
Today is my favourite kind of day - drizzly, grey, cool - and the air smells vaguely like smoke. The grocery store just unloaded the first pumpkins of the season, the leaves are changing colours, and I have an actual use for sweaters again. I spent the afternoon reading, knitting, napping, snuggling with cats, and just generally soaking up the soporific and comforting feel of the day. If I can get up the energy and will, I'll bake some apple spice muffins.
Oh, I love Fall!
Oh, I love Fall!
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Mushrooms
Well, we had a highly successful outing yesterday! I found and picked my very first chanterelles, and we ended up coming home with two basketfulls of the yummy fungus. BP cooked some up for pasta (with thyme, pepper, blue cheese and tomatoes...mmmm) and the rest will be frozen and saved for eventual chanterelle pizza. My mouth is watering just thinking of it!
And of course we had the Kitty Bunny with us. She was a real trooper - smiling and giggling and just generally enjoying being outdoors. We were taking shifts staying on the logging road with her while the other two people went into the woods to hunt, and my turn just happened to land when she was ready for a nap.
It's a tough job, I'm telling you....but I took one for the team! Can't you just feel those nap waves rolling off of her? Dangerous stuff.
Anyway, not having class on Tuesdays this term means (hopefully) more of this sort of fun in my future. Hard to beat tromping around the woods on a beautiful day, snuggling the world's most adorable baby, and gathering yummy food.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Word of the Day: Orthopnea
First day of school, first day of being a second year. We started off with a bang this morning, taking Anesthesiology at 8:30am (or, as Mom put it, "a class about making things sleep at 8:30am on a Monday morning". Touche, Mom.). My instructor for much of this term is the head of the program, and so far he's a fantastic teacher. We opened with a quote that read: "Anesthesiology: The art of lovingly, carefully, and reversibly poisoning your patient…into a controlled coma". I think that sets the tone pretty nicely. From there we moved into radiology (physics, ew) and then finished class early for the day.
As each term passes, I've found it increasingly difficult to tell stories about what I'm actually doing in class, and I think a lot of it is just increasing difficulty and knowledge level. Some of the things that happen may be funny or interesting, but they require so much explanation that I just don't bother. For example, my joke to Alona today in radiology about increased kVp causing decreased botulism effect...well...actually, bad example, that might not be funny to anyone but us.
Another reason for this might just be the proliferation of inside jokes in my class. In winter term, Dr. Henson was asked a question regarding accidentally puncturing the carotid artery when attempting venipuncture on the jugular (in retrospect, this would be very difficult to do by mistake, but whatever). She told us that you would get an immediate and dramatic fountain of spurting blood, and the correct response (especially if the owner was watching) was to place your thumb over it, smile confidentally and cheerfully say "Well. That was unexpected." This became the new catchphrase for much of the class, and when I found myself holding off the traumatically severed artery of an injured dog during my clinical rotation I was ecstatic. Well, it was unexpected.
In other news, I have no class on Tuesdays this term, and so I have plans tomorrow to go mushroom hunting with BP and the Kitty-Bunny. Hoping for lots of chanterelles!
As each term passes, I've found it increasingly difficult to tell stories about what I'm actually doing in class, and I think a lot of it is just increasing difficulty and knowledge level. Some of the things that happen may be funny or interesting, but they require so much explanation that I just don't bother. For example, my joke to Alona today in radiology about increased kVp causing decreased botulism effect...well...actually, bad example, that might not be funny to anyone but us.
Another reason for this might just be the proliferation of inside jokes in my class. In winter term, Dr. Henson was asked a question regarding accidentally puncturing the carotid artery when attempting venipuncture on the jugular (in retrospect, this would be very difficult to do by mistake, but whatever). She told us that you would get an immediate and dramatic fountain of spurting blood, and the correct response (especially if the owner was watching) was to place your thumb over it, smile confidentally and cheerfully say "Well. That was unexpected." This became the new catchphrase for much of the class, and when I found myself holding off the traumatically severed artery of an injured dog during my clinical rotation I was ecstatic. Well, it was unexpected.
In other news, I have no class on Tuesdays this term, and so I have plans tomorrow to go mushroom hunting with BP and the Kitty-Bunny. Hoping for lots of chanterelles!
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Home for a rest
I was going to post something long and involved, but Twitters gave me permission to post "cop out" posts tonight. So, instead, look at the pretty water.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Kicking
It's 6am, it's Sunday, I have no reason to get up - and here I am, wide awake and can't fall back asleep. Actually, the can't fall back asleep part might have something to do with Minnow's chattering (she is so very excited that I am awake and can't understand why I'm not petting her or feeding her). I think most of it is just being too accustomed to waking up at 5am for my internship, which is highly annoying. I value my sleep-in time, and I find this whole situation extremely unfair.
I've done a lot this past month, and I just haven't been capable of blogging about it. I was trying to figure out why I had no urge to post on here, and the best I can come up with is that I've been working on processing everything through my own mind, and there hasn't been much room left to translate it into a post. My little paper diary has been getting a serious work-out as I try to sort through how I feel about everything, but I'd never intended for this blog to become a public version of that diary (or to contain really much of anything private or personal) so I've been avoiding it. Suffice to say, I've been spending some serious time figuring out who I am, who I want to be, and then just trying to make it happen. Self confidence and self awareness - good stuff!
In other news, I've added to my modest menagerie. Ophelia (and isn't that a rocking name?) is a snobby and snooty corn snake who is trying to decide if she will tolerate having me breathe the same air as her. We're working on the whole "people are good" thing, but it's slow going. I try to take her out and handle her every day, and I've discovered that she likes wrapping herself around my hair and just hanging out. Works for me!
Gorgeous, isn't she?
So, perhaps now that my internship is winding down (only 2 days left!) I'll have more inclination to update the blog. Perhaps not, and I refuse to feel guilty about it! So there, Kim!
I've done a lot this past month, and I just haven't been capable of blogging about it. I was trying to figure out why I had no urge to post on here, and the best I can come up with is that I've been working on processing everything through my own mind, and there hasn't been much room left to translate it into a post. My little paper diary has been getting a serious work-out as I try to sort through how I feel about everything, but I'd never intended for this blog to become a public version of that diary (or to contain really much of anything private or personal) so I've been avoiding it. Suffice to say, I've been spending some serious time figuring out who I am, who I want to be, and then just trying to make it happen. Self confidence and self awareness - good stuff!
In other news, I've added to my modest menagerie. Ophelia (and isn't that a rocking name?) is a snobby and snooty corn snake who is trying to decide if she will tolerate having me breathe the same air as her. We're working on the whole "people are good" thing, but it's slow going. I try to take her out and handle her every day, and I've discovered that she likes wrapping herself around my hair and just hanging out. Works for me!
Gorgeous, isn't she?
So, perhaps now that my internship is winding down (only 2 days left!) I'll have more inclination to update the blog. Perhaps not, and I refuse to feel guilty about it! So there, Kim!
Monday, July 27, 2009
The pump don't work cause the vandals took the handles
It's finals week and Portland just posted a record high of 103oF for the day. That's 49.4oC for those back home. So where does that leave me? Bouncing from the air conditioned coffee shop to my bed with a fan trained on me. Permanently glued to my microbiology flashcards, guzzling sun tea and homemade smoothies and listening to too much Ben Harper and Bob Dylan. Daydreaming about rain and snow and sleet. Watching the cats melt into little furry puddles on the floor. Crossing my fingers that the garden accepts the constant watering I'm giving it as compensation for it being WAY TOO HOT.
Go away Summer. We don't want any.
Go away Summer. We don't want any.
Monday, July 20, 2009
A haiku
Culturing nose swabs
Yellow agar with no hole
Ah! I have MRSA!
Based on a true story.
We cultured the inside of our noses last week and then grew them on a MSA plate with a disc of methicillin in the middle. If the plate (which started red) turned yellow, we had Staphylococcus aureus. If it stayed red, we had Staphylococcus epidermis. Staph a. is the ugly one, staph e. is not so concerning. My plate stayed red with the exception of a small ring of yellow around the methicillin. This ring had a few little white dots, so while I mostly have staph e. up my nose, I am carrying around a little bit of MRSA, which is pretty typical. Oh, the joys of microbiology!
Yellow agar with no hole
Ah! I have MRSA!
Based on a true story.
We cultured the inside of our noses last week and then grew them on a MSA plate with a disc of methicillin in the middle. If the plate (which started red) turned yellow, we had Staphylococcus aureus. If it stayed red, we had Staphylococcus epidermis. Staph a. is the ugly one, staph e. is not so concerning. My plate stayed red with the exception of a small ring of yellow around the methicillin. This ring had a few little white dots, so while I mostly have staph e. up my nose, I am carrying around a little bit of MRSA, which is pretty typical. Oh, the joys of microbiology!
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Happy Canada Day
Every time I get homesick, I hit youtube and look for Canadian specific videos to make me feel better. A good dose of Rick Mercer or some National Film Board shorts usually cheers me up pretty quickly, but sometimes I just have to watch this video instead:
I've tried explaining to a couple of my American friends why this video gives me shivers every time I watch it, but it seems to be one of those things that just doesn't translate very well. I wouldn't consider myself to be a particularly rabid hockey fan, especially not compared to a lot of Canadians, but it resonates with me on a level that I think is particular to our country. I think, whether we follow it regularly or not, the game seeps into our pores and becomes part of our cultural identity in a way that is hard to pinpoint or describe, and yet that video somehow seems to sum it up. So, whenever I need to feel just a little bit more Canadian, I watch it.
And, for the record, that coke can would need to be smushed before being used as a puck. No way would you play with it that way.
I've tried explaining to a couple of my American friends why this video gives me shivers every time I watch it, but it seems to be one of those things that just doesn't translate very well. I wouldn't consider myself to be a particularly rabid hockey fan, especially not compared to a lot of Canadians, but it resonates with me on a level that I think is particular to our country. I think, whether we follow it regularly or not, the game seeps into our pores and becomes part of our cultural identity in a way that is hard to pinpoint or describe, and yet that video somehow seems to sum it up. So, whenever I need to feel just a little bit more Canadian, I watch it.
And, for the record, that coke can would need to be smushed before being used as a puck. No way would you play with it that way.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Critters and Bugs
Started really looking at bacteria today and I got a few pictures. I'm too tired to type, so photos will have to suffice!
Lab. I love all the different colours of stain we get to play with (the tie-dyed effect on my hands, not so much)
Dirt! We cultured some dirt and this is what we found. The pink are gram negative bacteria, the purple gram positive. Most of the pink are cocci, and the purple baccilli, but the small purple bacteria next to the pointer (if you zoom in) looks like a clostridium. Makes sense since dirt is considered a pretty good source for it, especially Clostridium tetani.
Capsule stains. We were trying to determine if the bacteria had organized glycocalyces (also called capsules). These are viscous coats of proteins and sugars that protect certain bacteria. I was kind of excited to be working with K. pneumoniae because it shares my initials!
Lab. I love all the different colours of stain we get to play with (the tie-dyed effect on my hands, not so much)
Dirt! We cultured some dirt and this is what we found. The pink are gram negative bacteria, the purple gram positive. Most of the pink are cocci, and the purple baccilli, but the small purple bacteria next to the pointer (if you zoom in) looks like a clostridium. Makes sense since dirt is considered a pretty good source for it, especially Clostridium tetani.
Capsule stains. We were trying to determine if the bacteria had organized glycocalyces (also called capsules). These are viscous coats of proteins and sugars that protect certain bacteria. I was kind of excited to be working with K. pneumoniae because it shares my initials!
Monday, June 22, 2009
Fear Factor, Vet Tech Style
First day of microbiology today (micro at 8am? Who came up with that brilliant idea?) and this class is promising to be just as good as parasitology for inducing frantic handwashing fits and periodic freakouts about what our hands are touching. Actually, given that we're working with things like e. coli and staph, it could be even more entertaining. The lab group next to us spilled their staph all over the table today too. Good times.
Our lab group is named "The Agar Lickers". We were given the choice of culturing the insides of our noses or our mouths, and told that it was perfectly ok to lick the agar if we wanted. And really, when given the opportunity...who could resist? Tastes kind of salty. And gross. The lab group next to us (who spilled the staph) are called "The Transient Streakers". We are all so very cool.
We also cultured our hands, washed them, and then cultured them again. My take home assignment is to find something fun to swab and bring back in, and I'm thinking I'll try for the door handle on the dive bar around the corner from me. My only concern is explaining myself if I get caught.
Tomorrow is more micro, and then we start Clinical Procedures class on Wednesday, which should be fun. That class can best be summed up as "Bodily fluids: what can they tell us?". Blood, urine, pus, etc. All in all, I'm really quite pleased with my decision to buy a washer and dryer.
Our lab group is named "The Agar Lickers". We were given the choice of culturing the insides of our noses or our mouths, and told that it was perfectly ok to lick the agar if we wanted. And really, when given the opportunity...who could resist? Tastes kind of salty. And gross. The lab group next to us (who spilled the staph) are called "The Transient Streakers". We are all so very cool.
We also cultured our hands, washed them, and then cultured them again. My take home assignment is to find something fun to swab and bring back in, and I'm thinking I'll try for the door handle on the dive bar around the corner from me. My only concern is explaining myself if I get caught.
Tomorrow is more micro, and then we start Clinical Procedures class on Wednesday, which should be fun. That class can best be summed up as "Bodily fluids: what can they tell us?". Blood, urine, pus, etc. All in all, I'm really quite pleased with my decision to buy a washer and dryer.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Why Music Matters
This is well worth a read.
Why Music Matters
Karl Paulnack, Director, Music Division
The Boston Conservatory
Dr. Karl Paulnack’s Welcome Address to parents of incoming students, September 2004
“One of my parents’ deepest fears, I suspect, is that society would not properly value me as a musician… I had very good grades in high school, I was good in science and math, and they imagined that as a doctor or a research chemist or an engineer, I might be more appreciated… I still remember my mother’s remark when I announced my decision to apply to music school. She said, “You’re wasting your SAT scores!” On some level, I think, my parents were not sure themselves what the value of music was, what its purpose was. And they loved music: they listened to classical music all the time. They just weren’t really clear about its function. So let me talk about that a little bit, because we live in a society that puts music in the “arts and entertainment” section of the newspaper, and serious music, the kind your kids are about to engage in, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with entertainment, in fact it’s the opposite… Let me talk a little bit about music, and how it works.
One of the first cultures to articulate how music really works were the ancient Greeks. And this is going to fascinate you: the Greeks said that music and astronomy were two sides of the same coin. Astronomy was seen as the study of relationships between observable, permanent, external objects, and music was seen as the study of relationships between invisible, internal, hidden objects. Music has a way of finding the big, invisible moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping us figure out the position of things inside us. Let me give you some examples of how this works.
One of the most profound musical compositions of all time is the Quartet for the End of Time written by French composer Olivier Messiaen in 1940. Messiaen was 31 years old when France entered the war against Nazi Germany. He was captured by the Germans in June of 1940 and imprisoned in a prisoner-of-war camp.
He was fortunate to find a sympathetic prison guard who gave him paper and a place to compose, and fortunate to have musician colleagues in the camp, a cellist, a violinist, and a clarinetist. Messiaen wrote his quartet with these specific players in mind. It was performed in January 1941 for four thousand prisoners and guards in the prison camp. Today it is one of the most famous masterworks in the repertoire.
Given what we have since learned about life in the Nazi camps, why would anyone in his right mind waste time and energy writing or playing music? There was barely enough energy on a good day to find food and water, to avoid a beating, to stay warm, to escape torture — why would anyone bother with music? And yet even from the concentration camps we have poetry, we have music, we have visual art; it wasn’t just this one fanatic Messiaen; many, many people created art. Why? Well, in a place where people are only focused on survival, on the bare necessities, the obvious conclusion is that art must be, somehow, essential for life. The camps were without money, without hope, without commerce, without recreation, without basic respect, but they were not without art. Art is part of survival; art is part of the human spirit, an unquenchable expression of who we are. Art is one of the ways in which we say, “I am alive, and my life has meaning.”
In September of 2001 I was a resident of Manhattan. On the morning of September 12, 2001 I reached a new understanding of my art and its relationship to the world. I sat down at the piano that morning at 10 AM to practice as was my daily routine; I did it by force of habit, without thinking about it. I lifted the cover on the keyboard, and opened my music, and put my hands on the keys and took my hands off the keys. And I sat there and thought, does this even matter? Isn’t this completely irrelevant? Playing the piano right now, given what happened in this city yesterday, seems silly, absurd, irreverent, pointless. Why am I here? What place has a musician in this moment in time? Who needs a piano player right now? I was completely lost.
And then I, along with the rest of New York, went through the journey of getting through that week. I did not play the piano that day, in fact I contemplated briefly whether I would ever want to play the piano again. And then I observed how we got through the day.
At least in my neighborhood, we didn’t shoot hoops or play Scrabble. We didn’t play cards to pass the time, we didn’t watch TV, we didn’t shop, we most certainly did not go to the mall. The first organized activity that I saw in New York, on the very evening of September 11th, was singing. People sang. People sang around fire houses, people sang “We Shall Overcome.” Lots of people sang “America the Beautiful.” The first organized public event that I remember was the Brahms Requiem, later that week, at Lincoln Center, with the New York Philharmonic. The first organized public expression of grief, our first communal response to that historic event, was a concert. That was the beginning of a sense that life might go on. The US Military secured the airspace, but recovery was led by the arts, and by music in particular, that very night.
From these two experiences, I have come to understand that music is not part of “arts and entertainment” as the newspaper section would have us believe. It’s not a luxury, a lavish thing that we fund from leftovers of our budgets, not a plaything or an amusement or a pastime. Music is a basic need of human survival. Music is one of the ways we make sense of our lives, one of the ways in which we express feelings when we have no words, a way for us to understand things with our hearts when we can’t with our minds.
Some of you may know Samuel Barber’s heart wrenchingly beautiful piece “Adagio for Strings.” If you don’t know it by that name, then some of you may know it as the background music which accompanied the Oliver Stone movie “Platoon,” a film about the Vietnam War. If you know that piece of music either way, you know it has the ability to crack your heart open like a walnut; it can make you cry over sadness you didn’t know you had. Music can slip beneath our conscious reality to get at what’s really going on inside us the way a good therapist does.
Very few of you have ever been to a wedding where there was absolutely no music. There might have been only a little music, there might have been some really bad music, but with few exceptions there is some music. And something very predictable happens at weddings-people get all pent up with all kinds of emotions, and then there’s some musical moment where the action of the wedding stops and someone sings or plays the flute or something. And even if the music is lame, even if the quality isn’t good, predictably 30 or 40 percent of the people who are going to cry at a wedding cry a couple of moments after the music starts. Why? The Greeks. Music allows us to move around those big invisible pieces of ourselves and rearrange our insides so that we can express what we feel even when we can’t talk about it. Can you imagine watching Indiana Jones or Superman or Star Wars with the dialogue but no music? What is it about the music swelling up at just the right moment in ET so that all the softies in the audience start crying at exactly the same moment? I guarantee you if you showed the movie with the music stripped out, it wouldn’t happen that way. The Greeks. Music is the understanding of the relationship between invisible internal objects.
I’ll give you one more example. The most important concert of my entire life took place in a nursing home in a small Mid-western town a few years ago.
I was playing with a very dear friend of mine who is a violinist. We began, as we often do, with Aaron Copland’s Sonata, which was written during World War II and dedicated to a young friend of Copland’s, a young pilot who was shot down during the war. Now we often talk to our audiences about the pieces we are going to play rather than providing them with written program notes. But in this case, because we began the concert with this piece, we decided to talk about the piece later in the program and to just come out and play the music without explanation.
Midway through the piece, an elderly man seated in a wheelchair near the front of the concert hall began to weep. This man, whom I later met, was clearly a soldier. Even in his 70’s it was clear from his buzz-cut hair, square jaw and general demeanor that he had spent a good deal of his life in the military. I thought it a little bit odd that someone would be moved to tears by that particular movement of that particular piece, but it wasn’t the first time I’ve heard crying in a concert and we went on with the concert and finished the piece.
When we came out to play the next piece on the program, we decided to talk about both the first and second pieces, and we described the circumstances in which the Copland was written and mentioned its dedication to a downed pilot. The man in the front of the audience became so disturbed that he had to leave the auditorium. I honestly figured that we would not see him again, but he did come backstage afterwards, tears and all, to explain himself.
What he told us was this: “During World War II I was a pilot, and I was in an aerial combat situation where one of my team’s planes was hit. I watched my friend bail out, and watched his parachute open, but the Japanese planes which had engaged us returned and machine gunned across the parachute cords so as to separate the parachute from the pilot, and I watched my friend drop away into the ocean, realizing that he was lost. I have not thought about this for many years, but during that first piece of music you played, this memory returned to me so vividly that it was as though I was reliving it. I didn’t understand why this was happening, why now, but then when you came out to explain that this piece of music was written to commemorate a lost pilot, it was a little more than I could handle. How does the music do that? How did it find those feelings and those memories in me?”
Remember the Greeks: music is the study of invisible relationships between internal objects. The concert in the nursing home was the most important work I have ever done. For me to play for this old soldier and help him connect, somehow, with Aaron Copland, and to connect their memories of their lost friends, to help him remember and mourn his friend, this is my work. This is why music matters.
The responsibility I will charge your sons and daughters with is this: “If we were a medical school, and you were here as a med student practicing appendectomies, you’d take your work very seriously because you would imagine that some night at 2 AM someone is going to waltz into your emergency room and you’re going to have to save their life. Well, my friends, someday at 8 PM someone is going to walk into your concert hall and bring you a mind that is confused, a heart that is overwhelmed, a soul that is weary. Whether they go out whole again will depend partly on how well you do your craft.
“You’re not here to become an entertainer, and you don’t have to sell yourself. The truth is you don’t have anything to sell; being a musician isn’t about dispensing a product, like selling used cars. I’m not an entertainer; I’m a lot closer to a paramedic, a firefighter, a rescue worker. You’re here to become a sort of therapist for the human soul, a spiritual version of a chiropractor, physical therapist, someone who works with our insides to see if they get things to line up, to see if we can come into harmony with ourselves and be healthy and happy and well.
“Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I expect you not only to master music, I expect you to save the planet. If there is a future wave of wellness on this planet, of harmony, of peace, of an end to war, of mutual understanding, of equality, of fairness, I don’t expect it will come from a government, a military force or a corporation. I no longer even expect it to come from the religions of the world, which together seem to have brought us as much war as they have peace. If there is a future of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of how these invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it will come from the artists, because that’s what we do. As in the concentration camp and the evening of 9/11, the artists are the ones who might be able to help us with our internal, invisible lives.”
Found by Muse
Why Music Matters
Karl Paulnack, Director, Music Division
The Boston Conservatory
Dr. Karl Paulnack’s Welcome Address to parents of incoming students, September 2004
“One of my parents’ deepest fears, I suspect, is that society would not properly value me as a musician… I had very good grades in high school, I was good in science and math, and they imagined that as a doctor or a research chemist or an engineer, I might be more appreciated… I still remember my mother’s remark when I announced my decision to apply to music school. She said, “You’re wasting your SAT scores!” On some level, I think, my parents were not sure themselves what the value of music was, what its purpose was. And they loved music: they listened to classical music all the time. They just weren’t really clear about its function. So let me talk about that a little bit, because we live in a society that puts music in the “arts and entertainment” section of the newspaper, and serious music, the kind your kids are about to engage in, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with entertainment, in fact it’s the opposite… Let me talk a little bit about music, and how it works.
One of the first cultures to articulate how music really works were the ancient Greeks. And this is going to fascinate you: the Greeks said that music and astronomy were two sides of the same coin. Astronomy was seen as the study of relationships between observable, permanent, external objects, and music was seen as the study of relationships between invisible, internal, hidden objects. Music has a way of finding the big, invisible moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping us figure out the position of things inside us. Let me give you some examples of how this works.
One of the most profound musical compositions of all time is the Quartet for the End of Time written by French composer Olivier Messiaen in 1940. Messiaen was 31 years old when France entered the war against Nazi Germany. He was captured by the Germans in June of 1940 and imprisoned in a prisoner-of-war camp.
He was fortunate to find a sympathetic prison guard who gave him paper and a place to compose, and fortunate to have musician colleagues in the camp, a cellist, a violinist, and a clarinetist. Messiaen wrote his quartet with these specific players in mind. It was performed in January 1941 for four thousand prisoners and guards in the prison camp. Today it is one of the most famous masterworks in the repertoire.
Given what we have since learned about life in the Nazi camps, why would anyone in his right mind waste time and energy writing or playing music? There was barely enough energy on a good day to find food and water, to avoid a beating, to stay warm, to escape torture — why would anyone bother with music? And yet even from the concentration camps we have poetry, we have music, we have visual art; it wasn’t just this one fanatic Messiaen; many, many people created art. Why? Well, in a place where people are only focused on survival, on the bare necessities, the obvious conclusion is that art must be, somehow, essential for life. The camps were without money, without hope, without commerce, without recreation, without basic respect, but they were not without art. Art is part of survival; art is part of the human spirit, an unquenchable expression of who we are. Art is one of the ways in which we say, “I am alive, and my life has meaning.”
In September of 2001 I was a resident of Manhattan. On the morning of September 12, 2001 I reached a new understanding of my art and its relationship to the world. I sat down at the piano that morning at 10 AM to practice as was my daily routine; I did it by force of habit, without thinking about it. I lifted the cover on the keyboard, and opened my music, and put my hands on the keys and took my hands off the keys. And I sat there and thought, does this even matter? Isn’t this completely irrelevant? Playing the piano right now, given what happened in this city yesterday, seems silly, absurd, irreverent, pointless. Why am I here? What place has a musician in this moment in time? Who needs a piano player right now? I was completely lost.
And then I, along with the rest of New York, went through the journey of getting through that week. I did not play the piano that day, in fact I contemplated briefly whether I would ever want to play the piano again. And then I observed how we got through the day.
At least in my neighborhood, we didn’t shoot hoops or play Scrabble. We didn’t play cards to pass the time, we didn’t watch TV, we didn’t shop, we most certainly did not go to the mall. The first organized activity that I saw in New York, on the very evening of September 11th, was singing. People sang. People sang around fire houses, people sang “We Shall Overcome.” Lots of people sang “America the Beautiful.” The first organized public event that I remember was the Brahms Requiem, later that week, at Lincoln Center, with the New York Philharmonic. The first organized public expression of grief, our first communal response to that historic event, was a concert. That was the beginning of a sense that life might go on. The US Military secured the airspace, but recovery was led by the arts, and by music in particular, that very night.
From these two experiences, I have come to understand that music is not part of “arts and entertainment” as the newspaper section would have us believe. It’s not a luxury, a lavish thing that we fund from leftovers of our budgets, not a plaything or an amusement or a pastime. Music is a basic need of human survival. Music is one of the ways we make sense of our lives, one of the ways in which we express feelings when we have no words, a way for us to understand things with our hearts when we can’t with our minds.
Some of you may know Samuel Barber’s heart wrenchingly beautiful piece “Adagio for Strings.” If you don’t know it by that name, then some of you may know it as the background music which accompanied the Oliver Stone movie “Platoon,” a film about the Vietnam War. If you know that piece of music either way, you know it has the ability to crack your heart open like a walnut; it can make you cry over sadness you didn’t know you had. Music can slip beneath our conscious reality to get at what’s really going on inside us the way a good therapist does.
Very few of you have ever been to a wedding where there was absolutely no music. There might have been only a little music, there might have been some really bad music, but with few exceptions there is some music. And something very predictable happens at weddings-people get all pent up with all kinds of emotions, and then there’s some musical moment where the action of the wedding stops and someone sings or plays the flute or something. And even if the music is lame, even if the quality isn’t good, predictably 30 or 40 percent of the people who are going to cry at a wedding cry a couple of moments after the music starts. Why? The Greeks. Music allows us to move around those big invisible pieces of ourselves and rearrange our insides so that we can express what we feel even when we can’t talk about it. Can you imagine watching Indiana Jones or Superman or Star Wars with the dialogue but no music? What is it about the music swelling up at just the right moment in ET so that all the softies in the audience start crying at exactly the same moment? I guarantee you if you showed the movie with the music stripped out, it wouldn’t happen that way. The Greeks. Music is the understanding of the relationship between invisible internal objects.
I’ll give you one more example. The most important concert of my entire life took place in a nursing home in a small Mid-western town a few years ago.
I was playing with a very dear friend of mine who is a violinist. We began, as we often do, with Aaron Copland’s Sonata, which was written during World War II and dedicated to a young friend of Copland’s, a young pilot who was shot down during the war. Now we often talk to our audiences about the pieces we are going to play rather than providing them with written program notes. But in this case, because we began the concert with this piece, we decided to talk about the piece later in the program and to just come out and play the music without explanation.
Midway through the piece, an elderly man seated in a wheelchair near the front of the concert hall began to weep. This man, whom I later met, was clearly a soldier. Even in his 70’s it was clear from his buzz-cut hair, square jaw and general demeanor that he had spent a good deal of his life in the military. I thought it a little bit odd that someone would be moved to tears by that particular movement of that particular piece, but it wasn’t the first time I’ve heard crying in a concert and we went on with the concert and finished the piece.
When we came out to play the next piece on the program, we decided to talk about both the first and second pieces, and we described the circumstances in which the Copland was written and mentioned its dedication to a downed pilot. The man in the front of the audience became so disturbed that he had to leave the auditorium. I honestly figured that we would not see him again, but he did come backstage afterwards, tears and all, to explain himself.
What he told us was this: “During World War II I was a pilot, and I was in an aerial combat situation where one of my team’s planes was hit. I watched my friend bail out, and watched his parachute open, but the Japanese planes which had engaged us returned and machine gunned across the parachute cords so as to separate the parachute from the pilot, and I watched my friend drop away into the ocean, realizing that he was lost. I have not thought about this for many years, but during that first piece of music you played, this memory returned to me so vividly that it was as though I was reliving it. I didn’t understand why this was happening, why now, but then when you came out to explain that this piece of music was written to commemorate a lost pilot, it was a little more than I could handle. How does the music do that? How did it find those feelings and those memories in me?”
Remember the Greeks: music is the study of invisible relationships between internal objects. The concert in the nursing home was the most important work I have ever done. For me to play for this old soldier and help him connect, somehow, with Aaron Copland, and to connect their memories of their lost friends, to help him remember and mourn his friend, this is my work. This is why music matters.
The responsibility I will charge your sons and daughters with is this: “If we were a medical school, and you were here as a med student practicing appendectomies, you’d take your work very seriously because you would imagine that some night at 2 AM someone is going to waltz into your emergency room and you’re going to have to save their life. Well, my friends, someday at 8 PM someone is going to walk into your concert hall and bring you a mind that is confused, a heart that is overwhelmed, a soul that is weary. Whether they go out whole again will depend partly on how well you do your craft.
“You’re not here to become an entertainer, and you don’t have to sell yourself. The truth is you don’t have anything to sell; being a musician isn’t about dispensing a product, like selling used cars. I’m not an entertainer; I’m a lot closer to a paramedic, a firefighter, a rescue worker. You’re here to become a sort of therapist for the human soul, a spiritual version of a chiropractor, physical therapist, someone who works with our insides to see if they get things to line up, to see if we can come into harmony with ourselves and be healthy and happy and well.
“Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I expect you not only to master music, I expect you to save the planet. If there is a future wave of wellness on this planet, of harmony, of peace, of an end to war, of mutual understanding, of equality, of fairness, I don’t expect it will come from a government, a military force or a corporation. I no longer even expect it to come from the religions of the world, which together seem to have brought us as much war as they have peace. If there is a future of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of how these invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it will come from the artists, because that’s what we do. As in the concentration camp and the evening of 9/11, the artists are the ones who might be able to help us with our internal, invisible lives.”
Found by Muse
Murphy is not a nice man
Remember what I said yesterday about hoping for anything but cat cephalics?
Yeah, guess what I drew out of the hat?
Took me two tries, but I got it. Take that, Murphy.
Yeah, guess what I drew out of the hat?Took me two tries, but I got it. Take that, Murphy.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Procrasti-Kate
I could argue that I've been too busy studying to post, but really, I just haven't bothered. Sorry!
Finals are almost upon me again, and I've been feeling the study pressure. This term has been far less demanding than the previous two, but that doesn't tend to make finals week any less painful. Tomorrow I will be drawing a slip of paper from a hat, and this slip of paper will tell me what vein I have to poke, and on which animal. I'm praying for anything but cat cephalics, but expecting the worst.
In other news, I've been spending more time in the garden. This is the first time I've had a patch of dirt to call my own, and the sheer possibilities involved with planning what I will grow has me giddy. I'm limited by funds (hooray for Bi-Mart's sale rack!) and lack of proper soil nutrients, but I've still managed to create something that makes me happy.
I know most people consider eating your own produce to be the height of gardening, but while that certainly gives me a thrill, I can't find anything more satisfying than seeing my flowers blooming and growing to form a patchwork of colour. Yes, my snow peas were delicious, but I've put far more effort and attention into my clematis and irises, just because they're pretty. Can't help it!
There is still so much I want to do with it, but this is a good start. Hopefully by next year I'll have managed to fill in the bare patches.
So, photos!
I am addicted to snapdragons.
This iris had bloomed once already, but as you can see from the sheered off stem, someone stole the flower the day after it bloomed. This is the one remaining flower, and I am highly protective of it.
One of the roses that was here when I moved in. My nextdoor neighbour tells me it was rescued from the garbage bin at the grocery store by the tenant who lived here 15 years ago. Nice to see something so pretty get a second chance.
Finals are almost upon me again, and I've been feeling the study pressure. This term has been far less demanding than the previous two, but that doesn't tend to make finals week any less painful. Tomorrow I will be drawing a slip of paper from a hat, and this slip of paper will tell me what vein I have to poke, and on which animal. I'm praying for anything but cat cephalics, but expecting the worst.
In other news, I've been spending more time in the garden. This is the first time I've had a patch of dirt to call my own, and the sheer possibilities involved with planning what I will grow has me giddy. I'm limited by funds (hooray for Bi-Mart's sale rack!) and lack of proper soil nutrients, but I've still managed to create something that makes me happy.
I know most people consider eating your own produce to be the height of gardening, but while that certainly gives me a thrill, I can't find anything more satisfying than seeing my flowers blooming and growing to form a patchwork of colour. Yes, my snow peas were delicious, but I've put far more effort and attention into my clematis and irises, just because they're pretty. Can't help it!
There is still so much I want to do with it, but this is a good start. Hopefully by next year I'll have managed to fill in the bare patches.
So, photos!
I am addicted to snapdragons.
This iris had bloomed once already, but as you can see from the sheered off stem, someone stole the flower the day after it bloomed. This is the one remaining flower, and I am highly protective of it.
One of the roses that was here when I moved in. My nextdoor neighbour tells me it was rescued from the garbage bin at the grocery store by the tenant who lived here 15 years ago. Nice to see something so pretty get a second chance.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Cats
I spent part of the day on Saturday just following the cats around with a camera. I ended up with some pretty ordinary footage, but I figured I'd post it anyway.
This is a classic example of the "arguments" I have with Minnow. You'll have to excuse my dorky voice, I seem incapable of conversing with her in a normal adult tone.
This is Merlin, trying to stay awake. He does this a lot, though I've never seen him tip completely over. It's certainly got worse lately, though I suppose that extra 2lbs he's put on since January might be making him a little rounder.
And here we have a typical wrestling match. Consensus seems to be that Minnow won, but they're usually about 50/50. A few minutes after I stopped filming, Merlin walked up to her and smacked her on the face and then ran away. So don't worry, he gets his own back.
This is a classic example of the "arguments" I have with Minnow. You'll have to excuse my dorky voice, I seem incapable of conversing with her in a normal adult tone.
This is Merlin, trying to stay awake. He does this a lot, though I've never seen him tip completely over. It's certainly got worse lately, though I suppose that extra 2lbs he's put on since January might be making him a little rounder.
And here we have a typical wrestling match. Consensus seems to be that Minnow won, but they're usually about 50/50. A few minutes after I stopped filming, Merlin walked up to her and smacked her on the face and then ran away. So don't worry, he gets his own back.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Rocking the medial saphenous stick
Yeah, I'm a rock star. I hit it first try. Uh huh. I'm cool.......now let's see if I can do it on an awake cat.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
We'll Miss You, Dave
Last night our vet tech horse, Dave, colicked and had to be euthanised. He'd been in pain for several months now due to advancing arthritis, and while I'm glad he's not in pain anymore, it's still so hard to believe that he's really gone. 
Next year's students will never get to know you - to see how stubborn you could be when you didn't want to do something, to watch the way you'd do anything for a treat, and laugh at how you'd stretch your neck out and flutter your lips when we scratched just the right spot. You taught me a lot Dave, and made my first year of classes so much easier. Whenever I felt stressed, going out to see you would always make me feel better.We'll miss you so much Dave.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Talent Crush: Regina Spektor
I've posted music of hers before, but the more I listen to her, the better I like her. I finally got my hands on one of her albums, and every song is different and amazing. My only real complaint is that I want to sing along so badly, and I just can't match her vocal range or style well enough!
Ugly Blood
We've been doing WBC differentials in class this past week, and we got to look at toxic blood on Friday. There was a lot of singing in class, but also a lot of "Oh wow!" and "Is that even a seg?!"
Those are, in fact, segmented neutrophils, and they really are showing toxic changes. The cell on the left has prominent Dohle Bodies, and the one on the right has some basophilia and foaminess, which is caused by vacuolization of the cytoplasm. The red blood cells are showing rouleaux, crenation, and some Howell-Jolly bodies (the name of those lead to more singing).
So, what does that all mean? Really, the cat that this blood came from is so sick that her cells are degrading. The Dohle bodies aren't especially noteworthy in a cat (say "BOO" to a cat and it'll produce them), but the rest are signs of extreme inflammation. The toxicity still seems subtle to me because I'm learning, but apparently this is the type of smear that would, as my instructor puts it, "make the vet poop his pants" in real practice. Good to know.
Those are, in fact, segmented neutrophils, and they really are showing toxic changes. The cell on the left has prominent Dohle Bodies, and the one on the right has some basophilia and foaminess, which is caused by vacuolization of the cytoplasm. The red blood cells are showing rouleaux, crenation, and some Howell-Jolly bodies (the name of those lead to more singing).
So, what does that all mean? Really, the cat that this blood came from is so sick that her cells are degrading. The Dohle bodies aren't especially noteworthy in a cat (say "BOO" to a cat and it'll produce them), but the rest are signs of extreme inflammation. The toxicity still seems subtle to me because I'm learning, but apparently this is the type of smear that would, as my instructor puts it, "make the vet poop his pants" in real practice. Good to know.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Tell me, how does your garden grow?
No silver bells or cockleshells, but I'm pretty pleased with how things are looking outside my door anyway.
When I moved into this apartment, there was a rather ugly patch of dirt next to my little patio that looked as though it had been intended to contain plants. There were sad little rose bushes in it that looked like they had given up trying to fill the space, and if anything they really just made the whole thing look more pathetic, not less.
I have no really good pictures of the spot, simply because I saw no reason to photograph the ugliness. I wish had now, just so I'd have a better sense of before and after, but it's a little late!
It's still quite sparse, but I'm much happier with how it looks anyway. I'm especially pleased with the daffodils I put in...they turned out beautifully!
When I moved into this apartment, there was a rather ugly patch of dirt next to my little patio that looked as though it had been intended to contain plants. There were sad little rose bushes in it that looked like they had given up trying to fill the space, and if anything they really just made the whole thing look more pathetic, not less.
I have no really good pictures of the spot, simply because I saw no reason to photograph the ugliness. I wish had now, just so I'd have a better sense of before and after, but it's a little late!
It's still quite sparse, but I'm much happier with how it looks anyway. I'm especially pleased with the daffodils I put in...they turned out beautifully!
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
VAMPIRE!!!
I don't think I fully realised just how deranged I would look when I made that face.Anyway, 3 for 3 on my canine blood draws (as evidenced by the blood-filled needles in the photo). It took me 3 tries to hit the lateral saphenous, but I'm not too upset about it. I was working with Brynn and she tends to shriek and squirm when you touch her with a needle, so not being able to hit the smallest and squirmiest vein on the first try isn't grounds for a freak-out.
I did, however, hit the cephalic and jugular on my first try, and man did that ever feel good. Dr. Henson was right, this whole blood drawing thing is both cathartic and addictive. I've caught myself staring at veins on animals, people, whatever...and just thinking "I could hit that...". This is bad.
After lab, Perri, Cat and I went out to the stable and gave Dave a bath. He's so furry that it was more like bathing a giant dog, and we pulled what seemed like 50lbs of hair off of him. He was very good about the whole thing and seemed to quite enjoy the attention.
Doesn't he look pretty?
Monday, April 20, 2009
Fever when you hold me tight...
I know, I know....slacker.
In other news, Merlin finally managed to ring a positive on one of the seeming billions of diagnostics I've had run on him, and he is the proud carrier of Bartonella henselae, otherwise known as Feline Bartonella in cats, or Cat Scratch Fever in humans. Granted, the seroprevalence of Bartonella can be up to 93% in some states, so Merlin testing positive shouldn't be all that shocking, but I've grown accustomed to his mastery of the "normal bloodwork, normal PE, barf all over the house" style of presentation, so this is a little exciting.
Bartonella is a bloodborne bacteria that is transmitted to cats by fleas. Areas with high flea population also have a lot of Bartonella, and up until recently it was assumed that while cats carried the bacteria and potentially passed it onto people, they didn't actually suffer any ill effects from it. This has recently been called into dispute, and while there is no hard data to support it, a lot of vets are beginning to think that Bartonella may influence diseases like stomatitis, diabetes, and cause chronic upper respiratory symptoms.
The problem with this, of course, is that when you have a population of cats of whom 93% could potentially be positive for Bartonella, you could link just about anything to it. Broken tails? Sure, 22 out of 25 cats with broken tails have Bartonella, that must be it! So, while I'm excited that we've finally found something clinically abnormal and treatable in Merlin's bloodwork, I'm not sure the treatment will ultimately make a difference. I'm certainly going to treat, I just won't hold my breath for a miraculous recovery.
Oh, and for those suddenly panicking at the idea that I'm living with a disease vector, relax. Merlin has almost certainly been carrying Bartonella since long before I adopted him, plenty of cats carry it without most people ever knowing (up to 93%, remember?), and Cat Scratch Fever affects less than 200,000 people in the US. Not exactly terrifying. I'm far more worried about Minnow's poorly disguised plots to kill me and take over the household.
As for school, it's been going well. Last week we went off into the woods, tracked down a Sasquatch, wrestled it to the ground, chopped it's arm off, and used it to practice blood draws on.
See? And you didn't believe me.....
In other news, Merlin finally managed to ring a positive on one of the seeming billions of diagnostics I've had run on him, and he is the proud carrier of Bartonella henselae, otherwise known as Feline Bartonella in cats, or Cat Scratch Fever in humans. Granted, the seroprevalence of Bartonella can be up to 93% in some states, so Merlin testing positive shouldn't be all that shocking, but I've grown accustomed to his mastery of the "normal bloodwork, normal PE, barf all over the house" style of presentation, so this is a little exciting.
Bartonella is a bloodborne bacteria that is transmitted to cats by fleas. Areas with high flea population also have a lot of Bartonella, and up until recently it was assumed that while cats carried the bacteria and potentially passed it onto people, they didn't actually suffer any ill effects from it. This has recently been called into dispute, and while there is no hard data to support it, a lot of vets are beginning to think that Bartonella may influence diseases like stomatitis, diabetes, and cause chronic upper respiratory symptoms.
The problem with this, of course, is that when you have a population of cats of whom 93% could potentially be positive for Bartonella, you could link just about anything to it. Broken tails? Sure, 22 out of 25 cats with broken tails have Bartonella, that must be it! So, while I'm excited that we've finally found something clinically abnormal and treatable in Merlin's bloodwork, I'm not sure the treatment will ultimately make a difference. I'm certainly going to treat, I just won't hold my breath for a miraculous recovery.
Oh, and for those suddenly panicking at the idea that I'm living with a disease vector, relax. Merlin has almost certainly been carrying Bartonella since long before I adopted him, plenty of cats carry it without most people ever knowing (up to 93%, remember?), and Cat Scratch Fever affects less than 200,000 people in the US. Not exactly terrifying. I'm far more worried about Minnow's poorly disguised plots to kill me and take over the household.
As for school, it's been going well. Last week we went off into the woods, tracked down a Sasquatch, wrestled it to the ground, chopped it's arm off, and used it to practice blood draws on.
See? And you didn't believe me.....
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Cow Tippi.....er, Cow stabbing
No, we didn't tip cows today, we just stabbed them in the neck. And only to get their blood.
Yeah, I know. That doesn't make it sound any better.
Anyway, I did a jugular stick on cow today and hit it first try. I'm proud of myself, but I couldn't get too puffed up about it given that the vein is about an inch and a half across. I mean, really. I also hit the tail vein on the third try, which I was pretty pleased about. Actually, the hardest part about the cow lab was getting the cows into the chute in the first place. Most beef cattle are slightly nervous of people, so it is very easy to drive them. Ours are handled more than usual, so they don't fear us, and as a result, we have to use somewhat unorthodox methods to get them to move where we want them. This may seem like a scene from some bizarre horror movie (when vet techs attack?) but it was really just us trying (and failing) to drive the cattle. Honestly, if I were a cow, I would have been scared!
But apparently the cows couldn't care less, cause they sure didn't move.
Ah well, blood was eventually achieved anyway.
Yeah, I know. That doesn't make it sound any better.
Anyway, I did a jugular stick on cow today and hit it first try. I'm proud of myself, but I couldn't get too puffed up about it given that the vein is about an inch and a half across. I mean, really. I also hit the tail vein on the third try, which I was pretty pleased about. Actually, the hardest part about the cow lab was getting the cows into the chute in the first place. Most beef cattle are slightly nervous of people, so it is very easy to drive them. Ours are handled more than usual, so they don't fear us, and as a result, we have to use somewhat unorthodox methods to get them to move where we want them. This may seem like a scene from some bizarre horror movie (when vet techs attack?) but it was really just us trying (and failing) to drive the cattle. Honestly, if I were a cow, I would have been scared!
But apparently the cows couldn't care less, cause they sure didn't move.
Ah well, blood was eventually achieved anyway.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Garden + Camera =
I have a macro setting on my camera. I also have plants in bloom. That's really all there is to this post.
Blood!!
Yeah, I know, slacking again.
Anyway, this week was back to class, and we spent a large portion of our time handling blood. On Tuesday, I did my very first venipuncture, and managed a successful jugular stick on our sheep, along with a slightly less successful cephalic stick. I got a flash in the hub of the needle on the cephalic, but couldn't draw blood to save my life. My teammates couldn't get blood from the cephalic either though, so I think our sheep was just faulty. The jugular more than made up for it though and I easily pulled a full 3cc's. Took me about 7 tries to hit the vein, but I got blood, didn't blow the vein, and got the blood into the purple top with no spillage, so I call it a victory.
Thursday and Friday were spent analyzing said blood, which was highly entertaining. Thursday was all about learning how to do good blood smears, and let me tell you....it is WAY harder than it looks.
Dolores gave us 2 demos, and then did a demo using her left hand (and it still came out perfectly), so I was starting to think I wouldn't have too much trouble. I mean, really....place a drop of blood on the bottom slide, touch the edge of the top slide to it so the blood wicks along the edge, and then push the blood into a smear. Easy.
Yeah, so. About that easy bit....
To be fair, that pile of rejects isn't just mine. Alona and I pooled our spoil pile to save on cleanup, so at least half of them are hers. Still, we went through almost 2 boxes of slides in search of....
The perfect smear! See the pretty rainbow? The feathered edge and distinct lack of streaking? The way the blood doesn't run over the edges of the slide? Oh yeah. It's beautiful.
Friday was spent learning how to do hematocrit readings, total proteins, and fibrinogen levels. I learned that Dave is nicely within normal ranges on all of these, and that I am a total wimp when it comes to the necessary snapping of capillary tubes. Breaking glass on purpose just freaks me out, ok?
Both days were also spent being total dorks with classmates. Have I mentioned how much they rock?
Anyway, this week was back to class, and we spent a large portion of our time handling blood. On Tuesday, I did my very first venipuncture, and managed a successful jugular stick on our sheep, along with a slightly less successful cephalic stick. I got a flash in the hub of the needle on the cephalic, but couldn't draw blood to save my life. My teammates couldn't get blood from the cephalic either though, so I think our sheep was just faulty. The jugular more than made up for it though and I easily pulled a full 3cc's. Took me about 7 tries to hit the vein, but I got blood, didn't blow the vein, and got the blood into the purple top with no spillage, so I call it a victory.
Thursday and Friday were spent analyzing said blood, which was highly entertaining. Thursday was all about learning how to do good blood smears, and let me tell you....it is WAY harder than it looks.
Dolores gave us 2 demos, and then did a demo using her left hand (and it still came out perfectly), so I was starting to think I wouldn't have too much trouble. I mean, really....place a drop of blood on the bottom slide, touch the edge of the top slide to it so the blood wicks along the edge, and then push the blood into a smear. Easy.
Yeah, so. About that easy bit....
To be fair, that pile of rejects isn't just mine. Alona and I pooled our spoil pile to save on cleanup, so at least half of them are hers. Still, we went through almost 2 boxes of slides in search of....
The perfect smear! See the pretty rainbow? The feathered edge and distinct lack of streaking? The way the blood doesn't run over the edges of the slide? Oh yeah. It's beautiful.
Friday was spent learning how to do hematocrit readings, total proteins, and fibrinogen levels. I learned that Dave is nicely within normal ranges on all of these, and that I am a total wimp when it comes to the necessary snapping of capillary tubes. Breaking glass on purpose just freaks me out, ok?
Both days were also spent being total dorks with classmates. Have I mentioned how much they rock?
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Stuck in my head
This is awesome on so many levels, I can't even begin to address them. I've had it stuck in my head ever since Snuggles (aka Yuri, aka itty bitty kitty kitty, aka Banjo Tweedy) sent it to me.
Rock on.
Rock on.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Home
Finals are done (I passed, I passed!) and I'm back on the island for a few days. Kim and I took her dogs out to Uplands park and enjoyed one of the rare sunny moments. Garry Oak meadows like these are what the south island would look like (in between the patches of temperate rain forest) if humans had left it alone. It's too bad I'm not here about two weeks from now because the Camas is about to pop and the meadows would look like something from a fairy tale. Ah well, still beautiful!
Sol being a doof.
"Choose your path wisely...."
Not sure what they were excited about here....
Ah, Home.
Sol being a doof.
"Choose your path wisely...."
Not sure what they were excited about here....
Ah, Home.
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