Munch Munch, Ouch Ouch

So every Tuesday and Wednesday there's a table set up at the Student Center on campus that sells Indian food, and the vegetable samosas are incredibly delicious (but not nearly as spicy as they used to be which is disappointing). I usually go once a week to get a samosa right after Advanced Foods and savour every bite. So yesterday when I went, they were all out of cooked ones, so we had to wait around for them to get fried. As she hands it to me she said "now wait a while before you eat this because it's really hot", and I thought "Duh, of course it's hot. I saw you just take it out of the deep fryer!" However, only after waiting about a minute, maybe two minutes, of course I go for it and take a bite, which proves to be a terrible mistake and I burn the hell out of the roof of my mouth. After some choice words and glaring at the samosa as though this is it's fault, I wait about...um....a good 30 seconds before I go for bite number 2 and of course end up shrilling in pain. What the hell is wrong with me?? Do I have no will power to wait until the thing is at a temperature lower than complete scalding? Of course not. This was not my finest hour. They're just so good! It is sad knowing that it was my last samosa of the school year, and I say goodbye to the lovely people who brought UPEI deep-fried goodness every week. I salute you.

Yesterday was my last 8:30am-7pm at school day of the semester! I did skip out the last hour of my 3 hour class because the last group who was presenting had a girl in it that I kind of can't stand, and I was already nodding off in class so the thought of sitting there trying to stay awake while listening to her speak for 45 minutes seemed like complete torture to me. Plus I wanted to get home to start decorating all of those sugar cookies. I baked them on Monday and waiting until Tuesday to decorate so that they would be a little bit fresher for class today. I didn't decorate them as nicely as I wanted to because the "piping bags" that I used (aka, ziploc bags with holes cut in them), we kind of crappy and not working the way I would have liked. But they're done and they're somewhat cute. I guess as long as they taste good, that's all that matters.

I get my hair-cut in 2 hours! YAY! I am going to a new person today which scares me a bit, but I'm sure she'll be great. It's just hard when you're used to one person and get to know and trust that person with your prized hair (insert laugh here), and then have to switch to a new person who doesn't know your head from the person next to you. As long as I don't end up like this guy, then I'll be alright.



Stay tuned...only time will tell how it all pans out.

Sugar Cookie Reminiscence

Last week we had an assignment due in my Dietary Behaviour class which revolved around the connection between the food that we like/dislike and how often we eat those foods. We had to fill out two questionnaires, one with a list of foods and how much we like them, and the second had the same list of foods and we had to write down how frequently we ate them (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly...). Then we had to analyze why we eat the way we do and what the reasons were for the foods that we choose to eat regularly. For example, a person may not generally like low-fat milk and give it a low preference score, and yet they consume it everyday because they know that it is good for them. One the other hand, a person may LOVE a food but only consume it a few times a year because it may be expensive, take a long time to prepare or is really bad for you.

On Wednesday is our last Dietary Behaviour class, and our professor asked us to bring a food/beverage which is related to one of the many topics that we discussed throughout the semester. Right now I am making my food item, and it relates to two topics which we talked about in class. I'm making sugar cookies which are cut out into Easter shaped creatures (bunnies, chicks and eggs). How does this relate to food behaviour you ask? Well let me tell you!


Cookies in the shape of little Easter creatures is so incredibly culture centered that it's ridiculous (Topic #1- foods that are related to our culture). Somewhere along the line people forgot that Easter is actually about religion (we love you Jesus!) and not about chocolate eggs, cookies and a giant bunny that brings us presents. So, I think that is it appropriate to bring animal shaped cookies to class to explain that we have all grown up in this western culture in which we celebrate the Easter holiday by consuming copious amounts of calories. Not that I am opposed to that because who doesn't love eating?? (I apologize to anyone reading this with an ED. My bad.)

The second way that these cookies tie into my class is that I am really not a fan of sugar cookies at all, and yet I bake them at least a few times a year to share with the people that I love, and I always eat a few myself (or at least the dough). I have a low preference for this food and yet I go out of my way to make it every so often and really enjoy the entire process. If I were to explain this to my professor, I would tell her that the process of making the dough, rolling it out, cutting it into shapes, the smell of them baking filling the house, and decorating them when they have cooled, all brings me back to my childhood and to my mom. When I was growing up, we were always baking cookies and we would always make extra special ones for special occasions. If it was a time of the year like Easter or Valentine's Day, we would make a huge amount of sugar cookies and all of us girls would bring them to school to share with the class. My mom was always amazing at taking the time to do these fun things with us. I'm so thankful that I had a stay-at-home mom who was always allowing us to create fun projects and letting us terrorize the basement with arts and crafts.

But still, my all-time favourite memory of growing up was standing on a chair and watching my mom bake and her letting me help whenever I could. It made me feel special and capable and is definitely the reason that I love to bake as much as I do (which is totally topic #3 now that I think of it). Now my little niece, who my mom babysits many days of the week, is almost 2 and gets to be the one who stands on the chair and watches my mom (her Nana) bake. The vision of that scene makes me smile and I hope that Cadance learns and appreciates the experience as much as we all did/do. Thanks mom. I love you!

Mission Possible?

Somehow Sunday morning always creeps up unexpectedly, and like every Sunday morning, I wake up with the realization that I accomplished nothing the past 2 days and have to get my butt in gear to get some work done. I'll admit though, it's been an enjoyable weekend. Friday night I went to a house party at one of Chris's friends. It started off kind of lame because it was all really young people who no one seemed to know, and the music was just stupidly loud. But, eventually the people thinned out and the music turned off and it was just a small group of friends left. The guitars, beer and foosball all came into play, and the rest of the evening was quite enjoyable.


The next morning, me and Sam headed to the farmer's market in hopes of bread and gluten-free chocolate chip cookies. I got the bread, but once again, no cookies to be had :( I don't know if they only make them sporadically, or if they just sell out incredibly fast. Either way, I was disappointed again. I want to go to the actual bakery in Mermaid that sells these cookies, but I honestly can't find this bakery in any phone book, or online. I'm thinking that maybe this woman just makes them out of her house, made up a name of a bakery and sells them at the market pretending that the goods come from a bakery. I don't know. I am on a mission though to get another cookie before I head back to BC. I choose to accept this mission.

Saturday night consisted of another house party, but this one was Lexy's birthday bash (Happy Birthday Lexy!!). There was an "anything but cups" theme for the party, in which we had to bring something other than a cup to drink out of. There were some pretty creative people at that party :) People were drinking out of red peppers, street lights, watermelons, pylons....I brought a watering can to drink from, Sam had a cat planter and Chris had a water gun. Chris actually won the prize for most creative non-cup. Unfortunately his prize (a bottle on wine), got smashed as we were leaving. Uncool. But it was nice to see people who I don't get the chance to see enough of. Most of the party headed down to the Globe; some went to the Wave, and others just went their own way. We actually headed back (slightly stumbled back)to the house where we were the previous night and chilled with some friends there. I kicked Mark's butt at foosball and I think his masculinity was a bit threatened. Sorry Mark. Booze makes me a better foosball player.

And now...Sunday morning. My books are staring at me from across the room, so I think I should do something about it. The possibility of throwing them out it my #1 option at the moment.

Conversations from a PEI Pub

Only one more week of classes, and then semester 2 of year 3 will be nearly complete. Just five meager final exams, and I'll be home free! All I want to do right now is completely slack off and just reap in the glory of the fact that it's so close to being over. So close!!! It's just so tempting to pack up my books and head for the hills when the eagerness of being done is bubbling up all over the place. Here's a picture of me taken last night when I was overcome with the excitement of being done the semester.

Today is Friday, which means only one class. We got a much overdue mid-term returned to us today, and even though I did fine, I still expected a better mark. It was one of those tests where you walk out and think "I nailed that test!", but then you get it back and think, "hmmm...mustn't have used a big enough hammer". I remember writing that exam and thinking that I was running out of time because both of the essay questions (in which we had to pick one), kind of flustered me because I wasn't 100% sure of my answer for either of them. Near the end of it I had that small panic in the back of my brain telling me that I wasn't going to complete it in time, and then I had that visual of my professor announcing that time was up and her ripping the paper from under my frantically moving pencil, beads of sweat dripping down the side of my face as I look up at her with startle and reluctance. Having only 50 minutes to write an exam can put a lot of pressure on some students.

After class I got picked up by Jo and we met up with Andrea and went out to lunch to The Merchantman Pub. I've never been and I've always wanted to go, so I was happy when Jo announced where we were going. The food was really tasty and I recommend it to anyone who is looking for a simple, yet sophisticated meal. Plus the company was amazing as always. The thing I love about those ladies is that we can literally talk about ANYTHING, and in ANY setting...which is good for us, and possibly not good for those sitting within hearing distance. Well, I guess it depends on the kind of person who is within that eavesdropping range and what they find appropriate for mid-day conversation.

I dropped into the store yesterday to talk to Chris quickly, and somehow got pushed into working an evening shift for him. Of course I agreed because his reasoning for wanting to duck out early was understandable, and because he's so cute. It was weird to be back there since I hadn't worked in well over a month, but also comfortable as well. I do really miss the job because it is fun, and you never know where the shift will lead you or what kind of obscure question will pop out of a customer's mouth. I also got to see a lot of friendly and familiar faces of the regulars who come in to buy their cigarettes, and hear their comments of how they never see me anymore and miss me. It's good to know I was appreciated :)

"It Can't Rain All The Time"

Gold star two whoever knows what movie that line is from! And you can't search Google for the answer!

So the sun has been hiding for a few days now and the rain has been drizzling relentlessly since yesterday morning. Honestly, I like the rain. I find it comforting and it gives me a good excuse to sit in my house, avoid homework and watch movies. Last night we watched "Taxi Driver" which was quite disturbing. The other night Chris and I rented 3 movies for 7 days for $7, and I had never seen it before and it's one of those movies that I always mean to watch but just never seem to get around to renting. Like I said, disturbing. But, I love watching movies with super famous actors when they were young and seeing how they got their start. Well, I mean, Robert De Niro already had 12 movies under his belt when he made Taxi Driver (one being The Godfather II), but still. You know what I mean.

My main reason for bringing up the rain is that it's wonderful when you have no where to go and laying around the house is your number 1 priority. It can however, majorly suck royal heiny when you don't own a car and are somehow always able to miss the bus by three minutes every single time you get to the bus-stop. Walking down University Avenue in the rain in one of the worst issues of living on PEI. In the 15 minutes it takes me to get from school to the house, it is nearly impossible for me to not get completely drenched by splashing cars. But, a couple days ago, my friend Charlotte recently pointed out to me (and everyone on her Facebook), that people on PEI can get a fine for splashing pedestrians with their cars! I thought "no way!" so I researched ticket regulations on PEI and she is totally right. According to the Highway Traffic Act, #296. No person shall while operating a vehicle upon a highway splash pedestrians or other persons with water, slush or mud, and the fine to splash a pedestrian is $50.

Ok, so I think it's pretty cool that there's a fine for splashing pedestrians with water, slush or mud, but c'mon. How are we supposed to catch these people? A cop would have to be driving by at the exact second that the texting-distracted driver in the roaring Honda Civic drove through the massive puddle which drenched the poor passerby on the sidewalk. The chances of this happening.....um....let's see. I've now been splashed about 300 times, and it has yet to happen. I think I'll start carrying around a pad and paper and start jotting down licence plates numbers. :) Yes, I am THAT lame.

Not much else to report around here. Projects and presentations are starting to pile up a bit as the semester winds down. I'm very excited to announce that on this day next month, I will be on a plane somewhere over Canada :) BC for the summer sounds like a dream right now. Can't wait!

Another Disappearing Act

So while I was wasting an hour of my life by surfing the internet (class was canceled therefore I have an extra hour between classes), I came across an article discussing how writing in a journal, or in some form of public display (like a blog), can make you healthier and have positive effects on your overall well-being. Apparently, "emotional or expressive writing can reduce high blood pressure, enhance immune function, decrease the severity of asthma and arthritis symptoms, promote wound healing, increase AIDS patients’ white blood cell counts and even help young people quit smoking." Even if one were to write something, and then destroy it immediately after completion, apparently there is an undeniable therapeutic response to writing about your thoughts, ideas, concerns....life! This article makes me feel much more optimistic about keeping this blog alive. Not only am I sharing my every-days with people who was to know what I'm up to on this tiny island, I am also improving my health. I mean, that's pretty cool! If you want to take a look at this article, here's the link:

http://www.besthealthmag.ca/embrace-life/wellness/how-journal-writing-can-make-you-healthier

So this morning when I went to look to see if there was any success in the relentless mouse hunt, I was shocked to open the pantry to find that the mouse trap was no where to be seen. I immediately turned to Sam and asked if she had already cleaned it out of there...although I know that she would have waited for me to be there dead-mouse-cleaner-upper since she's quite squeamish with this whole ordeal. She of course said no, so I asked Kaylynne the same thing...of course she had not moved the mouse trap either. This lead me to panic a little. The thought of the poor little mouse partially trapped in the trap, crawling on his hands and knees to impending doom of a slow and torturous death, just made me sick to think about. After I pulled the shelf out of the pantry I found the empty mouse trap jammed into the side of the shelving.

Ok. What the hell? How did this happen? It's as though he was stuck, but pulled the trap all the way to the other side of the cupboard, then maneuvered the trap into the shelving where he used it as leverage to pull himself free from it's grip. Now, it may seem like I am giving this little guy a lot of credit(who, by the way, has been named Houdini at this point), but c'mon! We've gone through 4 traps now with this one little rodent! We talked to the landlord this morning about getting the humane trap back to give it another go. He also mentioned getting some of those sticky traps which capture the mice when they walk on them (picture a large fly-trap with a mouse attached instead of flies). That grosses me out though and I think is the least humane way to go with this situation. I'd rather a quick death then a sticky death.

Sticky may be fun in some situations, but not this one.

Hello? Can Anyone Hear Me?

I have some terrible news! For the first time since I started this blog, the number of visitors to this blog has decreased. This makes me very sad. I am guessing that my blogs are becoming either, a) more and more boring therefore people do not feel the need to read them, or b) they were always boring and people are now realizing that it's not going to get any better, so it's time to give up the waiting game for an exciting blog to appear.

Ok, so my life isn't all that interesting, and the things I have to say are not expressed all that much differently than another person may say them...but a decrease in page visits is a bit of a downer people. Even though I mostly write this blog for me because it gives me the chance to just blabber on about nothing (which is perhaps why no one is reading it!), it is still nice to see high numbers in terms of page visits. Hmmmm. I will persevere with the blogging though. I won't give up! I have faith that if I write, people will come. All I need is a cornfield and some daddy issues, and I'll be set.



So mousey is still on the run. He's now taken the peanut butter from the trap three times, which makes me believe that he is either a mouse-genius, or I am a complete moron when it comes to setting traps. Unfortunately, I am leaning towards the latter of the two options. On the good side of things, Sam came back last night from South Carolina and she's the one who generally sets the traps, so hopefully after she gets home and puts one in place we'll have some success in lowering the rodent population on Gerald Street.

Spring has Sprung!

Saturday morning. I woke up this morning with a feeling of optimism and hope for a busy and fulfilling day. I did a quick workout, shower and breakfast, then took a walk over to the farmer's market in search of a Saturday morning treat. Last night I decided to that I would take the trip to the market to buy a couple of the delicious gluten-free chocolate chip cookies that one of the vendors sells, and surprise Kaylynne at work with one. Unfortunately, when I got there, there were no cookies to be had. Booo. I thought about buying another kind of cookie, but at that point I was so built up on the one that I traveled all the way there for, that the rest just didn't seem to live up to my expectations. So away I went and carried on with my travels. I decided to drop into Bulk Barn and pick up a few things there, including a couple chocolate eggs (one to bring to Kaylynne, one to eat on the way there). I dropped in at Kaylynne's work to say "hey" and tell her of my disappointing market experience. She also told me that Michael Smith came into the restaurant the night before and she got to serve his table :) Very exciting. In case someone reading this blog doesn't know who Michael Smith is, he's a big famous chef who has had several TV shows (The Inn Chef, Chef at Large, Chef Abroad and Chef at Home). He lives here on the island and every so often, myself or one of my friends sees him and it's this big thing "I saw Michael Smith today at Starbucks! I saw Michael Smith at the Superstore!"....it's kind of sad, but it's all we've got. I was happy that Kaylynne got to serve him last night though because she's a pretty big fan. Way to go buddy!!!

Today on my walk I had one of those moments when you just close your eyes when you're walking, take in a deep breath of fresh air and are just completely content with the moment. There is a slight wind outside, but it's the perfect temperature so that it's enjoyable. I don't have very many of these moments living on PEI. Normally I am bitching about the weather and not embracing it. I guess my point to all of this, is that sometimes I completely forget that I am living on PEI and I know that I don't appreciate it near enough. So many people from back home tell me how much they want to see the island and experience the maritimes, meanwhile I get so caught up in my every day life that I forget that the dirt is red here and the air has a certain scent to it that it unmistakable. I know this sounds all touchy-feeling and lovey-dovey...but I think I'm just really happy that it's the first day of spring! Happy Spring everyone! I've been waiting for this day for 3 months now and am appreciating the fact that it finally arrived. Horray! I saw crocuses for the first time yesterday!! Big day!




Oh, and I jumped rope for over a half hour yesterday...my neighbours think I'm crazy and gave me a few good smiles/laughs as they drove by. But the weather was so sunny and warm that I didn't want to be inside! Me and Kaylynne tried to jump together, and were mildly successful, but we were just waiting to bonk heads in the process. We had a good laugh about it though.

Dream Big, or Go Home

Well, it's finally official. I got the job! I have been waiting to hear back from that place for nearly a month now, and I am relieved to announce the positive phone call yesterday. I wanted to make the announcement to my friends last night after I had heard, since we were going out for drinks, and not telling was just so incredibly difficult, especially since I spent the whole afternoon/evening with Kaylynne. I may not be excited about the actual work which I will be doing at the job...which I have yet to learn about... I am just happy knowing that there is a job waiting for me when I get to BC. Not working for a month has been quite taxing on my depleting bank account, and I still have to survive another 42 days before I fly home for the summer. Needless to say, it's very nice knowing that someone has hired me! I look forward to calling them tonight and learning more about the details of the job, such as the start date. I am really hoping that I will be able to take a quick trip down to Seattle at the beginning of May for a hugely important baby shower, but if I can't, then, oh well. Not much I can do about it I suppose.

We have learned that we still have mice in the house :( Kaylynne opened the pantry cupboard last night to find an surprise staring up at her from top of the pasta box. Why do they have to be so bloody cute? I set a trap last night for the little guy, but the trap was a dud since the peanut butter was missing, but no mouse corpse was to be seen. I guess buying mouse traps from the dollar store are expected to be less than consistent. But hey...five for a dollar ain't a bad deal! Either way, the whole mouse situation is getting bit stupid. Mouse traps are just a short-term fix to a potentially serious problem. The landlord said that he has only ever had mice in the house once since they have owned it (which is about 40 years), but I am getting the impression that there were also always cats in the house as well. Do we all see the connection here? Our next step is to begin Earl's training as a mouser. He may be slow, but he's got a lot of heart.

After a quick analysis of Earl's body weight, height, speed, lean body mass, percent body fat and natural fighting abilities, I drew up a quick sketch of what I believe he would look like after a couple months of intense training of becoming a successful mouser. I included my sketch below:




Tip of the Day: Dream big. If Earl can become a mouser, just think of what you can do with your life.

I am finding it just absolutely amazing that there are only two weeks left of classes. After such a mentally draining semester, it's hard to believe that the light at the end of the tunnel is actually semester completion and not the ritual suicide we were all planning (kidding...kidding. No one call any 1-800 numbers quite yet). I look forward to being able to maybe do a tiny bit of relaxing after exams are finished. I am looking into possibly doing a summer course in hopes of decreasing my work-load next year...but we'll see how that goes. I have to look into it a lot more. Plus, do I really want to spend my summer sitting in front of a computer screen when I could be laying on a beach somewhere increasing my chances of getting melanoma? Some major pros and cons are to be measured on this one.

Is My Mane Showing?

Horoscopes. People are either crazy super into them, somewhat follow them, or completely uninterested whatsoever in regards to them. Myself, I am a Leo, and while I like to check my horoscope somewhat frequently, I feel as though I am not a good representation of the typical Leo. There are some aspects of the Leo personality that are completely and utterly not me at all, but on the other hand there are traits which fit me perfectly; so perfectly that it's almost spooky. Actually, I am finding that as I get older, I am becoming more and more of the Leo that it seems I am supposed to be. You know how when you read a horoscope, you are always able to take the horoscope and interpret in a way that makes you think "Oh wow! That's so true to my life!"??? Maybe I'm doing that with the idea of me becoming more and more Leo everyday.

Anyway, my whole reasoning for bringing this up is that one thing that always happens to me is the feeling of deja vue, or I know exactly what a person it about to say before they speak. Apparently, a third of the population has experienced some form of deja vue. The most common form of this experience involves the sensation of having done something or having been in an identical situation before and knowing what will happen next. For me, sometimes it is so eerie that I ask the person to stop speaking because it freaks me out. Something that I seem to be doing more and more lately is dream about someone that I haven't seen in years, and literally the next day, or within the week, I will see that person or someone will bring him/her up. Like what the hell?? I remember a few years ago, a good friend of mine who is very into all of this stuff, told me that Leos tend to be very psychic people and that I should embrace it. I've been doing some reading on this and apparently Leos are supposed to be quite psychic people. The one website I was looking at asked:

-Do you have times when you think about someone you haven't seen in a long time and then you suddenly bump into them?
-Do you have dreams that often come true?
-Do you believe you have latent psychic abilities?
-Have you often felt something was going to happen and then it actually did?
-How many times have known what someone was going to say, before they said it?
-Do people bow at your feet and hand you money in an attempt to show their utmost gratitude for your awesomeness?

Ok, so the last one was made up, but the others are real. I guess they've been doing tons of research trying to figure out what makes someone psychic or have occurrences of deja vue. What I'm thinking though, is do we really want to know why this happens? Why do we have to always have an explanation for why something happens? It's such a cool feeling to have deja vue, so why would we want to wreck it by knowing "oh yes, it's because that brain wave connected to that neuron which caused that neurotransmitter to be released causing this area of the brain to be activated which created the sensation"?? I am a lover of science and how the brain and body works, but I think it would be great to just accept this as it is and relish the enjoyment of it's coolness. This is a very unLeo-like way of thinking.

Tattoo Temptress

Today is one of those days where you wake up and are sure that someone beat you with a 2X4 while you were asleep, because you wake up and are remarkably sore and exhausted. I'm pretty sure that's is just a combination of way too many nights with small amounts of sleep, and then adding the soreness of a good work-out from the day before. Either way, it's still hard to function when this level of exhaustion has taken over your will to live. Oh, and plus we lost an hour the other night...the only negative aspect of spring-time is that we have to move the clocks forward. But, it is Monday, and for some reason I look forward to Mondays nearly as much as Fridays. Reason as to why this is??? No idea.

I had a rather unproductive, but enjoyable weekend. Friday night a group of gals from my program went to Mia's house where we all made sushi and had some drinks. Lydia provided all of the neccessitites to make the sushi, and she also gave us a quick demonstration of how to assemble it. I am pleased to say that I picked it up really quickly and ended up making sushi for many of the people there. It was really fun! Plus I got to hang out with some people that I have yet to have the opportunity to get to know, so it was really nice to be able to do that for once. Here's a quick picture taken with Jess's camera of all of us that night.



Saturday was a lazy day. I walked to the market in the morning to buy some bread and beets. It was another gorgeously sunny morning, so the walk was really nice. Plus I ran into my recently retired hair dresser, and I made sure to let him know that he was breaking my heart not being able to do my hair anymore. I am very happy that he is going back to school full-time to get his Masters. That's awesome! Good luck Chris! The rest of the day was lazy lazy lazy. I don't even remember doing any school-work, although I must have at some point. Sam came over and did some waxing for me and Kaylynne. Always a fun time! Nothing like getting hair maliciously ripped out of your body to get the weekend going.

Sunday was even less productive then Saturday. After an hour and a half of YogaX, I made some double stuffed potatoes which I was bringing to the potluck that night. Yep, another potluck. Three in one week! I'm so incredibly lucky! This one was at our bosses house (well, my ex-boss I suppose). They went away to Vegas for a week, and Sarah is house-sitting, so we all headed over there to have dinner and chill in the hot tub for the night. It was a nice evening. The great thing about a full belly and a long soak in a hot tub is that you generally get really tired by the end of the evening, so by the time I got home I just crashed into bed and had a good sleep. I love sleep.

In a couple hours I am heading downtown with Sarah to her tattoo appointment!!! I know that this an incredibly stupid move on my part; deliberately walking into a tattoo parlour on a beautiful sunny, nearly-spring day. This is just a bad situation waiting to happen. I know that as soon as I hear that gun fire up, I'll start salivating and a slight twitch will appear around my eye. My addiction has been laid to rest for about 10 months now, and I have a feeling that today may be a day to fall off the proverbial wagon, or at least tip it ever so gently. My friends, ever so nicely, were reminding me last night about my plans to get a quarter sleeve done, which I was obsessed with getting last summer. As winter came along and the layering of the clothes came to be, I quickly forgot about my desire to get the work done on my arm/shoulder. But now that spring is almost here and less and less clothes are being worn, the craving is quickly returning. Not good people. Not good.

I Heart Cows

I am very happy that the weekend is finally here. Friday mornings are always such a relief because I only have one class on Fridays, and it's my favourite class, which makes it all the much easier to get up to go to. Plus the weather here has just been amazing the past week or so; sunshine and lollipops everyday makes walking to campus so much more pleasant. I have a really busy day ahead of me actually, but I am looking forward to it. After class I am hanging around campus so that I can be a foods lab tester, sometime around 3ish I'm guessing. Then I have to head back to the house and prepare a Thai noodle salad for the sushi party/potluck that I'm going to tonight. After that I have to run back to campus because I'm volunteering for the Canadian Cancer Society Relay for Life. I'll basically be just sitting in a booth for a couple of hours, talking to people about eating healthy. Should be fun to watch people running around in circles for hours on end. Maybe I'll run a few myself if I'm feeling motivated enough.

Tip of the day: Motivation can be tough to find, but it's in there somewhere. Just dip deep enough, pull it out and rock it!

I was the hugest slacker yesterday than I have been all semester. I didn't do any homework when I got home from school. Did my work-out, showered, had some dinner... this was the point in which I would normally do homework, but then I decided to make a giant apple crisp instead and do some prep for the salad I'm making for tonight. By then, Chris showed up and I figured there was no point in attempting to get any work done at that point. We watched a movie called "Fast Food Nation", which was a story about a fictional, major fast-food chain in the USA, and it was just how this company ran these people's lives and also messed up everyone's lives as well. Plus, the movie did an excellent job at grossing out both myself and Chris....to the point where I had to close my eyes in one scene (if anyone has ever seen it, you'll know the scene when you see it). I actually almost broke down crying at that scene because of the music, and just the overwhelmingness of it. I actually stopped eat cow when I was 12 years old, due to this little guy, Normal the cow. The cutest, most adorable little cow who starred in the movie City Slickers. How could someone ever eat that little guy??


The movie came out quite a few years ago, and I heard lots about, but just never rented it due to the fact that I rent about 2 movies a year. Plus it wasn't a hugely high-grossing film so it's not easy to find in most movie stores anyway. All I have to say it, if you don't eat fast-food and want a reminder as to why you don't, watch this film. Or, if you eat fast-food and don't want to eat it again, or at least for a very very long time, watch this film. If you have any soul at all, this movie will get to you in one way or another.

What the Eff is Cherry Sauce Anyway?

Another Tuesday is here once again, which means I start school at 8:30am and leave around 7pm. Yeah, it's a long day for sure, but I enjoy the fact that I have only once of those classes only once a week for 3 hours. Tuesdays are also a bit tedious and hectic because generally everything happens on Tuesdays (assignments being due and exams being written), but we always get through them somehow. There seems to be a lot going on this week for the Nutrition department, which is out of the ordinary. I think that the FANS people have come to realize that the semester is nearly over and they haven't done anything yet that sparks the interest of any of the students. There is a potluck tomorrow, which I generally really look forward to, but it's right after lab, which means that we'll all be stuffed from eating our experimental foods. In foods lab this semester, each group is to decide on some kind of food item and figure out a way to change it to make it healthier, while not compromising on taste/flavour. Our group chose mac 'n cheese, so every week we make three different batches of mac 'n cheese, slightly altering each recipe, and testing each recipe to see which is best. Plus we get the opportunity to taste test other people's dishes so that they can know which of their recipes is the best. Needless to say, by the end of lab and after tasting 5 groups worth of food, we're all pretty full. But potlucks are the best things ever!! Perhaps I should just take one for the team and go to the potluck anyway. There's starving people in Africa therefore I should eat as much as I possibly can?!?!? Oh man, is this my logic?

So Saturday night was Jo's 50's inspired birthday party. I dressed up like Rosie the Riveter (even though that was more 40's). Sarah got the idea for me to dress up like her, and I liked the idea a lot, so I gave it a go. The whole shindig started at my place, which is where they usually tend to begin at, and we ended up heading to the Globe around midnight. Like most Saturday nights, we somehow ended up at some dodgey Chinese restaurant around 2:30am where the drunks are lined up outside just salivating at the thought of eating egg rolls and that nasty cherry sauce that they put on chicken balls. I do not understand the cherry sauce thing that they do here. What ever happened to delicious sweet and sour sauce??? I'd never even heard of it until I came to PEI. I once tried the sauce thinking that it was just over-dyed sweet and sour sauce, only to quickly learn the error of my mistake. Blech. Anyway, it was a pretty decent night and I was extremely happy to be able to enjoy the evening with a group of friends that I don't get to see very often anymore :( I miss them.

Tomorrow I finally get to start my new "job"!! I call it a "job" because it doesn't really seem like a job to me. I'm working with professor Jen Taylor as a student research assistant for her research project, and basically I get to travel around the island with her research team, go to elementary schools, learn about kids' eating habits and take some of their measurements. I'll admit that I'm pretty excited to finally be able to get out there and start the work. I think I am looking more forward to spending time with the people who are involved in the project then the actual project itself. That sounds bad doesn't it?? But honestly, the people in this department are awesome and a lot of fun to be around, so it makes it easy to want to work with them.

Still no word on the Cominco job. Hopefully by the end of this week (next week at the latest) is when I will find out. My fingers are getting cramped up from being cramped up for so long. Ouch.

Quiet Week on the Homefront

I just spent the entire morning making veggie burger batter and cleaning the house. There isn't much more to life more satisfying then having a clean house (knowing that you will be having friends over that night), and also knowing that in a handful of hours that you will be having a delicious dinner. I mentioned a while back that when I was in BC, my mom, sister and I all stopped in at the bakery that I used to work at and had some lunch. My mom had the veggie burger which was my all-time favourite food there and ever since that day I have been craving veggie burgers, so I decided to make a day of it and whip up a batch of them. Now, making this recipe is no small feat. There are tons and tons of steps, all of which were increasingly more difficult since I lack both a food processor and a standing mixer (Kitchen-Aid mixer). But at least I got a decent bicep workout with all of the grating, chopping, and grinding that I had to perform. I look forward to dinner. Mmmmmm. It had better be as delicious as I am hoping or else this might be the biggest let-down of the century, which is a pretty huge let-down.

I am looking forward to tonight! We are celebrating my friend Jo's birthday in which we are all dressing up "pin-up girl" style and heading out on the town (and by that I mean going to the Globe). My outfit that I have planned isn't working out as smoothly as I was hoping since I am having a difficult time finding a few key pieces, but I'll just have to deal with what I have. I'm going to have to take lots of pictures :) I can't wait to see everone's outfits.

It's been a fairly quiet week...mostly homework and a couple nights out with some friends. Tuesday night a few of us went to East Side Marios for 1/2 price appys and drinks. Sarah informed me that she wants to take my room for the summer, which made me very very happy! I really wanted to find someone to take my room who I know well and also who I trust to take care of the place in my/our absence. It sounds like Kaylynne will be gone for at least a month, possibly closer to 2 months, and Sam is still up in the air but she will probably be gone for all of August. I am happy that Sarah will be able to look after the house and make sure no crazies find their way in (except for the ones that she brings home....) Wednesday was Open Mike at Baba's, which has become a regular event for us now since Chris has been playing every week. Unfortunately he didn't get on the list until pretty late, so we had to sit through a lot, and mean a lot, of bad playing before he got up there. Sure there were.....3....yeah, at least 3 really talented people in the line-up, but most of them were just frightening. I shouldn't judge because they are getting up there and doing their thing in front of a lot people who they don't know. At least they're trying. Most people can't even say that (me being one if them).

Highway Snobbery

A couple days ago I was having a conversation with someone who was born and bred on PEI, and we got into the topic of the ability of PEI drivers...or should I say, inability of PEI drivers to drive in a normal, safely and road conscious manner. Ok, so he got a little defensive when I announced that all PEI drivers are complete rubbish, which is understandable I suppose because he didn't want to be labeled as one of the drivers that I was referring to (I didn't want to point out his lack of use of signal lights at this point...but....). My belief is that PEI people learn how to drive old trucks and tractors on their family farms as really young kids, and when they get out onto the real roads, they take their skills of farm driving along with them. Just a hypothesis at this point, but my research staff is going to start interviews very shortly.

Anyway, after a good and somewhat heated discussion, I came to the conclusion that I am a bit of a driving snob. At least I am willing to admit it, right? I think that's a good start. I believe that my whole driving snobbery all comes down to learning to drive in BC. We learn some very important skills when we learn to drive in BC. The first thing we master as young drivers is how to park on a hill. Very important because there are vast quantities of those things around that province. PEI doesn't have to deal with that problem, so they get a freebie on that one.
The second thing we learn is to be aggressive, especially if you live in a larger city or plan to visit larger cities. Sometimes the opportunity to pull out onto the highway only comes once every 5 minutes, so you have to take it when you can! That's where my major problem comes with PEI; no one is aggressive enough and everyone lets everyone go ahead of them. Now I know what you're all thinking. You're thinking that's because people from this province are kind and friendly, therefore they let people into traffic left and right and expect nothing except a little wave of appreciation in return. That's cool. I have no qualms with that. The thing is though, what they do is they get so involved with letting people into traffic that they noticeable obstruct traffic and seem to forget the basic rules of the road while doing it.
Which brings me to driving skill #3: know the rules of the road. BC has a lot of four way stops, therefore knowing who goes when and at what time, is extremely important unless you want some old lady in a green Volvo giving you the finger when you lead into the intersection at the wrong time.
The final crucial element that we BCers learn at a very young age, which is by far the most important of all in regards to driving on BC roads, is to always, and I mean always, avoid an Albertan driver at any cost. There is always a good chance that you will, a) get to your destination AT LEAST a half hour late if you are following one, b) rear-end an Albertan when they jam on their brakes when the road tragically bends at a 5 degree angle, c) develop such bad road-rage that you end up in an anger management course, and d) end up having to get your own brakes replaced because you get stuck following one and have to slam on your brakes every 20 seconds because BC has hills, dips and bends all over the place.

(This point brings me to a quick note on something that made me smile yesterday. When you move to a new part of the world, you forget about the weird little things that you experience reguarly in your old place of residence that are part of your everyday life that go completely unnoticed. There are two things that have happened recently that reminded me of home, and they're really weird. The first was when I smelled someone's car brakes a while back. There is a very distinct smell that brakes give when they are about to give-out, which is a smell that isn't common here because people don't brake as much here as they do in BC. The second was the sound of a semi-truck hauling down University Ave last night. It's such a common sound back home, and definitely not in Charlottetown, so the sound of a big-rig shifting gears acually made me happy. Yeah, I might needs medication to help with this problem.)

The last issue that we got into when discussing this whole good driving/bad driving topic was that he pointed out that PEI seems to have very few accidents and that we never hear of them around here, compared to other provinces at least. Me being the geek/snob that I am, looked it up on Stats Canada and found out that actually PEI has the third highest death rate in automobile accidents (per 100,000 people), with the Yukon and Saskachewan taking number 1 and 2...although I am shocked to hear about Saskachewan having such a high death rate considering there are nothing but straight roads in that province which go on, and on, and on, and on. BC was #7 on the list, and Ontario had the least amount of deaths (way to go!)

I apologize if I offended any PEIers or Albertans in this blog. I love all Canadians equally, just not their driving.