Let it snow let it snow...

It is a winter wonderland out there. I figured I would stay in cheezy christmas song style for now. It was snowing most of the day today. I love the first few snows.. Everything looks so beautiful under a nice white blanket. We must have gotten about 10 to 15 cm today. traffic was crazy though! We stayed over at Alan's mom and dad's last night so we could get our flu shot, and on the way back it took us about an 1.15 hours if not more to get back, basically twice the travelling time it usually takes us. People seem to forget how to drive when it snows. I probably shouldnt say much seen as though I dont even have my liscence at this point. On that note. Ishould probably think about booking another lesson.
So yeah this week is Sylvia's medical check up week. Yesterday was my annual check up, which of course is always lots of fun! I had the best bloodpressure the nurse and the doctor had seen in a while.. Take that! And it took the nurse a long time to find a vein for my blood sample. But she eventually ended up getting 5 vials.. Crazy! Other than that I am a healthy dutch girl!
By the way, what are futurshop and best buy thinking with their commercials.. honestly... anyway I dont mean to digress from my more than interesting health story!
So today I had my flu shot in my other arm, so both of my arms feel stiff and bruised, I am a very balanced person you know. And best of all, I get to go to the dental surgeon tomorrow so I can shake the hand of the man who is going to take my teeth, as well as my arm and leg to pay for their removal! good times!
Tomorrow my friend from out of town is coming over and we're going ot see Harry Potter. I am pretyt excited about that, I've been wanting to see that movie for a while now. Ok well, I should get back to my biochem
good night to all

Last biochem report is done!

Hello all,

So today I handed in my last biochem report of this year. I was pretty happy. the last lab was last tuesday, and so that meant I had the afternoon off. I dont know what it is, but I cant get myself to start writing these labs. It's not that they're not interesting, they can be because some of it is pretty cool stuff.. I have always had to work on things at the last minute, I seem to need that stress to write things. Even in high school I would usually write my essays etc the night before. But last night I couldnt get anything done. I came home from work, had some supper, went to pilates and efter that read through my back ground material a little bit.. nothing more.. So this morning I got up at 6 and wrote my report.. I have no clue how it went, we will see.
I spent the rest of the afternoon doing stuff around the house, cleaning, dishes and I am making dinner as we speak. cauliflower gratin, with chicken legs in a 'spicy' asianish garlic sauce, and rice.
Tonight is S&B and I am bringing my yarn to work on some mits that I am making for myself. Although I am not sure if I'll get much done on that since we're knitting for the salvation army part of this month. it is a really neat cause, for children and street people I think, you knit them scarves and mits and toques and sweaters and stuff. Anyway my kitchen timer went so I will write you later. Have a good one!

Time for a new jacket!

I figured, the season is changing, so I should give my blog a different outfit. I am not sure yet if I like it, but we will see, if not i can change it again. At some point I want to teach myself how to do this stuff, so I dont need to use a template and I can just add stuff myself, which would definetly be neat. There are so many cool things you can do with this program, and I think I really should do more with it, but as per usual I run out of time and forget about it. So a new template for now, who knows I might add more stuff later on.
It is getting colder. It was -5C last night,pretty chilly...
have you ever been to tired to fall asleep? I know that sounds strangem but I felt like that yesterday. I was so tense that I just could not get myself to fall asleep, I was so restless.. I wonder why that was. I ended up staying up until after 3am.. not cool, so I had a wonderful short nap this afternoon which made me feel a lot better. While I was up I played this game which is a total rip from lemmings, only than with pinguins, for Linux. It makes you do this tutorial game first, so you can practise all the actions the 'pingus' can do. I was so excited when I finally finished the last tutorial, because i figured I could finally start the game.. WHUMP WHUUUMMPP... the tutorial was the whole game, the end was just some silly cartoony thing.. pretty disappointing :)
This week my biochem mentioned he might have made a few mistakes in the answersheet for the scantron for the midterm, so answers that were checked of right, were seen as wrong. So when I checked my course website last night I was pleasantly surprised with a higher mark! Yay sloppy prof!! :)
Ooh some other exciting news on the blanket front, I finally pieced all the squares together and am now busy framing the blanket. i think it will turn out pretty nice. And thats that. I think I will stop for now and do some more studying. Have a good weekend!

First snow of the year :)

Good day to all,

It has been a while, as per usual. A lot has happen, for instance, Halloween has come and gone. And it was geat fun! The saturday before Alan and I went to a pumpkin ( or should I say pumkin :P) carving party at our friends M&R.. Everyone created very 'special' , fun and good looking pumpkins. There was quiet the turn out! we roasted the pumpkinseeds, and ate them.. Oh man are they ever good! Halloween we satyed home and got a big old total of 7 kids at our doors step for candy.. oh well I guess we'll have to eat all of the other candy bars our selves.. *sigh* our neighbours came over for dinner that night and we made cup cakes with Halloween decorations.. Very tasty.
Other than that life is life, school is pretty busy. I had to finish up 4 lab reports this week and that was all nicely round of with a four hour long lab, with a lot of stinky chemicals. Maybe that's why I am a littl loopy, I am on a high... nahh I think it;s just genetics..
So my exam schedule is now up and turns out I am done my last exam on the 9th of december. How sweet is that!?! Means I get to do christmas baking, cleaning, shopping, other fun stuff like socialising AND most importantly I am done when my big brother comes on the 16th! Very exciting plans are in the making for sure :)
Today was an alround weird day. I would tell you all about it, but my macaroni is done and I am hungry... so I am not going to tell you until next time.. which most probably means You wont ever here it unless i actually tell you in person.. haha... the snow that fell today was wet... but winter is defintely coming soon.. better bring your toque and mits Michiel ;)
Have a wonderful rest of your day and I'll write you later!!

It's a rainy day..and it was.. it really was...

Doesnt that sound mushy.. I thought so!! :D
So today it was raining all day pretty much, which is not great when you have to go outside, like most of us, but it is always extra nice to come home to a warm house, especially when it smells like freshly made buns.. Thanks Alan :) The buns are for a dinner party with some people from work we are going to tomorrow. Should be fun. I wonder when the first snow will hit...
So today was a strangely long day. I first had my organic chem class. The prof let us out early because most of us had the biochem midterm and he was going to let us study for it. That was very nice. Then I had my midterm, which didnt go super. unfortunatly the prof managed to ask exactly what I didnt really study very well... the exam was multiple choice, and so I tried to reason it out, but it was kind of difficult in this case, so I have no idea how it went. It really could go both ways. I think I passed though Then I had my 4 hour biochem lab, which ended up being only 2.5 hrs, which was pretty nice. Unfortunaly, we had our first test of the year on the day of the midterm for the same class. Ironically enough the test for the lab was on enzym kinetics, which was also the part on the midterm that i hadnt studied.. so If I had done my prelab, I would have done a lot better on both tests.. To bad, but what can you do.
The soccer party on the weekend was fun. I pigged out on potatoe chips and chocolat, yum. There werent to many people, but it was still a good time. Sunday we had a visit with grandpa Mr, Mrs and Alan helped him clean out some of grandma's stuff. She collected a lot of things over the years. Grandpa took us out for brunch which was really nice, it was a buffet so I had breakfast and lunch at the same time!
Tonight I am going out with a friend of mine who's in town for the week. She's getting her master's at an univeristy in a different city, and she has reading week. I am excited to see her, it's been a while and we need to catch up. To bad I feel like a balloon which just lost it's air (=means I am tired) I should have a nap before I go out.. I am getting old.. it's really kind of sad.. What can one do.
Sooo there was something else worth while mentioning but I forgot.. I really have to get up to date with my correspondance.. I have been bad.. And my blanket needs attention.. another day. I am going to watch the news and hopefully have dinner soon. Shepherd's pie. Should be tasty havent had that in a long time. Have a good night everyone.

something something.....

I was out of great titels, so there you have it!
Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend. I just came back from my 2.5th in car driving lesson, and it went so much better than the first time. I wodner how it is possible that I can get betetr without practising , and so di dmy instructor. He was pleasantly surprised.. Not that I am doing 'that' poorly.. oh welll, anyway, we did parking today, and three point turns, and I hardly stalled the car. Hoorray for me ;)
Ooh now I know what my title should have been, but oh well never mind. So here's some awesome news, My Big Brother is coming over to see us for chrsitmas, ti is official now!!! He is coming from the 16th to the 30th of december, I can't wait it will be so much fun. I am thinking of all these cool things we can do when he is here. I hope we'll get lots of snow, and enough cold that the canal opens while he is here, that would be so much fun! Winteractivities=cool!!
So now all of the sudden I want winter to start. No worries that will pass once it actually hits.
I have my red coat back from the dry cleaners. The sugar stains that got on it when I was at the sugar bush last spring have come out nicely, so I am happy.
Alan and I got a new printer, the other one was pretty much done, and it is great. It prints so much faster, and you dont have to feed the paper a sheet at a time anymore! the printer needed an extra cable, which Alan bought at the store he got the printer at for about $2o,- but I remembered seeing the same cable in the bookstore at school, so I decided to take a look there because the cable seemed a little expensive.. take a guess? $2.50.. thats right!! So needless to say we are going to bring the first cable back. Anyway I have to go. I have lots of biochem to study before tonight. we're supposed to go to this barbeque/party end of soccer season thing tonight, so not much time left. talk to you later

wow it is the sun!

After days of rain and wind, (almost as if I were back home) the sun finally cam out again.. I really like the sun, I mean a good fall storm is great, but not to long in a row, it is nice to have the sun back again.
So I have toally gotten out of the habit to write in thsi blog. so I am going to try to get better at that again. My classes start at ten today, I have my organic chem lab, and it sounds like that might be fun, we'll be doing liquid-liquid extraction.. I know i'm a nerd but it is so much neater to see the stuff actually happen in the lab than read it in a textbook and just assume they're rigth... Anyway, I may let you know if it really was all that I expected..
Other then that, going back a few days, last friday I officially mailed out my P.R application. They should have it by now, so the waiting game begins. I wonder when I will hear back from them. I think I'm supposed to receive some sort of letter stating they received my package and they're investigating it or something.. I dunno.. I guess I should just put it in the back of my mind..
I wrote my organic chem midterm and got the results back. I did really well.. This is one of the times I'm actually kind of proud of myself.. but you know the problem is that it is sometimes hard to talk to people because they assume you're bragging about yourself.. I dont care if you guys do, because you know I am :P I GOT A 99% so there you go :P anyway I was pretty happy about that ;)
I had to hand in a formal report for biochem, but I didnt really get started on that until monday night... aaandd it was a lot bigger than I thought it would be, so I ended up staying home from class tuesday to more or less finish it of. Handed it in later that afternoon, did my lab, it actually went a lot better than the one I wrote the report for which is good! Anything else?
Oh stitch and bitch has started again, I am very excited about that, it is a great deal of fun :) Alan went to a photography congress on the weekend, where he did a whole bunch of workshops and learned some cool stuff he didnt know yet. He had a great time. In the mean time I had my last driving school day, went out for dinner with his mom and dad, they took me to a vietnamese soup place, mmmm tasty! I also bought some fabric, made a few pillows for the bamboo stools and rearanged some furniture.. 'while you were out'?!? a little, nothing to crazy, He liked it anyway, so that made me happy. And now it is now... tonight it is supposed to go below zero.. bye summer...
oh better have some breakfast before I head out..
ttyl

Thanksgiving weekend!

Hey there,

I figured it was about time I would write a little something in my blog. I have a little bit less to do then usual so lets jump on the oppertunity. Lots of stuff has happened since I really wrote last time,probably to much to remember it all.
First of all my big brother is going to come over around christmas time for a vist, which is super exciting!! A date has not yet been set, but that should be done farily soon from now more on this will follow I am sure. Hopefully we will get lots of snow :)
My younger big brother and his fianceé have decided they are going to get married this early may in Greece on the island of Corfu, so it seems as though we will have a wonderful family vacation/wedding in greece this coming spring. I am looking forward to it, although there are still some logistics that should be worked out, but other than that it should be a great time!
I have started my in class as well as my in car driving lessons now. I am driving standard with a this big black guy named Charles, he is a lot of fun. I am drining a red car.. oh sorry Alan, I mean a red Toyota corrola, which in my firts memory had a red symbol on the steering column, but in reallity just had the regular inprint toyota sign.. woops.. what kind of drugs was I smoking.. oh well. My in class driving instructor looks and talks like Don Cherry Which may or may not be a good thing. The only thing he's missing is the crazy sports jackets, other then that.. it's him. His name is Zenon, (warrier prince? no not so much) I dont know if I like him much.. he makes people feel stupid when they give a wrong answer, and oh well, it doesn not matter, only one more saturday left and then I am done the in class part... I like the driving a lot better. I had a lesson yesterday since it was university day I had the day of, which was great. I spent all day distracting Alan from work since I was home, I got to drive, which went fairly well.. not as good as I want it to go yet but I guess I am learning.. sigh.. Alan was joking we should go 'test drive' standard cars so I can practise.. hahaha... oohh before I forget, I went to the detist too yesterday, got my teeth all nice and clean oh and I need to get my wisdom teeth removed.. it official now :( not happy at all about that! But what can you do. I have to go meet the dental surgeon in november and plan from there which date is the most convenient.. :S
Since I had clean teeth alan decided we should go out and get them dirty with junk food that evening. He took me shoppinh for shoes we had A&W and we bought him some clothes and a really nice leather jacket! It looks great on him. Then we went to see Corpse Bride the new Tim Burton movie. it was a very neat movie, I enjoyed it. It wasnt your usual every day happy cartoon type movie, which is kind of fun! So all in all I had a great day yesterday.
This weekend we will have Thanksgiving dinner at Alan's parents and the grandpa's are both coming which should be a good time... mmmmm turkey! Well, I should get working on my P.R. application. Over and out for now..

Happy Birthday papa!

See I am bad, because I actually changed the posting date so it seems i sent this on my dad's birthday. I actually talked to him yesterday (or should i say 'today', so it is all good.) Ihope he had a wodenrful time on his birthday. He said he was going out for dinner, and it sounded really good!
I just wanted to leave a little message saying that I am trying to get to my blog and write in it.. I have lot's of stuff to write about and my fingers are itching... but I'm to tired. So Instead I am going to bed... it will happen though! Eventually ;-)
Hope everyone is having a great day or night and write you soon!

Crazy prof action..

Hey there, it's been a while so time for a little update..
So many thoughts in my head so little time really. Last time we where visiting Poppa he showed us these really old diaries that his relatives have left him from the 1800's. It was *so* neat. It really made me want to keep a dairy, not just this blog, a real one.. I mean what may seem sort of every day to day stuff now might be alittle treasure 150 yrs from now you never know. I could have spend all day reading those little diaries.. awesome..
Then I was trying to catch up on some blog reading that I have been neglecting. My friends are such enthousiastic writers that it is sometimes difficult to keep up to date on everything. M's travel log is really quiet cool. It makes me want to travel through Canada even more then I already did before.. Oh well it will have to wait a little while yet.
Saturday was first work and then a birthday party of a friend of mine. We met her at the park and played frisbee, had a picknick with lots of good bad stuff, and then went out for pizza.. Yum but pretty unhealthy. I have noticed that my body really doesnt like unhealthy food as much anymore as it used too before we started to eat better. After that we went over to her house and played a bunch of board games. I'm not much of a boardgame person, but these were a lot of fun!
Sunday was the burrial of Alan's grandma's ashes. The cemetery was really quiet a lovely peacful place and in ways different from the ones back home. She was burried close to her sister and other relatives. The ceremony was more approriate then the first one as well. I find it really difficult to write about things like this because it feels like I dont really have to vocabulary to explain what I really mean to say without sounding superfyshial. I mean of course it is a sad event but.. I dont know I cant explain it.. When we got to grandpas house we decided to walk to the old dairy where they make really good ice cream. Grandpa had done some cleaning up and had found change in all sorts of little spots where grandma had tucked some away. (little things like that make me smile and make me feel sort of warm inside because it reminds me of my oma and the little things she used to do. Eventhough as a child I thought they were kind of strange they now have a special little spot) Grandpa decided we should use it to buy the ice cream as Grandma's treat.. The icecream was very good. I had chocolate moosetracks and strawberry.
Monday I worked my two jobs and so I left the house at 7:30 and and came back at 22:00. It was along day, but it will be nice ones I get my paycheck. Today was a schoolday, and I disccovered my biology prof is a little bit strange. He completely freaks out when people talk in class, and when I mean talk I mean bend their heads toward eachother and whisper so softly that the person next to them cant even hear them. He is really paraniod about it... Are you talking? There's only one person talking here at the time.. bla bla yadayada. He also has a thing against cellphones ringing in class. Appearantly he writes questions for the midterm/final right after each class so he knows what has been covered and what not I guess.. but anyway, he claims that if people disrupt his class by talking he will put really hard questionson the exam... If a callephone goes of he will ask us a 'cell phone question' aka impossible to understand for anyone but him, and so everyone in the class is boung to loose marks.. He gets really worked up.. to the point where you can tell he is trying to supress his anger.. starts paseing you know.. the whole bit.. Anyway, this could be an interesting semester between him and the organic chem guy who is not into teaching at all... We will see, all I can say is.. 'always look on the bright side of life' tweedlydee' Gotta go my nrighbours have arrived!
bye bye

"prep" week of school

Time goes by so fast and yet so slowly. I know, that sounds kind of strange, but the last couple of days have been crazy. Probably because they where so long. Anyway, let me tell you about the last long weekend of the summer first. We decided to go down to visit Alan's poppa on the weekend. It was veru nice weather. We helped him with a whole bunch of stuff around the house and went for a wonderful meal at Alan's aunt's. Had a swim. The water of the p0ol is basically the same temperature as the water I use to shower with, realy quiet nice. :) Alan's cousin's where there as well and it was good to see them again. On sunday we helped poppa taking down an old shed/barn. unfortunatly I wasnt very careful and got a bunch of splinters in my arm. Because the wood is so old the splinters break everytime you try to take them out, and so I have a few little guys that will have to come out on their own. Oh well, not everyone can say they have piece of 100 yr old barn in their arm :P
Then this week is the "prep"week as we call it at itv.. oohh sorry I mean CUtv, still not very used to that name. But anyway, I started back there on tuesday. It was very nice to see everyone again after the summer. we have three new people working for us... I'm not to sure what to think of them as of yet so a character sketch will have to wait till a little later. One of the girls at work is pregnant which I think is really cool. She looks pretty cute with her mommy tummy.. We'll have to play the "name game" and find her baby a name, we did that for one of the other ladies who was going to be a grandma, we actually almost named her granddaughter and grandson, but they changed their minds .. *sigh* oh well.. whatever
other then that I'm still working at the book store, so I am working quiet a bit at the moment, nothing wrong with that, and tomorrow is my first day of classes. I think my biol prof is really enthousiastic. He has his website up and running, has like notes and slides and handouts and practise questions and all that stuff on there already, and he is starting the labs this week.. yeah, you heard me right! Normally labs dont start until at least a couple of weeks from the first day of class... oh well. Luckily labs dont start until friday, and my lab isnt until tuesday, so I have a little bit more time to prepare. Well kids I am really tired so I am heading to my little bed..
ohhh just wanted to mention I had a free supper as there was a welcome newstudents and president barbeque on the main quad at school, so I got a free hamburger and drink and chips.. Score for me, I never had frosh week so I deserved that burger I tell you :P anyway.. night night...

stage one has been comleted!

Short little update.. I'm happy because:
- stage one of my blanket has been completed.. All 80 squares are finally done, still 3 more stages to gothough
- rumour has it my littler big brother has graduated! Hooray for him :D I'm so proud of him! He is doing really well
- I am going away for the long weekend to Alan's Poppa, which should be a good time the weather is supposed to be really good


On a sad note. I have heard that our favorite thai food place burnt (down) last night. I'm not sure how bad it is.. I hope nobody got hurt and the restaurant is still salvagable.. :( Poor people..
Sad notes are usually not a good place to stop writing, but unfortunatly I am running out of time as I still have to pack... Talk to you when I get back

Back in the saddle.. hheeeehaaawww

hey guys,
I know... it has been like two weeks since I last wrote, I dont even really remember what i was writing about at the time, I supposee I should probably read that but I dont feel like it right now so I will do that next time. So much has happened since I last wrote, it seems a lot longer ago then only 2 weeks. Where to begin. Well, I guess I should start with a little bit of sad news first. Alan's grandmother past away a couple of weeks ago. It was quite peaceful and grandpa was with her when she left. We all loved her, I didnt really know her very well as she was already suffering from alzheimer's when I met her for the first time. It was still sad but sort of a blessing in disguise at the same time. The whole family came for the wake and the funeral. Lacking a better choise of words it was a special experience for me, getting to know Alan's grandma so much better through the stories everyone shared with me and seeing a image of her as a wife as well as a mother, grandmother and friend.
On the home front, my brother and his fianceé have decided to buy a house before they're getting married. They have found a very cute townhome with a pond in their backyard, which they have been bidding on. As far as I know their bid has been accepted and their waiting on finishing up the paperwork for the mortgage so hopefully that will all go through and they'll be able to buy their first home. I am really excited and a little bit freaked out. 4 months ago when I saw them they where living in their new rented appartment, and in about the last three weeks they got engaged, bought a house and more or less planned their wedding... ppfff... crazyness! But exciting crazyness, so I am hoping to hear from them soon.
Speaking of crazyness. I was surfing the internet the other day, look for this website, and in one of the hits that came up I recognized the name of a childhood friend of mine. It was a link to a blog which happened to have her email on it, and since my friends name was pretty rare I decided to email this person. Turns out to be her! I was so excited, and so was she so we have been emailing each other since. It's amazing out 0f all the billions of websites and she happened to pop up. Pretty cool eh?
This past week has been very busy. Monday was my birthday, which was very nice. I first of all had the day off from work, Alan made me breakfast, spent 75% of my day on the phone with people from home, and I puttered around the house In the evening I got kidnapped by the boy and his mom to his parents place and they had made me b-day dinner and had decorated the dining room and everything which was really cool! His parents gave me cake decorating tools which I cant wait to break in! Mrs H is going to teach me how to decorate cakes, and I think I am going to do some practising of my own as well. I also got a 649 ticket (I won $10,- Woohoo!!) and a scratch ticket which I haven't used yet.. I am waiting for a day when I feel really lucky!
Alan got me a book as well as driving lessons, I am a little bit scared bit I know I'll be ok. Now it's just a matter of planning it into the busy calendar. I have decided I want to learn how to drive standard as everyone in europe does so, plus it just seems like it would be a lot more fun and a useful skill to have. I also got a package from my mom and dad with a new t-shirt, a leather belt from my aunt and uncle and brithday cards, all in all it was a succesful day.
Tuesday was alan's soccer game, wednesday we got together with some of the S&B girls as M was leaving for the second half of her trip. I believe she's out in BC now, lucky girl ;-) thursday I got together with a good friend of mine who is going to leave this coming weekend to go do her masters and so I got to meet her new Boyfriend. we went out for thai food... mmmmmmmm.. and did I mention mmm!?!!? friday was our end of season soccer party with both the tuesday and saturday team. It was a really good time.. needless to say our soccer the next morning wasnt as good as it could have been ;-) The rest of saturday and sunday we spent at 'the cottage' aka as alan's parents place minding the cat and this 18 year old guy. long storie shortish.. Mike stayed at this guy's parents place last summer and he had try outs in town so Mr and Mrs H offered for him to stay with us during the weekend. he was fun, in a 'I'm 18 and a manly buff hockey player who doesnt know these older people so I would like to seem cool' kind of way, but a good kid. Well I guess that's sort of in short what's been going on. I'm going to go back to working on my parent's blanket. Talk to y'all later

'Allo 'Allo?

Allo,
Just figured I would drop another line. Alan's cold is finally catching up with me. I havent een feeling to great all day, but I'm still hopeful it won't get worse then this. This weeks work schedule worked out quiet well for me. I worked Monday tuesday had wednesday off worked all day today and have tomorrow of, work saturday, which is to bad, because it means I will have to miss soccer :( but not much you can do. sunday off, and then I work a lot more hours next week. We're starting up for the rush, so store hours are extended aswell. Yesterday I met up with one of my friends I hadnt seen in a while. We had a great time. She came and picked me up and we hung out at her place for the afternoon. We were going to have a swim in the pool, however it started thunderstorming, and we even lost power for an hour.
I also tried registering for my classes yesterday. I am going to be taking 2 courses in the fall and 2 in the winter. I managed to get the classes and labs I wanted for the winter, but I didnt get into one of my lab sections for the fall, the timeslot was closed already, either because it is already full, or the limit of students from my registration time was reached. I really wanted that labsection so I could keep my school days restricted to tuesday and thursday, and I can work the rest of the week. So I tried calling the registrar's office, who of course connected me trhough to someone else, who of course connected me thourgh to someone else and so on.. So I ended up speaking to the lab coordinator who might be able to help me. She wanted me to wait a few days and check the site from time to time to see if people have been switching labs and openings came up. Not very easy when you're working and you dont have acces to a computer.. oh well... If that doesnt work I'll contact her again later next week and she said she would look at it again and might be able to do something about it then.
So I had my first customer yell at me tuesday. One of the products she was purchasing was more expensive then she expected it to be, and it was a different price then the website said.. so at the end of our.. mm.. conversation.. I was told to let the manager know she would never do business with us ever again.. he raised his shoulders and laughed while walking away....
And then there was a customer who had to write an exam today, and needed his textbook during the exam.. He had lost his old copy and so was now buying this one so he could write the exam. If I would mind if he came to bring it back after he was done his exam... uuhhmmm yeah.. sort of.. Does it say library on our door?
we watched 'Allo 'Allo tonight.. for those of you who dont know what it is.. it is hilarious... that's what it is.. it is also and old british television show I used to watch as a kid. It's a persiflage on the 2nd world war. It's situated in a french Cafe, and the cafe owner René accidentily get's caught between the french resitance and the germans.. hilarity ensues... anyway, Alan's happened to get his hands on (aka downloaded) the season... we watched the first two episodes, these arent the est ones, but they're pretty funny anyway. well I guess that's about it for today.. nighthawk over and out

Big news!!!

Hello there,

So it has been a while since I have written a note in my log, so I was hoping to grab your attention with my wonderful title. So now I have it, I'm obivously going to wait with my big news until later on int the email :P
Life has just been the usual same old. Work is work, not very exciting, pretty boring at times by lack of sufficient numbers of customers, but hey, I'm inside so life is good. On friday I biked home from work and found out it only takes 30 minutes to get home (which probably would have been 20 in my biking days) In the mean time Alan had caught a cold that I have been trying to fight off. I havent really felt as poorly as him, but I dont feel my normal self either. I just hope to not get worse! The weekend was nice and relaxing. On saturday night we picked up Alan's parents from the airport from their trip to BC. We went to visit them the next day and saw all their picutres of their travel around, the wedding and relatives. BC really looks beautiful and I cant wait to go see it some day! They also brought us back some gifts, which of course they didnt have to do but were highly appreciated! especially the awesome icecream scoop they got us. We havent tried it out yet... hmm maybe dessert? The handle is a penguin and it looks really cute!
Ok now for the big news... My brother called me to tell me he was back from his trip to Norway, and I guess he had a very succesful trip: He got engaged!!! SO WEIRD, and exciting at the same time. My brother is getting married! I do feel a little sad now that I'm so far away because I'll miss out on all the planning, but I'm going to try to stay in touch a lot and on top of things! There is even speak of me maybe making the wedding cake, depending on a whole bunch of stuff and with a little help from Alan's mom who might share some of her tricks with me :) So we will see, I will keep you updated on all of this I'm sure! For now, alan made really good smelling stirfry and i'm hungry so I'm going to go eat! write you later.. Yay...

Bookstore part 1

So my first day at the bookstore has past and I must say it was a very nice change from picking weeds. I have been trained for cashier, something I will probably be doing most of my time at the store. My supervisor scheduled me for 20 hours next week after the long weekend. 5 hours 4 days a week. The cash system changed since I have been therer last, it is much more automated now and I must say I was pretty impressed with it, it is much more forgiving when you make mistakes because you can escape your way out of a lot of messes. However, it doesnt let you go as fast as the old system, so if you're not paying attention you have to redo a bunch of stuff. They have a scanner now, something i love! They're so much fun. *bleep* Also I get a discount on some items, which might come in handy during the school year. I'll have to make a list of things I need to get and see if it's worth buying it at work or not. They tend to be a little overpriced no matter what. I get a 15 minute payed break, which is not a lot of time to eat lunch. I only finished half of mine today, I had brought left overs from yesterday.
Since it was my day of yesterday I decided to make a nice dinner for Alan, so I ended up making lots of food and we invited the neighbours over aswell to help us finish all the food. (She coincidentally also got a much nicer position then she had on the same day, so that was cause for a celebration!) I made a big greek salad, alan made mexican trash ( a deliscious dip you eat with tortilla chips) and I made couscous and chicken with olives, fresh basil and tomatoes, a little bit of fushion cooking.. sort of.. ok it was a strange yet tasty combination. Oohh now I'm hungry, we're having a meal from the crockpot tonight but I think I might finish my greek salad now before it goes bad and then have some more food later on... mmm.. Stitch and bitch is on tonight and the girls are coming over here, still need to do a lot of dishes before then.. ttys

Two in one day! wohoo

So the day is over. No more groundskeeping for me ever again I dont think! This in itself should be a very exciting thing, but somehow I feel a little dazed. I am not nearly as happy as I should be. I am mainly tired.. strange. So tomorrow I have a day off before I start at the bookstore. I think it will probably be al ot of fun to work there, although it might be a little boring at first due to the lack of customers during the summer. We will see, it will pick up soon enough. So yeah, my last day at grounds was very uneventful. First I worked in my assigned section picking weeds with a couple of the others. As punishment for leaving them early, they made me a fluorescent band and tied it around my fore head 'a la Rambo' and they made black war stripes on my face. Then we got really bored with picking weeds and designed this really cool game called pebble tossing. You need pebbles and a grate and skill.. oh well, two out of three is ok too.. :P Anyway, standing at a distance point is trying to get as many pebbles to go into the grate as possible.... if you win you take to steps back... all the while looking busy.. it was very entertaining!
It rained part of the day, so we got to "work" with the furniture crew. They dropped us of in a huge storage room somewhere in the basement of the university with a couple of brooms, told us to sweep the place until they came back, but surprise surprise, they never did. I never even really said goodbye to most of the people there, because I figure I will still go back to see some of them, especially since I still have someone's dvd. It just feels really unreal that I'm gone and I am happy but sort of sad at the same time...
My weekend was very nice. We went to see Poppa on the weekend, and ate a wonderful meal and swam at Alan's aunt's. It was very tasty his uncle always barbeques incredible amounts of food and we had a ver nice dessert: banana splits! We slept over at Alan's mom and dad's place and the next day we went to see grandpa and grandma. It was a very nice day out, visited over lunch and then came back early afternoon. We spent part 0f the afternoon in the swimming pool playing frisbee and had another wonderful dinner.
Alan's mom and dad left for BC yesterday for a wedding and a short vacation. I hope they take lots of pictures, because BC is a place I would love to see some time. Pictures will have to do for now I'm affraid. They called and said they made it safely there last night, which is always a nice reassuring :) Lot's of people going on trips these days. I know I just came back from one not to long ago, but everyone is infecting me with traveling itches.. I really want to go on a trip now. Maybe later, first I need to save up some more money for school! ttys :)
Oh did I mention I am going to take 4 courses this coming year? I decided I didnt want to waste money now if I might be able to go to school for a lot less the next year. All of my courses I'm going to be taking with my friends from this past year, so that will be very nice, especially if I miss some classes or need help with labs and stuff... I'm going to be taking microbiochemistry organic chemistry part1 and 2 and genetics.. sounds like fun doesnt it?!?

Last day of grounds!!!

Needless to say I am very excited about that! I decided to take a day in between jobs to further clean the appartement and such before I start the new one at the bookstore! SO yeah I have to leavebut I just had to share...

Lots of stuff

Well I have to say life is never boring. It is true what they say about expecting the unexpected. Obviously I havent really been posting as much as I should have been. I have had a very busy period, for no particular reason.
I think I have collected all of the official papers for my PR application. Next step is making the photo album and filling out all the forms which is still going to take a while. Alan's mom had a bunch of useful pictures of us that I'll be able to use, and then there is Alan's picture library that we'll be going through to collect the pictures. It really is fun. I started a little bit of that this monday and it is neat to see all the things we have done in the past three years. Amazing how many fun and memorable things we have already done so far, and how many I forgot about already.
Oh speaking of memorable things, we won our first soccer game this past saturday. It was fun to win a game for a change. I again almost scored, twice this time. One of these days the ball really should make it into the net! There's always comming saturday.
Further Alan and I went to see Charlie and the choclat factory this sunday with our friends. I still am not sure whether I liked the movie or not. There was lots of good acting and the story is good, yet very strange at the same time. It's definetly worth seeing at some point I think, dont know if you need the theater for it, but I enjoyed myself. The nice thing about not going out to often is that you appreciate it that much more when you do!
Last night Alan and I went out for Moroccan food. We werent sure what to pick from the menu because neither of us has eaten maroccan very often. Therefore the owner suggest we would get the buffet, that way we could try all sorts of different things. He tooks us over to the food personally and explained what the food was and stuff. Appearantly his wife is the headchef so it's all "home cooked food". It was apsolutely delicious! We started of with a bunch of very interesting salads, then I filled up my plate wih couscous (yum!), rice, lemon chicken, tajine beef (sort of stew) with tomatoes and onions and other good stuff, vegetables in a nice brothy sauce, and then after that I filled up my plate with the first lamb's meat I truely really enjoyed. It was a very nice combination of apricots, plums and apples and lamb and savory flavours. and more chicken and salad. After which I was definetly full... but not to full to have mint tea and baclava.. mmm... very very tasty.
The reason Alan and i went out for dinner was that we had something to celebrate. Namely: I have a new job. I am going to be working at the bookstore instead of outside in the blazing sun. This to me is very exciting. I at first will be working less hours then I am right now, which is to bad, but once we get closer to the school year things should really pick up a lot, which is fine by me :-) It also has the advantage that I'll be able to work throughout the school year if I want to, so if I dont get as many hours at cutv as I usually do because of all the changes, I can stay on with them. We will see. At this point my first day will be comming thursday, but it might be sooner. I told them about it at grounds, and they seemed to understand so that seems to all be working out well.
I guess that's most of the news for now.

yawn

I've been wanting to post another post basically for a whole week now, and things just keep comming up in between. Now for instance I am really really tired and so I am going to go to bed, and thus my big plan of plans is to write a nice posting tomorrow.. over and out.

another day another dollar

We had a pretty busy weekend. I played soccer on saturday and almost scored a goal! If only I had a little bit better aim. Oh well, better luck next time. It was a fun game, although I was kind of stiff after. I play in a mixed league, so every game there have to be at least 2 girls on the field, otherwise we play with player short, no matter how many guys are on the side line. This past weekend was also the weekend of the hope volleyball tournament, it's for charity and a lot of people participate in it, a big part of our soccer team including my boyfriend went to it. turns out I was the only girl actually on the team that ended up showing up for the game. Luckily the boys managed to call in a couple of girls, first one could only play the first half, second one only the 2nd, so that worked out fine, we didnt have to play a man short, accept that I got to stay on the field for the full time. It was fun although my body isnt quite up to speed for that yet. Hey, I'm doing pretty good excersise wise! i have been using kitty for three days this week, althoguh I havent really found my favorite excersises yet. I borrowed this book from a coworker of mine, but I am not thrilled with those, I like the ones I got of a website somewhere a little better,so I think I am going ot explore that site a little bit more. So yeah kitty, I have been biking a little bit, I played soccer and yesterday we got to go visit Alan's parents so I did a little bit of swimming. SO eventhough I am not working out like crazy I do try to get some excersise each day to get into a little bit better shape. Oh and I think i can count today as an excersise day aswell. It was 33 degrees C plus humidity today and a lot of people at work took some days off. Therefore I got to trim hedges today with a gas engine hedgetrimmer. For those of you that have never seen one, it sort of looks like a small chainsaw, without the chain, and skinnier blade. Anyway, the saw itself isnt that heavy, but the hedge was pretty tall so I had to hold it above my shoulders and of course you try to cut evenly. It was a good work out. I also had about 3 L of water to drink today because it was very very hot.. And it's supposed to stay that way. Oh and I cant find my ball cap hat anywhere, so I might have lost it or "lost it" at work somewhere.. either way I am going to have to bring another hat in otherwise my brain will fry...
Sooo I completly lost track of my story, which I usually do as all of you who know me know.. Right soccer, we lost unfortunatly, but we did play a good game. Hopefully we'll do better next saturday. After the game I went to watch alan play at the volleyball tournament. He did really well. It is a pretty neat event. There where about 80 courts, and there where 15 min games, from 1 in the mourning until 4 in the afternoon I think. Everyone plays 5 games and then the winners compete against eachother. There where about 30000 people there I have heard, vendors, players, spectators. There was also a lot of promotion stuff going on. Coupons for things. There was a stand where you could play Xbox for free and try out osme new games, which was pretty cool, and we got 4 free slurpee(slush puppie) coupons 2 of which we just used for desert. Hhmmm.. Later saturday we went to a party of friend of ours which was a lot of fun. I got to meet some new nice people and chat and munch. Unfortunatly the week outside plus the busy day made me sleepy so at the end of the night I had trouble keeping my eyes open.. which I didnt really like because I didnt want to be rude and wanted to participate in the conversation, but there was nothing I could do.. Luckily there's always coke to get you the cafeine you need to rescue you from situations like that.
Sunday was sleep in day and clean the house/organize stuff/work on application day. It all takes so much time, and the questions I have for the gouvernment are hard to ask because like any good old office their open between 8 and 4 and since I work outside it's hard to call them. Oh well, I'll just have to take some time on break to do that. I am going to get my x-rays done tomorrow, so that part of the requirement will be done. Hopefully I can get the rest finished soon so I can send it in...
well I am getting sleepy... time for bed.. good night

It's the weekend... sweet!

Hello there, time for another post. I have so many little things to say, but really not to much is comming to me right now. Oh yesterday I had my doctors appointment. It wasnt nearly as scary as some people had made it sound. It was a long visit, and i had to fill out this questionair about medical history and my behaviour and stuff like that, I was weighed, got my eyes checked, the usual other stuff, ears, throat blahblah.. All I know about the results is that my bloodpressure was a little low. Probably due to the fact that I hadnt been drinking enough and had been working outside all day. So after that was all done, the doctor told me to go downstairs to get bloodwork done and x-rays, first blood because that takes the longest or whatever, so I get my bloodwork done, walk to x-ray.. Oh great whole month of July they close at 4 pm... Since i work until 3:30, this means i have to take more time of of work to get them done, next week I guess.. Oh well what can you do... my application is slowly coming together. Hopefully i can get lots of work done on it this weekend, get most of it ready to go.
So tonight I was a true housewife, I cooked and did dishes and cleaned the bathroom, and did garbage and all that stuff while Alan fixed up our vacation pictures. I definetly owed him some cleaning up, because he has been doing most of the work lately. Heat tends to drain energy, so the last week was not very productive for me. We have finally picked them all out, all 420 of them, aanndd he has made them all pretty and has taken them to get developed so soon we can make an album! finally.. alhough we are very very far behind on doing pictures, we might have to make some other albums first. Oh well, I needed to go through tons of pictures anyway to make my PerminentRes album "to show we're actually dating". i cant wait to get this thing all done and sent in.
There definetly was more to say, but all I know now is it's the weekend.. Sweet!

Hmmm stirfry :)

Today was a pretty eventful day in a boring kind of way. As it didnt happen today I can write about it now. As a christmas gift Alan and I were supposed to go on this "morning hot airballoon ride", which sounds like a load of fun! The certificate was valid until june 30th, and so of course I remembered to book the flight 2 days before the end of this period, close call... We booked a flight for this morning.. Soooo my mom thinks the balloon thing is a nice plan, except she doesnt want to know about it until after the flight has taken place, which is why I couldnt write about it until now because she would have found out.. Unfortunatly the weather last night and this morning was pretty bad, thunderstorms and hot air balloons generally dont mix, and so our flight was cancelled. To bad because we had been looking forward to it, but we will just have to reschedule...
The rain made for a nice sauna-like work condition today. Good thing we have lots of bottled water left over from convocation, I'm drinking water like crazy and I had forgotten my water bottle this morning. I was put on the weedeater today, and I managed to get #2, which is for sure the best one of the bunch, it cuts the nicest with the least shake and the best "gasmilage" it is funny how your body adjusts to the enginevibrations and the heat, I find you just get into some sort of hypnosys after a while,... must cut grass... bad weeds... So as I was going steady cutting away while listing to Ipod (one nice thing about alan working at home is that we dont need to share custody over it anymore) I upset a bee or wasp or something.. whetehr I whippersnipped his flower or came to close to its head or maybe it was my highly fashionable reflective vest that attracted him and I almost sqished it or something, anyhow, the little critter decided to show me who was boss and gave me a nice sting in the arm.. needless to say it won... Positve thing about the situation: I'm not allergic to canadian bees, which is a good thing to know.. other then that $%#@! ouch.. Its all fine now, however my boss made me pick weeds the rest of the day.
I have discovered that Oliver's (the university pub) has cheap food at lunch time.. of course to most of you this doesnt come as a surprise, I mean, I have only been at carleton for 2.5 yrs, I'm quick to pick on these things I tell ya... further investigation of this food will follow on a day I dont have a lunch with me... It would be nice to find a place on campus that doesnt charge an arm and a leg for food... hhmm food.. alan is making stirfry as we speak and it smells really good...
Oh right after work I decided to do some shopping before going home, and I ended up buying one of those excersise ball things. thing is, I'm to cheap to pay for a gym membership, but I would like to some working out, so my fitness instructor friend advised me to buy one of those balls. we will see how it works out, I have named the ball Kitty, as Alan wont buy me one :P well, that's not true, he did get me a grow a pet kitty over christmas which I named lumpy. it's made of some sort of foam, which you put in a glass of water and it will expand in size, from 2 cm to like, 8 or something, but unfortunatly it grows this massive bumb on the side of its head, hence its name.. So I guess I will have to keep you posted on whether kitty works = abs and buns of steal at the end of the summer, or not.. So yeah.. ooh food is ready...

We're back.. thank you extra strength bug spray!

Just got back from an absolutly wonderful weekend in the outdoors. I had such a great time it was awesome. The bugs were partly because of my industriel strength repellent and the nice breeze (I can count my bites on 1 hand people, It's great!) very well behaved. The weather was really nice, even a little chilly at times. The scenary was lovely and the people we went with a heck of a lot of fun. We ended up going with 16 people and got a long with everyone. Camping here is a lot different from back home, both have their pro's and con's. What I like about Canada are the nice large spaces, the picknick table that comes with it, and the option of having a woodfire on each site. I thought that was really neat. Roasting marshmellows, eating smores(?), cooking your breakfast... Ok we went with these seriously experienced campers, geez what those people whipped up on their little woodfires, unbelievable: steak, asperagus, all kinds of potatoes, french toast, bacon and eggs and toast, fancy bagel sandwiches, coconut rice. .ok not all at the same time, this is just a sample.. I felt kind of sheepish with my spaghetti and jar of sauce, but its hard to buy food if you dont really know what to expect. We even had birthday cupcakes, for one of the guys we went camping with!
We had a great time, friday night we all sat around the fire, talked, drank, played games, drank, listened to music, ate lots and lots of food, aannndd drank.. The next day we went to the beach, nice and sandy.. it reminded me of home a lot except that the water smelled wrong.. it wasnt salty.. the water was very nice and warm, and no jelly fish which is a definite bonus, the sun was nice and warm and I learned how to play ultimate frisbee.. I also got introduced to skip-bo and kribage(?), which are cards games later that day, both fun games.. oh alan and I walked up to the beach late last night to look at the stars, I have never seen that many stars in my life, breath taking to say the least.
well it is time for me to hit the shower, we're going over to the neighbour for a last game of skipbo to say goodbye to the lovely weekend.. work tomorrow... sigh...

Happy Canada day everyone!

I dont have a lot of time to write as we are getting ready to go camping. It's official, yay! We borrowed a tent from friends, sleeping bags + cooler from Alan's mom and dad, which they brought over late last night, and bought tons of food so we should be good no! We're going to a place called Presqu'ile. It's a provincial park in Ontario, towards Toronto, about a 3 hrs drive away, it's on lake ontario, which is almost the size of Holland! you can take a look over here: www.ontarioparks.com/english/pres.html
I believe a minimum of 14 people are coming, only 2 of which we know, but I'm sure it's going to be a lot of fun :-) I got extra strength bugs spray with me, Alan and my bathingsuit so let the fun begin!

Just when you think it can't get any hotter....

I know, this is the second day in a row I'm complaining about the heat, and really I shouldnt because I miss it when it isn't there.. don't we all? Most of us seem to anyway.. Point is, that there are limits to heat, and I think mother nature is going a little overboard here. That's Canada or should i say Ottawa for you.. Work today was pretty much brutal. Working groundskeeping or any other job outside when it is 31 degrees, but feels like 41 because of humitity is just not cool.. and no, no pun intended this time :P.. One of the guys at work got actually sent home because of heat stroke today, I hope he is going to be ok. Probably nothing some cool air and lots of water cant fix, but he wasnt feeling to happy. The girls and I took it nice and slow today, had lots of water breaks in the shade, went for some icecream. Our supervisor left halfway through the day, and the other guy in charge basically told us to go hide somewhere in the shade without getting seen which made the day that much more enjoyable
So chances are we're going to be camping for the long weekend.. I am pretty excited about that, havent been camping in Canada yet. They say things should cool down a little bit over the weekend, which would be nice. we're going with a group of friends, to a campsite near Bellville, I'm not sure where exactly but it is on a lake so it should be fun. I'm a little bit weary of the billion hamstersized musquitos and dogsized horse and dear fly out in this country, but I figured I should at least give it a shot. I invested in bug spray and hopefully that will keep them "off" of me.. hahhaha...huhhh.. anyway.. So all we need to do is find a tent somewhere, sleeping stuff, and buy camping food and other stuff... Hmmm planning things a little further in advance could be good eh?
Other then that, I am slowly collecting my permanent residency info, takes a while but it is getting there. I called around for my physical, one doctor couldnt see me until august 16th! Fortunatly another could sqeeze me in some time next week, so that's good. appearantly they're going to turn me inside out, x-rays, bloodwork, even a psych exam...... dumdadumdum...

A billion degrees and counting.. upwards...

For some reason the first post in a weblog seems to be a very difficult thing to do.. or so I thought for a good two minutes... I had been staring at the computer screen feeling the pressure of trying to come up with something catchy, you know, amusing, funny, witty, brilliant, to start of this wondrous log of mine and nothing came of it when it suddenly hit me... I am sitting here in a little room, that after having been warmed by the hot afternoon sun, is now further heated by the radiance of two computers running, it is about 31 C in here, and I'm thinking, does it really matter how I start? Nope, I dont think so either..
So here it is then, my first post! Exciting stuff I tell you... I would like to encourage everyone to leave messages/comments to my postings if they feel so enclined :) Or even to start their own blogger, always fun. My weblog is still in the making, so bear with me for now, chances are the looks will change overtime, and hopefully some pictures will be added as time continous as well . I am hoping to use this log as a tool to keep people a little more informed about me, on a more regular basis then I have been updating so far.
Although I had to decide on what language to use for my log, for now as you probably have noticed, my log will be written in english as 99.9% of people that will be reading this know this language, but I am still not completely decided on the matter. Well that's it for now... Let the posting begin!