Lorianne in Dawson Creek

Well, it's only been a few months since last I posted. Guess I've been both busy and not doing much of anything interesting... to me!

School update: Right now I'm in Dawson Creek doing my final clinical placement. At the end of April I'll be done! Then I'll just have my last licensing exam and a bunch of paperwork to do... and the whole job search thing. I'm feeling like I want to work in long term care... now to get the job!

Dance update: I was dancing every week until I came to B.C. Now I'm avoiding my dance videos that I brought with me. Sometime I will get bored enough to do something with them.

Geocaching update: I've now been to over 50 caches! I still need to find one in B.C. (hit one in Alberta on my way here). I tried to search one out last week, but it was buried in waist-deep snow. The only treasure I found was some dog poop. I decided to leave it for someone who might want it more!

Travel plans: On the Easter long weekend I'm likely going to meet up with Jay in Edmonton. On my way home from Dawson Creek in early May I'm planning to spend a few days with Brandi and Michael in Edmonton. Then in the first weekend of June Jay and I will be going to Edmonton to see The Police in concert at Commonwealth Stadium. This is a lot of trips to Edmonton... probably as much as I've ever been there in my life before!

So that's what's new(s) to me!

December update... in March

I figured it's been a while and I'm due to update the world on what's going on in my life:

1. I am officially done the classroom component of my education! I will never again have to sit in a classroom for months on end! Sitting and listening to people all day is soooooooo hard! I've got all my marks already, so I don't even have to worry about passing or anything.

2. I will be starting my clinical placements in January:

• first placement: Royal University Hospital, cardiorespiratory PT. I'm looking forward to this one, because this is a location where there are excellent clinicians who practice in this area (cardiorespiratory PT). I'm confident that I will receive some excellent mentoring there.
• second placement: Sherbrooke Community Centre, long term care. This should be another good placement, as long as I get to have a fairly varied experience and don't just get people up walking every day. I've previously done a little job shadowing there, and it's a really great environment.
• third placement: Dawson Creek Health Centre!, mixed placement. I just found out a couple of days ago that I will be doing my final placement there. I'm so excited to be getting away for a while and to be seeing/hanging out with Debbie! Yay!

The light at the end of the tunnel

Yay! The papers and assignments are all finished! Now all I have left is 3 written finals and 2 practical finals! Oh glorious day!

Festival of Trees

I will be dancing at the Festival of Trees with my dance group again this year. Our perfomance is scheduled for Friday Dec. 1 at 6:30pm. Come see us and view all the wonderful trees, all while supporting the City Hospital Foundation!

GoogleEarth coolness

Someone in a geocaching forum pointed out an interesting geographical feature in Alberta. It looks like a profile of an Indian wearing a headdress. If you have GoogleEarth, check out:
http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthreaded.php/Cat/0/Number/146588/an/0/page/0

'Tis the Season!

No, not Christmas. It's time for NaNoWriMo again! I've signed up to participate. I'm not sure what sort of commitment I can really maintain this year, but what the hey! Maybe it will get me motivated to do my homework sometime...



I doubt I'll have time to blog how things are going this time. For detailed stats you can see a chart at the NaNoWriMo site.

I've been trying to think of rewards that I might give myself if I succeed. Here's my thoughts so far:

• at 12500 words I'll buy myself a Geocoin (a trackable coin to put in geocaches)
• at 25000 words I'll buy myself a dance DVD (maybe Rachel Brice's fusion one)
• at 37500 words I'll buy myself another Geocoin
• at 50000 words I'll buy myself a set of 4 Travel Bug tags

Wish me luck!

Geocaching update

I have not had much time for geocaching lately. And even when I have gone out I've had poor luck in finding caches. I need to give myself more time, I guess. Anyway, it looks like my travel bug is finally on its way. I released it into the wilds outside of Lanigan towards the end of July, and it sat there for nearly three weeks before anyone picked it up. The guy who grabbed saved it for almost seven weeks to put in a cache he was making (Sept. 29). It is a travel bug hotel - a place where people can pick up and drop off travel bugs - and my travel bug was one of over 30 placed in that cache! On Oct. 7 someone finally picked it up again, so we'll see where it ends up.

So far this travel bug has been in the hands of: me, Mr. Speedy and his wife Salsa girl, mathineau saw it, and LoveYouAll. It is currently north of Montreal. Not a bad distance considering how many people have moved it - 1558.5 miles. It's now further east than I have ever been, and if I had travelled with it then I could have visited Joel!

I'm a Supreme Ultimate Boxer

Makes it sound like I'm up to something crazy doesn't it? When really it's just referring to something I learned on Wikipedia:

The Mandarin term "T'ai Chi Ch'üan" translates as "Supreme Ultimate Boxing" or "Boundless Fist".

I've taken two whole classes now. Pretty much makes me an expert. I'd watch out if I was you. I'll supreme ultimate box your ass until the cows come home.




Remind me not to blog on only 3 hours sleep...

The September Update

Man, it's been a while since I've posted! I've even had things to write about but just haven't gotten around to it, I guess. So, let's see what I remember:

• On the September long weekend I went to a wedding in P. A. on the Saturday, then came back home on Sunday morning for a dance practice. Brandi joined us so she could make sure she was still up to date with the style of belly dance she wants to teach in Edmonton this fall: American Tribal Style (see my picture from Aug. 20). We had a pool party, and were visited by Andy and his girlfriend who were also visiting from Ottawa. All in all a good time!
• School has been pretty busy and promises to continue to be that way for the rest of the term. I've already had two quizzes and an assignment. This week I have another quiz, another group assignment, and a group meeting with a prof about another assignment. I think it would be pretty much impossible to have more group assignments than we have this term. We have two different interprofessional problem based learning modules going on right now, which means that there's some group work with students from other colleges too.
• I found out on Thursday that I was one of only 5 people from my class who wanted to do their out of province placement in B.C. Previous years there were more students who wanted to go there, so they drew names. For me this means that I'll be able to go to B.C. provided the clinical coordinator there can find me a placement in Dawson Creek. If not, then my second choice was to go to Ottawa. I guess we shall see where I'll end up. Won't find that out for certain until November or December, though.
• My love life is going okay. We're both pretty busy, so it's hard to spend much good time together now. Friday night we went and saw Snakes on a Plane. It was silly and fun, very enjoyable. It definitely helped to have a few rowdy people in the audience to keep things fun. It's not the sort of movie you need to see more than once, but there you go.
• Today I finally got a bunch of papers from last year organized. It's nice to not have them cluttering everything up anymore.
  

So, I guess that's about all for now. See you next month!

My new favourite video

Thanks to Tanya for e-mailing me this video by OK Go: Here it Goes Again. It is amazing! It makes me want to play around doing something like that for our class video at school this year!

Here's an ABC news story where they talk about the video and interview the singer.

And the song is soooo good too! Totally makes me want to go out and find more of their music.

Fringe Pictures

Fringe was quite lovely to perform at this year. The weather cooperated on most days. We had lots of people watching us for most shows. We made a goodly amount of cash! And I got lots of compliments on my dancing and costuming. Here's a pic of me doing a solo improvisation while balancing something on my head:



If you would like to see a million pictures of my dance group performing at the Fringe, one of the newer people is quite technologically inclined and has set up a photo album . Quite lovely!

Friday at the Fringe

I don't know at what times exactly we'll be performing, but Friday we'll be starting shortly after 6 pm and doing another show at 7:30 or 8:00 or so. I have no idea what will happen on Saturday. I hate not working with a plan! Feel free to come say hi! Happy fringing!

Fringe Weekend #1

Our first weekend of Fringe performances is over. On Friday we had two performances, and neither of them went quite as planned. When I got to where I was getting ready I discovered we were going to be performing 15 minutes earlier than we had been told the couple days before. Then there was a bit of miscommunication, so instead of being in the intersection we ended up in front of the Broadway Cafe. For the first performance the busking amp we had rented didn't work properly, so instead I ended up drumming for accompaniment with 2 other drummers. It was a very thrown together show. For the second performance the Broadway Cafe was kind enough to allow us to plug into their power. This show went a lot more smoothly until the weather went bad. There was a huge swirling cloud to the north, and nasty looking clouds swooped into the area. We ended up cutting our show in the middle of it. It didn't really seem to storm very bad though.

On Saturday things went much better. We had two performances, and I drummed a bit and danced a bit. Our second show was my favourite one so far. There was so much energy and it was a lot of fun. Things went more smoothly, so we were all happier.

By Sunday we had a system going. The drummers better understood what the dancers wanted. The dancers were getting good at making a plan on the fly.

Monday was hot, and I was starting to tire. I felt very much like I was just putting in an appearance. It went well, though. We danced in the afternoon, so it was pretty much at the time of peak temperature. Whew!

So , that was our first weekend. Next weekend's schedule has not yet been set, but we are planning on starting at 5:30 on Friday. We'll probably do two shows, and then we'll do two or three on Saturday. Good times!

Fringe!!!

We're going to be busking twice a day over the long weekend. We will be putting on a 40 minute show at the intersection of Broadway and 10th St at the following times:
Fri. Aug. 4 6:30 and 8:30 pm
Sat. Aug. 5 5:30 and 8:30 pm
Sun. Aug. 6 5:30 and 8:30 pm
Mon. Aug. 7 3:30 and 5:30 pm

I'll keep you posted with the schedule for next weekend once we get it.

On Mon. there is also going to be a drumming circle hosted by Dieter, a drummer who we have collaborated with over the last couple of years at the Fringe. It will go from 7-8:30 pm at Broadway & 10th, and you are welcome to join in with anything that might make noise, or just come be moved by the experience. :)

The Return

Well, we're back! No damage except for a little bit of sunburn. We drove a lot, hiked/geocached a bit, and did some siteseeing.

Here are some lovely photos from our trip:

This is Jay and I with a little friend we found in a cache at Craik. No, that is not a real snake. I would be freaking out if that was a real snake!



These are the Travel Bugs we found in Saskatchewan and released on our trip.



Here we are at Mount Rushmore. I am very impressed with Jay's ability to take pictures of himself!



We drove around on some scenic roads. On one there were three tunnels and you could take pictures of Mount Rushmore through them. The tunnels only had one lane, so you had to honk before you entered. This one was near a cache that we found. Every time I heard the horns honk I felt like they were chastising us for climbing around in the bush!



One day we went out and followed some trucks as they climbed through the rocks. We hiked along with them and took pictures/video. We also drank a whole lot of water.



That same day we went to Jewel Cavern National Monument. We went on a short tour. It would have been nice to go on a more interesting tour, but at least we got to feel cold for 20 minutes! (Did I mention it was 40 degrees every day and we didn't have A/C in the car?)



These bridges looked really cool, and they were made of wood. It was a bridge over a bridge over a roadway, and they were all for automobile traffic.



Here's Jay when we visited the Cosmos Mystery Area. It was really hard to stand up in that room. Jay tried to take a similar picture of me, but I couldn't keep stable... kept getting sucked into the wall!


And here we are visiting Devil's Tower. If you look closely enough you can see an alien spacecraft behind one of the trees. Just kidding. Legend has it (a Lakota legend, I think) that a bear was trying to climb up the tower to get at some women. Those vertical lines looked like claw marks.

The last three pictures were taken on a stupidly hot day. We actually stopped into Walmart and spent extra time looking around the freezer section to cool off. We also scammed a whole lot of ice water from Burger King. I guess we were giving it to the man.

It was a good trip though. It's been so long since I've gone away for a vacation, so it was extra nice.