Lebanese Belly Dancer

I found some cool belly dancing videos on youtube tonight, and since Debbie wants to be able to find them again I'll put them here!

The first ones are of Rindala doing a really amazing routine. It takes 3 videos to see the whole thing (for some amazing back bend moves see the 3rd one) :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0SFcIfdz7w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ubj_hjLdVc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uqbv_gFkDTQ

Lebanese belly dance has a bit of a reputation for being experimentative... and a little out there at times.

Here's another lovely Lebanese dancer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBncb92rz70

Facebook

I can now be found on Facebook.


That is all.

International Travel

1. Go to google.com
2. Click on Maps
3. Click on "Get directions"
4. From New York
5. To Paris
6. Read line # 23.

Easter Weekend Doings

I was fortunate enough to have a 4-day weekend for Easter, so I took advantage of the situation for an outing to Edmonton.

On Friday I drove there with Debbie's friend Brian. He provided interesting conversation and I drove. We stopped in Grande Prairie for an hour: Starbucks, unsuccessful hunt for a geocache, then grabbed some grub for the road. Next stop was in Whitecourt for gas. That was the second full serve Petrocan station I've found since I got my discount credit card for that company. First one was earlier in the morning in Dawson Creek. (While the guy pumped my gas and washed my windows, I checked the oil... Guess I wanted to show off I wasn't dependent on full service!) Anyway, the next stop was Edmonton to find Brian's hotel downtown. No problems there. Then I drove off to Fort Saskatchewan to the hotel where Jay and I stayed. The GPS receiver sent me down the first street that would get me to Fort Sask from Edmonton. It wasn't the way I had intended to go, but I got to see an LRT station so if Jay and I stay in the same place in June we'll be able to avoid crazy parking for The Police concert. Anyway, I made it to the hotel without problem. Jay wasn't in town yet, so I went off to buy a few things to put in the fridge in our suite. Then when I came back he called me on my cell phone. I met him over at his sister's apartment and we visited with her and his nephews for a while as they decorated Easter eggs. Then we returned to the hotel room and . . . watched TV . . . all night . . . honest . . .

The next morning we 'rested' some more. We spent pretty much the rest of the day at West Edmonton Mall. It was the first time I had been there in about 21 years. Man, I still can't believe I spent nearly 9 hours there! Jay and I wandered around, I did a little shopping, we watched kids at the petting zoo, we watched the sea lion show, I did a little more shopping, we went to Booster Juice, then we met up with Brandi and Michael to go mini-golfing. It was fun to hang out with them again! After the game we went to their place and played on their Wii for a while. It was cool to play video games standing up and moving around! Eventually it got late and we went back to the hotel where I crashed pretty much immediately.

On Sunday we slept in a little, ate breakfast in the lobby, cuddled a bit, checked out then we went to Sobey's to visit Jay's sister and I bought a few groceries. We had a prolonged good-bye in the parking lot and then I was off on the road again. I left Fort Sask around noon and made it to Dawson Creek about 10 hours later. It is not a 10 hour drive, but I decided to geocache on the way! I found 6 caches, drove by 2 others without trying because of deep snow, and couldn't find 3 more. Those 3 were in Grande Prairie, making me 1/5 tries at caching there. It just doesn't seem to be my town. One of the caches I found was an infamous lampost skirt cache (although technically this was a flagpole skirt cache). Some posts have a part around the base that can slide up, so people have been known to place small caches inside of them. People who have been geocaching a long time tend to hate these, feeling like people who placed the cache there have no imagination because they've seen so many. It was okay for me though... only my first one. I guess they tend to be all over larger urban centres in the States. Anyway, I made it home safe and tired.

Monday I did basically nothing but hang out on the computer logging my geocache finds and planning for more geocaching! No wait, I watched a movie too!

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!