Nails, Movies and Books

3 chick flicks and self-manicured greige nails later I think I'm finally getting the hang of this "recovery" thing. I thought I would go crazy, but I am actually really appreciating this forced time off. I never realized how great having free time was, and how great it is to be able to see an end to my to do list!

I finally finished my book (not a school related book either!) and bought my very first ebook for my new ereader (thanks santa!). I tested out at the gym by reading a Sherlock Holmes short story and am still trying to figure out exactly how to use it properly. I've been reading the manual to figure out all the ins and outs so that I can take advantage of the fancy features and know what buttons to press etc to make reading from it easier. I was originally hesitant about the whole ereader thing, there is something about having a book in your hand and flipping pages and wandering around a book store for hours picking one out that makes the whole book reading process that much better. I'll probably still go to actual book stores to peruse the ailes and pick out a book, but I'll come home and buy it online instead. After reading about 15 books in Kenya, and lugging the books across the planet and back, I'm excited to be able to load up my ereader with 15+ books before I go and not have to worry about fitting books in my suitcase.

Anyways, the moral of this story is that I think I might actually be capable of being a normal human being who exercises and is active but doesn't train. I think I might actually be capable of not feeling guilty if I don't go to the gym or for a swim or for a run at least once a day. I think I might actually learn how to not be doing something at every moment of every day. It might still take some time to get used to, but I'm excited that I've finally figured out that it's possible. I'm hoping to spend the year trying tons of new things (classes, sports, hobbies, etc) that I never had time to try before! First on my list is a cake decorating course taught by one of the girls in my program every week. The next session starts in a couple of weeks and is all about gum-paste!

Water Tanks and Chefs

This afternoon I road tripped to Souris with Tuck and Jen to give a presentation to the committee of the Souris Village Feast about our adventures in Kenya. The Village Feast raises money every year to build cookhouses in Kenya, and all of the new cookhouses at the schools we worked with last summer were built with funds raised at the Feast. They work closely with Farmers Helping Farmers so we were invited to speak to them about the impact of the cookhouses on the school lunch programs.

The presentation went well! At the end of each presentation we always talk about our Apron Project and we brought the aprons with us incase anyone wanted to buy one. We only had about 25 of the 96 left, but we wanted to get them sold so we can donate the money to Farmers Helping Farmers asap. A Farmers Helping Farmers crew is heading to Kenya this coming Thursday to purchase water tanks based on the funds raised during the Christmas campagne, so we were planning on just writing the check and spending our own money until we could reimburse ourselves by selling the remaining aprons.

Before we could even finish explaining the project, one of the committee members just says "we'll buy them all". I wasn't expecting that!! So the Village Feast Team has purchased the remaining 25 aprons to give to donors and to sell at next summer's village feast!

So after our presentation we presented Farmers Helping Farmers with a cheque for $ 1420 dollars, which will buy 5 water tanks for the new members of the Muchui Women's Group!!

As we were wrapping up our presentation, who just strolls into the room apologizing for being later? No other than Michael Smith! I knew he helped out with the Souris Feast but I didn't realize he was on the committee. Of course Jen decides it's necessary to inform him that I won his Scholarship this year, so he congratulated me and I thanked him and blah blah blah and then the photographer decided that we needed to take tons of pictures together. Not that I'm not happy to have pictures of me and the Chef, and it was great being introduced to him and having him be interested in the work we did and asking us lots of questions, but I felt like a lame super fan. I know he gets it a lot but I'm sure he gets sick of it.

All in all a pretty stellar day! Pictures will follow soon I hope!

Christmas 2010

I'm back in PEI gearing up for my last semester of my undergraduate degree after a fabulous 3 weeks at home. I was less than enthusiastic to come back and get back to the grind but knowing it's the last time I'll have to do so for a while was a motivating factor. It feels like I never left even though my trip home was definitely eventful.

My first week in Mississauga was awesome; baking parties, seeing friends I haven't seen in way too long, training with the canoe club and spending quality time with the fam jam. Couldn't get much better! The week that followed was almost the complete opposite. Tuesday, Alex and I had all 4 of our wisdom teeth taken out which wasn't nearly as bad as I was anticipating.

Wednesday, I passed out in my kitchen and, according to my mom who luckily happened to be there to catch me, I seized and was unconscious for about 40 seconds - 1 minute. I was taken to the hospital and stayed over night for observation, and then I was transfered to the hospital where my cardiologist and the HCM specialist is. After a second night in the hospital, it was recommended that I get an Implantable Cardioverter-Defibrillator given my family history and the genetic mutation responsible for HCM. I was really lucky because the staff at the hospital were unreal and let me go home for Christmas eve and then somehow got me close to the top of the list for surgeries. I had the device implanted at about noon on Christmas Day and was home by 7pm the same day. My family post-poned Christmas dinner to Boxing day so I still got a giant turkey dinner and stuffing and pie and mississippi mud and all the Parkes family Christmas essentials.

I was awake for the procedure. They gave me a sedative and a local anesthetic and threw a blanket over my head so I couldn't see anything. I think I spent the 45 minutes it took dosing on and off but I could feel the surgeon tugging and pulling and testing the device and then stitching me up. Having the device tested was the weirdest feeling ever. I could hear the surgeon tell the tech a bunch of numbers and next thing I know my heart rate is going through the roof! The surgery went well though and the recovery wasn't all that bad. My last week at home was consumed mostly with lazing around which I like to think can be considered "recovering".

I'm not quite sure how I feel about having the defibrillator yet. I'm not sure it's sunk in entirely yet. Already I can tell that I am going to lose, at least initially, quite a bit of the range of motion in my left shoulder. The device still feels like a foreign body in my shoulder, which it is, but I'm hoping that I'll get used to it and it won't feel so obviously bulky and huge all the time. I'm also hoping that my scar isn't noticeable once it heals, as it's right under my collarbone and quite visible in most clothes. I'm not allowed to do much with my left arm for the next month, but once I'm allowed to train again, I'll get a better feel for how inhibiting it is. Until then I'm planning on going to physiotherapy to make sure that I am doing all I can to ensure that my shoulder doesn't get too messed up and that I don't hurt myself when I get back into the pool and the weight room and back to training 3 weeks from now. I have a feeling it's going to be a longer process getting back to where I was pre-surgery than I originally thought it would be, but I suppose only time will tell.

Wonderful Weather for a Sleigh Ride Together

I'm back home in Mississauga after a whirlwind voyage home that consisted of:

A delightful dinner at Pizza Delight with Alex and my Grandparents
A night in Sackville watching a Man Versus Food Marathon
A 12 hour solo drive from New Brunswick to Ottawa
A fabulous weekend in Ottawa to visit Geoff, experience TJ's famous Vitamix ice cream and to see him and Lauren and their new place downtown
And then finally the 5 hour drive home.

Being home is lovely after being away so long. Unfortunately, no one else is home yet so I've been a tad bored out of my mind here. Since I got home on Monday night I've finished the 3rd season of True Blood (I had seen the first 4 episodes already), finished my Christmas shopping (and bought way to much!) and put up the Christmas tree and all the household decorations except for those in the elusive missing box. My sister and Geoff get home tomorrow which is super exciting since it means I'll have friends again!

I've also been training with the Mississauga Canoe Club which has been really really fun! I've missed that place! Tonight we did a 6 km run test. I had butterflies all day just thinking about it! I haven't done much running at all. A treadmill run here or there but that's about it since early June before I left for Kenya. And even then, I was running 6 km pretty consistently but without a watch and not trying very hard. Just running to run and enjoy it (at least TRY to enjoy it!) Anyways, I was really nervous for this run, even though it wasn't really even testing for me, no one cares how fast I can run 6km except for myself. All the other girls running happen to be in high school still, and are kids I coached back when I was in high school myself. I decided that it would be embarrassing if any of them beat me even though they actually train twice a day and have been running consistently since the fall. So I ran, and I ran hard, and I really really hurt when I finished. My time wasn't a personal best or even all that close to one, but I finished in 27 minutes and 55 seconds, ahead of all the other girls. It's a little bit pathetic that beating these high school kids concerns me, but in the end I got a run with a good effort out of it so it's all good I suppose.

Way back in the fall, my professor who accompanied us to Kenya found out about a new internationalization initiative that UPEI was working on. The school accepted applications for projects that would enhance the internationalization of the campus, and in turn, the winning applications would receive funding for the completion of these projects. My prof submitted an application to have Christina and I return to Kenya for three weeks in May with herself and the new nutrition students who would be spending the whole summer in Kenya, continuing the work on our research and projects we did last summer. we found on the the weekend that we were selected to receive funding!!!!

So I will be returning to Kenya in May for three whole weeks. I could not be happier! I want to live in Kenya forever, but getting a entirely funded three week trip is better than nothing and I am certainly not complaining. No details have been arranged yet, but our job while we are there is to help with the orientation of the new students, introduce them to our contacts, teach them what we learned last year and to help them adjust to life in Kenya.

I knew I would eventually get back to Kenya, I love it to much to think that I'd never be back, but I never thought I would I get a chance to go back to the exact same place and reconnect with the amazing people we met and worked with there. Not to mention we now get to go back and check up on all the schools to ensure they are working towards the goals we set with them and to talk with the community to see how our recommendations are being implemented.

We're actually going to get a white Christmas this year! It's been pleasantly snowing for the last few days so I'm loving life!

Exam Superstitions

The only problem with starting every day with advent calendar chocolate is that nothing tastes quite as good as the chocolate did for the rest of the day.

I've gotten really good at being distracted, distracting and at procrastinating this week. Here is a list of the best ways NOT to study!

1. Dear Blank Please Blank (Thanks a lot to Alex for showing me this gem)
2. Like a Little. UPEI's new online flirting site.
3. Nutrition Blog Network and the UPEI Twitter site. I've linked to these before, but I am addicted to it.
4. Facebook. No list would be complete without it!
5. E-mail. Obviously this needs to be checked every 3 minutes in case something really important has happened.
6. Youtube.
7.Cake Wrecks.
8. Any one of Perez Hilton's many sites....fitperez, cocoperez, perezhilton etc
9. Eating and cooking....mostly eating
10. Christmas music dance parties

I'm wondering how common it is for students to have superstitions going into exams. Lucky charms, lucky underwear, not shaving..etc. Bingo is a prime example, and not all that far from an exam atmosphere. You have people sitting at orderly tables filling a large room. Everyone is really concentrating on their own papers in front of them, you get yelled at if you're loud, there is always that one person coughing or sniffling the whole time and who is conveniently seated beside you every time, and you always leave feeling like you had just wasted your time and money since you didn't win anything (or do well on the exam). Bingo go-ers always have favorite dabbers, trolls and various ornaments covering their tables for good luck. I wonder what would happen if I walking into my exam, sat down and promptly began arranging a myriad of items out in front of me for good luck.

I don't have any lucky charms, but I do have this irrational thought that if I happen to use the same pen for all my studying, then maybe perhaps if I write my exam with that same pen, it will remember answers for me, or spark some visualization of me writing my notes with that pen and as a result remind me of the answers. I don't actually believe this enough to freak out if I can't use the same pen for my exam as I did for studying, but I do make a conscious decision to use said pen if I have it in my bag. I am currently using a black, blue inked pen that I sniped from a Delta hotel at some point in the last year. Nothing fancy, but for some reason my writing is a lot nicer when I use it.

I should have added blogging to the above list of ways to procrastinate hours before an exam....
wish me luck!

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

Last Friday I went to a hot yoga class at Moksha. I can't remember if it was 60 or 75 minutes, but it was no different then any of the other classes at Moksha that I've done. The exception of course, is that I absolutely and completely sucked at this class. I had no balance, I couldn't hold the poses, I could barely even do savasana right. My brain wouldn't stop jabbering away and reminding my muscles how tired they were. Needless to say, I left class grumpy and much less relaxed then when I went in, which is precisely the opposite reason I like yoga.

The next day, taking advantage of the last Saturday of my 15 day pass at Dynamic, I went to an 8am spin class followed by a 10am hot yoga. I got myself all ramped up for class convinced that I would make up for my horrible class the day before by being a yogi extraordinaire. Turns out it was even worse than the day before. I sucked even more. I continued to get more and more rattled with every pose I couldn't do until I was sprinting out of the class at the end of the 60 minutes and stomping up the stairs in anger dragging my yoga mat behind me.

That is when I decided to break up with yoga. If yoga is supposed to make you relaxed and positive and happy, then why am I suffering just for the sake of doing it? At the beginning, by the end of class I felt taller and leaner and optimistic and productive and happy and relaxed and lighter and better than I had going into class. As far as I am concerned, I have enough to stress about already, I don't need to add yoga to that list. So I stashed my mat in my trunk and tried to forget all about our brief love affair.

Well, breaking up is hard. As hard as I tried to forget about it, there was this nagging at the back of my brain all week telling me I should be in class, or at the very least, look at the schedule to pick a class to go to later in the week. After a full 6 days of internal torment for simply giving up after 2 bad classes, I sucked it up, grabbed my mat and headed down to the studio yesterday afternoon. In my mind on the way there, I was telling myself that I would just take it easy this class, I could do the easier versions of each pose and just be happy to be there and relax instead of treating it like any other athletic endeavor and try really hard to be good at it. While I was swiping my card, I was told that the class got switched from a hot class to just a normal class. This made me happy because I was heading straight from yoga to the gym to meet the swim team so not being soaked in sweat before starting my 2 hour work out with the team sounded great. This yoga thing was already looking up!

After 60 minutes and about 20 poses, I remembered why I loved yoga in the first place. I actually rocked it hardcore! I did every pose better than I usually do! I guess maybe instead of a break-up, I just needed a few days off to recover from the 6 straight days of hot yoga I did last week. Either way, I'm looking forward to some solid yoga study breaks in the next week.

Cookies and Countdowns

It's officially December!!! The best part of December is waking up every morning to a mystery advent calendar chocolate. Will it be a chocolate snowman, or a chocolate Santa or a chocolate present or a chocolate nutcracker or a chocolate snowflake? The suspense is almost to much!
Every year my parents mail us advent calendars because they are the best parents ever. This years calendar is courtesy of Laura Secord and so far has been delicious!

December also means that it's exam season. I have a love hate relationship with exams. I'm not a stellar exam writer, so they normally bring my marks down which sucks, but it means no classes which is always a bonus. I get to sleep in and lounge around the house all day. In an attempt to be positive and ignore the impending hours and hours of studying followed by writing exams with sweaty palms crammed into a gymnasium with a couple hundred other students who are writing way more than you are which means they must know more than you do which makes you think you are going to flunk out of University for failing all your exams which in turn makes your brain go blank with panic, I am going to share with you a list of the 10 reasons I LOVE exam season. So here I go...

1. It's ok to wear the same outfit everyday....sweats.
2. I can finally justify cooking and baking instead of doing school work and since this is how I procrastinate, I eat VERY well during exams.
3. I get to sleep in past 6:30am on days I don't swim.
4. I can spend my whole day at Starbucks or Timothy's studying with java, and by studying I mean people watching and socializing with every person I know who comes in.
5. I learn all the cool things I should have learned throughout the semester which makes me hate the courses I chose a lot less.
6. I have time to catch up on all of the blogs I follow and celebrity gossip online.
7. Going to the gym or yoga is always a better choice than studying, so I finish exams a little fitter than I started.
8. I save money on my hot water bill because bathing takes a back seat. I can justify baking and cooking and yoga and the gym but somehow taking time to shower would just be too much time away from my text books.
9. I get to spend quality time with Earl since I'm home all day with him and study on the couch beside his tank.
10. I finally get my money's worth on the text books I paid hundreds of dollars for and never opened all semester.

Last year's Biochem cramming combined with too much coffee ended up like this:The plan for this year is to study less and cook more so it doesn't happen!

In other news the 12 days of cookies is officially underway! Here's a recap of the cookies so far:
Day 1: Paula's Chocolate Gooey Butter Cookies
Day 2: Aarti's Gingerbread Cookies
Day 3: Barefoot Contessa's Coconut Macaroons
Day 4: Anne's Cherry-Almond Biscotti

I haven't made any of them yet, but I did make a batch of Chocolate Beet Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercreme Icing. I was under the impression that they would taste more chocolate and less beet but it was actually the other way around. I LOVE beets but I know that not everyone does, and since I don't really want to (well I actually would love to, but I would love for my clothes to actually fit more..) eat the entire batch by myself, I'm not sure I would make them again. Mostly I just wanted to use my pretty blue snowflake cupcake papers and I didn't want to study. The buttercreme was a success though! My last attempt at buttercreme was a total failure and after making it yesterday I have no idea how I screwed it up.

And now back to the books...discussing the evolution of hominids from 3 million years ago to Homo erectus. Yahoo!