I concede defeat

Eating a salmon sandwich...don't care. Knowledge is power, but it also makes you paranoid.

Yesterday I wore my fleece pants out in public. I think it's official...I may have (dare I say it) started to feel the laid-back west coast attitude. Was a bit strange wearing my comfy/around-the-house/pyjama pants in Starbucks, but damn was I ever comfortable.

The taste of saltwater

It has been an eventful week.

Monday, I had my first presentation/assignment due. Went pretty well I think. Bit embarassing though when my phone started ringing during someone else's presentation. Oops, bad timing leaving my phone on.

On Tuesday I went out to New Westminster to take a tour of Scott Paper. It was super. I'll never look at a roll of toilet paper the same again. New West is a bit sketch, however.

Wednesday, I was rather depressed after learning that the organochlorine concentration in farmed salmon is so high as to warrant a maximum of 1 meal of salmon per month. Luckily out here, I have access to wild salmon which has less organochlorines. I'm laughing now!

Thursday before class, my friend Prabjit and I went out scouting a location for our major project. We have to find a workplace with at least 3 occupational hazards, monitor them and find a way to control them. As we had decided to do a dry cleaner we trekked all over the West side looking for an accomodating yet less than compliant dry cleaner. I was amazed at the range in friendliness of people. While some people invited us back for a tour, others shot us down pretty much as soon as we opened our mouths. I was really starting to lose faith in humanity. In the end we found a nice dry cleaner in Dunbar (I think) that will let us do our sampling. I also got to visit some cool stores, an awesome bulk food store, a Chinese pastry shop that was selling these teeny tiny moon cakes, and a used book store stuffed to the gills...nice. I found three treasures at this store: 1. "The Taoist Cookbook", vegetarian recipes interspersed with Taoist meditations. 2. Emile Zola's Pot-Bouille and 3. "Don't Mess with Texans", a Harlequin romance, a gift for my roomate, Jenn (the Texan).

Most of the weekend I have spent studying...fun times.

SOEH is competing in Day of the Longboat, a paddling tournament for UBC students and staff. We had our first (and only) practice this morning before the tournament next weekend. For those of you that don't know, a longboat is like a big canoe. It holds about 10 people. Fun times, for sure. So, I got to play around on the beach today, sprayed by the cold salty sea water, sand between my toes. A good day. I'm finding it hard to get my study on this afternoon. That, and Father of the Bride is on the TBS Superstation.

Miss you all very very much. Sometimes I get a bit lonely out here, so don't hesitate to call. I'll try not to leave it on during inopportune moments.

Garibaldi Lake - group.JPG

Garibaldi Lake - group.JPG
Originally uploaded by Jadine.

Garibaldi Lake - my first weekend in Vancouver, a couple of us SOEH people went for a Sunday hike. Made me feel very out of shape.

Some good things about Vancouver

It seems as though my brother has gotten a bit snippy. So here I shall mention a few nice things that I have noticed about Vancouver:

There are lots of trees. And not just in Stanley Park...ALL OVER THE CITY! It's especially refreshing to see them on campus. Instead of the grid-like grouping of buildings that UofT calls a campus, UBC has gardens and fountains and little paths that lead through trees to buildings. Some of the buildings are lovely and old. Others...well...kind of like New College.

People here are very sporty. Always lots of people biking, rain or shine. And big packs of them. It seems like being part of a riding club is a big thing around here. SOEH has one, but I don't have a bike...yet. Very few people blading though, guess the hills are too much of a challenge.

Mountains are majestic and really add a point of interest to the sky. From the park by my house there is a lovely view of the bay (still don't know it's name), the mountains, Stanley park and the downtown skyscrapers. Can't see views like that in Toronto, unless you climb up onto a roof or work in the TD-tower on the 49th floor...and even then...no mountains.

The beach. I haven't been yet. But you can actually swim in the water here and you won't come out covered in toxic sludge. How nice...The beach also provides a refuge for drunken university students to go skinny-dipping at the end of a wild night. I haven't done this myself (yet) but I've heard of it being done.

Drinks are cheap! I thought that the $4.70 Martini Monday on the Marche patio was a good deal. Here they are $3.95.

7% PST...ok, so they aren't Alberta...but Alberta is just special.

Soft water. As Cousin Penny pointed out to me when she picked me up from the airport (and it's worked) you only need a teeny drop of shampoo to get a good lather. We're talking the size of a penny (the coin not the person).

As for Dad's theory about people being nicer out here...that's still up in the air. There isn't anyone I dislike yet...but it's only been 2 weeks.

That's a pretty healthy list of good things, eh? Now you should all come out to BC. All the cool kids are doing it. Do it. Dooooo it! (Said with my best Starsky and Hutch impression)

Game, set, match - What a productive day!

This blogging is really quite fun. I have been thinking all day about what I would write.

One reader of the blog has suggested that next time I cook my corn I should do it by steaming it in a wok, over a grill...hmm...sounds great! Now...if only I had a wok, and a grill for that matter. Seriously though, I only have 4 pots/pans. One giant pot, one little pot, one little frying pan and one large frying pan. And this last one i only acquired last weekend at a church rummage sale. (it was only a dollar!) For those of you who know how much I like to cook, and the vast array of cooking gear that I have grown accustomed to, you will know how difficult this is for me. The good news is, that I now have food.

Funny thing about Vancouver: no one here wakes up on a weekend before 9 and nothing is open before 10. Heck, the library doesn't even open until noon. Is it possible that this "laid-back west coast attitude" that I have been hearing about is really just a synonym for "laziness". I feel like a bit of a freak, what with my habits of staying up late and getting up early. My 7-hour sleeping schedule is going very well and i'm even thinking of paring it down to 6 1/2. The buses stop at midnight except on the weekends. What if I want to go out on a Wednesday? Annoying.

Ah yes, so today. I went and did my aforementionned grocery shopping. I am always discovering new things that I'm missing (usually after I've left the grocery store to come home). Like flour. Still don't have flour. I have resigned myself to shopping at the Safeway. After a little scolding from Melissa about how BAD the Superstore is to the environment and how environmentally FRIENDLY Safeway is, I now do most of my shopping there expensive as it is. And it's closer. Superstore is FAR. Still waiting for the frozen juice prices to come down.

Meeting with some classmates about a project and oral presentation that we have due tomorrow. Finally finished. I used to really like looking for journal articles on Medline and PubMed. Now I hate it.

We are going on a field trip (!) to Scott Paper on Tuesday for a tour of the facilities so I read up about the pulp and paper industry.

And I went to see a movie, Wimbledon starring Kirsten Dunst (Erin's favourite actress...hehe) and Paul Bettany (he's so lovely). Pretty good. A little cheezy, but that was expected due to the presence of Dunst. The tennis scenes were well done. Made me wanna go smack the ball around, just like the good ol days at the Rosedale Tennis Club. Except, I wasn't that good. The romantic scenes just made me feel lonely and frustrated.

My bed is lookin' pretty good right about now.

Vancouver - Harbour.JPG

Vancouver - Harbour.JPG
Originally uploaded by Jadine.

Isn't it lovely when it's sunny?

It may be wet, but boy do they have good corn!

So, I'm in Vancouver now.

I think that most of you know this fact already. But how many of you know WHY I'm here? While some of you may think that I'm here to find a city-lovin', outdoorsy-wanna-be, gourmand hunk, that would not be the reason (well, not the ENTIRE reason). In fact i'm here in the pursuit of higher education...The name of the program is Occupational and Environmental Hygiene. That's a lot of words, I know. Which explains why we call ourselves SOEH (School of...). What is Occupational and Environmental Hygiene? Well, it's a discipline involved in the RECOGNITION, EVALUATION and CONTROL of occupational (workplace) and environmental (community) hazards, be they biological, chemical or physical in nature. Ooohh...fun stuff.

The reason why I'm starting this blog is so that I can keep in touch with you without cluttering up your Inboxes with my long mass emails. Some of you I know really like my updates, but some...probably not so much...I recognize this, I understand this. So, perhaps you will only need to tune into my life on a monthly basis and hey...that's cool. I don't know how much time I will have to write anyway. The aforementionned SOEH is keeping me tres tres busy. Apparently, one cannot become a Master of Science (insert evil laugh here) without first putting in a little effort.

One of the things that has been keeping me rather busy these days is the invention of my thesis proposal. I say "invention" because I'm not actually going to do it. But the scholarship awarding committees do not know this (I hope they are not listening). Anywho, I am writing about the testing of ginseng for the presence of contaminants (like pesticides). Neat stuff. I don't really have a clue what I'm talking about..."they" don't know that either.

Another thing that has me rather annoyed is the rain. You will hear me discuss the rain alot in this blog...I have learned some new rain vocab, and I actually saw an icon that I had never seen before on the Weather Network the other day. It was of a cloud with these diagonal lines coming out of it. Apparently this means drizzle. Drizzle is this really light rain that is really not worth getting the umbrella out for. Oh yes, and I've bought an umbrella. It's small, light and silver with a blue lining. It should last me until December when I can go home and grab the one that UK and AP bought me. One Vancouverite warned me that these "small, light" umbrellas were also more flimsy, so it's good that i have a back up. It also fits quite nicely into the side pocket of my new red Roots bag. (Another lovely gift...thanks Jimmy!)

Mixed bag of things that have happened to me in the last couple of days:

- ate some Chilliwack corn and it was darned good. I made a variation on Dad's "Hot Pepper Corn" which I believe a few of you have tried and that was pretty tasty. The other two cobs I ate au naturel. Without MR to grill them up for me though, I had to make them in the microwave. (I can see him shaking his head in disgust as he reads this...the horror!)

- lost one of my contacts while rollerblading yesterday. Not cool. I've dropped them before and I always seem to find them. But this time there was dirt and rocks, and I looked and looked. That'll teach me to rollerblade on dirt and rocks. Perhaps I should start investing in disposable lenses...

- my spicerack broke. Well, it actually broke during the move and was precariously balanced on the counter, and yesterday it just tumbled. Now I have a spice drawer. But sadly no food to put spices on. Man I wish I had time for grocery shopping.