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.