I'm in the blue! :D

Alright, sorry for the lack of posts lately... I've been a pretty boring individual since I finished school. All I've been doing is packing and moving...

Anyway, I was reading Healthbolt today and decided to take the vitality compass challenge - it tells you what your life expectancy is based on your current life habits. My results are as follows:

Biological age: 19.2

Life expectancy: 93.9

Healthy life expectancy: 80.9

Blue zone years: 12.2

and I could add: 4.4

Not too bad... but I could definitely do better. I went back and retook the quiz based on the hours I used to dance when I was in high school (when I was in the studio every day for about 3 hours on average). Here are the new results:

Biological age: 18.4

Life expectancy: 97.7

Healthy life expectancy: 85.2

Blue zone years: 15.9

and I could add: 2.0

I could add five years of healthy life expectancy if I can get back into a good work out/exercise routine!! Definitely something to think about....

So, take the quiz at bluezones.com and leave a comment to let me know how it goes. 

I'M DONE!!!!!!!!

DONE 

DONE  

DONE

DONE

DONE DONE

DONE

DONE

DONE

DONE AT MOUNT A FOREVER!

...that is all :)

"And your duties would be..."

On Tuesday I had a job interview for a local daycare, so the night before as I was going through my almost-nightly routine of watching an episode of Friends on sidereel.com, I decided to watch 'The one with the cooking class", seeing as Chandler goes for a job interview in the episode. At the time, I thought maybe it would be a good choice, maybe I'd get some sound advice on how to ace the interview. Here's a clip from the show...

So, the next day at the interview, the woman who is interviewing me is talking a bit about the job and what does she say? "Let's talk about what your DUTIES would be." No joke. I almost lost it. I don't think I've ever shown that much restraint in my life. As I was leaving, I almost pulled a Chandler and said "Have you ever seen that episode of Friends where Chandler goes to a job interview and starts talking about doody? You know, poo?" Seriously, the words were on the tip of my tongue. To prevent myself from letting it slip, I started rambling about the weather and how spring was on its way. Lame, I know, but at least I didn't talk to my potential future boss about poop. 

Post from England

In July & August of 2004, my mom, my grandmother and myself took a trip to England and Wales to see where my grandmother was born and raised. Tonight, mom came across this email that I sent to my dad while we were away. It made me laugh so I thought I would share: (make sure you read to the end)

Hey Daddy, 

I don't have much time because I only brought 2 pounds with me, so this may be short... but I'll type as fast as I can (bear with the typos). Today was a pretty good day, we started off with a tour of Westminster Abbey. It was pretty neat to see where all the royal stuff (coronations, weddings, funerals) take place. Plus it was where the Anglican Church started so that was pretty cool. Then we went down to Buckingham Palace to watch the  changing of the guards. T he lady that sat with me on the bus was from Scotland, I could barely understand a word she said... Anyway, so we got dropped off at Trafalgar Square (where there's a GRANITE column commemorating Lord NELSON, right beside the CANADA building). We roamed around there and Picadilly for awhile then headed over the Thames to the London Eye (it took mom some convincing to get on it). Then I found a sporting store where everything was on sale :) :) :) I ended up getting a Welch rugby jersey and a English 'football' one too. On the way home we got VERY lost on the tube and had to get a bunch of people to help us. I think one guy (prolly around 19 or 20ish) was in complete awe of how stupid we were, but he was very helpful. Then when we finally got redirected by some other man from Notting Hill he helped us out quite a bit. He ended up holding the subway doors open for us since Grammy couldn't run to catch it. 

Anyway, tonight we went to see Chicago. It was SOOOOO good. We had pretty bad seats (Second row, fat right) but it was still amazing. David Hasselhoff was in it too, mom was impressed, she said she's going to rub it in Ruth's face. (Ruth is my aunt, who apparently had a thing for Hasselhoff?!) 

I wish you had've come with us, you'd love all the architecture and the carvings, it's really quite impressive. And my fake British accent is coming along nicely too.

I haven't done too many drugs since getting here, nor have I gotten so drunk that it's taken me any more than 5 trips on the tube to get me home. (Legal age here is only 18 by the way). Mom's trying to send with off with random guys to pick up some more pounds, we're running out quickly because of all the British weed we're been smoking in hyde park after hours. Grammy says she's feeling the best she's felt in years. Oh, and while we were long on the tube a drunk man offered me a swig of what was in his brown paper bag... so I took it and ran before he could catch up with me... the more I drank the faster I seemed to run. I don't know what it was, but it was some powerful. The police actually thanked me for helping to stop the drunk bums in the subway. Also, mom's decided to let me roam free at night since I want to go clubbing and it's not quite what her and gram want to do (they'd rather hit up the pubs). 

Anyway, I best be off... I've got a taxi waiting around the corner with my liquor run for the night... 

Love, Steph xoxox

I'm actually kind of surprised my father didn't have a second heart attack after this email. I can just picture him sitting in front of the computer with a stunned look on his face, trying to figure out if I was serious or if I was kidding around. 

Last Class Bash

Today marked my last class EVER at Mount A.... it's kind of too bad I slept through it. God knows if I'll ever be back in any of the buildings on campus. It's kind of a strange feeling. I still remember my first week at Mount A, how big campus felt and how completely lost I was. Now, 5 years later, I know that campus like the back of my hand, every corner of it has some kind of memory associated with it. Like how Arran and Ash stopped to take a nap in the garden out side the chapel because their residence was too far from the pub, or how many hours I spent on the red floor of the library trying to cram information into my overworked brain. Every time I think of the biology building I'll think of the weekend I spent dissecting dead cats and sharks to study for my chordate anatomy lab exam. I smelled so much like formaldehyde by the end of that weekend that my boyfriend at the time wouldn't even hug me. Or there was the time I pranced around the stage at Con Hall in a bright pink and blue 80's bodysuit with purple leg warmers while the leads in Footloose sang "Holding out for a Hero". 

 I'm holding out for a hero til the end of the night

He's gotta be strong

And he's gotta be fast

And he's gotta be fresh from the fight....

I can still remember the terrible, tacky choreography that went along with it. Ahhhh first year. 

Tonight marks an end to these memories.... Thank God! I had a phenomenal time while I was here, I made some great friends, had some amazing memories and got a double major too. But I'm ready to move on with my life. 

Tonight I get drunk... tomorrow I decide what to do with my life... eep!

Hopefully tonight will look something like the following: 

The above video is from a few weekends ago. Derrick had a few too many triple rum & cokes and I just happened to catch it on camera. He's going to kill me when he sees that I posted the video, but I figure no one reads this anyway, so who cares? haha :) 

Essay. From the French essayer, meaning to try. 

I'm trying but I'm sure not getting anywhere. I have a 16 page paper on the treatment of bulimia due on Monday for my advanced psychopathology seminar. I've been staring at a blank screen since 1:00 this afternoon and all I've got so far is 166 words in which I regurgitate the DSM-IV TR criteria for bulimia. In those 166 words, I use the words vomit or purge 7 times. This is gonna be a great essay. 

You'd think I would have a lot to say on this topic, seeing as I wrote a paper on it last year and I just did a half hour presentation/debate on it less than two weeks ago. But no, my brain has decided it has worked too hard for the past 17 years and it wants a break. 

I'm going to eat. Hopefully I'll have a somewhat intelligent conversation with my roommate and recharge my neurons. 

(Wo)man's best friend

I've been meaning to get around to this post since I started this blog about a month ago, but I've been putting it off because I knew I'd get emotional while writing it. 

When I was in the third grade my parents got me a puppy - a dalmatian. I named her Penny, and she was my dog (my name was even on the papers). I picked her out, taught her tricks (well, I tried to teach her tricks), and let her sleep at the foot of my bed every night. (When I started university I couldn't get used to her not being in my bed so I had to sleep with a pillow on my feet to make it seem like she was there). I still remember the day we went and picked her out, it was 14 years ago and I still remember every minute of it - Nov. 11/1993.

 I was so proud of my dog, I even brought her in for show and tell in the fifth grade. When she would get out of the house, I would run after her and chase her around the neighborhood until I had her back safe in my arms. One day I even chased her barefoot over the cedar shavings they were using to make some trails behind my house - I had splinters in my feet for days, but my Penny was safe. 

When I went away for my first year of university, Penny wasn't doing good. She had a condition that caused her to "reverse sneeze", and you could tell her age was catching up with her. We took her to the University of PEI veterinary hospital to get some tests done and they told us she had about 6 months to live. Four years later she was still alive. 

While I was away in New Orleans, however, I found out that my parents had made the decision to put Penny down. They did it on the 29th of February (it was the Friday, the day I was leaving for New Orleans) and I didn't find out until March 6th. My parents were leaving for China and I asked who was taking care of Penny while we were all away, that's when dad told me. I was on a bus heading to downtown New Orleans where we were going out as a group (all 39 of us) and my parents were at the airport about to board their flight. At one point, I was in the bathroom of the bus and mom was in the bathroom at the airport, both of us crying. 

I knew it was coming, she'd been sick for a long time and my parents had been hinting at it. But I didn't want to accept it. The worst part was that I had no say in the decision and I was the last one to find out. I know it would have been hard to watch the vet give her the injection, but at least I could have been there comforting her, give her one last pat on the head, rub her ears and tell her she's a good girl. 

I don't know why this is hitting me so hard tonight. Maybe it's because I finally have a chance to breathe, or maybe it's because I haven't wanted to deal with it. All I know is that tonight I'm really missing my puppy. 

Penny was a wonderful dog. She had her faults yes, she didn't like other dogs and she barked pretty much incessantly, but she loved her family. She did the funniest things, when she would stand at the gate and whine it sounded like she was saying "moooommmmmm". When she was a puppy (and before we put the island in the middle of the kitchen), she would run and slide on her belly on the newly washed floors. In the backyard, she would run laps in one direction then stop and start running in the opposite direction - she'd do this for hours if we let her. If she didn't get her morning bread and peanut butter with mom, she was not a happy camper. 

We read somewhere once that it's nice for dogs to have a stuffed animal that is theirs, so we went out and bought Penny a stuffed Simba (from the lion king).  One day, we had to run out and do some errands, so we left Penny and Simba together in the kennel to cuddle. When we got home it looked like there'd been a blizzard in the crate. Penny had destroyed poor Simba and the stuffing was EVERYWHERE. For years after, we kept finding little squares of Simba's fur that Penny had been keeping and playing with. That was her first, and only, stuffed animal. 

Oh Penny... always good at cheering me up. 

I didn't realize how much I would miss her, especially where I'm not home that much anymore. I just have to keep telling myself, she's no longer in any pain and she's running laps all over heaven. She's keeping Grammy Holloway, Loris and Andrew company too. 

Miss you Penny, Love you. 

(I'll add some puppy pictures when I get a chance to scan them in)

AWOL no more

My apologies for not updating over the past few weeks, it's that time of year again. You know, that time of the year when university students across the country regress to the mental age of a preschooler. Panic attacks become a common occurrence, naps are a necessity and day dreams of spring and summer make studying Markov Processes and B. F. Skinner close to impossible. Over the past two weeks I think I've learned more about all-inclusive prices to Cuba than I have about the history of psychology. Today marked an exciting step for me though, after I finished my midterm this morning, I realized I only have three things standing between me and graduation. Count them: one, two, three! THREE!!! 

1) 16 page paper on the effectiveness of treatment for bulimia nervosa - due April 7. 

2) 10 page biography on Stanley Milgram - due April 10. 

3) 3-hour finite mathematics final - on April 19, 7-10pm. 

At 10pm on April 19th I will be done with Mount Allison, and done with the town that time forgot (also known as Sackville). 

I've been dreaming of this moment for five years now. I always hoped I'd be off to Europe after graduation, but reality has set in, and the finances aren't there, so now I'm thinking I'm going to organize the stuff I've accumulated over the past 22 years, sell whatever I don't want and get rid of whatever doesn't sell, start a savings account, get a job and maybe, if I'm really daring, start an herb garden. Exciting, I know. 

Honestly though, I'm really looking forward to starting the next chapter of my life. I've enjoyed my time here at Mount A. I've met the most amazing people. I've learned a ton about life and I guess I've learned a thing or two about biology and psychology too. Mind you, I still have no idea what I want to do with my life. That's something they should tell you when you graduate high school: going to university only postpones the "what do you want to be when you grow up" decision. Back in the days when I was young and naive I thought that university held all the answers. Now, five years later, I'm hoping that maybe grad school will have them? 

Well, I'm off for a nap, then it's back to the lib.