Procrasti-city

Who would have thought that at 27, I'd still be procrastinating from school work? I have an impressive ability to wake up at a reasonable hour* (ok, this didn't happen today), and piss away the day until dinner without having done any actual work. Oh I find plenty of interesting stuff to read - the New York Times puts up new content fequently throughout the day and damn it makes me feel all smart n' stuff. I learn about new music, look at LOLcats (yes I sink that low, please don't judge), but when it comes to actual work,at times I have the attention span of a flea.

This isn't to say that I never get work done or that I never get some quality *on-topic* learning done, I just don't really have much control over when that happens. I also make up for days like today with days where I am up and at lecture/in tutorial/nose in a journal article from 8am to midnight. So maybe days like today are actually making up for those days?

Main point: thank you to my blogging friends, writers at the New York Times, and the LOLcats for helping me out.

* related to waking up at reasonable hours... yesterday I found what I thought would be the perfect 'wake-up-get-going-enjoy-yourself' song, one that would kick in hard immediately and not make me hit the snooze (FYI I'm talking about Contantines, something from Kensington Heights). EVEN THAT FAILED.

<3

Wedding... where do I begin? It all happened so quickly, and so perfectly that it already feels like a dream. I remember various people warning me about how everyone hits the point where they just can't and don't want to smile anymore. I never got tired of smiling, I was so happy. I still am (even though I've been wrenched away from dream-land, landing back in school-land).


I approached this whole wedding business with a "float on" attitude - don't worry, because everything will eventually fall into place. While this may have puzzled some, and stressed out others, it was exactly what happened - thanks to everyone helping out in big and small ways. I mentioned this several times at the wedding, but the whole thing really was built on the love and talents of our friends and family. I feel like so many people made the most beautiful contributions, and the result was a night that many have described to Mark and I as an amazing event (some going as far as to call it the Best Wedding Ever!).

A few photos have started to trickle in, and I get so excited seeing every batch. I can't wait to show all the amazing little details... Matt's cake-topper, Gary's speech, Missy's cake box, other Matt's posters, Basia's songs, John's awesome MC-ing, Roche's photos (I am dying for those but am going to try my very hardest to be patient!) and my best friends' book, created for me, and so many other things! Between these and all the hard work going on behind the scenes by my mom, dad, Sharon, Paula, Megan, Seema and Maggie, it turned out to be an amazing party and the perfect wedding for Mark and I.

My main feeling right now is one of supreme luck. I'm always afraid to jinx this incredible luck that seems to stick with me, but I have to express it here. I'm SO lucky to have such a wonderful family, beautiful friends, and most of all, the most loving, thoughtful husband that I ever could have imagined.



Hopefully being incredibly thankful will counteract any jinxing. Here are few thanks, out of many!

Thank you to my parents who have welcomed Mark with open arms, and given me all the love and support a daughter could ever hope for.



Thank you to my new family - Maria, Ed, and Matt, along with all of the family in Poland. You've given me so much love already, and produced such a great dude.



To Paula: thank you for being beautiful, kind and graceful. You knew what needed to be done, and did it! You helped keep me on track, and were there for me when I was feeling stressed. You've ALWAYS been there for me, no matter what is going on in your life, and I am lucky to have you in my life.

To Sharon: thank you for being a wonderful role model. You make family life look so appealing! I love that despite all of the difficulties you face, you remain so loyal, funny, warm, and determined.

To Seema: What unbelievable grace and love. Everyone who meets you senses how loving and caring you are, and I'm so lucky to have you in my life.

To Maggie: Thank you for beeing so deep and so lighthearted. You are always willing to celebrate, and always willing to comfort. Most of all, thanks for coming to the wedding even though it meant missing the Chargers game!

To Megan: DUDE. Thank you for traveling across an ocean to be part of this. Thank you for making me laugh, and for helping me chill out when I got nervous and stressed about all the little last-minute details.

And Mark... wow. I am so, so lucky to have married that man. He worked so hard on making the wedding something that we would love, and it happened. I can't believe how amazing it feels to be able to call him my husband.

So thank all of you, including the many people I have yet to thank explicitly, for your love and congratulations. I'm so grateful for this life.

Ack! We are kinda almost adults now!

Wow... less than one month until the wedding! There is still so much left to do (and hopefully most of it will be done this weekend), but one month from now, all of this craziness will be over.

In other "Jen'n'Mark are no longer big kids just playing house" news, we own a car. I guess technically, Mark is the one with the name on the ownership papers, but we both paid for it. We managed to hold out for one that suits us as much as possible (no, it is not just a bike with really awesome gears) - a 2004 Toyota Echo. Super fuel efficient, TINY, and... manual transmission. Neither of us drive stick. BUT with R's endless patience, and dad's regular patience, we are learning! We managed to take it around a few blocks near our house today, stalling it not too often, and only pissing off a handful of other drivers around us. R suggested getting some sort of sign for the back window asking people to please be patient because we are learning stick, and also to PLEASE NOT STOP TOO CLOSE TO OUR BUMPER.

Here is a picture of a car just like ours!



Soon, we will be able to drive it everywhere, and not just 1-5 blocks from our house :)

WOOOOO

Young Lions

I'm sorry. It is silly of me to not post for a month and then do a non-post, but this meme is fun and i haven't written about music in a while. Fill it out yourself if you feel like doing a mad-lib with no worries about saying an adjective when you mean to say a verb.

1.Put your iTunes on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS!
4. Tag 10 friends who might enjoy doing the meme as well as the person you got the meme from.

IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY
Girl (built to spill)

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
Pure Evil (P:ano - haha this one is great)

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A BOY/GIRL?
SSleep (azure ray)

HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
Windsurfing nation (broken social scene)

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
Hold Hands and Fight (The Rosebuds) - wow this thing is good!

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
Sleeping diagonally (Iron and wine)

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
Empty Shell (Cat Power - wow dudes that is HARSH!)

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Redford (Sufjan Stevens - this is NOT TRUE)

WHAT IS 2+2?
Jigsaw Falling into Place (Radiohead)

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
When we go, how we go. (Rock Plaza Central)

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Listen to the Math (Tokyo Police Club; and he is writing a book about math!)

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
All I have to Do is Dream (The Dandy Warhols, stubbs the zombie soundtrack)

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Pressed in a Book (The Shins)

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
Lanterns (Microphones)

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
Jackie, dressed in Cobras (New pornos)

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
A Visit from Drum

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
Asleep. (The Smiths)

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
Fine Young Cannibals (Wolf Parade)

WHAT'S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?
They are night zombies! (Sufjan Stevens - haha good call itunes)

HOW WILL YOU DIE?
Les Os (Unicorns; does that mean BEARS?!?!?! AHHH! Never mind, it just means bones)

WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?
Hart Crane (the anniversary)

WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?
Sun Spots (No Age)

WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?
Nude (Radiohead)

WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?
These are the Fables (New Pornos)

WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST?
Think (James Brown)

DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?
Recording a Tunnel (Bell Orchestre)

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
Reconstruction Site (The Weakerthans)

WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?
Steps and Numbers (appleseed cast)

WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
Young Lions (Constantines)

Coffee Culture

Those who know me tend to think I am somewhat of a coffee snob - although in my head I usually disagree. I think that I know far less about good coffee than an actual 'snob' would - I just happen to like it a lot. Yesterday, however, I truly felt like a snob. Mark and I decided to go check out the new coffee shop in St. Catharines, Coffee culture, because it is in a beautiful building, the premise sounded good, and I needed a place for caffeinated studying (my living room doesn't cut it sometimes).

WOW does that place ever suck. I was so impressed walking in (it is a beautiful looking place) - and then had to wait 10 minutes for my turn to order, not because they were busy, but because the two employees had to both ring in the orders, make the food/drinks, bring them out to tables rather than have one person on cash and the other making the food. Perhaps I am too used to other coffee shops? The set up was just really, really illogical. And yes, I know that sometimes in life you have to wait, especially for deliciousness - so I was hoping that my eventual coffee would be delicious!

... And it wasn't! After seeing an automatic espresso machine (=push a button, get a latte), Mark and I both decided to just get the organic, fair trade drip coffee. This turned out to be a pretty bad idea. Does anyone remember when fair trade coffee first entered the market? It was terrible. People who felt too guilty to drink regular coffee were the only ones drinking it, because if taste buds entered the equation at all, there was no way a coffee drinker would touch that stuff. Since then, fair trade coffees have come a long way and are as good, and usually better than most coffees, thanks to a big fancy coffee/know your farmer movement. I think coffee culture has managed to find the last remaining bags of the old, hideous stuff. Our coffees tasted like they had been sitting out in a dirty pot for about 6 hours.

If someone in St. Catharines starts up a good coffee shop, I swear that I will keep it afloat.

PS - my living room is looking better - Mark just made me a brownie latte!

Hi

Cars:
I. HATE. CARS. I was stuck in traffic for two hours yesterday, on what should have been a 35 minute trip. I basically missed my tutorial as a result. That sucks! Also, last week I got a flat! It was really scary because it sounded like it was my engine (I obviously know nothing about cars), but after waiting nearly two hours on the side of the highway, I was helped by some of the world's nicest tow truck people, and super-awesome people at the Wal-Mart mechanic shop. YEP I actually like Wal-Mart (well, the employees at least) for something.

Life:
I am getting lazy. I have not exercised more than walking for quite a while. This is not good. Hopefully when school stuff gets switched to St. Catharines, I'll be able to use at least some of the current 10 commuting hours/week to keep my body healthy.

Friends:
-Nothing! I didn't even get to talk to P on her birthday, although messages were left :) I have not seen friends in a really long time! Well, except for school friends, and Gina who happened to be in town last weekend! Next weekend might contain a Jaime!

Wedding(!):
-My dress is in! And it fits! It may need some minor, minor alterations but it seems like all is well on that front!
-Basia is confirmed! This is beyond exciting and I'm so happy that she will be at the wedding. Mark and I are so lucky to have such talented friends. It is helping turn what could be a pretty stereotypical wedding into something very true to us.
-We have a few more big items on our list (like catering/invites/cake/dj) but hopefully, they will have nice little check marks next to them by this time next week. OK - that is a lie. There is no actual physical list, because Mark and I are not organized people. There is a cloud of stuff that gets remembered every once in a while by my head, so that cloud will have more little lines through it?

Harvest time

I wish that my camera was working so that I could show all of the beautiful produce Mark brought home. One of the surprising upsides of the terrible market for teachers in St. Catharines has been his job at an organic farm just outside of town. He's been working insane hours this week - >12 hours on market days - but he's been liking it. Yesterday, he went with his boss to the Dufferin Grove Farmers market. This was the market just up the street from us when we lived in Toronto, and it was full of amazing produce and organic products (and the most delicious bread I've ever had in my life) year round. The summer season is just wrapping up at the market, and Mark's farm will only be going there for one more week (so stop by next Thursday and say hi to Mark!). Too bad, because look what he brought home last night: peaches, plums, grapes (green and red), onions, garlic, a squash (possibly a small melon?), potatoes, peppers and MY BREAD. MMMMM. I just had a sandwich with it, complemented by TWO lattes, and I'm in heaven.

I shouldn't complain too much, this is what we have now, lining the streets in easy biking distance:



Sadness: Mmmmmegs flew off to France last night. Canada is now Megsless. That is a very sad thought, but I am happy for the French. Have fun and come home soon, lady!

New post up...

Here: http://jengoestomedschool.blogspot.com/

Summer!

Wow, I'm getting bad at this. It's been a full month, and so much has happened. I quit BOTH of my jobs (although SB managed to give me an extra two weeks of perks, hooray), Mark and I took a pseudo-honeymoon, since we won't have one when we're actually married, and I've officially moved out of Toronto. Major events: Seema had her baby Maya, who is so beautiful. Sharon is about a week away from having a new Wyatt and two weeks away from going back to law school to finish her degree (if it isn't done in a completely crazy way, it's not worth doing - Sharon, you'd better write a book about your life some day!!). Paula has defended her thesis (complaining that it was too easy, my friends are brilliant), and is moving back to London to start a PhD. Megan has written her novel (it can now be named!), defended it, and is moving to France(!!!) to teach/be inspired. Maggie has written her thesis, and will be starting her PhD in the Fall with one of Canada's biggest scholarships. Not sure if I've mentioned it here before, but I've certainly thought it many times - had I not gotten back into school, I'd be the least accomplished of my friends - as it is, we all have to keep going on and getting more accomplishments to keep up with one another.

The last month has been pretty great - I've been able to be a little bit lazy, I've gotten a lot of things done, and Mark and finally traveled a big summer music festival. He planned a big trip out of it, with a stop in Montreal, a farm party in Vermont, camping in Cape Cod, and finally, All Points West festival and NYC. The vacation was great - just what I needed after working so much for the past 7 months (although, after the trip, I don't have much in the bank to show for those months!). Here are some photos:











We're now living in St. Catharines, so be sure to look us up durng trips to wine country. Mark and I biked to the Lake yesterday, and a river, and very near to some excellent wineries. We went swimming! And all of this is so close to our new home, which is much bigger and cheaper than our place in Toronto (guest room!) yet still manages to be pretty cute.

Also, Orientation week is next week. More on that (and med school) will be found HERE.

In less than a month, I'll be leaving Toronto and moving to St. Catharines. I've noticed myself entering that 'pre-nostalgic' phase where I start missing something before it is over... Toronto has been very, very good to me - especially my last 9 months in little Portugal, easily my favourite neighborhood that I've EVER lived in. It's hard to think that I'll be trading in my street, with its cute little shops, interesting people, organic farmers market for a city that is much smaller and will be lacking in so much that I've come to take for granted. That said, I'm so unbelievably excited (and nervous!).

Everything seems a LITTLE bit more real with every item crossed off of my to-do list. This weekend was CPR/First Aid, very very interesting - but it made me realize that I'm going to have to do something about my vivid imagination. Every cartoon picture, description, even thought of an injury made my stomach flip. I really should get over that as soon as possible. As we were learning how to do baby CPR, I noticed that the babies were of the brand "911 INFANTry" - amazing. I'm hoping that the heads of real babies don't pop off as easily as these babies' heads did (but just to be safe, I should probably avoid holding Maya and Wyatt until their necks fuse).

OK, time for the random pic dump:

Imminent backslap:


Mark is really good at frisbee, but only when I'm not watching. I think he worries too much about impressing me.



I can't even think of a caption. I just love this picture.


And this guy.


I mean, who wouldn't?


We have some serious love. Look at our serious faces!

A Strong Offence

Mark and I lucked into a pretty awesome frisbee team this year - we've got a great mix of experience and personalities on our team. I've played two games with them so far and both of them were a lot of fun - not like the crazy hardcore team we started the season with ("You have to run HARDER!" - ok, I guess that may sound reasonable, but not in the context in which it was used). I feel like I'll probably get a lot better over the season, develop skillz and such.

One thing I am 100% sure of: no game will ever top yesterday's. We played down at Marilyn Bell Park, where the edge of the field is no more than 5 metres from the lake (and yes, this resulted in the frisbee going swimming, courtesy of Mark). It was soooo pretty. There was a light sunshower at the start of the game, so we even got a rainbow (looking like it started at the CN Tower and arcing over to mid-lake). For added fun, I convinced Melissa to come be a sub for our team, so she got to show off her super awesomeness during her first game ever! Look what else she is awesome at:



The game itself was good - we were playing a really young (=fast & stamina) team, so we were doing pretty badly during the first half. After a mildly depressing halftime, we started coming together really well and came back from 8-1 to ending the game at 16-11. Not too shabby. Ok but what's so great about that Well, during the last point, we had two (well, FOUR) bonus players. I have no pictures to prove it but please believe me - two mounted police AND THEIR HORSES joined the game. The one in the darker uniform with the darker horse joined our team (black jerseys) and the other team bot the other pair. It was incredible, they were right into it, passing and chasing the game down the field. At one point, a girl on the other team got the disc and our horseman covered her by racing around her in the tightest loop I've ever seen a horse make. This went on for about 5-10 minutes, and then they left us to finish the game. We lost, but hey (hay?), who really cared?

Paging Dr. J.E.R-K?

Offer of Admission, McMaster University MD Program

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Three things about today:

1. As I biked past Much Music on my way to work, some lady/camera crew handed me a little pot of daffodils. It was like one of those pit stops in bike races, except flowers instead of water, and me nearly falling off my bike on camera rather than a seamless, graceful pass-off.

 

2. My coworker called me from TWO CUBICLES AWAY. It's not like there is even a person in the cube between us that he would be worrying about disturbing. I stopped talking into the phone and he didn't even notice because he is FIVE FEET AWAY.

 

3. I am going to the Farmer's Market with Gina, where we will trash talk Missy.

The Waiting Game

It's been a week and a half since The Big Interview, and I feel removed enough from it now to be able to talk/post about it without crushing waves of anxiety rolling over me. I was pretty good about not getting too nervous leading up to the interview - I tried not to think about it too much on Friday and felt pretty calm and in control on Saturday during the interview itself, but now that all had been said and done, is when the real nerves have kicked in. I hate that I have absolutely no control over the application any more, all I can do is wait wait wait until May 15th, when I will hopefully get an email with AMAZING news, or even just 'not bad' news. Or no email at all, meaning bad news. But there is nothing that I could say or do between now and then that will speed up the process, or showcase me and make me seem like a wonderful, obvious choice.

Mark's parents kicked in with a couple things to help me through this time: a bottle of wine (helped the night of the interview!) and "Bloodletting and Other Miraculous Cures", a book that I have wanted to read for at least a year. I just finished it yesterday, and it was truly the perfect book for me to read at this point in my life. I'm unable to think about much other than medicine at the moment (unless I'm distracting myself with music or Mario), and the novel captured both my obsession with getting in as well as the feeling of having done (for this point in time) everything that I can and realizing that some things are out of my control, and life is just like that. Having read the book, I feel like I can move on a bit from thinking and worrying about my results, and just be happy while I wait. Hopefully, I'll get good news - if not, I'll hope for another year like this last one - it's been awesome.

A Short Message from Annie

qq1aaaaaqaaaaaaqqaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzaaaaaaaaaaaa

Love and kisses,
Annie

Looking forward to a break.

Last week, I had started to write a post about how I was looking forward to taking a break from 60 hour workweeks. Then, as it frequently happens these days, I got busy and never finished the post. I'm still looking forward to taking a break, but now I have no idea when that might happen. I've managed to find a new job within the same organization that I've been working for, and this time it will be an actual honest-to-goodness contract, meaning that I won't have 30% of my paycheque lost to a temp agency. That's good news! But... it does mean that I'll be phased into the new job starting this week, this crazy, crazy week. On top of it all, I caught some sort of something and feel pretty miserable at the moment. I'm hoping that it won't get worse, because I absolutely can't take time off this week.

 

Work is going to start to get a lot better though, and not only because of content. Mark and I took advantage of the beautiful weather (and my day off!) on Saturday to wander around the neighborhood. We wandered right over to Kensington Market, where we stopped in at Bike Pirates and found us some pretty new wheels. Mine is a gorgeous Ross 3-speed (from the 60s? I think so!), and even though I'd decided to get all mechanical this year, I bought it even though it is in great operating condition. I'm looking forward to learning how to repair/tune it up myself, and I also might put some sort of clear coat ont he frame to protect it from further rusting. Once the weather gets better, and my March Metropass runs out, I'm going to start biking to/from work, hopefully giving myself a healthy dose of activity and 'fresh' air a couple times a day. Also, I can join bike posses now.

 

We also walked across Queen West during our wanders, and since I've finally saved enough money, we booked our wedding band workshop!! I'm so excited - this should be a lot of fun, and we're hopefully going to end up with beautiful, original rings. I can't wait for our workshop day - it should be a lot of fun and will be something that we'll remember for a long time. Fun story: When we were shopping for an engagement ring and mentioned to a jeweller that we'd be making our own wedding bands at a jewllery workshop, he guffawed at us and said, in the snootiest voice imaginable, that at his shop, we could "actually get something that looks good." We didn't buy from him. (I'm not sure if I updated my ring thoughts here since my post about being 100% against the ring - well, I guess I am a hypocrite. I got a ring anyways, and it is lovely and not a typical engagement ring, and we did not spend the equivalent of a down payment for a house)

 

 

Random Thoughts for a Thursday

Wow! There is less than one month to go until The Big Interview. I am trying to brainstorm, come up with talking points that showcase how Awesome I Am and how I Will Be An Excellent Choice. I am feeling fairly confident - let's hope that I can hold onto that feeling! My current day job has a ton of downtime, and while that can make it boring and monotonous at times, I've been trying to use it to research areas of professional interest and to make myself a smarter cookie (I just did a google image search to see if I could find a photo of cookies spelling out a math equation or something along those lines, and there WEREN'T ANY! This seems like an untapped market - if The Big Interview doesn't work out, maybe this can be my business).

I skipped Deerhoof/No Age last night. I'm pretty sad about it, because I love both of those bands... but I have been so tired this week that the last thing I could imagine was staying out till two am on a worknight. I justified it to myself by deciding that instead of going out and dancing all night, I'd go to the gym or do my new yoga dvd (yes, you can laugh at me for this one). Well, I didn't do either. I stayed home and flipped between Futurama and Iron Chef: America, and went to bed at 10. I think I made the right decision, despite Mark's tsk-tsk'ing this morning. My body and mind are happy and loving me today for resting both of them last night. I got so much sleep!

One final, very important note: Thank you so much to all of the people who congratulated me on my last post, and who helped out with the thing that led to the thing in the post (haha, I am being SO VAGUE!). You guys are awesome and make me feel good about myself and my friends and my life, and I wish that more kudos had been given to everyone who helped me get to Ghana, because there is no way I could have done it on my own.

I can't WAIT until I get a new computer so that I can start posting photos and music again. This blog has been so boring lately.

Not sick, but definitely tired.

Daaamn, I need some r&r. The sleepiness is worth it though, because I have made many dollarz, enabling me to pay many billz. Also, I have hung out with, in only one week: Paula, Rafa, Sharon, Talon, John, Jenny, Ryan, Maggie, and BOTH sets of parents! And I worked 60 hours (dollarz!).

 

In other yay!-worthy news, Mark and I may have found our reception site. YAY!

 

Some people think I should link to this.

I think I might be getting sick. Damn it, why can't I have sick days?