MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Hello to all!

First off, I know I should be in bed because then Santa will never come ;), but because of the time zone difference between Ontario and Alberta (yes I'm back home - HAPPY HAPPY), I'm still up late.

Well I wanted to wish all a very Merry Christmas. I also am able to upload my pictures of my tree and fireplace from Calgary now. It's a small tree, but a great one nonetheless





The Breakdown:

Presents ...$$$
Tree... $20
Decorations...$15
Garland on the fireplace...$5
Lights...'Borrowed'
The happiness and joy on the face of me and my roomie... Priceless!

Also while in Calgary I decided to purchase a gingerbread house kit for my friends and I. We spent a Saturday evening building the masterpiece. And TA DAH! That's what it looks like. Not bad, eh? Only cost $15 and it included all the candy.



We ate it the day after...but couldn't finish it. I'm pretty sure it was still sitting on the counter when I was ready to fly out. I hope my roomie disposed of it. I don't want too many ants crawling around when I get back. Oh in the picture you also can see these awesome Chocolate Chip Cookies. They retain their softness for up to 2 days after being baked!

My flight back was pretty sweet thought. My roomie got me a guest pass for the maple leaf lounge. It's awesome there!!! You get all these soft chairs to sit on. Free wi-fi, magazines, conference rooms, bar tables, couches, and dinner tables. Free food: soup, cookies, veggies, chips, fruit, drinks and of course alcohol. I arrived 2 hrs early in anticipation for the holiday backup, but got in with no issues. So I definitely was nice and liquored up for my flight home :). It's pretty sweet!

*Yawns* Okay... so it's pretty late and I should get to bed. Uh Oh... according to http://www.noradsanta.org/en/index.html , Santa already passed me... He's in Costa Rica right now. Maybe he'll back track? lol

Have a Safe and Happy Holidays Everyone!

Lots of love!

Final Thought: My goal in life is to become an Alliance Elite member so I can relax in that lounge all the time!
...

Oh and it's great to be home! <3

Holidays!

What really makes me home sick is being this close to the holidays, but still being far away from home. BUT I did try to make the best of things! I decided to make some festive plans! Both my roommate and I are from Ontario, and we were in that "missing home" downward spiral, so I went out to Zellers and purchased a 4.5ft Christmas tree!

He was quite happy actually. I bought some ornaments but they were sold out of those hooks to hang them on the tree. Luckily, Matt (my roomie) remembered that we had a lot of those complimentary sewing kits from hotels lying around in the house (he goes on business trips a lot and stays in hotels) so we used the needle and thread and threaded loops through the ornament holes. He poked himself a few times. I also bought some garland from the store and decorated our fire place too! I'll include pictures soon. Sadly I left my charger in Ontario...and so I've been taking pictures using my cellphone.

I also decided to organize a Holiday send off amongst a small group of my friends here in town. Most of them are from BC or Ontario. Since we're all going home or away for the holidays I decided to organize a festive Saturday. It all started with waking up and going to a place called Heritage Park. It's a place where it's designed to make it feel like a flash back in time. Like the the west really was in the old days. We're a late bunch of people so by the time we got to the park (and was done getting lost on the road), we had an hour left. IF we arrived earlier, we could've saw Santa, his reindeers, made ginger bread cookies, etc...but we weren't so oh well.

I did go into the ice cream store of that village and try some wicked apple cider. I decided to pickup some raspberry cider mix for later that night! We also had a chance to buy some fresh baked cookies and enjoy a wagon ride pulled by some sweaty horses!



The town is filled with some fun little things for the kids too, like old school games. There was this one game where you're supposed to flick these circle blocks into the centre and knock people out of the way. Well someone, *cough* my roommate missed and flicked it at me...and it hit me. If someone knows the name of that game, please let me know. Picture of game board can be seen below.


The village had it's own ferry rides (summer only), train rides (summer only), and vintage homes, hotels, and shops, including this Asian laundry mat!

It also has this mini automotive museum that they call, Gasoline Alley. It has a bunch of old vintage cars and vintage gas pumps of various companies. It's a gorgeous venue hall for Christmas parties. My roomie had a Christmas work banquet there earlier that week. I went with him and had the chance to see it for free (originally a $10 admission fee)!




Back to the Christmas festivities, after that we were supposed to go to Zoolights - a zoo which has a bunch of Christmas lights all over. But... we got hungry and food >>> lights in the cold. Maybe I'll do it next weekend?

Anyways that's all for now. Tree pictures to come soon!

Final Thought: If you are allergic to horses or any other animal, do not go on a wagon ride pulled by horses...You'll be severely irritated by it. Also, friends make being homesick more bearable <3 :)



EDIT:
My friend notified me that the game is called Crokinole.

Food Blog

For those who know me, know I like to bake - or at least attempt to. One of my oldest and most culinary talented friends started a food blog. Check it out for some yummy recipies with legit pictures. http://farmeggs.wordpress.com/ Om nom nom nom nom.

Final thought: I gotta remember to import my bakeware and my baking receipes book (couresty of my former lab mates) from Ontario.

Bon a petit!

Ps- AR, I want to eat those when I come home. You best have a big batch of them ready to go :)

Bad Day

So essentially this past week, I've experienced one of the worst days possible.
It's always just my luck too. Okay, so lets start off with the morning.

So the day started with an abnormally early morning. About two hours earlier than usual. It also takes me about 30 mins to commute to work. So lets just say I was not happy to wake up that early. I was getting ready for a long 4 hour safety seminar. But before I could do that I had to call Canada Post because they had lost a package of mine in the mail that was to have been delivered 3 days earlier. My sister tried to send a formal dress of mine through the mail (express post - so that should take 2-3 days) so that I could wear it in time for my friend's Christmas Party. It did not arrive and at this point it had been 5 days. As well, according to the tracking number... it was in Stoney Creek, ON waiting to be picked up. What does that mean? NO idea. So I had to call them, wasting the majority of my daytime minutes. They also put me on hold for 25 minutes and at this time I'm just about to miss my seminar. But, I was lucky that the lecturer waited for me. In the end they essentially said, we'll search for it... but the most you can get back is your postage. If the package is lost, we won't replace it. My package was an expensive brand name cocktail dress I've never worn before...*sigh* I hope they find it. They will be in contact with me in 5-7 days...

After that, I went to work. I started a culture of yeast cells for growth, but as I was putting it into the incubator to shake, it broke. Of course it shatters and a piece of glass breaks my glove. Blood starts pouring out of my hand. As I search for a band-aid in the first aid kit, I find nothing. After asking around I finally find ONE. But as I'm fumbling around to put on the band-aid, my non-fitted glove messes up my application... so the wound is really poorly covered. Afterwards, I'm working with some 7% acetic acid solution and follow to spill it on me and my cut. I also break my gel that I was waiting to take a picture of.

So a bad day indeed. What else went bad? Poor communication led to failed dinner plans and weekend plans. I also went into a raging rant, one which my friend defines as a "rage blackout".

Final thought: I hope they find my dress, and my lab gets better glassware... or at least band-aids.

In the meantime I found a decent cocktail dress. Will post a picture later. For now, still trying to calm down.

I Miss Home

* Tear*

Being one with Nature

A little while back while my friend Alex was visiting Alberta, we decided to go on a little hike. I've already done the whole Banff, Lake Louise, and Johston's Canyon thing in the past, so this time I wanted to see some new sights. I bought this hiking

g book while I was still in Ontario. It was full of a bunch of hikes, scenic drives and scenic bike routes. Alex and I both like to hike so we decided to choose a "demanding" 3 -4 hour hike. Our first adventure was to hike Agnes Trail.

Agnes Trail is located by the Chateau Lake Louise. It's a rather steep hike and you gain an elevation of up to 1260 ft. While hiking up that trail it was neat to see the sudden change in climate. It went from no snow, to a bit with ice, to HUGE patches of ice, to frozen lakes to skate on with little mini avalanches in the distance! Like I said, kinda neat!

As we walked a little further up, we met a family which told us that a partial bit of the trail was closed for the season...but we decided to continue to hike it anyways. You know, just to see how far we could go. I guess this was our half-way point. Look at how blue Lake Louise looks!


Along the trail we passed Mirror Lake which was completely frozen and we saw people skating there. As well, I can never resist the temptation to take silly photos. This is me trying to get a photo of me jumping in the air off this stump. Instead it looks like I'm doing kung fu. Meh, why not?


















Walk a little higher and we finally get to Lake Agnes. From there we saw a mini frozen waterfall which I assume helps trickle water into Lake Louise or a near-by creek of some sort. Being as adventurous as we are, we walked into the middle of the waterfall, being careful to step on stable rocks, and took this magnificent photo. In the distance, if you really squint, you can see the Chateau Lake Louise. Look how high we are!










The majority of Lake Agnes was frozen. But trust me the photo doesn't really do a good job in capturing it's grandeur.



















Alex was a champ and decided to brave the icy trail and hike up the BeeHive. Although, at the time we didn't know he was hiking up that path. Glad he didn't die. But he did get some amazing shots of the view from the top.











This is definitely going to be a hike I will do in the summer. I want those awesome aerial pictures!

Final Thought: Whenever you get a chance to take a silly photo. Do it!

Attempting to Survive

So I've been here for a while now...It's quite the battle with mother nature to survive here.

First off, there's the bitter cold (see previous post for example temperature) and then there's the dryness. Unlike Toronto, this place is not situated around a lake providing ample amounts of humidity. Instead, every morning I wake up to this burning dryness in my nose, a post nasal drip due to the thickened viscosity of my mucus, and sadly a sore throat which follows. Now this is EVERY morning I'm talking about. It gets worse, there was something wrong with my heater a while back so I was even freezing at night. The cold kept me up to a point where every night I had a space heater on, and I was using one of those instant heat packs to warm me up. This is on top of wearing socks, sweatpants, a sweater, and a scarf to bed. Luckily I fixed that heating issue already.

Now back to that dryness. So Every night I use a Netipot to hydrate my nose, nasal gel, gargle with salt water, and have a humidifier on FULL BLAST. All in all, that does nothing... I still wake up with a sore throat, post nasal drip, and nose bleeds or remnants of one. For the rest of my day, I pretty much spend it dry coughing and attempting to loosen the phlegm that is stuck to the back of my throat. Attractive...isn't it?

The only thing that keeps me alive is that hot shower in the morning where I can get the most humidity.

Final Thought: If you're coming to Calgary...make note you will feel like you're living in a dehydrator and you're slowly but surely drying up.

The Deep Freeze

Okay... So the weather in Calgary is not the best. Calling it "cold" is an understatement.

Yesterday Calgary was reported as the 2nd coldest place ON EARTH!
article: http://www.calgarysun.com/news/alberta/2010/11/23/16282731.html

Whose number one? The Arctic Circle.

So yeah unfortunately there's no such thing as "Cold-Days" as there were "Snow-Days" when we were kids. So I did have to hull my butt into work. Everyday I've been wearing THICK leggings under my jeans and bundling in layers to keep myself warm. I look like a giant puff. I'm not the most attractively dressed person out there...but I'm warm.

Unbelievable site of the day: I saw some University girls being stupid and only wearing a sweatshirt and a scarf. No snow boots, No gloves, No hat. It's -40*C out!!! Why... why are you NOT wearing a decent winter jacket?!?! She definitely didn't look poor as she listened to her iPOD shivering.

Thought of the day: If you can afford an iPOD you can afford a decent winter jacket. Or pawn it for money to get a decent winter jacket.

Change of Topics and Theme Posts

So...since I'm no longer a Sci-FOC and I have this blog to work with, I'm going to shift gears and change the theme of this blog from Science Orientation to blog about my Calgary days (aka "My Cow-gary Days")












For those who don't know, I've accepted a position out in Calgary, AB away from my home in Ontario. That's right... I'm in the land of mountains, oil, cows and horses (see picture). My job is a a Research Assistant position with the University of Calgary. It's based on a one year contract so for those going, "OMG is this permanent? Have you moved there forever?" ha ha - NO. Once again it's a year contract. Who knows where I'll be a year from now. Maybe on the beaches of California? Or possibly back in my room in Ontario.

Regardless, this post will commence the transformation!