Creepy crawlies

I've been sick the last few days and have spent much time lounging on my couch contemplating the world (well, not really). I live in a 3rd floor apartment on the corner of a busy intersection and one thing that I've noticed is whenever a large truck drives by, my apartment shakes. Its literally like a small earthquake, or what I'd imagine a small earthquake to be like. Throughout the last year in my apartment, I've noticed pots rattling on the stove, or water jiggling in my cup (think Jurassic Park here), but I've never really thought anything of it.

A few questions that have gone through my mind:
Does the building shake more on the 3rd floor because I'm higher up? Would someone on a hypothetical 10th floor feel the shake more, or less?
Does the shaking hurt the foundation? I've been noticing a crack in my wall getting wider...
How does the shaking affect soil organisms?

This third question really got to me (because, I am, after a soil scientist!). And it got me thinking even more...what does the soil look like under a city? Is it damp all the time? If you look out onto a block of street, more than likely almost everything has been covered over with cement. The streets, the sidewalks, the parking lots, the buildings... nothing of the former tall-grass prairie exists! All plants (usually weeds) have moved in with the wind, doing what they do best, thriving in desolate places! Is the soil under the cement stagnant and stale? Does it have little critters or creepy crawlies living in it? Earthworms crawl up to the soil surface during rain, and I see them on the street...so there must be some life under cement. Whether its healthy life, I'm not sure...

Who will I be?

I am really worried about who I will be once I graduate with my Masters degree. Not in terms of "who" I will be, but "what" I will be to the world. For the last 20 years I have been a student (!!), and so that's who/what I view myself to be, and, essentially, what the world sees me as. I am a daughter, a friend, a sister, a cousin, a girlfriend...all these statuses are ingrained in the essence of who I am, and so is being a student. Come August, I will be losing a huge part of who I am, and I find that so disturbing... what will I "be" when I go to the doctor and they ask me what my occupation is?? Or fill out a form?? Because I am traveling and working for a year before settling down in a full-time job, I will be "unemployed". Is that my status? Should I keep up the ruse of a "student"? Should I associate with my degree and be a "soil scientist"? Or with my up-bringing and be a "farmer"?

The one thing that university doesn't prepare you for is the big, real world. I am used to the change of school terms- my daily life shifting every 4 months, my evenings filled with homework (or thoughts of homework), and stressing about juggling part-time work with pleasure and school. It is hard to imagine an evening with no thoughts of schoolwork or an upcoming meeting... Part of me wants to enroll into a PhD program just so that I can continue to be a student... Maybe one day I will... In the near future, I hope to become a wife, and a mommy, and maybe after that a student again. We'll see.

For now though, I need to focus on the moment, and write, write, write... Things are coming along well. It is very fulfilling to bring together the last 2 years of my labour into graphs and tables and words, all condensed into 80 pages. :)

Farm Life

I'm moving home to the farm in a little over a month and so I've started packing up some things and bringing boxes back to the country. I headed out to the farm on Friday afternoon and ended up staying the entire weekend! Besides the fact that its nice to visit with my parents (and siblings, when they are home), being on the farm makes me LOVE being outside! The city does absolutely nothing to motivate myself to get outside and enjoy the weather...I have no balcony and no green space that belongs to my apartment. The park down the street doesn't have any picnic benches and I hate having to drive 20 minutes to the closest park that does... The air is dusty and stinks all the time. I wonder to myself alot as to how I managed to live in the city for the last 5 years! I did live in a house with a backyard and small garden for the bulk of it, so I did have access to the outdoors, but it definitely isn't the same as the country air.

On the farm, I get up and enjoy the sunshine, the birds singing, the fresh breeze from my parent's deck. I can walk to my Grandma's house for morning tea and a game of "King's Corner" or put in a few pieces of a puzzle. I can walk down to the river and listen to the trickling water and if I'm lucky see a muskrat swim by. With the change in season, geese and ducks, swans and pelicans appear. I can walk to the arena and find soft, mewing kittens in the hay. I can lay on my back at night and actually see the stars, no street lights here! I can fall asleep to the sound of crickets and wake up to the sound of chirping birds... forget about fire trucks and screeching cars!!

I am really looking forward to life on the farm. Yes, I will lose my cute little apartment and bachelor benefits (no getting up at midnight to make cookies or parading around in my underwear anymore!), but I am coming back to my roots and it feels good.

Three strikes, you're out!

So, I've been experiencing some car trouble. I drive a standard and have had my car for 5 years. I'm not overly aware of the make-up of vehicles and how they function, but I do know how to check the oil and where to put the wind-shield washer fluid. Over the past few weeks, my gears have been a little hard to shift into and on Monday my clutch pedal got really soft and I had a real hard time shifting. I thought to myself..."Self, I'm sure that my clutch needs oiling or more lubricant or something". I talked to my Dad and he said that's probably what the problem was.

Okay, so I go to my MECHANIC on Wednesday morning and tell him what's wrong and that I think I need to top up my fluid or lubricant or something. He automatically dismissed this idea saying, "That's rarely what it is...It's probably that you need to replace your clutch". Little did he know that I replaced it about 8 months after buying the vehicle. So, upon further investigating on my part and some poking around under the hood, the problem is, indeed, low brake fluid. Why standard vehicles require brake fluid to lubricate the clutch, I'm not sure...but that's the problem. Strike one against men who think women know nothing about cars.

Strike two is the fact that I was poking around under my hood in the university parking lot at 9:30pm and none of the 10 men who walked by me offered to help me out! Or even to inquire what the problem was!! Okay, well, maybe this shouldn't be a strike against men who think women know nothing about cars...maybe they were all scared that they would look stupid because they know nothing. But, I'm including it anyways.

I drove to Canadian Tire this morning to buy some brake fluid. The guy at the counter asks me what make and model my car is...I tell him, "94 Honda Civic CX hatchback". He looks at me incredulously and says, "Wow, you really know what your car is!" Strike 3!! Come on! Women aren't necessarily stupid when it comes to cars! And really, how many guys profess to being able to change their own tire or check their own oil?

Flutterby

As many of you know, I've started writing my thesis and processing my data into graphs, figures and tables. My defense should be sometime in August of this year. I've realized over my university years that I work well with deadlines, and so have gotten pretty good at making deadlines for myself and keeping them (the important part!). Right now, my first deadline for myself is handing in my first draft of my thesis to my advisor on May 28th...giving me 40 days from today. I feel that I'm coming along well, getting things done slowly, but allowing me to be a socializing butterfly while I write. Never before in my university experience have I been so relaxed and happy with my life...it's a nice feeling.

I'm sure part of it is the great company that I have in the Ellis Building: my fellow peers and the Soil Science department staff...I'm going to miss everyone! The sad thing is, is that things are already starting to change. Students are staying at home to write a bit more often, spending days in the lab, getting back out into the field for their summer research or getting jobs (not something I suggest if you want to ever finish your thesis!). The lunch room is quieter during coffee break or lunch time... The main group of "Soilies", however, are still managing to get out to a local bar or pub over the weekend to unwind. Guys, thanks for another great night last night! I will miss the craziness once the summer is over.

Okay, well, back to reading and writing for me!

One of my plants decided to flower and I thought that I'd share the fragile flowers with you. They are quite small...about the size of my pinkie finger nail.

Siobhan the actress

So, I've been a busy girl...spent last week in the field, in the lab, and in front of my computer. This week I picked up lots of shifts at my 2 part-time jobs...and so I'm working 30 hours PLUS trying to work on getting my figures done up, while reading papers. It's been an emotional roller-coaster ride, let me tell you.
One of my part-time jobs is being a standardized-patient for the Medical Faculty at the Bannatyne campus. Essentially, I'm an actress...learning different patient roles for the different departments within Medicine. The department hires people like me (standardized patients)who learn a role, with specific answers and then we are the medical students' "exam". Last month, I got to portray a promiscuous, uber-sexual 25-year-old patient, who flaunted her sexual history to her pharmacist, while filling out her prescription. I was nervous going into the exam, but then realized that the pharmacy students were more nervous than I was! It ended up being a ton of fun, because, as you know, I'm a fairly conservative person, and it was great to be out of my comfort zone!

Today I had training for the neonatal (pre-term babies) department, where I am a mother receiving bad news about her baby, or a diagnosis that I don't want to hear (even though I've had suspicions about it). [I'm sorry that I can't write more about it, the role is confidential.] We practiced with real doctors today and it's so exciting! Some of them deliver the news nicely, while others are real a**-holes, blaming the mother (me) for the diagnosis on my infant. It is also an opportunity for me to learn how much doctors across Canada are trained, and that even practicing doctors undergo exams on a fairly regular basis.
Bonus: we get to wear fat suits because we just had our babies...how fun is that!?

Zombie cows?

So my Dad called me this evening to tell me about a Zombie cow that he has on the farm...yes, a zombie cow. The conversation started with him telling me about a cow he had penned this afternoon and its symptoms: flat ears (denoting illness of sorts) a lolling tongue, and some dullness of the eyes (possible blindness). He said that he has had cattle with lead poisoning exhibit similar symptoms...resulting in death of the animal. Then, Dad proceeded to ask me if I'd seen Zombie Land (a movie suggested to him by my brother). My brother has gotten into the mind-set over the last few months that the zombie apocalypse is probable and has encouraged my parents to prepare for the worst. (!!) All I've absorbed is: cardio workouts are good...then you can outrun a zombie (although, do we really know how fast a zombie will run?). Regardless, Dad phoned to warn me that he may have a zombie cow on his farm and that he may be a zombie as of tonight...I am to record this account in the history books so that everyone who does make it out of the apocalypse as a human will know that the carnage started at the Stewart Farm. Our code word, to tell if Dad is still human or not is: pip. It is the definition of the dots on a dice...yes, he has been helping my Grandma do too many crossword puzzles. After all this and a near tearful farewell to my Dad, he informs that it may possibly be rabies. Yup, a cow with rabies...so, it'll go around biting other cows with its herbivorous teeth? Geez...I love my family, but...!!!

MATLAB hell, with a bit of sushi

So, I started my day off in a cheery mood. My Mom slept over last night, I cooked her supper and we sat around and talked and went for long walk to Corydon and back...a nice relaxing night... Because I was in high spirits, I decided that I'd tackle MATLAB, the oh-so-lovely computer data processing programming ickiness (yes, that is the official scientific term) that I've been working with on and off for the last year and half. Up until recently, I've been fairly dependent on other people to help me out, but I've been spending some "quality time" with it in the last week or so and am getting a feel for it. So, now, 8 hours later, I still don't have much to show for my messing around with the program ALL DAY! Despite this, I'm still happy. I'm understanding a bit more how the program works...so maybe my lesson to everyone today is: Don't give up! Keep trying... So, yes, tomorrow I'm meeting with another student to go through the blocks that stopped me today, but my thesis figures are coming together...slowly, but surely. It's a nice feeling.

On the bright side of my day, I got to babysit my office-mate's son, who is 2. He is such a cute little man. We watched Sesame Street...its actually still really good. It kept my attention, anyhow. However, get this, this 2-year-old has a wooden sushi set. The rolls are held together with velcro and then he can cut them into pieces with his little wooden knife and dip them in soy sauce with chop sticks that have velcro on them... It's so great! AND, there is a block of wasabi...which C. puts to his tongue and goes "Ewwww". My babies are definitely getting their own wooden sushi set!

No new German words to report...Georg we need another lesson soon! My favourite German word that I've learned so far is: Meerschweinchen. It won't be of much use to me in everyday life, but it is fun to say (and hear). It means guinea pig. So, remember this word, if you are ever needing to buy a guinea pig in a pet store in Germany.

Osterhase

Well, I hope that everyone had an enjoyable Easter weekend. Despite my mother's side of the family saying that they were all occupied with their immediate families, most of us ended up at my Aunt's house on Sunday afternoon. We had a lot of laughs around a bonfire and caught up with each other's lives. I haven't seen some of my family since Thanksgiving, because I was in Southern Ontario during Christmas. I guess that is what happens when you grow up and get a life... My newest German word that I've learned (and remembered) is Osterhase, which means Easter bunny.
My cousin had his wedding social on Saturday evening at a local pub, with a local band called "Oh So Popular". They were amazing and played a variety of hits from the 80s and 90s. Definitely worth looking into if you need a band for a wedding, social or anniversary.

I have been spending quite a bit of time learning the computer programming software (MATLAB) that I'm using to process my high frequency gas concentration data for my thesis. I'm getting better, but it gets frustrating at times. My advisor wants my graphs for my thesis ASAP and, of course, it is taking longer than I expected to get them drawn up. Have you heard of the pi (3.14) rule? You take your anticipated finish time and multiple it by 3.14 to estimate the time it will ACTUALLY take for you to finish...depressing but true. My goal is to get my first draft completed by the end of May, which is 2 months...does this mean that I will only get it done by September? : ) It better not!!

What am I waiting for?

I always get the feeling that I should write about something monumental that is happening in my life on these things... But how often does something huge happen in a student's life?
I guess I will just let everyone know what I've been up to these days. I'm doing my Master's degree in Soil Science at the U of Manitoba. My thesis is on the effects of including alfalfa in an annual crop rotations on CO2 and N2O emissions. Data collection will occur until the end of April, although I've already started writing and reading (maybe it should be the other way?). My defense will hopefully be sometime in August. After that, I'm heading to Europe for a year to learn German under the tutelage of my German boyfriend, backpack around Great Britain and work on an organic farm in France pour pratiquer mon francais.
It'll definitely be an adventure!

The beginning

Well, here goes... I figured that it is about time for me to let people know what I am up to these days. I am very busy with life and this will probably be one of the easier ways of informing people as to how I am doing and the like. Who knows how often this will be updated... Heaven only knows how often that dusty diary has been written in...
As of now, I have just finished my third year of a Bachelor of Science degree in Agriculture at the U of M, and am working at an agricultural research station in Portage. What fun, what fun! I hope to be able to post pictures or something so that everyone can see the goof that I am!