Still in the course!

I totally passed that retest, so I am now in class learning about respiratory emergencies. Just thought posting now would be a good plan.

Electrocardioagraphs, the bane of my existence

So we had two tests this week. On Tuesday we had our electrocardioagraph test, and on Wednesday and Thursday we did International Trauma Life Support and had a written and practical test on that on Thursday. I passed the one on Thursday. I did not pass the ECG one.

We have a re-write on Tuesday, and one other student and I will be there. I need to pass it to stay in the course, so I'm spending today and Monday buried in stuff I find hard to understand but have to know.

It's really interesting though. Just complicated to no end. Travis is encouraging me to spend lots of time on it, so that's good.

Have a good weekend!

2 months down, 2 left to go (in class, that is)

The front entrance to our dorms. I love this paint colour!


My first experience with the laundry room, 48 steps down from my room. I usually wash my laundry on weekends at Travis' house. I totally freaked out when I put in my dark clothes, including my uniform, and put the machine on colour wash. It then proceeded to lock the door and flash a light that said 'Warm Wash'. I was horrified, since my uniform NEVER gets washed on warm, and raced up the 48 steps to ask Joanna if she knew what to do. She reassured me that it would be fine, and then I went back down the 48 steps to finish the laundry.....

I look ridiculously young on this picture, which is why I am including it. Packing up the bilateral Sager splint.....

For our 6-month-going-out anniversary, we went out for Chinese food at a little place in Langdon, just south of Travis' house. I think we both looked pretty nice. The red eye is a little alarming, though ;-P

our almost-daily blood pressure monitoring sessions. Practice makes perfect!

EMT snowball fight on Tuesday. We came out of class and just HAD to play in the snow. First good packing snow of the year!

Travis in his 'native habitat'.... or something.... driving the 'kitty' last Saturday. He worked for 2 hours. I enjoyed watching him work for 2 hours :)

He showed me how to use these!!! It was really exciting to see everything. I've never been inside a machine that big before.

You can see the truck the tractor went home on just beside us there.

So yeah. I think the last day of class is May 5. Graduation is (I think) April 29, so we'll be graduating long before we're done our course. But that's how it works, I guess. It would be kind of odd to have a separate grad for only 5 students.
Classes are still going well. We've just completed 2 weeks of some of the harder stuff in the course, cardiology and electrocardiograph interpretation. We have a test on that next week.
Here are some new pictures. Hopefully they won't get messed up like the last batch. Btw, I realize that the last post has the date that I originally wrote it on, not the date that I posted it...

new pics (sorry, the formatting went nuts....)

This is Christine, my IMPACT group leader!

























scenarios!

fooling around with equipment practice













































doing IV clinics


Free slushies we got on a really nice day after class when we went to the gas station in our uniforms

sad, busy day today

Hi! I'm studying for dear life today, since I just got a real scare. We had 9 people in our class last week when we took Test #1. Today the 4 people who didn't pass the test got rewrites. They all failed. Our class now contains 5 people.
I am really sad for them, since some came from really far away to be here, and each one of them would make a great EMT. But the rest of know to be really careful and try harder than ever now.
We will miss all of them. All of us are so different, but we worked together really well.
So I am studying lots of stuff, since we have another test next Tuesday. I have to study several different topics this week: emergency pharmacology, venous access (IV's), medication administration and medication math, the nervous system, and some basic chemistry.
I can't open the extra materials and assignments on the NAIT website with my computer, so my teacher printed them out for me. I talked to NAIT techs 3 times this last week, and they have no good advice for me. My computer opened them fine until last Tuesday, and all of a sudden it didn't want to any more. The best advice I've got so far was to download Firefox and use it instead of IE, which I might do for just this one thing. The other advice was to delete my Google toolbar, to delete my cookies, to delete my temp internet files, to disable my popup blocker, to update my Java, and numerous other things that don't work. Silly computers.....
Anyway, I need to get back to studying. I am doing an assignment on Emergency Pharmacology next. :)
I love you guys!

Guzoo night!

We went to a place called the Guzoo close to here tonight. One of the guys in my EMT class works there, and he knows the animals. It was really fun. It was 4 of us from EMT who went.

Hey! I hope everything is going good for all of you.
Today we had our first test, on Modules 1 & 2, and I got a way higher score than I was expecting, so I'm really excited. I'm told this one was the hardest, so that's encouraging. I did study pretty hard, but felt quite out of my depth. And now I have time to actually read the material we're going over in class before class tomorrow. This is officially the first time I'm not playing catch-up.
After the test this morning, a bunch of us went to Wal-Mart in Olds, which is about 35 minutes away. It was quite fun.
I need to go and do some stuff, but will try to post some pics later today.

Hey! It's been almost a week again, I suddenly realized. So high time for a post!
This week has been crazily busy, with tons of stuff to do. I did take somewhat of a break on Saturday, though. No such luck this coming Saturday.....
Friday night I went down to Strathmore. We did a bunch of quadding with Trav's mini quad and nothing much else except sleep.
Travis and I both slept in Saturday morning, and then his Dad made eggs and bacon and onions and hashbrowns for all of us. It was good.
We did a bunch of studying..... I am not making this up! Trav was studying my books and asking all kinds of questions :)
I need to buy a Palm Pilot to use during my practicum. This is another course requirement I was conveniently not notified about. We were bidding until about 1:00 on one, but someone else got it. There are a lot on Ebay though, so we'll try again.
In the late afternoon, after some more reading and doing my laundry and losing one of Trav's socks and hunting for it, we went into Calgary. We did a little shopping, and then went to Wendy's (I think), for supper, and then to see a cartoon =) hehehehehehe
We got a foamy, since my bed at school is really hard. Sleeping is a lot better this week. Last week I was tired all the time.
Mr. Boersema lent me a mouse for my laptop, so I was really happy with that!
Sunday was a nice quiet day, as usual. I went home in the evening, and picked up a lady who had landed her truck in the ditch and drove her home. That was my adventure for the night!
Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday were all EMT stuff. I have tons of studying to do. Our first test is on Tuesday, on the 5 chapters in Module 1 & 2. That's what I'm doing today too.....
Life has sort of found a routine, which make me happy. I kind of know when mealtimes are now, and how much time I need to spend doing different things.
And a couple of pics:
This is just outside the computer lab in Founder's Hall. It says 'Victorious on our knees'.

Dinner tonight..... it was good!

Me coming home from the gym last night. I was there with most of the rest of the EMT class. We went on Monday as well. I will be leaving on Friday night before gym-time, or I would go again. I like it!

We were bored..... Can you tell? We couldn't get into our classroom after lunch, since it was locked and our teacher had the key, so some of my classmates found something constructive to do =) I will take a picture of our classroom next week. You will be surprised..... hehehehe we have the nicest classroom in the whole school.

I will write again later, maybe this weekend if I have time.

Friday

:) This is my first post with my new computer. I just took it over to the IT department to get connected to the internet. I got it yesterday, on my third trip to the little post office to ask when Purolator was coming in. When it came in, I jumped up and down and was so excited! The postmaster and Purolator man laughed and said they were glad to have made someone's day. Hehehehehehehe.
Classes are getting a little overwhelming. I just started my third class today, a New Testament one, and it will be a lot of work. I do have the option of sharing some of the work with another EMT student, so we will think about that until next week, and then decide what to do about the class.
I will be finishing organizing my study times and stuff this weekend, and hopefully I will have things sorted out and going well by next week. There is so much to do......
But life is fun, and exciting, and everyone here is so welcoming and friendly and eager to say hi and talk. I am not used to having a huge group of Christian people around me, so this is a fantabulous change!
Anyway, I think I have about 45 min to study before lunch, so I will write again later.

pictures!

This is the dining hall at school. Everyone goes at different times, and you can pick from quite a few different things to eat. They usually have a bunch of different salads, hot foods, and drinks. The food has been good, but I think that I will get tired of fried stuff pretty soon! Most of the girls here are, and they have lost some weight as a result of eating mostly salad and veggies..... hehehehehe ;-D

This is what I see as I come toward the main part of campus from the dorms. The red brick on the side is the end of the dining hall. At this end of the building is a little cafe, and The Loft, which is a place for students to play games and hang out and study.
The building with the glass windows is where my EMT classes are. We covered some of the windows inside with anatomy posters we drew today in class!

This is the front of my dorm. The window there is the lounge where I've been using the computers. The call it 'The Upper Room'. The main door for the women's dorms is right underneath it, and i have a swipe card to get it.

A bigger view of the dorms. I think my window is the one 4th from the bottom on the far right side. If that's not it, it's the one beside it, that's not on the picture...... hehehehe

Travis and I were fooling around with the camera and got one with both of us smiling for once. So I figured it deserved special recognition....... hehehehehe

Second day of school.
















Dinnertime last night!















This is our cute little post office. I'm going there tomorrow at lunch to see if my computer is here! I'm really excited! Thanks for sending it, it's much appreciated, Dad.

The results of my first foraging expedition to the library. I only actually checked out four of these, but I wanted to see all my options. And now I know how the shelving system works. There are a lot of books here....















More textbooks, the ones I picked on on Monday for EMT and Leadership Principles. I got some more today, and changed one of them for the correct one, since they sold us the wrong one to begin with.














Travis came to pick me up on Saturday evening, and we went to a little Chinese buffet here in Three Hills for dinner. They had these enormous fish there! It was crazy ;)

Eating dinner. Then we went to Strathmore for the weekend. It is pretty much exactly 100 km from here to Trav's house.

my room

You can kind of see both sides of the room on this picture.















Entering class schedules into my daytimer. And drinking hot chocolate!















My side of the room, with books and stuff all over the place. There are cupboards under and over the bed, and a huuuuuuuuuge closet! I come nowhere near to filling this up.

This is the rest of my side of the room. I have lots of shelves and drawers above and below my desk, and everything fits good. The pictures I took and Becca's drawings are on the wall by my bed.

The first day I was here (Friday), they had a mixup with the rooms, so they temporarily put me in an empty room on the 3rd floor. Travis and I just carried up all my stuff and I only unpacked my bedding and stuff. There was no one around for most of the day, since almost all of the students were still on Christmas break.

All my boxes on the other bed.....

This is my room. When I opened the door and saw it, I thought 'I'm going to like A.P.!' And I do!

First EMT day!

Hey, I had my first EMT classes today! I am really excited to be in classes like these again, and I had a good day :-)
I am starting to get the hang of who everyone is finally, which is really exciting. I hung out most of the day with the other EMT students. There are 9 of us.
I am sitting in the lounge on the 3rd floor at the computers. A lot of people use this lounge in the evenings to watch movies or play games, so it's a little noisy right now. This computer works fine once it starts up, but it won't do everything I want it to because of the security on it.... :-(
I will post pictures tomorrow if the computer lab computers let me, or I will do it on Friday evening when my VERY BEAUTIFUL GREEN computer comes in..... hehehehe I am really excited for that.
I should probably go and do a little more homework, and get to bed on time. We have chapel tomorrow morning before class, so I need to get up on time again.
TTFN! I miss you guys!

i apologize for the lack of pics, peoples..... i haven't found a computer that will let me upload them yet. i miss my computer :( when/if i find one, the pics will be forthcoming.
anyway, things have been getting sorted out around here, and i feel a little more at home. i have a really nice roommate, A.P.E, and spent this evening with M from the 3rd floor. we both have a lot of work ahead of us, and decided to take one evening and just do nothing. so we did. it's still early enough for me to work on my assignment schedule, so i'm happy.
i had my first class this morning, and it went well. this afternoon we thought we had a class, but the PBA (Praire Bible College) professors don't start until this evening, so it was canceled for this week. i also went and got my mail key & a map of campus (finally!), and a bunch of new textbooks. and i got fitted for a uniform with the rest of the class. they also found back my tuition payment and finally enrolled me in my classes..... more on this later..... maybe :}
i have my first EMT class tomorrow morning at 9, but it's more or less prep for the real classes. so lots of time to study tomorrow.
the food is good, and everyone is friendly all the time. :) everytime i tell travis what i'm having, he wants to be here..... hehehehehehe.
anyway, i will post again later, when i figure out the photo uploading thing. goodnight!

new phone number

a new phone number too! this one is the floor phone, so if you call it, anyone will pick up and tell you where i'm at. i will put my schedule and stuff on the whiteboard on my door, so they can just go check if they're not sure....

403-443-3041

address

hey all! i have a new address, in case anyone wishes to send anything.......

Box 4852
Three Hills, Alberta, Canada
T0M 2N0

starting a new blog. again.

hey everyone who wishes to know what's happening at school! i will post pics up here as soon as i get a password tomorrow. this first weekend has gone pretty well, and i am all moved in now. just building this at travis' house today. he picked the colour. if you hate it, complain to him..... ;)

ttyl.