Day 94: Of Wedding Dresses and Possibilities

I worked yesterday's full day shift at the library and it was not nearly as quiet as it should have been. We had quite the patron encounter. But after the shift, Kristie and I went to get La Banquise poutine for dinner before dropping her off at the bus station. It was such a great cherry on the icing of a regular cupcake of a weekend! I may have spent a great deal more of the weekend working on my various projects that were due today than I had wanted, but it was still fantastic to hang out with Kristie so much!

To make matters even better, we walked past a vintage boutique with the most absolutely perfect dress in the window! I'm going to go try it on, but I emailed the owner of the store and she says it's a size 2, and it doesn't appear to be made of the most forgiving fabric.

I somehow doubt I'll be able to squeeze my debatably size 6 frame into a solid 2...

Lesson 93:  Don't try to do everything.

I've been pretty good at keeping on top of everything this year. Honestly, much to my own surprise. But after our collection development paper was postponed by a week, all of a sudden, my leisurely visit with Kristie wasn't quite as unencumbered as it had been when we planned it.

Despite that, my groups and I managed to get the assorted projects that were due today done and to celebrate, I really wanted to go to trivia as I normally do on Mondays and unwind.

However, after class and going to see Rick Mercer on campus, I decided I'd have a nap before trivia. Trivia's at 8 and it wasn't even 4 yet, so I had lots of time.

And yet, I slept right through till 11pm. So here we are. I have another practicum placement interview in the morning, but I'm awake. At 11pm.

Really, I should have stayed awake till 8 and just gone to bed instead of trying to do trivia in addition to my awesome weekend of chilling with one of my best friends and a ridiculous amount of projects. But now I've messed up my sleep schedule. I just hope I can make it right...

Day 72: The Hard, Long Slog

Yesterday, it went down to -20°C (that's -4°F for any Americans in the crowd). Lucky for me that was a one off. Unluckily for everyone, that meant that what was just slushy snowy stuff to slog through two days ago is now a hardened, icy sheet, polished by the boots and bums of those who have been walking, and falling, on these paths, sidewalks, and stairs.

Climbing the hill was more like playing Snakes & Ladders today...

Lesson 68: It isn't that the winter is harsher, colder, snowier or.... Winterier than you're used to. It's how much you're actually outside that counts.

You see, I've been spending the past 4 winters in Toronto (and to some extent Guelph). In Toronto, I lived a stone's throw from campus. It took me about 5 minutes to walk to class, which meant 2 minutes to get to campus. Once I was on campus, it was all cutting through buildings and walking through the tunnels that connected each building to every other. Though the actual underground tunnels had been closed for ages because of vagrants and assaults (or so I was told), there were numerous above-ground tunnels, and buildings that were just plain connected to one another.

I wore the same sweaters as I did in summer, my run-down winter coat, and just ran to campus and stayed in the enclosed areas if it was too cold for what I was wearing.

When I was in Guelph, I'd be going straight from building to car so much that what I was wearing mattered even less.

Now, I'm living in Montreal. I haven't noticed that the weather's any different in severity than the past few winters I've seen. The pattern's different, but it's not any worse or any better. But now, I spend 15-20 minutes a day climbing to class. And another 15-20 minutes climbing back down to my place. Out in the elements. And I can't make it go appreciably faster at all, short of caving and flagging down a taxi.

So I'm cold.

I bought a new coat back in November, which has probably made it better than it would have been, but my summer sweaters just aren't going to cut it any more.

If my classes were at the bottom of the hill, I could potentially use the paths through the underground city (though they don't really extend far enough North or West to be very useful) and I wouldn't really be having a problem.

But my classes are at the top of the hill, and that's a whole other ball game.

Plus, I actually go out now on evenings and weekends because I have a life or something, which I didn't in Toronto. So there's that too.

I do so love the winter though! Particularly the nice big snow falls... It's so pretty! :3

In mod/admin news, I've been writing from the app BlogPress on my iPad, which is a marvelous app, but I was having quite a lot of trouble actually posting from it. That has since been resolved, it was a facebook connection issue blocking my syncing, but all my drafts should now be published. If there's an unaccounted for hole which you've noticed please let me know.

Day 48: Death? Yeah, sounds about right...

Lesson 45: Nut allergies are not to be trifled with.

Lesson 46: While a peanut is actually a legume, tree nuts are actually split into 6 or 7 different families. So, allergy wise, you can have reactions to one family, multiple families or all of them, but if you're allergic to one nut in a family, you will be allergic to all the other nuts in that family. Or be similarly un-reactive to all of them.

Which is why it was a bad idea of me to test out whether I have an allergy to chestnuts by eating a (absolutely delicious) chocolate-chestnut cupcake at the ACA bake sale (which was a huge success, btw). You see, I haven't had chestnuts at all really, and certainly not in any volume, or since I discovered my peanut allergy and started reacting to nuts.

I didn't even know I was actually allergic to peanuts until high school, after a ridiculous few weeks of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for every lunch. That incident culminated in me having 3 such sandwiches in one day, and reacting terribly (itching, hives, breathing issues... everything). I haven't eaten peanuts since. At least not intentionally, and I don't really react to small amounts.

But I've eaten walnuts, pecans and almonds and have no reaction to any of them. Which makes sense to me now, as most people who are allergic to nuts aren't actually allergic to almonds, and walnuts and pecans are both from the same family. I've been noticing a small reaction to cashews, which are with pistachios in the mango family. And my mouth itches a bit if I eat nutella or kitkat bars, which means I'm probably allergic to hazelnuts, filberts and hickory nuts, but like I'm about to stop eating kitkat bars and nutella! I've never noticed a reaction to macadamia nuts, which are apparently a family of their own, or brazil nuts, from the family legythis, that I'm aware of.

But really, I always thought a "nut allergy" was more of an all or nothing thing. Not a you might be allergic to these ones over here, but have no reaction to those ones over there kind of deal.

And now I know, nuts from the beech family, such as beechnuts and chestnuts, are 100% painfully off the table.

All it took was a numb mouth transitioning to tingling and onto painful, watering eyes, itchy throat, headache, exhaustion, nausea, and finally itching from the inside out.

...

Worth it. If only for that cupcake.