Recapping and restarting
It's been ages since I last blogged but I've been newly inspired by my friend's blog and by the fact that I currently have no job or money and blogging is the cheapest thing to do to entertain myself.
The last time I wrote on this site, I was emotionally wasted and slogging away at my internship. That is all behind me now and it's only taken me FOUR MONTHS of serious slacking off, sleeping in, traveling and eating/drinking to make me forget some of the trauma that happened to me in the last year.
My internship finally ended on June 26th and, truth be told, my last day was a bit anticlimactic. I had always imagined that at 7pm on the dot, I'd be ecstatic and throw off my lab coat, turn around to the entire ICU and go "SO LONG SUCKAHS!" and run screaming out the back door. Or that I'd march in on my last day with my stethescope tied around my head and blast everyone with a blow dart gun filled with telazol darts or something.
As it was, I had packed everything out of my little corner of the intern office the night before and when the time came around, I just ditched and left. I didn't really say a big farewell to anyone but then again, no one really said a giant farewell to me either.
To make it even less exciting, I went back to work that evening to pick-up my roommate so we could drive out to the Hamptons and have a weekend getaway. She was running late and I sat around in the empty intern office then wandered around the hospital when I got bored. The halls were mostly empty and there were a few living souls in the ICU. Mostly sick animals.
Like I said, highly anticlimactic.
For the first month, I didn't really feel much of anything at all. I thought I'd be relieved, happy, joyous. Instead, I just felt numb and tired. Very tired. I helped Gabe move his stuff from his little New York apartment out to Baltimore and that kept me occupied for a while.
I moped around Gabe's apartment and at my aunt's house in Maryland (she baked me oatmeal raisin cookies which somewhat revived me) until I was whisked away on my hectic summer traveling schedule.
It started with a whirlwind tour of Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City, and the maritime provinces.
I spent 10 hours a day crammed on a bus full of 30 Chinese tourists, 15 of which were related to me, and squeezing my legs till we got to the next rest-stop cus they wouldn't let us use the toilet on the bus.
After I survived that trip, we flew back to Calgary for my cousin Emily's lovely wedding. She got married at the planetarium (to be pronounced 'planet- arium' like in South Park). Then another 13 of my family members drove out to Vancouver and took a cruise all the way up to Alaska and down again. I was stuck in the backseat of my aunt's car with my two little cousins and my bratty nephew for the first portion of the ride out to Vancouver and nearly killed myself. They took turns trying to shove things like fingers, seaweed snacks and seat belts up my nose and into my ears and tickling me. Then my nephew would fart and they'd all giggle away while I gagged and tried not to vomit. They thought that was hilarious.
(Click here for photos of Viv's maritimes and Alaskan adventures)
On the Alaskan cruise, we survived a storm on the way down the coast and nearly everyone on the boat tossed their cookies. Still, we saw lots of dolphins, orca, whales, seals and sea lions so it was all worth it.
Then we drove the 12 hours back to Calgary from Vancouver and I spent a few weeks in landlubber bliss. I managed to participate in some backyard olympics, attended Anh's birthday celebrations, met up with Salima (and snuck into our old high school) and accidentally killed one of my dad's precious koi fish. What? I said it was an accident!
And then I was whisked off to my next adventure.
This time, it was a family trip out to the motherland. We toured Beijing for four days, climbed the Great Wall, ate goodness knows what at the Chinese night market, watched Chinese acrobats contort into non-human shapes and seriously depleted the local stinky tofu supply before heading down to Hong Kong. We stuffed ourselves with more delicious food for three days straight and even spent a day in Macau (eating of course) before making the long journey back home to Canada.
After that, I packed up and came back down to Baltimore for a few days . . . and then went to Costa Rica.
Costa Rica was an amazing adventure of zip-lining (zipping around the rainforest canopy on cables going from tree to tree), canyoning (belaying down waterfalls and off a hanging bridge in the middle of the rainforest), bird-watching (um, watching birds) and boating (self-explanatory). We got to watch the green sea turtles laying their eggs at night on the Caribbean coast and I got to see my fill of sloths, toucans, basilisks (coolest lizards ever!) and monkeys (I hate monkeys . . .). We also got to watch the Arenal volcano erupt and enjoyed the local foods and drinks immensely.
And after my week of crazy adventure in Central America, I finally headed back to Baltimore and not knowing what else to do, found myself a job.
And here I am now. My new job starts on November 16th and until then, I am chilling out at Gabe's apartment here in Baltimore and trying to get over my residual jet lag.
It's been four months of constant movement and it's a bit nice to finally settle down somewhere and just veg. It's like I've come full circle. I started my summer in Baltimore and several continents and oceans later, here I am again.
The weather has been lovely down here and because Maryland is covered in trees, autumn has been breathtaking. The buildings are mostly old stone and brick structures and with the historic monuments, blue skies and golden leaves, it is simply lovely.
And that completes my first blog in ages. Here's hoping I can keep up with the blogging this time round. Luckily, there's no internship around to crush my soul and no overnights to zap me of sanity and energy.
Here's to a new start.
The last time I wrote on this site, I was emotionally wasted and slogging away at my internship. That is all behind me now and it's only taken me FOUR MONTHS of serious slacking off, sleeping in, traveling and eating/drinking to make me forget some of the trauma that happened to me in the last year.
My internship finally ended on June 26th and, truth be told, my last day was a bit anticlimactic. I had always imagined that at 7pm on the dot, I'd be ecstatic and throw off my lab coat, turn around to the entire ICU and go "SO LONG SUCKAHS!" and run screaming out the back door. Or that I'd march in on my last day with my stethescope tied around my head and blast everyone with a blow dart gun filled with telazol darts or something.
As it was, I had packed everything out of my little corner of the intern office the night before and when the time came around, I just ditched and left. I didn't really say a big farewell to anyone but then again, no one really said a giant farewell to me either.
To make it even less exciting, I went back to work that evening to pick-up my roommate so we could drive out to the Hamptons and have a weekend getaway. She was running late and I sat around in the empty intern office then wandered around the hospital when I got bored. The halls were mostly empty and there were a few living souls in the ICU. Mostly sick animals.
Like I said, highly anticlimactic.
For the first month, I didn't really feel much of anything at all. I thought I'd be relieved, happy, joyous. Instead, I just felt numb and tired. Very tired. I helped Gabe move his stuff from his little New York apartment out to Baltimore and that kept me occupied for a while.
I moped around Gabe's apartment and at my aunt's house in Maryland (she baked me oatmeal raisin cookies which somewhat revived me) until I was whisked away on my hectic summer traveling schedule.
It started with a whirlwind tour of Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City, and the maritime provinces.
I spent 10 hours a day crammed on a bus full of 30 Chinese tourists, 15 of which were related to me, and squeezing my legs till we got to the next rest-stop cus they wouldn't let us use the toilet on the bus.
After I survived that trip, we flew back to Calgary for my cousin Emily's lovely wedding. She got married at the planetarium (to be pronounced 'planet- arium' like in South Park). Then another 13 of my family members drove out to Vancouver and took a cruise all the way up to Alaska and down again. I was stuck in the backseat of my aunt's car with my two little cousins and my bratty nephew for the first portion of the ride out to Vancouver and nearly killed myself. They took turns trying to shove things like fingers, seaweed snacks and seat belts up my nose and into my ears and tickling me. Then my nephew would fart and they'd all giggle away while I gagged and tried not to vomit. They thought that was hilarious.
(Click here for photos of Viv's maritimes and Alaskan adventures)
On the Alaskan cruise, we survived a storm on the way down the coast and nearly everyone on the boat tossed their cookies. Still, we saw lots of dolphins, orca, whales, seals and sea lions so it was all worth it.
Then we drove the 12 hours back to Calgary from Vancouver and I spent a few weeks in landlubber bliss. I managed to participate in some backyard olympics, attended Anh's birthday celebrations, met up with Salima (and snuck into our old high school) and accidentally killed one of my dad's precious koi fish. What? I said it was an accident!
And then I was whisked off to my next adventure.
This time, it was a family trip out to the motherland. We toured Beijing for four days, climbed the Great Wall, ate goodness knows what at the Chinese night market, watched Chinese acrobats contort into non-human shapes and seriously depleted the local stinky tofu supply before heading down to Hong Kong. We stuffed ourselves with more delicious food for three days straight and even spent a day in Macau (eating of course) before making the long journey back home to Canada.
After that, I packed up and came back down to Baltimore for a few days . . . and then went to Costa Rica.
Costa Rica was an amazing adventure of zip-lining (zipping around the rainforest canopy on cables going from tree to tree), canyoning (belaying down waterfalls and off a hanging bridge in the middle of the rainforest), bird-watching (um, watching birds) and boating (self-explanatory). We got to watch the green sea turtles laying their eggs at night on the Caribbean coast and I got to see my fill of sloths, toucans, basilisks (coolest lizards ever!) and monkeys (I hate monkeys . . .). We also got to watch the Arenal volcano erupt and enjoyed the local foods and drinks immensely.
And after my week of crazy adventure in Central America, I finally headed back to Baltimore and not knowing what else to do, found myself a job.
And here I am now. My new job starts on November 16th and until then, I am chilling out at Gabe's apartment here in Baltimore and trying to get over my residual jet lag.
It's been four months of constant movement and it's a bit nice to finally settle down somewhere and just veg. It's like I've come full circle. I started my summer in Baltimore and several continents and oceans later, here I am again.
The weather has been lovely down here and because Maryland is covered in trees, autumn has been breathtaking. The buildings are mostly old stone and brick structures and with the historic monuments, blue skies and golden leaves, it is simply lovely.
And that completes my first blog in ages. Here's hoping I can keep up with the blogging this time round. Luckily, there's no internship around to crush my soul and no overnights to zap me of sanity and energy.
Here's to a new start.
posted by Viv at 11:16 a.m.
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