People are insane. How else can you explain this??

It is -35C today, and with the windchill that makes it -50C. I'm sure that is a temperature that is thermodynamically impossible, I mean, how are we able to exist when it is that cold??

create your own visited country map

I added in China because I was in Hong Kong for two days. Whatever, it counts.

I just finished the block 2 exam!! See you in hell, psychiatry!!!

My friend Lara and I are looking into doing an elective in Karnataka, India this summer. Bill Gates gave U of M 22million for this project- and it turns out there is room for students. THe initial letter said that the fee would be $225 US, and now after talking to the Dean of the college there, the fee has been upped to $400 US plus expenses. Ahh, India.

I'm here at school and i refuse to leave until I learn all of the psych drugs. We're supposed to learn about antipsychotics, antidepressants, mood stabilizers, and anxiolytics. The problem is the names of these drugs all sound the same, and not like anything remotely familiar: lorazepam, fluoxetine, haloperidol. And people are generally familiar with the commercial name, so that doesn't help either. A lot of the time they don't even start with the same letter. How would you guess that fluoxetine= prozac, or diazepam= valium?

Happy 25th Birthday Lan!!!!

I'm going to Whistler in a couple weeks! Hooray!! I was feeling like quite the poser for a while, saying I was into skiing and not having done it in a year and a half. Now I'll finally get to go to the much anticipated hill.

IN other trip news, I'm heading to Montreal and Toronto over Spring Break, March 12-20th.

For part of his CBC internship, Justin needed some soundbites of people at the U of W talking about the last thing they googled. Good thing he ran into Sarah- she googled christian ventriloquist records. And found this crazy website called
The Marcy Zone. For some good times, click on the MP3 "I love little pussy"> (Guaranteed not to be porn!)

Today I spent the afternoon "health screening" refugees from Sudan. It was mostly asking them questions about their health and seeing if they needed any immediate treatment. Unfortunately- the very last question on the questionnaire was- " do you need any birth control or condoms?" An important question to be sure, and one that needed to be asked- but they should have put it somewhere in the middle rather than as a final thought. Most were embaressed (seeing as they were all single men in their early 20s and probably not used to discussing sex with a white female) but one of them asked for my number. Um, I can see why you would go there, but no thanks.

I was in the bookstore yesterday and saw a copy of "The Thyroid Gland for Dummies". Really, this is being taken too far. A guy in my class is trying to find a copy of "medicine for dummies" just so he can put it in his office.

I've been trying to figure out exactly what Emo is- so urbandictionary.com helped me out. This is what it said:

1. a person who, although they wont admit it, is afraid of being alone. so they cry and write bad poems and feel really bad about leaving their girlfriends for no reason. 2. a spinoff of hardcore punk rock, with a LOT more emotion and crying. heartbreak makes for beautiful lyrics

Ahh. Enough said.

The holidays are drawing to a close, thank god. I never used to understand why people used to bitch about Christmas, but I think I'm able to come up with a pretty good list of reasons this year:

1) You stop your everday life and have about two weeks of insanity that doesn't resemble your day-to-day living at all. You have to spend a lot of time hanging out at home doing nothing- which is fun for the first three days, and then becomes tedious. I can't wait to go back to school.

2) You have to spend a lot of time with extended family- some of whom can be fun, others who are INSANE. And you are expected to get along with these people despite having very little in common (mostly I am talking about the family we married into)

3) Many, many people whom you used to spend time with and who have now moved away come back for the holidays, and it is a never ending fest of trying to fit in enough quality time with them to last until next year. Hanging out with these people is a slightly uncomfortable reminder of the life you used to live, and makes you feel as though you have not made any progress with yourself. It also brings out old ghosts and issues that were very easy to bury when some of your past lives on the other side of the country.

4) When you are around these extended family and friends that you don't see very often, you have to explain your life and your decisons in a concise 2 to 3 sentence answer. You feel like you have to justify things that you don't feel like justifying.

5) And plus there is the whole religious thing- faking being interested in it and making a good show of things while trying not to feel like a hippocrite.

Feel free to add more.