I’m trying hard not to procrastinate on the studying, thus far it is not working. There is a post that is dying to be written – I have a draft down in my journal – but it will take longer than I have at the moment.

I realize I’ve been a bit AWOL over the last few days. I spent the weekend up on Thetis Island at Camp Columbia, the Anglican camp for this diocese. It was our parish retreat and there were about 50 people up there (including nearly our entire choir so I’m not sure who was left to sing Sunday morning!). It was lots of fun, though not as refreshing as I had hoped in terms of amounts of sleep…

I ended up staying up far too late both nights with bonfires on the beach. There is a huge natural depression in the rock on the beach in front of the camp which is absolutely ideal for fires. Some of the guys gathered lots of wood throughout the day and we were able to keep a massive fire going for hours. They cooked oysters on it and some marshmallows made an appearance for a very short time. The wind was blowing quite strongly from the north which kept the smoke going a predictable direction, which is nice. It also made it a tad chilly. Sitting around one of those massive fires always presents the problem of roasting front/freezing backside. My backside was radiating coldness for a good period of time after I left the fire and went to bed. So 

much so that I thought there was a hole in my sleeping bag and wool blanket before I figured out it was just my bum half-frozen.

The weekend was fairly cool for March (as I remember it) and we had a mini-blizzard Saturday afternoon – it began minutes after I set out on a walk.  I wanted to walk down to Pioneer Pacific Camp, in North Cove (practically at the other end of the Island from Camp Columbia) to visit friends who are the site managers. Unfortunately, they were not there so I left a note and walked back. There is something quite peaceful about walking in falling snow. Very few cars were out and only 4 or so passed me on my walk between the camps. By the time I was heading home, the snow was falling at a good rate. It was quiet and falling snow serves to muffle sounds even more. The only sound I could hear was the snow hitting my jacket and the occasional gurgle

 of water seeping through the mud at the side of the road. It was beautiful.

A friend from Vancouver was over this weekend and stayed Sunday and Monday night with me (though I had to abandon her all day yesterday and today because of work and school). We had some laughs and good times remembering our backpacking adventures. I managed to get precious little done over the weekend in preparation for the chem test today. I think I passed… but I feel okay about it, so that is all that matters. All in all, it was a good weekend.

[Aside: Glad I bought my Leonard Cohen ticket when I did – they are all sold out as of today.]

The two topics of the title are not meant to be associated. Really. They just happened to be things of note lately.

I had a surprise visit to the dentist yesterday. It was surprise because I had not planned on going yesterday – I called to book an appointment and they had a cancellation for that afternoon and as the free next appointment was two weeks away, I took it. Perhaps it is a good thing to have little warning for a visit to the dentist so that one does not need to live in fear and trepidation of the visit.

This visit, however, reminded me of why I don’t like going. Last time I went to the dentist my teeth and gums got a regular work-over which left my gums sore for a week. A week. Regular flossing? I was struggling to even brush. When I mentioned that this time they told me I should floss more regularly to avoid it. My response: I do floss regularly, I just try to leave my teeth and gums acquainted with each other at the end of the session.

In the end, I managed to convince the hygienist that my teeth are hard to floss and that the spots of fluorosis are not my fault. I had my first fluoride in over 10 years and was reminded of why I used to hate it. Having to wait to eat after the appointment was pretty bad too. I did leave with a cool rubber “gum massager” (it is supposed to help me clean around my wisdom teeth, which, incidentally, are staying), a new toothbrush and a new thing of floss which supposedly will be better than the crap I’m currently using. As long as it doesn’t molest my gums, I’m okay with it.

Yesterday was also day two of my experiment to discover the source of my headaches. Starting the middle of last week, I have had a headache for at least part of every day. It was always in full swing when I went to bed each night (which made studying fun) and was frequently still there in the morning. Being the nerd that I am, I isolated a number of variables that could be causing them: lack of sleep, dehydration, too much coffee and/or sugar in my diet lately, a fairly rubbish diet otherwise, and so on. I didn’t get around to grocery shopping last week, so I was living on random stuff and not as much fresh fruits and veggies as I’d like.

Being the good psych student that I was, I know that the proper way to conduct an experiment is to investigate one variable at a time so as to eliminate interference, blah blah blah. Accordingly, I tested them all at once. Starting Monday, I ingested no coffee (actually, that accidentally started on Sunday) or extra sugars (cookies and stuff like that which I don’t need). Apparently I am giving up something for Lent. I also increased my veggie intake once again and tried to drink more water; I have a 1L cup that follows me everywhere at home. I have not had a headache since the one that enveloped my head mid-day on Monday. The headache was gone Tuesday when I woke up and has not been heard from since.

While I could attribute it to all of the above variables being modified, I am pretty sure I can narrow it to one in particular: sleep. Monday night I had great intentions of going to a Lenten prayer workshop at church led by a couple who are psychologists/spiritual directors. It sounded great and I may still be able to go in coming weeks. I got home Monday night, had some food, went to change into some more comfortable clothes for studying and fell asleep. Right there, on my bed, at 7 pm. Woke up briefly a couple of times, during the second at 10:30, I decided to change into my pjs and just go to bed. Next sign of life was when the alarm went of at 7 am, apparently I was tired.

Currently, I am procrastinating from the same studying I should have been doing on Monday. I am actually trying to get ahead because I intend to relax and enjoy the upcoming weekend at camp and don’t anticipate having time to study before the test next week. But sleep is so inviting, and, after all, is good for me.

I’ve been doing a bit of thinking on the subject of music as of late. I hope to assimilate it all into something coherent at some point in the not too distant future but its not coming together to my satisfaction yet, so that will have to wait. Perhaps that is why I’ve been so rubbish about posting lately: avoidance.

I finished up another application to graduate school and sent it off in the post yesterday. That felt really good. For those of you not yet in the know, I’ve been rethinking my direction over the last couple months. There has been some serious thinking and praying going on over here as I determine if I am headed in a direction I would be happy with. Increasingly, nursing was feeling like a bad move: easy to get a good paying job, easy to travel all over the place with once graduated, but not sitting well inside. I tend to follow my gut like that – I’ll think everything out rationally, even make pro/con lists, and then follow my intuition. It has worked well for me thus far. It was feeling like a bad move as I was feeling trapped, a feeling I don’t like, and not entirely happy. All that and I had not even started the program yet.

So, after lots of walking and praying (I pray better outside while I’m walking all over the place) and after some serious consultation with a select few friends and family, I’ve gone back to the original original plan. The plan that was the plan before I even finished my undergrad: counseling. Really it was the plan all along, I think, I just lost sight of it in my relief to be done school.  I’ve applied at a distance program which will allow me to live wherever I want and have a job at the same time. The beauty of this is that I now don’t have to leave Victoria, something I was increasingly reluctant to do. Ironic, the world traveller doesn’t want to move for the first time in ages. I guess it is time for me to spend some more time and invest in a community for longer than six months to a year.

I haven’t cancelled my application to McGill for nursing yet. I guess I want to see if I can actually get in… but it is looking less and less likely that I will follow through on that even if I get accepted. I’m excited about staying here and excited about pursuing something that feels like a much better fit.