Oops

I forgot to add the sketch of my apartment layout. Hopefully this will work...

Horse Show Pictures

You can view the pictures from the horse show here:

http://community.webshots.com/album/551727171oQyEen

Enjoy!

Back in Charlottetown!

I got back in Charlottetown around 11 pm last night. It was a long trip. We left around 12:30 and headed to Truro to look at apartments. You should have seen the first one I looked at. Oh my god. I can't believe people actually live in those conditions! It was a "bedsitting room" which I thought previously was like a bachleor. I was mistaken. LOL The only room for any furniture would be your bed. And a double would be pushing it. There was a two-burner stove and a bathroom without a sink. Wow. I was impressed LOL. All for the low price of $400 a month.

The second place was better (the too-good-to-be-true 2 bedroom) but it was a mess and the people were smoking. It was about a 2 mile walk to school. The price was good, and they allowed animals. Nice big kitchen, but the "second bedroom" was anything but a large closet that lead to the bathroom.

The third place was better still. Clean, large living room, one entrance and not in an apartment building. It was closer to school about a mile walk, but farther away from any stores (e.g. food, entertainment). After this it was looking bleak. The other apartment I had considered looking at was a lot farther than the other apartments and would be quite a trek in the winter, so I didn't bother looking at that. But with a little luck and some work we were able to find the name of a guy who owns a couple small apartment buildings near the college. And we convinced him to come on short notice (5 minutes) to come show us one of the apartments! It was actually his daughter's that we saw, but the one for rent wasnt available for viewing due to the tenant still being in there. It was the nicest by far. Super close to campus, clean, bright, well maintained, and loved the layout. Best of all? Its a two bedroom! :) Of course the price was a bit of a scary issue considering I'd have to start renting in July. But with the luck I had this time I wasn't going to try to find something when all the students are trying to come in. So I officially am renting two places! LOL

I've attached my not so accurate scetch of the layout. I will apologize to Hal and Tracy for that LOL But it will give you an idea. I'm so excited now! I can plan stuff :) Hehe.

So for my big adventure of the vacation I went to watch the first Quarte Horse show of the year. For those not too familiar with these things its usually a two day show with a different judge on each day. There are classes offered for just about every person/horse. The only (well, main) requirment is that the horses are registered American Quarter Horses. The main classes offered are:

Halter (judging the horse's conformation)
Showmanship (judging the handler's ability to show a horse)
Lungeline (young horses judged at halter and movement in both directions at all gaits for 90 seconds)
Hunter Under Saddle ( also commonly refered to as "English Pleasure", the horse is judged on movement and suitability at all 3 gaits for the old school hunting field)
Hunt Seat Equitation ( rider judged on correctness of position during a pattern posted by the judge and in one direction at all three gaits, riding a hunter under saddle horse)
Barrel Racing ( a timed event where horse and rider make a clover-leaf pattern around three barrels without knocking them down)
Pole Bending ( a timed event of weaving around a series of poles set in a straight line)
Trail (horse is judged on carefulness and calmness through a pattern of obstacles set by the judge)
Western Pleasure (horse is judged on movement, and suitability as being a pleasure to ride at all three gaits in both directions)
Horsemanship ( rider is judged on correctness of position during a pattern posted by the judge and in one direction at all three gaits, riding a western pleasure horse)

There are many other classes offered that would take me too much time to explain well :P As well, all of the classes where the HORSE is being judged is offered in youth, amateur, and open divisions. Youth being anyone under 19, Amateur being anyone over 19 that is not riding a horse owned by someone else or is not recieving money for training or teaching others to ride. Open is the division for the trainers, this is the tough competition, although youth and amateurs are allowed to show in this division as well.

Back to my day... I arrived shortly before 10 AM, just in time to see them finishing up the Halter geldings. It was raining steadily which put a damper on my spirits due to lack of photographic opportunity. However shortly before noon the rain began to taper off and it remained overcast for the rest of the day. I was quite happy running around from the show ring to ingate, to the two warm up rings snapping pictures. I got about 200 shots, most of which turned out ok. Thanks to Dad lending me his camera :)

I got to see familiar faces, and a lot of new ones in the show scene this year. I got to say hi to a couple aquaintences that I've come in contact with over the years. It was so nice to be back in my element, at least for a day. It made me want to quit school and just become a trainer LOL But that probably wouldn't be the best idea. Hehe. Instead I will pine away for my own horse which won't happen for another 2-6 years LOL. But when I do get a horse I'm going to kick everyone's asses in the showring and have a few of the big-guys take notice :P

I just finished editing my pictures, but I haven't uploaded them yet. Keep an eye out for them tomorrow I'll post a link for you.

We got the cutest little dogs in at Pets Unlimited... Dachshunds!! Also known as weiner-dogs, or hot-dogs. I only got one somewhat decent picture, so please bare with me :P I want to take the darker colored one home, but the lighter colored one is quite cute and has one blue eye.



Looks like I'll be making another 47 hour week, with the HMR manager asking me to take another shift on thursday... I couldn't come up with a good excuse so I said I would. Which kind of sucks, with three 12 hour days in a row. Oh well. I'll survive!

Thats all for now! Talk to you all soon.

47 hours

Yes, 47 hours worked this week. I am racking up the hours with my two jobs. I have yet to go over 50, but it may happen this summer at it gets busier at the superstore. Too bad I still basically get paid minimum wage!

I have resumed my running ambitions this week after having a couple weeks off (ok maybe 3) after illness with strep throat. My first run was a sad attempt, but I hope to build back up to where I was quickly, and then move on from there.

I found out I am able to go home for a week to New Brunswick! I am excited to see the family and some friends that still are in the area :) How I am getting home is still up in the air... there is nobody to take care of Cody (the chinese kid doesn't count!) so I will have to bring him with me. I am going to check into how much it would be to rent a car and drop it off in Saint John...

Coming up is the 3rd annual Dog Jog fundraiser for the PEI Humane Socitey on June 11! I'm hoping it will be a nice day and lots of people come out with their dogs for a fun time :) I am also collecting pledges, in case anyone would like to donate some moola for a good cause!

Thats about all for now, I am off to enjoy a nice big bowl of ice cream :P

The interview...

So the big day came! I have been preparing for weeks now and it was finally time... my Atlantic Veterinary College interview. I got up at 7:30 after a remarkably solid sleep, had a shower ate breakfast and looked over some last minute details. I got to chat with Jennifer who gave me some words of encouragement. At 10:00 I walked over to the AVC building to the small animal hospital and waited for a few minutes until the AVC dean coordinator came to get us. I was quite stunned that the other two interviewees were both male! That was unusual since 90% of vet students are female and I got 2 guys my day lol. We went and wrote the essay section, which was much better this year, I could have written on a few topics instead of the one like last year. After the essays we had a tour by a 3rd year student, which was different than last year he gave more detail on actual course work involved in first year but less of seeing the animals (we didn't get to go into the teaching barn... I was hoping to see my favorite horse Madison!). We did get to catch a glimpse of a clydesdale in colic surgery though, that was neat! We then had lunch with Dr. Singh, he talked a bit about the interview process and vet school in general. Then the first guy went in for his interview and came out right on time. I went in feeling fairly confident. I got a bit flustered at a couple points but I think I recovered myself nicely. Had lots to talk about regarding bettas, horses, and the pet store, and vet cases. Good stuff :) We'll see how it turns out... the verdict should be delivered June 15th!

They sold my bird!

Bailey, the blue-fronted amazon was sold Thursday night. I feel a bit sad because he quickly became my buddy and "helped" me clean hamster cages. But it is good he found a home, he's actually with the same people who bought Nelly, the other Amazon. So he'll have his girlfriend back lol

I've been getting better in the running department. The past 2 runs I've done 10+ min x 5+min running intervals with walking in between. On thursday I went for a run down the Confederation trail, and I noticed they have markers for each kilometer! Not to mention its safer than the road and probably easier on the joints, and more scenic... So that will be a way to keep tabs on how fast I am going :)

In other news, I'm trying to spawn my bettas this weekend. Right now the male and female are loose together in the tank, and there is lots of flirtation going on, and the male showing off. But there is still no bubble nest... but I know he can make them because he made one in his bowl last week. So hopefully by tomorrow... I'm not sure if I'll leave them together overnight or not. They haven't been ripping any fins yet, but it almost always escalates to that (not doing so would be unusual), and I don't want them to get too damaged or distressed if I'm not around to keep an eye on them. I made sure to get lots of good pictures before I put them together, as their fins probably won't be the same again LOL Here are a couple pics...

Jogging in the real world

I've never really gone running before. I've used treadmills a bit... but its certainly not the same! I've been aiming to slowly work myself up to jog for 20-30 minutes. Right now I can only manage 5 minute intervals with walking in between LOL. I enjoyed using the treadmill because I could tell how fast I was going and how far I had gone, etc. Outside I am sure my pace varies with the tiredness and terrain factors. I only have my watch to tell how long I've been going and visual landmarks to compare to how far I ran before. I've found the thing that keeps me back from going longer is I run out of breath (literally lol). Its been very slow going and with a busy work schedule I've only been out 3 times this week. Next week I have 2 maybe 3 chances to get out there, but I may be too tired lol. We'll see...

Interesting Day at Work

I worked at Pets Unlimited today, and it seemed like one thing after the other happened. First the supervisor was late letting us in the store. After a walk around the animals I spotted another gerbil had died, not a good sign. That is the second in 2 days.

I am in charge of a co-op student that comes in from 9-11. Her name is also Stephanie, which is weird enough, and she gets distracted soo easily. She's supposed to help me clean kennels and water the animals. But she'll take 5 minutes to sit and coo to the puppies, or if I'm showing a rabbit to someone she'll stand there and watch. *sigh* Kids. Which leads me to... I had to show a class of Kindergarten kids around the store. And for anyone who knows me, knows I dislike kids LOL So that was loads of fun. One of them kept wanting to hold my hand, and another kept trying to squeeze the animals. I'm just thankful none of them tried to pet the birds!

One of our budgies keeps escaping from his cage. He can somehow squeeze through the bars of the cage in the upper corner. He was loose 3 or 4 times today. At least his wings are clipped and he doesn't bite! He's supposed to be one of our "trained" birds, but they're all rather untrained lol. They don't like stepping on your finger or being handled if they can help it. Speaking of birds, Nelly has found a home! She is our yellow naped Amazon parrot. I'm kind of sad that she'll be leaving us, but happy for her. At least I still have my buddy Bailey, the blue fronted Amazon parrot. He's actually my favorite, and I'm fascinated by how intelligent and mischievous they are. I still haven't been brave enough to get him to step on my hand or shoulder, but he shakes his foot, and takes treats nicely.

But back to my day... one of the new puppies has something wrong with his bum. I was told to clean him up and put polysporin on it... and see if its the same tomorrow. If it hasn't changed he'll get a vet appointment. Which doesn't really make sense since they all need to see the vet soon to get their shots and checkups. But are they gonna listen to me? not likely lol.

Our rabbits finally came on sale today and within an hour or two we sold 5 out of 8 of them. People must have had their calendars marked for today! lol This made for my work to be backed up (as well as because of the little kids). So I didn't get done with feed and water til 12:30 or so, in time for lunch! That was annoying. But I didn't have much in terms of shavings and corn cob bedding to clean cages anyway... so might have worked out for the best.

A lady came in during the afternoon with a dead gerbil. She bought two on Saturday and the other isn't looking good either. We have a 15 day health guarantee on our animals (fish and cats/dogs are different). You may (or may not) remember me talking about the gerbils problem we've had the past two days... well she got these guys from the same cage. Normally we just replace the animals, since refunds are not allowed. But she was annoyed and personally I wouldn't blame her, and she didn't want one from the same cage. So I handed it over to the supervisor (haha) and got him to give her a credit for a new gerbil when we get others in. While dealing with this customer, the 'fish guy' put a chameleon in full "pissed off" display on the back on the 'supervisor'. They both laughed and carried on while this poor woman was getting more and more annoyed with the situation which took far too long for them to sort out. *sigh* I'm not too sure about the maturity level of some of the people I work with... lol

I'm sure more stuff happened today that I can't remember right now. But it sure was interesting...Hopefully tomorrow will go a bit smoother!

Brigadier's law

Please consider signing this petition! A month ago a police officer and his police horse were run down in a vehicle in Ontario. The officer was severly injured and the horse had to be shot at the scene, before euthanasia was possible. This petition is to officially urge the Government of Canada and/or the legislative assembly of Ontario, to amend the Criminal Code or appropriate laws,to make intentional harming of a law enforcement animal an indictable offense.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/543044749

Thanks!

First Post!

Being my first post on this blog, I should introduce myself. I'm a 22 year old girl living in Charlottetown, PEI and originally from St. Andrews, NB. I graduated from UPEI in May 2005 with a BSc with an honours in Biology, and am currently attempting to get into the Atlantic Veterinary College for the Fall of 2006. I live with 3 roomates (some absent at this time), their pets and my cat Cody, and my betta fish. I'm currently working at the Superstore and Pets Unlimited, as well as volunteering at the PEI Humane Society. I'm sure I'll add lots more about myself as I go along. Talk to you soon!