Tales of chocolate, long walks through the wilderness, and Marco Polo?

It's been awhile, again. Life seems to have gotten busier and busier since the last time I updated! Not much new has happened in the way of classes or practicals. We have had a few classes called 'Differential Diagnoses' classes, which is where we're presented with an animal and have to work out what's wrong with it. I do like these classes a lot, however, I wish there were more of them with less people in each. There are about 25 people in each class, so only 2 people get to take a history, and 2 more people get to do an exam on the animal. So I think having more opportunities like this, with fewer students would be helpful.

There has also been this annoying problem in classes recently. According to the powers that be, it is due to interference from the construction workers' walky-talkies from across the street, causing the speaker system in our lecture theatre to LOUDLY buzz on and off throughout our classes.

Now, I can understand if this happened once or twice. But it has been a MONTH, and still every morning our lectures are running late because the teachers can't speak over the noise of this stuff. Now, I don't know how long they've actually known this was the cause, but it seemed like it should have been dealt with before now, and every day it gets worse and worse, and the teachers are shouting over it and we still can't hear them. It is ridiculous. I can't even imagine how frustrated the professors must be, because I'm sure it throws off their concentration just as much as ours, and is incredibly disruptive to our learning.

Aside from that, life has been extremely good. I've been getting lots of studying done, and although I'm still way behind and need to do a lot more, I actually feel like I'm beginning to put the pieces together, and I feel a bit more confident so far in my studying than previously.

At the end of January, I went orienteering with Andrew again for an afternoon. This was an urban orienteering event within the city of Edinburgh, and it went all the way from Holyrood Park to Calton Hill. It was kind of nice because I got to see some parts of the city I hadn't been to before, and the views from Calton hill are really amazing.

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Punching the first control outside Dynamic Earth!

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I found another one!

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Punching the control on top of Calton Hill

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Then the first weekend of February, Anik joined us for a smaller orienteering event out at Lauriston Castle. I never even knew this place existed in Edinburgh, but it is really awesome! It's a small castle (more like a very large estate type of thing with a huge manor on it), and it also had a small Japanese garden on the property. Anik and I went around together, and even though we were walking most of the way, we managed to not come in last, and had a lot of fun!

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Oh, by the way, I dyed my hair brown!

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Lauriston Castle

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Anik punches a control!

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On Valentine's day, which also happened to be Andrew's and my 5th monthiversary, we didn't really make a huge deal over it in favour of doing something extra special for our 6-monthiversary next month. What I did do (because I can never just do nothing) was make a fondue dinner for Andrew and Anik and myself. First we had cheese fondue, and for dessert we had chocolate fondue. DELICIOUS. Probably took about 5 years off my life span, but it was totally worth it.

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The dessert spread!

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This was the result, oddly enough of Anik sitting on a raspberry the kitten had dropped and mushing it all over her bottom and the floor. Clearly the sugar had gotten to us at this point.

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And finally this past weekend, Andrew and I went orienteering again on Newtyle Hill, which is near Perth. This was the first time I'd done an event completely under my own orienteering skills, as Andrew did his own run. I would have done fairly well, at least in the average range, if I hadn't made a really dumb mistake at the very beginning of the course, and followed the wrong fence and got hopelessly lost for 10 minutes. I figured it out eventually, though, and managed to find all the controls, with only one other slight mishap, which was when I lost my SI card (the electric doo-hickey you use to punch the controls) in a large patch of bracken. But aside from that I did alright, and managed to not be last! I really do enjoy the orienteering thing, and I'm excited for our next adventure, which will be in 2 weeks!

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Sasquatch? or Andrew?

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Andrew getting warmed up

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View from the top of a particularly onerous hill to climb, but I made it up eventually!

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And, in my final patch of news for this entry, I have purchased a car! I decided that for practicality's sake, as well as to help open up more opportunities for doing EMS work, that having a car would be a good thing. So after searching around a bit I found this little approved-used VW, and went for a test drive with Andrew. And I decided to go for it! I am picking it up on Saturday!

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My little 2006 VW Polo, which I have decided to name 'Marco' (Get it? Marco? Polo? Hehehe)

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Tomorrow is my theory test, which I am completely prepared for. I read all the books I needed to read, did all the practice tests (and passed all, I might add), and I am raring to go! :)

Anyway, that's it for now. I will update you with more news if anything exciting happens!

** Update: I passed my theory test! (of course!).. Practical test is on the 5th of March.. so soon! **