Three Shifts, One Paper, and One Performance Appraisal. Oh, and One Exam

I should be spending today writing my paper, because I have two days off before I start my last three shifts. But here I sit, blogging instead.

We had our graduation ceremony on Saturday morning, which was quite nice. I likely won't be going to the real convocation at University of Victoria in November so this was kind of my only recognition of completion of the program. There were 63 grads, 18 of which were Nursing degree candidates. Although I didn't win any nursing awards, I had several college faculty come up to me afterwards to let me know that I had been a candidate for a couple of them. That was nice.

In the evening we had a formal dinner and dance, organized by my classmates. It was good too, mostly a chance to see some of my class that I probably won't see much of after graduation. I had a chance to talk to a lot of the instructors, and they had lots of nice things to say. I was chosen the "Most Likely to Become a Nurse Researcher". There were lots of categories, but I think I got slotted into this one because of my research project on research assistants, as well as my placement at the Dept of Health. Many of the instructors commented that they expect to see my name in print in future nursing research articles, which I think is a compliment.

This is the grad evening. My instructor, Pertice is on the left, then students Soura and Stephanie, instructor Betty Ann, student Ashley, and me. Gwen is the only other friend missing in this photo. These were my closest friends during the program.

Here is Gwen:

The weather is starting to finally change for the better. We have a high of +13 today, and the snow is just about gone. Shane and I were exhausted yesterday after our busy Saturday, but I managed to drag myself outside to enjoy the fresh air. Rachel and I took a long hike behind the house, reminding me why I love Yellowknife...I walk outside, and I am in the woods. We found the old trail way back behind the house, and although there is lots of future construction planned behind there, we found lots of puddles to investigate and 'mountains' to climb. Rachel got a soaker, but was distracted by the appearance of a friendly retriever. There are NO bugs right now, making it the BEST time to be outside and walking around. I promised myself to get out at least once a day, until the black flies arrive.

I also had a great conversation with a new neighbour who is building a house across the street. She has four children, one of which is a little girl a year older than Rachel. Actually, their boys were playing in the mud in our yard, and I could see their boots sinking deeper and deeper into the guck from my view from the window. Pretty soon, they couldn't pull their boots out of the mud, and they were getting upset. One of them pushed the other one over, and the only reason he didn't fall into the mud was that his boots were too deep to allow him to tip over. Rachel and I put our rainboots on and I went to rescue them. Their parents, working on the house across the street, had heard their yells, and came over to help, but I was the only adult with rainboots on. It was actually kind of funny.

Anyway, they seem like a great family, and Rachel has been invited over anytime.Okay, back to the paper...