Here we are, already well into September. I hate starting with opening lines such as this, but it feels necessary. I haven't written in a couple months. When I came here to write, I noted the fact that, despite the five plus years I've kept this blog, I only have 69 posts. Plus that one about bread dough that mysteriously disappeared. So I've actually written 70. That's not much, for five years. But who cares. Does it really matter? I kind of like that I can be non-committal with this silver afternoon. It's here if I feel like it. But if not, I don't have to.

Summer ended lovely-ly. I wish 'lovely' could be made an adverb and still be grammatical. I had a good, fairly low-key summer. Low-key, but good. However, I was ready to pack up and return north for school. The transition was how it should be. I didn't hate that summer was ending, and I wasn't unable to wait to get back to school. It was just time, and I was okay with that. I had some wonderful end of summer moments with the people of summer. Lunch with the ladies from work. Coffee with friends at the Symposium (it's a good going-away event place. The service is terrible and the food's a bit over-priced and hot things are sometimes cold, but I still like it for some reason). The Busker Carnival with the Klavers. The beach with Brian (I like how, as one friend pointed out, we sort of had a natural 'expiry date', with me moving back to Sudbury. How there was an understanding that whatever we were would be just for the summer. That we didn't have to define things, but just had fun).

I like driving. Long drives, by myself. Though long drives with other people can be fun, too. But they're not like long drives alone. When I'm alone, I like to listen to loud music and sing along obnoxiously. The drive to Sudbury is gorgeous. It also provides ample time to be quiet, listen to mellow music, contemplate anything, and enjoy the beauty of rock and trees and sky and water.

This year I live in a busy house. There are seven of us in it, five sharing one space, with the other two in the upstairs unit. Busy houses are fun.

I'm finding it hard to get back into the swing of schoolwork. All the readings. Two weeks in, and I'm already behind. I need to get my butt in gear. It's easy to want to be social and hang out with my school friends a lot, and spend time with my housemates when everyone's upstairs hanging out.

I'm loving that we're getting into the nitty gritty this semester. I feel like everything I'm learning is directly relevant to what I'll be doing. We're getting some hands on experience, and it's pretty exciting. I was so nervous the first time I tried venipuncture on a classmate, my dear friend Kelley Jane. The nerves surprised me, and I couldn't keep my hands from shaking, which resulted in the needle slipping out of the vein and blood dripping down her arm. Megan the midwife had to help keep it steady while I put the vial in and out. I definitely need more practice. We're also learning loads of important, heavy, responsibility-filled stuff. Our pharmacology/therapeutics and reproductive physiology professor (a wonderful woman who has a freakin PhD in chemistry) says we need a good understanding of all this stuff so we don't look like idiots around other professionals (ie: obstetricians), and to give our profession credibility. Because that's not terrifying...