Happy August Long Weekend People!

Ok I know....It's been a while.

So let's recap where I've been.

From June 13 to June 20th, I was cloistered in a tiny room in the library, upwards of 8-10 hours a day studying.


whatshouldwecallgradschool: After Spending All Weekend Studying.

credit: Daninfrance

On June 20th, mid afternoon, I was woken from my isolation by an email from the University, it went something like this:

"Due to the flooding, the City of Calgary has posted the evacuation of the following neighbourhoods...."

Now, having spent the past 3 weeks in a tiny room in the library with no windows, this was the first I heard about flooding...and I thought to myself whaaaaaa?

I drove home that evening, down Memorial Drive along the Bow River, which was beginning to look something like this:

 Image Source

In a panic about my candidacy exam the next morning, and the idea that I might not be able to get back across the river in the AM to get to it, I promptly evacuated my Beltline Apartment and headed to Kevin's and higher ground.

Despite the flood, the closing of the university, and being kicked out of my exam room by security, All 5 of my examiners, my supervisor and my neutral chair made it in to Foothills safely, and conducted my exam, for which I am eternally grateful.

And I passed!

I spent the rest of the weekend celebrating with Kevin and friends and alcoholic beverages.

The following Thursday, I was headed to the airport to spend 10 days in London and Dublin.

It was an amazing trip, tonnes of fun (and one long winded sinus cold) and I'll be sure to devote a couple posts to it this month!

I got back to Calgary during the tail end of Stampede and with just enough time to bang out 6 days of experiments before my mom came to visit (oh and I ended up spending a good chunk of the time she was here in the lab too).

She headed back home to Ontario, and I headed back into the library to finish out a review paper on my project that we submitted for publication this week. All the while working my way through a stack of experiments, homemade scratch cooking and reading a book for a volunteer thing I'm doing come September.

Needless to say, life has been busy! too busy for me to justify spending time blogging, when I should be either reading, in the lab, writing or sleeping. (Eating and running were fit in there too).

So here's to making up for it this August.

How have your summers been treating you?