Computers confuse me

I know that I've expressed my confusion about computers before, but since they are such a big part of my life, this will be the subject of today's post again. :)
Up until recently I've been using an ancient desk top computer that was purchased for me back in February of 2003. Now to me, This doesn't seem so bad, but apparently in computer years this means that the computer is now a relic. So, since I'm about to enter the working world as a massage therapist, I decided it was time for me to update my technology in order to make things more eeffecient; that meant I got a computer upgrade that included a Mac laptop, an Alva braille display, a gigantic braille embosser of some sort and a portable scanner. It all seemed exciting when it was unwrapped from its packaging, but I really have no idea how to work any of it. I was running the Mac with Windows and the compatible screen reading software until I finished school, but now that I'm finished it's time for me to switch operating systems. This is probably only the second time I've turned my computer on in a week and a half because the daunting task of learning new short cut keys and such things is not my idea of fun. My fiance is totally excited about the Mac and he thinks it's great, but he loves computers and they talk to him-I'm sure of it. Me on the other hand, give me a living, organic being and we get along-even if it's a snake-but ask me to figure out a computer program on y own and that is a different story. Technically I taught myself how to use Windowsand Jaws-the compatible screen reading software-but I think that was easier because my brain was a clean slate waiting to learn new computer stuff. After you use the same commands for 13 some odd years, trying to figure out how to use a new one just boggles my mind. I'll be amazed if I even get this post published by myself-I had to call my fiance into the kitchen about 5 times just to get to the "edit field" for this blog. I guess what frustrates me the most is that when you know one system you can get things done in a timely manner, whereas when you are using something new it takes you 15 minutes to do something that should have taken 2. Regardless, I'm going to have to learn how to use this stinking thing because otherwise there was no point in purchasing a Mac?
Anyway, I think I've complained enough about my lack of computer intuition for long enough. I will try to make the next post more interesting-as long as I can figure out how to get back here. :)
PS: I know there are typing erros, but I haven't figured out to go back and edit the post. I used to just move through with my arrow keys, but if I do that now, it puts me somewhere on the web page.

My Lot in Life is to Travel

So, it's finally happened-my little 1 bedroom apartment is all packed up and I have moved on. :)
I wrote my last massage therapy exam on Monday and made the long 9 hour drive back up to my home town. I'm going to be spending the next month or so preparing for my board exams and enjoying my time off. I'm also going to be using that time to work more with Kyo. He's learned a lot in the last three months and it would be neat to see what kind of progress we can make with him with some one on one attention for an entire month. My fiance has bought a DVD and an audio book that is used by the Dog Whisperer and we're going to give that a whirl.
Kyo can sit, down and stay (usually), but he doesn't heel so well and he is a bit too aggressive when he plays with Glacier. He's not like that with other dogs-he can go to the dog park and play with 10 dogs and never put his teeth on them, but with Glacier he uses them all of the time. So, that is definitely something we have to work with him on. Glacier is my guide dog and therefore takes priority over Kyo. Glacier needs to be comfortable and safe to ensure he can work to the best of his abilities. Not to mention, I don't like any dog to be bullied. Anyway, this wasn't supposed to turn into a ramble about Kyo again...
The point was to simply state that I've closed a chapter in my life and am waiting for many more to start. Sometimes when things change so drastically a person may mourn for that other time-I sure did when I graduated from university and when I stopped swimming-but I don't think this will be the case with the last 18 months of my life. It was more of a transition period and I'm glad to be moving on. There were some really neat things about going to massage therapy college and living in Cambridge, but I never put any roots down and I really don't feel particularly sad about moving away. In fact, I'm quite glad. :) I had nothing but problems with the three apartments I rented in the 2 years I was in the city and other than the dog bakery woman, i really wasn't close to anyone. I had one classmate that I would do things with, but she was going to school and working, so she was usually too busy or tired to do anything. I'll miss her, but that is about it.
Needless to say, I'm excited for whatever may be coming my way. (The boys are happy to be home too. Glacier and Roscoe keep playing "tug of war" with a squeaky stuffed duck they have). My fiance is visiting me at my parents' place and there is so much more room for the boys here-they are much happier. The only thing that worries me is that Kyo seems to think that chasing and "singing to" the cats is a good idea. We'll definitely have to teach him that kitties are friends not food.

Ramblings From An Over Tired, Over Stimulated Mind

Today I realised the most random thing...
First, I should tell you where my brain is coming from so you don't think I'm completely crazy. :)
The last two weeks I've had seven exams-one per day this week-so I've been studying like a mad woman and have only had the dogs and my laptop for company. So, needless to say, my mind has been wandering and it meandered to accessability issues as it often does. (I may not be in Sociology anymore, but I did graduate from the program and I can't ignore my training).
Anyway...the point is, the most genius invention that I didn't even notice until this morning is the attached lids on the toothpaste tubes! I can't tell you how many times I'd be in a hurry in the morning and I'd lose the cap somewhere in the bathroom. Do you know how hard it is to crawl around on a bathroom floor looking for an itty bitty toothpaste cap while trying not to be late and keep your guide dog from ingesting it? So, it was with great excitement this morning, I realised that I would never have to crawl on all fours searching for an illusive toothpaste cap ever again...well, as long as I buy toothpaste tubes with the lids attached. :P

Computers Hate Me

So to all of you computer savy people out there, I have a question for you:
How do I get my "labels" for my posts to show up? I can't seem to figure it out...I'm sure it's something easy and I'm going to feel like a big dork once you tell me, but can you please help? :)

A Fantastically Messy Friday

Yesterday was mine and Glacier's last day of classes at massage therapy college. You can't believe how happy we both were; especially since I've been fighting the "creeping crud" for the last week and the boys have been stuck indoors sleeping while I try to bombard my body with cold medicine in the hopes of being well enough to study for my final exams, which start on Monday. I've felt really bad because the weather's been gorgeous and Kyo is extremely high energy and I haven't been able to get him out for a walk. So, needless to say, when class let out yesterday at 2:15, a classmate and I stopped at Starbucks, grabbed an ice drink and ran back to the house to get Kyo to take him and Glacier for a well deserved run. It was unseasonably warm and the boys were both excited to be in the back seat of the car with the windows rolled down smelling the spring air.
We took them to a bike trail that runs about 60 kilometres long or so. Of course we had no intention of walking that far, but it's nice because it runs along the river and it's away from traffic most of the time. There are signs posted everywhere about having dogs on leash at all times, but there is a bi-law in the Cambridge area that states that if a guide dog or police dog is caught off leash in a "no go" zone, they are not considered at large. So, hoping that no one would get too angry, we let the boys off a little ways down the trail.
Glacier, being a very white yellow lab, headed straight for the muddy stream that runs along the side of the trail. Kyo, being Glacier's little brother-who is bigger than Glacier-raced after him and soon my white yellow lab was as black as his little brother. He looked like a skunk, with his sides, belly, legs and head all covered in mud and a long streak down the centre of his back that remained off white.
We found a side trail that lead down to the river, so we took that, deciding that it was unlikely we'd run into cyclists and runners that would be annoyed that the dogs were loose. The path was over grown and at one point we came to a little swampy area that we had to cross on a rickety board that could only hold one of us at a time. The boys thought it was fantastic! Glacier ploughed directly into the swamp with Kyo hot on his tail. They splashed and jumped about until they realised that my classmate and I were a bit too far ahead for their liking.
They chased circles around us as we continued our trek to the river's bank. By the time we got there Glacier was even dirtier than I thought he could possibly get and both dogs were breathing prety hard. I thought that they had enough, but I was very wrong.
Glacier galloped as fast as he could down to the river's edge and plunged in. He'll only go up to his belly and he occupied himself jumping through the shallows. Kyo is a bit more hesitant about water, but he soon realised that it was cooler in the water and I'm sure he figured that if Glacier could do it, then he could too, so he too was prancing about in the river. My classmate and I sat down to watch their foolery and finish our drinks and were pleasantly surprised that when they came trotting up the bank towards us, Glacier was almost white again. I really should have leashed them then, but they were having so much fun and the path was almost too narrow to heel them on, so we let them race back to the main trail leash free.
Now, I've mentioned the swamp that we had to cross to get to the river, so obviously we had to cross it again to get home and since Glacier sort of played in it on our way there, I just figured he'd do that again. But again, I was wrong. As soon as we reached the shaky little make shift bridge, Glacier promptly laid down in the muddy swampy water. When my classmate and I exclaimed in utter disgust, he just looked up at us with mud caked to his face with the biggest grin on his face. I swear! White dogs attract dirt! It's his lot in life to get dirty! :)
We figured there was no point in putting them on leash now that they were both absolutely filthy. Neither of us wanted to touch them, but a lot of good that did us. On the way back up the trail, they would race by us and stop and shake all over us, or rub up against our legs. By the time we reached the car, we were both streaked in mud. :)
I must admit though, despite the mud romping, they both were fantastic. There were cyclists and runners that past us and Glacier and Kyo stayed right beside us and did not go and chase the passers by. For only having Kyo for two months, I'm impressed by is recall and his ability to lisen to me even in the face of distraction.
Speaking of impressive-as we approached the car, the boys raced ahead and reached the parking lot before us. When we got closer, my classmate could see that Kyo had found her car and was sitting politely beside it waiting for us. He has the makings of a good tracking dog. :)
We managed to cover up the back seats of her car with old sheets and get the boys back to her house where we hosed them off as best we could. Pretty much all of the mud was gone, but the horrible swamp smell lingered. Today I phoned her and begged her to take us to Pet Smart so that Glacier and Kyo could get a bath. She agreed and we rushed them directly there. It worked out because while they were getting all prettied up, my classmate and I got some serious studying in and now that I've got them home, they're both passed out on the living room area rug. That is great for me because now the energiser Kyo is staying still long enough for me to write this and maybe get some more studing in. :)
All in all, it was a fantastically messy day, but I'm glad they smell like raspberries now instead of Ode to Swamp.

A Dog's Logic

I have had dogs for 20 out of the 26 years of my life and their logic still boggles my mind.
Yesterday, I was in the kitchen making my lunch and Kyo and Glacier were in the small den that is off of the kitchen chewing on their bones. As I bustled about, I noticed that one of the dogs was no longer chewing what they should be because the sound of the chewing changed. I dropped my lunch immediately, concerned that Kyo was chewing something he shouldn't have. He's only a year old and his last family did not set up any boundaries for him, so he does exhibit disstructive behavior sometimes. I rushed into the den only to find Kyo sprawled out with an empty water bottle between his paws, gnawing feverishly at the bottle's cap. This si not the first time Kyo has made a chew toy of a water bottle. In fact, I have a Christmas video of Jetta-my retired guide dog-and Flash-my parents' dog-chasing empty 2 litre pop bottles around my parents' living room. I returned to making my lunch completely baffled.
Here was Kyo chomping on a 50 cent water bottle while his 20 dollar Rhino cone and 18 dollar nyla bone lay beside him. It seems like dogs would make just about anything into a toy. You could take the dog outside and I can guarantee, within 30 seconds of being off leash, the dog will have found something to occupy him/herself. For example, the instant you take my fiance's black lab Roscoe outside, he starts mowing the lawn. If there is a stick or rock in the vicinity, you can be sure that Glacier will find it and make a game of teasing the other dogs with it. Maybe pet stores should start selling tree branches and hunks of lawn instead of fluffy squirrels with squeakers in them and over priced hunks of plastic that claim to be indistructible but are not. :) Either way, I will probably keep buying these expensive toys and my boys will continue to eat grass and chew on water bottles.

My "eventual" Return

Guess who's finally back? A lot of things have changed, so here is my top five list of changes in the last year. :)
1. I got engaged last November, but my fiance has to move to South Carolina and that makes me sad because we're going to be so far apart.
2. I am writing my last set of exams for massage therapy college in two weeks.
3. I adopted a great dane lab cross from the Guelph Humane Society-Kim (fiance) s he takes no credit for this move). His name is Kyo (meaning "big" in Japanese) and h'es a "moose." He weighs about 90 pounds and he's not done growing. :)
4. Glacier has reached a whopping 75 pounds and continues to be a great guide dog.
5. I'm looking for a massage therapy job in a multi-disciplinary clinic somewhere in Northern Ontario.
So that has been the last ten months in a nut shell-there has been a lot of studying, hissy fits and anger directed at my college, but none of that is new stuff-it seems that being accomodated for one's disability is still a concept that people can't seem to grasp. Despite all of this, I'm graduating on June 18 and won't be looking back. :)

Look Who Crawled Out of The Woodwork

So, it would seem that my goal of one blog a week didn’t turn out so well. But here I am again.
Second term is almost half way over and I am loving it. It’s a lot harder than first term in that our class volume has increased (we are taking seven classes instead of five, plus we have public clinic once a week), but a lot of things are coming together for me. All of the anatomy memorisation I did last term is starting to make sense as we’re able to actually apply the knowledge to real life situations.
We are also required to do 30 hours of outreach clinic and I did my first one at the beginning of June. It was a cancer research fundraiser where people cycle from to Toronto on the Saturday and then from Hamilton to Niagara on Sunday. My classmates and I were waiting on Saturday as the riders arrived to alleviate some of their muscle problems. I was able to apply a lot of the information I had learned in the first month of second term and that was really exciting. Spending that time at the outreach solidified that I definitely want to get into sport massage therapy.
Glacier was with me of course and he was fantastic. He got a little antsy towards the end of the day as we were there for over ten hours, but who can blame him? He was just tied to my massage table and I took my shoes off and treated in my bare feet just in case I stepped on him. I didn’t want to hurt him. Not to mention, when my hands are busy, I use my feet to “see” what is around me. It’s hard to “see” through shoes.
I’m again in the middle of midterms. That seems to be when I feel the need to blog. This week I have two more-the last two of ten or so-and then we’ll have some time off from testing before finals start. Glacier is doing well at school and is amazing in public clinic. Every once in a while he tries to pull a fast one and get petted by a client, but for the most part, he stays snuggled up under the massage table on his blanket.
I did have one incident where the receptionist did not tell clients booking in on my night that there was a working dog on site and I happened to get the guy with dog allergies. People were freaking out, but I just went back into the clinic room and was like “anyone want to trade clients,” and one of my classmates switched with me. Seriously, I don’t know what the big deal was. The switch didn’t hurt anyone. I think people are so obsessed with paper work because of the way our profession works, that little changes scare them even if they’re not a big deal.
I’ve been trying to spend time with Glacier doing non-school things as well. When we’re at school he works mostly inside and it’s such a small place that it doesn’t challenge him at all. Today, we took the bus out for lunch and then wandered over to Pet Smart. We had never been to Pet Smart before, so I was a bit worried we wouldn’t find it, but the dogs definitely knew where the store was and got us there quite safely.
I am having problems with the drivers in Cambridge though. Glacier’s crossings are much better now, but people around here don’t watch for pedestrians. It seems like no one walks-they all drive and drive way too fast and carelessly. Last time I checked people were supposed to slow down before turning a corner. It’s basic courtesy and physics! But here they don’t bother. Almost every time I’ve gone for a walk in my neighbourhood and surrounding area, I’ve almost been run over. Glacier’s traffic checking works well, but he’s so confused because we’re usually at least half way to three quarters across the road when people turn in front of us. It’s frustrating and a bit scary. I was even out with another guide dog user and someone turned between us! These people need basic driving lessons! Lol
Anyway, there was my big gush for the last month or so. I make no promises of when I’ll blog again, but I’ll be back eventually. 

Time Has Flown

Can you believe it? My first term of massage therapy college is nearly over! I wrote two oral practical exams this week and next week I have four more. And then-as long as everything goes as planned-I will be finished my first term! In some ways this term has absolutely flown, in others it has taken it’s sweet ass time. I do love the program and definitely think I have picked the right career option for me. Now, all I have to do, is make sure that I pass all of my finals next week. The only one I am worried about is Regional Anatomy. The information isn’t necessarily hard, it’s just a lot of information at once. For example, did you know that the foot has 26 bones and the hand has 27? I have to have all of these memorised and that is not including the other bones in our body nor the ligaments, muscles and joints that also exist. Plus, we have to know where every muscle originates and where it inserts on the body and their actions and what they’re acting on. Confused yet? I am and I’ve been taking it for four months. Needless to say, it’s a lot of work, but it’s very rewarding work and I am looking forward to starting my work in the public clinic, that the school runs, next term.
Glacier is also doing very well. He is so patient at school. He just curls up on his fuzzy blanket and passes out for the day. Jetta would never have liked this lifestyle. She always wanted, and still wants, to just go like crazy. Glacier is much more laid back with a touch of puppy playfulness and mischief too of course. He loves to work though, so when I get him out he is very excited. I am very impressed with his work on buses as well and we do a lot more freelance work than I ever did with Jetta. By that I mean, that I am more comfortable going out and looking for a place I’ve never been to before or working through a place I’ve only been to once. With Jetta I was a little more hesitant to do anything like that. His street crossings have improved as well and I’m really enjoying working with him. He does have to wear a gentle leader though. Ever since he went on an eating spree, he’s had to wear one because it gives me more head awareness. He’s also a big boy and my leash corrections were seeming to have no impact on him. So, the gentle leader just lets him know that I’m in charge. His obedience is excellent though and his recall is fantastic. I have no problem having him off leash. All and all, things are going very well and things are going even better because I’m about to have a week off and the spring weather has finally arrived…well, at least for this week anyway.
I must get going-I have four exams to study for and my classmates and I are going for a bike ride.

Sings: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU...! Etc.

My baby turns two today! Happy birthday Ice man. We all love your giant white head and big, sloppy, wet tongue.
Thanks to my classmates who threw Glacier a surprise birthday party at lunch. The food was excellent and Glacier and I both appreciate that you thought about us. (My classmates gave me the proceeds from the potluck to help offset the expensive vet bill I incurred when Mr. G decided it was a good idea to eat random things and needed to have his surgery. There really are good people left in the world)!
Glacier got a Nutro dessert after his supper and he thoroughly enjoyed it. Tomorrow after first class we’re taking him for a run before our midterm starts. I’m planning on getting him a new nylabone as well. We just haven’t made it to the pet store yet.
So, happy birthday baby boy and hopefully many more…as long as you promise not to eat string, Velcro and other such things again.