Those few of you who actually read this blog already know the major update in my life. I should be able to write about it, at least in basic terms, within a month or two. I do want to update everyone on how my life is going, a major event, and all the silly little stories that involve things that are currently not-so-public, but for now you’ll just have to be patient. For now, just know that my life has taken a completely new turn, and overall I’m fine.

So brace yourselves. It’s about to get weird in here.

[Is anyone still reading this on LiveJournal? If so, please comment! Is there even still a point in crossposting to LJ?]

Here is how my day has been so far:

I had an appointment for a filling in the lower right of my mouth. Things were going fine, and they gave me the freezing and started drilling. Then my jaw got dislocated and stuck open like it sometimes does while at the dentist. Usually, I just have to relax the muscles and it’ll slip back into place, but this time it didn’t. 🙁

The dentist tried to pop it back into place, but she wasn’t strong enough and didn’t really want to hurt me more. We eventually managed to get the left side working, but the right was pretty much a lost cause, so they called around to all the oral surgeons in town. One was out of town at his KW office for the day, one was prepping for surgery for a car accident facial reconstruction, and one was busy but said he could fit me in. Heading to the Emergency Department at the hospital was also discussed, but was rejected because a) the Guelph hospital is really slow, and b) they wouldn’t be as good with this sort of thing anyway, since it’s a dental issue. By this time, I was starting to panic a little because it had never happened for so long before, and I’ve always been able to get it back into place myself (except for the time when I got my wisdom teeth out, and the surgeon had to relocate it for me, but I had barely just woken up from the anaesthetic at the time, so I neither felt it nor cared). It’s kinda scary to try to relax a joint back into place, and then it won’t, because when it won’t it makes it that much harder to try to relax again. o_0 My dentist is a really super nice lady, and she was so upset about hurting me.

So I went downtown, drooling all the way since I couldn’t close my mouth or swallow (sexy!) and found the surgeon’s office. I luckily found parking around around the corner.

I had to fill out a bunch of medical and insurance forms since it was my first visit to that doctor, and then I sat in the waiting room, mouth agape, with a mom who was waiting for her kid to come out of surgery. I don’t know what kind, but he’d obviously been under some kind of sedation, because we started hearing a kid and the doctor singing loudly. We laughed at this, but I learned that laughing put exactly the wrong kind of pressure on a dislocated jaw, so I was laughing, drooling, and wincing, and the poor mom was doing her best not to laugh at me doing all this. It was actually pretty funny, except for the pain, which would likely have been a lot worse if I hadn’t already been all frozen on that half of my face. I had to stuff a wad of tissues in my mouth so I could look down to fill out the forms. I felt so classy.

When the surgeon saw me, it took him all of 10 seconds to say “You’re not going to like me very much for this”, stick his thumbs in my mouth and grab my jaw and drop it back into place. By that point I loved him for it, since it hurt soooo much less when it was back in place, and I could do fancy things like swallow my own spit and stop freaking out. He made me rest it for a little while, and then I got to pay $160 and was sent back to the dentist.

So I went back to get my filling finished, since they’d already started drilling so now it’s all open, but the dentist didn’t really want to keep going today since all my jaw muscles are all stretched and sore so there’s kinda a huge chance of it happening again if we tried more dental work right now, so it got rescheduled for tomorrow.

The entire adventure took about an hour and a half, and was stuck open for a good hour.

So now I’m frozen, with an open cavity, and really sore face/jaw/neck muscles and I feel pretty miserable. D:
I’m also hungry, but I can’t eat yet because I’m still frozen and will bite myself.

Happy New Year, everyone! May 2012 bring you joy, amazement, hope, and love! Live your life, unleash your courage, reach for your dreams, and when things get tough remember that your friends love you!

I got my hair cut yesterday!
I tried out a new hair salon, and I really liked it.

Before:
1080

I took the blonde photo in the post below, and asked for something similar. Here’s the result:
1083 1086 1089 1092

Ignore me!

*test to fix LJ crossposting and comments import*

More text
to be longer
woo

Yesterday I received my acceptance letter from the U of G for entry into a part-time Master’s of Science – Population Medicine (Epidemiology)! 😀

Ok, actually my parents received my acceptance letter, all I got was an email from the school telling me to check my mail for the acceptance letter. For some reason they sent the paper copy to my parent’s address, instead of the address I put on my application. I understand how it happened; I was a student there previously and that was my permanent address while a student, and the address I had them mail my degree to when I graduated back in 2006, so they had it on file, but you’d think they’d update their system to use the new address I gave them.
Now I must wait for my parents to forward it to me so I can fill out the acceptance of the acceptance form and get it back to the school by August 4th. Should be ok; I think the mail backlog from the Canada Post strike/lockout is mostly gone now, but just in case they were nice enough to scan the forms to me just in case.

Despite that, I’m pretty darn excited! ^_^ I love learning, and this Master’s is focused on coursework rather than research (a big plus!), and I can earn another degree while still keeping the job I really like. 😀
I’m also nervous and sort of worried (as is my nature) because the first time through university things kind of sucked. Partly because I had come direct from college – where we got to do everything hands-on and learned so much from independent lab projects, to university – where the TA did most of the fun stuff, and we just had to write 6 pages about the results.
This time, there’s a gap of 5 years (OMG, really?? o_0) since the last time I was in school of any sort, so I’m hoping it’ll feel different. I’m hoping my real world experience will let me adapt easier this time. 😉

This time, however, I also have a full-time job to worry about. A full time job I really like and won’t jeopardize, though fortunately my job requires little thought outside of work hours. To this end, I have effectively shut down the t-shirt business I run with a friend. I feel a tiny bit like a failure for “giving up”, when I know it could succeed if I just put more time and effort into it, but I have come to realize that I’m currently more enamoured with the idea of being a business owner than with actually running a product-based business at this point in my life.
Getting a new degree is more important to me than “making it” as an indie shop owner, so I’m adjusting my priorities accordingly and freeing up time. I’m sure I’ll find I need to give up other things as well once I actually start classes, but this is a great start and feels right. ^_^

Now all I have to do is wait for the mail from Kincardine, sign the form and drop it off, and wait for another reply from the school telling me when class registration is, etc. Then I should be able to find out how job-friendly my classes will be. It’s not a night school, or distance education, or adult education program, it’s a normal degree, which means the classes are in-person and many of them will be scheduled during normal work hours. I guess this time around I’ll be pleased instead of annoyed when one of the classes I need is scheduled for 7pm. 😉

I have an awesome boss who is pro-education and is willing to let me flex my hours a bit to be able to fit in both classes and work, but I only want to push that so far, ya know? I don’t want to wear out my welcome, so to speak, especially since this degree will take a few years at a part-time rate. My acceptance letter has allotted me 11 semesters (~3.5 years) for completion. I rather hope it doesn’t take that long, but it all depends on how much I can handle at once, and I’m definitely going to start slow.
MY company itself is also pretty awesome when it comes to employee education that is relevant to the company (and this MSc definitely would be), and will often provide funding assistance, but the policy is usually geared toward individual continuing-education classes, not entire degree programs, so I have to wait and hear back on that point. It would be awesome to have any kind of financial help, though. ^_^

TL;DR: Caitlin is going back to school and hopes she doesn’t go insane this time.

I am thirty.

This is both awesome and terrifying.