Casting Sheep and Aging

It has nothing to do with broken bones.  You do it for foot trims, and shearing.
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Now I’ll try and describe the process of getting the sheep in this position.
First your eye down your sheep.  This involves picking out which sheep you want to catch out out the herd of sheep.
 
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The main reason for picking the sheep you want to catch is to prevent you from randomly running around changing your focus as they start to scatter.


Once you have picked your sheep you need to approach it and try not to startle it.  Then you use one hand and lift up it’s chin, the other hand you put on the tail to stop it from backing up.  For better handling you can hold the sheep against a fence or gate.

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At his point you can age the sheep by looking at its teeth.



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These are milk teeth.  All the teeth are narrow and the same size.





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The first two adult teeth have ruptured.  They are a lot broader than the milk teeth.
This means the sheep is around 1 yr 3 months old.



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The 2nd set of adult teeth have erupted.
1 yr 9 months.




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The 3rd set have erupted.  The tooth on the right is the last milk tooth and the tooth beside it is an adult tooth that has just erupted.



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Another picture showing the 3rd set of adult teeth.
2 yrs 3 months.



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All permanent adult teeth are in at 2 yrs 9 months.  The gums recede making the teeth look more spaced out.





Okay, lets move on to casting the sheep.  Once you have caught the sheep you want to turn the head inwards toward it’s hip.  If you wish to try to exhaust the sheep by holding it in this format and running around in a circle again and again, go ahead.  I did.  I’ll tell you though, it exhausts you and not the sheep. (AT ALL).



Then you put your hand just in front of the hip and while taking a step backwards slightly you lift up with the hand on the hip.  Did I mention that the sheep we were handling are Suffolk and Scottish Mule (both ~90kg).
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If you do this part incorrectly you end up running around in a circle again.  If you do it correctly you end up with this:

















Once you have them like this they become very floppy and will willingly sit there.














They even get this relaxed:









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Now you know how to do it.  It may sound easy.  Heck it might even look easy if you watch someone experienced do it.  Take it from me, IT’s NOT!  There is a definitely a trick to it and once you’ve got it, you’ve got it.

You say Tomato…

We are in the middle of our Embryology lectures now.  Learning about how an embryo develops into recognizable parts, but if only it was that easy.  We learn the 3 germ layers and from there, where each type of tissue in the body derives from.  It’s more complicated than that, but I won’t put you through that.

So that’s what I did today - “revised” my embryology.  That’s what they say here instead of "studying” 

You don’t give a cashier a “bill”, you give them a “note”.  Don’t go shopping for waterproof “pants”, look for waterproof “trousers”.  The term pants here refers to underwear.  You don’t trim your “bangs”, it’s your “fringe”.  You would call me on my “mobile”, give me directions to the “toilet” and put your “rubbish” in the “bin”.  A “jumper” isn’t an outfit for a baby, it’s a sweater.

I also learned that you “flip” a coin, but “cast” a sheep.  Stay tuned till tomorrow for those details!

So I have been slacking…

 

I’ll come right out and admit it.  I’ve been slacking.  I promised everyone that I would keep my blog updated, oops. 

I’m still working on getting into a good rhythm / schedule with school and studying and cleaning and all those things that you have to do but don’t really want to sometimes.  I’ve been spoiled working as a paramedic with my 5 days on, 2 days off, 5 days off, 2 days on schedule.  How have people managed to do this with only 2 days off?!?  That’s probably my biggest adjustment so far – not having long enough weekends.  Especially with only a washer/dryer combo, you can’t put a new load in the washer and move the first load into the dryer.  Instead you have to take the wet clothes out, hang them up, hand iron the wrinkles out, then put the next load in.  If you forgot to put softener into the wash, you end up with wrinkly stiff shirts…  Did I mention that the washer drum is about the size of 3 paint cans?

 

Meanwhile my old washer that I left behind was huge. 

Well…maybe not quite that big.  But it definitely fit more than my current one.  Putting 6 shirts in it is about the limit.  AND the drying thing is a whole number story.

I always thought a washer/dryer would be a great thing.  Put your dirty clothes in and then an hour or so later take out your clean fluffed dry clothes.  NOT EVEN CLOSE.

First off, if you over fill it you’re in trouble.  Second, because you are using the same drum to wash and dry it’s very wet inside when it starts to dry.  That means that it heats up all that water and steams your clothes.  If you take your clothes out before they are dry they are hot steaming soaking wet articles that you try and hang up without stretching.  So I bet you are thinking, “duh! why not leave them in until they are fully dry?”.  Well you have to guess how long to put the dryer on, because you can’t just open the door stick your hand in and check.  You have to stop the machine by turning the dial to off, then wait 2 minutes for the door to unlock.  Usually by that point I’ve gotten sidetracked and forgotten that I was doing the laundry…

Anyways, what was I saying?  Oh yeah, laundry.  So if you happen to guess longer than necessary to dry your clothes you end up with dry clothes in nice compact wrinkled balls. 

And a bottle of this

just isn’t going to cut it.

 

 

 

 

Till tomorrow when I’ll post again!

Embarkation Day – Part two

We walked through the doors and entered a bland hallway.  We rounded a corner and were directed to a decorative buoy for a quick picture.  I don’t have that picture as we didn’t buy it ($25 CAN) and my eyes were shut.  We went up an escalator and then onto the glass walkway. 

Although it looks pretty and gave us a great view of the ship it was air conditioned poorly and very hot!  We waited in line and then finally got to the top where there was yet another security point where our ship cards were scanned and checked.   After passing through security we were finally on the ship in all of it’s magnificence.
We entered through the Grand Lobby on the 3rd floor with a glass surround elevator and two white staircases leading to the 2nd floor.
 
We wanted to check out our stateroom to see what we ended up with; an obstructed balcony or had we been upgraded to a deluxe balcony.



We had been upgraded to an unobstructed balcony and it was much larger than I had expected.  It was about 10 feet wide by 5 feet.














 Here’s the view from our balcony looking down towards the stern.  Our stateroom was 4144 so it was just about mid way down the ship. 
Both of the below pictures were taken from just outside our room.  One was taken facing the bow and one was taken facing the stern.  Hopefully I captured some of the idea of just how large the ship was.


 

      

Embarkation

 

My mom and I walked into the Brooklyn cruise terminal out of the sweltering heat of New York.  Surprisingly to me it looked very similar to an airport terminal.  Immediately inside the doors was a glassed off area to separate the security checked from non security checked.   The first security check was a quick glance at our passports and we were through.  The next check was the conveyor were all your belongings were x-rayed as you walked through the metal detector.  We flew through both with no problems and no line up at all. 

We were handed a laminated card with “62” printed in large print and shown to a chair.  There were about 20 other people sitting down in the row with us and as we sat another 40ish came and sat down as well.  In front of us was approx 30 windows each with a computer and camera which we assumed were for check in.

All of this took no more than 15 minutes.  It was now 10:15.  My mom and I weren’t completely sure what we were waiting for.  If we had to wait until our official embarkation time of 1200 or just until there were windows open.  We still had no idea what the number 62 was for. 

We chatted with one of the staff members who was directing people to chairs.  She told us that there were still people disembarking the ship and that’s what we were waiting for.

Another 15-20 minutes passed and staff members were buzzing around the computers.  Very quickly after that they started calling people to the windows.

Once a few of the windows started to open they all were opening and people were being checked in very quickly.  My mom and I were called to a window were she looked at our tickets that we had to print at home (no fancy tickets for us!), took a picture of each of us and registered a credit card to our account for on ship spending.  She then printed a card similar to a credit card/hotel key with our name on it for each of us.  My mom went to hand the girl our “62” but she said no and told us that was our boarding order. 

Hmmm…62 is that a good thing or a bad thing we wondered.  If we are number 62 of the 3,000 ish that are on the ship, then it’s really good!  But what if it means group 62 and all those people we got checked in with were all 62? That means there were a lot of people who were set to board before us.

After checking in at the window we were directed around a corner, to the waiting room.  This is how early we were, almost no one else waiting.

 

 

 

 

All of the chairs were pointed towards these doors.  The doors that would take us to the ship. 

 

 

There was a small group of very well dressed people sitting to the left of the doors.  We found out that they were attending a function aboard the ship that was only on today, they would be disembarking before we left.

 

While waiting we were people watching to pass the time.  I saw this gentleman approach.  Dressed in white from head to toe.  He disappeared through the doors to the elite Princess Grill lounge.  The Princess Grill is the highest class on the ship reserved for those paying the big bucks on the suites.

 

We waited…and waited…Finally at 12 a staff member yelled over the crowd and told us they were delayed and boarding would start at 12:30. 

Pretty close to 12:30 a staff member appeared in front of that roped off area with signs.  They unlocked the doors and the lady called for number 60 to board.  Woohoo!  That meant that it shouldn’t be too too long for us.  She called 60 again, no one responded.  So she moved to 61, about ten people moved towards the door.  This really wasn’t going to be a long wait at all. 

Perched on the edge of our seats we waited for her to call 62.  Once called we walked to her with 10 others, handed her our number and walked through the door.

The Drive

 

The sun slowly set as I drove farther and farther south away from Burks Falls.  I had originally planned to listen to an audiobook during the drive but I seemed to make a mistake putting it on my computer.  I forgot a whole CD.  So decided not to listen to it at all.  If you have never tried it, audiobooks make a long drive go by so quick.  I highly recommend it.

Canada’s Wonderland had wonderful fireworks to bid me adieu as we come up to it.  I’m not sure what the event was but it was pretty spectacular even if I didn’t get to see them too closely as I was driving.  Many cars were pulled over on the side of the highway to watch.  After looking it up, it was Snoopy’s 60th Birthday.

We got to the border at just about midnight.  The border crossing went amazingly smooth.  Even after the attendant asked where I was going and I replied “Scotland”.  He looked at me quizzically trying to figure out how entering the states helped me get there.  I had to quickly explain about the ship leaving from Brooklyn.  There wasn’t any problems with my luggage or having to show our boat tickets.  The only other question was how did we know our neighbour since his last name stood out as different to ours.

Around 2am I was quickly starting to get tired and even more so as everyone else in the vehicle was dozing soundly (like my parents neighbour), sleeping fitfully (my dad) or just resting (my mom), so no more conversation to help pass the time.  My Dad took over driving and I attempted to get some rest.  Not easy for me, especially in a F150 where the backseat doesn’t recline even an inch.

Throughout the night and more so as the sun rose I saw lots of wildlife along the side of the highway – multitudes of deer, weasels, wild turkeys.  I was surprised that we didn’t see any wildlife on the highways in Canada but almost as soon as we were across the border they were everywhere.

Despite planning the trip with Google we were really early. At 7am we decided to have a leisurely breakfast at Perkins in New York.  Perkins didn’t have the same menu as Sudbury which was disappointing.  I was looking forward to having strawberry cream filled waffles.  I had to settle for plain waffles with fruit on top.

Since we were so early we wondered what to do to pass the time.  We decided to go and find the cruise terminal then hang out nearby.  As we crossed a bridge into Brooklyn we got our first look at the Queen Mary 2. 

 

See if you can see it in the picture.   You can click on it to see it bigger if needed.  I’ll give you a hint.  It has a red funnel.

 

 

 

 

Here is our next glimpse of the mighty ship.

 

 

 

With such a big ocean liner I thought that the cruise terminal would be large and have a well marked route to it.  I thought it would have a grand sign at the entrance since the QM2 is toted as the Worlds most luxurious cruise ship.  Instead it was a small road with no signage along the route to guide you and this is what the entrance looked like.

Those are two security guards, at least that’s what  I assumed them to be.  Although they didn’t do anything other than a mild glance as we drove by.

This view of the QM2 starts to reveal just how big she actually is.

 

Notice the well known landmark?

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had chosen to have a “deluxe obstructed view balcony” stateroom when we ordered our tickets.  That meant that our room would be behind those lifeboats.

 

We drove around the loops at the terminal passing all of the passengers who had disembarked and were waiting for taxis.  Many of them had lots of luggage, not quite as much as I but enough.  That made me a lot less nervous about mine being too much.

We stopped and asked an employee where one would drop off their luggage and were directed to one end of the terminal.  There appeared to be only one employee working in that area and he was loading someone’s luggage into a giant black crate on wheels.  The crate must have been 6 feet x 8 feet x 4 feet in size.   After he was finished with their luggage he turned to us.  We warned him about the amount of luggage I had but he didn’t seem fazed at all.  He loaded it into a new black crate, my luggage alone seemed to fill it.  He then pushed the crate over to another employee and that was it.  It was 10am, 2 hours early for our boarding time.

My Mom and I said a goodbye to my Dad (and their neighbour) and they got back on the road.  I found out later that they truly did just turn around and head home.  They arrived at midnight.

It was very hot outside that day and my Mom and I headed inside the terminal to wait.  We thought that we would have to wait until our embarkation time before we could start the process of being checked in.  We were wrong.

The Journey Begins.

 

I had decided to make the journey “across the pond” via cruise ship, the Queen Mary 2 (QM2).  Once known as the largest cruise liner in the world, she has 14 decks and is able to carry over 3,000 passengers.  She is still the largest ocean liner in the world.  Here’s a size comparison for you.

She is powered by 4 propulsion units, 2 of which are rotatable 360° so no rudder is needed.

 

I chose to take the QM2 as there was no limit to the amount of luggage I could bring.  The only stipulations were that you have a “reasonable” amount of luggage, able to store it all in your stateroom and each piece was less than 50lbs.  After packing, weighing and repacking multiple times this is what I ended up with.

I had 13 pieces of luggage (there is a large black suitcase behind the other one and 1 not pictured).  The 3 flowered suitcases are my moms.

 

The ship was set to depart on Sun August 8th at 5pm from Brooklyn, New York.  Our embarking time was between noon and one.  My Dad had offered to drive my Mom and I to the dock in Brooklyn.  Google told us that it would be a 12 hour drive to get there from Sudbury.  So with bathroom/snack breaks, the border crossing and any unforeseeable circumstances my Dad figured we should leave at 8pm on the Sat.  My parents neighbour was to come with us so that my Dad had a driving partner for the way back.

I volunteered to drive for the first bit as I am normally a night owl.  At 8pm we started our drive away from Burks Falls and what would soon be my former home.

Visa – The Journey

Days prior to my trip down to Toronto I had my route planned and Google maps printed out as well as my mom’s GPS to guide me. 

I found out that morning thanks to a facebook post by my mom that NUMEROUS roads were closed due to the Queen being in town as well as the Shriners parade. 

These roads of course consisted of many of the roads I had planned to travel on my way to the Eaton Center.  So all my planning was out the window.  My mom told me the easiest way was for me to park at Yorkdale and take the subway.  Easy for her to say.  I wasn’t keen at being in large crowds and even less so about being in a small subway car with them.  But with no other option that’s what I did.

My trip to Yorkdale mall was uneventful.  The most interesting thing about Yorkdale was the parking.  They had electronic ticker signs that told you how many parking spots that were available in each section and they constantly updated almost every other second.

 

My biggest question, is how did it know?  Was there someone somewhere pushing buttons when someone parked or moved out? Were there sensors under the parking spots?

I found my way to the overpass to the subway, paid my fare and waited on the platform for the subway to come.  All the time trying not to concentrate on the bizarre things flying through my head.  Is someone going to try and mug me? What if I fall on the tracks? Will I have enough time to get on before the doors close?

My mom gave me specific instructions on where to exit underground to ensure that I came up to street level on the right corner.  Of course after all the excitement of the subway ride I completely forgot which staircase I was suppose to take.  I ended up coming up at Dundas Square.  After walking up the steps I was suddenly in awe how the buildings were so tall and there were huge billboards everywhere.  I might as well had “Tourist” stamped on my forehead, because my jaw was on the ground and I’m sure very obvious I wasn’t from nearby.  It’s not like I haven’t seen tall buildings but it had been years since I had been around so many.  It was more the extent of the billboards that caught me off guard.  I didn’t take a picture for fear of labelling myself as a tourist even more.

As I was trying to figure out which direction I needed to cross the road I noticed a something I had never seen before.

 

I believe it was called “Pedestrian Priority Crossing”, but I could be wrong since I didn’t catch the sign in the picture.  After each traffic direction had its turn the lights all turned red and the crossings all showed walk with an audible signal.  This allowed people from any corner to walk across in any direction.  Notice the people in the photo walking diagonally through the intersection.

It was 42 degrees Celsius in Toronto that day.  Very hot for a “northerner” like me.  It wasn’t going to stop me, a huge book lover, from walking the block over to the…

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Worlds Biggest Bookstore, a branch of Chapters-Indigo and located at 20 Edward St.  It was indeed huge.

 

 

This is as far as you can see in one direction.

 

 

 

 

 

This is as far as you can see in the other direction.  This was also only the first floor.  There was another floor and mezzanine area as well.

 

 

After I finished looking around the bookstore, I headed back to the Eaton Center.  I didn’t have enough time to go into the actual mall area but the entrance between the mall and the office tower had a large mural of geese flying made of up little pictures.

 

 

 

 

Here’s the close up view.

 

 

 

It was time to head up to the 25th floor where my appointment for my Biometrics was.  Apparently booking an “appointment” time merely means an appointment to take a number.  I ended up waiting about half an hour or more for my turn. 

The fingerprints were taking by pressing my fingers to a machine with similar to a scanner.  I pressed the fingers from one hand then the other, then both thumbs together firmly to the glass and the computer captured the image.  The attendant wiped the glass plate between each capture.  I then had a “facial scan” which seemed identical to taking a picture, but I guess they can call it whatever they want.

The delay at the visa office put me slightly behind schedule to get to Pearson International Airport to pick up my friend and her 2 year old.  So I hurried back to navigate the subway system to get back to my car.

I got on the southbound subway to get to Eaton Center so it would make sense to get on the Northbound subway…

Except as you see from the map.  I got on the southbound subway from Yorkdale, went around the bottom loop and got off at Dundas.  So going northbound from Dundas is the wrong way.  I didn’t figure that out until after I had gotten on the (very crowded) northbound subway though.  Once I heard "next station – College”, I knew something was wrong.  So I got off and got on the southbound subway.  Lucky for me the southbound subway was much much less crowded and therefore more comfortable for me.

I finally made it back to my car in the Yorkdale mall parking and made it to the airport not too far behind schedule.  I picked up my friend and her cute little girl and started the 5 hour drive back home.  It was uneventful and I made it back by 2130.  Only 12.5 hours after leaving that morning.

VISA – Everywhere you want to be, the application

One of the biggest obstacles to moving to Scotland was obtaining a UK Visa.  There are various kinds of UK visas you can apply for.  Settlement, skilled worker, prospective student and student are the most common.  I had to apply for a “Tier 4 Student Visa”.  It is considered a points based visa.  You need 40 points to apply under this visa category.  30 of those points are obtained from receiving a “CAS” letter (Confirmation of Acceptance of Studies) from your chosen university and the other 10 points is proving that you have the money to support yourself without resorting to public funds.

Part of the visa process is travelling to the nearest World Bridge office to have my biometrics taken.  The nearest one for me was 5 hours away at the Eaton Center in Toronto.  They call having my fingerprints taken as well as what was referred to as a facial scan as biometrics.  It wasn’t just my finger prints though, they copy your whole finger almost right to your palm.

They required a great deal of paperwork in the application process.

• the general application
• the original CAS
• any of the original documentation (transcripts) that you send to the university that they based your admittance on.  I had to submit my college transcript and my university transcript.
• original bank statements from any account that you were using to prove you had the funds.
• original loan letter from the bank
• a passport photo
• your actual passport

You have to submit all of the above (plus anything I have forgotten to include) as well as photocopies of all of it. 

The purpose of the bank statements is to prove that you have the funds to pay your tuition (£22,200) for a year as well as “maintenance funds”.  Maintenance funds are living expenses for the length of your program or 9 months, whichever is longer.  Since I was going to be living outside of the city of London this amount was £600 / month.

That catch though is that the funds have to be in your account for 28 consecutive days prior to you submitting the account statements.  With my loan letter and my bank account statements counting in the current currency conversion I had only about 200 dollars extra.  An amount that could quickly disappear if the pound-dollar conversion changed much more.  I easily had that much money from the sale of my house but it had not been in my account for 28 consecutive days.

I submitted my documents and included proof of my house purchase three years ago as well as the sale of it, just in case.  I’ll never know if it had any affect or not.

But I can happily report, I received my passport with attached visa in it today.  :)

The long list of things to do

After finding out that I had gotten in to Vet college I instantly had a million things to do.

• Find the money to pay for this adventure
• Get a UK visa
• Sell everything I own (not a small feat!)
• Sell my house
• Quit my job
• Get rid of my car
• Find a way for my bird to get overseas , and all that entails
• Get myself overseas
• Find a new apartment
• Figure out transportation over there
• Buy textbooks / school supplies / protective clothing
• etc
• etc

Many of the above are considered significant life changing stressful events.  But i'm excited more than anything else.  

It's amazing how as soon as you tell yourself that you are moving across the ocean that it's a lot easier to get rid of the things that you have accumulated over the years.  There is a method of decluttering that involves taking ~$50 in loonies and "buying" the things you want to keep.  Having to pay to ship things overseas works the same way.  Suddenly that thing you didn't want to get rid of, you want to get rid of and fast.