Accidental Man's Day

First things first - yay for long weekends!  I have today off because it is "Ipswich Show Holiday", something very similar to Ekka Day in Brisbane...the bad news is, because I get this public holiday I can't take Ekka Day off.  Oh well!  I think I prefer a long weekend to a random mid-week holiday.

Jeremy had the week off after finishing up his Obs/Gyne rotation.  It seems like he's been productive - looking into applying for internships, hacking away at the trees around our house, mowing the lawn, taking care of random errands, etc.  Jeremy and his friend Sean often go for a "lunch" at the German Club on the week between rotations.  They met up yesterday for a few beers and some German food - little did they know that it was actually MAN'S DAY.  They were at the perfect place and met some German guys who had been celebrating since the morning.  Jeremy was ecstatically excited - he tried to keep up the Man's Day tradition in Brisbane but after being disappointed two years in a row, decided to forget about it.  But an accidental Man's Day is even better than a planned one!  When I met up with them, they were sitting with a random group of people, the Germans were playing traditional music from a laptop and dancing around, and everyone was just generally in a fantastic mood.  I'm very happy for Jeremy that this random coincidence occurred :)

Other news...Well, my friend Nicole has been going through some tough times lately.  She moved to Tasmania for a job and was loving it.  I was just thinking recently that I hadn't heard from her for awhile when she posted a picture of her arm in a cast on Facebook with the caption "In recovery mode".  It turns out that she fainted and fell - but did it in true Nicole fashion, hitting her head, breaking her wrist and injuring some vertebrae.  She was in post-traumatic amnesia for 10 days and had to stay in the hospital for three weeks.  She recently had a GP appointment and apparently he looked at her CT/MRI scans and told her she should be on bed rest and he was shocked that she was alive.  What the hell?!  All this from a fall...she doesn't remember much about the incident and it's really all so baffling.  She had to take some cognitive tests before returning to work but they told her that she "wasn't up to the standard of a speech pathologist" and that she should take another month off work and re-do the tests.  If she hasn't gotten better, they said she may have to rethink her career.  It's absolute craziness.  She's also getting married in less than two months and is trying to figure all that stuff out.  Fortunately, her fiance flew down and has been with her since it happened and her family all went there as well.  I really hope she's okay...Nicole is great fun and a fantastic person.

I better go hang my laundry out before the sun goes down.  Yes, it's only 2:30 pm, but the sun goes down so early here in winter.  Oh yeah, one more thing - it's still technically "autumn", but it's damn cold.  My new favourite purchase is a pair of slipper boots which I wear around the house constantly.  One night, the temperature dipped to 4 degrees.  FOUR DEGREES.  Do any of you Canadians sleep in non-insulated houses where the temperature of the house actually goes down to 4 darn degrees?  I didn't think so!!!