the winding road

hello hello!

yes, it's been a while. crazy busy and busy crazy pretty much sums up the summer so far:

completion of degree: yes, i have now officially completed (and passed) my pharmacy degree! WOOT WOOT! four years. FOUR YEARS!!! i must say it feels good. four years of blood, sweat, tears and a pile of money the size of a small town and now i get to put some letters after my name. Six letters to be exact - MPharm. nice! :oD

the crazy thing is that this is JUST THE BEGINNING. now comes licensure in ontario, canada and with that is a whole new pile of blood, sweat, tears and money. yikes. speaking of which, i have moved back to toronto, canada for good. time to get licensed and start paying off some billz. it was hard leaving london - not the city itself (which don't get me wrong, i love) - but the people i've met and have become friends with these past four years; i am missing them tons. it's always that way wherever you go: while in city A you miss the people in city B and while in city B you miss the people in city A. i'm just going to have to live with it i suppose. i will be seeing them at the graduation ceremony this fall, so that'll be good. a riot, actually, it'll be a riot! i already can't wait.

so as soon as i landed on canadian soil i had to write the first of many exams towards licensure; this one was a two-day exam covering everything i've learned in the last four years (and then some), as it was an equivalency exam that all foreign-taught/trained students/pharmacists have to take. three hundred multiple choice questions over two days. yikes. i swear my blood pressure must've been markedly higher in the month leading up to this exam; shitting bricks doesn't even begin to describe it. when all was said and done though it was tough for sure, but not as tough as i thought it would be. i thought it would be impossibly difficult but it was possibly difficult and do-able. i had to draw on every brain cell for the answers but i managed, and more importantly, i passed! can i hear another WOOT WOOT!!!

my joy at passing was short-lived however as now i have to start preparing for the licensure exams in november: another two-day, multiple choice exam followed by a one-day practical exam known as the OSCEs. double yikes. i am loathe to pick up the textbooks again but pick them up i must; if i'm MIA from this blog for another couple of months you now know why.

returning home and settling back in has been pretty smooth; in all honesty it feels like another summer at home after a school year away - a part of me expects to be flying back to london come late september! reconnecting with family and friends has been good, and the best part is that i'm not trying to squish as many visits in with friends as i normally am before returning to london, because i don't have to go back this time! sweet! i can plan meetings, parties and hangouts at my leisure.

i do miss the complete independence i had when i was in london; no one to answer to, no one's schedule to follow but my own. living with the family again has been an adjustment for sure, and one of the biggest adjustments has been having to tell my parents where i'm going and when i'll be home. sigh. it's not like i'm an adult or anything. :oS

what i don't miss about london is the loneliness i felt. you can be alone and not be lonely, but while in london there were times where i felt alone AND lonely. london's that kind of a place (though i'm sure most big cities are like that to some extent).

anyhoo, so that's pretty much the last two months in a nutshell. plugging away, plugging away, until i can legally deal drugs in the province of ontario. i'm excited.

CET :o)