I haven’t gone to the bar with the girls in ages and I feel like it’s time. I need to go out and not focus on school and work and life and just dance. Not that I dance much at bars... but theoretically lol.

It’s mostly about not being stuck in the library or a night in with movies and snacks. It’s about putting in effort, getting dressed up, and being social. I miss being social.

I also want to test out my new hair haha.

The 2nd floor is the loud floor...loud and counter-productive to my studies. The amount of work I have to do, however, outweighs how picky I can be with my camp-out choices. There are just way too many people here. 

Like there will be for the next 2 months.

Where I will be for the next two months.

Yay schoolwork...not.

Comment on the blog/facebook/twitter me to distract meeeee please :]

New hair changes a person’s self identity. It changes how you see yourself, how you feel about yourself, and how you carry yourself. That, in turn, changes your outlook, your goals, your attitudes.

I had an epiphany this week and realized that it was time for a change. I’ve realized there are a lot of things I need to focus on in my life now that I had pushed to the side for a while.

I need to focus on school, focus on my future grad school and career, and focus on enjoying the time that I have. Definitely going to try and go out more, actually have some fun like a real 20 year old [while keeping up with school, of course]. I’m also going to try and just be happy. No worries. Just happiness.

I’m also going to spend time thinking about the things I need to accept in my life which I’ve sort of ignored. A lot has happened to me over the past 2 years... [more importantly since July]... that I need to think about. I need to evaluate what happened and ensure that I’ve accepted them. I’ve also gotten rid of the people in my life who have brought me down and I’m going to learn from those experiences. I’m going to grow.

...Apparently, I needed to be in a hairshow and have them turn me into a redhead and cut half my head of hair off to do that, but I’ve done it.

I’m now a redhead with a completely different haircut

But I feel good.

Change is good.

[Sidenote: CANADA IS AWESOME. That is all]



While I was getting my hair done, he told me there was a hairshow on Sunday that he wanted me to be in but didn't know if I was going to be in town but-surprise- I was. He's been asking me forever but it just never worked. This time it did and I agreed. He told me that in this show he would be showing off dye jobs instead of cuts because he didn't want to cut off all my hair. I actually prefer that since you can fix a dye, you can't fix a cut.

Anyways, moral of the story, my hair is now a very... very different colour...[s].

Yep. That's blonde in my hair. And not just blonde streaks... An entire layer of my head is blonde. Way more noticeable in the back. And the top is a rich red, the bottom, a deep plum. Colours I have never even DREAMT of putting in my hair.

I came home and my mother was not too impressed/she called the salon to tell them haha.

Meh, I don't really care what my hair looks like, I'm just excited to be a model in a hairshow! I love new experiences

Wish me luck

I'm home for the weekend to catch up on sleep and homework and family stuff etc.

Just watching hockey. Cheering on the boys. You know :]

Sorry I've been bad with the posts this week but as soon as I got back from my trip I had 2 exams I had to study for. This week is also our second sorority initiation week of the year so I'm also going to be super busy with that. And the week after I have 4 assignments due in 2 days. Gah I hate being this busy. I'll try and keep up. Sorryyy

<3

Go Canada wooo

I got back last night from the roadtrip myself and 4 of my sorority sisters took to visit other chapters of Alpha Gamma Delta in the US. It was awesome!

We started off by leaving London at 8am...Well we triedddd but one of the girls had a little bit too much fun the night before and slept through her alarm! And while we were loading her into the large minivan we took, some crazy lady drove up behind us and starting honking her horn uncontrollably and yelling at us! Apparently we parked on private property and she was going to sue us. Well actually, we were trying to back out of the parking spot but she parked DIRECTLY in our way! It was the most ridiculous thing ever. We’ve decided we want to put a sign there saying “Free Parking” and see what she does. What a way to start the trip lol

So the first stop of the first day we ended up in Lexington Kentucky at the Epsilon chapter of AGD. They had a huge house on Greek row that held 44 girls! It was a dorm style upstairs where everyone shared a room and they had public bathroom type things. It was really cute though. What was even better was that they had a house mom, a cook, and HOUSE BOYS who cooked and served and cleaned. We didn’t get to experience it though because it was on the weekend. This chapter can afford it though because they have 177 members! Holy crappp. That night we went for dinner [and I spent a successful 42 cents on my meal] and after went to the university rec center to watch the girls rehearse for the annual Greek Sing dance competition. They looked really good!

The next day we woke up and drove to Macon Georgia to see the Gamma Iota chapter at Mercer University. For dinner, the girls took us to an awesome Mexican restaurant. That night, we went on a tour of their Greek village their university built for them. All the houses in the village were built the same, holding just about 10 people, but each fraternity and sorority decorated their houses differently. It was fun to see how each of them were set up. By the end we ended up hanging out with some Lamba Chi Alpha boys there and then went back to the AGD house for bed.

The next morning it was off to Miami! We drove down the entire day and didn’t get there until 10pm. Myself and 2 other girls were starving so we ended up going to IHOP at 11pm and having the most amazing feast ever. I love IHOP. The next day we went shopping at Sawgrass Mills- an AMAZING outlet store mall just north of Miami. I spent sooo much money but it was so fun. That night we went to the best restaurant ever: The Cheesecake Factory. For dessert I had a huge slice of their 30^th anniversary cheesecake. It was phenomenal. The service sucked though cause the waitress stole 5 bucks from me and said I hadn’t paid enough. We were unimpressed.

The next day we ventured to South Beach to tan and hang out. It was kind of sketchy but I ended up doing my school readings and studying a bit for exams I have coming up this week, so that was good.

After that we grabbed our stuff and drove to Orlando where we stayed in a DISNEY SUITE which was awesome! We spent the night then went to Disney’s Magic Kingdom which was awesome! We all bought crowns of different princesses and walked around in them. I was Belle from Beauty and the Beast. It was so fun and we ended up getting a lot of attention from staff and random people in line for rides with us. We went on a whole bunch of them including the classic “It’s a small world” ride. After our epic Disney day, we ventured to Jacksonville Florida just to spend the night.

The next day we headed to High Point North Carolina to visit the Gamma Eta chapter. They had planned a huge sisterhood dinner for us! They had over 100 girls there and they served us amazing Southern food: Fried Chicken, Mash Potatoes, Biscuits, Beans, Peach Cobbler... Oh man I ate too much. The girls showed us their dorm style living arrangements that they shared with the other sororities, and they also showed us their house. They had both! They also said the university was building them a Greek village so they would have an awesome new house to live in. Then that night the girls took us to a local bar and we sang karaoke and had tons of fun!

The last night of our trip was at the Alpha Omicron chapter in West Virginia at the Wesleyn Colege. They were really sweet and nothing like us but they shared their traditions with us and taught us how to make tshirts with letters on them. We sat, made shirts, and hung out in their chapter room for the night.

The next morning we packed up the minivan and drove all the way back to good old Canada.

Phew, I felt exhausted just typing it all out!

No matter how tired and crazy we all were, we definitely had a great time. I am so glad I was able to visit these chapters, meet new girls, and have this experience. I know I will never get the chance again.

Oh and along the way I spread awarness of Uncover Ostomy- SCORE.

Anywayssss now that reading week is over- back to reality. Time to do some readings!

PS; I was trying to make a video but my computer is messed up... if I get it fixed I'll post one!

I'll be away from the computer for most of the trip but I'll blog about it when I'm back!

Have a good week :]

You know the saying that every girl’s gotta have a little black dress? Yeah I have like 4. Luckily though, in university there are always reasons to get dressed up. Like, 2 weeks ago I went to the university’s annual charity ball and just yesterday my sorority had our biannual crush event.

I love picking out a dress, shoes, doing your hair and makeup... ok yes, sometimes I am a girl.

But before university, I had never really had to figure out how to wear a dress or anything with my ostomy. Where did I have to go? I was in high school. From some lucky coincidence, my prom dress had ruffles at the front and covered my ostomy and it really wasn’t a big deal.

As soon as I came to university, though, I realized prom dresses weren’t going to cut it at events, and I had to really search for some nice dresses.

The  ones I’ve bought and worn recently have been pretty risky. [Not style wise... though yes they are kind of risqué] I’m talking about actually wearing tight and short dresses that require minimal underwear. Minimal. As in- a piece of floss... if you know what I mean.

Normally, I like to wear normal underwear or whatever with a pair of boyshorts on top. It keeps everything in place and I feel secure during the day to go about my business. But with the tight dresses I wear, there is no way in hell I could wear those boy shorts.

I get asked a lot how I’m able to wear what I wear and still hide my bag. I answer with 2 things; 1. I have to make sure that it’s not so skin tight that you can see every ripple in my body and that it has some kind of fold or crease or something to hide the one area on my right side where my ostomy is [a ripple or fold goes a long way in hiding it]. 2. I say you have to take risks; and when I say risk I mean, you have to be able to flow freely and hope your bag stays where it’s supposed to. I know it’s not a risk you want to take when you’re going out and having fun but eventually, I got used to it.

Finding dresses has got to be one of the most difficult shopping trips a female ostomate can make. It takes time, and finding the right dress, the right size, and the right bag distraction can be tough- but it is possible.

I know formal season and prom season are coming up so I wanted to write this blog to offer a little bit of help. If anyone has any questions about dress shopping or anything, just comment below or on the facebook page :]

<3

I forgot.

As of January 31st, 2010- I have had my ostomy for 7 years.

Wow, it's so weird to think about. I actually remember the month before and after surgery like it was yesterday. I remember almost everything I saw, felt, and had to learn. I remember getting told I needed an ostomy and I remember going back into class a month later and explaining to my classmates what I had just gotten.

And that was 7 years ago.

Back when I was younger my family and I would celebrate my bag-a-versary every year.

Then we started to forget

I actually only remembered it today.

I mean, it's not like I forget because it's not important or anything, but I think my ostomy is such a part of my life now that I just forget it's different. I forget that I had a day of surgery that changed my life. The change is just who I am.

Oops.

Oh well, happy 7 year bag-a-versary to me :]

Team orange

I was just in the library a little while ago and I was bored so I started looking through my tagged pictures on Facebook and came across this one. [can you spot me? I’m in the tiara. Don’t ask lol]

It was taken with my cabin/team/friends of Horizon Summer camp at the end of our week together back in the summer of 2007. I still remember that week, and the week I went in 2004, like it was yesterday.

Horizon Summer camp is located outside of Calgary Alberta, hidden in the mountains. It is a summer getaway for kids [and some adults] with all sorts of illnesses and disabilities. The two years I went, I went for ostomy camp.

Not every kid that went to ostomy camp, however, had an ostomy like I did. Yeah, there were the kids with the good old ileostomies, like me,  but there were also the kids with colostomies, urostomies, kids with their “bags” on the inside, and kids who had gotten their ostomies reversed. There was a wide range of us, and we all learned from each other.

I don’t even know how to talk about camp because being there was not something you can just type out. I mean, I can say how we did all the normal summer camp things like swim, rock climb, arts and crafts, food fights...etc, but Horizon was so much more than a normal summer camp experience.

I know this, because I went to normal summer sleepover camp too. So not the same.

There was something different with this camp.

Our campfire activities did not just include scary stories of axe murders, but they were also about scary hospital stories. Swimming was not just about jumping into the water, but about learning which types of bathing suits to wear and how to wear them with our bags. Bed times were not about staying up late and talking about boys we liked, but actually about how to tell these boys we had ostomies. Camp was not just about getting over the fear of having an ostomy, but also getting over the fear of white water rafting [which I did].

Camp was not just camp. Camp was a support system.

Not only did I have other campers to learn from and who could learn from me, but I had counsellors, nurses, and volunteers there as well. The counsellors were there to make sure we went to activities and didn’t disappear to do our own thing. They were the watchdogs. One counsellor told me that she noticed how the ostomy group was much harder to control because we were just like normal kids. Duh.

The nurses were great too because, obviously they were there if we had any issues, but mostly they taught us tips and tricks with products and gave us information on potential problems and ways to avoid them. It was a resource not everyone had been able to have back home.

...Now I don’t want to come off  biased or mean or anything... But the volunteers were definitely my favourite people at camp [besides the kids]. These volunteers were people, with, or without ostomies, who just wanted to come lend support and join in on the fun of camp. It was great to hear stories and tips and learn from the volunteers who had ostomies who were older. It was nice to see what the road ahead could lead to. It was also great to have volunteers who didn’t have ostomies. I actually asked one volunteer why he volunteered if he didn’t have an ostomy. He told me it was because he wanted to help the kids. In the end, however, he ended up telling me that instead, the kids had helped him by showing our bravery and our courage. We taught him a thing or two!

I’m kind of sad now, thinking of all this... I haven’t been able to go in a few years. When you hit the age of 18- you graduate. So in 2007, right before I turned 18, I graduated Horizon. The rule goes you can’t come back and volunteer until you’re 21. I’m 21 this Sept. So to see if I could bend the rules, I sent an email to the coordinator of the camp, Pat, hoping to hear good news. Well I did hear good news- the camp is expanding and they are taking in way more campers! That means tons more kids can now go to camp and experience all the same things I did. That really puts a smile on my face. On the flip side/selfish side, however, Pat, told me I’m being put on a list of people who also want to volunteer and I’ll be told if I’m chosen since there are too many....

I hope I’m chosen.