Let's Get Physical

Wow! It's been a busy week since my last post. Including two days in a row (Thursday and Friday) where I was up at 5:00 am to be at work early for meetings. Meetings where we wandered around the baggage system. Yikes! Sounds safe.

Let's rewind a bit. My last post was pretty crow-focused and although I would like to say that's over, unfortunately it's not. In fact, it might have escalated to a full out war now. The giant pool down by the beach near me opened up over the long weekend, so being half fish, I had to go down and check it out! I was starting to think that maybe the crow just didn't have a good fashion sense and that's why it was out to get me, since I was usually in my highly fashionable work clothes. So, I thought I would go for a different look to try and trick it. I headed down to the pool in my sweats on the OTHER SIDE of the street and I was confident that I would be safe. Apparently the crow had other ideas. I don't even know how it recognized me, but it did! Sad face.

Another thing I hadn't counted on was that Vancouver doesn't quite get the temperature fluctuations that Ontario does. It gets cold, but not super cold, and warm, but not super warm. Luckily, this pool was heated to a balmy 77 degrees (25 degrees)! Yeah, it doesn't sound THAT great and I'll admit I was a bit hesitant to get in, but after paying the admission of $5.38, I knew I had to. (That's pretty steep for a swim considering I'm a student!)

Now, in case you can't tell, that's a gigantic freaking pool. 137 metres long to be exact. Normally to swim a kilometre, you would do 40 lengths in a 25 metre pool. Maybe 20 lengths in 50 metre pool. To swim a kilometre here, you do 8 to 9 lengths. I was hurting pretty bad by the last length (and even more the next day). This is going to take some getting used to. The cool thing about this pool is that it is right on the seawall. The kind of cool thing is that it's filled with salty ocean water. By kind of cool, I mean cool to swim in, but not so cool when you go to drink from your water bottle a few hours later and realize that you splashed the rim with salt water in the pool. Gross.

I also got out to do some kayaking down by the Burrard Bridge on Thursday, which was awesome. Only $5.00 for a few hours out in the water with a kayak and lesson included. Thanks MEC! That's the kind of deal I'm looking for as a student! A friend from home and I went to try this out and found out there are also paddle-boarding sessions. I think we'll save that for when it's a bit warmer because I would say it's very likely I'll fall in.

Now for a fun little work story. One of my colleagues asked me to drive him to the SkyTrain station in Richmond and I thought I wasn't going to make it back. You wouldn't think that it would be that hard to do, but for those of you that know me well, directions aren't my strong point. On campus tours, one of my signature lines is "I used the information desk in the UC in first year to find out where my classes were because I'm kind of directionally-challenged, but don't worry, I know campus way better now, so I won't get us lost on the tour!" This does not apply to Richmond. I don't know Richmond. There are 15890778 bridges between the airport and the SkyTrain station! (Okay, I might be exaggerating a bit, but there's a lot.) I literally thought I was going to have to call my manager and ask him to find me and direct me back.  Luckily, after some wrong turns and off ramps, I did make it. The Canada Line tracks are a great way to find the airport BTW.

Finally, I want to thank everyone who donated to my Great Strides page, I met my goal! Luckily, for those of you who haven't had a chance yet, you still can! The boyfriend and I are off to do that this weekend, so feel free to continue emptying your wallets for me! Speaking of him, we also went down to the beach to watch the sunset . . . how dorkily romantic. This weekend I will also be emptying my wallet because this week was my first payday! Shopping? Yes.

The Job

As promised, I am going to share a bit about my new job in this post! I am a co-op student at the airport out here and assisting with work on the baggage system.

As everyone probably knows now, airport security is pretty intense. Luckily, my experience in pharmaceuticals has prepared me for this. I am also developing a new vocabulary. Currently it includes a lot of:

- terminal
- airside
- out-of-gauge
- access
- restricted
- section drawing
- elevation
- inbound
- outbound
- transfer
- domestic
- international

And pretty much any three-letter combination of A-Z you can imagine in acronyms. I literally have an acronym dictionary printed out and pinned to my desk bulletin board (luckily I found this on the internal website).

I have also been able to spend time down in the baggage system and out on the tarmac. One of my colleagues had the best description of what the baggage system looks like: the mine levels in old school Donkey Kong. Out on the tarmac, I walked next to huge planes and even completed some training out at the fire station!

Even though this all sounds quite glamourous, my office definitely isn't. It's in a trailer. Yep, a trailer. The area looks like a little town of portables like we used to have in elementary and high school. Even though the terminal area is beautiful, I was told when I first started not to get used to it because that's not where I would be spending most of my time. The cool part about the trailers? They are just outside of the restricted area fence. This means that planes are literally driving right by. So cool! Here's some pictures of my walk from the SkyTrain to the trailers.

The only scary realization I had about this fence came today. We have company cars that can be used to go to different areas of the airport if needed. I only started driving them today and it just so happened that the way I backed out meant that I had to drive in the one-lane-wide space between the trailers and the fence. Having not driven in two weeks and driving a car I wasn't used to, I was paranoid that I was going to run into the trailers on one side and wreck half the offices or the fence on the other side and breach the restricted area. Ahh!

Well, this has been about long enough for now, but to leave you feeling jealous, here are some pictures of the beach I can go relax on after a tough day of being paranoid about running into fences.

Also, don't forget to sponsor me for the Great Strides Walk I'm doing out here on May 26th!