Entering the Chamber of Melanoma

In preparation for my trip to Puerto Rico next month, I have decided to get a base tan.

So far, I have spent 9 minutes in the tanning bed and will log in another 4 or 5 tomorrow.

9 minutes sounds like nothing, right? Why should I feel this is worth typing about?

I come from a long line of very pale people who burn very easily. I also come from a very long line of skin cancer. The idea on voluntarily tanning for the point of tanning and increasing my risk of skin cancer has always been something I have been very strongly against.

However, I am probably spending my whole first day I am in Puerto Rico on the beach and out snorkelling. Being from Canada, I have basically covered everything but my hands and face since September. Even with my trusty SPF 30, I will burn.

So here's my question: what has a worse risk analysis profile: 45 minutes in the tanning bed over the course of a month or the guarantee of a sunburn? Couldn't find any evidence based medicine literature about this one...

Sweater update

I spent the afternoon at a SNB meet-up and took advantage of the Canadian Figure Skating Championships being on (wow, Jeff Buttle is such an amazing skater) this evening to do some more knitting. I just cast off the front of my sweater (so exciting!) and wanted to show off my progress before going to bed. Amanda and I are having a knitting night on Monday so hopefully it will give me a chance to make some headway on sleeves this week.

Kids Ask the Darndest Things

Yesterday was my first day of HIV Let's Talk Science presentations (I've got 3 days of it booked in... big high school).

Despite my oversleeping (how did I do that? I triple-checked my alarm the night before to make sure it was set) and waking up to a panicked phone call from the guy I was presenting with because I was 10 minutes late picking him up at school, I think the presentation went really well.

For my first year working with this group, I've been paired up with an LTS veteran who's been great to learn from (especially when presenting in a French high school since French is most definately my second language). He's a chemistry student and ran an HIV demo to go with the LTS powerpoint presentation I'd fixed up and updated. The demo was great: each student gets a test tube half-filled with a clear liquid. All but one tube contains water (which is sero-negative), the last tube contains a base solution (the seropositive tube). Students then get to wander around for 5 minutes, mixing the liquids in their tubes (simulating having unprotected sex). You then run an "HIV test" (add a reagent to each tube and any tube that contains some of the base turns magenta). Almost all the tubes turn out seropositive. It's a good sex ed scare tactic.

We got some very interesting questions during our presentation... When we started talking about condoms and safe sex, one girl wanted to know why they sell flavoured condoms. Yeah, I got to try answer that one in French. My presentation partner let me stumble over that one for a little while before rescueing me with "It's just to hide the fact that regular condoms taste really bad". Great answer!

Here's a link to an MSF ad I'd wanted to add to my presentation but couldn't due to lack of internet access:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roFGj468ZD0

Daily adventures

Well, I'm feeling back to normal (thankfully) and I'm back on my half-marathon (yes, half-marathon) training schedule.

The school workload is picking up (all three classes are getting pretty intense this semester and I've also got that thesis proposal I'd hoped to submit by the end of the month... oye!). Good thing I'm starting to function normally after my flu instead of needing a constant string of naps throughout the day.

I'm doing a presentation on HIV for Let's Talk Science tomorrow. Had the brilliant idea of buying one of those super-duper dosette boxes and filling it with Smarties to represent how many pills an HIV patient undergoing treatment has to undergo in a week.

Problem: super-duper dosette boxes (even ones labelled it braille and supposedly friendly to the blind) come with really complex childproofing mechanisms that like to get stuck and then break off with part still stuck inside the dosette box.

It took me pliers, a surgical kit and tweezers to try release the broken childproof mechanism. Took me an hour to realize that it would be easier to break apart the dosette box, pull out the compartments, fill them with Smarties and shove them back in.

The Sweater

Here's what I have so far (I'll have to sew the pieces together after).

Brrrr.... Can I hibernate?

Well, here I am, enjoying winter in all its glory. I've been fighting off the flu for the past week. I'm running disconcentingly low on Kleenex and will therefore soon have to leave my cocoon and the weather has decided to actually act like winter (minus 19, feels like minus 26, lots of snow, even more wind). I need hot chocolate and my electric blanket.

I other cold-weather related news, I am really making headways on the sweater I am knitting (it's for the "It's Not a Gift" knit-along I joined through knitty.com). I finished the back. I've done about 5 inches on the front. I'm really excited about it. I will even post a picture of my work in progress when my camera battery recharges.

My first blog entry!

Well, here is the start of my new blog. I'm figuring on trying this out and using it to try keep up to date with friends and family. We'll see how it goes.