It’s funny how a single motorcycle trip can change your life.

When I was in high school I was certain I wanted to study engineering.  And I was smart enough in math and science to do it.  Engineering seemed like the right thing to do, and it’s certainly not something that a parent would try to dissuade a young adult from doing.

One of my favorite relaxation techniques was (and still is) to throw a dart at a wall map of Ontario, and ride my motorcycle out to wherever the dart landed.  It was a great way to see parts of the province that wouldn’t normally be a destination, and it taught me that the journey can be just as much fun as the destination.

And on one spring evening in 1992, the dart landed just outside of Woodview, Ontario, on a little green square called Petroglyph Provincial Park.

The ride out there was magical; through some of those wonderful twisty Northern Ontario logging roads that ache for a motorcycle.  I remember I had U2’s Achtung Baby playing on my discman, and it seemed entirely appropriate.

But nothing could prepare me for the power of the petroglyphs.  For two hours I slowly circled the rock, carefully watching as the steward made an offering of tobacco and sweetgrass.

Within a few months I decide to major in anthropology and Canadian Native Studies at Trent University.  How that turned out is another story for another day, but I’m thankful that some First Nations rock carvings moved me that deeply.

Ironically, I never made it back to Petroglyph Provincial Park.  Sounds like a fantastic trip to blog about sometime …

I went in to get more blood drawn to check my TSH levels.  Can you believe it’s been almost two months since i was diagnosed with hypothyroidism?

So the people in the lab were very nice to me.  And understandably so - they were student interns, and it was their first day in a clinical setting.

Getting blood drawn is usually a very quick affair.  A tiny pinprick, blood shoots out into a little glass vial, and it’s over in a handful of seconds.

Not this time.  My veins decided to fuck with these poor students, and they literally had to rummage around inside of my arm to find the vein.  And the worst part?  I looked down when they were doing this, and almost fainted.

I felt bad for them; everyone has to start somewhere, and I knew they were doing the best they could.  But I guess they became a bit panicked when they saw my face get really pale.

But all is well that ends well … they finally did find the vein, and I filled two vials with the red stuff.  And I immediately came back and blogged about it.

To go to school I have to get a copy of my immunization records.  Oh joy, oh bliss.

Many of my immunizations took place when I was in public school.  We had to queue in long lines and wait for an unsympathetic school nurse who would jab us with hypodermic needles about three feet long and four inches in diameter (”It won’t hurt a bit!”).   This was done for our protection, even though a few kids would bleed to death every year.

My first call was to the Scarborough Board of Education.  But wait - the Scarborough Board of Education no longer exists.  It was swallowed up into the Toronto District School Board.   And what are the chances that the records were actually transferred properly?

Not to worry, though.  It only took a few phone calls to find out that these records are actually maintained by the city - not the school board.  Great, I’m thinking!  I get to talk to more government people!

A call to the city turned up nothing.  Despite having lived there for 9 years, they don’t have any record of me.  But that could be because we moved to another region after my grade 6 year - and my records were likely transferred.

And the chances of these records actually having been transferred?

I call the Durham Region Office of Jabbing Kids with Long Needles and left a message (their answering machine indicated that the queue was about four days long).  Amazingly, I got a call back this morning indicating that they have no records going back “that far”; the oldest records they have are for people born in 1977 (I was born in the glorious year of 1975).

She suggested I call my family doctor.  The same overworked doctor that may as well not have a telephone, since the chances of it being answered are the same as tossing a quarter into a beer bottle (and if you’re thinking that’s impossible, since a quarter is larger than the neck of a beer bottle - then you’re right.  And those are precisely the chances of my call getting answered).

I made an appointment with my family doctor for a physical this Thursday, and I’ll raise the issue of immunizations as tacitly as possible.

And hopefully he doesn’t use three-foot-long horse needles.

The letter read as follows:

“Dear Mr. Helms:  On behalf of Chancellor James L. Oblinger and the faculty and staff at North Carolina State University, it is my pleasure to extend congratulations and notify you of your acceptance for dmission.  You have been admitted into the College of Humanities and Social Sciences - English for the 2008 Summer I semester.”

Happy silly holy fucking crazy-excited nonsensical utterances!  I’m in!

My university odyssey started back in 1993, when I began a degree in anthropology and Native Studies at Trent University.  That lasted all of two years.  I went to Fleming College in 1997 and did a 2-year diploma in geology (and finished that time around).  It always irked me that I never finished my bachelor’s degree, but I went on to make a good career and life for myself, and never gave it much thought.

Two years ago I decided to pursue my degree again, and had to pretty much start over.  I enrolled at Durham Technical Community College and completed 36 credit hours over the past two years (with a 4.0 GPA, I might add).

And today, I received the magic letter.  I’m in.

Of course they’re already asking me for money, so I’ll need to decide soon whether I’m actually going to take (what I hope will be) my last step towards getting my degree.