Happy 2008!

Well, a new year is here, and as usual, it's cold! Even though I can't really complain because the lake levels need a hard winter, but I want to be warm again. But 2007 is over and the end of it was good.

Christmas was a chaotic time. I made the cinnamon rolls for Christmas dinner and was planning on making them with Grandma M because we always make them together, but I didn't realize what a job this would be as bad as her dementia has gotten this year. First off, we did them at my house because my aunt had the flu and I didn't want to be cooking food that many other people would eat when there's a flu virus running around in that house. So I told my aunt that we'd pick Grandma up at 10am. Dad calls over there shortly after 10 and Grandma had just gotten up so she wasn't ready yet. I didn't know this because I'd run over to the neighbor's house to show Jane the pictures that I'd taken of Cocoa because I knew she wanted to see them. I also wanted Chuck to make me a hair dryer and curling iron holder for my bathroom. I ended up trading the pictures of Cocoa for the hair dryer curling iron holder. I come back home, Jane comes with me and I find out that grandma wasn't ready yet. Mom and Jane visit for a while and then I start making the cinnamon rolls while mom decides to go get grandma. Mom is then gone for over an hour and I'm starting to get worried. I call over there and Mom's just getting Grandma out the door. Apparently Mom had to help her get dressed and everything.

So Mom and Grandma get here, I've got the cinnamon rolls rising already and I've got a batch of fudge starting on the stove. As I'm stirring the fudge, Grandma comes over and looks in the pot. "What kind of candy are you making?"

"Fudge." At this point I'm just boiling the sugar, milk, salt and butter.

She looks in the pot again. "Oh, white fudge."

Later in the day as the rolls are baking and cooling and I'm sitting stirring up frosting, Grandma looks in the bowl. "Is that for the gravy?"

It's funny, but sad at the same time. I find that if I don't laugh, I'm going to cry because it's so sad to see her memory going downhill like this.

Anyways, Christmas Eve was fun. I was baking some brownies for a dessert that mom was making and was feeding egg shells down the garbage disposal, one at a time, when the sink backed up. I told Dad and he checked it out and there was water shooting out a pin hole in the side of the garbage disposal, so he got to replace the garbage disposal before we got together at Grandma M's and followed the usual Christmas traditions. Including, rearranging the table setting to fit all 10 of us at the table, because every year my aunt insists on setting it only for 8 and having Ryan and Liz sit at the small table in the kitchen because the table seats 8. And every year we rearrange the table to cram everyone in to one table. And every year my other aunt brings Sasha with her and tries to feed her turkey. We all vetoed it this year because any bit of people food gives the dog the walking farts, and well, that dog can sure clear a room.

Christmas Day was just pure chaos. After sleeping in from going to midnight mass the night before, I got up and unloaded and loaded the dishwasher because the kitchen was in chaos from the garbage disposal disaster the day before. I'd handwashed some dishes and was wiping down the counter when the dishwasher started to rinse away the first time. Instantly water started shooting out of the back of the sink. I'm standing there hitting the 'cancel' button frantically on the dishwasher to get the water to stop shooting out. Dad came out into the kitchen and I told him what happened and he realized that he didn't knock out the knock out for the dishwasher before hooking up the garbage disposal, so once that happened, we didn't have water shooting all over the kitchen anymore. After all that we headed over to Grandma P's, and what can you say about Christmas spent in a house with 5 children ages 6 and under. It's loud. There's lots of toys. And Ella found Grandma's squirrel that sings "I can't drive 55" and started dancing to it. Except her version of dancing was jumping up and down in circles and waving her hands around. That was fun.

But we survived.

Now it's the new year. Time for new beginnings. We faced a lot of hard times last year, Grandma's cancer returning, her 7 week bout in the hospital with diverticulitis when we thought that we may lose her a couple of times while she was in there. But now she's home and gaining weight, when she's not trying to steal the car of the lady that stays with her during the day so that she can go get some cigarettes. This happened while Judy was pumping gas into the car. Luckily she caught grandma in time. Or when she got caught flushing her pills down the toilet. It's a new year and things will get better.

My resolutions for 2008:
1. Eat healthier
2. Lose some weight
3. Get organized.

Four and a halfish years of blogging: Months 7-12

Month 7
1. Damnit! So we do rounds at 2am and all is quiet, half hour later night security calls me, funky smell down on terrace. Can you guess what it was? Yup it was spray paint and marijuana. And the stupid people grabbed their stuff and ran as soon as we mentioned the police. I love my job.
2. What kind of screwed up world is this? Last micro exam I half-assed my studying and got an A, this time I studied my ass off and got a B.Screw studying
3. I saw one tree that was orange, yellow and green and there was a rainbow. And I loved looking out the window and up at the stars on the way back, reminds me of being out on the water late at night in the middle of summer... like home.
4. You might be the only one who heard that. Do something. Don't run. Do something
5. And as we were meeting at the desk to go on rounds at 11 last night, one of my residents came and asked if we'd seen anyone come through the lobby running because some had thrown a piss filled balloon at his window, which he of course had open, and shattered when it hit the screen and there was urine all over his stuff.
6. Today was kind of a rough day. I had kind of a tough talk with someone that I care about last night but I feel better now that things are out in the open. Unfortunately the rough feelings kind of carried over into today some but luckily T was able to give me some insight, along with a little reminder of 1 Cor 13:7, which is an awesome passage in itself, I just love the passage on love. It's a good thing for friends like T sometimes.
7. Damn. Damn damn damn. Ok something is wrong with my car. All week people who have been riding passenger have said that the floor has been damp up front. Well, when I went to go to church tonight, there was about a quarter inch of some kind of liquid on the passengers side. The window was up and the door was closed on that side. I don't know what's wron
8.It's the day of a million posts. Sure, we'll go with that, it's 3am after all. Just finished TFP. Think I'll start Blade. Anyone calls me before noon, and they will die a slow and painful death
9. Yeah, so I'm a geek. I mean I knew it before, but after driving an hour yesterday, on the release date of The Final Prophecy, down to Grandville and Rivertown Crossings mall, I realized that as much as I may try to hide it, I'm a geek. Either that or I'm just really impatient because Big Rapids sucks book wise. But while I was at Barnes and Noble (yes, there's a B&N inside of the mall) I dropped $40 in about 10 minutes.
10. And ok, yeah I did have about a half hour gossip session with Officer Hottie while on rounds last night. Ah the good old memories of last year. All the drugs and alcohol and fire alarms. The funny thing is, he agreed with me about it being impossible to get our hall director over here in the middle of the night. I qoute "you almost needed a murder over here to get her here" Which is pretty darn true. We had a freaking fire and she didn't come over one night.

Month 8
1.No better way to brighten up a class then a discussion on genital cultures. Fun times.
2. And now I feel like I'm losing my best friend to his girlfriend and I don't like that feeling. This sucks.
3. OMG. Last night I did an alcohol alternative karoake program. Sure, it's Thirsty Thursday so you don't expect the biggest turnout in the world, but boy I really didn't expect the people that did show up. Every pothead/suspected pothead in the building was there. Even the ones that we'd just caught the night before, and I'd just finished their judicial documentation an hour before. Well, one of them decided that he needed to sing with me, so I let him pick out a song and he picked Nobody Wants to be Lonely. Ok, so it's a big love song duet by Ricky Martin and Christina Aguilera. That was interesting. And then he decided that he needed to hug me and profess his undying love for me that he'd been fighting for a year and a half. Maybe he wasn't as sober as I thought that he was...
4. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
5. So anyways I was sitting at one of the tables drinking my mocha and eating my cinnamon roll and working on my notecard for my exam when the associate director of housing walked by. I said hi, he went off somewhere and then came back and looked over my shoulder at what I was studying. I looked up at him and said "Diagnostic Microbiology" and he shuddered and walked off.
6. Tiger Balm! I love that stuff. It is the best muscle relaxant/arthritis cream out there. And it actually smells good too. Ok, it smells good if you like the smell of menthol, camphor and cloves. I'm addicted to this stuff. Started using it during swim season in high school. Half the team used it. We were the hardest working team in the conference and we really beat ourselves up during practive so the pool always smelled of chlorine and tiger balm. I love this stuff. Just the smell brings back all the memories of HS, and I feel great now.
7. Damn it damn it damn it. The first night all week that I actually fell asleep at a decent hour and the fire alarm goes off and we find a room smelling like pot.
8. Ahh there's nothing like hitting the local pub at noon

Month 9
1. I just have to surivive boredom for another week and teach my dad how to knock on my door before opening it..
2. I was curling my hair this morning while I was getting ready for church and I found my first gray hair. Excuse me while I go lay in bed and cry all day, I'm only 20!!
3. Ok so letting my Aunt Denise's dog lick the plates after dinner wasn't a good idea because the dog farted all night and cleared four of us off the couch at one point, but it's a good lesson learned.
4. Oh man am I glad that my parents weren't home earlier. I was lighting my fudge candle and as I ignited the match, it broke in my hand and the lit end fell onto an old blanket that I had sitting on the floor. Luckily I grabbed the match and stomped on the blanket (which reminds me, I don't think I'll ever get that kind of blanket for when I have kids because it melted and burned pretty quickly) and put the small fire out before setting my room on fire. I'm just glad mom and dad weren't home because my room smelled like burnt fabric for a while. They probably would have taken away my matches had they been home.
5. It hurts. My closest friend is going through something that I don't even want to have to imagine going through for many more years and I feel so helpless. I want to be there offering my friendship and suppory, but I can't be and it hurts so muc hseeing him so vulnerable like this. I just feel like there's something more that I could be doing...
6. Unfortunately, the coming of the snow means that I don't get to do my ritualistic snow dance in the backyard. Probably a good thing for the neighbors though. ;)
7. Why do telemarketers alwayscall either when you're eating a family meal or on the can?
8. There's a lot of ugliness in the world. I wish that it'd just go away. I wish that everyone could feel safe and unthreatened by the people around them. I wish that people weren't so obsessed. I wish that people wouldn't want to hurt each other. I wish that people would learn to accept differences. I wish that people would learn how to control themselves. I wish that the world was different. This quote just popped into my head from the leadership program that I did the other day. From "Everything I need to know about leadership, I learned in kindergarten." "Just think how nice the world would be if at 3pm everyday everyone put down what they were doing and had a snack of warm cookies and milk and then laid down for a nap for an hour."

I wish that the ugliness would go away...

Month 10
1. I don't think the snow is ever going to stop. Somewhere around 9 inches is supposed to fall by morning, and it's nasty out there. I just want to spend the day cuddled up somewhere warm.
2. This is something that really pisses me off. People disrespecting the national anthem. The time between when it's announced that the anthem is going to be sang and when the singer starts is NOT the time to yell obscenities into the silence of the arena at the officials or opposing team. During the singing of the anthem, you either sing along or remain respectfully quiet. You do NOT carry on a conversation. You do NOT pass around chapstick. You do NOT laugh. You do NOT curse. You respect our flag and country and whay it stands for. It's as simple as that.
3. But back to Bubba. In the 3 hours that we were at the bowling alley, he actually kissed my ass, kissed my hand, slapped my ass and I spent a lot of time held close to him.
4. It also really sucks when you're trying to sleep and someone knocks on your door at 3am, when the door says your out (just because you forgot to change it to in when you got back) and wants to be let into their room.
5. It's even less fun when you go somewhere in your car and the door won't open so you have to crawl over the center console and get out through the passenger's side.
6. Bow before my Geekiness underlings!
7. have a new hematology teacher who has both a mullet and a combover
8.

Random Quotes From Bored RAs

1. The Glitter Glue is crunchy
2. Are you saying that the Virgin Mary has a penis?
3. It's a baby Jesus
4. A bandaid just fell out of this phamplet
5. Eww my gum just fell out of my mouth
6. Bomb's away
7. I'm sorry I left my whore boot box at home
8. It's a 69
9. It's growing stuff
10. The tape has salsa on it
11. I got one of these stuck in my ear once
12. Amanda, you've got a pin in your ass
13. I'll put your hand there to get it
14. Big gap where there shouldn't be.
15. Don't touch the coffee
16. ...It's stolen from a hotel
17. She's got the leaning tower of cups going on over there

9. Lack of sufficient hot water.

Month 11
1. I was on rounds about an hour ago. There was a bag of trash in the hallway. Jill knew who it belonged to. We knocked on the door 3 times. They said come in. The music was loud. The door was locked. I announced that RAs were keying in. I saw 2 people having sex. I need bleach. I told them to put some clothes on. Their door closer wouldn't work. I had to see more ass. I want a drink.
2.

You might be in the medical field if...

-Discussing dismemberment over a gourmet meal seems perfectly normal to you
-Your idea of a good time is a full code at shift change
-You find humor in other people's stupidity
-You believe in aerial spraying of Prozac
-Your idea of comforting a child is to place him in a papoose restraint
-You believe that "shallow gene pool" should be a diagnosis
-You believe that the government should require a permit to reproduce
-You believe that "Pizza" is a food group
-You believe that unspeakable evil will befall you if anyone says "Boy, it sure is quiet around here"
-You are out in public and you compliment a complete stranger on their great veins
-You have ever referred to someone's death as a transfer to the "Eternal Care Center"
-You hate working on nights with a full moon
-You don't think a referral to Dr Kevorkian is inappropriate for this patient
-You have ever wanted to hold a seminar called "Suicide-getting it right the first time"
-You have ever had to leave a patient's room before you begin to laugh uncontrollably
-You think caffeine should be available in IV form
-You have ever restrained someone and it was not a sexual experience
-The most commonly uttered phrase after midnight is "What changed at 2:00am that makes it an emergency after 6 months?"
-You believe that "too stupid to live" should be a diagnosis
-You have ever referred to the ER as a "shit magnet"
-You believe that the ER waiting room should be supplied with Valium
-You have ever wanted a terrorist to deliver a Ryder truck to the lab
-When ordering labs, the doctor wants to order a "dumbshit profile"
-When you mention vegetables, you are not referring to a food group
-You are totally astounded when someone from the lab speaks English (HEY! I speak English)
-Your patient states "I have no idea how that got stuck up there"
-You have your weekends off marked and planned for a year
-You encourage an obnoxious patient to sign out AMA just so you don't have to deal with them anymore
-You use your status to get out of speeding tickets
-You use the word GOMER (Get Out of My ER) in a sentence more than once a night
-You have ever bet on someone's blood alcohol level (Hell, I do that as an RA)
-You threaten to use the hose if your patient won't give you a urine specimen
-When someone tells you how many drinks they've had, your question it "and how big were those drinks?"

Month 12
1. Postatem obscuri lateris nescitis.
"You do not know the power of the Dark
Side." There are two possibilities: you
are a Star Wars geek, or you are unreasoningly
scary.
2. I need to stop depending on caffiene to get me through my day and lower my stress level (like that will ever happen).
3.

What the Clinical Lab Science Program has ruined for me:

1. SEX! (For reasons far, far too numerous to mention).

2. Most food, excluding eternally-sterile Hostess products.

2a. Milk (Cellular; Listeria monocytogenes).
2b. Spaghetti and Meatballs (Malassezia furfur wet prep).
2c. Fresh vegetables (Listeria from contaminated fertilizer).
2d. Most meat (Antibiotics, parasitic cysts, Cestoda, etc., etc., etc).
2e. Butter (Appearance of pathogenic yeast colonies).
2f. Grapes (Pseudomonas, Staph aureus).
2g. Honey (Clostridium botulinum).
2h. Anything home-canned (ditto).
2i. Oysters (Vibrio cholera).
2j. Sushi (Again, numerous reasons).
2k. Tap-water (Giardia again; hooray!).
2l. Strawberries (lesions from Trichomonas vaginalis).
2m. Chocolate agar (chocolate agar plates).

3. Swimming in lakes or ponds.

4. Monkeys (thank you, Giardia lamblia.)

5. Holidays, as professors seem to take sadistic pleasure in scheduling huge exams on or
immediately following them.

6. Pets. (Gah, more parasites)

7. Contact lenses (Acanthamoeba castellanii(

8. Growing old.

9. Having babies.

10. The wonder and mystery of the human body.

11. Faith in the beneficence of Nature. I now understand that Nature is out to get me in
nearly every way imaginable and some that aren't.

12. The company of my fellow man, especially if said company is in a hospital, nursing
home or daycare.

13. Gardening (damn you to hell, Sporotrichosis).

14. Haylofts (Aspergillus).

15. Birds (Histoplasma capsulatum).

16. Bats (the same).

17. Air conditioning (Legionella).

18. Turtles (Salmonella).

19. Restaraunts.

20. Travel both foreign and domestic.

4. Why is it that for me, the amount of time that I spend in one class is greater than most people spend in class all week for all of their classes?
5.Maybe soon this caged in feeling will go away and I'll feel less trapped
6. ACLS meeting went good today. We finally made plans for MSCLS. There's only 4 of us going because it's partially over our easter break. And I'm the only female going. And we're only getting one hotel room. That's gonna be interesting...

Four and a halfish years of blogging: Recap of months 1-6

I was looking through the archives on this blog last night and noticed how much blog posts have changed. So without further ado, here's the first six months of four and a halfish years of blogging

Month One:
1. I mean shrinkage time.
2. Oatmeal tasted a little like dishwashing soap.
3. Then there was biology. I have not once paid attention in that class. Today for example we were talking about reproduction, let's see I've already had sex ed in high school, human anatomy and physiology, AND human sexuality. How much more about the reproductive system do I need to know?
4. I had the weirdest dream last night, I really don't remember much of it but I think I was a fish in a fish tank mounted to the wall.

Month two:
1. I think that secretly my legs glow in the dark at night I'm so white.
2.The subject of sprinkling came up and KT countered against it saying that if you throw a cat into the backyard and sprinkle some dirt over it, is it buried? (We were talking of the meaning of the word baptism then).
3. I have NO idea where my portable CD player is, so I need something to help me tune out my Aunts, Grandma and Dad.
4. I need to do laundry too, the pile is starting to come alive.
5.

Only 12 more hours of duty. I can make it. Well let's see since Wednesday, I've been to bed before 3am once. What a weekend, I really felt like an underpaid babysitter this weekend. Even the campus police say that we don't get paid enough to put up with the stuff that we do. I so agree with that. I'll take a pay raise.
6. I haven't confiscated that much alcohol in a long time. Seeing all that alcohol getting poured down the toilet was sad though... bye bye Smirnoff Ice. *sniff* I can't wait for this weekend to be over. Seriously. We've had officers in the building so many times.
7. Well let's see, at 12:15ish I told KT I'd be right back cuz I had to go on rounds. Two hours later I get back to my room. We knock on the door of a room cuz they were being loud. Wow could you smell the weed in that room. So we ask them to quiet down (there was about 20-25 people crammed in a 11X14 room) and of course they don't. So I go and get another RA and the Assistant Hall Director and we go back up there and call DPS. Well two officers show up and we start tackling that room. We hear something in the other room in the suite so we go in and look around (now as RA's we can't open any drawers or cupboards) and don't see anything but we leave the door propped and chain the bathroom door shut. So now there's 2 officers, 4 RA's and the AHD dealing with this issue. Well a few minutes later, we hear a sound in the other room and hey, look at this there's someone hiding in one of the wardrobes. So we get one of the officers to deal with him. Ok cool, everyone but the one resident leaves and the room gets searched. At this time a 3rd officer shows up and asks us all if we were getting a contact high. Well we go looking around a little in the other room and hey guess what, we've got someone else crammed up in the other wardrobe. Well turns out there was a warrant out for his arrest. So he leaves in handcuffs. At this time the resident that lives in the room where the people were hiding come back into the building. Wonders what's going on, makes a pain out of himself. Well then HIS roommate comes back holding something under his shirt. Sees Officers. Turns and leaves. Gets chased down. Gets MIP (Minor in Possession of Alcohol... you should have seen the bottle of Vodka that he had). Ok cool. So just when we think we're done we have to go down to another room where there's someone who appparently had "food poisoning" and was vomiting. It was liquid vomit. Ewwww. So yeah we take care of that. Finally, we kick this guy out of the building twice. He should have been arrested. Yeah so that was my last 2 hours. I want a drink.
8.It was also great hearing the Dean of Students and Director of Housing say that the fire safety program that I'm putting together for next year was the best written program that she had seen that had applied for funds from SAPC.

Month three:
1. I need to be held...
2. I'm really starting to get amazed on how much I can go on so little sleep.
3.OMG! Sister Hazel is the best concert ever to go to! I had the best time.
4. These campers are interesting. They're horny high school students. I don't know how many of them asked me if they could have my rooms. I don't think so!
5. I even tried to go rollerblading earlier. That lasted not even 5 minutes before I realized that I'd probably end up killing myself somewhere.
6. "Thank you very much Yodewok."
7. I didn't have to sit in the back seat of the Bug, or the Death Machine as I affectionately call it when I'm strapped into the back seat.
8. If anyone finds my exhausted body anywhere, please send me off to bed.

Month four
1. Why do people confuse me with Kaelis? Seriously. I make one little comment because a thread is turning into a raging hormone droolfest over certain actors and I get called Kaelis. Jeez. No offense Kaelis
2. Insert the string of profanity of your choice here, and make it good.
3. Is it just me or are the newbies at SW.com getting weirder? One of them tonight barely had been online for an hour and he was asking me if I was a virgin.
4.I feel so blah. Like life is passing me by and I'm just going through the motions. I don't like it. I want to live. I want to be free and experience life!
5. Ok so maybe I shouldn't have picked the BROWN urine
6. I had left my umbrella in my room this morning and had happened to pick out a white tshirt to wear today.
7. Ok someone please remind me why it's illegal to chain children to their beds. These campers are awful. They deserve to be chained up at night, as soon as they get back from the arena. Who cares that they paid $500 for camp. And what is the fasination that boys have with fecal material. Why did they have to smear it on a door? Why last night? Why couldn't this prank have waited until I wasn't on duty? Can I kill campers?
8. So anyways, the other day I was wondering why my butt was a little sore. I didn't really know why it was hurting
9. The fireworks were awesome. Makes me proud to be an American, we can blow stuff up just for the hell of it.
10. Felt like I'd walked 5 miles the night before, oh wait, I did.
11. I hereby think it's impossible to have immunology not to be sexual. We were being instructed on how to do a particular mount with a mounting media and our prof just happened to mention that the media was slightly viscous. Somehow, the subject of KY jelly was brought up. Mind you, we're a class of 8 females, 1 male and our male prof. I don't know if our prof is going to survive the summer with us. Especially when people started talking about the different kinds of KY. I was laughing so hard that I was just about crying. Since we were doing anti-nuclear antibody test, we had to go into a dark room and look at the slides under a fluorescent microscope. Since this was our first time doing fluorescent microscopy our prof was looking at the slides under the scope with us (it had two heads) and he told us, "Ok to look at the slides we're going to do this one at a time since I can't handle all of you at once." That caused us to laugh even more. I haven't laughed that long in a long time.

Then as I was leaving lab and going downstairs to hang my lab coat, change back into sandals, and grab my bookbag I ended up behind two female faculty members. Apparently one of them had her husband cooking filet minon at home. The other one said that he probably wanted something and the first one replied that she probably would deliver and then something about delivering once a year whether she wanted to or not. Then they realized that I was behind them and laughed and said that they probably shouldn't talk that way with a student around. I almost felt like telling them, "this is nothing compared to what was just discussed in my lab."
12. I didn't get woken up by Mr. Vomit again last night, that's a good thing

Month five
1. There's nothing like getting up, checking your email for any notices about class being cancelled and then walking across campus to class and almost getting hit by a car (when I'm in the crosswalk and have a walk light) only to find out that class is cancelled.
2. They think that I waste my money.
3. Ok the hall opens Wednesday. My peace and solitude disappears and I get tethered to the hall like a dog to its kennel
4. And once again people are associating me with K. From an aim conversation:

Slicerbladez: wheres k been recently
MASHGirl2002: he's been around
Slicerbladez: not as much as normal
MASHGirl2002: i know, but i'm not his babysitter
Slicerbladez: news to me
MASHGirl2002: gee thanks :p
5. There's something really special about intoxicated coworkers pounding on your door at 1:30am with a videocamera.
6. Where oh where did it say in the LOA that I signed last April that the housing department now owns my soul?

Month six:
1. Hooray for iron! It's my new favorite element. Seriously though, I like not having to take a nap in the middle of the day to have the energy to make it through the evening. I feel like I was missing out on a lot. It was also nice to not wake up tired after a full night's sleep. Thus are the joys of my life.
2. The guy in the electronics department was going to send me over to crafts I think if I wouldn't have mentioned the word CD after I said Jars of Clay.
3. So I thought I was going to go home next weekend and get some warmer clothes, then I looked at my schedule. I'm not going home til mid-November. I need to get some warm clothing and my heavy coat up here. It's supposed to SNOW this weekend!! *sigh*
4. I actually took a needle and stuck it through someone's skin and into their vein.
5. seeing officer hottie threaten the bulldog with handcuffs if he didn't get his hat back
6. Always cooperate with your RA's. We will find out the truth.
7. I'm bored with my life. It's the same shit all the time. Get up, go to class, come back, pass mail, rush somewhere to a meeting, go back to class, crash at night, sleep, repeat. I need a change in my life. I just don't know what.
8. Mocha at 4pm. Not a good idea, but I did it anyways. Now I'm wired. It's 1am, I have class at 8. I can't sleep. I knew better. Why oh why did I do it?
9. Why are trashy trailer parks always given names like they're the best places on earth to live?
10. I was on US10 today, heading west (back to school) when I see this real nice SUV hauling a trailer. But the trailer isn't your normal trailer, it's the mismatched back of a pickup truck, being hauled as a trailer. Yup. Only in Michigan.

It's been a while...

Ok so it's been forever and a day since I've posted on this blog. I've mainly been using myspace lately and checking here for these freaky comments that are popping up on my tagboard and then deleting them.

So, since my last post here, it is official, starting Labor Day weekend I'm on a new weekend at work and I'm not exactly looking forward to it, but there's nothing that I can do. We also started a new test on Monday and I hate it. But once again, I'll have to just deal with it.

The feeling for my own space is getting stronger and I may have found a cool place, I just gotta call about it and check on it.

And the relationship, well, that's going good and I just want to spend more and more time with him

Oops it disappeared again

I always realize that I haven't updated here in a while when the blogger website disappears from my list of websites on Firefox. So hmmm, where to start...

I know! I've lost 15 pounds. It's a totally awesome feeling, and of course I've been celebrating by buying new clothing, which I went and did today. I'm a size 14 now (hooray) and I want to be down to a 10. Two more sizes to go to hit my target size.

There's a guy that I work with that I like. Steve's awesome. We have this great friendly banter going on and have a similar sense of humor and we're always going back and forth, but also talking and he started to give me a back rub one day when I was alone in the break room, but I wasn't suspecting it and kinda jumped, so I'm wondering if that might have scared him off a little. But he seemed impressed one night when I said that I can dish it out just as well as I can take it. (Thank you to all you online folk who have helped me perfect my snark!) I guess now I just have to find out if he's seeing anybody or all that jazz. Until then, I'll just go with the winks, smiles and shared jokes.

My parent's party is driving me nucking futs. I have the main planning done, the caterer hired, the dj, the hall, church stuff is organized. All I have left to do is get decorations, go grocery shopping and receive RSVP's. It's the RSVP's that are driving me crazy though. I thought that I'd be safe by having people email me or call my cell phone. The email part is working for those who have elected to RSVP that way and I thought that I'd be safe having people call my cell phone, but every time that someone calls my cell to RSVP, I'm with my MOTHER. And this party is supposed to be a SURPRISE. And she always asks who it is, and the person on the phone usually has some sory of question, what to bring, what do they want, etc. Ah well, in two weeks it'll all be over. It's going to be one hell of a 25th Anniversary Luau though. I had to cut the guest list off at aunts and uncles, immediate family and family friends because I'd passed 100 people. I think that my last remaining shred of sanity will be gone by the time this party is over. Especially if I have to work with Brian a lot the week before the party, then I'll miss the party because I'll be in jail for homicide.

OMG an update!

Well first things first, yes, I'm still alive. Just haven't had much to post lately, and just haven't taken the time to update here, so this'll be a long one.

Family.
My cousin Rael got married over the weekend. It was such a good wedding and such a fun time. I'm really happy for him, Jen's a great woman, and I hope that they have a lot of fun in Hawaii this week.

Finally found out what was wrong with my grandma. Besides not eating well, she was diagnosed with Empty Sella Syndrome which affects her pituitary gland and throws off her hormone balance. Easily fixed though and no decrease in life expectancy.

Mom had her surgery and had her skin cancer removed from her eye area. She had one hell of a shiner for a week or so but now she looks fine.

Work.
Well that's work, time in microbiology is always enjoyable and the phone calls are almost always amusing no matter what department that I'm in. Though I particularly loved the phone call one day "Are gram negative rods in blood cultures bad?" This was from a doctor. That's like the first thing you learn in basic microbiology after this is bacteria. GRAM NEGATIVE RODS are BAD! I take my certification exam on the 18th. Seemed like a long way off when I signed up for it. Now it's 17 days away. Gotta really start studying. Less time online for me and more time studying.

Love life.
Ha! What a joke. That's definitely the one thing I missed over the weekend at the wedding, someone to share a slow dance with that wasn't my dad. So I wished on a few stars. Maybe that'll help. I've actually talked to Dan last week, but that's going no where. It's been 2 months since I've seen him and I just don't feel that special connection to him. Really he was a fling and that's all. I just can't seem to cut him loose though because I'm so fucking sick of being alone. Yeah, I know crappy attitude and crappy reason to keep someone in my life. But since I maybe talk to him once a week, if that, well you can tell that there's really nothing there. Bah. Being single sucks.

An update

Yeah so it's been a while since I've updated here. I don't really know how well I'm going to manage two blogs, but this one is definitely still going to be the one for the more personal stuff going on in my life. Anyways, not much has been going on, been working my 80 hours and not doing much else in my spare time, though it is nice to finally be getting paid for what I did for 18 weeks for free.

Haven't had a chance to go sailing yet this summer, been too busy and the weather has been crappy. Bah.

Grandma's finally starting to get better (not the grandma that had lung cancer, my other one). Doctor told her on Friday that she should be in the hospital but being her stubborn self, she didn't want to go, so he gave her a breathing treatment thing to use at home and some good meds. I'm glad that she's finally getting better because she usually doesn't get sick like this.

Busyness

Just registered for MSCLS, looks like it's going to be an interesting meeting, especially since I'll spend most of Thursday in sessions about forensics. :D So I'll be spending April 20-22 in Kalamazoo, MI. Sorry my SW pals, I won't be at C3.

Tomorrow's mom's birthday. After work I have to go get her a card and a bag to put her gift in. Then we're going to Famous Dave's for ribs. And Mrs Ross is visiting me at work tomorow. Hopefully I don't spend as much of tomorrow with the box of kleenex as I did today.

Mom's mom has the shingles. I feel bad for her, she had them for about a week before the doctor figured out what they were.

Dad's mom has her surgery on Monday. Any prayers will be greatly appreciated since she's having part of her lung removed because they're pretty sure it's cancer. She'll be in the hospital at least 4 days before being able to go home.

I"ve gotta register for my certification exam. I'm scared about it. I don't feel like I know enough. I don't feel like I've been studying enough.

I'm so busy.

Help

Amanda News Network

Ok, so I just realized that it's been about a week since I've updated here, so here we go. What's been going on in my life?

I finished my chemistry rotation last week (w00t!) and tomorrow I start my microbiology rotation, which is my absolute favorite department so I'm super excited about that. Plus, the start of this rotation means that I only have 7 weeks left until graduation, 8 until I'm done with internship, and 9 until the release of Episode III (good things happen in 3's too). I liked my chemistry rotation, but it was just a little too automated for me, the automation is cool, but there isn't as much hands on work, so it can get kind of boring until all the analyzers crash at the same time.

Thursday was St Patrick's Day, A.K.A. let's all go out and pretend we're Irish and drink green beer day (but I am part Irish so I don't have to pretend and I don't like beer). So Karen, Kelly and I headed to Lucky's Pub after Karen got out of work and spent a few hours drinking and making fun of people that thought that they could sing karaoke. Oh and fending off Jasper too. Why do I always attract the freaks? Seriously, this guy was creepy, from his soberness at the bar on national drinking night, to his comments about my boobies (yes, he said boobies) and making paper airplanes out of napkins and spit. I'm glad that we had my excuse of having to leave so that I could go to bed since I had to be up at 0330 to be to the hospital at 0500.

Which takes me to Friday. I got an awesome review from chemistry and they let me come home early, which was great because even though I wasn't hungover, I still felt pretty crummy from only getting 4ish hours of sleep and I came home and took a major nap only to be faced with the most evil of evilness. A charlie horse woke me up from my nap and had me in tears. I haven't been in that much pain in a long time. And then on Friday night we had my cousin's 4th birthday party. I had fun, he got toy lightsabers, so I was battling 3 and 4 year olds with a lightsaber. It was tonsa fun.

Worked yesterday, got snapped at by a customer and wanted to snap back at em. I can't wait until I get a real job so that I can tell the store manager where he can shove it. I'm sick of asking "Would you like to open a new JCPenney card and save 10%?"

Today was the parade. Went over to Karen and Kelly's since they live nearby and walked down from their house. Hung out by the WIOG tent and watched the parade. It was nice, I hadn't been able to go in a few years and it was just fun to be out there, except for the train guy with the cannon. That part sucked. Oh yeah, and my feet going numb sucked too, but it happens. The weather has to be crappy for the parade.

So that's what's been going on in my life. This is the Amanda News Network, signing off...

Internship Recap

So I'm through two weeks of internship, and I'm liking it so far. I was in hematology this last week and I got to learn how to use the analyzer, which is real cool. I saw a nice and real recognizeable case of CLL yesterday and I even knew what to do with the slide. The techs there are awesome, they answer my questions and are always showing me cool stuff. I even got to look at sperm under the microscope the other day. A couple of the techs that I've been working the closest with have been talking to me about where I want to work once I graduate. I hope that there's an opening at Covenant once I finish because I really like that lab. Someone will just have to retire so that a 2nd or 3rd shift position can open up for me.

Yuck. There's like 5 inches of snow out there, and it's still snowing and drifting. Why can't it do this on a day that I have off and don't have to go to Saginaw?

New computer parts and a few random thoughts

So I just ordered the parts that I'm gonna need to fix my computer. The case is gonna kick ass and I'm almost gonna have a new computer. Only starting out with 256mb of RAM, but it's better than the paperweight that I have right now. The only thing being re-used out of my computer is going to be the harddrive and the CD ROM drives. And the best part is it's only costing me $257, which isn't that bad for a new tower. C'mon Thursday or Friday. The FedEx truck needs to get here so I can have my computer back.

I start my internship tomorrow. I'm just a little nervous about it. It seems surprising that I'm this close to the end of school and I'm supposed to know what I'm doing when it comes to real patient results. I know that I do, but you just can't stop those thoughts from poppin up every now and then. Ah well, here's to my last day of sleeping in (and by sleeping in I mean 0600.) From now on I've got to be in the lab at 0630 every day except on Fridays when I have to be there at 0500. Joy. Here goes to me having no life for the next 18 weeks!

Where have I been?

So I'm back home now. Got home at about 6pm on Friday after getting all my crap moved home. As dad said, the next time I move, it'll be when I move out of the house. Right now I can't wait for that. Anywho, got home, started unpacking, set up my computer and the tower will boot but all that happens with the monitor is that the monitor self test image goes down the screen. Looked at the cable and yup, there's the problem, somehow I managed to mash down a pin, so my monitor isn't getting the full signal that it's supposed to, so I'm stuck on the family computer. Blech. I can't wait for my dad to buy me a new cable. I wanna use my computer, I've got files on it that I need to access, and I have the urge to start writing a story. So yeah, that's where I've been. Busy doing stuff around the house (unpacking, which sucks more than packing) and we had the family over for my lil bro's birthday today.

Lots o' thoughts...

Ok, I haven't updated in a while, so here goes a major update, starting from Friday.

Friday (AKA Fate Hates Me):
I went to go home to work last weekend and it just seemed like fate didn't want me to get home. First off I stopped at the bank and went to get some money out of the ATM and my ID card got stuck in the ATM, so I had to wait a half hour for them to get it out since I needed it. Then as I'm going home I get stuck behind all these slow vehicles that wouldn't go the speed limit, and that annoyed me to all end because I couldn't pass them. Then, I get about halfway home and I'm behind this truck that's pulling a trailer, now nothing was tied down in this trailer and so after a few miles this box of something flew out and I swerved to try to miss it and ended up sideswiping it. I still don't know what was in it, but luckily it didn't do any damage to my car.

Saturday and Sunday (Boy Work is Fun!)
Two days and nineteen hours of work. That should give you some indication of how I was feeling by the end of work on Sunday. Work was hellish because we have these new Core Standards to impliment. We're assigned to certain areas of the department, and everything has to be sized, all the merchandise on tables has to be the same height and the racks can't be too full. I'm glad that the next time I work, it'll all be done. Plus on Sunday I wasn't scheduled to be in until noon and then they changed it to 8am. That was a joy. Sunday night though was the last night that Mussell Beach was open, so mom and dad took me there for dinner and Jackie spoiled us by making us fresh elephant ears, and we got everything that we ordered for $1. It was pretty sweet. Then I told Jackie that she needed to come to Ferris and cook for us at St Paul's. She laughed at me. Good times.

All Weekend (My Car is Possessed!)
Yeah, so the power locks on my car have decided that they will only work when they feel like working. That's a lot of fun. Especially when it just decides to randomly start unlocking and relocking while I'm turning and driving. I need a new car.

Internship Progress
So today I went to Central Michigan Community Hospital in Mt Pleasant with Niki because she didn't want to go on a site visit on her own. I wasn't expecting to be that impressed by it, but it's a really nice place. It's this hospital that looks all cute and old on the outside, but modern on the inside. The lab is pretty cool and the people are very nice. I'm torn between that hospital and Bay Med as my 2nd choice. The major drawback to CMCH is that I'd have to find a place in Mt Pleasant to live, and thus have to pay rent. I dunno what to do.