...and then hilarity ensued...

Change of Venue

2007-12-14T21:53:00.000-08:00

Today I got on my blog to change some things up when I decided that there was so much I wanted to change that maybe I would just try switching blog providers entirely. I have a couple of friends who use Wordpress and they really like it, so I decided to make the switch. It also let me import all of my old blogs from here, so that was an added bonus. The only problem that I have found is that the posting times are not correct for these old posts. But I will work on fixing that.

Anyway, you can now find me here. I will go ahead and leave this blog up for awhile, but I won't be posting to it anymore. Thus, if you want to read what is happening, or change your RSS feed in bloglines or something, link to my new blog. Happy reading!

Nausea heartburn indigestion upset stomach diarrhea

2007-12-14T09:54:00.000-08:00

Diaphoresis. Syncope. APAP. Ataxia. Bruxism. DIC. Coryza. Epistaxis. Alopecia. ARDS. Entropion. Extropion. Egophony. Tactile fremitus.

The list goes on and on. What does the list consist of? Words and conditions that I had NO idea existed before I started nursing school. Would you like a translation? Okay, in order...:

Sweating. Fainting. Acetaminophen (Advil). Uncoordinated gait. Grinding teeth. Dissemenated Intravascular Coagulation. A runny nose. A bloody nose. Balding. Acute Respiratory distress syndrome. The last four I won't bother to translate cause they can't really be done in only one or two words. You could look them up here if you really wanted to: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/mplusdictionary.html. It has been my lifesaver this semester!

As I was driving home yesterday I was thinking about the sheer amount of knowledge that I have acquired in the last semester. Four months... that's it. But I learned soooooooooooooooo much. And the scariest thing -- yet terribly exciting at the same time -- is that I am 1/4 of the way to being a real life RN! At first that seemed daunting, but the fact that I have already learned so much makes me feel confident that I will be more than adequately prepared by the time I graduate. As evidenced by the above example and the fact that I have EASILY learned upwards of 250 new words this semester. On that note, it really is like learning a new language. We have lots of fun quizzing each other with the most random words we can think of. We also have lots of fun being hypochondriacal and diagnosing ourselves with every new disease, condition, or syndrome that we come across in class. And the most fun (for me) is when I use one of these words in normal conversation with normal people. So consider yourself warned!

And just as a side note, I went to the store the other night to buy a first aid/emergency kit for my car since I do a lot more driving than in the past and through more treacherous conditions. I knew instantly that I was going into the correct profession when I went into raptures at the sight of the first aid kits and the extensive selection of first aid related products. I'm an idiot, I know. But I'm happy, and that's all that matters, right?

Something to Remember

2007-12-13T17:21:00.000-08:00

As I was driving through the mountains today on my way from Spokane to Seattle, this song came up on my iPod playlist:

Blessed be Your name
In the land that is plentiful
Where Your streams of abundance flow
Blessed be Your name

And blessed be Your name
When I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed be your name

CHORUS: Every blessing You pour out I'll
Turn back to praise
And when the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

Blessed be Your name
When the sun's shining down on me
When the world's "all as it should be"
Blessed be Your name

And blessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there's pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name

You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name
I will bless Your name

Admittedly, I have been having a bit of a problem lately with blessing the Lord. He is being so faithful to show me that no matter what is going on in my life, I can rejoice in the fact of knowing Him. Still, it is hard. I was so convicted by the line that said, "Every blessing You pour out I'll turn back to praise." Wow. Do I do that? Do I really remember to praise the Lord for everything good? Do I look for blessings in the hard times? Am I willing to stop my complaining and belly aching to see the many ways in which the Lord has blessed me? It gave me something to think about for a good long while.

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

2007-10-13T21:46:00.000-07:00

Oh wait. I know. That is part of a Christmas song, but I really and truly feel that way about THIS time of the year. And as much as I love Christmas, once autumn comes, I know that Christmas will be waiting right around the corner. If I ever get married, it is definitely going to be in the fall. (I don't have too many things that I HAVE to have for my wedding, but that is one that I will be very insistent upon). Anyhow... the point of this post? I went and played in the park today, taking lots of pictures in the process. And I am posting those here for your enjoyment. The colors in Spokane this fall are exquisite and it makes me so happy! Everything is so bright and vibrant. I'm not sure if this is typical, seeing as how this is my first fall here... but I am rejoicing in the beauty of it all nevertheless!

One of the girls that I know through a Bible study at ICN is engaged. She was going to have her other friend do the engagement pictures, but they HAD to be done this weekend and the schedules were just not working. So somehow I got volunteered to do it. It was actually a lot of fun and I really enjoyed it. NOTHING like working at JC Penny Portrait Studio back in the day. I didn't have stupid company policy telling me what poses were and were not appropriate and docking me points on my photography because I didn't have the happy couple oohing and aahhing over a fake flower. Anyhow, enough of that. I'm glad to have moved on ;). I don't have any pictures of them to post, but maybe I can get some of them in the future. We went to the same park where I took these pictures, and I think that we got some really good ones. I'm excited. I have found my calling if I ever end up flunking out of nursing school...hehehe, just kidding!

As for my life... I'm hanging in there. I just finished my first round of nursing midterms and I am happy to be done with them. As one of my friends pointed out, we are now 1/8 of the way done with nursing school! I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing... =). I have met so many wonderful people and I am really grateful for the wonderful friendships that I already have. It's hard to believe that I have only been here 2 months when I stop and think about how well I know people already and how much they mean to me. I am attending two Bible studies, one through ICN and one done by my friend from ICN which have both been wonderful and challenging at the same time. I am attending a new church tomorrow with one of my friends, and that excites me! One of these days I imagine that I should post about my classes and my clinical experiences and what not, but not now. I really do apologize that I haven't blogged in 2 months. But I thought nobody read it but my mom, and I talk to her on the phone so she already knows all of this stuff! Needless to say, I finally did get internet in my apartment after driving to a sketchy looking part of town to track down the UPS warehouse and my modem. But it has been working like a charm ever since. Anyway, I should go be productive (which at this point in time may merely consist of reading The Golden Compass as I have been doing homework all day). I promise to not be so long in posting in the future!

I feel like such a loser...

2007-08-16T20:50:00.000-07:00

So here I am in Spokane. I wish I had all the time in the world to do a post the right way, but I only have a couple of minutes so this will have to be quick. The reason I only have a couple of minutes is because I am not technically using my Internet. I went driving around downtown Spokane tonight in search of a wireless signal that I could, uhhhhh, "borrow". My modem was supposed to be delivered today, but I was at orientation the entire day and the stupid UPS guy didn't leave it with my apartment manager but instead just took it home with him and said that he would be back "sometime" tomorrow. Which means that I get to stay home ALL day tomorrow, until my modem comes, that is. So hopefully I can get wireless hooked up in my apartment tomorrow. But for now I am sitting in my car in downtown, and feeling like I am going to get in trouble at any minute.

I am having a blast here, though. Nursing school is going to be grand and I am SUPER excited. I have already met some really neat, really nice people. Actually, to be honest, EVERYONE I have met so far has been really neat and really nice. I'm beginning to think there aren't any mean people in nursing school. The weather in Spokane has been wonderful... around 95 degrees every day. I am beginning to re-appreciate the value of air conditioning. As it allows me to get cool at night and when I want to be, and that means that I enjoy the warm temperatures that much more. Tomorrow I don't have anything that I have to be doing, so I'm gonna unpack some more while I wait for the UPS guy, get my Internet hooked up, and go spend about $700 or so on books/scrubs/other random things for this semester. I will post again once I get my own Internet... and I will definitely post pics of my apartment. But that will have to wait for now. Hopefully I will be back soon!

No good, very bad day

2007-07-19T13:29:00.000-07:00

That was my day yesterday. A LOT of things went wrong, including, but not limited to:

-Having to spend 45 minutes on the phone with various offices at both WSU and UW to try and figure out why there was a hold on my account which made it so that WSU couldn't process my financial aid. I know that school doesn't start for a month still, but it is really stressing me out to not have any idea of what my expected contribution is or whether or not I'll need loans. Goodness, I put down the deposit on an apartment that I *think* works with my budget, but I don't know for sure cause I haven't seen the actual budget.

-Realizing that the hold on my account was because I was *TOO* efficient and had UW send my official transcripts to WSU before my degree had posted. So basically, WSU had paperwork from me saying that I had a previous degree and therefore I should be coded as one kind of student, but the transcript from UW made it look like that wasn't the case.

-Being immensely angry that neither UW nor WSU let me know what was going on! If I hadn't caught this by simply being on top of things, I shudder to think how long this would have gone on.

-Worrying that there might still be problems even after resending the transcript with my degree on it (which ended up costing me $20, $10 the first time and $10 the second time).

-Intense levels of stress and angst surrounding my general home life as we are all in a state of upheaval due to my parents' impending move.

-Traffic coming home from work.

-Realizing that I may or may not have killed my sister's bird by not giving it water. I really don't remember whether or not he had water, but I guess it is my fault since I was the only one home for the last couple of weeks. This stupid bird lived to the ripe old age of 11 (as a zebra finch) and then I go and kill it by not giving it water. I feel great.

-Frustrations in general over the fact that while everyone tries to understand, not many people do completely understand what it is like to be a PK. No, it does not boil down simply to the fact that now my parents get to live in a big, beautiful house.

Like I said, there were a lot more stresses. But I'm actually having a pretty okay day today and I don't want to make it bad by reliving all of the badness of yesterday. In the good news department:

-I came home from work yesterday and bawled for like 15 minutes. Now I know this doesn't sound like a good thing, but sometimes just crying makes everything better. For me, it's almost as if I haven't actually processed the things that are making me upset until I get it all out by crying. Of course, I can't prompt the crying myself, it has to be something totally stupid to bring it on, but it is nice once you can get it out of your system.

-I got an email today from B&N telling me that they shipped my Harry Potter book! I am super excited and plan on scheduling as much time as possible to read it this weekend. I have read a number of articles that say that everything makes sense at the end. This makes me happy as I had horrible visions of Rowling just killing everybody off and leaving the story without any ending whatsoever.

-It may be hard for me to get much reading in this weekend, though, as I have a lot of cool things planned. Friday night and Saturday I am going with Warren to the boy scout camp that he used to work at out on the peninsula. This trip involves a drive by (if not over) the brand new Tacoma Narrows bridge, which looks incredibly cool. (I think that Warren's love of bridges may be starting to rub off on me, although in my defense, I have always found bridges to be pretty cool).

-Since we only have SS and AM service on Sunday, we are going to have a BBQ after church and then go canoeing on the lake! This has been in the works for seriously like a year, and it is finally happening. I am excited.

Spare Change

2007-07-11T10:31:00.000-07:00

The change? My parents are moving to San Francisco sometime soon. Ambiguous, I know. But that is the best they can give me. Maybe the middle of September? Apparently when the pastor changes were announced in May or so, that wasn't the end of it. So Monday night (while I was still at home and not down at camp) I got a call from my mom saying that they were in Olympia and had decided to come home for the night. I should have been tipped off right there, but no. So they came waltzing in at 10 pm, made small talk for awhile, and then told me that they didn't just randomly decide to come home. They wanted to tell me in person that they were going to be moving down to Richmond.

AGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm sorry. I just needed to get that out. Now don't get me wrong, I am WAY less upset about this move than the last time we moved, mainly because I was already planning on moving away from my parents in August. But I wasn't planning on MOVING to Spokane, as in to live there solidly for the next 2 years. I was planning to live there for the school months and then come back home (home being Seattle) for the breaks. But now what do I do? Where is my home? Is my home where my parents are? I'm not so sure. And if my home isn't where my parents are, and home is truly Seattle, what will I do in terms of (a) Seeing my parents and (b) Living in Seattle over the breaks??? Like I said, it really is not THAT complicated but it is frustrating, especially since this came falling out of the clear blue sky. I really feel bad for my mom, though. I am moving to Spokane, and she will move away and leave Lindsey and Alex in Seattle to go to UW. Hopefully she can find some way to entertain herself. So yah, if you have a spare prayer, you can think of our family. Wanna know the rest?

Bro. Bob and Sis. Cheryl to Portland
Bro. Bill and Sis. Lori to Medford
My dad and mom to Richmond/San Fran
Bro. Larry and Sis. Rachel to Seattle

Yay! What fun.

Sicko...

2007-07-06T10:40:00.000-07:00

...that's what I was for the past couple of days. How wonderful is it that we all go to camp meeting and share with each other? Stories, friendships, activities, joys, prayer meetings, kitchenette parties... and that horrible thing that seems to crop up every year, the infamous upset stomach.

Tuesday night, I was hanging out with Zach and Mandy and despite the fact that it was nearing 11:30, we decided that we needed to do a Taco Bell run. So I ended up eating Taco Bell at about midnight. The next morning when I woke up, I didn't feel the best, but I assumed it was cause I had eaten crap food so late at night. Sadly, things continued to get worse and worse. The worst part of this is that I HAD to drive home that afternoon (this was on the 4th of July) cause I was supposed to have a BBQ at Warren's and then go to work on Thursday and Friday. Well, the drive went alright, thankfully. When I got home I took a quick nap hoping to make myself feel better. No can do... when I woke up I promptly regurgitated and then felt okay for awhile. I decided to go to Warren's house cause I thought that was the end of it. Suffice it to say, I was only there about an hour and a half and that was with me barfing there once too. So I came home, laid on my bed in my hot hot HOT bedroom and proceeded to be miserable. To make matters worse, it was the 4th of July and Warren and I were gonna go see really cool fireworks, but for obvious reasons, I had to bail. And then I had to lay there being hot and feeling miserable and having my already sporadic sleep constantly interrupted by the loud pop of fireworks. To make matters worse, I had to take the day off yesterday cause I still wasn't feeling good, so the already very limited amount of time that I was going to be able to work was made that much smaller.

I don't even know where I caught it since when I left, I hadn't heard of any one else being sick. But when I got home and started checking bebo, it turns out that a couple of other people who were there were having similar symptoms. Such is life. I'm just glad that:

A: I am feeling IMMENSELY better today

B: I didn't have to do the drive home from Portland/puke every hour thing

C: I could be sick in the comfort of my own house, as opposed to my cabin

More happy news! Tonight is Warren's birthday party and we are going to see Transformers. I also bought tickets for the midnight showing of HP5 yesterday. I know, I am a HUGE dork, but what can I say. Also, I get to go back down to Portland tomorrow (even if it is only for the day) and I am bringing Warren with me. I probably won't post again until after camp, but we will see. And finally, my super cool shirt came in the mail while I was gone:

Major catch up time!

2007-06-18T11:18:00.000-07:00

Does anyone know what time it is? That's right folks, I have once again hit critical mass in terms of the amount of things that I want to post. In order to save me from going batty by typing long posts about events that have already passed, I am going to make a list!

1. Memorial Day Weekend: So the best part of my Memorial Day Weekend was when Warren and I went to Roosevelt's band camp on Whidbey Island. We went across the Deception Pass Bridge (which I love) and then we drove down the island to Fort Casey and basically stopped and looked at whatever we thought was cool. At Fort Casey we walked around and stalked some little bunny rabbits. We also faced our fears and went into the bunkers for about, oh, 5 minutes before we ran away. And then we left. We visited them at Camp Casey for *maybe* 45 minutes because they were kinda late getting there. The next best part of my Memorial Day Weekend was when I went and saw Pirates 3. I LOVED it! Especially the part where they had to meet on the little sand bar in the middle of the ocean and the guitar was rocking out in the background. Yah, good times.

2. Graduations!: If you haven't figured it out by now, I graduated from college. I actually had two graduation ceremonies to go to, one for the Psychology Department and then the actual ceremony in Husky Stadium. The Psych one was on Monday night of finals week so I ended up "graduating" before I was actually done with all of my finals. Then Saturday was the big to do. Unfortunately, it rained the entire time and Husky Stadium isn't covered. Basically, it felt like I was sitting in the stadium for a football game in October instead of for a graduation in June. And then the commencement speaker (Rep. Norm Dicks) was the WORST commencement speaker ever. He started out innocently enough by belittling the Cougs a little bit, but then things went down hill from there. He started talking about how HE had worked with all of these ex-governors and senators and mayors and all of the commissions that HE had been on and all of the bills that HE had passed and all of the good that HE had done. It basically was a very conceited list of all the ways in which he thought he was cool. And he kept saying that we needed to stop global warming and clean up Puget Sound (complete with a very funny quote about seeing a video of a "majestic Lingcod gasping for breath on the bottom of Puget Sound"). This is all well and good, but the speech had nothing to do with the graduates. He didn't even go as far as to say that we should be inspired by his example, which I think was his overall point. But then things got even more interesting when the people in the stands (not the graduates) started clapping and stomping to try and say, "Hey, you're done. We got your point, now sit down." To make matters worse, the Seattle Times has referenced the speech and the ceremony a couple of times and they haven't done a good job of explaining how truly awful the speech was. To every single person who was there, there is no room for his speech to be construed as anything even half-way decent. But due to the Times' ineptness in reporting the event, we now have people writing letters to the editor saying how much better the WSU students were because they sat quietly in the hot sun through Gov. Gregoire's speech at their graduation. Give me a break! This is ridiculous and people need to know when to stop.

3. Which brings me to the best graduation gift EVER! After my graduation I was hanging out with Warren and his parents are like, "We have something for you!" They handed me a bottle opener with the WSU logo on it and I was like, "Uhh thanks guys." But then they made it play... and it played Tequila and then said "Go Huskies!" And I was like, "?!??!?!" cause Tequila was made into a popular football song by UW and this was just blasphemy. Come to find out, they actually bought two bottle openers (One UW and One WSU) and then switched the little chip inside. They said it's cause I might be a Cougar on the outside, but I'll always be a Husky on the inside. Awwwwww...! =)

4. Saturday Alex and I had our family graduation party and a bunch of family from out of town came to help us celebrate. This upcoming Tuesday is Alex's graduation from high school, so the grandparents (from both sides) are staying from last Saturday until this Tuesday. This means that they are at our house. And this means that I don't have a bedroom anymore. I'm dealing with it, but it is rather stressful. Especially since last week I decided to start going through all of the papers/notes/books from college that I had been too hesitant to throw away. Only once my room had turned into a disaster zone did I find out that my grandparents would need to stay with us after all, and that I had approximately 1.5 days to put it back together again... grrr!

5. And last but not least, I am going to Portland tonight to Justin and Erin's wedding! I am currently at work, but I finished all of my work and my boss doesn't have any work for me and the phone isn't even ringing. But not only am I excited for Portland, but I am going to go to Ikea on the way home to buy things for my apartment!

6. Okay, I guess THIS is the last thing. Last Monday and Tuesday my mom and dad and I went over to Spokane to do some apartment hunting. We found some likely looking prospects, but I can't sign a lease until mid-July and I am still waiting for my financial aid letter. So we will see. Watch this space.

The sounds of my childhood

2007-06-18T11:10:00.000-07:00

So I have been temporarily relocated to my sister's bedroom in the basement because we have various sets of relatives here due to graduation festivities (both mine and my brother's). Anyhow, last night I feel asleep to the sound of two things that I haven't heard in at LEAST 5 years: the sound of the dryer and the sound of our cat purring next to me. I know this sounds odd, but I hadn't realized how often I feel asleep to those sounds as a kid until last night when I heard them again. Being upstairs in this house, I am far from the dryer and Goldie isn't allowed up there, so I never hear them anymore. It was just sort of an odd experience.

My secret weapon

2007-06-08T15:15:00.000-07:00

I know that Linda has written about Bloglines before, but I just had to put in my two cents. I heard about this about a year ago, but I never went to the "effort" of setting up an account. After getting tired of repeatedly checking back on blogs that never seemed to be updated (yes, that would be YOU guys!), I decided that it was time to pull out the big guns. I got a Bloglines account, and although I have only had it for a couple days, it is amazing. I love that I know instantly when something new has been posted. Similarly, I don't have to waste time going to each blog that I read to see if anything has been updated. The only down side (as I see it) is that you aren't told when new comments have been posted, so I will have to check back on those occasionally. Also, it couldn't find the feed for Mindy or Bryan's blogs, so I apologize if I accidentally miss one of your posts since I am stuck checking yours manually. Anyhow... just thought I would share the good news with you all.

And as if you haven't noticed... my blogging rate has increased exponentially over the past couple of days. This is due mainly to the fact that I am done with classes for the summer, so I actually have time to get caught up with stuff. I don't promise to keep this rate up (as I AM going to do other things this summer than just sit in front of my computer!), but I will try my best to post things as they happen, instead of a month after the fact like with Lisa and Josh's wedding.

I can hardly wait!

2007-06-08T10:57:00.001-07:00

Although I'm not sure what I will do with myself once the lovely and delightful Harry Potter world comes to an end. I just hope that J.K. Rowling isn't too mean in who she ends up killing off and is able to wrap up the books with a little bit of hope still intact. Cause after all, that is what I think the series is all about. All of these bad things happen, but there is still a bit of hope and because of that they are able to keep on going. Anyhow, I'm not here to argue or debate or speculate, I'm just here to say that I preordered this last night!!!

(It's the cover art from the front AND the back of the book, don't get all confused now)

So the question remains, anyone else as excited as I am for this book? Or for the 5th movie? Which apparently is now being released on July 11th instead of July 13th (which would have been Friday the 13th). Does this mean that it is opening ALL day on July 11th; so that a midnight showing would actually take place Tuesday night, July 10th? Or is it opening the evening of July 11th? I can't find this information anywhere and it is making me sad. Oh well, no matter when it officially opens, I am SOOO there for the 1st showing!

Picc Retreat 2007

2007-06-07T21:33:00.000-07:00

In the middle of May the piccolo section went to Grayland, WA for a retreat of sorts. This was the 3rd year doing it, and it was great fun. These pictures pretty much speak for themselves, so I will give them some captions and let them do the rest. Oh yah, and the website of the place we stayed (like I promised): http://www.wildrosehideaway.webtrellis.net/

The house that we stayed in:

We got there way early and didn't have the food, so we ventured back to the mall at Aberdeen where I got this nifty bottle of Coke from Mexico! (Yes, the writing was in Spanish):

Apparently Tom Cruise came to this mall on May 9, 2006:

We went to the pet store before we went back. There was nothing to do at this mall, think the old Mall 205 in Portland, or even worse, Eastport Plaza (which no longer even exists):

I want to live on this street:

This piece of paper made our weekend more fun:

We watched a lot of TV, specifically, "What Not to Wear" (Now don't let the irony of this picture escape you!):
And we ate a lot of good food:

The messes were immense... this was only the beginning. It was almost more than I could deal with!:

Yes, we even went to the beach. The weather was not the best, but it wasn't horrible:

Some picturesque little birds:

I had to leave my mark, which was promptly washed away by the waves:

And being good marching band devotees, we had to watch Drumline:

The true highlight of the weekend was watching Change of Habit with Elvis Presley and Mary Tyler Moore. It's basically about this nun who falls in love with Elvis who plays.... a doctor??!!?? It is a truly amazing film and something that you should watch when you are in a silly mood and feel like making fun of something! Having said that, I am all blogged out for tonight. I will post some more later. I do feel better, though, having posted the two important events that I had promised to write about.

It's your lucky day!

2007-06-07T20:59:00.000-07:00

I finally have time to post all of the pictures that I have been hoarding! Bear with me, this could take awhile. First off: Lisa's wedding and Portland in general since Warren got home awhile back and was able to give me the pictures off of his computer. I'm sorry that some of these are a bit blurry, you know how it is trying to take pictures at a wedding, let alone inside the Portland sanctuary!

Of course you guys remember the picture at the Christmas tree farm from when we got lost going to the rehearsal dinner:

The church: Waiting:
The ceremony:
The newlyweds and me:
Old campmeeting roomies...too bad Lisa won't want to stay with us anymore ;):
Speeches and such, I think this is just too cute:
Let them eat cake! And drink chocolate milk and neon colored punch:
And then we had to go on a little Portland tour:

Herbert even made an appearance:

I stole Warren's camera for a while to take some pictures. Here are the park blocks in downtown Portland:

Warren, meanwhile, was busy taking pictures of angles and bridges and other architectural-type things:

And that's it folks. At least that's all the pictures that I am going to post from Josh and Lisa's wedding. Ya ready for more? Cause I got more pictures. Bring on the next post!

Revelations

2007-06-06T11:44:00.000-07:00

This morning I had two revelations. Seeing as how they were slightly entertaining, I thought that I would share them with you.

Revelation #1: It is rather ironic how much pain we are willing to go through to make ourselves attractive

As I get ready to go away to school, I have been doing alot of "personal maintenance". I went to the doctor yesterday to get two immunizations that I need to be up to date on for nursing school (Hep A and Tetanus/Diphtheria/Pertussis, in case you were wondering) and last week I had a Tb test done. All of these things involve needles and minor amounts of pain. Understandable. Today I went to the dentist to have a regular cleaning, which also involves minor amounts of pain. (Especially if you get the hygienist that I got who always sprays you in the face and splashes you and then picks at things that didn't hurt before he started poking them with a metal spike but then hurt afterwards.) Anyhow, I had time to ponder the idea of enduring pain for beauty and I started creating a list of things that we are willing to endure in the name of beauty. Just a few of the things that I came up with:

-Manicures & Pedicures (don't let anyone ever tell you that these are completely pain free!)
-Waxing of various and sundry forms
-Tanning (which always involves the possibility of sunburn and skin cancer)
-Wearing high heels (mmm yah, enough said)
-Braces for nice straight teeth
-Icky tooth whitening programs for nice white teeth

And then there is the basic up-keep such as:
-Going to the dentist so that your teeth don't rot out of your head (definitely NOT attractive)
-Going to the doctor so that you can get you immunizations so that you don't get Hepatitis B and turn yellow
-Tough workouts and diets to maintain the perfect body type

Believe me, I'm not saying that the costs outweigh the benefits for these things. I was just wondering when our society as a whole become so masochistic. Another thing to mention here, many of the things on my list apply only to the female gender... how in the world is this fair?!? Or maybe I'm just forgetting about the ones applicable to males cause I'm not one... any males (or females for that matter) have some input?

Revelation #2: Apparently it is perfectly normal to go in to Starbucks with a list of drink orders a mile long and expect them to fill all of them

So after said dentist appointment, I went to Starbucks. My classes are all over now (my last final was yesterday) and from here on out for the rest of the summer I have rejoined the ranks of the work-a-day world. I thought that I would start things out right by going to Starbucks before I headed to work. When I got there, there was not only one but TWO ladies who had a whole list of drink orders and each had like 20 drinks on them. One lady's total came to $93.70!!! I can't even fathom spending that much at Starbucks. I like coffee, but it would probably take me a good half a year to spend that much at Starbucks. But apparently it is a normal phenomenon to take a whole list of drink orders for the office and head down to Starbucks. I guess I have a lot to learn about the "real" world.

sigh

2007-05-31T22:22:00.000-07:00

My life is complicated. I am frustrated, confused, and upset... but I know it will all get better if I get a good night's sleep. Hopefully we can return to our regularly broad-casted Melina tomorrow, complete with updates about what I have been keeping myself busy with lately. Watch this space!!

P.S. I picked up my graduation apparel today! And now 2 of my 4 classes are officially done for the quarter! And it's only 8 days until I graduate! I guess when I remember all this, I'm not quite as upset anymore.

Updates on my life!

2007-05-23T13:01:00.000-07:00

The major and most exciting news of the week thus far is that I have caught my third cold in 3 weeks. This is getting a bit old. How in the world am I supposed to finish up all of my stuff and be able to graduate when I keep getting sick? Hopefully this will be the last one, otherwise I just may have to go crazy. Thankfully, today I can finally trick myself into feeling like I am somewhat normal by taking lots of cold medicine. The downside? Other than the obvious one of having been sick for three weeks straight... I also haven't been running in 3 weeks cause I just don't have the energy. This makes me sad.

The other recent development is that my car is in the shop, which is annoying, but I will spare you the details. So, I have been driving our old-school mini-van. Yah, I definitely feel like a cool kid pulling into the parking lot. Before this, I seriously don't think that I had driven the van once since I got my car. Oh well... Jason comes home to me tonight and he will be that much more prepared to drive me safely over Snoqualmie Pass multiple times next year on my way to and from Spokane.

As for picc retreat, I have pictures. But I am not writing this from my computer, so I can't post them now. Hopefully tonight?!?

Hey Ya'll!!

2007-05-17T23:12:00.000-07:00

I'm outta here for the weekend. Off to the beach with some of my lovely fellow piccolos. Want to see where I will be? Too bad... I'll have to post the link once I am no longer there so that someone weird doesn't come stalk us! I just finished the term paper for my Social Problems class, which I am pretty proud of. Considering all of the other homework/quizzes/papers/presentations that I have had due in the last two weeks, along with being sick, I am ready for a break. I'll be back later! =)

Drumroll please... (Sorry, it's longish)

2007-05-16T15:40:00.000-07:00

I heard back from WSU this week. The verdict is in... I am now officially a Husky-Cougar hybrid!

That's right folks, I was accepted to Washington State University's Intercollegiate College of Nursing as a Bachelor of Science in Nursing candidate. Whew... that's a mouthful. I am very happy and excited to have a plan for next year, but I don't think that it has fully hit me quite yet. Which may be a good thing, considering that I have SOOOOOOOOO many things to think about now. Not the least of which is a move to Spokane sometime in August and all of the things that that will involve. My parents and I are planning on taking a quick 2-day trip to Spokane sometime in early June to go apartment hunting. And while I am ecstatic about all of this, there is a little, tiny portion of myself wondering what in the world I have gotten myself into. I think that same part of myself is also asking how I'm gonna deal with the fact that I am now an official Cougar. They are supposed to be our arch-rivals, after all. My grandpa will be happy. He went to WSU back in the 40's(?) and although he never says it, I think that he was a little disappointed that I went to UW instead. I've pretty much decided that to fully enjoy my experience at WSU, I will embrace being a Cougar as long as it doesn't get in the way of my being a Husky. I will always be a Husky first and foremost. Thus, come Apple Cup, I will definitely be wearing purple and gold!

Anyway... on to the details. I will be leaving sometime in the middle of August for orientation and then classes start on August 20th. Now, although I am actually a WSU student, I will NOT be going to Pullman. **Repeat** I will NOT be going to Pullman. Some of you may not care. But for the people who are at all familiar with Pullman, this is something that is of utmost important for me to emphasize. The school is in Spokane, so that is where I will be. There are many unanswered questions about this still, the major one being where I will go to church. Honestly, I have no idea. I may just be listening to Portland's Sunday morning service online for a while. This is pretty much where I just have to stop thinking with my mind and using my human processing because I realized long ago that it is beyond my comprehension to fully understand what the Lord is ever really doing. I have seen His hand in every aspect of things leading up to this decision, and that gives me peace. I could write out the list, but maybe I'll just save that for a later date. Anyhow, I am excited.

Having a plan for next year also makes it way easier to be excited about my upcoming graduation from UW... in just 23 days! Lately I have been working on my homework (of which I still have quite a bit), planning things for graduation, and looking into things for next year, all while trying to enjoy my last quarter ever at UW. It's only once you no longer have something that you truly get sentimental, so I am trying to anticipate that and live my life accordingly so as to not miss anything or take anything for granted. Anyhow, I am afraid that I am going to start getting too introspective or something, which was not my goal at all, so I'll end this here. I just wanted to share the good news with all of the faithful readers of my blog.

How cool is YOUR school?

2007-05-14T18:52:00.002-07:00

My school is way cool! Check this out. You should also look at the sneak preview video by clicking on the link in the box on the left hand side. I am sad to say, though, that I wasn't able to witness the battle last week since it was during a passing time when I had an 1.5 hour class and therefore was stuck in Kane hall. *Sigh* I still think it's a way cool idea, though...

Remember how busy my week was going to be?

2007-05-09T07:34:00.000-07:00

Well, it just got a little worse. I was doing alright with keeping up with all of my homework, but I had felt pretty draggy the entire week. I just wrote it off as allergies. This morning, I determined that it was officially NOT just allergies... I have a pretty bad cold as well of all this other junk going on this week. My throat HURTS, but my mom doesn't think it looks like Strep, so that means that there is nothing they can do for it... I'm pretty much stuck popping ibuprofen. My head is fairly congested and I have the muscle/body aches. Great. How am I supposed to get my homework done now? Due to all of this (I hope!), I also have a swollen lymph node on the side of my neck that is bigger than I have ever had. So yah, if you can spare a prayer for me, I would really appreciate it!

Busy oh so busy!

2007-05-05T20:13:00.000-07:00

So how many O.C. Supertones fans do we have out there who know that my title is actually a line from one of their songs?

I'm sorry that I haven't posted in a little while. My life is crazy. As always. Why am I surprised by this?

This week I have a paper due, a 20 minute PowerPoint presentation to prepare and present, a discussion to lead (which requires me to read 3, 15 page packets of information that are all dryer than a bone!), my stats homework, a micro-bio quiz, a stats quiz, and last but not least, my sociology reading, which is probably an additional 100 pages. So yah, bare with me. I am also going to Yakima special meetings tomorrow, which is a full day endeavor because of where Yakima is located. I'm also in the process of getting my graduation announcements all figured out, printed, and mailed, which is slightly time consuming as well. There was a Husky baseball game last night that was played at Safeco field and it lasted 3.5 hours, so I didn't leave Safeco until 11.15 and then didn't get home until 12ish. And then this morning I got up and went to Windermere Cup and didn't get home from that until about 3.30. Now I am trying to not lose all momentum, but my brain seriously won't engage at all. Driving to the gas station and Target just about used up all of my focusing abilities, which is really bad. While all of these things have been fun, I am TIRED! I have been going full steam ahead for a little too long now. I need a break.

A little about the wedding last weekend... it was fabulous! I had a most excellent time the entire weekend. I would put up details complete with pictures, but most of the pictures I want to post were taken on Warren's camera and I didn't get a chance to get them before I came back to Seattle. So as soon as Warren gets back from China in 3 weeks, I will post some pictures and explain things then. But for now, I'll give you a brief overview. I went down Friday afternoon, got a Mani/Pedi with Lisa and Natalie and then did the rehearsal that night. The rehearsal dinner was held at this cute restaurant out in Oregon City by the Clackamas River, so it definitely felt like the country. Warren and I were already going to be late because I was waiting for him to get into town. But then we went WAY too far down this nice country road. It was such a nice, summer-esque night and it felt really good to just drive down the road with the windows rolled down, enjoying the smells of being in the country. Once we realized we had passed the road we wanted, we turned around at a Christmas tree farm, which just about made my day. I do have this picture, though (and yes, Warren is a little hunched, he doesn't always look quite like that!):

Saturday was the wedding and it was a full day. We did pictures before, which was nice, but by the time the wedding and reception were over, I was tired. An interesting story about pictures, Lisa and Josh wanted to do them at Reed College. Now Reed is a VERY liberal arts school, so yah, keep that in mind. We had just gotten there and realized we couldn't go to the place they had wanted to because there was a paint ball war going on. So while we were trying to figure out where to take pictures, I see this group of people come around the corner. The guy in front stopped and he shouted, "It's a wedding!" Okay? And then the people behind him start running and screaming and they are coming straight toward us. And they are all blue. And they are all naked. And there were like 50 of them, guys and girls. It was INSANE! I could have lived my entire life without ever having experienced that! While I was doing this, Warren and my grandpa started talking and somehow one thing led to another and my grandpa ended up giving Warren a full on tour of the Tabernacle. Like in the Attic. When Warren told me, I was like, "I have never even been in the attic!" Oh well, I was glad he found an interesting way to entertain himself while I was being subjected to the blue people. Anyway, after the wedding and reception were cleaned up, Warren wanted to go actually see some of Portland, so we went downtown and just walked around some. It was a BEAUTIFUL spring day with clear blue skies and sunshine, so that was good times. And then Sunday we got up early, had breakfast at Elmer's (!) and then went our separate ways. Like I said, it was a most excellent time and it gave me a little bit of a vacation, but it made it really hard to come back last week and get into the swing of things. Plus senioritis is majorly kicking in. A lot of my friends who attend schools that started in August are graduating this weekend and next weekend, but I'm still expected to be going strong. Oh well... 1 more month! I can do it.

Anyway, that is it for now. I really need to do some homework. If you guys don't hear from me for a week or so, now you know why. Oh yah, and as of today, I am instating a new policy. If you haven't posted to your blog in the last month, you are no longer on my "stalker" list. Consider yourselves warned!

I want you to know that I am neglecting studying for my soc midterm to write this blog!

2007-04-25T21:28:00.000-07:00

You guys seem rather interested in how my weekend went which I really do appreciate, it is nice to know that someone cares. So without further ado, here are the details.

I left for Spokane at about 230 or so Friday afternoon. It just so happened that Warren's mom was going over there to visit him last weekend, so she offered me a ride. It was nice to not have to pay for gas, and the drive was not awkward at all. Warren's mom has been the band booster at Roosevelt ever since Warren was a freshman in high school, so she is very fun to talk to about marching band. And as you guys all know, I am willing to talk about marching band for extended periods of time. We got there about 730 or so and went to dinner at this little mom-and-pop type diner. It was SOOOOOOOOOOO good! I had a Philly cheese steak hamburger and some onion rings. Yah, terribly good for me, I know. Then Warren took us to Studio and showed us what he had been working on lately. The campus is close to the river, so we took a walk by the river and walked over this cable suspension bridge that goes right over Spokane Falls. (That may not be the correct name, but I don't live there so you can't blame me!) It was incredible! Apparently it is the second biggest waterfall in an urban environment in the world, or something like that. They were so powerful and being on the bridge, you are very close to them, which makes them even more awesome. I am aware that I keep using "they" and "them". But that's because it was more like a series of waterfalls, although I am not the expert on this. Anyhow, by this time it was like 10 so we went back to Warren's apartment and they watched The Muppet Show while I promptly fell asleep. Yes, I am a party pooper. And yes, The Muppet Show was a recurring theme throughout the weekend. Over the course of watching like 10 episodes, I came to the realization that the show wasn't made for kids. Hmmm... no wonder I never liked them when I was a kid!

Okay, so Saturday started bright and early with Warren knocking on my door at 8 so that we could go jogging. Jogging is always a nice start to the day, but 8 on a Saturday? Come on Warren! He doesn't like to waste any daylight, which is a commendable trait. Then we came back, showered, had some breakfast, did homework, watched TV, Warren packed up some of his stuff to send back with his mom, and just sorta chilled until my interview at 145. I got ready and we left around 1 cause I didn't want to be late. I didn't realize how "far" it would be from Warren's apartment, so it was probably good that we left at that time. I got there at 130 (when I was supposed to be there) and I just chilled for 15 minutes or so. They had a little group of chairs set up where they wanted all of the interviewees to sit and hang out together, which was a nice touch. They also had some nursing students there to answer our questions. Every time someone new would be added to the group, they asked them what school they were coming from (this is a normal question for this situation, but I won't get into the details now). Anyhow, I had to tell them that I was a Husky. That went over well... or not. They gave me a pretty good, albeit good natured, ribbing over that. Then it was time for my interview.

There was a panel of three people and me. They told me to pull out an envelope (which contained my questions for the interview), they opened it up, and we went from there. I think I was asked 6 questions total. They were along the lines of, "Why do you want to be a nurse?" "How would you deal with a situation where someone wasn't pulling their own weight?" "What do you do to relieve your stress?" (My answer? Go running! Which was part of the reason I had gone that morning) and so on. Then they asked me if there was anything else I wanted to mention, so decided to go ahead and tell them why I had decided to major in Psychology first, in case they were wondering about my not-so-direct path to nursing school. And then it was all over. The whole thing took less than 15 minutes.

*** Oh my goodness! I am going to interrupt myself here! I am listening to musicovery.com and Spice Girls' "Wannabe" just came on. Can we say 6th grade anyone?!?***

Okay, so I have to finish this up since I do still need to do some studying tonight. Warren and I went to Arctic Circle for lunch, which rocked my socks. It was good. We went shopping after that cause apparently that is what happens whenever Warren's mom comes to visit =). You know how it goes when those parents with all the money come to visit their poor college students. Warren really wanted to buy a new shirt and tie, so we went and did that and he was super excited about it. He actually bought two new ties. This makes me happy because I think that too many guys under appreciate how cool it is to be able to pick out awesome ties, so whenever a guy comes to this realization, it makes me happy. Hmmm... after that we went to the grocery store, which consisted of Warren and I tagging after his mom while she bought him groceries. Goodness, you'd think that he hadn't lived on his own for 4 years or something, he was so content to just let her do it all. And then cause my birthday is this Friday, they decided that I needed a birthday cake. So Warren and I went off on a search for Funfetti cake with the appropriate Funfetti frosting. Let's see, Saturday night I actually did some homework, which is good cause I'm not sure when I would have done it if I hadn't done it then. Then Warren and I went and rented/watched The Prestige. We both made it through the first 3/4 of the movie alright, but I'm not sure how much either of us remember about the last 1/4 seeing as how by then it was like 1 in the morning. I should probably watch it again sometime soon.

And then Sunday I came home. So that was my weekend. Overall, I would say that the interview went rather well. I was able to answer all of their questions promptly without hesitating, yet still come up with a solid answer/argument. Thinking back about it, there are probably a couple of things that I could have said a little better, but part of the interview process is showing that you are capable of thinking on your feet, which I feel that I did fairly well. So now I wait. Again. I know the Lord knows what I am supposed to be doing next year. But I will let you guys in on a little secret... I am excited about the possibility of moving to Spokane. I am ready for a new adventure just to see what I am made of and whether or not I could hack things on my own. But a small part of me doesn't want to admit this cause I feel like I will jinx it or something. Which is totally silly cause I know that things don't work that way. We will just have to see what the Lord has planned!

Anyhow, I have a midterm and a quiz tomorrow and will probably be at school from 8 to 8 and will be in classes for most of that time. Then I get to come home, do laundry, pack, and study for another midterm. Friday morning I have a stats midterm bright and early and then I leave for Portland and Lisa's wedding around 12 or so. From there it is just a giant blur of fitting in all of the wedding things that need to be done. And making sure that Warren is occupied, as he is coming to the wedding. As an after thought, my birthday is Friday. Woohoo. I think that my birthday is probably going to pretty much be a non-event this year, which is sad, but I guess I can deal with it. But I really do have to get to studying and this has gotten really long. If you have gotten this far, I commend your achievements!

It's happening again...

2007-04-24T21:23:00.000-07:00

I think I may have found something else to be addicted to. This is the most awesome Internet radio streamer that I have EVER come across. You guys should check it out!

www.musicovery.com

And in case you want the directions, here ya go:

"It's an online radio that is amazing! You can click and unclick all the genres you are in the mood for, click on the tempo spectrum to get songs that are only a certain tempo, click on dance mode for only dance songs, decide whether you're in the mood for hits or non-hits or new discovery songs, click on the mood spectrum if you only want songs that are engeretic, clam, dark or positive and you can restrict your songs by year (so if you only want to hear songs from 1985-1999). As you restrict your songs, there's a roadmap that will show you what songs are up next and you can skip songs or move thru your roadmap until you see a song you want to hear.You can also stop any song to buy them on iTunes and the best part is that there are NO COMMERCIALS!"

A door? THE door?

2007-04-19T20:37:00.000-07:00

Some of you know about the decisions that I am trying to make for next year. I've also posted enough here that if you are a smart, consistent reader of my blog, you have probably picked up on what is going on. But to get everyone on the same page, here is a quick recap:

Originally, I applied for a master's program which would have allowed me to get my MSN after getting my BA in psychology. (At UW, it's called the MEPN program. Other schools call it by different yet similar names.) Anyhow, I applied two places and didn't get accepted to either one. Okay, I dealt with that. Maybe I'm not meant to be in the MEPN program, but I still really want to do nursing. I then decided to apply to some BSN programs. Out of three, I was denied outright at one, put as #28 on a waiting list at the second, and now I have an interview at the third. On a side note here, all of this rejection is starting to get rather infuriating. I have good grades. I have good extracurriculars. I have good experience what with my volunteering and work experience. I am able to write a decent essay/statement of intent. What gives?

Anyhow, back to the subject at hand... the catch in all of this? The school I have the interview at just happens to be WSU, our very own cross-state rival. Not to mention the fact that it requires a move from Seattle, where I am very active in my church, to a city where there is not even a church of my particular denomination. This isn't to say that I am not willing to do all of this, I am just rather confused at how the Lord is going to work all of this out and what His plans are for me. Anyway, I have the interview in Spokane Saturday, so we will see how that goes. I'm not in for sure, but I am one step closer. I am trying to tell myself that being a Cougar would not be the end of the world, but I'm not sure if I am believing it yet. Apparently this UW/WSU switch happens more often than I thought, though, evidenced by this picture that Warren took for me in the school parking lot:

Whoa boy...

2007-04-19T10:07:00.000-07:00

For my Psychology of Music class, I just made an online survey to use as a part of my research project (I would love to have you guys take it if you want to, but I'll need to get you the link). Anyway, UW has this very cool, super user-friendly online publication software that I used to make my survey. While I was signed into my account, though, I ran across this:

http://portfolio.washington.edu/melinw/my-university-community-portfolio-original/index.html

It is an online portfolio that I had to put together my first year of college in my Freshman Interest class. Whoa boy. I'm sorta scared by what I found in there. My writing has improved a LOT, I am over brooding about my move to Seattle, and I am no longer dating Matthew. Honestly, I'm not really sure why he made it in there in the first place. Oh well. I guess it just goes to show that once something is on the Internet, it is always on the Internet. It also makes me sorta fearful about what I will think when I read my old blog postings in say, 10 years.

Anyway, y'all are free to peruse it as you see fit. And if you do, have fun and bear in mind that that was SOOOOOOOO fours years ago! =)

A little too close to home

2007-04-16T21:24:00.000-07:00

If you guys haven't heard the news about Virginia Tech yet, then I'm not quite sure where you have been all day. But here is a link in case you want more details: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-main17apr17,0,1599658,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines.

When I heard about this shooting, apparently the worst ever in the history of the US, it hit me really hard. I'm not sure why exactly, I think partly because of the shooting that happened two weeks ago at UW. When that one happened, it got me thinking about how devastating it would be if somebody had just opened fire on the campus, as opposed to the murder-suicide they later determined it to be. I thought about all the people I would worry about and how I wouldn't even feel safe enough to go back to school. And then here, 2 weeks to the day since the shooting at UW, this horrific shooting happens at Virginia Tech. What was even more scary to me was that when this guy first struck, only two people were killed so they assumed it was a domestic violence sort of thing. It wasn't until 2 hours later that he entered the other building and killed and injured so many people. What would have happened if the shooting at UW hadn't been the isolated domestic violence event and the guy had later opened fire in the middle of Red Square once everyone thought the coast was clear? I shutter to think any of these thoughts and, like I said, I think that is why this shooting unnerved me so.

My heart goes out to all of those involved and they are in my prayers.

Aren't we all in college now?

2007-04-12T09:41:00.000-07:00

Thus far this quarter I have managed to refrain from saying too much about my classes because I fear that it starts to bore you all after awhile. Suffice it to say, I have been extremely busy with classes, even though it is only the third week of the quarter. For better or for worse, my professors seem to have front-loaded almost all of my classes. Which means that come May when I will REALLY not want to be in school anymore, I won't have as much work. But for right now, I have a lot of work.

For my Psychology of Music class, we have to peer review each other's papers. I was appalled, flabbergasted, and aghast at the quality of the two papers that I reviewed this week. So, for your enjoyment, I have included some of the more interesting (read: hard to understand because the sentences don't even make sense) parts of these two papers. Let me know what you guys think! I am amazed that these people made it to a 400 level college class with writing abilities like this.

Person 1:
Furthermore, if we find a difference between the population of British young adults and American ones, a follow up question will be, "Is the type of musical genre preference as coping strategies among adolescents then dictated by the geographical and cultural popularity of a genre?"

In addition to the fMRI method, an extended survey with the students' parents and guardians shall be conducted to get more information on the family background of the student and possibly other important factors contributing to the subject's musical preference and coping methods.

Person 2:
As a society music is heard from the time one rises with the soothing sounds of an alarm clock, to when one walks down the street with their i-pod, to the background music played in almost every store, cafe, and even office. This analogy of course only holds if we assume that music is that which is defined in a Western cultural sense, but for the purposes of this paper, this is how music will be defined.

There could be many interesting approaches to such a topic, one being that an original full length film be created and have music paired with the sympathetic scenes that would not be of the usual content.

Nevermind the poor sentence structure, what about the lack of basic grammar?!? I know that I have a very distinct writing style and an important part of being able to review is being able to offer advice without trying to completely convert the piece to your style, but Hello?!?! What happens if you can't even understand what has been written. *Frustrations!* I think they thought that if they just threw in a bunch of big words and made their sentences long and complicated, it would make them sound scholarly. Hmmm... I think not.

Look what I found!

2007-04-10T22:29:00.000-07:00

Tonight I did a lot of research for my psychology of music class. Since I was sort of in the researching mood, I decided to Google my name... and look what I found!

Apparently there is a hotel with my name on the small Greek island of Santorini! Isn't it pretty?

And then there is the private beach resort in Malaysia that also shares my name! Again, isn't it pretty?

How cool is this room that you can stay in?

Long story short... I think I just determined the two places that I would go on my dream vacation. Yay for having a slightly exotic name!

This is just too good to not post...

2007-04-05T21:16:00.000-07:00

*OLD VERSION*: The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!

******************************
*UPDATED VERSION*: The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving. CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing, "It's Not Easy Being Green." Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing, "We shall overcome." Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake. Nancy Pelosi & John Kerry exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share. Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity and Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government. Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal judges that Bill Clinton appointed from a list of single-parent welfare recipients. The ant loses the case. The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he doesn't maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow. Eventually the grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote!

My day...

2007-04-02T21:54:00.000-07:00

The highlights (or not) of my day:

- I didn't get shot
- My coworker had another seizure
- It was payday (translation: pure craziness)
- I got paid

Woohoo... and now I am going to bed. I know that I haven't been posting very often, but honestly, I think that you guys probably would prefer it this way. I have been so stressed out about nursing school/post graduation plans that my posts would be a random jumble of the worries in my head, and since I don't even like what is going on in there, I figure I will spare you guys the misery. I'll post again soon though, I promise. Just bare with me... please.

Here I sit...

2007-03-20T10:49:00.000-07:00

... in Warren's CAD class. Whatever that is. He explains his architectural things to me and I listen and try to understand. But a couple more days of this and I think that my eyes will be completely glazed over. I am glad he is the one responsible for designing these things. Oh well, when I met some of his architecture friends yesterday and he told them that I was interested in nursing, they were like "Why nursing?" and I was like "Why not?"... just goes to show that we all have our areas of expertise I guess.

Anyway, so I am currently in Spokane and like I said, I'm wasting time while Warren is in class. Because of that fact, I am EXTREMELY happy that it appears that most everybody has updated their blogs this weekend cause it is giving me something to do. Plus I get to update my blog as well. I am sorry that I sort of died out there half way through the quarter. That seems to be the story of my life. Oh well... I did fairly awesome and came through with two 4.0's and a 3.6, which makes me happy. And now I only have ONE QUARTER LEFT!!! Yay!! I know that if I get into nursing school I still have two more years, but I AM actually graduating from UW at the end of this quarter. June 9th. I am excited. I now have something to show for all of my hard work. I just have to get through this next quarter. I am taking:

Social Problems - 5 credits
Psychology of Music - 5 credits
Microbiology Lab - 2 credits
Basic Statistics - 5 credits

For a total of 17 credits. So if you don't hear from me once the quarter starts, you can blame it on three things... 1) My schedule 2) Senioritis 3) The nicer weather.

As for my trip to Spokane, it has been fun and entertaining thus far. Yesterday I went to the WSU nursing school and got a tour from one of the students. More importantly (to me) was that she was willing to answer all of my stupid and inane questions. Everybody keeps asking me where I want to be next year, but I haven't even let myself dream about that because I am tired of getting excited just to be dealt another round of rejection. But I will say this, Spokane is a pretty okay place and if this is where the Lord wants me to be next year, I could deal with that.

On the way to Spokane from Seattle we took a little side trip down to Pullman (where the actual WSU campus is located) and Warren was more than excited to give me a tour. And it beat me up. I still have a blister on my toe... which is odd cause I NEVER get blisters and I do a lot of walking already, so I wouldn't have thought it to be a problem. I went to Sonic and Dutch Bros. here in Spokane and I hear tell that there is an Arctic Circle somewhere. I intend to find it. Last night I wanted a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner but Warren had too much homework to help me so I made us some grilled cheese and tomato soup and COMPLETELY flooded one of his burners with tomato soup. Then I got to clean his stove, it was great fun. On a side note: I am beginning to understand why Warren invited me... he likes having a slave. Just kidding! What else has happened? Warren has hit/poked/elbowed or nearly hit/poked/elbowed me in the face/neck/eye a frightening number of times over the course of this spring break (we are talking close to 15 times). Consequently, I am becoming increasingly nervous around him... not really, I am just taking my safety into my own hands now. Oh yah, we were in Safeway and I was following him when he stopped suddenly with his foot stuck out. Being oh-so-graceful, I tripped over said foot and went flying down the aisle. I'm telling you, he is out to get me and I am not exactly sure why =). Anyhow, this has been long enough. I could make it longer cause I have all the time in the world right now, but I know that you guys don't have all the time in the world to read it. So I will say "Adieu" for now... although I imagine that I will be back again soon.

Hi Guys!

2007-03-17T22:27:00.000-07:00

No, I am not dead.
Yes, I have been extremely busy.
Yes, I am now on spring break.
No, I don't have reliable internet access.

So I am currently in Spokane to visit my friend and to check out the WSU nursing school. I'll write more later, but I just wanted to let you guys know what I am up to so that you won't send out a search party. I will definitely update you guys more later and maybe even add some pretty pictures. But this isn't my computer, so it would be sorta hard for me to add them now.

And that's all for now... I hope you guys are all doing well!

Hahaha. Ouch.

2007-02-15T17:48:00.000-08:00

I feel like you're of course Princess Leia, and I'm trying to figure out, am I your brother, Luke, or your hero, Han Solo?

This was created by the website Boundless, which is for 20-something Christians. All about how NOT to pull a DTR. Don't know what a DTR is? Then maybe you should check out the website.

My New Love

2007-02-14T22:04:00.000-08:00

It being Valentine's Day and all, I thought that I would share my new love with you... Running! I have rediscovered running. It is way different for me now, though, than when I did it in middle school/high school. Whereas before it was something that I forced myself to do, it is now getting to the point that if I don't go on my run, I feel antsy and I can feel the stress building in my body. I know, maybe that sounds weird... but until you have done it, there isn't really any way to explain how good it makes you feel. I figured that I wasn't getting the same amount of exercise as last quarter since I didn't have marching band brutalizing me and that I should probably find some other way to release steam. Enter in running. I jog about 3 miles, 3 times a week. Not that far, but it is far enough to keep my blood pumping and make me feel better. So yah, tomorrow is a "running day" and that makes me excited! Now if I could just find some headphones that would actually stay in my ears as I ran...

Shun the Non-Believer... SHhhhhhhhhhhhhuuuuunnnnnnnn

2007-02-09T21:43:00.000-08:00

Want cool? This is where it's at:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=JPONTneuaF4&mode=related&search=

P.S. Yes, I am just sorta avoiding doing my homework right now

Does something smell fishy?

2007-02-09T20:02:00.000-08:00

My animal behavior professor has been gone for the past week, collecting these:

Scary, huh? I flipped out when I saw the pictures he showed us today, fish are not supposed to look like that. But the scariest part to me, simply because it is so weird, is that these fish sing. They sing! Like birds! To attract mates. I don't care what my professor says, fish are not supposed to be singing.

So yah, more about these fish. They are called plainfin midshipman fish and they live all along the Pacific coast. They live in deepish water of about 300 feet, but they come into the tidal flats to breed, to the extent that at low tide they may actually be out of the water for 2 hours or so. They do their humming-singing thing to attract mates. They are bio-luminescent. Oh yah, and they growl. Apparently if you walk along the beach during the summer when they are mating and you hear a funny noise coming from a nearby rock in the tidal flat, it is because the fish is growling to defend its territory. Gah! I'm not sure why, but something about these fish really creeps me out. And they are my professor's pride and joy. Go figure.

This is, in a word, amazing:

2007-02-08T19:54:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crfrKqFp0Zg&NR

Clocks!

2007-02-05T21:01:00.000-08:00

And no, I don't mean the Coldplay song.

So my parents just bought themselves an anniversary clock, never mind that the anniversary for which they should have purchased the clock is long past. They were shopping around. If you know my parents, you know exactly what I am talking about. Anyhow, they brought home their new prized possession and set it up in our dining room. Fine, dandy, that's great. But you add to that the grandfather clock in our living room. And the ship's clock that is normally at the church in my dad's office but that just came back from getting cleaned and is now at his desk here. There are a LOT of clocks making noises in my house. They all ring and they all have their own distinct sound. And my parents being who they are, each clock is set for a slightly different time so that they can hear all of the chimes separately. I don't even know which clock is technically correct anymore. I think that I am beginning to go insane. Every 15 minutes, a cacophony of sound erupts from that end of the house. Great fun.

On another note, I found this great website today: www.roadsideamerica.com. It is an amazing way to waste time, in case you are ever in the market. I really want to go here, the one in Oregon that is just outside of Grants Pass. Apparently it is the most authentic one around. So which one of my Southen Oregon friends wants to let me stay with them so that I can make my pilgrimage to this amazing place?? (As well as possibly joining me on my journey...)

Oh the excitement that is my life...

2007-02-02T21:57:00.000-08:00

So we have gotten a couple of new people at work lately and quite honestly, I don't know who they are, where they come from, or if they are going to stay around our office. We ALWAYS have new people coming through, being trained, leaving for another office. It is terribly confusing. Anyhow, it became apparent to me last week that one of these people was going to stay on at our office, which is fine cause we have lost a couple of people lately.

**Insert here my bitter complaints about how I am told nothing as a part-timer!!**

The other day at work, my new co-worker started having a seizure. Now, unfortunately, I have been around a few times to see this happen to other people. So while it was frightening, I knew what was happening and reacted calmly and quickly. I wasn't anywhere near her and my co-workers were already doing everything that I would have done had I gone over, so I picked up the phone and called 911. Unfortunately, I have also had what seems to be more than my fair share of opportunities to call 911, so that didn't even phase me to much. As I am telling the operator what is happening and being asked questions about whether or not this girl has a history of seizures and am saying that I don't know because she is new, my co-workers look over at me and tell me to get off the phone!! And I was like, "WHAT?!?!??!! Are you out of your mind?!?!?" You usually need to call for medical help when someone is having a seizure. So watching the girl, I decide that I am not getting off the phone and that I am in fact going to have them get the paramedics. The girl comes around and appears to be okay, but I know enough about seizures to know that this could just be a pause in the seizing. And more importantly, I am assuming that this is the first time that she has ever had a seizure. So yah, when an apparently perfectly healthy person has a seizure for no reason, in my book, that is a good reason to call 911. I thought that all my co-workers were a bunch of lunatics because they were just standing there watching her, not making any move to call for help.

After all of this has gone down and my co-workers ask me if I have called 911, I hear them say, "We aren't supposed to call unless it lasts longer than 2 minutes." What?!?! So you guys KNEW about this? And you didn't tell ME?!?! If someone has a seizure disorder, don't you think that I, even as a part-time person, should be made aware of this? Otherwise I am going to call 911 every time. I was so frustrated that nobody bothered to mention this to me. I wouldn't have treated her differently at all, I just would have known how to react on the off chance that she did have a seizure. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...... methinks I need a new job.

Case in Point

2007-01-27T20:50:00.000-08:00

The end of an era... sorta

2007-01-25T20:33:00.000-08:00

It is official... today I signed the paper that says, "Yes!! Please get me out of here!" Although honestly, I'm not ready to be done with college, only because that means that I have real life to face. So I am doing the cowardly thing and running back to take two more years... =). Nah, that isn't REALLY why I am doing it, but I do still wonder if when it is time for me to start my real life whether or not I will be up for the challenge. I'm pretty sure that I will be able to hack it, but for me, there is some comfort in the idea of being in school for the rest of my life. In one of my classes we did a get-to-know-you sort of thing and we were asked what our dream job would be. I said that my dream job would be to be a professional student. There are SO many things that I wish that I could learn, classes that I would take, subject areas in which I have barely scratched the surface. Sure, it is great that I finally feel like I have an expertise of sorts, but I love learning and it saddens me that I will never get to take all of the cool classes out there.

On a similar note, two of my SON applications are done and I have two more left to do. I am REALLY trying to listen and follow the Lord on this, but it is still hard to know if I am doing the right thing and where I should be applying and all of that. My dad and I were talking and I was expressing frustration and uncertainty about all of this and he said something that really helped me. He said that sometimes the Lord does speak in lightening bolts and sudden visions and all that stuff, but mostly He wants us to listen to Him but then use our own intellect to figure out what is the best. And it scares me to think that really He may be leaving this decision up to me, but I figure He knows what He is doing and He did give me a brain capable of logical thought for a reason. So yah, never a dull moment. If I wasn't freaking out about this, I am sure that I would be worried about something else, because unfortunately, I don't think that it is in my nature to NOT worry. But I am learning to live with that =).

And last but not least... Lisa and Josh got engaged 2 weeks ago!! I am excited for them and these next couple of months will be busy because I am her maid of honor. I told her that I didn't know what a maid of honor was supposed to do, but that I would Google it... typical me. Anyhow, that is exciting. I actually have a lot of exciting things on the calendar for the next couple of months, but somehow I also have to finish out my last two quarters. Like I said, never a dull moment.

What you have all been waiting for... me!

2007-01-06T11:51:00.001-08:00

www.blogger.com, MsPoppins20, password, new post... okay, I can do this. Just making sure that I remembered how to post to this thing!

I am really sorry guys. All you have had to look at for the past month was that lovely seagull picture. But in my defense, I stopped posting because nobody was posting and I had the feeling that I was just talking to myself. And why post about my life when I already know what is going on? Huh? But it appears that some of you are back, which means that I will gladly post and let you know what has been happening in my life. Although I may do this in a couple of posts, so as to alleviate as much confusion as possible.

So, uhh, last quarter was good. I got all A's, which made me happy. And then all of a sudden I was on winter break and using all my free time to do one of three things: 1. Work 2. Volunteer 3. Work on applications. Yes, that is right, even more applications. It seems that the Lord has different plans for me than I thought. I wasn't accepted to either of the graduate nursing programs I applied to, I think in major part that was because these particular programs value "life experience," of which I don't have much seeing as how I am just graduating from undergrad this spring. So after a couple of days of frustration and panic, I pulled myself together and decided that I would just apply to some regular nursing schools (to get a BSN instead of an MSN). I have been working on that stuff practically all break, and it feels like it will never end, but for better or for worse, the deadlines are coming and it will all soon be over. Hopefully I will get into one of those. I trust what the Lord is doing, but it is just hard to convince myself that the world hasn't ended just because my life isn't going according to the exact plans that I had formulated. On the plus side, the further I get from "the rejection" (as I fondly refer to it), the more I am beginning to think that this was a blessing in disguise and that maybe that program wouldn't have been right for me after all. Anyhow, we will see.

I enjoyed Christmas, New Years, blah blah blah... spent some time in Portland, got sick, hung out with some people I haven't seen in FOREVER. Basically just had a good time over break, but classes started Wednesday and I am already back to the grind stone. It seems that one of my classes is going to be more work than I had anticipated, but it shouldn't be too hard. The others will be okay, I think. Like I said, once these applications are done, that will help a lot. And just for fun, to prove to you how big of a geek I am... this was my favorite Christmas present this year:

And a close second would be:

I am tired...

2006-12-10T00:25:00.000-08:00

... and apparently addicted to the internet. I also don't speak English or have a conscience. More to come on this later.

And here is pretty much the most random picture I could find on my computer:

Going on a treasure hunt

2006-11-28T13:23:00.000-08:00

Seeing as how I am stuck at home due to everything around me being a sheet of ice, I decided to clean out my sock drawer. I totally forgot that I like to hide things in my sock drawer, here is what I found:

1. Bag of Chex Mix
2. Bag of Baby Goldfish (the crackers, not the actual fish)
3. Candy cane (from last Christmas?!?)
4. Half a thing of Starbursts
5. A bag of M&Ms
6. A Crunchie candy bar from London ("Milk Chocolate with Golden Honeycombed Centre")
7. Bag of strawberry cream Japanese hard candies
8. Box of strawberry creme Koala's March cookies
9. Bag of chocolate covered puff wheat from Japan
10. Fun dip candy thing
11. Chocolate Mousse Pocky

Yah, maybe I should actually remember that it is in there so I can eat it... I have to throw half of it away because it is stale!

And just for good measure, a picture of me with the "Whore Beast" we made Sunday night... aptly named by my brother:

Here's how it went down...

2006-11-27T21:00:00.000-08:00

A triumphant story, presented as a series of pictures:

It felt so good to win the Apple Cup, words cannot even describe. UW hadn't won the past two years, meaning that if they had lost this year, it would have been the first time in the 106 year history of the Apple Cup that WSU had won three years in a row. Fortunately, the wrecking of the tradition was one thing that this year's UW team didn't have to answer for. UW played some great football, similar to the beginning of the season. Sorta makes you wonder WHAT in the world happened when we got beat by Stanford. But alas and alack, we won the Apple Cup and that makes me happy!

The fact that UO lost its last two games to Arizona and OSU makes me happy too!

What the...?

2006-11-13T16:59:00.000-08:00

Methinks that the Pac-10 had an upset of sorts this weekend. Since when is Arizona supposed to beat Cal? And where was it written that Oregon should only score 10 points against USC? And how did ASU manage to score 47 points to beat WSU? And finally... how in the world did UW end up losing to Stanford, the bottom of not only the Pac-10, but all of NCAA football?!?! (Well, I know how, but this is supposed to be a rhetorical question.) The only somewhat non-surprising result was UCLA beating OSU, which in actuality IS a little surprising considering OSU's winning streak as of late. (Which we so nicely started for them when we let OSU beat us at home.)

Don't believe me? Check the results for yourself...http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/conference?confId=9

Hello out there

2006-11-01T16:41:00.000-08:00

To be lazy and recap my life yet again (as if any one actually reads this still...)

1. Most importantly, I am sick. With a cold. I don't feel good at all. I knew this time was coming, because it always does during marching band. But the fact that it took me until November makes me happy with my immune system. Usually I get a cold within 2 weeks or so of the beginning of school and then never really get over it and continue to add on other random illnesses through the end of the season. We will see what happens this year.

2. Apparently, seeing as how yesterday was Halloween, it is now Christmas. I went to Target yesterday in search of some rally gear in their Halloween section, only to find that Halloween was COMPLETELY over except the "gross" candy aisle and Christmas was making a strong showing already.

3. It is November and the leaves are beautiful and mass amounts of hyped up festiveness are starting to set in. Yay! I love this time of year.

4. I went to Leavenworth 2 weekends ago to see the leaves and they were VERY pretty:

5. The day after that we took the ferry to Whidbey Island to play for a nice man who is leaving HMB lots of money, but is dying. It was a sad, yet good day at the same time. And beautiful yet again. I love the northwest, but more specifically Seattle:

6. For all of those not following Husky football (which is everyone but me), let me give you a little recap:

10/7: USC-UW, Lost 26-20
10/14: OSU-UW, Lost 27-17 (The curse of 17 returns yet again?)
10/21: Cal-UW, Lost in OT 31-24
10/28: Arizona-UW, Lost in OT 26-23

So basically, going to games stinks right now. And we get to continue the fun by going down to Eugene this weekend where the fans hate us so much that the UO marching band volunteered to escort us to our busses at the end of the game so that we wouldn't die.

7. I learned in nutrition the other day that apparently your body actually NEEDS trace amounts of arsenic to function properly. Who knew?

Poe-tay-toe

2006-10-25T13:16:00.000-07:00

As I sit here eating mashed potatoes and gravy, I am reminded of a random question over which I have often pondered. Since I was a kid, I have always had to mix my gravy into my potatoes. It is not good enough for me to just put the gravy on top and eat it that way.

The question is, is this odd? Do most people eat their gravy on top or do they mix it in? I just don't know...

Who needs a title anyway?

2006-10-16T21:54:00.000-07:00

I am not dead, just trying to stay afloat in my crazy and insane life. To recap since I last posted:

1. September 29-October 1 I went down to Arizona with band for the UA-UW game where I am happy to announce that we forced them into submission and won 21-10. It was an awesome trip and we even got to "sight-see". Brad thought it would be fun to take us to a desert botanical garden to see desert botanical things, and it was fun. It was warm too... like 99 degrees, but absolutely no humidity, so it was wonderful. I did NOT want to come home. Yay for swimming at 9 in the morning because it was already like 85 degrees. I think the only time I was cold was A. When I was inside where it was air conditioned or B. Saturday night at 4 in the morning when it finally got chilly out on the "vista".

2. My graduate school applications are completed and turned in. Hallelujah!!!

3. I have three (3), count 'em, 3 (three) midterms this week.

4. I am working.

5. I am doing my usual stuff at church.

6. I am taking 15 credits.

7. I am volunteering at UWMC.

8. I am doing upwards of 20 hours of HMB every week.

9. I am going to audition for basketball band so that the fun can continue into next year!

10. The Huskies are now 4-3. Still a winning record, but sad none the less.

11. The USC game sucked. I wonder what would have happened if the clock (i.e. the ref) wasn't stupid and we had been able to get that last play going. On the plus side, we lost to USC by only 6 points.

12. We lost to OSU on Saturday. At home. I have no idea what happened. We aren't even going to talk about this one.

13. Isaiah Stanback is out for the rest of the season due to a foot injury he sustained in the game Saturday. There is no shortage of tears over here.

14. Sulu from Star Trek was part of our field show on Saturday.

15. My knee is healed up nicely, although I think I will have a nifty scar for a while.

16. I have three midterms this week.

17. It has started to rain in Seattle. I am happy.

18. You wouldn't believe the number of times that I got on to post to my blog but got sidetracked by Facebook because it was more entertaining.

19. I get to go to Leavenworth this weekend!

20. It sucks to be a senior in a predominately freshman class, but it is awesome to already know all the answers! (If you want more details, you'll need to ask me)

21. I get to go to UO in 2 weekends and WSU in 4 weekends.

22. If we lose to Stanford, I think that I really will cry.

24. A good portion of my life does indeed revolve around football right now.

Okay, that is it. I'm sure there are more things to post, but I have procastinated long enough and should go be a good student or some such drivel.

Why oh why?

2006-10-01T21:41:00.000-07:00

Someone wanna tell me why lately all the nice, gentlemanly guys I meet are not from church, or any church at all, and therefore completely off limits for the most part? And why the guys from church are mean jerk-faces who don't know how to treat a girl with decency or respect her? GAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Yes, bitter party of 1, right here.

How is it...

2006-10-01T21:30:00.000-07:00

...that Washington is ranked higher than Cal in Pac-10 standings, yet Cal is ranked in national standings and Washington isn't. I am a bit confused.

Pac-10 standings:
1. USC
2. Oregon
3. Washington

This next month should prove to be rather interesting.

???

2006-09-27T21:48:00.000-07:00

Does it make me pathetic that when I open up the homepage for Google to find that they have somehow changed the "Google" part into something cool, it makes me have a better day?

Last February during the Olympics... I had to to check Google everyday to see what sport they had somehow managed to change the letters into.

Whose house? Dawgs' house!

2006-09-25T23:08:00.000-07:00

We beat UCLA on Saturday... 29-19. It was beautiful. Glorious. Wonderful. Amazing. Incredible. Joyful. Easily the most excited/happy I have been in a long time. We were 8 point underdogs (the last prediction I had seen was UCLA 31, UW 23) and it looked like that was going to come true based on the first half of the game. But then we scored a touchdown right before halftime, which helped ease the tension. In the second half (as well as the first) our defense kept UCLA from scoring touchdowns so they had to settle for field goals. Eventually, with like 7 minutes left in the 4th quarter, it was UCLA 19, UW 14, when we scored a touch down and then went in for a 2 point conversion... and made it. So that right there was totally awesome, if ever there was a time to try for the 2 points instead of the extra point, it was then. And then on practically the next play, we intercepted the Bruins' ball and ran it in for another touch down. Thus resulting in our wonderful score of 29-19.

3-1 baby!!! Undefeated at home thus far... and half way to a bowl game. Just you wait and see... Husky football is on the return, and they WILL be a force to contend with. I heart Willingham. Maybe some day I will do a post on how much I admire him, but for the time being, that is all I will say.

Hey look.... it's me!

2006-09-18T22:18:00.000-07:00

Complete with four bandages AND a backwards baseball cap. The backwards baseball cap because we won on Saturday and the bandages because Seattle's streets have too many potholes.

UW beat Fresno State 21-20 due to a blocked extra point in the beginning of the 4th quarter. I was deliriously happy that we blocked an extra point, and it just got better when that became the game winning point. I had just gotten finished telling the team (much to the amusement of the people around me) that it was NOT okay to slack off and not play in the 3rd quarter and that it was NOT okay to let Fresno State score, when they blocked the extra point. And then we managed to keep their offense curtailed enough that even though there was 4:30 left in the quarter, we won. I can't even begin to explain to you how exciting this is. We are 2-1 heading into real Pac-10 play and we gave Oklahoma a good fight last week (at least for the first half of the game). I have been mocked for being a Husky fan, but I have to say that I see enough improvement in this team to be able to hope for good things. This may not be *the* turn around season, but it is already way better than the past two years and we are headed in the right direction. So when we are back on top and are a big football contender once again, none of you better say that I wasn't a fan when we weren't doing well.

On to the four bandaids. Every Friday night before a home game, UW has a tradition of holding an all campus rally, of which the marching band is an integral part. We basically run around campus and the surrounding streets (read: Greek Row) playing stands tunes and getting excited for the game the next day. Most of the time I am VERY careful where I am walking as we are walking around old Seattle streets where long ago the streets got into a war with the roots of the surrounding trees and lost, creating many tripping hazards. So I managed to navigate all of the tree roots and other random obstacles in my way. We were running across 45th back onto campus cause the police had stopped traffic (we have a parade permit to do this) and I was thinking, "Hey, it's the middle of the street, what is there to trip on out here?" Yah, well I found the only thing left to trip on in the middle of the street... a giant pothole. My foot got caught (I was wearing TENNIS shoes for crying out loud) and I went flying across the street, landing on my hands and knees, but mostly my knees, on the other side. And to make matters worse, I was wearing shorts because it wasn't that cold outside and I knew that I would get hot once we started running around.

So I have four impact points and some massive bruising going on. I feel slightly like a 5 year old because I have two skinned knees. In the picture is the get-up I sported so that I could make it through game day. My knees are feeling better with less stinging, but cold air makes my bruises hurt (lame, I know), my knees are rather stiff, and my high knee marching leaves something to be desired at the moment. I never knew just how hard I was working until I did the last two practices with minimal effort put forward, everything is so easy when you don't march the right way =).

Quick recap of my life...

2006-09-14T23:08:00.000-07:00

-I have once again taken up the great past time of marching down the full length of a football field at the speed of 160 beats per minute

-I do this RIGHT after sprinting onto the field and then running in place, complete with high knees (i.e. upper thigh comes up so that it is in a perfect 90 degree angle with the rest of the body) for 3 or 4 minutes... 7 cadences of Scratch at least

-And did I mention that I am supposed to be playing my picc as I march down the field at turbo speed? (If you don't think 160 is fast, you get a metronome and try marching to it...WITH HIGH KNEES!)

-I just memorized or rememorized 11 songs:
Bow
VI and VII
The Alma Mater
FCS Fight Song
Take On Me
Mush Huskies
Grand Old Flag
Johnny's Mambo
Radar Love
Throne Room
Everybody's Everything

-I have been at practice from 8:30am to 8:30pm since Tuesday morning

-I have practice and a rally tomorrow, football game with band guide duties on Saturday, another practice on Sunday as well as practices next week on Monday, Wednesday and all day on Friday culminating in a Queen show at the UCLA game that Saturday

-I have four pages of magical Bohemian Rhapsody goodness to memorize

-I have recently lost all of my free time to watching seasons 3 and 4 of Gilmore girls

-I am trying to get my grad school applications under control and dealing with that in my spare time once I get home at 9pm

Oh yah... and I am loving every minute of it!

My guys came through!

2006-09-02T22:42:00.000-07:00

Also considered as a title, but ultimately rejected: I heart Isaiah Stanback

I am exhausted, but basically I would be the worst fan ever if I didn't post about the first victory of the season today! I don't really feel like rehashing the game... I am sure you could find a sports column to read tomorrow if you really wanted to. I will just say that I am quite relieved that we won... San Jose State was the school we beat the season that we only won once. I shudder to think what it would have done to morale had we lost to them in the season opener. But oh wait, yah, thats right, we won!!

Just a little warning...

2006-08-31T22:52:00.000-07:00

It is that time of year again! What time of year, you may ask... well, it is early fall, so that can only mean one thing. Football? Well, yah... but more importantly, MARCHING BAND! Yay! I am a gigantic band geek and I am aware of that, but I am so excited to have marching band start again.

This week we have practice W,Th,F from 6:30-9:30 for the San Jose game on Saturday. Since the season hasn't officially started, it is most of the varsity members and some alumni who felt like coming back. It is good times since, #1: Every one knows how to march and it is assumed that they are a fairly competent marcher and, #2: Only people who really want to do it are there, none of those people who thought it would be cool but then decided half way through the season that they hated it and walked around making every one else miserable. Plus the show is a 80s show, which makes me pretty happy. Here are the songs, just so you can feel special and included:

Theme from MTV

Video Killed the Radio Star

Take On Me

I'll Be There For You (The theme from Friends)

Tubthumping (Reminds me of middle school, I don't really know why)

Come On Eileen

Good times. I confess that I had to check some of them out cause I didn't know all of them. I can pretty much guarantee that Video will get stuck in your head if you just listen to like 15 seconds of it. Amazingly enough, I'm not too sore.... yet. I have three ideas about this, #1: I'm not working hard enough, which I know is not the case cause I'm exhausted right now. #2: I'm just really cool and in shape and everything, but some how I'm thinking that isn't totally the case either. #3: I was in good enough shape that one night of marching was okay, but tomorrow I will wake up after 2 solid nights of marching and I won't really be able to move, a delayed reaction sort of deal. We will see.

1 year together!

2006-08-30T16:56:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday dear JSN,

Happy Birthday to you!!!

My car and I have officially been together for a whole year today. It has been a great car, which I grow to love more everyday. Times were a tad rocky at first since I didn't know how to drive stick. This meant that I had a new car that I couldn't drive. But I QUICKLY learned and it has been smooth sailing ever since. To commemorate the occasion, I will give you a selection of pictures showcasing our happy times together...

Getting to know each other:

Playing in the Snow:

The view as an insider:

Going for Chinese Takeout:

sigh

2006-08-23T23:14:00.000-07:00

I miss this: What is "this"... a map of the London Underground, or the tube. Pretty sad when a map can make you nostalgic, isn't it?

Maybe I should go find this guy...

2006-08-22T11:55:00.000-07:00

The Novelty of Non-Cooking Sluts Soon Wears Off

Idealist: I just want to meet an old-fashioned girl who will make omelets and won't sleep with my friends.

--7th & Ave A

via Overheard in New York, Aug 22, 2006

Ain't she a beaut?

2006-08-19T22:12:00.000-07:00

Today my dad and I went down to the Center for Wooden Boats on the south end of Lake Union to see The Lady Washington. What is The Lady Washington, you might ask? The Lady Washington is a tall ship ("a large, traditionally rigged sailing vessel"... definition stolen straight from Wikipedia). She also, drum roll please....... played the Interceptor in Pirates of the Caribbean!! Loving the movies (and anything to do with Pirates of the Caribbean, really), I was very excited to get to see her up close. Although I am not an insane Johnny Depp/Orlando Bloom fan, it does beg the question of whether or not they ever set foot on the boat. I am betting that the answer is "Yes", so that is fairly exciting.

She really wasn't that big, and once again, I amazed at the bravery of people who willingly go out to sea in one of those things. I was sort of sad because I couldn't get a picture of her with her sails unfurled, but I guess I will live. Having read enough books where they try to explain boat rigging, I am also amazed at how intricate it all is and I have come to the conclusion that I am too stupid to ever be a sailor on a tall ship. But the boats are BEAUTIFUL and they do provide for some wonderful picture taking opportunities.

Roosevelt High School 2003

2006-08-18T23:25:00.000-07:00

Last night I was looking for something and I tore my entire room apart because I could NOT find it. Finally, on a last whim, I checked my year book from my senior year, and I had just happened to have stuck it in there between two of the pages. But since I had the year book out, I decided to read through it. Next time I complain about the fact that I had to move to Seattle my senior year, tell me to go read my year book. Quite frankly, I was AMAZED by the number of people I met at Roosevelt and the number of friends I made. I guess I just sort of blocked it out because it wasn't the happiest year for me. But looking back from where I am now, I realize that I did have a pretty good year and I had friends. I know that sounds weird to say, but being the sort of social person that I am, not having friends my senior year would have really sucked. And somehow I managed to maintain a positive attitude through it all (at least at school), cause that is something almost everyone commented on. I know that was only through the Lord giving me the strength to deal with it all. True, it wasn't the senior year that I had planned out for myself, but the Lord knew what he was doing and he has worked it all out way better than I would have ever imagined. He never ceases to amaze me!

This also raises lots of scary questions about the fact that in less than a year, I will be graduating once again. But if the Lord worked out the first graduation so well, I know that he will take care of this one too!

Wanna know the best snack ever??

2006-08-17T22:26:00.000-07:00

Ritz crackers and peanut butter!! MMMMmmmmmm... that is what I am eating right now.

In other news, on Monday, my family minus Alex and plus Erik and Jamie (My family - Alex + Erik + Jamie, for you math types) went on the Underground Tour of Seattle. It was pretty awesome. I have wanted to do this since I moved here, and seeing as how I am now going on my 5th year here, I think that it was way past time to do this. The tour started out in Pioneer Square in an old tavern (which was way cool cause of the decorations) where they told us some Seattle history about the pioneers and what they did... blah blah blah. Then we went down and looked at the underground part. It wasn't really what I was expecting, it just sort of looked like someone's very, very dirty basement (and in fact, you get into it from the basements of the buildings in the area), but it was cool nonetheless.

Why do we have an underground, might you ask? Well, they had these things called toilets (crappers, they called them, because the guy who invented them... his last name was Crapper). Anyhow, when Seattle was a young pup, the city area as a whole was a lot lower (about 10 feet), which meant that basically it was built on the tidal flats. This was okay, but the plumbing for all of these new fangled crappers was hooked up so that the force of gravity pushed the expelled contents out of the toilet and out into Elliot Bay. This was all well and good (other than the polluting the bay with human waste part) until the tide came in, when the in-rushing of water would fill the pipes up BACKWARDS so that you had, what the tour fondly referred to as "Exploding Crappers". I am serious... they would explode sea water and raw sewage and other delightful things. So this was a big problem, and as I see it, the main reason that they decided to basically raise the city another level.

And then they got lucky...there was a fire that burned down a lot of Seattle in 1907 (?) and the city officials decided that when they rebuilt, they should bring in soil and rock to raise the streets about 10 feet or so. But the merchants wanted to get back to business, so they began building right away on the old level. This meant that there were shops and sidewalks that were 10 feet below the raised street and they had to put ladders on the corners so that people could get down! (There was also a frightening statistic that they quoted us about people being smashed and killed by things falling off of passing trucks up above on the streets.) Eventually, the merchants let the city raise the sidewalks too. They did this by putting a beam from the street to the building, and covering it with brick and cement to make the new sidewalk. So a lot of what the underground is are these covered sidewalks flanked on one side by the mooring for the street and the other side by what used to be the front of an old building and is now the basement. They put skylights in some of these sidewalks and actually used the underground as a kind of shopping district until they suspected bubonic plague down there. Why it is okay for us to go down there now, I'm not sure, but apparently it's okay! One building they showed us was built with two main entrances, one on the lower level and one on the upper level for when they knew the street would be raised. I wish I could find a picture of a door floating in midair on the second story before the street was raised.

Anyhow, I really, really enjoyed it... lots of history! Although it is kind of confusing to think about, it's cool to see how they effectively raised the entire city by an entire story! If you come to Seattle anytime soon, you should really consider going on this... (and visiting me while you are at it)!!

Hmmm... I must use my great thinking ability for this one!

2006-08-16T22:52:00.000-07:00

So wanna know what is disturbing me of late? The fact that my bed smells like cologne, and I have absolutely NO clue why. Now if I were the kind to go out, get drunk, bring a guy home, have a one night stand and wake up so hung over that I couldn't remember anything that happened the night before, I guess this could make sense. But that is not me. I don't do that. I repeat, I DON'T DO THAT! So why, then, can't I figure out why my bed smells like cologne. The only thing I can think of is that when Jamie stayed the night on Sunday, she must have had a teddy bear sprayed with DJ's cologne and set it on my bed and the smell got transferred. That's it, that is the only thing that makes sense. Either that or I am just going crazy. Which is always a possibility...

I almost forgot!

2006-08-12T23:31:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to inform you all that I am now the proud new owner of a pack of 24 color, ultra-fine tip Sharpies. They went on sale for $10 at Target a couple of weeks ago and I said, "How can I resist?!? That is less than $.50 a Sharpie!" But sadly, when I got to Target, they were all out so I had to get a rain check. Everytime I was there I checked, but they were still out...until tonight! I am victorious with my glorious 24 color, ultra-fine tip Sharpies!

Youth Camp '06

2006-08-12T22:55:00.000-07:00

Okay okay okay!! I'm posting. Since I have had multiple people ask me to post this, that means that theoretically I can make this as long as I want and you will still read it, right??? Hehehe... I'll try and be nice and keep it manageable!

So, youth camp... I was counselor to the 4th grade girls with Lindsey as my co-counselor/kitchen help (mainly kitchen help). My week basically consisted of dealing with little girl sagas over and over and over and over and over... you get my drift! I had a total of 5 girls, 3 of which had recently graduated from the Primary department in Seattle, so I already knew them EXTREMELY well. Dynamics in my cabin were interesting, in that one of the girls was bossy and a know-it-all and she would try to boss the other girls around so none of them wanted to be with her. She would then come to me and say that the other girls were being mean and ignoring her, conveniently forgetting to tell me about how she had been bossing them around. Needless to say, by the end of the week whenever someone would come to tattle to me, my first question was always "What did you do to them first?" and then, being the cold-hearted person that I am, I would say that they probably deserved whatever ill they were currently bemoaning. *Insert here that I DID pay attention if it was something serious, I'm not THAT dumb!*

Getting them to go to sleep was insanely hard, especially for one girl. The first night, I honestly am not sure if she slept at all. To make matters worse, our cabin had new, super crinkly mattresses, so that whenever you even moved everyone else could hear it. This girl laid on her top bunk and everytime she rolled over she would give a little bounce, you know like you would do when you were little and trying to bounce in your bed, that, coupled with the squeaky mattress and our cabin, which was like 80 degrees, I barely slept the first night. By the third night, I had managed to track down some "Adventures in Odyssey" which didn't put them right to sleep, but at least meant that they had to be quiet so that they could listen to the story. I also told noisy-non-sleep-girl that if she kept making noise when I had asked her to stop and go to sleep, I was going to make her sleep on the concrete floor with no mattress.

It was insanely hot in our cabin, which would have been a good thing, except that we all had sleeping bags and were prepared for the cold. What's that you say? Turn down the heat? No way.. the thermostat was in a little box that was screwed to the wall with no opening whatsoever... I finally had to get my dad to unscrew it so we could get the cabin comfortable to be in. The cabin also had showers in it, which was a blessing, except that in the morning my girls would lay in bed and call "first shower" but they wouldn't get up and take it. I explained that I didn't care who called "first shower" but whoever actually got their butt up and went and TOOK it got the first shower. (See, wasn't I just so mean!?!) They also took like 3 showers a day, which I wouldn't have minded, except that they always yelled at me to get out cause I was "taking too long" because they all needed to take their third shower of the day. (Just for the record, 10 minutes isn't too long and I, as a counselor, can take as long of a shower as I want and also invite any of my fellow counselors to utilize our much nicer showers if I choose... both were concepts lost on my girls).

One of my girls (the bossy one) kept complaining that she wasn't having any fun... hmm, I wonder why... but she told me the only fun thing she had done at camp was floss cause flossing was her favorite thing to do. This is the same girl whose flip-flop broke so she left it sitting in the gravel parking lot and kept on running. When she came back for it an hour later, Bro. Joe and Bro. Chet had cut off the bottom half (because it was broken, duh!!) and used it to help hold the pressure on the bottle-rocket launcher. When she found out, boy was she mad... nevermind the fact that she had abandoned it in the parking lot... no no no, they CUT her flip-flop!!!! ... said the drama queen.

Another great problem of the week were the slugs. My girls HATED slugs, so they found these two slugs that they thought looked like they were mating. Were they actually? I have no idea, I don't know much about slugs myself, but they didn't want "baby slugs" so they broke them up. I thought it was pretty hilarious. Needless to say, my cabin was fairly intense. By the end of the week, someone came up to me and was like, "Good thing camp ends today, cause you may need a straightjacket if it were to go on any longer." I still am not sure if she intended the straightjacket for me or for my girls.

I also had a screamer in my cabin. She screamed when she was happy, she screamed when she was mad, she screamed when she was excited, she probably would have screamed when she was sad too, but I don't know for sure. This was blood-curdling, heart-stopping, someone-MUST-have-just-fallen-over-dead-to-warrant-this-kind-of-scream screaming. It finally got so bad during the middle of the week that I announced to the cabin in general that if I heard any more screaming of the previously described variety, unless there was blood involved, I was going to take away their concession card for one concession time. That made her stop screaming =).

And did I mention the great exploding suitcases? Each morning I would be the drill sergeant and make my girls clean up the cabin for inspection. By 1 in the afternoon, each and every girl's bag would have exploded all over the floor yet again. I kept telling them that clean up would be easier if they kept their clothing in their suitcases, but no, why would you believe me? I've only been to youth camp going on 15 times now. This pile, coupled with the rocks they collected from the beach (complete with sand!), left over drawings and wet/stinky towels that they NEVER hung up, was enough to drive me insane. A couple of times I stopped to ask myself if I was getting frustrated by this because I was 21 and they were 9, but then I came to the conclusion that no, my 4th grade self would have been mad at her cabin mates if they were doing this as well. I guess that is the price I pay for being anal. Although I don't call not wanting my pillow to be grabbed from my bed and thrown in a dirty pile on the floor to provide a "safe landing" should their jumping from bunk to bunk go awry being anal. I call that being normal. Once I figured out what they were doing, I quickly put a stop to it, but I think that those sneaky little girls did it even after I told them to stop. I wouldn't know for sure because unlike them, I don't particularly enjoy hanging out in my cabin when there are things to do outside. How did I guess? I walked in one day and my pillow was yet again missing. I checked the mass pile of junk on the floor, located said pillow and noticed a row of dirty little toe prints on my white pillow case. I just sighed, turned the pillow over and put it back on my bed, figuring there wasn't much that I could do about my now dirty pillow case.
Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy myself and had a good time... it was just one of the more memorable youth camps. And I'm assuming that my girls didn't hate me even though I was "mean", seeing as how on the last day as they were getting ready to leave, they kept running at me full tilt from across the fielding and almost toppling me over with their hugs. *sigh* Yup... youth camp sure is fun! =)

Update!

2006-08-08T16:00:00.000-07:00

In our developing news story... the air conditioning vent by my desk got closed somehow. I am much happier now that I figured that out and fixed it!

I WANT OUT!!!!!!!!!!

2006-08-08T15:24:00.000-07:00

My office is hot and stuffy, my brain is fried, my eyes hurt and I am falling asleep. If someone were to bring me coffee, I would seriously love them forever. Even if they were a "reaper" in a blue van.

What is going ON?!?!

2006-07-27T17:30:00.000-07:00

Do you ever have days were the entire world seems like it has come unglued and needs to be admitted to the mental hospital? It is on days like this that I am always careful to stop and ask myself if, perhaps, it is I who has come unglued. After all, if EVERYone around you is acting strangely, it seems more likely that you are just overreacting. But after carefully evaluating myself and coming to the realization that I am doing great today, I have deduced that all of Seattle is going crazy.

I had about the strangest day ever at work today: clients worried about the whereabouts of their clothes, someone yelling at me when I tried to help them because I "Didn't know who they were" but they hadn't even given me their name yet, my coworkers (about 10 of them) taking way too much time to put together a couch, an eventful trip to Ikea, my coworker shopping online at Abercrombie cause she had no work to do. *Sigh* Yes, it is safe to say that my day has been eventful... but boring nonetheless.

Oh, and on a fun side note, just for future reference, nectarines are NOT a very good fruit to attempt to eat while typing at a keyboard. I tried that at work today, it didn't go over so well.

Don't you just love...

2006-07-22T21:41:00.000-07:00

...CDs that you randomly buy on a whim, but quickly turn out to be your new favorite? I do!

In other news, I think I have an addiction. Today I was at Target buying new crayons for the Primary department (VERY important purchase, you see) and since I was in the school supplies section, I ran across a package of Sharpies. But this wasn't just your average red-green-blue-black package, this had like 25 different colors. I seriously almost started drooling, right there in the middle of the store. I LOVE sharpies, especially the ultra-fine tip ones. I am not sure why, but they call to me everytime I see them. The only thing that saved me today was the fact that I didn't have $14.99 to randomly throw away on a package of Sharpies that I probably didn't really need. *Sigh* Hopefully I will be able to go on living...
P.S. No Chris (or Matt or Bryan), I don't like Sharpies because I enjoy sniffing them. I just wanted to clarify before one of you asked...

Campmeeting '06

2006-07-18T23:04:00.000-07:00

So I am very aware of the fact that I haven't posted in a long time. And logically, it would seem that I should post about campmeeting, as I really haven't been doing much else with my time over the last 2.5 weeks. But when I sit down to actually write about it, I am not really sure what to say. I had an awesome time, although it was one of the more strange campmeetings in my remembrance. Partially because of all of the people, and partially because the two weeks felt totally different to me. They were both fun and enjoyable, but I hung out with two very different groups of people in the two different weeks, mainly because that was when they were there. So I have decided that I will list out key inside jokes or things that I remember the most about campmeeting. If they make sense to you, consider yourself lucky, if they don't, I am very sorry. Maybe you need to hang out with me more often! =)

-"Sitting" with Mandy and Zach in church
-Zach, I think I have your goat
-"Your brain is flatlined"
-Quality Kitchenette time
-Going to see Pirates
-Going to Shari's (both times)
-Walmart and how I went there more times during campmeeting than I do during an entire typical year!!
-Going to the zoo and eating animal fries
-Quality mall time!
-"Caution Kids" ... enough said
-My promised 3 Christmas presents: Beverly Hill Billies DVDs, a jungle gym and a Honda Element
-Angel Food/Devil's Food cake discussion
-Various discussions on words, including, but not limited to:
*Nautical
*Ominous (Omnious!!)
*Animosity
*Tumultuous
*Indubitably
*Copious
*Maniacally
-"Hiking" in flip-flops and a jeanskirt
-That crazy scary Alice in Wonderland play at the park
-Melina, the marriage wrecker
-Doing guard duty with Angela
-Hey Thomas, I secretly hate you =)
-How do you get an elephant in the subway?
-Apparently, I am now a dictator (and I have a co-dictator to boot!)
-There was this guy named Jay...

The other dancing guy

2006-06-26T22:54:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a long time... I'm sorry... yada yada yada. But, I found this for all ya'll's enjoyment -- how was that for correct grammar?!?! You should check it, he sounds like my kinda guy!! (I apologize in advance for the bad word in the title, sorry... consider yourself warned.)

And just in case you miss it, I thought I should copy and paste this from the website:

Less Frequently Asked Questions
Why is the world so screwed up? Men.
How do we fix it? Women.

Yup... that is all I have to say about that. Enjoy!

That deaf, dumb and blind boy sure plays a mean pinball!

2006-06-06T21:49:00.000-07:00

I am noticing a rather disturbing pattern around my house. I turn on music, my dad sticks his head into my room, and he tells me to turn it off. Why? Well it isn't because he disapproves... that is for sure. It is because it is "his" music and I am not allowed to listen to it! I have a list of about 5 or 6 groups that I am no longer "allowed" to listen to because it is the music of his youth, not mine. I think secretly he is flattered that I would like the music that he liked when he was growing up, so he makes fun of me for it. So yes, I will admit that I stole his Chicago CD, but he freaked out when I asked (and got) an Earth, Wind & Fire CD for Christmas. And a couple of months ago, I went to a rock opera/musical thing at UW that my friend was stage managing. I was trying to explain it to my parents, thinking that they would never know what it was. I said that it was written by The Who, as well as something about it being about this boy that grows up in WWII London and the musical follows him throughout his life. That is seriously all it took for my dad to be like, "You went and saw Tommy?!?" and break out into a chorus of "Pinball Wizard". Yah, so basically, I am doomed to share my love of music with my father if it is older than about 1980, and even then, he is familiar with some of that stuff too. I have just resolved myself to the fact that any cool group from the 1960s/1970s, my dad will be right there telling me that I can't listen to it. And don't even get me started on the songs that we play in marching band... he can sing along with most of those too! (Not so cool to have your parents start singing "You Can Call Me Al" at the top of their lungs along with your marching band CD!) But I don't really mind, I think it is sort of fun... he just doesn't like it when I try to sing with his Chicago CD!

P.S. Tommy is AWESOME! You should see it if you ever get the chance. A rock band on stage playing all of the music for a musical, you can't get much better than that! It combines two of my great loves... =)

Peggy Sue...

2006-06-05T22:50:00.000-07:00

is systematically carrying all of her food from the little food cup on the second floor of her cage down to the bottom of her cage and hiding it in her little house. I am not sure why, since the only one with access to the food is her, but I guess she wants it to be safe. It is cracking me up... there are about 20 food pellets buried in the sawdust now and this has been going on for like 3 days. Silly Peggy Sue.

Introductions

2006-06-04T22:35:00.000-07:00

Note how Tucker appears to have only a head! He isn't very tall, so that is all that he could get on the table to look at Peggy Sue.

The end is near!

2006-06-01T22:57:00.000-07:00

For me, this definitely is NOT a bad thing! Tomorrow is my last day of classes, finals next week... and then I am free for the whole summer! *And there was great rejoicing because I have no more homework to do and I can do other fun things, like posting to my blog whenever I feel like it!*

In other exciting news, Peggy Sue comes home tomorrow. Don't know who Peggy Sue is? Maybe you should read my blog more often =)

And I learned my life lesson #68 today: Don't wear flip-flops if they are forecasting rain and you know that you have to walk across red square. Red square = big square/plaza thing on campus made of, what else, red brick. But they designed it special so that it would be slick when wet so that they could knock down all of the protestors if they got out of hand (No kidding... it was designed in the 60s with all of that college demonstrating going down everywhere). Anyway, I learned the hard way that flip-flops and wet, slippery red brick do not mix very well. It is bad enough walking across it when you have tennis shoes with traction, shoes with no traction are next to impossible. *Sigh* If the stupid muggy weather would go away, then I wouldn't have to worry about wanting to wear flip-flops even though it is raining. Muggy weather is the bane of my existence.

X3

2006-05-27T22:45:00.000-07:00

My sibs, my almost sib, and I went to see X3 tonight. I'm just gonna say this... I really liked it. A lot. I kept reading reviews that said it was just a bunch of mumbo jumbo thrown together and it wasn't that deep and the characters weren't that good and blah blah blah. Well, maybe I am just the naive public, but I really enjoyed it. And in my book... by the time you get around to the third movie in a series, you should know the characters well enough that character development is not high on your priority list. It should be sort of like putting on an old sweat shirt... you know what to expect and you are pleased to find out that it still meets your expectations. Jean Grey sort of looked like one of those girls that could be in a horror movie, though.... which was a little frightening, but I managed somehow. And Angel, yah, he should have had a bigger part cause he was incredibly nice to look at. Even better, I am sure that he has a great personality... rescuing his dad like that and all!! =)

Of GREAT annoyance, some idiot brought their kid to the movie. And when I say kid, I mean infant, as in 3 or 4 months old. They seemed to cry the entire movie. And the stupid parent wouldn't even take them out for awhile there. It sucked. Apparently the term "babysitter" is not in their vocabulary...

And did any of you guys who have seen it stay through the credits? Can we say "fourth movie"?? Hehehe... =)

The Science Guy

2006-05-24T23:09:00.000-07:00

As I was sitting in O. Chem today and feeling very grateful that it seems that I finally have a grasp on the class... I was wondering. Wondering whatever happened to Bill Nye the Science Guy. Suspecting that if HE had taught me O. Chem, I would have learned it much faster. He was so cool, and he was from Seattle too which makes him doubly awesome. So where did he go? I miss Bill Nye...

Where is the ice cream truck when you need it?

2006-05-18T22:15:00.000-07:00

Tonight I was craving one of those strawberry shortcake popsicle things. You know the kind with the strawberry ice cream on the inside and the little crumbly things on the outside? My mom calls them captain crunch bars, but I am not sure if that is the real official name. It was arranged with my brother that when it was quitting time down at yonder Safeway, he would buy some and bring them home. And guess what... NO STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE BARS!!! So I didn't get my ice cream. The end.

But I did get an 83% on my O. Chem test!!!!! Great jumping up and down and much rejoicing occurred. I wanted to do a cartwheel, jump into drumheller, scream and run around... but I didn't, I went to anatomy instead. I am very excited, especially since the class average was 67%.

And just for the record... if somebody were to find me strawberry shortcake bars and bring them to me, I would probably love them forever.

Life lesson 67 (Don't have a 68, though, sorry!)

2006-05-06T22:18:00.000-07:00

If you are going to try and be healthy and eat fruit in your lunch, make sure you eat it. And if for some reason you don't eat this fruit at school and the aforementioned fruit is a banana... under NO circumstances should you put it in the outside pocket of your bag, forget it is there, and then let your bag lose balance, thereby squishing the banana underneath your gigantic microbiology book. Makes for fun times... but it will make your room smell good like bananas!

Where IS he?!?!

2006-05-04T22:54:00.000-07:00

So I know that I am going to get a lot of flack for this post, but I just have to ask the audience at large, why are all the cute/nice ones already taken? Does that mean I am going to get left with a ugly/mean one? Where is my perfect dimple guy that I posted about earlier? Huh??

On the plus side, I got checked out by a cute paramedic the other day. That doesn't happen too often. Okay, girly ranting done now, I promise! Scout's honor!

Same ol' same ol'

2006-05-02T22:32:00.000-07:00

School... life... work... church... blah blah blah.

Yes, I am still alive. I even have things that I want to post, but I was an idiot and took too many classes this quarter. *Sigh* Next spring will be really easy though, what goes around comes around I guess. Catch ya in a month!

Here is a picture of Peggy Sue for you guys to enjoy while I am busy surviving this quarter!

I want you all to take careful note of just how CUTE she is!!

Makes ya think

2006-04-25T21:50:00.000-07:00

Why is it that "those people" are more concerned with the rights of laboratory animals than those of unborn fetuses? Today in the UW newspaper, they had an article highlighting the groups that protest animal cruelty in labs right along with an article saying how we should work to uphold Roe vs. Wade. Now I'm down with humane treatment of animals, but ... What kind of junk is this?!!?!??!?! Where people are more concerned about whether a lab animal is going to die than that we are actively killing humans? Fetuses grow up to be humans, but monkeys just grow up to be monkeys... I've never seen a monkey grow up to be a human... oh wait, so THAT is what they were trying to teach me in school. Hmmmm....

My face...

2006-04-22T22:45:00.000-07:00

... is really quite red. I fear that I may look sort of like a lobster, but I have seen worse cases (not on me, mind you... ;) It doesn't hurt too bad, but you ask me in the morning whether or not I still feel that way. I wanted sun, I guess I found it.

It was sunny and warm today, not for the first time, but it was the first time that it was sunny and warm that I could actually take advantage of it. And take advantage of it I did. I went to the spring game (yes, more Husky football and guess what, more HMB... but I will spare you the details, except to say that I really do love Isaiah Stanback). And then I came home and washed my car and cleaned my car and vacuumed my car... she is looking absolutely beautiful now! (Anybody want to go for a ride?) And it was sunny and warm and the sky was that beautiful shade of blue with a few white puffy clouds and the grass was green and lush and soft underneath my bare feet. *ahem* Got a little carried away there, for a moment I thought I was writing a descriptive essay or something. And then we had BBQ for dinner. And now my window is open, letting in the slight breeze and the night sounds. Ah, days like this bring back so many good memories. I love night time, but there is nothing I love more than a good summer's night. Its getting there, but no, April is not quite summer, I know.

When will enough be enough?!?!

2006-04-20T23:29:00.000-07:00

Why can my professor write a midterm that turns out a class average of ..... wait.....get this.....

42%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I know of no other job where an overall success rate of less than half would be acceptable. And, no, this is not due to some major failing on our part's as students, I mean, it CAN'T be when the average is 42! I just don't get where the professors come off thinking that they can not teach us anything and get away with it. Fortunately for me, I was above the average, but I didn't do so hot either. I've been to every class, I read all the chapters, I did the homework and practice problems, I took diligent notes, I studied hard and reread all of my notes multiple times. And all to no avail, apparently. That, to me, is the grind, if you work, you should be able to have something to show for that work.

And why can't they make shortsleeve shirts with sleeves in them? You ever try shopping for a shortsleeve sweater that is appropriate to wear to church during the summer?? Yah, it's not fun. And why does it matter anyways? Does anybody REALLY find my armpits that enticing? I don't think so....

Oh, go palpate yourself!

2006-04-17T21:49:00.000-07:00

I imagine that it must be time for a new post. I have been stressed out beyond belief, and unfortunately, I will probably continue to be so until this quarter is over. You already know why, but I am giving fair warning that I may not post as often as I did during the last two quarters.

BUT!!!!!!!!!!

For tonight, I do have something to post. I have an anatomy test tomorrow, so I am dutifully studying away. We have covered 350 pages in three weeks. Talk about a marathon race through almost all of the skeletal and muscular systems, not to mention a couple of joints thrown in there for good measure. Anyways, so I am reading along in my book and it will say something to the affect of, "If you touch just in front of your ear, you are touching your temporal bone." Except they don't say "touch", they say "palpate". And they don't say "in front of", they say "ventral to the ear." This is all well and good, as long as it is on my head or my arm or something, but then they say "The tuberosity can be palpated by sitting on your fingers." And I go "Whoa!!" (There are much worse examples of where they tell you to palpate, but I will spare you). Not to mention the fact that to me "palpate" already sounds a little bit odd... maybe an insult? How would you like it if someone said, "Oh, go palpate yourself!" Yah, sounds sorta mean to me. Anyways, that is all that is new and exciting in my life. Palpation. Yay.

On a side note, I really like my professor. First off, her name is Cat and anybody named Cat is cool. Secondly, she says things that everybody else is too worried about to say. Example: In our last powerpoint when we were discussing the muscles of the abdomen, she stole a picture of an Abercrombie&Fitch model and pointed out his muscles on her slide. But she was telling us where she got the picture and she said that these nearly naked models led to confusing advertising. And she said, I walk past the store and see these pictures and I am like, "What am I supposed to buy?!?!?" It was the best quote ever cause it is so true. Not to mention that it raises the question of wether or not you can go to Abercrombie&Fitch and come out with a nearly naked model as your purchase. Maybe I should go check it out...JUST KIDDING!!!!!

Is this really what it comes down to?

2006-04-11T10:39:00.000-07:00

I have yet to post anything about school this quarter, even though I'm in the third week already. Suffice it to say, I have gone completely insane and am taking 4 classes and 17 credits. Doesn't sound too bad, until you stop to think that those classes consist of microbiology, anatomy, organic chemistry (with a lab) and a psychology lab (complete with rats!). Unfortunately, everybody that I speak with is quickly able to grasp that it is insane to be taking all of these biological sciences... why I couldn't figure that out when I was registering is beyond me. Never even crossed my mind.

But, I really did have a point to posting. I just wanted to share with you the warning that is in my organic chemistry lab manual for my lab today:

Safety Note: Alkyl halides are toxic. Some alkyl bromides are suspected carcinogens. Wear gloves and avoid skin contact. Add alkyl halides to the test tubes in a fume hood and do not breathe alkyl halide vapors.

So for all of my hard efforts... I am rewarded with the possibility of getting cancer from my chemistry class. Great.

Why oh why?

2006-04-03T22:06:00.000-07:00

Why is it that only little old ladies ever comment on my dimples and tell me that they are cute? Why can't some amazingly hot, wonderfully funny and incredibly intelligent guy come up and say, "You have really nice dimples. They make you look like a hobbit and I think that is terribly cute." If he did, I would know that I had found the right guy =)

London

2006-03-29T23:37:00.000-08:00

Warning: This is long. I am sorry, that is the only way I could not leave anything out. I have inserted pretty pictures to make the reading less tedious, but do not say that you were not fairly warned!

We left for London Thursday morning, the 16th. (In case you didn't know, "we" was Jessi, Shauna, Joe and I... all piccs, going to visit Lynn, who was a picc but graduated and is avoiding real life by moving to London for 6 months). Our first bit of excitement came when we realized that our flight leaving Seattle had been delayed so that we had 11 minutes to transfer in Detroit. Not good. We got to the airport and they said that they couldn't do anything about it, we just had to take the flight and hope for the best. But as we were standing at the counter, they said that they just got word that we were going to be put on a different flight that flew from Seattle to Amsterdam, and then to London. The cool part about all of this is that we had a long enough layover in Amsterdam that we actually left the airport for 2 hours or so and got to see some of the city. And what a city it is. *cough cough* Sodom and Gomorrah *cough cough* Actually, it is very beautiful and picturesque, but I am afraid that it does seem to live up to its reputation. And that was at 10am on a Friday morning, no less. (They have "coffee shops" where there are no minors allowed because they are actually pot smoking coffee shops or some such nonsense... I can't say that I ever got it actually figured out). In the airport I ran across something interesting too in that they had all of these little magnets of cute little Dutch shops that said things like "wooden shoes" or "cheese"... but I also found one that said "sex shop." I shudder to think what the guy next to me on the plane did once he got to Amsterdam... he was part of a group of 20 guys going to Amsterdam for the weekend for a bachelor's party. (Can you imagine that?!?! Flying clear to Amsterdam just for a bachelor's party?) He was an odd one... kept popping valium on the plane to stay asleep, among other interesting things.

Anyways, we managed to get to Gatwick airport without much problem and then we rode the Thameslink into London, which was about 45 minutes away. Once in London, we took the tube (otherwise known as the London Underground, but never the subway!) to the station near Lynn's flat. Then we walked the 10 minutes or so that it took to get to her place. All of this with luggage in tow... for future reference, I would try to avoid this sort of situation. The British have never heard of the American's with Disabilities Act (rightly so, seeing as how they are not Americans) and inevitably, the tube station you need will not have an elevator or even an escalator, just a never ending stair case leading up into the abyss.

Seeing as how Lynn does have a real "fake" job in London, she had to get all of her good touristing in with us over the weekend. We went on what we came to lovingly call "forced tourism marches"... she walks rather fast and is like 6'1" or something, so it takes two of my steps to keep up with one of hers. We went to a cool food market Saturday morning, Borough Market... of sort of Harry Potter fame. Apparently the street outside the Leaky Cauldron in the 3rd movie is filmed in the market somewhere, although we never actually figured out where. And then we went to Greenwich that afternoon, where they "make time." It was lovely and although it is only like a 20 minute DLR ride from Lynn's flat, you feel like you are in the country. Sunday we went to Hampton Court, which is a palacy thing with beautiful gardens and is about 45 minutes out of London. When we got back to the city, we went on the Jack the Ripper walking tour, which basically consisted of taking us to street corners and houses where the victims' bodies were found. It was really interesting, actually, cause it was set up like a history lecture and you learned a lot... it just happened to be about some awful murders.

Monday Lynn went back to work and we had already decided that we were going to go to Bath for the day. Bath is where the ancient Romans built spas or "baths" using the hot spring found there, and it is about 90 minutes from London. Sunday we got our whole itinerary figured out and we purchased our tickets online, leave at 10:00 am, return at 5:42 pm. Monday morning we left the flat on time, and we caught the tube early, but something went terribly wrong. The line that we got on went incredibly slow (the Circle line, incase you ever have need to avoid it while in a rush). We are pretty sure that at one point the driver stopped the train in the middle of the tunnel and got out, although what he was doing, I am not sure exactly. The minutes ticked by as we got more and more worried that we weren't going to get to the station on time, because once we got there, we still had to print our tickets. We finally got there and I think it was like 9:52 or something. We ran to the ticket place and Jessi got her tickets, cause she had put hers on her credit card, and Joe started to print the rest of ours, cause they were on his credit card. Joe handed us what we thought were our tickets, and we ran for the train... Seriously, the porter had only one door open still. We barely managed to get on the train (my ticket says it was printed at 9:58 am) and we realized that Joe wasn't on the train. Come to find out, a ticket, when purchased online, consists of 5 pieces of paper. So Joe had to wait while 15 pieces of paper printed, therefore making him miss the train. As we were sitting on the train, I started looking at my ticket, which actually was a ticket, and I realized that it said we were coming back on March 21 at 0542. And then it hit me... Lynn, the expert on travel and everything European... had made the STUPIDEST mistake possible and forgot about military time, thus booking us a ticket for 542, unfortunately that meant 5:42 am the next morning. So 18 pounds later (which, as you all remember from our previous discussions equals roughly 36 dollars) we had changed our tickets to come back at 1742 on March 20. Joe did catch up with us in Bath, but he had to change his ticket to even get there, cause we were booked for the 10:00 train, so he ended up spending 36 pounds on the whole ordeal. Bath was worth it, but it was sort of grey and cloudy and cold... we definitely could have had a better day.

Tuesday was our first real day in London to be tourists and we spent it going to the British Museum, walking down White Hall and seeing Parliament/Big Ben/10 Downing Street, and capping it all off with Westminster Abbey. The British Museum was interesting, but after a while you began wondering why it was so cool to be looking at all of these things that Britain had stolen from other countries and brought here for their own evil purposes. At least it was free =). Parliament/Big Ben were magnificent, as was to be expected. And Wesminster Abbey was pretty awesome, although I wasn't allowed to take any pictures inside... boo =(. I saw Chaucer's grave and Handel's grave and Rudyard Kipling's grave and Dicken's grave and a bunch of old king's graves. You can tell that I am being very irreverent here, but after awhile, it was just a bunch of graves. Although the architecture was amazing, and the history is pretty daunting too... its just that after you have been in London for awhile, you become a little acclimated to it. Unfortunately, this day was rather grey and cloudy again, so my pictures aren't as cool as I would like them to be. Tuesday night we met Lynn and went to a show. We were going to go to The Producers, or something cool like that, but we ended up going to this spoofy, all male ballet where they do their best impression of female ballet dancers. It was mildly entertaining and even funny at times, not really my thing... but hey, compromise is good, right? (P.S. If anyone ever wants to go to The Producers, I will gladly go with you).

Wednesday we went to St. Paul's Cathedral and then did some shopping in Soho. St. Paul's was amazing, especially in contrast with Westminster. Westminster is definitely Gothic, whereas St. Paul's has an enlightened feel to it, with soaring roofs and lighter marble. Something interesting, there is an entire chapel devoted to America in honor of our involvement during WWII, I never saw that one coming. We climbed to the top of the dome, doesn't seem like much, I know, but if you look at a picture, you can tell that it is a feat. I think it is like 550 steps or something. I really enjoyed St. Paul's Cathedral... maybe it is just hearkening back to my obsession with Mary Poppins. After St. Paul's, we ate lunch at a pub called "Ye Old Cock." I'm sorry, but I have to say that I love pubs. They are really cool with great character and are usually very unique. They all have funny names, I could list but I am not going to, and they are usually decorated very nicely with homey sorts of things. They also have a lot of history and many of them are OLD... one we went to was rebuilt in 1667, after the great fire of 1666. The shopping was not my idea of the best use of our time, but hey, sometimes you have to just go with the flow. On the plus side, I got a really cool jacket at H&M for only 20 pounds. I don't remember what we did Wednesday night, but I'm thinking that it probably doesn't matter to you anyway at this point.

Thursday, we went to some more markets in the morning that were rather boring to me... but again, compromise, right? (It seems to me that I did a lot of compromising on this trip...) We walked along the Thames in the afternoon because it had turned into a lovely day. We went on the London Eye, which is a big Ferris wheel which offers great views of the city. We went to Tate Modern, which is a modern art museum. I have to say that I was rather unimpressed, except that I got to see a Monet in real life... and that was pretty awesome. By this point in time, I had caught my cold, but I was telling myself that I wasn't really sick. I mean, I was in London, after all, who wants to be sick? That night, I managed to convince people to go see the Tower of London, although the best I could do was take pictures of the outside of it. I also got some really cool pictures of Tower Bridge (which many people think is actually London Bridge) while the majority of my party went and entertained themselves by stuffing their own fists in their mouths at Dickens' Inn, yet another pub (and no, I am not kidding). And Friday I came home. We left Lynn's flat about 930 and I got to my house about 2300, although I had been up for about 23 hours by this point in time.

If you have made it this far, I am impressed. I really am. My trip was awesome and it was a once in a lifetime experience that I would love to repeat again if I ever had the opportunity. I am sad in that I have really just given you a blow by blow of what we did, and not what I *thought* about what we did or the funny things that happened. If I think of something pertinent, I may post it up here. But for now, this has already taken way too long... goodnight!

Greetings Earthlings

2006-03-25T21:50:00.000-08:00

I have returned from the other side of the sea and I am letting you know that I am alive. I would have liked to type "alive and well," but alas, I am not well. I caught a nasty cold my last day in London, and now I am feeling rather miserable and I have a horrible cough. Let's just say that traveling for 24 hours with a cold is about number 3 on my list of things that I would like to never have to do again. I got home about 11pm last night and went to bed, where I promptly slept for 11 hours or so. It was wonderful. And today I am sort of living in that limbo land of post-vacation disorientation. Fortunately school doesn't start until Monday, and I can take it easy this weekend.

What about my trip, you say? It was absolutely wonderful. London was awesome (and is still awesome, I am assuming. Although, maybe my leaving makes it less awesome?!?) I saw and did a lot of cool stuff. I am debating how to actually write about this, though. I mean, 8 days with lots of miniscule little details, do you guys really want that much info? I will leave it up to you for tonight, as I need to go to bed so I can beat this cold. Let me know what you want... either way, I will post tomorrow! In the mean time, here is a cool picture. I uploaded some others to bebo if you want to check out more. Final count for the trip? 477... yah, that's right. I am the master!

P.S. Extra bonus points if you can identify the things in the picture =)

Greetings from the other side of the pond!!

2006-03-18T02:54:00.000-08:00

So I am not really a big fan of traveling to far off places and yet still maintaining my non-exotic life back at home, but here I am, blogging again... all because of you guys. Feel happy!

Anyways, I made it to London safely and it is now 10:54am, Saturday morning. I am not sure exactly what time that means for you guys, but I am pretty sure it is sometime around 3am or so. I was up for a total of 32+ hours straight, and then slept for 10 hours, so the jetlag is pretty much defeated. Our trip was interesting in that we made it to Amsterdam.... totally not in our plans, but I will talk more about this later. Suffice it to say that I have now spent one whole hour in Amsterdam city itself. The guy next to me on the plane was interesting, he kept popping valium so that he could pass out and sleep. We are going to the market now... if I don't post again, you all behave until I get home. (I know that I am, Chris!!!)

Free at last...

2006-03-15T23:40:00.000-08:00

Free at last, praise God Almighty, I'm free at last!!!

And that, in a nut shell, is how I felt this morning once my last final was over. I have been so focused on classes lately that I had totally not had the opportunity to get properly excited about London. But I packed tonight and let's just say that I am now dutifully excited. I really should be in bed right now, as I face an endlessly long day tomorrow since half way through the day I will suddenly change from March 16 to March 17, having only really completed 12 hours or so of the 16th. And rumor has it that Lynn won't let us sleep once we get to London, so this should be interesting. Honestly, if you can hack it, though, just staying up for the whole 24 hours or whatever it ends up being, is the best way to adjust to a major time change.

Once we get to London it should be interesting in that we are flying into an airport that is actually 45 mins or so out of the city and we are taking a train in. From there, we take the tube to Lynn's flat... all of this accomplished with luggage in tow. Sounds like great fun, doesn't it? I should probably go attempt to sleep some. ETD: 12 hours and 56 mins!!!

Official update on my life

2006-03-08T22:30:00.000-08:00

1. I miss Japan
2. I am so ready to be in London
3. The exchange rate from dollars to pounds SUCKS!
4. I want my finals done and over with

Random question of the day:

2006-03-05T21:34:00.000-08:00

Why is is that whenever the doorbell rings, I freak out and run away? Apparently my parents taught me well and got across the point that I should never answer the door unless I knew who was behind it. Somehow I have never managed to grow past this stage. I think I need express permission from my parents saying that I am now big enough to possibly answer the door. It is absolutely ridiculous, I will be sitting at home, by myself, minding my own business and the doorbell rings. Instant shock wave through my body... feel the need to hide... run to my parents' bedroom to peek out the window to see who it is... hide in the corner while the random person continues to ring the bell...stay there until it has been at least 5 minutes since they last rang the bell...heartbeat finally returns to normal and I go on with my day. If I am brave, I will open the door to see if they left something. Usually it is a package from the UPS man. How stupid am I?? A 20-year old who is scared of the doorbell.

AAAGGGHH!!²

2006-03-01T21:24:00.000-08:00

Since Chris has so kindly pointed out that my life has been stuck on "AAAGGGHH!" for the past week, I figured that I should post. Although, really, my life has been stuck on "AAAGGGHH!", so the post is technically still accurate. I knew that a time would come when I would regret the fact that I had been posting so often recently. I've got you guys trained to expect it now or something.

Anyways, my life can be summed up in about 10 words: Organic Chemistry, Irish History, Statistics, Essay, Church, Work, Dog & LONDON! I am down to 8 days left in the quarter and my world feels as if it is spiraling out of control. On top of classes/work/church, I had an essay to write, two tests to take, a dog to watch for 13 days and a trip to London to plan. The future is looking brighter now, though... as the tests are over, the paper is done, my dear little doggy friend goes home on Friday (it's not hard to watch him or anything, I just have to make sure I work walking him and stuff into my days), and I finally have an idea of some of the things I want to do while I am in London. All I have to do now is study for finals, but I have a week and a half. Then I get to get ready to leave! I am so stoked to be going... T-Minus 15 days.

That really is all that is new with me. This is a lame post and for that I apologize. But to answer Stacy's question from like a week ago, yes, I did get my classes for spring quarter and I get a pet rat!!! (More to come on this, I promise)

AAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH

2006-02-22T22:22:00.000-08:00

That, in one word, was my day today. Check back in tomorrow... hopefully I will have regained my sanity by then! And I promise I will tell you the answer to the MsPoppins question.

MsPoppins?

2006-02-20T21:48:00.000-08:00

I have a question... anybody know why my blog title is MsPoppins? Just curious... I want to see how well you all know me and if you have got it figured out yet. My family assures me that it is blatantly obvious why I picked that name, but what do you think?

In other news, yesterday in Sunday School the lesson was on asking God for things. I was going over with my primaries things that were appropriate to ask God for and things that probably were inappropriate. I was trying to get them to say that asking God to let you win your game (whatever it may be) probably was not totally appropriate, so I decided to use the example of the Super Bowl. I wanted them to guess, so I started giving them clues, and Nicholas got it right away. He said, "Yah, it was Super Bowl XL and the Steelers CHEATED!" He said it with such authority and passion... I burst out laughing. And then somehow I had to get my kids off the subject of how the Steelers "cheated" in the Super Bowl, because they all really wanted to talk about that. Ahhh.... got to love that innocent, black and white sort of logic.

It's 5:51 am...

2006-02-20T05:51:00.000-08:00

...on President's Day. When I wouldn't normally have to be up until like 10:00 am at the earliest. But here I sit at my computer. Why? Because I was SUPPOSED to register for classes for spring quarter today. And I have learned from bad experiences in the past that it is best to register as early as you can on the day that your registration period starts. That would be 6 in the morning, today. But it appears that someone in their brilliance decided that today would be a good day to take the WHOLE STUPID SYSTEM OFF LINE!! Yes, you heard me. So on this day when I got up way too early and am way too cold and just want to register for my stupid classes, I can't even do it. Goodness... why in the world don't people think this stuff through? Goodnight people, I'm going back to bed.

Good cruising music!

2006-02-17T23:22:00.000-08:00

So is it a bad thing that I am in love with techno music? If that isn't, is it bad that I can see how attending a rave would be fun... minus the alcohol and drugs? Hehehe...Just curious. Goodnight ya'll!!