Spring sprung

I hate the past tense of spring (not the seasons, the verb). Sprung sounds like the goop that gets on your shoe after you step on a squishy mushroom. Or some sort of mold that keeps growing on my shower curtain. Anywho.

It's Tuesday, so I am here with Mademoiselle Dinosaur for the day. I only have two more weeks of babysitting her, so I'm sad that I won't get to see her as much when this program starts. She is laying down right now, but I don't think she's asleep because she keeps saying "chat," which is french for cat. I wonder if she is going to grow up to be a cat lady?

Well, this weekend was a bit different. My lovelyface cousin was in town, and we went out with some friends on Friday night. I drank faaaaar too much and paid dearly to the toilet gods. At least I didn't have much of a hangover the next day. Saturday and Sunday I just hung out and lounged around. I bought two books to read before I have all my free time snatched away, Little Women and Blink. I read Little Women a looong time ago, but it's just such a great book that I wanted to get back into it. I love Malcolm Gladwell, and I've already read Outliers.

Boyfriend and I had a bit of a fight on Sunday, but everything was resolved when he got home later that day. Learning to fight fairly is always a hard task when the other one pisses you off. Luckily Boyfriend is understanding and we just talked it out.

I'm still obsessed with being engaged. I can sit and argue in my psyche for hours over this, honestly. Logically, I know that it's a stupid over-hyped ritual that drains money out of Boyfriends pockets for a ridiculous ring. Logically, I don't need to go through the process of being engaged right now, because I will get distracted from school work trying to plan the wedding. Logically, I am still too young to be getting married. However, emotionally, I want this so badly. I want that commitment from him, and I want to be able to say, "I'm engaged." So yeah, if only my emotional "intuitive feeler" side would be suppressed, I could give it up. It just gets harder every time someone refers to me as Mrs. Boyfriend. I know he wants to surprise me with it and everything, but damn, getting engaged in a freaking castle in France is beyond cool. Ok, fuck, I'll shut up about this already. Stupid Disney princess movies brainwashing little girls... pfffft.

Twelve more days until I start this new quarter. It's going to be different, and hopefully I will really like my teachers. The way it works at my school for the RT program is like this: 1. You get accepted into the school and start taking prerequisite classes such as AP 1&2, Micro, Physics, Algebra/Pre-calc, English etc. 2. You submit application for the program. It's a first come, first serve basis, and you need at least a 2.5 GPA to get in. 3. You get accepted, and wait for the spring quarter for the start of your second year (which took FOREVER for me because I had 6 months to kill after being officially accepted).

The RT program has two classrooms (I think) in the Health Science building. I'm kind of excited to move from the main classroom building where I had the prereqs, to the HS building. It just seems more exclusive, and plus I get to wear scrubs all the time. The first quarter will be all didactic, and then in the summer I'll start clinicals. Hopefully I'll be placed at Emory, but that's only if I'm a really top notch student... I suppose it's up to my teachers to place us.

Weeeell. I need to get the dinosaur up for some lunch-a-munch. Maybe I'll have some more coffee if I'm feelin all craaaazy :)

Time change

Ick. I got up at 8am on a Sunday morning because of the stupid time change. I guess it's good that I had to get up and be awake, because starting in TWO WEEKS (fourteen days, to be really exact) this will be the norm. I really need to have faith in myself, and just learn to embrace the mornings. I am soooo not a morning person.

I should hop in the shower now, but Boyfriend is still in there and I don't want to impose upon his coveted bathroom time. We have an engagement with his family today that I desperately do not want to attend, and neither does he. Unfortunately we got guilt tripped into this one today, and I'm slightly peeved on how it all went down. Maybe I'll write about how wonderful the event really was later on today, but I reaaaally doubt it.

Ok. Sorry for the short post. I'll tell more later. Oh, btw, I got my books in the mail for this next quarter(!!!).

Meow

21 more days until the program is officially underway. I spent most of Friday afternoon re-learning cardio a&p, and hopefully I will be able to get through to pulmo and nephro after I'm done with cardio. I guess my reasoning is that if I review the basic stuff we learned in a&p, then I can focus on the more complex parts for Cardiopulm a&p. I posted this on facebook, and immediately I had a few of the girls in my program commenting on how good I was for reviewing. Honestly, I am not doing it to get ahead of them, I am doing this for my benefit. There's a difference.

Most of the time I'm pretty impartial to the competition in between all of us RT students. If someone asks how I did on a test, I'll tell them, but I won't go skipping down the halls with the test score written on my forehead (like some people I know...). After reading some of the RT student blogs I noticed that most people get annoyed several times over classmates bragging or whatever. My opinion on this is pretty basic: karma. I think my main focus is going to be on clinicals, honestly. I mean, yes, I do need to learn things, and do well on the tests... but stress out over an A vs. a B isn't going to solve any problems. Since the Atlanta RT market is dried up for new grads, I'll be focusing on forming connections and doing everything possible to assure that I'll have a job when I graduate, period.

I looked on simplyhired.com the other day for positions available here in the city, and I was pretty disappointed in what I saw. Most of the positions are requiring at least 2 years of experience. That definitely bummed me out, but there are some other options that I've thought of. I know some people, and more importantly a Hospitalist, in Augusta that could pull some strings and get me a job at MCG's teaching hospital. I'd have a free place to stay while working down there too, so I'd just have to pay for gas for the commute (2 hrs, ick). Anyway, it's a last resort, so I'm just going to have to wait and see what the job market is like here in Atlanta when I graduate next May.

On another note, I went out last night to a pub to hang out with some friends in Decatur. I decided to be conservative and drink only beer, and wow, I learned that yes, you can get a nasty hangover from beer (btw, I don't conform to normal comma grammar because 1. I'm lazy, 2. I think commas are excellent ways to break up sentences and 3. That's how I normally speak). Anyway, Boyfriend is urging me to go out again tonight after we go get some Indian food, but I'm so tired and kind of lethargic. I just don't feel like getting all showered/cleaned up to go out. I like where I'm sitting on the couch. These are my last few weeks of freedom, so maybe I should just rally and get it together. It's looking like Boyfriend isn't giving me much of a choice. I can have all day to lay around tomorrow, plus the Oscars are tomorrow night!!

Le sigh. I guess it's about that time to go put on the makeup and whatnot. I'm sooooooo enthused. I wish you guys could see how excited I am to get off my fluffy couch spot. LAME.

Ah, as a side note, I'm basically recovered from the flu. I still have a cough or whatever, but at least I'm not confined to the bed anymore. AND we bought the tickets for France last week. Very excited about that.

Ok, well it's time to get ready. Lator gators...

Flu

Sigh.

I caught the flu somehow. I just filled my sick quota for the next 2 years. I just got over a cold two weeks ago. So here I am on a Saturday night, planted firmly on the couch, missing a Silver Sun Pickups & Muse concert. Sigh. Not only do I have the flu, but also my period. It's really soooo much fun.

Anyway, nothing much else to say, just wanted everyone to pity me. Hah. At least I haven't lost my sense of humor. The nyquil is kicking in, and there's the final 2 heats of the 4 man bobsledding. Later gators.

tweedle dee...

That's right folks... It's another Tuesday morning, and dinosaur is down for her morning nap. I have approximately 30 more minutes before she starts raaaarhing (yes I made that word up, but it's seriously what she sounds like).

Yawn. I could have SWORN I got 9 hours of sleep last night, and yet I'm still tired (even after a cup of coffee). I just don't know what to do, other than hope that when the next quarter starts I'll have figured it out. Which reminds me... 34 more days until that madness starts.

I came to a very nice conclusion this weekend. I have about a month left until my life changes drastically for about a year. Once I start my classes on March 29th, I will no longer have much free time. No more sleeping in during the week, and definitely no more drinking to excess on the week days. My conclusion is this... I do have one month left, so why not go crazy and have a fabulous time partying with friends while I still can. This past weekend was what it was all about. Oysterfest is deadly to my hepatocytes, but I survived!!

Well, and update on the whole student loans shit. I am not getting my stafford loans for this quarter due to misinformation from the financial aid office. They specifically told me that I would still get aid while taking 2 online classes this quarter, and they were WRONG. So now, I have a 2,500$ shortfall in my budget for this year, and I had a small freak out on one nice lady in financial aid. It sucks really bad, but I think I'll be ok. I might have to borrow some monies from my parents for testing material and health insurance, but the money I've saved up from babysitting is going to cover tuition/living expenses (hopefully) for the next two months. Le sigh.

I am kind of debating whether I want to continue on with getting stafford loans w/ the school. My other option is to take out a loan with my parents. There are pros and cons to both choices, but in the end it might be a smarter choice to go with my parents because they won't charge me interest on the money. Of course it still has it's drawbacks, mainly that my mom could use the loan as leverage against me for any reason (which I doubt that she would do, but you never know when you are dealing with Crackheadcrazypants). Anywho. I still have to figure out the mess that stupid financial aid brought upon me. Laaame.

Dinosaur is awake, and singing in her room. I think I'll just let her hang out for a while in her cage, I mean crib.

The boyfriend mentioned the big E word again on Friday night. I was a lot tipsy, and he was a lot drunk... which is why he doesn't remember the conversation and I do. He spoke about how he wanted the engagement to be special, and not to fret, that eventually it will happen. tee hee hee, silly boy. The thing about all of this is that I just wanted confirmation that it was going to happen eventually, and I needed a general time frame. I had a talk with him about that about a month ago. It's been brought up since then due to friends/parents/acquaintances ruffling my feathers by asking when it's going to happen. He thinks that I'm stressing out that it hasn't happened, and to some extent I was before (when I had no idea when he was going to do it etc. etc.). Now that I know it's going to happen sometime around May of next year, my mind is at rest about it, BUT when he keeps bringing it up it makes me antsy and keeps it on my mind longer. The whole saying of "out of sight, out of mind," well the same goes for "out of conversation, out of mind."

Since I'm already breaching the topic on this blog, I'll speak about one slight issue in regards to the engagement ring. To me, the engagement ring should be a knock out. I do have specifics as well. Here's my ideal ring: An emerald cut solitaire of at least one carat (my fingers are pudgy and awkward, even though I'm not fat in the slightest), so I need a larger diamond especially since it won't have any side diamonds to back it up. I want the engagement band to be a pretty antique scroll or filigree, but still be a fairly thin band (I don't like bulk on rings). The thing about emerald cut diamonds is that they cannot have a lot of inclusions, because of the way that the diamond is cut (it's easier to see, and therefore needs to be a lot more clean than say a round cut diamond). Anyway. The ring that I just described runs about 7-8k easily, and probably even more than that because boyfriends said he would only considered getting a diamond that is COMPLETELY conflict free (and not just by the Kimberly process). I found a nice website called brilliantearth.com, that certifies each diamond and most of their diamonds come from Canada. But this process also makes the diamond more expensive. I just don't know how boyfriend will handle hearing that I want that sort of ring. I know I shouldn't care about the specifics of the ring, and the engagement is more meaningful than the ring itself, but dammit, I want a nice heirloom ring to give to my offspring one day. Anyway, I should probably just give up this one desire and be happy that I get to marry one very lovely man.

Ok, Dinosaur is in full commotion now, so I must go fetch her. I'll write again probably tomorrow.

It's Tuuuesday

Hellooooooo

I went crazy in a fit of boredom and added a new template to the blog to make it more pretty. I just noticed a lot of other 'novice' bloggers with the same color scheme, so I spent somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 hours looking for the background I liked, and then another hour figuring out how to unzip the file so it would upload appropriately. Man, sometimes I really get a reality check with computers. I'm decent, for the most part, with technology as long as I sit down and spend some time learning the in's and out's of the machines. Hopefully I'll be proficient enough to handle the ventilators when that time comes.

So. Since I still have 41 more days until the program starts, I will continue to talk about various personal dalliances, and tv shows that have been taking up my time.

First off, my student loans. I guess it does somewhat have to do with school, so I'll start there. Yesterday my school was supposed to put my stafford loans on my debit card that was provided by the government to disperse my loans. Normally, I forget when they put the money on, and I'll realize a week after it's done that I just got 2,500$ to spend on classes. But this time, I need the money fairly soon. I need to buy my plane ticket to France within the next week, so that I can balance my budget for the first quarter in the program. That's basically it, I'm just mad at the school for delaying my stafford loans.

I was sick last week due to the dinosaur and her little cold. It wasn't terribly awful like the last cold I had, but it did fuck up some plans this past weekend. I'm always a little whiney when I get a cold and prefer to suffer in the comfort of my own bed. Anywho. It was an ok weekend, which also included about 4 inches of snow in Atlanta. Crazy eh?

On a regular basis I watch: LOST, American Idol, The Bachelor, Greek, Project Runway (but I think I'm going to discontinue this one), Community, Survivor, Anthony Bourdain, and currently the winter olympics.Ok, so I'll go down the list and give a run through of what I think about each show. I know this is kind of lame, but I thinking about the shows even though they are all smoke and mirrors.

Currently Lost makes me want to cry every time I see it. I could spend about 4 hours discussing the theories and questions answered with questions, but today i'll just keep it brief. There are two things about this last season that have me scratching my head. First, the split realities. Ok, that's cool and all... they are using the parallel-universe-time-travel-theory but then you remember that Jack and all the others still think that anything they do now (in the past) can change the future of the island. It's just a mess, really. A very expensive, creative, dramatic, and sexy show though. It's sci-fiesque, so I'll let it off the hook. The second thing that's got me questioning is the locke-smokey-facade thing. I REALLY hope that gets explained by the end. That's all I will say about that.

American Idol is getting older, and more boring. It's still better than watching the nightly local news, but only by a few hairs. I'm so far not impressed with Ellen's judging style (even though she is funny), and I miss Paula's generally positive feedback to the contestants. I don't really like Kara too much; she just tries a little to hard. None of the contestants are really stand out omg they are going to win yet, but it's all staged anyway.

Sigh. The Bachelor. I love to hate that show. My sentimental romantic side really does want to like this show, but the cliche invested verbiage that spews out of all the contestants mouths make me want to gag. The only people to ever really get married on that show were Trista and Ryan, and it's hard to top those guys. Anyway, Jake cut out Gia last night. Both boyfriend and I called that one. He was just not as into her as Tenley and Vienna. What's up with those weird names anyway? Ok, so the obvious choice for a wife goes to Tenley... but Vienna is all playful and highly sexual. I really think that it could go to either on of them, even though in the end it won't work anyway. Hehehe. 2 weeks until the finale.

I'll skip Greek and Project Runway since I'll probably drop watching those shows soon.

Survivor is doing another past cast reunions with a different twist (yeah right), called Heros v. Villains. Lets put all the fame whores back on the island for another go around and see who can play the most mind games and blindsides. I personally think Russell should have won last season, but he's back for another attempt regardless. I want to see Amanda FINALLY succeed, but she's soo... I don't know, bland? She hardly ever plays really dirty. Coach is back, BLEh. Anyway, enough rambling about that.

Anthony Bourdain has lost all of my interest. He's just a boring old man that used to be fun, crazy, and full of witty comments. Now he is close to being lumped in with Samantha Brown's pathetic travel show. Come on Tony, step it up. The Hudson River Valley is NOT exciting, and neither is inviting Bill Murray for a dinner guest. It just dates you horribly.

Ahhh, the Winter Olympics. Sigh again. I know all I'm doing is griping about tv right now, but that's what blogs are for right? I love watching the summer olympics, but honestly the only real thing I care about in the winter olympics is ice skating, and come to find out on the news it's probably fixed anyway. Lame. Vancouver has been doing a shiiiiitty job with the olympics and i'll leave it at that. I'll still watch it though...

Poor dinosaur, she's really scared of the leaf blower right now. I'm gonna go pick her up so she will stop being scared. Leaf blowers are scary to a 15 month old.

OOOk. Au Revoir for now.

Rainy day ramblings

Another day closer, but not quite there. It seems like spring and the program can't get here fast enough. I do think it's slightly absurd that I have a 6 month break in between finishing my pre-req's and starting the Respiratory Therapy program. I can moan and complain all I want, but I know in two months I'll be wishing I was bored like I am right now. The sooner the program starts, the sooner I can graduate and start working.

Today is just a wet, cold, miserable day here in Atlanta. Not cold enough for snow, but not warm enough to enjoy outside. The grey I see outside right now reminds me that not everything in my life is always going to be rosy, and happy. It's ok. I'm just bored, really.

This past weekend was very relaxing for 2/3 of it. Friday and Saturday I spent with my lovelyface cousin that I can kick back with, and Sunday was filled with the future IL's birthday-party-McCrazypants-drinking-too-much-wine-and-talking-extremely-too-loudness. Granted, I'm usually in better spirits at the Bacchus events, but on Sunday I was super tired from waking up at 7:30 a.m. so I could make it back to Atlanta in time to be at said event. I found solace in hanging out with the dinosaur because she wasn't arguing over what's more important: money or happiness.

I don't want to speak ill of boy's family, but there are a lot of differences between our families. The differences are neutral for the most part. I just grew up in a family where everyone was comfortably close, and the only time we got hammered was a the traditional tequila parties that no longer take place.(A side note on drinking for me: I like to drink, but in moderation. I try not to use alcohol as an escape, but rather as something to enjoy in social settings and when I need to unwind a bit from the day. My family shares this sentiment, so getting plastered at Christmas is kind of a no-no). No one argues at my family gatherings, and the topic of conversations always stay in the polite/non controversial areas to avoid any feelings getting hurt. That's not the case with boy's family. I know they operate differently, so I am getting more used to it. They do ask more probing questions that can make me uncomfortable, and raised voices at the dinner table, I learned, does not mean that they are angry at me. Anyway, it's a work in progress.

Just as a side note, I absolutely adore the boy's sister and brother in law. Their creation, the dinosaur, is a constant source of happiness for me. They are the cornerstones that holds the family together, and I'm grateful for all that they do.

Today I went to google to do a search on Aspire to Respire. My blog did come up on the first page, but it was basically at the bottom. That's ok, because right now this blog is mainly just personal stuff. I think there are about 3 or 4 people that read it right now, and all of them are friends of mine. I'm not going to link my blogs to other RT blogs until I'm more involved with the program and clinicals. I'll probably edit out some of the longer, more abstract personal blog entries when I do that. I'd like to keep this blog anonymous, and a few of the things I've written have the potential of letting the cat out of the bag. Anyway, that'll happen down the road.

Tomorrow I'll be registering for classes :)

But today I'm still stuck in a world of grey. It's supposed to rain for the rest of the day. I do have the option of going out tonight for an acquaintance's birthday, but that interferes with Ellen's debut on AI, and new episode of Lost. I do have to watch the dinosaur again tomorrow, so staying up late isn't really an option for me.

Anyway. dinosaur is awake and growling for some attention. Later Gators :)