angry

I feel really really angry right now.

my neck still hurts and im angry. and i'm angry that my bumper is dented. and im angry at that punk ass kid who doesn't know how to stop his stupid car.

and im angry because if that pickup truck wasnt there in between us, then the boy's giant monster truck of a car would have gone on top of my little saturn and crushed it.

so im angry because i shouldnt have a headache right now and my car should be fine.

i think this is my residual freak out. because it was fucking scary there today. and i didnt let myself freak out then. and i couldnt at work and i couldnt when we were out at dinner.

so of course late at night, im angry, sore, and crying and upset over something that happened 12 hours ago. Great, Andi. Really great. i need to just grow up and go to bed.

red = stop

I was at a red light today, right in front of the highschool. and there a pick up truck behind me. and then all of a sudden i hear a crash and then her car hits my car. Because apparently stupid high school boys don't know that red lights mean you have to stop, especially when there are cars in front of you. They're all invincible and stuff, right? STUPID!

So the three of us pull off into the parking lot and teacher from the school saw this and they came over to help us out, and they call the police and the fire department so that the EMTs can check us out. they kept asking if me and the other girl wanted to go to the hospital because we both had headaches, but we both declined. i was shaken up more than anything.
it took about an hour for everything to be done and i went to work but i was still shaken up and my head still hurt. and by that time i only had an hour i could spend at work because i had to get to Nathan's, so that was annoying.

my car is okay (her truck wasn't, by any means). my bumper got a little smashed, but nothing major.
it was pretty scary.

it's my dad's birthday. so i called him and said "happy birthday, guess what just happened."
what every father wants to hear, right? :-P

oh well.

it was really nice to see melissa tonight, if only for a couple hours. :)
at least the day ended well.

Work or sleep?

I'm sick of my job at HQ. I was going to leave an hour ago but I'm still home. I can always find something more fun to do than going there. Even taking out the garbage and laundry. haha.

after work Nathan and I are going to meet up with Meli!!! She's in town for a conference. I haven't seen her in at least 4 years. Crazy.

So it should be a good night.

No homework or exams looming over my shoulder either. Always a plus.


I'm really tired again today.
I could easily take a nap right now.
I slept 9 hours and had 2 cups of coffee.

Explain that to me.

Done for now

i'm done.

i crammed for virology, but i've learned a system for studying for her exams.
i think i only got 2 wrong. awesome.

i start again on Monday.
philosphy (gag) 830-1150, then micro lab TA from 5-9.

12 1/2 hour days on campus Monday and Wednesday.
Gross.

paranoid

I need to go to bed. I'm tired and I could have been asleep hours ago.

But I'm so paranoid.

Ryann said I could stay at their apartment while mom and dad are in Florida, and i want to take her up on that, but it doesn't make sense during my last two finals since i wouldn't be able to study very well with the girls being there in such a small apartment. and then the next couple nights i have plans and will be out late-ish and i dont want to bother them or possibly wake the girls up or anything by coming in late. Friday they move into their new house (!!!) i might ask to stay there with them that night. Saturday night i'll be in the hospital so i'll be okay, maybe i'll stay there sunday and monday night. mom and dad will be home on Tuesday.

Reason im paranoid? my neighbor.

last week, around midnight i saw really bright flashlights in my backyard as i was watching tv waiting to get sleepy. i freaked out, turned off the tv and the lights and watched to see who was out there. It was a cop, with a dog, walking around my backyard, apparently looking for someone. he then went into the front yard, so i went up to my room to look out my bedroom window and get a better view. Two cop cars in my driveway and one in the street. I cracked my window open to try to hear them. all i could hear was "if you dont find anything in a half hour, lets clear out" two of the cops left, leaving the one with the dog to continue to circle the house, looking in the trees, the bushes, between our cars, in the barn, the shed, everywhere. I followed him around, going from window to window, upstairs and downstairs. he finally left, walking down our road (i live at the dead end of a dirt road), and he didn't come back.

i told my dad the next morning (who wasn't happy that i didnt wake him up that night) and he called the police to see what was up and all they told him was that it was a missing persons report. which seemed odd to us.
The next morning, mom and casey saw a cop car in our neighbors driveway while on their way to church. that night, or maybe it was Monday, i was in our living room on the computer. (our living room is in the front of the house and has a huge window). it was shortly after midnight and i saw the stupid flashlight again. the cop was on our front deck and he clearly saw me. he knocked on the door. i motioned i'd be there in a minute and ran upstairs to wake up my dad. Dad went down and talked to him and he said he wanted to warn us about our neighbor, mark (who is my age). Said he's "whacked" (cops words) and that he's been in and out of the hospital, but they can only keep him there for 24 hours at a time. the rest of the time he's been hiding out and they've tracked him to our yard. Cop said hes found him between our cars. probalby in our back woods, too, i'm assuming. he didn't go into too much detail. He just said that at the moment he was in a hospital but that he'd be released again soon. he said to make sure we lock our cars and the house all the time. that was all he said.

every night, around midnight, i make sure all of the lights are off and i listen for cars and watch for flashlights. usually im ok, but now that im home alone i'm a little freaked out.

Ryann said the other week, before any of this was going on, her and joseph took a walk in our woods and she found what looked to be a fire pit. she said there was a flower pot that was dug into the ground (she thought it looked like a makeshift toilet, but didnt want to dig to find out. ha). we haven't been in our woods in forever. we dont use flowerpots. we've never had a fire back there.
Ryann told dad, who thought she was too imaginative and dismissed it. ("now i know where Avery gets her imagination from")

Ryann told me that after i told her about the cops and Mark. Apparently only Ryann and I see the connection.

I'm not scared that Mark is going to hurt us in any way. I dont see why he would since we haven't even seen or spoken to him in years. but still, i'm afraid he's in our woods, i'm afraid he can see me when im here. once it gets dark i keep all of the lights out so he can't see in (assuming he's there).

the cops haven't been back, at least i haven't seen them. so i'm guessing this is a good sign. but still. where did he go?

Ryann said i could stay with them.. but like i said, it doesn't make sense until Friday night. Maybe thursday.

Jessica and i were planning on having her spend the night a couple times while mom and dad are gone. but i dont want to bring her here when im already paranoid about being here.

i know im crazy for worrying. but it's unnerving not knowing what's going on with him. he was a trouble maker as we were growing up. so i know what he's capable of as a boy... i can't imagine him as a 23 year old.

i dont like it.

viruses

i feel really pressured to get a 100% on my final tomorrow. since i've done that on two of her exams already (only counting this semester), and i'll be a TA for her and doing research with her all summer. I feel like anything less than at least a 95% (or at least the top score again) would be failure to her. which i know is illogical, but still. i feel like Dr R expects a lot out of me.... especially now.

viruses are just too complex for being so tiny.
and there are too many of them.
and.. i'm tired and don't really care about viruses.

But I'm going to get 100% tomorrow.
I have to.

Tired

i feel like ive been run over with a truck.

i know it's finals week so i'm stressed and that zaps energy... but i also think it was a mistake to switch my meds around this week. I didnt think of that earlier. im not sure if its the nightly rozerem or the decreased pamelor.

i'm so tired. body tired. achey tired.

immunology is over.
i just have virology left.

it shouldn't be too bad, as long as i can wake up enough to keep studying.
its only 9... I can't decide if i just go to bed and try waking up early tomorrow to study instead of trying to study more tonight.
the final is at noon..

maybe i'll shower tonight and pack up my stuff up for tomorrow so that i'll have more time in the morning to study.
i'll try to study a little bit more tonight after im done with that. then get up early.

i guess that makes the most sense.


immuno final was alright. i should have trusted him that the only short answers were going to be the pathophysiology of the diseases. i didn't trust him when he said that (because he's been so weird this semester) so i wasted a lot of time preparing for a lot of other things to be short answers when they weren't. Only good thing about that is that it made the multiple choice a lot easier.

one more to go.
just one more.

i can do this.

immunology

Immuno final at 330 today.

i'm sooo tired of this subject.

i know i need to bite the bullet and start hardcore studying.
it's not like i haven't looked over this stuff before... i have been all weekend, so i know i'm not cramming... but it always feels like it.

sleep

It's hard to wake up in the morning. I love rozerem, I'm finally falling asleep at night. It's beautiful. But because I've been so sleep deprived lately, by body doesn't want to wake up once it is finally sleeping.
My neurologist switched my meds around. Dr V and Dr H both think that the pamelor is causing my fast heart rate, so Dr V dropped me down to only 10mg at night (to hopefully get me to stage 3 and 4) and is having me taking rozerem every night (to actually fall asleep). I hadn't been taking it much because i was afraid it would stop working but he says that isn't possible with this stuff. So... awesome. I'm a fan of falling asleep at a decent time.

I'm also a fan of this semester being over. Too bad it isn't, yet.

Hematology final yesterday? Blech. It's over, that's all I can say.

Immuno and virology left next week. It'll be a fun weekend...

Sleep study

I saw my neurologist today. He's the best doctor ever.
Because I am still sleepy when I wake up, he wonders if I'm still not getting stage 4. Since it's been 3 years since my other two sleep studies, I'm getting another done May 2nd to find out if there has been any change with the 3 years of treatment. I'm hoping there has been a change... then i'll have hope for when I'm pregnant and cant' take anything.

Sleep studies are okay, but I'm going to have a major caffeine headache on the 3rd because I have to stay there until mid afternoon so they can do my narcolepsy test again. Oy. But I'm excited and curious to know the results.

I finished my paper this morning and read through for the first time in the waiting room. It's horrible! The article I did it on was confusing, so it took me a long time to figure out what the researches even did. Ugh. It's due tomorrow.
I also have my hematology final tomorrow morning at 9.

Tonight Nathan and I are going to see Fr Ben to do initial marriage things. (ahh!! we're getting married!!!!! :D )


I am super stressed out

i didn't know when finals were when i schedule both of those things for today. I would have not done that had i known...

neurons

Avery tends to ask tons of questions and soaks up knowledge like crazy. So whenever she asks a question we typically send her to someone in the family that would best be able to explain things.

So I'm up in my room studying and I hear this little knock on the door, "aunt andi?"
I opened the door for her and she says "i have a question... what are neurons?"
and i know she must have seen my background on the computer which is neurons (the same one in my current facebook picture) and asked someone what that was and was sent up to my room to ask aunt andi.

I tried to figure how to explain it, because i know i don't have to dumb things down too much with her, but still, i have to because she is only 5. I told her that they start in her brain and go all the way to her fingertips and toes, and that they send messages from the brain.
She looked puzzled, so I said, "okay, say you want to move your finger. So your brain says 'move my finger' and the neuron will tell your finger to move and then POOF! it moves!"
"ooh, that's neat!"
then i said, "and, when I tickle your belly (which i started to do) then neurons tell your brain that aunt andi is tickling your belly and you feel the tickle!"
"ooooh, so it's like my brain is talking!"
"exactly!"
"is there only one neuron in my brain? or are there more than one?"
"there are billions and billions!"
"whoa! so that's why there is more than one in the picture then?"
"yup!"
"cool"


awesome. Avery thinks neurons are cool. and she understood that her brain is talking.
I have high hopes for her!

Jobs!

Today has been great.

I got to my LAST lecture and we got our mycology lab finals back, and I got one wrong, but I'm assuming she threw that question out because I got 100% on it. So... awesome! Anyway, I was going to go the gym directly after our LAST lecture, but I started talking to Karen in the hallway and we ended up sitting on the floor talking for over 2 hours, which was fun. So then Dr R (who teaches pretty much half of my classes) walks down the hallway and I asked her if she still needed a TA for the microbiology lab this summer (i had asked her this a while back and she said to talk to her about it later). She said yes, and then paused and said "I also need an assistant for research this summer, would you be interested in that?" I asked what was involved in it, and it sounded fun. And she said it'll be about 10 hrs a week and she's still waiting on the grant to go through, but she's pretty sure it will so I'll get paid for doing this. She also said if I needed credit, I could TA for credit. i told her that i have plenty of credits and just wanted to volunteer. then she told me that she's pushing for it to be paid because the one class is pretty large and Dr O really needs help with it, plus there are two seperate classes and they're twice a week. And she's pretty sure she can work something out to get money to pay me for doing it.

So... AWESOME!!!

It's SO nice to finally be recognized for my hard work. Out of all of my classmates, she asked me to help her with research!?

And this is perfect, because it means I won't have to quit at HQ (which i would have felt pressured to do if I worked at the hospital lab), so I'll still have HQ in the fall (unless Dr R wants me to continue research with her in fall-which in that case, screw HQ, I'm working on research in a micro lab!). Plus it's fricking amazing experience, will be really good for my resume and interviews this summer, plus she'd be able to write me a letter of recommendation after knowing my work ethic and how I work in a lab setting, not just as a professor-student point of view, which will also be awesome.

Dr R said to get ahold of her after finals because by then she'll know more about the grant and the possiblity of getting paid to TA and stuff. So nothing is final, and last minute the grant might not go through or something, but it sounds really promising and i'm really excited about it.

It's the perfect situation. Because I actually hate the hospital that I would have gotten a job with (beaumont is horrible!) and I know that if i had to do my internship there and not St Johns that I'd cry my eyes out and hate the whole thing. So if i can avoid beaumont... then GREAT!

denied.

I want to cut really badly today. but it's getting warmer, and i can't keep hiding in hoodies and long pants. and the dress im wearing tomorrow is knee lenght and doesn't have sleeves. so my arms and calves are out, which feel the best and are my two favorite places.

i hate caring.

i should eat lunch. but everyone is here (about to eat lunch) and i'm anxious and I don't want to eat in front of everyone.

Blech. I want to go back to bed.

zzz

drug induced sleep tonight. it's been awhile. but i gave in.

eyes

i'm having a really really really really bad body image moment. i'm trying really hard not to freak out. i dont know how to handle this because i feel like nothing is ever going to change.

so i'm going to talk about dissections, because that's what i do.

i tried to dissect a face today, but the one face was really dried out because our school is cheap and we didn't have a body bag for that one. so i went to dissect the male's face (which we had a body bag for), but one of the students working on that body was really weirded out by that and asked me not to. after she left, dr Forbes and i got sidetracked with the eye muscles, so we started trying to find those. then i wanted to cut the eye out, which i've never done before. it was weird. really weird. it took awhile because i was afraid it was going to burst, even though everyone kept telling me that's not possible. Dr forbes pushed on it and said "you could run it over with your car and it wouldn't burst" ok ok, so i cut out around it and cut the optic nerve to free it, which was tricky because i couldn't see what i was doing and if i was down far enough, but i was, so i got it out. and it was cool. i wanted to do more, and i want to do a cross section, possibly, just to see. but the next class was about to start so we had to put everything away.

dr forbes is cool. he loves dissecting, too, and encourages me to dissect whatever i want. he laughs and said, "andi, me and you have the same sickness" i'm going to miss him.

eight

oh, disregard my last post- when i said I'll have 6 classes this fall.
i had forgotten to count one, and then i realized today that i didn't register for molecular genetics, so i now have 8 classes this fall. and somehow that's only 15 credits.

crazy.

(and don't blame me for the amount of classes, this is how the program is set up, this is not by my choice)

new job?

One of my professors told us that one of the local hospitals is hiring microbiology assistants. All they do is streak the agar plates, do gram stains, and set up the biochemical tests. So... I just called the lady and left a message saying I was interested in applying. And I'm so nervous!!!

I want to go into work this morning, but I'm afraid she'll call while I'm at work, and it will be awkward talking to her while I'm there, but I'm going to want to pick up right away. Maybe I could rush to get outside.

And if I get the job, then there's the dilemma of what to do with my current job next fall. During the summer, I could probably do both. I'm not sure how many hours the hospital would want me to work. They're flexible with school schedules, but I'm not sure how many hours I could handle with a full load of classes. I'll have 6 classes in the fall (3 lectures, 3 labs). If I work in micro, then I wouldn't be able to handle my current job on top of that. But, my current job is so flexible since I make my own hours, have a key, and most of the time go in on the weekends when they're closed when i have 3 or 4 hours to spare. the Health Quest job is perfect, even though i'm completely sick of it. So i don't want to let that go. But maybe i could just work in micro for the summer, then just stick with my current job for the fall... Or I could quit at health quest, and try to work in the micro lab during the fall semester... I DON'T KNOW!!!

I know I don't have to worry about this, since I haven't even talked to the lady yet... but I'm just nervous about the whole thing. I've never had a "real" interview or a "real" job. I mean... I had an interview for health quest, but Robb is so laid back, it wasn't too bad (although it was at 6am!). I feel like HQ is kind of a joke job sometimes... even though I know it isn't. but working in a hospital!?!!?!? That's major.

So i'm really excited about the possibility of working there, but also completely freaked out.

MASH

one more quick thought, then im off to study.

There was a MASH marathon on Saturday, and I watched it for a long time as I 'studied' and was in all my glory. But I couldn't help but notice that most of the commercials were geared towards old people (dentures, depends, medicare).
So.. is that who they think will be most likely to be watching MASH? Old people? I know quite a few people my age who watch it...

i found it funny though

oh! one of the episodes was when Radar left the show. it was SO sad! :( i think my mom was crying. i felt close to it but i didn't...

hi, my name is andi, i'm 22 and i'm addicted to MASH.
:)

labs

I'm completely unmotivated at the moment. I have my mycology lab final today at 2:30, and I have a class at 1. It's already after 10 and I haven't started studying today yet. I know I need to. This is worth almost half of my grade. But... I just don't really enjoy mycology very much. I miss bacteria and stuff. even parasites weren't bad compared to this stuff.

I guess it won't be bad. I just have to memorize which ones are hyaline and which ones are dematiaceous and which one belongs to what group. I know about the dyes and the slide preps and I know about the flu testing procedure we did on the last day of lab. So all of that I'm okay with for the most part. I'm nervous about the identification though. at least it's multiple choice. and i don't think she'll have two species of aspergillus as a choice, so if i can at least figure out that it is some species of aspergillus then I should be fine.

I don't know. I'm just happy that I'll be done with this lab today and i will be done with hematology lab tomorrow- and that final shouldn't be too hard, but it is accumulative. /shrug/

i think i'm too drained to care at this point.

stupid system

i'm so frustrated with scholarship eligibility.

no one seems to care if you have good grades. no one cares that i have a 3.9gpa. noo big deal.
i'm not foreign, i'm not going into accounting, education, engineering or nursing. so apparently, I don't exist.

too bad i'm an american citizen.

annoying.

porphyria

i was watching house tonight (finding judas) and the diagnosis was erythropoietic protoporphyria. which i totally know about thanks to hematology! (she didnt ask about that on the exam though... weird)

i love learning. :)



oh! and apparently the pancreaus in our male cadaver is missing. either one of the TAs accidently cut it out thinking it wasn't an organ or he had it removed? i figure we should tell the students he had it removed so that we don't look bad. haha.
I'm not sure who was working on the male that would have done that. Natalie has been doing this longer than i have, so i know it wasn't her. weird.

more dissections

our 90 year old female cadaver still has her uterus. This is the first time since I've TA'd for anatomy lab that I've seen one still in the body. It's crazy awesome. She also had an artifical valve put in so she has stitches in her heart and the valve feels weird. Nathan cut into a chamber and dug out this blood chunck that is so hard we can't cut through it w. the scaples. It's so strange. It's like a rock of blood. Her left kidney looked like a sheep, according to Emily, so we named it Radar (after one of my old sheep). Other than that, both bodies were pretty normal this semester. I didn't get a good look at either of them because I was busy on the ribcages (yay!), but I don't remember anyone else saying anything was strange.

I ran into one of the students at the rec today. I asked how she did on the exam last week (98%!). She asked about becomming a TA. I said I'd put in a good word for her, and that we'll need new ones since me and a few others aren't doing it anymore, and not everyone is doing it over the summer. She was pretty excited. I like her. I'm glad that we finally have a bunch of students who are excited about anatomy like everyone should be.



some of my dissections are going to be in dr B's new anatomy book i helped with! pretty excited about that.

surprise!

Aw!!

So Nathan and I were going to meet his sister, Bethany, for dinner tonight. we got there, and his whole family, my parents, ryann, joseph and the girls, and a few of our friends were all there for a surprise engagement party! It was so much fun! Bethany is really thoughtful. :o)

The girls are going to be over early tomorrow morning while ryann and joseph are at the house inspection. that should be fun. :) but i should probably get to bed soon...

Moving on

holy.cow.

hematology exam this morning was sooo hard, but aside from a few stupid questions, I think I did really well!! Dr williams told Jayme and I that we were probably overstudying, but I didn't feel that way at all. this was one of the most challenging, but the most rewarding exams Ive taken. This isn't something I"m going to forget in a week. This stuff is trapped in my head. I was trying to explain some of the questions to mom and then i realized she was only listening to be polite, and that everything i was saying was way over her head, and that was after i had been trying to simplify...

This morning Jayme and I were studying in the computer lab before the exam (we were the only two in there) and my parasit/mycology prof came in and said to us "the two top students shouldn't be studying together.. you guys should spread the knowledge around" then she looked at me and said "you should study with some of your friends in mycology" i said "why, what did i get on the exam yesterday?" she said "oh, i dont know, 100% or something like that"

eeeeeeeee!

have i mentioned i'm going to TA the microbiology lab with that professor over the summer? I volunteered- because I like micro, it'll be a good refresher, i wont' be TAing anatomy lab anymore (THANK GOODNESS!!) and for a side bonus- it'll look good for my internship inteviews in july. So that's good. I'm glad I'm proving myself to her. I told her I was worried about the mycology lab practical exam because everything that i'm supposed to see isn't what i'm seeing. so she said if i had problems monday to make sure i ask her to make sure im seeing the right things.


Oy. I started studying the next section of hematology- which is white blood cell disorders/cancers. Gross! I miss my red blood cells!!! it doesn't helped that i was completely zoned on one of the WBC lectures because it was the morning after the immunology exam and i was so stressed about hematologly and mycology that i couldnt' focus, then tuesday, i went to work that morning instead of lecture. so i got the notes from Jayme today during anatomy lab (luckily they had an exam there so we didnt have to do anything). So yeah, studying the new stuff was so foreign to me. But we have until april 23rd for our exam on this stuff, so i think i'll be fine by then.


my head is mush!

but! i get to dissect tomorrow! I get to dissect 2 sets of ribcages! those are my favorites. :)

and... i get to workout tomorrow... for the first time in NINE DAYS. (FREAKING OUT!)