one fish two fish

BEST WEEK EVER!! Well, it's been good, but I just wanted to start this out on a good note, a little MTV-esque (mmm... what an awful channel ... ignore it then), for the sake of implying that the past month has not been an utter shamble of nothingness. It hasn't! Lots of good stuff went on this month... tubing on the big Red and girls' night, taking care of el jardin, waterskiing in Pequot and Maple, lots of work, lots of teaching the kidlets chemistry, getting started on the personal statement (meh), making mistakes, learning from them, having or listening to pointless, awkward conversations, getting stressed out at work, and the list goes on.

Thinking about going kayaking next weekend with my papa... could be a lot of fun!! Waterskiing and enjoying the lake out in Hibbing this weekend.

I neeeeeed to finish that personal statement.

Okay, enough of an update. To summarize: my life is gaining direction, I hope in a way that I'm supposed to go. Boys are still dumb - enough said :) The summer is beautiful, and I am trying to enjoy it while I still can!! The crushing realization that school starting in three weeks is almost upon me... Time to get the ol' brain in shape again!

it's confirmative

It's 8 in the morning... I'm sitting in Biochem, waiting for these washes to be done so I can put the membrane in blocking and then go home... biking today? Definitely. Maybe cereal first... I still have the taste of buffalo wings and blue moon in my mouth, not a good thing in the morning.

My garden is finally looking like it's going to produce some veggies... although the beans, spinach, lettuce, carrots, and leeks didn't survive too well. One of the pepper plants is completely bare of leaves; time to get out the 22 and take care of a couple rabbits ;)

Okay, done! But before I go... what has happened in the past month... I got hired at Lowe's and then got laid off a month later, due to interesting managerial issues... I went home and waterskied for Waterski Days... I started teaching chemistry for the UND INMED program, which I have one more week left as of now... I flew to Wisconsin for July 4th :) ... and life has been pretty good to me. If I could only get the AMCAS application done; I still have my personal statement to write, the work/activities descriptions to write, have to decide for sure which schools I'm applying to, and the somewhat important question: where that money is coming from :)

Perhaps more later, my stomach is ready for b-fast now.

if all the raindrops?

Umm... so it rained today, and my pant bottoms got soggy. I hate it when that happens!! Seriously, can't they just make pants that are not so long? Well, maybe I should just have longer legs. Or high heel shoes. That would probably help.

Why am I getting another job? This is ridiculous. I am going to be working from 8 am to 9 pm, pretty much every day. And then some more hours on weekends. Well okay, truth be told, I am actually trying to prep myself for the typical resident 80 hr + work week. But why? Masochistic tendencies? Perhaps.

We have internet, but I'm not going to let that stop me from getting outside yet tonight. After all, the new job hasn't started just yet... time to enjoy freedom while it lasts!!

Mmmmm CAT!

You heard it here first! Or maybe second, or third. I don't really care. But it's true, I'm done with the MCAT (as long as it went okay and I don't have to retake it)! It's kind of strange not having anything to stress out over; just have to go in to Lowe's and interview for a job... take care of cells in Biochem... plant a garden... take care of the herbs.....

You know, the good stuff.

But the oregano didn't grow.

Time to spend some well-deserved days at home with family!!

Oh, and I should look for that missing checkbook, too.

silly

Heartbreak. It's a silly word to someone who's never experienced it. Heartbreak makes you feel sick, physically sick, as if someone just punched you in the stomach and then took out your brain for good measure. I cannot concentrate... I really hope this MCAT goes well. My checkbook is missing; it's been missing for 4 days now. I still can't find anyone to rent out my old place. And I found out that someone who I thought I was over is still able to hurt me. And it hurts, a lot.

I can't decide whether I want to throw up or cry. My head hurts, and my chest is tight as if I have a vice clamp around it, squeezing my heart until it can't take it anymore. I'm shaking. Is it because I'm so angry, confused, disheartened? Maybe I'll throw up.

Excuse me.

gas war

I got this email today from a couple of my relatives, and I was struck by how much I disagreed with the message. Usually these chain-mail-type messages have at least a couple things that I can side with, but not this one. In fact, I was a little disturbed by the underlying premise that it suggested. Anyways, read the email first... my comments follow.

-----------------the original message-------------------

TAKES A FEW MOMENTS AND IS REALLY WORTH A TRY.

GAS WAR - an idea that WILL work This was originally sent by a retired Coca Cola executive. It came from one of his engineer buddies who retired from Halliburton. It ' s worth your consideration. Join the resistance!!!! I hear we are going to hit close to $4.00 a gallon by next summer and it might go higher!! Want gasoline prices to come down? We need to take some intelligent, united action. Phillip Hollsworth offered this good idea. This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the "don't buy gas on a certain day" campaign that was going around last April or May! The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue to "hurt" ourselves by refusing to buy gas. It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them. BUT, whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can really work. Please read on and join with us! By now you're probably thinking gasoline priced at about $1.50 is super cheap. Me too! It is currently $2.79 for regular unleaded in my town. Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost of a gallon of gas is CHEAP at $1.50 - $1.75, we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the Marketplace.... Not sellers With the price of gasoline going up more each day, we consumers need to take action. The only way we are going to see the price of gas come down is if we hit someone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their gas! And, we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. How? Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop buying gas. But we CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price war. Here's the idea:For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY gasoline from the two biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL. If they are not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit. But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Exxon and Mobil gas buyers. It's really simple to do! Now, don't wimp out at this point.... Keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people. I am sending this note to 30 people. If each of us sends it to at least ten more (30 x 10 =3D 300) ... And those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 =3D 3,000)...and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth group of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers. If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it..... THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people. That's all. (If you don't understand how we can reach 300 million and all you have to do is send this to 10 people.... Well, let's face it, you just aren't a mathematician. But I am, so trust me on this one.) How long would all that take? If each of us sends this e-mail out to ten more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!!! I'll bet you didn't think you and I had that much potential, did you?Acting together we can make a difference. If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on. I suggest that we not buy from EXXON/MOBIL UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE $1.30 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN. THIS CAN REALLY WORK.
-----------------------------------------
Okay. So...

- Prices for gas in much of Europe are far higher than what we pay for gas in the US
- Keeping gas prices high is also one way of encouraging people to use public transportation or alternative transportation methods, although gas companies may still profit from this. Lower prices do have positive impacts on the tourism industry, but also usually correlate to a greater consumption.
- As we have seen the past couple of years, sales on large SUV-type vehicles such as Range Rovers and Hummers have plummeted in favor of more fuel-efficient models. People who desire to spend less on gas can therefore buy these models and drive the same distance, or opt to do long trips in these vehicles.
- What is the cause of rising gas prices? When we eventually run out of fossil fuels (which may not take that long according to current estimates), then won't prices rise again?

My conclusion is that a price war will not ultimately help us as a human race. Lowering prices for a commodity that helps pollute our environment (yes, I know that pollution comes from many different sources, not all of them power industry and motor vehicle-related) is perhaps not the best idea for us right now. However, it is a great idea to control the amount of profit that gas companies get out of this -- they should be held partly responsible for the pollution that does come as part of their industry, perhaps by way of pollution tax on profits or donating a portion of profit from gasoline sales to environmental efforts: developing new technology for fuel-efficient living, planting trees around and through metropolitan areas where space is available, cleaning up and bumping up efficiency by incorporating new technology into local power generating stations, and there's much more that I have not even thought of that could be done. If we don't do something soon about the way we are treating the environment, my kids and your grandchildren will see the results, and in many ways it is too late already -- extinction rates for wildlife species are considered so significant that they have called it the Sixth Extinction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction_event).

I'm not saying that I'm not guilty of driving my car when I could very well ride my bike to the store, and I don't want to come off as a conceited enviro-freak who looks down her nose at anyone who dares enjoy a wonderful afternoon out jetskiing on the lake. But seriously, we as a human society need to consider some lifestyle changes; living closer to where we work, spending a little more to get something that lasts as opposed to something that gets us by and that we can throw away later, using only as much resources as we really need... just little things can make a big difference if enough people are involved. I would rather see 3 million people decide to do rideshare in the morning, or donate their plastic bags to local grocery co-ops, or spend a little more for a fuel-efficient vehicle instead of that Escalade.

mmm, thank God for chocolate :)

It really is a perfect thing -- nothing better.

There's toilet paper sitting in my living room. And bags and bags of groceries that I get to move over to the new house tomorrow.

Things are still feeling pretty strange. There's still a part of me that thinks that nothing has changed at all; that things are just the way they were at about 3 p.m. yesterday. Funny how the brain is capable of so much, yet it can't even face reality at times.

I'm getting really tired of this whole "I have veto power and I'm going to use it whenever I personally disagree with something" attitude of the Prez. If the president is supposed to be representative of the American people, why doesn't he at least listen to what the citizens want? After all, isn't Congress and the H of Reps supposed to be even more indicative of the opinions of the country? It's sad when the president comes on for a speech and you know exactly what he's going to emphasize, since he says the same thing every single time he opens his mouth.

Wow, okay, so I better watch my back after that ;)

Anyways, life is good, and I should probably get down to some studying. I've spent about the last 2 hours doing such idiosyncratic tasks as cleaning the outside of my bedroom window and picking all the fuzz balls off my carpet. Awesome, I know.

moving --- and moving on

Sunday, April 29th: It really came out of nowhere... well, at least for me. How can a relationship like that end? We were different, yes, and maybe that was something wrong, something that drove him away. I was (well, am) stressed out... with finals coming next week and the MCAT two and a half weeks away, it's not surprising. My birthday is next week. May Day is in a couple days, a day that I've looked forward to since I was a little kid. Who is supposed to be unhappy during these times? And maybe that's why he did it? Maybe secretly I was unhappy, and through time I've just normalized my expectations to a new baseline happiness value?

Boxes are still strewn about my room. I have no bed to sleep on, but I do have a mattress left over from the futon. I hope the spiders that were clinging to those boxes I found under my bed aren't going to come visit me on the floor tonight.

Heck, maybe I won't mind a little company. My spidery friends and I can commiserate on the general suckiness of the present situation... although they may be a little spiteful due to my involvement in deposing them from their lovely box homes.

dressed up with nowhere to go

the good:

Spring is (almost) here
Chocolate tastes amazing
No serious studying to do this weekend
No work either, besides splitting some cells tomorrow
No worries on failing Physio lab :)
24 more days to go!
Spin class
Elections for 2007-08 HPSO are done
The possibility of making bread tonight

the bad:

Eating too much chocolate, and feeling sick
Not knowing what to do for housing this summer and next year
Feeling adrift
pretty much
always
Getting the answering machine when you could really use a voice to talk to
32 more days until the MCAT
Tiredness

the ugly:

The sky right now; I think it's going to rain
Missing my sister and wanting to be a part of her life... sometimes that just doesn't happen though, even if you live in the same town. Pretty sad.

Time to take a nap and stop thinking.

gas, or groceries?

And it's come to this... Definitely groceries.

Time to get my weary margarita butt off to bed. It was a well-deserved night... even though it felt like I did worse than ever, I managed to pull off a 33 on my practice MCAT! Something must be working. That was even with not hardly knowing what any of the physical science passages were talking about. Questionable.

Mmm, those carrot muffins are starting to smell goo-ood! I can't wait. Kyle's coming in with the rest of the track guys at 7 or so this morning, so the muffins will be a-waitin.

Crap. I should have turned that buzzer off so it wouldn't wake all my roomies. Oh well.

the MCAT, life, and other excuses

It's been a long time since I've talked to you, old friend! Already halfway through February... and a lot has happened since. I've started listening to MPR (yikes, by my own free will, no less!), I buy my own groceries, and yes, I've even vacuumed the stairs. It was only once, but it was an event, no less.

So it's time for growing up and doing that adult stuff, I guess, and definitely time to wonder what's going on in the world, instead of tuning it out as I've been mostly successful in doing the last couple years.

Elections are on everyone's mind around this time of year. Presidential hopefuls are starting to raise money for their campaigns, which some cynics (and perhaps realists) proclaim is the key to a successful White House bid. It does make sense, though; I see it on my own campus. Elections for Student Body President and Vice President are a couple weeks away, and the success of one candidate will most likely (and regrettably) be determined by the financial ability to print out boxfuls of t-shirts and buttons with fancy, professionally-designed logos, and to have glamour-shot style photos to grace each sign, button and t-shirt.

I know there will be a good fight by each team, but truthfully, it's hard to see the underdogs winning in a popularity race like this.

Anyways, time for Physics.

chiller

Okay, so now it's pretty frickin cold out. I get to sport the double-sweatshirt look now... and socks-with-sandals... even in the halls, since apparently administration can't get a clue that we should actually heat the buildings on campus.

I'm serious, I think it's about 45 degrees in my room right now. It sucks.

The last few days have been kind of meh, as far as exciting things go. Same old school stuff. It snowed today a little. I get to see the house I'll be living in next semester tomorrow. (Sorry about the format of that sentence, it probably doesn't make much sense, but you'll just have to deal with it. Yep.) Lin Alg test was moved back to Friday, so now I really should be studying for it. But it's hard to study for something when you don't know what to study.

I need to kick myself out of this out-of-it mood. Tomorrow's going to be a lot of running around, which I'm not looking forward to. But it's necessary.

This weekend should be fun, though :) Friday the 13th!!! I'm excited for the pizza party and scary movies... I haven't watched a scary movie in forever... it's a good thing we're going to be watching them at like 7, instead of the middle of the night. I'm such a wimp sometimes. ;)

Take care of yourself. Relax a little. Re-examine your life right now... is it the life you want to be living? Or are you too tired, too rushed to even realize that you're driving yourself into the ground? I spent two years here pushing myself to defy time, but it didn't get me anywhere. In the words of Citizen Cope... let the drummer kick. Trust me.

Goodnight, stinky town.

autumn rolls around

It's officially fall in stinky town. The sugar beets litter the road, our steam-heating system has fired up and has started spewing rotten marsh smells all over campus, and the refreshing winds of change have blown down most of the leaves from the orange-tinted trees.

I'm happy with it. Truthfully, if I don't have to run another meet in 80 degree weather, I'll be grateful for this cooler weather. Just don't bring in the arctic air for a few more weeks, please.

Anything new? Homecoming 2006 has come and gone. At least I don't have a bunch of extra things to worry about, now that it's over. And I'm finally done with my neuroscience midterm, and a 98% at that! Pretty excited. Although the fact that it was a take-home exam did make quite a bit of difference... after about 6 cumulative hours of working on it. Bleh.

Time to put away clean laundry and hit the hay. Goodnight :)

satisfaction

Mmmm... good 3 day-old dining center cookies, cold from the fridge... while I sit, relaxing after a long day, stretching out my socked-and-sandaled toes (yes, flip-flops and white ankle socks, they're such a good fashion combination for the season)...

Yes, it's true. Nothing could be better.

My parents are coming soon for family weekend!! And my first traveling meet... ooh, I'm kind of nervous. It'll be fun, and it's probably good that it's a down-and-back instead of an overnight trip for my very first. I was looking forward to the 6k, but I think I'll be okay with rockin the 5. Not too entirely distraught.

The weekend is sure going to be busy. Homecoming parade, football game, hockey game (well... just kidding. I guess I missed out on tickets for that one...), homecoming dance (woo yeah!), and being with mom and dad :) It's going to be good.

Life as of now? Busy. But not so much that I want to cry, so that's good. School hasn't been too hard on me. Extracurrics are kind of kicking me, and I could be doing a better job with those. I wish I had more time to apply for a real job... cause I need to do that eventually. Working at Altru in the ER would be pretty awesome. I finally have a house that I might/probably will be moving into this December!! My favorite cousin is finally getting married (after, like, 7 years or something crazy) to his amazing girlfriend, so that's rocking my world as of late. And... well, love life up here has been developing into something pretty great, so I'm excited about that too :) Cross is good, the workouts have been tiring, my muscles ache like crazy and there's absolutely nothing I can do to get these dang knots out of my calves and quads... but the girls are encouraging and the team is a lot of fun.

Time for some pretty satisfying sleep... and then a nice early morning run, perhaps. Have a great night, world :)

it's silly

I don't even really know what to post about. But I wanted to, so here I am.

I should be sleeping, since I have to work concessions tomorrow for the football game. We'll see how that goes... I'm supposed to have 7 other people working with me, and so far I have myself, and one of my friends. I guess I'm just not that convincing. Oooh, and we're supposed to do a tempo run tomorrow too, something like 5 miles at 80% race pace. Bleh.

I miss my family.

But this year is definitely going well so far. I like my classes, cross country is amazing, and I'm getting started on this whole making-meaningful-relationships thing. I think I've found someone who truly likes and cares about me... and I like him a lot too :) Life is good.

Oh, so anyway. I went shopping again and bought a new pair of jeans, a couple sweaters, and a tank. Winter is on its way... at least, it's felt that way the last week here. I hate this rainy, chilled-to-the-bone-soaked weather. Bring on a couple more weeks of 70s, please, God? Then all will be good, until January, when nothing can make -40 feel anything less than it is.

Good night, world, I'll catch up with you in the morning :)

i hate sundays in grand forks

Seriously, there is not a single thing open before noon in this place. The city leaders of the area can rest in the comfort of knowing that all the good girls and boys of UND are encouraged to go to church with this legislation, but in the meantime, my stomach is eating itself.

I guess things could be worse, though.

I realized that I've tripped over the same crack in the sidewalk on all of my walks/runs over to Bek Fitness. Right in front of Univ. Ave. I'm cool.

Today I'm actually going to get down to some serious studying. It's going to be awesome.

What I'm hoping for this week:
Good workouts and the ability to perform my best... and maybe getting to go along to the Griak?
No more twisted ankles. It still kind of hurts from last week.
Getting to know myself and my friends better each day.
Being able to understand what's going on in my Neuro class.
Being able to stay awake through the meaningless crap of Genetics (well, at least that's what it seems like so far).
Having the opportunity to just sit down and read for fun sometime.

The hunger pains are getting to me. I better stop writing, otherwise you might get the idea that I'm pissed off all the time. It's just the (lack of) food speaking; I'm actually in a really good mood besides that. More later :)

significant

Life has been good.

Apart from the fact that I accidentally erased all the music from my iPod when I connected it with the new laptop... and the fact that I can't get my old comp to stay alive for long enough to download my music library back onto the iPod. Damn technology. I should have never let myself grow dependent on it.

Oh, but it's such a good addiction.

More updates later. Breakfast now.

more than just whelmed

Gross, I just sneezed on myself. I'm probably getting sick. It's not a surprise. Sharing food at dinner, working out like crazy, running under the heat of the midday sun, not drinking enough water, eating loads of crappy food all day long as I try to appease this hunger... at least I'm getting enough sleep.

Mmm, hunger. It's such a good word to describe everything that's been going on. What am I missing in my life? God? Satisfaction? My family? Maybe all that. But I feel like I've been trying to fill that empty space with a whole lot of stuff that I'm maybe not intending to.

I want to be on the team. I want to practice, run, have fun with the team, all that stuff. Do I want to compete, though? Am I ready for the sacrifices I'll have to take to be up there with the rest of the team?

I went shopping again, like I did last week... it's expensive being single. You actually have to worry about what you look like ;) Not that I really do much about it anyway. But, yes, it was fun spending about $100 on new running clothes (more than I can say about the $91 I spent on a USED Lin Alg textbook).

The new laptop is fantastic. I can probably even sleep while it's still on and running. And it's shiny :)

Well, that's enough of an update for now. Keep your head on your shoulders, and try looking for mine if you get the chance.

prayer

God, give me the strength to run my heart out,

Give me courage to stand up for what I believe in,

Give me foresight to choose my words carefully, so that I don't end up looking like a dumb-ass when I say something I shouldn't have,

Empower me with the will to accomplish my goals,

And teach me to enjoy every moment of this life, even through times where I fail at every one of these things.

to be written

Just as the title says.