ZAP!

My right arm...side...whole body... still feels a little strange since I almost electrocuted myself today. -blushy- I had to unplug something to plug in the microwave to heat up some leftovers for lunch. It seems what I was trying to unplug wasn't plugged in all the way, so my finger hit the metal prongs. And well, you know how that goes. Eating pasta with a crappy plastic fork is hard enough, but having the post-shock shakes make it a lot trickier, haha.

In other news, Christi (see first ever post) died last week and that's just depressing. Her awesome parents, however, agreed to let her doctors try to establish a cell line, named FU NB 2006, with her cells for research. Hopefully that takes! (The odds are not good though.) It'd be pretty neat to use those for research I might do this summer. And in still other, less depressing news, only one kid from the shooting is left in the hospital and he's awake and off life support (the one shot in the head, obviously). Maybe I'll see him in ABI the next time I work.

Speaking of work, I would just like to say for the record that all units ending in the letters I-C-U are my friend. The nurses are inexplicably MUCH nicer and hey, the patient pretty much isn't allowed to move, making my job quite simple!

Kiss, Kiss...Bang, Bang

This is a bit overdue but oh well. There was a rather large shooing on campus here Saturday night. I was already asleep and I'm pretty much impervious to sirens now, so I didn't hear. But had I been awake, I definitely would have heard since it was all of, like, 500 feet away. Boo, living in the ghetto.

Luckily, today they arrested one of the guys that did the shooting. (There were two.) And a warrant is out for the other. Apparently, one of them got jealous that his girlfriend was "being friendly" with one of the basketball players. Now obviously, a hail of gunfire is the solution there. Minus the one that got shot in the head who is still in critical condition, the other 4 are doing fine.

I can't say that I'm reacting like lots of other people though. Aka: OMG, WE'RE ALL GOING TO GET SHOT AND DIE AT ANYTIME NOW! No, no. If it were completely random guy from off the street just decided to walk down A-Walk at noon on Tuesday and spray the campus with bullets, then I'd be peeing my pants. But these guys were at a big dance in the Union because one of their girlfriends must go here and they shot for a very specific...albeit ridiculous...reason. So calm down, people. The stupid girls in really pointy high-heeled shoes have a better chance of tripping in one of the missing brick holes on A-Walk, falling and breaking their necks than about 99% of the campus has at getting shot.

Hurrah!

I'm so excited! Phi Eta Sigma thought my suggestion of holding an Alex's Lemonade Stand was really awesome, so we're going to definitely do one during homecoming and try for another sometime in the spring. w00t! And since it was my summer questionaire suggestion...and no one else has any idea what it is...I get to be in charge. Yay for being involved! Pssst, see that medical school!

Hopefully we can raise lots of money since there's this big festival thingy during the football game. And lots of people come...and being the Duquesne people they are, I'm sure many of them are loaded. So hopefully we can guilt a few extra dollars out of them. And I'm thinking I can make my dad get me all the supplies for free. He pretty much owes me his soul after all the football stuff--seriously, you should see My Documents on this computer, its ridiculous--he's made me do. Plus, he gets all sorts of free stuff from people for the team, so he's already got connections. If nothing else I'm thinking we're going to have an "Undo's & Alex's Lemonade Stand."

And oh yes, I get to give a little talk about it at our next meeting. So I'm most likely going to freak out. Talking in front of people, AHHH! Or they're all going to think I'm nuts when I ramble on about pediatric cancer and such... Sorta like when I talk about babies...

I Hate Stupid People.

I think the title sums this one up: Stupid people suck. Now they particularly suck when #1 you're in an HONORS class, #2 they're trying to argue against the point you just made and #3 the points are ridiculous.

Yesterday, we talked about 9/11 in theology. This kid, whose name I don't know, went off on some tirade about various terrorist-related things. For instance, I had no idea that the Palestinians actually sold Israel all that land. Yep, happily sold it to them and now they've just changed their minds. Also, surveys show that Iran LOVES the United States. I don't know about you, but countries that threaten to blow mine off the face of the earth are always on my top 10 list. And finally, my absolute favorite: We are obviously safer now than we were five years ago since THERE HASN'T BEEN A SINGLE ATTACK SINCE 9/11. Riiight...

I did enjoy my professor's respone though: "Hmm, you certainly have an interesting interpretation of the history there."

Broken

Currently, two things are broken: my new digital camera and my immune system.

The camera was working wonderfully until all of a sudden, it told me it had a "focus error" and while I could view old pictures, I couldn't take anymore. Also, the lens doesn't zoom back in and fold into the body of the camera when I turn it off. So its getting shipped off to the repair people. Thank goodness for warranties.

Now for my immune system. Ty was getting a cold on Saturday and was pretty snotty all day Sunday, and well, being the pseduo-mommy that I am, I wiped a great deal of those boogers for him. And now it seems that he's given me his sickness. Except I also have a fever and feel like death. Hopefully he's not as sick since for him, fever=trip to the hospital. Now who wants to be in the hospital the week after they got all sorts of cool new birthday toys?!

Happy Birthday, Ty!

I went to visit Ty this weekend for his and Nate's birthdays. It was so much fun! We played monster trucks for about a million hours, gave all the stuffed animals check-ups with his new vet kit, went to the zoo, and had their birthday parties in the park! And there he is painting a beautiful picture for me with the paint set I bought him.

I was sad to leave this afternoon but I think the boys were worse. Ty wanted me to stay and play, of course, while Nate was mostly just depressed for me. He thinks that living at school must be the worst thing in the world. Of course, I'm pretty sure he imagines little cots getting rolled into the classrooms or something. And Lexie, one of Ty's friends, was terribly confused as to how I got there without my mommy, especially since I live 4 Batman's away. (That's two hours, aka 4 half-hour shows, to all the grown ups.)

And finally, I'm so happy that they--especially Ty--missed me and were so excited to see me. We had to sit in the very back of the van since its the only seat with 3 seat belts so I could sit between them on the way to the zoo...and we rearranged the place settings at dinner 100 times to make sure they could both sit by me. I feel so loved, lol. Only three weeks until the camp reunion!

Boycotts

Justin has his
Boycotts, and now I have mine.

1. Facebook: New but certainly not improved. I don't want to know that George is now friends with Joe...who I don't even know! And seeing the wall posts, that's a little strange.
2. The fancy Duquesne D: Improved internet service? Nope. Better bathrooms? Also, no. What we did get new this year, however, were new chairs in Towers. Now why did we need new chairs, you ask. Because the old ones didn't have our precious fancy-smancy D carved into the back. God knows it must be on everything. Even our stop signs. -tear-
3. Nickelodeon: Yeah, I know Nitza is boycotting it too, but really, Nick sucks now. Jimmy Neutron?! Pft! Any network that gives Britney Spears' sister a show just because she is Britney Spears' sister, yeah, you suck.
4. Tom Cruise: What have you done to Joey?! E! had some "Where are they now?" feature on the other day about Dawson's Creek kids the other day. It made me sad. Everyone else is living a nice, NORMAL life. Joey's been brainwashed. You love Pacey, not Tom! Also, their baby, whose pictures we released today, isn't all that "beautiful, breath-taking, yadda yadda yadda" looking.

Hmm, well I guess that's it until something/someone pisses me off.

The Week In Review

Classes started this week. That wasn't so thrilling but at least nothing seems like its going to be tooooo bad.

Monday: Four classes in four hours. My statistics professor looks like Barry and wears very tight pants. This disturbs me. Theology is AWESOME, however. We got a new professor (the other guy was supposedly really awful) and there are no tests or final. Just a couple paters. Then there's ochem. I think Karpyk actually did a decent job with that so I'm not terribly worried. I'm just pissed we had to buy our lecture notes...for $35, rawr! And finally, Arts & the Human Experience, ugh! Looking at naked statues/paintings and memorizing crap about them is not my idea of a good time. Damn core classes!

Tuesday: Only one class, Cell and Molecular Biology. Nothing special to say about the class itself other than we get 100 points...thats 20% of our grade...for just going to recitatio. Hurrah, easy grade padding! The highlight of the class, however, was one of our professors (we have two) telling us that the acoustics of the lecture hall are amazing. So amazing that we probably should think twice before telling our friend next to us about what/who we did last weekend or what/who we're doing this weekend. Even the slightest whisper is quite audible from where he's standing and well, he doesn't want to know that about his students.

Then I went over to Pitt to see Duane. I did not miss public transportation this summer. :( Oh well. I did find it rather humorous that Duane has to swipe his card and punch in his "PIN number" like 3 times to get to his room...its like a super-secure hotel.

Wednesday: Repeat Monday and add ochem lab in the afternoon, yucky! I got one of the non-English, reeeeeeally hard-grading TAs I had last year and that makes me sad. Luckily the other one is very American and from what I can tell, not terribly interested in having lab. So on weeks when the experiment is pretty short, we're going to do two (that day's and the next week's) thus giving us the next week off. I love her.

Thursday: Just bio again. Yay for one class days....except it sorta feels like the day didn't even happen so I was all messed up. The one class thing works out well for work though, so I did a 4 hour shift that afternoon. My patient had no legs and only one arm so needless to say, he wasn't going anywhere. But I still had to watch him like a hawk b/c his gf enjoys passing drugs to him..or so they think.. And who say's Weir High doesn't teach you anything? I can spot a drug deal from a mile away, haha.

Friday: Repeat of Monday. Stats professor's pants are still tight and disturbing. :\ But then Duane came over for the night and we ordered Chinese food. It was wonderful. Unfortunately, before I went to bed, Tyler's mommy got ahold of me to say she was having contractions (not due until October 20) and that perhaps it'd be better if I didn't come up this weekend. :'( I'm going to shoot for next weekend though. I miss my buddy!