100 Greatest Songs

Finals are over, my GPA is getting ever so close to rounding to 4.0 (3.9886... damn A-), and on most days, I can sleep indefinitely. So really, what else do I need?

Well, vh1 answered this question for me... clearly I need to relive the 90s' 100 greatest songs. Some of them--like the Pearl Jam and Nirvana stuff--I was too young to appreciate and they died off (in the case of Nirvana, quite literally, in fact) too soon for me to really care. But that's ok, those songs are more than balanced by all the awesomeness that was 90s musics: retarded rap-- a la "Baby Got Back," that Coolio song they always played at Skateland and those Snoop Dog videos where their cars bounce around and the marajuana leaves on their hats are blured out--the Spice Girls (Girl Power, baby!), boy bands (although *NSYNC didn't hit their prime until 2000... March 21, 2000, to be exact, when No Strings Attached was released. Yes, I still know that. Yes, I counted down and left post it notes for my mom in the morning reminding her to buy it. And yes, she bought it for me at Walmart at like 7:30 in the morning after dropping Tony off at school... Get over it.) and various other people I'd forgotten about but obviously liked, Destiny's Child, Mariah Carey, Boyz II Men, etc.

So what's this mean? I'm listenin to all my old CDs, of course! First I rocked out to the Spice Girls, whose concert Sarah and I almost went to. Damn Tuesday night concert! I soooooo would have bought tickets otherwise. Anywho, after the Spice Girls, we had some Mariah Carey. She was so good before she had a nervous breakdown and gave the TRL audience popsicles out of a little push cart. Oh well, at least she didn't get knocked up... twice... and shave her head? She even did a Journey cover. And now we're on Christina Aguilera. "Genie In A Bottle" was a good song, ok? It was even pretty high on the countdown, so ha! And of all the little whores who were shaking their butts at us back then, she turned out to be the least insane of them all... and she can definitely sing the best.

So, yes, 90s music is pretty kick ass. Next up: Aqua. However, they didn't make the countdown. "Barbie Girl" was robbed!

Over the limit.

Its Thanksgiving break and for college kids everywhere that means it time to go to the dentist, doctor, etc. Nothing ruins a good break like getting your gums skewered... or a visit to THE DOCTOR. Yeah, no fun to be had there. Plus that whole getting weighed thing... after weeks of eating complete crap because we're out of food with any nutritional value but too lazy to go to the store. Vegetables? ha!

But scoffing at vegies no more! Not that this will be terribly successful with Christmas on the horizon--cookies, glorious cookies!--but I was about a pound over my "limit." And going on a cruise in about 150 days, I'm not playing that game. So I'm going to eat tastey, healthy things and actually move. If only I ever worked out... or really moved at all... I'd be in good shape. So, uh, home people, if you see me eating cookies over break, scream "YOU HAVE TO WEAR A LITTLE BIKINI IN FIVE MONTHS!" at me and steal the cookie.

Twenty-one

Happy birthday to me! Turning 21 on a Sunday, oh boy! And to top that off, a Sunday that I was away at an American Cancer Society conference and during which I have 3 tests in the ensuing week, it wasn't such a 21st birthday. That's alright though, I'm going home to renew my license this Thursday after the last of those lovely tests and Jamie and I are making some "purchases" then. Yay, West Virginia alcohol availability!

But today wasn't a total bust, especially considering past birthday luck. Of course, there are the handful of sleepover meltdown disaster parties from before my mom made the rule that no more than 2 or 3 people could spend the night at a time. Good rule, that rule because it is definitely not a sleep over until someone cries or you all end up hating each other and glaring across the classroom/lunch table for about a week. Sixteen takes the cake though. I pretty much didn't have any friends and thus, was not planning a party so my mom had Sarah Culler (friendship on the way out) and Sarah Nicholas (friendship on the return) have a surprise party for me. Too bad everyone was kinda mad at each other or not really friends. Awkward much?

Tyler and Nate's Weekend Adventure

It was Siblings Weekend here at Duquesne and since my actual sibling is both too old for this and just generally sucks, I got kids that aren't actually even related to me to come! Ty and Nate came down for Friday night and all day Saturday. Good times...

First, they were really impressed with me living downtown and in a skyscraper. I guess if you're like 6 and don't ever really go downtown (Cleveland is set up a lot like Pittsburgh and Ty's hospital isn't really downtown, its a little away from there like Oakland... but with less bums.), large buildings and such are pretty impressive. And bridges, let's not forget about those, bridges are COOL! It must be nice to live somewhere that is both flat and doesn't require crossing several waterways to get anywhere more than across the street.

Then on Saturday morning we had brunch in Towers (Ty, the eating machine, was very impressed with all of the food. It was pretty much heaven.) and then went to play scientist in my lab. We played with dry ice in the sink for a while since that's amusing to anyone with a pulse, not just kids, and then we did an experiment. Nate's obsessed with acid now for some reason, so I lied and said my RNA loading buffer was acid (that was about the only thing I could find that looks cool... its bright blue... and wasn't really dangerous). So we pipetted some of that into water and vortexed it in little eppendorfs... very scientific and studious of us, haha. Then we looked at dead things in jars.

And then we were even more scientific and went to the Science Center! We did the photo booth, well, attempted it at least. The dark picture is Nate's cheek after he dove into the camera. The Omnimax movie freaked them out :-( so we had to run out of that after about 5 minutes but otherwise, they thought it was a really neat place. Especially since we got to make (and drink, of course) ginger ale in the kitchen theater... ooooh! aaaaah! And the gift shop, oh the gift shop... we bought shark teeth and diamonds (aka $5 chunk of amythest).

And finally, we ate... a lot. Jamie was really shocked when she came back from the library around 9:00 on Friday night and found us eating 10lbs of chicken nuggets. I'm certainly not kidding when I say Ty is a hungry, hungry kid.

Hiatus?

Oops, I kind of went away there for a while. Busy much?

And sadly, I think I came up with lots of posts I wanted to make, but never actually got around to them. The only one I can remember now, however, was going to be something about how Al Gore can laugh at George Bush a whole lot now. Sure, George "won" the election but he's pretty much the most hated man in the world right now. Al just won a Nobel Peace Prize (and let's be honest, George's name sure as heck isn't on that list.) and he's got an Oscar and, I think an Emmy, or something of that sort... and people still kinda like him.

But anyways, I think I'll be less busy now. My microbiology freakout is over. And the semester as a whole is winding down. And, Ty and Nate are coming to spend the weekend with me!

I win! I win!

It only took 5 years but I finally cracked my mother! They have agreed to let me keep a car at school!!!!!

Now I can drive to see Duane.... no more smelly/ghetto busses for me. And drive to the grocery store since Jamie is afraid of the Southside. And, well, I'm just gonna consider this a moral victory since I've been trying since the days of the "Kailey wants a car but isn't allowed to have one" college fund.

1997 Grand Am... kind of old but in excellent condition, hurrah!

Oh, my nose!

So there was a Power Ranger in the ceiling...

I spent the weekend at Ty's house and I think Nate broke my nose! The Red Ranger was somehow stuck in the rafters downstairs and I was about to pull him to safety. Well, Nate never pays attention, so he missed that and decided to throw something at it.

That something happened to be a matchbox car and it also happened to miss the Power Ranger and/or rafters by at least a foot or two. What it did hit, however, was me... right on the bridge of my nose.

Pain. Oh, the pain.

But I didn't scream any bad words in front of the small children, although Nate was a little freaked out that he almost knocked me out or something. But I wasn't so worried about it then. Now, however, I am home and it is brusing/swelling a little more.

And, oh yes, the best part: The car had a spoiler, which gashed me right across the nose. Oh yeah!

My Manifesto

It is very late and I have to wake up early to drive to Ty's house tomorrow so what the heck am I still up for?

Well, I just spent about an hour writing my 4 page "Why Kailey Deserves A Car" manifesto. You see, we recently purchased a fourth car. It doesn't take a mathematician to do the math here: 4 cars, 2 parents at home to drive them. So I offered to pay for the insurance if I could have a car at school. Yeah, that got shot down real quick.

So instead of trying to talk it out and just getting all pissy really quickly--let's be honest, that is what would happen. I decided to write my parents (read: my mom) a letter explaining why I should get the car. I think I argued my points very well, so we shall see. I plan on leaving it on the table when I leave tomorrow.

And now I'm going to sleep!

And breathe...

What a difference a few days makes! No more freaking out here and I can actually breathe again. That's probably what sucks most about being stressed: I actually cannot breathe. Thank you, viscious acid reflux.

Anyways, I did well, very well on my micro test; Duane and I booked a new cruise; and the mini-scare of the weekend that Ty's tumor was growing again ended up being nothing but chemo side effects. -whew-

So the new cruise... Its one less day than the other, which isn't as fun but that's alright. We're staying in a hotel for the extra day, which is kind of fun, especially if your name is Duane and will be returning to an apartment sans AC for the summer. ha! But the ship is better, I think. It has a mini-golf course on the top. At first I thought "Gee, wouldn't it be cool if they also had a driving range and you could whack balls into the ocean?!" but then I thought of that Seinfeld where George had to save the whale and it didn't sound so cool anymore. Oh well, the ship was apparently just remodeled last year so its all shiny and new!

And after spending about an hour on the phone with Delta just a bit ago, our air travel situation is all sorted out. To make a very long and very complicated story short, their site ate my reservations, cancelled un-cancelable tickets and I talked to about 5 different people, all of whom spoke a different language as his native tongue, on my quest to transfer the reservations. -whew- But its all fixed now and I even reserved the hotel! Yays, only 214 days til we leave!

Freak out!

No, I haven't died or been kidnapped. I've just been a little (read: A WHOLE FREAKING LOT) busy/stressed out. There are many reasons for this:

1. I have at least one exam, often times two or one exam and a quiz, every single week until Thanksgiving break. Shoot me in the face.
2. I've started tutoring. Hurrah, money! Boo, decreased free time!
3. "Gee, my school doesn't have a Colleges Against Cancer, I should start one." Thank you, Jesus, for letting someone else have the idea, too.
4. Micro makes me nauseous. He says "oh, wait, that was wrong" or "oh but that's getting off track..." at least once every 10 minutes or so. Also, bacteria are hard. Blech.
5. The cruise got cancelled. Carnival was like yeah, not enough ppl. -booking deleted- So trying to find a new one, rebook flights, hotels, etc is not a good time.

Oh well. I'm sure I will be immeasureably relieved when this week is over. Duane and I are booking a new cruise, I will know my micro grade and I only have one test (and its physics, so that hardly counts) next week, not three.

Excellent Weekend v2.0

So instead of spending this whole weekend with Duane like I did last weeken, I stayed with my next favorite boy, Tyler, and his family! Today is his 6th (omg, he's getting so old!) birthday, so I went up for the festivities.

First, the serious stuff, lol. It was so good to see him, especially after how he was at camp. The bubble is officially gone and no more steroids! (Random tangent: I always type steroids as "steriods," like the girls' track shirt that got screwed up in high school.) So needless to say, he was looking and feeling much better and acting 100% more Ty-like. He was a little sluggish and did puke once or twice but he'd just had chemo on Thursday afternoon so no biggie. And his coordination is coming back! He pedaled his big wheel (big wheels, oh yeah!) all the way down the street and back up... all by himself!!!! That's freaking HUGE progress!

But now for the best part of the weekend... Ty got a hamster for his birthday from his grandma so he can be all responsible now that he's 6. Ha! After thinking over what to name his new creature, he finally decided to name it Jessica: "I will call him... I will call him.... Jessica!" So he's pretty sure its a girl. Yeah, Jessica has very large hamster balls. Oh but wait! Jessica also only has one eye. Funky little flap of skin/gaping hole in the side of its head where one usually finds an eyeball.

The kids have yet to notice...

Excellent Weekend

So as predicted, this weekend was not bring. In fact, it was anything but.... well, except for when we watched the third Matrix and I took a small nap.

For as much as I was freaking out about being old and having my quarter-life crisis at this time last week, I am loving the whole "being old" thing this week. It's plenty of fun playing house, so to speak, with Duane for the weekend, especially since he certainly cooks better than I do, so I was well fed. And now that he has digital cable (instead of a cable box functioning as a really fancy clock), there was plenty of entertainment! I only made him watch Discovery Health Channel stuff for a couple hours Friday night, although he wouldn't let me watch "Labor Day" today (or I'd probably still be there). We watched a few movies--some of which were chick flicks, of course, and cost Duane some manpoints with Mike for DVR-ing them. I had to watch some Bloodsport, Underworld and as previously mentioned, the third Matrix. And then we played some Mario Kart on the N64 emulator. I think I got points the majority of the time, hurrah, I am improving!

Of course, we weren't couch potatos the whole time. Gotta get out for a little while when the temperature outside is actually much cooler than inside. It must be hard not to have AC all the time. :-p We did some walking in Schenley Park, which for some reason, I really enjoy. Outside and I do not always get along well--I'm all itchy and allergic to it, after all--but its always a good time to go for a walk in the park with Duane.

Yep, great weekend. Now I'm sad that its over. :(

Wow. This week was boring.

That about sums up my first week of the semester experience. Of course, you really can't expect much from the first class: "Here's a syllabus, this is when the tests are, yadda yadda yadda." Of course, the variation on that is a syllabus and explanation that makes you want to put your head between your legs and run away screaming and crying because the class sounds extremely unpleasant (like, say, my Honors Seminar... had some quality cries over that class). Luckily, I don't think I have any of those this semester. Here's what I do have:

• Mammalian Physiology: What more do I need?! Its like Rohal except probably easier. I love the professor--had her for Bio I freshman year-- and we're apparently going to be learning to interpret lots of lab and radiological tests. Yay, doctor skills! What could possibly not make this class my favorite, you ask. Sophia. This girl reminds me of Megan (Stevens) and wow, I cannot stand her. She wants to get together and quiz each other before tests. Oh, let's!
• Physics: So I "1-upped" in the physics dept. Instead of taking "Physics for Life Sciences," I'm taking General Analytical Physics. This is calc based and supposed to be "harder." Or, ya know, not a joke. Of course, I'm really just judging from the first two meaningful classes here, but I am not entirely sure this will be remotely challenging. Oh yes, the words "equation sheet" were mentioned.
• Superlab: I hated this class before I even went to it. 6 hours of lab plus one hour of lecture a week. What more can you do to ruin a perfectly good afternoon? After having gone twice, however, I don't think I will hate it as much. If not having done the stuff myself, I am at least somewhat familiar with about 75% of what we're doing this semester, so that's a plus. Also, I can work all the instruments (pipettes, oh my!) and do stuff very efficiently--all, of course, from having worked in a lab for a year already. We'll see just how much I do or do not hate this class after the first real experiment next week--Coomassie, oh yes! I love being blue for days. I do, however, anticipate asking "And just why doesn't research get me out of this?!" fairly often.
• Microbilogy: If any, I think this is the class that I am most concerned... or concerned at all... about. Micro is notoriously tricky stuff and although, I'm sure Dr. Castric is a great teacher, his voice makes me sleepy. Also, I hate protists. With a passion. I, however, cannot really say much more about this class since he wasn't here this week. We still had class though, of course, since I think having Santa used up all of my "class is cancelled" karma. But overall, I don't think this is going to be so bad. He gives quizzes fairly often, so that means by test time, we'll actually already have been tested at least twice. Hurrah for no studying. Also, I'll finally get to learn about fungi again.... I like the fungi.

And now I am off to spend the long weekend with Duane. Somehow, I'm thinking that will not be so boring. Teehee!

I don't wanna....

Go to school!

Classes start tomorrow and I am not at all excited about that. I am slightly excited, however, that there is no physics lab this week, so I do not have to get up for an 8 am tomorrow. But that doesn't really change the general unhappiness of school starting.

I can't quite figure it out--I just feel really off. Kinda pissed, kinda nervous. Mostly just funny about starting classes tomorrow. I only have four classes (plus research) so that is nice. But I'm still feeling very anxious, uneasy... I guess you could say. Heh, actually I think I'm having a mini-quarter life crisis. We're juniors this year. Holy balls, that is old! And I don't want to be a grown up!!!! Kind of freaks me out.

Well besides all that profound "I don't want to grow up" stuff, I am also a touch unhappy about not really having much of a summer. I got home at the end of the spring semester with just enough time to unpack and repack to come back for URP. And, well, I think that could have worked out a little better. Certainly wasn't the most fun I've ever had... And then I got home at the end of URP with just enough time to unpack and then box up just about everything and move back up here. Of course, there were two weeks between moving and now, but still, I was short on relaxation time. It is hard to lay around and relax when the house is covered in boxes of your stuff and packing is hanging over your head.

And the one week of "summer fun" I was looking forward to (camp) turned out much differently than I was expecting. I still had lots and lots of fun, but the whole experience this year was much more sobering. And it was definitely very emotionally taxing to answer all the "How's Ty doing?" questions early in the week, especially since it was quite obvious that the answer was "kinda crappy." But he did perk up at the end there, saving the week.

Also, I took a random mini-vacation to Kalahari with Duane and his cousins on Wednesday and Thursday. That was pretty awesome. I would say it was a perfect way to end the summer, but since I don't want to end the summer, it doesn't exactly work.

Haha, oh well, at least this summer was blissfully crazy people free.

Moving On Up!

Hurrah, hurrah! I'm all moved in and fairly settled at my Brottier apartment. Its almost like being a real adult. Damn, living in the ghetto and having to swipe the ID still.

Anyways, I'm actually quite impressed with our humble little studio. We do have quite a bit of floor space, which is nice since I was worried the furniture would somehow not all fit, although the kitchen is pretty much microscopic. And there is no counter space. That makes cooking difficult--very, very difficult. I predict third degree burns at least once. But no matter, the closet is AMAZING! And, yes, I'm aware that it is just a closet so I shouldn't be so excited, but still, this baby is huge! More shelves than you can shake a stick at (or than I can reach *blushy*). The bathroom is also fairly nice, although there is one errant hot pink Hawaiian flower on the wall. How did they miss that?

The best part of it all, however, is the view! Check this out!!!! I would keep the blinds wide open all day to admire it, but I think I might roast with the extreme sunlight and all. But the nighttime view is certainly where its at. I've watched the Gateway Clipper ships go by several times and load/unload at Station Square and I can see all the pretty sky scrapers downtown with their lights and such. Definitely better than staring at Stevenson St. and Mercy's Nursing School, which, btw, was built in like 1850 and has most certainly seen better days. *happy sigh* Its just so pretty!

Oh yes, one more thing. NO MORE TRAIN! I've seen the train go by across the river but haven't yet heard its obnoxiously loud whistle or the cars bouncing along the tracks. We will have peace!

756

I'm sitting here in my very, very cluttered room--boo, packing!--watching tonight's Pirate game, and the announcers are talking about how they will be in San Francisco this coming weekend.

Oh grand.

Barry Bonds still needs to hit that record breaking homerun. *cough, cheater, cough* And, well, nothing solves a batter's hitting problems like a Pirate pitcher. Seriously, I watched the opposing team's pitcher rip one over the left field wall the other night. THE PITCHER!

But anyways, I'm rather unhappy about the fact that, as I see it, fate will shake its cruel fist at the Pirates once again and he will hit his undeserving record #756 against our awesomely bad Buccos.

Edit: No sooner did I form this thought, type it out and click post than did Bonds hit that homerun. He doesn't deserve it, of course, but hurrah, it wasn't against the Pirates!

Are you kidding me?

I've been home for a few days now, and with that, incessant boredom follows. No one is home, the dog isn't around to pester anymore :(, and even if there were someone to do something with, it is Weirton. That eliminates pretty much all fun right there.

So what do I do? I watch TV. A lot of TV.

This extreme television viewing has lead to me seeing the same commercials over and over again. And one of them, a commercial for Valtrex, drives me freaking nuts!

Valtrex, if you're not familiar, is an anti-viral that's used to treat genital herpes. Not to ruin anyone's dinner... or the next week's worth of meals... or anything, but let's just say that the picture of genital herpes that was in the anatomy book from Rohal's class wasn't pretty. If the caption had no identified that particular part of the anatomy (female, btw), I would have never known what I was looking at--too covered in nasty blistery things.

So on that note, I think it's safe to assume that there's nothing cuddly about herpes. Why then, I ask you, is the Valtrex commercial so lovey-dovey and cuddly?!?! The couples in it are all happy when they're like:
Person 1: "I have genital herpes!"--Seriously, how can anyone be excited about that?
Person 2: "But I don't!"
And then they cheerfully talk about wanting to keep it that way. Again, how can you be excited about that? "Gee, honey, you're looking a little crusty down there... hope I don't catch anything!" Said while smiling, of course.

Come on now!

D-O-N-E!

Today was our URP symposium, which means that the summer of research is officially over! Oh yeah!

In the past week, I've finally gotten some fluorescence experiments to work. Its actually not a bad technique when it works properly. Quite easy, actually.

I even got to talk about it to a few people. Granted, 99% of the people that stopped to ask questions or have it explained were from my lab (They all work on a different project so it's actually all new to them.), but a few other people stopped and seemed fairly intrigued. The guy whose poster was across from me wasn't too interested, though. He's a straight chem major and, to quote him, "DNA, RNA--yeah, don't really know much about all that stuff..." So I used my fingers to illustrate my RNA reaction, precisely how I explain it to non-science people, and he seemed to get it. Everything is better with a little finger play illustration!

Afterwards, most of our lab went to Breugers downtown for a snack and some drinks. That's always a fun time. I gotta say, I think I'm quite lucky to have joined the lab I did. I don't know if any of the others go out together or not. And here's a picture of me, Jasmine and Julie on the way back. Jasmine was only here for the summer (She goes to George Mason), so we're all going to miss her.

Colleges Against Cancer

Lately I've been toying with the idea of starting a Colleges Against Cancer at Duq. It's the American Cancer Society's college affiliate club. It focuses mainly on awareness and advocacy and so far as I can tell, there aren't any required ACS-specific projects that you need to do. So I took the plunge and emailed the people to ask about how to start a chapter here.

Well, don't ya know that in the past few months, two other girls have done the same thing. I think I sorta know them actually. Also bio majors. Anyways, we're going to set up a conference call with the local ACS lady sometime next week and get things started. I'm so happy that other people are interested and I won't have to guilt Jamie, Nicole and Becky into helping me out.

I already have like a million ideas for projects too. These other girls are going to kill me. Toy and postage drive for Jennifer, Alex's Lemonade Stand, blood and marrow donor drive, Cure Search walk, just to name a few.

Yay! Let the planning begin!!

I feel so grown up.

In only 283 days, Duane and I will be leaving for our cruise. I just finished booking the hotel and plane tickets. I feel so grown up.

I got ma'am-ed and everything on the phone. Although from the sound of her voice, the girl booking me was probably like 15. She was surprisingly unconfused by my request for the special cruise package (Stay one night with transporation to/from both the airport and cruise terminal.), so I appreciated that.

Now it just needs to be May.

The End is Nigh.

Well, I've officially given up on society. We're doomed. The world will be overrun in the population crisis created by all the little middle school whores punching out babies like they're rabbits.

How have I reached this conclusion? I just saw a commercial for the upcoming move: Bratz! The Movie. Oh yeah, that's what we need. Real life 12 year old whores for girls to idolize. -sigh-

This movie pretty much caps off my whoring of America theory. Bratz dolls and the Limited Too are to blame. Look at this lovely doll here. Little skank! Sure, Barbie gives you poor self-esteem, makes you want a boob job and throw up your dinner to be skinny, but hey, she had a job! Lots of them, in fact. Bratz just look pretty and shake their little plastic booties.

And then we have Limited, Too. I once loved that store. Actually, I kind of still enjoy that I can purchase some things there. However, saving money buying the kid size over the adult size since I'm a midget only goes so far. Sure, all little girls want to dress like the "big girls," but now that includes big girl undies... aka thongs. I couldn't find any on the website though, so I think the outrage over that a few months ago might have prevailed. Thats alright, I'm sure Abercrombie Kids sells them. They do still sell plenty of clothes that probably aren't for your average 8 year old. Super skinny low rise jeans! They show off that thong, ya know.

PS: In an effort to keep up with the times, Barbie is now all hip and urban too. At camp, we discovered the new "Urban Barbie" comes complete with tattoo... on her hip bone. Tramp!

The USA, the CQ Way!

I'm home! I can't decide if I'm happy about that or not. I could definitely do another week of camp, but I think I'd need some (read: a freaking huge amount) of sleep and plenty of boyfriend time in between.

Here's a rundown of our week:

Sunday: It took almost 2 or 3 whole hours before Ty requested a trip to crafts to make something. I think that's a record for any day at camp. He usually wakes up like "I want to make something!" Our cabin seemed pretty awesome, too, (no old lady this time, woo!) and all the little guys were sooooo adorable... Ty still wins, of course! There were so many of them though! Instead of one cabin, half little girls and half little boys, we had a whole cabin of the under 8 boys and a whole cabin of the under 8 (and a few developmentally delayed) girls. All these little ones resulted in an expanded play area. Our sandbox is huge now (Thanks Carpenter Lou!) and we had painting, play-doh and slime making, and a variety of small toys out all the time. I was a little sad though; it is very obvious that Ty isn't feeling quite up to par and has slowed down a lot since last year. He wasn't running around with the other kids and wanted to hold my hand to walk anywhere because he's afraid of falling. Poor kid.

Monday: The day started out good. I hammered about 50 things in the wood shop and Ty painted them (read: Painted them a little and himself and me a lot.). It was really hot though, which definitely caught up with us. Our evening activity was a trip to an Akron Aeros baseball game. They loaded us all onto some busses and off we went, all wearing matching shirts. It started out pretty cool. They announced us and we got to parade around the field, a couple campers got to throw out the first pitches and a few more got to announce the batters each inning. But, as I said, it was hot--REALLY HOT-- and 5 year olds aren't so thrilled with baseball. The result: major breakdown. Ty started freaking out that he needed to go home. So we ended up going back to camp in one of the program director's car with another little girl that got zapped by the heat, but the meltdown didn't really subside for quite a while. Luckily, after talking to mom and spending some much needed time in the air conditioning, he had calmed down enough to fall asleep and have a good night. I was worried though--I could tell he wasn't feeling well and wasn't sure if he'd make it all week.

Tuesday: Another toasty day, ugh! But Ty seemed to be alright... until after horizontal time. He had another freakout, but this time, I got him calmed down a lot faster and got some pretty good help with getting him in a better camping mood. It was pretty obvious that he just didn't have it in him to walk everywhere and still have energy to play, so we got our own golf cart. Talk about a turn around! He was like a new kid!!! First we decorated the golft cart--it was pretty awesome looking--and then we spent a lot of time just driving around to look for stuff to do. It made a huge difference. He actually helped me hammer some nails and completely painted his crafts. He had been painting a little and going "I don't wanna anymore, you finish," and just sitting there, looking completely miserable. The highlight of the day, however, was the inflatables. Ty said he didn't want to do them, just watch (a sure sign he wasn't feeling well), but by the time they were there, he was feeling better and did a few of them: the obstacle course once, the big slide a few times and he LOVED the slide/bouncy house combo that he and Ashley (a little girl who also has a brain tumor and is pretty fragile too) got some special time in. He even ran! I was so happy to see him run!!! Priceless.

Wednesday: Hump day and the definitive turning point in our week. Even though he had fun Tuesday, Ty still said he wanted to go home. This day changed all of that. It rained all morning, which really helped it cool down, so we had a very relaxing morning watching Power Rangers in the "quiet cabin." And then it was prom time. The boys were sooooo NOT excited about that, but it ended up being really good for Ty. The boys were all playing in the lobby during the dance and another little guy, Will, had a Transformer and asked Ty to play with him. They played for a while and when we left, Ty looks at me and says: "Kailey, me and Will are going to be best friends now! I want him to play with me all of tomorrow." You have no idea how happy I was--there are not words. Just what Ty needed! Also, haha, Brandon, Jen's little guy, devoured--absolutely tore through!-- five chicken legs. It was hilarious.

Thursday: Ty only said he wanted to go home once in the morning, but then we hung out with Will and never looked back! Ty had been playing third wheel..and a flat tire at that.. to Nate and Travon all week. He was mad they didn't want to play calm things with him and they were mad that he couldn't keep up, but Ty just wouldn't separate from them. Will had also been playing third wheel to a couple of slightly older boys, so both of them really needed to find a buddy. Things couldn't have worked out better. We did pretty much everything together all day (minus a boat ride with Nate and Travon in the afternoon), and here we are with Will and his companion, Brittany, at the film festival. Some of the kids made movies (a real Hollywood director comes to help them), so we watched them on a big screen in the field. Ty had so much fun, he didn't even mention wanting to talk to Mom or going home again!

Friday: Excellent day yet again. We spent the entire day with Will and Brittany, which was so fun. The boys played together so well. We went on a boat ride and fed the ducks. We fished a little with Ashley and then spit at fish off the docks a little later. Fish do really like spit, lol. The best part, however, was that not only was Ty running, albeit slowly, around the playground, he actually hung on the jungle gym, climbed a tire, and swung on the swingset... with Will pushing him. Too cute! Our cabin also got pranked by the little girls. There was TP everywhere. So we spent the night planning our revenge. It was hilarious and actually got filmed for the news.

Saturday: Boo, going home. Ty and Will were very sad to leave each other and talked non-stop about playing at each other's houses. Ty lives near Cleveland. Will lives in Indiana. Eek! But they did at least exchange phone numbers and might get to see each other at the camp parties throughout the year. I was sad to leave, just like last year, especially since not only do I miss the kids but all of the companions in our cabin got along very well and I'd like to hang out with those girls more... in a non-childcare setting, of course, lol. Only about 360 days until camp next year!

Random happenings: On Sunday, we saw some turtles, uh, hugging/piggy back riding. The kids had no idea, ha! Ty told me-- in a very excited but secretive voice--that his "bubble" (pocket of fluid that collects under his scalp) was gone one morning. Kinda sad that he has to worry about that, but also very touching that he feels close enough with me to run and tell me. (He wouldn't tell anyone else when they overheard and asked what his bubble was.) We had "The Great Poop Watch of 2007" with Brandon. Poor Jennifer. He wasn't potty trained (He's 6 but has Down's.) so she was quite aware of the lack of poop. That and the kid was starting to look pregnant by mid-week, so the nurses whipped him up some magic poop-making juice and we waited. It arrived in grand fashion.. and massive amounts. Aren't kids fun?

I have a thousand more fun stories to tell, of course, but you should just ask me about them instead!

I'm there... and off!

Good morning! Its finally the Best Weekend Ever... and sorta mostly over, but eh, whatever.

Friday night with Duane was excellent, of course. We saw Evan Almighty, which was decent, and ate at the southern place at the Waterfront. Shrimp!

Yesterday's baseball game was, um, an adventure. Stevie is officially an annoying preteen with the "I'm too cool for this" pissy little attitude. It wasn't so bad until we were walking to PNC Park and ended up walking way out of our way because my mom's directions of "just around the corner from home plate to the left" should have been "down the street TO THE RIGHT of the home plate entrance." It was really hot, you see, and I have a speed walking problem while Stevie informed me that he "can't walk cool going that fast." -thwack- I wanted to kill him before we eventually found the tailgate place. Undo's cheesy bread fixed it all though. Unfortunately, the Pirates couldn't really be counted upon to make it an exciting game. I don't even remember if they scored any runs...

And now for today. I'm leaving for camp in about 10 minutes and getting in my last bit of computer time. Yay Camp Quality!!! I'm so excited to see my little buddy and have some fun. See everyone in a week... with about 500 pictures, I'm sure.

I'm so close..

I'm so excited for the weekend. In fact, it needs to get here RIGHT NOW, or I might go insane.

But before I get ahead of myself, I should probably say that today was an interesting day. I got to lab at like 7:15 because Suma had me make some changes to the fluorescence and it was going to take me like 8 or 9 hours to do it. I'm not entirely sure she realized that though. Argh. And miracle of miracles, it started working on the first try, but then she got there and decided we needed to change it some more, so I should stop and restart. Yeah, too bad it started screwing up again after that and I had to restart 400 more times. By that point, however, my rage at both the fluorescence and Suma's hovering/belittling treatment (I know she means well but it was really getting to me) boiled over.

So to make a very long story short, we stopped the experiment and decided to just wait until I get back from camp in a week to continue. That definitely saved me a broken fist and either Suma a broken face or the lab a broken fluorescence machine because I rather wanted to hit something. And then we went to Mad Mex for Julie's birthday and had an ice/squirt bottle water fight when we got back to the lab.

But now for the important part: this weekend. I'm sooo excited. Tomorrow being Friday, that, of course, means staying with Duane, which I always look forward to; and on Saturday, I'm watching Stevie and going to the Pirate game. And then, hurrah hurrah, Sunday is Camp Quality. I'm really super excited not only because Ty is feeling good and able to go (big sigh of relief there) but also because I'll get a nice, relaxing week-long break from the grind here. Good stuff... even if I do really miss Duane every night when I'm bored -blushy- and will be saying "I have to go potty" instead of "I have to go to the bathroom, restroom, pee, etc" for the next week and may spontaneously slip back into the "little kid voice."

Eww!

Happy Independece Day everyone! Guess what I've done so far...

No, I didn't go to a cookout or parade or any other festivities. I woke up at an hour before noon to go pour a large gel in my lab. Now doesn't that sound fun? No, I didn't think so.

The best part about that, though, is that I'm now covered in said gel. I wore shorts--knee length, so they pass safety regulations!--which, of course, meant that I had to spill just about everything that could possibly have been spilled... all over myself. So now I'm on the lookout for loss of neurological function, oh yeah! The chemical that makes up the gel-making solution--yeah, its a neurotoxin.

But pft! No more lab for me today. I'm going to enjoy the rest of my day "off" and wait for Duane to get here to watch the fireworks... and keep looking for those neurotoxin effects.

Booked!

And now for something completely different...

I still hate science and am probably going to be in the lab for at least a part of my weekend and possibly the 4th of July, but we'll leave that alone for now. I've got bigger, better news. Much, much better news.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have officially booked a cruise!!!!!! Duane and I booked it this evening. It is a 5 day cruise to the Bahamas. Leaves on May 3, although we're going to fly down a day early just to be safe, so that will be an excellent post-finals (last possible day is April 30) treat.

I am soooooooo excited! Like really, REALLY, REALLY excited. There are not words. Its probably going to be the greatest week of my life times 1000. Haha. Let the countdown begin: 310 days!

Ugh! v. 2.0

My fluorescence finally worked! Unfortunatly, since it was up and running, Suma thought I needed to do like 50 of them a day to make up for it. Okay, mabye I could do 2, perhaps 3 a day to get a decent amount of data this week...but this all assumes the problem is absolutely resolved and I can easily run through each experiment. Yeah, I didn't see that happening.

And, oh don't ya know, problems return. No matter what, I can either not get it started at all or my readings are so inconsistent, they're pointless. An experiment doesn't mean anything if you can't reproduce those results. I definitely cannot do that. Ugh.

My biggest problem, however, is not that the experiment itself will not work. Oh no, it is that Suma seems to think it is entirely my fault and that I am either completely retarded and screwing it up that way or am sabotaging it for some reason. Oh yeah, I really enjoy spending 8 or 9 hours everyday working for absolutely no gain. I'm just loving it. Come on!!! But really, she thinks I can't do anything. I make new samples when we're out and she's like oh no, I'll make some, you use them. Because I can't twist a knob to set numbers on a pipette? No, I didn't think so. Apparently, I'm incapable of doing even that. And, well, a whole bunch of other "omg, Kailey, you are retarded and I need to watch you like you're five" moments, but really, listing them all out will just bore you and piss me off even more.

How many days 'til camp? I need a break!

Good Grief!

I must be cursed with bad luck this summer or something. Nothing will go right for me at the moment--nothing!

First of all, there's my research. We're now going into the 5th week of work and what do I have to show for it? A week's worth of hair-pulling days, all of which ended in more confusion than they began and yielded no results, and the previous three weeks' work is currently in the fridge, quite litterally chilling, until I get a break from my fluorescence hell.

You see, I've been trying to run this one--ONE--experiment for like two months now. I was supposed to get it up and running before finals... in April. The buffer was bad, so we just decided that would be what I'd start with in the summer. But oh doesn't it just figure, that while we have perfectly good buffer the sample and 800,000 other things have screwed up in the meantime. So now, instead of running a new experiment everyday or every other day, I have been fighting with the same one to start. Not even to get good end results, just getting the damn thing to run! Ugh!!!

And then there is my man Tyler. He also just cannot get a break. Just when it looks like he's back on track and going to finally get better, he either gets another fever or the pressure in his head spikes up again so back to the steroids. And lately, they've found tumor cells in his spinal fluid. Not good. Not good at all... times infinity. Hopefully, he's getting his shunt in either late this week or early next, so he will at least feel better. And depending on how things go, his mom asked me to come stay with him for the weekend like I did a few weeks ago. She needs a break and to get plenty of things done around the house since no one has really been there for about a month and a half now and I'm more than happy to go spend some time with him and the other kids. The baby! I'm still not sure if it will be hospital time or play at home time, though, but I'll take either. I wish we lived a little closer together, so I could see him more. Another companion said at training that he sees his camper about twice a month, I'm so jealous!

Mostly, though, I just really hope that he gets everything smoothed out in time for camp. Poor Ty-guy hasn't really done anything fun all summer long, so he really, really needs to get out and be a kid at camp, which he is really looking forward to. Well, minus the showers apparently. Meg said that he's got this major issue with taking a shower again this year, which from last year's standing there like "omg, why can't camp have a bathtub?!" performance, I can't say that I blame him. Five year olds take baths! So I really, really hope he's well enough to go and dig in the dirt by our "cabinent." Luckily, it is cancer camp and they can accomodate quite a lot, so that should help, and at this point, I think his parents are willing to do anything to get him there.

Fluorescence and brain tumors, good grief!

Arrrgh!

Since movie going didn't work out last weekend, Duane and I went to see Pirates 3 last night. Oh man. I freaking love this movie!

If you haven't seen it yet, I won't ruin anything--suffice it to say TRAGIC LOVE STORY! Oh, so tragic! Of course, if you're a boy, thats probably an interesting, perhaps distracting side plot that means nothing since the main story (lies! its all about the romance, of course.) is the pirate adventures and the movie ends with Jack in a little row boat, chasing after the Black Pearl, conviniently leaving the story open ended. Of course, having raked in a bajillion dollars in only a few weeks, the open ended ending was, of course, a set up for Pirates 4... and probably 5...

So yeah, I would see it again. Definitely. And probably also almost cry again. -blushy- Tragic love... tragic love, I say!

There's always next year...

Its mid-June and we're now approaching the middle-ish part of baseball season. So, you guessed it, that means its time for us suffering Pirates fans to look toward next season as the year they'll turn it around. Fourteenth losing season, here we come!

What prompts this post? I went to the game tonight. But wait, you say, they won. Well, yes, yes they did; however, they won in true, crappy Pirate fashion.

When Duke, who went from being the pitching messiah his first season to limping through maybe, maybe five innings per start, came out at the end of 6, the score was 7-2. Zach kept it together and pitched a good game and the offense decided it was homerun derby day or something (3 in the first 6 innings), so it looked like we were going to run away with this one.

But wait, the phone just rang in the bull pen. Yep, bull pen comes in, Pirates lose. But hey, at least its 7-2, that's a pretty good lead, right? Good, but apparently not comfortable enough. Can't just easily win, gotta make us sweat it out. The 7th inning went well--miraculously. The 8th and 9th... not so much. Gave up 1 run in the 8th, alright, I'll take it. But then we get to the 9th. Double. Next guy: double, run scores. New pitcher. Double, run scores again. Another new pitcher. Three straight outs, game over, Pirates win.

Now, you'll notice that last pitching change seemed to be effective. Gee, I wonder why... Let's see, we're in the 9th inning and winning (-ahem- WINNING!) and other than Matt Capps, our shiny new closer, the bull pen has been particularly awesome at pissing away huge leads. Clearly, Capps starts the 9th and closes out to an easy victory. Nope, gotta make things interesting, let two runs score and put base runners on so that what was an out of hand, run away of a game is now about to slip away. Ugh! At least they did manage to win.

But wait! It was against the Rangers. Yeah, they have the worst record in all of baseball.

Oh well, there's always next year...

Longest Day

Today was our Camp Quality companion orientation/training thingy, so I was off bright and very early to make it there by 9:00.

Last year's training only lasted until about 2:00, I think. I know that I was back in Steubenville to meet Sarah and Becca at Applebee's by about 5:30 or so and that is after I had to go on a HUGE detour because the highway I needed (which I got lost trying to take a short cut to) was closed because a large truck decided to do gymnastics. So since I wasn't going to get lost this time (I finally know where I'm going!), I expected to be out of there and on my way home pretty quickly. And argh, if I only I weren't still a little sick, I was going to stop and visit Ty for a little while on my way home, depending on what time it was.

Well, as it turns out, I certainly didn't need to worry about missing out on visiting Ty because I was sick. Since I wanted to get back to school tonight so Duane and I could go out, I figured I'd only stop if we got done pretty early. Oh no. We were there the whole eight hours. EIGHT HOURS. That is eight hours of what to do when your camper wets the bed, gets homesick, etc. I do not like new rules that say we must complete all 8 hours of the training. Ruin my day.

I pulled out of the camp grounds at about 4:50 and made it home a couple minutes ago, just before 7:00, which is early enough to get back to school but too late to go see Pirates 3 since its forever long. Oh well, at least we can get dinner and oh man, I am starving.

I hate today.

I woke up this morning, wonderfully surprised to breathe out of my nose. Maybe I'm better after only two days? All right!

No, it was fate's cruel trick to make me optimistic about my day so it could then knock me down and kick me a few times while it was at it.

To avoid rambling, I'll do a nice, neat numerical list of why my day sucked up one side and right down the other... twice.

1. The plan: Boiling my already concentrated RNA for 5 mins, letting it cool for 20 and running a gel for several hours, taking it down around 5:00 and getting on my way. What actually happened: Sample not even close to done concentrating, spent 10 hrs trying to get it down to 1ml, settled on about 4ml and left my gel to run very slowly overnight. Yeah, thats gonna be really ugly in the morning.
2. The plan: I talked to my mom last night and she informed me that Brownie had been doing really, really crappy lately. Won't eat, can't hold it so she pees everywhere and generally acting weird and sickly, so they determined it might be "time." But don't worry, we'll wait til you come home this weekend so you can see her again. What actually happened: My phone rang at about 6:30, when I was still in my lab, btw, which is ridiculously late, and it was my "home is calling" ringtone. Well, dog was way worse today. So they took her to the vet and she's gone. :'(
3. The plan: Ty was going to clinic today to start his new chemo. Hurrah, getting back on track with treatment! What actually happened: He's scheduled for surgery to get a shunt back in (big surprise there -rolls eyes- stupid doctor) and has a fever, so chemo is on hold for quite a while and possibly surgery too while they wait to see about the infection.

Yep, today sucked. Unfortunately, I think tomorrow will be worse. Argh. :-\

Seriously now?!

Who gets sick in June? JUNE?!?! It's summer, time for fun in the sun, not exactly the season for sniffles. But alas, I woke up this morning with the sniffles and more! I feel like complete crap.

Luckily, all I had to do was pipette a couple things, pour some alcohol and stick two tubes in the freezer for 24 hrs, so I took the day off from lab. Had there not been incessant sawing and hammering on the roof and a random, unnecessary fire alarm (just my floor, btw), I might have had a quality nap, but hey, at least I should sleep like a rock tonight, right?

Well... assuming I don't die from the mega doses of cold pills I've taken. Hurrah, blood pressure problems!

Insanity!

Well, folks, I have officially lost it. In the past three days, I have attended a wedding, learned of an engagement and looked at about 600 pictures of yet another wedding. And all this wedding hoopla results in a very insane Kailey.

I am certainly not a girlly girl, at least 99.999999% of the time. No pink, no dressing up for the heck of it and definitely no stupid girl drama and giggling things. Weddings, however, are the major exception to my lack of girlishness. Of course, Sarah and I have had ours in the works since we were like 5, so it isn't as if I've never thought about it before. More recently though, like with all the "What is April 25, 2008?!?!" craziness, there has been some serious consideration. And A LOT of sleepless nights for me and Jamie. She's going to have a penguin ice sculpture, lol.

All of that hypothetical stuff all night with Jamie was fun but -blushy- it doesn't hold a candle to my wedding hoopla-induced insanity of late. I'm going to say its a widely known phenomenon that woman + wedding = omg, I want to get married!!! but I have officially lost it. In fact, I have been debating somewhat poofy and gathered kind of skirt (like Belle in Beauty and the Beast) vs. a sleeker lacy dress. Because clearly, I need to make that decision tomorrow. -rolls eyes at self- Yeah, I was definitely on Cloud 9/an emotional mess after the wedding on Saturday night as I went about my insane dress search.

Today in lab takes the cake though. Tim is back from his wedding and had a million pictures to show us, which, being a lab full of women, we pounced upon. Not entirely unlike rabid animals either. So yeah... his wedding was just about what I want mine to look like. Red and white for the colors, bridesmaids wearing tea-length dresses instead of full gowns. Only the flowers were off. They had some sort of pansy looking thing; I want red roses and white lilies. The actual ceremony were the best, however. Manly ol' Tim was a wreck. He was bawling like a little girl in just about every picture. Aww! He was all embarassed that we were sort of laughing at him but I was like oh no, I totally support the crying, its so sweet! Add to this a lab full of girls and the question of "wonder who will be next?" and you've got a recipe for some serious wedding hysteria.

That was an interesting convo. Josh doesn't want to get married because he doesn't want to have to "worry about what the wife is doing and likes [his] freedom," Suma seems terrified by the question and Medhavi is like "ahh, not yet! I don't even have a boyfriend!" Meanwhile, Tim is talking about being an emotional mess, Tyler is anticipating the same at his wedding and I'm like "sign me up!" So I proceeded to have a very nice, albeit quite womanly, chat with the boys. It was nice and even if I did get very blushy, I really do enjoy talking about Duane and that stuff with people... even if Tim did call us freaks for being able to stay together through college from high school.

Hmm, well I think I'm officially heading toward rambling now... So if you'll excuse me, I have dresses and cruises to look at. -blushy-

Ugh!

I was asleep. Peacefully asleep after a long day of lab work. Asleep, I say, in case you haven't gotten the point.

However, I have just returned to my room after evacuating for a fire alarm. Ugh, I hate dorms.

Best Week(end) Ever

I had quite the eventful weekend. Lots and lots of fun.

On Saturday, I went to visit Tyler--my favoritest little guy ever! Well, big guy, he yelled at me once for calling him "little guy," which is my nickname for Stevie and sort of comes out by default with little boys. Oops. Anyways, since he's still in the hospital, I sat with him for the day while his parents took the baby to the zoo. I'm sure they enjoyed the break and time together and I definitely had fun with Ty!

We colored and painted and colored and painted, over and over and over again. And, of course, he ate and ate and ate, too. Gotta love the steroids, which have definitely caused him to get a little plump. I was not anticipating lifting an extra 15 lbs or so when I had to get him in/out of bed to go potty. Almost broke my back! But nonetheless, we had lots of fun! He was so cute when I got there. He and his mom were waiting in the PICU lobby for me and I walked out of the elevator and he got this big grin on his face and hopped right up out of his chair, which is pretty impressive for a kid whose brain is infected. And then we helped feed his sister (She is the cutest, happiest baby on the planet, btw!) before his parents left and we commenced our coloring and painting bonanza. All in all, a very good day.

The next day, Sunday, I went to Seneca Lake with Duane and his family. That is always an adventure. I was planning on being brave and riding the jet ski but they weren't out so oh darn, I got out of it. I did drive the golf cart and ride on the quad for quite a bit with Duane, though. The quad thing is quite impressive for me since, as Duane will probably quickly tell you, I am a HUGE pansy and terrified of the things. They're dangerous! They flip and kill you! Yep, death traps, I say! Now if only my allergies hadn't been so bad... Stupid pollen!

Luckily, the allergies had improved by Monday when we spent the afternoon at Duane's aunt's house. I ate way too much, but I think Duane's trampoline abuse (abuse, I say!) managed to undo most of that. -sigh- I wish my family didn't suck and we had impromptu cookouts. But anyways, then after his mom dropped us off at Pitt, I spent the rest of the evening there with him, which is just about the most perfect way to spend the evening, of course. :)

Q: So what exactly can you make with a hot pot and a microwave?

A: Quite a lot, actually.

Now that I've been at school for about a week, I'm starting to hone my hot pot and/or microwave skills. Why not just eat on campus? Well, colleges seem to think that while you can stay here and work or take classes (for a whole lot of money, I'm sure), you do not require food.

To be fair, though, I should mention that at least we do have dining fascilities open and you can purchase a meal plan. Duane cannot even do that. However, don't let this fool you: our options suck. First of all, there is only one place open at a time. The City View Cafe for breakfast and Off Ramp for lunch and dinner, so you don't get much variety. Then there are the hours. Or should I say lack of hours. Breakfast lasts 2.5 hrs, making it 1.5 hrs longer than any of the other meal times. What if I can't get out of my lab between 11:30 and 12:30? No lunch for me, although I did check out the offerings one day-- burgers, a salad or grilled cheese--gee, what a diet. Grr! The worst part, however, is definitely that while you can purchase a meal plan, it can only be the 19 meal option. That's 3 squares a day during the week and two each day of the weekend. Yeah right.

But back to my newly discovered cooking skills. I made Shrek mac & cheese in the hot pot today and it was scrumptious! The character noodle shapes make is much better, I think. Katie was impressed, too. Haha. I've also had a variety of Ready Rice things. They are surprisingly tastey. Next on the cooking agenda: pre-cooked Tyson's chicken pieces and some green beans, corn, etc. Yay, vegetables! Sadly, good vegetables are what I miss eating most at school. Now if only I could reliably open a can...

Relief

-whew- Big sigh o' relief. Katie, that is my roommate's name, does not hate me! Actually, she's pretty nice and we seem to be getting along quite well. And the not in English thing, she's Asian so that explains it, lol.

This week has gone much better than the nightmare I was predicting on Friday. Lab has been pretty good. I was surprised she had me start working right away. Just a small scale transcription reaction, but I was still rather jealous of all the people who got a paper to read and then the day off. Of course, the reaction didn't freaking work but I started the large one anyways and oh joy of joys! I had a pretty big amount of precipitate this morning when I went to stop it. And I'm not on the bottom of the totem pole in the lab anymore, so that is nice!

Anyways, back to Kaite. She's a little unusual in that she's a pharmacy student but also doing URP... and taking a summer class, which is why she was here for a few weeks already. But I was happy that I got to pass on my Ochem thoughts to her, especially the lack of lab notebook... lack of lab notebook = four greatest words ever spoken. She is also REALLY happy that I brought a TV. Poor girl had nothing to do! And hmm, what else? Oh yes, she wants me to learn to play tennis and we've had lots of long giggly chats, well as giggly as my lack of girliness will allow. I think we're going to be friends!

Meltdown!

I am a little emotionally fragile at the moment. -sob-

I just finished moving back in to Duq for the summer, which is not entirely upsetting on its own. In fact, nothing makes me want to move out more than the actual process of moving out. Serious parental frustration there. Despite what she thinks, my mother is not helpful and her suggestions are not productive. But no, no, that is not what I am emotionally fragile, having just had a massive meltdown. Oh no, I am distraught because of my housing dibacle.

Housing for URP (the research program) is free, so staying on campus is a fairly easy decision to make. Well, that was before I knew how completely uninformed I would be and how unorganized the whole summer housing system is. Duane just got to show up and get a room, a single room... lucky Duane. I just got to show up and ask for my key. Do I have a roommate? Nobody knows. What room am I in or at least what floor am I on? Nope, its a secret. So all of that uncertainty had me feeling quite anxious as we rolled the dolly up the hill to Towers...

It appeared to go smoothly at first, they did have my room key at the desk, which was a little shocking since I moved in a few days early. Then there were lots of bad surprises. I have a roommate. But she has gone home for the weekend, and even better, does not seem to know that I am here since her stuff is all over and we had to move it so I could unpack. But wait, unpack?! Nope, the bar in my closet is broke, I spent about 3 hours waiting for someone to come fix it before I could hang clothes up. Rawr.

Now I am fairly certain this girl is going to hate me. I know it is not her fault that I got placed with her or anything, especially that they failed to inform her that I was coming, but still! I represent what she will probably be very pissed at and I moved all of her stuff. That cannot start you off well.

But for now, I will take a two day cry break until she comes back on Sunday. -gulp- And I am off to spend some time with Duane in his pie shaped room.

Oh yeah, CDs on the desk. Definitely not in English...

You've got to be kidding me... Part 2.

No, the police department isn't out of handcuffs or anything this time. Although, I think that would be more enjoyable news...

-ahem- TONY WRECKED THE CAR... THE NEW CAR! Now it was already in fairly crappy condition, extra crappy when you consider we've only had it for a year and a half and its a 2005, so ya know, fairly new as cars go. He, however, took care of that new car condition nicely: making the insides reek of cigar smoke and boy, scratching all of the hub caps and denting various small locations, and knocking off the passenger side mirror, which my mom ever-so-skillfully reattached with some electrical and duct tape magic. Nothing big, just some minor repairs and a fun day of painting for Duane's dad.

Then we walked outside this afternoon. On the replacement list: One passenger side. My mom just got home from work and I was putting some laundry in the washer when she opened the door, enraged, and asked if I knew the car was smashed. I, of course, said no and went out to inspect. There is this triangle of distruction around the front wheel and then a very deep... as in down to the metal... scrape about door handle height and 4" thick that extends the entire length of the car.

What happened? Good question; Tony's answer: Oh, uh, I don't know, it was just like that when I picked it up in the ENP parking lot after we left Vince's. Uh huh. Yeah right. The more compelling question, you see, is WHY DO MY PARENTS LET HIM DRIVE?!?!?!

Cotton Mouth

I was pleasantly surprised when I went out to get the mail this afternoon. Not only have the wasps that have decided to build a nest in the mailbox despite about 20 cans of RAID finally moved on, I got my marrow donor kit! Hurrah.

It was pretty much the quickest think ever, although I did have to take extra time rinsing my mouth out. It doesn't specifically say to do so, however, I had just eaten a tuna sandwich and didn't need any cross-species contamination, lol. I definitely had serious cotton mouth afterwards though. Nothing like rolling q-tips around your cheeks for a few minutes to suck up all your spit! Also, I'm mildly retarded and had a slight problem sliding my swabs into their little foam holders. Oopsies.

Whatever. It's a great thing to do and now hopefully I will match someone!

You've got to be kidding me...

Its been a rollercoaster past day or so. Last night, the plan was still "yes, come ride bikes for the weekend!" But by today, the plan had changed to "Ty in the hospital for sleep studies and surgery..." So no visit this week. That's alright though, I'm going to go the first weekend he is home after surgery. That will be more fun anyways, he'll be feeling much better and hopefully relieve the pressure will fix all of his issues (no balance, droopy eye and lip, etc).

Since I was bored and didn't have any packing or kid-prepping to do, I figured I would head down to the police station to get my fingerprints for my camp background check. Simple, no? Oh no, let the adventure begin...

Before even leaving, I decided I should call the station to make sure they don't have weird, limited printing hours. So I looked up the police station phone number on the City of Weirton website. -ahem- The City of Weirton website. I dial the number and some woman at a county dispatch center answers and has no idea, so she transfers me to someone who will. Strike one. Person #2 similarly had no idea but gave me a number to call (the real police station number) for someone who would definitely know. Yeah, too bad no one wanted to answer the phone at that number. Strike two.

Strike three was a glorious, theatrical miss of a swing. Spun around a few times before losing balance and falling over... that is how ridiculous the final nail in my fingerprinting coffin was.

I walked into the police station and just managed to catch a glimpse of the secretary walking out of her little bullet proof bunker. She won't be back anytime soon. So I rang the little service bell once and waited. Twice and waited some more. Nothing. Finally, someone starts coming out of the door back into the rest of the station, sees me and asks if she can help me with anything. I then request to be fingerprinted and am told... wait for it, wait for it... that the police are currently out of ink for fingerprinting and since its "special ink, ya know, honey," they will not be able to ship it out until at least Tuesday. Strike 3. I'm out.

Now seriously, how--HOW?!?!?!--can a police station be out of fingerprinting ink... I'm no law enforcement expert or anything but I would place ink right below gun and handcuffs on the list of police necessities. Heck, it can even go above gun since Weirton isn't really known for its shootouts. But, no, apparently ink is not such a necessity. I would just like to know what happens when they arrest someone in the next few days... Let those prints slide?

Drill On

Its been a rough couple of days. My little buddy, Ty, hasn't been doing so hot. He started out having headaches this past weekend, and by yesterday, they were very bad and his face was starting to droop. So off to the doctor's office he went and while hoping for a clogged shunt, they found out that the tumor is still growing... while on chemo. Yeah, that sucks.

Luckily, he's home from the hospital now and the headaches are fixed, albeit with steroids. Roid rage, baby! He's going to need surgery, probably next week, though so they can relieve some of the pressure in his head and re-biopsy the tumor to make sure its not transforming into something more agressive. Ugh. Oh well, at least he's home for the time being and I'm going to visit this weekend! I can't wait to see my Ty-guy!

And now is probably where you're all thinking, "WTH, why is this post titled 'Drill On'?" Well, I decided to be a little proactive with the cancer thing.

I just signed up for the bone marrow registry . Its usually $52, which is why I hadn't done it yet, but they sometimes waive the fee, and I figured I'd wait it out until I could do it for free. Unlike donating blood, which I suck at (right, Joe? Almost puking on you and all. -blushy-), you don't have to be at least 110 lbs or anything like that. Just sign up, spit on some q-tips that they send you and wait until you match someone.

So here is my official plug for this: Basically, I cannot understand how someone could not want to do this. Same goes for donating blood and being an organ donor. Blood: I passed out.. twice.. and puked all over the place while feeling like I was seriously about to die, but ya know what, I would totally do it again. All that "your donation saves several people!" stuff the blood bank spouts to get donors is definitely the truth. And organs, well, let's just say I don't know why you care who has your kidneys when YOU'RE DEAD! But enough about that... Bone marrow transplants are honestly the only shot a lot of people, especially kids, have at life. It's not just cancer either. A lot of weird blood and immune system diseases (think bubble boy) can be cured with a BMT, and in these cases, an unrelated donor is probably the only option since those diseases run in families and siblings, the most likely matches, are often affected as well. And finally, the procedure itself isn't so bad. Sure, you might be hobbling around for a few days, but they put you to sleep for the procedure itself, so you won't even know what they're doing.

So there it is, blog readers. Do with it what you will.

I wanna see Mickey!

I had a horrible childhood--I never got to go to Disney World! Ok, ok. That's not that bad, but seriously, everyone goes to Disney. What's worse, we've even gone to Orlando for vacation but my mother, in her infinite wisdom, was like oh no, they don't want to go to Disney, who'd like that? Pft, Tony and I are still a little upset. Granted we were 14 and 16 at the time but still, you're never too old to see Mickey!

Well, don't ya know, I might just get my chance to see Mickey....because my dad is awesome. Eckerd raises money for Children's Miracle Network every year and there's always a competition to see who raises the most in the district. He wins every year. I repeat: HE WINS EVERY YEAR! There's also always a prize... I think that's how we got our little flat screen TV last year... but its never anything spectacular. This year, however, Eckerd is feeling extra generous or something because the prize is a trip to Disney World. Now if he wins every year, we should have this sucker in the bag, right?

No. Since the stakes have been raised, the other managers now have an organized "Beat Walter" campaign going. Raise money for the children--what children? We gotta beat him! Luckily, he's still kicking their butts. He's done/is doing lots of ridiculous fund raising:

• Marathon Walk: He took our treadmill to the store, had people pledge him per mile and attempted to walk at least 20 miles or whatever money he raised would be split up among the other stores in the district. He was up to about $200/mile. Final distance: 32 miles.
• Car Cruise: The day after his toe-nail-peeling walk (turf toe supreme right there), they had a car cruise at the store. There was food and all that but also a dunking booth with the district manager on it. Ca-ching!
• Food, food and more food: They've been selling hot dogs, burgers and pepperoni rolls every weekend. Apparently people in Baden really like cookout food because they usually make about a hundred dollars a day.
• Car Washes: While all of the rest of this is going on, they've also been having car washes. Who knew that you could make $500 washing people's cars?
• Bowling: The final event is a whole-district thing, but your store got money based on how many people showed up. We had about 30, oh yeah! And, even better, we had matching "Team BAD ASSt." shirts. Note the small t in there for "assistant." The assistant managers were in charge of getting the shirts. How creative...

So basically, the result of all of this is about $8,500 and there are still a few weeks left! Not only is he leading the district -dramatic pause- he is tops in the whole company!!!!!

I'll see ya soon, Mickey!

P.S. ITS A CRUISE!

Drumroll please...

-ahem-

IT IS A CRUISE!

Yes, that's right: a cruise. I'm sure you all recall the great mystery of April 25, 2008. Well, Duane finally, finally told me what he's been planning.

So yep, we're going on a cruise. Just the two of us. To the Caribbean. w00t! Except it obviously won't be on April 25, 2008 since well, that's smack in the middle of finals week. It can be a week later though.

Bahamas, here we come!

D.O.N.E.

Done, done, I say! After taking a final at 8:45 this morning and doing some serious hauling and very cramped driving, I am done with school for the summer. Hurrah!

I think this semester turned out pretty well. I got an A with plenty of room to spare in Ochem. No more A- here, oh yeah! And I only had to pass Genetics to get an A, so I think that fared well. I'm still a little concerned about Honors Seminar, aka genocide class, though. HE NEVER FREAKING TOLD US OUR GRADES! WE HAVE NO IDEA! -whew- All better, I think he just gives everyone A's.

So now if you'll excuse me, I have about 12 loads of laundry to do...

Gettin' Lucky

Oh score! Jamie and I went to the Pirate game tonight. Unfortunately, the Pirates didn't do much scoring, but no worries, we still had an awesome time.

Besides the rain miraculously stopping and sun coming out for gametime and a Freddy Sanchez bobblehead, we came away with an excellent perk: $10 gift cards to Max & Erma's. You see, we were the "lucky section of the night." Oh yeah!

Looks like we'll be having a deliciously free dinner tomorrow night...

I hate the government, Part 5.

Now its time to wrap up my current hating on the government. I could go on for like 50 more posts but it would be on cliche stuff like Iraq, health care and whatnot. No one really needs more crap thrown into those debates. But anyways, government hating reason #5 relates a lot to reason #1.

And so here it is, suckage reason #5:

No one wastes money better than the good ol' U.S. of A. Like in post #1, we know abstinence doesn't work but have wasted over a billion dollars on it in the last decade. Congress gives themselves a raise all the time for "cost of living increases" but never does the same for minimum wage. As an aside, I read an editorial a while back that suggested writing a little line into the next minimum wage bill that ups it ever so slightly each year for cost of living. Everyone wins. Minimum wage workers get a raise every year and companies don't have to pee their pants figuring out how to give everyone $2 more an hour. And politicians get to feel good about themselves.

Anywho, back to the topic at hand: wasting money on dumb stuff. Its not actually the money wasting that irritates me the most, actually. It is what gets screwed in the process. What specifically got this thought wheel turning was the latest budget proposal that slashes the hell out of cancer funding. Now a $40 million cut isn't much in comparison to the overall cancer budget, however, its effects are huge.

$40 million is everything to cancers that don't get any other funding and unfortunately, those are the cancers that are going to get screwed by the funding cut. And I think today is a particularly good day to discuss why cancer should get $40 million more, not less. Anyone who went to high school with me will remember when Aaron died. That was two years ago today. That obviously affected me much, much more than any of the rest of my friends since he and Tony were friends since kindergarten. Aaron died of pancreatic cancer, which just should not have happened. First of all, kids don't get that. It is an extremely rare disease in old people and pretty much unheard of in kids. Unfortunately, he was going to die from the moment he was diagnosed. A very sad reality, but entirely true. Survival rates for pancreatic cancer are for the 1 year survival, not 5 year survival like every other cancer. There simply is not a 5 year rate. Everyone dies. He made it a lot longer than could ever have been expected though. But what Aaron has to do with cancer funding is that he died because there is no "Plan B" for pancreatic cancer treatment. There is hardly a "Plan A" and it isn't exactly the most effective therapy around. The only way to develop an "Plan B" is with research dollars. Unfortunately, pancreatic cancer is an excellent example of a cancer that while so desperately in need of funding, its money will be cut because it is too rare to be "important." Breast cancer, on the other hand, is swimming in funding, so then, its really not too surprising that there are Plans A-Z for breast cancer treatment. If one doesn't work, try something else that does. You can live with breast cancer.

So as I was typing this, the news said something about the Senate passing another $100 billion Iraq bill. $100 billion is INSANE! I'm pretty sure gathering all that money up in little cash bags, dousing it with some gasoline and striking a match would be just as effective at this point but I suppose we do have to spend something, even if it is cut and run money. The rest of the budget though? I'm gonna say its about 75% sheer crap. If you made it to Congress, you're already rich. Quit paying your unproductive asses so much! Some tiny little town in the middle of a corn field is probably going to get a fancy new bridge or paved road next to one that went up 10 years ago because its Congressman wrote it into a bill and no one really cared. Vote for Bob! And finally, referring back to Reason #1 for hating the government, let's throw in a few hundred million dollars for a crack pot sex-ed program. Meanwhile, in other news, thousands of people, mostly children, quietly suffer and die as the clinical trials that would have saved them shut down. Good riddance!

I hate the government, Part 4.

Hey, I think we might all be able to agree on this one! Justin sums it up pretty well.

I first got irritated when after taking a moment of silence, which is appropriate and nice, they decided to take a couple days off! Now these weren't just random, get no work done work days that Congress usually takes, they were conducting important hearings about how much the Justice Department sucks. Aww, how nice. The busy Congressmen taking time from their hectic schedules to mourn for a nation... and take a trip home to talk about their gun-control stance.

So suckage #4: Politicians capitalizing on/twisting a tragic event into something for their gain. Its not like Virginia Tech is the first example of this. Rudy Gulianni, who's running for president by the way, has been telling people lately that obviously voting for a Democrat means that the terrorists win and we're all going to die 5 minutes after a Democratic president takes the oath of office. Uh huh. Way to exploit 9/11 there, Rudy.

So back to Virginia Tech. Taking time off and issuing their respective statements of sadness or whatever sure made all those lawmakers look good. Fine, be sad, that's very considerate of you, but do not use the death of 32 people as a vote-getting scheme. Its heartless and certainly ineffective. We sure like to talk about changing gun control laws but does that ever happen? Hardly. In fact, since Columbine, the assault weapons ban expired. Thank you, Congress, for proecting me.

I hate the government, Part 3.

For my next installment of why I hate the government, I'm going to change it up a bit. I'm done ranting about why being sex-a-phobic is stupid and counterproductive, but I'm returning to stubborn, righteous George and his cronies. I hate, hate, HATE YOU! Also, Justin, you are probably not goig to agree with a single word of that, but let's agree to disagree, shall we?

Since I'm a loser and have been more mature than your average 30 year old since I was about 8, I was watching Frontline on PBS the other night. Yeah, I know, mock as you like. It just so happened to be about global warming. Now before I go any further, I have to say that PBS is probably as good as it gets for reporting in the US since they have no ratings incentive for advertising dollars and all the crap that makes the rest of our news not so news-like. And well, wouldn't you guess that much like the government's own study suggested that abstinence is a big fat waste o' money but George and company only believe what they want to believe, the government's own global warming study was one big "the end of the world is nigh, we're all going to cook to death!" report. So what does the government do? Ignore it? Oh, if only! They paid lots and lots of attention, actually. But this was not good, proactive attention. Instead of admitting that yes, we're breaking our planet, the administration ordered all mention of the report removed from public records. The news report even showed Congressional briefings where mentions of climate change were blacked out.

That was in the spring of 2003. It took 4 years of fighting and one uber hurricane disaster to get Georgie to wake up... or at least admit that perhaps there is a small global climate change issue. Of course, its more convenient now to follow the opinions of a public that pretty much hates you to try to win back some support. Nevermind that while you were ignoring the global warming report in 2003, you were making up reasons to invade Iraq, leading us into Vietnam 2.0: bigger, badder and even more costly! But I regress, I'm not here to complain about Iraq. That's a big can o' worms that I do not need to open and I think the previous sentence adequately expresses how I feel (and I would like to point out, felt at the time... no stance switching here) about that situation.

So back to global warming. I just do not understand how scientists can ignore science. We often talk about global warming in genocide class since its likely a hidden factor in a lot of the crap that is now going on, and according to our professor, who I am certain knows what he's talking about, the first report that humans were adversely affecting our climate was published in 1937. It is not as though that came out and then 70 years passed before the government study came out. There are probably many, many less studies linking bad diet and heart disease since that hasn't been studied for nearly as long, but we all believe that now don't we?

So if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go slather on some SPF 90 since its going to be getting very toasty pretty soon. Happy Earth Day!

I hate the government, Part 2.

New day, new reason to hate the government. This isn't directed directly at George and the idiots in Washington this time, but if it were a national issue, I'm sure they'd incur my wrath too.

Suckage reason #2:

Gardasil has people in an uproar. And what do ya know, its the same people that are all fired up about the suckage reason #1. Obviously, vaccinating girls against something that COULD KILL them is a horrible idea. Honestly, what are those drug companies thinking? Protection from an oncovirus?! Are they crazy?! Children will start having sex in the streets like dogs if we protect them!

GAH! How retarded are people?!? Okay, so you don't want your 12 year old girl vaccinated. That's your stupid decision, but who am I to stop you. I would, however, like to point out that there's a really astronomically high, freaking ginormous chance that when she's not your little 12 year old anymore, she's going to -gasp- have sex. And chances are that if you're all anti-vaccine, you're hoping thats not until she gets married. But let's think about this for a moment, shall we? 95%of people do it before they are married. That's a lot of people. So even if this hypothetical 12 year old doesn't do it until she's married, the chances of her husband also having abstained are ridiculously small. And what do ya know, chances of a guy carrying HPV are actually quite high. He won't know it. She won't know it...until her Pap smear shows abnormal cells. Congratulations, you have cancer and are now going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, lose you hair, and potentially die as you battle for your life.

Now on a more practical level, I know people are concerned that its new and there could be safety issues. Valid argument and if you prefer to opt out for that, I still think you're a little off (The possibility of chemo later in life is a lot more damaging than a well-tested shot.), but not a complete nut. But since its not like I don't know anyone with cancer, I think I'm entirely justified in saying that if there is the teeniest, tiniest, most miniscule chance that a series of 3 shots could potentially save your kid's life at some point, what are you smoking that makes you think this is a bad idea? How ridiculously naive are you to think that just because you're high and mighty religious soap box mandates you be against all things sex-related, you have the right to tear a man (referring to the Texas governor here) to shreads for trying to protect your children? So what if the vaccine manufacturer lined his pockets with cash! This vaccine will save lives, shouldn't that be more important than getting your "values vote"?