My Obligatory Year In Review

So its New Year's Eve. I'm not really sure what I thought of 2008. Some parts were very good, some were very bad.

In April, I was almost indefinitely stuck in New Orlean's airport. But I finally grew some balls, stopped letting people walk all over me, and got us home. At the time, I thought that was possibly the worst day ever.

Ha! Fate laughs at such declarations. A little over 6 months later, Ty died. My car overheated and I had to be towed home (from CLEVELAND!!) after his funeral. Attend funeral for a 7 year old, ride 2 hrs with a fat, smelly tow truck man. That was clearly the worst day ever.

But otherwise, I think this year turned out pretty good.

1. Relay actually happened...with great success no less.
2. I kicked the MCAT's ass, completed applications super early and got into medical school. Yay, Pitt!
3. Duane and I went on our cruise AND went to Disney World on the day we got back. A boat and seeing Mickey?! Awesome!

So, all in all, I'm pretty excited for 2009: I graduate college and start medical school. I figure I will only sleep in my scrubs/white coat for the first month or so. And Duane and I have decided we're going to live together (woo!).

Merry Christmas?

Fun: Christmas Eve at Duane's grandparents' house.

Excruciating: Christmas Day at my aunt's house.

Seriously, my family sucks. And its not even really my family. Its my aunt, cousin and her husband that I'd rather not call my uncle plus his freaking insane parents and brother. Words cannot describe how nutty these people are. At least I like the dog?

The Big Brave Dog Returns

Justin, Duane, and I (plus Joe this time) went skiing again yesterday. You might remember last year...

This year, however, everyone came home in one piece and I was actually a big brave dog and skied fast. I can sort of turn now and only fell a few times. Three of them were because of my own stupidity (Don't throw your pole behind you and then lean back to try and catch it. Ugly, ugly wipe out, complete with comments from the peanut gallery on the lift above me. -sigh-). The other, however, was when Justin decided to body check me or something while getting off the lift. All I know is that I ended up splayed out on the ground, skis forming a perfect V in the snow and there was a GIANT gash in the snow on the lift hill. Ouchies.

But most importantly, I skied an INTERMEDIATE slope! Multiple times, in fact. Big brave dog, rawr!

Addicted

It hurts to type. My fingers are so sore from 6 straigt hours of Mario Kart Wii action. I might have a slight problem.

I started playing this afternoon, thinking "Well, I'll play for a few hours or so and maybe unlock some more stuff." And then I unlocked "Mirror Mode." A whole new class of races to beat? Can't stop now!

Now it makes me sad that I will have to leave our Wii over Christmas. I'm soooo close! Only 1 more character--well, visible character, according to the Internets, there are secret characters to unlock as well--and a vehicle or two and then I win! Also, the internets tell me that I can unlock an alternate ending credits scene. Maybe that one won't take 5 hrs to play through. It'd be exciting.


Edit: If my cramped hands weren't enough to suggest I played too much Mario Kart Wii, I played the N64 version with Duane today. I kept trying to shake the controller to do tricks. Wrong version, Kailey, wrong version.

A Christmas Survey for Kelly

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper unless the bag is really cool and I can reuse it.

2. Real tree or artificial? Artificial. You can put it up sooner, don't have to water it and don't need to worry that it might burn your house down. Also, I'm a tad allergic to real ones because I'm allergic to everything. :(

3. When do you put up the tree? Usually within about a week of Thanksgiving. I put my apartment one up early this year in the Christmas spirit for Ty.

4. When do you take the tree down? At home, when my mom gets sick of it and goes into a cleaning frenzy. In my apartment, when I get back from break.

5. Do you like eggnog? Disgusting²

6. Favorite gift received as a child? So I don't actually remember getting my "Christmas Dog," one of those animals whose paw you press, its nose lights up and plays Christmas songs, since I got it for my first Christmas and I was all of 6 wks old. BUT! I still have it and I love it so it wins.

7. Hardest person to buy for? Duane. Somehow an EB gift card just doesn't say I love you.

8. Easiest person to buy for? Jamie gets something with penguins and Nate gets something Star Wars. Btw, the "Star Wars: A Pop-up Guide to the Galaxy" book is the coolest thing ever made. Ever.

9. Do you have a nativity scene? Well, I have two stand-up ones plus a couple nativity ornaments here at my apartment. And, of course, there's our 100 and some odd number collection of them at home. But I think only about 60-70 are out this year.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail. Its exciting. Ty's family sent me one this year and it made my day. And much as Kelly said, reading people's retarded "family update letters" is a good time. My aunt and uncle from Harrisburg are good for that.

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? This is a toss up. Clearly all the candidates are from my brother. One year he got me a spindle of blank CDs...most of which he ended up using. But I think the MEN's fleece pants from Aeropostale might top that. They were too tight (guys' pants don't have butt room :( ) but like a foot too long. And on clearance. Or maybe it would be the massaging, ass-ugly bubblegum pink slippers...

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? Either the Santa Clause 3 or good ol' fashioned Rudolph

Where did #13 go?

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? I don't think so.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Around Christmas? Grandma's pink and yellow cookies. At an appropriate level of stale-ness, of course. (Its the secret to them tasting "right.")

16. Lights on the tree? Of course.

17. Favorite Christmas song? It was "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing" when I was little. I sung it year-round, in fact. Now its "O Come All Ye Faithfull" on the organ at midnight mass in Latin. Not too specific or anything.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Well, I've never left the tri-state area at Christmastime, so I'll say stay home.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's? There's Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen, Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen. But do you recall the most famous reindeer of all? Rudolph!!

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? I have an angel on my tree. We have a snowman at home. So pretty much whatever works for me.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? We do one on Christmas Eve before leaving for church... which mostly serves to keep my old fart parents awake. And then we do all the rest on Christmas morning.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? The in-laws at my aunt's house on Christmas Day. Her husband, who I must unfortunately call my uncle, and his family are insane. Like "shoot me in the face right now" kind of insane.

#23?

24. Favorite for Christmas dinner? I don't think I have one. We eat the big ol' feast at my aunt's house but thats kind of a late-ish lunch. Sometimes she has some shrimp appetizers and those are good.

25. What do you want for Christmas this year? -cough, something round, about half a carat and princess cut, cough- Haha, I dunno. Welcome to being old, my Christmas list is like "Giant Eagle gift cards, gas cards..." and maybe a magic $100,000 or so to pay for med school next year.

26. Who is most likely to respond to this? From Kelly: "Well, seeing as nobody reads this...Jen? Kailey?" So that leaves you, Miss Jennifer.

27. Does Santa wrap your gift or leave them unwrapped? Wrap them! When I was little, I always thought it was cool that Santa used the wrapping paper we left out for him.

Tow Truck Men

Previously, my only experience with tow truck guys was the one time in 9th grade that my mom and I got towed home after a Tri-Hi-Y meeting because our battery exploded. I cried the whole way, not because the car was dead but because I had whacked my head off the door when getting in and was pretty sure I had a concussion. The tow truck man thought I was nuts.

Cut to the day of Ty's funeral. I left this story out of my last post, mostly because its really quite special enough to deserve its own post. I had just dropped Meg and Jay off at the funeral home to get the van and go home and was headed towards the highway. But, wait, what's this? The engine heat warning light is on. Awesome. So I pulled over, popped the hood/looked under the car. Something was hissing and coolant was POURING out underneath. Even more awesome.

So long story short, AAA saves lives and I ended up getting towed home. From Cleveland. Since I was all alone, I, of course, had to ride the whole way in the tow truck. That was pretty sucky. Between cigarettes, he was shoving down an assortment of Hostess snack cakes and chugging a 2 L of Sierra Mist. Sierra Mist, really?? That's not even caffienated. And, well, he was just generally gross--you're average morbidly obese creepy tow truck man.

Earlier today, however, tow truck men everywhere were redeemed in my eyes. True miracle. I stopped at Duane's before heading home for break to eat lunch. Too bad I locked my keys... and everything else that wasn't directly connected to my body (phone, wallet, coat, etc.)...in my car when I got there. So I was on my way down to the street to Duane's apartment to get him and a coat hanger when God smiled at me. There were a cop and a tow truck at the end of the road, just finishing loading up two wrecked cars. I sprinted down and begged for help. They had a good laugh and then the tow truck man popped my door open in about 30 seconds. My hero!

He won't wake up.

Well, I suppose I've been putting this one off long enough.

Ty went to sleep... just a nap before dinner... last Wednesday and never woke up. I guess that makes it suck a little less. He wasn't in horrible pain and out of it, hooked up to pain meds for weeks and suffering for weeks like a lot of kids are when they die. He just went to sleep.

I drove up Monday afternoon and stayed almost all day Tuesday for all of the funeral stuff. It seems really weird to say but everything was very nice. I got there before "public hours" and his parents let me come in with them before so I could see him. Then they let me stay there extra, just like their family, and even wanted me to ride in the limo with them during the funeral. (I ended up not doing that since the limo only drops you off at lunch, doesn't take you back to the funeral home for your car, so I drove his parents back home afterwards.) I was so happy they treated me like family. Meg, Ty's mom, kept telling me that he really, really did love me and that they love me too and are so happy that we met. Despite how much I wish our reason for knowing each other never existed, I love them, too. They're pretty much my second family.

I was pretty much a mess, of course, but it was still really nice. Ty looked so cute and peaceful... he looked like my Ty again, not all droopy, sad and sick. They had a big banner and cards from his school. The funny things kids wrote on there plus Bella meowing at her stuffed cat pretty much non-stop provided some laughs so it wasn't all so terrible.

I just don't know what to do with myself now. Since the day after he died was Halloween, I managed to be ok at first. I decided I should have fun because Ty looooooooved Halloween and I'd be boring and stupid if I just sat around and moped. And then I had funeral stuff to do. I had to be there for his family, I had to say goodbye. But now, I just want to go back there and lay down on the couch with them and cry. Earlier I said there was nothing left for me to do for him... and Jennifer yelled at me... I know that there's still plenty left. That whole becoming a doctor thing. But that feels so far away, I just wish right now didn't suck so much.

Done.

My last interview was yesterday. Thank goodness, I'm so sick of traveling.

Vermont was interesting. First of all, it started out fairly disappointing because it was POURING all day so my poor dad just went to the mall instead of doing all the cool things he looked up. Then, I got the latest possible interview slot so I literally just sat/wandered around for two hours. I wanted to stalk down Dr. Sholler (scroll down a little) and profess my undying love and desire to become her one day but I figured that'd just get me a security escort out of there. One of our student tour guides did take us to get ice cream at Ben and Jerry's though. That was cool. I got "chocolate therapy".. it was probably the best thing i've ever eaten.

Major downside to Vermont though: They tax the snot out of EVERYTHING. All you PA people that come to the hospital gift shop and have a stroke over paying an extra nickel for your pop, go to Vermont. Everything is a 10-11% tax. EVERYTHING! Also, the airport is slightly smaller than my house. There wasn't even a McDonalds!

!

That scream you just heard? Yeah, that was me reacting to my updated Pitt status page.
-ahem-

UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH SCHOOL OF MEDICINE CLASS OF 2013!

My life is now complete. :)

A Very Exciting Day

The past 24 hrs have been pretty exciting. In no particular order:

1. I figured out what is wrong with Jamie's kidney. Its called "ectopic kidney," which we sort of already knew; that means its in the wrong place. Her urologist is just old and stupid and never bothered to look into what being in the wrong place might do. As it turns out, it means that you're very prone to infections and other kidney troubles... and either you get it cut out or you suck it up and deal with it. Fun, huh? At least she doesn't have any of the weird, you're going to die tomorrow diseases we were looking up.
2. I can do yoga handstands now! Yeah, I know, not earth-shattering. But we've been practicing them for weeks and I just couldn't do it. Well today, I magically began kicking up to the wall but still teetering over when I got up there. After class, however, I practiced in my apartment... like a big brave dog!... and managed to stay up. Now I can kick up super easily! Yay!
3. I got into medical school. This might just be the most exciting thing to ever happen in the non-personal realm of my life. I'm gonna be a doctor!!!!

Holding Pattern

Yesterday was my UPenn interview. I learned two things when I was there:

1. Do NOT fly into Philadelphia... EVER. Perhaps because I've flown more times in the past year than I have in the entire rest of my life combined, I've accumulated my fair share of crappy airline encounters recently. My Wednesday night flight into Philly was no exception. First, we were delayed leaving by about an hour because Philly called Pittsburgh and was like "Nope, no room at the inn tonight, guys, don't come. We'll call when we can fit you in." So we waited for an update on when they thought we should bother taking off.

Eventually, of course, we took off. Exciting flight, all 35 whole minutes of it. But then, and this is the best part, the pilot informs us we are in a holding pattern and may not be able to land for quite a while. We have plenty of fuel, though, so no worries. -sigh- So then we flew around in circles... I honestly counted the 6 times I saw the airport and then the Eagles stadium... for a half hour. That's almost as long as the actual freaking flight! GRR! Stupid Philadelphia.

2. I may hate Philly's airport but I hate rich people more. UPenn was my first choice. Was. Now I think I could never go there. Sure, the school, fascilities, teachers, etc. were all just as impressive as I'd hoped they'd be, but I left feeling like complete crap. Save me and two other interviewees, everyone there went to some fancy-pants Ivy League or Ivy-esque undergrad. And they're super rich and like to talk about all the fun, super-rich people things they do. And by everyone, I really mean EVERYONE. Even our student tour guides were like "Yeah, I went to Princeton and spent the summer traveling through Asia doing medical outreach."

I have never felt so out of place and like such crap in my entire life. I've felt poor plenty of times at Duquesne. People coming from their stupid IB prep academies with 4.8743 GPAs and shit like that. Yep, I went to public school. Sometimes the heat didn't work and I watched drug deals at lunch time. :-D But thats only sometimes, I've found plenty of not so rich people to be friends with. But at Penn, I don't think I could. I'd have to hope I could find that couple token "we grew up in the ghetto" kids. Although, hell, that might be me there. I was pretty much ready to go sign up for food stamps by the time I left. Stupid rich people.

Ugh...z

It is now officially Fall. The weather is turning colder and flip flops just don't cut it anymore. So -sigh- the hideous boots are back.

And, you know what? Its not even so much the boots themselves that are soooo terrible; its the accompanying ridiculous wardrobe. May I offer some simple rules:

1. If your "pants" are so tight/thin that a considerable amount of thought is required in order for others to determine if those are, in fact, pants instead of just tights, they do NOT count as pants. I don't care how much better they fit into the damn boots, they're not real pants.
2. If it is so horribly cold that your feet will freeze up and fall off without the boots, it is most certainly too cold to wear a skirt. Especially a skirt that would make a more effective headband than butt covering.
3. If you are going to "dress down" and be casual with sweat pants and a hoodie--wear athletic appearal, if you will--the boots are not acceptable footwear. They make special athletic shoes for just such an occasion. Normal people call them tennis shoes.. or "tennashoes" if you wish to be absolutely correct... People from strange places say "sneakers," but the effect is just the same: These shoes go with sweat pants, athletic shorts, etc. Your ugly boots do not.
4. If your boots have a heal, this does not make them better/make you hotter. It makes them more ridiculous and you much more stupid. We have a lot of brick walkways here, girls, sacrifice your "beauty" for your ankle bones. Bet that 6-8 wk fiberglass cast will really clash with that new bag.
5. Finally, if your pants do not really qualify as pants, as described in tip #1, your boots are not sufficiently hideous enough to distract me from your shirt not qualifying as a dress. Tops are either shirts or dresses. There should not be a grey area. Please wear something long enough so as not to make me think I'm seeing WAAAY more than I ever wanted to.

But I hate roller coasters and waterslides!

Ty and Nate just left after spending yesterday and today with Jamie and I for Sibs' Weekend. It was a lot of fun, but oh boy, we had some close calls.

Unlike last year, when most activities were very little kid friendly, the official stuff this year was not in the 7-9 year old little boy fun bracket. Sit down and watch a football game? Seriously? So instead of doing that, we headed off to the Duquesne Incline to look at bridges, rivers, hills and whatever else it is that we have here that blows the minds of people from Cleveland.

[Necessary backstory: Last year, we went to the science center. Unsure of whether or not Ty would make it all day, I drove instead of us riding the Duquesne bus. Well, hell, I should have just driven them around for a couple hours. They made me buy I-MAX tickets but both spazzed and we had to leave after like 30 secs, but driving around on bridges, oh boy! Of course, it did eventually occur to me Cleveland bridges are just fancy overpasses, not like architectural works of art.]

So yeah, I figured looking at the city from way up high--a hill?!?! WOW!--might be pretty exciting. I also figured, however, that Nate would FREAK OUT when he figured out how we were getting up said hill. Which he did. Big time. But then he recovered and tried to stick his head between the railings on the observation deck to see how far he could watch his spit fall over the hill. Terrifying, right?

Luckily, after he recovered, he loved it. Ty liked being up there too. It was a great idea (minus the website lying about the handicap accessibility part, dear God, that was terrible!) since it takes no special ability just to look. And there was a gift shop, oh yeah!

Two Down, Too Many to Go.

I just got back from Cleveland for Ty and Nate's birthday festivities and my Case Western School of Medicine interview. That makes interview #2 in as many weeks.

Last Monday, I interviewed at Pitt. I think it went very well, although it was a little awkward being the only one that wasn't from California or Texas... and almost the only non- Indian or Asian one. Today, although it was a more even ethnic spread, there were only 3 girls out of about 15 interviewees. I also think today went similarly well. Case is almost exactly like Pitt... except I do not love Cleveland and they made me panic by making me interview with the dean. Ah!

Oh well, all panicking aside, I think both interviews went exceptionally well. Both schools had you interview with both a faculty member (dean at Case, random ICU man at Pitt) and with a second year student. So of all four people I talked to, I think they all said something or another was impressive. Yay! I will get to be a doctor!

Now, unfortunately, my plan of scheduling interviews in a very drawn out fashion is crashing and burning. Only last week, I was looking forward to having a nice, long, multi-week break after today until I go to Vermont in late October. Oh, if only. Instead, I'm going to squeezing in both WVU and UPenn (happy squeal!) before d-day on October 15. That, by the way, is the first day medical schools are allowed to tell regular decision applicants if they're accepted. Only a month to go...

Senior Year 2/3

Yay, I'm a senior and have the first week of classes down. Only 14 more weeks to go until Christmas break. If only graduating would mean I was done with school. Ha! I scoff at four years of post-secondary education. Clearly, 8-9 is the way to go.

The best part of this year, however, is unlike in high school when I was actually learning important stuff as a senior, I am done with my bio major classes. Welcome to the dumbest schedule ever. I actually wanted to take Physical Chemistry for Life Sciences but clearly, Philosophy of Technology, which conflicts and is a REQUIRED class for science major students, is more important to becoming a scientist. Clearly, right? But anyways, I have that and other very challenging classes, such as Intro to Psychology and Survey of Sociology. Most of my classes don't even have finals. What a waste of a semester.

At least there's biochem?

Donate Life!

I saved a life today. Only one, not six.

I've decided that no matter how much I eat, drink and hope, I cannot give whole blood. Passing out and throwing up is no fun. Being freezing cold and hopelessly tired for the rest of the week is even less fun. No more blood donation for Kailey.

Luckily, I can satisfy my somewhat insane desire to donate blood by donating platelets instead. Not only are they super important... everyone on chemo needs platelet transfusions.... but they only take your platelets. They put the rest back in... no more passing out from lack of blood volume! Sure, it takes a while longer (about 2 hrs, compared to about 45 minutes) but I got to watch tv, eat snacks and take a little nap while my blood got centrifuged. Also, they don't make you wait around after you're done, terrified you might pass out later and sue them or something. And I can donate every 48 hrs, up to 52 times per year. Regular platelet donor, here I come!

Hot In Here

We have no air conditioning. We haven't had air conditioning since August 4, actually, but I wasn't here so I didn't mind so much. But now I'm back and it is a wonderful 85-90º in here. (My thermostat only goes in 5º increments so I have no idea what the actual temp is.)

I'm not quite sure what they're repairing but according to the memo oh-so-lovingly shoved under my door, they may or may not be ripping out my wall/floor area near the AC unit. I think the intense ripping will be done next door but I'm still supposed to be prepared for a visit from maintenance just about anytime during the day. Oh joy!

At least the projected completion date is the first day of classes. Until then, I suppose my frozen wash cloth personal AC will just have to suffice.

I <3 CQ

It has been a rough few days. On Saturday, I went to visit Ty. Usually I don't visit after camp until the boys' birthdays in mid-September. But I'm pretty sure Ty won't be alive by then :-\. It was nice to see him again, especially when he had some good moments. He liked the jelly fish exhibit at the zoo... mostly the lava lamps they had for scenery. Kids are so weird. Exotic, exciting animals? Eh, take 'em or leave 'em. Lava lamps? Oh boy! We also baked a cake. Oddly enough, Nate loves baking, too, so that was a good activity and Ty really liked it. Mr. Meticulous precisely placed each sprinkle while Nate's cake looked kind of like it fell off the counter, the dog licked some of it and we had to piece it back together. Oh, and it was probably 25-30% composed of his spit from his repeated licking.

But as much fun as that was, the "blah moments" were far more numerous. When I got there, Ty was crapped out on the couch with a headache. He slept in the stroller for most of the zoo... again, with a headache. After dinner, he decided he didn't feel good enough to go watch fireworks, which was the original plan, so he wanted to have a movie night instead. But then he ended up getting yet another headache and feeling extra crappy with his developing cold that he went to bed at little before 8:00. Then he woke up around 6:00, moaning and groaning in pain, which lasted well after I left.

Then to make everything more officially sucky, they met with hospice yesterday. Its not like I don't know that he's dying and I knew the hospice set-up was coming but still, making it official sucks a little extra.

But despite all this, my weekend/week so far hasn't been so terrible. On Sunday, I went to Cedar Point with a few girls from camp. They all knew I had just been at Ty's and what that situation is... and luckily, they all "get it"... some, unfortunately, really, really get it because they've lost their campers, too. 99% of everyone else I talk to pretty much just skirt the issue. I know its not something they want to talk about... and really, beating it into the ground isn't going to change anything... but sometimes I just wish people would acknowledge stuff. Don't shut down and get all awkward when I mention camp. Ok, tangent rant over... so yes, best group I could have spent that day with. And then, last night, camp sent an email informing us that Ty and another kid (Jacob, officially got "sent home" the other day) are doing very bad right now, please send them some support. Within about an hour, I got about 15 facebook messages asking if I was ok and whatnot.

Allegedly

I hate the local news. At least while I'm at school, I can watch only WPXI and for the most part, they all know how to speak. When I'm home, however, I'm more tempted to watch good ol' WTOV and get my "shitty state of the Ohio Valley" update. They, unfortunately, cannot string a coherent sentence together if their lives depend on it... Easter commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, I do believe, is my personal favorite.

Oh well. That's not my beef with them today. I hate that while reporting on a crime--any crime... like from kid stealing a pack of gum from the gas station to a double murder--they throw the word allegedly in every 3-4 words.

No, no, you morons. There is no "alleged crime." That dude has bullet holes in him. He was not "allegedly shot." He was just plain "shot." Now Bob Smith that they arrested is the "alleged shooter." Yay for our innocent until proven guilty justice system. So rather than saying something like: "Two men were allegedly shot in an alleged shooting today on the North Side. Bob Smith was arrested as the alleged shooter." Say: "Two men were shot today on the North Side. Bob Smith, the alleged shooter, was arrested." Not only does that sound infinitely less stupid, look at how many fewer words that is for you to screw up!

Somewhere, George is crying.

Our long national nightmare has ended. It appears as though Brett is getting reinstated in a little over 12 hrs. Really, Brett? All that crying when you retired and now you change your mind, toying with us for months??! You are ripping poor George's "Brett is gone!" wounds open again.

At least the word on the street is that he's coming back to play for the Packers. Thank goodness! Until about 10 minutes ago, it looked as though he was coming back, only to attempt to be traded to another team. Probably for a ridiculous amount of money. That, dear Green Bay messiah, would make you the most hated athlete of all time... make T.O. and Michael Vick look kind of like teddy bears, in fact. You are Brett Favre. You wear #4 for the Green Bay Packers and manage to win division championships despite your rather geriatric age. Franchise player. The end.

Update: Bastard is a New York Jet now. No one loves you anymore, Brett. :-(

Old

I am officially old today.

My day started off great: Sarah and I went shopping for my official medical school interview suit. Thank you, terrible economy, for spurring insane sales. I got a jacket, pants and two shirts to wear under for as much as the jacket would be at its regular price. Now that is a deal.

The first "I feel old" moment, however, was spurred by this lovely new purchase. There I am, standing in the dressing room in my fancy new clothes and holy cow, I look like a real live grown up. Not a pseduo- still in college and living off of mom and dad's money but technically legal kind of grown up.

A little after coming home... and eating too much... I decided to take a walk around my neighborhood. Then the real "I feel old moment" came. I walked past a friend's old house and thought "Wow, that little pine tree is really big now." Number one sign you're getting kind of old: You identify every house in your neighborhood by who used to live there after realizing that you don't know about 60% of your neighbors. Being shocked at how much a tree has grown, however, probably comes in at a close second.

Add all that to Ty telling me that I could be a mom and I believe that officially makes us old now.

Lightning does strike twice.

Today was a wonderful day. This is true for several reasons. Most immediately, it was a great day because it was the last day of URP. This means that I do not have to look at a pipette, centrifuge or time... let's be honest, mostly a timer... for at least a whole month. Awesome.

The second and larger bit of awesomeness is in regards to me being a doctor. To back track a bit, yesterday was also a wonderful day. -ahem- INTERVIEW AT PITT ON SEPT 8! That, my friends, kicks ass. But anyways, back to the present. URP is over and that means poster session time! Oh boy. Since my poster contained both "NMR" and "Viral RNA" in the title, I wasn't expecting any visitors. I lose 99% of people with the NMR and then the ones that stick around after that are goners at anything biological. Sure enough, by 3:50, I was watching the clock like no other, praying the last 10 minutes would pass a little faster. It was hot and my feet hurt. Dressing "professional" isn't very fun. But then I noticed a lady coming into our row of posters that appeared to be stopping at every single poster. I assumed she was a professor from somewhere that had brought students and was just wasting time. Still, I figured, I might as well give my spiel to someone. And then God smiled on me.

At my last poster session, I got very, very lucky and ended up talking to several big biotech company virologists and medicinal chemists who were extremely interested in our work. This led to a colaboration for our lab. Going into the day, my buddy Matt (who was also in New Orleans) asked if I was ready for any famous poster visits. I was like haha, URP poster session, I rather doubt anyone is even going to ask a meaningful question... or stop at all. Enter my end of the day professor-like lady. She stops, asks to hear about my work and then when I finish, goes through the rant of "Oh goodness, I can't believe you're an undergrad! This sounds like such interesting work and you really seem to know what you;re talking about!" (As an aside, a lot of undergrad "researchers" are nothing but a pair of hands doing someone elses bitch work; they don't actually get to play scientist.) So after that was all done and I explained that Dr. Rita is awesome and actually teaches you things, she asked what my future plans were. To which, of course, I said medical school. She then gets a really excited smile on her face and whips out a business card.

She is from the Office of Student Affairs, Office of Admissions, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Are you kidding me?! So then, as I pee my pants in disbelief, she goes on to tell me that I sound like an excellent candidate, especially at such a large research institution as Pitt and that if I need anything, pop over to her office anytime and be sure to poke your head in before your interview.

10 points for random, yet very important meetings at poster presentations.

I <3 CQ

I'm home! Well, for two days now actually but I wasn't actually awake/coherent before now. But yes, camp was fantabulous, of course! Lots of fun and I only wanted to kill Ty one night over the mask. In fact, by the end of the week, we had our nightly mask fight down to a pretty good routine: Ty pouts, Kailey asks what he's worried about. Ty begs...seriously BEGS, like on hands and knees... not to wear it. Kailey says tough cookies, you're wearing it. Ty pouts until special snack when food fixes all. Good times.

Despite all this, I do have to say that this year was extremely hard for me. Ty is very visibly doing freaking terrible. He can hardly walk, grabs at his head because of headaches all the time and his right side might as well not even exist most of the time. Also, his left eye sort of turns inward now. I noticed this when Jamie and I went to visit after training and it bothers me... like REALLY, REALLY bothers me. It makes him look a little like a DIPG kid. If you don't know what that is, Google it. Basically, it means your kid is going to die... soon. So that crap, combined with everyone asking how I was doing/ commenting on how wonderful I was with him even though they know it must be so hard... yeah, I was a freaking mess. But I kept my "I'm smiling because we always smile" smile (Excellent phrase, Claire) plastered on for most of the week and we really did have a good time.

So here are some great pictures. Enjoy!

Setting sail...

In like 12 hrs, I'm "setting sail" again. This time its for an Island of Adventure at CQ 2008. Oh yeah, be jealous!

Hopefully Ty has an awesome week and I don't kill him for fighting me about the mask every night. I also hope to semi-relax about the whole medical school thing. Duane is checking my email for me because I am paranoid but hopefully, I'll only send one or two annoying texts. Ty will keep me plenty busy, I'm sure.

And in other exciting camp happenings:

1. I have not one, but TWO! passengers. Both Gina and Brittany from Duq/Relay are coming with me. So hurrah, gas will not rape my wallet.
2. We're having a quiet-time upper cabins' activity every night to simmer us down before bed. Who doesn't want to watch a pirate show?
3. Special snacks every night! This stomps Ty's low-sugar diet to hell and back but he does love his food. I think hearing about the snacks was enough to get him excited to come this year.
4. Speaking of which, Ty is SUPER EXCITED for camp. Woo!
5. Last but ooooooooh so not least, WE'RE IN THE CABIN WITH AIR CONDITIONING!!!! Not that we spend huge amounts of time in the cabin, but hey, I won't be drowning in my own sweat while I try to nap.

I think this officially makes me a nerd.

I had a very exciting day at work. My new RNA is almost 1 mM in concentration. MILI-molar, baby! Usually I work in micros. And I have over 1 ml of the stuff. Holy cow!

Aren't you excited too?

A picture is worth a thousand words...

That is what they always say, right? Well, we went camping for the long weekend. I believe this picture sums up one of the highlights.



Also, Duane and Justin, are we not happy that I made friends with our neighbors by teaching their kid to throw a baseball the right way? We got to play the game where you whack the ball back and forth around a pole and cake! Happy birthday grandma we don't know!

What a freaking rip off!

Yay: I just got UPenn's secondary! Dream school of dream schools with its world's greatest children's hospital.

Not so yay: It cost me $80 to submit it. Submitting it consisted of checking three boxes about extracirriculars I'd like to discuss further or something (Camp, Relay and Lab--the three things that are my life!) and telling them my brother's age and if my parents are dead/alumni. The end. Not one freaking essay. Took about 2 whole minutes.



Note:
Dear UPenn Admissions Committe,
If you should happen to read this while trying to hunt down drunken or otherwise incriminating Internet pictures of me, I appologize for calling your application a rip off. But I'm a little on the poor side and would have appreciated at least writing the "why do you want to come here?" essay (CHOP + Dr. Maris= best training location in the world!) before coughing up yet more money in this insane application process. So please don't hold this against me and let me in!

Shut up!

Can we stop calling Jose Bautista "Joey Bats" now please? Dumbest sports nickname ever.

-whew-

I got my first secondary application today. Yay! It was to Marshall. Eh. It only had one essay (Why did you apply to our school?) and only cost me $50. That's like medical school clearance.

But in anycase, -whew- I know my application has been sent off and more secondaries should follow soon.

Empowerment?

I was reading this article and it got me thinking. Is being a she-nerd or whatever so bad that these girls feel the need to be all sexy so they can feel better about themselves or am I just lumping them in with the other "hot girls" that I hate so much?

I guess my biggest problem with the general trend of girly and smart is that by being their definition of girl: high fashion, plenty of make-up, etc., it makes it exceedingly difficult to take the smart part seriously. And I feel like the more girls/women that play into the "omg, I have to look hot all the time!" culture, the dumber they make themselves look and the harder it is for all of us to be taken seriously. I say I want to be a doctor or talk about any sort of scholastic/professional future plans and most people just sorta nod with a fake smile, giving me the impression that they are thinking "OK, little girl, that's nice that you think you can do all of that," as they assume I'm just another one of the mass of dumb girls.

I'm sure some of you would see this as feminist whining or whatever. But ok, boys, when you got to color the picture of the person dressed as the profession you wanted to be when you grew up as a kid, did you cry because there wasn't one in your gender? Aww, how cute, little girl wants to be a doctor. Oh wait, girls aren't doctors, here's a nurse for you to color. Um, no. Or when you decided to take a math class that wasn't required for your major, did your advisor freak out and advise against it because it might be hard? Apparently having a vagina means I will fail calculus and that I can only follow orders, not give them.

And oh, I think I know the exact moment I became a feminist: When I was 4 and in preschool, Allison Urda was wearing a blue dress one day and Mark whose last name I don't remember told her that she couldn't wear blue because "Blue is for boys!" He felt my 4 year old wrath and I wore a lot of blue after that.

Thursday the 12th?

Tomorrow is Friday the 13th, which I'm not so superstitiously concerned about. I was more worried about today, Thursday the 12th. Historically, those have been bad days for me. Example: With out rehashing the entire crap-tastic affair, the 6th grade incident in which I had a very girly problem in a very public way occurred on Thursday, Nov. 12.

But hey, today didn't suck!

Update: It appears that I spoke too soon about this particular Thursday the 12th not sucking. While its pretty much resolved now, I got my financial aid letter recently and it didn't have ANY scholarships on it... just like $20,000 worth of loans I may be eligible for. Apparently that was due to a clerical error and EVERYONE with a scholarship got a messed up letter. So what does this have to do with my bad day? Date on the letter: Thursday, June 12, 2008.

$7.02

Seven dollars and two whole cents. That is how much money I currently have in my checking account because AMCAS sucks... a lot.

I did get to be amongst the first to submit my application. Finally got it to go through at 9:36 am on Wednesday after submissions opened at 9:30, and it was processed and ready to go by just before 2:00 that same afternoon. Suck on that, people who will wait another week or so until they and everyone else have their MCAT scores! It will then take 4-6 wks to process, haha!

Anywho, the bit about getting it to go through... I expected some site issues as thousands of other overachievers also sat at their computers all morning, impatiently clicking refresh until the "Submit Application" button was active but I surprisingly breezed right through, entered my credit card info and clicked the final button. And then I got the error. Argh! So after about 4 more attempts, I finally got back to the credit card info, submitted and all was well.

Then, just to be on the safe side, of course, I pop on over to PNC's site to check my account info. Pending withdrawals: $680. AHHH! I was charged twice. Freakout and call AMCAS, I'll be refunded no problem, says my new friend Jeremy. -whew-

Now its two days later and thinking I have the money safely on its way back to me (one of the two pending transactions disappeared yesterday so all appeared to be in order), I have $7.02 to my name because I went grocery shopping on the assumption that I actually had money. Gee, thanks AMCAS, especially because the help person I talked to this morning informed me I was refunded at 1:52 yesterday afternoon. Um, I think not. -grumble, grumble-

So, uh, be nice to me when you see me begging on the street corner until this week's paycheck clears and I can eat again.

Almost there...

In a little less than 5 minutes, it will be June 4, 2008. This is, of course, not nearly so exciting as the mysterious April 25, 2008, but its the day that AMCAS claims submissions will be open. So I'm staying up til midnight to see if I can be amongst the first nuts to apply to medical school.

Does this make me a bad person?

As I'm sure most of you saw on the news, Sen. Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant glioma this weekend.

Why am I writing about this, you ask? Well, I could generally care less about day-to-day politics since nothing ever happens anyways. They talk a lot and put off voting, call it an early afternoon and go golfing. But in a twisted way, this is actually kind of exciting.

Unless your name is Jennifer, you probably have noooooo idea what the whole glioma thing means. To be blunt, Ted is a dead man. But he's 76 so I think its not all that tragic. Anyways...

This diagnosis obviously sucks for Ted but its freaking awesome for gliomas! Two days ago, most people would have been like "huh?! glio-what?" But now that's all we get to learn about on the news. The equals awareness, baby! Which, in turn, generally leads to money and research. Oh yeah.

Also, Ted's got deep pockets, both privately and with all the money he and his buddies in Washington control. Thats gotta be good for something, right?

35R

MCAT scores were supposed to be released "on or about" tomorrow at 5pm but I just noticed they're online now!

I kicked serious ass!!!

I'M GONNA BE A DOCTOOOOOOOOOR!

Now THAT was the most amazing week of my life!

Well, we're home. I'm rather depressed about that but very anxiously awaiting the arrival of my hundred and some pictures.

Before I left, I was obviously planning on writing a huuuuge post about all the fun stuff we did and saw and what not, but I don't think anything I write will do it justice. I'll leave it at this: I had so much fun, everything was so beautiful and warm, but the best part was definitely sharing it all with Duane -blushy- I couldn't think of a better person to share my vacation with.... and he took me to see Mickey!

Picture Time!

With our lovely boat.

Beautiful Sunset!

End of a Perfect Night.

Where Dreams Come True!

Bon Voyage...FINALLY!!!

Its kind of early to be up on a Saturday morning, but I'm WAAAAAY too excited to sleep any longer! In a few hours, Duane and his mommy will be here to pick me up and head to the airport.

Thankfully, the severe weather that was predicted for this afternoon seems to have gone away and now there are only spotty showers. Thank goodness! We only have half an hour between flights, so there's definitely not time to spare for rain delays.

I couldn't be more excited!

And the countdown is on!

I happily finished my last final this morning and then ate a quick lunch with my lab to celebrate everyone graduating. And now begins the longest week of my life.

On Saturday... in 4 days, 16 hrs, and 27 minutes... our plane will (hopefully) take off and Duane and I will be on our way to Florida for the long awaited cruise.

To say I'm excited would be quite the understatement. I've been mostly packed for a few days now. My excuse there was that there was no reason to pack my stuff to come home, unpack some of it and then repack for the cruise. Sounds reasonable, right? Too bad it won't make time pass any faster. If only... Its going to be a very long week.

Medical school, anyone?

I took the MCAT this morning. Now, I recognize that I'm a little bit of a freak but that was a pretty awesome test.

First of all, since its computerized, you get to work at your own pace. Jackpot!!! Instead of taking nearly 6 hours---SIX HOURS-- I got done in just about three. Much better. Also, I got sooooooo lucky. I, of course, did not study or do any sort of prep class crap beforehand, save a last minute panic and cramming of optics and wave equations. Luckily, those weren't on there and all of my physics was free-fall motion or electricity. Easy. The biological sciences, however, were AMAZING! One passage about p53 and chemo sensitivity, score! Another about Canavan's disease and Mendelian genetics, easiness! The next as well as two stand-alone questions about the pancreas and pancreatitis, oh yes! And finally, the last passage about interpreting pulmonary function tests, are you kidding me?! Those pretty much replay my entire biological learning experience. Then there was one O-chem question about a tertiary alcohol and sulfuric acid... what mechanism might that undergo?... E1, thank you very much, O-chem tutoring.

Easiest freaking standardized test I've ever taken. Now hopefully that translates into good scores. I would say best standardized test scores I've ever gotten, but, well, that'd be a tough tier to hit, so I'll settle with just really good. Only 29 days until I know my score!

$15,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm very tired and my hands still kind of smell like money, but thats ok because Relay is OVER. O-V-E-R!!! So basically, my life is about 110% less stressful.

For all my worry about not getting back in time from New Orleans or things that were not taken care of last minute, I have to say everything went about as well as it could have. Especially considering that it was a first-time event... and it hailed. Yeah, nothing says outdoor party like a hailstorm. But the rainbow right at the start was a good sign: everything was going to work out ok. The weather eventually calmed down, a whole lot of people showed up and we made a crap load of money!

Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez

I just got back from New Orleans, oh yeah! Extra emphasis on the getting back part, ha! Getting there and back not withstanding, it was a pretty awesome trip:

Lots of people stopped to look at my poster and a few people--drug company reps!!--seemed genuinely interested and requested copies and contact info. Most others just wanted to know what these "kissing interactions" I mentioned were. (The two loops of RNA "kiss" one another...not nearly so exciting as it sounds.)

Julie and I also played tourist quite a bit. We at breakfast at a cafe and walked all around the French Quarter and French Market down by the river. New Orleans is actually a very pretty city. And, of course, we went out one night on Bourbon St. Not being "that kind of girl," I kept getting whacked with beads because I wasn't paying any attention to the drunkards throwing them from above. Those suckers hurt!

Happy Easter

Spring/Easter Break wasn't entirely boring. I spent two nights at Ty's house. We had all kinds of fun. They're very into fort building now so we built one everyday. They were pretty sweet forts, though, I have to say.

And then we decorated eggs and made the most awesome bunny cupcakes you've ever seen! Marshmallow ears, skittle eyes, jelly bean noses, and baby marshmallow cheeks...all sprinkled with some coconut to look furry. We also had a movie night while their parents were out playing Easter Bunny. Ty's so freaking cute! We were laying on the floor with blankets and pillows, watching the movie, and he looks at me and goes, "Kailey, I wish you lived here so we could eat popcorn and watch movies all the time!" Aww, me too, buddy, me too!

Convicted!

If anyone is looking to make plans, please attempt to make them from August 1-18. That is the window of time that the court house has me down for jury duty, ugh.

So I came home Friday night, ready to relax and generally ignore the world for a few days. I wandered up to my room to see what mail I've gotten in the past month or so since I've been home and discovered my summons for jury duty. Oh grand. Signed and dated March 3, it informed me I had 10 days to reply or I'm under penalty of law of -insert official sounding judicial code number here-. Great, Friday, in case you weren't aware, was March 14. 3 + 10 DOES NOT equal 14. So I hurriedly filled out my form, hoping they meant business days, not calendar days and ran off to the post office.

Of course, the court term for which I've been summoned (Apr 8-Sept 8) would be easily servable if it weren't for that whole I don't really live here anymore thing. Of that five month chunk, I'm available about 4-5 weeks worth of it. But attempting to be exempt is a really crappy ordeal. You have to write a letter, submit verifying documents and then it goes to a judge for consideration. Well, thats a pain. So I just wrote down all of my "special considerations," aka, I go to college and don't actually live here now, and waited until this morning to call the courthouse. So I called this morning and explained my predicament, so they let me pick a two week time frame and wrote me down for that. Now I don't have to worry about being summoned while I'm on the cruise (In 47 days, btw!!!!) or at camp. And you get paid for jury duty, woo! Not much, of course, I'm sure Hancock County has about $2 to spare, but its money nonetheless.

...and crash.

So I've been kind of busy lately. That whole Relay for life thing is kicking my butt! I've been so busy for the past 2-3 weeks that I haven't had time to eat dinner (or almost anything, for that matter) most days and I've lost enough weight to go down a belt loop. But now its spring break and I'm going to sleep for about 18 hours/day. Allow me to recap:

• Relay: We had our kickoff on Feb 5. A surprisingly large amount of people showed up. We have over 10 teams signed up. Yay, surpassing goals! And are pulling in about $100/day on the online donation site. Of course, we had to change the date again because Duquesne is mildly retarded. If you were in charge of reservations for something, would not the first thing you did after receiving a request be CHECK AND MAKE SURE THERE IS NOT ANOTHER EVENT?!?!? Way to go, Rec. Dept. man, Apr 5-6 was looking good for like 3 wks before he realized there was already something. So now we Relay Apr 11-12. But whatever, at least Duq's food services have actually turned out to be pretty awesome. We met with them yesterday morning and they're probably going to give us a crap load of stuff. And the nursing school is getting majorly enthusiastic: staffing a first aid tent, holding an advocacy rally and survivor workshop and registering multiple teams!
• Tutoring: O-chem and Gen Chem test weeks were back to back. I was in high demand and Dr. Paterno likes to make unnecessarily complicated problems. At least I'll get a big check.
• Shadowing: For the past two weeks, I shadowed Dr. Tersak, one of the oncologists at Children's. Awesomeness! I went on Tues/Thurs mornings since I don't have class and did rounds with her and the resident team. If it weren't for lab, I could have gone to clinic, BMT team meetings and tumor board. How awesome would that be?!? Yeah, ok, maybe one person reading this would be enthused but thats about it. I, however, was very enthused. It was definitely emotional--inpatient rounds have a disproportionately high number of the sickest kids. In fact, the first patient of the first day was a 17 month old with newly diagnosed neuroblastoma. Stage 4, of course, so she's fairly screwed. And on this past Thursday, she had to get rushed to the PICU because her tumor was bleeding into itself and crushing so many of her organs that she was just a mess. Poor Gogo. (Yes, that's her name.) But we did end the day on a happy note... well at least the ped-onc equivalent: The new leukemia girl in the ICU has pre-B ALL. We all did a happy dance and went to visit her. She was getting pheresis because her white count was ridiculously high (500,000+...normal is about 5-10,000). My favorite patient, though, was Kaley. How do you not love someone with the same name? She's 8 and has osteosarcoma and is soooo cute and hilarious. She's the happy kind of oncology kid that everyone needs to meet so that they see its not all death and sadness. In a related story, I gotta say one of the best parts of the shadowing was talking to the fellow and Dr. Tersak about wanting to do their job. Its so nice to have someone actually understand what I'm saying about how much I want to do that and not think I'm insane or setting myself up for a depressing lifetime. The most depressing part of the week wasn't seeing all the sick kids, especially Gogo and another kid, Ahron, who are both almost certainly going to die, but it was trying to tell people about my day and getting the glazed over "omg, I don't want to know about this stuff... lalalala, denial" look from just about everyone. Sigh. Why can't people try to understand?

Oh. Em. Gee.

Duquesne sucks, the American Cancer Society sucks, all of humanity sucks. We wanted to have our Relay for Life in the Power Center on March 8. We're having our Relay on Apr 5 on the field.

Issue #1: The Power Center closes at 11pm. You lose, Duquesne doesn't do overnight events. We can't cohabitate! Maybe you can reserver the practice field.

Issue #2: The American Cancer Society insists³³³³³ that Relay take place overnight.

Our sensible compromise: Put Relay off til the fall when it will be warmer, we can reserve the field and run overnight.

Result: We lose. Our Relay is already "on the books" for this year. It has to be this semester. Yay, slapping together huge events in two months...

Stop the presses, I made a sensible decision!

I dropped psych from my schedule today...without ever going. What?! Kailey drop a class? The end is surely nigh.

To back up a little bit, a few days ago I was checking my email and received something from the chem department about new requirements for undergrad research. Previously, all I had to do was show up on a regular basis, make something resembling progress and not blow anything up, and voila, A! Not anymore. Some professors require their undergrads to write papers and progress reports, so they've decided to streamline it. Now I have to have specified lab hours, write a HUGE paper at the end and two smaller papers throughout the rest of the semester. Its like a real class now. That sucks. Way to ruin the end of my Christmas break, Duquesne.

So that brings us to today. I'm going to have a crapload of extra stuff to do and the pressure to do it now with the new research requirements. Also, there will be a lot of Relay for Life planning that needs to get done, so the last thing I need is to pack my schedule. Thus, good-bye psych, hello slightly improved sanity!

Big Brave Dog

Justin took Duane and I skiing a few days ago. I think he sums it up best.

But I had fun and can't wait to go again!