My 25 Things

So this is all the rage on Facebook, but I don't feel like posting it there. 25 Random things about myself:

1. I have never really failed at anything. Seriously, not even a D on a test or anything my whole life. I apply for stuff, I get it. I take a class, I get an A. I try some new hobby, it usually works out just fine.
2. Despite #1, I am horribly afraid of failure. Really, really afraid. Pretty much everything I've ever wanted to do has worked out for me (compare that to the 8 million other premed people I've known) so what is it going to be that doesn't work out?
3. On a more light hearted note, my childhood family pets covered all the pet animal kingdoms: fish, hermit crabs, lizard things, frogs, rabbit, dog.
4. The lizard things... I think they were called anoles... dehydrate quite easily. They turn into creepy/really cool little lizard crisps.
5. I have really bad luck sometimes. Most recently it involves my car. Some jackass hit my parked car in Oakland last night and left. (Police caught him. -whew-) In September, a woman side-swiped me coming out of the tunnels on the Fort Pitt Bridge, and in November, I was towed home from Cleveland after Ty's funeral because my car mysteriously overheated. Since then, it has randomly hemoraged coolant, so I check it and watch for puddles everywhere I go now.
6. Not only am I left handed but so are my boyfriend, my roommate, my boyfriend's roommate, and about 6 of my friends from high school.
7. The greated food ever created is Weirton Medical Center's macaroni and cheese. Served on Fridays and select Wednesdays, its pure bites of Heaven. Seriously.
8. In a related story, I have the most volunteer hours ever for a teen volunteer at good ol' WMC . I think the official total was 1,243.5. I got my name on a plaque on the wall at the hospital, oh boy!
9. I wanted to play football when I was younger. My mom wouldn't let me and I'm still a little bitter about that.
10. I don't understand 99% of other people's romantic relationships. I know people that talk to their significant others like they talk to 5 year olds, others that talk in battered woman voice and put up with constant criticism, some that just pick at each other all day about dumb things, and some more that have screaming fights or bouts of not talking for days. Really, guys? That's not how it's supposed to work.
11. I've worked in a research lab for 3 years now and really like it. Oddly enough, I only started doing it because the prehealth office pretty much insisted and I thought I'd hate it and quit after a semester.
12. I've been proposed to twice. The first time was by Corey in attempt #94830958345 to get my to sleep with him and I'm not entirely sure he was kidding. The second was by a crazy homeless man that was my patient at Mercy. The voices told him we were in love. Here's hoping #3 is for real.
13. John and Kate PLus 8 is the greatest show ever and I watch it every week. The kids crack me up, Kate is absolutely insane and I just want to give poor John a hug.
14. I have gone to camp every summer, save 2005, since I was 8.
15. Camp Quality is probably the best thing I've done/ever will do with my life. I've made some really amazing friends there and Ty's family is pretty much like my family now. They're the best.
16. I love snow. It is the greatest thing EVER. I can sit in front of the window and just watch it snow all day. I love it and could never live somewhere that there was not real winter.
17. I've had this pimple-like thing on my nose since 7th grade. Its a weird red spot, just under the skin that has been there since the Valentine's Day dance. It's noticeable in all of the pictures from then on. Sometimes I think its skin cancer and I'm probably screwed now since it's been there for 9 years. But since I keep forgetting to get it looked at, clearly I can't be that concerned.
18. I remember everything about everything. That dance in 7th grade I just mentioned in #17? Yeah, I wore a shiny, purple tank top and black pants with these platform sandal thingies I got from the Delias catalog (this was pre-Delias store days) and a silver butterfly headband. Did anything special happen at that dance to make me remember that? Nope. I just remember stupid stuff like that.
19. I am a complete wuss and wish I could be more daring. I'm afraid of everything remotely risk taking. I need to learn to let go.
20. I have terrible insomnia and always have. My body just isn't meant to fall asleep easily, I think. What's funny is that I didn't realize that I was abnormal until sometime in middle school. I used to spend the night places and think "Gee, they fall asleep fast." It apparently never occurred to me that I was the weird one and everyone else does, in fact, fall asleep less than 2 hrs after going to bed.
21. I'm not really one of those "everything happens for a reason!" people. I really don't think God cares if you eat blueberry or regulat waffles for breakfast and sometimes bad stuff just happens. In the grand scheme of things, however, sometimes He works it out. For example, I spent most of last year being really cranky that I couldn't go to China in Aug 2008 because the trip was cancelled because of the Olympics. I recently realized that the last good day I spent with Ty was during the time I would have been in China.
22. I don't have any real hobbies. When I was a kid, all the things I did were like dancing, sports, piano, etc., all of which are scheduled, go someplace kind of things. Most of that I do now (assorted volunteering, lab, all my clubs, etc.) also involves going elsewhere. This leads to me being really bored and at a loss of what to do with myself when I have large chunks of free time.
23. My blood pressure was once 139/42. The ER doctor just looked at the monitor, scratched his head and went "Huh!"
24. I am extremely flexible and most of my joints hyper-extend. My elbows go about 30º past horizontal and several of my knuckles go back a full 90º.
25. I start medical school in a little over 6 months (on Aug 9, to be precise). I cannot wait and plan on sleeping in my white coat and/or scrubs every night for quite some time out of sheer excitement.

Yes, we can!

We got a new president yesterday. I think that act alone was enough "change" to make the world a little better. Let's face it, George was the most unpopular guy on the planet.

Did you watch his speech? I did. It was awesome. I kinda of wish I could have been there. Darn you, Abby!

"America is ready to lead again." That's right, lead. Not the "we do what we want when we want" beat down of the past 8 years. What a novel idea.

"Restore science to its rightful place." Well, duh, I'm a scientist, so I'm a little biased here. But seriously, science is all about collaboration and frequently works by majority rules. Sure, some people don't think evolution and global warming are real even though 95% of their colleagues do. Some people are wrong. For the past 8 years, however, those people got to make all the decisions. Put someone in charge of the Environmental PROTECTION Agency that's all chummy with big business and could care less if we breathe clean air and drink clean water? Sure, why not. Gotta make the money! Never mind that whole budget cutting issue. Bombs are soooo much cooler than petri plates, right? I work in a lab so I see everyday just how much the money has gone away. Let's throw a billion dollars a day down the toilet in Iraq and Afghanistan while we screw over the entire scientific community. If my lab didn't have a multi-year NIH grant, I'm pretty sure we'd be flat broke. There's just no money.

And then, today, he did all kinds of exciting things. Memos to start closing down Gitmo and stop ignoring all kinds of international treaties, orders to close our secret, we don't really torture -wink, wink- prisons. Ten points for the Constitution.

Six-burgh!!!!

O. M. G. We are going to the Super Bowl. Dick LeBeau, I might just have to marry you. Dr Jones can be the best man. He deserves some thanks for piecing Ben's face back together so that he could play again.

But anways, back to the tast at hand: the Super Bowl. My dad bought a license plate that said "This is the year we'll get that One for the Thumb!" (Yes, One of the Thumb is a proper noun, thank you very much.) in 1981. A whole bunch of lost AFC Championships later, we finally got beloved #5 in 2006. That was my freshman year here at Duquesne. I watched the riot police on horses with batons and bullet-proof shields beat down the celebrations on the South Side. I waved my Terrible Towl like an idiot out in the snow for a long time that night. Two days later, I woke up at the crack of dawn to go sit on the sidewalk in the freezing cold for hours to get a good spot for the victory parade.

And now? Now we're heading back to get #6. The official shirts say "Six-burgh." Iron City thinks we should call it the "Six Pack." I don't really care what we call it. I just hope we win since, well, the Cardinals...really? It'd be pretty awesome if Super Bowl victories book-ended my college career. Maybe I'll even go riot on the South Side.

Suck on that, Tom Brady.

Fashion Rant

For the record, your pants do not go inside your shoes. I don't care how awesomely furry you think those boots are. You still look like a weird Chewbacca-astronaut hybrid. Also, spandex pants, so tight that they're practically painted on and fall into the rhealm of questionably pants or tights just don't work for ya girls. Sorry.

It was -9ºF this morning when I went to class. Sometime during the day, the temperature made it above 0º but not for too long. Does that stop the furry boot and spandex girls? Oh no. Apparently a -30ºF windchill and a frozen butt aren't enough for them to compromise their like, total hotness. I even saw a girl wearing a skirt in Oakland today, most certainly walking to party it up somewhere. I'm pretty sure chapped, flaky, frozen legs aren't that sexy. Wear some pants.

There's a lot of snow on the ground, too. Do people in Oakland shovel their sidewalks? No. Does Duquesne plow A-walk? Not so much. Do any of those stupid boots have good traction? That'd also be a big, fat NO. Go ahead, wipe out in front of the library on the icy bricks, see if I feel sorry for you.

4 Months

Today is a pretty important day. In exactly 4 months, I graduate!

I have Biochem II, Linear Algebra, Health Care Ethics and Fiction Writing this semester. Those first two count as real classes, sure, but can you say senioritis with the other two? Fiction writing? I only have to write two real stories. Seriously, I wrote more in research for credit last year.

More importantly, 7 months from today is my White Coat Ceremony at Pitt. Its where we all get our official University of Pittsburgh Medical School doctor-in-training coats and get welcomed to hell for the next 4 years. I can't wait! Totally sleeping in that thing for at least a week or two.

A Bigger, Braver Dog

I went skiing again today. The second time in less than a month! My little cousin, Stevie, got a snowboard for Christmas, and he wanted to go before he has to go back to school. Since my aunt or uncle can't really do it... They're middle aged and fat, not really the skier prototype... I went with him. Not that I have such great skills or anything. If he went down, I was pretty much just going to watch and then pick up the pieces. But I could at least serve as the voice of reason. "No, I don't think you should go down that hill, if you get hurt, I won't feel bad." -ahem- Duane.

He did pretty good though, I only picked up the pieces once. We were on the long, reeeeeeally gently sloping part of the northface slope (at Hidden Valley). I have no idea how he almost died there. Seriously, my grandma could probably hold it together on this part. Not Stevie. Serious wipe out. Like his hat flew one way and his goggles the other way kind of wipe out. And then he said a lot of bad words that my baby cousin should not say. -pause as I feel old for a moment-

But anywho, he was fine and more importantly, I went down all the intermediate slopes. In just 3 trips, I've gone from "big, brave dog" rocketing down the bunny hill at a cool 0.25 mph, thighs twitching in pain, to skiing side-to-side at a reasonably fast pace on the intermediate slopes. Oh yeah.