My Random Ramblings

AHHHHHHHH!

2009-05-16T17:19:00.002-04:00

So I haven't blogged in, well, a really long time. Oops? I suppose there are plenty of things I could back-date. But...

Who freaking cares...I'M GETTING MARRIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!!!!!

Exciting, no?

This will not end well.

2009-02-19T19:34:00.000-05:00

On Tuesday, I participated in an hour and fifteen minute discussion about discussions. Seriously.

That bit of mental torture took place in my health care ethics class, presumably, because we are starting to discuss abortion. Everyone knows how civil and logical those discussions tend to be.

Today, we actually started the discussing. Our class is now roughly divided into two groups: Religious Beat Down Boy and everyone else. Personally, yes, abortion= bad. But, hey, who am I to make that decision for someone else. This kid, however, went on a tirade about everyone going straight to Hell for thinking abortion might sometimes be ok and women's main function as a source of life. (S.S. Mick, anyone?) The best part, however, was is argument that even pregnancy in the case of rape should never be aborted because "like its that big of an inconvenience. Nine months isn't really a big deal, the girl should just deal with it."

Those are not the words of a winner. They do, on the other hand, immediately incite an angry feminist rage against you, causing the professor to end class a little early.

Can't wait til next week! :-\

Sign here.

2009-02-09T16:40:00.003-05:00

Duane and I (and our parents) finished signing our lease this weekend. We officially have a home for next school year!

We went to look at the apartment last weekend. From the pictures online, it looked decent but I wasn't expecting anything spectacular.

It ended up being pretty spectacular... well, as far as you can imagine a 1 bedroom apartment being, anyways. Its got shiny new hard wood floors... we had to take our shoes off to go in, in fact. And a dishwasher. Dishwasher = win. Also, bus stop is seriously 3 ft off the front porch. Big win there, too. And, oh yes, not in Oakland so no drunk "WOooooooooooooo!" at 3 am or broken beer bottles in the streets or helicopters landing 24/7. Ah, quiet.

I almost died.

2009-02-01T23:30:00.000-05:00

About three times, in fact.

First, there was my new favorite player ever, James Harrisson running farther and faster than his fat, line-backer self had ever run before. I said it before, I would marry Dick LeBeau. Best defensive scheme ever there, hubby.

Then freak of nature Larry Fitzgergald scored and we were doomed.

But then, Ben, oh Ben, I know he heard my pep talk. He worked his "I'm only a mediocre quarterback until the last 2-3 minutes of the game when I suddently become freaking Joe Montanna" magic and saved us via the greatest throw-reception combo in the history of football. Right then, the only thing that kept me from completely keeling over was Santonio's super-human foot control. Seriously, I want to be a wide receiver. How they handle their feet fascinates me.

Six-burgh, baby!!

My 25 Things

2009-01-31T16:25:00.001-05:00

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

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.
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?
On a more light hearted note, my childhood family pets covered all the pet animal kingdoms: fish, hermit crabs, lizard things, frogs, rabbit, dog.
The lizard things... I think they were called anoles... dehydrate quite easily. They turn into creepy/really cool little lizard crisps.
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.
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.
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.
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!
I wanted to play football when I was younger. My mom wouldn't let me and I'm still a little bitter about that.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I have gone to camp every summer, save 2005, since I was 8.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
My blood pressure was once 139/42. The ER doctor just looked at the monitor, scratched his head and went "Huh!"
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.
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!

2009-01-21T18:25:00.000-05:00

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!!!!

2009-01-18T23:07:00.002-05:00

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

2009-01-16T17:58:00.000-05:00

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

2009-01-09T14:00:00.000-05:00

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

2009-01-02T20:18:00.000-05:00

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.

My Obligatory Year In Review

2008-12-31T16:30:00.000-05:00

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.

Relay actually happened...with great success no less.
I kicked the MCAT's ass, completed applications super early and got into medical school. Yay, Pitt!
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?

2008-12-25T20:19:00.000-05:00

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

2008-12-19T17:10:00.000-05:00

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

2008-12-11T23:03:00.000-05:00

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

2008-12-10T19:54:00.002-05:00

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

2008-11-21T17:02:00.000-05:00

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.

2008-11-06T12:18:00.003-05:00

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.

2008-10-22T12:04:00.000-04:00

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!

!

2008-10-17T11:00:00.000-04:00

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

2008-10-15T20:55:00.000-04:00

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

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.
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!
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

2008-10-10T14:43:00.000-04:00

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

2008-10-02T15:29:00.000-04:00

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:

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.
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.
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.
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.
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!

2008-09-27T22:30:00.002-04:00

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.

2008-09-15T20:09:00.000-04:00

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

2008-08-31T11:36:00.000-04:00

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!

2008-08-21T17:31:00.001-04:00

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

2008-08-20T20:25:00.000-04:00

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

2008-08-14T15:38:00.003-04:00

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

2008-08-08T21:06:00.000-04:00

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.

2008-08-03T22:58:00.003-04:00

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

2008-08-02T20:48:00.000-04:00

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.

2008-07-25T17:09:00.000-04:00

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

2008-07-21T17:27:00.003-04:00

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...

2008-07-11T23:21:00.000-04:00

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:

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.
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?
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.
Speaking of which, Ty is SUPER EXCITED for camp. Woo!
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.

2008-07-08T17:00:00.001-04:00

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...

2008-07-07T17:10:00.001-04:00

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!

2008-07-01T17:50:00.000-04:00

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!

2008-06-30T19:45:00.000-04:00

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

-whew-

2008-06-26T14:42:00.000-04:00

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?

2008-06-18T20:49:00.002-04:00

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?

2008-06-12T21:57:00.001-04:00

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

2008-06-06T16:49:00.000-04:00

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...

2008-06-03T23:56:00.001-04:00

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?

2008-05-22T20:01:00.003-04:00

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

2008-05-19T19:20:00.000-04:00

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!

2008-05-10T12:53:00.001-04:00

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!!!

2008-05-03T08:44:00.000-04:00

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!

2008-04-28T22:19:00.002-04:00

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?

2008-04-19T13:08:00.000-04:00

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-04-12T07:02:00.000-04:00

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

2008-04-11T12:54:00.000-04:00

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

2008-03-24T20:48:00.000-04:00

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!

2008-03-17T16:27:00.000-04:00

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.

2008-03-15T22:52:00.002-04:00

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.

2008-01-25T22:46:00.000-05:00

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!

2008-01-10T14:15:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-05T22:32:00.000-05:00

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!

100 Greatest Songs

2007-12-24T00:06:00.001-05:00

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.

2007-11-21T15:44:00.000-05:00

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

2007-11-11T20:36:00.000-05:00

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

2007-11-04T18:20:00.000-05:00

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?

2007-10-29T18:14:00.000-04:00

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!

2007-10-09T20:52:00.000-04:00

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!

2007-10-07T22:47:00.000-04:00

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

2007-10-06T01:41:00.000-04:00

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...

2007-10-01T18:40:00.000-04:00

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!

2007-09-27T16:30:00.000-04:00

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:

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.
I've started tutoring. Hurrah, money! Boo, decreased free time!
"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.
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.
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

2007-09-09T23:00:00.000-04:00

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

2007-09-03T17:33:00.000-04:00

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.

2007-08-31T17:11:00.000-04:00

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....

2007-08-26T16:55:00.000-04:00

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!

2007-08-12T21:49:00.000-04:00

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

2007-08-07T12:38:00.000-04:00

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?

2007-08-02T16:35:00.000-04:00

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!

2007-07-27T21:37:00.000-04:00

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

2007-07-26T17:30:00.000-04:00

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.

2007-07-25T21:21:00.000-04:00

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.

2007-07-23T17:28:00.000-04:00

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!

2007-07-14T18:29:00.000-04:00

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!

2007-07-08T07:21:00.000-04:00

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..

2007-07-05T18:09:00.000-04:00

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!

2007-07-04T14:04:00.000-04:00

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!

2007-06-28T22:48:00.000-04:00

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

2007-06-28T15:37:00.000-04:00

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!

2007-06-18T20:49:00.000-04:00

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!

2007-06-16T20:44:00.000-04:00

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...

2007-06-12T23:28:00.000-04:00

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

2007-06-12T19:06:00.000-04:00

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.

2007-06-07T22:58:00.000-04:00

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.

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.
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. :'(
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?!

2007-06-05T15:51:00.000-04:00

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!

2007-06-04T18:39:00.000-04:00

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!

2007-05-31T00:27:00.000-04:00

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

2007-05-29T21:42:00.000-04:00

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?

2007-05-24T21:30:00.000-04:00

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

2007-05-23T20:16:00.000-04:00

-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!

2007-05-19T17:05:00.000-04:00

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.

2007-05-15T19:50:00.000-04:00

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

2007-05-12T23:03:00.000-04:00

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...

2007-05-11T22:44:00.000-04:00

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

2007-05-09T23:09:00.000-04:00

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.