A Life

Oh, so many things to write about.

Let's see...my English skills are rapidly deteriorating. I blame this on school, because I can, and I think that's about right. I'm in a constant state of worrying about having to think, and with that kind of pressure I don't. Half the time even I don't know what I'm saying. I have two good friends--Guy and Stevie Boy--who are in my same school program, and we're all starting to show similar signs of digression. A few weeks ago Guy accidentally said "we're Scienticians" instead of scientists. I think that about sums it up.

Speaking of language that doesn't quite add up, we had someone other than our professor teaching our immunology class today, as is the case quite often for some bizarre reason, and she had a Russian accent. Consequently we learned about "wiruses and antibois" today. Mostly I just sat there looking over my Microbiology notes and eating gummy soda. I eat nothing but junk lately, very literally. Guy and I buy mass amounts of Mountain Dew and rootbeer or cream soda (mainly), and then they end up in my fridge--because my house is more condusive to studying as I live with girls and not 7 guys--and then I drink them because they're there. Also, the hospital cafeteria fails to impress me with meals, and I don't like eating food that isn't good; unfortunately they happen to have amazing gormet desserts, so I eat them instead. Their pecan pie is amazing, they've had all of these different kinds of cheesecakes varying with the days, tiramisu...and they all come with freshly whipped cream and a strawberry/raspberry/pirouette. I have absolutely no restraint.

So I really need to step up as far as studying goes. The time put into it isn't as much a problem as the quality of studying. I have so many tests that I just don't want to study most of the time, and that's my mindset when I do. I've been settling for mediocracy pretty much from the beginning. The problem with this is that once you stop shooting for the stars, you tend to shoot yourself in the foot instead. My last two tests have made me see the light. I will be spending at least some of my fall break next week catching up on stuff I should have learned better by now.

I really am excited for fall break. I have a myriad of uneventful and somewhat trivial things planned. I'm so excited to not have to plan on doing anything for once. I mean, I have some plans, but mostly I'm planning for some much needed "nothing" time. For once I don't work or go to school. The last few fall breaks and spring breaks I've worked. I do work one day in the week, and this weekend is Conference--for these reasons, and my lack of money, I'm not going to Washington like I was thinking of doing (sorry Duckling!)

Speaking of work: I'm still training on the MMV's. You're probably wondering, "still?" because I'm pretty sure I never mentioned the MMV's before. Measles, Mumps, Veriscella. I love that once you get started you just babysit, and you're not expected to build anything more onto your run, and you don't have to deal with samples they didn't send enough samples for (you do that before, and there's such a small amount needed in the first place...). However, the machine is ancient and has a mind of its own, and thus it will randomly stop working whenever it feels like it, and maybe will pick up where it left off if you hurry and turn it off and back on. Very technical, I know. And even if it doesn't stop running, it fails runs a lot. If the calibrators and controls come in out of range, which they do often, you rerun everything. So far (that is, since I've been training) the amount of run failures have exceeded run passes. But despite this, Seahawk (my new night person, who is on the ball and really just makes me laugh) is back from his honeymoon and I'm no longer running the ship by myself. Also, I'm being trained by Tybot, who is quite possibly my favorite person ever. Think of the dryest sense of humor possible, then of random comments whose origins are baffling, and the occasional hassling of someone entirely laid back. At first you're like, "what the..?" but then anything less is far inferior to working conditions. With him and Texas working on the same bench as me...well, I really like my job right now, even if it is stressful.

Miracle of all miracles, my fish has not died yet. He's such a trooper. In case you were wondering, our tank filter broke, and we noticed it and also that our angelfish had lost it's black stripes and had red rimmed eyes. They're especially fragile to environmental stress, but I think they could potentially live a decade. After talking to some people and reading up on it, I found that they usually don't come back after the stress has gotten to them initially, but he is looking much better. He has some stripes and his eyes look better. He could still die tomorrow for all I know, but I hope not. Walsh is my favorite. We also got this puffer fish that's tiny beyond belief, and he's stirred up the atmosphere of the tank quite a bit. We named him Butch. He's maybe the size of a horse fly. He seems to scare our shark, who used to hide in the driftwood, but now Butch steals his spot half the time and Randall just looks longingly into the wood. Xavier our catfish actually swims around now instead of hiding unseen all day behind the driftwood. Unrelated to Butch, Blaird no longer swims around after Phineas and Ellis (our striped budgies) thinking he's one of them instead of the ugly orange/green fish he is (all three are schooling fish, but we neglected to get Blaird a friend). So you can see just how sad my life is right now, when the most excitement relating to my life has to do with my fish.

Speaking of excitement: the sophisticated technology that goes into holding my mattress up (several pieces of ply-board) has given up its integrity in the middle, and I'm sinking even as I write this.

----------line of time-------it is now 2:32 am on October the 5th-------

So I'm studying for 2 tests I have tomorrow. I didn't work today, though it's my off week, because I worked for Something McVillnavekins last week (my opposite and I share the first same name, so we go by last names). After tomorrow I have a lovely week off from school and work. I think a considerable part may be devoted to studying, but it will nice to be studying instead of cramming for once. But for right now I'm cramming. I don't care as much as I should about immunology, and I'm almost done looking over the slides from class (that's all the effort I'm willing to put forward). That class is all about luck and mercy anyway. On the other hand, I've looked over microbiology quite a bit, but I think I need to go over it all again as well. There are a lot of different bacteria that cause various diseases, and right now I need to memorize the species and genuses of all gram negative bacteria, how to identify them, what they cause, and what media and reagents are specifically are needed for each. I think I have the chart of identification down, but I'd better make sure. I have about 4 hours till I have to go to school, so I'd better get back to work. I already had a 2 hour nap, so hopefully I'll be able to make it through work tomorrow after school.