Plan B

I haven't written in a while. School has me in a corner. A corner of unhappiness. Extreme unhappiness. That's all I'm going to say about that, except that I'm sick of multiple weekly tests, papers, presentations, case studies abounding, and random homework assignments to fill in all the spaces of time we don't have when we've rarely had homework up to this point. This last month was poorly planned amongst my professors, and I haven't a drop of motivation left in me.

On that happy note, I finished my blook bank presentation today, have a paper due tomorrow, 2 tests the next day and then I have no more classes. Sure, I have 3 finals the week next, but I don't work any of the days working up to it, so I'm pretty psyched. I think I'm going to do my paper on porphyrias (the disease that helped bring about myths of vampires and wherewolves), and I've already researched to the point where I don't think it will be too difficult, once I force myself to bust it out, which I will do at work tonight. I haven't quite decided what I'm going to do about my tests on Wednesday, but I take comfort in the knowledge that if I can just manage to not fail, I won't have another damn class till at next November. If I do fail, I won't have to take any tests/classes until a much longer time period, but that is not the preferable option as I would be retaking classes...and if I have no motivation now, I sure as well won't have any more next year.

Likely I'll quit school and join the circus. This has been my plan for some time (almost as long as I've been attending college), but I have yet to find and perfect a skill that would make me desireable to the circus. I can't juggle, I like heights but my legs always shake even when I'm not at all scared, and clowns are a diabolical invention. I suppose I could take hromones and grow a mustache and beard, but I think it would be itchy, and I don't think the circus likes to expose the freaks as they once did. I know the circus sometimes gets a bad wrap for the exposition of animals and subsequent cruelty, but after reading the Life of Pi, I think maybe it might be not be so bad after all, perhaps. If the trainer makes himself the top dog to a bunch of lions, and they think he's the top lion because in the wild a real lion would be in his place and they would instinctively be stepping down and subjecting themselves to him...who are we to say it isn't just as good as how it happens in nature, especialy if the animal doesn't know any different? Dogs have been made to believe they're human, and I learned on a podcast not to long ago that there do exist retirement homes for retired show biz chimps, and they can watch tv whenever they want. Just a thought, and I'm probably wrong, but if I'm going to work for the circus I must tell myself these things.

April 6th, 2008

Have I mentioned that I really love the idea of writing about things I've done on here and posting pictures of said things? In theory it's a marvelous thing, but I never quite get it in practice. I enjoy writing stuff, and can accomplish such with little to no thought or effort on my part. Yet the picture thing eludes me. I have them (I take pictures of everything for no reason whatsoever most of the time, except for the obvious reason of that I enjoy doing so), but downloading them onto my computer and from there arranging them onto here is more work than I usually have the desire to undertake. I think it's the ADD present in me. My sort of friend Jerry complained that no pictures on a blog is "lame," and I kind of agree with him. I'm a visual person, and it's nice to have things grab you like that, thus being the reason why I have so many bloody pictures in the first place. Nevertheless, that's what happened to the Mexico post, Semi Fun Week, Easter...so don't be holding your breath for them. I would eventually like to put them on here though. I will untill then inevitably write it off as something I will hopefully do when I'm less busy. As is usually the case though, when one has the time to write there is nothing to write, and when there is something of interest to depart there are better things to do than to write and download pictures. It's so much easier to get them randomly from the internet. Case in point.
As usual I will blame my lack of a desire towards any forward movement, on school and work. The fact that they force me forward with so many things makes me all the more likely to dig in my heals when it comes to every other aspect of my life that I have to force in any way. My room is still half-way cleaned, half-way wanting to be cleaned, as is the case with my car, and every other project I have. That, of course, being what I'm naturally good at. I have unfinished projects stemming from the very earliest parts of my childhood. I have an elaborate nativity set of handstitched dolls/animals with wood, leather, cloth and metal components (for realism's sake) I started making for my grandmother at the age of 10 (and the parts I finished are rather impressive if I do say so myself), a miniature model of my house I started when I was about 12 (only the basement of which I finished, and which I ultimately stopped because as time elapsed my real life house changed enough that it became difficult to render the model in the way I had wanted to), wooden marionette puppets in various degrees of creation from my marrionette puppet phase... These days I still have that damn mountain dew tree, my ImmunoCAP 1000 pinata, countless clay things, photo albums, writings... Bah.

I started cleaning my room while watching Conference today. It made me wish there were more days of Conference to look forward to, because I can always relax and think of good and productive things when watching Conference, and I don't feel badly about putting off unpleasant thoughts, like papers and projects due. Of course, I will not be able to watch the rest of Conference (though I will still download and listen to it), and so I must instead get geared up for work over the next few days, and writing papers and making projects. Thankfully this is not too bad of a feat. I mean, busy work like this semester comprises is time consuming, and I have a natural tendency to avoid it, but when I actually make myself do it I find myself enjoying it. I like writing. I like coming up with random power point presentations. I hate the time limits entailed, but you can't have everything. I even like work when I'm not bored, and things are starting to pick up since Summer is prime allergy testing season. I will end with a picture of the baby I am using in my power point presentation of Hemolytic Disease of the Newborn. I think anytime a baby is wearing tye dye clothing, it should be worked into any and every presentation possible.

Save the Puppies

So, I was at my parent's house today, spending my Saturday off just chillin,' when all of the sudden I hear this knock at the door. I yell "come in!" because I'm expecting my sister Lee Ann to show up any minute. My lil' sis chides me because I guess it could be biker dudes, or someone else we wouldn't want to come into our house. So as my mother gets up to answer the door I look out the window. There is a little person at the door, and at first I think it's my niece, but then I remember that my sister isn't bringing any of her kids with her. I follow my mother to the door just as my sister's chihuahua rushes out the in a flurry of activity jumping up and barking at the small child standing at our door. She is flustered for obvious reasons. I start to get excited because I think she's selling candy. I love buying candy from children. I remember how shy I was in elementary school, and how I was too afraid to sell anything at peoples' doors, so I like making it easier on the little guys. Plus, I like candy, and I feel more justified in eating it when I've acquired for a good cause. I actually remember broaching this very subject with a guy I dated for a while, only it was one of a hundred we talked about that day on the phone and I forgot I'd mentioned it the second it'd left my mouth. The next date we went on he said, "I have a surprise for you." He then drove us by a neighborhood he had passed that day where little kids were selling chocolate bars at a table they'd set up, and he proceeded to buy me a selection of candy bars. That was a good day. Anyway, back to the child at my parent's door.

The dog stopped jumping up and down and started running after her friend riding a scooter down the road. I chased after the dog. As soon as she was back in the house I walked to where my sister and mother and the little girl stood, and we attempted to get out of her what she wanted to say. I asked her what she had there, becuase she was holding a piece of paper, and she handed me the page displayed at the top of the post. She then said some things that I assume were so jumbled because of her traumatic experience with the tiny dog. I very distinctly heard something about "saving puppies," and when I asked what puppies she replied, "we heard people were killing them." I said thank you and she rushed off before we found out which people and what puppies, but I did gain a rather attractive piece of paper that shows my support of their heroic cause. For a while there I thought we were about to be bamboozled into taking a puppy, but alas, such was not the case.

Meanwhile my little sister thinks that her car was broken into last night because she watched Baywatch that night. And right now she "needs a picture of Jesus." (She's in charge of Sharing Time tomorrow in Primary). Luckily only some burned cds and a couple of dog purses were stolen. Man, people are stupid. Don't they know that there are puppies being killed out there?

In other matters; Enablex has a commercial with a bunch of water balloons at a high school reunion. What, the, heck? Who came up with this idea, and how did they get their job? WHO let this happen? Is one supposed to take this drug seriously? That really had nothing to do with anything, but I was rather appalled, so I decided to address it.

Realizations

So it's official: my life sucks real bad right now. So bad, that I purposely fudged the grammer of that last sentence.

Today in particular left me feeling uncertain of just about everything in my life right now. I found out for sure that next year I will be by myself in the way of rotations at school, or rather, partnered with no one I know. They all chose amidst each other, and I was the odd one out. It definitely feels like I'm without friends in my life right now, or at least any that live anywhere near by, or who really care, or so it feels like. Man that's pathetic, but what can you do? It's my own fault for being too busy to foster any of my friendships, but I can't do anything about that now. School and work have made it too hard for anything else, and I don't have the energy to do anything about it, or the money to quit my job. Anyway, I'm venting here, because that's what I do, and there aren't a lot of other options that don't involve me cowering in a corner eating my hair, or going crazy more violently by keeping it all inside. Besides, I figure this isn't read often enough to matter to anyone but myself.

This year in particular has been one of the hardest of my life. I find myself asking myself constantly, "what am I doing here? I'm not particularly happy, I'm stressed out, things that I used to like school-wise I'm becoming increasingly disenchanted with because of all of the stress..." At this point I'm only sticking it out because I'm so close to being done, and because I don't want these last few years to have come to nothing. I'm 24, and I have yet to attain any college degrees. I'm so ready to be done with school. I know I'm not even going to be in this field forever, yet I feel I have to stick it out. I have to have that back up plan before I do something that is unlikely to work, but I'll be happier doing. And my parents are proud of me right now. I'm not sure why, but I would hate to disappoint them after all this time. I originally wanted to go into something stable and well paying enough that I could support them in their old age if they needed it, because I worry about them, and they've taken care of me my whole life. But I think they're smart enough in their savings that they'll be all right. And we're the only thing they actually worry about, so if I'm not happy, they won't be. But they are getting older, and I just wish that they did't always have to work so hard...

I'm actually not really sure what I'll do after this, but I know it has to get better. Art, English Literature, Archeology...just about anything would be better and more interesting I think. It's not that science is uninteresting though. I'm just too fascinated by all aspects of life to tie myself completely to science. I just want ot get out and into the world already. But first I need to work on being a more likable person who doesn't bring everyone else down with me. Any suggestions? If I don't even like myself, I can't very well expect anyone else to.

I do worry about graduating and finding myself alone though, with everyone I knew before having moved on and away. I've never been very good at making new friends, so it's a good thing I'm too busy with school and work to worry too much about these things. Anyway, I'm pretty sure God still likes me at least, so if I can work on my relationship there, everything will turn out okay I think.

Lazing about on a Saturday

Today was one of the first days this year that Ive woken up feeling refreshed and entirely devoid of stress. Man, I can't wait till summer. I woke up at about noon (terrible, I know, but I was tired, and I stayed up later than usual eating ice cream with my twin 4 year old nieces--I'm such a rebel). Anyway, I woke up, tried to transfer stuff from my old-not-working-very-well phone to my new-working-better phone, showered, then my friend Devin and I went to get some lunch (both of us pretending it was already summer the whole time--we both wore shorts and refused to think otherwise, even when it started to snow--because the sun was shining for the first time in a while, at least initially, that either of us happened not to work), then to this little store I found the week before last that sells pipes. It sells all sorts of tobacco products actually, but we were all about the pipes. Don't worry, I'm not about to start a smoking habit any time soon...or ever for that matter. But I did somehow get it set in my mind that Devin should get his "author" pictures taken in jeans and a t shirt with a pipe in his hand (he's written 2 books already and is about to have the first published); in black and white of course, which was his plan already. Something about pipes just makes people look more intelligent. Nothing says "buy me" like a picture on the back of a book with the author holding a pipe. The jeans say, "I'm casual and down to earth," the pipe says, "I'm really smart, see...I'm holding a pipe." Anyway, with these thoughts in my head, I went in search of a pipe for Devin. I eventually found one and realized that not only do pipes make you look smarter, but they also make you feel smarter. I decided that I couldn't do without my newfound pipe. I studied much better that night because of it, I'm just sure of it.


So naturally, Devin was jealous of my pipe. I let him hold it a few times, but it just wasn't enough for him--he had to have one of his own. We found ourselves in this pipe shop, perusing through their pipe selection. A lot of thought went into it, vibes were felt, and eventually we found the pipe that screamed, "Devin." The dude there said he knew the minute Devin picked it up that it'd be the one he left with. How's that for fate? Anyway, we both decided that we might start collecting pipes. I love collecting things; I collected coins, marrionette puppets, rocks smoothed out and shaped like eggs, pens, playing cards, as well as tea sets for a time. And I love pipes, even though the thought of smoking kind of revolts me. Hopefully Germany will have a nice selection when I go.


After the pipe buying we headed to Smith's Marketplace and I bought a few movies--including The Sound of Music. I've had a hankering to watch it for over a year now, and I only just decided to do something about it. We also looked for Gigi, which I wanted Devin to see, because it's French (sort of), and for someone who loves musicals he sure hasn't seen a lot of the classics. Leslie Caron, Hermione Gingold, Maurice Chevalier, filmed in black and white...need I add any more recommendations to it than that? We ended up going to the City Library, which is I love because it has one of the most impressive layouts I've come across with the added bonus of being full of books, and I finally got a library card there. I hadn't before this point strangely enough; I just had a county one. We found the movie, but we still ended up watching The Sound of Music. Devin thought he hated it before, having seen it last over 8 years ago, but it turns out he actually loves it. There's not much not to love. Amazing aerial shots of beautiful mountains and other Austrian scenery/landscapes, amazing music unparalleled--when it comes to pretty much everything else, excellently thought out humor, nazis, and at times touchingly sad moments...it's no wonder it made it onto AFI's 100 top movies of all times--the watching of all said movies being one which I've recently undertaken. I'm about 5 down so far, in case you were wondering.

So that was my casual, stress free Saturday.

Pretty Uglies

That picture of myself on the last post is freaking me out, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. That's really the only reason I'm writing. I still need to post the already written Mexico/Cali post, but I have yet to get my computer to load all of the pictures I want onto it. I do have the pictures from Becca now, but with all of the testing going on in my life right now, I can't make myself dedicate too much time to it (my mac has a weird way of dealing with things like pictures, and for some reason it doesn't like these ones).

Anyway, spring break is coming up soon, and I am so looking forward to sleeping in every day. And reading books of leasure. Plus it's getting warm, so who knows, maybe I'll throw open the doors to my garage and throw some stuff on my pottery wheel as well. I think I may start to plan my summer too. Semi Fun Week part 2 has to take place, and tickets to Germany bought, and possible sky diving? I will have work, but it's so nice to not have to go in till 2.

I still have one day of school to go though, and probably the worst test yet in blood bank. I am feeling good though, because I did well on the last test in this class, so if I do relatively well on this one I think I'll be alright. Today was my last blood bank lab, which is good and bad. I actually liked the lab, though the lecture is easy to get behind in, and we always did interesting tests to see whose blood could be crossmatched with whose (for the record, Steven can give me his blood, but mine would kill him--we crossmatched our serum and blood to each other). I found this simplistic drawing of a lamp and mirror to test for agglutination in test tubes, which is what we did all year. Cute, huh?
I also have my last day of my micro practical exam tomorrow. I've done much better on this exam than the last one (meaning I had no anxiety attacks in the middle of class), and for this one we were dealing with the identifications of upwards of 10 different organisms instead of the 3 we had last time. I spent the first day doing gram stains and innoculations for about 2 and a half hours, the second day doing just about everything I could in the 4 hours it took me to do it (2 of said hours entirely dedicated to additional gram stains) as well as subculturing organisms and finding my anaerobe, yesterday I spent about the same amount of time setting up enteric batteries, and tests for coagulase, CAMP, reverse CAMP, Bile Esculin, Flo, Tech, broths for motility at different temperatures, catalase, oxidase, anaerobics on Egg Yolk Agar, A discs, P discs, 0129 discs, an X and V selective test... I'm kind of tiring of it all, yet at the same time I think I'll miss it. "It" being that particular class's lab. Of course during this week alone I've managed to burn myself with a wire loop streaking plates, had part of my microscope just fall off another, broke numerous slides...but all in all it's been a fun lab to be in. I'm actually surprised to see that I know what I'm doing in there most of the time, which is nice. Also, it's all been open book (including during practicals), which makes an otherwise impossible task doable. I also like my teacher in there best, though I'm not so sure about how much she likes me. Regardless though, she's fair, sympathetic (she changes test dates for us all of the time, and gives the most helpful reviews outlining everything we need to know for tests), and I've learned a lot. Plus it's just interesting stuff to begin with. Although we did have a pretty gross lecture today with a lot of chancre and genital warts pictures. I think I'll include much prettier pictures than I was subjected to today in the form of all of the organisms I've been dealing with/performing tests on this week.


Note the delightful metallic sheen that is Pseudomonas. It's always nice to get stuff like this, because you know just looking at it what it is, and then you just have to prove it by doing follow up tests.






Morganella morganii has this nice orange tint when grown on sheep's blood, and most things are only white/gray/clear on sheep's blood agar






Escherichia coli; a nice dry colony that happens to be the second highest bacteria present in our digestive tract





You have to love Proteus. Other than that they ruin your DNAse tests when they swarm all over the place. You'll note the lovely purple swarming on this plate, reminiscent of ripples in water. Also an unmistakable i.d. just by looking at it




Clostridium is anaerobic, and therefore I couldn't culture it till I discovered it in my TCBS broth 2 days in. On the left of this egg yolk agar is Clostridium difficile, which is oily because it's lipase positive, and on the right is Clostridium perfringenes, which is milky because it is lecithinase positive.


Serratia marcescens is one of my other favorites because it has a red pigment, not to be mistaken with the hot pink that is produced on MAC agar by lactose fermentors. The background is clear, yet the colony is red (a lactose fermentor still has a light pinkish background, which is the plates natural color). Here it looks orange.




Streptococcus pneumoniae is a very wet looking thing. You can imagine what it looks like inside of you.






This is a beta hemolytic species of Strep. Beta meaning that when the organism consumes the nutrient rich sheep blood agar, it lyses the blood cells entirely and consumes them to get this lovely yellow color that you can see your fingers through if you're holding them behind it. Alpha hemolytic, on the other hand, is a yucky green background under the colonies.

Bacillus cereus is pretty self-explanatory when it comes to how cool looking it is. Sadly I had Listeria this week instead, which makes up for that fact only because it's microscopic movement at room temperature is just plain adorable.


So I have all of my organisms identified this week except for two at this point, due to my coag and enterics battery not turning out (I think I innoculated the wrong thing on the latter, considering my LIA lacked a characteristic bordeau color and I'm positive I have a Proteus species because of all the spreading happening on my sheep's blood agar plate).

Sun 11:01 PM

Oh, I'm so awesome at updating this when I need to be doing homework. And I REALLY need to do homework right now. I wish I had donuts right about now. I also wish I didn't have school tomorrow, more than the donuts. And that blood bank wasn't such a hard class for me as far as taking tests go. I can't seem to get her style of question asking down. So I discovered the most delightful thing about my mac today, which is that not only do I have a photo booth thing on there that takes pictures via the little lens at the top of my laptop monitor(?), but that it has all sorts of effects on it too. I had a little too much fun with it, which will translate to less fun later when I'm failing out of school because I was playing around on my computer when I should have been studying. I have loads of pictures and things to say on here later from this weekend, but I haven't the time, and the guilt trip I verbalized just now for myself (without actual verbalization) is starting to take an actual effect on me.