ch-ch-ch-china

Eep!

I am leaving for China tonight... I will blog as I am able so that I can share some of what I am seeing/doing with you. I am incredibly nervous but also excited... its been months in the making, and I cant believe it is actually here...


So off I go... enjoy the next two weeks without me!


<3

when things arent what they are supposed to be

I guess only God knows what is supposed to be and what isnt. But so often times you know something is wrong and it feels like life shouldnt be what it is... and you feel like you arent living, that you are completely stagnant, that everyone else around you is going ahead and making progress and you are treading water in the deep end. If you do that long enough you get tired. I should know.

So how do you get out? Can you really? Plenty of people would say that you need to "take charge" of your life and "make changes". Some people would just suggest that happiness and contentment are a state of mind... and if you change your view of life, you will be happier. Expect less and your expectations will be met. It seems a pessimistic way of thinking about things to me.

But really, can you make changes in your life for the better? Well, sure, i think you can. You can stop smoking. You can start eating right and exercising. You can pick up a hobby or do something you know you enjoy. You can take a break and go on vacation. But what about changes to who you are inside? To the relationships you have with people? To be honest, im not sure... I am not sure whether thats a change or just time coupled with growth. i dont know if you can consciously change who you are deep down... you could start with surface changes... for example, if you are extremely racist, and decide you dont wanna be, you could start by keeping your mouth shut when something racist wants to come out of it.... but its only over time that the external change will have an internal effect... if at all! And even then, it might be something happens to make you see things differently... or you just grow up and see that you were stupid!

So I am not completely convinced that you can actively change things... change over a long period of time is possible, im sure, but its cuz you grow up... things can never be instantly better when you are talking in terms of who you are and your relationship to someone else. Its too complex I guess.

I just feel so tired.

What IS worth "fighting for"? What, in the end, is worth the pain? The bible says to expect pursecution and pain... its part of life and love... and I agree... but is there a line to be drawn? I cant claim to know the ultimate purpose of life... and I know a few people who think that they DO know... But I personally I am not sure... It could be to love though. To just love and experience life, to not think about it, to be true to yourself and who you are at your core and to help others be happy and be more themselves. I am sure its part of it.

Which brings me (somehow) to another thought... life is so incredibly ironic. Those who practice witchcraft use the rule of threes... do something and it will return to you threefold. How true! Things come back to bite you in the butt for some reason. If you treat someone a particular way, invariably you also will be treated that way eventually. And I feel like I am getting that now.

I had hope and faith... I really did... but I questioned, I always questioned, because I had never come up against something like this. And I didnt mean it to be invalidating, or for it to be... um... I dont know, to make it seem like I didnt have faith or I didnt believe... I just needed to know for real. And I didnt... and I was scared, but mostly because I didnt trust myself...

And its funny... when you dont trust yourself, when you dont have faith in yourself, you never can believe anyone else... because you think, How can they know me like they do and love me? But duh, of course, that is why love is blind and why love probably has a huge part to do in the purpose and intent of life... love transcends self-loathing... its often the absence of self. And I hate thinking about myself, I really do... and I dont know why everyone encourages it. I REALLY hate that... "well, think about what YOU want, whats best for YOU"... who CARES?! I dont, I really dont. I hate when people say that because love isnt about doing whats best for you... and YES, I totally understand that you need to love yourself and understand yourself and you cant love others if you cant love yourself and all of that stuff... but in the end, you gotta do whats best for someone else, i think... that sometimes means doing whats best for you, too... and oftentimes it means not doing what you "want".

sigh... I dont know, I feel like im rambling, not that I had a particular goal for this post... im just really hurting right now and a few people tell me often that I keep things in way too much and I dont reach out enough... and I guess this is reaching out in the broadest sense, since I have no idea who actually reads this and how manyo f those people actually care. One extreme to the other I guess. But the nice thing, and the easy thing, and the chicken thing about blogging about stuff is that its impersonal, and its still not REALLY reaching out, its still kind of keeping it in, cuz if no one ever talks to you about it, the oh well, they didnt read it or they read it and dont care. So you still get to keep it inside... but writing is good, I think... writing helps me sort things out and just get it out of my head into a more organized fashion. When I get like this, I have so many thoughts racing around inside my head its like utter cacophony and I cant make sense of any of it.

What I do know, after all of this, is that I need some rest, and I need some hugs. But im at work. So naturally thats not going to happen. I am always at work when stuff is going down and I would rather be at home. I dont know if thats just God taking me out of situations so that I dont cry for several hours at a time like last night. I dont know. Sorry if this was confusing... though I guess I dont have to apologize... lets just say this is a lot more cohesive than it is in my head, so you can just imagine what its like in there right now.

and in other news...

I read a book today. like an entire book. I bought it last night while I was cramming for my praxis exam today... which I will get to in a moment... I started reading it about 7 this morning while I was waiting for the mean lady to start reading her standardized directions, which she didnt start to do til like 7:45, but I was glad to be there early...

I read Blood Canticle by Anne Rice. 500 pages-ish, i think.

Now I realize that reading that much in one day is quite silly... especially because, and unfortunately, I scan when I read instead of reading each word. I guess there are two documented ways of reading: reading a full sentence or a paragraph and then inferring... or reading word by word to make sure youve really got it down. I read in large chunks, and quickly at that.... so if you were to ask me to give you a summary of the book, I suppose I could, but it wouldnt be very detailed. Unfortunately reading in large chunks has the downfall for me that I almost instantaneously forget what ive read.

For example... I read Blackwood Farm, by Anne Rice, over 4 or 5 days, I think... I read that one more word by word because it was actually a riveting book.... but I could give you an overview, not a recounting by any means.


I dont know... I dont even know why im writing this... I think reading gets me thinking in a different way... I certainly phrase things differently and I use different words. The best example I can give you was a text message to Ethan the other day describing the scent of freshly baked bread, which was "positively riveting". Who says that anyway?! me... apparently.

I recently read a survey on myspace, and one of the questions was What was your favorite childhood toy? And I thought about it... and I realized that I probably read a lot more than the average child... accounting for the developement of quick reading and little absorption. Or would it be adsorption? I always get them confused....


which makes a good segway into the Praxis General Science exam. i am so freakin tired. I got like 5 hours of sleep and im at work. sigh. Anyway, I dont know if I passed... I feel like I got a C, if we were grading it like that.. and I dont know if thats good enough to truely pass. Some of the questions were rather stumping, if you ask me.... but then again, youre talking to someone for whom physics is a modern mystery to be accepted and adhered to without the necessity of understanding. And the test was 40% physics. yippee.

there were a couple of questions that i was like oh, i should know that, and I remember learning it, but I just totally dont remember at all. my eternal curse! So much is in my head but its soooooo difficult to get it back out again once its in there. :(

anyway, its almost time for work to be over, thank goodness, so I better get to the cleanin.



smooch.

i am

I am so annoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooyed.........

ughhh

first of all, who reads this blog anyway? while im pleased that my counter is almost to 100... who is it?! im so curious!

second of all, im grossed out. I got a wet prep for trichomonas and yeast... that is, a swab of the female genetalia put into saline.... and im looking at it... no trich, no yeast... but lots and lots of sperm. now, this is a 39 yr old woman... not to say that that is gross or bad... but geez, maybe she should wash up or something afterwards, its no wonder shes having "down there" issues and needs to go to the er. it was full of bacteria and sperm. GROSS.

thirdly, im not feeling well. not at all. my stummy has been totally fubar'ed the past few days... and I know ive been really busy with stuff, but its happy stuff, and I shouldnt be stressed out about it BUT I AM. And its really screwing me up.

fourth, I am taking my praxis for general science tomorrow. I have paid 140 bucks for this test. I have not studied. I am at work, though I am leaving early to go home and study a bit before bed, praise God and my co-workers... but im SO NERVOUS. And you know what makes me even more nervous? the fact that I have to be at del co campus at 7:30 in the morning and usually when im up that early I feel nausious. sigh. GREAT. so im going to have to take this test that I did not really study for, paid a bundle for, and im going to be refraining from blowing chunks while doing this. :( not happy. im so stupid.



I dunno, im stressed out, my stomachs messed up, my face is all breaking out, its SO not cool. And this is me venting. So... sorry. hope you werent upset by it. it just had to come out.

secrets

I just wanted to let you in on a few little secrets of mine...

- I always give lily some of what im eating, regardless of what it is, if she will have it... but I yell at anyone else who does it

- when I get a little box of mini-wheats, I eat the less sugared ones first, saving the ones with the most frosting for the end

- when I pee at work, I hold my ears, cuz the sound of the toilet flush echoing in the small room hurts my ears

- I eat the corners of the sandwich first so that the final bite is always the most full of meat and whatever else is in the sandwich with as little bread as possible

- That being said, I prefer sandwiches with little meat, lots of bread and cheese and lettuce, so my method really makes no sense

- I am a horrible speller. mostly because I couldnt care less. I actually spelled sandwich like sandwhich first, and it took me a moment to figure out what was wrong




arent you glad you know?

the night from hell

Its been a bad night. a really bad night. the ER is busy, the floors are busy, everything is busy. We have 6 people on tonight, which usually means two of us are sitting around bored... but no, not tonight... tonight no one has eaten dinner. Thats right. its been THAT busy.

I ate my cruddy dinner of a small salad and a small bowl of wild rice between reading slides. Do you want to know how many slides i have read tonight? Well, I have used an entire pack of slides. The pack of slides is approximately 1/2 a gross. But, you say, I dont know what a gross is! Well, a gross is 144. For those of you who arent math majors, that means I have made and looked at approximately 72 slides. In about 5 hours.

So I know what you are thinkin... that doesnt seem like a lot! But break it down this way: that means 14.4 slides per hour. that means that approximately every 4 minutes, I have looked at a slide. Again maybe it doesnt seem like a lot to you. Usually on a weeknight, one could expect oh... perhaps... half of this. for the whole 8 hours.

Not only have we been busy, but the two extra people have been helping blood bank and micro, not me. so ive gone solo. In between reading slides, I have also been running coags (ive done about 20), I read a stool, did a cell count (that was when I first got in! joy!), did a differential on a fluid, run 2 ddimers, and a handful of sed rates. oh, and I managed to pee. And now im writing this... but thats because its FINALLY slowed down.

To top things off, apparently they had to fix something in the lab, so they turned the ac off. hilarious. Now, its fine in here, though I am sitting here in short sleeves, no lab coat, and pretty lightweight pants.... Plus we have our own ac unit in here... but both micro and blood bank are at 90 degrees F. 4 of my co-workers are sweating their balls off. well, make that two, and the other two probably have some pretty rank underboob sweat.


So its 8:30, I finally ate my pitiful dinner and went to the bathroom and am breathing for a moment. I am so tense... i seriously need a back massage and have no qualms about soliciting one from pretty much anyone who reads this. Just let me know if you are up for it.



back to work...