It's the blanket with sleeves!

It's been a while since this blog has been updated, so I thought I'd share an idea that Belma and I just came up with. Like, about 5 minutes ago via text message. We were discussing snuggies and I had a thought: how great would it be to have a snuggie party? FLF could totally pull it off. Details haven't been worked out yet (because, well, location will be difficult), but, um... yeah. It'll be epic.

I am officially diseased

I finally went to the doctor like a good little adult. they made me get blood work done, and it was discovered that i have celiac's disease. Now, i suspected that for a while and didn't really do anything about it, nor did i care thinking you know, whatever, i don't like bread pasta or beer so who cares. Well, ya know what else has gluten in it? CHEERIOS! I am so mad/upset! no more cheerios for the rest of my life :(. also, granola bars are another. fml. i know that given the variety of other things i could have had its really not bad, but its really really annoying. that is all

plans, life

Amigos! This is less a blog posting and more a letter to the editor and readers of the FLF paper, but please continue reading anyway.

I have religiously been checking this site for updates from all of you. Despite my silence, I’ve enjoyed reading what everyone has to say, and I’m always happy to hear of the successful things you all accomplish. Game Stop, needle-stabbing, traveling to India, client management, unemployment, grad school, volunteering—one thing’s for sure: we run the gamut of successfulness. Sarcasm aside, I really do love hearing/reading from/about you guys. And as time goes on, I regret the time we didn’t spend together and miss the time we did.

Anyway. Gross. Enough of that.

The real reason I’m writing is because whilst I sat under my apple tree pondering life the other day, I happened upon a magnificent idea: we need to schedule a road trip. NEED. And rather than opt for something practical, my brain did me the extraordinarily kind service of running away to Candy Land with the idea. Don’t ask me what that means, but before long, I had planned a road trip that started at Disney World and ended in our nation’s capital not before it had – wait for it – taken us across FORTY-FIVE states AND to Vegas!!!!

I don’t know if you guys are as excited as I was at this point, but if you’re not, hold onto your corsets because this story still hasn’t reached its climax. While trying to figure out how to get to our multiple destinations, where to stay, etc., I thought, “Golly! Why don’t we rent a couple of vehicles to drive around the country.” That’d be cool: the FLF Armada. Has a ring to it, ja?

But then I arrived at my greatest idea ever ever. In fact, it left me wondering if my apple tree was the same one Newton sat under centuries earlier…. “No!” I said aloud (because you can’t confine ideas like this to thoughts only – they must be expressed). “Why don’t we rent a fifteen-passenger VAN and travel around the country together!!” Think about it guys: we could make peanut butter sandwiches, play musical instruments and board games, sing kumbaya, and maybe even have a CAMPFIRE in the back of a van WHILE driving around the country!! Not to mention the appeal of living out of the back of a van when young children are running around at Disney World... All things considered, if this idea isn’t Mensa-worthy, I don’t know what is.

Okay. Dreams and wishes aside, it would be cool if something like this could happen. I know ideas like this (though not nearly as awesome) have been tossed around since we’ve known each other. And I’ve started to accept that flexibility won’t ever be the same as it once was, but I’m still a believer in the you-make-time-for-what-you-want-to-make-time-for concept. To a point anyway. That’s not meant to call people out; I’m just defending my fantasticality (a sweet word that sounds made-up but isn’t) by pointing out that there are shreds of practicality somewhere in my story. Let’s try to figure something out. The beauty of a road trip, too, is that we could visit the friends that are too good to join in. I like those sorts of built-in guilt-trips.

Okay. That’s all. Just wanted to share my beautiful dream (that Bridget slightly contributed to as well). I hope all’s well with everyone. Please write more, too! – it gives me something to do during the day aside from applying for jobs and watching Days of Our Lives with my mom.

Thanks, fellow readers. Love and kisses.

They were dumb enough to let me play with needles, so of course I stabbed myself

Today in my clinical practice of medicine class we had an injections workshop where we practiced giving and getting injections (we didn't really practice getting them we just practiced on eachother so we got stabbed a lot). Anyway, our professor went through this whole long thing in class about being careful and not messing around while we were holding the needles cause he didn't want anyone stabbing themselves or anyone else. The entire time he was giving this little lecture, I was sitting there thinking, I'm not gonna be messing around and I'm still gonna end up stabbing myself. So we got through the intramuscular and subdermal shots fine and then came the intradermal. I opened up the needle and I could not for the life of me get the cap off. Being the genius that i am, I decided to just pull harder; well, the cap came off, but the needle proceeded to go into my left middle finger on the palm side of my finger on the left side of the finger...it went all the way across my finger came out the right side and hit my middle finger...that would be far ore impressive if you saw how small the needle was. I also managed to stab through multiple blood vessels so now I have a bruise across my finger. Being as coordinated as I am, after that I got a new needle, got it all filled up with saline solution, and then proceeded to drop it on the floor. It was slightly ridiculous. I felt like people felt like I was nervous about the shots or something, I knid of wanted to tell the boiling soup on my hand story or the slamming my head into the ceiling story, but I figured normal people that aren't me can only handle witnessing so much clumsiness in a day.

stupid heater

Today I got home from going to the sabres game w/ med school people (so not the same as nd games with you guys fyi) and realized I had to put my scrubs in the dryer for lab tomorrow; well, funny story about how my washer was open and still totally full of water cause someone opened it and stopped the cycle right at the beginning. There are two possibilities for this, the first is that I'm a dumbass and forgot to close it after i put my scrubs in yesterday. The second (and the one that I'm going with so that I don't feel like an idiot) is that I've had maintainance people in my apaetment the past two days because my heater is broken so I'm thinking for some reason they couldn't have the washer running while working on the heater and opened it and forgot to close it (yes its unlikely but it's what i'm going with.
today they told me that it was my air conditioner leaking that broke my heater. the best part about that is that I had my air conditioner set at 75 so I think its actually been on maybe 3 or 4 times since i moved in. fantatic. supposedly my heater will be fixed tomorrow which would be fantastic cause im cold.
Anyway, theres not actually a point to this. I'm just waiting for the washer to finish so I can put my scrubs in the dryer and go to bed. It's taking forever and I'm bored. It's pretty much all the heater's fault which I guess makes it all the air conditioners fault

Bridget: 1; Deer: 0

On my way home last night, I hit my first deer. I feel like I've done pretty well so far... I mean, I've been driving for over 8 years in the Midwest and have avoided plenty of them, so yeah... it was only a matter of time. It wasn't that bad though... there's not much damage to the car and I'm fine. But I think it's kind of funny so I thought I'd tell you all. Anyway, about 30 seconds after I crossed the state line and entered Iowa, I saw the deer in the ditch on my left. I hit the brakes and just as I was coming to the end of my stop, the deer kept running full speed across the road and collided with the front of the car. Then it went flying into the ditch on the other side. It got some pretty good air. The best part of all of this is that I was on the phone with Jeremy at the time, so he got to hear it all happen. I'm pretty sure I yelled some loud four-letter words (sorry about that, Jeremy). I don't think the deer survived... I didn't walk over and check, but it didn't look like it was moving. R.I.P., Bambi.

22.5

Late last night, I suddenly realized that it was my half birthday. Instead of being a happy moment, it was more of a "Oh shit! What am I doing with my life" moment.

It didn't help that on Tuesday, the very day Nick announced his sweet job (Congrats BTW), I had filled out an application to work minimum wage at Gamestop.

Thanks, cruel irony. FML



Don't worry, that's the end of the downer talk, because in reality life isn't all that bad. Actually, the Gamestop job is coming about because a good friend of mine let me know that they could use some extra help over the holidays. He's worked there since High School, so it can't be that bad. Plus, I could use the extra cash while I work on applications to grad schools and legit jobs.

Meanwhile, I may become part of a very interesting business adventure. The scoutmaster who hired me for camp and the canoe trip wants my help with a new idea of his. Basically, he wants to start selling stuff to the government, especially now that his new partner gives them veteran owned small business status. My job would be to look for opportunities that his company can bid for. I would do this on my own, and I wouldn't get a salary. However, if I found a lead that led to a successful contract, he would compensate me for it.

Yesterday, we went to a sort of meet and greet with other companies, and I realized that I'm probably in way over my head (remember, I went to engineering school, not business school). I'm still going to give it my best shot though. At worst, it just wastes some of my time, but if I can actually find success, it could be well worth it.