Its possible

that the only reason I'm posting this is so I will have an excuse to go to my blog and watch the blurriness.

Its even likely.

Then again...

My tonsils are huge. Very huge. I am taking penicillin for them (or whatever it is that has me sick). They have been inflamed for about a month now, and I don't seem to have any other illness. Not really a cold, not strep... bleh. Dr. Chen said I might be relapsing into mono - that would be weird. Considering its been 6 months since I had it. That would SUCK to have mono in the beginning of a school year with 5 classes and 2 labs. WOW. Maybe I should go to sleep.

I guess I said something interesting. My work here is done.

I'm tired

of not knowing.

So I'm going to educate myself about a few issues my friends have brought up... You know, the ones where they say something, and you disagree, and you have a reason, but you can't really explain it? Yeah.

I like blurry things.

I hope you do too.

Twonite

I spend about 3 hours a day on my homework now, and on the drive up to Cannon Beach I will probably spend 2-3 hours reviewing a bunch of info. Tonight class was kind of dull - mostly looking at pictures and words describing how to transfer patients. Lab should be interesting, I hope I won't screw up too badly =) Clinicals will definetly be interesting, I'm sure I'll post all about those when they come up.

After class I went over to Holly's house, and we did the first 3 homework units with the help of her mom, who used to be a nurse. Then the three of us sat down and watched Hitch. Jenn told me it was a great movie, and I have to agree. I'm pretty sure that when I get out of my current financial state I'll buy it =)

Tomorrow I may be chilling with Jon - he's going to treat me to CPK! I feel kind of weird about that... but I don't think I could decline CPK =)

9/11 - It is good to remember

I was just thinking about Ground Zero, and memories came flooding in to my mind of that day. Its weird how I can remember exactly where I was, what I was doing when it happened: I was trying to sleep through my alarm when my mom rushed up to my room and dragged me downstairs to the TV saying something about an "attack," more I could not make out quite yet. Strange how fast I woke up when I saw the images on the TV. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, the sounds I was hearing. I don't think most of us could. As realization began to strike I went numb - it was unthinkable.



I'm just looking at some of the pictures I found online, and my eyes are tearing up. It is simply overwhelming... I am not all that great with words, so I won't even try to touch it more than I have. I just think it is good to remember, to pray, and to live our lives knowing that we don't know - when we will die, if we'll die of old age, an accident, a terrorist attack, or anything. I've said enough.

New York - she doesn't have access to a computer

Or - maybe because she is in New York, she has better things to do than e-mail and blogging. MAYBE this is my purpose in life - to relay the events ofmy friends lives to all of you, my faithful readers, when THEY can not do the job themselves! I HAVE A PURPOSE - my life has meaning! w00t!!!

But seriously now... Jenn, grandma, Kara and Mal went out on a ferry and took a good close look at the statue of liberty. "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" - Emma Lazarus. Sweetness - I am jealous. She told me that it is big. Thats a good thing, I would be pretty disappointed if it turned out to be small =)

Now they are at Ellis Island, where I guess 40% of Americans can trace their heritage to an ancestor who passed through years ago. Later tonight they are going to Ground Zero. I am so jealous of this trip! The weather is great, ~80's or so. I guess Jenn forgot sunscreen today and is burnt pretty badly. hehe - that means a lot of freckles. I want pictures! :D

Now, on to my life. I got up at 7:50am (almost a record for the summer, a sure 2nd or 3rd place) to get my second Hep A immunization. The shot was wimpy, but I felt really hot about 1 minute afterward. That lasted for about 1 minute, but it was weird. All is well now. I suppose I should start my NAC homework... Maybe in 30 minutes? I just don't feel like it quite yet.

ATM - listening to some great country.

Confessions - A thing or two to be said about clothes

It is not often that I talk about clothes - being in stlye is something that I don't appreciate as much as others, and the subject in general is usually a boring one. My girlfriend goes out shopping for clothes a good bit more than I do (a good bit more than I do > 2 or MAYBE 3 times a year). So naturally, I give her a little bit of a hard time about it. Not too much (I hope), but I do like to tease. Well, today I was looking through my dresser and I noticed that I have way more clothes than I thought I did. I guess my mom (a truly wonderful woman) had about 5 pairs of jeans/khakis/pants with stains on them that she was cleaning for me, and a bunch of tee shirts. Wow.

Not that any of my clothes are "fashionable" (minus the one pair of Abercrombie pants Jon bought for me - thanks bro!), but I do have a lot. Maybe I won't be able to poke fun at Jenn until I throw some of this stuff out. We'll see.

You know what? Just for kicks, I'll go through and count how many pairs of pants I have in my dresser:
Jeans: 3
Khakis/Cargos: 7
Sweats: 3

This doesn't include dressier pants or shorts. Meh. I don't know how that comapares to any other guy, I don't even know any other guy who has counted how many pants he has. Oh well.

I just wanted to come clean... you know, so I could sleep at night.

=)

*Sigh*

Tonight was... not beautiful. I posted a rant to myself on a blog that none of you can see - HAH! =) Jenn is currently... (looking up online) appx. 35,000 feet above the ground over Montana on her way to NY. I miss that girl already =)

Today marks 8 months of a beautiful relationship with Jenn that God has so blessed me with. Granted, I won't be able to see her today or on her 20th birthday, but I was able to get her a rose and I mailed her a letter that I spent some good time on - she'll open it on the 17th.

The thing that sucks about being broke is that you can't buy your girlfriend amazing presents. The great thing about having the most amazing girlfriend is that she doesn't care how much money I spend on her. She really is wonderful - she hardly asks anything of me, and the things she does ask are small and more than reasonable. I pity the guys who fall in love with a girl who's just out to use them.

-------------------

The time I spent at my aunt and uncle's house was awesome. I had great converstaions with both of them and we were able to catch up on life in general. I talked about my life aspirations and my goals for college (and a little bit about Jenn... I can't help it) and Uncle Steve talked to me about his job and a good variety of things that are both important and interesting - however it is currently 2:00am PST and I don't feel like going into much detail. Both my aunt and uncle were very interested to hear about my interest in nursing; and one of my youngest cousins Luke commented to me that "you can't be a nurse, you're not a lady!" which put huge grin on my face.

He and his little brother Caleb had more effect than making me smile - they had much more in store for me. I played tag with them in their back yard - and Luke would constantly change the "bases" to fit his needs and his needs only - which was hilarious. I was sweating like a pig at the end of the game. Only then did my college education come in handy, when I realized that I would cool off faster if I removed my jacket. BRILLIANT THINKING!!!

I suppose I shall go to bed, or rather go to sleep. I make most of these posts from the comfort and warmth of my bed =) G'nite all.

Green and grey

I swear, those are the ONLY colors I ever see out my window. (the little brown I can see of the tree trunk does NOT count) So I suppose I'll listen to what Nickel Creek has to say about that. Except that I'm listening to Spit on a Stranger instead. Pity.

So... my lovely girlfriend has decided to take leave from home and adventure east to the grand city of New York. She leaves tomorrow night at 11:59pm. Thats a funny time for a flight; I know that time has some other significance too. Oh yes, thats right - 11:59pm is when I saw Star Wars Episode III opening night. That was pretty sweet. But, I diverge. It doesn't look like Jenn has posted much about this excursion, so I shall post just a little of what I know.

She leaves with her favorite cousin Mal, Kara and her grandma - a girls only trip. This of course means shopping, touring, shopping, and shopping. Maybe I don't pity myself for not going. Maybe... She also happens to be turning 20 while she's over there, so I'm going to have to do something AMAZING for her when she gets back, to make up for my lack of being there on the big day. We shall see what I come up with.

Actually, I'm going to work on just a little bit of that right now, and then do some homework of sorts. And finally, I will go over to my uncle and aunt's house for dinner and just to catch up on life - I'm really looking forward to that, it will be fun =)

CRAP!!!

I don't have a picture!

Phases

So – I go through phases in my blogging. The phases are few and easy to understand. Phase one: create a blog and start blogging. Maybe once a day, but at least a few times a week.
Phase two: stop blogging, for a long period of time.

These phases repeat themselves (except in phase 1, if I already have a blog, I’ll just blog in that one…) as they feel necessary. I don’t understand how some people post everyday! And sometimes, more than once in a day! I wish I could do that…

Anyway, as nilt said,
“War of the Worlds.
It was okay. The book was a lot better.
But no surprise there, right?”

When was the book ever better than the movie? I’m not sure too many people could answer that, but I suppose if such people do indeed exist, that Nathan Harrison would be one of them. Meh, maybe I’ll find out one day.

So… catching up on friends blogs is generally easy. Generally. There’s this one friend that I have, (who may have been mentioned or even linked to above) who posts quite often and quite a lot! If only it could be BORING, then I wouldn’t have to read ALL OF IT. UNGHHHHHH.

In other news, I got a $1.50 an hour raise at work. It sounds like a lot, and I SHOULD be grateful, but the fact is it should have been a lot bigger. I’m going to talk to my boss about it and see what we can do about it.

Tomorrow, I work from 10am-7pm, and then I have to learn a tenor part to this song that Jason wrote (Jason = musical genius) for the Breakaway Magazine contest. That will be fun. Unless I forgot how to sing, which IS possible. But unlikely. Sort of. THEN, I am going to drive up to Ferndale to see JENN! HURRAY! I am quite excited. And for one reason or another, I am beginning to think I already wrote this in an earlier post. Let me check… No, it seems that I had only already mentioned singing with Jen and Jordan. GOOD, I would hate to be boring and redundant like my job.

Ummm. The 10th is Nathan’s birthday. He’s Jenn’s older brother. And he’s older than me.
The 11th, I’m going over to my Aunt and Uncles house for dinner! WOOHOO!!!

And finally, I’m waiting for Jenn to call me from work on her 1:00 break. That will be fun =)

I CAN’T WAIT FOR SCHOOL TO START!

MALE NURSES ROCK!!!

Human Immunodeficiency Virus

So, the last two days were supposedly a class on HIV/AIDS. Teaching our class was the lovely Chriss Barndt RN. She is a very kind woman, and I consider myself lucky that she will be leading me in my clinicals at Cascade Vista. Anyway, yesterday's portion of the class we went into HIV very lightly, and then spent around an hour and a half talking about condoms... Yeah, it wasn't what I expected, or what anyone expected for that matter. I thought it strange, but then we found out that she is the owner of the "Rubber Rainbow" in Seattle (Pike Place to be more specific). It is the only condom store in WA State, and she is very knowledgeable about them.

Lets see, I know a good deal about them now too. For instance, condoms made of lamb skin are considered the "Rolls Royce" of condoms, because of extreme comfort and "feeling," however they are not to be used for protection against STDs. Latex condoms are the standard condom, and now the newer polyurethane - which supposedly heats up or something, which is more pleasurable. I learned that condoms made in the USA are the worst (Trojans and Lifestyle) because of how thick they are, and that if you want the best condoms, buy ones made in Japan or Sweden. Yeah, I learned more than that, but I'm sick of writing about it. lol - how useless for a NAC course!

Today's class was better, everything we talked about was relevant to nursing at least, whether or not is had to do with HIV. I scored a 38/39 on the test, so I passed and got my certificate! On to the rest of Nursing Theory now =) Hurray! This is where we learn the interesting stuff, then in Lab we get to try out our skills and learn other ones that a book cannot teach by itself, and finally in clinicals we get to put what we know and have practiced to work.

Tomorrow I work, and then on Saturday I work until 7. At 7:30, Jordan, Jenica and I will be singing with a bunch of other ex-Kantorei members a song that Jason composed. He’ll be entering it in the Breakaway Magazine contest, I’ll post when we find out the results from that.

Anyway… Apparently my father has set up a curfew. If I don’t appease him it will be the end of the world as I know it, so I’m off to bed.

First day of summer classes!

So - as the title suggests, today was my first day of summer classes. I am enrolled in three classes @ Lake Washington Technical College:

NURS 107 - Nursing Assistant Theory
NURS 108 - Nursing Assistant Lab Skills
NURS 109 - Nursing Assistant Clinical Skills

Its really nice because I'm taking the courses with Holly Tomlin (Alex Blore dropped out at the last minute!) Our proph is very nice which is also a big plus. Classes are TWTh from 5:30-9:30 for July (NURS 107 and 108, 2 hours each). Clinical Skills starts up in August, and will run M-F from 3:30-8:30pm at the Cascade Vista. AND, I get to wear burgundy scrubs =) Better than lavender hehe.

So, first day of school was a breeze, always is I guess. I have a good bit of homework, but it looks interesting and isn't due until next Tuesday. I was displeased today when I arrived at the bookstore to find that I had to purchase a book for $73, but my dismay was superseded with joy when I found out that I will be reimbursed for tuition from the first rest-home that hires me as a NAC. Woohoo!

Well, I guess my mother wants to force-feed me again. Ugh...