it's so halloweeny

it is 6:30. it is completely dark out. the houses are lit and hordes of children swarm to the doors asking for candy.
God bless america.

the average american eats 26 pounds of candy a year.
they also gain 7-12 pounds between now and new years.

does anyone know how to make homework get done by itself? because i don't want to do anymore.
and when i'm done with that tonight, for fun, i get to fold laundry.

i hope you all get a chance to watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIFBUKKeqU4
it is a little long, and the first minute or two is really all that i was after. it is so applicable. and it makes me giggle.
i'm sorry i'm an idiot who's too lazy to figure out how to actually make a link to this. someday i'll figure it out. but for now, i'm just happy to know that i have friends who are smart enough to cut and paste. way to go.

alright my little munchkins, happy halloween to you all. and friends, if you do eat of the candy, please remember to brush those teeth. (really you should do this regardless.)

(how i know that) it is fall

on the way home from the bus stop. it is dark and cold. the moon glows overhead through the clear, dark sky and the lights of the city sparkle ahead of me from across the lake. the sweet smell of dry fallen leaves as they crackle and crunch beneath my feet, the scent of hot, homecooked meals in the air, the warm glow from steamy kitchen windows, the small puffs of white mist that come from my dripping nose as i make my way along the hard grey sidewalk towards home.

singin' the blues

i've sort of been in a "mood" the last two days. a bad one, i mean. i'm not really sure why. i think i'll choose to chalk it up to mid-quarter blues. that's way easier than actually figuring out the real problem and dealing with it...

everyone always talks about how great the "fall back" time change is. i will agree that getting a whole extra hour to sleep is pretty magical. not that anyone ever actually uses it. i feel like people always squander the gift that is this extra hour of life. i am no exception, i totally threw that perfectly wonderful and precious hour right to the birds. and they ate it right up like bits of dry bread with their sharp, greedy beaks.
but aside from the potential beauty that is one more hour of life, the thing i hate about daylight savings is what it does to the time that daylight happens. tomorrow the sun will rise at 6:49am and set at 4:56pm. and we in seattle keep losing several minutes every day until the solstice on december 21, when, wonder of wonders, the days again start lengthening. all of this means that there will be some days each week that i will not see the sun at all. and that... that i hate. not that i can entirely blame the time change.

i think that this is partially responsible for my sour mood. as are a great many things much too boring and exhausting to discuss here at this moment. but tomorrow is a new day, i will wake up in the dark and spend the day filling my brain with many new facts and skills on this strange path i am currently traversing.

and yet right now i find myself missing athens, my friends there, matt and kelly, my own personal space, free time, and a great many things that once were. maybe one day i'll learn to be less sentimental, to control my thoughts and stop being the most emotional person you know. but probably not tonight.

homecoming day

today at school was time #2 in the cadaver lab. it's actually a pretty amazing place, full of strange and amazing parts. i wasn't really sure how it would be or how i would react before going in there for the first time. before now, i've only ever dissected animals. or animal parts. frogs, sheep eyeballs, goat brains... i mean, these are people; they aren't animals, they aren't models--they're someone's mom, or brother, or husband. but now that i've been there a couple of times, i realize that it's really not that big of a deal. it's almost like they're not even real; it sort of FEELS like they're fake models, only they're a lot more realistic.
i realize how dumb that last sentence sounds, but that is pretty much the best way i could possibly describe it.
some of the people have been cut into bits so that only the part we're studying can be seen. some are whole people that you can just look into and move stuff around to see how it all fits together. all of them have their faces covered as well as the parts that we're not studying directly.
today was the abdominal cavity and reproductive systems. have any of you ever seen an actual uterus? or the inside of a kidney? or the way that your vertebrae all fit together so nicely? i got to see where the spinal nerves come out of the vertebrae and where they attach and what people feel because of them and how different diseases can affect this; i got to see all the different layers of muscle that we have on the stomach and sides; i got to see how the esophagus leads to the stomach and how the stomach connects to the small intestine and how that connects to the large intestine and how both stay attached inside the abdomen.
we all come in these nice, clean, contained little packages--but it's really not like that at all. it makes me think of the book "the little prince" and how he wants to draw an elephant but can't because it's too complicated, so he draws a picture of a really fat snake that ate the elephant instead. we're like that. we're too hard to draw, so we just get this smooth, tidy outside to keep all the complicated stuff in.


in other news...

today on the bus i saw:
-a man eat a banana like an ear of corn, typewriter style;
-a girl in forest green denim stretch pants, with possible stirrups;
-a boy with an mp3 player, excitedly bobbing his head to the tunes, trying to get other people to dance with him even though they could not hear the music;
-a girl pull her cell phone out of her pocket and lick it, from bottom to top. twice.

there's a homecoming extravaganza here tonight, and i hear they give out free chipotle. i'm keeping my fingers crossed. after this long day i'm pretty famished.

sometimes i'm just really not sure how to respond to things

--a man wearing exercise (running?) clothes and a backpack passes by on the sidewalk. he stops, takes off his backpack, pulls out a cigarette and lights up.

--i'm running. there is a gravel parking lot coming up on my right. as i approach a grey car, the boy inside holds a trumpet out the window and begins playing a song at me. i wish i knew what the song was, i feel like that might help me to understand...

--this is the third time now that i have seen this guy. the first time i thought he was just being polite, but now... each time we've passed he has looked at me very intently. the way that you would if i had something terrible growing on my face. or a rat in my hair. or blood pouring out my eyes. it's not the polite quick and friendly glance with possible smile that you give when passing a stranger--no, it's a flat out stare. it starts many feet away and continues with full head turn after passing. what do you want from me, strange man? are we long lost friends suddenly reunited here on the street? do i look like someone you used to know? because unless you have a compelling reason for this sir, i will not give in to forced eye contact.

um, is 'awkward' the right word for this?

i just woke up from a nap. i can never get enough sleep. i could always sleep more. i so wish i could just sleep more...

whenever i take naps in the afternoon, i always wake up feeling like i'm wearing one of those fishbowl space helmets. it's like there's the world and there is me, and something has come between us. i actually have been taking more naps this school year than ever before in my life, and i'll say that they've mostly been really nice. i haven't actually arisen as an astronaut in quite a while.

in class today we all had to get naked.
well, only partly. we had to take off the clothes and put on one of those horrible hospital gowns and practice listening to each others lung sounds.
this is the kind of thing you really wish you knew about BEFORE getting to class. i mean, it's awkward enough to take your clothes off in front of the kid who you'll see in lecture the next day, but then to be thinking about all the ways you wish you could have better "prepared" for the occasion...
i guess that for the rest of the quarter we are meant to just show up expecting to get naked at any moment. how many of you can say that about your programs? at the end of the quarter, we will have to perform a full head-to-toe examination for the final. on another student. in front of our professors. you know how they tell you to overcome your nerves by imaging that really important person in their underwear?
uw got it backwards.


"monsieur dunning est monte sur le toit et refuse categoriquement de descendre."
-ernest hemingway, "a moveable feast."

run bitch, run! *

those of you who say you'd only run if someone were chasing you--well then, you would have run last night.

i was on my jolly way around the lake, looking for nessy. it wasn't late, but the days are getting short and it had already been dark for quite a while. about halfway around i began to hear footsteps behind me. no big deal. on the path around the lake there are usually other runners. i wasn't really sure where they would have come from, because when i got on the path there was nobody near me, and at that point the entire route had been along a busy road with a barrier on one side and the lake on the other. they couldn't have just appeared out of nowhere (unless they apparated).

after a few minutes i began getting curious because the sound seemed so close, yet nobody was passing. and also, whenever i cross a crosswalk or if people pass by going the other way, i always check over my shoulder to make sure nobody is coming up from behind. but each time i turned to look behind me (which was probably every 50 yards along this part of the route because there is a string of parking lot entrances), there was nobody there. i could hear the footsteps but could see no source.

running alone in the dark is always something people say smart women should never do. this ghost runner started making me a little bit nervous...

but then, just when i was starting to think about what i would do if anything were to happen, a figure appeared beside me under one of the pinkish-orange streetlights. it was a middle-aged man with a short grey beard, and it seemed that he may have realized that it could be a bit weird or disconcerting that he was trailing me in the shadows like that and finally decided just to pass me. he got about 20 feet ahead of me and then again fell back into the same pace as me. after a few hundred more feet it became clear why he had been so elusive this whole time.

there is a gravel path that encircles the lake at the outside edge along the road. then there is a paved path right on the banks of the lake for wheeled things. in between these two paths there is a lawn area. this man had apparently been doing his best to run on the softer grassy area. he was taking this task very seriously. along the edge of the gravel path where the grass starts there are also lots of trees and bushes and flowering shrubs, etc. in order for him to be on the grass, he was forced to weave in and out around the trunks and branches of all of this greenery. which, of course, slowed him down again, meaning that i, on my smooth and steady gravel trail kept catching up with him. each time he spotted me gaining on him, he would spend a few seconds on the path getting some distance, then start with the weaving again.
after a while i began wondering if we were going to make it all the way back around the lake like this. not that i minded--he was actually quite good company and he was helping me keep a good pace.

then, just as suddenly as he appeared, he disappeared again. he spun around a tree trunk and came straight towards me. as he did i saw that he was wearing a shirt from the running club beside the lake. as he passed me he shot me a big smile and told me i had a good pace.
well that sure was a nice and strange surprise...
it made me smile the rest of my run.

(* janet clements gets full credit for the title of this entry.)

like a giant cosmic slingshot

i feel like life is hurling me along at an insane speed these days. i will be working on something diligently, yet thinking of the 18 other things that must get done by their deadlines. i find myself continuously looking ahead, reaching out and grasping at the next task. and each one propels me forward at a greater velocity due to stress or panic, a desire to get done and have 20 minutes of rest at the end of the day, or sheer mania caused by the continuous motion and the possibility of accomplishment.

my natural reaction to all of this is to look forward to its completion. "wow, it will be so nice when this is over," "i can't wait to be done," "that'll be the day..."

but the thing is, this is my life. i realize that two years really is not all that long, but i don't want to just throw it away. i don't want to "get through" my life: i want it to be great, i want there to be something beautiful in every day, i want to live, not survive. because the truth is that things happen all the time and who am i to say how long my life will last?

i realize that this looks different at different times of our lives. i guess i'm just using this venue to process what it is to "live" my life right now. i fear complacency, i fear stagnation, i fear having my spirit crushed by "the man" and his system. sometimes it seems so much easier to just give up and get in line with everyone else. sometimes that's exactly what i feel like i'm doing. sometimes i hate myself for it.

if ever i uncover any shining gem of wisdom about this i will be sure to let you all know. and if anyone has any great and brilliant ideas feel free to pass 'em on.
for now, i'm going to go run around the lake and pretend that nessy's in there.

two lives in one

this weekend has been kind of like one long get-together, starting on friday and lasting until later tonight after the citizen cope show ends. that will be a little bit sad because then michele will have to leave here again, and all of the nice times we've been having with all of our lovely friends will be done until next time. which, very fortunately, will be at thanksgiving time. i love thanksgiving time--it is my favorite holiday.

also, i've been having to try my very hardest to fit in as much homework as a girl can in the midst of all the people and events. there is just always so much to do in this life. i came to the realization that my life over the next two years will not be my own. the sooner i accept that and just do what they say the better things will be, i think. sometimes it's pointless to fight and it's good to know when those times are. i think this is one of them.

there are 7 people in the kitchen all singing amy grant to each other... the seahawks are on the tele, sunshine is streaming through the giant windows into this room, a nice dog is cudding with me... and i'm going to go finish my essay really quick before the food's all done and it's time to eat.

i hope you're all having such a lovely sunday too.

praise the Lord for weekend times

sometimes it's hard to know how much to filter things on this site... i've had a few drinks tonight, after and long and challenging week, and after a good night with a lovely out-of-town friend. (i went to a sonics game and then to a couple of bars with some folks.) i worry that people who are grown up and responsible will read this and i'll feel like a fool tomorrow, or that you'll all judge me for being careless and irresponsible. oh well...

anyway, things are good and nutty and alright. i am sooooo glad it's the weekend, and even though i have to meet with my study group tomorrow to work on a take-home midterm, it feels like i at least have a few hours to just hang out and sleep and be tired. good times. we're going to bainbridge island for breakfast tomorrow. i love taking the ferry across the water. it will be my first time since coming back here 5 weeks ago. i can not even believe that i have been here for five stinkin' weeks already... grody.

well, being that i have been up for 23 hours now, i best be off to bed. i'd love to be cuddling with all of you, but tonight mich gets the honors. lucky her.
be well. i'll let you know how the french toast or the buttermilk pancakes or whatever turns out. and also, michele gave me a giant bruise on the upper left arm tonight. and katie's pantalones split from the crotch to the knee while kartwheeling. i can't wait to tell you all more when i awaken to a brand new and exciting day tomorrow.
until then...

it's amazing any of us have even made it this far

because so much can go wrong at any time.
our bodies are so ridiculously complicated. i have a test tomorrow on the thoracic region, which includes the heart and lungs and some other parts. tonight my study group and i only got a chance to cover the heart. we reviewed for almost 3 hours until our brains were gelatinous gooballs, and the crazy thing is that we still had so much uncovered material and questions about how things work and why. it seems pretty straightforward at first--your heart pumps and sends blood throughout your body, carrying oxygen and other important stuff. but oh, how i could go on and on and on until each and every one of you cried with amazement at both the intricacies of the human circulatory system and at my vast knowledge of the subject...

i will say that it's pretty neat to learn stuff and then realize that it's happening to me all the time. in order to not burst into flames i went running after my study group just a bit ago, and it was pretty neato to think about all the stuff that was making it possible for me to do so. and what's even crazier is that there are people who study this stuff their whole lives. they invest their entire careers studying how the heart works and looking at millions of them and researching stuff--but they still never really get it. because we are fearfully and wonderfully made, and so many tiny things affect every piece of us all the time.

as much as i hate the struggle that school can be and how it can make me feel so stupid and small sometimes, it's really such an awesome thing to get to be here and to spend my time learning really cool stuff.

why is it that just when things are starting to get better, to look a bit more hopeful and positive, something has to happen to crush your spirit?

just wondering.

week 4

do you have a cough? what is the quality of your cough? is it dry? hacking? barking?

i am in class right now. it is possible that i may develop a mental illness during this quarter--it just isn't right to make a human being sit still for so long and force them to try and think the whole time. i know that i have mentioned this before--and i'm quite certain i will talk about it again--because every week i am reminded of how horrible and painful it is to sit here and try and listen and retain all of the serious and complex information that they hurl at us all day long.

what happens is that, by this time of day i'm getting frustrated and angry because i am completely bored and antsy and no longer able to absorb anything and i also start thinking of all of the other zillions of things that i have to do when i leave here. like study for our test tomorrow...
i feel like i'm about to punch myself in the face just because it would be something different.

i'll be back later. i will go home (in another 2 hours) and run and maybe say more later. maybe.

maybe.

feel free to e-mail me because i check it about every 10 minutes.

it is happening...

i am starting to remember why i'm here.
i will fall into the arms of seattle, of school. i will embrace it.

"...having acknowledged the dream-nature of his life... he was able to sink wholly into the dream without any fretful hankering to wake up."
--steven milhauser, "martin dressler"

remember how michele is coming tomorrow?
yippy skippy!

and also, i'd like to give a shout out to jared bullis and his awesomeness. way to be--you totally made my day.

harvard vs hocking

you know that feeling when you wake up in the morning and you're so tired you almost want to die, just so you can sleep for a couple more hours...
welcome to nursing school.
it's 9:30 and i'm already way behind schedule. just remember, my identity does not come from my grades. it does not come from how well i do or what i accomplish. remember that; try very hard to hold onto that when the panic sets in, when the day of the test arrives and i still feel unprepared, when my final grades for the quarter come in...
remember how hocking would have felt really different than this?
yeah, me too.

the bermuda triangle of my possessions

i have already been awake for 12 hours and i have about that much studying left to do before i can go to bed tonight. this school crap is really kicking my ass.

i think i probably lose 5 things every time i move. i think i know exactly where i put something--you know, in that really "safe" spot--but then when i look for it there, it has mysteriously disappeared. i have been looking for some pictures since i left. i swear to you, i put them in the little cardboard box with the books and all of my other photos. but they're gone. they aren't even with any of my other books, or notebooks, or anywhere with any of my things. they're just gone. i have been through every one of my possessions in search of the missing memories, but with no success. perhaps i will have to recreate them with crayon... or simply be content to have them in my heart.
sick.

if anyone is looking for a good book to read i recommend something by steven milhauser. i've read a few of his books now and i really like them all. also, if anybody has a copy of "how we are hungry" by dave eggers and you're willing to let me borrow it, i'd be totally happy about that. i won't even wreck it or anything, i'll just read it and then give it back.

mondays aren't so bad

it's monday and i'm at monday night dinner. katie m. and i (but mostly katie) are making homemade tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. we're drinking martinis and waiting for the fools to arrive and pick what types of cheese they want on their breads so we can cook 'em up.

i finally bought a watch with a second hand today--actually it's digital and has numbers on it instead of an actual second hand. it's for timing when i take pulses and such at the hospital.

everyone has arrived at the same time and now i must go and take drink and grilled cheese orders. hope you all have a good night, i'll write more later.

the stars of track and field

i've been having a bit of writer's block lately. i have lots of thoughts and things running through my head, and yet they just don't seem to come out how i'd like them to. they seem wrong or inaccurate or contrived once i get them onto the page.

i ran a great long run today. today i feel like a runner. it is cold and grey and rainy here and i ran fast and i ran far. i understand why people on cross country teams enjoy their fellow runners so much. it seems really nice to have someone who ran with you, someone who also got splashed when that van hit the puddle turning the corner, someone who ran with you in the middle of a busy road to get around those orange construction barrels, someone who was with you when the drawbridge finally went back down and you could continue on your way. i tell you about all of these things because here i run alone. you are my honorary teammates.

i have a great many things to do today before yo la tengo. i had better get a move on.

the ramblings of a friday mind

i can not wait to sleep in tomorrow...
it's been quite a stressful week, and now that it's over i'm going to go enjoy friends and beer. good combo. i'm really thankful that i have a few folks here that know me.
because i realized that, although i like some of the kids at school and everything, it's still kind of hard with them because we don't really know each other at all. we know where we come from, why we each decided to become nurses--basic stuff you learn in five minutes of small talk. i'm looking forward to knowing them better. i'm looking forward to doing fun things with them instead of always doing homework. i'm looking forward to getting into life a bit with them over the next months and years. because it's hard to be new to everyone all day long.
remember how fall is here? i feel like seattle fall is kind of secret. it's not like athens where everything is so beautiful all the time it makes you ache. here in seattle right now it's still late-summery. today i think the high was 70 and it was sunny. but all the leaves are changing and yesteday i smelled fall's first fire. how cozy. i also keep hearing that "they" are predicting an unusually dry and warm winter. bad skiing, but perhaps good for the affect (mood).
i hear that it's winter in chicago and snowing in peninsula. seasons. what a great invention.

the three thirds rule

last friday i made a friend. she called me her "new discovery." then she told me the rule of thirds. the theory is that any time you meet a new group of people, you won't really like about one third of them, one third of them you could take or leave, and you will enjoy the final third and maybe even become friends with some of them. so far this seems to be pretty accurate in my school group.
mich, i think your group is just too small to even have thirds. sorry dude.

lots of fun things are coming up: tomorrow is homebrew beerfest (i don't actually know the real name), sunday is yo la tengo if we can still get tickets--i hope hope hope that we can, because if we do then mamma cape will be making a guest appearance for the show. visits from other friends are on the horizon, visits to places i love are a bit more distantly on the horizon, the seattle half is coming up if my knee holds out, holidays and days off of school and the start of snowboarding season, etc. i have so many fun things to look forward to. (don't look now friends, i'm actually being positive about something...)

study, then bed. goodnight, fellow travelers.

i said, "my pretty creole girl,
my money here's no good,
but if it weren't for the alligators,
i would sleep out in the woods".
"you're welcome here kind stranger,
our house is very plain.
but we never turn a stranger out,
from the lakes of pontchartrain."


--be good tanyas, lakes of pontchartrain

brutal honesty

i'm going to the harvard of nursing schools, or so everyone loves to keep telling me.

great. that sounds really nice and all, but what does it even mean? what's the point of going to such a "prestigious" institution? who is this program really designed for? and do i fit the profile?
i guess that sometimes i just wonder what i'm doing here. sometimes it seems like this isn't really the right place for a girl like me, for someone who isn't really all about the reputation and prestige of a school. i didn't come here because it's the number one school in the country. sure, it does make me feel pretty good that i got in and it will probably be fun to think about if i make it through. but i don't want to become a world-renowned research nurse. i don't want to discover or invent new drugs. heck, sometimes i'm not even really sure i actually want to be a nurse at all.

and yet here i am. tomorrow i will wake up after sleeping far too few hours, take a test i'm only sort of prepared for, turn in a take home exam that's only mostly done, sit in lectures and be bombarded with information i don't yet understand, meet with my study group to prepare for the test we have on friday, and pretend the whole time that this is exactly what i'm all about. this is what i live for. this will get me to a job and a place in life that i'm totally excited about and will love every single day of my life.

i do really like some of the folks in my class, though. today i realized that we are all feeling like this. as four of us sat at starbucks tonight trying to make sense of the miniscule details of active immunity, somehow we became more of a support group than a study group. we commiserated about how painful all of this is, how we have all cried and lost sleep and wondered if we have made a terrible mistake. it is somehow comforting to know that it's not just me struggling. i think this is going to bond us; these are our war stories, we are in battle together. hopefully we all make it out alive.

"no one's gonna come
tell you how it's done
tell you how it feels
'till you come down
it doesn't work by itself
how come?"

-sondre lerche, no one's gonna come

mine's a giraffe

we had to get nametags for our stethoscopes because, well, after paying an aweful lot of money for them, it would be a darn shame to lose them. everyone was going with the conservative black label that was designed to fit snugly and neatly into the angle at the neck of this specific stethoscope where the tubing branches. i will admit that it looks quite sharp and professional. but when i went into the bookstore to pick me up one of them (see how professional i am?), i was immediately drawn to the little plastic tags with animals on them. who wouldn't be? i stood in that spot with the black label in one hand and the green and yellow plastic giraffe in the other, debating which i should take home and adorn my still unused stethoscope with. in contrast to the tidy and neat black label--complete with printable name sticker AND engravable silver label--the giraffe is an awkward plastic monstrosity that just sort of roughly attaches anywhere on the tubing and sticks out a good inch.
really there was no choice. i figure the hospital is already sterile and tidy enough. boring. if a little colorful plastic giraffe is able to make me feel better about being in this environment, i don't see how it could possibly hurt any patients. unless the corner of the little guy pokes someone.

i also feel like wearing a stethoscope creates a lot of responsibility. everyone automatically thinks that you know all kinds of stuff, that you're capable of doing anything health care-y. honestly, it's a little daunting. i hope it always is, even when i'm done with all of this and registered and working.

today was a nice day in the hospital. i had a lovely patient that was really sweet and fun to be with. i feel like watching the nurses in action teaches me at least as much about what i DON'T want to be like as what i should be like. sometimes i wonder how and when they stopped thinking of their patients as people and started thinking of them as to-do lists, tasks to be checked off. my patient today was pretty lonely and scared to be in the hospital. she had been through a lot, and the way people were talking to and interacting with her made me pretty upset.
i also randomly ran into another person i know from before. this time it was a really happy and wonderful surprise. neither of us had any idea the other was even in seattle, and lo and behold, we're both in the same hospital for a bit. except that she's a doctor already. that's more than me because i've only been in nursing school for 2 weeks, just in case any of you were wondering. aside from just generally liking nikki a whole lot, it was also really fun to see a familiar face there. it made me remember that lots of really awesome humans work in hospitals. and it also kind of made me feel cool.

paul and babe

i failed to mention this in previous posts, but all weekend i wore my blue "stong as an ox" t-shirt with our hero paul bunyan (sporting an absurdly orange beard) and an icy babe the blue ox. this fashion faux-pas was in honor of our very own lyndsey teeter and her world class axe throwing endeavors at this year's paul bunyan festival.

lynds, you know i would have been there in my lumberjack gear screaming for you if i could have... i hope you kicked ass--i know you did.

a little and a lot

now this may sound strange to some of you, but seattle is a dry climate. i know this because of how dry my skin has become. and unfortunately, the only lotion that i currently possess is "warm vanilla sugar" from bath and body works--a gift from a thoughtful friend who simply did not realize how grossed out i am by products with this sort of girly smell/fruffy name combination. i must add remedying this situation to my long list of things to do.

yet if i play my cards right, i think i have enough body wash to last until i'm 30. how does this kind of contrast arise? what a conundrum.

baby steps

sometimes when i look at the big picture i feel pretty overwhelmed. i think of all of the things that i have to do today, and tomorrow, and wonder about everything i'll have to do before i graduate, and during my career, and before i die... and i feel like there is absolutely no possible way that i can handle it all. it feels unbelievably heavy, impossible, tiring and terrifying.

a lovely friend of mine reminded me this evening that sometimes, particularly in these times of transition and adjustment, it's important to stop looking at the big picture, the grand scheme--and simply focus on the little things. every part of my day is made of hundreds of smaller bits, and if i work on accomplishing these instead of trying to conquer the whole world at once (which is the long-term goal...) then it becomes manageable. i can handle life at this speed.

so for now, i need to go put my files into my new file cabinet so my shelves will be clear for all of this quarter's textbooks and binders. step one. we'll consider what comes next when this is accomplished.

it's about time

i did it, i did my laundry.

and everyone cheered...

family night

i took a 2 hour nap today and i loved every second of it. i didn't even wake up feeling like a spaceman in one of those goldfish bowl helmets. usually i wake up from naps feeling so groggy and out of it, but today it actually just made me feel better.

tonight was a sort of "family night." my parents and i went to my brother and sister-in-law's house for a movie and some delectable plum tarte. it's pretty nice to be around family. i just wish the rest were nearby too because i sure do miss them. (matt, kelly, i'm talking about you...) i know it doesn't really look good, but i just keep hoping that one day we'll all get to be even somewhat close to each other again. before heaven, that is.

it's strange how time and distance can affect a person; how it can change perceptions or feelings, give new perspectives on things that you were just too close to before to understand, and alter how you look at your current situation. absence makes the heart grow fonder? perhaps. absence definitely makes my heart (and mind) active.

that sounds like a really gross movie line. i feel like i should delete that part, but for some reason i'm just not going to. sorry about that.

"elizander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day"

have any of you read that book? it's about alexander (not elizander) and all of the many things that go wrong during a day in his life, from waking up with gum in his hair to wearing his scratchy railroad pajamas to bed that night. today i felt like alexander. i will try and remember alexander's mother's wisdom however, that some days are just like that. even in australia.

i have this one professor who is incredibly awkward. she looks very much like the woman in the incredibles who makes the costumes. she has the same dark helmetesque haircut with the bangs straight across her forehead and she kind of shuffles a little bit when she walks. this lady is taller than her cartoon version, and has this very nasal, high-pitched, slightly grating voice. honestly, she's a bit hard for me to take. i am certain that she is an amazingly intelligent and wonderful woman, but she has this way of making the simple points again and again and again with ridiculous "activities" and examples, while merely grazing past the more complicated and deeper concepts. most of the time we are either bored out of our heads waiting for something significant to get communicated or desperately trying to talk to each other and figure out what she just said.

in class today, while i was totally spacing out, my mind snapped to attention and was drawn back to her in an instant. we are learning how to do a physical assessment of a patient, and she was going through her powerpoint notes very dryly, simply reading what was written on the slides. suddenly she got to one particular slide and started laughing, a little bit frighteningly. then she said something along the lines of how she found it really funny that in this long list of words on the slide, she just happened to put this one adjective in "parens" and not any of the others.

parens.

did she mean "parentheses?" because it certainly seems easy enough to me to just say parentheses if that's what you are talking about. i actually had to look up at the huge screen to make sure that this was, in fact, what she was referring to.
and then, over the next 45 minutes, we experienced at least two more sets of "parens" and the information they contained that didn't really fit with the rest of the lecture but just couldn't be left out.

i am slightly ashamed to say this, but i haven't done a single load of laundry since i got here. i'm not entirely sure how this is even possible; it's kind of like the loaves and fishes or something, somehow there's just always more clean underwear. i've been meaning to do a load for a while, really i have. it's just that something always happens. either someone else is doing theirs, or i don't have time to wait for the wash to finish so i can throw it in the dryer before i have to go, or i just forget. i forget lots of things these days. plus, i've never done laundry in these machines and the first time always takes a little more time. what settings are there? how much can one load hold (because i clearly have lots to wash at this point...)? how much detergent should i put in? there's a learning curve to everything.

and just to justify myself further, i have a list from here back to athens of things that i need to do. somehow laundry hasn't been at the top of it. does anyone else find themselves sort of paralyzed, if you will, by lists like this? i know it would feel so good just to get in there and start crossing stuff off. but instead i find myself sneaking off to read 10 more pages in my book (i'm reading "the cather in the rye" right now--somehow i missed that one in high school), or writing letter to my sweet friends, or updating my blog... while all of these things bring joy to my heart, they clearly do not diminish the ever growing column of my to-do list.

and yet, i hear myself say all of this--as i wait for katie to come and get me so we can do fun things. oh, i'll never learn.

off to a good start

tomorrow = first test.

and i still have to finish reading the material. if only i were slightly motivated to do well right now...

how many of YOU can say this:

my scrubs are very, very purple and my shoes are blindingly white.

i thought of this fact numerous times today. especially after i had finished my morning at the hospital and was walking through the city streets to the bus. and then also when i got on the bus and rode it with lots of people dressed in regular pants and not white shoes. and then also when i got off the bus and walked home through my neighborhood, hoping to God that i have made a good enough impression by now so that, even though this sight weekly will surely undermine my credibility as a normal person, hopefully the people who live around me won't judge my fashion sense too harshly...

being in the hospital today was pretty crazy. it was my first day on the actual ward where i will be working this quarter and i had the chance to shadow a nurse there and see how it all works. clearly i have tons to learn, but i was actually pretty surprised by how involved i was able to be so quickly. i'm not going to lie--most of what i did and experienced today was not at all pretty. the patients in this wing are recoveing from an orthopedic or neurological injury or surgery. all of the patients my nurse was caring for were elderly and their bodies were failing in some pretty serious ways: broken hips, amputated limbs, lung and heart failure... my nurse was wonderful and took care of them amazingly well. i'm glad i got to see her in action and i'm so thankful that people like her exist. i just think i'll keep looking for a kind of nursing that will suit me better.

and now i'm sitting at victrola reading textbooks. there's a kid two tables over that i know from when i lived here before. i don't know if i'm just amazingly "lucky" or what, but in the 18 days since i returned to this town, i feel like i've seen an amazingly large number of people that i once knew. this is both comforting and completely annoying at the same time. it kind of makes me feel like i'm supposed to just feel really normal and comfortable here because look! i know all of these people! i know the bus routes! i know where things are! and while all of this is really nice and helpful and convenient, especially since i had to jump into things so fast when i got here, it really doesn't help me feel settled all that much. i think that it also doesn't help much that most of the people i have run into so far make me feel really anxious or bring back old insecurities.
luckily i didn't come back here for them--i came for those sweet-ass purple scrubs...

oh what fun

did i mention that i love running?
'cause i do. this was the best run i've had since coming here. maybe it was the anxiety from the sock lines...
i'm starting to find some good routes around where i live and i'm getting stronger so the hills aren't really hard anymore. the only trouble is that my knee seems to keep getting worse. i think i might request to have all the records and x-rays etc. that were taken on my knee while in athens sent to me so i can take them to school and see if anyone in the physical therapy or sports medicine departments can help me. i'm willing to be a teaching case, to be experimented on if it means i may finally figure out what's even wrong and what i might be able to do to get better.

it's pretty amazing that the simple act of using my body can make me feel so much better about everything in the world. this is not merely limited to running; playing catch or tennis or soccer or frisbee or riding bikes or hiking etc. etc. all do it for me. so if anyone is ever around me and feels like doing any of these things--or really anything else--let me know. we'll play.

i also love reading. i'm not really super excited about having to get up before the sun and ride the bus for an hour to get to the hospital on tuesdays by 6:30, but i do love that i get an hour (each way!) to read books. my deal with myself is that while commuting i will only read fun books, books that i want to read, books on the long list that hangs on my wall. i hope that by the end of the year this list will be much shorter. mae, i will formulate this into #1 on my list. ask me about it next time we talk and i'll have something concrete.

what's a girl to do

i am about to go running, but am using my blog as an excuse to stall. not because i don't want to go running or because i'm tired or anything like that...

but because i've been wearing tall socks all day and now that i'm in my running socks and shoes, i have these really awesome lines where the elastic was stretched around my calfs and i figure a few more minutes might diminish them a bit before i set out. i realize that this really could not possibly matter any less and that any real runner would never even notice such trifles.
it's just that i'm so vain. i am certain that no person on earth will even notice this but me. yet it's almost enough to make me want to wear no-show socks all winter long.

but hey, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

what a little sunshine can do

those of you who are blog veterans out there, is it normal that people never comment on your posts? i feel like i keep expecting that people will have something to say, but every day it's the same: 0 comments.

today was a beautiful sunny day in seattle. it's amazing what a little sunshine can do to a girl's outlook. i sat in the park and read for a while after church this morning and generally worked on producing some vitamin d from those warm and luscious rays. yesterday was grey and cloudy, convincing me that it was cold enough to wear long pants and closed shoes and a sweatshirt. today was pretty much the same temperature, yet the sun made it feel nearly tropical. i sported my sandals and a t-shirt and rolled up my pants into faux-capris. lovely.

tomorrow i have my orientation in the hospital. i have to be there early, but not as early as i will have to be there on every other tuesday for the rest of the quarter. the way things have been going lately i haven't been falling asleep until a couple of hours before i have to get up in the morning. so here's to hoping the sandman does a good job tonight. i have received recommendations to take a benedryl or some night-time medicines, but i have enough trouble waking up in the morning without any lingering effects from drugs. plus, i usually try and stick to the natural options if possible. so i'm off to drink some warm milk and chammomile tea and douse myself with lavender smells...
more tomorrow.

is this still night, or shall we call it morning

right now i'm sitting in my little room beneath the light of my new eiffel tower desk lamp. i'm listening to an album from a friend who told me it helped him through many late night paper writings in college. i seem to be having some trouble sleeping lately, so i'll tell you a few stories from my day.

1.
i got up this morning and took a walk around the neighborhood. there's a school just a few blocks from here, and right behind the school is this little park with a grassy area in the middle and a gravel path around the edge. the middle bit has been divided up into a series of squares with neat, straight, white paint lines, and this morning the squares were being used as little soccer fields for the use of little soccer teams. by this i mean that not only were the people playing very small (they were kids), but there were only 5 players on each side. on each of the four mini-fields, a pastel pink team was playing a fluorescent orange team. i'm not entirely sure how every team had the same colors because the kids did not seem to be the same ages, and also some of the teams were co-ed while some were single gender. but instead of asking questions i decided just to enjoy all of the fun that the little guys were obviously having.
as i sat on one of several large rocks in the park and frightened the parents by being some weirdo stranger watching their children for no apparent reason, i was impressed by how much better these kids were than i remember little kid soccer players being. they were actually playing the game with elements of strategy and coordination instead of simply all running after the ball haphazardly to kick it in whatever direction they happened to be facing. they were enjoying themselves so fully, putting everything they had into the game and getting such satisfaction back.
i wish more grown-ups still played like this.


2.
traffic is one of the things that i definitely did not miss while i was away. i don't really understand how there is ALWAYS traffic here, no matter what time of the day or night and no matter what day of the week.
while inching along the freeway today i saw 3 suv limos, 2 of which were hummers. can anyone explain to me the point of these vehicles? i mean, they're as big as a bus but can't carry as many people. their gigantic size makes them so cumbersome and seemingly difficult to maneuver. and why an suv? seriously, you're not about to go off-roading in your limo. and even if you did, even if it were actually built to withstand this kind of activity, you're not about to climb down from your lofty hummer and hike around in your wedding gown or armani suit or stiletto heels or whatever. come on now, stop pretending. we all know the truth.
i criticize because i just feel a bit saddened that companies like hummer, that were created to design and build specific vehicles for specific utilitarian purposes, have sold out and gone the way of trendiness or profits or whatever it is.


it's so late and all i want is to just sleep. but i know that i will go to my warm and cozy bed, lie down, let my head sink softly into my fluffy pillow and close my eyes to dream... only to feel my mind flood with thoughts, thoughts of everything and everyone and everything. possibilities and responsibilities and memories and regrets and concerns, to-do lists and wish lists and lists that i should really write down so i don't forget before morning. my mind can't seem to stop these days. i read books and listen to music and drink alcohol in an attempt to put the brakes on, to drag my heels and slow it down just enough to pass out from the complete exhaustion that encompasses me. but somehow it keeps going, persisting, insisting that there is still more to ponder before rest can come. oh how i wish i knew what it was so i could just deal with it and get some sleep...