calling in sick with a touch of Guillian-Barre...
Just got my H1N1 vaccine!

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who needs a man!
I just helped a nice pharmacy girl named Olga jump start her car in my apartment complex's parking lot. Neither of us had ever jumped started a car ourselves before but it worked! And nobody got blown up!

We were waiting for her battery to charge a little bit before we disconnected. I was telling her how my car battery died over the summer at the drive-in. She had a very blank looked so I hastily explained the concept of a drive in movie. She said she was from Pittsburg. I guess its a country thing.

I feel so happy I got to help someone.

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weather
It's a beautiful -3 before windchill in Erie Pennsylvania!

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the apocalypse is here
We are in the midst of a blizzard with thunder and lightning. Apparently this is old hat for Erie, something to do with that giant lake thing, but it sure is creepy.

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Anticlimactic
I just voted.

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Life achievements
Today I sawed a human skull in half with a hack saw.

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full time job
Today I logged six hours of studying in the library and almost two hours in gross lab.

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tubercle
Yesterday night I submitted my LECOM Erie and LECOM Bradenton secondaries online and additionally arranged for my letters of recommendation to be mailed by interfolio since they couldn't be sent electronically b/c they don't subscribe to interfolio. Today I mailed out PCOM's secondary having arranged for my letters to be mailed last night. (One school I applied to uses interfolio vs all of the MD schools that use it). I have 5 more secondaries that I've received thus far that I need to work on. This is all very stressful, particularly b/c its rolling admissions. I received a card in the mail last week from Drexel saying they'd received my application and its complete and will be considered for admissions. So that's 4 out of 10 programs I've completed applications for. The goal is to have them all sent out before x-mas. I'd make the goal a lot sooner but I have stupid micriobio.

Today I managed to get about two hours of micrio bio studying done in addition to actually going to the class and working at my tutoring job all afternoon. I was going to go to the Wind Symphony concert tonight but I bagged it in favor of having the house to myself since my parents went out. I wore sweatpants and studied in peace and quiet.

Yesterday by the time I got home I was beyond grumpy, I was irate with the world. I would say I had a migraine but instead of the usual one sided pain it felt like my head was being squeezed in a vice and any and all noise was severely offensive. I blame this all on PMS and stress. I feel almost better tonight but this did contribute slightly to my skipping out on wind symphony. I goal is to have three more apps in by Monday and then the remaining two or three may have to wait until after micriobio is over. Really if the NY one comes in I may do it but I'm not terribly excited about Kentucky or Missouri.

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booze, porn and meat
It snowed overnight, at least 4 inches and that was the first snow that we've had this season that was more than a dusting. After digging out in Greece, Don and went to the Peppermill where we had a lovely breakfast. I had the best cup of "hot coco" as Don called it. For some reason 'hot coco' sounds so much classier than 'hot chocolate'. It was so nice to be inside after getting all snowy brushing off my car and it was really hot hot coco with real whip cream in a nice mug with a saucer. And I drank it while Don and I were casually waiting for our breakfast and it was all snowy outside. For some reason it was just really nice.

On the not so rosy front, getting my secondaries finished is in direct conflict with studying for my micriobio final which is in 16 days. I'm so fucked for micriobio because its cumulative and I haven't touch the old stuff and the new stuff is really boring and beyond painful to learn. There just dosen't seem to be enough hours in the day b/c I'm always at work, or so it seems. I've written three essays thus far for the three apps I have ready to go when Mat Devine uploads my letter. Thus far it looks like each app has like two essays and I've only been able to double dip on one of the essays. You'll recall I applied to nine schools, I really don't have time to write nine essays. Also all the secondaries are due ASAP b/c there isn't a real deadline b/c its rolling admissions. Fuck rolling admissions you only make me feel guilty.

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Happy Birthday Laura Mobile!
The Laura Mobile celebrated it's 5th birthday on Sunday. I can't believe it was so long ago that I got my car, and for that matter I can't believe senior year of highschool was that long ago. The Laura Mobile celebrated by getting a full rear break job on Tuesday followed by a NYS inspection. She has 38,900 miles or so right now. My car now breaks like new! I remember back on my birthday test driving Subaru’s and thinking how great the breaks were on them, and my breaks had been making that grinding noise/sensation for months before that. Honestly, when I first went to break from like 50mph I panicked that I didn't have breaks b/c it braked without making the break noise/sensation but then I realized the car was stopping like magic.

Jon, this also of course means I haven't seen you in five years since the last time I saw you was when I got my car.

Being back at tutoring this week has gone well. You'll recall I had essentially two weeks off since I took my two days off two weeks ago to visit Karissa and then they were closed last week for the holiday. I was oddly nervous about going back, idk why. Today I did the worlds shittiest job of teaching momentum and impulse to a kid who really psyched me out b/c he was wearing a suit (b/c he just had some senior interview). I need like 30 minutes to prep when someone hands me something I haven't looked at in months if not years. It also doesn't help that I'm trying to figure it out on the spot in the noisy bull pen. When I'd ask my Dad for help in math I'd have to surrender my assignment and my book for at least half an hour while he figured out what was going on. I hate being put on the spot and I hate feeling like I let kids down and that I've wasted their time (b/c I've been in their shoes). But other than the physics kid I feel I helped a lot of kids in the last two days. And I've also hung out with (I can't really say tutored) this really nice enthusiastic kid named Marcellus who loves to do challenge problems and brain teasers and likes to race me at math problems. So really its a toss, kids like Marcellus vs. the physics kid I let down.

Oh and on the consumer whore front I've hit some really good sales this week. As in hardcovers at the U of R bookstores (plural, RC and medcenter), apparel at JCPenny's (x-mas presents for people other than myself) and shoes at DSW (for myself). I need to stop spending money but I can't do that until I finish buying x-mas presents. I really like shopping, it doesn't matter if its for me or other people. I think one of my New Years resolutions will be to save more money. But of course, its always the fine line between want and need. Did I need new dress shoes? Yeah pretty much, but did I want those as opposed to something cheaper? Yes.

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"if you took your shirt off your earlobe would still be attached" - Don
I had a low key but good Thanksgiving. Don and I ate with my parents at my house. His Mom and Tom had dinner with his sister Maggie in Buffalo. Rather than driving to Buffalo with his rents Don picked dinner at my house which suited me well. After dinner we got our asses handed to us by my parents at Euchre, score two the old timers zero for us.

Friday night Jill and her sister and Wilson and I met up for dinner at Chili's. We gabbed for quite awhile and I think overstayed our welcome a bit with the waitress. Then we went to Michael's and said hi to Jenny P who was at work. The other patrons didn't appreciate our humming mission impossible music and pretending out hands were gun's while creeping around wracks in the framing department...Then we met up in Lima and baked cookies in the Wilson's posh new kitchen and I stayed for half of White Christmas, broadcast big screen in Wilson’s' room with the projector. Thankfully I had taken allergy medicine and could snuggle with the cats who found the movie very interesting and at one point jumped up in front of it (so cute).

Saturday I worked and did some x-mas shopping at Eastview. The combination of the two was exhausting. Today I dicked around all day procrastinating working on microbio and writing essays for my secondaries. Right now I've received four secondaries. I pestered Mat on Saturday morning about my letter. I should try to have them ready to be sent as soon as he has the letter done. Which is totally my fault for asking him so late (b/c it took me forever to finish the book he wanted me to read.)

I've been feeling kind of tired an achy lately. WebMD has a symptom checker for all you hypochondriacs out there. If you tell it you’re moderately fatigued and have mild joint pain you can have like every disease in the world like MS or Fybromyaliga. Add nervousness (about applications!) and I could be bipolar. WTF? I selected that I dislike changes in routine (b/c I do) and I could have Autism. Uh-huh.

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Pascal? Of Pascal's Triangle fame?
So I've been delinquent in posting a synopsis of part II of my vacation. I touched down in Rochester at like 6:30pm Sunday, hung out for an hour with Don who picked me up and got home at like 8:30. I had class Monday morning, then worked 1-9:30 Monday and 9am-9:45pm Tuesday, in essence not doing anything but working since I got home.

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Only in New Orleans...
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the final act of stalkerdom
I cut Matt's obituary out of the paper today.

I'm not going to go to the calling hours b/c 1) they're in East Bloomfield while I was planning on being in Rochester cramming microbio 2) I don't want to have to tell everyone I went to HS with what I'm doing with my life and 3) I don't want to seem like a crazy stalker still, (four is I'm in need of a hair cut and eyebrow wax). Perhaps I'll really stalker it up and go weep at his grave sometime. Oh, and the HF-L website says "former teacher Mr. Farley" since when has he been not worked there? Of all the people in the world dead, why the hottness that was Matt Farley? What a waste of fantastic DNA. I always thought I'd seem him again.

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on a happier note
Jena came to visit this weekend. It went very smoothly minus her incoming flight getting delayed resulting in our arriving back at my house at 1:15am. Saturday we met up with Holly and Lizmo and went on the alumni sponsored wine tour. A coach bus took us to and from Cayuga lake. We had lunch at a nice Irish place (what was the name of it?) that had several wood stoves and a great salad bar. Then we went to Lucas Vineyards, Americana Vineyards and Goose Watch Vineyards. Despite doing a tasting in a room with the vats, Lucas had the best wine. Americana had some good wine, but they all kind of ran together as we tasted 11 wines in a row. Their Apparition was excellent and I bought a bottle that Jena and my parents and I drank before bed. Goose Watch was kind of snarky and poorly organized and while they had some okay wine it was over priced. Their cream sherry was excellent if I ever feel like blowing money on booze in the future but I spent too much on wine at the first to places to justify getting any. We has dinner at Flavors of Asia and hit up Target and DSW before parting ways.

Today we all met up back at the Alumni center which was very convenient and had a rabid consumerism Sunday. We hit up Park Leigh, Discount Liquor, Marketview Liquor, The X-mas tree shop, the pet store, and some shoe stores at the mall. We had lunch at Panera where I had the best bagel and cream cheese EVER. My mommy made us dinner, stir fry and apple crinkle for desert. I had a ton of fun this weekend. It was just like the Wilder days. I laughed a lot. It was like having our own Meliora weekend.

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43-22
Matt Farley died yesterday in a freak accident. For those of you who haven't known me forever, I had the world's BIGGEST crush on him in 7th and 8th grade. One might even say I kind of stalked him, I was obsessed with this kid in middle school. The last time I talked to Matt was a school dance in 11th grade in the Jesse Strader era. He was the bigger person and approached me and we agreed we'd let bygones be bygones from middle school and that neither one of us thought ill of the other. Thinking back I can't believe what a big person he was to initiate that. To channel myself from 1998, this is my first day in the world that Matt Farley isn't in it too. (His birthday is [was] 4/9 which if you double you get 8/18...). When Brandon McLane died in 2005 in a freak accident working on the Cogen project at the U of R it wasn't that weird for some reason, I guess b/c I only vaguely knew who he was. Matt I'm just shocked. We all had his Dad as a teacher. I've always had this fantasy of being at like our 20th reunion and I'd be married and Matt would be married and we'd just have a laugh at middle school, kind of like that dance in 11th grade, only it would be so far in the past that there wouldn't be any awkwardness. And I just KNEW that come whatever reunion that we say hello and introduce our spouses. I guess you can't really know anything when it comes to the future.

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"Really big rocks, Officer! " - Wilson
Wilson and I just got back from seeing Jill in Ohio, which was the greatest road trip in recent history. I will summarize our trip in list form in rough chronological order: ( Trip_ListCollapse )

Current Mood: jubilant

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my weekend "off"
So I took this weekend "off," for myself, to catch up on all the shit in my life. I had two very excellent offers, a hott date with Don and shopping at the Galleria with Holly and Liz but after much soul searching I passed both up to stay at home. Today I only left my house by foot. After sleeping in I submitted part one of my D.O. app and then spent quite a bit of time working on my Drexel and Bryn Mawr post-bacc apps. I read two and a half chapters of the book about the history of osteopathy I need to read for Matt to write me a letter and I did six of ten sections of microbio reading. I also snuck in a nice walk over in the wilderness that’s turning into the housing development. I spotted a pack of six or so wild turkeys as well as the ubiquitous Mendon dear. I took a bunch of nice pictures. The thought crossed my mind "this would be a great place for a bear" but no bear was seen. Apparently they caught and relocated the one traipsing around here this summer.

For the record about the weather, we were having an unseasonably warm, early September fall up until the Thursday before last. Then it was cold Thursday-Sunday and then this Monday it went back to being unseasonably warm again. Today it was like 65 and very breezy when I went for my walk. Some of the trees are still half green.

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Osteopathy here I come!
I just submitted the part one of my American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine (AACOM) application. For the record, and b/c I hate being asked this question (b/c no one has ever heard of where I applied anyway) I've applied to (in very rough order of where I'd like to go):

Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, Main Campus - Pennsylvania

Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, Main Campus - Pennsylvania

New York College of Osteopathic Medicine of New York Institute of Technology - New York

University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine - Maine

Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, Bradenton - Flordia

Nova Southeastern University College of Osteopathic Medicine - Florida

Pikeville College School of Osteopathic Medicine - Kentucky

A. T. Still University-Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine - Moussouri

Lincoln Memorial University - DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine - Tennesse

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high minded principles spell success - fortune cookie
This week is apparently medical assistants appreciation week. My suite gave me and card and a $8 gift certificate to Flavors of Asia which I promptly turned around and used four hours later for dinner. I had chicken Pud Thai, it was wonderful. Cathy, one of our nurses baked us each a little bag of chocolate chip cookies. And I randomly got a piece of yummy cake b/c I was in the right place at the right time. I will over look all of my complaints about my suite and family medicine in general in lieu of the fact that gave me food. I worked twelve hours yesterday which really wasn't bad at all for a twelve hour day but today I was absolutely zonked. While it was a twelve hour day in terms of the fact I got paid for twelve hours I was gone from my house for 14.5, it soaked up my entire day. But I didn't miss House b/c baseball was on. I'm also working twelve hours next tuesday; the extra evenings this week and next will make up for next Friday which I took off to go visit Jill!!

Today's U of R cast of characters includes, in rough order of appearance:

Phil who taught my MCAT class - seen crossing the atrium of the med school with a throng of stuck up med students wearing the traditional Phil outfit, today's monochromatic button down was forest green. He didn't remember my name and we had an awakward and brief conversation that included "you're working at the med center right?" (no)

Sir. C**tlyness - seen walking in the direction of the med center on the potent potables pathway, looking stoic, preppy, and not paying me a sideways glance

Gerald - sitting barefoot on the side of the library steps. I had a nice chat with him. He accepted I was taking microbio and didn't question my presence. He's an RA for Wilder 3 and 4. Apparently there is a lot of buzz about the super doubles being fire hazards and having to be set up a certain way. I met the girl living in the Wilder 4 super double who happened past. Theirs doesn't have a kitchenet and the one room is carpeted. They couldn't agree on which was deemed the fire hazard, the two singles set up or the double and common room set up.

Next Door Joe (not to be confused with Joe F.B.) - seen in passing in the library. Hello's were exchanged and he gave me the worlds most questionable look.

Dan Truax - also seen in the library, looking good and sporting a neatly trimmed full beard and cool plastic glasses that were quite fetching. He's doing well in general but busted his knee playing I believe volleyball. I swear he has a sports injury every year and he only plays club sports.

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