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[06 Jun 2009|10:40am] |
Alright, so I lied, this is really only going to be an entry about what has been going on in my life for the past year.
Moving into New House – When I got back from a whirlwind internship adventure last summer I moved into a new house. It was awesome. My room was smaller but we had a great group of people and a super awesome landlord. Big bonus – the rent is only $200 per month. I get to feel super trifty while using a bathroom with a window looking through a forest onto the New River. Extra bonus, the armory across the river looks like a field of stars at night.
Going to the Hospital Trip #1 – One day first semester, I had had a headache all day and starting around radiology lab I started feeling really really bad. My vision was really spotty around the edges and I was so nauseous I couldn’t move without feeling like I was going to hurl. For about an hour I just tried to stay as still as I possibly could in the dark classroom. Finally I couldn’t take anymore and had to run to the rest room to yak. On my way I ran into our veterinary neurologist, who I had met the previous week at a business etiquette dinner and new I was epileptic.
She took one look at me, asked me if I was okay. I said really really I wasn’t. She drove me to the health center. At this point I was what we call in the medical field “vomiting profusely”. The student health center decided they didn’t have the facilities to take care of a vomiting epileptic and so they called me an ambulance which took me to the ER. At this point I was almost continuously puking.
I got to the hospital, they did a CAT scan, gave me fluids, gave me anti-nausea medication. I started feeling much better.
Then they told me that there was a small chance that I had a bleeding blood vessel in my brain and if they didn’t do a spinal tap on me that I might die. I wasn’t really sure of this logic but seeing as he said I might die I consented. Later, my neurologist would tell me that my ER doc didn’t know what they were talking about any anyone worth their salt would know that I had just had a very serious migrane.
For the next two days I continued to have terrible migranes, went back to the doctor they gave me an 5H serotonin blocker and I was fine and dandy. I have medication just in case it ever happens again but so far the migrane from hell was neither seen from or heard from again.
Getting Published – I had three publications in the past year. Two were science related from my undergraduate research experience and one was veterinary business related.
Trip to the Hospital #2 – Second semester I woke up early one Sunday morning and debated wether I should go to the 8 am mass or the 10 am mass. I hauled my butt out of bed for the 8 am mass. I got out, got in the car, there was a little bit of snow on the ground but not much – it looked like the roads had been salted. Driving carefully and slower than I usually do, I came around a bend and lost control of the car.
The car swerved left, swerved right, and hit a bank on the side of the road and then like a corkscrew on a rollercoaster flipped completely upsidedown and landed on its top.
I was hanging upsidedown from my seat belt.
I got myself down – couldn’t get any of my doors open and was screaming for help for 5 minutes – nobody came. Finally with enough adrenaline and out of desperation I managed to shove one of the back car doors open and get out. I didn’t have my cell phone on me and I had to walk back to my house. My roommate Anne brought me back to my car, we started calling insurance companies and the police when a cop pulled up. Apparently another car had also flipped over just down the road. The black ice was pretty bad.
We eventually got the car towed, I went to the hospital just in case but was fine. The car, “Little Car”, was a total loss. My GEICO auto insurance was AWESOME. I had the free rental for a month which gave me enough time to find a new car. My friend Tess’s dad was looking to get rid of their 2002 Saturn SL2 with only 80,000 miles and perfectly good condition for only $1000 (*$#^@$*#@*#&@$*#&@$). It was amazing. So now Corey (the name of the Saturn) is mine and is out here in KS with me.
Going to Europe – I also had an AMAZING trip to Euope with Catie which I will probably write more about once I have the chance to go through all the pictures and make sure I don’t leave any of the cool information out.
Anyway, I think I’m going to go try to acquire a bicycle so I can get around this crazy town.
Hope you all are well. If you find yourself road-tripping across the country let me know and we can try and meet up!
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[06 Jun 2009|10:08am] |
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Yesterday I started an awesome and somewhat terrifying adventure called “Living someplace completely new where I don’t know anyone” (w00t!)
For the next two months, I’m living in Lawrence, Kansas. (Please insert jokes about the Wizard of Oz here – Yes, I AM in Kansas anymore). If the name Lawrence sounds familiar, it’s because Lawrence was the place you stopped to trade 200 pounds of buffalo meat or a wagon axle when you were playing “Oregon Trail” (usually right after you forded the river and right before you got dysentery).
In real life and modern day, this town has turned into a blossoming bohemian bohemoth.
It. Is. Fantastic.
Firstly the girl I’m living with is a reincarnation of my college roommate. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they’re both English majors who love Ulysses but they have similar taste in books, clothes, music, and love making stuff themselves instead of buying it from the man.
Secondly, said roommate dragged me out of bed this morning so we could go to the local farmer’s market.
We’re talking fresh everything. I got awesome heirloom tomatoes, sugar snap peas, lettuce, and a delicious, hot cheese, egg, and potato breakfast burrito. My roommate bought what may be illegal raw-milk goat cheese (ever the wimp I was too scared of getting brucellosis).
As we were walking to the farmer’s market this morning she took me around town and showed me which thrift stores were the coolest and where I could buy a refurbished bicycle, which music clubs had the best shows, and which coffee shops were open 24 hours. After writing this I'm probably going to go back and buy a refurbished bicycle.
On Monday I go to work for the biggest pet food corporation in the United States.
It’s going to be an interesting summer.
Soon to come: a entry about what I’ve been doing with my life for the past two years.
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[02 Dec 2008|03:14pm] |
So when we take quizzes in Pharmacology, I like to doodle on the top of my index card to pass the time until we start the quiz.
At first the TA who graded my quizzes put little "?"s next to my drawings.
Then he started putting little smiley faces.
Today he joined in, doodling in a Christmas tree next to my fireplace.
:D sometimes simple things make the world a beautiful place.
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[24 Oct 2008|10:59pm] |
This country needs to heal.
We have spent the past 4 years with a president who made us feel powerless. We had a national tragedy which while at first brought us together then led to a war that made us descend into division. Now the economy is plummeting and people don't have jobs, their retirement funds, or health care.
I'm ready for someone to try and bring us together again, to bring our wounds into the open, and make us want to heal them.
10 days left.
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| Politics |
[13 Oct 2008|06:33pm] |
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At the beginning of this race, I had a good impression of McCain, I thought, well no matter who wins, the next four years are going to be better than the last.
But now, I just can’t believe the hate mongering of the McCain campaign. With the very real death threats to Obama, I hope McCain doesn’t have to someday regret fanning the flames of bigotry.
I read this in a Times Magazine article today about what folks at the McCain campaign were telling their canvassers:
“With so much at stake, and time running short, Frederick did not feel he had the luxury of subtlety. He climbed atop a folding chair to give 30 campaign volunteers who were about to go canvassing door to door their talking points — for instance, the connection between Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden: "Both have friends that bombed the Pentagon," he said. "That is scary." It is also not exactly true — though that distorted reference to Obama's controversial association with William Ayers, a former 60s radical, was enough to get the volunteers stoked. "And he won't salute the flag," one woman added, repeating another myth about Obama. She was quickly topped by a man who called out, "We don't even know where Senator Obama was really born." Actually, we do; it's Hawaii.”
When I went canvassing this weekend (in a highly contested part of a battleground state) I was told specifically, “We’re not going out there to talk bad about McCain, we’re going out there to talk about why we like Obama”
That's why I'll be proud to call him my president.
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[08 Sep 2008|05:34pm] |
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My grandmother died today.
We didn’t see a lot of her while I was growing up. My dad had a really hard childhood. His real mom died when he was 6 and when his father remarried my grandmother, my dad’s step-siblings did some pretty terrible things to him, his dad and step-mom didn’t support his educational pursuits, and sometimes accused him of some pretty harsh things. So we didn’t go up there more than my parents felt obligated to. It’s a shame, I really like my aunts, uncles, and cousins.
I didn’t know my dad’s mom, so Meradie was my grandmother. She was always kind to me. When she found out that I wanted to be a veterinarian and her dog had to have surgery, she arranged permission with the vet for me to come up and see the surgery. It was the middle of the school week and last minute so I couldn’t go, but the effort meant a lot to me. Despite how I’m feeling, I think she would have wanted me to keep working hard and enjoy what I’m doing.
She got sick really suddenly this weekend. She went to the hospital because she wasn’t feeling right, ended up having severe abdominal bleeding. She was DNR. Last time I saw her she was getting around a little slower but she seemed fine. It wasn’t expected.
I’m sad and I miss her. Even if I didn’t get to see her much, maybe it’s silly, but I feel like God will make sure she knows how I feel about her. It’ll be nice to get to see that side of our family since we almost never do. If you don’t mind praying for her and us I would really appreciate it.
I hope you all are well.
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| This Summer |
[22 Aug 2008|09:50pm] |
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This is has been such a whirlwind summer. It involved spending time in 7 different states (Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Washington State, Idaho, New York, Virginia, and Maryland) and meeting hundreds of new people.
Here’s the general outline of what I was up to:
Mid May – Finished vet school finals (and kicked butt on them!!!) then…
Went to do a veterinary business externship with the great veterinarian and lawyer - Dr. Jim Wilson - for 2 weeks. Drank a lot of delicious Mosel Valley wine. Sent in applications for the National Veterinary Business Management Association (VBMA).
Early June – Went to do another veterinary business externship with the another great veterinarian and lawyer – Dr. Charlotte Lacroix. Spent 1 week there and then…
Went to the Veterinary Leadership Experience. Met lots of new people including nice boy, learned new things, changed my life.
Mid to late June – Finished my externship with Dr. Lacroix while visiting said nice boy on the weekends while he took me around and showed me NYC and Long Island. Saw firetruck racing for the first time. Found out that I was accepted to the National Executive Board of the Veterinary Business Management Association (VBMA).
Early July - spent a week at home visiting people. Then went down to Blacksburg to move my stuff from one house to another house. <3 the new house.
Mid July went to New Orleans for the American Veterinary Medical Association Conference. Had fun on Bourbon Street, found out I was going to be the Marketing Director for the VBMA and fell in love with all of my fellow officers. Said goodbye to nice boy who would be leaving for school in the Caribbean.
Late July – Early August - Started working like crazy on this website: http://www.vbma.biz. Went on vacation to lake with my family. Lots of good food. Mmmmm
Mid August Went back to Northern VA. Went to AWESOME Radiohead concert and visited people like crazy. Worked on orientation for the new incoming veterinary students. They are awesome.
PHEW. Got a lot done, met a lot of people, had relaxation, overall it was a pretty kick-ass summer. :D Still, it’s sad to be ending. I’ll just have to look forward to what’s coming next on the horizon. I hope you all are doing well in your adventures too!
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| Almost Summer |
[29 Apr 2008|02:14pm] |
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I’m feeling really weird lately. I’m feeling hopped up on something, like I feel kind of jittery and it’s harder to decompress, harder to sleep. It just started happening in the past couple of days, so I hope it’s just dealing with finals and trying to be ready. It’s weird though, just trying to breathe and calm myself down isn’t really working. On the up side it’s really motivating me to get a lot of studying done.
I don’t really remember how long it’s been since I wrote here. Vet school, as usual, is really crazy. Everyday more and more people are asking themselves why they’re here. Heck even I’ve asked myself that question. We are going to be $120,000 in debt by the time we get out of here. It’s hard as s**t. It stresses us all out and we have no time for real lives. We rarely get to touch real animals and have little time to spend at home with our own.
I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t made that promise to myself the first week of school that I was going to refuse to let vet school kill my love of veterinary medicine. I still have thoughts about whether or not I should be doing something else, like having a real job already and making money instead of making negative money. But then we’ll do something really cool in class, or I’ll learn about something I know I could talk to a client about, or I’ll work on VBMA stuff and I’ll be all pumped again.
Nevertheless, I’m SOOOO ready for the relative break that the summer will provide. Even if it’s going to be pretty busy there are vast quantities of time where I will be in different states or doing absolutely nothing. It will be glorious. Then I can see you all and that will be even more glorious. I hope you all are holding up and doing well :)
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[12 Apr 2008|11:25pm] |
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Germs are just a theory
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[10 Feb 2008|12:07pm] |
It feels like the big bad wolf is currently trying to blow down my house. Blacksburg is really windy – and to top it off we’re at the tippy-top of a hill and my side is the one that gets all the wind. Luckily the house doesn’t sway too much but boy is it LOUD. I feel like I’m in a wind-tunnel.
Trying to keep up with school work as usual (though can you tell I’m procrastinating?)
Things were a little crazy there for a while. In Jan, I took 3 days off of school (and a three day weekend) to go work the North American Veterinary Conference for a bird food company and tag along to some VBMA events while I was at it. It was amazing. I loved getting to meet all the VBMA people who were enthusiastic and fun. We did so many different things that ranged from an economic summit on what to do about veterinary debt (which included consultants, industry people, deans of colleges, and students) to going to a dueling piano bar. I also got to work with the Lafeber bird foods company which was great, I met some really really nice avian vets and got paid for working the booth ($$$). Money really helps.
The cool thing is that even though I missed that much class it doesn’t seem to have negatively impacted my school work at all, which I was really worried about. So good times all around.
My mission for the day is to find a store around here to pick up a good gift for some speakers for the VBMA. I’m thinking gift certificate to go out to dinner, but I have to get the okay from my president.
I got to see Carling this weekend, Logan’s coming down for Valentine’s day & my birthday next weekend (really looking forward to seeing him), my birthday has a TOTAL LUNAR ECLIPSE on it this year (which is awesome considering my name means “moon”), the weekend after that is Virginia Veterinary Medical Association conference (we get days off of school), and then not too far after that is spring break!
Yeah, so things are good and I’m looking forward to what the future brings. I miss you all and I hope everything’s going well with you!
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| Back to the Grind |
[14 Jan 2008|11:38pm] |
When I was home over break I worked at a local animal hospital. They were having a bonus incentive program to encourage the hospital staff to run more fecal samples, tests which are necessary annually to check for intestinal parasites. We got $0.50 for each fecal sample run.
All the same it's a little off setting to see this on your pay stub:
POOP MONEY - $6
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[03 Jan 2008|12:27am] |
My life of late has been a strange mix of feeling lost and found at the same time.
Realizing that my family on christmas eve is not interested in knowing all of the reasons why a horse cannot vomit. (I totally know though)
Realizing while I watching a movie I chose because I liked the preview, that it was in fact a book I read last May. Made me cry just as much.
I'm in my home that isn't my home anymore, but it was. I bring pieces of my new life with me but there's nothing to put it in.
For 19 years I had this home.
What comes next?
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| Stolen from L-dog |
[14 Sep 2007|08:05pm] |
1. Go to http://www.careercruising.com/.
2. Put in Username: nycareers, Password: landmark.
3. Take their "Career Matchmaker" questions.
4. Post the top results:
Or in my case - post the funny ones:
1. Podiatrist
3. Athletic Trainer
5. Massage Therapist
7. Midwife
11. Acupuncturist
15. Automotive Painter
19. Gunsmith
31. Printing Press Operator
37. Funeral Director
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[13 Jun 2007|10:50pm] |
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Today sucks. :: laughs :: I guess that's what I get for posting a LJ about how happy I am.
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[12 Jun 2007|11:14pm] |
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Life is so much different now than it was a month ago. I’d really never like to live with that anxiety again, thank you very much. Alas, in all likelihood I’ll probably have to manage it when I get out of vet school, like it did right after high school, right at the end of undergraduate. Maybe it’ll help if I know it’s coming.
It feels like things are starting to fall into place. Today in the mail I got the lease for the room in the house I’m going to be living in in a couple of months. I’m budgeting, getting credit cards, running errands, being productive. I’m back at work and they keep telling me how glad they are to have me. I’m catching up with old friends in town and spending time keeping up with people farther away, though there are still people on my list I still need to see. Things that were gray and unsettled are working being sorted out and I’m trying to eliminate sources of pain. Hopefully on that matter I’ll be able to be less vague soon.
It's good to feel this happy this much of the time.
Life isn’t perfect but things are really looking up. Hope things are looking up for all of you too :)
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[10 Jun 2007|01:30am] |
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I am overwhelmed by the generosity of friends :)
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| I told you I was going to post more frequently |
[07 Jun 2007|06:12pm] |
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My pirate name is:
Bloody Ethel Bonney
Every pirate lives for something different. For some, it's the open sea. For others (the masochists), it's the food. For you, it's definitely the fighting. You can be a little bit unpredictable, but a pirate's life is far from full of certainties, so that fits in pretty well. Arr!
Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.part of the fidius.org network
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| Aunt C |
[07 Jun 2007|01:28am] |
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I talked to my aunt for quite a while on the phone today. I really enjoyed talking to her.
I regret that in the past I think I tried not to get close to her and I didn’t respect her. For a lot of reasons, the first because she smoked (and smelled bad) and punished my cousin for stealing and hiding her cigarettes (when in school they taught us smoking was bad. I remember as a small kid thinking he was doing the morally upstanding thing). The second because her kids were really obnoxious and so I just kind of disliked her by proxy. Finally because she stayed with a man who was a drug addict and hit her for a long time before she realized he had made her take a shitty job because he didn’t want to leave the town his mistress was living in.
You know what I think was the real reason though that I kept so far away from her? I’m named after her and when I was small for some reason that made me feel like I was cursed to make the same mistakes she did.
She’s happy now, but the thought of having to go through as much unhappiness as she did, still scares the crap out of me.
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[06 Jun 2007|07:01pm] |
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Even though the mood at work today was a bit more somber than other times I’ve come back, it still didn’t fail to remind me why I love what I do and especially why I love the people I work with.
In what other field would you get to exercise your creativity by trying to think of tactful ways to leave a message asking if someone’s pet is still having problems with its anal glands? Where else are you going to find people who have a weird obsession with making really, really gross things nice and clean, like abscesses or your dog’s filthy tartar ridden mouth? It’s difficult to explain to the uninitiated. Like Cole was saying today, it’s kind of just like scrubs, except dirtier and with animals.
I love the people I work with. Just today we were talking about how we’re like a mob-like organization that, headed by our leader Dawn, can manage to protect the family from any intruders. Kat was talking about how for Halloween everyone was going to dress up with a pirate theme. She, was going to be a mermaid, Alix’s son (who’s 18 months old now) is going to be dressed up as a parrot, and when we take animals back into the kennel we’ll tell clients we’re taking them to the brig. She was still trying to figure out how to pull off making the hospital look like a ship.
Then the clients, goodness the clients. Interacting with them is alternately like trying to diffuse a time bomb (and can be enjoyably challenging) or is like sharing fun and jokes with a good friend. Either way, boring clients are few and far between. There is ALWAYS something to do, most of the time there is TONS to do (which takes a wonderful multi-tasking effort), so while you go home at the end of the day exhausted, I don’t ever have the problem of sitting around feeling bored. Plus, today alone I got to play with four tiny baby kittens just off being bottle fed, and three 6 month old puppies. Plus, honestly, the grown up animals are sweet and adorable too and they’re generally not quite so fidgety. I get to draw blood and give injections and take x-rays.
It was nice having Dr. M announcing me to all the clients as “CJ who will be going to vet school in the fall” and have Dr. G get giddy over memories of her alma mater.
Today more than any day since I was accepted I feel the overjoyed excitement about my first day of class and everything that will come after that. This is what I love, this is where I shine, and I can’t wait to do it for the rest of my life.
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[04 Jun 2007|04:11am] |
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I can’t fall asleep.
There’s so much stuck inside of my heart right now, so much good and so much bad.
I really have been putting off confession for far too long, hopefully it’ll only have to wait until this Wednesday.
Beach week was amazing. I’d say most of it was just getting to have simple fun with my friends, like going to play some mini golf and then going for dairy queen afterward (they had a little arcade there and I have a hidden talent for skee ball), hanging out on the beach and building sandcastles. A lot of it kind of had to do with alcohol and just getting to talk with people and get things out in the open, like the ** thing. Not that we really keep secrets from one another but it had been a while, we stayed up so late talking to one another that some mornings everyone went out to watch the sunrise.
Just like for everyone else (I hope) it was just such a fun and relaxing trip that we really didn’t want to leave. Especially because now so many people are going across the country for grad school, jobs, lives.
I got back home, spent some time with the folks. My mom wanted my help planning more of my graduation party. We watched The Fugitive as a family. Then I went over to Catie’s and watched the last half of High School Musical and talked with people. It already doesn’t quite feel the same.
When I got home I got online for a while and before trying to go to bed I reminded myself to call the hospital tomorrow and figure out when I had to be at work. It crossed my mind that my schedule might be like last year where I get to be “extra” and help where it’s interesting and where I’m needed. I remembered Jason helping me get back into the swing of things last summer as head tech and wondered if he would be there on Tuesday.
Then I remembered the car crash. Then I remembered that Jason wouldn’t ever be anywhere ever again.
it’s 2:00 in the morning, then 3:00 in the morning, then 5:00 and sleep doesn’t come.
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