I only sing about things I like

I am really quite enjoying all of this time off.  So far I have eaten more than I should and watched old cartoons for entire days.  I would just like to say that Quick Draw McGraw is funny for an episode or two, but anything beyond an hour is painful!  I would also like to say that everyone should watch the Boomerang network because it has amazing things.  And everyone should get electronics at pawn shops.  So the sad story of the day is that I have nothing interesting to say because I'm not doing anything.  So I took a vote from my biggest fans (aka anyone within earshot at the moment) and they decided I can just rant about whatever and exaggerate my tales of shopping.  But my shopping trips have even been so uneventful that I really have nothing to say.  So now I am just left ranting about things I do or do not like.  Once I get back to living life I should also go back to having stories to tell.

I tried to watch the lunar eclipse the other night and I have to say I was very disappointed.  I went outside in the freezy frozen cold and sat in an icy ice chair and look up at the moon.  At first it started turning an odd sort of red.  Then after an hour of freezing it turned poo brown.  Yeah.  Poo brown.  Everyone else said it was a deep shade of red and I am just bad at distinguishing colors, but I know the truth.  They didn't want to feel stupid for sitting in the cold just to watch the moon turn poo brown.  But I don't mind feeling stupid.  In fact, I think medical school was designed to make everyone smart feel stupid and be okay with it.  So I am willing to admit I sat in the cold for hours just to watch the moon go from off-white to reddish to poo brown.  After I decided it wasn't going to black out for some ridiculous physics filled reason I went inside.  I think it had something to do with Colorado not being exactly lined up to get the full effect and sun rays being not perfect or something.  Anyway, it was poo brown and that's all I have to say about the moon.  But while I'm on the subject of poo brown I would like to just throw out a theory of mine.  I think people get ugly poo brown sheets because they poo themselves at night and it hides the stains.  Same reason people would buy poo brown underwear.  That's my two cents about it.

I enjoy making up JJ carols.  Really they are just Christmas carols with whichever words I choose replaced with JJ.  My personal favorite lately is The Twelve Days of JJ.  It goes something like this:

On the 12th day of JJ my JJ gave to me
12 JJs JJ
11 JJs JJ
10 JJs JJ
9 JJs JJ
8 JJs JJ
7 JJs JJ
6 JJs JJ
5 JJ rings!
4 JJ JJs
3 JJ JJs
2 JJ JJs
And a JJ in a pear tree!!

Don't worry I have plenty more.  Such as JJ Bells:

JJ bells!  JJ bells!  JJ all the way!  Oh what JJ it is to JJ in a JJ open sleigh!  OH!  JJ through the JJ in a JJ open sleigh.  JJ the hills we go!  JJ all the way!  Bells on JJ ring!  Making JJs bright!  What fun it is to JJ and sing a JJ song tonight!  OH!  JJ bells!  JJ bells!  JJ all the way!  Oh what JJ it is to JJ in a JJ open sleigh!!!!

And the all time classic JJ the red nosed JJ:

JJ the red nosed JJ had a very shiny JJ!  And if your ever JJed it, you would JJ say it JJs!  All of the other JJs used to JJ and call him JJs!  They never let poor JJ join in any JJ games!  Then one foggy JJ eve, JJ came to say, "JJ with your JJ so bright won't you JJ my sleigh tonight."  Then all the JJs loved him.  And the JJed out with glee.  JJ the red nosed JJ you'll go JJ in history!

Or Up on the JJ:

Up on the JJ, JJ paws.  Down comes good old JJ Claus!  Down through the JJ with lots of JJs all for the JJ ones JJ joys.  Ho JJ Ho!  JJ wouldn't go!  JJ Ho JJ!  JJ wouldn't go-o!  Up on the JJ, JJ paws.  Down through the JJ with good St. JJ!

Want more?  Too bad.  I don't want to type any more.  So if you really have a burning desire to know more JJ carols you can just leave a specific song request as a comment.  And if I'm feeling benevolent I'll think about writing it and singing it to JJ.  I swear he enjoys it and does NOT just sit there and roll his eyes at me.

Don't start with me! I'm done!!

Done with my first semester of medical school that is.  I refuse to feel guilty for doing absolutely nothing for the next 2 weeks.  It ended with only a slight whimper since the final was comprehensive.  Total we had 120 hours of lecture to learn in a little under 2 months.  Could I tell you any of it?  Nope.  But not because I don't know it.  I refuse to talk about school outside of school in any serious terms.  I prefer to be happy and pretend I am just a lazy undergrad who never has to remember anything.  But seriously I feel great!  Today I realized that eventually it will end.  Not the learning as a whole, but the lecture, book, test cycle type of learning.  Someday I will know stuff and not have to prove it by filling in tiny, annoying bubbles.  I'll have to prove it by improving the lives of others in statistically significant numbers.

So I don't really like Christmas.  In fact, my mother nicknamed me Amy-neezer Scrooge and it seems to have stuck since I get called Neezer year-round now by various persons.  I don't mind because it is the most awesome nickname I have ever had.  The few things I enjoy about Christmas are the tree, the lights, the cookies that I make myself, and the snow.  I am not very fond of the songs and I have an extreme distaste for presents.  I like birthday presents because I feel everyone should acknowledge what an accomplishment it truly is to keep myself alive year after year.  But I don't feel like Christmas is much to celebrate in the means of my own life.  I didn't do anything.  And living for a year doesn't count because that's what my birthday is for.  All I did was, uh, be around?  I am an entity and so I should get presents from people I talk to I suppose.  I also am pretty upset that if I find something I want to give to somebody I have to wait.  I would rather give it to them as a surprise the day I find it before Christmas.  They expect it on Christmas.  I also don't like how every December I have to clean my room just to fit all the stuff I'll be cleaning out next year.  And I never get summer related items.  And I feel as if I am not allowed to buy anything for myself in the entire month of December because someone might have gotten it for me already.  It's just a bad set-up all around.  The things I enjoy about Christmas are really just what I enjoy about seasons.  I like that reds and oranges and yellows are prevalent in fall.  I enjoy the mild weather in the spring.  And I love the popsicles and snowcones and ice cream in the summer.  Winter is just lights and snow and cookies.  AND THAT'S ALL!

Nothing has happened in the last few weeks so don't complain that I didn't update at all.  I get to have sushi tonight!  Also, we have prom on Friday, but I don't think I will be attending.  I thought I could only go for the first two years, but I guess you can go all the way through fourth year.  But maybe I'll go because I want to make sure that fourth years are still alive and that third years do, in fact, exist.  Also, I don't want to mention names or certain professional schools, but before you complain to a medical student that you are struggling more in your studies than they are in theirs you may want to take into account that you may not be as smart as they are and so simpler things are just naturally harder for you.  So yes, your school may be harder for you, but it is not harder overall.  And no I don't mean anyone in undergrad or below.  And no I am not full of myself.  I just would like people to stop telling me that what I am doing is a cake walk.  I just like smiling.  That doesn't mean school is easy, it means I handle stress well.  And that whoever is bothering me probably has meltdowns in traffic jams.

Pink turkey means it's cooked

I made delicious food for Thanksgiving.  I made the sweet potatoes and the lemon cake.  And yes lemon cake is traditional in the sense that I made it for all the people who super want to eat delicious things.  I even made my own homemade whipped frosting.  Ninja and I talked our two families into eating together this year so we made half the food and they made half the food.  And by they I mostly mean Ninja all by himself.  So my family made the vegetables and rolls.  The rolls were super amazing delicious, but for whatever reason they didn't rise and were only the size of a meatball.  In fact I have to say that everything was delicious.  Ninja made the turkey by smoking it and then roasting it in the oven.  The smoking caused the meat towards the outside to turn pinkish.  He cooked it until the middle of the breast was at 170 so I know it was good to eat, but I was just a little unsettled by the pink tint.  It was amazing though because the meat was a little sweet and juicier than any other turkey I have ever had.  My brother, who will never even look at turkey, sat himself down in front of the serving platter and picked pieces off.  There were also egg rolls and sesame dough balls and bratwurst and homemade pumpkin pie.  Honestly it was the best food I have ever had on Thanksgiving and I look forward to having him make me turkey for a looooooong time.

Once we all woke up from our food comas we really didn't do anything and it was absolutely perfect.  We played more games and stayed up way too late.  Ninja and I went to bed early at around 2am and everyone else stayed up until 5.  The next morning we got up and watched more than 3 hours of Spongebob.  I would like to point out here that there is nothing wrong with watching cartoons all the time.  And I am tired of all these parents who tell their kids shows like Spongebob or Phineas and Ferb will rot their brains, but then allow them to watch things like, uh, I forgot the name.  Ummm....  Oh yeah!!  Wonder Pets.  If I have ever seen a useless bit of dribble that would be it.  When did it become "cute" for things to sing in a baby voice off key?  Never.  I don't care who you are, if you are on TV in a singing based show you need to be ON key.  And they also solve "problems" like boredom.  Last I checked one of the important steps in child development was learning to manage your own boredom and not by watching (or calling) fictional pets to help.  In fact, I think it is insulting to a child to relegate them to such horrible shows because it is "at their level".  I remember watching Bugs Bunny since, well, since I can remember anything.  Do I think it is directed at a 4 year old level?  No, not at all.  But I think it was at the very least not detrimental and  I really believe it was helpful in teaching me to me grow into an adult.  How can it possibly be that watching cartoons above my level helped me mature instead of confusing me and teaching me to be violent?  Well, because it didn't star off key animals talking in baby voices my father would sit down and watch it with me.  And while we watched he would interject with his explanations of violence and what was okay for people and what was only okay for cartoons.  Overall it was a very enjoyable experience and I bonded well with my parents over it.  I just see nothing but evil coming from Wonder Pets.  NOTHING BUT EVIL.  So I say, listen to the horrible screams coming from deep in your psyche when you hear the Wonder Pets theme song.  Or even just listen to the medical student who has watched Spongebob incessantly since it started and did not get any stupider.  Just please find it in your heart to let your child watch good cartoons.  Or at the very least no cartoons is better than that crap.  Please stop fueling horrible shows that ruin the minds of nice children.  Just pick something entertaining that is a little above their level and spend the time to bond over cartoons.  I recommend Spongebob.

Ahem, that was my physician in training PSA of the day.  The rest of the day we just hung around.  I did go work out with my mom so I could say I wasn't totally useless, but really I was pretty darn useless.  Nothing but video games as far as the eye can see.  I even forced my own father to play the Family Fued and Trivial Pursuit games with me.  I am going to say he enjoyed it not because he enjoyed the game, but because he enjoyed getting outraged by how cheater the questions were.  They are really super unfair.  One question asked us at which age children started giving Christmas presents to their parents.  Uhhhh.... depends?  Does it count if the spouse buys the present and signs the child's name?  I believe the ages accepted ranged from 5 to 15 and only 6 of them were considered correct.  Not even the real Family Fued is that unfair.  It's like they just want us to never play that game.  Oh well, it was a nice bonding time.  Like the time I now spend explaining Spongebob to my parents.  Just so you know they rock.  You should hang out with them sometime.

Anniversary

Here's the scoop, when I get more than one day behind I feel like writing about that much will be a big time commitment and so I put it off for one more day and then I am more behind and I keep saying I'll have time to write later, but then I don't.  Sorry.  Anyway, I haven't done much besides get used to being married.  Umm.... I am passing school which is always nice.  I am not honoring, which I feel pretty neutral about.  I spent all last week feeling sick and staying home from school and now I am a few hours behind on lectures, but I think I can catch it up.  Not much has happened.  Okay, that is a barefaced lie.  A whole lot has happened, but I am not going to be able to remember it all let alone write it down.  From now on I will at the very minimum try to update once per week if not much more often.  I know you've heard it before and I haven't earned anyone's trust, but please give me one more chance.

So a long time ago I took my first and second tests for molecules to medicine and I passed both.  Which means I am already doing better than anatomy where I failed every lab practical exam.  More recently I took the third exam.  The exam was on a Monday and in my tradition I was a few hours behind on lectures on Sunday and I was refusing to even try and pull out my laptop or notes because, well, I feel like I am being punished when I study.  I have to go away from everyone else and be very quiet and do things I don't really want to do.  Usually about 10 minutes of staring at notes causes me to feel as though I have been put on time-outs and I instantly rebel and go play video games or watch TV.  I know that probably isn't the best way to pass school, but I AM passing so something is going right.  Well, that or someone upstairs put me here for a reason and He is sure not going to let me sabotage it now.  But I honestly can't get past feeling as though I am being punished for something I didn't do and it really prevents me from focusing because all my little girl emotions come flooding back.  ~Why do I have to sit here in the corner?  All I wanted was cookies for dinner. Why can't my parents just love me for who I am and appreciate the way I expressed myself in my drawings on the wall?  It only seems fair that if I have to bathe the cat has to bathe with me.  I don't see what's so horrible about riding your bike off the roof.  They never let me have fun.~  With all these thoughts and emotions running through my head no one can really expect me to focus on school or study.  Sometimes I eat cookies for dinner or stay up all night playing games just to quell those emotions.  So anyway, I had tried to study on Saturday, but there were way too many interesting things going on so I felt punished and then I gave up.  Ninja was all upset at me for not studying and he was explaining how I needed to study because everyone in my class had been talking about how hard our third exam was supposed to be.  It was all about genetics.  I tried to explain that genetics is just a lot of concepts and the reason people get lost is because they get into memorizing the details and that isn't possible.  To prove I knew genetics concepts and all about punnett squares I made him one.  This is all about how Ninja feels about my schoolwork:

Once he saw this he couldn't stay mad because it is so perfectly accurate.  Lucky for me he didn't realize this has nothing to do with genetics concepts.  Well it kind of does.  If you change "study" to Dad and "pass" to Mom and then "yes" to wild type gene and "no" to mutated gene and the genes show incomplete dominance then it is mildly accurate as long as Dad has a form of the mutation that like causes hiccups at 10am and pm everyday and Mom has one that like causes the skin to be tinted purple.  And also if together the mutations make the child blind and purple and hiccup-y.  Then the faces would make the most sense.  But as far as ninja was concerned my point was proven and I went into the test the next day with false confidence and came out distraught because I was scared I would be seeing his angry face as soon as the grades came back.  But then I didn't even get close to failing and I don't know why, but I am very happy even though I got his mildly unimpressed face.

So after that test I have not actually been to any lectures.  I stay home because I really have been waking up feeling rather unwell, which brings me to my next point.  I live in constant absolute terror at the thought of being pregnant.  Let me tell you how I have been feeling lately and then the explanation my doctor has, you know my explanation so I won't put it.  Exhaustion: staying up too late and being stressed at school.  Peeing often: drinking lots of water (I think it could be Diabeetus).  Head rushes when standing: tortuous aorta and low blood pressure and jumping up too fast after extended inactivity.  Sore breasts: the pill and suddenly going to a high caffeine intake since Ninja started making delicious coffee every morning.  Mood swings: the pill and being stressed at school and not sleeping enough.  Waking up at 2 or 3am feeling nauseous and having to drink magic juice and walk around to feel better: indigestion or eating too late or being stressed at school.  So there you have it.  And in case you don't know I consider Pepto Bismol to be magic juice because since I discovered it in 2003 I have not thrown up.  If that isn't magical I don't know what is.  So I would prefer to not have a child any time soon and I don't know why Ninja gets upset when I tell him I would be extra terrible if I was pregnant and demand cheesy gordita crunches at all hours of the night.  I would also kick him in the stomach every time his ill-timed child kicked me in the stomach.  And then fake cry to get what I want.  And skip class even more.  I really don't know why he gets upset because that all seems reasonable for what I would have to go through.  Anyway, I should believe the doctor and so I am trying to quell the fear eating away my insides as I wait for definitive proof that my pill is working.  You know what I mean and I am totally willing to say it, but I just don't want to in writing.  All I'll say is that someone better visit me over the holiday break or I'm going to have a meltdown.

So outside of school and my own psychosis I have had another trip to work at the detox clinic.  It was a much less eventful night this time.  Someone face planted when they tried to sit down and I was exposed to MRSA and I saw a naked guy in a shower because I was just standing in the wrong place when they opened the door and I saw right in.  There were a lot more screaming belligerent people in the quiet rooms, but no one had to be checked for their real gender.  I have also had my first day at my preceptor office.  She is a very nice pediatrician.  We saw quite a few patients and I learned all children like you better when you are the person handing out the lollipops instead of the shots.  I also learned that as a pediatrician you have to be okay with everything because if you tell kids how much you hate smoking or drugs or drinking or kids having sex then the kids will never confide in you and they need to.  So you have to use phrases like, "I don't think trying a beer or a joint is life altering, but driving under the influence is so don't ever do that or get in a car with someone who is." or "You are old enough to see me without your parents now and I want you to understand I only want to know what you are doing so I can treat you best.  I will never tell anyone what you say outside of us in this room." or "Having sex is fine, but you should talk to me about birth control before you start having sex so I can be sure you are ready."  So I am learning more detachment skills.  I cannot bring my own morals into the room because then I may miss out on helping my patients if they get caught up in something and are too scared to tell me about it because I am openly opinionated against it.  Is it a dilemma?  Nope.  In fact it is essentially considered part of the Hippocratic Oath.  To do what is in your patient's best interest.  Their best interest is to be comfortable enough around me to tell me everything I need to know to treat them best.  So I can never alienate someone with my own opinions.  I don't have any opinions so really it isn't hard for me at all.  So those are my most recent clinical experiences.  I think being a real doctor instead of a bookworm on time-outs is much more fun.  I guess I'll stick with this.

Yesterday was the one month anniversary of my best friends forever ceremony with Ninja.  He abandoned me for most of the day running errands and doing things for work.  I felt pretty lonely.  Then he showed up with flowers and everything needed to make an unnecessary amount of decorated sugar cookies!  I really like decorating cookies and I also love sprinkles.  I am not as fond of flowers, but I am really fond of Ninja so I like them a lot too.  Other than that I have just been chilling and trying to relax and pretend I am a normal person with a normal life and that I don't know an unnatural amount about pseudohermaphroditism.  Ninja and I have been at house home since Friday and we are spending the week here.  Technically I had class through Wednesday, but I have just been watching the lectures online anyway and we don't have any required sessions this week so it didn't matter where I was.  So today Ninja is at his house home cooking and I am at my house home hanging out with my super amazing friend Skunk and my brother playing Chrono Trigger.  I would go to help Ninja, but he says my helping is more like tying one hand behind his back.  Mostly because I just latch on in a bear hug and refuse to let go while he tries to cook.  Sometimes he gives me a job like whisking or stirring and I am really good at helping, but other than that I don't do much.  I'm not sure if I'll head over there to sleep because it's cold outside.  But if I do maybe he'll sing that cold outside song to me if I try to go back here.  Hmmm..... that could be worth it.  Plus his bed is not comfortable and last time we stayed at his house I woke up because his dog had pretty much pushed me off the bed.  Here I have a Tempur-pedic bed and a cat that keeps my feet warm without shoving me around.  But I really like elbowing Ninja in my sleep and hearing about it in the morning.  This is quite a dilemma.  I'll let you know how it turns out tomorrow.  Or maybe the day after because tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I may be in a food coma all night and unable to type.

Back in the swing of things

I have to say that skipping 20 hours of lecture to get married and have some much deserved (at least in my mind, although I think the school would beg to differ) time off was not the most brilliant of my ideas.  However, today marked the day of the test over the last skipped material.  All the tests from now on cover only the material I have attended after the wedding.  So now I have something that resembles free time in that I don't feel guilty if I sit around instead of watching catch-up lectures online or studying.  I will miss biostatistics because they constantly told us, with statistically significant figures to back them up, how a lot of what the general public is told about medicine and disease is wrong.  I felt like I was getting into a special "truth" club where no one is going to lie to me any more about what really goes on in medicine.  All I have to say is that every time a famous person gets a disease it suddenly becomes the new fashion to screen everyone for it (usually yearly) even if there is no real reason to.  So really, the power of celebrity is helping build up medical costs per year of life for average people.  All I have to say is that there should be a required standardized test, like the MCAT, with a minimum score necessary to run a company, be a politician, or be anyone with a large sway in policies affecting the general public.  Just a thought.

The block I am in now, Molecules to Medicine, I feel is a big waste of my time.  I also believe the school knows that as relevant as it is for research, it isn't all that relevant to clinical medicine and they have been trying to compensate by changing the name to sound applicable.  I believe it started out as biochemistry.  Okay fine.  Sounds like an undergrad class where I learn how the chemical make-up of an amino acid makes proteins form.  I don't think I'll ever have a patient come in and tell me they are having pain from their proteins having too many basic side chains.  So then they changed it to micro-anatomy.  Yeah, we had gross anatomy (and I know it is called gross because of the cadavers and not because it is a giant overview of every structure in the body) and so now this is what?  The super small arteries branching off?  Nope, it's just learning the molecular structure of the body.  I would prefer to say that it has nothing to do with anatomy since the general conception of anatomy is that of a larger scale.  Like one you can see on someone who is alive and sitting, or lying unconscious, in front of you without a microscope.  I know the definition technically encompasses the molecular structure, but really they were just trying to fool us into caring again.  So now we are here today in molecules to medicine.  They realized we are too smart for their tricks and have just given up and put a relationship in the course title hoping we would care because of it.  Oh, molecule TO medicine?  That must mean these molecules are very important and not just a boring drudge of biochemistry.  I mean, that "to" could mean anything.  These molecules could be the ones medicine makes better or maybe even the molecules the medicine is made of.  Wow.... I think I am going to leave the detailed molecular structure of medicine to pharmacists.  I know that you can argue that once you look into a pathology far enough you end up at the molecular basis for symptoms.  I am just saying that spending nine weeks of my first year learning the molecular basis, which I will forget among the quantitative symptoms, for a ton of diseases is not the best use of my time.  And so I conclude that once again I know best and everyone should listen to me.  Mostly because I have power issues, but hey, that's why I'm going to be a doctor right?

So I never realized how much living alone had affected me until ninja moved in.  He recently pointed out that every time I have to pee I say, "Diabeetus" like Wilford Brimley in those old commercials where he rides a horse through a river and talks to me about the importance of regular blood testing for insulin levels.  There is a logical explanation for it you know.  Two of the main signs you have type 2 diabetes are frequent urination and fatigue.  I happen to have both at the moment.  You could say it is from being in school and drinking water constantly, but I prefer to err on the side of caution.  Or is that paranoia?  I can never remember.  Anyway, now you know my secret so if you hear me say, "Diabeetus" and then I leave the room you'll know where I went.  He has also noticed that I talk to inanimate objects, especially my food, and sometimes even ask questions and act astonished at the reply.  I think all of it has been healthy coping mechanisms and the only reason he is able to live with me at all is due to the shreds of sanity I maintained by using those mechanisms.  I also think it entertains him because I find him spying on me and laughing sometimes.  But how can he judge me?  At least I don't hide and then pick him up over my head and throw him into marshmallows. How am I supposed to feel safe in my own apartment if at any time a ninja could jump out and throw me onto something soft and then run away with no real harm done?  Sure it is extremely fun and the sort of thing most people have to give up for good when they get to be too big to be carried around by dad and mom, but I have to have one thing, ONE THING, to hold against him.  He can't just do everything right and make everything better all the time.  I need one tiny bit of leverage, just one, and nothing beats domestic abuse.  Yes, I said the big DA.  He throws me with no harm done, but throwing is involved none-the-less.  This is my ace in the hole for the next time he eats my only slice of my own mother's peach pie.  I know none of this could ever hold up anywhere and if I try to use it against him I will probably end up being thrown into a marshmallow, but I have to give it my best shot for the sake of that delicious pie.

Attack of the Ninja!

Finally, I've managed to create my own blog-post-thing for everyone to read!  Everything here has been an adventure.  Every night I go to sleep in fear of what McJohnson will do to "accidently" wake me up, and every morning she forces me wake up with her.  It's so cruel.  Every afternoon she only lets me watch Phineas and Ferb or Spongebob!  Please, please, please someone help me.  My ninja powers are too weak to escape the gleeful clutches of Amy-neezer McScrooooooge!

All of that is untrue.  Actually, it's really quite a bit of fun hanging out with her all of the time.  It's like hanging out with my best friend who just so happens to be a really pretty girl, too.  I've made some new acquaintances here, bonded with the kitten (although I'm helping to feed her cat-nip addiction), and managed to cook every day.  What some people don't realize is that I enjoy cooking because it's like some great tasting science experiment for me.  What she doesn't realize is that I'm testing the food on her.  BAHAHAH!  Good thing she never reads her own blog...  Hm, anyways, where was I?  I think zombies live in the apartment above us.  Redneck woman zombies-- the worst kind.  They stomp around and groan and cackle.  I assume they're watering their plants when water randomly spills on our balcony.  If the zombie apocalypse happens, I know where it started.

Amy-neezer and I ate at Senor Rick's for dinner.  She had a chimichanga and I ate crispy chile rellenos.  YUM!  Flippin' delicious.  What?

We also have been playing the super-fly game known as Let's Dance 2.  It has some great songs in it!  You wouldn't believe me but Amy-neezer and I are learning how to do the Charleston.  If you don't believe me then it's because you don't believe in miracles, which makes you a sad person; that, in turn, makes me sad.  Now look what you've done, you've gone and hurt my feelings.  If I didn't know any better, I'd say it was on purpose.  Now that I think about it...  yeah, it was on purpose!  Why are you playing with my feelings again?! You're tearing me apart!

Annnnyways...  There's not much left to write about.  Nanosuke (the kitten's ninja name because I'm training her in the art of ninjary...  ninjastics?  Ninja-ism.  Yeah.)  and I have developed a close bond.  At one point in time, I was the big spoon and she was the little spoon.  We watched movies and even stink-eyed a squirrel that was on our balcony.  Some day I'll train the furry little mini-ninja to be able to show that squirrel who's boss. I am, by the way. It goes like this:  Acorn < Squirrel < Nanosuke < Me.

So, uh...  that's all I have.  Really nothing else going on from my stand point.  Um...  What's going on with you?  How's work?

...

This is awkward.  Yeah...  I'll just talk to you later.  Okay?  Cool.

Oh, before you go.  Take note at my effective use of ellipses.

...

Ellipses are for chumps!


So I get busy and ninja gets bored and I figured I would accidentally let him find my blog password and write a bit about being stuck here with me. So if anatomy was the pregnancy of medical school then molecules to medicine is all the time spent watching said child nap.  Seriously, it is way boring and then randomly something interesting happens and then they wake up and are a tiny bit amusing and then become annoying and then go back to sleep.  Not my favorite block ever, but not really hard.  I ended up getting a 75% on the first exam without actually studying even for one minute.  All I did was watch the lectures I missed from the wedding which equals out to me just going to the lectures in the first place and then spending no additional time with the material.  Good thing I majored in biology and chemistry.  Our next test is on biostatistics and epidemiology.  I was worried because I am still behind, but then I noticed the test is open book/open note/open everything (except classmates).  Mostly we have to interpret data.

I would love to share a few things with you, but you have to promise to listen and not just get mad if you disagree.  First, screening for any kind of cancer except cervical is statistically pointless.  In fact, the harms of having a false positive far outweighs the benefits of early detection.  In most cases the number of false positives is more than triple the number of true positives and so out of 100 people who test positive 25 would have the disease and 75 would not, but would have the emotional trauma and possibly some of the treatments for it.  That is a rough estimate and it differs for each disease.  But then you have to wonder if for the 25 who get caught is the result worth it.  Not necessarily.  For breast cancer, if you start screening each year in your 40s like it is recommended then out of 1000 women destined to die from breast cancer in the end only ONE of them will survive because it was caught early.  Oddly enough, this is the same number that would survive if the screening was every other year starting after age 50.  Once you get into your 60s and 70s there is a marked decrease in the mortality because you get up closer to saving 40 out of 1000.  But after 70 you really shouldn't bother because chances are you will die of something else.  What I think should be happening is conversations between physicians and patients where the statistics are mentioned and each person makes their own choice.  Since I have no family history of any kind of cancer and do not take part in high risk activities I would opt to start in my 50s and probably only have one screening every 5 years and then go to every 2 years in my 60s and 70s before stopping altogether.  But since ninja has a high rate of breast cancer in his family (as in every woman gets it no exceptions) I would want my daughters to get tested early and often because I know they will have it at some point.  And we then learned that screening for prostate cancer is very harmful due to a phenomenon known as over-diagnosis.  Over-diagnosis is where a person has a disease and it has no symptoms or detrimental effects and then it ends and they never even would have known they had it EXCEPT a test caught it and so they get treatment they never really needed.  So the prostate is supposed to die in males and the natural course of its death is asymptomatic cancer.  80% of males have it and very few have any sort of symptoms or harmful side effects.  But with all the screening men are getting they end up going through treatment and emotional trauma that is completely unnecessary.  These are a few examples.  There are many others that have nothing to do with cancers.  I just would like to mention that screening for diseases before they are symptomatic is not really statistically reasonable.  But then you have to wonder, what if the 1/1000 women saved by a mammogram in her 40s was your mother?  It would be worth it despite all the emotional stress on the other women with false positives, right?  I would ruin other people's lives to save my mother so I say a hearty YES!  I just think each person should make an informed decision and no more of this scaring us into unnecessary testing junk. Not cool cancer society, not cool.

I would like to mention here just how happy I am at the moment with my life.  Everything married=better than everything not married.  I can still do things with my parents and brother and be a part of their family, but then I also get to do everything with ninja.  Best of both worlds I say.  And the food!  Oh man, you wish you were me, that's all I have to say.  Plus he has lately taken to spoiling my cat.  A six foot Filipino cuddling a 10 pound cat is adorable.  Not to mention all the toys he keeps getting her.  Ah, this is the life.

The Hiatus

Way too much has happened in the last few weeks and now I find myself a bit behind on everything.  I believe when I left off it was just a few days before the dreaded head and neck anatomy final.  I really did not study anywhere close to what I should have and I super failed the lab practical because I never set foot in that lab outside of the required dissection times.  All in all I ended up with an 80% in that class which is really good for someone who never had anatomy before and never really sat down and studied much.  I would equate finishing anatomy to giving birth.  It was in three units (trimesters) and each had its own unique issues and all of them came together for a very painful, yet relieving, end.  At first it was exciting because there were so many exciting things to learn and it was a new part of life.  Then after the first week the realization set in that it was in fact the next nine weeks of my life and I couldn't get out of it now.  So I made the best of it for a while and got through the first unit a little beaten up, but wiser.  Then in the second unit I knew what was up.  I knew when I should study, when I should go to lab, how long my breaks should be between study sessions, and who I wanted to get advice and help from.  Then came the third unit, head and neck.  The end was visible and I started getting excited, but it was an ugly thing.  My breaks got shorter and suddenly everything I had been doing before was not working under the new conditions.  I couldn't manage to get the things done that I had been before because of those darn unmanageable cranial nerves.  Then I realized there was only a short time left and I was NOT ready for the final exam.  I was nervous and frightened about how it would all turn out.  Then the day of the final came.  My mind burst forth all of the information that had been stored there and I finally walked home and had my first night without opening an anatomy atlas.  I had a headache for most of the night, but I was happy I no longer had to carry that information around in my head.  Now I have never had a child, but I imagine it will be much the same.  Except instead of being mentally painful it will be physically painful, but either way it is an exhausting experience that, while fun in it's own twisted way, can only be considered worthwhile because of the reward at the end.

After life-eating anatomy ended I finally got to think and reflect on what was coming the next weekend, my giant best friends forever ceremony with ninja.  The final was on Monday and the next block biochemistry started at 8am on Tuesday.  Why?  Because they hate us.  I really think at some points they really do hate us. Why couldn't they just skip Tuesday and have us go a little longer each day for the rest of the week?  We even asked politely in with our med student puppy dog eyes to switch Tuesday classes from 8-12 to 1-5 so we could at least sleep in for a day and they gave us a harsh NO.  So cruel.  I ended up going back to Colorado Springs after class on Thursday and along the way my cat used my car as her personal litter box.  I suppose I can no longer lie to myself and claim it was the other passengers in my car making the mess because we were the only ones in the car and I couldn't say it was myself because I know it wasn't me.  Needless to say I had a rather horrible attitude when I came into town.  So that night was my bachelorette party and I was not really up for games that make me look stupid.  Luckily I have the sort of bridesmaids who like me enough to put off their original plans to let me mope on a bed and watch Willi Wonka.  I really felt a little bad because I was about 2 1/2 hours late to the party.  All in all I had a great time and even forgot the horrendous drive down in a car smelling like sewage with the windows all the way down in the cold.

Friday was quite the beginning to my ceremony.  We had our rehearsal.  I acted out my part very well, much to the dismay of my understudy who was looking for her big break.  I got the part as the leading lady in the ceremony the next day and luckily for me ninja got the part as the leading man.  So we practiced for a while and then had a massive dinner party at ninja's house.  We even carved pumpkins.  Mine had Snoopy and Charlie Brown.  So the next morning I woke up and had my hair done (which is rare for me) and then went to willingly have people put me in a giant dress.  I got yelled at a lot for talking to ninja and hugging ninja and seeing ninja in his suit before the ceremony started.  But he didn't see me in my dress so I think it's all good.  So I would really like to talk for hours about how wonderful the ceremony was and how great of a time I had, but I am still behind at school from taking time off the have the ceremony in the first place so I really can't.  I would like to say that I almost passed out in the back because I got kind of nervous before I walked in and then one of my ring-bearers started posing in his little suit and that helped.  I would like to say I noticed that right as we started saying our vows the sun came out and I feel that was not a coincidence.  I would also like to say that although the poses in the pictures always look nice, they are in general very uncomfortable and that the better they look the less comfortable I was.  I want to mention how much I enjoyed my first dance with ninja and the dance with my dad.  I loved my pizza and the splatter-painted cake.  I also had a lot of fun watching the traditional dances from ninja's family and the money dance with everyone who pinned a dollar on me to have a dance.  I wish I would have had more time to go and talk to the people that came who I rarely see or talk to anymore.  Then I really liked the end of the night when we were all sober and dancing like we had all had about 2 bottles of vodka each.  All around it was a great ceremony and my parents rock for putting it all together while I was going through my anatomy pregnancy.

Post ceremony... do you really want to know?  We went to Glen Eyrie and played Scrabble for about 4 hours and then went to bed.  Not very eventful.  Ninja and I have never lived lived together or slept together (except if you count when we both fall asleep on the couch watching movies) and I think around 3am when I was telling him my whole life story he was wondering what exactly he had gotten himself into.  I did finally manage to talk him into one more game of Scrabble if I promised to be quiet and at least let him sleep.  So in the morning I was surprised to find my bald ninja had used my shampoo.  On what?  He claims it helps make his head stubble softer so it is easier to shave.  Then we played Jenga and left the hotel to hang out with various friends and family around town.  We opened our many presents and had dinner with my brother, foster brother, and cousin.  Then we went back to Glen Eyrie and played Scrabble more because that is our favorite game together.  I accidentally elbowed him in the face while we were sleeping in the middle of the night and I was very happy to find out that in spite of his ninja reflexes he just looked surprised and a little upset, but did not come up swinging.  The next day, Monday, we packed up at the hotel and hung out with family until late that night and then finally went back to Denver.

This week in Denver has been fairly eventful.  We watched my cousin's play soccer in the freezing cold and their team won in the second overtime on a header.  We came back to Colorado Springs for a night and slept in my old bed at my parents' house and ninja spent the entire night waiting for my dad to come in a beat him with an ax handle.  I do have to admit sleeping with ninja in the one bed he has always been banned from was a little awkward.  But it was also nice that my parents didn't get upset at all.  So I have to say the most interesting thing was my 16 hour day on Thursday.  I had lecture from 8am-5pm and then I worked in a detox clinic from 6pm-midnight.  Poor ninja had to be alone all day.  So the clinic was one of the most interesting places I have ever been to in my life.  I heard a ton of stories about people getting stabbed and beaten by the clients.  I also got to meet very interesting drunk people and witness first hand that everything you have heard about how much alcohol the human body can take is a lie.  I met several individuals who were fully functional despite blowing over a 300 or 400 on the breathalyser and heard about one man who was walking around and fairly lucid that blew a 750 and when he got out of the hospital was still blowing a 400.  I got to see a man with a big beard take a couple swings at security and then have his pants fall off when they threw him up against the wall.  He complained about how they let women see him like that when it was cold out and how unfair it was to him because he normally is a little bigger when he is warm.  I also got to see a trans-gender who had the full operation, but had to be physically checked to be sure she was not even part man before she could go to the female dorm for the night.  I checked vitals on a man who was delusional and HIV positive who had oozing cuts on his forehead and nose.  And all around I met a lot of colorful characters who have a problem with alcohol and thankfully have a place to go where people know them and treat them like people still.  I found myself excited and fascinated about all of the interesting things going on and not at all concerned about how much depravity there is in the world like my fellow student volunteer sharing my shift.  I had a wonderful time and on my next shift I think I am going to stay until at least 3am so I can see all the really crazy things that go on.  I only wish I could be there on Halloween night.  I guess among all of the holidays this one is the most interesting because of all the crazy costumes and things people get into.

Now that I have a ninja living at my home I would like to let you know the many reasons why he is the best person to have around.  Each day he has made me a hot breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  He cooked me a Halloween breakfast cake that had a candy bar in the middle of it.  He made chicken parmigiana stromboli.  He made me homemade rubens with homemade thousand island dressing and french fries.  He makes crispy cheese bread toasted sandwiches.  Everything he makes is delicious!  He also organized and put away all our presents while I was at school.  He put up Halloween decorations on the door, porch, and all around the apartment.  He makes the bed.  He did the laundry.  He does all the dishes.  He drove me to my work at the detox clinic.   He turns on the shower before I get up so it's hot when I get in and he bought me a robe that he leaves on the counter so I don't get cold when I get out of the shower.  When he has time he walks to my school so he can walk home with me when I get out of class.  He gives me back, neck, and foot rubs every night whether I ask for them or not.  He brings me hot tea in bed when I wake up with a scratchy throat.  He let me line the floor of the entire apartment with bubble wrap because I liked walking on it and popping bubbles everywhere I went.  He buys me things that he thinks are cute like a squishy penguin pillow.  This is only one week of everything he has been up to and he is the best person ever to live with in the universe.  It's okay to be jealous in this case.

So that has pretty much caught up everything over the hiatus.  I should be better about this from now on because I don't think I have any more permanently life altering events coming up.  I have quite forgotten a lot of things that happened which I would like to have gotten down somewhere, but maybe in my lucid states between irrational amounts of studying and having my head in the clouds from living with ninja I'll remember and write it down.

As the days pass: Part 2

Thursday started out great because I woke up at 11:30 in my bed at house home and had no school.  I took a nice shower and by the time I got out my dad was home and ready to take me and ninja out to eat.  We all went and ate Panino's downtown.  I think everyone should eat there because it is delicious.  After eating ninja and I had the dreaded task of getting out marriage license.  We had been warned about horrible fees and long waits.  It actually took fifteen minutes and $30 before we had the certificate in hand.  The lady at the registrar's office was awesome!  She kept cracking jokes with us and kept insisting if I want ninja to do what I ask him for the rest of our marriage all I need to do is have a root beer float waiting for him after the wedding.  She insisted it would stick with him forever.  I think she may be onto something.  She also kept telling us were we awesome and she was sure we would have a great wedding and marriage.  All I have to say is that from someone who sees couples all day long that is pretty encouraging.  She also gave ninja a hard time for forgetting his birthday.  Oh wait, that was me.  I mean, who doesn't know when they were born?

After we got the marriage license I finally got to see my turtle Bowser again at ninjas house.  I didn't think he had grown all that much, but my brother's turtle was HUGE.  Then we went and played more soccer and had pictures taken for our slide show at the wedding.  There is a set where ninja blocks my shot and I run up and punch him in the face and then tackle him and punch him some more.  We want the slide show to show people how beautiful our relationship is.  After soccer I went home and talked to my parents a lot and then had to make the long drive back to apartment home.  At least my brother rode with me and I got to bring my cat back.  When we got close to my house my brother started to complain that his pants felt warm and he was certain my cat had peed on him.  I assured him that if she had peed we would both know already because our eyes would be watering from the ammonia.  When we got inside he showed me how his pants were wet, but wouldn't let me smell them.  I know he was the one who peed!  Imagine blaming it on a poor innocent cat.  I don't know how he managed to only get two small spots on his pants and a puddle in the cat carrier, but I am positive it was him.  My cat would never do anything wrong ever!  After a heated argument about who had to smell what and who peed where my brother had to drive back home.  He is so nice for riding with me even though it meant a late night for him.  In fact, that was so nice I am going to overlook the peeing completely and pretend it was my cat just to gratify him and preserve his good name.  I am so generous.

Friday started way too early for me.  We had our final lab dissection quiz for Stan at 8am.  We got a 30/30.  This brings me that much closer to my goal of barely passing so I can just daydream about the wedding and make this week fly by.  I only have a week from tomorrow before I finally get to have my live in chef/ninja!  And before the coolest person in the world officially signs legal documents (that we picked up yesterday) stating he wants to be my best friend, and mine only, forever!  Can life get more exciting than that?  Maybe.  But cranial nerves can never even come close.  Hence my desire to just pass and get to the good part.  After the dissection quiz I took a lengthy nap, which is probably why I am awake now, and went to our final review for our final test.  The review had pigs and birds and a game show and was overall "Outstanding!"  You won't have any idea why all of that is funny unless you were at the review or I explain it to you.  It was a really great review though.  And I am just a few days away from being done with anatomy and ready to just focus on having my best friends forever ceremony.

I have decided that if "time flies when you are having fun" then I am definitely not having fun waiting for next Saturday.  My life is like a kung fu movie being watched by ninja himself.  I think I have finished a fight (studying) but then it is replayed.  Then replayed again.  Then again in slow motion.  Then it accidentally gets rewound a little too far to way before the fight and then it is fast-forwarded a little to the fight and then put in slow motion.  Then it gets paused at the parts with the best stunts.  Then replayed a few more times and then in slow motion a few more times and then finally I can move on to the boring parts full of plot (lecture) between the fights.  The plot is not very interesting and seems to drag on and then another fight comes along to get replayed and slow motioned to death.  And just when I think the movie (day) is over, the whole thing gets rewound so all the fights can be critiqued again.  And then we put in another movie.  The worst part is that I don't even get to eat popcorn during this ordeal or listen to ninja make his punching noises.

As the days pass: Part 1

I never learn.  I shouldn't skip days, but I skipped a whole lot now.  This will be in two parts so if you decide you think Tuesday and Wednesday are boring you can skip to the juicy stuff on Thursday and Friday.

Tuesday morning it was really rainy and cold and I wanted to stay in bed SO bad that I checked to see if lecture was required.  It was.  As I walked to school in just a sweatshirt I realized I should invest in a rain coat.  Anyway, the required lecture was just another speech about our MSA (mentored scholarly activity) projects due at the end of fourth year.  I have no idea why the lecture was required because all I learned is that I have over a month to think about what I wan to do and I already knew that.  After I finished an hour of hearing what I knew already we had our last two lectures in anatomy ever.  They were both on embryology, the bane of my existence.  Yeah sure, it's nice to have unlimited proof of how people had to have been created because there is just NO WAY all of this happened by chance, but it is just unpleasant to be tested on all the details.  I would like to find the people who took the time to trace every structure on an adult human back to its origin as a tiny bump or crevice in an embryo and punch them in the face.  Okay, maybe I am being a bit rash.  Since we now know where all of these structures originate in an embryo it is easier to figure out what has gone wrong in children with physical birth defects.  So I say, trace away over-zealous scientists. But stop making first year medical students who are not going to remember any of this by the end of third year learn what you have discovered.  We will take the time to learn it later as it applies best to what we specialize in.  Why do I need to know what the palate formed from if I go into podiatry?  So having the last lecture of anatomy was both gratifying and terrifying.  I am happy I am so close to the end, but so scared because I have no idea about anything in any of the lectures and the test is on Monday.

After class my brother came up to stay overnight.  I really wanted to go eat right when he arrived, but I had put all of my warm clothes in the washer and we had to wait a few hours.  After my clothes finally dried out we walked over to the bookstore and bought stuff.  I can't say what stuff because some of it may be presents for some people.  So we got stuff and plenty of it.  We did make it to eat eventually and I forced him to have Hawaiian barbecue with me at L&L.  A few days ago I saw someone on TV eat Loco Moco and I knew I would die soon if I did not also consume that which looked so delicious on my television.  It was just as delicious as I thought it would be!  So after we ate we went on an unbridled shopping spree!!  We got a raincoat on sale and some gum and a fake mustache for my brother and Poptarts and Nutrigrain bars.  I am so crazy sometimes!  How will ninja react when I want to splurge after we are married?  There is no saying no to me when I want something frivolous like gloves to keep my hands warm when I walk to school or bread to make sandwiches with so I don't have to buy lunch at school.  He will just have to cave into my insane wishes until we are broke from all the ridiculous things I buy that no one needs!  I am so devious!  That night I took my brother up to school to look at the bone lab and the 3D lab.  Needless to say he was very impressed.  Then I studied for my physical exam skills final and practiced all the non-awkward exams on him and went to bed.

Wednesday was rather uneventful.  I had my wilderness medicine elective and we learned about diarrhea.  Actually, diarrhea is WAY more interesting than I ever thought.  It can be caused by several things and using antibiotics to help it is almost pointless except for helping more bacteria become antibiotic resistant.  And the best way to handle fecal matter in the wild is to smear it on the top of the ground so the sun can bake out all the pathogens in it.  That way you don't have anything living in it for years like in an outhouse pit.  Like the one I fell into a few years ago while I was filling it in with dirt.  I just shuddered thinking about it.  Waist deep in years old fecal matter.  Eeeewww...  And friends just laughing at me rather than helping me out.  Not cool.  Some days I think I can still smell the stank in my hair.  Anyway, back to diarrhea.  We also learned that Gatorade is only good for helping you get fat and more dehydrated.  There is a right balance of sugar and salt to rehydrate you and unless it tastes like salt water with a little Kool-Aid in it the mix probably isn't right.  So go buy Pedialyte!  You know it is good for you because it tastes terrible.

After my elective I had my exam.  I had to do lower extremity, abdominal, and cardiac exams.  I am confident I passed all three.  I was not thrilled about finding the femoral pulse on a man, but I toughed it out.  I also managed to hear his heart on at least 50% of the places I put my stethoscope and effectively pretend I heard it on the rest.  So the worst part of the whole set of exams was the hip range of motion tests on the lower extremity exam.  I was practicing on a man and he had on short, loose boxers.  Needless to say when I pulled his leg out to the side to test hip abduction his balls came flying out at me!!  The worst part is that I was staring there because we are supposed to observe the hip area when we test it AND I had to do it on the other side next.  Not cool.  The only good part of this is that I got to tell so many people about it later.

After all my exams were over I drove to house home with my brother.  We met up with ninja and some other friends at the park to play soccer.  Mostly I talked to one of my friends who is an EMT about ridiculous medical stories.  Then I went to my old youth group to see everybody.  I told anyone over the age of 18 my story about the exam earlier.  Then I helped my brother entertain young children for a few hours before we all went to get free pie.  And by all of us I mean me and ninja and the youth minister.  My brother is house-sitting so he had to go.  I had a delicious LT with eggs and pancakes thingy.  LT is a BLT without the bacon.  I also had some pear blueberry pie.  It is one of the most delicious pies ever!  Please go to Village Inn and buy it as often as possible so they make it a permanent menu edition.  Thank you.  Other than all of that, and many things I omitted to protect the privacy of the parties involved and/or protect the parties reading this from severe mental distress, nothing else happened.

Thank you. No, thank me.

I have no idea who decided it was acceptable to have class at 8am on a Monday, but it is not cool.  Not cool.  I ended up having a 14 hour day.  I suppose that is alright though because it felt a lot shorter than most of the other days I have been having lately.  So today I learned I cannot focus when I am less than two weeks from acquiring my live-in chef.  Class went like this (the following is what I was hearing in my head):
         "Today we will be finishing up the anatomy of the face.  We are going to start with the oral cavity.  The space between the lips and the teeth is called the vestibule.    This extends down.... Ninja has such nice pillow lips.  They are so big and squishy I wonder if there is any space between them and his teeth at all.  And his smile is so cute!  I especially like how it is all crooked when he is really happy.  Ah!  I need to pay attention!  I know a lot about the mouth from working in the oral surgery office, so I should be fine this time, but no more!  There are three parts of the pharynx.  The first extends from the back of the nasal cavity.  It includes several muscles..... Man, ninja always smells so good.  He is like a wafting cloud of hot manliness.  Ninja is the coolest person ever.  I need to tell someone about how amazing he is.  Hmmm.... everyone looks pretty absorbed in this lecture.  They may get mad if I bother them to talk about how cool ninja is.  Oh crap!  FOCUS!!  And now onto the larynx.  It's okay.  I only missed the pharynx.  How many questions could there be about it on the exam anyway?  The larynx is also known as your voice box, but it isn't a box at all.  May I have a few volunteers to come demonstrate.  Okay, just stand up on this table here.  Oh my!  It didn't bend like that when I tried this earlier!  I don't think it should fall through since you both look pretty thin, but don't bounce around too much.  Anyway, when you talk the vocal folds move like....  Haha!  If ninja got up on that table I bet it would bend in half.  He is so big and muscle-y.  I bet he could take anyone in the whole world in a fight.  You have to respect anyone who can just punch bricks like, "Take that brick!  I know the foundation of houses is made of you, but I can put you in your place like you were a piece of paper."  Maybe if I am really good he'll put some bricks in their place for me.  Oh no!  I promised him I would focus!  I don't want to make him mad.  So the last thing we will be covering today is the ear.  There won't be any questions about this on your test since you cover it in such great detail later.  Screw it!  I want to daydream about ninja and I'm not fighting it to learn something that won't be on the test."
And that is the abridged version of how lecture went this morning.  We also had 2 hours of embryology, but that is not on the test so I had much the same reaction as to the material about the ear.

After lecture I realized I was supposed to meet my lab group to discuss our clinical cases for lunch.  Since I had not packed a lunch I ran over to buy a piece of pizza.  I really miss having pizza all the time.  It was so delicious that I daydreamed about eating pizza with ninja the entire time our group was meeting and neither learned anything nor added anything to the discussion.  After that was my last 4 hours of lab.  I spent most of lab the same way as lecture, but then I finally got to dissect.  I dissected out the orbit.  I must say I did a fine job.  I managed to save everything I was supposed to identify and more!  And I did a pretty intense dissection in a relatively short amount of time.  No one can say I didn't do my part today.  Unless they are only talking about the first half of lab where every time they asked me for help I would spout off a random fact about ninja or our soon-to-happen best friends forever ceremony.  After lab I ran home to shower and head back to school for the informal physical exam review put on by my classmates.

The review was pretty cool.  There was a volunteer examiner and patient for each exam we will be tested on and then we would break out into groups of 2-3 to practice.  I was in a group with two guys in my class.  We are all professionals here right?  So I really have no problem with helping my fellow classmates out even if it does mean letting them invade my personal bubble.  Part of learning physical exams is learning how to drape people so they don't feel exposed.  To help everyone get an accurate kind of practice I agreed to wear a gown with just my bra underneath.  And we all kept our pants on of course.  It wasn't too awkward because all the girls were like that and the guys had no shirt and just a gown.  So draping involves moving the gown all about and exposing your breast (or just bra) to do a cardiac exam, pulling the gown down to your nipple line or up just under your chest for a pulmonary exam, and exposing you stomach for the abdominal exam.  It is just like when you go to the real doctor.  We all practiced our exams and I personally learned a lot and will probably pass no problem now.  So after we finished the scheduled session I went to my two partners and thanked them for helping me out so much.  On my way out of the lecture hall I saw one elbow the other and say, "Thank us?  No way dude!  Thank her!"  It was pretty funny.  I suppose we all still have a little ways to go before we can be totally professional.

I love ninjas

I have begun to realize that skipping days is not good.  I really do forget what has happened.  Hmmm....  Friday started out pretty terribly if I remember correctly.  My lab partners had promised me I could have the 8-10am dissecting shift and then they showed up and just started and left me with nothing to do.  So I mingled among the various lab groups and read my own group's lips about how I don't contribute and left early to hang out with my friend.  I have to say that being able to read lips, even as poorly as I do, is a curse.  It pretty much gives you the ability to eavesdrop on people without them having any idea.  I believe one of my classmates likened it to having people who think you have headphones blasting in your ears talk freely next to you when you can actually hear everything they are saying.  Then he called me evil.  Is it evil to use your talents for not necessarily good?  I say no because I want to be a good person, but I also want to keep eavesdropping and signing in front of people's backs.

So Friday, after I left lab early in a silent and completely inward outrage, I watched a lot of Phineas and Ferb with my friend.  It is the best!  Then we had coffee, which was yet again a bad idea, and Chipotle.  Then I had SPETA for head and neck exams.  I am a really good clinician when I am focused.  I was not focused until we got to the otoscope though.  Then I got to stick a magnifier light into our SPETA's ear!  I was the only person who saw exactly the same thing as the picture in the book!  First I had to pull on the ear to straighten the ear canal.  Then I had to gently guide my eardrum-piercing light into the ear.  Then I had to look beyond the forest of ear hair and the mountain of earwax to see the cone of light!  That really is the name.  And I had an epiphany when I saw the cone of light!  I realized that I shouldn't drink coffee so I could focus and do everything better.  I know that was anti-climatic, but the cone of light is not as amazing as its name would have you believe.  In fact, I didn't have an epiphany at all.  I just wanted to have one so badly that I made one up so people would think I was cooler than I am.  That's a healthy coping mechanism!!  I am such a great cope-er.  After SPETA I played soccer in the quad with my friend and some classmates.  I am confident my team won even though I have no idea what the score was at the end and I think we scored less.  But I totally remember winning.

Friday night I got to see my best friend ever again!  He has been away at college and he drove to apartment home so he could ride with me to house home and stay all weekend.  We all packed up my stuff and cat and headed to the happiest place in the world.  When we were only 10 minutes away my cat made a stinky in her carrier.  We got to house home and she was so embarrassed she hid for a few hours until I told her about how everyone loses bowel control in the car sometimes and had my family back me up with personal stories.  Then I just stayed up until 3am saying ridiculous things because I was sleep drunk from my insomnia.  I think at some point I was trying to stop cursing so I replaced all curse words with "Christian" until I realized that was probably more blasphemous and just went back to cursing.

Saturday was my bridal shower!  I woke up and meandered about until my Aunts showed up.  Then they were so busy and hustle bustle-y that I went in the backyard and hid.  I also had to hide so they would stop giving me dirty looks for sticking my finger in the cake.  It is MY cake.  And besides, ruining the perfection of a well frosted cake is who I am.  So we had all kinds of snacks and I didn't eat much because I just don't eat much lately.  And ninja's mom brought egg rolls!!  They are the best ever and I think everyone should eat them, except I also think no one should eat them so there are more for me.  I think everyone should eat the idea of them without actually physically eating any.  Yeah, that is exactly what I want.  At my shower I got a bunch of gifts and only a few were embarrassing.  It was okay though because I had an embarrassment deflector!  Every time I got something awkward I would say, "Oh my, ninja will look stunning in this!"  Then it was funny and no one was picturing me wearing it in their heads because they were too busy picturing ninja in it and laughing.  I am so smart.  I also got the best shirt in the world and it says, "I heart ninjas" except the heart is a ninja face shaped like a heart!  I had a lot of fun and I only felt a little bad for not talking to everyone much because it was only 2 hours long and I was busy talking to my bridesmaids since I won't physically see them again until the rehearsal.  But I feel a tiny bit bad because I didn't talk to them about the wedding much at all and just chatted about school instead.

Later in the day the minister for the wedding came over with his wife to go over ceremony details.  I had no idea there was so much going on during the ceremony.  Things have to be put in order and people have to get talked to if they want to sing or read stuff.  It was all very complicated.  But the minister is super awesome cool so he is just going to wing it for us!  Then we all danced a jig in the living room and called it a night.  No seriously, we jigged.  And you should have seen it.  Ninjas are supposed to be coordinated and I have to say that mine was definitely not displaying that part of himself during the jig.

Today is 10/10/10!!  I finally woke up refreshed from sleep for the first time since pre-pneumonia.  Then I had breakfast with my brother and ninja and best friend.  Oh, and after I went to a youth sponsor meeting for my old youth group and tried to gross out anyone who would listen to me long enough.  And I went home and packed and then made the hardest decision of my life.  I left my cat at house home because I am headed back there Wednesday and I don't think her poor cat bowels could take that much car time in one week.  Now I am just at apartment home and really sad because I really am all alone for the first time.  As I was driving out of town with skunk, my best friend, I looked ahead of me and saw storm clouds and misery then I looked behind me and saw sunshine and happiness.  Why do I have to keep coming back here?  Clearly even the elements are telling me, "Stay at house hooooooome."  Oh well, maybe one day when ninja is at apartment home I will see sunshine on both sides.

Piece it all together

So it has been a while since I blogged and I have quite forgotten everything that happened in the last few days.  But for the sake of keeping track of what is going on and for the sake of those who want to know what is going on in my world (which I am starting to think only exists in my head) I am going to try and piece it all back together. 

I believe on Tuesday I went to class and we had family members of body donors talk to our class.  It was really interesting.  They told us all about why they donated and how it affected the family and everything.  I thought it was interesting how they didn't care if we knew all about our donors or not except in how it affects us.  They seemed to believe we should only be protected from knowing our cadavers if it helps us feel less emotional and more ready to learn in lab.  Other than that they figured it would be fine for us to be able to read a biography about our cadaver if we so chose.  I would so choose.  I am really curious about Stan.  I would like to know his real name and what he did and how big his family is.  I have become much more callused towards the general public and I wonder if this isn't a product of how I have been forced to dissociate from Stan.  I cannot be close to him, but I cannot disrespect him so I have to just be emotionally distant.  I understand we are supposed to be callused towards death so we don't freak out everytime a patient dies because they do that quite often.  However, I think I need to be able to emotionally connect within my profession.  I think I am over-reacting though and it will all get better after anatomy when I work with living patients and can emotionally connect with my profession again.  So don't listen to me because I am crazy.  I believe this is a product of both the stress, insomnia, and time spent in a lab of cadavers.

Tuesday night I got home and realised I couldn't keep my eyes open and took a 3 hour nap.  After my nap I really didn't want to study so  I went to my cousins' soccer game.  They are identical twin tornados on the field.  They were rocking it and the other team tripped them as much as possible so they wouldn't get embarassed 1000-1.  My cousins won 4-2.  After the game I had Wendy's and a frosty!!  I really enjoyed it as opposed to my typical diet of fruit and vegetables.  I also hung out with my cousins and aunt and uncle.  They gave me these new chocolates that are caramel pumpkin spice.  All I have to say is delicious.  I could have eaten ten.  And I did, but I saved two for ninja if I remember to take them home this weekend.

So Wednesday was the longest day of my life ever in the world.  Not really, but I had an 8-5 day with no lunch break.  It started out with lab where I finally got to dissect.  I did I good job if I may say so myself.  I got all of the structures out that I needed and didn't sever anything I wasn't supposed to.  Then over lunch I had my wilderness medicine elective where we learned all about altitude sickness.  There were a lot of things in there which seemed counter-intuitive.  Like that people who are in great shape are more likely to get acute altitude sickness.  I know!  It seems so backwards.  So when you train a lot you really train your lungs to not react to low levels of oxygen and so it takes your body longer to acclimatize.  This is because you are oxygen deficient so often when you exercise that your body doesn't think it's a big deal until well after your couch potato friend has started to acclimatize.  We also learned that there is no shred of evidence showing that drinking water helps with altitude sickness.  Really altitude sickness and dehydration have the same symptoms and so usually when drinking water fixes the problem you were just dehydrated.  However, you are more likely to be dehydrated at altitude which is why they can be confused with one another so often.  If you have altitude sickness you should still drink a lot of water though because the action of kidneys helps you acclimatize so peeing a lot will help you get better.  So it kind of helps to drink water in a round about sort of way.  We also learned that there are more than a significant number of studies currently showing that Viagra is the most effective drug in treating acute altitude sickness.  I was really tired from my long day so I have no idea why Viagra is so effective because the explanation made no sense to me.  But maybe someone could look it up and let me know.  After all of that I had 4 hours of lecture in the afternoon.  However, I skipped the last two hours and watched them later at home.  I spent the afternoon trying to get rid of my tan lines and complaining about how I didn't want to study.

Wednesday night I picked up one of my friends from the airport.  She didn't have a cell phone so I was a little concerned about finding her there because we couldn't really call each other.  I parked to wait and within 2 minutes one of the parking police people came up to tell me to move my car or get a ticket.  I really wanted to pretend I was deaf because I knew it would take over half an hour to get an intepreter there and by then my friend would have shown up.  But since I was talking on the phone to ninja it really wasn't an option.  So she told me I had to take a loop around the airport.  It only took a minute.  So I ended up taking a few more loops before my friend called from a pay phone to tell me she would come out soon.  So I decided I would just park and if they felt like lecturing me again I would pretend I was deaf this time even though they knew I was not just to waste time.  Anyway, she got there before any more police people and so it all turned out fine.  Then we stayed up way too late chatting.

This morning I had class at 9, but I skipped it because it was another MSA lecture in a track I don't like and I just went in from 10-12.  So this afternoon in lab they are cut the cadavers just below the arms and then cut that top piece in half down the middle.  So poor Stan will be in three pieces when I go in tomorrow morning.  I hope tomorrow that they split us into two groups and I can just dissect from 8-10 and then go shower and sleep until our head and neck physical exam practice at 3.  After class I went home and my friend and I walked to eat and realised it was a pretty long walk.  Once there we extended our lunch just to avoid the walk back as long as possible.  On the way back we took the route through the middle of campus and it was much shorter.  I also took her on a tour of our school.  It is actually really big.  I know I should have noticed before now, but I have been too busy with all of the anatomy stuff to really notice I have a huge campus and that there is more to life than the lecture hall and the lab.  So I pretty much got lost in my own library.  Don't worry, we eventually got out.  Eventually.  Once back we went on the porch and were total creepers.  We looked into as many apartments as possible and watched everyone in the courtyard and coming back from classes.  We also saw Spider-squirrel climb up a vertical wall.  Now at least I know how they get up on my 3rd story porch to eat all my bird seed.  They go and get bitten by a spider in a radioactive lab and then come by for a snack.  Not cool genetically altered squirrels.  Not cool.

So we got really hungry way too late at night and decided to go to The Shoppe.  The Shoppe is an amazing cupcake bakery/cereal bar on a really bad section of Colfax.  On our way there we drove past an entire block taped off with police tape.  There were also about 8 police cars.  I have no idea what happened, but it made me feel safer because I knew for the next few blocks no one would try anything funny.  So we got to The Shoppe and got delicious cupcakes.  I had chocolate pumpkin spice with chocolate milk and my friend had apple cinnamon with coffee.  It was fantastic.  I would risk my well being on Colfax after dark any day for a taste of those delicious creations.  Then we got more gourmet food at Taco Bell.  I miss Taco Bell so much.  Really, you never know how delicious fast food is until you never really get to eat it anymore.  I would have hugged my burrito like the Cheetos at the store, but the burrito was paid for and mine so I just ate it rather than gaining warmth from holding it close.  Oh Cheetos, I will return for you someday.  So on the school front, I have memorized the first two of the cranial nerves and most of the bony landmarks of the skull.  I must say that is impressive for an hour.  Now I only have ten more nerves and all the blood flow and relationships to get down and I will be set.  I am just SO excited to get this learning over with so I can just be focused on the wedding.  I am more than ready for this transition phase to be over.  I mean, who likes being all alone when there is a ridiculously handsome guy willing to live with you?  Don't say a straight man because I think we both know ninja is handsome enough that even the straightest of men wants to live with him.  And don't get any ideas about trying to take him.  Ninja is mine and soon I'll put a ring on him to prove it.

There's a ninja in my bed!

Sunday my brother and ninja came over to visit.  I am so lazy that I still had the same full trash cans I had when they were here last week.  I would feel bad, but I can always use school as an excuse for poor housekeeping.  That is until one of them gets wise and checks my Wii play time and history.  I really need to get better at covering my tracks!  Actually I should just stay away from ninjas I guess.  He seems to know at any point in time if I am playing Mario when I should be studying and then he lectures me.  Yeah, I really should stay away from that one.  My brother can come over anytime though.  So while they were here we all went to get the little flower girl dresses with my cousin and her daughter.  It was pretty awesome.  We also went to the Disney store!  I got a bunch of Mickey Mouse shirts.  Then I got the coolest beanie ever created in the history of the world ever!  It has Perry the Platypus from Phineas and Ferb on it.  Even though I am pretty sure it gave me a heat stroke I wore my new hat all night.  If I could I would wear that hat every second ever.  I also danced in the grocery store and acted embarassing enough that the ninja pretended to not know me.  At one point I squealed and sprinted to a super delicious bag of Cheetos on a shelf and hugged it.  A few other patrons of the store stared in disbelief at me and then my brother came up with his fist like he was about to strike me and then the other store patrons stared even more intently.  I like to believe they were just staring because they know how hard it is being a poor student who just spent all of their Cheeto money on a hat that they just couldn't pass up.  They were staring out of pity and compassion.  It was a compassion stare.  I know that was it and it was not because they thought I was high due to my penchant for munchie food and my amazing hat.  Then I ran around like a gorilla and played ship masthead on ninja's cart and spun around until I got dizzy with a gallon of milk in my hand.  Yeah, I totally love grocery shopping with friends who can vouch for me when the police get called to take me away.  I have to act all normal-ish when I am alone so I don't get taken to the detox clinic.  Then I would have to hit on myself.  Well, I think I would be great at that because I know all the things to say to get me to like someone.  Maybe I should act insane, uh I mean totally sane, when I am alone at the store as well.  Besides, my theory is that if I look crazier than people who would try to bother me than everyone will leave me alone.  It is a protection mechanism.  If I believed in it I would say I am just a more highly evloved individual with a great self-preservation mechanism.  So all I have left to say is that Cheetos give the best hugs.  Sorry ninja.  So my cousins and little cousins are amazing.  We didn't get to play as many awesome games this time, but we did get to hang out and talk about how awesome Vibram shoes are.  Yeah.  Google it and then buy some.

So last night ninja made me stromboli.  Be jealous!  It's okay to be jealous of something that is so amazing.  It is only a deadly sin if you covet things that are not worth coveting.  Like cars or houses or health or beauty.  But strombolis are the epitomy of awesome-ness and it is a deadly sin to NOT desire them.  Mmmmmmmm....... stromboli.  I would drool at the thought of it, but I am way too dehydrated to manage even a drop of drool.  Don't worry, ninja brought me Colorado Springs water so I'll be hydrated again soon.  So after he finished cooking ninja wanted to sleep, but my brother and I did not.  Since my apartment is so small there really was no place to be awake and have ninja sleep so he slept in my bed and I slept in my living room and my brother slept in the living room too.  I read ninja a little kid bedtime story because I know how fussy he gets when he doesn't get a story.  It was all about how much I love the wind.  I really do like the wind, snow, and rain.  I am much less fond of the sun.  In fact, the sun is a big part of why I am so dehydrated.  If the rain had been out today I would be much better off.  So I thought it was nice to read ninja stories.  I think if there is ever another night that he sleeps in my bed I will read him another one.  Except it would be nice if I could read him a story and then stay there with him instead of going to sleep in a marshmallow.  Oh well, that's never going to happen.  Good thing I took pictures of him sleeping last time to read stories to in the future.  No that isn't desperate!  It's a healthy coping mechanism like the Wii family parade.  Stop being so judging.

Today I was back to school.  Ninja made fruit smoothies for breakfast.  I wasn't fond of them because I thought they had too many chunks in them.  So it took so long to make the smoothies that I was going to be really late for my first lecture.  The lecture was about getting accepted into different research tracks for our mentored scholarly activities.  Then ninja and my brother left and I was too sad for class so I stayed home and watched Sesame Street until one of my anatomy related lectures started.  Then I went to lecture.  Anyway, my cat really liked watching Sesame Street.  I was kind of upset though because they replaced the Bert and Ernie puppets with clay animations of them.  Even though the content was still fun I felt totally ripped off.  I want to see puppets!  I did not tune into Sesame Street 20 years past the appropriate viewing age in my life so I could see clay!  I think they bank on the fact that no one my age will be watching so no one will care about the switch.  But I noticed and I care.  I will be starting a facebook group (we all know how super powerful those are) dedicated to bringing back puppet Bert and Ernie.  I will not rest until I get 1,000,000,000,000 people to like my group!  So after I was done being productively outraged I went to class.

After class I played soccer in the quad.  I haven't played in forever and I didn't have my brace on so I pretty much sucked it up.  I was okay with it though because I had a blast.  However, I ran way too much for being so out of shape and being in the sun.  I turned red like a red lobster.  *robot lobster dance*  Right after soccer I had lab so I really had no time to cool off before dissection.  I would have to say most of my professors expressed concern about how red my face was.  In lab I was really bored so I went wondering and wandering about.  Then I was tentatively diagnosed with adult ADD by one of my classmates.  Okay, several of my classmates.  I think I am just exciteable and I like to share my thoughts outloud.  So our lab atmosphere was pleasant today.  One of the groups played "Kiss the Girl" from The Little Mermaid and everyone, and I mean everyone including professors, sang along.  One of our professors even danced through the lab.  Can you say best school ever?  I think so.  I will miss lab for just that one reason.  Hanging out for four hours and finding random things that are awesome about classmates and professors.  Like how the boys will sing to Disney songs and our professors dance unashamedly to songs they enjoy.  Really I think you would be hard pressed to find a school with a better faculty and better student body.  There is no stress beyond the stress to succeed out of a want to be a great doctor or train great doctors.  It shows in every part of this school and how everyone is laughing and joking even in the midst of the dreaded anatomy block.  I just wish there was a ninja in my bed because tonight I could just tell him stories about my day instead of having to read him one.  Oh well, I suppose it is better this way since I am liable to drool all over while I dream of stromboli.

Out of the litter box and into the Litter

I have decided no one should have enough money to live in Denver.  From what I can tell every resident here just drives around all day and never spends time actually at a job getting money to have a car or gas.  There is no reason that at 2 in the afternoon I should have to go 15mph under the speed limit due to traffic unless every single person in Denver has no job and just drives around all day to rack up their monthy gas bills.  Yeah, this entire city makes absolutely no sense to me.  In Colorado Springs the best part about being a student was having the entire city open to you in the afternoon hours.  Now there is nothing nice about being a student.  Get a job lazy Denver people and get off my roads in the afternoons!

So Friday was the day of the powderpuff game.  I missed it because I had to be in Colorado Springs for a dress fitting.  I would like to say that the dress does in fact fit.  Actually they didn't have to take in or let out anything at all ever.  This is something I find odd because my weight has gone from 145 normally to 153 post-pneumonia to 145 normal again to 140 due to my inability to find budget food and I am still the same size as when I first tried on the dress and all the times in between and it still fits almost exactly the same.  I suppose all the weight is coming and going from my head.  So for the powderpuff game our team name was the Cremasters.  In case you don't know cremaster muscles are responsible for the embarassing shrinkage/pulling up that men experience in the cold.  I believe our intimidating poster read, "Your loins will shrivel in fear!"  We were facing off against the dreaded DILFs.  DILFs are just like MILFs, but they are doctors instead of mothers.  Although a few are mothers as well I believe.  If you don't know what a MILF is you are a better person than me.  Please don't google it because I think you will be VERY unpleasantly suprised.  You have permission to Wikipedia it or ask anyone close to the age of 20 and they should be able to tell you no problem.

So last night I stayed home for a really long time doing almost nothing except watching stupid internet videos like this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T32JsO4MyoA.  Then I frantically searched for my student ID that was not lost and then left to head home around 1am.  So I went to bed around maybe 2:30am and had to get up at 6:30 for our wilderness medicine field day in Boulder.  So I am the anomaly of the world, in case you haven't figured that out already, and I get more hyper and friendly when I am sleep deprived (or concussed).  So I was carpooling with two of my classmates that I don't know all too well and I have a feeling they think I am absolutely insane now.  We went to get coffee and when the barista asked if it was all seperate I said, "Yeah because SOMEONE won't help me out."  I looked at one of the guys and then he bought me my coffee.  I felt really bad, but he is super awesome cool nice so he just kept laughing and then I felt better.  So as bad as I am when I am sleep deprived I get worse when I have coffee.  Which I had just gotten and then promptly put on an empty stomach.  Then I asked a whole ton of probing questions to someone who I think could kill me with his mind.  Needless to say, it was quite an interesting car trip.  I also did the same thing on the ride home and now I feel as though they will never talk to me again and instead will tell the admissions office to write me up for a professionalism violation because I asked someone born before the Berlin wall was built how old they are.

Our field day was at Rocky Mountain Rescue.  They told us all about how it's really hard to save people who are on cliffs.  Or in deep snow.  Or with their entire lower extremity crushed.  Or on a rock that is unstable and not big enough to fit more than a few rescuers.  Or anything else that they have to do besides bring tea to cold people and bandage potentially fatal blisters.  Okay, those last two really happen and I want to meet these people who are wimpy enough to call a rescue team because their blister popped.  So I find it really interesting that they are mostly volunteers who do not work in the medical field.  It is actually very impressive what they manage to do with such limited resources out in the field.  We had a few stations that we rotated through today which included hoisting a dummy up a tower, first aid, an interactive rescue mission on powerpoint, and my personal favorite, packing injured parties into a litter for transportation down to a main road.  I volunteered to be the injured party and I got to lie down in the metal litter.  It is long and all the edges are up so you can't roll from side to side because you sit in the bottom.  They had a super thin beanbage under me and I got put in a helmet and neck brace as well as being strapped in, except my arms were free.  So once I was all secured and my massive amounts of blood loss curbed they sucked the air out of the bean bag until it conformed to the shape of my body like a vacuum fitted bed.  Oh, and part of being strapped in includes having foot stirrups under your feet.  So once my bed was custom fitted to me they put a nice warm sleeping bag over me and strapped that on as well.  At this point, despite the neck brace smooshing my ears, I felt like a tiny kangaroo joey tucked safely into my pouch where I could stay warm and safe forever.  Then they lifted the head of the litter and stood me up on my feet in the stirrups.  I didn't even shift a little bit, but I was about 7 feet tall.  Then they put me down and all picked me up at the same time so they could walk around and see how hard it is to carry someone on a trail like that.  That was also very fun.  But the best part ever was when they picked me up and then made the litter do a barrel roll!  I got to spin around and then they left me facing the ground hanging.  I still didn't budge!  So they said if I was a patient and I started vomiting they would turn me over so none of it got into my airway.  How amazing is that??  Anyway, no matter how much they moved and spun the litter around I didn't budge in my kangaroo pouch of warm, fuzzy happiness.  I was really impressed at how comfortable it was and then they let me out and showed me my outline in the beanbag.  I just want to say that I want to get injured in the mountains as often as possible so I can ride in a litter for hours and hours.  Or maybe just get a form-fitted beanbag for a bed with a sleeping bag comforter.  I forgot to mention that the bag had a circular hole in it so you could be completely covered except for your face.  I wish they made real blankets like that.  Sniffle.... I wish I was at Rocky Mountain Rescue right now getting tucked into my kangaroo pouch bed for the night.

So once I got home I played Mario Kart.  I played as Luigi, or Weegee if you will.  I won a lot and now I have a moustache.  This is great because ninja always tells me how he wishes I could grow a moustache.  I also baked cookies and made egg salad.  Uh, that is my list of what I did today.  Be impressed!  I also looked at pictures and sneezed and talked on the phone.  I would have done more, but I just couldn't do anything besides mope because I know I will never have a bed as wonderful as my kangaroo pouch piece of heaven.  And even if I did buy a litter, it would be a 20 minute tucking in process that would have severe consequences if I had to pee in the middle of the night unless I had a standby rescue team watching me sleep which would have consequences of its own I think.  I guess nothing can ever be perfect.