Gratitude

Thank you, IUPUI, for taking the majority of my salary each month and forcing me to subsist on a diet of ramen noodles and parmesan cheese. I'll remember you when I'm making scads of money, um....running a low cost animal clinic. Yeah.

Thanks to the boy for putting up with me for over five years (!!!) and still making me laugh on a regular basis. (when he's not making me cry...or want to throttle him...) And thanks again for taking out my trash last night because you know I always forget, and there was no more room in my trash can for another week's worth of refuse. I love how you randomly notice and do things like that.

Thanks to you, Casey for FINALLY chilling out this year. I loved the puppy years, but something tells me that the dog years will be that much better.

Thanks to my mother for only being slightly frosty after I explained that I would not be heading to the homestead for Thanksgiving. I need to relax, mom. I haven't said much (because what's the use in complaining really) but what I'm doing is tough. And while I can handle it, it's only by the skin of my teeth. So I'm tired. I need to sleep and catch up on things at home. The thought of four! whole! days! with no school and no work makes me happier than anything else could right now. Thank you for giving me that gift. I am more grateful for you and dad than I could ever express, and I can't wait to see you at Christmastime.

Thanks to the friends that I won't get to see this holiday season. You guys crack me up on a regular basis. I love each and every one of you, and the worst part of being so busy lately is the lack of time I get to spend with you or talking to you.

Specific thanks to Candy for organizing a weight loss challenge that spurred me to lose 10lbs. I truly appreciate you giving me motivation when I had none but needed it badly. FYI, after the dinner we ate today I'm going to need you to go ahead and organize another one. kthxbai.

Thank you, cuz. You rock. We played Rock Band to celebrate turkey day and I totally thought of you guys.

Thanks, z. There really aren't words. (Seriously still can't believe that you know how to cook turkey. It was fantastic btw.)

I'm going to go ahead and give a tentative early thanks to my organic chem professor for passing me this semester. (ohpleasepleaseplease)

Thanks, Minnesota for beating Butler's basketball team today. Best we get any losses over with early in the season. Hopefully this will be our only one. (and then maybe my bracket picks won't be so ridiculous.)

Thank you for every blog comment that you leave. I love the interaction and that I can keep you entertained. Keep 'em coming and I promise to do my best to write regularly.

What are you thankful for? Leave me a comment. Real or facetious, I would love to know.

PS. It was Casey's birthday yesterday. She turned four. I think I'll keep her. Look at that picture again. She's so cute. In fact, I think I'll keep both of them.

Like LEGOs, only for nerds

There is no good place to study on Saturday nights.

Go figure, right? Had you told me that when I was an undergrad, I would have said something along the lines of "Like, duh! I mean, who studies on Saturday night??"

A non-traditional student who works full time while going to school - that's who studies on Saturday nights.

Apparently we're a rare breed.

Libraries close around 6:00pm on Saturdays. Even the ones on college campuses. Please see the "who studies on Saturday night" comment above. (But they're open until 1:00am on Sunday. Explain that to me. Do students not need to get up on Monday mornings? Because I certainly do.)

Study at home, you say? While that may work for some people, this option most definitely does NOT work for me. I can't focus on homework when there's laundry calling my name, and a dirty floor that needs to be swept, and dishes that need to be done, and a dog that would rather be walking than sitting on the couch next to mom and her laptop and, and, and... Yeah, Emily must go elsewhere to study.

So I head to Starbucks. It's got everything - tables big enough to spread out textbooks, wireless internet, (two hours free if you have a Starbucks card) other people on laptops... just bring your headphones and you're golden. Only the Starbucks near my house? Yeah, closes at 9:00pm. Apparently that's when people no longer need to go to Starbucks.

And you're probably thinking, "Who needs to study beyond 9:00pm?" Well, if I get to sleep in as long as I want on Sunday, and I've got the motivation....why not? It's not like the boy and I get to make weekend plans anymore. This girl has to conquer organic chemistry. (It's not going well. I'll be lucky to make a peace treaty with ochem at this point.)

And then I stumbled upon the Starbucks nearest the IUPUI campus. Apparently I AM a rare breed, and the rest of my breed gather at this Starbucks. To study on Saturday nights. We. Are. Awesome. And the Starbucks? It closes at midnight.

So a couple of weeks ago, I was parked at my Starbucks with my headphones, looking at the following problem. This is a representation of a molecule. 2-butanol if you really want to be specific. It was up to me to determine if the molecule was (+) or (-). (Trust me, you don't want to know. No really.) Basically, I had to take that 3D representation and match it to one of the 2D drawings below. Unfortunately, my brain was just refusing to work that way. I mean, I know that the black spheres are carbon, and the red sphere is oxygen, but for some reason I couldn't rotate that 3D picture in my head. Maybe my brain just doesn't work that way? I was just not getting the right answer.

And so I decided a 3D model might help.

Let's rewind a bit to when I enrolled in school. Back when I had money. Back when I didn't realize exactly how difficult this road was going to be. Back when I was bright eyed and bushy tailed and so! excited! to go! back to school!! Back in those days, when I had to purchase textbooks for the first time, it was "suggested" that we purchase a molecule modeling kit to help with chemistry. Since I was so excited (!!!) and the kit was only $12, I decided that I might as well just buy the kit. It might help someday and, let's face it, it looked like something really cool that I wanted to play with.

I haven't opened it since then. Until now. Until the hell that is organic chemistry. Which is a good thing. Because if I hadn't purchased it back then, and needed it now, I would think to myself, "Twelve Dollars?! For some glorified LEGOs?! Seriously? I could eat THREE TIMES for twelve dollars."

I really need to start playing the lottery.

So I'm at Starbucks (with my headphones) and I pull out my modeling kit. And I build a model. A pretty pretty model if I do say so myself. A 3D model that I could manipulate and determine that the 3D drawing matched the 2D drawing on the left.

I was pretty proud of myself. So I sat back and stretched for a moment. Which is when I looked around. And I realized that I was in the middle of Starbucks. With what amounted to adult LEGOs. And that there were people looking at me.

Great. Just go ahead and tape the "Kick me" sign to my back.

And then I realized that the looks were looks of understanding. Which reminded me that IUPUI has a rather large medical school. And of COURSE med students would understand. They've been there. They probably have overpriced adult LEGOs of their own.

They just, you know, don't pull them out in public.

Why I was late for work today

I got up this morning to the fantastic sight of cat regurgitation on my spot on the couch.

This is certainly not the first time I've awoken to cat regurgitation. But it IS the first time my cat has decided to say "F you" by puking in my couch spot. It's not like that's the ONLY place on the couch that I sit, but it's the spot for optimal TV viewing and laptop using as opposed to optimal lighting for reading. And since I'm in school, let's face it, there's a lot more formal report writing (and mindless TV watching) when I'm at home than there is reading for pleasure. (Side note: Has anyone else noticed the HORRIBLE acting on SVU?)

So my spot. Cat puke. I curse Laney's name, make a mental note to clean it up once I've showered (and the heat has had a chance to make my house less like a refrigerator) and I head off to begin my morning routine.

Can I just mention one thing? The one advantage to living in my very old and tiny living space is the heat. The place is tiny, so once the heat is on it takes approximately 40 seconds to make the place comfortably warm. Fifty seconds to uncomfortably warm, but we don't think about that because in the mornings? There's no such thing. Also, there is a heating vent in my bathroom that takes up approximately 20% of the available floor space. You would think this is an inconvenient thing, but it's not. It's a fabulous thing. What I do is leave the heat very very low at night and snuggle under the covers with a warm puppy. When I wake up, I turn on the heat to about 75 first thing and then jump into the shower. Turning on the heat ensures two things, A) the hot water is SCALDING - just the way I like it and B) the bathroom is a veritable sauna when I step out of the shower. Bliss. In fact, even after you dry off, you can stand over the heating vent in the bathroom (that is fortuitously located immediately above the actual heating unit) and just be warm warm warm.*

Add this routine to the happiness that I already felt because it's Friday (and I don't have to be at work until EIGHT AM!! EIGHT!!! A whole HOUR later than normal!!!!) and I was a happy happy girl once I was dressed, clean and warm. I let Casey outside and decided to check the weather before I committed fully to my outfit for the day.

Another tangent to mention is that I HAZ INNERNETZ IN MY HOUZ!!!! My cheap ass, broke down and went with AT&T for their DSL that is $19.95/month.** (Shameless plug for AT&T! They are not paying me for this endorsement, I am just grateful to have teh innernetz in my house through an entirely painless process even though I don't have a home phone!!) So now? I can respond to emails in the evenings and on weekends! I can watch my tv shows online! I! Can! Check! The! Weather!!!

So I plopped myself down in front of my laptop to check out weather.com.

Right on top of cat puke.

The stream of words that came out of my mouth were NOT words that my mother taught me. Trust. I took off my khaki's, looked at the stain on the butt, looked at my couch, cursed some more and stalked off to find another suitable pair of pants to wear to work on "casual Friday."***

Miraculously, I found another pair of clean khakis. Miraculous because I pretty much LIVE in khakis these days, and laundry is reserved for time between study binges....so pretty much once every two months.

While I'm putting on my second pair of khakis for the day, I decide that the day is not shot. It's FRIDAY for Pete's sake. In fact, the miraculous clean khakis are a SIGN! FROM GOD! It will still be a good day. Sure I have an ochem test on Monday, but I feel reasonably prepared and will spend no less than 20 hours studying this weekend. Maybe I can even squeeze in a good long walk with Casey? In fact, I should go check the weather because I heard that it is going to be a pretty weekend.

So I head over to my laptop and plop myself in front of it to check weather.com.

Right on top of cat puke.

AGAIN!

It's at this point that I decide that I'm going to drink the emergency Coke Classic sitting in my fridge.**** For breakfast. Because really? Twice, Emily? In a span of five minutes?!

Welcome to my life folks. Let this be a warning to anyone else who thinks that taking ten hours of sciences while working full time is a good idea. You will end up sitting in cat puke multiple times as a result of your inability to keep a thought in your head for longer than two minutes.

*I just have to remember to turn the heat back down to "normal" before I leave for work. Total number of times that I've forgotten so far this year? Twice. Boo!!!

**Goodbye morning latte. I'll miss you.

***I'm omitting the part where I possibly briefly considered just wiping off the khakis and wearing them anyway. Because who would think that? Not this girl.

****This post may or not be a result of the high levels of caffeine and sugar running through my veins at this very moment. Please excuse me now, I have to go run laps around my office building for a while.

Since I'm apparently in the sharing mood...

...go check out this article. I don't think I could have said it any better. And if you feel you have enough time on your hands, read her previous article as well. In doing the research for her first article, the author gained the knowledge about pit bulls that she shared in her second article.

It's almost perfectly how I feel about owning Casey. And how I wish many pit bull advocates would think. Because the crazies? They're out there. And unfortunately some of them are pit bull "advocates." And they scare me.

Speaking of Casey, (we were, right?) she's having an attack of allergies that is making her miserable. It happens every spring, but this year it's worse and has lasted longer than usual. Cross your fingers with me, won't you, that the cortizone injection coming her way (the SECOND cortizone injection) works to make her feel better so that mom won't be hit with having to do blood work on her dog-ter and potentially spend money she doesn't have to cure some obscure skin condition...

Yes, happy times at our house these days. If someone could go ahead and make 36 hour days, that would be FANTASTIC. Anyone? Bueller?

While you're at it, if you want to go ahead and clean my house so that I'm not embarrassed when someone makes the perfectly normal request to use the restroom when they're over, that would be fabulous as well.

Oh, and while you're doing things for me, can you go ahead and suggest to the boy that after Emily mentions that she's been studying one particular topic all day long and just had a breakthrough that enables her to understand it, he should not say, after a long thoughtful pause, "My worry is that you're not being efficient in your studying." That might (MIGHT) set off a nuclear explosion the likes of which he's never before seen.

Time is NOT on my side...

...so there is no time to blog. But I did find one of the funnier sites on the internet today and I wanted to share.

You know Etsy? The latest rage for selling handmade objects? Well, internets, meet Regretsy. The tagline is "Handmade? It looks like you made it with your feet."

Was there any doubt that I would love this site?

I haven't had time to go through the entire thing, but my favorites so far are here, here (make sure to note the title on that one) and here. Make sure you don't skip over her commentary. Sometimes it can be pretty succinct. I had to struggle to contain my laughter when I stumbled upon this at work.* It was so bad that tears were welling up in my eyes. No lie.

So, enjoy! And make sure to leave your favorites in the comments.

*Shhhh! Don't tell my boss.