Good Ol' Cup O' Joe

America, suburbia in particular, is so funny. Funny weird-lame-can't believe it-weird funny.

Just the other day, I went to starbucks to get a caramel apple cider, and I kept stuttering or something along those lines, and the first thing the barista said was, "Jeeze, you must not have had your caffeine this morning!"

Don't get me wrong, nothing is wrong with that.

But it SO is.

We live in a place where 'if you don't have your daily coffee, you can't function.' Some part of that puzzles me, and I'm not sure if it is the fact that we all believe we're dependent on something, or if we really are. And really, what would happen if suddenly all the coffee disappeared??? Everyone would probably be hung over/withdrawling/headachy/crazy without it...but I wonder if it's just mental?

It's amazing to me how someone can go up to the counter or drive through, now that's just lazy, and order a "Caramel macchiato, triple shot, non-fat, part soy, 2 pumps cinnamon dulce, not too hot, hold the caramel, hold the macchiato, and add some whip cream" and it's perfectly normal. It's not normal, it's crazy.

Crazy how everything is so developed into this...place...If somebody gets my order wrong, and I spill it, because it tastes gross, God forbid, I'll just sue their asses.

How wrong is that??!?!?

and It's NORMAL!

And the shopping centers.

Oh the shopping centers. Strip malls, shopping malls, outdoor shopping centers, discount stores, outlets, kiosks, et cetera et cetera et cetera.

"Dear me, if I live without my Northface and my Uggs, well....I don't think I COULD live." "What will I do if Daddy won't buy me the $100,000 sports car so I can look cool? Hmm....I might run away, or go to the police and say I'm being mistreated"

....Suburbia. Or maybe it's just Cupcake Land. It has the name for some reason, doesn't it?

On a brighter note!

The 25 hrs are going well. Two weeks and I'll be done with first semester of Surg. Tech! YAY!

Chem and Bio are okay...Bio is way better than Chem...maybe it's because I like the bio lab and not the chem lab? Whatever. Speaking of bio, I found out that for one of my assignments I'm shooting a potential roller derby-er, who happens to be my bio professor! Talk about sick!

Orchard is fun. Really fun still. I have a bajillion apples everywhere...they're practically coming out my ears! But this way I get to make apple butter, sauce, cider, crisp, pie, cobbler, and the list goes on. mmmmm

Boston in 29 days. Austin in 22. YAY!

Ah, and another plan in the works:

Move back to Boston no matter what. No matter if I can pay for it next year or not. I already have enough money saved up to pay 6 months rent and utilities. Live at the rugby house with Miss Jennifer Fleser, and work at one of the hospitals as a scrub tech. I'm hoping to interview/speak with people up there when I go....let's hope I can get in!

Anyway, more at some point. When life is a little more exciting? :)

All was golden when the day met the night

Hello again!

Life. Life is interesting. I've started surg tech school, and it's incredible. I know all about the respiratory system, loading and unloading scalpels, suture, and passing instruments, as well as the ins and outs of otorhinolaryngology (if you can tell me what that is without googling it, I'll be very, very happy). Onto the endocrine system this week!

Lifeguarding is almost over, Friday is the last day Young's is open, and then I'm working a total of 3 days in August and September.

I'm now a staff photojournalist for the Campus Ledger, JCCC's newspaper, and I've gotten my first assignments for this issue. I'm also now in charge of the Cav Confessions: staff and students' answers to those questions you're not so keen on talking about!

JCCC starts in 2 weeks, and I'm taking BIO 135 and Chem II, for a total of a whopping 25 hours this semester (that's Wright as well as JCCC).

Enough of that.

I would really love to go to Seattle.

The founding location of Starbucks, the Space needle, etc. I've never been to West coast except for California, and let's get real, that's not REALLY all west coast. It's like only having been to NYC...not the real deal exactly.

I want to experience life up there....outside of Seattle even would be great. Windy roads, greenery everywhere, mountains, etc.

Yes, okay, that's all for now. Kind of lame blog...but it's late...I'll write more soon about something interesting!

Ciao, Bye

Change is inevitable - except from a vending machine.

So, the everchanging plan has changed yet again. This time majorly, also not by choice. I have the economy to thank for that.  And I really thought I was feeling no effects. Oh well, que sera, sera.

Goodbye  

until next fall &

Hello

&

“Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.

Arnold Bennett

No loan for Abbey, and that means no BU for her either this year. Financial aid went down, need went up, tuition and housing went up and that all just goes into a big pile of non-ability-to-afford-anything-without-a-loan-ness. They weren't kidding when they said college would be expensive. "Semester-Fall 2009 Current balance: $30,205.00" Unless I can somehow manage that by August 13th, I'm staying in Kansas for the year and going to JCCC as well as Wright Business College.  Maybe it's for the better...for now? Looking at it this way, I don't have to worry about quitting track because of no time. When I go back, I will have time. I can get classes out of the way that I really need for cheap, $64 a credit hour, aka a full semesters worth of a class for about $210, which is what...one lecture out of one week out of one month out of one semester at BU? Good deal for the pocket for sure. JCCC is a great school, too. It's one of the top junior colleges in the nation! I'll also get to receive not a CNA, but a surgical technician certificate. Then I can go back.

“For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.

Emerson

I'm missing a whole year in Boston, but getting a surgical technician certificate (and getting pre-med stuff out of the way minus orgo II). By doing that, I can work in the operating room, starting wages $18.00/hr, real hands on experience, knowledge that will help me and interest me, get me through a few classes in med school with ease and give me something great to do with my spare time. The program is 3 semesters of 15 weeks each, consecutively (no Thanksgiving or winter break), and I can work ahead. The last 10 week chunk of the last semester is an externship, aka working with a surgeon.  THAT means that next summer I'll be certified, be able to work full time through the whole summer, earn a lot of money and be able to pay for school. Then when I go back, I can get a part time job at a local hospital and do that there and be happy and be able to take a smaller course load, focusing just on psych classes and maybe biochem or microbio here and there :P. 

I am losing my perfect plan though. And the fun I was going to have this year with everyone, especially my roommate, Sarah. We were going to do all sorts of fun stuff neither of us really do...girl nights, just us going out and man-hunting, sunday morning breakfasts at the bagel shop in Kenmore square, etc. Also, getting to know and talk with the people on the pre-med advising committee and some professors. That's the part that's really going to affect me negatively. I need to make close relationships with those people so I can apply to medical school, D.O. or M.D., and have not good, but great recommendations. I'm hopeful that will all work itself out though. A little more effort, some heavy duty elbow grease, and communication will do it.

‘Things don’t change. You change your way of looking, that’s all.’

Carlos Castaneda

Technically nothing is really changed. I mean, I'm still pre-med, I'm still getting my stuff done that I want to get done, still going to be at BU for 3 years (although...there's a break between 1 and 2), still planning on being a surgeon, still going to get a job in a hospital this year, and doing more.  Nothing has changed, just the way I'm getting there, the way I see the path I'm on. 

‘It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.’

Alan Cohen 

At first I figured I'd be freaked out. And I was. And I am. But...I'm dealing. I know that after this year, I will be 19, making more money than a lot of adults, having a job that's in the place I want to be, getting experience I need, being held accountable for people's lives, and having fun. I'll get to see so many cool things, that yeah, maybe I'd get to see if I follow my uncle around in his surgeries, but not to the same extent. I'll get to be in the thick of it. Touching it. Sewing it up. Pulling things apart. Sucking up blood and guts, and knowing everything there is to know about the OR. What an adventure it will be. 

Of course, I'm going crazy at the though of probably only seeing those people I love in Boston once or twice between now and next summer. Not doing track. Not being in Boston. Not being able to walk anywhere, take the T, go to any state in the surrounding area in just an hour, or go to the beach. It's going to be incredibly sad and hard, but I'll still be able to visit. It's not forever, after all.

It will take a lot of courage to keep going, because my plan is completely screwed up now. It's nothing I expected to happen. But that's life. Things can be going the way you expect, down to every last detail, but at the drop of a hat things can just *EEEEEEEEUUURRRRRRRRRR* (that's the sound of screeching tires, if you didn't catch that, by the way).  

“The really happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery when on a detour."

I'm going to enjoy the year. I'll get to do stuff that is actually relevant to my life. Yes, it's a detour. No, it's not a road block. Yes, I'll be stuck in Kansas, where there's nothing to do compared to Boston. No, I won't be miserable. I'll be by the family, the friends, and be able to save up my money. And enjoy it while I'm doing it. 

After all, I am the optimist, right?

Why yes, Sir, I do have a(n everchanging) plan!

I have everything planned out. At least for the next, oh most likely, 10 years of my life. Or I think I do. I know the general idea of what I want to do, the outline, but don't know specifics:

Undergrad in 3 years, Med school, residency, fellowship, live a happy life saving lives and having a life.

 I've decided against taking a year off in between undergrad and med school after talking to a pedes surgeon who went to BU and BUMC. "If you CAN get in, please do it. Keep trucking." Good advice, I'd say. BUT that changes things up a bit for my in my plan making. I was hoping to take the MCATS fall and spring of my third year, which is normal, but for me it's my senior year, and the year when I'm doing all my applications and such. That starts to compact things a bit...and that's fine. BUT that means also no year off to get clinical experience and more volunteer work and find a job at a hospital. Which means I now need to get on that starting this fall. Which leads me to this pickle I am currently in:

 Do I stay on BUTF and squeeze that in, along with my overloaded semesters, along with volunteering and trying to get a job at the hospital? OR Do I leave the team so I can get the experience I need for getting into Med school?

I know the answer without hesitating, but I don't want that to be the answer. I mean, the team is my family. I am at ease with them, have made wonderful friendships, have experienced the real team-ness that I never did in high school sports, have learned what it takes to be a DI athlete, have learned how to train myself, different techniques for said training, and have learned more things about myself that I thought I would. I have also questioned my ability as an athlete, and realized that maybe I'm not top-notch, and that maybe I'm more cut out for self training. I don't really know. Maybe I've had the experience and that's enough?

 My mother has been telling me over and over again that I don't need to be on the team. I'm not going to be pursuing it as a career (and Lord knows that's the truth), I won't be going to the olympics anytime soon, and I need to focus on school as a number one. And that's true. But it's something I don't want to cope with!

I want to be able to do everything. Pursue everything I can. Get 4262462413857 degrees in everything possible, as well as be a surgeon, a family practice doctor, a pastry chef, a photographer, a vet, a marine biologist, and a famous cellist.  The doctor dream being the top priority. 

Anyway, ranting...

I do know that I'm not going to continue with track after undergrad, and it would be foolish to even want to. I know that I need a lot of community service and clinical experience to even be considered for medical school admissions (and especially if I decide to apply to an Osteopathic Medical school).

If there was a way I could make fantasy books real and somehow obtain a time turner (even though they were all destroyed), I would be very happy. Can someone jump on that for me?

Thanks. 

Anyway.

I don't know what to do. I mean, I do. But really, I don't. I don't want to be a quitter. I don't even want to quit. I want to do everything. I just wish that what was right for me would include time for athletics....

help!

On a brighter note, my first day of being Senior Guard down was successful. I love it. I love my pool (I thought I would hate it. How wrong I was!) I love the guards (so far anyway). And I believe this is going to be a great summer. 

I've started compiling a reading list with Bailey...So if you've got any good reads, let me know, please!

Oh Oh 'twas magic, you know.

Isn't it funny how quickly memories fade?
One minute you're smack dab in the center of the best time of your life.
The next? Still enjoying yourself, but you've long moved on.
I think it's so strange! When I scrounge around my memories and replay them, it's like watching a home video. I don't relive them, but rather I watch them as they happen. It's like I've forgotten what it felt like, what emotions I experienced, and it makes me wonder how I ever got into that? It all seems so strange, and almost impossible to experience things like that again. It's very similar to the feeling you get after watching a romantic comedy, like 27 Dresses, or How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. After you watch the path that Kate Hudson and Kathrein Heigl take, the way and the simplicity to falling in love, or at least experiencing something like it, it makes you yearn for that and wonder if getting there is that easy. It makes you wonder if that's what life is really like; it's like a dream.  I'm sure that's exactly what the writers and producers are aiming for, after all, but sheesh! That tactic works so well. And of course, then you get anxious, and start wondering 'hmm...what shall I do?' and 'does this mean so-and-so really could be for me?'

 Of course, that's all bullcrap, and just things your mind concocts, but hey, it's fun while the feeling lasts :P

 Bizarre!

Anyway, on a brighter note. Tomorrow is my last final of the year, now onto Summer. Oh, thank you for coming! How I've missed you so!  Good luck to everyone who is still in school (KU) and those here who still have finals (BU) !!

Cheers!

Money money money!

Edit: April 22
Ok, NOW the transfer is official. COM to CAS.
Why phojo to psych?
I love photography. I love shooting people, things, whatever. I love doing it for myself and for others. I just don't think I want to do the complete candid, not as artsy shots. To me, photojournalism is all with newspapers, magazines, and that kind of media. What I want to do is take pictures for people to please them, to put on display, to keep in their house or office, and that's not exactly what phojo offers. Also--I can pursue photography on my own. I have a business at home, I have people to shoot, and will eventually get my website up and running (it just might take a while!). Also, trying to be pre-med AND get all the COM classes in, all in three years, would be a big struggle. It's easier this way. And, there's a lot of writing for the journalism program in general, whether it be phojo or print jo or whatever (I mean...duh, it IS journalism) and I am not a very good writer. No, scratch that. I'm a crappy writer. So...yes...better this way. I can just analyze people instead and then take their picture...then cut them up ;)

A little over a month until first paycheck. That means, I will have my money to buy this.

YES.

It's funny how expensive lenses are. I mean, you can buy a body of a camera (the actual camera) for a few hundred dollars, and then the lenses. Oh, the one I really want, nearly the same as the one on the left, but Nikon...$5,500. Ridiculous. That's more money than I've ever made in my life! Or close to anyway.

Cheap alternatives are fine. I do have a semi-fisheye that works perfectly that I got for $40.  It's good. Offbrands aren't all so bad!

Anyway. New photos up on Flickr: The Marathon, Turn off the Lights (an experiment in the bathroom), and the meet at UConn. Check 'em out. Please, enjoy!

Yes!

By golly, George, would you look at that!

I sit. I wait. I wait some more. I shoot. 

Capturing the perfect picture takes patience, dedication, and of course, a steady hand.

I began to love photography when I was in the 7th grade...or maybe earlier? Who knows. Since then, I've been practicing, shooting, shooting some more, wrecking roll after roll of film, playing around in the dark room, buying expensive equipment, and trying my talent in different fashions. 

I recently rediscovered all of my pictures from the past few years...as well as rediscovered my Flickr account that I've had for a while now. 

Until last week, I was a registered COM student majoring in photojournalism. I realized that 1. I don't need to get a degree to do what I love (at least when it comes to photography...other things...surgeon things....a degree may be required by law). 2. It's just as easy to go out and find something interesting, fascinating, wonderful to capture on your own as it is to do it for an assignment. 

 Sure, I miss Malone's weekly assignments, but after 3 years with him, I have some idea of how to be creative on my own!

Anyway. This is short. That's fine.

Happy Terrier Day!

Happy Birthday, King Philip III

And, if you missed the link above, go see my flickr here :)

Edit

Photo to-do list. Some can be completed here, some--not so much.

1. Shoot words using different photographs for each letter

2. illuminate and object in the dark with light from a small light....long shutter, small aperature

3. shoot smoke..black backdrop, hand held flash from below

4. stars--long long long shutter

5. moon-iso 100, aperature f/22

6. pitch black, open shutter and use glow stick to light up something and to draw names and shapes in midair 

7. Meg and Justin couple's shoot

8. Step-brother's senior portraits

9. Find a new location at home to shoot at....that's just as cool as loose park!

Home is Where The Heart Is

Someday I'll wish upon a star

And wake up where the c

louds are far

Behind me.

Where troubles melt like lemon drops

Away above the chimney tops

That's where you'll find me.

There's no place like home. 

Three exams this week, then it's to the 1 month

 remaining point until I'm homebound. Until I get to spend every single day outside, soaking up the sun, watching little kids play. And also laying with my family in the pool drinking margaritas, wasting the day away.

 

Anyway, that's beside the point. 

This weekend we went to Tufts for the annual Snowflake Classic.  It was beautiful in the morning, and into the early afternoon. Everyone did great. Then as 4:00pm approached, our good friend, the sun, went away and the temp. dropped something around 1308513˚. Still. The women took the title, men took 4th, great performances by all. Snowflake-Women for the women and Snowflake-Men  for the men. 

I'll actually post something worth reading eventually. This is more just...not.

Cheers

You Were So Pretty In the Days You Spoke Your Mind.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, 

There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

There is a society where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar.

I love not Man the less, but Nature more.

-Lord Byron

Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet

 and the winds long to play with your hair

-Kahlil Gibran

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else. And for everything you gain, you lose something else.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the summer I work at a nature camp as well as lifeguard. I work with children and with animals (reptiles, too, to be technical).  

Some days at camp I take the kids on a journey to the Indian Burial Ground, where all the old Indian chiefs who used to live on the land 

are buried. There is a great stone circle composed of 

about 28 different shaped stones. Each represents one chief. The area is holy, and still run by the Indian spirits.  If you try and dig up one of the stones, or attempt to find any of the chiefs you will be cursed. 

  This is completely untrue.  

The location of the 'Burial Ground' is in the middle of the forest, where the only sound you can hear is that from the animals, the insects 

and the wind. It is a small clearing completely surrounded by towering trees.  Everywhere you look: green.  It's places like these that I can see myself setting up camp and living for the rest of my life.  It is secluded but completely inhabited, quiet but pressingly loud, and shaded but full of light.  When I go into the forest I shut my eyes and imagine myself in a whole different world. One that has no petty drama, no other people, no problems, no technology, no automobiles; just Nature and me. 

 Being alone with Nature is a whole other experience; completely polar opposite to the world I live in.  In this other world, I can breathe. I can walk without worrying about stepping on and crushing those delicate eggshells. I can look without worrying about who I might see, or what I will see--because I know I will see beauty.  I can live without having to think, or worry, or deal with conflict. I can yell at the top of my lungs and nobody will hear me, I can live without having to worry who I will offend, or who got too intoxicated to function.  I can just be.

     In this other world, everything is perfect. When it rains, it pou

rs.  And then the sun comes: the leaves, the ground, the rocks, everything, is left gleaming and glistening in the beams of light that manifest.  This world, my ideal world, is perfect. Not one single flaw exists. In this world, I can be me. I can be happy. I am happy in this world. 

Times like now, when pressure begins building, stress levels are reaching the top, the drama-o-meter is just about break, I would really love to go back to my other world.  Times like now, I notice myself daydreaming more. Shutting my eyes and imagining myself walking through the woods, dodging spider webs, climbing rock and mud walls, walking through the creek, and finding my own personal solace. 

Somewhere to go to get away from the ecclesia that is my life. Somewhere where I don't have to deal with everyone's personal problems. Times like now, I wish that I could just live for me, do my own thing, go through my routines and not have to speak with anybody.

  Right now I'm nearing my limit of bunkum. Bunkum being everyone else's bunkum. Bunkum being synonymous with poppycock, codswallop, flapdoodle, garbage, nonsense, rubbish, and the list goes on. I'm tired of dealing with explosive tempers, despondency, vileness, and in general, the vast pool of turmoil I've been forced to swim in for... quite a while now.  I'm not sure what to do exactly, as living in the city can make it difficult to find a serene place to go to empty the mind and relax the self. 

Forty three days until it is over. Until everyone can go home. Until we start our break. Until Change occurs. Until we lose some things and gain others. Until everyone else's crushes, inamoratos (or desired inamoratos), and objects of affections can be separated and diminished. Until life becomes normal again. Until the sun shines all day. Until I get my 14 hours and 55 minutes of sunlight (summer solstice, if you didn't know). 

There are things I wish I could say, but for one, this is not the place, and two: I don't know how to say it. I don't know how to say anything without getting sprayed and buried with lava, or having nuclear fission happen to my entire body.  There are things I want to tell you--but it can't happen.  I can't be the start of WWIII, this is supposed to be the New Deal. If I say these things the Axis will reunite and be joined by another. It can't happen. I don't know a way to do it without that happening.

 So I guess for now, it will go without saying.

Weeding the So-Called Pre-medical Garden

Apparently Chem 101 is a weed-out class. I mean, you know that going in, and you know that not EVERY person who dreams of becoming 'a world renowned surgeon' or 'the next big break in cancer cures' cannot actually go through with that dream. But seriously? SERIOUSLY? Just because everybody cannot succeed doesn't mean you should put questions on the exams that you've not covered until the lecture AFTER the exam... seriously? TRYING to make everyone fail. SERIOUSLY?

AND the not telling us our grade until the very end. Not knowing how we're doing. We could have an A- or a D, and nobody would ever know until the very end of the semester. That's screwed up. >:O

See, I've had a dream since the 8th grade that I will become a surgeon, help people, and sail around the world doing pro-bono stuff for those who need it. I used to love chemistry. I took Honors and then AP in high school, was the one showing everyone else what to do, and was 1 out of 3 people who actually went into the AP test (granted, I didn't do so hot...but that's a different story). Then comes big bad university chemistry. Which is the same stuff I learned 2 and 3 years ago, just in much more confusing theorist jargon. There are concepts which I understood perfectly until I got here. Then, the long, drawn out explanations just screw the hell out of my already set schemas about said concepts. Seriously.

And this is the beginning, though after CH101 I'm guessing it gets better. But maybe this is what happens when we have a theorist teach instead of a non-theorist (or whatever the opposite is). Don't get me wrong though, this specific professor is kind, quirky, hilarious, and does get the point across half the time.

Whatever. The point is: why not weed out later? Why squish the dreams of the hopeful freshman so early in their college career? Why make them worry about whether or not they can even handle college itself, just because of an intro to chemistry course? Please, pre-medical gods, be kinder to those who wish to save the world, one person at a time.

Side note:

Spring break is quickly approaching--1 day, 16 hours and 51 minutes remain until our flight sets off...then it's smooth sailing, beach, margaritas, sun, and not caring about a thing.

At that, I shall conclude.

Please keep calling upon the pre-medical gods with me to help save my career!

-The Kansan.

Hello World.

Hey all you fellow bloggers!
Abbey here, and I've decided to follow the craze. I'm popping the blogging cherry, so bear with me.

Quick intro to me-I'm from Kansas. Yes, Kansas. No, it's not all farmland. Yes, there are a million tornados. No, I do not own, nor have I ever owned, a pair of ruby red slippers.
I'm on BU Track and Field (BUTF) as a discus thrower, I'm a psychology major, chemistry minor, and declared pre-med, as well as graduating in three years. I love everything and anything medical, and cooking, and will someday live in Maine.

That's all for tonight. I have a bajillion things to do, so I will be more interesting at a later date.

Cheers, Lyla Tov, and Adios