fan-fucking-tastic

Two weeks left in Milwaukee, the weather isn't going to be above 60* until I get home, and there is a giant hole in the butt of my ONLY pair of jeans.
Fabulous.

On the other hand, I got measured at Victoria Secret today and I'm a 34D. D??? My boobs aren't THAT big are they? The bra I found was shockingly comfortable way, in a Is-this-really-how-these-are-supposed-to-fit kind of way.
Now to see if I can find something similar at target, now that I know what size I am, that fits just as well but isn't $48!

Hi

Covered a soccer game tonight at Homestead High.
It was cold.

Good day!

Today we presented our semester projects for General Medicine in Athletic Training. We all picked a topic, and answered some form of the question, "How should the Certified Athletic Trainer deal with _________?" We did research all semester, put everything together on a giant poster, hung them up in the hallway outside the teaching lab, and gave a 5-10 minute presentation to all our Athletic Training teachers, as well as a few of the Exercise Science professors and our classmates from different years. Then everyone said "Oh that is so interesting, good job!" and we were told we all looked real nice.
Think junior high science fair. Except we were talking about hearts and Sudden Cardiac Death and diabetes and ACLs and Heat Exhaustion instead of growing grass with coffee or testing toothpaste on eggs. Oh, and we all knew what the fuck we were talking about.

My project was titled: "Proper Management of a Prolapsed Mitral Valve in a Competative Athletic Setting." Mitral valve prolapse is a disease of the mitral valve between the left atrium and ventricle. It's an inherited disease that causes the valve to form improperly. It can be anywhere from asymptomatic and you may never know you have it, to completely stenosed (scarred with plaque) that it is useless and allowing blood to travel backwards through the heart. Blood traveling the wrong direction is very bad, and is likely to cause an arrhythmia. As a future athletic trainer, it's my job to know what to do and know how to prepare to take care of an athlete with a prolapsed mitral valve.
For the most part, it's all about knowing your athletes, knowing if anyone has this, and what their symptoms are. Also having a set Emergency Action Plan in place if the kid were to go into a fatal arrhythmia.

I was next to Lisa who did her project on Sudden Cardiac Death, and Ryan who did his on Hypertrophy Cardiomyopathy (when the walls of your heart get abnormally thick and therefore decrease the amount of blood your heart is able to pump - it usually leads to Sudden Cardiac Death). Which is ironic, because we had no idea we would create Cardiac Corner when we stuck our posters to the wall.


And here is MY KNEE. I had a follow up with Dr. Smith today and she let me keep the copy of a copy of my Xrays. Look at that joint. The top bone is my femur and the two on the bottom are my tibia and fibula. Look at how much SPACE there is between them! All that space of full of PERFECTLY HEALTHY cartilage and a meniscus.
I'm up to running 4 cycles of 2 minutes walking/3 minutes running. On Saturday I get to add another cycle for 25 minutes total. Next week, I'll be on a 1/4 cycle, first for 15 minutes, then 20, then 25. After that, I'm allowed to increase the time I spend running by a minute every week, so 1/5 then 1/6 then 1/7. Once I get to a 1/10 cycle, if there is no pain after two weeks of running for 33 minutes total, I'm allowed to go to straight running with no walking breaks. I have to cut it back down to 15 minutes total to start, but then I'm allowed to add 5 minutes a week until I'm counting by miles instead of minutes.
Dr Smith thinks that a 5k or even 10k by the end of this summer is very doable, and that I could be doing a half marathon by this time next year if I wanted - just to make sure I actually find a training schedule to follow rather than doing what I did last time, which was just go out and run as far as I could every day.

And tonight, I'm going to a "tupperware" party my classmate Lisa (same one as above) is throwing. You know you are an athletic training student when the sentence, "I was able to score one of the 6 gallon Gatorade coolers for the punch!" not only sounds normal, but is something you have done in the past.

As you can see from the first photo, these were taken in the Library.
I don't get it either.

Oh look! Green things! How exciting!
I must look at this picture and be reminded that THERE IS HOPE for Spring. Maybe.
It's horrible and crappy and raining and wet outside, but it's not fuckingcold anymore, so that's an improvement. Right?

On Thursday I am going to a Pure Romance Party that one of the girls in my class is hosting. And by Pure Romance I mean Sex Toys/Accesories Tupperware party.
Should be fun.
Never would have put this girl in that category, but I guess you never judge a book by its cover.

A different perspective on things.

Around 4:30pm, my future roommate Lindsey asked if I wanted to go on an adventure, and it was either that or sit in my apartment by myself and be mindnumbingly bored; so I went over to the other apartment. We coaxed Kiel to stop doing nothing upstairs and come play.
First, we drove to the River West, which is by UWM, and go figure, west of the river. We found a park to play at for a little bit, but then Lindsey got cold cause she is always cold and as much as it is APRIL FOR GODSSAKE AND SHOULD BE WARM, it is not, no matter how much we pretend. So Lindsey directed us to a cafe/bar (which is weird to me, and weird to them that it is weird to me) called Fuel, and we all got wonderfully delicious coffee drinks and all kind of picked at two sandwiches, talked about how Kiel ended up in Milwaukee from Purto Rico, and about how one of the sandwiches had this DELICIOUS soft cheese (guda?) and wouldn't it be wonderful if we lived in a place where we could eat cheese and french bread everyday. Like France, but without.. the French part.
Then we went bowling in this place that was actually a basement (but it wasn't weird because we were on the East Side and that is the trendy and hip part of town and there are lots of Fun Bars and coffee shops fucking everywhere and Boutiques full of Overpriced Crap.) that had a bowling ally (were we kept score by hand) an arcade, and three little (all separate from each other) bars. Lindsey cheated at bowling- not sure how, but every time her ball was headed for the gutter it would suddenly get MAD SPIN, and curve back into the middle of the lane. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. The one time she did manage to get it in the gutter, it popped back out at the last second and gave her a spare.
Then we played arcade games for a little bit and ended up with 373 tickets, which gave us: A pack of friendship bracelets, 2 packs of fruit snacks + 1 pack of Swedish fish, a mini yo-yo that isn't very good, and a plastic flower ring. I now have very crappy blue jelly/plastic bracelet that I will probably leave on for a very long time because it means I HAVE FRIENDS IN MILWAUKEE. Not just Nichole, who is a singular friend, but other people who like me enough to make sure I'm not alone on Easter when Nichole goes home to Green Bay. (Even though Nichole did invite me to go with, I declined because her family is all SUPER CATHOLIC and I didn't feel like going to church every day of break.)

Playing on the swings at the park, feeling like a child, and like nothing matters.

Cheating Lindsey with her Cheating Hat.

Kiel

This is my brother:
(As you can see, we take after different sides of the family)
We were not close when we were kids. We didn't fight necessarily (no one fights in my family) but we never had that sibling bond that some brothers and sisters have. Sometime during my Sophomore year of High School, November I believe as I had just broken up with Blake for the last time, we were driving home from school and it seemed to dawn on us that we were no longer 7 and 9, and we could actually have a conversation. About things.
Sometimes, it seems like he, my nerdy, Dungeons and Dragons, National Test Out Champion, Computer Engineer brother, is the only one who really understands what I do in school.
My dad seems to get it, more so than my mom anyway, who sees Athletic Training only as a stepping stone for me onto Physical Therapy. No matter how many times I've told her that right now I'm an athletic training student, she insists on telling people that I'm in PT school and will not acknowledge my undergraduate degree - nevermind it is that undergrad that has taught me everything I know so far that she finds so impressive.
Most males I tell just go, "Oh man! So do you ever get a chance to work with the Men's Basketball team? Cause that would be great!" No, I never did work with them, and I'm so glad I didn't - biggest bunch of egotistical, unintelligent, children I've ever met. Working with the Men's Soccer team and Women's Track team however, was a wonderful experience.
That one girl who's friends with some of my Exercise Science counterparts, who thought all we did all class was watch ESPN so we could learn the rules and how to play all different sports. Um... not quite sweetheart.

But my brother is really the only one who not only asks me about all aspects of my knowledge, from injury to nutrition to proper hydration, but he is also the one who seems to listen to what I tell him and follow my advice. Last year, when he asked me not to feel like crap after a work out, I told him to drink more water. A week later, I got a message from him saying that he now carries a water bottle with him to work and feels SO MUCH BETTER. When I suggested he replace his 4 year old running shoes he asked me what brand and what style and where to get them. He asks me about the physiological reasoning behind shin splints and why he is only just getting them now.
I know Drew secretly takes my advice. I have heard him defend the advice I give to others with a simple, "Dude, look, she KNOWS what she is talking about. She goes to school for this. She didn't get it out of some magazine from a meat-head like you do." But he has yet to ask me, to my face, about anything, yet to admit to me that he is indeed following my advice and he does believe I know what I'm talking about. I ask him if he will listen to me when I'm a doctor. Sometimes it's disheartening to hear him say "No," even though I know the internal answer is, "Of course, I listen to you now."

My brother is the smartest person I know. Like crazy brilliant smart.
And I think it's funny, that I was on the fence of liking my hair being this short, swaying back and forth between thinking it was cute and thinking it was stupid until he said "Hey, I like it!" And now I like it, cause apparently my big brother's opinion matters to me the most.

Here's a picture of, well, you know, stuff.

I took a different route to the grocery store than usual today. Took some side streets rather than just walking down Wisconsin Ave. until I got to the street the store is on. I ended up walking through MOSE's (Milwaukee School of Engineering) campus, which was interesting. I was in city, and then suddenly I was on a college campus, then in the city again. Campus buildings mixed in with city buildings is still interesting to me.
I also find all the old buildings in the area interesting. I want to know what all the apartments look like on the inside. I wonder who lives there and how they made their house look different than mine. I wonder what goes on in all the office buildings, what people are doing in there, if there is even people in them. I wonder about the buildings that are a business on the bottom and apartments on the upper floors, cause that is silly.

Anyone want to take a guess as to which loop my belt always got buckled on?
Sigh.
Now I need a new belt. I've been able to just shove the buckle through the fabric for the last...week?... or so, but every day one more row of cloth frays and I don't know how much longer this is going to last.

I need a lot of new clothes actually. New belt; new bras - I think I'm going to be adventurous and buy some with MORE THAN ONE COLOR on them for the first time whenever I get around to buying them; new underwear; new jeans - I refuse to buy them if they do not fit perfectly; new shoes; and probably new black slacks.
Ugh. So many things. So much money.

I got an "Easter Basket" in the mail from my mom yesterday, complete with that horrible plastic grass that I really dislike but don't have the heart to tell my mom because she thinks she's being cute and I don't want to ruin that for her. I got granola bars to snack on for the next three weeks, a giftcard to Starbucks (sweet!), a can of soup (?), and some candy. I know this sounds horrible and makes me sound like a spoiled brat... but I'm going to say it anyway... there was no money in this package. There's ALWAYS been money in our Easter baskets. When we were little, it was never spending money, just a check we would turn around and give back to dad to put into our savings account. But the past two years there's been about $50 in my Easter package, which my dad liked to call "some spending cash-o-la." And I have to admit, I am slightly disappointed. I was looking forward to spending cash; Nichole and I were planning on going out to dinner sometime next week.

There's just so much less money in my checking account than there was this time last year. Not so much so that I'm worried about food or rent or anything... for this year. But I have three more years of school.
And this is my last summer to work and attempt to build up my checking account at all.
But this is also my last summer break.
Ever.
I'm torn between working two jobs and trying to get 50-60 hours a week again for the two and a half months that I'm going to be home or just being content with what I get at Hand and Ortho and being able to go on lots trips (San Francisco?) and just have fun. I still owe my parents $10,000 for school and right now that's about $6000 more than I have. I know I'll never make that much this summer, but I can at least try to get them the $5000 I owe for my fifth year right? Then pay them back the rest after I graduate and get a job?

Well, I just talked to my mom, who said my parents are feeling rich, and that I should play this summer.
That solves that I guess.

patellafemoral

I've been forgetting that my hair is short. I know it has only been a day, but it's so short that I can't feel it on the back of my neck; I'm so used to having a ponytail everyday my head feels...odd without it, but it happens to be the same exact feeling as well you pull your hair too tight into a bun. I just forget that my hair isn't actually in a bun like it always was before.
Then I'll reach back to brush it behind my ear, and I'm still shocked that my hand is grasping nothing a mere 3 inches from my head, unlike the 14 inches I had at the beginning of the week. I'll catch a glimpse of myself in a window and there is a completely different person looking back at me.

I got to see two surgeries today. Two knees. The first one I wasn't actually supposed to go to, but when I told the lady at the front desk of the Surgery Unit which Doc I was with, who I was there to see, and what I was there too see; she said, "Well I don't know nothing 'bout that." Then a nurse/orderly/PA/person in blue scrubs came out, told me to follow him, showed me where to get my own scrubs and let me into an operating suite.
I tried to explain that the girl lying on the table was NOT the person I was supposed to see, but Dr. Gordon was in there and he told me my Marquette Track Girl was the next surgery and that I should just stay and watch the one that was starting then. I tried to insist that I really would just like to be taking the Track Girl's room, because I was supposed to be meeting Danielle there. But it was too late, the surgery had started, and Mr. Blue Scrubs was not going to take me anywhere. Mind you, I have never been in the Surgery wing of the hospital, only to Dr. Gordon's actual office (once) and the pharmacy (once). I'm was not about to go wandering out of the OR and get yelled at because I'm in a Sterile environment and I have not scrubbed up myself. So I watched the surgery. I kept getting told by the snotty ER Nurse not to faint into her sterile instruments. I didn't faint. I didn't even feel light headed when they were jamming scopes and tendon grafts and scalpels into this random girl's knee.
Two and a half hours later, surgery was over, and Mr. Blue Scrubs told me I could head to the lounge and get a drink before the next surgery, or go back to the locker room where I left my coat after changing into my own scrubs and booties and mask and cap. I said politely, "No, I really just need to be taken to where ever Track Girl is." So he looked annoyed I didn't just know how to get there and let me on a winding journey through doors and past equipment and more doors and surgical instruments.
When I finally got to Danielle and Track Girl, they told me about how they thought I had been abducted cause I texted Danielle when I left my house, yet never showed up to Track Girl's room. Apparently Nichole, David, and DPS had all been called, and they had only had someone figure out to tell them I was in the OR after they called the Emergency Room and asked if I was lying on my own table down there. Personally, I felt bad because they had worried. I felt silly for not bringing my phone to the OR with me, especially when all the other non-sterile people in there kept pulling theirs out. Mostly though, I was pissed off at the incompetent lady at the front desk who didn't even know which patients were checked into the department she was working, and at Mr. Blue Scrubs for shoving me into booties and the OR instead of just taking me to Track Girl and Danielle.
Then there was Track Girl's surgery, which was way cooler than the first one.
So, after 7 hours of standing and doing nothing but stand in one spot and watch a arthroscope screen, my feet and back are killing me. All I want to do get get food and take a nap.
But decided to go on an adventure with Lindsey instead, because that would have been more fun than sleeping, and I enjoy being not on campus. At the piercing place it was suggested I try surgical steal earings, and see if I react as... violently itchy... to that metal as I do to sterling silver. I would think not, personally, as surgical steal is the stuff they use in, well, surgical things. I would hope that the things they could possibly use to cut into my insides one day would not give me cracked, bleeding, swollen, itchy, hives the way earings do to my earlobes. Perhaps I will buy a pair and see how it goes. If well, perhaps I will get a surgical steal belt as well, as to not get the spider bite impersonation on my stomach.

Today was supposed to be a running day for me. It's too late to get to the gym now. And I really don't feel like doing anything. So I will take my long-awaited nap and then work on my physics report.
Ready. Break!

... gone tomorrow

For a while I was considering going super short. Like spikeable short. But then I realized it would take nearly a year to go from spikable short to where it is now, and it will take at least 3 years to go from where it is now to where it was.
And honestly?
I want long hair for my wedding. Which I figure is approximately 3 to 4.5 years away, depending on many factors. So just enough time to get my hair long again.

Everyone has said that my hair is "super cute" so far. And I agree. I really like it. Do I like it as much as long hair? Not right now. But I'm sure I will when my shampoo suddenly lasts 3x as long, and when it doesn't take hours to dry, and when it's not sticking to my back when I take it out its bun after I get home from the gym.
hmmm... ponytails. I'll miss those for awhile. I can make one if I really try though. I just think it will be about an inch long and use 12 bobby pins.

Part of me wishes Drew wouldn't be so frowny face over this and be slightly more supportive. But he never gave the impression that he would be, nor was I ever brought to believe he would.
He said he'll think I'm beautiful no matter what though, so I guess that's good enough.

Hair today.

Tomorrow at 11am I will be donating my hair to Locks of Love.
Today is the last time for the next three or so years that I will have hair like this.
I'm excited.
I'm nervous.
I'm scared it's going to look horrible on me.
But it will grow back.




So to make myself feel better I let Inside Michelle out and took pictures and was generally super vain about it.
Sometimes, I wish it was socially acceptable to wear my fishnet tights in the athletic training room or in class.
Sometimes I think I could have been a flapper girl in the roaring 20's.
And then I LAUGH SO FUCKING HARD because that is so ridiculous because why the hell would I want to live in the 20's and be considered less of a person because I am a woman?
I don't even like dresses.

I don't care who you are, where you are from, or what kind of weather you like.
Snow on April 18th is bullshit.

This morning my alarm went of, awaking me from such a beautiful dream that I wanted to cry.

There is a deck of playing cards scattered around the area. This one was in the grass in front of the apartment building next to mine (20th street), I saw them in the bushes in front of the Dental School and the Blood Center, in the planters in front of Humphry Hall on 17th street, and there was a Jack in front of the Library on 15th street. I believe I can see one on the front lawn of the house that is across the other street (Michigan Ave) from my apartment.
That house by the way, is not an unofficial Frat House like I originally thought. It is the Men's Rugby House, where senior members of the club team live. Which explains why there is so much beer.

Today I woke up from a very warm cuddly-type nap to see that it is snowing. Which leaves me very unsatisfied with the weather and having every desire to crawl back into bed.
Unfortunately for my napping, I do have things to do. Not urgent MUST BE DONE NOW kinds of things.
To be honest, they are things that can be put off until tomorrow, like cleaning my apartment.
Things that can be put off till sometime during the week, like a lab report and reading.
Things that can be put off for at least a week, like correcting my Gen Med poster.
Actually, it would seem that the only thing I really need to do today is go to the gym, which can be put off until about 8 or 9 o'clock tonight.
And it IS only Saturday. I still have all of tomorrow to sleep in and then do all my cleaning and reading and physics homework.

So really, going back to sleep is a wonderful idea.

MA! The Meatloaf!

Name that movie?
10 points awarded for a correct answer.


Last night I made myself a real dinner. By that I mean the protein, grain, and vegetable where all eaten at the same time, not over a span of two hours like I usually do.
I made meatloaf from my Grandma Schaaf's recipe. It's the kind of recipe that calls for 1 lb of ground beef, oatmeal, onion, ketchup, milk, an egg, and two slices of soggy bread; the kind of recipe that states these ingredients MUST be mixed BY HAND in a large bowl; the kind of recipe that gives you three lbs of meatloaf despite only having 1 lb of ground beef in it. My grandma's family was poor-as-dirt for a while when she was growing up, so she learned how to make stuff like that work.
It didn't turn out quite up to Grandma-quality, probably cause I didn't have a fresh onion so I had to use dried, and I probably didn't use the right kind of bread. But it's still good, and it makes me happy that I now have the recipe for meatloaf.

Today was The Best Day.

This morning, I had an appointment with Dr. Smith, who is the head team physician for Marquette, about my knee. I figured it had been about a year since the pain started, and I for a year I've cut back on my miles, I've stretched, I've strengthened, I've biked, I've ellipticaled, I've tried new shoes. After a year, nothing is working, so it was time for another evaluation.
For the past week, I've been setting myself up to hear that I have permanent cartilage damage and if I care about the long term health of my knees I will stop running for good. I was ready to take that diagnosis with a brave face then cry myself to sleep about it for the next three months.
But there is a reason I set up this appointment with Dr. Smith and not Dr. Grove, who I like a bit more, and usually do my Sports Med. appointments with. And that reason is that Dr. Smith runs UltraMarathons, which means she is running anywhere from 50 miles to 100 miles to 135 miles through Death Valley in a single sitting, to 24 hour runs for distance. Dr. Smith gets running. This was my last ditch effort to see if she would have something else for me to try, because she knows all too well that she can't simply tell me to Stop Running.
So we talked for a bit. And she poked and prodded and found my plica and watched me walk.
And then she said the most wonderful sentence I've heard in a very long time:

"I don't think this is structural. What I'm finding does not indicate permanent damage."

And I, halfway though starting to say, "I guess I will try to take up swimming," just stared at her for a minute. "It's... NOT permanent?"

No. Not permanent. Mechanical. Not structural.
Which means it could be as simple as taking the inserts out of my running shoes and replacing them with a Dr. Shoal's insert that will offer cushioning and not effect my biomechanics.
For you see, I've been wearing the same type of shoe and same type of insert for arch support since I was 15. I didn't really have problems until last year, so I've always just walked into Wasatch Running, held up my running shoe and said, "I need a new one of these, size 8."
It never occurred to me to have someone look at my feet in the past 6 years to make sure I haven't changed. I never thought that while my hips widened and chest developed and rib cage expanded and I packed on muscle that my feet might actually be changing too.
I've been in a neutral shoe for the past 6 years. The next time I need new shoes I'm to get a cushioning shoe made for people who have high arches. That will be fun. I really like the people at Wasatch Running, and running shoe shopping is the only type of shopping I don't hate.

There is some grinding in my left knee under the kneecap. More so than in the right knee. That's a fact. But it's likely not due to degradation of my joint, but rather scar tissue and swelling that never really goes away because I never really give myself a chance to fully heal before I'm off running again.
Dr. Smith even wrote me up a schedule to follow for how I should be running. It looks crazy to me, to walk 3 minutes and only run 2 two for a total of 15 minutes the first week, but if it works, then it works!

I do have an x-ray tomorrow to figure out just what the grinding in my knee is from and if it would be possible to go in and scope it out to clean it up. (Insurance permitting of course). The idea of expensive medical things without my parents around is slightly intimidating, but my dad should be calling me when he gets home from work to talk insurance things.


Then I got back to my apartment and had this email:



*Name blocked so HIPPA doesn't swoop down and get me.
I AM SO STOKED TO WATCH A SURGERY!!!
I'm also loving the fact that Danielle offered the opportunity to me first, even though I am not assigned to this athlete's sport anymore. Usually the people who are officially assigned to the team get to go to surgery, but she was so impressed with me from before Spring break that she thinks I should get to go.
Woot WOOT!

About 3 hours post-shower my hair is still slightly damp and I can get it to do whatever I want.
Last night, I got really bored reading physics, so I started twirling bits of my hair around my finger in very BoredGril kind of way.
Which turned into tight, perfect, ringlettes all over my head.

When shaken out, they end up looking like this:

Which, to me, seems a bit unfair. Why is it that my hair is only nice and bouncy and curly and light at 10 o'clock at night when I'm about ready for bed and no one will see it unless I take a silly webcab photo and put it on my blog to prove to the world that I am capable of existing even if my hair is not in a ponytail.
This morning, I got up a few minutes early in an attempt to recreate the awesomeness that was last night. Unfortunately, I was trying to look nice because I had somewhere to be (class) and therefore my hair is nothing but droppy, frizzy, knotted, and sticking out at odd angles. Of course.
I gave up awhile ago. It's back in a ponytail. It's a nicer-than-usual-ponytail though. That's got to count for something right?

Today was a beautiful, warm, sunny day.

All my tests are already over for the week, so I guess it wasn't too bad.

My cold has migrated to my sinuses. I hate to admit that I've been that one sniffly kid in the class on a few occasions. I'm trying to blow my nose as much as possible to just get it over with though. I hate the sniffly kid and I especially hate BEING the sniffly kid.

For awhile I was drinking Stash brand Chai Tea, cause I had a coupon for it, but now I'm back to Roundy's store brand, which is even cheaper than Lipton. I've never been one to by things just for a brand, and I definitely never want to be that tea-snob hippie that only drinks tea leaves that were pressed in house and brewed through a cute little draw string baggie - but there is definitely a difference between a $0.65 cup of tea and a $0.15 cup of tea.

I try to be super frugal all the time. I've cut my grocery budget to under $30 most weeks, and I've been trying not to buy things I don't need. I consider it a splurge when I get Jimmy Johns or Q'Doba once a month for dinner. The only time I've ever bought a drink at Starbucks is when I have a giftcard (which still has enough for one more drink on it...) And the way I look at it, is if I buy the Roundy's brand peanut butter that is $0.05 an ounce less than Skippy, that's $0.05 an ounce I have that I can use to pay back my student loans when I graduate.
And I know $0.05 here and $1.00 there adds up. If you look at how much money I've spent this semester compared to last semester I've spent about $200 less than I had at this point in the semester last year. For me, $200 is a lot of money. It's half a month of rent. It's textbooks (all of them if I look hard enough). It's money I can spend on gifts for people I like. It's money I can put towards my student loans in the 6 month grace period they give me before they start gaining interest. It's thousands of dollars I will save in interest.
But sometimes I want nice things. I want Eggo Waffles for breakfast and Frosted Mini Wheats instead of plain instant oatmeal even though a 42 oz carton of oatmeal is like... hella efficient for a poor college student. I want the $4 coffee-mocha-caramel-raspberry-frapachino-with-whip-cream.
... I want tea bags that don't leak ground up tea leaves into my mug...

And I know one day I will be at that point. I will eventually get to the place where my parents are, where $200 is chump change and if you want something you just buy it and the only time money ever comes up is when tuition is due and it's not a question of WHERE they will come up with $15000 at once but only WHICH ACCOUNT would it be best to take it out of for tax purposes.
I will have nice clothes that fit because I don't have to buy them off the clearance rack and say "For $7.50 this pair of jeans can be a little off," and I will have steak for dinner just cause I want it and a speedy little car that gets excellent gas mileage and a house with a back porch.

Sniff cough

This is how I plan on getting though the next few days of hell week:

Step 1) Admit that I have come down with a cold/the flu due to my dieting habits over the last three weeks. I have been getting adequate nutrition, in the form of vitamins and minerals, but I been restricting calories as a whole and working out obsessively enough that I've been in a negative Caloric balance every day but one since the 21st of March. Did forcing my body into working on converting fat stores into energy to make up the balance compromise my immune system? Yes. Do I look fucking great because of it? Yes. I've lost 2 centimeters off my waist, hips, and thighs. I have decreased the amount of fat on my body from 33.075 lbs to 29.1 lbs. while increasing muscle mass. Do I think I've probably been a bit extreme over the past three weeks and could tone it down a bit from here on out? Probably.
If you have seen Eddie Izzard talk about the creation of the world, and remember the part where he is saying, "And cabbages, public toilets in French camping sites, and Rowanda?, and grandparents, and trees, cats, bread pudding, and hats, things that go 'uuuuhhhgggg'" and on that last one he kind of does a kind of creeping/slimy hand motion. You know what I'm talking about? That's how my whole body feels. I would just like my boyfriend to be here to snuggle me till I fall asleep and make me soup.

Step 2) Buy Dayquil and Sprite. Or in my case, Walgreens Brand Cold Relief and 7up cause it's cheaper. You know how store brand things always say "Compare to -Expensive Brand- active ingredients." I did. Same drugs in the same amounts per capsule as Dayquil. Acetaminophen, Dexromethophan HBr, Phenylephrine HCl. It's exactly the same stuff, just HALF AS MUCH cause it's in a brown and white box instead of an orange one. And Acetaminophen? Yeah, that's straight up motherfucking Tylenol.

Step 3) Sleep as much as possible. I'm finding this harder than you would think. It's gotten about 50* in Milwaukee, which means it's about 80* in my apartment an 4000% humidity (This may or may not be a fever-induced exaggeration). And my brain is generally refusing to shut down and sleep. Asshole brain.

Step 4) Wash my sheets. As it was 80* out yesterday (glorious! I wore shorts :D ) I now have the uncontrollable urge to SPRING CLEAN ALL THE THINGS. I just got the image of myself hanging sheets on a line in my backyard to dry. Don't understand it, but there you go.

Step 5) Eat an orange. Eat some soup. Eat some rice. EAT ALL THE THINGS I WANT CAUSE MY BODY NEEDS MORE CALORIES THAN USUAL BECAUSE FIGHTING OFF ILLNESS IS WORK TOO.

Step 6) Rock all my tests.

Here is a another step-by-step chronicle of something that I have done.
Today's topic: Egg in a Basket
When: Last night
Occasion: Dinner

I don't have cookie cutters, so I used a cup to make the hole. No fun shapes but points for imagination!

Flipped. Of course it is burnt on one edge of the toast and not cooked on the other.

Yolk = Perfect.

I feel like I'm getting sick. Really body? Really? This cannot be happening right now:
Monday: Physics Exam
Tuesday: Exercise Prescription/EKG Exam, Physics Lab, General Medicine Practical Exam, Cognitive and Motor Learning Qziz
Thursday: General Medicine Project due
I have WAY TOO MUCH SHIT TO DO to be stuck in bed with a fever.

I'll take a shower. Showers fix everything right?

And then I thought, maybe I should wash my sheets too. GUESS WHO HAS NO QUARTERS AND IT IS SUNDAY SO SHE CAN'T GO TO THE BANK!

Watching some childrens play soccer. It was miserably cold and in the five hours I was there I gave out two ice bags. I've got about an hour and a half left of the break in the games before I have to be back down at Valley Fields for the last game. But when the check for over $100 comes from Marquette Soccer School, six hours at valley will be totally worth it.

I would apologize about the quality of this photo, but when it was taken, I was just about too cold to function, so deal with it.

body image

Today I made an almost perfect over-easy egg for breakfast. The bottom may have been slightly burnt, but the yolk was still runny enough to dip a slice of toast in. Until now I had been having problems with the yolk, it always ended up being cooked too long and therefore was undipable.

Sometimes, I wish my shoulders weren't so broad and I did have pec muscles, or deltoids, or biceps. Sometimes I see what other girls on campus are wearing and wonder why I've never been able to fit into the cute things. For as long as I can remember, if I buy a nice-type shirt (a fabric other than cotton) it will either fit in the waist, or it will fit across the shoulders. Never both. Never. If I want a button down shirt that I have full motion of my arms with, the waist is baggy and simply looks too big. If I buy a shirt that is fitted to my waist, I can barely squeeze my arms into it, and buttoning it over my chest is laughable.
If I buy pants that fit over my butt and hips, you can bet there is a 2 to 3 inch gap between the waist of the pants and my body. I have no idea what it is like to have pants that fit in the waist, because if I were to get that size, I couldn't get them up past the middle of my thighs.
I've always been built like this. When I was little, I would get my pants from the boys section because that was the only way they would be long enough in the leg yet stay up. I will always be built like this. Whenever I go shopping with my mom we'll have me try on pair of pants after pair after pair and none of them fit right, and she reassures me that one day I will find the brand that fits my Schaff-built lower half.

But then I'll pull out my Slim-Cut Men's size Small cotton t-shirt I got last fall from working with Men's Soccer. And the seems on my shoulders will fall where they are supposed to, the shirt doesn't billow away from my sides but rather follows my ribs down to my waist, because it is a men's shirt there's not an awkward maybe/maybe not too short gap between the hem of my shirt and the waist of my pants. I'll pull on a sports bra that doesn't judge the fact that my boobs are not exactly the same size and not perfectly positioned on my chest like a regular bra does. I'll pull on an underarmor long sleeve shirt that stretches over my shoulders and hugs my torso perfectly.
And I feel sexier being an athlete than I ever have trying to be a girl.

Today is the fifth birthday that Drew has had while we have been dating.
Today is the fifth time that I cannot be with him.

Chroni-WHAT-cles of Narnia!

Not really. There is no magical wardrobe in my apartment that leads to Narnia. There isn't a wardrobe in my apartment at all actually. And I do not care for the series.
This is a chronicle of my Walk to Class.

Look at the clock, it takes me about 7 minutes to walk to this particular class, but I figure if I am chronicling then I should give myself some extra time:

Lock the door because I definitely trust no one in this apartment complex not to enter my apartment and steal things:

Very blurry hallway:

Down the stairs from the third floor. This is always an indicator of how my knee is doing. I can feel fine walking around, but if my knee hurts as I go down the stairs on my way to the gym I know running is for sure out:

Check for coupons. Today there was one for milk!

Wonder why I live in such a shit-hole place. The more I talk to people the more they just feel bad that my whole preception of Wisconsin is almost-wrong-side-of-the-tracks-Milwaukee. They all promise me the rest of the state is very nice.

Take the random warn-down path that cuts a grand 30 seconds off my travel time:

Cross the street, watch for cars pulling out of the student parking lot to the right and the dental school parking lot to the left:

Envy the Camaro in the dental school parking lot:

Change music to The Rolling Stones:

Dental school. Think about how I need to inquire about whether or not they offer very cheap cleanings performed by the dental students:

Worry about spontaniously turning into a gypsy and bursting into interpretive dance, which would involve lots of slow twirling in circles, while I listen to Paint It Black.

Think about how you can see at least 1 Blue Light phone where ever you are on campus:

Arrive at Cramer Hall for General Medicine in Athletic Training.

Guess who has to be in class in 5 hours!
Guess who is WIDE FUCKING AWAKE!

Um, yup. That would be me.

Perhaps I am falling back into the manic/depressive cycles that dominated sophomore year. That would be fine really. If this is the start of manic mode, then I'll be GOGOGOGOGO!! for about 5-8 days. That will get me through my physics, exercise prescription, general medicine, and cog motor exams next week. Then I can fall into depressive mode and sleep all weekend.

Or I'm just JACKED UP on all the cortisol that's being released into my system thanks to the fact that yesterday I went into OH GOD NO NOT ENOUGH TIME LEFT IN SCHOOL TO DO IT ALL!! Which is silly of me to think, because my Gen. Med project/poster is finished over a week early and my tests next week aren't going to be that difficult. Maybe my system is realizing it DOESN'T need the stress hormone and is now unsure of what to do with it, because I am not currently stressing.

Maybe I should just stop taking naps at 8 o'clock at night.

What an excellent idea random newspaper! I fully believe the best part about birthdays/chirstmas/thanksgiving/celebrations is that there is leftover cake or pie in the fridge and when there is leftover cake or pie you are always allowed to eat it even if you are 7 and you have to go to school that day it didn't even matter in my family cause we love food.


But this is why I don't have nice things:

Did the plate break? Of course not, plates and glasses never break when I drop them. It just made a mess.