Yes I am here, not often and I only skim mostly, but that does not mean I dont still love you, it means I dont have a computer and that I am not taking class, just working full time.
Things are going well for me for the first time in so long. I am having a great birthday. I worked an ovwr night last night and I work another tonight, but I came ovwer to michelle's and we had a cook out this afternoon and we played darts and listened to music and she got me flowers and made me a cake. I am glad to have friends around again.
Romance is still not a highlight of my life, but maybe if i met JOHN CUSACK things woulod change. I WANT TO GO, if I can.
You scored as Modernist, Modernism represents the thought that science and reason are all we need to carry on. Religion is unnecessary and any sort of spirituality halts progress. You believe everything has a rational explanation. 50% of Americans share your world-view.
About the cat
His name is Fruitbat. We got him from an animal rescue place off Knapp. He is almost 14 weeks old. He is adorable and love climbing on walking on keyboards while Nick and Ben are in an instance.
I have pics and video but I am supposed to be writing a 7-10 page paper and I'm not feeling too great so you will probably see them tomorrow or later this week.
Guy #1: It may take a few tries, but it works -- you can flush them down the toilet.
Guy #2: I didn't think you could flush something, y'know -- solid. Don't they jam up the toilet?
Guy #1: Nope. I guess they're not big enough, or maybe I've been lucky, but I've never had a problem.
Guy #2: If you're going to kill them anyway, I don't see why you have those live traps.
Guy #1: Sherry won't let me get regular traps, so I don't tell her I'm flushing the mice, and everything's cool. I just tell her I'm setting them loose outside.
My eulogy
Eleven years ago, my dad saw a sign advertising free kittens. He took me, Hannah and Buddy down to check them out. It had been about a year since we moved to Michigan and my mom and I really wanted a cat.
They only had two or so cats left. We chose one, a nice little black kitty and took him home.
I held him on the car ride home. Hannah said that's what made him so mean, I hogged him all to myself. I named him McHenry. McHenry, Illinois was where we had lived for the longest amount of time, three years, and the place I loved the most.
He was mean. I think it was because he was born to be a barn cat and the house was his hunting grounds. You had to watch yourself in the hallway, if you walked past him anywhere in the house and on the stairs. He would leap at your shin or your ankles and take a nice bite out of you. You couldn't pet him for too long or he bit you.
And don't even think about picking him up.
He killed a mouse once and put it by my shoes. I loved him no matter what, every one else feared for their lives.
The vet said that he might calm down if we got another cat. They had a runt named Shelby so we took her home. He beat on her for a while but he'd still beat us up.
Once we couldn't find him and Mom thought he'd snuck out of the house. I looked all over the neighborhood but couldn't find him. I came home and Mom said he had been hiding in a basket.
Shelby's kidneys began to fail and we put her to sleep when I was in sixth grade. A little while later, we got the Maine Coons: Scully and Mr. Lunt. He was a little better but still mean.
We moved and Mom had to put gloves on to get him in the cat carrier.
A few years ago, he got out of the house somehow. We couldn't find him and this time he was really lost. We put food and water outside for him and Hannah spotted him one day. He came back and he was changed. Maybe it was overnight but he'd been changing for a while. We didn't have to watch our backs anymore (although reflexively we still did) and the hallways were safe again.
We could even pick him up for a second or two.
Everyone thought they could tame him. Nathaniel's friends would come over, see him, pet him and say, "I think he likes me" right before he'd strike. And they kept denying it. "No, I think he really like ME. Of everyone else, he likes me." Like they could fix him.
Over the past year, he began to forget that we fed him. I told Mom that it wasn't that he forgot, he couldn't see. My poor kitty was nearsighted. He stuck his paw in water instead of drinking it out of the bowl. He would beg at the dog gate even when we had just fed him.
I got back from France and learned that he had begun to fall over. You would pet him and all of a sudden he would become unsteady on his feet and fall on his side. It wasn't the cat thing where they throw themselves on the floor to be petted. He was falling. He would be lying down and as you began to pet him, he'd try to stand and fall over.
It was funny at first.
I moved out. A week or so ago, I called Hannah to chat and she told me that McHenry fell down the stairs and cried about it. She seemed upset that he cried about it. Mom said she tried to pick him up but he wouldn't let her. She was going to have him put to sleep that Wednesday but she felt bad about not telling us.
Mom told me yesterday that he stopped begging to be fed around the same time. She didn't know the last time he ate or drank.
Nathaniel said he threw up water.
Mom said she couldn't stand to see him without his alpha status. He lived for that.
So on Friday, Mom said she was going to put him to sleep this weekend. I was okay as long as I didn't think about it. I told Mom to call me before it happened. Saturday morning, I got a text message from Mom.
"Mickey is crossing over the river Styx at noon today. Should I bring him home for burial?"
I told her yes then called Nick and cried. I sat on the couch and stared at the clock. 11:00. 11:01. 11:02. 11:03. 11:04. 11:05. 11:06. 11:07. 11:08. The last time I saw him, Nick was petting him. I was in a hurry to leave. I wanted to see my kitty. I called Ben and asked him to give me a ride up to Rockford.
I paced. I couldn't sit still because then I would think about it.
I called Mom. Told her I was coming. She mentioned that she thought it would be right to bring him home. We hadn't done this with Shelby or any of the other cats. But we weren't old enough to care then.
I got to the house and found Mom outside. She was holding Mickey in a Queen Amidala towel. She said she took him outside for a walk around the neighborhood. She thought he should see outside before we left.
I held him for a long time. He kept meowing. He never meowed that much.
I never ever held him for that long.
I held him on the ride to the vet.
I held him at the vet. He kept meowing. He purred a little when Hannah pet him. Mom said maybe he should walk around a little for a while. I put him down and he walked to the corner and hid under a table.
Mom said she had never been able to go in with a pet when she had to put them to sleep. We decided we were going to take him home with us when it was all done.
Mom asked if we wanted to go in with him. I should've but couldn't. She asked if we wanted her to go in. I wanted her to but couldn't ask her to. She went in.
It took forever.
In the end, it was okay. I didn't cry afterward. He was all better. His pupils were dilated. He was okay.
Mom said they couldn't find a vein. He weighed 7 lbs. He tried to bite the vet. She said it was his last hurrah.
I held him on the car ride home. We buried him under a tree in the side yard. Hannah and I made a stone with his name on it.
And I was okay.
Until I got home.
It's off and on now. It was bad yesterday but it gets better.
I just miss him.
I held him on the car ride when we first got him and I held him during the car ride at the end.
I passed boards. This is amazing to me. Sometimes I sit back and it just hits me that I really am a nurse. Everything I have worked so hard for the last four years have been achieved. I'm at where I dreamed of being for so long. It's such a surreal feeling. What is next after this? Marriage, family? Not for me. I'm just going to live life now and try to save some money, take some trips, and enjoy life with the people I love.
Everyday at work I am amazed that people actually think I know what I am talking about. Sure, I have some experience but I talk to my patients and their families, and when I say things, they don't question it. The respect that people have for nurses surprises me. We talked about it in school but to experince it is another thing.
I really don't like my job. Today I am going in for day 7, which I want to scratch my eyes out because of this. The hospital is ok, the patients are fine, its the people I work with. They are just rude people. There are a lot of asian and indian people, and I know that there are different cultures, but it's not an environment that is nice. People don't work together, everyone complains all the time, and people say rude things. After I get off of orientation and start doing things on my own, I am going to look for a new job. There is no way I can stay at this job for a year. I'll be a meaner person I think. And definately really cynical.
Chicago is really fun! I just wish that I knew more people here to do things with. Kari and I basically have an opposite schedule, and I think we'll work opposite weekends. It gets lonely at times, but once I am on 12 hours shifts, I'm getting a pet. I can't decide between a cat or a dog, but I'll get something. Plus I'm thinking about getting another job so I can meet people my own age and make some friends down here. That's another thing about my job. Everyone is older, married, and has kids. Or they are single asian women who are just mean. No one I really want to hang out with after work. Even the nurses aids are all older with families. That's just not the scene I'm into, obviously. I'm into the going out and getting drunk scene.
A year ago I couldn't have imagined that my life would be this way now. I never would have thought that things would ever be going this well with Jason. I didn't think I would be in the position with him ever again. Yet here we are, together, having a great time together. While I'm really sad that I am away from him, I do not for one second regret moving here. I made this decision when we weren't dating, and I know this is what I wanted. I just don't think I would have been this happy with my life if I would have stayed in Grand Rapids. The question for me is what I want to do with my life after I'm done living in Chicago, whenever that is. I try not to think about it, as I am really enjoying living in the moment. The only adult thing I have to worry about is starting to pay back my loans next month and saving my money. That is really the only thing that makes me feel like an adult right now. Otherwise I'm in this limbo between college and adulthood, which I sort of like.
Off to work now, dreading every moment of it. I'm with a really neurotic nurse today, I hope that her stress doesn't rub off on me.
Well, today is the forst day of classes, I dont hve anything until tomarrow, yet my roomies puppy felt the need to wake me up at 7:42 this morning. Yay. I love that michelle and Jason put up the same pics from thwe bachelor party, but their comments were differnt and sometimes hilarious.
Rob has his chance with me and I am sad that he couldnt see what was there, but I guess I have learned from this and need to move on. He really just never moved out of the Prague mindset we established, and I felt like things couldnt stay the same when we got back and were living here.
Prague was amazing in every sense. It saved me in every way a person could be saved and I really think that maybe I was idealizing the people then it was actually the experience that was so meaningful. I found love there, but it was mostly that i learned to love myself again. I had lost the parts of me that were alive and fun and found them half way around the world. Now i need to keep a closer eye on myself and not get lost again.
I need to:
1. get school stuff situated for tomarrow.
2. talk to Rob.
3. get my schedule from Kohl's.
4. do laundry.
5. write...something...anything.
Since I have been back I have not been writing enough. It keeps me sane and that could be part of why I wasn't sane last year....at all.
Michelle and Jason I am glad I got to see you guys and I will let you know if I can come visit.
I overslept and missed my first class so I shall use this opportunity to do what I always do, talk about my classes.
I had 17 credits this semester but I just dropped a class so now I'm down to 14. This semester is pretty much just catching up on requirements.
On Mondays and Thursdays, I have Earth Environments at 10:50. This class seems exactly like my 9th grade science class. The professor is married to my fourth grade teacher. It's like a timewarp. That's the one I missed this morning.
I also have Intro to Communication at 12:15. This is a requirement so I don't really care. I'm trying to see if I can avoid buying the book at all. It's going well so far. I just wrote a min 2 page paper last night that turned into 4 pages.
After that I had a French class. I dropped it. Gasster taught it, not Pichot and her idea of contemporary Francophone literature was African colonization books from the fifties to the eighties. It was horrible. Plus the books were very difficult.
Then tonight I have Image Editing. It's my only fun class. It is way too easy. During the first class, we changed a picture to grayscale! And that was our assignment.
Tuesdays, I have Humanities at 8am. I have it with McMillan who is pretty much the easiest prof at AQ. This is another required class. It's actually a sophomore required class that I didn't take last year because of stupid France.
Then I have my lab at 1:40. He says we'll watch movies and walk along streams. That's as hard as that class gets really. The walking.
Tuesday nights I have my first quad. It's Theology of Christian Marriage and it is with the hardest theo prof. Yay for me. It runs from 6:30-10:30. My first paper, due tomorrow, is supposed to be 5 pages of what I expect marriage to be like. It is going to be a lot of blabbing.
Wednesdays I don't have any classes. I just work.
Thursdays are just like Mondays except I don't have Theology.
And on Friday, all I have is Humanities and then I work.
I work on Tuesdays and Thursdays too.
So yeah. This semester sucks. I have to give two TAPED speeches eventually in my communication class. It shouldn't be too bad. It is a required course so most people should be able to get As.
I'm going to go try to find clothes now. I love you all.
P.S. Nick's grandmother isn't doing very well. Please think happy thoughts for her. Thanks.
I can't wait until I'm 21. Then I'll be a real adult and get to go to any concert. I'll be past all stupid age limits. Ha ha, world, I scoff at your attempts to foil my plans!
I should go to bed now. It's actually almost 3. Not 7.
It was on the corner of E Beltline and Burton. It looked exactly like those stupid pictures and videos except its tail was brown and not cross-hatched. He was hanging out in a ditch on the side of the road by some marshy area.
Hannah says the government discovered that I was on to them and sent a robot to convince me.
I think she's right.
P.S. Changed my background. It's a picture I took in Venice. Sigh. I miss Europe.
A STORY!
I took my first ride from a stranger. It was like inadvertent hitchhiking.
I was on the bus and it started sprinkling a little bit and then, out of nowhere, POURED. I got off the bus and the driver suggested I take a schedule to use as a makeshift umbrella. I did. I walked five steps and my pants were soaked. I don't even know what my backpack is like, I should probably go air it out.
I got to E Beltline and the light just turned red so I had to wait. I was standing in the rain for maybe 15 seconds when a car pulled up and the driver started talking to me. It was a kind of old car and there were two kids in the back. He asked me how far I had to go, I said only down E Beltline. He offered me a ride and I accepted.
Maybe only Kelly will understand why I did this. It was raining, I was soaked, wearing a very light tank top and jeans, the light was red, I still had 479 yards to walk (1,437 feet) and I did not get any apprehensive/creepy feelings at all. Which is unusual for me because I worry about everything. He had two kids in the backseat, I had my cell phone and plenty of heavy books with which to whack him.
I got home fine and was filled with warm fuzzies about very kind people. People rock, the world is good, the end.
Now I have to wait until Nick gets home to get lectured.
I love you all.
P.S. I also have been overpaying for my bus rides and the bus driver was kind enough to point it out. She said that AQ students only pay 40 cents and the 10-ride card is basically 80 cents a ride. I only had a ten dollar bill so she said I can just pay twice tomorrow instead of overpaying. People are awesome!
I passed my nursing boards!!! I am officially a registered nurse and done with studying!! Woohoo!! I promise an update in the very near future of what is going on in my life.
