Secrets

As I was procrastinating today by surfing around, I found this blog. Basically, people send in a homemade postcard with one of their big secrets and the blog posts a copy of their postcard. I think this is such an interesting idea. I mean, come on, all of us have some secret that we haven't told anyone whether it is a big secret like a secret love or a little quirk like having a foot obsession. This website gives you an opportunity to feel the release of telling your secret yet not letting anyone close to you find out. I think this is cool. I've been trying to figure out what my big secret is. I fill like I'm pretty open. If I come up with a secret, I'm definately going to send it in because I think this is a great way to release some guilt/anxiety. You should check this website out when you have some free time. If you have a secret weighing on your mind, maybe sending it in will help. If not, this will at least make you stop and think about your life.

What?!

Well, this is probably some sort of record or something, I am writing twice in a week. This coming on a 13-hour day today. Basically, I figure if I'm gone for 13-hours, I don't need to do any more work tonight. Oh, something amazing happened to me today. I actually forgot to eat. It was the strangest thing. I was working in the lab and then gave a presentation and then finally at 5pm at my review session I realized that I forgot lunch. I remember my advisor last year used to say that she would forget to eat and I thought that was crazy. I guess I'm crazy. Although, I made up for not eating all day by getting fast-food for dinner and drinking wine now (hey, I gotta wind down somehow).

Here's something funny that happened on my way home tonight. I was sitting at a red light and the car stopped next to me just suddenly drove through. I know we've all seen someone drive through a red light, but what was weird about this was that he was stopped and then just suddenly decided to drive through. There was no green arrow and the light was still green from the other direction. The guy just decided that he'd sat long enough and drove through. What was funny was that the next light was red so when my light turned green, I stopped next to him at the next light. I mean, the guy didn't save any time. I was cracking up when I pulled up next to him and he looked at me like I was crazy. I guess this is a "you had to be there" story isn't it?

Okay, here's an issue I've wanted to write about for a long time, but never quite knew what to say, but I'll give it a shot. I'm talking about gun laws. A couple of weeks back, I started thinking about this because a student group on campus held a raffle for a semi-automatic assault rifle. This was just a fundraiser for them and they say nothing strange about it (it was a fundraiser for a conservative newspaper, not that the specifics matter). Needless to say, many people were upset by this. Now, I understand that people have the right to own guns. But my personal opinion is that they were raffling off guns to immature, drunk, frat boys who had never owned guns. These types of guys don't seem mature enough to me to handle guns. The guy who won the gun had never owned a gun and didn't have a permit. He obviously had to fill out the paper work to get it. The part that really offended me was that the people in charge of the raffle said that if everyone had a guns, this would prevent rape. Actually, here's his quote, "God made man and woman," stated Observer editor Leo Buchignani in a March 31 press release about the AK-47 raffle. "Smith and Wesson made them equal. For the first time in history, handguns neutralize the male strength advantage over women. I don't understand why all feminists don't arm themselves." So, correct me if I'm wrong but isn't he saying that since me are naturally superior to women, we must arm ourselves. Ok, come on, tell me that isn't offensive. Here's a link to the article. Then I heard this morning about the new law signed in Florida by the other Bush that allows people to "defend themselves" on the street and not just in their house. The allows people to "meet force with force, including deadly force if they reasonably believe it is necessary to do so." Okay, define "reasonably believe it is necessary" because to me, I bet some drunk guys (or girls) are going to get into bar fights and threaten each other. If said drunk happens to have a gun, he may "believe it necessary" to shoot the other guy. I really don't see this helping anyone. I know the idea is to allow "victims" to arm themselves against criminals, but honestly, most victims of violent crimes and rapes know their assailant. And if they don't, do you think they will think clearly enough to be able to shoot them? I know I probably wouldn't. I'm not saying that I think people shouldn't be allowed to own guns, I just think there should be some sort of class you should have to take before you own a gun. Hell, you have to take a class before you get a driver's license.

Okay, I'm getting long winded here. Please leave your opinion and feel free to disagree with me.

blah, blah

Do you ever have one of those days that you know the second you wake up it is going to be a bad day? This was one of those days. Nothing in particular made it bad, I just wish I could have skipped it all together. To start out, I knew that it was going to be a long day, and I probably wouldn't get home until about 9pm. Plus, I had to begin a new section of dissecting today. I had everything all planned out and knew exactly what I was going to get done. Um, yeah, that didn't happen. I didn't get nearly as much dissecting done as I thought nor did I get my presentation for Wednesday done. I just kind of drifted along today. I think I need a swift kick in the butt to get me going. It doesn't help that I hear other grad students talking about being almost done, and I still have a month left. Of course, I really need that time to get prepared.

On a happier note, I threw a baby shower for my friend Sarah on Saturday. It went very smoothly, and I think that everyone had a great time. I'm now up to three showers that I've hosted/co-hosted. I think I'm finally getting good at it. I've finally figured out all of the things that you should prepare for and problems to anticipate. Of course, I think I'm done with showers for awhile since most of my friends are married off or single. None of you married folk are expecting children, right? I'm now convinced that if I don't marry about 30, I'm going to throw myself a shower anyway. Why should I not be celebrated just because I'm not married or expecting?

Speaking of being married, I've been having this problem recently. I seem to only be attracted to men who are either married or engaged. What's wrong with me? Am I some sort of masochist? Seriously, there are plenty of single men out there I'm sure, but me, I just want the ones that are taken.

Now that I've spent twenty minutes procrastinating, I should probably get back to studying the head. It's amazing how complex our heads are. So many holes and bumps that all have their own name. It's ridiculous that there are probably about 200 named parts of or associated with the skull.

Cutting and Picking

Cutting and picking seem to be all that I've been doing the past week and a half. This week we got to do the most interesting dissections. Without going into details, they are quite gruesome. (actually I'm going to go into a little detail so if you are easily grossed out skip to the next paragraph). Anyway, my part to dissect involves removing the pharnyx with the tongue still attached. So, basically I now have a tube with a tongue on the end. The other dissection, well, it separated the head/mouth/pharnyx from the spinal column. I'll leave the rest to your imagination. The point of me telling you about this is that I think I have the most interesting portion to dissection. Everyone else just had to clean stuff out, I actually had to rip and pull to separate stuff. I mean, seriously, I'm never going to do this again. There is NO surgery that involves ripping the tongue out of someone.

As weird as this sounds, I'm not enjoying spring. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the warm weather and sunshine but it's causing me troubles. For one thing, it is really hard to stay motivated when it is so nice outside. Plus, my allergies are driving me crazy. We actually took a poll in class today people who suffer from allergies. It is estimated that only about 15% of people have allergies. In my class, well over half of the class have allergies. Doesn't that just act to perpetuate the stereotype of geeks being sickly? Because I'll tell ya, we are all geeks and I love it!

So, George W (or as Sarah calls him "Bushy Bear") was in IL today at the opening of the Lincoln Library. It's not the "official" Lincoln Presidential library, more of a tourist attraction from what I understand. Just in case you didn't know, downstate IL loves their Lincoln attractions. Close to my town there is actually a monument marking the place where Lincoln and Douglas passed each other and stopped to talk on their way to a debate. This just makes me wonder if this visit was just an act to try to gain support from the IL democrats. Of course, I guess I'd probably do the same thing.

It's all about the jaw

I'm feeling a bit scattered right now, so here are some of my thoughts.

-For the past 4 days my mouth/jaw/tooth has been bothering me. I woke up Sunday and my jaw hurt and then it started to get worse. By Monday night, I was almost in tears because it hurt so bad. So, I called my mom and had her make me a dentist appointment (she works for a dentist, no I don't usually have my mom make all my appointments for me). I figured yesterday that it was my wisdom tooth and it would need to be taken out. Which I was fine with because it would stop the pain. So, this morning I woke up to get ready to go to my appointment and guess what. The pain was gone. It turns out that I have jaw problems that are aggravated by me grinding/clenching my teeth. I didn't know that I did that, but that's what the doc says. So, now I have to wear this splint thing at night to keep from doing that. Well, I should say I WILL wear this when I get it which won't be until after my finals are over. Of course, by then I won't be stressed and probably won't be clenching my teeth anymore. Plus, if the pain comes back between now and then there really isn't much I can do about. Not that I wanted to have a tooth pulled, it just would be nice if the problem would be fixed now so I won't have to deal with pain anymore.

-I started dissecting this week. Basically what this means is that eventhough I've been going into the lab to find structures and study all along, now it's my turn to clean everything out. It's hard to explain, but trust me it's a pain in the butt. Although on the upside, I got to use a bone saw today. Actually, I got to cut the mandible (jaw). Which is somewhat ironic considering the jaw issues I'm having now...

-So, as some people know, I was conned into signing up for an online dating thing a few months back. Basically, I'm addicted to personality tests and they had a free test. Well it's kinda free, but then they start "matching" you up with people and get you to want to talk to them, but of course you can't until you pay. So, I thought what the hell, why not? Well, I let my subscription expire today. Actually, I cancelled it because I was getting like 5 matches a day and it was just annoying me. See what's funny is supposedly it some scientific matching system, but yet I ended up with over 120 matches for the 3 months I was doing it. Is it really possible that many guys are "perfect" for me? And if so, why can I not meet them on my own? I wonder about this whole matching deal as it is anyway. I was talking to a guy I met online for a couple of months and honestly we weren't a good match. I mean, he was nice and interesting and probably a great guy but he wasn't a good match for me. We had very different backgrounds, beliefs, etc. and I wonder on what basis the website decided we would be a good match. While I did not find love on the internet, I did learn some things about myself. 1) I'm not even close to being ready to get married. It seemed like most of the guys I talked to were itching to get hitched. That freaked me out. 2)I like my independence and freedom. 3) I'm not a fan of terms of endearment. I never really knew that until someone called me baby. Apparently I don't like that sort of thing.

Well, I'm going to crawl into bed and read for awhile.

Motivate Me

Okay, so I'm having some serious motivation issues. I can't seem to get motivated to study. I'll start and it'll last about an hour and then I'm spent. So, I thought I'd post some motivational quotes that I've found for a couple of reasons. 1) because I can't think of anything interesting on my own, 2)maybe this will rub off on me. Please, feel free to leave me some words of motivation, inspiration, encouragement, or just chew my ass out until I start studying.

"Do not settle for what you know, but rather strive for the unknown." -Isabel Chagoya

"In order to be talented, you must practice your passion." -Phame Marie

"Nobody remembers who finished second except for the guy who finished second." -Bobby Unser

" Commit yourself to a dream. Nobody who tries to do something great but fails is a total failure. Why? Because he can always rest assured that he succeeded in life's most important battle - he defeated the fear of trying."

"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan, 'Press on,' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race"
--Calvin Coolidge

Robert H. Schuller

"People always told me, be careful what you do..."

If you hadn't already guessed from the title of this entry, I've been listening to Michael Jackson. I'm talking, mid 80's Michael. You know, still black, pre-nose job Michael. No matter what you think about his personal life, you have to admit that he's a talented singer. I chose this line from Billie Jean because it seemed appropriate. Last night, I wasn't exactly careful about my drinking. I went to watch the Illini kick Louisville's ass with my parents. So, obviously I wasn't planning on drinking that much. But somehow the combination of free shots from the bar and then a post-game beer with my friend I ended up a little too "tipsy." The thing is, this all happened before 9pm. So, I went to bed and woke up at 1am with a massive hangover. So dragged me butt out of bed to get some water and Advil. I could hear people outside celebrating still. It's a really strange feeling to be hungover and listening to people still up partying. I guess normally I don't get the post drinking headache until the next morning when everyone else is still sleeping. Anyway, I know better now. I think the real reason my head hurt so bad is that it kinda hurt when I started drinking. Stupid I know.

I've been thrown off all day by the time change. I woke up today at 9:30. This is crazy for me considering all during break when I could sleep as late as I wanted I was still up before 7. Then, I got ready and went to the lab and grocery shopping and by the time I got home it was 3:30. Where did the time go? I guess that's what happens when you get up so late. At least it's still sunny now. It seems strange to be done with dinner and have the sun out still. I forgot how much I love the long sunny days.

Speaking of dinner and the whole "be careful" theme, I burnt my finger pretty bad again tonight. I always seem to forget that the foil you put over your food in the oven is going to be hot just like the pan. You'd think after the first 10 times I would have learned, but no.

I'm going to start whitening my teeth this week. I got the premium strips that are supposed to work in 1 week. We'll see how that goes. I've whitened my teeth before and they got really sensitive so I'm going to have to avoid coffee and ice cream this week. That will be tough.

Listening to Thriller just reminded me the mention that my parents came over yesterday for the med school's family day, and I got them to come into the cadaver lab with me. I think they thought it was interesting. I forget sometimes that it isn't normal for everyone to have the same fascination with them as me, but I think they weren't too bothered by it. What's sad is that they were complaining about the smell and I was actually thinking that I couldn't smell anything. Strange the things that you can get used to.

Well enough of the procrastinating, i gotta get back to work.