2005 Meme

Man, I've got some luck. Here's why. I've never really done anything on New Year's Eve for a couple of reasons 1)I'm lame/like staying at home and 2) the opportunity never really presented itself. So, this year I actually have plans and now I am sick. I'm going to tough it out, but damn it. WHY?! Anyway, so I stole this from K.

1. What did you do in 2005 that you'd never done before?
Hmm,... Well lots of things but I think my favorite was the massage. That was nice.


2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't think I made any resolutions last year. I think I might this year but am not sure.


3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yep, my friend's baby is 6 months now too. I can't believe it.


4. Did anyone close to you die?
yes

5. What countries did you visit?
Countries? I stayed in the U.S.


6. What would you like to have in 2006 that you lacked in 2005?
Willpower


7. What dates from 2005 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
End of first year of med school, birth of friend's baby, Hawaii, seeing my first patient


8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Not failing out of school and getting complimenting on my clinical skills


9. What was your biggest failure?
Stressing/being to hard on myself


10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
yeah, I guess so


11. What was the best thing you bought?
I'll have to agree with K, my kitty.


12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
As much as I hate saying this, Oprah. She has helped a lot of people (even if I don't like her)


13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
President Bush


14. Where did most of your money go?
I'd say tuition but since I never actually saw that money...furnishing my apartment


15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Hawaii, breaks from school. Is that it? I guess I am just not an excitable kind of gal.


16. What song will always remind you of 2005?
Hollaback girl. Man I hated that song by they played it all the time.


17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder?
happier
b) thinner or fatter?
fatter damn it.
c) richer or poorer?
poorer and I am just going to keep getting poorer for a couple more years


18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
spending time with family


19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
stressing

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
I spent it with my family.

21. Did you fall in love in 2005?
nope. almost could've, but luckily no.


22. How many one-night stands?
nope


23. What was your favorite TV program?
House


24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
hate isn't the word I would use.

25. What was the best book you read?
I liked a lot of books but can't remember them. I think the new Harry Potter


26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
I don't venture out much


27. What did you want and get?
To be in a relationship and honestly it was only ok


28. What did you want and not get?
having enough money to pay my bills


29. What was your favorite film of this year?
I haven't really seen too many movies. The movie I hated, The History of Violence.


30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Let's see. I turned 23 and spent the day at home (possibly on a heart monitor if I remember right).


31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
If I had a better attitude then I think I would be more satisfied with what I've got.


32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2005?
Ha Ha. If it still fits, then I'm going to wear it. I'm still sporting the cardigans. I guess I've ventured into wearing earrings if that counts as a fashion concept.


33. What kept you sane?
My friends and family. Seriously, without them I don't know where I would be.


34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
You know, I don't really have any celebrity crushes right now. That's kind of sad. I guess I kinda like Keith Urban and the guy who plays Dr. House is kinda hot in an old British guy kinda way


35. What political issue stirred you the most?
Close-mindedness. Not really a political issue but that's what bothered me the most.


36. Who did you miss?
I moved farther away from all of my family and most of my friends. I think I've missed everyone.


37. Who was the best new person you met?
to be honest with myself E. I learned a lot from him. Mostly that guys can't be trusted, but still.


38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2005:
Always remember what is most important to you. Don't sacrifice what's important.


39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
"Cause days go by so take them by the hand and live your life. Don't let them all fly by."
"There's some things that I regret, Some words I wish had gone unsaid, Some starts,
That had some better endings, "

Part 2: Games

So, I have this problem that whenever I sit at my computer to post something I always forget what I wanted to say. This happened about an hour ago. Then I got in the shower and remembered what I wanted to say. You may disregard the previous post if you'd like since it is just rambling. This one should be more interesting.

Over the holidays, I played a lot of games. No one in my family really likes to play games except for me so this was a big deal. I love games. Card games, board games, trivia games I like them all. I'm not very good at most of them but they are still fun. My mom said that as a kid she always remembers playing marbles so we got the game Aggravation. Basically, you have to navigate the marbles around the board and get them home. Well, our game was the souped up version with an added obstacle, my kitty. She decided she wanted to play too, so whenever a marble was moved on the board close to where she was sitting she'd bat at it. Since she was on me, I got to spend the most time replacing my marbles, but I still managed to win a couple of times.

We played Scrabble on Christmas evening. My brother-in-law told me he didn't want to play with me because I could make up words and he wouldn't know. Well, not to worry about that with words like dike (the water kind) and horny (as in animals) I was not the winner. And, apparently the sport LUGE is not spelled LOOGE. We also played poker and I lost $1. Yes, my family are a bunch of high-rollers.

My favorite game this weekend was Operation. Does anyone remember this game? There's this man who has all sorts of "ailments" that you fix by pulling out little plastic pieces from holes all over his body. If you touch the metal around the edge of the holes, he buzzes and his nose lights up. It's actually a lot harder than you'd think. No matter how many times we played, no one could get the "charlie horse." Let me know if you've played this game and have managed to get that one. One of the interesting ailments is the bread basket. This one is in his groin region. What is this all about? Charlie horse, wrenched ankle, and writer's cramp I understand. But bread basket? I've got an idea, but I'm thinking that it might be inappropriate for a little kids game. I didn't win this game the first time either. I did when the second time because I learned how to cheat. See, the game has two sets of cards. You draw a doctor card that tells you what operation you preform each round and how much money you get for it. You deal out specialist cards to everyone and these are the "operations" that they specialize in. So if the "doctor" can't get the piece, the specialist gets to right and gets twice the money the doctor would have won. So I figured, if I drew an operation I was a specialist in, why try to get it the first time? Why not botch the first surgery so that I can get twice the money the second time as a specialist? Nice thinking for a future doctor, huh?

Another uneventful holiday has come and gone. Don't get me wrong, I had a good day, but I think every year I am a little sad that the magic is gone from Christmas. I think too many people get wrapped up in all of the preparations that it becomes a hassle. I, for one, didn't have that this year. I did a lot of cooking, but I had the luxury of spreading it out over a couple of days while the family was working. I didn't have to host, so that took away a lot of stress. I just kind of went along for the ride this year. The best part for me wasn't opening gifts, I honestly don't remember what gifts were exchanged (not that I am ungrateful), but just watching the niece and nephew play. It's amazing how much having little kids around changes the dynamics.

I did try to brave the crowds yesterday to buy some things on sale. That was a disaster! I don't like crowds anyway, but then add to it that I had a headache and was just generally cranky. Let's just say that I drove home with just as much money as I left with. I think maybe I'll just try to do some online shopping.

I think tomorrow kitty and I are going to make the trek back up to Rockford. I'm not sure what my plans are for this weekend, but I am guessing I'll probably be driving down to Bloomington. If I don't see y'all, have a happy new year.

My Christmas Post.

Well, I've been spending the last few days with at my parent's house. No offense to them, but i remember now why I used to be bored all the time. Bement is boring. I was thinking that i would come home early and study a few days before Christmas. That was before I realized that there would be no place to study here. I have this problem where I can't study if there is a TV within the building so studying in their house is out of the question. The only coffee shop within 20 miles isn't open during the day. Yeah, they are only open at night. Makes a lot of sense doesn't it. So, I've been forced by factors outside of my control to not study :)

I have been reading a lot though. It's nice to actually be able to sit down and read whatever I want. I've gotten through 3 books since I got home which is pretty good for me since I tend to fall asleep if I read longer than an hour. The next book I'm starting is the Da Vince Code. I have mixed feelings about it since it has been such the fad lately. I'm not usually into reading the books everyone talks about, but my friend told me it was geniunely good, so we'll see.

As you can tell so far, the most exciting thing I've been doing is reading. I did bring Isabelle with me and she has provided some comic relief. Most notably, the other night when she made a flying leap onto the Christmas tree. Luckily for her, it didn't fall over. I think she is enjoying my being here more than me. I'm going to feel guilty when I take her back next week.

I most likely won't post again before Sunday so Merry Christmas to everyone. If you don't celebrate Christmas then I guess enjoy your completely un-Christmas related time off.

Next time around I'll do it differently

Have you ever had one of those days that starts out bad and then just keeps getting worse? Today has been one of those for me. I got up this morning and went to put on a pair of jeans and they didn't fit. Now, I know for a fact I wore these exact jeans less than 2 wks ago and they fit. So, either I've packed on the pounds or shrunk them in the dryer. I'm hoping for the latter, but most likely it's a little of both. Either way, now they don't fit. Sure I can get them on, but they look BAD. So now I'm thinking. Did they look like this last time I wore them and I somehow skipped the mirror in the morning? Anyway, so after that I decided to balance my checkbook and write out some bills. Oh, that's always a great way to brighten up the morning. So then I go out to my car to head to class and the dickheads haven't plowed the driveway (did I mention that it snowed all day). So now my pants get soaked (obviously not the tight pants) and I have to go to class in wet clothes. I get to class and the instructor for the first 2 hours got stuck in the ditch and class is cancelled. That would've been nice to know before I drug my ass out of bed at 6:30. So I went to Barnes & Noble hoping for a pumpkin spice latte to kill time. Well, apparently it's seasonal but not this season. I guess I'm the only one who likes pumpkin pie after Thanksgiving. But, the girl behind the counter suggested the gingerbread latte which is "just as good." Okay, so I tried that. Umm, not a fan. It was not good when I drank it, and it is even worse now as I am still burping it up (sorry for that).

The day wasn't a total bust. I got a new book that I am loving. It's called Spook by Mary Roach. She's basically looking at different theories/experiments others have done to try to find peoples' souls. For example, one experiment involved putting dying people on a scale to see if at the time of death, they lost weight thereby showing how much the soul weighs. Obviously this was done about 100 years ago because no one would get that kind of experiment approved today. Mary Roach is writing this from the point of view of someone who doesn't really believe in "afterlife" (this she explains at the very beginning) so she looks at all kinds of beliefs including reincarnation. It's really interesting and actually kinda funny. Her other book, Stiff, I also liked a lot. It was her researching what happens to the human body after death. Cool if you can handle gross/graphic descriptions.

Looking back

So, I stole this idea from a friend's blog but I thought it might be interesting especially since I haven't blogged in a while. Will try to post a new one soon (maybe tonight) since I'm pretty much done with all of my important projects until after Christmas.

Instructions: take the first sentence (or 2) from the first post of each month of 2005.

January: Wow, I can't believe it's been three weeks already. I feel like I was so busy during my time off, but I honestly can not remember what I did.

February: Yes, I am indeed still alive and kicking. Actually, kicking is exactly what I'd like to be doing right now. I have a huge presentation tomorrow and as of 8pm, my co-presenter was not finished with his part.

March: So, something happened to me to today that I just had to address. That's right, I was discriminated against based on my skin color. Oh yes, it was awful. Those of you who know me, may ask, but Janet you are white. Indeed! That my friends is the problem.

April: 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.

May: My finals week actually turned into two weeks and I just am so grouchy from studying. Seriously, my routine for the past two weeks has been either 1)spend all day studying and complaining about studying or 2)take a test in the morning and spend the rest of the day studying/complaining.

Summer: I got a little sporadic in posting So, after spending most of my summer in Bloomington, I have now finally moved up to Rockford. I of course still do not have internet at my apartment

August: So, I got my kitty yesterday. She's so good that she hasn't had an accident yet and seems to be adjusting well. I am having a problem with her though. I think she has gotten too attached to me (if that is possible).

September: So, I took a quiz to find out if I am naughty or nice. Here's what it said. You are 69% Naughty

October: So, the past few weeks have proven that you should never trust older students. I don't know what they were talking about, but it's bullshit that you won't be busy during your second year.

November: Just a quick update for everyone so that you don't think that I quit school and ran off to Vegas. Far from it actually. I'm still here in Rockford studying my life away. I've begun working in the clinics and am getting a taste of my future already i.e. I've consistently been leaving clinic an hour and a half late.

December: Well, I've got nothing yet except this blog but I won't repeat the first lines.

This exercise has proven to me that I should blog more.