While browsing through my mom's computer

I came across these photos from my childhood.

I was quite the little cutie pie, wasn't I? Miss Jennifer and I recently revisited the subject of our idyllic childhoods. I think this one of me and my daddy captures that pretty well:

This is pretty much the epitome of my stylishness (that's me on the rock). I don't think my taste in clothes has evolved much farther since then:
I was a rather accomplished athlete once upon a time... you'll notice here that I'm about to shoot right past these three boys. Got my all-white racing suit on, I'm more than prepared to leave you, Mr. Pink Hat, and all your friends in the dust:

Definitely starting to enter my gangly/awkward period. Check out my subtle tribute to the Santa Cruz Fire Department. Not sure where that came from, but it certainly matches my shirt.

I actually like this photo because I am pretty sure that it was taken before my grandmother got sick, but after I was old enough to appreciate just how wonderful she really was.

Anyone else miss my long hair?

Will somebody remind me of this post the next time I think it will be a fun or interesting or good idea to chop my hair off?Every time I do it I remember why I spend the next 3-7 years growing it back. And then when it's long I start to think it might be cute short, and I would use less shampoo, and maybe now that I'm older and know more about hair care it will look better short than it did the last time. Not so.

Because I have grown it out and cut it short several times, I am sure this idea will cross my mind again. So when that happens, please, SOMEBODY SAVE ME FROM MYSELF.

Ready or not,

here I come!

You hear me, LA? I'm officially heading down on Tuesday. Provided I finish my final in the morning and my car ceases to make the funny whirring noise it's been producing within the past few days. Call or text me if you think your life might be enhanced by my presence. I usually provide snacks.

Happy Football Season To You!!!

I can't believe it's here already! To tell the truth, it actually snuck up on me a little bit. But is with absolute delight that I wish a very happy football season to you and yours! My Trojans took on the Virginia Cavaliers and made me very proud today indeed. And if I may say completely objectively, those boys looked good out there today. There were a few penalties and nonsense but overall we played like a team. Like a USC football team. With any luck we will have an exciting season and some good outcomes. But, to quote my friend Brian, "I don't believe in luck. We're USC. We believe in hard work, discipline, and Samoans."

FIGHT ON!!!

two down, one to go.

So it is possible that I may have had a case of the Mondays on Monday since today I'm feeling rather relaxed and happy and content. People were kind of irritating me the other day but I don't honestly believe that the kids in my class were trying to suggest that their lives are more important than mine. Maybe a couple people were, so to that effect I will say that I stand by my position that everyone's own time commitments are the most important to themselves and that's just the way it works. But otherwise we're good. Okay universe? We're good. I'm going to get through this week and and try not to revert to my case of the Crankypants.

We just had our Pharm Phinal (ha!) so that's two classes out of three that are done done Donepezil!!! We have two more days of clinical and Friday's clinical is actually shortened which I think is pretty nice. And then that last final on Tuesday and then I get my glorious break. Blah blah blah clever sentences about how exhausted I am.

Procrastination Daydreams

The great thing about having a final finish at 10 am? The rest of the day is free! The bad thing about having a final finish at 10 am? The rest of the day is free.... and you are much more likely to procrastinate studying for your next final (tomorrow). Or rather, I am. Which I have been. Clear?

Anyhow, I have another final tomorrow and then one next Tuesday and then the quarter is OVER!! And I am definitely, definitely ready for it to be. Have I mentioned that?!?

We get a little wee break in between quarters this time and there are about 25 thousand different things I would like to be doing with it. Okay, obviously that's an exaggeration-- but there are several different things I would like to do with this break, including:

- talk to people on the phone whom I have been ignoring

- eat Indian food

- eat sushi

- stay up late

- SLEEP. Glorious sleep.

- visit my parents. Fingers crossed that the weather will be nice enough to swim/ sun myself since I've gotten to do NONE of that this summer

- celebrate Miss Jennifer's 26th Birthday!!

- visit LA. Lots of people I love still live there. I would like to see them and I think they would like to see me. Plus, I owe LA a visit because we didn't part ways on the best of terms. You see, I think it was mad I was leaving and thus acted out toward me. My tires got slashed, my job started getting crazy and unpleasant, my social life got weird and difficult, and my car broke down with everything I owned (that the movers had not taken) in it. Including, but not limited to my clothes, my grandmother's charm bracelet, a dvd player, 2 bottles of vodka, my signed Matt Leinart jersey, and a little box of cash. Since it was 5:30 pm, there was only one little place open. So we paid almost $800 and waited 3 and a half hours in Culver City for my car to get a new Radiator (and other stuff(?)). LA, you'll always have a special place in my heart-- can we call a truce please?

- visit San Diego

- shop

- Do some of those "fun San Francisco things" that I haven't done because I either haven't had time or didn't know they existed.

- exercise

- eat a fucking custard pie

- play with my nieces and nephews

- go see a comedy show or a really hilariously funny movie

- party

- go to Magic Mountain again before my pass expires

- clean and organize my apartment well so I'm starting with that as a baseline for next quarter.

Karaoke songs I would like to sing:

Here are some songs I think I could rock out at on the karaoke machine:

- Ebony and Ivory, as a duet of course. Is it not PC? I don't care. It's fantastic.

- Under Pressure by Queen & David Bowie. Another duet. I get to be David Bowie. Freddy Mercury is up for grabs.

- Stand Up by Ludacris because I know all the words. And I'm gangsta. Watch out for the medallion.

- Build Me Up Buttercup by the Foundations. Extra fun.

Here are some songs I actually have sung karaoke:

- Survivor by Destiny's Child. Twice.

- Big Pimpin. I wanted to sing 99 Problems, but then Michelle convinced me that we should do Big Pimpin because she didn't know 99 Problems. I pointed out that she could read the screen. She reminded me that I could just do that for Big Pimpin. And so we took the stage for what could potentially have been an extremely humiliating moment if it hadn't been my birthday and I hadn't been inebriated. Fortunately, because of those things, feelings of embarrassment were quite out of reach.

- Britney Spears. Lucky, Baby One More Time, and Crazy. Is it cliche to sing Britney? Probably. But that doesn't mean it wasn't fantastic.

- Dust in the Wind. Again, not my choice. But why?? Why on earth??

- My Sharona. Because it was Jeff's niece's Sweet 16, it wasn't exactly the coolest place I could have done it, but I definitely rocked it. So apparently my most shining karaoke moment was at a house with a bunch of high school sophomores. Which means I need to go karaoking again. Who's with me?

Sick Day

Wednesdays are usually the nights when I trick myself. Clinicals start at 6 am on Thursday and I need to be semi-rested which entails going to bed rather uncharacteristically early on Wednesdays. So I try and trick myself-- I have dinner at 5, followed by a couple of beers and I'm usually relaxing in the bath by 7:30. Sometimes this works, sometimes not so much....

Last night I had my drinkies, ate my dinner, watched a couple episodes of Friends, and went to bed just before 10. And then I woke up at 12 with a horrible, horrible tummy ache. All I could do was whimper and curl up in a ball. And that's how I stayed until 4, when I had to get up and vomit and then take care of myself a little.

I called my clinical instructor and she was very nice and told me I should stay home. So I am.

As a sidenote: I cannot stand missing obligations. Even if I am tired and busy and cranky and overwhelmed or whatever, if I made a commitment to do something, I will do it. In my entire 4 years of college plus 2 years of grad school, I possibly missed a total of 5 classes. And if I had to miss class I always emailed the professor called them the night before, even if it was a class of 200 people where I surely would not be missed.

So I felt pretty lame calling in and missing clinical because of this. And I felt especially lame also because it's probably the most important aspect of my program-- the actual hands-on experience with patients. And I felt especially lame since they had literally just given us a speech about people missing clinical days and how that wasn't okay on Tuesday. So I really didn't want to miss today.

But on the other hand, I really am sick. And I really got no sleep. And I really would not miss clinicals just because. And I really would possibly have vomited on my patient today or else fallen asleep at the wheel on the way home.

I went back to bed at around 7 and experienced that glorious dreamless, heavy sleep where I was neither too warm nor too cold. Heavenly. I feel a bit better and I guess I will try to use today to catch myself up and study and start getting ready for finals next week. Or maybe I'll get back in bed.

Achieving my goals... ish. Plus a rambling thought process about Halloween.

Well I did it-- I wrote those 5 entries that have nothing atall to do with nursing. It kind of took me longer than it was supposed to, but I'm still going to call it a success. It was a good experiment to do to help myself remember there are lots and lots of other things I [used to have time to] care about.

This past week was week 8. Which means we have 2 weeks left in our first quarter!! Or, as I like to put it-- we have one week left until our last week!!!!! And then it's only 3 more quarters after that till the end of the year. And then two more years after that and then I'll be DONE......... sigh. These last couple of weeks are going to get even crazier than usual, I think, since classes and clinicals and such are getting wrapped up. So I'm going to get even less sleep than usual as I attempt to pass my finals and assessments. But my classmates and I have already come so very far this semester that I'm pretty sure we can all hang on for a little longer. And then we get a nice 5 or so day break before we have to start all over again in September.

This weekend C is a-visiting, which is wonderful. We've reserved the theater room in my building for tonight and I'm pretty excited to eat a variety of fried foods and drink vanilla vodka and _____. I am not so excited about the fact that he wants to make me watch Saw. Last night we were at the movie theater in Daly City which, p.s., is rather on the ghetto side in terms of general clientele. But the parking was free. Anyhow, we were at the movie theater and we saw a preview for Saw V which comes out on Halloween-- which got me all excited. Not because it's a movie I'm looking forward to seeing (since I'm pretty much the biggest wuss you'll ever meet in terms of scary movies) but because I love love LOVE LOVE LOVE Halloween!!

I was going to write that I start thinking about potential Halloween costumes in late December, but that simply wouldn't be true-- I am always thinking about potential Halloween costumes. I mean, not actively, but it's definitely always in the back of my mind. And I sort of keep a running list of costumes I'd like to or might like to do. Which means that I'm also always on the lookout for the various pieces of my costumes that I might run across in thrift stores or Target or wherever so I'm not rushing to the ridiculously overpriced costume shop on October 29th.

I'm serious. Last year one of my costumes (oh, did I not mention that I also like to wear a minimum of 2 separate costumes every year?) was Little Miss Sunshine, from her dance scene at the end of the movie.

(Sorry for the somewhat tiny and poor quality of the images...)

I thought of this costume idea in, like, May so I was on the lookout for its components since then. I found the gold belt first, at Charlotte Russe in Burbank. Then, during Fiesta in Santa Barbara, Flynne and Whitney and I went to this crazy costumey store whose name escapes me at the moment and I found the ruffly shortie shorts. I bought the gold wristbands about a week later at Claire's. They were actually little cell phone pockets but I cut one end off them and they made perfect wristbands. I already owned the black tank top, those adidas pants that button down both sides, the white collared shirt, and the red headband (I just turned it so that you couldn't see the USC side). And I found the red tie in my dad's closet. I bought the suit vest at a thrift store and I was almost ready to roll. C told me that I wasn't allowed to wear knee pads because every douche bag guy at the party was going to make some comment about them. But they completed my costume so I didn't really have a choice and I bought a pair at Sport Chalet. And then I bought the Little Miss Sunshine DVD so I could learn her dance. Yes, really.

I'm realizing that this may sound like it was a lot of hassle, but it really wasn't. I happened across most of the pieces of this outfit on shopping trips I was already on. And even if it had been a hassle, I still had the best costume at the party, if I do say so myself.

So I currently have 2-3 outfits in mind and I'm on the lookout. I bought a dress at the Palmdale thrift store a few months ago that I think will work for one of the costumes I have in mind. But the hunt is still on and my excitement is growing!

#5. worrywart

This past Sunday afternoon my dad called and left me a message. I didn't call back for one reason or another... I was studying for my test on Monday, I had to clean my house etc. He called again on Monday evening so I then called him back yesterday and he said "Oh I'm so glad you called, I was beginning to worry that you fell of the face of the planet."

A couple months ago, when I was getting ready to drive up from LA my mom told me "Be sure to call and let me know when you leave because if you don't I'll start worrying way too early."

So apparently I get my worrying capabilities from both sides. I am a champion worrier. I don't think that I necessarily stress and freak out about everything (although some might disagree with that statement), but I do tend to get inside my brain and obsess about things quite exceedingly. I worry about problems in my life and other people's lives. I worry about my friends and family. But my "specialty," if you will, is worrying about things I make up in my head.

I don't know about you, but if I go out somewhere I am pretty much guaranteed to run into the one person I happen to want to avoid at that particular moment-- unless I am thinking about the possibility of running into him/her.

You know, like the day you don't shower and are just wearing your gross stained sweatpants when you make a quick trip to buy tampons at the grocery store, that's the day you run into your ex. Or like the one time you lie and call in sick to work, that's the day you run into your boss on her lunch break.

I've found that if I have think about these possibilities, the chances that they actually occur are, in my experience, much smaller. So that's sort of what I do. It's like a checklist.

I tend to worry about people I love quite a lot. I worry that they'll get sick or hurt or mugged or injured in a car accident. I worry that they'll lose their jobs or get into trouble or something bad will happen to their kids. Because it seems to be the moment I stop worrying about things falling to pieces, they do. If I just go about my life and don't think about this stuff, that's when my sister calls to tell me she's been in a car accident. Or my dad will call and say my cousin died. Or my nephew got bitten by a dog on the face.

I do it for smaller stuff, too-- like when Jenny came to visit for the BlogHer conference. I had to leave before she got up so I asked her to let Bowie out of the bathroom and open the shades in the apartment. Because if I leave the shades down, Bowie will probably want to play with them and his method of playing often involves claws and destruction. So she said she would open the shades, no problem. But then I realized that on my way to clinicals that I hadn't shown her how to open them and it's kind of tricky because my shades actually slide from both the bottom and top of the window and if you pull the wrong cord it can be hard to set it right. So I worried for a moment that Jenny might not figure it out and then I worried that she might have left my straightening iron on or gotten locked out of my apartment since I had to take the keys. But once I had worried about these possibilities, it was like check! and I moved on. And none of those things happened-- all went according to plan. But if I hadn't worried about it, would it have?

#4. BACON!!!

While doing some semi-harmless procrastinating I came across this posting on Not Martha's blog about how to make bacon cups

which I think are pretty amazing. Because who doesn't love those taco salad bowls that are basically a gigantic corn chip that get all saturated with cheese and sour cream? This, as far as I'm concerned, is the next step up. She also mentioned these bacon placemats

from another web site which I think look kind of gross but I guess I could get behind using them as a little appetizer plate. I could definitely come up with some great fantasies of what to put on the plate that would compliment and not override the flavor of the bacon.

Have I mentioned yet how much I love love LOVE bacon?? It's delicious. It makes my taste buds sing. Since I don't like to make wide generalizations regarding my preferences, I wouldn't say it's my favorite food. But it's pretty damn close. That crackling sound it makes when it's cooking.... the aroma wafting in the air.... that first crispy, crunchy bite.... heavenly.

Out of curiosity, I hunted around on the internet and with pretty minimal effort, I managed to come across some pretty fantastic bacon and bacon-inspired products:

I'm not sure if I would ever wear this Bacon Scarf

but the packaging is kind of adorable.

$35 at shopsin's general store. Even better is the description, "red and white scarf resembling marbled fat." And apparently bacon scarves are much more popular than I had known, because here's one with a bit different style, but great presentation and $38.

Maybe someday I'll have a shirt with lettuce and tomatoes on it and this will be the perfect accessory. Although I'm not sure how I feel about my clothes having such a strong overall theme....

For people who like chocolate, but wish it had that extra "kick" that bacon delivers, your prayers have been answered with bacon candy bars.

AND, at Marini's at Santa Cruz, they sell this little treat

Love the taste of bacon? Want to dream about it all night long? Then bacon flavored dental floss is for you; just 5 bucks.

And in case we were wondering how our Jewish friends feel about bacon....

And for those of us who wish we could take our love of bacon to an even classier level-- the BLT ring.

Delicious and sexy. And only $750. Available in gold or sterling silver.

One year my sister gave my brother in law the Bacon of the Month Club. Just $150 gets you 12 different artisan bacons delivered to your door, informative notes about said bacon, discounts, recipes, a membership card, plus a little rubber toy pig. And if you were wondering what one might do with all that bacon, here are a few ideas (fifty to be exact). My personal favorite is the Bacon Salt Martini.

Okay. I'm sure I could find more, but perhaps it's time to stop.

#2. I heart thrift stores

On my way home, the insanely overcrowded Muni I was riding stopped and the driver announced that all of us had to get off and wait for another since this one was being rerouted and going back the way it came. This was rather obnoxious since we were already uncomfortable and cranky from having to wait. But I stepped off the train and right in front of an Out of the Closet. So while the other grouchy Muni riders waited for the next train, I killed some time at the store and ended up buying this sweatshirt:

I think it will keep me rather cozy. It's not something I would have paid a lot of money for, but I think it's cute and I like that it's been worn and probably won't shrink. Plus it was under 10 bucks.

The other day, I was actually at the same Out of the Closet and I bought this:

because I STILL have a box in my bathroom and need something to hold my various bubble baths. And this is wickery, which I like.

My recent purchases have gotten me thinking about how much I love thrift stores. I think it was probably Miss Jenny who initially introduced me to the ones in Santa Cruz when I wasn't sure if I should shop there. I always knew I liked rifling through junk and wearing unique clothes and she showed me a place where I could combine my interests. I think the first time we went to a the Thrift Center, I bought my favorite shirt ever. I wore it for something like 7 years before I finally retired it into jammies.

The last time I was there, Jenny and I went to the Chico version of the Thrift Center-- Thrifty Bargains-- where she convinced me that I needed this strawberry teapot:

I went to Goodwill in LA and bought the other teapot-- with the peacocks on it. I like to fancy myself as a lady who sits around and drinks tea that she pours from a teapot while responding to ball invitations and waxing shut my envelopes. But it's possible that I'm just the girl who collects teapots and has a wild imagination....

Anyhow, another time I was at the Goodwill, I bought this little bowl:

It's perfect for lemon wedges, am I right??

Speaking of bowls, Jenny also bought these at Thrifty Bargains. Well, she bought a set of 10, so guess who ended up with 5?!

And when I was homeless in LA, Dave invited us to a "Black & White Party" which meant that I had absolutely nothing to wear because everything that was black or fancy or, for that matter, clean had already been moved to SF. So C and I headed to the Goodwill in Palmdale, where I bought this dress:

for 7 dollars. And tied a white string around my wrist.

Some of my other purchases at thrift stores include but are not limited to: a maroon book case with hearts carved into it, my favorite pair of jeans, the movie "Sister Act" and a skirt with $20 in the pocket.

I love thrift stores not just for the treasures you can find, but also because things are so equalized. If a shirt cost 20 bucks or 200, it's going to be on the same rack at Salvation Army. Unless it's made out of some fancy material like suede, these stores generally sort items according to part of the body where worn: pants, shirts, sweaters, shoes, etc. So you could find a Banana Republic ballgown for $12.

Considering these fantastic purchases all made at thrift stores, I'm pretty excited to explore my new city and all the old junk it has to offer!

Well if you really want to know...

I was wearing this:

And these:

#1. "Fashion"

In order to actually (hopefully) achieve my writing goal for the week, I think I'll start with the compliment I recieved this morning. Ian told me that I look cute today. This is probably because I was too tired to take a shower last night and took one this morning, which meant I couldn't straighten my hair. Since my hair usually does unpredictable, crazy things when not controlled I was somewhat reluctant to leave the house. But I put on what I thought was a pretty cute little combination of clothes, plus some nice dangly earrings that draw one's eye.

I was excited to learn that I looked cute in someone else's opinion-- perhaps I have finally gotten the hang of this "layering" business. After moving here and leaving my apartment a half dozen times, I became frustrated and believed that my collection of lightweight sweaters had rendered me completely unprepared for the foggy chill of San Francisco. But I perservered. I used my bookstore gift certificate (given to me by the school- how awesome is that?) to purchase a nice warm fleece sweatshirt makes up for its slight frump factor with the fact that it has the school's name on it. And then I took another look at my clothes and realized I actually do posess a number of the raw materials to make it through at least the summer and fall months. I have jackets and sweaters and long and short sleeved shirts... it's really just a matter of learning to coordinate them into functional, comfortable, carryable, cute outfit combinations.

Getting dressed is not always the easiest thing in the world for me. When I was little my grandmother sewed most of my clothes for me, which is awesome. And then in middle school we had a uniform. In high school I would wear anything and tried to be different from everyone else. I wore leopard print pants as if they were jeans with my Dad's lacoste sweaters (which are actually popular now, who knew?). I shopped at Urban Outfitters when it wasn't so insanely overtrendy and overpriced. I wore a skull ring that I bought at the fair. I painted my shoes with glitter nail polish. In college I settled down a little and wore less... interacting(?) outfits. But I will say that if I found something I liked, it was hard for me to take it off. I can remember finding a combination of clothes and wearing it to class 2 or 3 days in a row, because they were different classes and I was proud of the one cute outfit I had come up with. But when I started working and saw the same people every day I had to (finally) learn how to put together clothes I liked on a daily basis and rotate them through the weeks. It took some getting used to and some outfits I couldn't wait to get out of when I got home, but I did it.
And now moving to this new city and new climate has presented other challenges.

So I told Ian that I had some trouble getting started since I was from LA where people don't really layer. He disagreed and said that people do in fact wear layers in LA.


I realized that this is true. But the layering in LA is generally achieved in a rather nonfunctional, borderline frumpy manner, such as this:

I'm not saying that some people can't pull this off and look adorable while doing it... I'm just pointing out that I don't happen to be one of them. And so the layering does not come naturally to me, which explains why I'm still glowing from the compliment.

Being Jewels the Nursing Student

You know that part in Being John Malkovich where John Malkovich goes through the portal and into his own brain and all of a sudden he's in a room with hundreds of John Malkoviches and all they can say is "Malkovich Malkovich. Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich."?

Well I feel like that's a pretty good description of my life. I've noticed all I write about is school and nursing and clinicals and classes and tests and how tired I am. Because that is what takes up the majority of my time and energy. I go to school. I think about school. I hang out with people from school. We even sit around at lunch and talk about Foley catheters. We were out at a bar after one particularly painful test (someone described it as feeling date-raped), talking as usual about clincals or something and then Colin said that we had to each say the best thing that had happened to us that week that had nothing to do with nursing. So we did. And it was great.

In the interest of keeping myself sane and perhaps having something more interesting for my reader(s?) to peruse, my plan for this week is to write at least 5 entries, each about something that interests me or that I care about but that does not involve school or nursing or the hospital.

And no, this isn't #1.

It's like I'm growing up or something

I'm not sure why my last post wasn't quite as eloquent or interesting as those thoughts were in my head. But I think it goes along with the fact that my brain is essentially fried. It is difficult to explain to people who aren't in my class (can I get an amen, Nicole?) but this program takes over your life and does its level best to kick your ass. But not in a literal, overt way. It does it somewhat subtly, by taking over your free time and exhausting you and invading even your dreams and making you feel like its your own fault anyhow.

I know it's only been about a month and a half but so far I have thought the classes are hard but not unreachably hard. I have definitely had classes where I have spontaneously burst into tears on a regular basis while trying to complete assignments. But even with my not-so-sciency background I am still managing to get a fair grasp on what is being taught. So the classes are hard but I think (hope) I can handle it. And then there are clinicals which are exhausting and time-consuming but, again, I think I can handle them too (so far at least).

I had a conversation with  a good friend this weekend about school and she was asking if any of our clinicals were going to be night shifts. I said that no, I didn't think the first year had any night shifts. Once we get into the Master's portion of the program we might have to do some nights but it just depends. The way it is now is that we have two days a week plus a clinical lab.

"are they 12 hour shifts?"

"No, this quarter is 8 hour shifts."

"Oh, we had to do 12 hours."

"Well we also have our clinical lab and classes..."

"So did we."

Uh. Okay.

I don't know why I started feeling kind of defensive of how rough my school is, but I did.

BECAUSE IT IS.

Yes, we may have a set schedule of classes 2 days a week, clinical lab 1 day, and clinicals 2 days and we get weekends off and we have a nice break in December but we are learning in ONE year the amount of stuff that typically takes 2-4 years. There is a rare moment in my days when I'm not at school or clinicals, studying, or at least thinking and planning for school.

And everything else has kind of been pushed to the wayside. But you know what? That's okay. Because I think I appreciate it more. Like I went ice skating again yesterday and it was great fun. I know it would have been fun either way, but I think I got more out of it knowing that it was my break to just have fun. And I've been talking on the phone in the evenings, which I always like to do. But now when I talk on the phone I will straighten up the kitchen or set out my clothes for the next day. It feels nice to give myself a little break, but also to do things that will keep me organized and sane.

So I know it is only August, but so far I am pretty content with my new situation. I think it has something to do with the fact that I picked up my life and made about seventeen thousand big changes all at once. I quit my job, I took out a big ol' student loan, I got a new place to live, I reorganized many of my priorities..... and I know that there's no real turning back. I guess if I was truly unhappy then I would have to rethink some decisions and such, but generally I knew when I sent in my acceptance form that this was for keeps. If I was overwhelmed and exhausted and sometimes frustrated (which I am), I would just have to figure out a way to deal with it.

And so far that has meant that when I do feel those ways, it doesn't bother me nearly as much as it could.

Often when presented with difficult situations in the past, I would try to figure out how to get myself out. But since I knew going into this that I wasn't going to get out, now I've been trying to figure out how to get myself through. I've known since I started this program that I am just going to have to take it day by day and I think that has made me appreciate the days more as they come instead of focusing on what's next.