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This is the shadiest, sneakiest, snarkiest semester yet. The boring, elementary management class and the research class that we sometimes have, sometimes only meet for 10 minutes, really do quite an impressive job at disguising the difficult, evil other personality of the semester. I am doing pretty well at studying for the looming certification exam in August some time, but I'm not doing such a great job at checking when things are due. Like research papers for example. The rough draft is due...tomorrow! Actually we found out on Monday that it was due wednesday but yesterday the Prof, in his carefree I-don't-give-a-rat's-butt attitude, announced they would be due friday. So we already did it. It wasn't very hard, but this does allow us more time to edit it. Yes, edit the rough draft. Because we can. Because we are awesome. This is higher level thinking, people. And the more we do now, the less we have to do later and then there's more time to devote to planning a fabulous end of the year party for the CLS Society and class mates and whoever. Did I mention that the CLS Society raised about $1400 this year? We had $200 to start with after $400 mysteriously disappeared from the society account right after the old officers handed over their titles. I was pissed. It worked out just fine though. We had a lot of expenses but somehow we ended up with a huge profit. I'm happy with it.

Oh. Update on the boyfriend. He's working diligently in his office right now as demonstrated below:

Boyfriend: "I just choked on my own spit"
Me (the caring girlfriend): hahahahaha
Boyfriend: "It hurt"

ok well that's about it. I didn't really go into too much detail about the sneaky, snarky semester. I should change my name to RamblingGirl.

I got accepted to graduate school for their master of science in Molecular Pathology program. I'm uber excited! Can't really talk right now though. I have to run off to another bake sale that's suppose to be on the first year students' shoulders but most of them are so freaking lazy. Oh well, it's something to do! I did all my finals last week. It was an extremely hard week but it's over now and I couldn't be happier. The rest of the program should be a breeze now!

Ugh. Ok I'm taking an early study break to catch my blog up on all the things that have happened!! Good grief, I've gone on another clinical rotation with a less than amiable (yet very helpful) supervisor, traveled across the state for an interview for a graduate school program, met up with long lost relatives, helped organize a trip to a Clinical Laboratory Science Convention where I was elected as the Vice Chair for the state-wide student forum (against all odds I might add!) and I went to a bar and drank with both my professors!!!

My goodness, so much to talk about but I really just want to get down to the best part. I was elected as Vice Chair!!! I had one other running mate so you might say I had a 50% shot at getting elected but that's not really the case. So each year, the convention is held at a city where there is a school with a CLS program. Most of the time, it just happens that out of all the students that run for student forum positions (chair, vice chair, secretary), the ones that get it are the students from that city/school. Usually that's because every student from that city's CLS program attend. We only had 9 people out of 30 attend TACLS this year...mainly because the first year students are lazy and it involved some slight traveling. Anyway, so yeah this program's students outnumbered the other schools like 5 to 1. They easily made up a third of the students at TACLS. I didn't know I would be interested in running. It just sorta happened. I got excited and wanted to do something so I raised my hand. It turned out that there were 2 students running for each position. 3 from one school, 3 from another. Game on. I made the comment to the other girls running that I was nervous, I didn't have a speech prepared, etc. Immediately, the other girl running for Vice Chair said, "Yeah, we've been ready for months.  We've had it all planned out." She was trying to intimidate me! It sorta worked but I still had hours to prepare a speech. My classmates were a big help, too. I love those guys! We all just sorta look out for each other.

So the time came when I was suppose to get up and give my roughly rehearsed speech. I'm sure I sounded ditzy because words just came spilling out of my mouth. I told them my name and that I was a vice president of the CLS society at my school. I blabbered on about being type A and a little OCD and just being drawn to leadership positions. Something like that. I got a good laugh out of everyone. One of my classmates tried to take a picture and I told her not to. More laughs. I told them it would be short and sweet because my nerves were shot after a day of playing Student Bowl (think of hardcore, intense Jeopardy). I said I wanted to further the efforts of the Student Forum because they've done a great job. I said I wanted to get things done. As a team, we could all get stuff done. I said some more things and then I told them how the CLS profession needs licensure. Only 14 states have it and Texas needs it. "It infuriates me that we work our buns off in school and work and we aren't even licensed! Beauticians are licensed! The people that do your nails are licensed and yet Scientists are not?? It makes no sense!" I got a little riled up. At the end I said "I know you will all probably vote for your school but I just thought I'd do my thing and give it a shot. Thank you!" You know, just very fun and friendly. People kept commenting on things I said and how they liked my ideas and I just felt sooo good! I'm not big-headed my any means and I've never run for anything. I really just tend to fade into the background. I don't think I'm a very influential person so it's safe to say this day changed my life.

The next morning I saw my name on the poster board with the new chair, my classmate, and the new secretary, the only nice girl from the competing school that was running for a position. A girl from the other university came up and hugged me! One of the girls counting the ballots came up and told me that some one wrote on the ballot next to my name "Is she seeing anyone?". That gave me a good laugh.

Anyway, so I'm done gloating. Back to studying, I guess!! yuck.

Oh my goodness have I had a busy day or what?! Today the pathologist took me with him to help out with another bone marrow biopsy. I probably would have done more to help had the patient been a little more lucid and easy to handle. Instead, I helped keep the patient, an 80 year old with one broken hip and a neutrophil % of .1, from touching the site of injection which the doctor had sterilized. I also handed the doctor things but that's boring. The patient was in a lot of pain from the hip and she was on lots of morphine so she wasn't exactly all there. When the doctor was rubbing the iodine on the site of injection, she said "oooh rub some of that over on this side. That stuff feels good." haha poor lady, it only got worse from there. The biopsy wasn't hurting her so much but the way she had to lay wasn't too comfortable.  It also didn't help that she tore out her IV with the morphine in it. Oh well, the pathologist got it done but it was mostly a dry tap.

Today I also hunted down someone to draw my blood and it took 3 people before we had a successful draw! I do have veins!!! My results were fabulous and normal and my cells were all pretty. Another CLS did a chemistry profile on the other vial, but I guess I left before the results printed.

OH yeah and I saw a placenta today. After the biopsy, I went with another girl to take the slides to Histology and lo and behold there was a girl washing a placenta in the sink!!! I couldn't just sit back, I had to bother the poor girl and look at it. She didn't seem to mind.

I am soooo ready for the weekend!! My legs hurt from standing and doing the ridiculous squats the other morning. I thought it would be a good idea but it totally was not!

Ugh, anyway I've got to hobble away now. Thank goodness for 2 whole days of rest...or something like it. A long bike ride is rest in a way right? I'm sitting down aren't I?

Today has been busy busy busy and very exciting.

First, there was a fire in the hospital (a code red was announced over the loud speaker). My instructor, the safety officer in the lab, took off with the fire extinguisher. She said she didn't even see the fire before we were given the all clear. Oh well, fires are never good anyway. So then we got about a million stat orders so everytime we try to do something we had to stop, put the sample away or keep it moist, and give the stat tests first priority. It wasn't that big of a deal but when you're trying to do this poor old lady's cell counts on her pleural fluid (lung juice) and you keep having to hold off, yeah it gets a little annoying.

We also got lots of critical values, also called panic values. These values can be life threatening and you have to call up the nursing station and tell them the result, which they then have to repeat back to you, and you have to document their name and the time. One critical value we got was a hemoglobin of 7.5. The blood of this patient was super thin and it was difficult to make a blood smear. This lady had already had 2 transfusions!!

So it was a very busy day but I learned alot. The end. time to fix dinner.

Today was my first day of clinical rotations and all I have to say is this: If I'm not a damned ROCKSTAR at making blood smear slides by the end of 3 weeks, this was a complete waste of time.

My supervisor/instructor was nice enough to allow me to practice making tons of blood smears (at her request!). I'm pretty sure she just wanted to keep me busy since she was swamped with diffs. Still, after trashing an ungodly amount of slides, I finally found a technique to keep. I even made a little drawing in my notebook. I don't have that picture because I keep forgetting to pick up batteries for my camera, but I have a video of the technique instead. In the video the guy uses a dropper to get a drop of blood but actually they make these nifty little needle things you insert into the top of the blood tube and you turn it upside down and press on the slide and it creates a drop for you. Observe.

This past week has just been a whirlwind of deadlines and early mornings, but it will absolutely not get the best of me because I have been through 3 years of college and bad decisions and 22 years of learning that everything works out and nothing is as bad as you think it will be. From the first day of First grade to the day I stand up infront of professors and peers to present my final research presentation, none of it has been or will be as awful as I expect it to be. And nobody is judging me half as harshly as I judge myself. I've learned to expect difficulties and to, in a way, enjoy them. Whether they are put there or not, these trifling inconveniences are never wanted, but there is always something to be learned from them. That learning, however, comes later. First, you must overcome said obstacle and the more you smile while doing it, the more people think of you, respect you. It is not the difficulties, but the way you handle them, that make you who you are. So you can run mad inside that pretty little head or in the privacy of your room, but given a little push in the right direction, most problems can be overcome or atleast dealt with. So I've learned not to make a big fuss out of things. Getting it done, getting it taken care of is the best course of action.

This rant is brought to you by It'slatebutIcan'tgotosleepsoIwillblogandregretitinthemorning.

Yeah. That will do.

Okay so I've successfully completed the first two days of my last spring semester. I still have work to do. So I will list my stressors. Keep in mind that though they are stressors, I feel strangely liberated and happy and ready to get back to work.

-I'm waking up at 5am yet again (to work out as usual) for the first time in over a month. No more sleeping in :(
-I'm taking 6 classes every single day
-I have an exam this friday
-I have 3 small research projects and 1 huge one this semester
-I have to get 30 students to a convention 200 miles away (In March)
-I have to stand before a budget committee to hopefully get funding for said convention
-My first clinical rotation starts Monday in hematology
-My upstairs neighbors are loud
-I'm learning about cholesterol and vowing to never eat fastfood again
-I need caffeine
-Im exhausted by 4pm
-I have to stand up and give presentations

I would list what I'm happy about, but I need to study for aforementioned exam. Let it be known...I am really happy. Though I would appreciate more "Me" time.

I'm not whining.I'm letting the vox community in on the busy life of me. I'd like to blog more but I'll just have to see what I can do. Oh. I also have a very very very big book worth $170 that I got for $65. Go me!

It's that time of the year again. I have to buy textbooks. Luckily, I only need 3 and Amazon.com is a heck of a lot cheaper than the bookstores on campus. This year is going to be a bit trying to say the least. I start clinical rotations January 26th and I think I start in a clinical chemistry rotation, not my fav. I also have to come up with a research project topic and the earlier the better. I have some basic guideline I'd like the follow: no "positive" or "negative" results please (so, no drug tests from triage machines), something relatively interesting like calcium or cholesterol, and something I can do at school...even if its on the oooold machines like the atomic absorption machine in which you can actually see the flame (it turns color, though so it's actually pretty cool).

I'm still waiting to hear from Texas Tech if I'm accepted or not into their molecular pathology Master's program. I emailed admissions and asked when I should be getting a response and so far...i've gotten no response. I only make a big deal about it because I can't just go up and interview whenever they are ready for me, I have school EVERYDAY and only 2 free weeks until next August sooooo it's actually going to have to be on my terms.

I'm also partly responsible for successfully getting 21 students to a conference in April. I might call the hotel today and make sure the special price they told me a month ago is still true because that would be freakin sweet. 21 people in 5 rooms for $139 a night...is that per room? If not, I'll book it now!!

I'm meeting a girlfriend for lunch today to catch up and I can't wait. I have to get ready sooo I'm out.

So I think one of the best feelings in the world is buying a pair of shoes you have always wanted, but the worst feeling is not knowing what you are going to wear them with. Yesterday I took my DSW giftcards and bought a pair of the comfiest, cutest flats ever and a pair of pretty brown quality boots because I have always always always wanted a pair of boots!! However, I have no idea what to wear them with. They looked pretty good, I think, with my black tights and MAYBE even my skinny jeans...but I need a woman's opinion on this. I'm going to try giving one of my girlfriends a call today and hope she answers. Apparently her phone took a dive in a toilet one night at a club. I swear, you can't take that girl anywhere. If I had a camera within arm's reach of me, I'd post pictures of these awesome shoes...but, you see, I decided to do a quadrillion squats and lunges the other day and i'm afraid that if I get up, my legs will give out. Not really, but I am really really sore. My boyfriend's treadmill is strange. It felt like I was running through he mud..uphill. So I only ran a mile, was ashamed of myself, and decided to make my legs so sore I wouldn't even want to think about running more.

So today's agenda: read, write, lay around, call up Michelle and go from there. Sounds like an awesome day!