fear not

I am way less emo today than I was yesterday.

I hate school, but oh well! I was just offered a new job, and I'm checking to see if there are any community management positions around, because I know I'm qualified for them. My last class is offered in the evening in Spring, so I could potentially have a full-time job.

In the depths of my depression yesterday, I went to the BYU Bookstore to look at the book The Survivor's Club. I had never read it. And I still haven't, but it was really interesting to read about what makes a person survive or die.

For example, it was previously believed that people would die after having assumed a body temperature of 95 degrees F. One man, "Professor Popsicle," took it upon himself to disprove this idea. He has submerged himself in frozen water for hours, he has injected freezing water into his veins. He has proved that people can survive at the body temperature of 88 degrees F. What this means is that people in frozen water don't die from hypothermia; they die from fear and giving up. They essentially let themselves drown.

Yesterday I was ready to let myself drown.

Today, I am saying: W/E SUCKAAZZ!!

Because, that is the correct answer. I'm cooler than school anyway. Right? (Don't answer that.)

Also, my prof just emailed me and said that even though I missed the GRE, he would pull some strings to see if they'd accept my app for grad school anyway. I could have a full-time assistantship with the Plant and Wildlife Science Department studying the life cycle of farmed Wyoming big sage! Woot! Woot!

Perhaps life is okay after all.

AH!

I just was emailed by the graduation police guys and they said that I can't graduate because PHIL 205 doesn't actually fulfill the GE I thought it did!

AH!

AH!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I CANNOT BE HERE PAST APRIL. I WILL GO INSANE BEFORE THAT

the other emergency, and other updates.

On Friday night, Carl and I decided we were going to spend the weekend in Las Vegas. We planned everything, went to sleep, and got up the next morning at 6 to be on the road by 6:30.

Little did we know it was blizzarding.

Things were fine until we were about 100 miles south, right off of Scipio--I drove over some snowy road and lost control. We spun around about three times, and then careened backwards over the side of the road, about 100 feet. We stopped about 20 feet short of a ravine.

At first the car wouldn't start, but God answered our prayers and soon the engine started running again. We decided we'd try to push the car up, which was ridiculous because not only was the slope something like 15 degrees, we were very far down, and it was still snowing madly, and we'd driven over about seven bushes. I suppose we drove over them too fast for them to compress for real.

So we climbed up the snowy embankment and stood by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. Carl called the cops; I guess a couple other people had seen us fly backwards down the hill, and the troopers were already on the way. Soon enough, a giant Walmart truck had stopped about a quarter mile past us; we watched as it backed up to be right across the street from us. The trucker rolled down his window and invited us to come sit in his truck.

So we did. His name was Al. Al the Walmart trucker. He wondered if we were going down to Las Vegas to get married on Valentine's day. We explained that we were already married. :o)

We talked for a while; soon the trooper guys showed up, and went to go inspect our car. They called a tow truck.

Riding up a crazily steep slope being pulled up by a tow truck is one of the most frightening things ever. Aside from actually falling down the slope and thinking you're going to die the whole time.

The tow was $200, and miraculously the car was 100% okay, even though it's a '94 Corsice that's been rebuilt twice (that sucker is old and has been through a ton!). So we finished driving to Vegas.

Once again, we miraculously survived. What is up with this week??

the emergency.

Yesterday.

At 6:30 am I started driving to SLC for my GRE. It was in the heart of Provo when I realized I'd forgotten my purse. I turned around and drove for a while frantically before I realized that my purse was just under things. So I turned around and kept going.

Everything was fine until about 7:15, at which point

a) it started hard-core snowing, and
b) my contact fell out.

Magically I made it safely to the U of U campus, but I couldn't read any signs, so I ended up missing my exam. Then my husband wouldn't pick up his phone and my cell was dying. I couldn't stay at the gas station where I'd parked, so I had to drive perilously back to a fast food restaurant with an open parking lot.

Eventually Carl did pick up his phone, and he and my grandmother accepted the mission of picking me up. They arrived about two hours after I was stranded.

Then came the stress of figuring out where the heck my contact went. I was sure it was stuck behind my eye, which is a terrifying feeling. In the end, Carl went back out to the car after we got home and checked out the floor of the driver's seat. Sure enough, it was there, dry and shriveled and broken.

All in all, several miracles happened yesterday. I'm glad I'm alive--and that I have the best family ever.

best songs.

Here is my list of best songs that ever existed, in sort of order, but not really.

1. Eye Conqueror by Third Eye Blind
2. Invincible by OK Go
3. When It All Comes Down by The Last Goodnight
4. Beautiful Day by U2
5. All the Way by Trey Warner
6. Amaranth by Nightwish
7. Incomplete by The Last Goodnight
8. Dani California by Red Hot Chili Peppers
9. Birds and Fishes by Venus Hum
10. A Good Idea at the Time by OK Go


I take the GRE in an hour and a half.

I am the conqueror
I taste your scent in the wind
I set my sail but then you sink my boat
So I begin to swim
Bash my foes until I win
Lances smash across the chest
That's my quest you wonder why
I will never die
The only thing I bleed for is you

Oceans of love
I've crossed them for you
In the Matrix of your garden
I find you in bloom
Now that you found me
No one's gonna get around me

I'm coming for you
Coming for you
Coming for you (Can we get this all together)
Coming for you (Can we get this all...)

Nothing I cannot do
There is nothing I wouldn't do for you
And you put me all through the worst
I am cursed with a light that's made to burn
That's where I shine
And now you'll be mine

Oceans of love
I've crossed them for you
In the matrix of your garden
I beg your pardon
Now that I've hardened
No one's gonna get around me

I'm coming for you (Can we get this all together)
I'm coming for you (Can we get this all together)
Coming for you (Can we get this all together)
Coming for you (Can we get this all together)

I am the conqueror
Byzantine mozaic in the heat
I am cursed, through the worst
With a life that's made to burn
That's where I shine
And you, you, you, you, you
Are mine, mine, mine, mine, mine!

Oceans of love
I've crossed them for you
In the Matrix of your garden
I find you in bloom
Now that I've found you
No one's gonna get around me

I'm coming for you (Can we get this all together)
I'm coming for you (Can we get this all together)
Coming for you (Can we get this all together)
Coming for you (Can we get this all together)

I am the conqueror
I am the conqueror
I, am the conqueror
I am the conqueror
I, am the conqueror
I am the conqueror
Am the conqueror

the worst experience.

I was going to write this post about my O Chem test. So, I'll start with that.

You know, I've never had a test before that I didn't mostly understand.

I've never experienced that feeling of, "what the crap?" when I opened up a test booklet.

I generally never study, and just get A's, and I like it that way.

Well, for all that I do OChem really well in class, and I do well on the homework and haven't really struggled with it since I actually did the work that one time a few weeks ago, I really had no idea what to do with the exam.

Example: he asked for the original drawing of, and then a stereoisomer of and a constitutional isomer of trans-1,2-dichlorocyclobutane.

Uh, excuse me?

trans-1,2-dichlorocyclobutane????????

For it to be trans, doesn't it have to be 1,3-dichlorocyclobutane? According to the definition of trans?

I know what trans means. I know it. I know what cis means. That is basic chemistry anyone who went to high school chemistry should know. 1,2-anything shouldn't be able to be trans. On account of trans means that the substituents are diagonal from each other--it's 1,3 or nothing, baby!

wtf?!?!

So that's 20 points of a question that I clearly either didn't understand, or was written poorly.

Life sucks.

On the other hand, the worst experience was not just not getting my O Chem test. It was actually reading about Obama moving the census from an impartial third-party to the White House. He will personally control the redistribution of Congress and I for one am not pleased with that. An impartial observer should do that, not the most liberal senator in the history of our country.

Freak.

Oh, also realizing that the bailout will cost $60,000 per family in the United States. That was also a sad wake-up call.

Amen.

update

The surgeons came up with a new chemical compound that's supposed to neutralize the acid in his stomach. It's apparently difficult to implement the compound in reality, and since it was just invented, who even knows if it works.

It all leads to some devastatingly hard questions.

For example:

One of my relatives has suggested just removing the entire tube and sewing up the hole. No more spilled gastric acid, yes, but he would starve to death.

On the other hand, arguably without functional gastric acid he still would starve to death, being unable to digest food.

If the whole thing is just to reduce his pain, which is less painful: starving to death, or having your flesh burnt through to the guts with hydrochloric acid?

I read Ann Coulter's latest the other day, and mostly loved it, but she brought up the case of Terry Schiavo. It's been a while, hasn't it? But in my bioethics class we talked about it. When is it all right to let a person die? Is letting a person die the same as killing them? Did that guy kill Terry when he unhooked her from life support? Or did he just let her die? Is he held accountable for murder?

It's kind of like my brother. We have a DNR on him: is it wrong? Is it right? What if we never had installed the tube? The tube is basically a form of life support. What is it that makes dying by starvation bad but dying by acid burning your guts out not bad? What made it okay for my parents to get that G-tube installed but makes it not okay to put him on oxygen if he stops breathing? What is it that made it okay for us to surgically prevent his rectum from puncturing his lungs, but makes it not okay for us to restart his heart if it stops beating?

What is this?

okay, new thought

Okay, done moping on the vast ingratitude of this world.

My mom just emailed me--I guess my brother is doing way way worse. The briefing for those of you who don't know my brother:

1. He's two years older than me (22-almost-23), dying from a chronic degenerative metabolic disorder he's had since birth. He has been the major influence in my political development. Currently, he has had cancer 3 times (and currently still has it), permanent staphylococcus, muscular dystrophy and atrophy, constant tonic and grande mal seizures (we're talking once every 3 minutes since he was 4 years old), esophagal atrophy, severe myopia, and basically everything else you can think of. His rectum is 1200% the normal size (the organ is supposed to be about half an inch long, his is over a foot long). He is on untested doses of nearly every medication he takes. He has never been able to speak and his brain development is about that of a two-year-old's. He's almost died from too many things to name.

But now the problem is his gastric tube.

We took him to a wound specialist a few weeks ago, because the burn from stomach HCl has created a permanent burn around his tube entrance. For the past several years, it's been reasonable; obviously having a stomach constantly bleeding from acid burns isn't cool, but in the past it's been doable. In the past few months, it's gotten worse. The entire tissue around his tube has deteriorated. No one can do anything about it.

My mom is meeting with surgeons today to see if they can do anything about it.

In the meantime, pray we don't get socialized healthcare, and pray that James doesn't have to feel the pain. Please?

random thoughts

I have started this blog entry over and over again.

Suffice it to say that some people suck.

I invite Shakespeare to explain how I feel:

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh-ho! the holly!
This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
Thou dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remember'd not.
Heigh-ho! sing heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh-ho! the holly!
This life is most jolly.

yesterday.

Yesterday was... so exciting. Drove up to campus with Carl at 4:05 am, as usual. Got out of the car and realized I'd forgotten my power cord. Oh well, I thought, I'll just not use my comp today.

But then I realized that I'd also forgotten my work clothes. Good work, Allie. So I had to leave at about 5:30 to go back and get them. I stuck around to charge my phone and do some laundry and cleaning; at 7:30 I started heading back up to campus. When I was about halfway there--we live like 15 minutes away--I realized that I'd forgotten my cell phone. So I turned around and got it. At least I had my work clothes.

Then Carl and I watched Legend of the Seeker Episode 11, which was amazing as usual, and then I went to Organic Chemistry, which was mind-numbingly boring as usual. Then I went to work--

And I'd accidentally brought Carl's black shirt instead of mine!

Ah!

Happily, they didn't make me go get another shirt, because I already have like 5 of those things (that's what happens when you work at the same place for almost 5 years... the extra uniforms pile up).

But then I had to wear my actual shirt, which was lame.

The baking went all right, however.

~~~~~~~

Other than that, my final interview with Teach for America is just one week away (!), I get my stupid library course done today, and Y Publish tonight should be fun.

Lately I've been trying to think what to do with myself. I'm applying for a job at Envision Utah for the summer--urban design and TOD? I'm down. And experienced, yippy day. But it's in SLC. I'm not sure if I can get a full-time job with the Utah Recycling Coalition (my current other employment place, excepting the bakery). I could probably keep my part-time position, but who knows.

I don't really know what I want to do, or where to look for jobs. I know I'm qualified for a bunch of things, mostly because I'm already certified in Cultural and Natural Resource Management, and I'm getting my certifications in ESL Teaching and Pesticide Application on Turf and Ornamentals in the near future.

I wouldn't mind working in an urban design place like my old work at DCED, or working with landscape management or in a soil laboratory. I have issues with illegal immigration, so I could see myself being a little unhappy in a TESOL situation, even though I have a 4.0 in the minor. I have a bunch of publications out with CAI, so maybe I could go into management through them and get my PCAM or something (I think that sounds SO superfun), but who knows? So much depends on if we stay in UT for the next few years or if we get into TFA and end up in Mississippi. Or if we go to Korea or something. I was just invited to China with NSCS. Who knows? So much is up in the air.

What to do...