Etiquette

*Whew, had to edit this slightly before posting cuz I sounded too much like a crazy person on a rant! Which, I sort of was, after having been thoroughly pissed off by a coworker having a bad day. Sorry if this still sounds slightly manic, it's hard to do a quick edit, plus it's been a lazy day :)* But anyhoo, having manners and being polite seems to be a dying art, just like good drivers. My parents definitely hammered them into my sister and me so I think we're probably too polite (which I do understand can be annoying at times too), but even without that, shouldn't it be common sense? Someone does something for you. You thank the person. Life goes on its merry way. Sounds so simple, yet it doesn't seem to be happening much anymore. I wish it was more like that old commercial, possibly with the Volkswagon Bug? Where someone sees it and does something nice for someone, who then does something nice for someone else, etc. The whole doing something nice because you see a pretty car is odd, but the rest of it I think is what is important. And I guess the fact that I still remember the commercial even though I haven't seen it for years means that it probably was a very effective commercial, unless it wasn't actually advertising a Volkswagon Bug. But I digress. The point I'm trying to make here, is that I hope someday people revive what seems to be dying. Manners should be one of those things that never go out of style.

Post-it notes

I have a confession to make: I have a sad, very sad addiction. To Post-it notes. Yes, seriously, I am not kidding. I love sticking them everywhere. At work, I've got 3 different colors of post-it note pads. And at home, I've got 2 post-it note pads, both green, and both lined (makes it better). I'm not sure if it actually keeps more organized, but at least they're all stuck to my desk so I can't lose them! I've got lists, chores, random scrawls, even the code for my blog to turn the font blue scrawled all over random ones. Hehehehe, see they're useful for something :)

My Weekly Lessons

My posts are slowly becoming more and more infrequent. Whoopsies. Oh well. This past week I've been slowly relaxing again after a hectic American Thoracic Society conference week. My first international conference, I felt like such a grown up! I felt so relieved after last Wednesday, after my (short) presentation, and I didn't realize how much I was worrying about it until after it passed. And now it's nice to not have to motivate myself to go and practice yet another time. So this weekend was nice and relaxing, especially since we postponed (yet again, I live in a family of procrastinators it seems) our garage sale until June. So I feel like in this past week to week and a half I've learned a lot, and not just about lungs.
1. The whole saying about the more prepared you are the more relaxed you'll be is TRUE!!! :D Well, sort of. I was pretty prepared for my talk and studied like crazy, researching and memorizing all these answers to possible questions, and actually lucky for me I got asked some variations of those questions. But I was still nervous as hell, but I guess since I was prepared, I didn't stumble as bad, so the prep work did help I think. But leads me to point two.
2. If nervous, do not twist/shred a kleenex in your hands. Otherwise you will end up with white linty dusty crap all over your suit. Not professional. Oops.
3. It's possible to ventilate a lung in a jar. SO awesome!
4. Not really a lesson since I pretty much already knew this, but I guess I had a confirmation that even with a topic you're pretty comfortable with (in my case, lung mesenchymal stem cells, which I've worked with a little over a year now), it's still possible to be completely dumbfounded with aspects of the topic. Can you say secresome?
5. For me, the key I've discovered to clothes shopping last weekend, is XXSP. How pathetic is that. I had no idea I was that small. Truthfully I'm not actually that short, but it seems I've got to sacrifice length for the rest of me. Dangit.
6. It is possible to build an 8 foot tall Yoda without looking at instructions inside a busy mall. Another awesome discovery, I might add.

All in all, a highly interesting and informative week, I should say.

Assertiveness

As I exchanged presentation slides with my boss in preparation for a lung conference in a couple weeks, I learned a curious thing. My boss has decided that I'm not assertive enough (ok, which I grudgingly admit is true), and so she spent the morning buying me books on Amazon on how to be more assertive. One of which, I might add, is a children's book written for 7 year old children. She pointed out that it had good examples (she bought it for her daughter), which is why she bought it for me. It's a weired feeling. I'm flattered that she obviously cares enough about me to worry about my future (she thinks that I'll be taken advantage of in med school if I don't assert myself), but I'm also a little unnerved, since she is technically my boss. I mean do bosses usually care so much about your well-being/future? It's a nice feeling I guess, but still weird.
On the other hand though, maybe if I learn something from the books I would be able to stand up to my demonic coworker, instead of doing what I did today, which was give her a look of confusion/disbelief every time she asked me something stupid, and then stormed around and slammed things on the lab bench for a while. So maybe it's a really good thing and I do have something to learn from all this :)

Rain!

It's so nice to hear the rain falling. We've had plenty of sunshine. The occasional snow shower. But rain? For an extended amount of time? Almost unheard of! Yay for the extra moisture :)

On a total side note, is it completely pathetic that I took an Econ computer programming class and still need to cut and paste code on this blog to get that pretty blue color? Probably :( Oh well.

Where's the Balance?

The world's not fair, get over it. I've heard this many, many times, but I can't get over it. It's a fact, but should it really be? Why is it that sometimes working hard doesn't pay off, or that someone is constantly lucky at everything (or unfortunately, vice versa)? Maybe the world would be too unbalanced, I don't know.

One thing I do know though, is that it became much more apparent in the "working world." I'm more glad than ever that I took a year off to gain work experience in between undergrad and grad school, because I believe I've got much more realistic expectations of what the "real world" will be like. I've seen people at work break things and blame other innocent people for it. People who only talk to others based on their "rank." People who take advantage of other people's kindness. And these are all different people, too. I naively thought all people had integrity, but I guess not. And the world's not fair. Will they face some sort of consequences for their actions? Maybe. Maybe not. We'll never know, another fact of the unfair world. I guess all we can do is hope that the world is more fair than unfair, and that karma does exist.

The Price of Productivity

This weekend I had probably the most productive weekend since maybe graduation. Yes I know, that's quite pathetic, but I've found that I've just been a lazy girl after a week at work. Not that I even work many hours, but that's a different story. But it really couldn't have been better, especially with all the friend-catching up I got. A quick Starbucks run with my friend visiting from NM and then family Larkburger trip and Target run rounded out late morning to early afternoon, then hospice visit, work and double date dinner. Plus walking around 16th street that I am not embarrassed to admit counted as my weekend "exercise." Sunday was cleaning and errand running. I'm not really sure how my room doesn't really look any cleaner, but I swear I actually cleaned it. Perhaps because most of it was dusting with my new Swiffer duster, which actually really sucks (awful gimmick! booo) But anyways, in all my basking in productivity, what did I receive? Worst f-ing migraine ever. Seriously, it woke me up at about 2 this morning and popped up on and off all early-morning until I nixed it for good with a nap. Puh. Stupid weather changes. I've got an interesting family. We could seriously be hired to predict the weather, or at least the pressure changes.

Checking Out the Brain

Usually it's my dad who's says hilarious things. Or me, which is part of how I am really similar to my dad. We both have this habit of not quite remembering how sayings go, so we sort of jumble it a bit, which always makes for lots of laughs. But at least we can laugh at ourselves, right?

But anyways, yesterday, the funny quote of the day went to my mom. It was amusing in a different way. Not because she misquoted a saying (she never does that, it's just me and my dad) but because of how she phrased things. I was up in my room, surfing the net, and I hear my mom yell out, "Kel! Wanna check out my brain??" I laughed, and went to go and see, and my mom was standing in the kitchen, holding her MRI scans to the light, trying to figure out which way to hold them. My dad came to look too, and informed me that mom was "trying to find the hole in her head" that was left from the removal of her brain tumor. None of us, obviously knew anything about the scans, but we couldn't see any holes, which is probably a good sign. All I could identify in the MRIs were my mom's eyeballs. After the three of us squinted at them for a while, she packed them away and was taking them upstairs when my sister finally came down. On the stairs, my mom told my sister something along the lines of, "you're too late to look at my head." Definitely an amusing few minutes :)

Movin On

Well, I guess unfortunately this turned out to be more like a four year circle than I would have liked. Yesterday I found out I was rejected from CU. Not even waitlisted, no, but flat out denied. And yes, I will admit, there were a ton of tears and frustrations pouring out. I cried so much on the way home from picking up my mom yesterday afternoon that my nose got so plugged that I actually gave myself a headache, probably from lack of oxygen. Pathetic I know, but I just wanted to go here that badly. And truthfully, perhaps I did get my hopes up a bit too much. I mean, you're supposed to have the best chance at getting into your state school for heaven's sake. So yes, perhaps a touch cocky? Or no, not cocky but definitely a bit too hopeful.
I know in a ton of ways I'm still incredibly lucky, I did get into medical school, and unlike undergrad, I actually have a choice of where I want to go. But I'm kind of bummed, that I have a choice between two sort of low tier schools. I loved CU and it's especially hard when you hear of the people you know celebrating cuz they got into that exact same school. Sad day.
But I do admit I'm feeling a lot better about it. The road's gonna be a lot tougher, but it's still very walkable. And it's amusing to me how some good things can still come of it. I was so depressed yesterday I passed on going to the hospice to visit my patient, even though I had it all planned. But today, I got this call saying the hospice has the Norwalk virus, which is apparently a highly contagious virus that gives you bad food poisoning. So I guess it would've been likely that I would've gotten it had I come in yesterday like I would have if I had gotten into CU. Ha! Sort of an amusing thought :)
So unfortunately I've got to make the hard decision I didn't want to make, but I'm heavily heavily leaning on going to Chicago over New York. But if Temple comes through for me (fingers tightly crossed on this one, please please please!) then Philly it is!! But for now I just gotta grin (or maybe grimace a bit) and bear it, and move on. And I hope people visit me in Chicago or PHilly, wherever I go :)

Time Management. Or Lack Thereof

For the umpteenth time this year, I'm wondering where all the time is going. It's already March?!?! Which also means that at any point I could finally hear back from CU. That should be good news, but now I'm just extremely nervous. Definitely my top choice, but....still. There's always that nagging feeling. I'm not sure I want to really stay here. I wish Rosalind Franklin was a better school. Or that I got in to Temple, and it was like $15,000 a year cheaper.
The only nice things about time progressing so fast is definitely the incoming warmer weather.
Now if I could only get off work earlier to enjoy it :) But instead, it's sitting in front of the computer. And now I've got to start coming in on Saturdays too. I mean, I shouldn't complain, I don't work 40 hours/week like most normal people, but I still get sort of exhausted from the work week. And for living only like 10 miles away from work, it still takes a half hour each way which I find kind of odd for living so close. But oh well, why quibble. I just feel like I have no more time for myself. I've got so many things to do that keep getting put off, but I never really know why. I honestly don't know what I do with my time. Scary isn't it? I guess it's time to start managing my time better, even my down time. Which is sort of sad, too. But oh well. I guess it'd help if I cut down on my amount of sleep, but that just makes me too cranky. If only there was a 'stop time momentarily' button that I could press every now and then....And now I suppose it's time to get off the computer to do some of the stuff I've been putting off, like fixing my closet. Dang.

Boxing+Laser Quest Don't Mix

After a week that progressively got worse and worse as the week wore on, it was nice to have one of the better weekends I've had in a while to wipe that all away. According to my horoscope I was supposed to have a 5 star day Friday, but....didn't really happen. I had to stay late at work, making up for a colleague's mistake and then due to lack of communication, had to come in Saturday morning.
But, cue in some awesome friends and lots of eating. Dim sum with two of my bestest buddies on Saturday, and then one of the most delicious dinners ever with the family at Restaurant Kevin Taylor (restaurant week rules!) and then a thoroughly satisfying game of laser quest pretty much made up for all the work suckiness.
Although, unfortunately today I'm incredibly sore. Now, I know it's pathetic to be sore after one game of laser quest, of all things, but yesterday morning I did a round of boxing on the Wii Fit. I'm pretty sure that's what messed up my arms since I haven't done it in a while, and I could already feel the soreness coming on. But with all the adrenalin during the night's activities, I couldn't feel it again until this morning. My ribcage is kinda sore too, although I'm not sure where that all fits in. Maybe running in to all those people, I dunno. So I guess the lesson of the day was to not do any boxing before laser quest. Or you will be SORE-Y. Ok, another bad pun.
Today was also a nice chill way to end a good weekend: chilling and watching the Social Network, which actually was pretty decent, and ending with Chipotle. Mmm, the only bad thing about this weekend is that is has ended. And now it's back to work again to decontaminate my work bench, which is about as fun as it sounds, and takes about as long as the word is. Bummer.

Full Circle

The weird thing about education is how many circles you go through. You start as the freshman in high school, slightly confused and looking up, seeing you've got four years to spend here before you're part of the big guys on campus. The Seniors! And once that comes around and you graduate, you're back at the beginning: Freshies again! And it's three or four or five more years till you can happily brag about being a senior and almost done with college.
Getting ready for my third turn around the circle is even weirder. There were so many differences between high school and college that everything was still new and exciting, and I didn't mind being a college freshman. It was waaay better than being a senior, if you ask me. The freedom was invigorating. And a bit too intoxicating too, sometimes. But now, the differences between college and grad school isn't much, except I'm sure this time is gonna be a huge step up in intensity. But the rest is sort of the same: the nervousness of the uncertainty of where I'm going to end up, thinking about what to pack and what to leave behind (although this time I'm sure a much larger amount of things are going to get packed up as I'm sort of sure I'm not going to be permanently living at home anymore), and where I'm gonna live for four + years.
And now I've got to sit down and fill out my FAFSA for the first time since high school to boot. Ahhh loans!!!! Noooooooooo! Lol, it is about time, I suppose. I was super lucky my parents supported me so much, paying for my undergrad and even my housing, too. But now it's time to stand on my own two wobbly legs. Which means being massively in debt, but oh well.
Sometimes, I feel I didn't enjoy college as much as I could have. I didn't go out much, and actually didn't make any lasting friends, either. It was the weirdest thing; most of the friends I made in college were people I knew from high school but didn't hang out with. But I'm definitely hoping med school will be different. Hell, I'm way different. But with any circle and journey, I'm sure that's to be expected.

Although I didn't know her well, I'm so sorry to hear that Sam Taylor has passed away in Vietnam. We met on our spring break trip to California, as camp counselors at YMCA Camp Campbell. I will always remember her as Firefly, and how sweet and full of energy she was, especially on the long drive there and back.
And on a selfish note, it's just so sad and scary. I mean, we're young. This kind of thing shouldn't happen to us, we are at the age to look forward, and celebrate our lives. Not have everything stop so abruptly. I can't believe she's gone. It's definitely an eye-opening shocker, and it couldn't have happened to a nicer person. I will miss you for sure, Sam, even if we only hung out for a week.

Romantic Interruptions

It's a good thing my boyfriend and I aren't super big on Valentine's day, because the "holiday" (as about as loose of a term as possible) definitely didn't go as planned. Nothing like parents and exes to rain on the parade.

We decided to just do something low-key so we were planning on heading to Boulder to tour the Celestial Seasonings factory, since Morgan likes tea, and neither of us had been, despite living in Boulder for all that time. So just as we get up to Boulder, literally turning onto Baseline Rd, Morgan gets a call from his parents. Their car broke down (something is has apparently been threatening to do for a month) and Morgan needed to come and get them right away. So as soon as we got up to Boulder, we had to turn right around and go back to Aurora. Cue end of Boulder trip.

Well, that's ok, we still continued with our plans, watching the movie Red. Since we obviously finished way earlier than we had originally planned, we decided to just get dinner early. So, head to the restaurant we picked, only to find it closed. Ok, fine, time to pick an alternative. After deciding on pho, we head to the one on Mississippi. And about a quarter of the way through, who should come in but the one person who would make this "romantic" dinner the most awkward possible. Yep, cue ex-boyfriend and family. Who ended up sitting diagonally from us (we were sitting in the corner along one wall, and they sat along the other wall). Very, very awkward. But the whole thing was sort of comical, even I have to admit. It's one of those laws, I think, that when things don't come along as expected, they start to snowball in that way.

But the plans weren't over. Yesterday, we had dessert while watching the Avs game. And of course, who should ruin that plan but another old flame of mine, the Calgary Flames, my old hometown team (heh heh heh dumb pun). Yep, they came here and completely trashed the poor Avs, 9-1. What a sad showing, definitely a level of Valentine's Day Massacre.

So all in all, a Valentine's Day that we just had to laugh over how things just worked out. Of all the reasons, and people and circumstances it was just one of those days were you had to nod, and sigh, "Of course. Naturally this would happen now." So it's a good thing neither of us were all uber hyped for Feb. 14, and a good lesson learned to never do so in the future, lol.

Ocean Driving

Today is one of those days where I am so completely in love with Denver weather. 60 degree weather in February is just awesome, and even more so when it's melting all the snow. During the short trip from Wal-Mart to a friend's house, I didn't plug my radio back in since the ride was so short (I've got a somewhat old car, so it's got one of those stereos with a removable faceplate since the original stereo was basically a tape deck and really bad and non working radio). Because the snow is never plowed in neighborhoods, the sun was doing its job, melting all the snow on the road, turning it into slush and water. So during the drive, i was plowing through the water and some slightly damp roads, and it was just like driving through the ocean! I could hear the calming whooshing sounds and the occasional splash, and man did I want to be at a beach right then.
Although at the beach, I probably couldn't have red velvet cupcakes :)

Snoooooowwwww

Wow has it been one crazzzy winter! First no snow and the first green Christmas we've had in a while, and now it's snow. Warm melting snow weather. Then snow again. And frigid temperatures. It hasn't been so cold since I was in Canada!
But I guess the one good thing about it has been how much I've toughened up because of the snow. I used to be the biggest wimp about going out and driving in the snow. I would stay home for weeks to prevent driving around, or beg for rides. Now that I'm working,however, it was time to man up and get used to pumping the brake, driving slowly, and sliding around.
I'm proud to say that today I learned my lesson from Friday! A lot less panicking when sliding and definitely no giving in to the sort of peer pressure from drivers behind me to drive faster. Before, if I saw someone tailing me I would feel pressured to drive faster, get them off my back. But now, I sort of don't care. Sure, if that monster truck hit me, my poor little Accord would probably get the brunt end of it, but hey, at least it wouldn't be my fault.
Last Friday was the scariest, and man do I totally believe in guardian angels, watchful ancestors, everything, because someone/people up there were totally looking out for me and I am so totally grateful. I hit black ice on my way to work, started sliding out of my left hand lane into a car in the turn lane, then at the last second started sliding the other way, spinning perpendicularly into the middle lane. Seriously, I ended up almost horizontal facing the sidewalk! But luckily, no one was around due to the previous intersection being turned into a four way stop due to a light outage (another poor, unlucky person slid into a pole that fell into the traffic light). Normally there's plenty of people on Chambers, all on their way to work. I don't think that road has ever been so empty! So yes, super uber lucky! But all in all, a good lesson to NOT panic when I hit ice and slam on the break. Which was a good thing for me to remember today, when I slid again on my way to work, but this time on snow on Colfax. I wish they'd just plow the roads.
I love snow in the winter, but man am I glad for the "super warm weather" (newspaper's words, not mine) up ahead this weekend :)

The Joys of Childhood

Yesterday afternoon the Chow family sat and watched an old video of when my sister and I were kids. I was 2, and Tiff was around 4. It was absolutely hilarious, we both sounded something like the Chipmunks, and could get away with being so high-pitched shrill because we were so little. It was almost even cute.

Yep, I'm vain enough to admit it. I was hilariously cute at the age of two and a half. I would switch dominant hands constantly, follow my big sister around repeating everything she said, and would finger paint by kneading my hands together so that paint would coat both sides of my hands, and then "paint" by rubbing my hands like a windshield wiper across the middle of the paper. And then rub my nose and cheeks for good measure, too. I was so childishly dumb, my mom had to steer me around during an easter egg hung because i couldn't find any eggs. And whenever I found one I'd go and show my dad. I liked to run around around in circles and jump around a lot. Good times, good times. I can't believe how much patience parents have towards their hyperactive children. Amazing!! And also a huge reason I could never be a parent right now.

I always found it so weird that my parents videotaped everything, but now I guess I see their reasons why: hilarious and cheap entertainment for the future :)
The reminiscing wasn't too bad either.

The Resolutions

My blog has gotten neglected for a while, whoops!
But anyways, even though I am a week late, I thought I should write down my resolutions for 2011! Maybe writing them out, and posting it up online, no less, will help me keep them.
1. Keep track of my spending! I usually buy all my stuff with a debit card and then look online, but sometimes I use cash and then I never know where it goes :(
So this year, I've decided to use Excel to keep track! And so far, so good :)
2. Get into medical school. Still have one more interview, so it's not all out of my hands yet! I'm keeping those fingers crossed for CU. Toes, too.
3. I've become really into makeup, and actually buying things too. My skin has dramatically gotten better this year so maybe that's why. So I think I should also resolve to spend a little on myself, but not TOO much. Hence resolution number 1! Must save for resolution 2, haha.
4. Sometimes my temper can get the best of me, aah! SO, I am also committing to being more patient/being nicer. I mean, I don't think I'm quite at the angry mean person yet, but you know, never want to get anywhere near that point :)

So, happy new year, and hopefully I can keep up these four for another 359 days :)

Those Apps

CU! CU! Let me in please! :D Or actually, I'd go for any school :)
This whole med school application process has been stressful! And it doesn't help that med schools seem more content with leaving their applicants in the dark than other grad schools >.<
Or this could also be because I'm not a top applicant post-interview. Grrrr
But yay to Morgan for getting into pharm school!

Shout Out

I Haven't written in a while, but I do want to say thank you. There's no denying that I have few friends, but I am proud to say the few that I have are truly awesome. Today was my 22nd birthday, and I had to say for a while I was dreading it. I was so excited for it; I mean, when your birthday is this time of the month, it's ALWAYS finals time. So studying was a major part of each birthday until now. So I was excited at first, but then the past couple of days were truly horrible. It seemed like I was put on the back burner, with all my relatives, even the ones who pretty much never forget, well...forgetting, and with all the renovations going on in my house, that's pretty much all my parents would talk about. So I was definitely feeling bummed leading up to today. And obviously I know this sounds so ridiculous, getting all worked up about one lousy day, but...well, I did.
But I have to say,to all my friends, you all made today so special, just that little text, or post, and even that special someone coming over twice today to spend time with me. You all made this one of the best birthdays I can remember. So shout out to everyone, THANK YOU! :D