Housekeeping and useless tidbits

So as it turns out, I am in fact not moving in a week. That's a long story that I might cover some other time.

Meanwhile tomorrow I have my last 3 finals and then I'm done with the semester. I've applied to UCF for this fall. My community college offers a guaranteed admission program with UCF if you complete an associates degree. At the end of this semester I'll have 62 credit hours, but I won't have my A.S. because I switched from a business major to a public administration major. Hopefully I'll still squeak by and get into UCF but if not then I'll finish my A.S. and apply again later.

I'm not taking classes this summer, which is weird because I've taken classes for the past two summers. Before that I was working for the circus and before that I did a theater internship. So this is my first summer off in a while. I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do with myself.

I'm giving a lot of thought to joining the Air Force after I graduate. I'm looking around at the economy and I'm not excited about having to find a job after college. With the Air Force, I'll have my housing and meals paid for and I'll be able to build a nice little nest egg for a couple of years. Not to mention that military experience looks good on the resume when applying for government jobs. But all that is two or three years away.

This summer I definitely need to take my health seriously. I need to go get blood work done to figure out why my hands and feet are sweating and why my hair is turning white and falling out. All of this points to a thyroid condition, which runs in my family. Anyway, whatever my mystery health problem is, this is the summer that it's going to be solved.

That's all for now. Stay tuned for more exciting info to come.

Darn it.

I got pulled over by the police tonight. :( It was for a broken/not really broken, rather just dim, passenger side headlight. No ticket. Still, it ruined my record of not ever being pulled over. April 25, 2009 the day my perfect record died.

Boi dont tri to plai.

I drank a super-sized Red Bull a few hours ago because I thought that my math homework would be an all-nighter. I finished all the math homework in about an hour and now am sufficiently buzzed at 3:30 in the morning. Wahoo!

Tomorrow...er..today rather, is essentially the last day of my semester. My finals are next week and then I'm done son.

Just prior to signing into my blog here, I was looking up the new financial aid maximums. One of the perks of having seven younger siblings is that it basically guarantees that you're eligible for the maximum amount of grant money, or close to it. The new Pell Grant max is $5,350, which is about $600 more than it was last year. The SEOG caps out at $1000--same as last year and the FSAG maxs at $1900. So all together the three big grants are worth $8,266.

On a completely separate note I can't get Womanizer out of my head. :-/

Maybe I'll go study for my finals.

Near the end...

The other night I watched When Harry Met Sally (which is on youtube, fyi). It was the first time in months that I’ve been able to sit down and finish a movie. Clearly this is a sign that my semester is nearing an end. I also drove, on 3 hours of sleep, to Gainesville over the weekend to visit some friends. Bit by bit, my life is mellowing out.

I bought a webcam and after playing with it for about ten minutes, I have no idea why I bought it. It’s a good camera. I think tonight I’m going to tape myself sleeping to see if I snore. Maybe I talk in my sleep and reveal mortifying secrets. I’m hoping for some enlightening footage.

Gosh it feels nice to have free time again. Harmony and balance have returned for the summer.

Humility...

I'm still completely amazed by the events of this past week. I got confirmed into the Catholic faith, along with my family, at the Easter Vigil Mass. It was a four hour service and it was absolutely beautiful. My brother and grandparents flew into town for the event.

I spent part of this evening, sitting around the kitchen table talking to my grandfather. He likes to ask questions that put himself into the position of listening to long detailed answers. He always seems amazed by everything I have to say. While we were talking I suddenly became overwhelmingly aware that I was talking to a man who bottle fed me as an infant. I was looking into the face of the same man who desperately searched through a fourth of July crowd to find a lost six-year old version of me. How does this man take me seriously? How can he possibly see me as an adult? To hear me talk about federal arts funding and masters degree programs in public administration, does it just translate to baby talk? In that moment I felt unbelievably humbled.

I think sometimes we forget where we came from. I forget that I was the six year old girl getting lost in the crowd and the adorable baby that needed care. Sometimes we act like our opinions, rights, feelings, etc. should be the most important issues in the room. Sometimes we need to sit back, listen and just be humbled.

Obviously my body does not handle stress...

This has been an unbelievably embarrassing day. I passed out, not once but twice, at the Palm Sunday Mass service. The sanctuary was packed with people. All the sudden I started yawning and couldn’t stop. I just assumed that it was because I hadn’t gotten much sleep the past few nights. Anyway about 30 minutes or so into the service we knelt down. I leaned over and whisper to my sister that I felt I was going to pass out. Almost immediately after the words left my lips, my eyesight went into tunnel vision and then it was dark. I felt like I was asleep in a blender, I could feel my whole body shaking violently and my ears were burning hot. I woke up a short time later, maybe 30 seconds or so, with my mom and sister each holding onto me.

They practically carried me out of the church and my dad went to get the car. Outside while I was sitting with my mom on the steps of the church, the whole thing happened again. It just took a few a seconds before I woke up, but it felt like slow motion and it was absolutely terrifying. When I woke up the second time I could hear my mom yelling for help and when my vision came back there were two or three people standing around me offering me water, which I guzzled down.

I got in the car and listened to my parents talk about the hospital and whether they should take me there. At this point I felt much more composed and conscious. I was making jokes to try to calm my mom down. I absolutely did not want to go to the hospital. I told her that. We went home and crashed onto the sofa in the living room. My dad took my blood sugar level, my blood pressure and my temperature…all normal. I drank a lot of water, a little soda, and I took 4 ibprophens and some magnesium supplements. Basically I took whatever my mom handed me, to appease her because she seemed just as freaked out as I felt.

Then about 30 minutes later the entire left side of my body went numb, as if I’d lost circulation. You know when your arm falls asleep and it feels fuzzy, it was like that. I couldn’t control my hand well enough to grip a glass of water. The left side of my tongue was even swollen. Then my head ache became insanely hard to deal with. Light and sound…everything made it worse. I was trying really hard not to cry from a combination of being terrified and being in pain.

All of this happened to me two years ago when I got pneumonia. I fainted twice, around this exact same time last year. Back then I sat in the ER for several hours waiting to be seen, and then they gave me a bed and pumped me full of fluids because I was severely dehydrated. They also ran a bunch of tests and blood work. It was miserable and the whole thing ended up costing thousands in medical bills. The outcome was cough medicine and absolute bedrest for ten days.

This time I’m not coughing or short of breath. Basically I’m on bedrest for the next day or so, I can’t drive anywhere for obvious reasons and I’m drinking a river of water and Gatorade to get my fluids back up. I’m exhausted. I don’t have time to be sick. I’ve got too much going on at school and home to be laying in bed for very long.

Preview of upcoming events...

___Tomorrow morning I have mass at 10 followed by a quick change of clothes and then a showing of the play Amadeus at 2:30 for my humanities class. Evening of homework, I have to finish my government paper and write a presentation for speech class.
___Monday I have a presentation due, a paper due and Passover Dinner at the church.
___Tuesday I’m cleaning the house all day and packing, as well as writing a paper for my humanities class on Amadeus.
___Wednesday I have classes from 9am until 9pm.
___Thursday my grandparents are arriving from the airport.
___Friday Stephen is arriving from the airport.
___Saturday I’m at the church all day for confirmation practice. Saturday night I’m getting confirmed.
___Sunday is Easter, and all visiting relatives are leaving that afternoon.

Next Monday I have class, Tuesday I’m off. Wednesday night I’m driving the first load of boxes up to VA—hopefully back by Saturday. Church on Sunday.

All that brings us to Monday the 20th, when my schedule starts to free up, just in time for finals week.

Tonight I had to inform just about the only people in the state of Florida that I really care about, that I’m moving at the end of the month. I’m not emotional about goodbyes. It’s not that I won’t miss the people I’m leaving behind—I’ll miss them tremendously—I’ve just done this often enough in my life that I’ve grown casual about the whole thing. Is that weird? I’m looking forward to going back to Virginia, I miss it a lot and it feels like home.

Should I stop for a carmel macchiato this morning?

Bring it on 12 hour Wednesday... do your worst. :)