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Well, today was eventful. I decided to give blood for the first time. I had avoided it previously because Leslie had told me about passing out after donating her freshman year (her first - perhaps only - time to donate). But I figured it was time to find out if I'd react the same way - needles don't bother me; I was worried about the susceptibility we have for fainting thanks to Mom's genes. So anyway, I decided to give blood. I went after my genetics class. Everything went fine. I didn't watch them put the needle in because everyone told me not to, even though I wanted to. The finger prick, pointy marker used to mark my vein, and the scrubbing with iodine hurt more than the [huge] needle. When it was over, I felt fine. I sat around and ate my cookie and drank my Capri Sun. Then I had to get to my micro class, so I walked out of the building and got my bike (I was told I shouldn't ride it so I was walking it). I got to the intersection, waiting for the walk signal, when...yeah...everything started to go black. I remember thinking "just breathe" and next thing I know I was on the concrete tangled up with my bike. I couldn't have been out for too long. Some guy ask if I was okay, and as we all are inclined to do, I said I was. The light had turned red again, so after I got myself free from my bike, I walked my bike (slowly) back to the building, locked it up, and called Matt to come get me. He did, got me home and into bed, fed me a peanut butter sandwich (I wasn't hungry but knew I needed to eat something) and made me drink some water. He also called work for me to ask if it was okay if I didn't come in (it was). Then I slept for a few hours until 5:30. I'm feeling better now, although my stomach is not the happiest, my arm aches and my pricked finger hurts, and I have a slight headache. Matt came back and made (microwaved) me some chicken noodle soup at 6:30, and it was good. So he's taking care of me. But I'm sorry to say that I won't be donating blood again any time soon.

I forgot to mention another highlight of the day - we opened up Sparky's abdominal cavity in lab and it was awesome. Cooler than the thoracic cavity. We saw the stomach, liver, kidneys, spleen, small intestine, large intestine, adrenal glands, pancreas, gall bladder (it's green!), and a lot more that I can't think of. We also looked at his reproductive system again and went over to Lucky (Sparky's next door neighbor) to look at her reproductive anatomy (not as cool as Sparky's, I must admit...we concluded that Lucky sucks. She's fat, too). So yeah, anyway, that was neat. :)

yogurt update: i'm not feeling sick or anything, so the yogurt must've been clean (or the bacteria are currently multiplying in my body like crazy...one of the two). man, i cannot concentrate tonight! i blame biochemistry. for everything.

My biochemistry test went better than expected (not great, but not horrible). So I hopefully made at least a 70 or so... but if I miss every multiple choice question I guessed on, I'm in trouble. At least now I can focus on studying anatomy for Wednesday's test (eek).

Highlight of the day: eating yogurt that we made in microbiology lab. It was pretty good (we mixed in strawberry pie filling) but it could've used some sugar. I didn't eat it until my lab partner who'd actually made it took a bite. Those of us who did eat our yogurt got bonus points. Our TA said no one had ever gotten sick eating their yogurt...that they could prove.

Weekend update:
-I went to baseball on Friday night with Amanda and Jeff and Matt. It was quite fun, I got to catch up with Amanda, we won the game, I got to see Cameron Blair from HP play for Tech and he did pretty poorly, and we went to Swenson's afterwards for ice cream. Nice. Oh, and Jeff is cool. I approve.
-I studied a lot (for me) on Saturday. I even had to pass on baseball with Matt and Em to get stuff done. The good news - I did get stuff done. Matt came over after the game and played Mario Kart with me, though, and that was fun :) He gave me a run for my money in Battle Mode.
-Today I've been studying some more. I also have been playing a bit of Splinter Cell (the first one, not Pandora Tomorrow). I'm really enjoying it. It has some neat GBA connectivity that helps out a lot (yes, I would be playing the Gamecube version - I got it for free when I bought Prince of Persia).

I just wrote a lab report about Salmonella arizonae and now it is time to study anatomy until my dinner break. Yay...

Two neat things happened today:
1) Bowie from The Apprentice was on the radio this morning (Candy 95). He said he wore his Aggie ring the whole time he was on the show (and that Amy doesn't wear hers. Bad Amy!) And he said he will most likely go to the baseball game tonight!
2) The monster trucks [for the "Extreme Monster Truck Nationals" taking place this weekend] were out in the parking lot by Reed Arena. They are big. And cool.

Okay, so these aren't super exciting things, but when all you can think about are your two impossible tests next week, you'll take anything positive.

Genetics test today. It went pretty well. There weren't any questions where I had no idea what was going on, so that was good. I was pleased overall. Biochemistry test on Monday, anatomy on Wednesday...This weekend won't be the best. Although, Matt and I are supposed to go to a baseball game tomorrow (vs tech) with Amanda and her new love interest, Jeff, and that will be cool. I'm really anxious to meet Jeff because Amanda's pretty crazy about him, and he and Matt should get along - he's also in the PPA program (2 groups behind Matt, so they don't know each other). The Apprentice was pretty nerve-wracking tonight. I was pretty worried that Amy was getting fired. But she survived. Whoop!

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I don't want to study genetics for the 20 minutes before Matt comes over, so I'll post instead. Not really much to say. It was hard getting into the swing of things today. All my normal routines took a little thought, making sure I didn't forget anything. In a way, it was good to get back, though. Don't ask me why. I guess because it begins the march to summer. I was getting really depressed about the remaining weeks, but Jon helped me put it in perspective. He said, "Don't think of it as 6.5 weeks; think of it as less than 2 months." That helped a bit.

Also nice - the course schedules for summer and fall semesters are up, and now I can finally plan out the last two classes of my undergraduate career. I have to take physiology this summer, and the other class has to be an "International and Cultural Diversity" class. Now I was hoping to get into something interesting like Near Eastern Religions (to complement Fall of 2002's Indian & Oriental Religions) or something easy like anthropology 205 (People & Cultures of the World). But no, these and all other of my preferred classes conflict with phys lab. However, there may be a silver lining to this cloud - "Minority Health" is offered as a 10-week web-based class. Now at first, it sounded horrible (but something I was definitely interested in because it is a 200-level class and online) but then some people pointed out that it has the potential to be interesting. So we'll see. Now I'm just hoping it won't get filled up before I can register. :)

Spring break is over and I'm not happy about it. It feels like once spring break is over, the spring semester should be almost over, kind of like Thanksgiving break in the fall. But no, I have 6.5 weeks of classes left, plus exams. That includes two rounds of tests and finals, another anatomy case study, some microbiology lab reports, and a couple biochemistry assignments. I think I have a major case of senioritis, but I seriously want to get through this semester quickly. My summer schedule (physiology + one more class) is looking so great right now. But anyway, enough whining.

The tail end of my spring break was pretty fun. I hung out with Matt and his family on Friday night, including a belated birthday dinner for Luke at El Fenix. Then Luke and I played a lot of the new James Bond 007 game (Everything or Nothing) on Xbox. It was really awesome, especially the cooperative 2-player mission mode. However, it is missing the 2-player fighting/shooting each other more that helped make Goldeneye so great - I can't believe they didn't include it in this new game, because it has everything else you'd want. Still, an awesome game. Saturday I had a really nice long visit with Carolyn and later hung out with Matt, Em, and Luke while their 'rents were at the symphony. Today we went from Dallas to Waco to watch the A&M-Baylor baseball game (we won!) and then went on to College Station.

The only major event in the drive was Matt getting a speeding ticket - and it was so unfortunate. He had his radar detector out and was cruising at about 76 mph. But then we entered a construction zone with 55 mph speed limits. I determined long ago that informing Matt that he was speeding (as long as he's driving his car) is unnecessary and unappreciated, so I didn't say anything as his radar detector started beeping at him and we passed a cop car...that is, I didn't say anything until he did that and I thought "hmm...it didn't seem like he slowed down much" and glanced at the speedometer and saw it still showing 76 mph. I said "you know it's 55 here" ... he said "no I didn't realize that" ... and then the cop car was behind us with lights ablaze. He handled it really well though. Good thing it's been more than a year since he did defensive driving last. Oh well. Makes a good story. Sucks for Matt.

So that's the conclusion of the spring break posts. It was a great 9 days. I had a really fun time with Mom and Dad, Murphy, Matt, Emily, Luke and their parental units, Graham, Carolyn, the workmen remodeling the bathroom, my Gamecube, Luke's Xbox, digital cable with all the movie channels, parental cooking, the sailboat and Claude, Biscuit, Link and Majora's Mask, IMs from roommates in Mexico, baseball, and sleep. Lots of sleep. I'll miss them all. Expect all posting to slow down again as I reenter school mode and get buried in work. April is going to be horrible.

It has been a lovely spring break, and I am very sad that it has almost come to an end. I got to see Graham on Wednesday - we ate lunch at Cisco, saw "Spartan," and did some much needed catching up. Things are going well for him, although he's also in the middle of a killer semester. That evening, Mom, Matt, and I trundled down to the mini-ranch. Dad had a yummy dinner ready for us when we got there. Claude Locke joined us, and after dinner we played a lovely few rounds of Mexican Train. Claude and I dominated. :) Thursday morning we went sailing for almost three hours. The boat is really nice, and Dad and Claude made a cute (and effective) sailing team (Matt only almost went swimming ten times...okay, it just looked like it). Then Matt and I had to head back to Dallas for my dentist appointment [no cavities, yay!]. Last night I hung out with Matt. We were going to go to the Dallas Zoo today, but we decided not to after the gorilla escaped and attacked some people there (Gorilla attacks). So instead I've just been playing Zelda and relaxing.

Tomorrow is my last full day of freedom. The plan is to head back to College Station on Sunday by way of Waco so we can watch the Aggie baseball team kick Baylor's butt at 2:00. Whizzeeeeeeeeeeeee [boom]!

A spring break update: I'm in Dallas now. The change is fun, and the food is infinitely better. Tonight = Mom's pot roast. Awesome.

I did my stint in the anatomy lab on Monday afternoon. Emily came along and was insanely helpful. I brought an extra pair of gloves and she dug right in, as well as holding and reading from my dissection guide and being properly impressed as I explained my technique for remembering the difference between the biceps brachii and brachialis muscles. Then we rolled on out of College Station (Matt driving his new Accord, pure joy), stopped at Sonic (yay!), and got into Dallas around 8:30 pm. Today I played some LoZ: Majora's Mask, watched some TV, and hung out with Murphy. Then Mom and I rented "Freaky Friday" on PPV and ate the delicious pot roast. It was fun :) Tomorrow I'm hanging out with Graham (didn't even know he was going to be in Dallas!) and then we (Mom, Matt, and I) may go join Dad down at the ranch/lake to go sailing in Claude's new sailboat!

So spring break in Dallas is off to an awesome start. I'm only worried that it is going way too fast.

I haven't done a good job of updating recently, but that was simply because all my energy was dedicated to getting through the last week of classes to make it to spring break. And I succeeded. This past weekend Matt, Emily, and I went to a couple baseball games, played dominoes, and watched American Pie 3 (classy, I know); I studied some anatomy, and played some LoZ: Majora's Mask. This evening we're heading to Dallas for the rest of spring break. I really need to do some studying while I'm there. I have a lot coming up in a hurry in the weeks after break.

Other than that, there isn't much to report. This afternoon I'm going to the anatomy lab for some review, and Emily will be coming to meet Sparky. She has to take an anatomy class eventually (either mine or human anatomy/physiology), so she's checking it out. And who doesn't want to hang out with a very dead, very cold, very juicy (hopefully - we don't want him turning into jerky) dog?

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I had an amazingly fun weekend. It all started with me working Friday morning, and then skipping biochemistry so that Matt could pick me up at noon to head to the mini-ranch. We went the backroads way (Hwy 6 -> OSR -> FM 39 -> FM 79 -> I-45 -> US-84 -> FM 488 -> US-287 -> FM 309 -> TX-31 -> TX-274). Heehee. We got to the ranch in time to notice that Dad's Expedition looked kind of sunken into the ground. Sure enough, Dad had gotten it stuck in the mud while attempting to park such that people would know where it was too soft to park...which he achieved, really, by parking in the mud himself. So we rolled up our sleeves and set to work to try and get the car out, along with Claude Locke's son Chris. Chris' wife and 3-year-old son Chase were there as well - Chase watched us trying to rescue the car and took the red wagon, "got it stuck" in the mud, and then "pulled it to safety" about 5 times. It was pretty cute. So that was the excitement for Friday evening. The car was eventually rescued by using the hydraulics on the tractor to lift it out of the mud and pull it onto the driveway. We managed to tear up the yard pretty well in the whole process (imagine 2'-deep gashes in the grass). And Dad "handled the whole thing very well" (everyone kept saying that...but he was!)

Saturday was Beth Locke's 50th birthday celebration, so Matt and I were busy helping get ready for that (after being awoken way too early by enthusiastic adults in the next room whose voices were carried right through the walls). There was a band (the guitarist was Beth's brother), a dance floor, a margarita machine, about 50-60 guests including four very small children and three little dogs, food from Cisco, horseshoes, softball, football, Mo the golf cart, a fire, and amazingly beautiful weather. The party lasted officially from 11-6. It was pretty great. And Murphy made up for his restrictive "no people-food" diet by eating his own body weight in handouts (and food stolen from small children). He was on a sugar high all day.

That night we had a bonfire and the Dixie Crows (Claude Locke and Will Reardon) performed at the beginning of the night. Later Matt picked up the guitar and played along with Will's bass (it was really awesome :) ). Karen Reardon took over the singing duties, although all the ladies (Mom, Karen, and myself) did give a heart-wrenching performance of "Danny Boy," which we believe will become our signature song. Then we had a great steak dinner and played Mexican Train dominoes until the wee hours (okay, midnight, but it felt a lot later).

Sunday morning came, and Matt and I had to hustle home so that I could work on all my homework. I actually managed to get some done in the car (he went home by a different route and I didn't even notice). When I got back, I had to work on my anatomy case study take home test, which took forever, and a biochemistry assignment, and I studied for my microbiology lab practical which was today (which turned out to be pretty easy, thank goodness). Today in lab, we looked more at the chest cavity and took out the lungs. We found all sorts of nerves, veins, and arteries in the thoracic cavity. It was cool. And again the weather was amazing. 71 degrees and sunny is pretty nice (as long as there's a breeze).

Okay, there's my massive update. Only eight more classes and four more days until spring break. Whizzeeeeeeeeeee....... (boom)

Wow, nothing like homework avoidance to make you update your blog. Things have just been puttering along and I've been trying to get through the week, so I haven't been posting. Tomorrow after work, Matt is picking me up and we're heading to the mini-ranch for fun, relaxation, and Beth's 50th birthday party.

Some highlights from the week:
-I really enjoyed the Oscars. The commercials were pretty amusing and I couldn't help being pumped up about the LOTR's success. I particularly enjoyed seeing Annie Lennox perform "Into the West" and it winning for best song. I love that song. Seriously, I can't stop listening to it. I also enjoyed the performance of the song from "A Mighty Wind" just because Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara are just cool. Oh, and I wanted Johnny Depp to win. Is that wrong of me?
-We opened up Sparky's chest cavity in lab this week and it was awesome. But not quite as awesome as the group next to us whose beagle had an enormous tumor filling its chest. But yeah, lungs are neat looking. We're all coming in on Sunday to finish up the dissection and remove the lungs to see what else is in there (the heart, among other things, I'm told).
-Only 8 more days until spring break. It can't come soon enough!
-I'm excited about voting in the democratic primaries, although I'm a little sad that they're essentially over already. This will be my first time voting. That what happens when you turn 18 one week after the 2000 presidential election - you get disillusioned with the voting process for a while. But at least I wasn't living in Florida at the time.
-Anyone out there watch The Apprentice? Matt and I are hooked (although we only usually watch parts during CBS commercials). We were thrilled that Omarosa got fired. Go Amy!

Reading list update: The Children of the Atom is a cool book. Very old school, quite enjoyable, and a fast read.

Okay, I promised myself I'd do some work tonight. :)