First, I've come to a glorious conclusion.
Blogging, thus far, has been an extremely part-time activity. What do you want from me? I work full time, I've been studying feverishly for the GRE, and have to live my fabulous (read: boring) life. Who has time for a blog?!? Psha.
As I'm sure I've let you know, I have the most incredibly, absolutely boring job on the face of the earth. Ok, its not that bad, but it certainly isn't riveting or intellectually stimulating in any way, shape, or form.
Revelation: I CAN BLOG AT WORK!
Now, I can't actually blog at work. The Nazi web filters disallow most websites I would choose to waste my time at, so I find other ways. Said filters do, however, allow email. I have discovered that I can get around this by emailing myself entries, which I can post when I'm home and don't have Barracuda breathing down my neck. Stupid fish.
Get excited. You'll be subjected to an exponential increase in ramblings and nonsense.
Today's topic, again inspired from work, is going to be why I suck, and what I'm doing about it. This is self-improvement in action, people.
I spoke to a girl today at work who was so many things that I was jealous of. Jealousy is not pretty, but this girl was beautiful. And personable. And funny. And married. And she seemed very sure of herself and very secure with the way her life was going. And all of this made me want to be like her.
Independently of this, I was browsing online and found myself on Glamour's website. One article was titled "30 Days to a Better You!" and I bit. What could it hurt? Every day I get emailed a tip, something to work on... today's is posture. I'm slouching as I type this. And now I just straightened up. However, I feel like overall this 30 days thing is going to be a big waste of time. I do need better posture though...
Waste of time or not, these two things got me thinking. Its not like I'm miserable. But I certainly have fond recollections of "better days" when I didn't dread going to work and when life wasn't broken up into 40-hour-a-week pieces. And I guess the workweek is a part of growing up, and that's fine with me. I don't mind work. I mind my job, is more like it. But that doesn't mean I should be grumpy in the morning because I'm dreading the day. Why should I dread the day? No more. Now, I'm going to kick the day's ass. And high five myself as I watch the day cry in the corner. I want to stop worrying about PA school and take comfort in the fact that I have a pretty good backup plan if it doesn't work out. I want to enjoy my time in NY, even if its freezing effing cold out, because it is an incredible place and I only have a limited amount of time here. I want to straighten out my head, figure out what I really want in life, and who I really want to be a part of that life, and then I want to do whatever it takes to make that a reality. And dang it, that's exactly what I'm going to do!
Go me!
Monday, September 29, 2008
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Attention, Attention
I just effing rocked the GRE.
I mean EFFING rocked it.
I'm feeling muuuuuccccchhhh better about the grad school admissions process right now.
I mean EFFING rocked it.
I'm feeling muuuuuccccchhhh better about the grad school admissions process right now.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Babies?
I work in an OBGYN office. It would be an understatement to say that it is a busy office - we have 14 providers (9 docs, 5 midwives) and serve a population that is good at reproducing (Orthodox Jews). I'm not kidding when I tell you the average family size in this community is 8. Excuse me... that's 8 kids.
Many of these women get married and start having babies at a relatively young age. Girls come in that are my age on their 2nd or 3rd child. While I am happily childless and unmarried, I admit, I am a little envious of these girls - their children are adorable and lets face it, having kids is the grown-up version of having dolls. Except children are substantially more needy. But more fun. Either way, I want something little and cute to play with whenever I want, and since our apartment building says no-no to puppies, this is manifested in a very slight case of baby-envy.
Yesterday I had an experience that transformed "a very slight case of baby-envy" into "I MUST START HAVING CHILDREN NOW!!!"
One of my many responsibilities at work is Intake. Basically, I interview new patients before they see the doctor to obtain a comprehensive health history (can't tell I'm working on grad school applications, can you?). New patients at our office fall into a limited number of categories: New Annual Exams, New OB patients, New GYN patients, and PreNup patients. And I interview them alllllllllllll.
On Monday a chart came up for Intake that was a New OB. Nothing out of the ordinary, until I noticed the patient was born in 1960. If you do the math, that makes this woman 48 years old. I was sure this was some sort of typo, either in the type of visit or date of birth, but went ahead and called the woman into my office to do my thing.
I found out that yes, this woman was 48 years old and yes, she was pregnant.
It turns out that she had been married for years, but her and her husband had waited to start having children. When they did start trying, they had a lot of problems - first, a miscarriage, then years of not conceiving at all. They got help - countless fertility specialists told them they'd never have children - but they kept trying, kept seeking new doctors and new technologies.
This woman conceived her first child at age 45 through a donor egg implantation. She carried the pregnancy to term and gave birth to a healthy baby girl. 2 years later, she and her husband decided to have their second child, and she is currently 15 weeks along on her second pregnancy.
Now, I am fully aware that I am a big dork when it comes to medicine. I am fascinated by the fact that doctors are able to mix a donor egg with her husband's sperm, implant it in her, and make a baby. Probably even more so than I am warmed to the core by her story - which I am. But dorkiness aside, THAT IS FRIGGEN AMAZING. There is no reason this woman should be conceiving and bearing children at this age, but look at her go. And look at her build the family she always wanted. And you didn't see her yesterday, but she was positively glowing. And that put a smile on my face for the rest of the day.
As heartwarming a story as it is, it brings up a lot of questions in my little mind. The lines around issues like donor eggs and science and morality and fertility are so unclearly drawn - what will conception with donor gametes do to the makeup of the population? What if two people want to get married and find out they have the same donor father? How far can we take this technology, and how does that compare to the question of how far should we take this technology?
Besides all the legal/moral issues, it also makes me want to jump on the baby-making bandwagon. (Hey... that sounds fun!) I suppose as women we tend to take our fertility for granted - we assume that our bodies will do what they are supposed to as soon as we want them to. And as technology gets better - and we get more comfortable with it - we can be even more lax because we have something to fall back on. I have ALWAYS figured that when the time came, things would happen as they were supposed to but now I'm a little more concerned. And, clearly, the best way in my mind to remedy this is to get knocked up.
**I'm clearly only joking about having children anytime soon. I'm rather enjoying being a selfish brat right now :)
Many of these women get married and start having babies at a relatively young age. Girls come in that are my age on their 2nd or 3rd child. While I am happily childless and unmarried, I admit, I am a little envious of these girls - their children are adorable and lets face it, having kids is the grown-up version of having dolls. Except children are substantially more needy. But more fun. Either way, I want something little and cute to play with whenever I want, and since our apartment building says no-no to puppies, this is manifested in a very slight case of baby-envy.
Yesterday I had an experience that transformed "a very slight case of baby-envy" into "I MUST START HAVING CHILDREN NOW!!!"
One of my many responsibilities at work is Intake. Basically, I interview new patients before they see the doctor to obtain a comprehensive health history (can't tell I'm working on grad school applications, can you?). New patients at our office fall into a limited number of categories: New Annual Exams, New OB patients, New GYN patients, and PreNup patients. And I interview them alllllllllllll.
On Monday a chart came up for Intake that was a New OB. Nothing out of the ordinary, until I noticed the patient was born in 1960. If you do the math, that makes this woman 48 years old. I was sure this was some sort of typo, either in the type of visit or date of birth, but went ahead and called the woman into my office to do my thing.
I found out that yes, this woman was 48 years old and yes, she was pregnant.
It turns out that she had been married for years, but her and her husband had waited to start having children. When they did start trying, they had a lot of problems - first, a miscarriage, then years of not conceiving at all. They got help - countless fertility specialists told them they'd never have children - but they kept trying, kept seeking new doctors and new technologies.
This woman conceived her first child at age 45 through a donor egg implantation. She carried the pregnancy to term and gave birth to a healthy baby girl. 2 years later, she and her husband decided to have their second child, and she is currently 15 weeks along on her second pregnancy.
Now, I am fully aware that I am a big dork when it comes to medicine. I am fascinated by the fact that doctors are able to mix a donor egg with her husband's sperm, implant it in her, and make a baby. Probably even more so than I am warmed to the core by her story - which I am. But dorkiness aside, THAT IS FRIGGEN AMAZING. There is no reason this woman should be conceiving and bearing children at this age, but look at her go. And look at her build the family she always wanted. And you didn't see her yesterday, but she was positively glowing. And that put a smile on my face for the rest of the day.
As heartwarming a story as it is, it brings up a lot of questions in my little mind. The lines around issues like donor eggs and science and morality and fertility are so unclearly drawn - what will conception with donor gametes do to the makeup of the population? What if two people want to get married and find out they have the same donor father? How far can we take this technology, and how does that compare to the question of how far should we take this technology?
Besides all the legal/moral issues, it also makes me want to jump on the baby-making bandwagon. (Hey... that sounds fun!) I suppose as women we tend to take our fertility for granted - we assume that our bodies will do what they are supposed to as soon as we want them to. And as technology gets better - and we get more comfortable with it - we can be even more lax because we have something to fall back on. I have ALWAYS figured that when the time came, things would happen as they were supposed to but now I'm a little more concerned. And, clearly, the best way in my mind to remedy this is to get knocked up.
**I'm clearly only joking about having children anytime soon. I'm rather enjoying being a selfish brat right now :)
Friday, September 19, 2008
Another Friday Afternoon Update!!
I knowwwww, I'm a little behind here.
We have been incredibly boring the last few weeks. I take the GRE next Saturday (eek!) so every night I come home from work, grab something quick to eat, and hit the books. D usually turns on the TV and watches the Mets - possibly his favorite thing about living in NY so far. I promise, once this exam is over I'll be much more interesting!
Last week, as you know, was the 7th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center. D and I were both curious to see what that would be like, especially with living in the city. Let me tell you: nothing out of the ordinary. Life as usual. I don't know how I feel about that - on one hand, it was huge, terrible day in American history, and we should honor and remember that. On the other hand, I almost feel that the best way to honor that is to go about our business as usual. To live like we did before the attacks. To not hide in constant fear of those who seek to destroy the freedom and peace we enjoy in this nation. I think that such resilience is in the true spirit of New York and of America.
The one very neat thing that we got to experience was that the lights were turned on for the night. We have spectacular views of lower Manhattan from our roof, so we went up late that night to see what we could see.
Now, my little point-and-shoot had a tough time with everything that was going on - the lights of our neighborhood, the bridge, the city, and the towers. I played with the ISO for the first time, and though this picture isn't exactly in focus, I don't think it came out too bad.
On Friday night we got to go to our first Mets game - for free! We certainly enjoy many perks of D's job. Since this is the last year at Shea, this was a little sentimental for me - I used to go to Shea with my family, gran, aunts, uncles, etc all the time when the whole clan was in CT. I'm glad I made it one more time!
On a side note, I have no idea why the contractor for our building decided that the BEST time to have people come in to do all sorts of loud, bangy work is on FRIDAY AFTERNOONS. Why not Thursday? Why not Tuesday? Why not any other day that I don't have the afternoon off and have 2 objectives: to nap and to take a practice GRE, both of which require some quiet. I'm not asking for library-type silence here... I just think I could do without whatever it is that sounds like a jackhammer.
See? I told you I was boring. That's all I've got for you in the last week. But, to make it up to you, I leave you with a picture of D and I at our very finest:
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Random
2 weeks til the GRE… starting to get nervous!
An article about bachelorette parties popped up on my MSN page – suuuuper excited for Erin’s. Even if its a year+ away.
Good advice I received today: Never tell yourself ‘I shouldn’t be feeling the way I’m feeling.’
I love Boerum Hill. Why can’t I afford to live there? (Town homes sell for $3+ million)
Oh, and my dad got Facebook. I'm totally embarrassed and entertained at the same time. I love that Mike.
That's all for today!
An article about bachelorette parties popped up on my MSN page – suuuuper excited for Erin’s. Even if its a year+ away.
Good advice I received today: Never tell yourself ‘I shouldn’t be feeling the way I’m feeling.’
I love Boerum Hill. Why can’t I afford to live there? (Town homes sell for $3+ million)
Oh, and my dad got Facebook. I'm totally embarrassed and entertained at the same time. I love that Mike.
That's all for today!
Friday, September 12, 2008
Fall? What?
Today is September 12th, and though we are not (for another week) officially in the season of fall, I'm starting to believe its here.
This comes as a bit of a shock to me. First, in Arizona, fall does NOT exist until potentially Thanksgiving. We enjoy what? A week and a half of crisp air and that fall-y smell until "winter" hits. Second, I've lived in places with fall before - why have I never noticed that Labor Day marks the demise of summer? Of lazy days at the beach and watermelon and BBQs?
(Answer: because I was younger than 7 or playing a fall collegiate sport each time fall has rolled around)
We aren't running our AC anymore. I sleep under a blanket. When the sun goes down, you don't want to go outside without a sweater. Leaves are changing colors (!) and falling. Apples are in season. Its fall.
When I actually get to experience this time of year, it automatically takes me back to being 5 years old. My earliest (and favorite) memories of my childhood are from fall. I remember going to New Hampshire to pick apples and pumpkins. My sister and I would be dressed alike - big surprise - in red plaid skirts, white Irish sweaters, and black stockings. We would run around the apple orchard like wild women while my pregnant mother dragged my toddler brother behind. We'd pick and eat as many apples as our baskets and stomachs would carry, and would take them to the farmer where he would press them into fresh apple cider. We'd go on hay rides pulled by a giant Clydesdale. We'd go into the little general store and buy apple products - apple juice, apple cider, apple butter, apple candy, dried apples, apple pie - you name it. And then we'd lug home 20 pounds of apples and pumpkins to carve for Halloween.
In an English class in high school we were asked to write a paper on our favorite memory. I chose this - who wouldn't? I wrote my rough draft over a weekend to bring into class for peer editing on Monday, printed it, and accidentally left it on the printer for a few hours. My mom picked it up and read it - I found her bawling in her bedroom. She said my memories of these afternoons were dead on. I don't know why my 4 and 5 year old mind chose to keep this particular memory, except that maybe it was too beautiful to forget.
So, its fall... who wants to send me sweaters and long sleeved shirts?
This comes as a bit of a shock to me. First, in Arizona, fall does NOT exist until potentially Thanksgiving. We enjoy what? A week and a half of crisp air and that fall-y smell until "winter" hits. Second, I've lived in places with fall before - why have I never noticed that Labor Day marks the demise of summer? Of lazy days at the beach and watermelon and BBQs?
(Answer: because I was younger than 7 or playing a fall collegiate sport each time fall has rolled around)
We aren't running our AC anymore. I sleep under a blanket. When the sun goes down, you don't want to go outside without a sweater. Leaves are changing colors (!) and falling. Apples are in season. Its fall.
When I actually get to experience this time of year, it automatically takes me back to being 5 years old. My earliest (and favorite) memories of my childhood are from fall. I remember going to New Hampshire to pick apples and pumpkins. My sister and I would be dressed alike - big surprise - in red plaid skirts, white Irish sweaters, and black stockings. We would run around the apple orchard like wild women while my pregnant mother dragged my toddler brother behind. We'd pick and eat as many apples as our baskets and stomachs would carry, and would take them to the farmer where he would press them into fresh apple cider. We'd go on hay rides pulled by a giant Clydesdale. We'd go into the little general store and buy apple products - apple juice, apple cider, apple butter, apple candy, dried apples, apple pie - you name it. And then we'd lug home 20 pounds of apples and pumpkins to carve for Halloween.
In an English class in high school we were asked to write a paper on our favorite memory. I chose this - who wouldn't? I wrote my rough draft over a weekend to bring into class for peer editing on Monday, printed it, and accidentally left it on the printer for a few hours. My mom picked it up and read it - I found her bawling in her bedroom. She said my memories of these afternoons were dead on. I don't know why my 4 and 5 year old mind chose to keep this particular memory, except that maybe it was too beautiful to forget.
So, its fall... who wants to send me sweaters and long sleeved shirts?
Friday, September 5, 2008
This post is about Taco
If you know anything about my family, you know that it is an absolute requirement that you play soccer. Also, you must play it well. Its no surprise, then, that all 4 of us will (once the youngest gets there) play college soccer.
Like any family, each of us kids has our strengths and our not-so-strengths. My youngest sister and I are the more athletic of the bunch. Taco is the smartest, and my brother... well, he's an idiot.
Taco played 2 years of junior college soccer, then decided that she wanted to look around for a small D3 or NAIA program in California. She ended up going to Chapman University in Orange, CA where she has it pretty good... she lives in SoCal, 15 minutes from the beach, who can argue with that? She plays soccer there, and though her first season had some ups and downs - like an ankle swollen to twice its size - she just started her second season as a Panther.
And this is why she rocks:
CHAPMAN UPSETS NO. 9 WASH U. IN HOME OPENER
ORANGE, Calif. – One out of three is not bad, especially when you’re talking about the unranked Chapman University women’s soccer team capturing one upset win in three tries against top-10 ranked programs in the team’s first three games. The Panthers did exactly that on Thursday night, defeating No. 9 Washington University of St. Louis 1-0 in their 2008 home opener at Wilson Field.
Chapman (1-2) received a late goal from senior D Tara Cozens in the 86th minute of play to clinch its first win of the season. Senior M Brittany Botterill centered a free kick from about 20 yards out and Cozens knocked the loose ball from inside the keeper box. The goal was the first of her career and the first for Chapman this season after back-to-back shutouts to begin the year.
Senior GK Madison Coffin was stellar on defense, particularly in the second half when she made four of her five saves to earn the shutout. Coffin was also the beneficiary of some good fortune as the Bears – which out-shot the Panthers 10-4 in the second half – hit the crossbar twice with two shots in the half.
Amanda Boe was equally solid in goal for Washington (2-1), making four saves in defeat.
The Panthers win over top-10 Washington comes after a pair of losses last weekend to No. 5 Puget Sound (Wash.), 1-0, and No. 10 Whitworth (Wash.), 2-0. Both losses came on the road.
Like any family, each of us kids has our strengths and our not-so-strengths. My youngest sister and I are the more athletic of the bunch. Taco is the smartest, and my brother... well, he's an idiot.
Taco played 2 years of junior college soccer, then decided that she wanted to look around for a small D3 or NAIA program in California. She ended up going to Chapman University in Orange, CA where she has it pretty good... she lives in SoCal, 15 minutes from the beach, who can argue with that? She plays soccer there, and though her first season had some ups and downs - like an ankle swollen to twice its size - she just started her second season as a Panther.
And this is why she rocks:
CHAPMAN UPSETS NO. 9 WASH U. IN HOME OPENER
ORANGE, Calif. – One out of three is not bad, especially when you’re talking about the unranked Chapman University women’s soccer team capturing one upset win in three tries against top-10 ranked programs in the team’s first three games. The Panthers did exactly that on Thursday night, defeating No. 9 Washington University of St. Louis 1-0 in their 2008 home opener at Wilson Field.
Chapman (1-2) received a late goal from senior D Tara Cozens in the 86th minute of play to clinch its first win of the season. Senior M Brittany Botterill centered a free kick from about 20 yards out and Cozens knocked the loose ball from inside the keeper box. The goal was the first of her career and the first for Chapman this season after back-to-back shutouts to begin the year.
Senior GK Madison Coffin was stellar on defense, particularly in the second half when she made four of her five saves to earn the shutout. Coffin was also the beneficiary of some good fortune as the Bears – which out-shot the Panthers 10-4 in the second half – hit the crossbar twice with two shots in the half.
Amanda Boe was equally solid in goal for Washington (2-1), making four saves in defeat.
The Panthers win over top-10 Washington comes after a pair of losses last weekend to No. 5 Puget Sound (Wash.), 1-0, and No. 10 Whitworth (Wash.), 2-0. Both losses came on the road.
Monday, September 1, 2008
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