Bigger or Better: Life outside of Texas

While looking over my last post before 'publication', I realized it was taking too long to load, and that I could not include all of the places I had been without compromising accessibility. So here is the Agra installment of buildings. Basically, that means the Taj Mahal. Ta Da! I went with Christina and a tour guide, which was awesome because it meant I knew what I was looking at. In a brief americanized summary, a powerful king had 3 wives, but he loved the 3rd wife best because she bore him children. A lot of children. As she lay dying from the birth of the 14th or so, she requested that the king tell his kingdom how much he loved her, and that he not marry any more wives. So he built the Taj Mahal as her tomb. The outer complex Inlay of precious and semi-precious stones Detail EVERYWHERE I was very popular at the Taj Mahal. As I was taking pictures of the exterior, Christina told me that someone wanted to take a picture of me. I had no p

It is getting really hard to title blog posts these days. Nothing like what it used to be in the old days, before the time of Hemingway. He got away with "The Old Man and the Sea." I'm jealous. My very first day in India, after taking my first shower in 2 days, I went with my Indian aunt (actual relationship: the wife of my Indian friend's father's brother. Sorry, Tamanna, to reduce you to the epithet Indian Friend) Nikita to see Akshardham. I'd never heard of it before a month ago, but because I work with a lot of Indian nurses, I got lots of recommendations of where to go on this trip. So, armed with a letter to get me a personal tour in English, I entered the amazing grounds of Akshardham. At the request of security, I left my camera, phone, and even shoes, so to my great disappointment I cannot show you how awe-inspiring that temple is. The best I can do is borrow photos from the Akshardham website. This doesn't even start to give you the idea of

I am confronted with a huge task: document my time in India. Granted, I was only there for 2 weeks, but considering I had so many experiences, took hundreds of pictures, and grappled with words in a foreign language, those two weeks were momentous (which I find to be a funny word, because technically , the word means "of moments", which is what time is anyway, so am I saying anything at all by using this phrase?) Well, if I have learned anything from infancy, it is to take baby steps. So I will chronicle my Indian adventures in themed pieces. First up: how I got there. I will tell you. A plane. Yes, I will start off with airports and customs. I found them extremely momentous. The flight was done in series, since India is quite frankly on the other side of the world. The first stop was the Frankfurt airport in Germany. Nothing really special about that place, but I was just so excited to be in Germany  that I practically pranced around the airport. Since then, I&#

To be frank, I don't have anything exciting to say. But I am saying it because I am using a foreign keyboard that, if I didn't take care, would make this post look like garbage. I think that's fun. So here it goes. I am in GERMANZ. The kezboard is not the familiar qwertz. I have access to cool szmobls like ä and § and ö  AND µ without anz special  insert szmbol use. I have a hard time converting things to €. And English is not the primarz language. In fact, mz gmail account, which I usuallz keep in Spanish, is now in German, and I just guess what thez saz based on placement. The whole experience is so THRILLING. I might become addicted to world travelling. And I havenät even reallz started mz trip. This is just the beginning.

I had a face-off with the Pyxis at work this past week. It's actually not the first time we've had a quarrel, but this was by far the worst one. It started like this: This is our Pyxis machine. Pretty innocent. Grey, non-descript. Then I come along Notice the open drawer. If you look closely, you can also see my pant drawstrings dangling down. And may I remind you that this is a computer-controlled medication cabinet. The drawers cannot be opened unless a medication is selected. I hope you all are in suspense now. Yes, I shut my drawstrings in the medication drawer. This is the 5th time I've done that. What made it worse is I could not pull them back out. So I just kept getting my medications as if nothing had happened (minus hysterical laughter). Then came the tricky part. I needed to get a medicine from the far right cabinet. I couldn't reach. I tried, but I was stuck. At this point, another nurse came along, and when she asked me what the he

Due to several circumstances, including a bribe from my father, I drove some 1400 miles to be 'home' for thanksgiving. By 'home' I mean with family, as I've never lived where my parents are living now. But that is another story that I've actually already shared somewhere or other on this blog. So on to the present story. The Friday before Thanksgiving, I picked my sister up from work and we got on the road. We sang gustily to Pitch Perfect, Wicked, ABBA, etc etc etc. We had a lot of hours to burn. And if we are putting a lot of pressure on our butts, why not put some pressure on our vocal cords as well? My father, being the watchful but wonderful person he is, kept in contact with us frequently and insisted on reserving a hotel for us. So Saturday morning I woke up in a hotel in central Texas and discovered that I had a half inch of ice on my car. I couldn't locate my ice scraper, so I asked some truckers in the hotel's breakfast room to lend me theirs

It is time, my friends, for another nursing update. Unrelated to obamacare. Politics is not my strongpoint. I've discovered this blog post is going to be stream of consciousness. Hope you enjoy it. Because I was thinking, is (are?) politics singular or plural? So I was thinking recently, and I realized that I have moved 5 times this year if I am allowed to count the times my unit moved to a different floor, and then moved back. The first work move was low stress; I wasn't there on the moving day, so all that I did was show up to a different floor for work the next day. Our more recent move back to our original floor was indeed stressful. For half the day, we only had 1 thermometer for 16 patients. Our supply room code wasn't working. The stuff in the supply room was in different spots than we were used to. Our medication-dispensing computer was on a different floor, or didn't have what we needed. Order forms went AWOL, as did several charts, our glucometer, and a phone

Lately the grocery store has been a source of amusement. I went to Randalls with my roommate after a yoga class, and the self-checkout was giving me problems with the 50% off soymilk that I was trying to buy. So a cashier person came over and hit a bunch of buttons on several different screens, one of which asked for a birthdate (which mystified me). When I got my receipt, I looked at it and noticed something unusual. I turned to the cashier "Why is liquor on my receipt?" "Don't worry about it" I think I know why it was asking for my birthday.  More recently, I went to H-E-B, and was in the dairy section considering the yogurts when I was approached by an Italian man who asked if he could tell me something. "Sure" I'm going to summarize what he said, or rather, just get to the important part. After talking about my ethnicity, my outfit, and my job, he asked for my number. Once I left the store (sans yogurt), I called my friend who

There was a fateful aligning of the stars this week. My friend Melissa and I had the same day off. To celebrate this bounty from the universe, we went to NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), also known as Space Center Houston, also known as the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, also know as Mission Control. Apparently they had a hard time picking a brand name. When we entered the JSC, we were told the tram tour would be leaving shortly, so we tried to hurry over to board. A NASA volunteer blocked our path, and asked where we were from. I replied, "Houston" and tried to keep walking. He responded "Are you sure?" Um, yes, I can bring eyewitnesses if you want.... We made the tour, and got to visit the old Mission Control building; I learned the average controller was in the mid-20s. Those smart youngsters. After the tour, Melissa and I watched a movie that summed up the space missions, both the successes and failures. I nearly cried to see the ab

In the cartoon The Pinky and the Brain , there's a episode where Brain makes a paper mache world and gets all of humanity to leave Earth for the terra non-firma by advertising free t-shirts. As Brain says, the offer of free t-shirts is "a mysterious power that no human can resist." Methinks it is true. Last year, I ran a half-marathon. I actually have never had a desire to run a half-marathon, but the combined pressure of a friend running with me and the lure of a "free" t-shirt (included with registration fees, of course) was amazingly persuasive. I liked the design of the t-shirt. So I caved. More recently, this week I donated blood at my work. The blood bank gives t-shirts, juice, and cookies to all who donate. You can see where this is going. At the beginning of the week, I got an email that showed this drive's t-shirt color and design. It looked cool. So I donated. And apparently I was not the only one who thought so. The blood bank reported that usu

Despite being the only redhead in my family, I've never had any doubts about my parentage. I don't even have to exercise much faith in the matter. Once, when my family came to my work to carol, one of my co-workers came up to me and said, "your dad cannot deny you;" point being that he couldn't claim I wasn't related to him because I LOOK like him. Same thing happens when friends of my mother see me. I visited my mother at her work last week, and the secretary of the Psychology department looked at the both of us and commented how similar we look. Admittedly hard to tell in this picture because the sunglasses are distracting Reason for this post: I flew up to Utah to visit my parents, living out of a carry-on for a week. It's a "make-it-do-or-do-without" attitude that I got from my mother. Fortunately, when the weather proved too cold for my wardrobe, I could borrow hers. My dad and my mom each drove me around in the UTV. My dad showed