Bigger or Better: Life outside of Texas

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...

I don't know if people always appreciate the interesting situations that can happen in a hospital. I work to remedy that. I think I've mentioned that sometimes patients are really talkative. Unless there's a language barrier or a mechanical barrier (like a tracheostomy or laryngectomy, but sometimes they talk despite the hindrance), people just TALK. Stress relief, social interaction, mental stimulation....So the story. When I received my patient at shift change, he was sleeping, which can be deceiving on how the day is going to go. I walked in again later in the morning, and he was talking very animatedly with the Physician's Assistant about fish from Asia and GMOs. When the PA got out of the room, she told me that the surgery was difficult because he came into the operating room and he wouldn't stop talking, so the surgeons had to wait a while before intubating him. Oh, I thought, that's  the day I'm going to have. Yup. Next time I went in, I learned abou...

I've broken another one of my unspoken rules. I've joined a gym. Yes, it's true. I told myself I'd never join a gym, because this doesn't compare to this : You should get the picture, but I'll spell it out as well. As a sort of punishment for my logical self.  Up til now, of course, I haven't been a gym member, but I've gone on guest passes, and used the gyms at school and now at work. I get bored with gyms. Ellipticals are great exercise, but my brain falls asleep. In college, I'd study anatomy or Spanish grammar while running on the treadmill, but that's a tripping hazard, can also make me get motion sickness, and isn't enjoyable. And that's just cardio stuff. I see even less potential in weights. Okay, technically, I see even less potential of me using the weights. The odds of me lifting go up if there is a diagram showing me what to do, but I lack any motivation to do more than 2 sets of 10. And that's once...

I say 'word' because I don't have any pictures in this post to prove the point, which is that my mother visited me and that she's hilarious. So take my word that my mother is awesome. And that she was here. Unfortunately, the day I picked her up from the airport, I had just done my very first session of P90X plyometrics. It became the joke of the visit. I couldn't walk fast, getting up and sitting down was quite painful, and lying still only had the perk of not straining anything. I would have avoiding stairs altogether for several days, but my room is on the 2nd floor. My mother claimed that between the two of us, I was the old lady. True 'dat. The main occasion for the visit was for the defense of her dissertation (did I mention that my mother is awesome). So on Thursday we went up to Rice University to prepare, and I found this gem in the IT department: if you need any assistance on devious plans. or at least that's how I interpreted it  I also sa...

My uncle once asked me if I was OCD. I'm pretty sure not, but I've been reviewing my personality lately (beats me what for; an upgrade?) and I do have some obsessions. All to do with the smell/taste senses. Coffee, spiced pumpkin, ginger snaps, and pine (although cedar will do). I've never had coffee. My fascination is with the smell. It just smells so...earthy. I think I got hooked on it after smelling the coffee beans that fragrance shops put out to clear your olfaction in-between smell tests. When I went to school in Utah, there was a definite lack of coffee smells. So now when I grocery shop, I make a specific stop at the coffee aisle. Okay, sometimes repeated stops. I know which is my favorite coffee mix at H-E-B. Besides making me look somewhat autistic, it's a harmless and priceless obsession. I don't know if that can be said for my obsessions of spiced pumpkin and ginger snaps. Because I do eat those. Without ever feeling like I've had too much. Tha...

I've decided that despite my fear of depths, it would be really cool to learn to scuba dive. I mean, just the sound of the words 'scuba dive' is alluring. So in a step to becoming more awesome, I attended scuba orientation last week. Turns out that sufferers of migraines need doctor clearance prior to diving, on the perfectly logical reasoning that increased pressure may induce a migraine to be born. Well, okay. It's not like my neurologist has ever witnessed the crowning of any of my migraines; she gives me abortive medications (really, that's what they're called. I love this analogy I have conceived here) and helps manage symptoms. And I like her. So I faxed over the PADI medical release form last week. Today I got a call from her nurse saying she recommends me seeing a cardiologist [peanut gallery: Why? I saw a cardiologist something like 3 years ago and he said my heart was perfectly healthy. What's to add?]. I tried to reason with the nurse, but she s...

So I've really struggled with the same-sex marriage debate; no argument really held water. I've been thinking, though, and since I have a platform for such thoughts, here they are. All men/women should be equal before the law in their beliefs. It is in their actions that they are judged, especially when those actions interact with others’ actions. In gay marriage, I think the most vulnerable group is any children adopted by the gay couple. Actually, children are likely to be the most vulnerable group in any type of marriage, but the difference in the gay marriage argument is that in placing children with gay couples, the government is actively allowing a social experiment work out its conclusions on subjects who probably had little input in their participation. Wherever possible , children should be raised by a father and mother figure, because gender does carry essential, God-given roles.  By allowing gay couple adoption, or (to bring other social issues in), single par...