Life in Pharm school

School, Smash, and Prop 8

2012-02-08T13:17:00.000-08:00

Holy what it's February?!

Pharmacy school is notorious for two things:

1) Making each block fly by
2) Making many courses drag by

It's not contradicting! In a few of my classes I swear every minute feels like a year, but then I look back on the whole block and I can't believe it's time for finals again. Commence sleepless nights, anxiety, and self diagnosing yourself with every disorder you are studying. I'm not kidding, we were covering mental health and it stated "Patient A is depressed because states that she finds it hard to get out of bed in the morning and when she goes home all she does is crawl in bed and watch TV."

Um, excuse me, that's what I do EVERY DAY. Actually, we pretty much all looked at each other and thought the same thing, "Wait, that's not normal?!".

Enough about school. Let's talk about my new love: Smash. Not Hulk Smash! Not the sound of students banging their heads against the walls in frustration. I am talking about the new TV show. I never would have heard of it had I not seen the ads for it during the Super Bowl. You know you've been in pharmacy school too long when you spell bowl, bowel repeatedly. Aside from my obsession with musical theatre, they hooked me with Megan Hilty. I love her voice. I could listen to her all day, and then I watched the show.

WHERE HAS KATHARINE MCPHEE BEEN ALL MY LIFE?! I'm pretty sure I swooned when they did a duet.

Let's be real here. Any show centered around Broadway that has amazing voices I will love. I'm not saying I will love the story line, but I have a wonderful skill where I just enjoy the songs and the beautiful voices.

And last, but not least:

Prop 8 was ruled UNCONSTITUTIONAL by the ninth circuit court!!!! Just another step in the long uphill battle.

From the LA Times:
The court concluded that Prop. 8 served no purpose other than to "lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians."

Now if only more people could see and understand that. It's not a matter of religion. If it was purely religious, I'd say keep it. We can come up with a better name for gay marriage, well not me because I have the creativity of a potato. But we could, and it'd be fabulous. It's the fact that "marriage" in the United States allows for certain RIGHTS and BENEFITS to married couples, including but not limited to: tax breaks, medical and legal rights, things that the government grants couples with a legal binding contract that is not offered to single people (or gays). No, civil unions do not grant the same legal benefits and nor is it recognized on a federal level. It's like saying you get a tax break for being white, but not if you're black. Or, white people get this tax break on the state and this from the federal government, but you can only have it on the state level because you're not white.

Is that fair? Is that equal?

Let's face it, it's not. And really this is just my "logical" argument for gay marriage rights and rights in general. Separate is not equal. My heart tells me that it's not right because you are denying couples that love and adore each other (certainly more than Kim Kardashawhatever did that dude and Rush and his 3 divorces) the right to marry. Sanctity of marriage my ass. If people can get married to someone they just met in Vegas, then let Adam marry Steve and Eve marry Kate. The world will not implode or explode, life will go on.

P.S. Just because I like women does not mean I want to marry a toaster, a horse, or a building. That argument doesn't even make sense. Consenting adult does not equal inanimate objects, animals, or children.

She's gay, you all know each other right?!

2012-01-28T22:14:00.000-08:00

Let's get one thing straight folks (aside from the fact that I am not). Being gay does not automatically mean you know every single gay person in the area, or in my case, school. Sadly, I know maybe 2 (out) gay people at school. I know there are more, yes I know they must exist, but no I have not met and befriended them all. I'm not saying that I don't want to. It'd be really nice to not feel like the only lesbian on campus (even though I know that is definitely not true). I would like to meet and talk to them, but how awkward would be that interaction be?

"Oh hi, um so my friends tell me that you're gay, too." And that would probably be the end of our awkward exchange.

We're in grad school guys! 95% of us are very awkward people! (true for my campus at least) Granted, some much more than others, but I am not about to become a gay seeking missile (similar to a heat seeking missile?) and find every single gay person that people tell me about. I've thought about it... because though I love my friends, sometimes being the token gay is not so much fun.

I just find it strange and sometimes hilarious that people will say things like "OH! So I met this gay girl, you know her right?" or "You must know her, she's a lesbian."

That's like walking up to an Asian and saying "Hey this person is Asian too, y'all know each other right?" or "Hey, you're a Jew, you know so-and-so right?! Cos he's a Jew, too!"

Sorry to slip in the Jew comment, because people actually have come up to me and asked if I knew this person because he was an Asian, too. Some people are kind of special.

So public service announcement: Just cos someone is gay doesn't automatically mean they know all the gays in the world.

You're welcome. Now go be awkward about something else.

New Obsession

2012-01-22T20:17:00.000-08:00

Ah, so my new obsession is currently cooking. The problem is finding time to cook, when I barely have enough time to exercise. Ah, a tip I left out in my last post. Exercising is key to maintaining your sanity in pharmacy school. I was so busy this entire week that I didn't get any of my running, biking, and training in that I was extremely antsy in class. I feel bad for my classmates because I cannot stop moving when this happens. Between it being freaking freezing, exams, work, and meetings the only time I have left to myself is late at night. Granted I should have just taken my notes and at least gone biking, but busy is my excuse for being fat. Haha!

But I digress.

I have always loved cooking and one of my goals this year was to 1) eat at least twice a day (also an issue with being busy) 2) eat healthier (another side effect of being busy #whatfatpeoplesay) 3) it really sucks to just cook for one person.

I was actually doing pretty well! I would blog my latest cooking adventure... but I fear it may cause me to lose my anonymity just in case someone I know stumbles upon this blog. It was so delicious though.

I can't wait for my next project now that I have a group of guinea pigs. Another benefit of pharm school- lots of hungry friends that are willing it what you create (once they test it out and make sure it won't make them sick) hahaha.

How to Succeed in Pharmacy School

2012-01-07T19:46:00.000-08:00

I've had several people ask me what my secret is to "not failing" and doing "well" on exams. There is no secret, really. It takes a lot of work. People that write it off as "oh it's because you're lucky and you're smart."

That is far from the truth. I work and study really hard, but I also balance it with fun and relaxation. They don't see the countless hours I spend in the horrible library studying for my exams and trying desperately to learn as much as I can before the exam. I find it really obnoxious when people who don't go to class, don't take notes in class, and try to cram everything in in one night think that I don't have to work at all for my grades. Yes, some people don't have to work at all and they gets straight As (those bastards) and some people work even harder than I do and barely pass.

So here's how I get through pharm school:

1) I go to class and here's the secret: I PAY ATTENTION in class. Well, at least try. Haha.
2) I take extensive notes. I will re-write things in a totally dumbed down way just to make sure if I come back to study and suddenly become dumber than a sack of bricks (totally happens all the time) I have a "stupid persons guide" to understanding the notes. It also helps make sure I'm paying attention in class.
3) I re-write my notes. Extremely time consuming... but if I need to get a concept, sometimes it's the only way for me.
4) Make sure you actually understand the concepts instead of just saying "oh yeah I know that" and then coming to it on the exam and going "OH F@#$!"
5) I wake up about 3 hours before an exam to wake myself up and get out of that groggy state and refresh my mind with the material on the exam.
6) Make sure you use any free time to relax and have fun. This is probably the most important part because it will keep you from burning out. I would go INSANE without my "fun time". And don't say there isn't any time. You need to make time.

And that's pretty much what I do. It's pretty simple, but it won't work for everyone. This is just how I do it. Haha so with that disclaimer- I don't want any comments about how I caused you to fail your exams.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-04T18:28:00.000-08:00

My, my. It seems my obsession with punctuality in real life takes away from punctuality on this blog. Oh well.

I hope 2012 is going well for all of you! It has been a wonderful, peaceful, quiet new year for me and I am loving it. My Christmas break was much too short though and I am still recovering from my respiratory infection that pretty much ruined my entire break, but I am feeling a lot better! Class on the other hand has been dragging by. I swear time stood so still, we may have actually gone back in time.

I am so grateful for my friends though, especially my friends in pharmacy school. I have met so many amazing and wonderful people that I have no idea what I would do without them in my life. Some days when I wonder if I made the right choice for pharmacy school, I think about the amazing professors and friends I have made here and how different my life would be without them. It really makes me realize I made the right decision for me in coming here.

So 2011, with all your heartbreaks and ups and downs, thank you for always reminding me what's important in life. I'm glad to see you go and I am excited for 2012.

So who thinks the world is gonna end? Not gonna lie, I think it's all a bunch of crock, BUT if it does end HOORAY FOR NOT HAVING TO PAY BACK MY LOANS!!! Not to mention get a real job. Haha. I can die doing what I love the most... being a student. God, I am such a freaking nerd.

another year come and gone

2011-12-30T00:35:00.000-08:00

Holy crap. 2011 where the heck did you go?! I have mixed feelings about this year, but at the end of the day I'm probably the happiest I've ever been yay 2011!

I can't help but get all sentimental at the end of every year. I find myself reminiscing about what made me think, laugh, and cry over the past year. No matter how much some of the experiences have sucked, I feel like I learned something valuable from most of the things that have happened to me.

I'm ready for 2012 and everything that it may bring. I have started changing a lot of things in my life and I hope it continues through the new year. Sorry about the crap short post. It's been an exhausting winter break. I've also been sick for the entirety of my break. Suck.

Have a safe and wonderful new year!

Love and Acceptance

2011-12-04T23:03:00.000-08:00

You know what I've found since moving to this new place over a year ago? More love and acceptance than I could have ever dreamed of. It's not that I didn't feel that way when I was home, but there I felt like I had to keep a part of myself a secret from my family.

My 'family' here has been nothing but loving. I don't have to be afraid to be who I am and never have to doubt how they feel about me. Or perhaps they are nice to me because they need my help with school. It feels so good to be open and free to be who I am. My sister in law recently told me how proud she was of me, not just for how well I am doing academically, but also how happy I've been. I guess it's true. I feel accepted and loved unconditionally here. Back home I felt trapped because telling my parents I'm gay would mean rejection and untold terrors. I know how they will react- I know their views on homosexuality and I know how set they are in their ways. I know it'll one day get better after I tell them, but the pain and hurt is not something I can handle right now.

I really want to tell my sister and I know she and my brother will handle it well. I just can't trust that my brother will keep the secret for me. I am probably happier than I ever thought I could be. Being gay doesn't define who I am as a person. I am still the person everyone sees and knows. Who I fall in love with may not be traditional, but it's not something I can change so it's not something worth putting effort into trying to change.

There was a time I hated myself. I hated who I was, I hated myself for being gay. It was no way to live. I isolated myself, I let my emotions and hurt get out of control. I am glad that is no longer the case and it made me a stronger person today.

I love who I am and I wouldn't have it any other way.

I hope one day my parents will, too.

I hope that one day kids aren't bullied for being different or being gay. I don't want my children growing up in so much hate.

Thankful

2011-11-23T22:55:00.000-08:00

Yeah yeah, time for some cornball cheesy thankfulness. It is that time of the year after all. Although I do find it ironic since early Americans pillaged and raped the land away from Native Americans. Small technicality, no?

Cynicism aside, I am thankful for a lot of things. I am thankful for almost being halfway done with pharmacy school and not screwing up quite yet. I am thankful for my family for always pushing me to do my best. I am thankful for my fluffy dog that pretty much every thing in the world so much better with just a snuggle.

I can't even begin to start with the amazing people I have in my life. I have such a wonderful support group of friends and I don't know where I would be without them. They make me smile and help me get through the day when I just want to throw my hands up in defeat. They provide the much needed comic relief in the sometimes all too serious environment of the library.

I am thankful for my blog friends that I sometimes share a part of myself that I seldom share with people I actually know. I think anonymity makes one braver when sharing secrets.

Finally, I am thankful for my ex-fiance. No, we're not getting back together, but I feel like this (hopefully) will be the last mention of her on this blog. I don't regret falling in love with her. As much as she drives me crazy with phone calls and texts, I wouldn't go back and wish our relationship never happened. My life, however exponentially complicated it has gotten lately, was made richer because I had a great love in my life. I no longer believe it was meant to be, but it was meant to happen.

I don't know why I am so happy right now, but I feel great and I can't stop smiling.

Med Chem is useless.

2011-11-02T23:53:00.000-07:00

I hate med chem (medicinal chemistry). I have hated o-chem for quite some time... and med chem really has not helped me like it any better.

First off, I find this course extremely useless. It's not on the NAPLEX and unless I want to pursue industry (which I do not) I am most likely never ever going to use this again.

Secondly, I don't know why I just don't get this stuff. I mean I have a general understanding, but it seems I falter when I try and put it all together. When I see functional groups I tend to miss the whole thing, calling something that's supposed to be an amide a ketone and a secondary amine. I just look at the whole drug structure and it seems like a giant cluster-f-ck of things. And metabolic reactions? Blah. For the most part I get it... then there are times where I feel like a dumbass.

I just feel like this course should be an elective for the 1% of my class that actually wants to go into industry. Please, tell me how this course can be useful for any other branch of pharmacy that does not deal with drug research/development.

Well... back to studying functional groups.

Happy National Coming Out Day!

2011-10-12T19:22:00.000-07:00

Ok, so today it's actually a day late in the US, but in the UK it's today! So yes, back on topic. Oct 11 is national coming out day for many many countries. I actually completely forgot about it until I saw a number of facebook updates on it. It's been a pretty hectic week for me, so forgive my lateness on this post.

National coming out day is just a day, but it's a day to kind of celebrate who you are as a person. "Never be afraid to be yourself." Those words made me smile. I'm not sorry for who I am, but I do know what it feels like to be afraid to be yourself. It's hard having to come out over and over again in your life. Sometimes you don't care what the other person will think and other times you brace yourself for rejection from people you care about.

I came out 6 years ago to my friends and some of my family. It's been a hard road, but the first time I came out was so relieving. My friends were so loving and supportive and I could not have asked for a better first experience. I chose who I came out to very carefully and when an extended family member came out to me a few years ago during dinner I nearly choked on my food. The exact words were: "So... cousin... I'm gay. Please don't hate me." Now that's why I choked. I could only cough some food away and sputter "What?! Me too! And why on earth would you think I would hate you?!

It just goes to show you family can be quite surprising... and how much we both fear coming out to our entire family. I'm lucky to have the support that I do. I'm not sorry about who I am. My sexuality is only a minor part of me. Why it's such a big deal to some is so very perplexing.

I came out again last year. First to my gay husband, who pretty much came out to me and then said "So is there something YOU need to tell me? Hmmm?" I feel so lucky to have him here. He is my rock when I need him and one of the best friends I could ever ask for. Then it came easy to come out to the rest of my friends at pharmacy school. Actually, I have been outed numerous times. It's kind of annoying, but what can I do? If they don't like it that's their problem. It's like hating me for being Asian. I can't change it, they can go f- themselves.

Many of my classmates actually wished me a happy coming out day. Haha. I like to play around with them and say with a straight (haha) face that "What? I'm not gay. Have you met my husband? Pretty sure he's a man..." It's even funnier when they just laugh hysterically at that. We're just too gay for words I guess. Granted I don't look extremely gay, but I guess once you get to know me it makes sense? I never really understand these comments.

Anywho, back to studying for me! I hope everyone had a wonderful day.

Brain is full

2011-09-28T19:01:00.000-07:00

I feel overwhelmed right now. There's so much information to process, learn, and memorize! This year is definitely not as easy as first year, not that I expected it to be. I knew it was going to be harder, but I don't think I anticipated how hard it was going to be to balance everything.

The worst of it is over. I felt like I was running around every day for the past month between school, extracurricular activities, and work. I'm having trouble finding my "groove" this year. Last year I jumped into my regular study routine rather easily, but this year I just can't get the motivation up to do it. I think I'm over committed and my mind and body are just exhausted.

So until next time, I'm still alive (barely)! The only funny thing that happened recently was this:

We have a building that have glass windows from the floor up to the ceiling on certain sides. I was in such a rush that I ran straight into the window thinking it was a door. And yes, the room was full of other students. FAIL. I jumped back and ran for the door without looking back and pretty much kept running until I got to my next class.

Life and Death

2011-09-12T15:37:00.000-07:00

As we grow older we learn and experience so many new things. We live, we learn, we gain new friends and lose others whether just in the shuffle of life or in death. I'm thankful for all the people I've had in my life whether I knew them for a night (not in the sexual way you dirty people) or I've known them my whole life. I've learned so much from the people in my life and it makes me smile knowing that even if just briefly, I had them in my life.

I'm writing today because I've lost a friend. It's not the first loss I've experienced and certainly will not be the last, but death is something no matter how many times you've gone through it, it never gets any easier. We weren't close, in fact she was a friend I met through my family. I considered her a friend because of the lasting impact she made on me on the few times we did meet. She had a great witty sarcastic outlook on life and always made me smile and laugh.

I was sad to learned that she had passed on, not even being aware that she was sick. She was a strong independent woman, so I'm not surprised I didn't know. The touching words friends have left for her truly show what a remarkable woman she was.

Death has taught me one of the most valuable things I always try to remember. You never know how much time you have with someone and it will never seem long enough. It has taught me to cherish the moments that I've shared with people I love. I keep those happy memories close and even if they fade with time, a reminder never fails to make me smile.

I was young when I experienced my first significant loss. It was the first time I understood the finality of death and how much it could weigh on you. To this day I remember certain parts of the funeral so vividly. I try to keep what little I remember, yet it seems so much harder with every passing year. For everyone I have lost I try to remember at least a few happy moments I was fortunate enough to share with them to keep their memory alive in my heart an in my mind.

Life seems so hectic now with classes, studies, and work. I feel overwhelmed and envious of friends that are getting married and having a family. I am probably closer with my friends that have children than those that don't because I adore children. I guess my friends are grateful because I'm their free babysitter, but I love it so much. They tease me that I'm ready to have kids and my terrified look always makes for a good laugh. I know I'll be ready some day, definitely after the insanity of school is over.

I know talking about babies and death in the same entry seems a bit odd, but for me it's inter-related. For me these two things continue to teach me more about life than any class could. I'm a lucky person, even though sometimes I do feel hopeless. These experiences help get me through the hopeless times to the hopeful times. And I truly hope this has given someone a new outlook on life and death. And I hopeTSD, who recently experienced a devastating loss is doing as well as she can be.

One day at a time.

2011-09-03T23:58:00.000-07:00

Breaking up with my fiance earlier this year was quite possibly one of the hardest things I've had to do. It definitely tops off the list of reasons why I'm not so fond of 2011. I wish I could say I handled it gracefully. Sadly, I spent the first few months doing destructive things. My school work suffered, my friends were unsure of how to act around me. Friends mentioning her name made me tense up and shut down. I doubted my choice and wondered if I should give in to her pleas and get back together.

There were days where I all I wanted to do was be safe in her arms again. Days when I wondered if I could ever feel that way about someone again.

I'm not quite sure how I did it, but I stayed with my convictions. And today I was able to mention her in a conversation without it bringing me down. My friends tensed at the mention of her name, watching for my reaction and wondering what was going through my mind. It feels good to know I am surrounded by people who love and care about me. It feels good to know that I can mention her without the lingering feeling of bitterness and hurt.

It still hurts to think about, but I can slowly feel myself being able to let this go. It's not much of a start, but a start nonetheless. Still taking it one day at a time, but at least it's getting easier.

Stories from the pharm

2011-08-20T00:48:00.000-07:00

Procrastination on school work really gets me blogging it seems. Can you blame me? Who has the time to blog when there's all this free time lying around for mischievous antics anyhow? I have so many classes this term, I am starting to wonder why I took 2 electives and threw in some research for kicks. I've been throwing in some hours at work before the fun really starts with exams. That way I can at least eat for a few more weeks once I start working less haha.

People are nuts. We had a guy yell at one of my techs for 20 minutes that we kept filling his mom's prescriptions when she had months worth at home. Screaming that we were taking advantage of a poor blind woman.

First off... I've seen this woman DRIVE to the pharmacy. Oh good god, she's blind?! Second, she CALLS us every month to refill her medications. This leads us to believe she's taking it as directed... and not stocking up for the next nuclear holocaust. Then suddenly it's our fault and that we should know and keep track of her medication. How exactly are we supposed to know what she has at home? We only have the last fill date to go by. Take care of your own mother, or hire someone to do it for you.

Then we have "why isn't it ready yet?" man for a compounded medication. Look man, if you don't call us to make it for you, we are NOT going to make it. Those have short expiration dates, we are not fortune tellers (because if we were we surely would be working for Ms. Cleo instead of dealing with this) so you need to tell us if you need something filled. Secondly, when we compound something it means we actually have to make it. No it's not going to take 5 minutes. Dissolving 30 capsules of lansoprazole in sodium bicarbonate has to be one of the most excruciating and annoying compounds to make. Well, aside from suppositories. By the way, I make some gorgeous suppositories, almost seems like a waste that it's just gonna get shoved up someone's ass. Well, ok, the ones I hate making the most are capsules.

Then there's also dealing with the new kid. I swear he types with one finger and has to think about each and every single letter before he presses the key. He also doesn't properly notate prescriptions, or scans them into the system. He's been around for 2 months. Writing a date of birth on the script and scanning it should be second nature by now. He may as well be counting by 1's at the rate that he fills. He also seems to have difficulty putting away drugs in the right place. This kid is killing me. He walked around for 5 minutes asking us 3 times for permission to go home. It just ended with me pleading for him to just leave. As soon as he leaves... still busy... but somehow we manage to get it under control. He's a nice kid, but he's gonna be the death of me.

I love my job, I really do. But days like these just make me want to slam my head into a wall.

Happy school year!

2011-08-10T00:06:00.000-07:00

Ok, so when I'm NOT in school there is this stuff called "free time" that I get to utilize. That stuff is amazing and rather addicting. It also paves the way for such social activities as drink until you get a fatty liver, or read to your hearts content. Now we all know what most of the general population will do...

Well, in my case I do a bit of it all. I throw in a lot of TV time too (which is where I got this blog title... stupid delicious wheaties). As I gear up for another school year I feel terrified and daunted by the dreaded "second year". Will my fatty liver recover in time for after exam drink-a-thons to forget that horror that just passed? Will I ever catch up on these TV shows that I just discovered?? (probably not)

I'm going to bet good money that any new rx ads that come up on TV after I start school will become a patient question. I hadn't watched tv in years until this past summer. I had a patient come up to me and as a question about a "commercial she saw last year" for an OTC med about a "purple pill" and if I've heard of it. Having not watched TV in a while I and racked my brain for this magical purple pill I asked for more details.

What is this medication for?

"I DON'T KNOW. DON'T YOU REMEMBER THE COMMERCIAL? IT SAID I NEEDED IT!!!"

Umm... If you don't know what it's for, or what you want it to treat... I'm going to go with you don't need to put this mystical pill into your body. Have a grape lollipop instead.

Ah... I can't wait.

Wait, it's August?!

2011-08-01T21:19:00.000-07:00

I looked at my watch today and saw that it was August 1st. What the... where did July go? Where did my summer go? My lack of updates is really just because my life has not been all that interesting.

I've read about 7 books this summer. Yes, I'm a nerd, but hey I've loved it. Whenever life gets too demanding and I really just can't handle any more social events, I like to lock myself in a room and just read. It's not that I don't like social events. I love hanging out with my friends, but some days I just need to be alone. I read the entire Hunger Games trilogy- which was amazing. I read the trilogy in about 4 days. It would have been 3 had work not intervened. Haha. I've watched a ton of movies and I've had a lot of cuddle time with my pup. It's been a nice summer.

See? This is why I haven't updated... I have nothing interesting to say! I'll stop wasting your time now ;)

Coming Out.

2011-06-08T01:35:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot about family lately. In my life, I am out in so many ways. I'm out at work, at school, to my friends, yet I am not in one of the most important parts of my life, my family. I'm not ashamed of who I am or things that I cannot change. I am who I am, I'm who they raised me to be. I work hard, I care deeply for those that are close to me, I was raised to love my family and be there for them, and I stand up for what I believe in. I know they didn't raise me to be gay, but I can't help who I am or who I love. It's not something neither they nor I can change.

The only thing I hate about being gay is the fear of losing my family. I know they love me and are proud of the person I have grown up to be and am continuing to grow into. It terrifies me that something I cannot change could cause me to lose one of the most important parts of my life. I know my friends say that it will take time and that they may surprise me and take it well, but they don't know my family like I do. The ones in my family I am out to pretty much feel the same way I do.

For years I have lived my life as fully and happily as I can. When people can't accept me for who I am, I remove them from my life and move on. Why keep someone in my life if they cannot accept me as I am? Yet it makes me feel like such a hypocrite because I cannot bring myself to come out to my family, because I can't walk away from them. I don't think I'm strong enough. Family is the most important thing to me.

My close friends tell me that I need to sooner rather than later, that they will have to accept it eventually and fuck them if they don't. I just can't. I do have an amazing group of friends that I consider a part of my family, but I can't just walk away.

What makes it harder now, is that I'm at that age where my parents want to see me find someone to marry. When my mom started talking about boyfriends and husbands I froze. I thought about the woman I almost married, the life we had planned to share, the family we wanted to have. Then I thought about the family my mom wants me to have, the one I won't have.

I plan big life decisions very carefully. Those big decisions include coming out to my family some day. My mom's sudden want to talk about getting married has really thrown a wrench in those plans. I always have alternate plans when things like this go wrong, why didn't I think of one for this?!

1 year down, 3 to go!

2011-06-01T01:43:00.000-07:00

I am still in a bit of disbelief that I have completed my first year of pharmacy school. I'm grateful to be where I am today. It took a lot of hard work fixing past educational mistakes (aka bad grades) to get into pharmacy school and it was a struggle I wasn't sure I would be able to overcome. I remember being extremely excited to start, but equally nervous about the coursework. To my surprise, I did very well my first year. I still love what I do and what I'm learning, and that makes all the struggles worthwhile. I'm grateful for summer break and even though I'm excited and terrified for next year, I am excited for some R&R.

One thing I'm actually really upset about are some of my classmates. It's been circulating that we have some people in our class that have cheated on multiple exams throughout the year. What makes me even angrier is the school can't do anything unless they actually catch them and those that see the cheating going on just complain about it after the fact. Sure, no one likes being the person to "rat out" a classmate for cheating, but it's not fair to their future patients, or us as a class to let something like this go. I am friends with a few of those that have been cheating and I would honestly not just let it go because of our friendship. Correction, they were my friends, because I don't tolerate cheating. If my best friend were to ask me to help him cheat, it'd be over. Not that he ever would. We both worked too hard and come to far to jeopardize it with cheating. It's not that they are being accused without evidence, they have actually told other classmates about how awesome they are at cheating. What. The. F-ck. Who DOES that?

Cheating is a big deal. Sure, first year is a lot of basic stuff, but what about next year and the year after that? They could kill a patient some day. They could make mistakes that reflects poorly not only on our profession, but us as a class and school. It really pisses me off because a few of them have nearly perfect GPAs when those in my class who are struggling to pass are at least doing it honestly.

I kind of wish I noticed it during exams, but I am in my own little world of focus and terror during exams. Well, they better get ready to learn everything on our own. Several people have talked professors and the dean about it. If they get caught and for whatever reason are allowed to stay, I think they need to start over from the beginning.

I know I may sound idealistic, but cheating has no place in a profession that holds the lives of other people in their hands. I know it happens in medical school, dental school, etc too, but it is not something that should be tolerated or taken lightly.

Procrastination

2011-05-01T19:08:00.000-07:00

Ah, procrastination brings me back here yet again.

I've been thinking a lot lately. Unfortunately it's rarely about school unless I'm having anxiety over my courses. Most of it is about my ex, which is really no surprise. As much as I still love her, I know I can't get back together with her, no matter how much she pushes. I just can't forget what's been done. I just wish I still wasn't so in love with her. It's thrown a wrench in a lot of my school work. I've lost so much focus, and it's driving me crazy!

I was on a weekend trip for a school org (I know, I'm a super nerd). Let me tell you, the number of queers that belong to this organization blew my mind in the best possible way. My gaydar was going off in all directions! I was getting hit on a lot, which is unusual. At the bars one woman dominated/demanded my attention. I had way too much to drink and before I knew it she was kissing me on the dance floor. She was really attractive, funny, and I was enjoying her company, but as soon as she kissed me alarms went off in my head.

It drives me crazy that another woman kissing me is making me feel like I'm cheating, when I'm single. We danced most of the night, she kissed me several times and then some. When we got back to the hotel she asked me what I wanted to do. Shit. I pretty much ran away. 1) I don't sleep with someone I just meet 2) I was still freaking out in my head a little.

I hope this goes away soon.

Saving lives, one fetus at a time.

2011-03-14T13:21:00.000-07:00

FYI: From the title you may think this might be some kind of pro-life post. It is not. For the record, I am pro-choice because I am a flamingly liberal homosexual. There. I said it.

I was filling in at one of my stores a while ago and the pharmacist for whatever reason was trusting me to consult (under supervision of course). I found this rather surprising since I had never worked with her before and most people would rather just do it themselves than have to watch a student do it slowly. It was actually a really busy day for us. I'm only a first year, so I know better than to just consult blindly. Hell I'll still be asking questions if I don't know something years from now. Most of my consultations were really easy that day on antibiotics, NSAIDs, etc. I've become quite confident in my ability to consult on antibiotics especially.

As I was going over a seemingly routine consult with a patient, I look up and into her eyes and say "Do not take any alcohol with this." I find that if I do this, they take it more seriously and are actually listening to what I am telling them. She smiles and says "Don't worry, I'm pregnant, so I'm not drinking alcohol anyways."

I'm not very comfortable with what medications can be taken during a pregnancy, so I asked her who prescribed this medication for her. When she told me it was her OBGYN I thought, well I'm assuming her doctor is aware of the pregnancy, but in my experience people make crazy mistakes all the time. That and something about it was really bothering me. I asked her to give me a few minutes, since I am a student and I just wanted to make sure that the medication would be safe for her to take during her pregnancy.

My pharmacist and I were discussing it and looked it up on clinical pharmacology. The words contraindicated in first trimester of pregnancy stood out to me because she was in her first trimester. Shit. At that moment I was so relieved I didn't just let that go. When we told her what we had found out, she was furious. Well, not furious with us, she was pretty thankful that we checked. I guess she's been having a lot of problems with her OBGYN. She thanked us and stormed off (without the medication obviously).

I kind of stood there in a bit of shock. My pharmacist told me I had done an excellent job in catching that and should do great when I take the boards soon. Soon?? I'm only a first year! I guess she thought I was a third or fourth year. I think that caught her off guard, but she had a good laugh about that. I'm just glad I didn't give a prescription to a pregnant lady that could cause birth defects or miscarriage.

Days like these, reminds me how much I love what I do and that I really am where I want to be.

Changes

2011-03-12T22:58:00.000-08:00

Life brings a lot of changes. Some changes are quick and noticeable, and sometimes it's slow and subtle. I find that I change a lot every year and always for the better. Maybe it's because I grow up more and more every year.

This past year was pretty intense. I got into pharmacy school. I met a woman that changed my life. I met people that changed my life. And now, everything is changing again. I'm almost done with my first year of pharmacy school. I've succeeded beyond my own expectations. It's amazing actually, how well I've adjusted, how well I've done. I worked hard and it really paid off.

Then there's the woman that changed my life. She made me fall in love with her over and over again, no matter how many times I tried to let go. Why? Because I was afraid of getting hurt. She has this amazing ability to change my perspective on life. I don't think I ever thought I could love someone this way. When she asked me to marry her I was in shock and disbelief. This absolutely smart, gorgeous, funny, kind woman wanted to spend her life with me. She must be crazy. But I said yes. I didn't have time to post about this before because my life was literally turned upside down and traveling at the speed of light.

Then just as quickly as it happened, she is breaking my heart. Suddenly things have changed between us yet again. The woman that once would tell me anything and everything suddenly went silent. I was talking to a stranger, yet she accused me of being the stranger. I feel so lost and confused. What happened to her vision of our future? One that I finally let myself imagine along with her.

Things change in an instant, or so they seem. Maybe it was something that was slowly changing right before our eyes, but we realized it much too late. It hurts.

Life isn't without its ups and downs. I feel lucky to have loved her, even if it has left a feeling of emptiness inside of me for now. I know one day I'll be able to look back on this and smile. It'll just be another one of those slow subtle changes that will take me by surprise yet again. I just wish it wouldn't leave such a nauseating feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Gay Bars Story Time

2011-01-27T17:23:00.000-08:00

Well, since I'm procrastinating on the piles of things I need to learn by tomorrow and the next several weeks I thought I'd share with you all a funny story. Well, to me it's funny.

So there was once a gay bar in a wondrous place with shiny lights and happy queens squealing in delight.

Ok, that was weird. Let's have a normal story time.

So there we were, celebrating my gay hubby's birthday with some of his friends. I was so drunk, I literally couldn't feel feelings. Not your emotional feelings, but actual sensory feelings. I'm sure if someone hit me with a chair I would have fallen down, but probably would have gotten right back up. Well, if I could get the balance together to do so. I was probably 3 times over my normal limit (normal limit is 2 drinks haha), and I was dancing like a fool and not bothered by the plethora of penises that were definitely rubbing up on me.

Oh what's the harm, they are all gay right?? Well sometimes I wonder. I had random gay guys walk up to me and ask to touch my boobs. Seriously, they would walk up to me and say "Wow. Can I please touch your boobs?" (For the record, I don't have huge breasts. I have no idea why they chose me.)

You would think my husband would protect me, but no of course not. Instead he says "YEAH! It's easy, just do this! HONK!" Luckily, I was too drunk to be too horrified that he had just grabbed my boob, and so started the train of boys awkwardly grabbing my boob.

Seriously. You know they are gay, when they are intrigued, yet not quite sure how to "touch it". Thank freaking goodness I was hammered, because the next morning I woke up and said WHAT. THE. F-CK?!

Anyways, so after about 4 gay guys grabbed me, two of which I had literally just met, the liquor was doing its job and I had to pee. Gay guy bars, have really shitty women's bathrooms. How shitty you ask?

Well, let's see. There was one stall. The toilet had no seat. Oh yeah, and the stall had no door. I am actually weirded out at the series of events that proceeded, but apparently I just didn't care then. There were a lot of women there too, and as always there was a line.

So I'm doing my business, trying to ignore the fact there is no door, and then I look up and this girl is literally staring at me. Seriously? Yeah, look away after I spot you staring. Maybe she was trying to look down my shirt. At least she was cute. Maybe I should have gotten her number. Haha.

I come back to my boys to find them equally hammered and extremely intrigued by strobe lights. Gay boys and strobe lights. Go figure. The rest of the night was very normal in comparison to those two specific incidents.

I hope you all enjoyed story time. I guess I should put in some study time now. Maybe.

Home stretch.

2011-01-25T03:28:00.000-08:00

I am so exhausted. We have so many exams this next month, I am not sure how I will survive. I'm talking over 10 exams in the next 4 weeks. It's quite a bit more than 10, but for the sake of anonymity let's just leave it at that. This doesn't include weekly quizzes and assignments either.

It's also freaking freezing, so a lot of us are sick. It's kind of disgusting when you're in a silent room taking an exam, but then hear random loud sniffles of people sucking snot back up their nose. Gross!

I just need to get past these next 4 weeks and life will be amazing once again. Just gotta take it one exam at a time.

Annnnd Break!

2010-12-30T20:32:00.000-08:00

Enough about school! Let's talk about break!

I forgot how amazing school breaks are. Sure I still have to pull my days in the trenches of retail pharmacy, but they are by far less draining when you are no longer a full time employee. The best part about break, besides avoiding any studying that may be sitting on my desk, is SNOWBOARDING!

The only downside is transportation. Living in two different states (very far apart) means I leave my car behind. I miss the days when I could just take off for the day to hit the slopes because I felt like it. Now I need to find transportation. Lame. With school taking up most of my life, snowboarding has been put in the back burner, but I think it may change when I come back from break.

Being the over analytical, meticulous students we are, we've planned trips around when we could go and not jeopardize our grades. I'm so excited. I really want a new snowboard, and I am tucking away some money for it. Probably not the best idea when I'm in a ton of debt from school loans.

I'm just stoked to go snowboarding tomorrow. I miss my board.

Reality check

2010-12-22T00:54:00.000-08:00

Some days I really wonder what is going to happen to the profession I've chosen and worked so hard to get into. I am legitimately frightened that many future graduates will do nothing, but pull down the profession as a whole. I'm not the brightest crayon in the box, nor the sharpest tool in the shed. I've had a long hard fight to get where I am today. I had a second year look at me in disbelief at how genuinely excited I was to have made the Dean's List. Then she didn't believe me when I told her it was the first time. Ever.

My undergrad GPA was less than stellar, and barely met the minimum requirements. The only reason it went slight over the minimum requirements is because I spent 3 years post-undergrad working my ass off and going to school to bring up my GPA.

Most of my classmates now don't believe me when I tell them my undergrad GPA was atrociously bad. I'll admit it, I've failed more than one course. It's not something I go telling people at school, but I find it interesting that someone like me has been able to shake off that not so stellar past and have succeeded beyond even my own expectations. So far. I study harder than most people think I do. I really hate it when people write off all that hard work I put in to me "just being smart". Right-o buddy. They can believe whatever they want.

I guess when people say some of the people that had the mediocre or low GPA really shine in pharmacy school were right. I love the profession and I am damn excited and terrified of all the new information to come in the next few years.

I just hope some of the fools pick up a thing or two, get some real life experience and make themselves a useful professional in the next 3 years.

What do they call a pharmacy student that graduates with a 2.0? Doctor/Pharmacist.

But to be honest, GPA isn't everything. It's what you learn and how you are able to apply it. I'm just slightly scared that I can single out a few people I hope to whatever deity that never have someone's life in their hands because they can't tell a capsule from a suppository. My preceptor was genuinely shocked that I knew basic counseling points on antibiotics. Those are some low standards. Apparently one of my classmates almost switched a two patients' medications at their site, warfarin and atenolol. Thank god it was caught. We've covered warfarin and atenolol several times in different courses. Several. The fact that she couldn't comprehend the consequences of that mistake had it been given to the patient makes me want to slap her.

If only common sense was a skill that could be taught.

Rainbows and Sunshine

2010-12-13T13:03:00.000-08:00

Blah, for whatever reason, my motivation to study has gone way down the drain. I think it may have to do with being freaking sick for the past few days. I just feel like crap.

It doesn't help that some of the courses we are taking are so dry and boring that I have trouble staying awake. I can't wait until we get into more interesting courses. I'm excited for my possible electives next quarter, which doesn't even freaking start until way into next year lol. I've already made my top three choices for next quarter instead of studying. hahaha

I can't wait for winter break, even though we have assloads of exams before break (this week), I still have to study during my break. Boo! I just want to hit the slopes and enjoy life for a bit. The first bit of this new quarter has been exhausting. Not being done until 9 or 10 pm when we start our day really freaking early in the morning sucks.

In other news, girlfriend and I are giving it another go. Who was I kidding? I love her to pieces, and even being far from her has not diminished that feeling. She's amazing, hilarious, and smart as hell, what was I ever thinking letting her go?

I am afraid our current agreement may end up hurting one of us though. I don't really want to go into details, just in case someone at my school finds this blog.

I'm happy, school is going alright, I made the dean's list! My life is full of rainbows and sunshine!

I guess I should use that to motivate me to study so I can stay on that list. haha.

<3

Gay husbands

2010-12-08T19:22:00.000-08:00

Man, you gotta love 'em. Unless of course you're a woman actually married to a gay man. I profess my love for my gay husband all the time. He makes classes slightly less boring, and he's always good for a laugh. When I started school I figured I'd be the only homo, or maybe one of two homos. Well, I was proven wrong yet again! I mean sure, there's not really that many gay people, or at least out gay people at my school, but I was surprised by the number we have that are out.

I <3 my homo. Do you?

This was a very lame post. I do have a few funny pharmacy stories to share, but I gotta save those for now. I promise I will share them later!

There's always one...

2010-11-14T14:38:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I really wonder how some people get into pharmacy school. Their inability to derive simple things really makes me wonder. This is why I hate group work. I hate having my grade depend on whomever I get placed with, and let's face it, there are lots of stupid people, even in pharmacy school. Since my grade is on the line... and I have trust issues with most of the people I was placed with, my friend and I pretty much ended up doing all the work. Now most of this group I was placed in had no problem with it. It's in class work, and they sit back and listen as we go through it. I don't mind, because I want the A.

Except you always have that one stupid person that thinks they are a fucking genius! Granted it could be said that person could be me, but I admit when I know something and when I don't, while this person is generally wrong. I do not regard myself as a genius, but I know if I know my shit or not. This person however loves to chime in with their own poorly derived theories and doesn't even come close to the correct answer and continues to argue with me. Luckily another person in my group is intelligent and backs me up.

The best argument was whether or not the 'patient' had respiratory or metabolic acidosis. It was respiratory, but this person really had to ask repeatedly if it was metabolic. Four of us agreed it was respiratory, but for some reason they could not let that fact go! I wanted to punch her in the face because I just wanted to finish it so we could leave.

On another problem it stated in the patient symptoms that the patient was dehydrated. Same person while we were discussing it, asked if we were sure the patient was dehydrated. Holy mother of pharmacy, IT SAYS SO RIGHT HERE! I really wish I could duct tape her mouth shut just so we can get our work done.

There are more, but I need to get back to studying. I just needed to get this off my chest haha.

No Sympathy

2010-11-07T23:03:00.000-08:00

A bit ago I was out in the city with a lot of my Rx school friends and it also happened to be the same weekend that my friends were in town! With my time management skills and whatnot I decided it would be awesome to hang out with them all at the same time. Now the group of friends from school was probably say.... 50 people at a crowded bar, and my friends were 3. I gave up trying to drunkenly introduce them after about the first 10 because let's face it, no one is going to remember shit considering how trashed half of us were.

When my friends saw the state of us, and I explained that we study hard and play harder she looked at me with disbelief. "NO SYMPATHY FOR YOU! I thought pharm school would be hard, but apparently you guys have plenty of fun along with it!" Psh, just because we know how to party doesn't mean we don't take school seriously! Or that it's easy. A lot of the PS3's that were there are amazing students that I wish I could be! It was a crazy night, I was running all around that bar and talking to so many people it's such a blur.

We still had an amazing time though. Everyone was feelin' good with some good ol' EtOH and some good music. I was... a bit too hammered for my own good. There was a lot of dancing and people were grabbing me and hugging me. It was very strange. The boys really love to umm... grind, or just flat out hump people as their form of dancing. Seriously, if I don't know how I would react to that if I were straight. Haha. For me, I just flat out didn't care. Granted I've never had so many penises pressed up against me, but it was an experience to say the least. One boy even kissed me in his drunken stupor.

Apparently in my drunken state my reaction is to stop all forms of moving, stand there with a stupid look on my face and... pull out the gay card. "Yo bro (yes I talk like a dumbass when drunk) I'm gay. You know this, and I know this. Be cool."

Why do I say the things I do? I blame it on the alcohol. I got lots of love that night from everyone though, and by love I mean squeals and hugs.

I love my school, I am loving my life, I just hate the exams. It just ruins everything haha.

Speaking of school, I am on my way to the Dean's List as long as I don't fuck up my finals!! This is exciting for me because I have always been a mediocre student, so making it onto Dean's list was be awesome. Especially since none of our classes are curved, so I will really feel like I earned it.

My brain does hurt though. Studying sucks.

The good and bad in life

2010-10-24T21:11:00.000-07:00

Before I get into the stuff that's been getting me down, I want to write about things that are going so great in my life right now.

1) I am doing fairly well in school. I have an A in almost all of my courses, a few are teetering on the A- range, but let's not focus on that.
2) I am so involved with so many different things at school, may be too many things, but it's fun
3) I have some amazing nerdy friends. This always makes life more amusing. Plus they understand my nerdy jokes!
4) I have an amazing big who is really sweet and I adore her.
5) I am in pharmacy school. I worked so, so hard to make it here making up for undergrad.
6) I am pretty out and open here and everyone has reacted very well so far.

Ok, so now onto the stuff that gets me down.

1) Physiology. Ugh, the bane of my existence. Some of it is so poorly worded that I just don't understand what they are trying to tell me!!! Help a sister out, please write in clear, grammatically correct English! Granted I'm not great at it, but if you're writing lecture notes please don't word it in a way that makes things look like word vomit.

2) I've just been feeling down lately. I'm not even sure why. It's very annoying. I hate feeling sad for no reason and not being able to shake it.

You know what? I really am not sure why I feel so damn down. Things are going so great for me right now. I mean yeah, I could be doing a lot better. My study habits could be way better, but I am still doing quite well.

My life right now is nothing to be ashamed of. Well not yet at least.

So why with all the great things going for me, do I feel sad? Blah! Hate!!! Maybe I am just so stressed that I am just in a constant state of nausea. Who can be happy when they want to vomit due to stress? haha.

Oh life.

2010-10-21T21:37:00.000-07:00

I have no idea what has been wrong with me lately, but I've felt like a narcoleptic. Now if Rx school does one thing for you, it will probably make you a hypochondriac. I had a classmate run up to me frantically asking me to exam their foot. "DO I HAVE DIABETES?? IS THAT AN ULCER??"

Honestly, we spent a good long while looking at pictures of ulcers, and tiny scab on the bottom of your foot does NOT equal ulcer.

Every day I seem to bounce back and forth from being happy that I'm here, that I made the right choice; and some days I feel like I made the biggest mistake of my life. We can't always be happy. I have met some amazing people and I really do love it. I guess sometimes we all have those days that make us wonder why we do this to ourselves.

I don't even know why I am so exhausted. I think my body is preparing me for next week's hell. Every time I get home I pass out for an hour. I am not one to take naps because I am such a bad insomnia, but the wave of exhaustion just comes over me and I can't keep myself awake. Oh noes! I'm depressed! Yeah, no. I think I've just been too deprived of sleep.

I just feel like I am involved in too many organizations. Maybe I finally bit off more than I can chew. I'm not as young as I used to be and can't keep up with these youngins. Being pulled in 5 different directions does wear you down. But that's a worry for another day. For now it's back to bed for me!

Oh Rx school...

2010-10-11T00:03:00.000-07:00

I am not going to lie. I love it here. I love being surrounded by nerds that understand my nerdy jokes and laugh at them too! It's much better than being stared at for a while... before they shake their head and pat me on the head.

What do I hate? I hate physiology. Not the material, just the way it's presented and tested on. The exam was very... tricky. And at 730am, at least for me, I am not capable of thinking like that. Well I am, and I'm not. If he changes a word slightly... it changes the whole answer. The best part is when he asks a question, gives two right answer choices, but one is more correct than the other. BLARGH. It's not that I'm not doing well, as long as I keep things the way they are going and improve physio (or maintain) I am doing rather well. I am just frustrated haha.

What I do love? I love biochemistry. Oh my jebus, my nerd love for biochemistry came back full force when we started metabolism a while back. Yes there is a ton of material to learn, but that was my favorite subject in undergrad. It makes me giddy... It's kind of sad. hahaha.

There are pointless courses, courses that make you wonder how some people got into school (like people that can't do simple algebra and stoichiometry), and just being surrounded by people that think like you and love nerdy things like you do. Well ok, me. haha.

I am enjoying my time, but it's a bit stressful some weeks, but that's what alcohol is for right? Usually (not always) a relaxant and helps stimulate sleep. I could use some of that right now.

I need to post more... but less at 2am after spending 10 hours studying physio and biochem. This weekend sucked so much. I can't wait to party in the City Friday with my homo life partner. He is freaking amazing, and my school putting two homos next to each other randomly in orientation?Amazing. School would suck without him. He makes my life so much gayer.

Puppy love

2010-08-27T01:26:00.000-07:00

Ohh a post! See, it wasn't really farewell! I can never make up my mind!

The day has come for me to pack up and move! I'm terrified and excited all a the same time. I'm excited for school, new adventures, and starting in a new place, but I am having some serious separation anxiety.

I have a 3 year old dog and I have become insanely attached to him. If I am away from home for longer than 3 days I get homesick for him! It was a really really hard decision to leave him behind (with my parentals!! not giving him up! I could never do that!). I just know it wouldn't be fair to him to be couped up in a tiny apartment all by himself most of the day when he has a whole house and yard here. We haven't been apart for more than a week at one time since I got him 3 years ago!

I know it sounds like I'm some kind of crazy dog lady, but I just adore my puppy. He's such a sweet baby! I'm not the crazy kind that dresses their dog up. That creeps me out. I did put devil horns on him once for halloween though...

Anyways so yes, with each day I've had more and more anxiety about leaving him behind. This entry sounds a bit manic. I will blame it on all the stress of packing, moving, and trying to fit in family and friend time before the move. I've become so flustered that I have double booked myself several times this week. Friday for example, I had lunch plans with 2 different people and 2 different dinner plans too. Why can't I keep these things straight?!

A farewell!

2010-08-14T00:46:00.000-07:00

I'm only in the trenches part time nowadays, and with school looming very near in the future I am thinking about closing this blog. I may not have time and honestly I can be a bit paranoid about this blog getting out to some people.

I may keep the blog running, it really all depends. I've been spending my last days of freedom being asked to cover more shifts and the free days frolicking about with people I love and just enjoying my time.

Thanks to everyone who has kept up with this blog. I may not actually end it here, but I wanted to say farewell just in case I forget to later. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I am someone who will know exactly what happened with a certain script out of the thousand we do in a day, yet forget what I have planned for the next day. Thanks for all the support and funny comments! I will continue keeping up with everyone's blogs, time has just been flying lately.

Check out the blogs on my blogroll! They are pretty great. Everything from pharmacy to hilarious gay centered blogs. Always good for a laugh, smile, and sometimes very insightful!

McDouchebag

2010-08-02T00:03:00.000-07:00

Sorry about my slight absence. Ok, I'm not really sorry because I had an amazing vacation. I was on vacation with my best friend and we galavanted about for a week at an undisclosed location and had an amazing time! I missed her! My legs are now less blindingly white and slightly match the color of my upper body.

Now I'm back in the pharmacy trenches for just a few more short weeks. Time has flown by much too quickly and I need to start packing my life away.

Here are some quick funny pharmacy moments that make me die a little inside.

How can I help you? "I need to pick up something." Ok... are you picking up a prescription? "Yes." What's the last name you're picking up for? "HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT?" Umm. I don't think I can really help you any further unless you know the name you're picking up for.

While I'm talking to a patient and collecting the 'information' the ass of a store manager strolls about the pharmacy (while the phones are ringing off the hook and the drive thru bell is making that hideous noise) and asks me why I haven't answered the phone yet and helped them. I point to the patient that I'm talking to and I think he finally gets it through his fat head that I am busy at the moment. Yeah assface, just stand there and tell us how we could be 'more efficient' instead of making yourself useful. Then again I've seen his "helping out" and it's better when he's just not within 100 feet of the pharmacy.

Even better, while I was on the phone, he asks me why I haven't answered the other phone call. The only answer short of the finger I could give him was a dirty look and pointing to the phone that I am currently talking into. Now I've had two different handsets to my head before (one on a call while on hold with an insurance company), because I have great multi-tasking abilities, but this was not one of those moments where I can talk to two people at once. Why don't YOU answer the phone call you dumbass?

Sorry, this guy just freaking grinds my gears. Since the pharmacy makes a billion dollars profit for the store, he gets a nice cushy bonus. Our former store manager understood that the front store was where their help was needed. The pharmacy runs very efficiently for the volume of the store, so we were left alone until McDouchebag transferred in. Then came the stupid suggestions on how to do our work faster, when in reality he is slowing us down. I've learned to ignore him and stare off into space and concentrate on not killing a patient and nod every once in a while pretending to agree with whatever new douchebaggery suggestions he has to 'do things better'.

I will not miss him, but I will miss my staff. Such an amazing group of people for the most part! We make each other laugh to get through the day so we don't jump over the counter and yell into people's faces. I just can't believe how quickly time is flying.

Me? A homophobe?

2010-07-17T00:29:00.000-07:00

I picked up an extra shift today as a favour for an old RX manager because something happened to her closing tech. I hadn't been to this store since '08 or '09, but from what I remember it wasn't too bad.

The store, regardless of how I remember it, is one of the most bipolar stores I have ever been in. At least at my store I know 99% have sticks up their ass, here, it was so random! Half the time they would snap at me, the other half would be really nice, and some started out nice, snaps at me when I ask them a routine question, and then apologizes?

I was so confused. But this is my usual state of mind. It wasn't until I helped rather toothless large man that things went from strange to WHAT THE FUCK?

I couldn't really tell what the passenger looked like as she was blocked by the large toothless man, but the name was for a male. Alright, it's an estrogen shot, gotcha trans. That's cool. Whatever. I've dated someone that was trans before except it was FTM. Not a big deal for me.

There was one large problem, this particular shot had a generic available and this patient wanted brand. This patient was also on a state funded medicaid program. Since the state is pretty broke, a rejection popped up saying PA required, generic must be dispensed. When I informed the patient they went all ghetto on my ass.

"Nuh-uh you don't know whatchu talkin bout do your fucking homework beetch. Fucking homophobe. I want someone else to help me bitch."

I literally was speechless. I set the phone down, walked over and said "Um... they don't want me to help them? Asked for somone else?"

Apparently they knew alllll about these two. Yeesh.

Then I broke out hysterically into laughter because she called me a homophobe. Everyone thought I had lost my mind. Most people I work with know full well I love the ladies, but I haven't really worked with these two before so I'm sure they were wondering what was so funny. (I don't announce it, most people either figure it out, or whatever. I personlly don't care who knows, but I'm not going to broadcast it.)

I don't care if you're black, yellow, brown, orange, pink, or rainbow colored. If your broke ass can't get a job, you should take what the state gives you. Not I want brand this and that. You want it, you pay for it. I have to pay for my own insurace that barely covers shit! I work hard to pay my bills and part of my hard earned money is being wasted on state funded medicaid. I know that some people need it and that's fine, but not people in big ass cars that would take an entire day of my pay to fill the tank up. Sell your fucking car if you 'can't afford you meds'.

This is starting to turn into an angry rant about medicaid, so I will stop here.

Scrambling for hours?

2010-07-16T01:49:00.000-07:00

Ya know, in this economy with all the crazy crap happening, especially in the world of retail pharmacy, you really can't be choosy when it comes to getting your hours right? Not me. Don't get me wrong, I am grateful to have a job! I just want a break before school, which is getting shorter and shorter with all the extra shifts people have asked me to take.

Apparently my apathy towards getting hours and wanting to spend more time off before school makes me a hot commodity. I feel bad for people struggling to get their hours and make ends meet, which is another reason I cut my own hours. I figure, I should make them available for people who need it! I guess my manager does not appreciate this sentiment. I am trying to make her realize that in a few weeks, I'm not going to be around anymore to bail them out. They need to find a new person to rely on! This has only made her want to schedule me as much as possible. I mean, I can't complain, money is money and I really should get as much as I can before school.

This has a negative affect on me though. It gives me that stupid ego, oh everyone wants me, blah blah blah. Couple that with my apathy for work because my vacation is looming in a mere few days, it's disastrous. I'm sure when my pharmacists (I know a lot, it's good to network!) call from other stores looking for coverage, they would literally think wtf is wrong with you? I'm offering you precious HOURS! with the line of questions I ask before responding yes or no.

Basically, when people call me to pick up a shift (once they found out I only did 4 days a week and no longer OT, I get offers left and right. It's kind of ridiculous.) I ask these questions:

1) Which store? (You know, everyone's got a store in a district people loathe working in, I certainly do)
2)When is the shift? (I want later if I'm drinking the night before, lol)
3) Who am I working with? (Super important. A bad coworker leads to a bad day at work.)

When I ask this, people find it hilarious. Probably because they know me pretty well. Eh, I guess when you're good at what you do, people will put up with more BS. I am just grateful they all relate to my stupid humour. Hey, if I have to work more than I want to, I'm going to try and make it as painless as possible.

You never know, they may all secretly hate me. Regardless, being a competent tech is apparently a rare commodity around here, so they accept me as I am. haha.

Receptionists that you just want to strangle.

2010-06-30T20:15:00.000-07:00

RARRRR. I hate freaking E-Rx's sometimes. From some ridiculous quantities, incomplete Rx's, or when they decide send the same script TWICE through E-scribe, once through the fax, and also to the pharmacy down the street. SERIOUSLY?

What I hate even more are refill requests for prescribers on E-scribe. You cannot "refax it" easily if they didn't get it the first time. My favorite is "We don't have e-scribe." .... but your doctor and entire office has an ID number... and you sent us one last week. "Oh.. What's e-scribe?"

Today I just wanted to rip this office a new one.

"We e-faxed a request through e-scribe 4 days ago."
"Oh that's not our patient."
... That's not what you told them 10 minutes ago.
"Oh, THAT patient (wtf??) we never got anything. Can you fax it again?"
"We did, we faxed you manually yesterday to the number you gave us, and this morning. Can you give us a verbal rx because your fax machine does not seem to be working?"
"We need you to fax us."
"Ok I will, but your fax machine does not seem to be working so how will I know if you recieve it?"
"I'll call you."

I refax it again and this goes on periodically for the next 4 hours. The patient calls us screaming at us for 'not faxing the doctor the refill request' because they still haven't recieved anything. Bitch never called back of course. So we kept calling because they kept yelling at us to call because "Obviously we are not doing our job."

By the third call and manual fax to the office I wanted to strangle this receptionist. I asked her, if we had faxed it to the office THREE times today in the last 5 hours and she hasn't recieved ONE What makes her think that it will go through NOW?

"Just fax it again." BITCH YOU DIDN'T ANSWER MY QUESTION!!!!! was screaming in my head. Instead I just asked her to ask the doctor to call in a new RX so the patient can have their medication before they close. "No. We need you to fax us."

AWOIJEOIAWJFOWIJE Jesus fucking christ is your fax machine on???

The last time I called I got someone different. Thank fucking god, because I was ready to break something. We fax it one more time, and they turned on the fax machine finally and I get a call 45 minutes later that they got it and will call us back later.

Fuck that I'm off shift. Good luck with that shit. The patient was a lot nicer in the end. I told her the whole ordeal and that we tried to get them to give us a new rx over the phone because of their fax issue, and she offered to go down to the office herself if they wouldn't take care of it. I hope she bitch slaps that receptionist.

Hello... Goodbye.

2010-06-24T12:56:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if there are many people that work in a pharmacy where every one is like family. I've heard stories of ones where everyone hates each other. How much would that suck? My pharm family is usually what gets me through the day. Although they will get on your nerves just like your real family.

The day I got into pharmacy school was a really happy one. The day I met The Girlfriend was a really drunk, but happy one. The day I chose between a school much loser to home and a school over 2000 miles away, was a hard one. When I signed my life away and committed to a school farther away, it made me sad. In the end though, I made the decision to go somewhere I would be happiest, not what would make this relationship easiest.

A month or so ago we agreed to break up in August when I left. It wasn't an easy decision and over these short 3 months she changed my life. My coworkers were split between begging us to stay together and saying that we should just end it now. (Like I said, they love gettin' in your business, just like family.)

I've never really connected with anyone quite like the way I connected with her, and I guess she felt the same way. We were both reluctant on the decision, but logic always wins in our debates.

I broke up with her last night. I just couldn't drag it out any longer. As happy as I am with her, knowing tht we were going our separate ways in two months just made me so sad. I couldn't imagine how much it would hurt by the time August rolled around.

I think I may regret this later.

Compounding woes

2010-06-17T16:16:00.000-07:00

I enjoy compounding medications, for me it's fun and it's kind of like being back in my lab. There are many things that really suck about it though. This is mostly due to the fact that you're compounding in a retail pharmacy and not a specialty one.

Patients trying to scare the crap out of you, well they do that indirectly by saying the suspension that was compounded was shorted to them. Um, if there wasn't enough solution then that could mean the active ingredient was not properly diluted with the 'delivery vehicle'. There was NO way this particular one was 'shorted'. This is usually code for "I am a fucking idiot and gave my kid too much" or "I spilled it, but will blame it on you instead."

I triple check all my suspensions' volumes before and after they are combined. Then that gets checked by the RPh on duty. Shitty part is, thanks to the world of corpo pharmacy, we just have to 'accept it' and give them more.

I also like compounding because most people leave you alone when you are wearing gloves, a face mask (for some powders this is a must), and holding some strange looking objects. Unfortunately, there are always those dipshits that shout "HEY I NEED TO PICK UP MY MEDS!" at you while you're trying to pour the suppository mixture into the mold with your back to them. Then go to the pick up window dumbass. Do you see a cash register back here?

Sometimes when I'm holding a 50ml syringe with an 18G needle mischevious thoughts run through my mind, I giggle to myself a bit then return to my work while my coworkers stare with a frightened look on their face. They know I'd never hurt them, I work with some of the best people, but I guess you never know when that last straw breaks the mules back.

And of course when they want their compounded med "right now." Sure thing, let me pull it out of my ass.

Oh snap, you just got pwned druggie.

2010-06-14T02:34:00.000-07:00

Ya know, patients say a lot of strange/weird/stupid things to me, but I think this guy takes the cake.

Patient "I need to know if I can get this refilled now."

I get the info, turns out to be a narcotic, filled for a month supply less than 2 weeks ago.

Me "Sorry sir, this can't be filled until this date because you just got it filled less than 2 weeks ago."

Patient "No! You only gave me 60 tablets and it says here to take it twice a day so that's FOUR TABLETS A DAY. EVERY SIX HOURS." (he left out that the part where it's only as needed"

Me "Sir, twice a day is every 12 hours, 2 tablets a day."

Patient "NO ONE DAY IS 12 HOURS. SO EVERY 6 HOURS."

Me "Sir, one day is 24 hours."

Patient "SAYS WHO?"

Me "... the rest of the world? And also because 24 hours is how long it takes the earth to make a full rotation on its axis. Please just follow the directions on bottle. We cannot release this medication until this date."

Patient "WHATEVER!"

Then my pharmacist looked over at me and said "What?? Did you really just have to tell someone repeatedly that one day is 24 hours?"

Dear You

2010-05-27T01:45:00.000-07:00

--Don't judge me, I've gotten 3 hours of sleep the past three days, went to work, then tutored for a 2 hours. I have no idea how I am conscious, or even conscious enough to write this. But it did make me feel better about 'what was'. --

Dear You,

I spent so many years in love with you! You were my best friend. You made sure I stayed on track. You read books and watched tv while making sure I got my thesis done or studied for my exams. Just being in the same room with you made me feel better, even if we didn't say a word.

I started falling for you the day I met you. You weren't expecting someone in the dorms until the actual move in date. Apparently, they forgot to inform you that the University's marching band members move in a week before everyone else. That first week we had together was so much fun. I had no idea we would not only stay friends after that first year, but you would become my best friend.

I know we went through a lot of rough times through the years, and I'm so sorry for any hurt that I caused you. I am so thankful you were there for me when I needed you the most. I struggled so long with the feelings I had for you. I was so confused. When I realized, 'Oh my god, I'm gay.' I realized why these feelings for you would not go away. When I came out to you, I couldn't stop crying. Not because it was hard accepting who I was, it was hard telling you because you meant so much to me.

You have no idea how much it meant to me, that even after my breakdown, we went about our day and nothing between us had changed. I never told you I loved you. During my last two years at school, we were inseparable. Well, when I wasn't in my lab at least. You helped me keep my sanity and kept me from drowning under all of my work. You kept me anchored and kept me from sinking into the pile of biochemistry courses and thesis writings. You kept me sane.

Ironically, loving you drove me insane sometimes. When it came time for me to move, I felt so lost. The first month away from you was so hard. Going from never going two days without seeing each other to never seeing each other at all was so hard. I buried myself in my new job, my family, anything that distracted me from missing you. Three years later, it feels good to know that you our friendship is still strong. We may not see each other more than once every few years, but we always picked up like I had never left at all.

Sometimes I still miss you, and feel like I'm still in love with you. Maybe a small part of me will always be in love with you. All the same, I just wanted to say: I miss you, I love you, you are one amazing best friend. I couldn't have asked for more.

Love,

Me

Roadblock.

2010-05-13T18:52:00.000-07:00

Wednesday nights have become one of my favorite nights. It's usually the night girlfriend doesn't have to work at the hospital, I get off shift early, and it's our GLEE night. The best part is not having to work the next day. It's pretty much the only part of our schedules that don't clash.

I really love spending time with her. I haven't really felt this way about anyone in a long time. It's just the impending move to the midwest that's got me nervous. We've only been together 2 and a half months, but we've gotten pretty attached to each other. In three months I'm moving 2/3 of the way across the country. I know it's time we stop glossing over this fact, pretending it's not coming as soon a it really is. Her surgical residency is here. My school is there.

My timing really sucks. As much as trying to do a long distance thing would suck, but let us stay together, it just doesn't seem feasible. I don't plan on flying back very often because I'll be trying to find clinical internships that will most likely be out there as well, she can't visit, because she barely has enough time to sleep and see me right now as it is.

It's like we've hit this huge roadblock and neither of us is really sure what to do.

BUSTED.

2010-04-26T21:07:00.000-07:00

As much as my job can be infuriating at times, there are the fun times and the interesting times that get you through the day.

One of my favorite things to do at work? Busting drug seekers. I'm sure corporate is unhappy that this may 'hurt their bottom line', but I don't care. Many people in my profession can spot these people from miles away. It's always irritating when you know it's not legit and the MD is on their payroll, but one you can bust 'em, it's just awesome.

Take this one guy for example. Every time he comes in, it's for the same narcs, pays cash in 20 dollar bills for narcotics that cost about a total of $1000 every month, cash that is kept in a bank purse that has way more money in that every single time he comes in. Another thing is I hate taking that much cash. 1) I have to check all bills 20 and larger 2) having that in my drawer makes me uneasy, 3) why the fuck are you carrying around about 5 grand in cash with you at all times?! I have 5 grand too buddy, but I store it at this place calle THE BANK. Or at least in a safe at the house. Fuck carrying that around.

He also does the one thing that irritates he shit out of me while I work. He hovers around the pharmacy, peeking in, giving that you should hurry that shit up vibe. Fuck you, man. Funny thing is, this usually makes me work slower. I've been wanting to bust him for months, but my hands were tied. MD said the RXs were legit, etc blah blah blah. As we're doing the second data review on the script a red flag pops up that he's filled norco somewhere recently.

Oh AAA, you were always a pain sometimes, but I <3 them for not only jumping my car when I need it, but busting his ass. Tracking AAA discount (p.s. some pharmacies offer AAA discounts on your rx's if it's not covered or you don't have insurance) was pain in the ass, but through a few phone calls I tracked down the second pharmacy they were using and found out he goes to them about a week after us for the same narcs. BUSTED.

I don't know why, but it's so much fun to bust them. Almost as much fun as talking to the kids that come in, or the regulars that give you a laugh.

Work apathy

2010-04-23T23:09:00.000-07:00

I've just seriously been so apathetic lately at work. I think it's a combination of burn out and wanting to be with my girlfriend. I know it's not just me that goes through all the BS in the pharmacy. We all get yelled at over ridiculous crap that's out of control, but I just don't even care anymore. Most of the time I just raise an eyebrow, turn and walk away. This may seem rude to them, but if I don't walk away there is a huge chance I would say many many not so nice things.

I'm sorry you 'lost' your vicodin down the toilet for the 3rd time in two weeks. We cannot give it an early fill without doctor approval. I'm sorry your copay sucks, yell at the insurance company. No I do not magically know your insurance ID number. No I cannot magically guess what it is especially if you don't even know the name of your insurance carrier.

It also sucks that girlfriend's hospital schedule and my pharmacy schedule are complete opposites. Serves me right I suppose. I finally date someone I do want to see often, and work prevents it. If she's got the late shift, I have an early morning shift.

Not to mention we're conveniently ignoring the fact that I'm moving in 4 months. It's weird. I guess as soon as I decided on where I was going, it made it real that I was leaving. It also made it real that we would most likely not be together at the end of these four months.

I adore her. I've never really been with someone I wanted to spend all my free time with. I've always been the one that needed her own time and space. It's just different with her. I just don't think I could handle long distance. Not with stress from school, and the stress she's under. It just sounds like an explosion of fights waitingto happen. Ugh, need to stop thinking about that and enjoy the moments we have now.

MUD RUN!!!

2010-04-18T01:35:00.000-07:00

I'm pumped right now and so excited for the summer. Starting this week I will begin training for a 5K mud run. WEEEEE. I am worried too because I have became a fatty sloth and haven't done my 4 mile tri-weekly run in almost 3 years. I'm so out of shape now it's embarrassing. I gained 15 lbs since I left college, lost 5 of it, but I was still not exactly in shape when I left college.

My fat timeline would be high school really fat --> college I actually lost a lot of weight and ran 4 miles every other day by my senior year so I was in shape, and pudgy --> work rut that included weight gain, crap food eating at lunch with coworkers and not working because work is draining (excuses, excuses)

So my goal is to get back to working out 4 times a week and work my way back up to 4 miles in 32 minutes, and get to a good healthy routine. I have two other coworkers and possibly a third to complete our 4 person team for the mud run. I am so excited about this!!

I think I will start to use this blog to monitor my working out progress and training routines as well. Or a second one, haven't quite decided yet.

Introducing... the girl.

2010-04-12T23:10:00.000-07:00

I forgot to add something in my last post. I met someone, someone I now call my girlfriend. I had no idea during that post that it would turn out to be much. I'm moving across the country in 4 months, and I was not keen on starting a relationship. I am not good with relationships. My friends and coworkers make fun of me for having 'commitment issues', when in reality, if I don't feel it, then I don't pursue it. I don't understand why that's so hard for them to grasp haha.

But... She makes me happy. I actually feel kind of silly writing that, but she makes me smile stupidly, say silly things, and I just feel... happy. Not that I wasn't happy before, but now I'm in that weird happy-relationship kinda thing. Weird.

My friends think it's a match made in medical heaven. I think they're all insane, but her shifts at the hospital and my random pharmacy schedule does make things a bit difficult.

I'm crazy about her. There. I said it. I like her, a lot. And that scares the crap out of me. She knows in four months I'll be living in another state far far away, but we never really breached the subject further than just acknowledging it. Honestly, I just figured we'd have fun and 'whatever happens, happens', but I adore her.

It also doesn't help that the one day off we had together I got an emergency call to work. In my sleepy stupor I agreed to work and asked my coworker to stop sounding so damn peppy when gf asked "Babe... are you talking to your puppy on the phone?" (My coworker has the same name as the pup lol.) I explained that I had to work today and that was recieved with swift kick to my shins and reminding me what today was.

I felt like the world's biggest ass. I don't make good decisions straight from waking up, ever. This is why work attacks me in the morning, they know I'm not coherent. So I was stuck, be an asshole and say that I can't work, or be an asshole and ditch my gf on our break day. After a lot of furious texting and talking with the gf, she relunctantly agreed that I should bail them out. I felt so bad, I was a grumpy butt at work for the first few hours. I felt bad about that too. Today was not the happy day off I was expecting! haha.

She forgave me by the time my lunch break rolled around, and I went skipping back to work the happiest person. My coworkers were baffled. I couldn't explain it. Just knowing she was ok, we were ok, just made my mood so much better. (I texted my coworker that missed his shift saying that if she breaks up with me over this I am holding him soley responsible. haha.)

=)

My body and liver hates me

2010-03-30T22:59:00.000-07:00

Oi. The past few weeks have been a whirlwind. Besides checking my email from my phone the past few weeks and watching Lost on Netflix streaming at night to go to sleep I haven't touched my laptop. To be honest, most nights I am pretty sure turning the laptop on was a huge feat in itself.

Last weekend I went out to a gay club on ladies night with my newly found gay cousin and her gf. It was awesome! Mostly because I am spending more time with my cousin since we had grown apart, but it seems our 'gayness' is bringing us back together. HAHA. I inform them tha in order to get me + dancing, you need to also factor in alcohol. Somewhere in between several vodka tonics and beer or two, I was dancing around like a fool. Too bad I got home around 330am and worked at 10am.

Quote of the night, in response to my lightweight in the drinking area: "Girl, I may not be a 90 lb girl, but I sure as hell do drink like one!"

I stumbled out of bed sometime around 9am to shower and go to work. I found some Vietnamese coffee in my fridge and nearly cried from happiness. Halfway through the bottle at work I finally read the label that said "Concetrated" on it, then realized I was supposed to mix it with ice. Turns out I had about 4 cups of it which equals about 12 expresso shots. Oh shit.

A few hours later I was running around the pharmacy like a crackhead. Zipping around like a freaking hummingbird. My equally hungover, but coffeeless coworker stared at me and said "Oh god, please stop running around, you're making me dizzy!!!"

Still wired from the coffee after work I went over to my friend's house to get 're-schooled' in beer pong. I haven't played that crap since college. Around 2 am I realized, shit, work at 8am. A friend drops me off, and the day goes on. This time I had the appropriate diluted amount of coffee and was still going strong for my coworker's house party.

I am pretty sure my liver is cursing me, and my nervous system wants to kill me with the overload of caffeine and alcohol, but it was good fun!

Somewhere in between all that in the week we also made two trips to disneyland and played house for my sister.

I am waiting for everything to hit me all at one and go into some insane sleep coma. Too old for this shit!

Vacations are amazing.

2010-03-09T00:56:00.000-08:00

I just got back from vacation to visit some of my old college friends. It was much too short and I really wish I was still there. My best friend picked me up, we grabbed dinner, and then went back to her place to watch a movie and sleep.

Ah, some things never changed. I missed her, but I didn't realize how much. Sometimes the little things we used to do together is more fun than figuring out activities to do. We were so comfortable with each other that I could study in one corner and she could watch tv and/or read in the same room and just enjoyed each other's company. Even though it was kinda like ignoring each other, haha. I miss those days, but I do not miss my insane exam schedule/thesis writing.

Throughout the week we did a lot of things, and we even fit in a snowboarding trip. I laughed so much and had so much fun with my friends. It had been almost 2 years since I had seen them, but we just picked up where we left off. Making fun of each other, laughing til we cried, making random jokes, and just having fun no matter what we were doing!

When my best friend dropped me off at the airport and hugged me goodbye, I just wanted to hop back in the car and not go home. I missed my family and my puppy dog, but I just missed being there. The place I called my home for four years. I'm not gonna lie, I wanted to cry while I sat at the airport waiting for my flight.

I am still smiling just thinking about all the fun I had. I even got to meet some neices and nephews for the first time (the oldest is 10!) and bonded with them. I wish I could have spent more time with them. It made me sad when one asked 'Auntie can't you please just stay with us??' after only knowing me for 3 hours.

Vacation simply just does not last long enough!!

Pregnancy?!

2010-02-28T01:48:00.000-08:00

Me: ... Wow... apparently 'tis the season to be pregnant.
Pregnant Coworker: "SHUT UP...."
Me: Sorry! Just messin' with ya.
PC: It's ok... everyone had a pregnancy scare that week.
Me: ... except me. And the one person that wants to be pregnant!
PC: true... did you know RxM is preggers too? The same time as me!
Me: Holy crap!
PC: See! You should get pregnant and have a baby with me!
Me: ... And through what miracle would be achieving this feat?
PC: *snickers* Well... it COULD happen.
Me: No honey, it can't.
PC: What! You could be carrying baby jesus.... or the anti-christ.
Me: ha. ha. ha.

The very next day....

Pharmacist: Oh! So G wasn't feeling so good yesterday. I guess she was feeling really dizzy. I think she may be pregnant again.
Me: Wow. Is that good or bad?
Pharmacist: ... I don't know.

Five minutes laer G calls to let the pharmacist know she was ok. And not pregnant.

Pharmacist: OH! Good you took a test? Oh! Erin! She took it twice! Not pregnant!
Me: Congratulations? Hi G!
G: Who was that?
Pharmacist: Erin! She says hi!
G: OH! Tell her I say Hi, I'm NOT PREGNANT!
Pharmacist: She says hi and that she's not pregnant!!
Me: .... congratulations?

I am just amused at the relief. And the fact that even though it has been said over and over... she kept reiterating that she wasn't pregnant. Then again G just had a baby in August... so I'm guessing one child depriving her of sleep is more than enough for her and her hubby.

blargh?!

2010-02-21T00:56:00.000-08:00

Blarrrghhh.

That's pretty much how I've felt all week. I am on 11 days of work straight this week and it has not been an easy 6 days. Between rushing between my PT (yes... still in PT from that damn acccident), my MD appointments (I've been in there so much it's ridiculous) for shots and TB tests and the like, while tutoring a very stubborn 13 year old in science and algebra and mediating between him and his dad, then being yelled at my parentals for working too much, not having enough time to tutor, and working too late all the time (blah blah, one day I should just say psh Ashley (www.writingtoreachyou.com) has an even crazier work load, but they'd just stare at me strangely.

Blah and filling out financial aid?! That means I need to file my taxes hahaha.

Oh man. I feel like I'm being pulled in so many different directions and the ONLY thing I have to look forward to is ONE day off this Thursday and then back to work I go.

Shoot. There are techs that are desperate for hours and they find the one person that would be over time?! I mean it's flattering because it means I have a good reputation as a competent tech with so many people/pharmacies(you'd be surprised how hard it is to find a competent tech) that my name usually comes up when people need coverage and that they are willing to pay me time and a half to do it. It's just blargh because I have a problem with saying 'no'. Which means things like Thursday happened when I was working and missed my PT because they simply could not lose me for 90 minutes. I need a clone so I can be in more than one place at a time.

Sorry... enough complaining. I just got off from work after being yelled at by many many people because of things beyond my control.

To come out or not to come out

2010-02-15T00:19:00.000-08:00

So much to do... and so much to think about before I move. I am going to miss my puppy so much! But it wouldn't be fair to coup him up in a tiny apartmet when he has so much space here!

I've also been talking to my future classmates and the same question keeps lingerig in my head. Should I come out to them? We're all in professional school, but at the same time if one reacts badly I am stuck with them for four years! Well 3 since 4th year is mostly clinical rotations. I was barely out in college. Blah. I have no problems being open at work, but my thoughts always come back to that story where a guy was kicked out of pharmacy school for being gay. My school is a private school too, but they are progressive... you just never know. Blah.

Here'sa fun conversation to lighten those thoughts:

Daniel
that game is the best
that is my valentine lol
9:10pmCarolyn
hahhaha well at least it will never leave you
9:11pmDaniel
if it breaks then my life is over
9:11pmCarolyn
or you could go buy yourself a new one
or steal one like you did in your hoodlum days
9:12pmDaniel
lol it was one lollipop
9:12pmCarolyn
whateverrr gateway theft
first it's a lollipop
then it's a candy bar
before you know it you're on the 10 o'clock news on a high speed pursuit down the 405 with cops chasing you.

domain name change

2010-02-10T03:10:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone,

So with a new life about to start ahead of me, I changed my url. I did this for a number of reasons, and I know that links will be broken etc. Sorry! I should have thought about my url more carefully than when I had started this blog last year, but I didn't. My apologies!

T-Minus 6 months til I pack up and move for pharmacy school!

My arm hurts.

2010-02-06T01:54:00.001-08:00

I am still ecstatic about my acceptance. I love love love the school, the weather there, the city, I am so excited! I've pretty much been bouncing off the walls the last few days, and I'm sure some are getting annoyed by it haha. Teehee I am going to be a doctor of pharmacy!

Well, of course after acceptance I get to start the 'what you need to do' before you can successfully matriculate. I pretty much woke up the next day and started making appointments for the following day for my physical/immunizations.

I hate shots! =( They gave me three injections and I have to go back Monday to get my TB test done and start my round of Hep B immunizations. My arms were pretty sore today and people at work kept accidentally bumping into it/poking me in the arm. Also, I think something was off because I was super clumsy today. Read: Dropped and broke a glass bottle of cough syrup, and knocked a coffee out of my friend's hand (separate occasions). I felt so bad, coffee is important. So with sore ams I sucked it up and mopped up my mess because I made them.

Had a good night tonight, dinner with the fam, had drinks with my coworkers to celebrate. Life is good.

Memorable quotes:
Coworker: "HERE'S TO GETTING RID OF CAROLYN!!!"
everyone (including me): "CHEERS TO THAT!!!"

Coworker: "Here's to Carolyn finally getting the F- out of CA!" <3333

Coworker: "HERE'S TO NOT BEING AT WOOOOORK!! DRINK!"

Coworker:"so... can I have your hours when you leave? You know... the nice ones."

=) =) =)

2010-02-02T22:31:00.000-08:00

I am so very very happy right now! I JUST FOUND OUT I WAS ACCEPTED TO PHARMACY SCHOOL!!!! Not only that, it was my top choice!!!!

I thought I bombed that interview because I had a horrible sinus infection and was pretty out of it, but I got in!!! I am so happy right now!

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My phone literally exploded that night. Phone calls and texts from friends and family kept coming for hours! My parents get the word out fast. I had no idea there were two different call waiting tones if you're on the phone while two other people are trying to call you at the same time. LOL I thought my phone was having a nervous breakdown.

P.S. Turns out my second store knows I'm gay. LOL. Amazing gaydar? Or just super observant?

My company + Pride??

2010-01-26T23:58:00.000-08:00

Ok, well I am one of the lucky folks that work for a company that does include sexual orientation as a protected class along with sex, class, race, etc. I have always been thankful for that, especially since my coworkers have some crazy gaydar. Or at least when it comes to me. I have long hair and dress pretty much like every one else at work, so I don't know how they figure it out, but they did.

So my boss was reading our corporate emails while I was trying to figure out a strange prescription when I hear my boss excitedly calling me to read whatever she was reading. The only thing in the subject was [Company Name] Pride. I scoffed and began reading.

Well I'll be damned. They are going to sponser some of LB pride, have booths, and possibly get in on the parade float thing. Yeah, that's pretty cool! Funny since I have still failed to go to Pride, mostly because I'm always working haha. My boss was super excited though and wanted to volunteer me for the float.

Oh please, no. I don't know if I could handle that haha. Last thing I need is the parentals watching faux news and see me in the parade. haha. It would be pretty awesome though...

Pride isn't until June though I think, so pretty far ways away... and it would be pretty freaking sweet.

drunk bush running.

2010-01-26T00:31:00.000-08:00

Now, if you are thinking something dirty, please remove your mind from the gutter. ;) I actually did drunkenly run through foliage.

After an exhausting and boring day at work, I went home to get things done. This turned into going home and passing out on the couch for an hour. I wake up to a text that read:

'Grab drinks before movie?' YESSS! Of course!

So I met up with my friend at a bar about half a mile from the movie theatre. I was planning on my usual one beer. That turned into a beer and a shot of petrone when he offered to buy me one. That snowballed into a beer, a shot of petrone, and an Irish Car Bomb. In less that 45 minutes. Woo. Remind me never to do that again. I am too old to be drinking that much that quickly.

We realize at this time that we are going to be late to the movie. Too drunk to even consider driving, we decided to walk since our other friends wouldn't pick us up. For some reason as soon as we got outside my drunkeness caught up with me. We also didn't realize the amount of foliage walls we would encounter. At the first one we came up to, my friend looks at me and goes "should we?" and we did. The bastard jumped in and pretty much tumbled into the bushes. My drunken ass decides to try and wade through it and got caught on some branches and I got some nice cuts from them haha.

At one point our friends call him to see why it was taking us so long to get there and this distracts his 'bush wading skills' and he pretty much slips and falls over into the bush. I am laughing my ass off at him and then he gets up and takes off running.

I was not sober enough to run that fast. So I stumble after him and watch him disappear when our friend calls me. Of course I am wading through new bushes this time and as karma would have it I slipped and pretty much rolled through. I am surprised I didn't lose anything haha. Then I started to 'run' towards the movie theatre. Wow. What a sight. We couldn't stop laughing. We both had some mud on us, and the cuts were hilarious. The movie was eh, but was a lot better drunk haha.

And we're back!

2010-01-22T01:00:00.001-08:00

I'm back! My brain is running at 90% right now, which is far far better than the haze I was living through this past week. I no longer feel nauseous, the world no longer tilts at random moments, and my head no longer pounds. Huh, I just realized having a concussion is similar to being very very drunk, only less fun.

So I don't exactly remember what went wrong in the moments leading up to my concussion. I remember flying into the air, but then my mind goes blank and I feel my head hit the ground much harder than it ever has. The pain was intense, I couldn't even open my eyes. I remember trying with all my might to push open my eyes, but some other force was keeping them shut.

Now, for some reason, not being able to open my eyes made me try to roll over to get up. You'd think not being able to see, your last thought would be to get up right? Well I'm a dumbass. Good thing I was too hurt to move. I felt my limbs shake at my feeble attempt to roll my body over, so I just laid there for a bit. After a few minutes I was able to open my eyes and roll myself over and get myself off that mountain. Whew. I probably should not have kept riding, but I did. After about two though I called it quits and laid in the car while the rest of my group enjoyed the day.

I was slightly terrified to sleep that night, but I woke up the next morning going YES! I WOKE UP! My next thought was, Dammit. I have to go to work. It was hard because I was feeling really nauseous, and my head still pounded pretty fiercely.

It took most of this week for the pounding to subside and the haze to lift, but I'm ready to take on the fresh powder!

Regular programming will return shortly.

2010-01-19T00:32:00.001-08:00

Please forgive my lack of comments. I am trying to keep up on my blogs, but I currently have a mild concussion. So my mind is a bit hazy, and will catch up once this fog on my brain lifts. It's not that bad. I can still do complex problem solving, just issues with minor things like counting past 20 (by fives) without my brain drifting off, or other simple things. Odd, because I can do more complex math, it's just the simple things that are hard.

Lady Gaga overload

2010-01-09T00:51:00.001-08:00

So while at work today, my coworker is calling a patient and has it on speaker and instead of the usual ringing you hear the pharmacy is suddenly blasted with Bad Romance, by Lady Gaga.

Every one is looking around trying to figure out where that music is coming from, I'm trying not to laugh and all of a sudden the girl's voicemail pops up. I think that's when we all realized it was coming from a phone. He really should have picked it up when the music started blasting, but it was pretty funny. That or he did it on purpose, because the volume was pretty damn loud.

For some reason, I thought it was a silly song, and as karma would have it, seconds later someone called me (and my dumbass forgot to put my phone on vibrate) and it too played 'bad romance'.

So that's what the kid was doing when she was playing with my phone and giggling. I never should have showed her my free ringtone app.

That song has now been stuck in my head for 12 hours.

In other non-lady gaga related news, my other coworker has recovered from her tonsilitis and is back to her usual self and making fun of me.

Me: AGHHHH I CAN'T OPEN THIS BIRTH CONTROL!!! IT'S CAROLYN PROOF!
Coworker: AHAHAHA That's because you don't need it cos you're gay!
Me: So?? BCPs have other uses!
Coworker: Yeah, yeah. Wish you didn't come out of the closet now, huh?
Me: I didn't come out of the closet, ya'll THREW me out.
Coworker: Oh yeah...
Me: I still don't know how you all figured it out.
Coworker: Trust me, it wasn't hard to tell.

Literally a hot ass.

2010-01-07T21:22:00.000-08:00

Since winter is in full swing (kind of... SoCal doesn't actually get 'winter' it just gets 'cold') so is my snowboarding/ski season. I've only boarded this winter because I want to improve more and I've only been going with people that board mostly, and I've had some pretty rough falls. Today was no exception. Luckily, I always always always wear a helmet and that definitely saved my life, or at least saved me from a concussion.

I was riding down the mountain happily, going faster with more confidence in my ability to avoid people and stop, and I've been getting better at my jumps too. I've been trying to gather courage to do a 180 turn during a jump, but I decided to be really solid in jumps first. I perfected a few jumps, getting a lot of air and landing in the correct area so it's a soft landing, but I ran into one problem. Multiple jumps while controlling speed.

I hit the first two with decent air and good landings, but somehow failed to slow down enough for the third. The air I got was remarkable, but this also caused me to miss the 'landing zone' by a good 3 feet, or 1 meter for you international folk. Next think I know my board hits the ground flat with a large thump, then I am on my ass, I hear a crack as my head slams into the ground, and I roll few times down the slope before I actually stopped.

For some reason it doesn't occur to me to just stay down and gather myself for a second and I just push myself back up and kept going, tapping my helmet a few times to make sure it wasn't actually cracked. No cracks after closer inspection later, surprisingly.

Now I am home and my butt really hurts. I think I may have landed on my tailbone since it really hurts to sit. It's actually kind of funny to watch me try and sit, I've been giggled at many times today by friends and family. My friend suggested I put one of those heat patches or bengay on my ass. I considered this thought for a moment and could only come up with this reply:

No thanks, having a hot ass is nice, just not literally.

For some reason she thought hurting my tailbone would hinder me professionally, but I stand... all day. And I certainly do not count pills with my ass (thought you all would be relieved to know that), so I am not sure how it will hurt me haha. Silly friends.

recap

2009-12-30T23:09:00.001-08:00

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind. Here are some things that stick out in my mind:

My friends are back, which means I will gladly sacrifice sleep so that I can see them. Even if it means 3 hours of sleep a night for over a week, I will push through because they are only here for so long. We've done everything from snowboard, go out, have a pre-xmas party, and just watch a movie together.

Work has been interesting. At my main store, there is a current fued between power tripping managers in the front and the pharmacy staff. This leads me to believe more and more that I should transfer before shit hits the fan. At the store I am moonlighting at, the police had to show up to remove a verbally abusive lady from the store. I also did some CE credits about emergency contraception and chronic constipation. The funniest thing I learned is what I have dubbed "The proper pooping posture". I had no idea there was a 'proper' way to sit while going #2. When the manager at store #2 heard about my serious consideration of transferring out of my main store, her eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. I guess I do have a place to go haha.

Now for the fun! Snowboarding! I've been three times in two weeks! The best was Christmas eve because it was not crowded at all. I've improved a lot, but let's face it, it's funnier to hear about my falls.

Fall #1
I had a bit too much speed and hit the jump way too fast and ended up off balance about 5 feet in the air. As I realize there is no way I am going to land this, I go into my default falling position, which I guess is body slamming the mountain. This prevents any further knee injuries and any new wrist injuries, but definitely knocks the wind out of me.

Fall #2 I hit a rail, again off balance and roll off of it and landed hard on the ground on my left breast. Ouch. That hurt. I was hugging myself the rest of the way down shaking that off haha. It's still sore.

Fall #3 the quarter pipe. My cousin says "It's really easy just ride up and slide back down. you can do it!" Well I made it up, but halfway down I definitely fell back hard on my butt and possibly my head. He said I did, but I was wearing a helmet and didn't feel a thing. (don't be a fool, helmet's rule!)

Fall #4 The box of DOOM. Looks like the easiest box rail to do, but due to its enormous size and length, it's really hard to keep your balance. Half the time I fell backwards and slid off and tumbled down. I have ice burn on my butt from one of the falls off the box of doom.

Fall #5 I got about 6 feet of air and land the jump, but realize that the next jump is too close for me to slow down in time to take it. As I approach the second jump way too quickly, I bailed and break-dance like spin on my butt down the slope and halfway up that second jump.

Fall #6 The best one of all. The wavey box rails. I hit the first one wonderfully, but somehow lost my balance on the second and landed right in the halfmoon rail on my butt. OOHHH!! and OUCH! could be heard from the people passing by on the lift that got to witness that haha.

Aside from those awesome falls, I've really improved my jumps. I landed most of them, until I was exhausted by hour 7 of snowboarding and my legs began to feel like jelly. It's hard to stick landings when your legs are saying f-you! I'm done!

My legs have the phantom boarding feeling. It's kind of like being in the ocean and later that day laying down and feeling like you're still being pushed back and forth by the waves. My body still feels like it's barreling down a mountain ahha.

Silly people.

2009-12-13T17:25:00.001-08:00

I am sick. Joy. BUT! The brightside is that it is not the piggy flu!! Muahahhaa. I knew it wouldn't get me... at least not yet. My lungs are burning though and it hurts to breathe, cough, and sneeze, which is all I can really do right now, so that kinda sucks.

I am so medicated right now, and it's not really helping any. It alleviates some of the symptoms, but it just makes me stuffy nose into a runny nose and to behonest I'd rather be stuffy. I am not a fan of stuff oozing from my nose, or any orifice. haha.

... Now that I have grossed you all out by that gross mental image, here are some fun quotes of the week:

"OH MY GOD, you sound terrible! Are you sick?" ... yes. "Really???" ... yes. "OMG, STAY AWAY!" ... you have been infected by your slow reaction time. "WHAT???" (insert maniacal congested laughter) "You're a jerk." I am well aware. Hug? "eeeee! no!"

Hello Mikey. "HOLY HELL DUDE, YOU SOUND GROSS." Thanks Mikey. "... why are you here?" getting drugs. "oh.. ok, don't lick anything ok?" ... not gonna be a problem pal. "THANKS!"

On the phone:

Hello? "Who is this?" ... you called my cell phone... "Well.. ok, but I'm looking for Carolyn." ... This is Carolyn. "Are you sure?" ... yes. "Wow, you sound more manly than usual." ... Manly?? More than usual? You're an assface. "Hee hee"

Corporate pharmacy how can I help you? "Hey, who is this?" Carolyn "You're not Carolyn." Umm... ok? Are you looking for someone? "Yes... Carolyn." ... How can I help you? "I said I wanted to talk to Carolyn!" Are you kidding me, Ellie?? "How do you know who I am? And no... is she there?" IT'S MEEEE I am just sick! "Wow I thought you were joking..." About being Carolyn? "Good point, who would want to pretend to be you?" jerkface!

eek

2009-11-30T00:20:00.001-08:00

I need to breathe before I freak out. Just the mention of my soon trip to Arizona makes me hyperventilate. I am really nervous about going. I used to love traveling. Well, I still love traveling, but for fun! Traveling for 'business', not so much fun. It's nerve wrecking. I won't even check in my bag even if it's free because if they lose it, I lose my suit. I lose my suit, well then I'm just screwed.

People are thinking that I'm just lazy and not coming to work-work as often, but what they don't know is I'm not at home relaxing the day away. Quite the opposite. I feel like wound up and edgy. Time! Please please slow down. How the hell did this year disappear so quickly?!

I gave up biting my nails years ago, and man it's one of those nail biting times. I'm not going to revert back and start biting them again though. I work with sick people, nasty habit to have when you have no idea what you're touching.

Sorry for the scattered thoughts. Time to go and review.

Excuses.

2009-11-20T01:04:00.001-08:00

Here are my list of reasons (excuses) on why I've been a bad blog friend and gotten so far behind on every blog this past week or so. (Days have begun to blend together)

1) Work has been giving me ridiculous hours, i.e. work til 11pm two nights then work at 7am the next day, then work again until 11pm. Not being away from the pharmacy fo more than 8 hours is no fun.

2) been working on my physical therapy, acupuncture, seeing my spine specialist (my spine is ok though! thank freakin' goodness), and working on being less lethargic.

3) tutoring the kids. Checking homework, help study. It's like I have actual kids.

4) Friends are back and demand my attention. Attention I happily give them because I have missed them something fierce.

5) I crash as soon as I get home, or too tired to do more than watch Grey's Anatomy or HIMYM online and usually never make it through the whole episode before passing out.

6) I just finished Guitar Hero World Tour. I almost finished it within weeks of getting it, but I stopped playing due to work, accident, applications, etc but my friend was the catalyst in getting me to play again. This re-sparked my love of the game and I finished my last set on medium on drums! My arms were going to fall off, but I did it! Weee.

7) My sister was on bed rest. I spent most of the free time with her, bring her and my brother food, keep her company, etc.

8) The extra time that I did have online was devoted to fixing itunes. For some reason when I tried updating itunes, it wouldn't update. It then prompted me to uninstall then reinstall. Too bad IT WOULDN'T FREAKING RE-INSTALL. Hours of time was spent un/re-installing itunes in a number of ways, disk checking, scanning my computer for viruses (just in case), defragmenting, and then today... IT FINALLY REINSTALLED. It was driving me insane.

Now it's past 1am and I must be off to bed. I hope to start trying to catch up with all you lovely people by Saturday evening.

Insane or just plain stupid?

2009-11-05T06:08:00.001-08:00

I am going to go with a little of both.

Today I have been up the entire night because of some serious back pain. I don't think I have a low pain threshold. I've rammed my knee snowboarding into a metal rail enough to cut and bruise it up, yet managed to be fine snowboarding on it for another 3 hours. It's just so hard to sleep when it feels like something is repeatedly punching you in the spine.

Yet, for half the night, even with the pain, all I could think of was how much I wanted to go snowboarding. You may be having the same thoughts as most do 'Are you stupid? You barely walk without pain, and you want to WHAT?' or as my boss so eloquently put it 'Oh please, promise me you will not snowboard. You're going to hurt yourself more.' and she also meant to add 'who else will work???'

I think the worst part is I'm reviewing my list of 'tricks' in my head while I lie in bed daydreaming of snowboarding to get my mind off the pain. I'm reviewing my 'technique' that I learned through trial and error on landing box rails and jumps. Trying to think of ways to improve my technique and try a 180, or if I can really manage it a 360. But the last time I tried a 90 degree spin to land on rail I literally fell backwards and hit my head, but that's what helmets are for... right? Really those turns are currently in the 'in your dreams' stage.

Last year I managed to become proficient in riding on my board down a mountain without falling face first. This was a huge feat considering for three days I was was only able to stand up just to fall on my face again every 5 inches. Somehow that progessed to 4 footer jumps, that progressed to box rails, and that somehow progressed to 10 footer jumps. I am pretty good at landing those now, though the approach to 10 footer always scares the bejebus out of me and I am terrified until I land.

I guess a part of me just doesn't want to accept defeat. I don't want this to keep me from doing what I want, or want I love. We shall see. I can gaurantee you that my dumb ass will be standing at the top of a hill soon. Whether or not I may end up hurting myself further I guess is the question. Maybe I'll keep of the tricks and ride for the sake of riding and just enjoy that feeling of flying down a mountain.

Rar. But I can do that even better on skis. The tricks are what really made me fall in love with boarding. This is going to be a sad season if I don't get better soon. Boo.

I've gotten complaints from my cousin that I don't ski anymore. That I'm a 'traitor' (haha), but skiing doesn't offer the challenge it once did, that snowboarding now does. And of course my friends that snowboard are thrilled I've finally 'seen the light'. What does it matter. I can do both in the same day if I wanted.

Moonlighting

2009-11-04T02:42:00.001-08:00

You know at work there is almost always someone that everyone dislikes. I've always been afraid of being 'that person'. I have my quirks, actually I have a lot of them. I've learned that there's no real way of hiding my quirks because sooner or later they come out in full force and I look like an ass for pretendng to be any other way. Besides, it's better to be yourself right? Well, lucky for me I'm not 'that person' at work. At least if I am, the gossip mill at work has been very good at hiding it. That and there's someone else that pretty much takes the heat off of just about anyone at work.

Well, I've been 'moonlighting' on my free hours elsewhere and my boss is not happy about having to share me, but it's what's good for my health right now. Honestly, I enjoy the break and not feeling like someone is kicking me in the ribs while at work. I could have transferred out, but I didn't have the heart to. I've had to cut my hours back though due to the pain. Which sucks for both the store and for my bank account. So this moonlighting position is actually a good solution to my problem.

The place I've been moonlighting at, I was slightly worried about how they would handle me. Yes, I can be a handful and my humor can be taken the wrong way, but it fit like a glove! They were just in a bad position with losing staff unexpectedly, so I stepped in one or two days a week to help them get by. They are actually hilarious and have the same sense of humor I do so it's fun to be there. After they had found a more permanent replacement (though half of that replacement was not liked at all by the full staff) I thought my time was over. Lo and behold, the next week I get a phone call from them.

"She quit."

I don't know why, but I just started laughing my ass off. I knew they didn't want her there, but the fact that she hated this group of awesome people enough to quit one of the easiest jobs had me rolling. I laughed so hard, the manager started laughing too. I'm not sure if it was out of the sheer ridiculousness of the situation, or that she was freaking out over staffing again, but we had a good laugh. Now I have a semi permanent moonlighting position with them, and I'm kind of glad. I enjoy working with them and missed them. Not to mention it's one of the few times I've been able to work without excruciatin pain.

The only thing that's different is that I'm not 'out' there. My main location pretty much knows I'm a giant homo, even the newbies, but I haven't quite gotten the nerve to do it there. I guess it doesn't really matter. It doesn't affect my work, it doesn't hurt anyone there. It is part of who I am though. I guess only time will tell.

Gays Anatomy

2009-10-29T02:12:00.001-07:00

I believe I started calling Grey's anatomy, Gays Anatomy after reading a blog post byLauren. Amazing writer, wise beyond her years! Check her out if you haven't already.

I've been plagued by insomnia again. I spent the last 3 weeks in sleep comas. I couldn't stay awake for more than 5 hours without abruptly falling asleep in the most inappopriate places (i.e. metro trains, checking emails, break rooms at work, cars, buses, it got pretty bad that I avoided going anywhere far). The upside side of this is I actually slept at normal hours before 1 AM. Downside is I still felt lethargic and useless during the day and still fell asleep everywhere.

Unfortunately I lost that awesome I can sleep before 1am bit. Which leaves me with a lot of night time thinking, reading (I've read 2 books in 2 days, starting on my third), and watching tv online.

I think it started last night because I was so anxious and nervous about the MRI I was scheduled to have today. I couldn't sleep until about 5am. That resulted in book #2, 2 episodes of House, and 3 episodes of Greys anatomy. (Yes, I am aware I am a nerd with a love of medical shows, as well as forensics (CSI, Bones), and well Glee. Because Glee is amazing.

I cannot stay on a point to save my life. Master of Digression, thy name is Carolyn. Anywho, so I've been sad that Grey's Anatomy has not been giving much screen time to the best couple on there: Arizona Robbins and Callie Torres. Yes, I may be biased, but they are both amazing, funny characters and cuuute couple. I also secretly love little Grey.

I basically stopped watching Grey's a month ago because I was really only interested in their story line and was more involved in Bones and Glee. Oh I should not have done that because those three episodes were a bit more on the Arizona/Callie storyline. They made me giggle, laugh, and happy. (Oh god, I'm living vicariously through fictional characters... must move self back to reality) But the second episode I watched where Callie's dad brought a priest to the ER and Callie's great response 'YOU CAN'T PRAY AWAY THE GAY, DAD. YOU CAN'T PRAY AWAY THE GAY!!!'

Quite possibly my new favorite quote. I am rooting for them, as lame as it sounds. But secretly, I want my own Arizona Robbins. Who wouldn't want a hot peds doctor that has a good head on her shoulders and rolly shoes? She can put me in my place any day.

.... I think I've been escaping reality too much lately. Every few months I go through at least 2 days of what I call 'The anti-social phase' where I do nothing but read and ignore text messages and phone calls. It's good for the soul, but not so good to lose too much touch with reality.

bruises are cool?

2009-10-26T21:28:00.000-07:00

Is there something about a bruised woman that gets guys super excited? I mean, not bruised in a someone just beat the crap out of you way, but the 'sports' injury kind.

Something you may or may not know about me: I'm crazy in the, I'll try anything once and I'm going to give it all I've got, type of person. So keep this in mind.

Anyways, so I got this huge bruise from a paintball. Most likely because the gun was firing at an 'unsafe' speed of waaay over 275 feet per second and the ball tried to pummel its way through my arm. I mean I was shot point blank in the crotch (yay for no penis) and I was fine, also was shot in the hand and bare forearm and those barely left marks. This bruise is monstrous. I would say about the size of a jawbreaker or a super bouncy ball (about 3 inches (or 7.62cm) in diameter). It started of innocently enough, but quickly became the purple glob of pain.

Apparently these things excite boys. Most people were impressed when they saw it, some were understandably grossed out, but guys were so... intrigued by it. It's like the bruise gave me 100 cool points in the boys club or something. I guess they are impressed that I'm 'tough' enough to sport a massive bruise, or that I'm willing to run around the front lines of a paintball field. I don't know what kind of girls they hang out with, but my friends and I hold our own. We will bungee jump, skydive, board, whatever. Just tell us when and where (busy schedules willing).

But I will just post some great responses I've gotten to the bruise:

1) "HOLY SHIT WTF DID YOU GO PAINTBALLIN NAKED?" (one of my paintball buddies)
2) "OMG OMG OMG EW EW EW." (hehee, gotta love my girly girls)
3) *Blank stare straight at the bruise while grimacing* (she's funny, speechless too I guess)
4) *jaw drop* OH MY GOD WHO DID THAT TO YOU?
5) WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?
6) 'I shouldn't be laughing, but damn woman that is impressive.' (She is awesome)
7) So... something to add to the 'Things Carolyn shouldn't do, but she stupidly does them anyways' list?

I also saw Rent again for the second time this past weekend with OBC members Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascall (again). FRONT ROW!!! They were amazing. Also Nicolette Hart was an amazing Maureen. She mooned us for far too long (not that I'm complaining) and was overall wonderful. In the brief moments after the show as she stood on a chair waving posters and playbills, she paused just long enough to make a silly face at me so I could snap a picture. Oh, she had me with that, who needs hello. I could only smile like a goof as I trotted away.

Oh amazingly talented unattainable women.

Ohhh she also lost her cat ears on the fire escape during the New Years scene. The look on her face was hilarious! Kind of a mix of 'Wtf' with a 'huh... I lost my ears' look. Also, when she sat in her chair (right in front of me) pouting after 'Take Me or Leave Me' a bit of hair was sticking straight up (evil cat ears again perhaps?). It was kind cute.

I wish it was still here so I could see it again. My kid cried as soon as Adam started to sing One Song Glory, out of pure joy. I am pretty sure she was crying for most of the show. No matter how many times I see it... I really do love it every time.

Flying on Jet planes

2009-10-17T20:42:00.000-07:00

So I recently took a trip. More business than pleasure, but I don't really want to blog about it until I know the results of the trip.

I feel like I've become mildly narcoleptic, yet still quite the insomniac at night. I fell asleep every where on my trip. I even fell asleep on the metro train on my way back from the National Air and Space Museum (Yes, I chose to go there on my few free hours hahaha). Luckily I woke up at my stop. I fell asleep checking my email, I fell asleep watching TV, I pretty much just kept falling asleep. It's odd, but it's probably just exhaustion and lack of sleep at night. On a side note, I found out later that a stabbing occured across the street from the metro station and the guy ran into the station about five hours after I left. How scary!

Seriously though, the museum was so much fun! I got to do a simulator flight on a fighter jet. I kept accidentally doing barrel rolls and we were screaming because we were stuck upside down for a while. We later found out (from other people screaming) that those things were NOT sound proof hahahha. It was fun though.

The flight home was good and bad. Bad.... it felt like FOREVER. Even though I passed out as soon as the plane started to taxi and woke up 30 minutes later. Unfortuntely the flight is 5 and a half hours long. Plus I had a connection to make. The good: I had a really cute stewardess on the flight. I don't really watch those safety demos on planes anymore because I fly so often, but ya know, I just couldnt help but watch the second time around hahahaha. My connection ended up being with the same plane and crew and I was amused they remembered me. One asked me a question about chips from the last flight and all I said was 'I dunno... I was asleep.' and the cute fight attendant giggled. Aww I love cute giggles.

I am a dork. A tired and sleepy dork.

Carolyn the Confessional

2009-10-08T23:40:00.000-07:00

I have always found it strange that some people whom I've known for all of five minutes love to use me as a confessional. Now, I don't mind listening, not at all, but I do have the 'uncomfortable subject' zone when it comes to people I don't know.

This time would be a I think 18 year old girl asking me about sex. More specifically straight sex and if she could be pregnant. Now, I am in training to become a young professional in the world of health care, but our parents were talking in the next room. I hadn't seen this kid since she was TEN. TEN!!! I did my best to not be weirded out by this girl that I hadn't see in 8 years dropping this on me and give her the best advice I would give any other young girl that would come to me in the pharmacy. In my head, this kid was still 10. I have this weird thing where kids don't actually grow up until I see them again, so I was still getting adjusted to the 'this kid is 18, not 10 anymore' mindset.

I think I just found it awkward that she was entrustig me with this information whilst our parents were in the next room and that she begin the bomb dropping by bringing up her love of rubbers. YES RUBBERS.

Come on, I have no use for those things. Ok, in her defense she does not know I am a big giant homo. So what was I supposed to say when she preluded with, 'my favorite part of the pharmacy are RUBBERS!!' I mean really??? really?? What was I supposed to say 'Oh me too!! Aren't they the greatest?!' Because lets face it, the chance of girlfriend getting me pregnant, zero.

I just think it's odd that people really love using me as their confessional. Awkward, but at least I am not used as a fire hydrant.

p.s. I am amused that many find my blog via the search words 'am I gay?' and 'Is gay a bad word?' I can't wait to see what kind of hits I get from this one. haha.

Friend was the only reason I needed

2009-10-08T03:17:00.000-07:00

YAY for birthday surprise parties. And yay for me not being a coward and going! I had such a great time. And hooray for awesome boyfriends that plan far enough in advanced so I could get the time off work! I was just slightly worried about only knowing the birthday girl and the boyfriend. Psh but it was her birthday! Reason enough! The 90 minute drive to an unfamiliar place was holding me back, but being there for her was all the reason I needed.

When he told me 45 people were planning on showing up, I did get a bit worried, but I figured if she loves them, I probably will too. I hit it off with a few of them that were sitting in my general area so it made the night really fun. I don't know why I am so weird about these things. I am usually really social, it's just the initial meeting that always gets me.

Anyways enough of that. What really made it worthwhile was her reaction. We all thought she would see the crowd of 45 people waiting for her, but she clearly did not. When she finlly got close enough and saw me, her initial reaction was a look of confusion and then everyone erupted in applause shouting Happy Birthday! and SURPRISE! she was literally brought to tears. Happy tears. That moment alone was worth the terrifying drive. When she hugged me she whispered 'this is going to take awhile' as she surveyed all the people smiling. It made me laugh, especially since I was carrying extra hugs for our friends in other parts of the country and one other country.

I'm really glad I went and consulted with our BFF on what chocolate to get her along with a special framed photo of our group of friends through the years. She kept telling me how much it meant to her that I came all the way down for her birthday. I wouldn't have missed it for the world. She actually even apologized for not getting to spend enough time with me a her party. My response: "Are you kidding me? I am not the center of any universe and I am not allowed to hog you all to myself with plenty of other people that love you enough to come tonight!" She laughed, gave me another hug, and we went right back on enjoying the party.

Moments like these makes me wish we were all close (distance wise) to each other again. I miss her, but we are all where we need to be right now. Well except me, but I a hoping that all changes by next fall ;).

Ohh back to the chocolate really quickly, I am a bad friend. I had no idea what to get her for her birthday and pretty much put it together on my way down. (I am terrible with thinking of gifts) I stopped by my place of work that really does have the most random crap, and I found a card and the chocolate. It was an awesome lucky find. Her favorite chocolate actually was in a box WITH a bow that said Happy Birthday on it. How awesome is that? Before I left the house I grabbed the photo and put it in a victoria's secret bag. I got pretty lucky eh? The photo collage was a hit though.

I've said it before, I'll say it again. I love my friends. They make the world (at least my world) a much better and happier place.

School Spirit!

2009-09-26T22:07:00.000-07:00

Wow. Seriously, I knew I had a special place in my heart for college football, but this weekend it got even better. My usual dilemma is not having anyone from my alma mater to enjoy the game with since I went to college out of state. Today I found my solution. I joined a group of people I had never met before today, but we all had one thing in common: we love watching our college football team and of course, school spirit.

I was a bit nervous because I am a strange mix of introvert/extrovert. Apparently my subconscious decides by itself whether I am going to be an introvert or extrovert that day. It's all dependent on environment, state of mind, and state of sobriety. I almost didn't even go because I was strangely nervous about hanging out with a bunch of strangers and our only link was our alma mater. I'm glad I forced myself to go. I was immediately welcomed because I was wearing a school shirt. Two beers later we were having a fine time cheering, groaning, and having fun conversations with each other. I felt a bit odd being one of the youngest there, but it was so much fun meeting people who went to the same school I did regardless of when we graduated.

I'm so glad I went. My voice is hanging by a thread and I may not be able to talk to my patients without sounding like a pre-pubescent boy tomorrow, but that's ok! I am exhausted from working like crazy, going to the game to cheer my heart out, then home to finish some chores, but it was all so worth it.

Now I'm watching Dinner: Impossible; and this crazy lady just asked him to make dinner, all with candy infused in it. Mac n' Cheese with candy, soup with candy, pork with candy, etc. GROSS. WHY. Why would you want candy in EVERYTHING? Are the hosts dentists hoping all their guests will get cavities? I mean that's just gross. Gummy peach quiche. EW. Bedtime. More work tomorrow =(

Work ramblings

2009-09-22T01:09:00.000-07:00

So I'm back at work. After being questioned by several people with the same 'you're back back now right? Like for reals back???' and my nodding and saying I've been cleared to work as long as I don't do something utterly stupid like lift 50lb totes of drugs than I will be fine, with the occasional wincing pain from my ribs. Working with bruised or fractured ribs is not so fun (my orthopedic surgeon would not tell me for sure, he said whichever it was that I would just have to let it heal). I was greeted with several firm pats to my shoulders and back, which when you are still sensetive to touch is not a pleasant feeling. I can tell they are genuinely glad to see me, but damn that hurt.

It's weird really, and half the time I am off in my own little world if I decided that I was in too much pain to work without aid of medications. I HATE TAKING THEM. They make me feel better, but make me feel so weird. The problem is, it's so hard to run around and focus on work with pain. Once, I must have forgotten to eat because I felt high as a mother effing kite. I'm standing there smiling like a goofball and talking like an idiot, and my coworkers find this great so they send me off to talk to patients. Well fuck me. I'm standing there feeling giddy as shit, trying to interact with patients. Thank goodness I didn't giggle.

I'm also glad my focus wasn't impaired and caught some unusual (aka fake) scripts that went by. I also caught an incorrect script order for painkillers and anti-anxiety meds for a 1 year old. How the computer system and insurance company didn't find 2mg of xanax and vicodin ES (extra strength) order for a 1 year old weird is beyond me. Can't believe it passed through so many people before it landed in my hands to sell to the patient. Definitely glad I took the shift that day. Signs that my coworkers are being overworked, and need some more help and time off. I also went by and smacked the person that took it in.

Flu shot season is also in full swing. That means on top of our ever growing volume of Rx's we get to give people flu shots. Rar, this whole daily flu shot thing totally sucks, for us. And now that we are feeling competitive with other stores one of my bosses is seriously pushing on us to do more. This one goes to sleep thinking about giving flu shots.

I am glad to be back at work, even if it is crazy stressful. I've also just been offered a position at another store. A slower, nicer store. Same pay, easier hours and volume. I might take it. I just feel so guilty about leaving my current position.

It's love

2009-09-10T20:23:00.000-07:00

I'm one of those fools that is always wary about new things. I'll be honest though, as careful as I can be, I tend to make snap judgements on whether or not I'm going to like someone or something. Sure I can be covinced to change my mind eventually, as long as there's evidence enough to convince me I was wrong. Hmm.. Science must really have a hold on me. Once I make up my mind, I tend to let the little things either prove me right or wrong. Is that some sick way of having a hypothesis, then holding ot some weird social experiment to draw my conclusions? I never really noticed that about myself, but maybe I do?

Well, after two years, I have concluded that it definitely is love. I love my pup. He's the best darn pup I could ever ask for. He's about as stubborn as I am, and even cuddlier. Some mornings I'll wake up and find him pouncing on me doing the I NEED TO PEE dance, other mornings he'll lie quietly in his own little corner waiting for me to get my lazy ass up. I wasn't sure about it for a while. I knew I really like him and loved playing with him, but I didn't know I could love him this much! Sometimes when I'm sad I'll just cuddle him and he'll make my day better. He'll give me that silly goofy smile of his and it'll just melt my heart.

Not to mention he does the cutest things. He'll lie on his back with his paws up in the air and a ball in his mouth, just because. He'll play ball by himself (because it's his ball and he doesn't like giving it up. haha) I love the way he sprawls out on his stomach with his legs stretched back and his front legs stretched forward. It's like a bear rug, only cuter and not scary. Once I found him playing around in the hamper stealing socks. This guy used to be a huge sock bandit. I'd come home from work and before I even had a chance to remove them, he'd be nipping at my feet and run off to the other side of the house with my sock. Glad we broke that habit, but I admit, he was cute doing it. The best is when we go for car rides. He can open the windows himself if I didn't feel like opening the windows. Then he runs back and forth in the back seat changing windows at his leisure. I love watching him stick his little face out and sniffing at everything.

I can't believe how much I love this little guy. As much fun as I was having in Hawaii, every night I would think of him and miss him.

I woke up this particular morning to watch the sunrise and wished he was there so I could cuddle him. Attachment issues? Probably. It was only day 3 of a 7 day vacation and I was missing him since day 1. I cuddled him before I left for the airport the morning I left feeling so sad to leave him for a whole week. He groaned because it was 5am and I woke him up haha.

Showtime.

2009-09-07T22:18:00.000-07:00

As a former college and high school band member, I almost forgot how much I loved going to football games. I didn't really like watching football before college, but being part of the band made it even better. I always liked playing football (both American and European footy) but watching it was always kind of eh, to me.

Watching the showdown between my alma mater and our in state rivalry game for the first time in two years really made me nostalgic. It totally took me back to my first day of college band and the friends I made that taught me so much. They taught me how to dance (I am still terrible, but it was fun none the less), we had tickle wars, and had countless memories together going to games, having long rehearsals, and homecoming parades.

Being part of the school band with people who took pride in what we did to put on an amazing show because we simply loved doing it, made it one of the best things I did in college. The rehearsals and time commitment were grueling, sometimes on an icy field covered in snow, and in the late fall, we even rehearsed in the dark with only a cell phone or glow sticks that allowed us to see the drum majors.

I loved every moment. I loved show time, I loved performing, I loved playing my trumpet, learning music, being with people who loved it maybe even more than I did. Watching the game this year made me smile. And even though I was a thousand miles away, I still cheered like I was right there with them.

WHAT TIME IS IT?

SHOWTIME!!!

And we totally beat them to the ground this year.

Oh the things people say.

2009-09-03T18:01:00.000-07:00

ok so I lied. I got bored with logging my trip. Instead I bring you this:

I am standing at the counter organizing our cash drawers because for a glorious 20 minutes it was not busy! We had a rather uneventful, less screaming than usual day. Really odd for us. I look up from the drawer and see a couple approaching. The guy looks really intoxicated and the woman looks really embarrassed to be with him. I try and access the situation in my head when he suddenly looks at me and shouts:

YO WHERE ARE YOUR CONDOMS AT????

I blink twice because rarely do I hear shouting about condoms in the tightassed area I work in and reply 'Aisle 3.'

And just as quickly as this happened the girl looks even more embarrassed and shoves him towards aisle three. Glad they are using protection. haha.

At least it wasn't the lady telling me about her herpes outbreak in detail. Yech. My favorite though is the person that calls their acyclovir: assy-clover. Yes, I'm sure it feels like assy clovers, but after a few years pushing pills you get used to all sorts of funny pronounciations. It did take a few tries for me to figure out she was asking for acycovir. I don't blame them, a lot of the generic names are hard to pronounce, but it is damn funny to hear people that are high off their ass trying to pronounce generic vicodin.

Moving on. My coworkers are also hilarious. Working with them helps ease the pain of the day away because they make me laugh. They also like asking highly personal questions. It's like your love life is so much more interesting when you are the gay kid in the pharmacy. Or maybe I just don't talk about my love life quite as often as they do so they like to inquire? It's also great when I feel nauseous and they immediately ask if I'm pregnant, pause for 10 seconds, then laugh at their own 'joke' as I look at them confused and slightly horrified. Sorry dear, it'd have to be one hell of a drunken night for that to happen.

My puppy is staring at me and looks like he's going to sit on my keyboard if I do not play with him. So cute.

Days 1 and 2

2009-09-03T00:01:00.000-07:00

I noticed I have been starting to forget the details of my trip, so I am going to write them down now. Feel free to skip the next few entries haha.

Day 1: Flight to Honolulu and boarding the ship.

So here I am sitting patiently waiting for the plane to take off when suddenly I feel something sprinkling on me. What the hell? Is it raining on the plane? I look up confused and a lady in the aisle looks down at me and says 'Some dipshit just spilled soda on you.'

.... What. Hooray. I get to be sticky for 6 hours. He didn't even apologize. He also managed to kick my chair every 10-20 minutes even though he didn't sit directly behind me since that chair was soaking wet thanks his effort of trying to store open drinks in the overhead compartment.

If you haven't been to Hawaii before, it is HOT. It was like getting kicked in the stomach when you first get outside (if you're not used to super high humidity). I thought my hair would suddenly become an Asian fro from all that moisture. We also had a very mean cab driver. She was quite the angry little Asian lady. I thought she was going to kill us haha.

We finally got to the port, and all in one piece too! Man, checking into a cruise is more intense than an airport. You need to pass security on the docks, check in your large luggage, pass the security into the check-in warehouse, get herded through some metal detectors, then you go and actually check-in at the desk, then you go through the final security check with your new ID card to actually board the ship.

We ate on the boat and finally got into our rooms! It was lovely! The room as super tiny, but the balcony gave us an amazing escape. Then I had my first Hawaiin sunset:

The only downside was the food was not so good. Oh well, the food was included in our price, so I guess we shouldn't expect too much hahaha. We promptly went to bed around 11 since it was technically 2 in CA and we were exhausted. Plus the kids were still getting used to the boat so we tried to sleep in our now rocking room haha.

Day 2 Maui

I woke up to this:

This was no sleeping in vacation. We usually rose with the sun to eat and be on our way to the days excursions. We took a bus ride to the Haleakala Crater in Maui. We even got a park ranger escort up to the crater because of the annual bike race. I guess they feared a tour bus might run over someone haha. The pictures do not do it justice. The elevation was so high that the temperature dropped by 30 degrees. It was freaking cold up there. There was also this really cool little trail that took you to its highest point. Brr.

Afterwards we explored the ship or a bit an soaked in a hottub. That was fantastic. We also saw a polynesian dance show on the ship. Great show full of really funny moments. I was really impressed with the ship's entertainment.

I miss living on a boat.

2009-08-31T22:17:00.000-07:00

Ok, it wasn't your regular boat, it was a ginormous and slightly tacky cruise ship, but it was so much more fun and way less tacky than I expected. I had never been on a cruise before, or been to Hawaii so it was like two adventures all rolled into one. Also add that I needed to survive with a lot of family for a whole week posed as a huge challenge in itself. It was great the first few days... near the end of the week I was hiding (ok so I was a bit drunk too) from them in various parts of the ship.

The strangest thing is you still feel like you are on a boat for at least two days following. A strange, yet soothing feeling. Luckily I do not get motion sickness.

I got to do so many fun things. I saw a crater, and other hot spots in Maui. I played and swam on a black sand beach in Hilo and got some excellent pictures of a huge sea turtle. I also met an awesome friend who was a photographer on the boat that day when she tagged along with us in Hilo. She was fantastic to hang out with and talk to. I also got to ride a raft and snorkel in crystal clear blue water in Kona. I also got to kayak in a river in Kauai and hike to two waterfalls and spend hours at the beach. I got pretty dark, and luckily did not burn.

The best part were the amazing pictures and memories I got from the cruise. I wish I could do it all again!

Adios amigos!

2009-08-21T23:52:00.001-07:00

I am going to be on a boat for the next week. Will catch ya'll later =)

Coming Out

2009-08-21T00:32:00.000-07:00

Coming out is really crazy sometimes. I've pretty much gotten to the point where I think, 'Well if this friend can't handle it, then we were not meant to be friends'. Well, it's still scary. I don't know why I find it so scary sometimes. I guess I've been too babied with everyone at work knowing, my friends knowing, and even a few cousins. The family... I still need to work up enough courage to face that mountain.

Well, today I came out to someone I hadn't spoken to in years. We recently caught up again, and it was really great! Reconnecting with old friends is always an amazing experience. When it goes well at least. I knew that I had to tell her. I can't hide that from someone and then drop it on them later. I don't know, I guess it's better to tell them sooner rather then sometime down the line going 'oh, by the way, I'm gay.'. At least that way I don't have to play that stupid pronoun game. I am terrible at it anyways. I usually slip or make it ridiculously obvious. I am a terrible liar.

I think she was slightly confused at first, mostly because I didn't outright say I was gay. For some reason I am a terribly vague person. She didn't seem to mind, so hopefully things aren't weird after this. Unfortunately my net pooped out on me shortly after. Stupid AT&T.

It was like a weight had lifted. Probably because I spent a few days debating whether or not I should tell her. It's weird, after I come out to someone, I feel so much better. I'll be happy once I find the courage and right time to tell my family. My parents are 'the gays are bad!' types of people, so it may have to wait until I finish everything because I don't think I can handle it right now. haha.

Random memories of Europe

2009-08-16T01:31:00.001-07:00

I've been thinking about my past travels lately. Partly out of nostalgia, and partly because I miss the pictures I've lost. Spending a month of my summer for two years in Europe with other high school students enjoying everything it has to offer was one of the best times of my life. (These are just scattered memories, totally not in order, but whatever funny things come to mind)

I miss the friends I made overseas and sad that most of us has lost touch. Then again it's been 8 years. I remember the youth hostel in Austria where the German kids taught us bad words in German sign language. I also remember seeing their band, 12 accordians, a bass guitar, and a singer perform at a festival while we were out there.

I still remember the hilarity of street vendors in Italy that got in your personal bubble without a second thought, or the drunk gondala drivers hitting on you as you walked across a canal bridge.

One disappointing thing I remember was The Mona Lisa. Why you ask? I don't know why, but we all expected it to be a huge painting! When we finally saw it at the Louvre it turned out to be an 8x10 painting surrounded by a huge crowd. Certainly not the most impressive piece there, but getting lost in the Louvre was sorta fun.

Actually, for some reason that also reminds me of our friend John requesting 'Pope soap on a rope' while we explored The Vatican. We were disappointed to find that no such souvenir existed. Rats.

The homestays in England and Ireland were also amazing. It was weird not being together as a group for a few days, but it was fun. I got to live in a quaint little cottage in an English countryside, and also a wonderful house in Ireland with 3 rowdy boys that were a lot of fun to hang out with.

I know we are all going to hell for this one: while staying in dorm rooms at the University of Edinburgh we used bibles to prop open out windows. Mine fell out of the second story window and nearly smacked a friend in the head. Oops.

Wow, hiking up to Arthur's seat was also an amazing experience, the way the sun's rays peaked through some clouds made the view all the more breathtaking.

Our sayings 'England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales' -castle-castles-and more castles. 'Italy, Austria, Switzerland, and France' -cathedrals-cathedrals-and more cathedrals. It may sound dull that way, but each place had unique amazing architecture.

Mmmm swiss chocolates- 'nuff said.

Wales- learning to say the name of the train station that holds the record for longest train station name in the UK in Welsh. I can still say it too! Also this: 'Ok, now the thing to remember here kids, you must stay to the left of the hotel. Do not wander to the right, that area is not safe.' Haha we stayed on the border between 'safe Cardiff' and 'Dangerous Cardiff'

We also had a run in with some Chavs (Brit slang for wannabe-ganstas) that slapped my friends ass and they were nearly jumped by 30 angry teens hah.

I miss Europe.

Family and PT Love

2009-08-13T21:44:00.000-07:00

So for the past few days I haven't been able to eat much. I just feel nauseous halfway through the meal so I figure forget it, I may as well keep down what I have eaten than see it all again.

Well my mom noticed I wasn't looking so good when I picked her up from work (I guess she needed to leave before my dad) and started the hard questioning all moms do. It ended up like this (all in Viet, translation for all you english speakers haha):

Mom 'What's wrong with YOU?'
Me: (I am feeling really nauseous and not so good with each passing second, but I'm driving so I try to shrug it off) 'I dunno, been feeling sick for a few days. I can't really eat without wanting to throw up.'
Mom 'Well, at least you're not eating too much. You are getting fat.'

hahahha That made me feel a little better. Not because I am getting fat, or eating less, but because it was just a funny thing my mom would say about me being sick.

My PT place is hilarious. They laugh at me/make me laugh all the time. The topics of conversation range between beach houses, vomiting, and hobbies. It's entertaining. I was doing my stretches and this random 12 year old gymnists starts gawking and goes 'OMG ARE YOU A SWIMMER?'

I turn around abruptly because it kind of caught me off gaurd so I gave her a funny look and apprehensively said 'Well... yeah. I used to be...' and wonder why on earth this girl is asking me such a random question.

This girl is very easily excited haha because as soon as I reply her eyes go wide and she goes 'OH MY GOSH IT'S NOT FAIR! I've been stretching for THREE years and I can't get my shoulders to do that!'

Maybe she should pick up swimming? Then again her body is definitely well suited for being a tiny gymnist, where mine as my PT person said 'Well, your body is very aerodynamically built for swimming' (I really hate it sometimes, the skinny legs vs. broad shoulders/upper body. It makes me feel like a boy)

Drats, I should have stuck with swimming. I could have been the female Michael Phelps. haha. Or not.

Signs you've had too much to drink.

2009-08-08T17:11:00.000-07:00

Friend: Don't forget your camera, I want to be able to capture embarrassing moments tonight. Ya know, life if you accidentally make out with a guy.
Me: What are you planning on putting in my drink? Magic straight elixer?
Friend: That's for me to know and you to find out.
Me: ....

Friend #1: HAPPY ALMOST BIRTHDAY CAROLYN!
Me: Thanks!
F#1: WOW you are only a few months older than me. Like four or five. Wait. *counts on fingers* YEP FIVE!
Me: hahahha

F#2: I am old.
Me: When is your birthday again?
F#2: ummmmmmm September.
Me: So in one month!
F#2: NOOOOOO two months! Duh!
Me: ummmm September is next month... it comes after August.
F#2: no it doesn't! oh wait. hahahhahaa

Last night was a lot of fun. Although a friend's roommate came also and he wouldn't stop touching me. Not really inappropriately, but he would rub my shoulder. F#1 saw my WTF is going on look (when he started touching my hair) and went "DUDE. She's a lesbian. Why are you touching her?" LOL.

He ignored that comment though. It was an odd night, but I had a lot of fun. And woke up at a very inappropriate time the next day hee. Birthday weekend continues!

Sometimes I wonder why I even bother.

2009-07-31T01:16:00.000-07:00

Lady: WHAT ARE THESE FOR?
Me: That's the pain medication... it's for pain.
Lady: WHAT?!
Me: It's for treating pain.
Lady: I DON'T UNDERSTAND. WHAT IS IT FOR?
Me: .......... I don't know how else to iterate to you that it's for pain. ( I guess I need to bring a thesaurus to work.)
Lady: WHY WON'T YOU TELL ME WHAT IT'S FOR?
Me: .... hold on a second.

Then I walked away, every one is laughing, patients and coworkers alike. I go find some other poor soul and hand it off hoping they have better luck.

Then I hear the same conversation over again, and I also hear something similar to a head banging against a wall. Then someone looks over at me and goes, so what's pain medication for? At that point I just bang my head against the wall too. Maybe I should I have said it's for ouchies? But then I'd have a lawsuit on my hands when the lady gives it to her kid whe he gets a paper cut.

I feel like a pedestrian in England

2009-07-24T23:46:00.000-07:00

If you have ever taken walks around the UK (mostly London), you will understand the title after reading this blog. You may have the right of way walking in the US, but if you ain't in a car in London, you better move your ass outta the way.

I am slowly finding it tolerable to drive again. At least cars don't terrify me as much as they did a few months ago. Granted I have discovered people see you slightly better when you are IN a car and not walking. I can probably safetly and conservatively estimate that I am nearly hit by a car twice a week as a pedestrian.

My favorite incident was when I was walking with two of my cousins to the car after we saw a movie. This car, literally backs up INTO me. At this point I am slamming my hand on their trunk, and seriously considering stabbing my keys into their trunk to get their attention. I wasn't so much concerned about myself as much as the little one. Had I been in less pain, I probably would have sent many dents into that corvett for backing up into me. My other cousin was staring, horrified at what was happening, and yelling KEY THEIR MOTHER-EFFING CAR CAROLYN!!!! WHAT THE F- IS WRONG WITH THEM?

I mean come on...don't people use those rear view mirrors anymore, it's not there for decoration.

Come to think of it, being in downtown LA, probably a good thing I didn't pick a fight with those idiots. Car vs. pedestrian, car usually wins, even if I dent it. And it was also LA and I wasn't armed hahaha.

Another wonderful incident was crossing the street to a local drug store in a business area. Ya know, 15mph, slow, all that good stuff? Well dumb woman on a cell phone in a ugly ass SUV must not have gotten the memo and missed that question during the written portion of the DMV exam because she was going about 30 (and speeds up as she comes closer to us) and nearly hit my 12 year old. I was so pissed after pulling him out of the way, I threw my cell phone at them. (Fuck the cell phone, she almost hit my kid!!!) My 25 year old cousin then decided this was the opportune time to shout GET THE FUCK OFF THE DAMN PHONE YOU FAT BITCH.

I nearly fell over laughing when she said that. I guess when it comes to our 12 year old, we're not very polite people. My cell phone rocks by the way, it only has a few scratches after colliding with her car and the pavement.

Seriously... how can you not see three people in the middle of the street? Especially in the middle of the afternoon.

Hmmm I feel like I need to carry rocks with me whenever I go for a walk now. Good exercise, and useful in case I need to throw it at some idiot that fails to watch where they are going.

PT is fun for everyone.

2009-07-21T21:19:00.000-07:00

I have been feeling some insane backpain for the last week. Sometimes it gets so overwhelming I find it hard to breathe. So I am on temporary leave off work (so long as I can find someone to cover my shifts) so I don't injure myself further. It's been almost 2 months since the accident and things are just getting worse. This makes me sad. It makes me miss the life I had before (and I am making it sounds like something more distant in the past than a mere two months) and all the fun and risks I could handle. I'll be honest, this whole thing makes me angry. Mostly because I can't go running when I want to. Some days I really despise the kid that hit me, and some days I understand it was an accident. Shit happens, but most days I am really mad at the kid for not checking and slamming me into a median.

My physical therapist saw me today and the first thing she said was 'Oh my god, are you ok?!'

I am guessing I looked worse for wear than even I realized. My back is stiff and I can hardly move. Not the best feeling in the world.

I'll leave it to them though. I really like my physical therapist and the office staff. They are hilarious. It makes the 90 minutes of PT fly by in a fit of laughter and silliness. My kind of people. Today she tried to stretch out my back. This was full of hilarity.

Imagine you have your arms crossed, hands on each opposite shoulder and someone is rolling you up into their body so your face is pretty much squished into their abdomen or other areas. Just experiencing it put me in giggle fits. Even though I'm sure I should not have been laughing. I just couldn't help it!

I really do enjoy them. They are great bunch and they make me smile even when I feel like shit. Plus they make me feel better. Haha.

Is gay a bad word?

2009-07-06T22:19:00.000-07:00

Have any of you been in a car while fireworks are going off? I was driving to my friend's house after work and it literally shook my car. Granted, my car is tiny and I was really really close to the fireworks, but it was an interesting experience. Than a manuevering through cars and people sitting in the street was also interesting.

Anywho I finally got there and finally met my friend's girlfriend. She's hilarious. We were sitting around talking and catching up, and I guess we couldn't resist being really really gay. It all started with my friend going 'hey want some gay cake?' as she points to a chocolate cake with a giant rainbow and clouds.

'... gay cake?'

'dude, look at this cake, isn't this the gayest cake you have EVER seen?'

'The only thing it needs to be gayer is possibly some glitter and butterflies.'

Ah, you gotta love it. Well the backstory here is that it wasn't just a friends gathering, but also had some family friends since her parents were hosting. She has the most supportive, loving parents ever, love them! However, there were some very... well conservative relgiious people present. (Although her parents have made it very clear that those who don't believe in gay rights will be shown to the door and out of their lives)

Well a 13 year old girl happened by started listening to our very... gay conversation and interrupted it by very politely asking us to stop using bad words.

We looked at each other baffled at what this word could be and when she explained that she went to a christian school it dawned on us. The girlfriend gave me this 'Oh you have got to be kidding look' and asked 'Well... what should we say? Homosex--, how about bi? It's only half gay.

I lost all control and giggled my face off at that. At this point my friend was trying to be nice, yet failing since she waved her brother and friends over to try a piece of her very gay cake, adding that it was so gay, you'd become a gay too with just one bite!'

I love my friends.

Hot as a pistol?

2009-06-28T22:12:00.001-07:00

In my two years working in a pharmacy, I've pretty much been dragged through the good, the bad, and the 'so this is what hell feels like'. You've got the addicts that make you wonder if they are going to wait outside and jump you when you leave, that scream and cuss you out because you refuse to fill a fake script, or a questionable script for narcotics. You also get the people that always seem to have a giant pole stuck up their ass, and the 'I'm rich so you should do whatever I want' types.

The thing about me, I don't bend my morals for these types. Actually, I really don't bend my morals for anyone. Scream at me all you want, if it's not legal, I'm not doing it. Be a drama queen all you want, I know what will kill you and what won't. But I don't feel like discussing these types anymore, since they really only serve to irritate me haha. I have the rest of my life to deal with these.

The type that help keep me going are the ones that take the 2 seconds to listen to me when I say, I cannot give this to you right now because this drug interaction could cause you to bleed out, kill you, give you seizures, put you in a coma, and not scream at me because I am withholding it for their safety. I love the ones that scream at you when you inform them there's a drug interaction that needs to be discussed with the doctor because we don't want it to kill them. Really people? Anyways, so I was helping this little old lady today who I've known for almost the entire time I've been here who's usually very sweet. She made my day when she leaned over and whispered (like it had to be a secret or something haha 'Honey, don't go outside today, it's hot as a pistol out there.'

hahahhaa. I don't know why but that totally made me giggle.

Kids?

2009-06-19T00:01:00.000-07:00

There are days when I wonder if I want kids some day. There are days when bratty kids come to me and scream and cry so they can have their way and it irritates me to see their parents reinforcing the behavior by giving in. Maybe it's because it's the way I was raised, or maybe I'm just a meany head. Ha.

In a way I have a lot of kids. I'm one of the oldest out of a lot of cousins. I just had a high school grad, middle school grad, and elementary school grad today. I mean holy crap that's a lot of graduations to go through in one day. To me a lot of my cousins are like my kids. When I was younger their parents would watch me, help me with my homework and take me out, so in a way I'm doing the same for their kids. Granted it costs me a lot more money with the sheer amount of them, but I love doing it because I love them! I really would do anything for my family. They are such a big part of my life. I probably ruined my back again today.

I was going to say no, but a race to the park just sounded like so much fun. When we got there the 5 year old looked up at me and said "Can me has a piggy back ride pwease?" How could you say no to the cute little face that is asking you oh so politely with the silliest grammar and with that damn sweet smile? so I bent over and trotted around the playground with him, which led to all the other kids wanting a turn. Ouch am I feeling that now. My back is a bit better though. The accident really hurt it. I am still having trouble bending my neck certain ways without pain and it makes work really crappy. Ah well. Back to happy.

After a while at the park we ran back to my house and I had some cuddlehugs with them after feeding them some more haha. Days like these makes me want kids, we'll see how I feel tomorrow! haha.

I also have a silly video with my pup skateboarding. SO cute. For now, my puppy will do as a child substitute. Haha.

Family <3

2009-06-14T23:48:00.000-07:00

My family is so mean to each other, everyone was watching the Lakers game (except me I was reading because I am a rebel like that) and suddenly I hear screaming. Not the normal YEAHs!! or DAMMITs! and such you hear when watching a game, but a screeching NOOO! OH MY GOD! STOP!! EW EW EW EW!! YOU GUYS!!!! coming from one of my kids. It turns out all the other kids thought she needed to get over her phobia of feet and started touching her with their feet.

So this 15 year old is sitting there screaming and batting feet away, while everyone else is laughing and saying FACE THE FEAR! and prodding her with feet.

.... I love my family, they're nuts.

Then my pup decides that me laying on the floor petting him was not enough. Eventually he moves onto playfulling biting at my hand, something he hasn't done in a long time and suddenly he's hopping back and forth trying to figure out the best way to pounce on my hand. For some reason I decided, oh I need to roll over so I did.

Wrong. Move. Before I know it, he pounces on me and puts his paws on me like he just conquered a bear and every time I tried to move he'd playfully bark and nip at my elbow. Yep, I got beaten by a 16 lb dog. If that wasn't enough he decided to just lay across my back and started wagging his tail happily. Haha. Oh how I love him and his silliness.

Cars hate me.

2009-06-01T17:37:00.000-07:00

So... there was a car that decided that swerving into my lane suddenly would be a good idea. Unfortunately I didn't think it was and thought it'd be a good idea to try and swerve to avoid the collision was a good idea. Unfortuntely this still led to me being crashed into the median and that mother-effer driving off.

Now my poor car is most likely probably totaled, and I am in some pain and stiffed up. It could have been worse. I could have let the person hit me and ended up between that car and the median. I walked away from it alright, but it still fucking sucks.

I saw my MD today just to make sure everything was alright. She sent me off to get some Rx's for the muscle spasms and NSAIDs. I'm not a fan of painkillers because they are gross. NSAIDs should be enough. As I was crossing the street to the pharmacy, this car comes speeding down the street. I hopped out of the way and the guy missed me by 2 inches. The guy was speeding, and it's not like I walked in front of him. He was a good 20 yards at least from me when I started crossing the street. I can't move fast right now, so jumping out of that cars way, not so much fun. For a second I stared at the car coming towards me scared shitless at the fact that he was not slowing down. Luckily my brain rebooted itself just in time for me to take that last step out of the guys way.

Is there a sign that says HIT ME WITH YOUR CAR PLS pinned to me or something? The best part is, cars TERRIFY me right now. Driving in one, being around one, riding in one. It scares the crap out of me. So crossing the street and some guy speeding by nearly missing you, not freaking helping.

Re-fueling the passion

2009-05-30T22:06:00.000-07:00

For a while, the tedium and crazy patients had been getting to me and I was starting to really hate my job. When you are being yelled at for most of your day, or being stared at for 10 minutes while you work can be very irritating.

Today, was surprisingly an exception. One of my interns was here today and I think he really helped me refuel my passion for the profession. It started off a bit... worse than most days. I walked into a mess, I had to special order a medication to make a cream for a patient (more complicated than regular meds), special suspension to make from powders, and things were super busy. Within 2 hours, I had been yelled at, my intern was cussed at, and there were just a lot of problems.

After things settled down and everything cleaned up properly things got a lot better. I am now referred to as Encyclopedia Carolyn. Got a problem? Get Carolyn. Can't fix it? Get Carolyn. It can be irritating when I am doing a bunch of different things at once, but it's always hilarious when they say "What the hell did you just do? You just pushed a bunch of buttons and it's fixed... like magic!" It's nice to share and teach people. Mostly because if I teach them they won't bother me again and of course to spread the wealth of knowledge. Granted I feel bad when I just fix it and not teach them because people are staring and rushing me.

Applications open soon. I am really nervous and excited. The prospect of getting lots of rejection letters is not something I am looking forward to.

Disappointment with a silver lining.

2009-05-27T01:17:00.001-07:00

So I woke up this morning to not so great news. I still can't wrap my mind around the idea that the California Supreme Court could rule 6-1 to uphold prop 8. Really? 6-1??? At least they didn't forcibly divorce 18000 couples.

It still blows my mind that a simple civil right is so easy to deny when they are gay. Gay Marriage, a limited time offer! Expires 11/4/08.

We're supposed to be a progressive state, but what I've seen in the past 6 months we're not holding our own. I know one day we'll all look back on this and giggle at the ridiculousness and hilarity about how people over reacted because gay people want to get married.

I've recently gotten into using twitter, and I had a twitterthon (I really have no idea what to call it) with a friend of mine in London. She was outraged by someone she knew claiming that gay people were acting like little kids throwing a tantrum over 'not getting what they wanted' and that 'gays could have it a lot worse in America.' Yes, we can have it a lot worse, but then again many of us still face the fear of being assaulted because of our sexuality. Even in CA, hate crimes are a reality and no one is safe from it. I don't want to be scared to be who I am.

I was at a rally today protesting the decision to uphold prop 8. Being with such a large wonderful crowd of people was amazing. It was energized and full of hope and love. I'm not giving up this fight, but I'm not just fighting for my state. I'm fighting for this whole country to wake up and realize that this is a ridiculous thing to fight about. My goal is for our children to someday look back on this and have the same reaction as we do when we hear that interracial marriages used to be illegal. Until we can laugh about this day, you can bet that I, along with many many other people, will continue fighting for what is right.

All cultured out.

2009-05-14T19:40:00.000-07:00

Wow. So much has happened. so I'm going to keep it as brief as possible.

I saw Dirty Dancing, the musical, which was pretty good. The guy that sang 'Time of Your Life' made me swoon. I think I fell in love. Just kidding, but his voice was amazing. Then I saw Grease the next day with Taylor Hicks. He made the best of his one song, I wasn't really interested in him as much as the musical, but it was an added bonus. They changed the arrangement. I. Hated. It. Totally interrupts the storyline. The people in front of us hated it more and left during intermission. I wish we stole their seats because the large smelly man next to me was invading my space and then accidentally sat on me when Taylor Hicks came out to play his new single after the show. My sister laughed at me.

Wednesday I saw Shen Yun Divine Performing Arts. That was amazing beyond words, the traditional dance, and stories were pretty amazing. Divineperformingarts.com check it out ;)

What sucks is that I've been feeling sick on and off lately. HOLY JEEZ THE SWINE FLU! Ha. Ha. No. If only I had an excuse like that to get out of work. Speaking of which, it kinda just dropped off the radar eh? Maybe everyone realized they were panicking over.... the flu.

After 3 musicals in a span of 5 days, I thought I'd be all cultured out. I'm really just exhausted from people.

Pansies and the swine flu

2009-04-30T20:38:00.000-07:00

Alright ya'll, I am so freaking sick and tired of all this fear over the swine flu. First off, before you all think I'm just spouting off my own version of the facts, here's an article from the LA times (http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-sci-swine-reality30-2009apr30,0,3606923.story) about how this strain, according to the WHO (World Health Org) and CDC, is possibly not even as deadly as your RUN OF THE MILL INFLUENZA VIRUS.

Sorry, the ridiculous panic at work has me really irritated. This one lady badgered my manager about buying our ENTIRE inventory of hand sanitizer. Are you fucking serious? Just wash your hands. Sure, I don't care, but I really don't want to be badgered by the next drove of crazy panicked people about why we have no hand sanitizer in stock. Trust me, crazy fear panicked people will just scream at you because the crazy person before them cleaned us out.

Then you have these GENIUS doctors giving out tamiflu Rx's like they're goddamn candy.

Listen, it's a waste of money IF YOU ARE NOT SICK. Leave the medication for people who are actually sick and NEED this medication. It's a waste of resources and money. It irritates me that people are hoarding all this medication when they don't even so much as have a sniffle.

Want to get through the swine flu scare? I am going to leave you with what I left on my facebook.

Wash your hands and don't fuck pigs. There's your PSA for the day.

But seriously, wash your hands. If you don't regularly, that's just nasty.

A-W-K-W-A-R-D

2009-04-26T22:03:00.000-07:00

I have a deep love for the counter that separates me from my patients. It keeps them a safe distance away from my personal bubble and gives me some space from their germs haha.

I try to avoid going out to show people where things are and just direct them with directions, but sometimes... they really can't listen. "Aisle 8, halfway down the aisle, middle shelf, left hand side" Then when they walk to aisle 7 and look to the right... well.. you begin to wonder if they have x-ray vision or can't read signs. The reason I don't like going out there is because they always encroach on my space. This one lady stood shoulder to shoulder with me when looking at items I was showing her in the aspirin section. Her entire body, shoulder down, was pretty much squished up against the side of my body. After that, I really just didn't want to go show anyone anything.

Well today, this little old lady was asking about an item, and she couldn't find it in the aisle so I left my protective counter to show her where it was. She was a little old lady, how much harm could she do? Right? Right??

As she turns around to thank me for pointing out the three shelves of the brand she was looking for, she grabs my boob. I know, this was an accident, but after the lady scratching at me last week during Mamma Mia, I am still a wee bit traumatized. I mumble a 'no problem' because at this point my personal space has been violated, and shuffled back behind the counter.

I do have weird personal space issues when it comes to strangers. If I know the person I'm fine.. but for some reason strangers freak me out.

Moving on...

So I was helping this lady with a discount for her medications. She was very happy that I told her about the 'discount card', but at the same time was VERY angry at us for not telling her earlier? So she was half thanking me, and half yelling at my coworkers (none of whom were present since it was 8am haha) screaming and saying "I don't know how you work with some of these people! Ugh!"

Wow. Awkward. I managed a few mumbled words, awkward silence while she ranted, all the while my pharmacist was giggling in a corner. Thanks. Then she nearly reached over to grab my hands, in what I am guessing was a gesture of thanks, and of course I flinch. Very noticeably. I pretty much flinched, took a step back and gave her the "WTF don't touch me!" look. I felt really bad... but it was just my reaction at 8am on a Sunday. It's not often a patient reaches out to touch my hands.

For the record, most of my coworkers are nicer than I am. Which I found ironically funny.

I also find it awkward when people thank me and bow. I'm not really sure why. I'm sure they mean no offense by it, but it makes me feel super awkward. Especially when they look at me and expect me to bow back. I usually raise an eyebrow. Just cos I'm Asian doesn't mean I'm a super FOB (Fresh Off the Boat) Asian.

To top off this entry, I am awkwardly flirting via text while writing this entry. 200 loser points go to me! Sweet.

Honest Scrap

2009-04-23T21:08:00.000-07:00

This post gives thanks to Ashley who is an awesome blogger.

The Honest Scrap award comes with a caveat or two. First, you must tell your readers 10 true things about yourself that they may not know. Second, you must tag 10 people with the award.

Here we go!

1) I am seriously accident prone. Sometimes they call me "The Walking Accident". I almost always get daily paper cuts from work, run into things, and drop things. I also manage to trip over my own feet.

2) I am very bad with relationships. I have a habit of running away from relationships, or feeling smothered when things get a little too intense. I think this mostly has to do with things moving way too fast for me.

3) Sometimes I laugh out loud at things and scare my dog JackJack. He jumps and stares at me wondering why I am laughing so hard.

4) I am very scared about one day coming out to my family. I am out to a few of my cousins, but I fear losing my family the most. I think about it all the time and it's something that I push to the back of my mind, but I am constantly thinking about it.

5) I blog mostly for myself because I like having a timeline of sorts of my life and events. And keeping one online is easier to hide than somewhere in my room. That and to write more often. I am a terrible writer, so I'm working on it.

6) I have a weird love for compounding medication. I am good at it, and it makes me feel like I am in a lab again.

7) On days that I question my career, I playfully think about getting a PhD in biochemistry and continuing the research I started on malignant brain tumors.

8) On days that I feel #7 is equally crazy, I think about becoming a forensic scientist.

9) I play in a softball league and my teammates work in forensics, and one is an old coworker from Disneyland. It's so much fun!

10) I go to the shooting range on occasion for fun. I am a pretty good shot. I also teach a lot of my friends about gun safety and teach them how to shoot their very first gun. I feel better knowing that they do it safetly with me. It's weird.

Wow that was harder than I thought heh.

The ten bloggers I tag are... (Ya'll don't have to do it, just thought it'd be fun)
Brahmin
Shea
TSD
Christin
And... my LJ friends that know and read this blog. I am not going to link since they are mostly friend's only blogs.

I guess I am not a very social blogger... Should change that...

Late night BBQs

2009-04-21T00:59:00.000-07:00

Good friends are really hard to come by, and I am so very lucky to have the ones I do. Even though most of us are scattered across the country, it never ceases to amaze me how quickly and easily we fall back into easy conversations like no time has passed at all. Granted, it makes me realize how much I miss them because they have been a part of my life for so long. We've been through it all and we've grown up and are still close.

One of the things that I've missed the most are their hugs. I remember when I came out to them years ago how terrified I was. These were some of my best friends and I knew it wouldn't matter to them whether I was gay or straight it still scared the hell out of me. They are like family to me and how immediately accepting and loving they were gave me a lot more confidence in myself.

Seeing a few of them today was amazing. We had a welcome home BBQ for one of my friends that's here on a short break from professional school. We shared stories, caught up, and laughed the night away, just like we used to. I still have a silly grin on my face. I even made plans to spend a few days with them in the near future. I am so excited for that.

I really want to visit them more often, there's some good diving down there hehe.

Mamma Mia, here we go again...

2009-04-19T22:08:00.001-07:00

Ok, so once again I was off to LA to see another musical. I can't believe all the great things I've been able to experience and do this year. One of the highlights is being able to see so many musicals. If you don't know me, I am a huge theatre/musical theatre nerd.

The weirdest thing happened though in the middle of act I. I was just sitting there minding my own business when suddenly the lady next to me reaches over and scratched my arm. I nearly jumped out of my seat in shock. I am the type of person that needs personal space from strangers. If we're close than I don't mind my bubble being invaded, but I don't like being touched by strangers.

Of course my first reaction is to look over and stare at the culprit. Weird. She didn't even acknowledged that she creepily scratched my arm, accident or not. It's a dark theatre, I understand. I guess.

It was a pretty good production! It's hard to live up to after seeing Wicked, Phantom, and Rent, but it was still very enjoyable. They had some mic problems (I only notice because I used to play around as a theatre tech in high school), but otherwise the show was hilarious. People hopping about in snorkeling gear, making funny sexual gestures at each other and just the overall light-heartedness and silliness of of all was wonderful!

Donna and Sophie were ah-may-zing. It makes me feel awkward that I now have a slight crush on both of them (since they play a mother/daughter). What can I say? Women that can sing get me every time. We got to take our picture with Donna and Sam for donating money to charity. How awesome is that? In brightly colored spandex too. haha.

The best part of it all was taking my little cousin. She's a teenager, but we have a shared love for musicals (along with my other cousin that came with us) and we got to take her to her first musical! She had the biggest smile plastered to her face. It makes me wish I took her to see Rent.

It's gonna be a crazy musical month for me. Next up I have Dirty Dancing, Grease, and Shen Yun. I bought Dirty Dancing tickets for my sister as a birthday present, we are watching Grease the very next day haha. My sister bought Shen Yun tickets as a birthday/mother's day present for my mom. More about it here.