Another week done. Which means I'm another week further behind in everything. I really need to start studying for our two "lesser" classes, Radiology and Psych. I didn't even go to radiology this morning. That brings my total of skipped lectures this year up to two. I might start consistently skipping Psych lectures. The material is actually really interesting to me, but the lectures are tortuous enough that it's actually making me like the material less. The small group sessions are awesome. I feel like I'm learning more about how to talk to patients than I have from any other class. I always leave small group all motivated to learn Psych, but then I'm quickly overwhelmed by all the Neuro and Path I invariably have to do. Siiiigh.

A non-Psych topic that came up during small groups yesterday was the embroidery on our white coats. Back during first year, we all got our coats monogrammed for free. They also put med school seal on the sleeve. Alas, somebody screwed up. Instead of the famous Hippocrates quote, "Ars Longa, Vita Brevis," our white coats read "Vrs Longa, Vita Brevis." In other words, "Life is short, but bears are forever." I mention that for no reason other than it made the other people in my group laugh, and I like doing that.

What do "Dead Poets Society," the New York Yankees, and Yoknapatawpha County have in common? They all came up in today's Path lecture on chronic inflammation. ("Anybody ever see 'Dead Poets Society'? Well, TB is what made most dead poets dead.") The lecturer is really funny, and as you should all know by now, any professor who drops enough random trivia into their lectures instantly becomes my hero. The only problem is, after two lectures from this guy, I'm not exactly sure what I've learned about Pathology. (Cytokines...do things?? Complement...exists??) Maybe med school has ruined my brain, to make me freaked out by someone who doesn't throw hundreds of incomprehensible facts at me in an hour.

Part of the Pathology course includes observing an autopsy. We're divided into groups of six for this, and I ended up in the group scheduled to go first. Since they aren't planned for ahead of time like elective surgeries, we have Autopsy Call. We got pagers today, so we could be on call, ready to drop whatever we're doing and head to the hospital. Last year, second years talked about how inconvenient this was, because you had to pretty much avoid making any plans until you were paged and did an observation. My group ended up only wearing the pagers for a few hours; the call came this afternoon. So we're all done. The only thing I'll say about the autopsy itself is that I'm pretty sure I don't want to do them for a living.

Nashville traffic patterns are so bizarre. Where in the world is everybody going at 10 on a Friday morning? Too late for the morning commute, too early for the lunch rush, yet cars everywhere. Don't these people have jobs??

Wednesday was MAG Day for the class of 2011. Bennett and I co-hosted the game show portion of the day's activities. That was tons of fun! I was terrified that we'd lose the audience after a while, and our joke attempts would be met with silence. Luckily, there was fairly high level of excitement throughout. Only one of the ten games started to drag a little, because we underestimated the ability of large groups to memorize a list of terms. I think we recovered well with our made-up-on-the-spot tiebreakers.

Me: Team 2, please spell 'Ehrlichia.'
First year: Can you use it in a sentence?
Me: Sure!! 'Damn, I'd hate to have Ehrlichia.'

Yesterday, the first years began their official orientation. (MAG/MOO and official stuff are all mixed together this year because of the earlier start.) I peeped in at the lecture hall as they were listening to the exact lecture that gave me my "Crap, I'm learning how to be a doctor????" moment almost a full year ago.

A year ago!! Wow.

toastedkelp's Virology quote post inspired me...to procrastinate a little more. Which isn't the best idea ever, since I still have yet to look at the hepatitis and antiviral lectures for the first time. Oh well! I managed to get a few quotes myself, even though I went to class about three times, total. Dr. Dermody was always good for a few gems.

"We're going to go back to biochemistry. You might need to put a seatbelt on." -Dermody

"There are plenty of great seats down here in the front! Two whole rows! No?? ..Okay." -Dermody

"Ah yes, it decreases entropy! It's like the opposite of children." -Dermody

" 'Cuz if it's not alive, then it's dead."- John S.

"You might know somebody like that. Always confident, always confident... sometimes right." -Dermody

"Bacterial colds: do they exist? (no response from the class) This is a closed-ended question." -Dermody

On viral transmission: "Think about that, people. Fecal...oral. Ewww." -Rotavirus guy

Later: "Vomit-oral! That's even worse!!"

"Cytomegalovirus means BIG OL' CELLS." -Dermody

"This is the paper by Epstein, Achong and Barr describing the virus. And what do we learn from Achong? Do not be the author in the middle." -Dermody

"Honest to God, we've got lymphocytes in us with antibodies to sheep red blood cells. WHO WOULD KNOW THAT??" -Dermody

Me: Doesn't that look like a Van Gogh??
Liz: Yes. If he painted ovaries.

(Micrograph from the extensive collection of C. Pettepher, PhD. Used without permission. Am I in trouble?)

-------
My studying is going so slowly! I don't know why, but I don't feel any sense of urgency. Finals start Friday, and I have to learn everything that was covered in classes that I didn't even attend. No worries!!

"Wait, wait. Can we please just acknowledge the fact that we are having a discussion about whether Chester A. Arthur's sideburns met in the middle?"

God, I love trivia. LOVE LOVE LOVE. We placed second tonight!! It would have been first, but we were WAY off on the tiebreaker question (weight of the biggest blue marlin ever caught.) Liz summed the situation up nicely: we lost twenty-five dollars because we didn't know that a fish could weigh a thousand pounds. What did we know, you ask? Well, there was Martin Strel's claim to fame, the number of U.S. Presidents who have had beards or mustaches (9, including Chester Arthur), and what year the French & Indian war began (1754, Beth knew it exactly). We then rocked the final question, knowing the more famous names of Marion Morrison, Robert Zimmerman, Allen Konigsberg and Frances Gumm.

Other highlights of the night included rocking out to "I'm Gonna Be (500 miles)" and Beth rejecting cheese. Why oh why must I wait a whole week for trivia time to come again??

Monday: Visit to dear old Baton Rouge High. It was 12:30 on a Monday, so that was...12357...fifth hour? I can't believe there was ever a time in my life when that block schedule made sense. ANYWAY, I saw Mrs. Frost for the first time since graduation. She didn't mind at all that I interrupted AP Bio, and I know for a fact that the students didn't mind. Then I went and interrupted DParker's class, and KParker just happened to be walking down the hall, so I chatted with them both. Luckily, KParker didn't have a class that hour, because she wouldn't have tolerated an interruption. Finally, I visited Mrs. Bennett, who runs into my mom occasionally and always asks about me. She introduced me to her class as one of her favorite students...yet she never actually taught me. God, I miss high school.

The BRMHS visit was followed by some shopping, errands and eating out with Mom.

Tuesday: Visit to Mrs. Meeks, my senior guidance counselor (and mom of one of my closest high school friends). She has retired so I went over to her house. We had a really nice visit. Then there was more shopping with Mom, and after that we came back here and watched the Cadaver Ball DVD in its entirety. Even the Dean's skit... Mom laughed and exclaimed how much she loved it, as I covered my eyes and repeatedly muttered "Too awkward, can't watch." Maybe it's a generational thing.

Today: Went to Barnes & Noble for a little alone time. They had some sort of construction going on, so their escalators had become stairs. I wish that they'd put up a sign that said "Sorry for the convenience. We apologize for the fact that you can still get up there." That would've been the greatest moment ever. I browsed and read for a while, but ended up not getting anything.

A great moment that actually did happen was having lunch with Mattie. It was awesome to get together and catch up. I must get better about staying in touch with friends. Plus, it was great to talk about school with someone who understands, yet isn't at my school. No offense to anybody who's listened to me whine about med school, but you really can't fully understand it unless you've been through it yourself.

I came back here and tried to actually go over some Micro, but that was folly. I ended up just goofing off online for a few hours. Then my parents and I went out to this Chinese place for dinner. At one point I said I hoped I didn't ruin any plans they had for the week by surprising them. My dad replied, "You've been cramping our style for the past 22 years, why stop now??" Can you feel the love? Because I can.

Plans for tomorrow and Friday: More chillaxin'. Then driving back to Nashville on Saturday.

Today was Anatomy, which means it was a loooong day. In the morning we did joints of the upper limb: shoulder, elbow, wrist, and several others that you should neither know nor care about. Then this afternoon was the introduction to the thorax. Now, these lectures are pretty dense. I feel like we get at least a hundred new terms thrown at us every day, and I'm not the only one. Today, about halfway through the thorax lecture, we were shown some random unremarkable spot and told, "This is called the paravertebral gutter." Just then, Demetri goes, "Why do they have to name everything??? Can't that just be a curve?!!??!?!!?" He somehow managed to imbue every word with genuine, anguished frustration. Naturally, I lost my shit and was cracking up for the next ten minutes of the lecture. And at every future reference to the paravertebral gutter. And on the way to lab after the lecture.

I stopped laughing once we were in the lab, because Anatomy lab kills laughter and joy. Well, not always, but in this case it did. This afternoon we opened up the chest and looked at the lungs. One of the tables had a person with lung cancer. It was awful. Lungs are supposed to be smooth, and kind of spongy, because they hold air in them. The cancerous lungs were hard as rocks, discolored, and covered in bumps and knots. On top of all that, instead of normal fluid they were bathed in a thick pus. I've been okay with everything I've seen in lab so far, no matter how gross I thought it would be beforehand. However, the moment I saw that pus was the closest I've ever been to puking in lab.

On that note, I urge you all to NEVER smoke ANYTHING. You won't look cool, there are better ways to control your weight, and there are better ways to celebrate the birth of babies. Cigarettes, cigars, hookah, WHATEVER. I don't care. Don't put things in your lungs that don't belong there. I promise you, it won't turn out well. And if you don't believe me, I'd be happy to give you a more graphic description of the pus. Just ask.

This biochem exam isn't going to study for itself!! Come on, LaKedra, get your act together! But first...a quick rundown of the day.

I skipped my first class of med school today, because I did not feel good AT ALL. I made it through Biochem, which was important. And then Mind and Medicine, which was also worthwhile. The instructor actually addressed the question I just wrote about last night, so that was cool. And on top of that, Evan's roleplay of an angry patient ("She said she was CLEAN!!!!!!") made the entire two hours worthwhile. After that was lunch with our Emphasis advisors, and at that point I figured I'd be better off going home and getting some sleep. Because, I absolutely cannot feel miserable in Anatomy.

After doping myself up and napping, I felt good enough to go to ShadeTree training. On the way there, I totally passed the Nashville hotel where the President is staying. A lane of West End was closed, and there were police cars everywhere, and quite a few protestors holding "IMPEACH THE LIAR" signs. I'm so out of touch with the news, I didn't even know he was coming to town.

Oh, and after wavering for a while, I decided to run for class VP. Duties? Representing the class in general, and organizing service projects.

If I stop typing now, I can get in 2.5 good hours of studying. So that's what I'm going to do.

Lindsay, Gore, Bryan and I went to the movies pretty much right after class today. "Snakes on a Plane" was all that I hoped it would be, and more. I think everybody should go see it. RIGHT NOW. Go ahead, I'll wait.
Insert two hours of AWESOME.
Wasn't it good?? Did the whole audience shout out the "I have had it..." line?? I hope so, because we did, and it was pretty fun. I also appreciated getting a new trivia team name, "Snakes on Crack," handed to me on a silver platter by Samuel L. Jackson himself.

Now, I've got dinner plans with some other people, and maybe a brief trip to some bar to celebrate the end of our first week. And then I have to study for the rest of the weekend.

I haven't dropped off the face of the earth, I've just been...doing stuff. I'm also working on another writing challenge. This time it's 75,000 words over June and July, and I'm currently smashing the pace. I'll stop talking about it now, because I'm certainly not going to let any other human beings see the result.

Yesterday, Dad left the house for the first time since he got back from the hospital. We went to the bookstore. He even drove there, and walked around a teeny bit. Then he retired to the magazine section, where he sat and read for a long time. I wandered around, and talked myself out of a lot of purchases because I am a cheapskate. Did you know that there's an official "24" magazine? I didn't! When I saw it, I just had to laugh, because it's pretty ridiculous. A review of "24", written by the creators of "24"? That's...useful. The magazine's purpose is obviously to serve as a big ol' ad for the show. Outside of the cast members, I can guarantee that I'm the last person on the planet who needs to be targeted by ads for the show. It'll be Season 8: We give up on plot and just blow shit up, and I'll be right there watching.

Anyway. I did not buy "24 the Magazine," but I did buy the current issue of Paste. I'm planning to subscribe to it, just as soon as I get an address in Nashville. It's kinda expensive, but after much thought, I've decided that it's worth it. One of their sampler CDs (there's one in every issue) had "Five Star Day" on it. Introducing me to Aqueduct is worth the price of subscription. Maybe I'll find another cool new obsession!

Speaking of obsessions, I bring you a conversation from today.
Me: The World Cup starts tomorrow!!!
Mom: You like soccer?
Me: ...How did I break my toe? And get that high ankle sprain? And every major injury I've ever had?
Mom: Oh. Right.
Me: I love the game, it just doesn't love me back.
Mom: It loves you like Ike loved Tina.

There's really not much else I can say.

Alrighty. Global Health was actually my last class at Emory. We did evaluations, and I basically ripped the class apart. Constructively, of course. There's really no point to just being scathing without saying anything. So I talked about how the class has a lot of potential, and will draw in lots of students, because I feel Global Health is a pretty popular subject among Emory students. But the utter lack of organization on the part of the professor made the whole thing feel like a waste of time. (We finally got the assignment for the take-home essay part of our final. Of course he had to push the due date back, since it was almost a week late.) I did compliment the choices for guest speakers and the documentaries we saw, so I wasn't completely negative.

After class ended forever, Kathryn and I were picked up by Kathryn's old roommate, and we went out for coffee. It was pretty fun, but for some reason my eyes were killing me the whole time. It probably didn't help that we first went to a Kirkland's-like store. Any store that sells decorative balls for $13 also has tons of scented candles and bath stuff and usually makes my allergies flare up. I felt okay after we got to Starbucks and I had my first caramel chai in a long, long time.

After that, I had enough time to check my email before fellowship chapter. My last chapter as an active in Delta Kappa. You know, as many times as it caused annoyance or frustration, APhiO has defined seven of my eight semesters here, and... I'm obviously not ready to write about that in any depth, so I'm going to move on as soon as I can see the monitor again.

Fellowship chapter was fun.

Afterwards, some of us went to the No Strings Attached spring concert. It was very good. Of course, White Hall was packed. Major fire hazard. I was so excited to actually be sitting in a chair at a No Strings concert, I could barely contain myself. (Quote of the night: "What would you do for a good seat? Who would you do for a good seat?") Anyway, one of the departing seniors was in my freshman orgo class, and it was neat to see him being sent off. The other departing senior, I swear I've never seen at a No Strings performance in my life. He forgot the words to two of the songs he soloed. Maybe he was just emotional, or something. But the concert was really good, and the best part was when they performed the alma mater. As usual, the president of the university went up to sing with them. But this time, he actually had a little solo (the "crowned with love and cheer," for those who know the song). Any tears that may have been threatening to fall were chased away by that little moment. Thanks, President Wagner.

The next two weeks are going to be crazy.

In Global Health today, the class got to decide what we'd do. Continue a previous lecture, have an open discussion to help the prof brainstorm his next book, or watch another episode of the documentary series "Rx for Survival." Well, when describing one of the Rx for Survival episodes, Brown mentioned that Paul Farmer was somehow involved. People in the class started to freak out about it, for reasons passing understanding. One girl raised her hand and practically demanded that we see "the Paul Farmer one," before we'd even decided to watch the DVD in the first place. And then when we did vote to watch the DVD and had to pick an episode, people kept calling out "Which one's the Paul Farmer one?" It was exasperating. Brown said that the mention of Farmer was tangential at best, but my classmates weren't having that. Forget the actual subject matter, we want the Paul Farmer one! Because ...he's Jesus, or something.

However, despite the fact that he's supposed to be universally adored, there are apparently others in the class who were thoroughly unimpressed with Farmer. So we outvoted the Farmer fetishists, and ended up watching the episode about epidemics, called "How safe are we?" Dramatic, scary subject matter, but Kathryn and I still managed to have fun with it. I'll admit right now that we were obnoxious. Sorry! That's why I don't go to movies!

For example, Brad Pitt's dramatic VO: During the flu epidemic of 1918, people wondered if it was the end of the world as they knew it. caused us to look at each other and burst into giggles because we knew we were about to say the exact same thing. I was eventually able to choke out, "It's okay, I'm sure they felt fine."

And then they went on to explain how this scientist discovered that the 1918 flu was an avian flu. Yeah...that stopped the giggles pretty quickly. Until Kathryn leaned over to me and whispered in a frantic tone, "What was this one called? 'Are we gonna survive?'" And I lost it. You probably had to be there, but the panic in her voice was just too funny. And "Are we gonna survive?" is a lot more realistic a title than "How safe are we?" Because the answer is, not safe AT ALL.

After class, Kathryn and I made awesome plans to go play trivia at Mellow Mushroom tonight. Problem: I forgot that I had two meetings this evening. First Relay for Life, and then APhiO exec. So much for that awesome plan. So I went to those meetings. I actually managed to lose my wallet somewhere between Clairmont and White Hall, I'm guessing on the shuttle. I have a routine that's pretty well ingrained. Wallet goes into my bag just after I walk out of the apartment. I never even think about it. So it was a while before I realized that it wasn't in my bag. However, from the moment I realized my wallet was lost, to the moment a police officer returned it to me(debit card, $5 in cash, and key to the chemistry building all in their proper places), was maybe an hour. Thank goodness for honest Emory students.

After that, I went to Exec. My job is basically done, so I really just had Relay to talk about. Some people are going to be hard pressed to finish their hours, but hey. I can't check signups for them.

After exec, I hung out for a while and did some sigs.
Pledge: If your life could be a sitcom, or any TV show, which would it be?
Alli: I know, LaKedra would pick 24!!
Me: Um... is my name Jack Bauer? I'd be dead! In a day!
It made me kind of sad to realize that I won't be doing those anymore. I also want to pass on My Question™ so that its proud tradition can continue. I need to find a good, active freshman who'll keep it alive. You can tell a lot about a person by whether they'd prefer to lose an arm or sweat mayonnaise. Mainly you can tell if they're normal or REALLY ICKY AND GROSS!! (I answered "The West Wing" or "Scrubs" for the above question, by the way.)

Oh, and I set up a thesis submission appointment for next Friday at 11am. So, that's some forced motivation to get my revisions done by then. The real deadline isn't until Monday, but I'd rather get things in order before. That weekend's going to be crazy busy, with Relay, and Initiation, and Mortar Board induction.

Finally, bonus points for anyone who knows why my current music is stuck in my head!

I was pretty happy today, which apparently puts me in the minority. Everybody's sick, or angry, or sad, or frustrated, or just generally snappish. However, I'm feeling pretty good. I'm sure that will change soon.

I didn't actually do much work today. I went to Human Phys, where Starnes lectured in her usual style, with lots of questions to the class. It was sad, because I remembered knowing all the stuff this time last year, right before the MCAT. I guess I had a brain dump or something. It wasn't a big deal, because there are plenty people in the class who are taking the MCAT in a week and a half. They know all that stuff.

I was really sleepy during class, so I came back here to nap. However, the second I got back, I became really energized. Well, energized enough to goof off until it was time to go to Global Health. Where I did fall asleep. Sigh. We got our midterms back today, and that pissed me off a bit. I'll just say that 'Food (adequate nutrition)' and 'food supplementation' are the same thing. If not exactly the same, they're the same enough to both get full points on an exam in a joke class.

Speaking of which, on Monday the professor was trying to illustrate some point. I couldn't tell you exactly what. To set up his analogy, he asked, "What's an example of a joke class?" Moments like that, the ol' internal dialogue comes in really handy. It's all that stopped Kathryn and me from saying the same thing ('This one?'), at the same time, in the same tone of voice, as we are wont to do. There were a few seconds of awkward silence, and eventually the prof settled on 'Underwater basketweaving'.

After class, I came back here and still failed to either sleep or do work. And then it was time for exec. We had to have a closed (just exec members) meeting after the regular one, for like, the seventh straight exec meeting. This is my fifth semester of going to APhiO exec meetings, and we've had more closed execs this semester than in the other four put together. I think our president might honestly be going 'round the bend, so to speak. Is a long debate really necessary for...oh, never mind. We're all almost done.

Best moment of the day...

Me: Okay, what am I thinking right now?
Minoo: I don't read minds, I see the future.
Me: Okay, then what will I be thinking later?

And finally, only I could spend an hour and a half adding information to a paper and have it come out 89 words shorter.

Goodnight!

In high school, I was known for my “quote section”. It was a required part of our English notebooks in 10th grade English. We were supposed to write down inspiring stuff, beautiful words, and things like that. Of course, I immediately started writing down stupid things people said. This continued for the rest of high school, yielding quite an impressive collection. I made an attempt to continue here at Emory, but for some reason or another, I didn’t keep up with it. I wasn’t the LJ addict that I am now, and I think I was too busy trying to adjust to college to keep a paper journal with any regularity. So those quotes are basically the only record I have of that year. So here are the memories that one set of quotes stirred up, with the actual quotes scattered throughout.

iMovie Fest has evolved into Campus MovieFest, sponsored by Delta and is a bigass deal. But it was brand new when I was a freshman, and each floor of each freshman building made a movie. I guess you could call us trailblazers. It was fun to make, but the final product was horrible!! I’m so glad that they didn’t show all the movies like they do now.

The premise of my hall's movie was that this redneck family visits Emory for a tour. Unfortunately, the script has been lost to the ages. I have a version of it on this computer, but it’s just the ideas I wrote. Other people came up with stuff and we put it all together, in addition to doing some stuff on the fly. I was in the movie, but I don’t even remember if I was Cletus or Grampa Jed! Mana played the tour guide, Kellie. I want to say that casibeth was Mabel, the prospective student. It's probably fair to say that this was not our brightest moment.

One of the first jokes was about all the campus organizations known by acronyms.

KELLIE: I’m a junior in the college, with a double major in IDS and NBB with a minor in AAS. Activity-wise, I’m a member of SGA, SPC, RHA, BSA and ISC. [cheery smile]
CLETUS: We’re gonna be spending a whole lotta money on this school, and she ain’t gonna learn no more than her alphabet??

Actually, finding that line makes me pretty sure I was Cletus.

Another gag was that "Kellie" lacked the crucial tour guide skill of walking backwards. We had to do a lot of takes for those mishaps. One shot, between White Hall and the Administration building, was tough because she had to keep looking back to see the thing she was supposed to be running into.

A little later, the pre-frosh hears some students talking about a party at The Library (a nightclub), and pictures a party going on in the actual library. That shot of people in clubbing clothes dancing through the stacks was actually our best clip, and made it into the montage on Movie Fest night.

The last quote I have from the actual film makes fun of the nicknames for a couple of buildings on campus: "First you showed us the DUC, now the WoodPEC..y’all sure do like y’all’s birds!" I don't remember if I wrote that line, or if I just had to say it, but...yeah. Not our brightest moment.

And then, filming was done, and Amy B. and I spent hours and hours editing that bad boy. The task was made more difficult because we had to use a Mac and Macs suck in every way:

Me: WHAT ARE YOU DOING???!!!
Amy B: SOMETHING I’M ABOUT TO UNDO!

I don’t remember if there was some weird rule that all the people on your hall had to be in the movie, but I remember fighting to cut a couple of people from the film completely because their scene was pointless. "I am NOT about to sacrifice the integrity of my film so that every bum on this hall can be in it!!"

On the big night, one of the floors in Trimble Hall won, with “Requiem for a Dorm”. It was basically an exact recreation of Requiem for a Dream, done in five minutes with Easy Mac instead of drugs. I hated it. But I remember being told that I would have really liked it, if I’d seen the actual movie. I was deeply offended, because their movies was only good if you’d seen the real thing. Meanwhile, our movie was pure, stand-alone, comedy gold. I seriously thought that. I don't know what I was smoking at the time, but I've quit now.

Tonight was the pledge retreat...my last one. NO, I did not cry. I guess it's kind of a geeky thing to do on a Friday night, but if I hadn't gone, I'd have watched ice dancing or surfed the net all evening. Surely that would have been even geekier. Besides, I do care about APhiO and the people who are going to be in it after I'm gone. And I'm going to be nagging those kids about service hours for the next couple of months. I figure I should at least get to know them first. So I sat around and ate free junk food and did sigs. It's always cute when the pledges try to ask some deep questions, like, "Why are we on this planet?" And then I break out "Would you rather lose an arm or sweat mayonnaise?" Gets them every time.

Then the brothers were kicked out so the pledges could bond. After some brief regrouping, we broke in again. That actually went pretty well. And not long after that was cleanup. Jason, Emily, Christopher and I ended up spending an hour untangling the yarn we'd used for the string game. That was quite the ordeal. At some points we had yarn laid out along the entire perimeter of Harris parlor. It led to this exchange between me and Emily:

"I feel such a sense of accomplishment right now, guys. I feel like this is more meaningful than getting my diploma will be."
"Really? They're going to call out your name..."
"And I'm just going to take the diploma, look out at the audience and shake my head. I'll look right at you."
"Wait...oh, no, I won't be in line behind you."
"No, Witham is way after Pam, you'll still be in your seat."
"I'll be standing up to see the look on your face."
"I'll have a piece of yarn in my pocket, maybe hidden in my tassel, so I can pull it out as a visual reminder."
"Haha...Forget the diploma, I untied a bigass knot."


Hmm...that was a lot funnier while it was going on. Maybe you just had to be there.

I need to sleep now. Thesis stuff all weekend! F'real!

I woke up super early on Wednesday morning, MARTAed to the airport (tip: don't sit facing left on a southbound train at 7:30am), and flew home. Mom picked me up from the airport and we went straight to the hospital, where one of my aunts (Tee Dot, even) was having a minor procedure done. There was really no reason for us to go, but I suspect Mom wanted to take any excuse to be out of the house as long as possible. Since we were there, we ate lunch at the hospital cafeteria, and then went to the hair salon. So I woke up at the ass crack of dawn for an early flight, and didn't get to my house until like, 5pm.

I'm not complaining about that, though, because the house is like a zoo. Having seven people here is a lot different from having three people here. Did I mention that my house only has one bathroom? Yeah...that's fun. The most striking difference is that somebody's always talking. The longest stretch of silence in the house has been about two seconds. It sounds stupid, but this was a bigger deal to me than something like sleeping on the couch.

And of course there's been some new slang to get used to. "Katrina" has become both an adjective and a verb. When my cousin Anedra was threatening to bring down her wrath upon her misbehaving kids, I heard "Don't make me Katrina in here!!" Also, if somebody's running late, he or she is "on FEMA time."

Dinner was at Tee Dot's house. There was much giving of thanks, for obvious reasons. Then there was all the food. We had smoked turkey, fried turkey, fried chicken, baked ham, pot roast, gumbo, red beans and rice, mustard greens, cornbread dressing, cranberry sauce, mirliton casserole, stuffed bell peppers, mac and cheese, potato salad...I think that's it. And it was all so good. There was so much food, people kept losing track of the dishes we had. It was like, "Who wants red beans?" "There's red beans??" or "Where's the roast?" "There's a roast??" Good times.

Gotta go for now. I'll talk about my other trip to the hospital tomorrow, or whenever I can.

Discussing my infamous sig book question, "Would you rather lose an arm or sweat mayonnaise?":

A: If you were, say, a professional wrestler, sweating mayonnaise would be a good thing! You'd definitely want to do that instead of losing an arm.

Neha: But what kind of wrestling name would a person like that have?

Me: Hell Man.


It was one of those perfect moments in life.

At one point tonight, the music was Freak Nasty's "Da Dip"...you all know it. "I put my hand upon your hip,/ when I dip you dip we dip." Emily, Cliff and I were singing along a bit, and it struck us as very amusing that Mr. Nasty says "upon your hip" instead of just "on your hip." Way to be fancy there, Freak. Somebody commented that it gave the song a Shakespearean air, which led to our own rendition of the song: "Wherefore dost thou dip?/Forsooth, thine hand, upon my hip!" So now that song will never be the same for any of us. Not that it gets massive play, anyway. ANYWAY. It was really, really, really funny if you were there. And we weren't even drunk!