Monday, October 25, 2010

The Weekend Wrap-Up

Here is a what Idid this weekend.

Saturday I got up early and went to work for a little bit, then I came home and reconfigured the furniture in the living room.  I also put down a rug that I've had for a while, and the cats and dog were delighted with that.  It was like they've been waiting their whole lives for a rug.  The cats scampered around on it, fascinated with their new discovery of "traction" and its effects on their kung fu.  The dog wallowed on it like the pig dog that she is, and thankfully no one has vomited on the rug as of yet. 

After that, I repotted my rubber tree and my tai plant that will be coming inside soon for the winter.  I had intended to repot my plumerias, but they will be going dormant soon and won't need nice fresh soil, so they didn't get any.  They'll get theirs next spring.

Saturday night, my husband and I ventured out.  Before leaving home, we decided we would not see a movie, since nothing of interest to either of us was playing.  I was hoping to see "Let Me In," an American remake of a Norwegian film I really enjoyed called "Let the Right One In," but it was no longer playing.  My husband tried to talk me into seeing "Paranormal Activity 2," but I didn't feel like spending hours trying to fall asleep while fearful that an invisible demon would drag me out of bed again, like I did after the first movie.  Instead we ate a very disappointing dinner at an Italian restaurant and went to the bookstore.

I got two books.  One is a novel called "Alas, Babylon," and the other is a book about botany.  I started reading the novel today and I like it so far.  I find it a little technical as far as some of the military stuff is concerned, but it is making sense.  I am very glad to have something to read, it has been a while since I've cracked a book for pleasure. 

After the bookstore, my husband came up with the idea of getting a video game we could play together at home.  We went to Target, but they didn't have the game we wanted, which is called "Dead Rising 2" and involves zombie hordes that need slaughtering.  We found a copy at Best Buy and went home.  After loading the game, we discovered that you cannot, in fact, play two players in the standard fashion, being each person has their own controller and they sit in the same room and play together.  You can, however, connect through the internet and play with other random people.  This made no sense to either of us, so we took turns slashing down crowds of wandering undead with weapons such as two chainsaws attached to a double-ended paddle, a baseball bat covered with nails, and a power drill attached to the end of a spear.  We did this for most of the night and we stayed up way too late.

Sunday, my husband and I parted ways, his way being into the bedroom to watch football all day and do whatever he does on the computer that involves fake football and gambling, and my way being continuing the fight against the video game zombies.  Once I grew tired of that, I scanned the DVR list and found a show I had been looking forward to about the earliest life on Earth, and hosted by #1 top-notch nature documentary dude David Attenborough.  I even think he's a "sir."  I've loved him since I discovered nature shows as a child, his soothing British accent always primes my brain for learning new and interesting things.  I was pleased to see that even well into his eighties, he is still agile enough to traverse the Burgess Shale and the Canadian Rockies to look at fossils of tiny arthropods that lived millions and billions of years ago.  I am a great appreciator of a good nature/science documentary-type show, and this was a good one.  The images of the trilobytes unearthed in Tunisia were astounding, very detailed 3D fossils meticulously chiseled from the rock looked as if they couldn't possibly be real, like models from a sci-fi movie.

So all in all, it was a great weekend.  I didn't do everything I had intended, but I never do.  If I did, what would I do next weekend?

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Here is what's on my mind today!

I have had the travel bug for a while now.  I live in Texas and I have been virtually nowhere else in my thirty years thus far.  For the continental U.S., I live so close to Louisiana that I've been there more times than I've been to any major city in Texas.  I've driven across Mississippi, without stopping, to get to Alabama.  My grandparents drove us to Arkansas once, but we didn't even have to drive across any other states to get there.  I also flew to Virginia a few years ago.  I've never been west beyond San Antonio, and lately I've been longing for a change of scenery.

Basically, I want to drive west across the deserts of Arizona and New Mexico to the California coast.  While there, I want to visit the Monterrey Bay Aquarium and go out on a boat to look at white sharks in person.  From there, we would travel north along the coast, stopping to check out the forests, maybe do some camping, just take in the natural beauty.  Then we could hang out in Seattle and check that out before hopping off into Canada so we could say we've been there, plus check out whatever Vancouver's got going on. 

Coming back, and time permitting, I'd like to meander down around the Rocky Mountains.  The only mountain experience I have is the Ozarks.  They are some of the oldest mountains around, so they're not as...I don't even know...mountain-ey?  They're more like super big hills.  I'd at least like to say I've seen the Rockies, but honestly, if I get sick like I did in the Ozarks, I'd rather just drive straight south across the plains states.

Clearly, this is a huge trip, like retirement-level in life huge, and it ultimately may have to wait.  Fortunately, there is some talk about a trip to Europe going around the house now.  I have always been an anglophile, and I would love to visit the UK, as well as many other European countries.  I will admit, though, that Europe is a little scary to me, not so much because of terrorism or things like that, but because of those terrible Hostel movies.  They've given me the idea that all Europeans want to kidnap and sadistically murder me.  Mainly, I want to visit the museums and look at awesome stuff until I can't even stand it any more. 

I would also really like to visit Japan, but my husband isn't to keen on that because he thinks he would literally "not fit in," and he's probably right.  A man of his stature could never sleep in a nap pod.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Happy Wednesday!!

I LOVE WEDNESDAY!  Pretty much because I'm off all day!!  This is my day to do as much school work as I can.  In a little bit, I am going to sit in the bath tub and read all about the circulatory system, then think about and post my discussion for APII. 

I am still trying to think about what I can do my research paper on for this class.  I have a few topics floating around, but  none of them are creating a spark with me yet.  One thing that has been on my mind lately is this fascinating tv show I watched a few weeks ago about all of the different people that definitely have or may have reached North America hundreds and thousands of years before Columbus "discovered" the continents.  I am trying to think of how I could turn this into a research topic.  It isn't really medical, but I don't think our paper topic necessarily has to be medical.  Also, what would be the point I would be arguing?  I suppose it could be informational in nature instead of persuasive.  Hmm...maybe this will work.  I have been wanting to learn more about the recent archaeological discoveries made concerning these travelers, this would be a great opportunity to learn more.  I do wish I would have DVR-ed that show though.

-Carly

FOLLOW UP LOLCAT

Friday, October 15, 2010

It is 6 pm...do you know where your dog is?

I do.  She's outside, incessantly barking at the kids next door.  They are jumping on a trampoline, and I can appreciate how a dog might be put off by that activity.  At least these kids do not tease my dog like my old neighbors.  Those boys were so bad.  Many times I had to tell them to get off of the fence, stop beating on the fence, stop poking sticks through the fence, etc.  I used to get a kick out of fussing at them when they did not know I was outside, and I would peek over the fence and scare them, then say, "If you do that again, I am going to knock on your door and talk to your daddy.  I know he's home, I saw his truck in the driveway!"  They didn't like that at all.  Usually that would stop their bad behavior.

Right now, my husband is tending to our nephew, who is like seven or something.  Anyway, my husband just came in here where I am and told me we are never having kids, never ever.  Fine by me!

So today I worked.  I don't think I mentioned it in my first blog post, but I am a veterinary technician and I've done that for going on eleven years now.  Honestly, I do not enjoy it.  The majority of my patients are badly behaved and have owners that think they know everything already, or straight don't give a crap.  It is endlessly frustrating and I often wonder what the point of it all is.  However, I do have a handful of patients that are great pets and some owners like to learn new things and do give a crap about their pets.  When they all show up on the same day, its pretty awesome, but that rarely happens.  Today wasn't awful.  I met a lady with two puppies that she is working with and they are very well behaved.  They will probably grow into excellent pets, and she intends to do pet therapy work with them.  I was really impressed with her, and I told her so.  I can't wait to see her and her dogs again.  On a side note:  I am generally terrified of birds.  Thankfully, the practice I work at does not see birds.  Today, however, someone brought in a very sick duck from a local park and it had to be put down.  My boss needed me to "hold" the duck while he did this, so I got a towel and tossed it over the duck while he did the injection, and the whole time I was saying, "It's going to quack at me and I'm going to pee myself...it's going to quack at me and I'm going to pee myself!"  It did not quack at me, so I didn't pee myself, but my boss thought this was pretty hilarious all the same.

One thing I do like about my job is the occasional "medical mystery."  It is lots of fun to crack open a book and sit down with lab results to look for answers.  Unfortunately, if you do have to do this, it is likely that the answer you find won't be good, though.  It is always hard to give people bad news.

So, that's it for today's blog.  Have a great weekend!  I will enjoy Saturday, but Sunday I will have to go take care of dogs.  Dogs that are hanging out in the kennel while their people are off doing something fun probably.  Fun things that I can't do...because I have to go take care of their dogs!!!  It's a vicious cycle.

Oh, one more thing...since I am not very familiar with this blog site, I want to experiment with putting pictures or videos in my posts.  So below this, there may be a picture, or a link to a picture, or maybe just some hieroglyphics or something.  I don't know yet, that's why this is an experiment.

Lookout!  It's a LOLCAT!


That was easier than I thought it would be, which is always nice.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

So this is my school blog!

I used to keep a blog back when I used myspace.  In that blog, I usually vented a lot about work and talked about movies.  This blog will be no different, I'm sure.

There isn't much going on today that is very interesting.  I am trying to map out my classes for this term and make sure I don't have any surprise assignments or things like that.  Tonight I am looking forward to watching tv.  Thursday night is my favorite night for tv because many of my favorite shows are on NBC.  I don't know what's going down with the dinner situation tonight...I can't remember the last time I cooked anything, so my husband and I usually pick something up.  It isn't ideal, but that's how we roll for now.  When I finish school and start working from home, I plan to spend some time in the kitchen and start cooking more at home.  I hate to think about how much money we could save by eating in, but we'll get there eventually.  I also really need to do some laundry tonight.

Tomorrow, I will go to work and be glad that it is Friday, I guess.  Maybe others that work on weekends can appreciate this...but when people are too excited that it is Friday, it kind of irritates me.  Sure, if I was off for two whole days after each Friday, I might get real excited about Fridays too, but I'm not so I don't, and I don't necessarily want to hear anyone else going on about "oh yay, it is Friday, whoopdeedoo!"  In this particular case, I can be a little bit glad about it, though, because I am off on Saturday...but not Sunday.  Tomorrow I plan to give approximately 75% of a care that it is Friday, and to anyone who is off Saturday and Sunday, I wish you a great big TGIF!

Alright, first blog knocked out!