The Shame and the Vacation

So, I didn't do as well as I thought on my O. Chem. I was shocked, seriously, to find that I did so-so on BOTH finals and that I got a final grade of 3.0. I mean, I loved O. Chem, I thought I was doing well on the exams and then I come out with a B, I was surprised, let's leave it at that. I HATED Physics and managed to pull much higher grades in it. What's up with that?

Anyway, as soon as my last final was over, I ran up and grabbed Lucy and the two of us went on a road trip to Portland. We had a GREAT time! We hustled all over the city, stayed in a hotel and had room service, watched cartoons, ate ice cream and generally had a blast. We went down there for the original purpose of attending a friend's wedding, but we made a great vacation out of it. The wedding was awesome, by the way - I mean, how can you beat a wedding in which the bride walks down the aisle to AC/DC's Back in Black. Holy shit, that's the best walking-down-the-aisle song I've ever heard of. The juxtaposition of the blushing bride walking down amid pews of standing attendees, glowing with joy and BAOW-BANAOW-BANAOW....awesome.

Then we visited with my extremely pregnant former college roommate and her wonderful husband. Laura was always an outspoken, hilarious, witty, intelligent, and independent artist in college. Now she is an outspoken, hilarious, witty, intelligent, and independent public defender, wife, and mother-to-be. It's astounding to see someone so unchanging, so essentially the same amidst the changing roles she assumes. It was great fun to be with her again and she always makes me laugh (so does sam, her husband, who Lucy was really taken with - we spent much of the weekend discussing him as she tried to figure him out).

All in all, it was a much-needed mother-daughter experience.

I don't know if I ever followed up my whole reference letter saga - but my former professor who previously opted out recently sent me a letter informing me that she would indeed write the letter. Apparently, there were circumstances, devastating deaths in the family and she was suddenly adopting her 4-year-old niece having absolutely no experience with children and no friends with children. wow. So Lucy and I had a playdate with them the other day. The kids took a while to warm up to each other but were holding hands and chasing one another by the end of the afternoon. It was lovely. I truly cannot imagine what they are all going through.

Lucy and I are driving down to Petaluma, California on Thursday for PAMWA camp (http://www.pawma.org) and sleeping in our van for a few days while I train in various martial arts all day. My mom is flying out and will take Lucy during the day so I can really train all day. I love pawma camp, it's my favorite thing all year! I can't wait. This year, there will be 5 of us from Seattle Kajukenbo and we are doing a demo performance which is going to be COOL on Saturday night. Then Todd will fly down and meet us and we will drive to Monterey to see my brother and his kids. Lu has not seen her cousins since last time PAWMA was in CA, which was over 2 years ago, making her about 21 months old at the time. It will be a blast.

Speaking of Lucy (or Sally - have I mentioned that she changed her name?) - there has been no more pooping in the toilet. She claims she will do it when she is 4. I'm a bit concerned, as she is extremely anxious about it. She has a similar issue with blowing her nose, which is what really concerns me. I mean, she'll blow her nose now, but only after she screams and freaks out about it and refuses and is finally threatened with the nose snorker (the suction device used to snork snot out of babies' noses). She's got a phobia about it and I really think she is developing a similar phobia about pooping in the toilet. I'm growing concerned. I'm thinking if birthday comes and goes and this is still going on, I might want to seek some help, because I don't know what to do to help and to not make it worse at this point. And I really don't feature changing poopy diapers through grade school.

*sigh*

My close friend Sarjan had a beautiful baby girl yesterday. Actually, I don't know that she's beautiful, I haven't seen her, I can only imagine from the genes that went into her... She was 9 pounds 1 oz. Lucy, Todd, and I are flying out to NY shortly after our return from CA to see them all. I'm excited, but also exhausted thinking about all the traveling, travel food and bad nights of sleep ahead...

I suppose that is the update for now. My applications to schools are all submitted, now all I have to do is sit around and wait and wait and wait....

Can't talk. Studying.

Just wanted to mention that LUCY FINALLY POOPED IN THE TOILET! A real poop. A big one. Hurray!

I think i can i think i can i think i...

Well, I'm almost done with O. Chem. I have been studying for a couple hours with a friend, which was good, but also freaks me out a bit about how much I have left to do. I didn't realize how much a shorter quarter (2 weeks shorter) would make it SO MUCH CRAZIER. Ay. Well, Friday I'll be all done with it and I won't have any more O. Chem to do. One thing that is both annoying and exciting is that my prerequisites are different now for PA school than they were for med school. I never have to take another quarter of Physics. Hurray! But unfortunately, the prereq's are different for each program that I look at.

I've officially applied to 11 programs. Most of them on the East coast, a couple in the Southwest, but I'm thinking East Coast is my best bet. My current faves are Yale (long shot), MCPHS in Boston (could be a kind of long shot), George Washington University in DC (who knows?!). There is also a school in Maine, which is probably a better shot, but it is far away in Maine. There are also a couple in Philadelphia that appeal to me, so we'll see.

I have to take the GRE again, which is annoying, but my close friend Elise and I are going to take it together next month, which should be kinda fun.

The more progress with all this, the more I realize that it's the right decision for me. Becoming a PA will no doubt be extremely challenging and consuming, and take me away from Lucy more than I like, but for 2 (or possibly 3) years, it's doable. The light will be right there at the end of the tunnel and when I come out, I can practice in an area that needs me. I can finally be a contributing member of society again. I can do something meaningful, worthwhile, that i love... oh dare i dream....

Right now I'm procrastinating. I have a FAWKING hard exam coming up for O Chem followed by another FAWKING hard O Chem exam 2 days later. Todd is going on a kayak/camping trip on Wednesday so I had better use my time wisely, but right now (it is now the next day from when I began writing this one) my brain needs a little respite.

I can't wait until Friday afternoon. I'm picking Lucy up directly after my final exam and we're piling in to the car and driving down to Portland. We're officially going for a friend's wedding, but I'm making a weekend of it, going to see my old college roommate and dear friend who is about to pop out a new baby and hang out in a nice hotel with my lovely girl for the weekend. I'll probably never want to come back!!

Speaking of lovely girls... we've had more pooping problems. She didn't poop for FOUR days, she holds it when she's at school and then her body gets all messed up - also she's transitioning (mentally mostly) to toilet pooping and I don't know if you've picked this up, but she's a very intelligent, extremely sensitive, and quite an anxious little poopster. She's freaked out about pooping in the toilet, but she really wants to do it... it's stressful for her and all of us. Anyway, we are giving her mineral oil, per doctor's orders, and her poops are coming out finally. Phew. She even pooped a tiny pea-sized one into the toilet this morning. There was much hullaballoo over that and the fancy white dressed re-emerged from the drawer.

We went to the worst party ever yesterday. I won't go into detail to protect the innocent. Suffice it to say that one of Lucy's friends is turning into a real monster, such that I can't even stand to be around her and it pains me to see the way she treats Lucy and everyone around her. It's so hard not to intervene. I will not be making much effort to get them together in future. It is difficult due to other circumstances to maintain distance, but I have decided that it's important for me. It was so bad there that Todd couldn't even stand it more than 20 minutes and he left early and walked home.

Anyway, I'd better get cracking. 4 days and counting... and then I AM SO ON VACATION!!!!