Takeoff in T-minus 20 hours!

Whew. . . it has been a heck of a week. I can't believe it. Kim and I are finally leaving for the Bahamas tomorrow. So beyond excited. I thought I was all packed, but apparently there are some last minute details that I have forgotten. Kim and I will be running around getting last minute things done tonight. For the most part, all of our things are done though. It feels good. I just have to pick up a few things at my place that I forgot (namely my cell phone charger) and pick up my pay check from the shelter (very important) and then we'll be set. I got a new haircut yesterday. I got quite a few inches cut off and some red color added on. I look quite sexy if I do say so myself. I'm going to try to blog a little during my trip so you guys will see the new 'do. Of course, many of you in the blogging world don't really have a before to compare it to, but whatever.

My final this week was such a joke. It was totally easy, but my professor pissed me off beforehand because he said, "there are several questions on here that may be really, really difficult." Seriously, what kind of professor says that? Shouldn't he be wishing us luck? If he were a decent teacher, then he would be confident of our ability to answer those questions. I called him on the fact that he was trying to psych us out. I think there were a couple of students that were stumped by those questions, but I still have no idea which ones were supposed to be difficult. I wasn't stumped at all. Easiest damn A ever. He just didn't put any effort into creating the final. There was a question on there about who was the best instructor ever and all four possible answers was his name. I felt like leaving that one blank. I know I sound like a crybaby. I just expect better from grad school. I expect a freakin challenge. Or at least a third grade level challenge. I've never given such a low evaluation to a professor. All of the other students gave him a low evaluation as well.

I'm also a little sick of my sister's selfish attitude. My mom wanted me to help her plan her baby shower and I told her no. Not after everything else. My sister and I had a fight yesterday. I won't spare anyone the details, but I don't know why I bother. Ever since that huge blowup at Thanksgiving last year when I said I wasn't going to have anything to do with her anymore, I really haven't. I don't ever seek her out for anything. The only time I ever do call her is for work related issues and soon I won't have to do that anymore because I'll be the only one working for dad. I'm tired of seeing how everyone treats her. And then they wander why she acts the way she does. Craziness. Doesn't matter anyway. Generally, I don't think about her. My grandmother talks about her and her stupid life all the time. I DON'T CARE! I don't care how she's messing up her life. Why would I? I actually told my grandmother yesterday that I don't want to hear anything about her or her life ever again. If she or anyone else starts talking about her, I'm either going to change the subject, ignore it, or just leave the room. I am certainly not going to participate in it. I'm sick of hearing about it.

Well, I'm out for now. Like I said, I going to try to blog a little during my trip. I will take lots of pictures. Bahamas and San Francisco, here I come!

A blur of activity

Whew. . . I can't believe I have actually stopped moving for five seconds. I didn't think it was possible. It's actually the first time in about 48 hours. On Saturday, I went to a Volunteer Appreciation Party for my shelter. I've only been officially on staff for two months and they wanted me to go. It sounded like a good opportunity to mingle with staff and other volunteers anyway, so I went. I had worked the overnight shift on Friday, though. I kind of overslept and didn't wake up till 1:30. Oh well. But I woke up and had about 10 minutes to get ready for the party. But yours truly was kind of blown away. I won Volunteer of the Year! Can you believe it? I was so honored and totally surprised. I got a beautiful plaque, dinner for two at an Italian cafe, and two free tickets with Airtran. Woo-hoo! Amazing day.

After that, I immediately met Kim and the kids at the mall. We spent the rest of the night shopping for our trip next week. I didn't buy nearly as much as she did, but I did find some really cute things. I bought this smoothie at the mall (only 153 calories and no sugar added) and I added an energy booster. Okay, that was a mistake. I got home and I cleaned and studied and was unable to sleep. I stayed up until 2 am in the morning. This was bad since Sunday, I was supposed to work 7-11. Crazy double shift.

Okay, I knew that this week was going to be nuts. Seriously, you should see my lists of stuff I have to do to get ready for my trip. Plus, I have my final exam tonight. Sunday was completely indicative of how this week is going to go. Hit the ground running and don't even stop. Ever. I thought that it would be slow. Sundays at the shelter are usually slow. But, no. Of course not. There was drama with the residents. Drama with their children that I had to take care of. There were new residents and oh so many calls. Part of my cleaning the night before had been getting rid of my old pre-weight loss clothes (FINALLY!!) and loading them into my car to donate to the shelter (so I wouldn't have to do it at 6 am the next morning when I woke up). The women had fun going through all the donations and they loved the fact that some of the clothes used to be mine. Apparently, I have cute stuff. One of the residents is only a few inches taller than me so she really liked it. I'm just glad that all of my clothes were able to go to a great cause. They were all in really good condition and the residents were in need. Anyway, I did get a lot of studying done, but maybe not as much as I would have liked. I did kind of like that it was chaotic because it made the day go by so much faster. And when you're working a 16 hour day, you need a lot to do to keep you busy. I like chaotic atmospheres anyway. It challenges me. . . keeps me on my toes. There was one good thing, too. The client I was really worried about last week called me back today. She's been trying to call me back all week because she did really like talking to me. I guess everything turned out okay after all. Whew. Relief, much.

I was up at 6 am to get some more studying done for my final. Another night of very little sleep. Something tells me I'll be able to guess my way through it though. Luckily, I should be through with it in about half an hour or so. I'm not kidding when I say I have a million things to do this week. I'm going to try to find time to work out, but maybe all the running around I'll be doing will count, right? I have a list of things to do today alone. I should probably divide up my list by day. I know that sounds totally anal. But I'm a Taurus. We need organization and routine. I'm so excited about my trip! T minus 5 days!

Frustrations

I have been frustrated with my grad school professor the entire quarter. For one thing, he is continuously late. It's a cause to celebrate if he's on time. This is ironic because our participation grade depends on our tardiness (or lack thereof). How would he even know? We took a midterm exam in the beginning of April. When did we get those grades back? In Wednesday's class. We have a final on Monday and we were worried. We all thought we did horribly on the exams and we needed to know what to do better for the final. We had this take-home part of the exam where we had to take a case study and make treatment recommendations. According to the syllabus, we were supposed to do another one for the final.

So we get back our exams. Before he hands back the take-home part, he says that he was "extremely lenient" and that "it wasn't even funny." Maybe it was because of this or maybe it was because we got our grades back so late, but either way, he decided to scrap that take-home assignment for the final and assign us something else. I get back my exam and I did get an "A," which is great. I actually did a lot better on the multiple choice portion than I thought I did. My take-home portion did not have any feedback on it at all. . . just a bunch of check marks. One of the girls in the class asked him about his "lenient" remark and asked if maybe he could give us some pointers on what we could do to improve in the future. He says that he didn't mean to imply we did a horrible job and that actually, we had all written a very excellent paper (especially considering the fact that it was our first case formulation). O-kay. . . . now, we were all confused and also a little irritated. Were our papers crap or were they good? I'm not sure if he was lying to us because he thought we couldn't take the criticism or if it was because he just couldn't take the time to give the damn feedback.

Even though we don't have that particular assignment for the final anymore, we will probably still have to do treatment plans for our future jobs. Something tells me that our bosses aren't going to tell us that we did a great job if it's a piece of crap. This is grad school, for crying out loud. And I'm an adult. I can take a little criticism. Yes, I am an obsessive-compulsive, perfectionist, Type-A personality and yes, I hate anything lower than an A. But I don't want the A if I don't deserve it. This professor makes me long for my Ethics professor that I had last term. Yes, he was demanding and challenging. But that was what I needed and he also gave great feedback. I got a 99 on my paper in his class and it was still covered in red. He put comments on there about exactly what he liked. He also put comments about a few things he thought that could be improved in the future (even if he didn't necessarily take points off for it). I think my current professor is stretched too thin and he just shows up to get a paycheck. He has his own practice at three separate locations. This would explain why he's late all the time and why he can't be bothered to actually teach us. I'm just frustrated by it. Pardon my venting.

Doubtful

Did you ever have one of those days where you doubted your entire profession? I had a really, really, really bad day at the shelter on Sunday. Yeah, did I mention I had a bad day? I can't really discuss the exact details of the case because everything is confidential. Let's just say that I dealt with a really tough case and I think I didn't handle it as well as I could have. I know that I'm still a "rookie" in this profession and that I'm bound to make mistakes. I am human, after all. Sunday was the day where it really hit me that what I do matters. And this case happened within the first two hours of my shift, so I still had six hours to go. Six. . . long. . . hours. I had more crisis calls, crisis with residents, chaos with the children. For a Sunday, it was a little insane. Hell, for Easter Sunday, it was insane. By the end of the day, I had an enormous headache. I literally felt like crying. My early morning case just made me doubt my abilities as a (future) therapist. But I have to take this as a lesson learned for future cases.

You want to know what the worst part of the day was? I had to immediately go home for a family dinner. Probably wouldn't have been so bad if my sister wasn't there. I swear she did not shut up the ENTIRE time and of course, it is all about her. She was upset because I may not be there for the birth of her second baby (which is 2 months away anyway). I told her that if I'm not working, I would be happy to be there. I said that if she goes into labor when I'm working for dad, there's not going to be anyone else to work obviously (since she's usually the other person who answers the phones). I told her if I'm working the battered women's shelter, I will only be able to miss work there if I'm able to get someone to cover for me. They do operate 24/7 and it is a crisis environment. They can't shut down because I'm not there. She made some snippy comment about how she can't just go into labor on my day off. How self-involved is that? I'm sorry, but unlike her, I don't like letting down people who are depending on me. I think hearing her voice is probably worse than dealing with the cases I deal with. Eh, it's a toss-up.

Stupid doctors

Last Monday, I finally went to see my neurologist. Yay for me. After forty-five minutes of waiting to be called (talk about being late), I finally go back there and it is time for the dreaded weigh-in. The last time I went to this doctor (in September), I didn't mind this so much because I knew that I was at my ideal weight and I loved. . . absolutely loved, my body. Well, I get on the scale and the nurse weighs me. She doesn't say anything, which is good. I don't want to know, even though I already do. When we go into the little room to take my blood pressure, she starts making comments like apparently she wants to weigh me again because she can't believe what the scale says. She says she wants to weigh me again, this time with my shoes off. She asks if my shoes were on the last time they weighed me, which they were. So I took off my shoes and dutifully stepped on the scale again. This time she did tell me my weight and it didn't come as a big surprise. I mean, let's get a little perspective people, okay? I've gained like ten pounds (okay, maybe fifteen) since my last visit so I would hardly call myself obese. I just came to get my drugs so just save the judgment and back the hell off! Even the doctor said something about the fact that I've gained weight. I felt like I had to defend myself. Jesus Christ. Did I say something about the fact that he was an hour and a half late for his appointment with me? What a freakin crock.

Speaking of this whole weight loss thing, I may have to do something drastic. I may have to throw out my scale. And by throw out, I mean. . . hide. We have become mortal enemies. I weighed myself the other day. In five days, that scale has not budged. And I have been working my ass off. I've been eating right and exercising like crazy. I think I need to stop worry about the numbers so much and just do my thing. I did have to up my calorie intake to 1100 though. 1000 was just way too small for the amount of exercise I was doing. Technically, I should probably be getting about 1400-1600 calories a day so I'm still cutting quite a bit of calories. There is this awesome workout thing that I was thinking of getting at www.yourselffitness.com. It's a personal trainer for your computer. It takes into account your own fitness goals and fitness levels and designs your own personalized workout. You can even choose the setting and music. According to the reviews, you have to workout to it like 100 times to get even close to the same workout. Cool, huh? I would get it if I weren't saving my money for my trip coming up. But I do have a birthday in 2 1/2 weeks. Hint, hint. :) Geez, I'm going to be 26 in 2 weeks. Oy. I had almost forgotten.

Last night, Kim and I went to the Black Eyed Peas and Pussycat Dolls concert. It was totally awesome. It was also a great workout because we were dancing just about the entire time. My legs are a little sore today. But during the Pussycat Dolls part, there were these idiots behind us who kept telling us to sit down. Where the hell did they think we were at? We were at a concert , for crying out loud. No way were we going to sit down. We only sat down for the slow songs. . . and just a few of the songs we didn't know just so we could take a small break. Whatever. They were old. And jealous because we were so hot. Hehe.

Pain is my friend

I know I've been a bit sporadic about posting lately and I apologize. Things have been a bit crazy and I have been a bit lazy.

I'm working about 40 hours this weekend alone (between Friday and Monday). This leaves little time to work out, but I'm trying. I've decided to severely restrict my calorie intake. I'm trying not to go over 1000 calories. . . or at least not very much over. Many would say that's too drastic. Drastic times call for drastic measures. I have to go back to my routine of working out 2 hours a day. . . more if need be. As this instructor of a kickboxing workout (fabulous workout) said, "Pain is your friend." That is my new mantra. Yeah, like I had one to begin with. I also decided to use little "thinspirations." They are my motivators. I have pictures of supermodels taped on my refrigerator and in my car. On the pictures, I wrote, "Are you really hungry?" Hopefully, that will deter me when I try to eat. I'm trying to drink more water. They say it fills you up, but it's not doing the job like it should. It just makes you have to go to the bathroom every ten minutes. It's hard not eating as much. I'm constantly using my calculator to determine what my intake for the day is. I plan out every single meal and snack the night before. But it gets hard when your stomach starts growling and you know you're not supposed to eat for at least another hour. Will power, my friend. It takes enormous will power.

So excited about my trips coming up. I can use a vacation. I'm working myself hard with 3 jobs, school, and working out all the time. Luke e-mailed me the other day about my trip to see him. Apparently, his boss won't let him have all of those days off. Bastards. Oh well. My fault for planning so spur of the moment, I guess. Next time, I'll visit at a less crazy time. It still sounds like we'll get to spend a lot of time together so that's fine. And I guess Laura may be coming up that week. If she does, that would be fun. At least I know I'll still be eating dim sum at Golden Port. And when you get right down to it, isn't that the only thing that matters?

Black White

There's an interesting show on the FX network that I've gotten into. It's called Black White. A white family and a black family switch places to see what it is like to be a member of the other race. The white family gets in black make-up and vice versa. The makeup looks so realistic, too. They totally pull it off. Anyway, I was talking to my father the other day about it. Big mistake. I happened to mention that an example of prejudice is that people always think that blacks shoplift and they follow them around in stores. My dad feels that this does not happen and even if it does, what do they care as long as they're not stealing? Oh brother. I don't think I would like to be followed around in a department store. I don't care who they are or why they're doing it. It would be creepy. My dad's living in a fantasy world and I told him so. Did it do any good? Hardly.

I think that I'm just going to stop talking about stuff like that with my family from now on. I mean, I love them and I know they love me. In a lot of ways, they are very intelligent. They can just be ignorant about certain things. I don't know if that comes from being raised in the South or what. My family did start talking about race earlier tonight. I hate it when they start generalizing about how all black people are on welfare and they always cry racism (even when it's not warranted) and how apparently a black woman has more rights than anyone (according to my grandmother). My family are the only ones who can turn living in the city a bad thing. Their theory is that the only reason there are so many minorities in big cities is because they have public transportation and there is no need for a car. Okay, does that really make a person lazy? When I go to San Francisco or L.A. (or any other big city) to live, I may not keep my car. It would save me a lot of money and it would force me to get a lot of exercise by walking everywhere. I told them that, but I don't think it made a dent. My uncle started talking about other countries and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, he should be talking about what other countries do. He doesn't want to go to Italy or Ireland because there are a lot of Muslims there. I know, I know. I really don't even know where to begin with that one. And then, I just couldn't take anymore so I asked them to change the subject. It's like Luke said when he came down here. There really isn't any point in debating issues with them. They're close-minded and more than a little ignorant. It would be like having a conversation with a brick wall. My family just makes me tired. Oh well. I have to deal with the fact that their opinion on certain things (everything, actually) are never going to change.

Good news for Simpsons fans: they're coming to the big screen! In July of 2007, there will be a Simpsons movie. Woo-hoo. I believe the trailer for it is before the Ice Age movie. I heard about it and became absurdly excited. How pathetic is that?