New House

Whoops guys (jennifer, maybe darren, and mom), I just now remembered I had a blog. I've really enjoyed Jenn and Darren's the past few days. You guys might not be checking here anymore, but oh well, the entries are probably mostly for me in the long run.

Yeah, there is plenty to say since last July, but I don't want to make a totally random list of updates so I'll just say: We Love our new house.

It's perfect. Lucky for me, Jeff was ready to jump on it and make an offer within hours of seeing it. I was being hesitant out of being exciting to shop around, but even on my list I knew it was exactly what we wanted. And it always seemed ridiculously well-priced, although I don't think anyone told us that it was, necessarily.

So out of our priorities?
#1 somewhere for Jeff's tools and junk....check.....
#2 2 bedrooms, preferably better suited for a baby bedroom....check!
#3 office space...check
#4 storage spaces.....double check
#5 convenient litter box spots......check

perks:
fireplace
beautiful garden and yard
that storage space is a two car garage
updates, updates, updates

I've already accepted that the next place we live will not be as nice as this one. Even if we don't leave Louisville for residency, we would still need more space in 3 1/2 years (wow, the countdown to the last graduation has begun!) for baby #2 (yes, we still plan on doing that).

I obviously need some pictures to exemplify our pride, but I can't say I've assembled a collection. Something to do next time the house is well-groomed.

For now, here are some baby photos in each place of the house...except the bedroom and laundry room.

still new Garage for our 2 and a half cars
Bathroom with a big tub that actually has jets in it. Remodeling this room. It was yellow, is now blue, and the wood trim will eventually be white.
Family room with a gas fire place and cathedral ceiling, lots of flood lights (is that the right name...)
Baby's bedroom. Previously shades of pink (which was not obvious until you took a close look), now winnie the pooh green. Still needs its second coat, eventually. Carpet needs to be replaced. Cute and little, should be just enough room for baby the next few years.
Front yard. Entire property fenced in, even with the inconvenience of no back gate (just the garage)."Dining room," although with carpet and 5 doorways it is probably more appropriate as the office and fish room.
Backyard. Fenced in on both sides, with a red fence on one side. I think the color and style is pretty, but it is rotten and will need to be replaced. A project I wouldn't mind taking on. Also a great back deck, just the right size for us. Lots of garden back here that I hope I can maintain.
Kitchen. Updated new probably 15 years ago. Cabinets still look great and appliances are pretty nice compared to the Preston house. There are great skylights in here. Lots of timers and clocks, goody! Hoping to replace the linoleum in here and the bathroom.
And the cherry on top. Not just any playground, a baby playground steps away. Love thinking about how we'll be going there so often in the next few years.

Too many teens and preteens on the internet

So maybe I was asking for a pile of garbage, but I googled how to get rid of my sunglasses tan line... and the results are just awful.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081003221018AADPXzh

People who post comments on youtube are the same way. At least twice, I have seen comments on youtube along the line of this:

"This music video is really good! I would know because I a have been a musicion 4 8 yrs and I am 14."

I am so not under exaggerating the age either. This is definitely a downside of the internet being a largely youthful phenomenon.

Sigh. Anyways, I'm trying to get rid of the sunglasses line with some fake tan lotion. And I think it showed up because I stopped bothering to use sunscreen...so I guess I'll start doing that again.

However, I do plan on going to the tanning bed to get rid of my super white swimsuit lines before I go the the white coat ceremony in my dress... I don't know though, it might take quite a lot more tanning than I feel like buying or doing- I'd probably be freaking black by the time I was even! I am getting super dark... and I thought it just couldn't happen anymore since I was older.

Getting tan

Like I've mentioned in my last few blogs, I've got plenty of things to talk about. But I'll talk about "work" now.

I'm getting tan, and it may be the only thing I'm happy about with guarding right now. The summer started off fine, but went through a major decline over the past week and a half. I haven't actually told anyone yet, and the longer I've put it off, the more reluctant I feel to bring it up but... they took away my assistant manager position. I didn't get my lifeguard certification until a couple weeks into the season and I didn't realize how big of a deal that was. I don't even feel like explaining my excuses because coming up with them and trying to explain to the head guard and our supervisors has just been one huge dampening pain.

The head guard was the one to let me know, and I really wish the supervisors would have told me themselves because I would not have argued with them the way I did with him. I suppose me being the same age as him, and getting the impression that I am more responsible than him doesn't make me feel very obligated to respect his authority, especially since as an AM I felt like I should treat him as a managerial partner.

But whatever. Him and I are not getting along at all. Or rather, he pretty much hates me after all of this. I came to the job ready to take leadership and I apparently overstepped my boundaries. No, I haven't bossed people around, I just tried to learn as much as I could and did as much work as there was to do, hoping someone would notice and go ahead and give me a head guard position. I wanted to do what JC told me I needed to do weeks later, "take initiative." The supervisors, JC and Scott, may have agreed that I needed to be demoted for the certification issue, which I don't have a problem with now, but they let me know that my lack of experience was still an issue and when the head guard teaches me enough to overcome that, they want to repromote me.

I can't even talk to the head guard without him twisting my words into a reason to get pissy at me. The head guard is such a ass with me that he wouldn't even let me go to the pump room to turn on the fill for the baby pool the other day. And he keeps the keys when we work together, I assume to keep me out of the pump room altogether. The last time I actually talked to him he got pissed at me for two completely ridiculous things and tried to mention me transferring, and seemed very disappointed when I said I wouldn't think of it. Guess what I said during that conversation? I checked if he remembered to fill out a guest form for someone coming in and when he mentioned that break was called one minute late, I said it looked like 10 til on the other clock. And when I asked if he wanted me to fill the baby pool, and later if he wanted me to turn the water off, both times while he was in the guard chair, he says, "I can take care of the baby pool."

If you can't tell, it feels pretty much impossible to describe all of the frustrations I've had. All of the miniscule details blowing up into one huge pain in my butt and crappy summer job

I've hoped maybe this guy could just get over his issues if I leave him alone and practically don't talk to him at all for a week or something. Then I could start trying to ask him to teach me the pump room stuff I need to know to be promoted. But when I sit back and think about the situation, I just feel like becoming a guard was a mistake. I wanted to do it because I thought it would be a chill way to spend a summer. I was a little worried about working with high school kids, but I thought if I played my cards right I could get past that. I've been pretty friendly with everyone, including my coworkers, the patrons, the supervisors, and it seemed to be working out just fine. But I feel like trying to do good at the job in general is just a waste of time now.

I'm too old for this job, too qualified for this job! And even if I did do it another summer, the next would be the last I could possible do it. I should've never even applied; I can't give KPM enough time to really be an asset to them, like I'd like to be. I'd always thought about doing what Jenn and Julia did, but I waited way too long. I really don't think I should do it next summer. I don't know what specialty I'll choose but I want to do some clinical research to have that broader range of opportunity when the time to choose a specialty comes.

I need something that looks good on a resume. You can't imagine how unhappy I will be to have to put that I spent this time as a regular "Guard." Wow, how pathetic. I'll probably leave it off my resume altogether as if it never happened. Jenn said that I could juggle the two jobs next summer, but I think I'd like to have that extra job time with the baby. Hell knows that if they don't offer me a real managerial position next summer, there is no way I will do it again. I don't need another head guard feeling intruded by me and telling me they "like to mix up" the schedule.

I think I will enjoy clinical research and wish I would have tried to do that this summer instead... sigh. I've hardly told anything to Jeff about work and he asks why I don't quit just from what I have told him. Man, I planned to have money from this summer in my 09-10 budget...! And it's as simple as that... Not that I'll even have hardly half of what I planned to make but that's just one more piece of the frustration...

Ugh. Another reason it sucks I waited so long to let everyone know about the situation is that it just sucks to talk about it now. I want to just settle into the regular guard position, not worry about being repromoted, get back on decent terms with the head guard and just smooth out the rest of the summer... The stress is totally not worth it and I've learned from my mistakes.

So time for a complete subject change. I decided to write this blog because I wanted to talk to somebody I guess. Having this job has made me appreciate my free time more than usual (obviously), and I've been more unhappy when Jeff doesn't think to make time for me. He mowed when I got home and went to take a nap afterwards. Clueless Jeff :(.

Commenting on my photo. I am tanner. It's nice I guess but I can't say I care too much for the one piece tan line. THere are 3 girl guards and I'm the only one in a one-piece. I'm sure that they have no idea that I wear one because of my mutilated tummy. :( I never knew that older women were so tummy conscious because they were Moms! It's so simple... and sad. God I want my tummy back. It's awful looking at girls in their cute bikinis all day. I think about how I'd love to go shopping for some of my own. I don't know what to expect in the future. I haven't weighed in a while but I think the job is helping me lose more of the tummy chub. Why?...less time to be bored, less time to eat... I also notice that Mom's tend to cover their legs, but other than a few stretch marks I've noticed on them, I guess I managed to miss that prego side effect... Gosh was I clueless about why pregnancy sucks for your body image so much.

Well I suppose I should save some energy for less depressing things. Many blogs due from me... I'm supposed to move this weekend so some of them I can't put off any longer or it will be too late!

Gotta post the baby pic! =D

Obviously he is not actually close to standing, just flexing his chub chub legs :)

Graduation 2

Here is a pic I mentioned putting up.
I could've done my hair better.

Over the past couple of years I have increasingly regretted not making more of my "college experience." This mostly involves the part where you meet lots of people and have a plentiful social experience. I'm hoping I can make up for it a little in med school.

Newport aquarium

Time to post more IJ videos. Today we went to Newport to see the aquarium. Although it was crowded and a lot of things took a lot longer than I'm used to them taking after being accustomed to Dad's way of doing things- it was a nice relaxing trip. I think in part because Dad wasn't there to freak out about how slow and crowded everything was. Hah.

I was inspired by some of the freshwater displays to revitalize my fish tank. Thinking about trading in my Office fish for a collection of Rio Negro fish, which I know I can find in the pet store. I know Mom had a lot of these fish, was she going for that theme on purpose?


Who knew angel fish could get so HUGE? I don't recall Mom's ever getting bigger than an inch or two. You can use the tetras as a reference of the scale.


I think I could just sit in those water tunnels all day, watching the fish go by. IJ could have, too. The people and noise bothered him from time to time, but otherwise, I think he had a nice trip.

He's now been to four states, in just four months! KY, TN, IN, OH. Going to be a well-traveled kid by the time he can talk. In a couple of weeks, he will be driving through OH again, then PA, then NJ. Then he will take his first plane trip...with Dad of all people, just the two of them! Jeff hasn't even been on a plane before- it's pretty sad his four-month old son will beat him to it.

Summer has officially started, and other than for some budget stresses, I have the next 4 weeks to be practically stress free. And plenty of blogs should be to come too- we're probably moving in around a month to a fantastic new house- which is going to be super fun, I'll have Atlantic City to blog about, graduation + photos, Julia's wedding, my new lifeguard management job will be starting, and I can post new videos of IJ who will be starting solids in the next few weeks and will probably get down rolling over soon.

Also, btw, IJ is officially ticklish. Don't tell Darren! I tried to get him to laugh on video but I couldn't get it, though here is a video I took anyway.

Graduating

I'm a little bummed about it. Graduating from college is the first step to getting old. Though it involves many good things, such as:

- people finally start respecting you more in terms of maturity and intelligence
- insurance companies respect you more
- people shouldn't consider you being married and a mom to be so weird
- finally get to learn about human science in med school

But of course,

- you can't get away with being immature for the heck of it
- I'll be joining the crowd of those who say, "oh, undergrad..."
- no going back.

So, graduation. We'll post a photo or two later.

I'm getting a bachelor of science in Chemistry with a concentration in Biochemistry. I'll have 128 hours, a ~3.995 (think I should be able to escape the minus this semester), and a collection of honor cords. I will not have an honors scholars medal or summa cum laude honor cords thanks to my thesis dedication falling through. I will have AED honor cords, PhiDE honor cords, Golden Key honor cords, and magna cum laude cords.

I'm going to make myself look good going out. It will be a real dramatic contrast to my HS grad photo, which is awful. I still had no idea how to do my hair at the time and wasn't into make up yet. It will really show how much I've grown up over the past 4 years, even if only on the outside.

Another quick note on growing up and taking responsibility- It's time for us to plan our 09-10 budget, a budget that will have implications on our finances for at least 20 years. Looking on the brightside though, as soon as it's over with we can officially start househunting. I couldn't think of a poll idea- I'm going to make one based off of that thought.

crazy nursing student

http://pageonekentucky.com/2009/03/12/explosive-problem-for-the-university-of-louisville-nursing-student-expelled-for-myspace-blog/

Gosh the people who blog and comment on pages like the one above are well-read.

Anyways, I suppose for the most part I just want to acknowledge the existence of the lawsuit against UofL for expelling a student for her myspace postings.

This nursing student would probably be torn apart by a good psychiatrist or psychologist. She clearly gets a rise out of preaching the controversial and extreme, it's completely juvenile. I read her most recent blog post on the pdf file attached to the article above. Talk about a sour, clueless girl. Why the hell is she in nursing school.

One comment I saw mentioned UofL was probably afraid this chick would go Va Tech on campus. That is totally understandable, considering the attitudes she expressed on her blog. I found her fb page and saw some of her pics, she's a euro-goth nerdy chick, all into snakes and rats and crap. But the thing is she has this sweet face. A face that you could totally see in nursing.

UofL totally screwed up. This chick is a b* for trying to get bank off of our public university, with all of the budget crap going on. Yeah, they probably should reinstate her. However, are universities really not allowed to kick students out based on the moral opinion of the school's mission statement? If it was a private university, would there be a problem? This isn't a discrimination issue, after all, and its not like she was arrested or fined for practicing free speech. After all, universities may tolerate free speech, such as KKK people coming onto campus to promote themselves, but that doesn't come without plenty of cops to monitor the situation. If they had the option to have a cop escort her around campus, maybe they'd feel more comfortable about reenrolling her after becoming aware of her extremist opinions.


UofL didn't have to expel Yoder, of course. By posting her crazy opinions on myspace, she was making a huge risk, the posts were public, for crying out loud. Once the school faculty read the posts, there went her potential LOR writers. And now that the media knows about her case, how hard will it be for every potential employer she may have had to realize they definitely don't want this woman as their nurse. After all, who says employers can't deny hire because of moral opinion. And even if she did get hired somewhere, how long would it be before one of her patients were like "her name sounds familiar..." There's no point in her trying to finish her degree now. She seems to like blogging, and having a publicized name definitely could help her if she wanted to go into writing. She doesn't need UofL to do that, I hope her case gets dropped.

Twitter

Because the media and SNL have highlighted Twitter like it's the best new thing that everyone is doing, I made an account. I wasn't sure what it was. Now I see it is just a social page dedicated to status updates. I think the idea of constantly updating my status could be kind of fun....but I'm pretty sure I don't know anyone on there. I checked for Jenn, Darren, and Chris but I couldn't think beyond that who I might know on there. I looked for people I thought would be old enough or internet-savvy enough to use it (;D). For now, I'm following:

"iJustine" Some chick with youtube videos that popped up in relation to IJ's baby videos
Shaq
Bruce Moore, my realtor
The Onion
and Seth Rogen.

I got server overload pages a couple times. Twitter may fall apart as fast as its come about.

IJ videos

So we have taken a handful of videos with IJ. Not a lot but maybe half a dozen since the hospital videos. The videos from the camcorder are in a format that I haven't figured out how to upload them to FB or youtube. I can only open the videos in a special program that came with it, and every video has like 3 files.... it's strange.

However, I took a couple videos with my simple camera over the past few weeks. I'll probably use it more until Jeff researches a way to convert the camcorder videos.

IJ cooing and getting excited with his dangly toys.

IJ palming his feet, getting excited about his balloon.

Spring BREAK!

Just to make a blog- some updates!



1. First and foremost! IJ baby:
I'm getting behind on taking photos! I hadn't taken any over the past few weeks but I took a few today. There are also videos, but I've been slow to getting them organized, in part because I've had some issues with copying them onto the computer. It's on my to-do list. Once I get them on here though, I'll post the good ones on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/user/jalviek We went to the doctor for IJ's 2 month checkup last Wednesday and he weighs 15 lb 1 oz and that puts him beyond the 95th percentile! He is a little chub chub. He is 24 and a quarter inches long which is 75 - 90 percentile. He is precious, and has so much personality. He loves to make faces, smile, and stick out his tongue. He soaks up everything wherever he is and is not shy at all or uncomfortable with strangers. He was an angel at his christening, which was no surprise because he had plenty of new things and people to look at. He is on a great schedule, going to bed between 9 and 10, waking up to eat around 4, then waking up for good between 8 and 9. His hunger and napping patterns are predictable, and he'll play with toys or do tummy time around 1-2 hours a day.



2. Spring Break plans
The only place we plan to go is to Madisonville to ride dirt bikes this Sunday and Monday. IJ will be coming with us, which will be interesting. I'm a little hesitant about it, but we don't have any other options if we want to go. They'll be a lot of things to bring, including a mosquito net we have for his carrier...better buy baby sunscreen too...
Otherwise, I've made myself a huge to-do list of all of the little things and projects that I think about doing every now and then. These include fixing up the outside of our house, largely for the purpose of making it more attractive to potential buyers this summer. I'm trying to get dad's confidence up for selling it. The biggest part of the cleaning up will be washing down the side paneling, which will make a huge difference. Indoors I'd like to do the "nit-picky" cleaning I usually don't worry about like window cleaning and dusting. Then I'd like to do some junk sorting and organizing. I guess you could say I'm in the mood for Spring cleaning and I hope the weather is up to my ambitions :). Schoolwise, I would like to read a few chapters of Biochem.



3. School and Med school
I officially pleaded senioritis as of a few weeks ago. However, I've also been feeling sick of being #5 in my Chem classes. With this feeling, I managed to do some of the best test studying I've done in a while for a test I had in Bio-Organic last week. It was lucky I was able to do it because IJ's temperment and napping allowed it. So I tied three people for second instead :-/. It's a start I suppose. I realize a part of my problem with studying this semester is an inability to sit down for blocks longer than an hour and a half, during a time of the day I can focus on something like reading Biochem.

I've been waitlisted at Columbia and Vandy med schools.
I'm pretty honored that Columbia even did that. The letter even makes it sound like I'm way up on the list too, which is crazy. They could definitely say that to everyone, though. I'm not surprised because I thought my interview went bad (it didn't, although it was strange), I'm surprised because they just didn't seem like they would want somebody unless they were going to be famous someday. I accepted my waitlist position. When I interviewed, the med student that gave the school tour told us that everyone who got in started out on the waitlist. He said he talked the school into accepting him by telling them how serious he was about going there, and recommended to all of us interviewees to do the same in that situation. I'm thinking I got waitlisted at Vandy at least in part because of my late application completion and interview.

I've been saying for a while that I think I should stick to the best financial situation, mostly in the hopes of getting a full ride somewhere. Vandy said they would tell me what my financial package would be once a FAFSA gets filed (which I plan to do during the break). I looked up financial aid at Columbia and feel very different about their 62K/year tuition+living cost, after reading about their deal with loans and scholarships. It turns out that all students have to take a set amount of loans (27K this year), then the rest of the cost is made up by what the student+parents should be able to pay (based on FAFSA), and scholarships/grants. This is totally reasonable. At UofL I expect to have to take out around 20-25K a year.

So WashU is the only school I still haven't heard from. I really enjoyed my stay there, but am not surprised I haven't heard back after the way the interview went (I was stiff and nervous for that one). They said they review applicants in no particular order, so I may still be wrong. I know from Student Doc that people have been getting in already. I wish the schools that I'm obviously not getting into would just deny me already. Northwestern and Penn's status pages act like my application is still sitting around just in case everyone they accept deny them or something.

I need to go ahead and tell UK soon that I won't be considering them. I actually feel kind of bad, they were really nice people and were very welcoming...


4. Lastly, BBall
Totally watched all six overtimes of the Syracuse-UConn game last night. Had to stay up to do homework anyway. I think Jenn and Darren are super lucky to be going to NY tomorrow, but hope they found some reasonably priced tickets. Syracuse just started overtime with WV, and I'm not up for waiting to see who wins... probably do not want to play the superhuman Syracuse tomorrow though.

I really hope we get to be somewhere in the NCAA that we can GO!!! Who needs school when UofL could get their first title of my lifetime?!

One month old, Snow, and Med schools

Wow, three months since my last post...! I didn't realize just how long its been! Well obviously, a million things have happened but oh well.

Isaiah turned 1 month yesterday. I got back in town after a couple days in Philly/NY and gosh I could swear I can tell a difference after just a few days- he's developing so fast. He's finally eating a little less frequently: more like every 4 hours instead of 2.5 hours. He's also reacting more to visual stimuli- staring at things longer and showing more interest in facial expressions, shapes, lights and colors. I really look forward to him liking toys.



Nature is celebrating his month bday by giving us lots of pretty snow and ice, and thus keeping me from having to go to school for a couple more days. I took the opportunity yesterday to do a lot of housecleaning and today I'm writing this blog, watching October Sky and look forward (really) to reading up some Biochem for a quiz I'll be taking Friday morning. Of course Isaiah is hanging out with us in the meantime. Jeff is still sleeping, he was gone from 3:30 to 8 this morning and only did half of his paper route which would usually take him about an hour. There's a bball game tonight at 7 v. USF- we might be taking Isaiah with us because mom and dad are thinking about staying home.


So the snow is pretty- and I'd like to go out in it but its trapped everyone in pretty well. Mom and Dad don't have power.



I interviewed at Vandy and Columbia over the past week and a half. Both schools that I've been really interested in at one point or another- Columbia was my top choice for a while before the baby news because of its location and curriculum opps and Vanderbilt has always been really attractive to me because of scholarship opportunity and the friendly impression I've gotten of it. At the interviews, my impression of Vandy was really nice and my impression of Columbia was so-so. Being in New York was a lot less exciting for me this time around- I think having Isaiah and Jeff make the possibility of going there feel much more distant than it used to.

...Next time maybe I'll make an update that only has one subject for me to focus on.