"Did you know that if you squeeze a chipmunk, it'll pop??"

I LOVE this song. It makes me happy. :D Yay!! They're just so cute, you could squeeze them, but if you squeeze a chipmunk it'll pop!! Actually back at home in Colorado we call them "chipchunks" cuz they're so chubby. You can bet that I'll be at the movie on opening night this Friday, bouncing up and down in my seat like a little kid. Yes, I'm still a little kid at heart. But hey, if you don't make too much fun of me, I might even sing the song for you sometime (chipmunk voice takes some real bribery though)!! I used to love this show though, I grew up on it, give me a break. This is my new favorite Christmas song. Besides, you know that deep down you like it too. Just admit it and you can sing with me!!

Worst Music Video Ever??

This is possibly the worst music video ever!! Don't worry, after my friend Megan introduced us to it, we then proceeded to go around NYC singing it for the next two days (we did part of her oh so cool dance too, it was priceless. I have no shame, seriously). The only problem with that is the only words I could remember were "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, and 10," which made it a short song. Poor New Yorkers who have to put up with stupid tourists like me. I'll write another blog on our trip later, but I had to share this little piece of art now. I hope you don't get any dumber for watching it. :) Enjoy!!

6 things you may not know about me...

So after reading Megan's 6 things list, I thought about it long and hard (or not) and came up with my own. This is my oh so brilliant list:

1. Minus a little jaunt, with 3 gorgeous blond roommates, into Tijuana I've never been out of the United States. Pathetic, huh?! Don't worry, I'm planning on going to Belize (and Guatemala) next May for a month. Still, at 25, that's just sad. My life is boring.

2. I have this weird habit of pulling one of everything that I love (one of my favorites) off of whatever I'm eating and saving it to the end and eating it last. For example, I pull 1 sausage, 1 pepperoni, 1 black olive, and 1 mushroom off of my pizza, or 1 dill pickle slice, 1 piece of bacon off of my hamburger, etc. I do this with almost everything that I eat that it's possible to do so. Hamburgers, Sub-sandwiches, Pizza, Calzones, Salad, etc. I do it unconsciously though. I've done it for as long as I can remember. Why not save a little bit of the best for last though?! Sounds like a great idea to me. Savor what's good in life!! Yes, I know that I'm weird.

3. I grew up horse-back riding. I LOVE horses. I was probably put on my first horse around 3 or 4 years old and fell in love. I spent as much of my child-hood on horse-back as I could. I miss riding horribly. Someday I'm going to own my own ranch and have horses. Gosh, I miss them... :( That made me really nostalgic there, sorry. Moving on....

4. I'm an American and English Literature junkie. (This is probably the only time I'll be serious in this blog, but...) I love Thoreau, Emerson, even Poe, and Faulkner (because you can try to figure out their deeper meanings), etc. I've even been to Emerson's home and Walden Pond (they're near Boston, duh). A.P. English was probably my favorite class my Senior Year of High School (except Athletic Training, of course). I would have been an English Major if Nursing wasn't an option (too bad I have an Exercise Science degree too, funny how that works :P). Anyways...that's a whole different side of me you'll never get to see probably, sorry.

5. Easter is my favorite holiday. It's such a happy time. Obviously it's celebrating the Resurrection of the Savior which is an incredible event in and of itself, but it also means that the Atonement had to happen first. Easter is also happy and full of pastel colors and bunnies. I like bunnies. I know that seems out of character for me, but I do. I used to own rabbits, so don't make fun of me. It's just a sunny, happy, fluffy (yes, I said fluffy- bunnies are fluffy) holiday. Oh, and it's Spring which means that it's relatively warm again after a long cold winter. Yay. :D

6. I HATE hair. Lemme explain. When it's in your head that's fine, but once it leaves your head (or anywhere else for that matter, yes I said that), it completely creeps me out. Gives me the willies. Yuck. I don't like touching it or seeing it, anything. My own hair is bad enough cuz it falls out constantly and I still have plenty on my head, but other people's hair completely grosses me out. I hate hair so much that I actually shave my arms, everyday. No, I'm not kidding. Everyday. I've done it for years. My nursing friends tease me about this because obviously I have lots and lots of hairy patients that I have to get pretty personal with and touch a lot. Yeah, it still totally freaks me out to touch their hairy bodies. Ok I can't think about this anymore, it's gonna give me nightmares.

(Oh, and Megan...this is a bonus #7- I can also touch my nose with my tongue. Honestly I think I have one of the longest tongues on earth. Yes, it's disgusting, I agree. No, I probably won't show it to you. Merry Christmas, hope you enjoyed reading this at work :)).

This isn't Celebrity Death Match

So clinicals were a little out of control tonight. They were loooong and at points kind of boring. Other points were cool. I won't give you details on seeing a circumcision done or feeling a fundus, cuz I'm pretty sure that just made some of you puke, but it wasn't all bad. There were some interesting moments. The problem moments were between my instructor and a certain individual (who will remain un-named although you could probably figure it out), they had somewhat of a disagreement. In other words, they despise each other. Basically they spent the entire shift venting about each other and we vented about this particular individual too. He irritates the staff, offends the patients, and pisses off our instructor, along with annoying all of our clinical group. We just dread all shift what's going to go wrong next with him...aka what he's going to do to piss someone else off and then my instructor has to try to fix it. Don't get me wrong, this individual is very nice and probably has good intentions he just goes about them all the wrong way. When he doesn't get his way he appeals to the person above the person he asked and so on until someone gets so irritated they just say yes to get him to just shut up and leave them alone. He thinks he's entitled to everything whenever he wants it. Lamesauce. Then he throws a hissy fit when he doesn't get his way. Good grief, we're not in grade school anymore, kids. These are our second degrees. Grow up!!

Anyways, my clinical instructor happens to be a very outspoken person (sound familiar?!). Except, unlike me, she uses very, um, filthy language when talking, especially when she's mad. Boy was she mad today....and at a student, even worse. She went off on this particular student to us several times while he was in another part of the hospital observing, then she came to "save us" from him during dinner, then when this particular student didn't show up for our presentations on time (like half an hour late) I thought she was going to blow a gasket. The cuss words flying around that room were a bit shocking. That's not the worst of it though...the worst is what he was calling her. He literally pulled my friend out of her patient's room (where her patient was giving birth) and started spouting off about our instructor and then decided that he was going to disregard our instructor's instructions anyways and go watch a C-Section that he wanted to see, just because he felt like it. He hates our instructor so he was complaining about her in the hallway to my poor friend. #1 Totally inappropriate place for that conversation (patients and families are all around and can hear everything you're saying), #2 Very unprofessional, #3 If you have a problem talk to the person you have the problem with, not everyone else, #4 Wow, I won't repeat the word he used to describe our instructor, but it's possibly THE most offensive word you can use to describe a female (no, I'm not kidding) and he said this is the hallway of the Labor/ Delivery floor. So needless to say, it was an unpleasant atmosphere in our post-conference tonight. Our instructor was confronting him as we were leaving....we bailed, we practically ran out of the building. Don't get me wrong, I don't usually back down from fights, but when you start resorting to name calling like we're 12 years old again and I think fists might actually get involved between 2 sober adults, I'm sorry I'm outta there. Good grief, buddy, grow up. Buck up and do your school work. She's the instructor with a Bachelor's and Master's and years of experience in this stuff why can't you just follow her instructions for once?? This isn't Celebrity Death Match, I didn't sign up for this.

Ok, that's just flat out X

It's been a while since I wrote a blog on my actual classes, sorry. Just for the record, my instructor was wrong, my slides say it's actually > 3-4 cups/day of caffeine that's unsafe for pregnant women, not 5. Still, that's a LOT.

I decided after my class last week that Drama Queen is just plain Anti-Estrogen in addition to the multitude of many other issues she has. But that would explain a lot if she is. She also just can't leave milk alone. She just has to bring it up every class. Basically my friends and I decided that "If you learned anything in this class, just don't drink milk." Ok, wow, I think I'm dumber for being here. My big mouth got me in serious trouble though last week. My friends call it my filter. The filter between my brain and my mouth. Yeah, sometimes it catches things before I say them out loud, often it does not. Hence the blog name. :) Anyways, we were doing a test review and the professor basically just reads the test to us. Awesome. So she's rattling off questions and (p.s. having 4 3rd semester accelerated nursing students sitting together in a 1st semester class is a really bad idea, we are just FULL of smart ass comments. I'm sure she thinks we're obnoxious know-it-alls who don't care...oh yeah, we are :P)....she's like asthma is caused by allergies and allergies are triggered by (here's her pause waiting for the answer and Jennie yells out)....."MILK !!!" Oh my gosh, I actually said that out loud!! Wow. Oops. Everyone just burst out laughing. Brilliant Jennie. It was like a knee jerk reaction, but I just couldn't resist giving the smart ass response. I don't know if she heard me, but people like 7 rows up from me were laughing, so apparently it was really loud. I'm sure she hates me now. Eh, oh well. She pretty much begged for that one. Oh, I'm so mean. Moving on...

Drama Queen also went off last week about Colorado and high altitudes. I'm from Colorado and I miss it horribly, I absolutely love that state. Ok that was a side note. She was talking about pulmonary edema (short explanation- fluid in the air sacs in the lungs) and how you can get it from hiking at high altitudes. Ok, granted that's true, but rare. But she basically sounded like a commercial for this drug Diamox that you can take that helps you breathe better. "I highly recommend that when you go to Colorado you get a prescription." Ha, that's the Florida girl talking. She talked about going hiking in Colorado and how it's SO high. blah blah blah Ok, I hiked a fourteener last year. It really wasn't that hard and it was totally worth it. Of course I was acclimated to Colorado altitude, but still it's not really THAT high. She's like, "they suggest you walk in, not fly." *Snort* City girl! Then of course she had to bring up Wyoming, Tibet and Peru and how the same thing happens in all those places too and you absolutely HAVE to get a prescription for Diamox before you go there because of course it worked for her. Uh huh, cuz she's so cultural. I swear by the time my class is over every week you'd think my eyes would be stuck in a permanent eye roll.

Ok, different class now...Stalker was really on one yesterday. This was great dialog between Stalker and my friend and I (at the back of the class of course, so he didn't hear us) though: [We were talking about epidurals and spinals that are given to women during labor] S: "So this is given after?" Us: "Because post-partum means what?" "When the baby is parted from the mother's body." Wow. I feel like my IQ drops every lecture. Apparently we need to go over basic definitions like "post" again. Unbelievable. People in my class (the same people, over and over and over again) kept asking the same questions too. Write it down people. You could tell my professor was getting ticked, she actually started being short with people. By this time my friend and I were having completely different discussions in the back of the class of course and laughing our heads off. That probably didn't help my professor's mood. Eh, I don't really care. We were annoyed too. Part of that discussion involved the fact that several people were wearing rather unusual hats in class. This is an example of what some sort of looked like. (this last one was on "uh-huh's head, if you remember him from my MySpace blogs, except it was much much smaller, as in it only covered the very top of his head, yeah weird). Ok here's the dialog now: "What's up with the hats today?" "Maybe it blocks the rain [it's been raining for 2 days straight now]." "It doesn't even cover their faces." "Maybe he has a problem losing body heat." "hahaha." "Apparently we're in Paris now." "I love it." :)

Alright I saved the worst for last. Since it's O.B. the pictures in our slides are rather graphic. (See the "Do I have what?! Shhh...." Doctor Porn blog for more explanation). My friend likes to point out that they also happen to be drawn anatomically incorrect. I decided that including one of those pictures was just a really bad idea and this is the commentary that resulted between said friend and I: "You're doing your part to de-sexualize medical conditions." LOL...actually that was from her friend and I just sat there and stared at her for a minute and was like, are you serious?! "That's not even remotely attractive." "Well I just think people need to know this." I still decided that including the pics was too graphic. This was her advice to me, "Well you did make your blog PG-13," and my response, "Ok, that's just flat out X." Uh yeah sorry, no pictures kids.

I am like a "Stah" from "Bah Hahbah"

(So I started this, but never finished it and now I’m going to try before I fall asleep). Like I said before, I flew to New Hampshire 2 weeks ago. My mom was born in Massachusetts (which is a really hard state to spell, by the way) and lived in New Hampshire for most of her life until her 20’s. So her family still lives in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. If you’ve ever seen “What about Bob?” the movie, Lake Winnipesaukee in that movie is where she grew up and where I go to visit. I’ve been going there basically almost every year or every 2 (sometimes 3) years since I was a baby. If you don’t already know, Boston is absolutely my FAVORITE city. I’m so in love with that city. I love everything about it. That’s a long story though and not something that I necessarily want to explain in this blog because it would require real writing (which, believe it or not, I can actually do…but you have to be pretty special to actually get to read something that I’ve written without sarcasm or anger and with actual sincere feeling). That’s pretty heavy writing and a little too deep for a blog though and that’s not what this is about, so moving on…Anyways, I’ve spent my fair share of time in the lake’s region of New Hampshire and in Massachusetts and Maine too, but I never get tired of going there and New England in the Fall is AMAZING!!

One of the reasons I particularly love going to New England is because I absolutely LOVE their accents. I think they’re hilarious! I do everything within my power to get my Uncle to say Porsche just so I can hear him say “Porscha” like we’re in Europe or something. Well he drives like we’re in Europe so we might as well be. He drives like an absolute maniac!! VERY fast and tails someone, whips around them, and then pulls right in front of them. People in New England are NOT nice drivers. They yell, honk, make rather rude gestures, etc. while driving. We told my Uncle that he drives way too fast because he was doing 90 mph driving to Massachusetts one day and he’s like “No I wasn’t.” Well on the way back, he of course was doing it again, so we pointed it out and he was like, “wow, well I thought I was going 60. Well it is 60, just upside down.” LOL, right. That’s SO comforting while we’re flying down the road doing 90 in the pouring rain with a psycho in the driver’s seat. It’s even better because they have these road signs everywhere that say “Drive courteously It’s the New Hampshire Way!” Yeah right. I burst out laughing when I first saw one. I really wanted a picture of one. I could never tour Europe with my Uncle either because it would be like “oh and that was Switzerland that we just passed. If you blinked, you missed it and we’re not going back.” My Uncle knows how to get to and from places, but the concept of being a tourist and wanting to take pictures and get out of the car is completely foreign to him. It’s like, what you wanted a picture of that thing, oh that one, that we just passed. Oops, sorry. Good grief. My smart ass comments from the back seat were pretty bad this trip, I do have to say. But there’s just something about my Uncle and his “My way or the highway” mentality that I just can’t keep my mouth shut. I guess I’m the highway. He’s never had anyone stand up to him before, I don’t think, so having his 25 year old niece (he’s in his early 70’s although he doesn’t really look it and he’s in better shape than most people I know) tell him off probably doesn’t go over very well, but he just asks for it. I am not a soft-spoken girl and I’m NOT a push-over, unlike my Mother and he’s used to that, being able to get his way all the time and push people around. It doesn’t work with me, though. I dish it right back and I think it ticks him off but it’s a challenge at the same time. I actually at one point during the week when he was arguing with my Mom started screaming at him and totally told him off. I called him a 5 year old and basically told him to shut it. It was awesome. He deserved it, though. Don’t get me wrong, I love my family and they definitely love me. I’m probably the favorite since I’m the only niece and the youngest grandchild/ niece and I still come to visit unlike my brothers. They spoil me and I know it, but they also irritate me. But what would a family be like if they weren’t dysfunctional on some level. Mine is just extra specially dysfunctional all the time. :D Not all of them, of course, just some of them, lol.

Anyways, I loved going down to Massachusetts to see more cousins too. One of my (I think we decided he’s a second cousin?, eh, they’re all just cousins to me) cousin’s wedding receptions was a couple of weeks ago while I was there, so we went down for it. I wish I knew those cousins better; I really want to spend more time around them. Especially the second cousins who are around my age. Maybe someday I’ll get to live in Boston. *Sigh* I would LOVE that. The accents when I’m around my family from Massachusetts are even better, too.

We also went to Maine. Maine has a very distinct smell. It’s like a mix of seaweed and saltwater. I love that smell though and I’ve discovered it’s very unique to Maine. I would live there too except that it’s stinkin’ cold, except when it’s really hot in the summer. New England is a summertime kind of place to be, but once it turns cold it’s REALLY cold and I HATE cold weather. I know, I know, the Colorado girl hates cold weather. Blah.

Oh, what I was saying about their cool accents...in Maine, Mass., and New Hampshire the accents are all slightly different. They all add and subtract “r’s,” and they just have slightly unique accents. Like in Maine they say… “A ‘Yuh Been to Maine.” Which comes out sounding like “a-ya ben tah Maine” or “ben they-yah” that’s about the best way I can describe it without saying it. They also add a "h" to the end of words when they take out the "r." Like I saw a t-shirt that said "Green Monstah," so typical to Maine. At the moment though, you’re probably saying here’s a quarter (pronounced kinda like Cor-ta with the Cor like you’re gonna hock a loogie, no I’m not kidding. I’ll even say it for you sometime) call someone in the “nahth” who cares. :P

1R

I have a new favorite band. Actually if you look back at one of my previous blogs. I posted "Apologize" by OneRepublic a long time ago, so it's not really new. But they don't even have a CD out yet, it comes out November 20th and I'm totally buying it on November 20th. :) But guess what?! I just found out they're coming to Annapolis on November 10th. I WANNA GO!!!!!!! Who wants to go with me? Some of their music is on my MySpace profile as well as clips that are on my Facebook profile. They're amazing. I've even tried to find their music illegally on the Internet and can't find it. Boooo...that's how much I like it. Sad. I guess I can wait another month until the CD comes out. But the concert...seriously, who wants to go?!