So this is old news now, and her name isn't really Susie but I called her Susie in a previous post, but my dear friend and boo for life Nicole is engaged! I'm mentioning this because I felt like not studying and this is probably the most exciting news since my last post.
Hmm, what else is new. I'm in my last year of my undergraduate career! It's crazy! Today at my internship I got to train one of the newbies on how to tag pictures of coral. Luckily I don't really have to do that anymore since I can do sample sorting, because tagging is probably the most boring thing in the world. But it was funny, she is in the exact same position as I was in when I started interning there exactly a year ago. 3rd year, taking almost all the same classes I was, same major.. it made me feel slightly nostalgic even though it was only a year ago.
Oh also, I'm not living in Isla Vista this year. I never thought I would say this, but I kinda miss living there. Even though it is ridiculously loud, and gross, and bug infested, and expensive, and did I mention loud? It was nice to be so close to everyone, I feel kind of far away. I don't live that far away but still, I can't just walk over to my friend's apartment. Living away from it is really nice though, it's super quiet and I have my own room and bathroom. Can't beat that. Plus I can always hang out in IV, it's not like I never go there. So overall I like the new living situation.
I can't think of anything else remotely interesting to say about my life, so I'm going to close with this: I cannot overemphasize how much I appreciate it when people show their appreciation for my efforts. It just shows me that it was worth it. Today someone thanked me for something I did, and it wasn't even like it required much effort on my end, but the person was so appreciative and it just made me happy. So yay for that.
Adios amigos.
Postscript. Thank YOU if you actually read this, I appreciate it. :)
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Friday, May 13, 2011
SPF
About 4 years ago I went through probably the most scary few days of my life. I went to the doctor, and she told me that I had 3 suspicious moles on my back. Everyone knows that I have a billion moles, but I never really thought that they were dangerous. She immediately removed them for biopsies and tried to remain calm but she seemed..nervous. Everything happened so fast, and the paper that went off to the lab with my moles read "Melanoma suspected."
MELANOMA? Skin cancer? Suspected? I was left with painful wounds (luckily my mom was there to help me change the bandaging every day, even that was painful) and this sense of tremendous fear that I had a deadly disease. Not to mention I had to stop working as a swim instructor just a few days before the session was over. I did so much research and found a lot of good stories about surviving and everything going fine, but I also found a lot of tragic stories about young people dying because they hadn't caught it early enough, and it had spread to their vital organs.
Who knew if I had caught it early enough? What if I was going to die from this in a few years or even less?
I was terrified. Here is an entry I wrote in my journal:
(First some background, in the entry prior I had said I wanted bigger boobs and a really expensive camera)
"6/13/07
So, I'm changing what I want. I want to NOT have melanoma. But since I most likely do, I want desperately to be in stage 0. That would be just fabulous.
CANCER SUCKS!
This is so unfair. I am NEVER EVER tanning again. EVER. Fake tans for me.
God, please let it be in stage 0. Or maybe even stage 1, but preferably stage 0. That would be great.
I have to wait 10-12 f***ing days for the biopsy results. I'm gonna go crazy. I'm losing my mind. Please dear God don't let me do chemotherapy or radiation. I just wanna live and graduate and go to college. Oh so badly. I'm not ready for this. At all.
How can this be happening? This was supposed to be the best summer ever. It's quickly seeming like one of the worst. And there have been some pretty bad ones.
I'm so scared. I'm trying so hard to be optimistic. But it's so hard to be optimistic when the word "cancer" keeps ringing in my head. It's such an ugly word. Ew."
(I went on for a while longer repeating how scared I was and how unfair it was.. you get the idea.)
Those days waiting to hear the results were the most torturous of my life. I felt so many emotions all the time and I didn't know what to do with them all. I remember being out in the backyard with my mom and I sat down in a chair and the chair broke because it was an old flimsy chair and I just burst into tears uncontrollably. Not because I broke the chair but because I felt broken myself.
I was very fortunate, because that was the worst of it.
"6/20/07
YAY!! I don't have cancer. Thank the Lord. I'm so happy. And I feel so loved. Everyone is so relieved. And Chris called and told me that Mom called him and told him and that he was happy and relieved. He's so sweet.
I can't stop crying. But this time they're happy tears.
I was so scared that I was gonna have melanoma and that I'd have to go through all this stuff and that I might die. And I am so NOT ready to die. Not even a little bit.
This whole scary experience just made me more aware of how much I value my life. And how I need to be really careful about the sun. BUT I AM JUST SO F***ING HAPPY! :)
Happy to be alive. Just like my girl Sydney. Every day she wakes up and prances around like a puppy. She's just happy to be alive.
I finally stopped crying."
Basically, that experience is why I'm so pale. I used to be tan all the time because I was always out in the sun (swim team, soccer, swim lesson teaching.. just the love of the outdoors) and did not wear sunblock as much as I should have. But now the scars on my back remind me of what I went through because of it, and I know it could have been a lot worse. I am much more careful about the sun now.
However, as the years passed since then I seem to have gotten complacent. I went to Catalina a few weeks ago, and of course I wore sunblock. But I was out in the sun for extended periods of time and didn't reapply as I should have, and I ended up with a sunburn. Now I have a nice tan (at least, for me) but also damage to my skin that I can't afford. My brother reminded me that I really need to be careful with this video, and it's so true. We all need to be careful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4jgUcxMezM
Postscript. An old blog that I'm finally posting. Cheers.
MELANOMA? Skin cancer? Suspected? I was left with painful wounds (luckily my mom was there to help me change the bandaging every day, even that was painful) and this sense of tremendous fear that I had a deadly disease. Not to mention I had to stop working as a swim instructor just a few days before the session was over. I did so much research and found a lot of good stories about surviving and everything going fine, but I also found a lot of tragic stories about young people dying because they hadn't caught it early enough, and it had spread to their vital organs.
Who knew if I had caught it early enough? What if I was going to die from this in a few years or even less?
I was terrified. Here is an entry I wrote in my journal:
(First some background, in the entry prior I had said I wanted bigger boobs and a really expensive camera)
"6/13/07
So, I'm changing what I want. I want to NOT have melanoma. But since I most likely do, I want desperately to be in stage 0. That would be just fabulous.
CANCER SUCKS!
This is so unfair. I am NEVER EVER tanning again. EVER. Fake tans for me.
God, please let it be in stage 0. Or maybe even stage 1, but preferably stage 0. That would be great.
I have to wait 10-12 f***ing days for the biopsy results. I'm gonna go crazy. I'm losing my mind. Please dear God don't let me do chemotherapy or radiation. I just wanna live and graduate and go to college. Oh so badly. I'm not ready for this. At all.
How can this be happening? This was supposed to be the best summer ever. It's quickly seeming like one of the worst. And there have been some pretty bad ones.
I'm so scared. I'm trying so hard to be optimistic. But it's so hard to be optimistic when the word "cancer" keeps ringing in my head. It's such an ugly word. Ew."
(I went on for a while longer repeating how scared I was and how unfair it was.. you get the idea.)
Those days waiting to hear the results were the most torturous of my life. I felt so many emotions all the time and I didn't know what to do with them all. I remember being out in the backyard with my mom and I sat down in a chair and the chair broke because it was an old flimsy chair and I just burst into tears uncontrollably. Not because I broke the chair but because I felt broken myself.
I was very fortunate, because that was the worst of it.
"6/20/07
YAY!! I don't have cancer. Thank the Lord. I'm so happy. And I feel so loved. Everyone is so relieved. And Chris called and told me that Mom called him and told him and that he was happy and relieved. He's so sweet.
I can't stop crying. But this time they're happy tears.
I was so scared that I was gonna have melanoma and that I'd have to go through all this stuff and that I might die. And I am so NOT ready to die. Not even a little bit.
This whole scary experience just made me more aware of how much I value my life. And how I need to be really careful about the sun. BUT I AM JUST SO F***ING HAPPY! :)
Happy to be alive. Just like my girl Sydney. Every day she wakes up and prances around like a puppy. She's just happy to be alive.
I finally stopped crying."
Basically, that experience is why I'm so pale. I used to be tan all the time because I was always out in the sun (swim team, soccer, swim lesson teaching.. just the love of the outdoors) and did not wear sunblock as much as I should have. But now the scars on my back remind me of what I went through because of it, and I know it could have been a lot worse. I am much more careful about the sun now.
However, as the years passed since then I seem to have gotten complacent. I went to Catalina a few weeks ago, and of course I wore sunblock. But I was out in the sun for extended periods of time and didn't reapply as I should have, and I ended up with a sunburn. Now I have a nice tan (at least, for me) but also damage to my skin that I can't afford. My brother reminded me that I really need to be careful with this video, and it's so true. We all need to be careful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4jgUcxMezM
Postscript. An old blog that I'm finally posting. Cheers.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
I have...
a bazillion gazillion drafts that I haven't published. Some where I'm really happy, some where I'm severely depressed, some where I use quite a bit of foul language... Some are extremely well written (if I do say so myself...) but never completed. Some I really want to publish but I would first have to edit a few things, and I'm much too lazy for that. So, they shall remain as drafts for the time being. They date all the way back to over 2 years ago when I first started this blog thing. It's kind of funny seeing my mood and personality transition over the years.
In the meantime, I guess I'll post a new one. I don't think anyone really reads this. I haven't made it very publicly known. I think I posted a link to it on my facebook status once, so anyone who saw it then knows about it but even then I don't think they still read it. So I never really know who I'm blogging to, besides my brother and one other random follower haha. But that's okay, this is more for my own benefit than anything. I write to soothe my soul. It's all purely selfish.
So, uh, I don't really have a lot to say. Life has been going pretty well, but also going by way too fast. I'll be graduating in a little over a year. That's insane! I have absolutely NO idea what I'm going to do once I graduate. I mean, I have some ideas floating around, but who knows.
Every quarter I have the goal of straight A's, and I have gotten close.. but this quarter I'm going to actually do it! I can feel it! I mean I'm only taking 13 units... it can't be that hard. I got an A on my Spanish 114C midterm.. and I have a feeling I'll get an A in the class since it's the same professor I had for Spanish 100 last quarter.. and the class is EXACTLY the same so far. Also I had a midterm this afternoon for EEMB142C and I think I did well. Not trying to brag, but ..who's even reading this anyway? Who cares? Maybe I am bragging, no one would ever know! lol.
Also, I am going to get back into shape. My excuse for the break in working out has been this lingering cold thing going on, but that's finally just about cleared up so I can't use it as an excuse for much longer. I am the proud owner of Insanity, so I will be forcing myself to get back into that soon and then in 60 days I will have a beach body, woo!
It's not like I have a ton of free time, though. I really should be working on my chem lab that's due tomorrow morning at 8am sharp, but you know how it is. I'm almost done, so that means I'll have to squander my time for about another hour and then rush to finish it so I can go to bed early so I can get up early and not be late.
Speaking of being late, I ruined my perfect on time streak at work. First, my Saturday morning shift, but I was only like 4 minutes late so it really wasn't that big of a deal, but I think that was my first time being late in my almost year of working at the library. But THEN, yesterday morning. My shift started at 8, I woke up at..... 8:10. I left the apartment by 8:19, hahah. It was the fastest I've ever gotten ready I think, and of course I looked like crap during my whole shift but oh well. I was 26 minutes late :( (I biked all the way there, parked my bike, ran inside and clocked in all in 7 minutes though, pretty impressive huh?) I'm sad, that probably ruins any chance I might have maybe had at being employee of the month, I mean it was really the only thing going for me and now it's gone haha. jk. Kind of. ...
Okay that's enough rambling about that. I guess I'll work on my discussion, even though I really don't want to.
Adios <3
Postscript. Happy 420 to those who celebrate! I didn't, but I think the guy two seats over from me did right before my midterm.. hahah.
In the meantime, I guess I'll post a new one. I don't think anyone really reads this. I haven't made it very publicly known. I think I posted a link to it on my facebook status once, so anyone who saw it then knows about it but even then I don't think they still read it. So I never really know who I'm blogging to, besides my brother and one other random follower haha. But that's okay, this is more for my own benefit than anything. I write to soothe my soul. It's all purely selfish.
So, uh, I don't really have a lot to say. Life has been going pretty well, but also going by way too fast. I'll be graduating in a little over a year. That's insane! I have absolutely NO idea what I'm going to do once I graduate. I mean, I have some ideas floating around, but who knows.
Every quarter I have the goal of straight A's, and I have gotten close.. but this quarter I'm going to actually do it! I can feel it! I mean I'm only taking 13 units... it can't be that hard. I got an A on my Spanish 114C midterm.. and I have a feeling I'll get an A in the class since it's the same professor I had for Spanish 100 last quarter.. and the class is EXACTLY the same so far. Also I had a midterm this afternoon for EEMB142C and I think I did well. Not trying to brag, but ..who's even reading this anyway? Who cares? Maybe I am bragging, no one would ever know! lol.
Also, I am going to get back into shape. My excuse for the break in working out has been this lingering cold thing going on, but that's finally just about cleared up so I can't use it as an excuse for much longer. I am the proud owner of Insanity, so I will be forcing myself to get back into that soon and then in 60 days I will have a beach body, woo!
It's not like I have a ton of free time, though. I really should be working on my chem lab that's due tomorrow morning at 8am sharp, but you know how it is. I'm almost done, so that means I'll have to squander my time for about another hour and then rush to finish it so I can go to bed early so I can get up early and not be late.
Speaking of being late, I ruined my perfect on time streak at work. First, my Saturday morning shift, but I was only like 4 minutes late so it really wasn't that big of a deal, but I think that was my first time being late in my almost year of working at the library. But THEN, yesterday morning. My shift started at 8, I woke up at..... 8:10. I left the apartment by 8:19, hahah. It was the fastest I've ever gotten ready I think, and of course I looked like crap during my whole shift but oh well. I was 26 minutes late :( (I biked all the way there, parked my bike, ran inside and clocked in all in 7 minutes though, pretty impressive huh?) I'm sad, that probably ruins any chance I might have maybe had at being employee of the month, I mean it was really the only thing going for me and now it's gone haha. jk. Kind of. ...
Okay that's enough rambling about that. I guess I'll work on my discussion, even though I really don't want to.
Adios <3
Postscript. Happy 420 to those who celebrate! I didn't, but I think the guy two seats over from me did right before my midterm.. hahah.
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