Holy Snowy

We've all been busy. Plus, I'm around almost everyone who reads this anyway. School real quick....passed respiratory. I did the best I have ever done on a final simply by slowing down and being okay with leaving later in the exam. I guess I'll have to do that from now on.

Christmas was awesome. I'll update more about the fun stuff later. On to business.

Old Man Winter is ripping the Northwest a new one. Seriously. We have had over 50 inches of snow fall in just a little over a week. Crazy. Thank goodness we live on a cul de sac or our driveway would have been plowed it. The massive amount of snow hasn't kept us from doing things (we live on an arterial), but plenty of people have been snowed it. A lot of our family couldn't/didn't want to try to make it over for Grandpa's Mass on the 23rd. We'll see if Amanda ever gets home. I think Racheal's flight was cancelled this morning (not sure about that). The boys are out putting snow not in the driveway. This is hard though becuase the snow blower has run out of room to throw the snow. It just can't get over the mounds anymore. This is ridiculous. We are supposed to get more today. I am also supposed to get my new phone and a haircut today. We'll see if either happens. I'll update more about the Christmas at a later time. Good luck to all of you stuck in the snow.

Whoop

We had our last classes of respiratory today. Yay! I have histo lab and small group tomorrow (blow), but that is it until the final on Friday. Now I just need to actually sit and study. That won't be too hard with the weather the way it is. Today was a nice -5 on my way to school. That was without windchill. -30 with it. Wow. May have to wear a hat tomorrow. We are supposed to get a little bit of snow. We will see if that turns up.

Friday night a whole bunch of us got together at Renee's for an almost-adult Christmas party. I made chocolate covered pretzels. Everyone else made fancy finger food. I'm all about the simplicity. It was a lot of fun. Saturday the weather was awesome (50 or so), so after I got my wits about me from the night before, we went out walking. We went to the outdoor mall; we walked on a big trial near the apartment. It was a great day overall. Then Sunday hit. And it got cold. 50 degree swing in less than 16 hours. Awesome. We had our secret santa exchange / brunch after I arrived after church. That was fun too. Yay for new PJs!!!!!!

Matt leaves on Thursday, so I have been trying to plan food so that we nicely run out Thursday night. 2 weeks ins't a long time, but it is long enough to not want to open the bag you have sitting in you fridge.

MOVIES!!!
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
I had never heard of this one, but I am very happy that I put it on the list. It was another one of those dark humor ones. Like an action-comedy (heck, there's a romantic comedy section, why can't this exist) but not in a "that wasn't really funny, why are you laughing?" type of way nor in a "cheesey bad lines" type of way. It was well written with a lot of good dialogue. There was enough forward movement to keep me from getting bored, which is hard to do in a movie that is both action and comedy (in my opinion). This is not a movie if you don't like swearing. 7.7/10

Fred Claus
No, not Vince Vaughn's best work, but it was definetly more of a family movie. It almost brought a little tear to my eye. Parts of it seemed to get a little long (it has 1h50m), but overall I didn't get too bored with it. Matt had a hard time suspending his imagination for this one. They also actually made it seem like santa can make toys that mattell makes. On a sidenote, that is exactly how I came to realize that santa couldn't exist - all the movies showed him making wooden toys. I never got wooden toys. Then I thought...maybe he bought them all. Then I realized that that would cost a lot of money. Back to the movie, if you have kids and want a Christmas movie, 6.5/10 (w/ Muppet's Christmas Carol being 10/10).

December

The cold weather has REALLY finally hit. We have yet to actually get snow thank goodness. I only have to make it 1 more week.

Respiratory is harder than I thought it was going to be. Hence the lack of updates. Maybe it is just me comparing it to psych, but I am definitely struggling. I talked to an M3 though who said that respiratory was harder her and most of her friends as well.

Not much as been going on. On Saturday night we went to Indian food w/ Amy. It was a little overpriced for the meat to rice ratio. They service wasn't very good, but I expected that. Most family run places, in my opinion, don't have the best service. Heck, even Linnie's at home has not so good service, but I love the food. Food was okay. I prefer Thai over Indian any day. Amy then came over and watched Anchorman w/ us. She had never seen it, and during the whole movie, she kept saying, "Oh, that's why people say that." It is a pretty quoted movie.

Had my last clinic for a semester today. Nothing too exciting there. Fewer drug seekers today; more "problem" (read annoying) patients. A little girl gave my legs a hug, which is always cute. Only 2 more days of classes!!!!! I'm out.

It's hard

It is hard to get back in the swing of things (as you can tell from the lack of posts) after about 3 weeks of vacation. Okay, yes, I had class, but it was easy. Now on to respiratory. I'll talk about that in a minute.

Turkey Day was......country. The plus about holidays w/ other people's families: you don't eat as much. Or at least I don't. Because none of it tastes as good as your mom's. Sigh. So...yeah. We were right about here. Middle of nowhere. I'm glad we drove in the light. Tons of dead deer on the side of the road. We get there...deer head boiling in the backyard. People shooting clay pigeons w/ shotguns. Like I said, country. This wasn't like going to someone's cabin about 15 minutes of the main road. This was miles/an hour off the interstate. I'm grateful that I had people to be with, but it was definitely interesting.

We then drove to KC to drop Betsy and Jon off as well as to look around. It was cool. But we got bored and drove home on Friday afternoon. All in all it was a very relaxing weekend.

Class is rough. I don't know if I have a carrier in the lung fields. It seems like you judge everything according to how much if any sputum they cough up. And my x-rays that all look the same to me. Then you take a biopsy and let the lab decide. No, I have no real evidence of what their job is like, but from the sound of lectures, that is my best guess. It is a short class: only 12 days of classes. We have 8 left. Quiz on this coming Monday. We'll see

Today was the first REALLY cold day. I mean break out the heavy winter coat and not just the hoody + fleece I've been pulling. Walking back from the gym a sweaty mess? Not fun. But I refuse to drive 4 blocks to work out.

Movies we've watched lately
Good Will Hunting: I had never actually seen this. I liked it a lot. Even though it wasn't action packed, the dialogue was awesome. I sometimes have a hard time getting behind any character that Minnie Driver plays, but her sort of small role was manageable for me. I'm not sure if Matt Damon can do anything but a Boston accent (yes, I know he is from there). Ben Affleck once again proved himself to be better off screen than on. He was okay in this, but for the most part he should just write. Robin Williams is harry. 8/10

Amazon Jungle: Matt's choice. Soft core bad porn (if I had to guess that is). This was awful. I lost 72minutes of my life. And 1000 brain cells. -100000000/10

Amelie: I like the name b/c it was a character in a book I read senior year of high school. Also, I had heard great things. It was very artsy. And in French. I think a lot of humor is lost in translation (not trying to copy that movie title there) b/c this movie had lines that were somewhat humorous but didn't come across just right. I'd take it or leave it. 5/10

Did I write about House of Sand and Fog? If I did, stop reading. Let me tell you: this was a depressing movie. And I watched it by myself. I don't remember much about it other than it was depressing. I prefer Jennifer Connelly saying "You have no power over me" to David Bowie in spandex 6/10