OK so many of you fellow bloggers have that twitter thingy and I vaguely know what it is. For those of you less savvy than even I am from what I can tell twitter is like facebook's status updates on steroids. You basically write relatively short one liners and can reply to other people's "tweets". Facebook has recently made it so you can comment on other people's status updates so perhaps they are practically the same at this point. I see them on many of the blogs I read and several bloggers talk about their twitterings and such. I was delurked by the lovely Mrs. Watlz via her twitter, that was quite amusing!
Now I figure you see where this is going, I am contemplating getting this twitter thing. Sometimes I come up with what I feel are hilarious thoughts but they are only one liner type things and so not really enough to support being a blog post but that does not make them unworthy of being shared. Sometimes this is probably a good thing though since sometimes when I am sleep deprived and feeling sickly the stuff I come up with is decidedly not funny, unfortunately I am in this state a lot lately (I have an appointment with Doc next week so no worries). That part aside I have been neglecting facebook for the most part and have been trying to go on it more to keep up with some of my people and at first I really enjoyed the new status comments thing but then I started getting swamped with the back and forthing of it. I am used to skype, which is almost instant not the facebook thing that has a lag time and at least for me seems to dump the comment backs on me all at once. And of course if I were playing on twitter I would have less blog reading and writing time most likely. But on the other hand all the cool bloggers are doing it and if McMommy jumped off a bridge I just might follow suit.
And so dear readers I would like to know what you think about twitter. I get confused reading other peoples' twitter things since it only tells you what they write and if they are replying to someone else it will say that name but not give the original comment. Is it less confusing if you are one of the Twitterers? Can't I just con you all into going on skype instead? Of course that could cause the blogosphere to crash, all of us would be too busy cracking ourselves up on skype to blog, unless we posted the conversations on our blogs taking turns or something... Who all thinks I should go for this twitter thing? If there are enough people pimping it I'll probably try it, no promises that I will and if I do that I will keep it. Thanks!
On a different note, do I have any Jewish readers? If so please let me know if "stealing" the dreidel song would potentially offend you. I made a song about how to label chemicals in the lab for the lab jerk who can't seem to get it through his thick skull that there are laws/rules that apply to him too, it is definitely not vulgar like my last song. I didn't really have any qualms about the last one since it is "my" song, but I definitely do not want to offend someone of another faith, especially one I respect and admire and that has way better songs than mine! Seriously I can listen to the dreidel song all day but you start playing most Christmas songs and I am sick of them very quickly. Thanks for letting us steal your religion to make ours ;). Oh and thanks for producing the best doctor ever!
So I have mentioned my good friend Ian before a time or two, and there will be more mentions of him if I ever get around to editing and posting another spotlight on nutrition video I took awhile ago (there are several of those along with other vids rotting away on my hard drive). He is a music major and I have to admit that at first I was kinda skeptical about the whole music major thing since the arts tend to be glutted. Then I heard him sing, holy crap that boy is crazy talented! He doesn't just sing either, he writes music too. I LOVE this composition he wrote for class, it has its own tab on my firefox browser so I can play it whenever I want, and usually listen to it on a daily basis because it puts out happy vibes that make me smile:
Now for my credentials, I am a bored grad student who sometimes has a spark of creativity and can't sing. Ask Uncle Richard if you don't believe me, he is my concert buddy and so has actually heard the train wreck that is my singing. Or better yet ask Niecey, she tells me to stop when I sing along with the radio when taking her out and about (I admit I ham it up just to harass her). Most of my musical talent lies in my ability to play the radio. I am also able to play CDs and get the songs from them onto my computer and from there to my mp3 thingy (thanks to Pasha, knower of all things tech and saver of this non-techie's butt in tech situations over my head).
Today I have to work. Last night I was up literally all night long feeling miserable (GI issues, I am so not eating dinner tonight and having a third night in a row like this, if you read this Doc* I have a few tricks to try before calling you to discuss my terms of GI referral surrender, I am not going down without a fight! And one meal won't kill me, I have chocolate and ensure!), I decided to go in and inoculate for tomorrow's run earlier than normal and then come home and sleep a bit and then go back and finish my work. I was eating whatever that meal is that you eat when you go to bed for a few hours in the afternoon and wake up and eat cereal because you are from the north and the thought of eating anything heavier when you wake up makes you feel ill (not GI and GI issue related), and then heard the rain and sleet start to get really bad. I'd already seen the radar earlier and knew that this band was going to be nasty and last forever and go from freezing rain into snow. Can't remember if they were saying 1-2 inches of snow in the afternoon and another 1-2 tonight or if it was 1-2 total, either way it sucks. The only good thing about the snow part is that sometimes it combines with the ice in such a way to provide traction (until the university brushes it off the sidewalks leaving the extremely slick ice behind, you think they'd learn in 150 years!). So I see the horridness that is the weather in this region this time of year as I know since I have lived in the midwest all my life but still I am pissed, I HATE winter!
Then something triggers in my disoriented brain and I decide to rewrite "Deck the Halls" into a song describing the tip of the iceberg of my feelings about the weather, I don't think it is possible to adequately describe how loathsome and vile I find winter. I put it into a skype chat that is populated be my sister's friends that I have been adopted into and by and now consider the majority to be my friends as well. Ian saw this and ran with it, he changed it up a touch where I lacked in rhyming ability and I nearly fell off my chair at the ending I was laughing so hard. I've been harassing him to record my songs before, this one had the good fortune of him seeing it when he actually had everything set up and was recording another song. OK totally hilarious, literally as I typed that line he linked the song I was referring to which he had put on the uploading back burner to get our Deck the Halls collaboration up, it is amazing so check it out, especially if the song this post is about offends you, it will totally win you back over it is that good! Disclaimer:The F-word is featured VERY heavily in this song, if you are offended by this do not listen (nor click the F-word link, which is one of my favorites), if you have children present or are at work you may want to consider waiting. Or you can use Auntie Cheryl's rule and tell them, "Never repeat the horrible things Auntie Cheryl (or Auntie Kee and Ian in this case) says!" so you can listen to what I am quite proud of (non-profane lyrics below):
Here are the lyrics minus the swearing: Deck the trees with freezing rain. 'Tis the season to be lame. Don we now our not gay like Ian's winter apparel**. Troll the sidewalks for not slick patches. See the blazing snow come after. Strike the sidewalk and break our [butts]***. Follow me in dreary weather. While I say it's bad as ever. Fast away the driveability passes. [Heck] this sucks ye lads and lasses.****
And now, those of you who have not been driven away by my vulgarity (all of which is mine, Ian did not add any), I have to get ready to brave this storm so I can try to get to bed early so I can somehow get my butt to work at 10am (instead of 11am, ew!). Too bad the secret motivation blog members would probably kill me if I joined them since I am struggling to keep on and at times gain weight, seriously how could they not want to kill me when one of my goals would be "maintain/gain weight without resorting to eating own weight in chocolate" (and two of them have my address!). At risk of hate comments/mail I envy those who want to lose weight, I've actually been there and looking back it was so much better, much less painful.
~~~~~Copy LiteralDan Section*****~~~~~ *My doctor knows about my blog and has the URL but most likely does not have time to actually read it, seriously he has to read doctor stuff to stay ahead of my broken self as well as take care of his other, probably much less ornery, patients many of which are athletes and he has to go to their stuff and make sure natural selection doesn't select against the more valuable ones (hasn't lost one yet, go Doc!). My little disclaimers are there in part because it amuses me to pretend he reads and in case he does because he does care and I don't want to worry him too much and in this one give him a heads up that most likely I will be seeing him in the next couple weeks. Him being awesome earned him that at great expense to myself since he is way sharper and quicker witted than I, even with me prepped and him not for what I am going to throw at him, so really I am giving him even more of an advantage. Though I do have a good one up my sleeve... **The use of the word gay is not meant to be offensive in any way except to Uggs, Ian wears the same ones as his mommy (she totally is copying him). Ian and I both love gay people and I love making fun of his Uggs. ***The real lyrics use the more vulgar word for the posterior... ****Yeah, little stronger than heck and I suppose I'm borderline on sucks, when I was a kid it was considered a swear but I think that society has excepted that as being a bit rude but not an actual profanity. *****I seem to have started something here, Nonna and Sibling have both started copying me copying LiteralDan. I get minion points for having underminions right Dan? Either way it totally cracks me up!
Yesterday I went to the clinic and my amazing nurse sprayed the live attenuated flu vaccine up my nose (get vaccinated!). On the way back to my building across campus I decided I was hungry and since the library is between the clinic and my building and has a cafe this seemed like a good choice. The problem with this location is that the sidewalk leading into the library is a "free speech zone", and is often populated by clubs/people pushing an agenda. It is potentially irritating enough under normal circumstances but as we are quickly approaching the season finally of the "reality" show that is this year's presidential election (November 4, 2008: Find out who the American people will give the rose to and who will get voted off the island. Obama wins the swim suit competition but there is something about a man in uniform...), this area is often infested with annoying politically minded individuals. What's a poor microbiologist to do you ask? Why what she does every night, try to take over the world... oh wait wrong show. The trick to making it through this area unbothered is to not make eye-contact, walk quickly, and look occupied. Luckily for me my wonderful nurse gave me the vaccine info sheet, so I suddenly became engrossed in "reading" it and made it past all of them unscathed. I almost lost it at the register to vote table, they had a hilarious poster thing with people shaped cardboard cut outs with black and white pictures of the candidates' faces stuck on the heads. I wanted to get a picture but there were people manning the table that smell attention just as sharks sense blood. So I made it past the insanity sidewalk and went to the cafe. All the sandwiches looked gross* and so I decided to not bother with solid foods (I could totally have gotten a cookie, you should all be totally impressed with my healthy choice!) and went to look at the drinks. I found this "health" drink stuff and looked at all the weird juices and concoctions they had to offer while longingly thinking about the AE milk in the next cooler over (I am a milkoholic but need more than just dairy in my diet). I decided the "Chocolate Protein" drink looked the most useful and had the highest probability of being drinkable, plus I decided that it was probably something my dietitian would approve of since she was talking about me drinking ensure and stuff like it to replace meals I don't eat. I think Doc and I need to have a chit chat about the dietitian thing, not sure she is "what the doctor ordered". Perhaps if I go through with the follow up with her it will be more useful if I have more of an idea of what we are aiming at with my seeing her. I have very mixed and confused feelings/thoughts after my first visit with her. Some of it reminded me of the last time I "allowed" Doc to refer me, which was a disaster**.
I actually had warmed up to the idea of seeing her (shh don't tell Doc, it would ruin my reputation) and was hoping she might have had some suggestions of foods I could eat and not get as sick on but she didn't really. Most of the time was spent with my defending myself because she could only see parts of my chart and on paper without context I come off as the worst patient ever to plague a doctor and that I was a waste of his time and hers and she was a waste of mine. But then she switched a bit and wants me to follow up next month, my sucking up to try and get her to not hate me and not think I am a total waste of everyone's time worked I guess. Not sure if she is going to earn a place on Team Karen or not, I think giving her one more try is in order but if the second visit is like the first then I won't go back again. I have enough trouble with feeling like I am a hypochondriac whining to Doc as much as I do and often allow my condition to get really bad before I cave and call him, and like many people I have insecurity issues that cause me to feel that I am a waste of his time (he does NOT make me feel this way). It has taken me quite awhile to realize this and I have been trying to overcome it since it is not healthy to let things go as much as I do, but having a professional practically tell me I am a waste of time does not help.
Anyway, back on topic, I bought the chocolate soymilk drink and left the library. This time I messed up, I glanced back at the poster that amused me earlier and one of the voter registration kids caught me. I quickly told her I already registered and intend to vote but thanks and she threw back a request that I volunteer to help them out, even if for only an hour. I told her sorry but I can't, need to be back in the lab and then I walked away as quick as possible. I am so not standing outside in the freezing cold to try and con idiot children to vote, I figure that if someone is not registered at this point that they have no intention of doing so and that is their choice, besides they are either informed and hate all the candidates or not informed and I don't like the idea of them voting anyway if that is the case. After making it out of that area I took my drink back to my office and made a video for your enjoyment, I think this is the first time I have ever drank soymilk, I've tried a few soy products but not that. Note I did not go to the campus book store, I have no idea why I said that since I am boycotting them and have been boycotting them for a year (they screwed me over). I was too lazy to redo it and besides my camera was running low on battery so it may not have been able to take another video. So here you go, my first soymilk experience and a product review on it.
~~~~~Copy LiteralDan Section~~~~~ *I am a picky eater in general but with my stomach issues I have become extremely picky since I have trouble digesting and can have a food "haunt" me for many hours. The food looked fresh and perfectly edible if it didn't contain nasty (by my definition) ingredients. **What Doc says goes in the end, he lets me have input (awesome!) and he will let me get away with stuff as long as it won't hurt me so it is kinda like getting my own way and makes me feel more in control of my issues (which some days I totally need). If Doc says I am going to the GI then I am going to the GI, I try and convince him not to send me because I don't like the idea of it and I hated the last doc he sent me to (wrist doc). It is all his fault, if he wasn't so perfectly suited to my personality and the best doctor ever then I would not be quite as reluctant to see someone else. Another factor is the thought of cameras being shoved everywhere and it costing me who knows how much to run worthless tests (I have insurance but it is best for clinic visits). I find the whole thing kinda scary, especially if Doc "gives up" on me, psychologically I kind of see it as if he lets me get away with my crap that means I am not as sick.
The second post on this blog was a conversation I had with my baby sibling Cheryl. I had just started my blog and figured out how to edit and make a link on that first post. I was quite pleased with my awesome tech savviness and so bragged about it to Baby Sibling. On that post, NukeDad, the one who helped push me over the edge of indecision about starting this blog made this comment:
And guess what dear reader(s), she did! Life of an Unmarried Housewife was born on Friday September 19th 2008. So if you need your sibling's future told just go on over and give NukeDad a visit, tell him the microblogologist sent you. Hmmm, I wonder what is in store for Middle Sister...
So I added google analytics after Sue at Happy Hour and Happy Meals said I had to. Not one to disobey one of the most hilarious bloggers on the planet I clicked the link and struggled with my technical unsavyness and got it working*. As of last night I have 100 hits from the USA, 5 from Canada, 2 from the Netherlands, 1 from the Philippines, 1 from France, 1 from Australia, and 1 from the UK. So thank you my fellow Americans for clicking on my site 100 times**! I guess I have to work on my international appeal a bit, I am friends with a Chinese couple if that counts, and the lab I work in is run by a professor from Guyana.
Oh and a thank you also goes to Loren, her site is #3 on my list of visit sources =)!
-----Copy LiteralDan Section----- *I think, it gives numbers and has that pretty map thing and 5 keyword searches... If I did something wrong it is not putting code in the individual posts, I was confused if I should or not so don't (please let me know someone tech savier than me if I am wrong). **I am actually responsible for 29 of the 100 clicks but it still counts because google says so!
[12:57:54 AM] Karen says: Oooo I am soooooooo tech savy, I edited my post and made a linky thing [1:00:14 AM] "The" Cheryl says: hooray for Karen [1:00:32 AM] Karen says: I believe I shall gloat about this for awhile [1:00:58 AM] Karen says: I made a link I made a link Yeah me! I made a link [1:05:23 AM] "The" Cheryl says: yay for Karen, yay [1:05:56 AM] Karen says: I should totally put this conversation into a blog post [1:06:16 AM] "The" Cheryl says: oh? [1:06:23 AM] Karen says: lol [1:06:27 AM] "The" Cheryl says: to show my loving enthusiasm? [1:07:29 AM] Karen says: Sure
Formerly I was a deli clerk, after four years of that I retired. Fresh out of college I got in my trusty oldsmobile and drove west to start my new life as a graduate student. This blog will chronicle my crazy antics among other things as I crawl towards the light at the end of the tunnel that is grad school.
