So...um yeah...
I've been promising a post for a while. things just got a little busy, and you're about to see why...
First, about New York. Goodbye, Baltimore. I'm ready to move!
Well, not quite. There is that whole needing to graduate thing (a slight delay in that to be discussed later). The trip was amazing. I can't wait to go back. I'm already hammering out plans to go back in the fall (I'd love to go back in the summer, but from what I hear, it's too damned hot and crowded). My mom asked me if I could live there. I think I could. I already live and work in Baltimore, and things are OK here, but I felt something different there...I can't really explain what, but it just felt right.
Jon and I took the train up after I got out of ACLS class (now certified in Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support, thank you!) and met his parents and Penn Station. We went to our hotel...and the room overlooked the WTC site. Mind you, I hadn't been up there since it happened...it was pretty rough to see that. I cried for a while as I looked down on the site. We then went and tried to have dinner at the place his parents love to go, but it closed about a minute before we got there. So we went to this place called Carmine's next door...the food was AMAZING! One entree could have fed our entire table. My god it was great. After a meal like that there's only one thing to do...retire to bed! We stayed at the Millennium Hilton...I wish I could have taken that bed home with me. Our room was amazing. Saturday we slept in a little, then met Jon's parents in the Village for brunch, sightseeing, and, of course, SHOPPING. We also made it up to 5th avenue, and to the Lindt store, where I got dark chocolate Easter bunnies for Jon and I. We also spent some quality time in Central Park. That part was my favorite part of the day I think. After all this, we went back to our hotel to change for dinner with friends of Jon's family. The food was amazing, the wine was great, the bill was astronomical, and it's been a while since I have been grilled like that. Not getting into too much detail, I was basically questioned all through the meal about what I'm doing with my life, why I'm not going to medical school, how I'm going to fit a family in with the rest of my plans, topping it all off with some final comments on how large my breasts are and when am I going to get surgery? OH YEAH! (Did I say the food was the best part of the meal? Fresco is awesome!)
After dinner, I felt a great need to throttle someone and/or have a cigarette, but Jon and I returned to our hotel and called it a night. Sunday we went by the firehouse (Engine 10) that I had been meaning to go to all weekend. Unfortunately, the guys were out on a drill and wouldn't be back until 1. Jon and I went to this little deli to have a bite to eat, then hopped on the subway to meet his parents at their hotel. I loved the subway all weekend...that is until it ate my bag on Sunday. It got caught in the doors, but, instead of opening up, the doors stayed shut. I pulled on my bag, and it ripped. Not all the way, but good enough. That made my day. Like the dinner conversation the night before made my night. Fukkin eh.
Jon's dad was there to meet us and carry my bag. He offered to get it fixed. I mean, the thing that pissed me off the most is that it is my dad's bag. I have no luggage. All my overnight bags belong to my father. We all know how he can be. Anyways, we loaded his parents' car up and his mom asked his dad if he would go by the firehouse. He battled NYC traffic and got me back downtown so Jon and I could run into the house to buy patches (Did I mention his parents are awesome? They paid for everything that weekend. I really hate having things paid for by someone else, but there is no way I could have afforded that weekend by myself. I can't thank them enough). We headed out of the city, through Jersey (I "saluted" various spots along the way...in one way or another) and stopped at a Macaroni Grill in Delaware for dinner. They dropped us off at the train station so I could get my car...what an amazing weekend. What an amazing time. I really needed that time off and a little bit of fun.
Now for school stuff. Met with Pitts in our biweekly meeting, worked out schedule stuff for the fall. I've maxed out on my PSYC 397 credits, so we were trying to figure out how I could still get credit for the research I'm doing with him. I said "Too bad undergrads can't be TAs." Wait a minute! Pitts had a sabbatical and it has been delayed! He will be teaching PSYC 331 again in the fall...and I will be one of the TAs!!!! WOOT!! It's pretty much unheard of for an undergrad to be a TA in the PSYC department, and as Muffin put it, I'm pretty much a shoe-in for grad school.
So, for the Fall:
PSYC 230
PSYC 399 (research and TA credit)
LAB?
PSYC 399 is Co-op in Psyc, so I will actually get a grade, which will boost my GPA. Hot damn! Now the thing that is up in the air is the lab. Technically, all I need to graduate with my PSYC degree at this point is the BIOL 100L. Now, due to my slacking in previous years, I dropped it once and received two Ds (the reason is not completely true, just simpler). I petitioned to retake the class, and I received an email with a long list of shit to do, one of which was to ask the instructor for permission to take the course. I waited outside her office for an hour, explained to her the situation, and that it was the only class I needed to graduate. She said "No." Fucking bitch. Why not just take it with someone else? She is the only one who teaches it. Again, fucking bitch. Well, whatever. I might just take science of water or something. It'll totally screw up my work schedule and it looks like I'll have to pull one 16 hour day each week, but I need the class to graduate, and why not take it in the fall.
I love the TA opportunity, but it sets me back in finishing the STAT minor and the EHS minor. That just means that I'll take one of those classes over the summer and the rest in the spring and/or next summer. I might take a class on Bayesian Statistics in the fall; I just have to see if I have the necessary classes for it.
I had to drop MATH 150, which sets me back for the STAT minor too. I just can't deal with it all right now, but that is discussed next.
On life...well, life right now is pretty grand. Referring back to the dinner discussion in NY...why am I planning on going to grad school for quantitative psych? I think it's fun. I like talking about what I do and having very few people understand it and most everyone else pretending that they do. Why am I not going to med school? Why am I not going to PA school? Why am I not in nursing school? What am I going to do with my life? When am I going to have a family? When am I going to do this? When am I going to do that?
I have a very simple answer to this:
I WILL DO WHATEVER I WANT WITH MY LIFE, WHENEVER I WANT, WHEREVER I WANT, WITH WHOMEVER I WANT.
I have the ability to do whatever I want with my life. If I want to go to med school, I'll go. If I want to stay the course and get my masters in psych, I will. If I want to move to NY, I will. If I want to stay where I am and live happily, I will.
See, the great thing about me is that I can do what I do anywhere. I'm an EMT, and I'm a CNA. And that pays anywhere I go. I have a lot of potential, and I'll do with it what I damn well please. Jon says just to do what makes me happy. Well, that's simple. The answer is then to follow my dream, and to accomplish these goals before I turn 35:
-Advanced degree of some sort.
-Steady job with good income.
-House.
-Marriage.
-At least 1 kid.
Good 'nuff? Yeah. Actually, I think that's a pretty awesome outlook right there. As long as I'm happy...yeah.
I've been thinking about Sean a lot. I miss him. I cry whenever I think of him; how it is a goddamned tragedy that there is so much he did not get to. I don't plan on having people think that way about me. I've started to make changes in my life; quitting smoking is probably the biggest change thus far, and I'm still doing great. I miss my big brother, and there are so many things I think about that I just can't write here, but those really close to me know what they are.
It's late, and I'm sick...so I'm heading to bed. And this has been an update to my life.
First, about New York. Goodbye, Baltimore. I'm ready to move!
Well, not quite. There is that whole needing to graduate thing (a slight delay in that to be discussed later). The trip was amazing. I can't wait to go back. I'm already hammering out plans to go back in the fall (I'd love to go back in the summer, but from what I hear, it's too damned hot and crowded). My mom asked me if I could live there. I think I could. I already live and work in Baltimore, and things are OK here, but I felt something different there...I can't really explain what, but it just felt right.
Jon and I took the train up after I got out of ACLS class (now certified in Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support, thank you!) and met his parents and Penn Station. We went to our hotel...and the room overlooked the WTC site. Mind you, I hadn't been up there since it happened...it was pretty rough to see that. I cried for a while as I looked down on the site. We then went and tried to have dinner at the place his parents love to go, but it closed about a minute before we got there. So we went to this place called Carmine's next door...the food was AMAZING! One entree could have fed our entire table. My god it was great. After a meal like that there's only one thing to do...retire to bed! We stayed at the Millennium Hilton...I wish I could have taken that bed home with me. Our room was amazing. Saturday we slept in a little, then met Jon's parents in the Village for brunch, sightseeing, and, of course, SHOPPING. We also made it up to 5th avenue, and to the Lindt store, where I got dark chocolate Easter bunnies for Jon and I. We also spent some quality time in Central Park. That part was my favorite part of the day I think. After all this, we went back to our hotel to change for dinner with friends of Jon's family. The food was amazing, the wine was great, the bill was astronomical, and it's been a while since I have been grilled like that. Not getting into too much detail, I was basically questioned all through the meal about what I'm doing with my life, why I'm not going to medical school, how I'm going to fit a family in with the rest of my plans, topping it all off with some final comments on how large my breasts are and when am I going to get surgery? OH YEAH! (Did I say the food was the best part of the meal? Fresco is awesome!)
After dinner, I felt a great need to throttle someone and/or have a cigarette, but Jon and I returned to our hotel and called it a night. Sunday we went by the firehouse (Engine 10) that I had been meaning to go to all weekend. Unfortunately, the guys were out on a drill and wouldn't be back until 1. Jon and I went to this little deli to have a bite to eat, then hopped on the subway to meet his parents at their hotel. I loved the subway all weekend...that is until it ate my bag on Sunday. It got caught in the doors, but, instead of opening up, the doors stayed shut. I pulled on my bag, and it ripped. Not all the way, but good enough. That made my day. Like the dinner conversation the night before made my night. Fukkin eh.
Jon's dad was there to meet us and carry my bag. He offered to get it fixed. I mean, the thing that pissed me off the most is that it is my dad's bag. I have no luggage. All my overnight bags belong to my father. We all know how he can be. Anyways, we loaded his parents' car up and his mom asked his dad if he would go by the firehouse. He battled NYC traffic and got me back downtown so Jon and I could run into the house to buy patches (Did I mention his parents are awesome? They paid for everything that weekend. I really hate having things paid for by someone else, but there is no way I could have afforded that weekend by myself. I can't thank them enough). We headed out of the city, through Jersey (I "saluted" various spots along the way...in one way or another) and stopped at a Macaroni Grill in Delaware for dinner. They dropped us off at the train station so I could get my car...what an amazing weekend. What an amazing time. I really needed that time off and a little bit of fun.
Now for school stuff. Met with Pitts in our biweekly meeting, worked out schedule stuff for the fall. I've maxed out on my PSYC 397 credits, so we were trying to figure out how I could still get credit for the research I'm doing with him. I said "Too bad undergrads can't be TAs." Wait a minute! Pitts had a sabbatical and it has been delayed! He will be teaching PSYC 331 again in the fall...and I will be one of the TAs!!!! WOOT!! It's pretty much unheard of for an undergrad to be a TA in the PSYC department, and as Muffin put it, I'm pretty much a shoe-in for grad school.
So, for the Fall:
PSYC 230
PSYC 399 (research and TA credit)
LAB?
PSYC 399 is Co-op in Psyc, so I will actually get a grade, which will boost my GPA. Hot damn! Now the thing that is up in the air is the lab. Technically, all I need to graduate with my PSYC degree at this point is the BIOL 100L. Now, due to my slacking in previous years, I dropped it once and received two Ds (the reason is not completely true, just simpler). I petitioned to retake the class, and I received an email with a long list of shit to do, one of which was to ask the instructor for permission to take the course. I waited outside her office for an hour, explained to her the situation, and that it was the only class I needed to graduate. She said "No." Fucking bitch. Why not just take it with someone else? She is the only one who teaches it. Again, fucking bitch. Well, whatever. I might just take science of water or something. It'll totally screw up my work schedule and it looks like I'll have to pull one 16 hour day each week, but I need the class to graduate, and why not take it in the fall.
I love the TA opportunity, but it sets me back in finishing the STAT minor and the EHS minor. That just means that I'll take one of those classes over the summer and the rest in the spring and/or next summer. I might take a class on Bayesian Statistics in the fall; I just have to see if I have the necessary classes for it.
I had to drop MATH 150, which sets me back for the STAT minor too. I just can't deal with it all right now, but that is discussed next.
On life...well, life right now is pretty grand. Referring back to the dinner discussion in NY...why am I planning on going to grad school for quantitative psych? I think it's fun. I like talking about what I do and having very few people understand it and most everyone else pretending that they do. Why am I not going to med school? Why am I not going to PA school? Why am I not in nursing school? What am I going to do with my life? When am I going to have a family? When am I going to do this? When am I going to do that?
I have a very simple answer to this:
I WILL DO WHATEVER I WANT WITH MY LIFE, WHENEVER I WANT, WHEREVER I WANT, WITH WHOMEVER I WANT.
I have the ability to do whatever I want with my life. If I want to go to med school, I'll go. If I want to stay the course and get my masters in psych, I will. If I want to move to NY, I will. If I want to stay where I am and live happily, I will.
See, the great thing about me is that I can do what I do anywhere. I'm an EMT, and I'm a CNA. And that pays anywhere I go. I have a lot of potential, and I'll do with it what I damn well please. Jon says just to do what makes me happy. Well, that's simple. The answer is then to follow my dream, and to accomplish these goals before I turn 35:
-Advanced degree of some sort.
-Steady job with good income.
-House.
-Marriage.
-At least 1 kid.
Good 'nuff? Yeah. Actually, I think that's a pretty awesome outlook right there. As long as I'm happy...yeah.
I've been thinking about Sean a lot. I miss him. I cry whenever I think of him; how it is a goddamned tragedy that there is so much he did not get to. I don't plan on having people think that way about me. I've started to make changes in my life; quitting smoking is probably the biggest change thus far, and I'm still doing great. I miss my big brother, and there are so many things I think about that I just can't write here, but those really close to me know what they are.
It's late, and I'm sick...so I'm heading to bed. And this has been an update to my life.