endrunkenated

i'm a little drunk. i'm hormonally imbalanced, exhausted and spent 12 hours at work which both invigorated me and made me want to scream. primal scream, scary, high pitched, scream.

nothing else to report. actually, lots else, but i want to be sure my blog isn't importing to my facebook (paranoid). also: if someone could access my past posts and then google search for the phrase, would they find me? things to think about.

lord:

found an apartment (2 bedroom $850/month with guaranteed parking spot behind deck. pet friendly. beautiful fridge. joey loves it).

going to vet school. sometimes it hits me, all at once. i'm going to vet school. holy fuck man. seriously. seriously.

i adore carbon. she is asleep at my feet right now. and she adores me in that scary, i love you like breathing, way.

i love her that way too.

for now: stressed, buzzed, eating easy mac. waiting to work tomorrow.

tired

i am tired. long day at work (second job). just a long day in general. I found an apartment in the city yesterday--a 2 bedroom for the price of a nice one bedroom with a guaranteed parking spot about 5 blocks from the vet school. = perfect? so i'm engaging in some extreme furniture fantasies now. and thoughts about anatomy posters on my walls, lolcats framed and organized by subject, pens, pencils and paper all freshly stacked on new shelving...

lord though, i'm tired. i have a physics test tomorrow (my 6th with this prof and the first one i've not studied at all for). i just don't have time. next week is spring break and that is good, i need some time to breathe.

i just wish i was better at what i do. i know it takes time. i just wish i didn't have so much doubt, that joy coursed through me or at least peace, a deep peace--the calm i feel for moments with kitten asleep next to me, purring on the pillow.

who knows, i'm just tired and it's late. my future is so beautiful and it's spread out before me, this great big wonderful map waiting to be charted.

i think a lot about the balance between arrogance and self doubt--I never start to feel confident about myself without wondering if my internal scale has tipped from doubt toward arrogance without ever stopping at an appropriate level of confidence. it's just hard, since i see both sides of every argument at the same time and I don't know what the truth is.

there are things that i love in this world. there are good people and warm nights and the wind. i am a good person, with a good heart (and a beautiful, if somewhat unbalanced, mind). let these by my thoughts as I go to bed. cause lord, i need to get up in 7hrs. and study physics. and let's face it--that's just probably not going to happen.

i'm so rammy from work. kitten is licking his butt on the desk next to me. i love mom's desk--it may be bigger than what i should get but i just love it. i want my own L-desk. or who knows. who knows! i'll go to ikea some day next week so i can see in person the furniture i've been bookmarking on the internet. kitten was lying on a greeting card that had decorative glitter and now his fur is sparking. his butt is very beautiful.

on drowning, and arrogance

today was so busy at work. I felt so inefficient and worthless. I did a lot of good things of course, but i just felt so unsure of myself, so unsure of my decisions. I feel like i never moved without checking and it felt not awesome.


i am printing out articles from vetlearn.com and i found myself wondering if they ever had someone systematically go through every available article (to print out and the organize by subject in ordered binders). I felt a moment of amusement when i thought to myself "they haven't met anyone like me." But then again, i haven't exactly cornered the market on high-achieving, neurotic OCD types. so who knows. maybe everyone has their own binders with dividers and a plan to read/highlight/outline pertinent articles.

who knows. today was overwhelming. i just want to be better than i am.

evening

or perhaps, early morning.

i went into the city with mom to look at apartments. I realize finding a cat/dog (+ birds etc...) apartment is totally doable. It will be small. I will have to grow up. I will have to do laundry. I will have to do dishes.

i've lost 14lbs (from my high weight after i fell off the wagon following Oreo's sudden, extremelyunexpected death and the news that Kitten and Ginger havebeen FeLV/FIV exposed their whole lives although they tested negative. they need to be retested.)

Lets starts again with the 14lbs: that's 6 lbs from the stomach flu + c. difficile but 8 lbs from me busting my butt. as I told my friends at work--i start vet school in 6 months. I have got to reach my full hottness potential. cause lord i'm lonely and i've been lonely for so long. maybe forever, expect for times when I have found real friends and we have been near each other not spread out like some sort of intellectual constellation across the country (globe?)

i am feeling less out of control. I have a plan (this is a typical joey plan -- slightly irrational, very regimented, doomed to eventual failure but working for me now). It is based on easy mac, tuna and protein water. i won't get into any more details (i may need to trademark this someday)

i got a PennVet sweatshirt (although I was dissapointed at the selection). there are a couple of really funny vet logo things at www.cafepress.com that i think i will get before i start school. and hopefully i will be tiny enough to fit into a lot of my old, cute clothes. Also, i joined vetlearn so i can print out articles and do fun learning stuff.

things i'm worried about:

1. being good at anatomy
2. being able to establish a relationship with the Penn ES that will continue through vet school
3. being so tired all the time
4. managing my anxiety/irritability
5. finding an apartment
6. keeping all my animals happy in the apartment (especially the birds)
7. making friends (finding a boyfriend?)
8. not exercising enough
9. wanting some beads for my birthday (and knowing that the money should go toward the mountain of expenses i'm careening toward.)
10. i had another worry. i can't remember it rightnow
11. working out enough (at all?) so if i lose weight (crosses fingers) i keep it off
12. money. MONEY. money. $$$$ money money money . lots of of worries about money

things i'm happy about

1. the neighborhoods in philly i looked at looked nice
2. i got a penn vet sweatshirt and a superduper insanely awesome biochemistry chart set (and an awesome t-shirt i think i'm slightly too fat for right now. give me about 10 lbs)
3. i've lost 14 lbs and am at my lowest weight in 2 years (only ..... a lot.... more to go)
4. i'm going to vet school (!!) and i'm going to make friends and have a life and...
5. I'M GOING TO VET SCHOOL! holyfuck, i did it. i did all of it, at least, to get here. to get here. and i find my mind drifting back to 36 james street lying on the futon playing with the puppies, thinking about starting vettech school and i am just so proud of how much i'vedone in the last two years (also last 8 years really).
6. making wood bead bracelets
7. working -- i really like working so much even though i'm exhausted i think the volume of work is making me a better, more confident, more astute nurse.
8. loving physics right now. really loving it, getting it (this is stuff i didn't understand in high school) and it feels like the world suddenly makes sense to me and i don't just use electronics, i'm starting to understand them and all of a sudden it's so beautiful. it wasthere all the time and yet i suddenly see it.
9. the c-section team at Penn - i found this online : http://pennreproduction.wetpaint.com/page/C-Section+Team and i can't wait to join when i'm an actual student. I'm totally going to be part of the repro club. i'm not going to lie : i, joey lxxxxx love baby animals. i love the ugly parts, the needy parts, the time commitment, the bodily fluids. some of my future fantasies involve my raising/fostering shelter dogs/cats with assorted young (+ wildlife rehab specializing in squirrels :-)
10. my future. cause it's brimming with goodness. it's not a cake walk. i'm going to be irritable, anxious and exhausted. i'm terrified i won't be good enough (not that i won't be 'ok' at vet school, i'm not worried about failing, but i'm worried about not living up to my own expectations for myself). I've spent my whole life feeling like i could be doing better but that my heart just wasn't in my task. well, my heart is here. time to step up to the plate joey.

a quieting

so i just got this email from penn:

Joanna,
I know that you are wondering, what happened to my acceptance letter? We just got the vast majority in the mail on Monday PM after finally getting our New Student Blog running. There is an announcement in the package when you receive it. However, there is a small group that has not had a letter prepared and that is why I am writing to you. We knew that you are extraordinary academically and wanted you to have a scholarship. The amount of money that we have for scholarships this year has just been determined. Pennsylvania residents already are charged about $10,000 less for tuition because of state funding. We will help to lower that cost with a scholarship of $5,000 which will be noted in our acceptance letter.

Thank you for your patience and I hope that you will consider our offer of admission. Letters will go out soon.
Best wishes,

i'm leaning really heavily toward Penn. So heavily I may choose not to go to the cornell information session. The pro's of Penn are getting bigger and bigger. and an academic scholarship to vet school? that's unheard of (everything is need based, not merit based. not everything, but almost everything).

so other than having to catch up on school work and feeling a bit exhausted and overwhelmed, this is a good day. i must remember that. this is a good day.

oh lord (warming, contains scenes of a totally disgusting nature)

the descent into hell, and then back out again

it began last saturday (not this past saturday, the one before that)

i took carbon to puppy play group, it was fine
i stopped at kmart, bought shelves to work on cleaning my room
came home, passed out in bed with carbon for a 5 hour nap

work up circa 7pm. tummy felt upset, i figured i was hungry since i hadn't eaten since breakfast (what with the sleeping). on my way out of my room i grabbed my box of secret cheezits. as i approached the door, i dropped the cheezits and left them in my room. this turned out to be a good decision.

mom was up north visiting family so it was just pop and I. I came downstairs and pop was watching tv. i watched for a few minutes , feeling increasing unnerved by what i was pretty sure was inappropriate signaling in my enteric nervous system and some pretty some vagal stimulation of my upper GI track. finally I said:

"hey, pop, do you think you could watch tv upstairs. i think i might be about to throw up and i kind of want some privacy"

i was correct. the next 6-8 hours were very unpleasant.

i finally got to sleep around 5am, called in to work at 7am to see if i could come in late. a misunderstanding occurred and my supervisor said she needed me at 10. so i hauled my totally decrepit ass out of bed, showered and went to work. i lasted two hours.

i then slept for the rest of the day. (and by slept i mean i lay down for a half hour then pop came and woke me up to tell me carbon was barking, i got up, walked carbon, passed out again).

come monday i had not improved. i had actually declined. I had entered the lower GI portion of this horrible plague. i could eat, it just didn't stay in my body very long.
no school monday, no work. I was so miserable i asked mom to come home from NE. she arrived around 3pm and i was sooooo happy to see her. she bought me popsicles and gatorade and i felt much improved.

8pm: i am awaked from my slumber by horrible, horrible noises. noises that should not exist on earth. it sounded like what i imagine it sounds like when a person transforms into a werewolf. it wasn't. it was my father, puking his brains out.

i am typhoid joey. i am the bringer of the plague.

so pop fell on monday night. mom fell on wednesday night. thursday i went back to work, only to totally fall apart around 11:00pm (probably cause i hadn't really eaten all day, food still not looking so good to joey). went to doctor on friday. doctor said she wasn't sure what I had, probably the norwalk-type stomach virus but maybe a little. c. difficile thrown in for good measure.

as of now, 10 days after the inciting incident, life in the lloyd household is returning to normal.

oh, did i mention the neck to toe rash i had for the week i was sick--very creepy. dr. not sure what it was, possible an allergic reaction to the virus. only i had the rash.

on the upside, i lost 6 lbs. i call this my "really really unpleasant diet cleanse".

so now i'm catching up on a week of missed schoolwork and trying to stop mourning my three days of missed income at work.

alas, i would say i'm stronger for it but i think that's a few days away.