Check This Out

I met this man tonight. He spoke to our class. What an amazing man with a great story, and a happy ending. It was very interesting and he was a very good speaker. If you're interested, here it is:

http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19920706,00.html

Here Is What I Know

1. Being a vegan is HARD.
2. Being a vegan in Cleveland is next to impossible.
3. I hate cooking.
4. Vegan food is expensive.
5. I have no energy after eating tofu and vegetables.
6. I hate vegetables.
7. PF Changes actually makes a good tofu curry.
8. When I leave my food in the work refrigerator, it stays there and no one eats it anymore.
9. Ani DiFranco had a baby girl last week.

I know that last one had nothing to do with being a vegan, I just thought I'd throw that in.

Clinicals tomorrow morning so I'll have something to say tomorrow night, I'm sure. Gotta get back to studying, we have our first test Monday and there's not much room for error this semester.

Where Cigarettes Go For $60 A Pack

My psych rotation started today! Nothing too exciting to report, sorry. Since I'm at a state facility, there was a mound of paperwork we had to fill out and training we had to do, so that took most of the morning.

In the afternoon we just toured the facilities and then we hung out in the rec room with some of the patients. It was a little awkward. I'm sure it was for them as much as it was for us. We talked to a couple of people, but not very much. There wasn't much input from the instructor. I thought she would be circulating and trying to get conversations started, but she didn't, so I was little disappointed.

I found a nice looking, younger woman to talk to. She was very friendly. After about 10 minutes into the conversation I figured out she wasn't a patient, but a Kent State University student doing her master's program in counseling and she was there for clinicals too :) I must have just picked the most normal-looking person in the room to start a conversation with. We both a good laugh about that one. She will be there every Sunday and she was a lot of help telling me about the patients since she has already been working with them for about 3 weeks now. Turns out she does some poetry therapy with them and since I'm a designer, I think we'll do some group therapy together. I think it will be interesting.

So that was it. Pretty laid-back day and kinda boring. I'm looking forward to getting started and the weird, uncomfortable conversations to stop! Right now none of us know what to say to the patients. The instructor just wants us to go up and start talking to people. I don't even talk to my friends if I can help it! Just kidding :)

I'm just not one to start conversations with people I don't know in the checkout line at the store, let alone in the hospital. I try to stay out of other people's business and now I'm supposed to get in there and ask them about their "feelings"...everything is "how do you feel about this?"..."how does that make you feel?" I'd be pretty sick of people asking me that!

We had to role play again...ugh. The "nurse" asked the "patient" if the food at the hospital was good and the patient said yes. So we were supposed to recognize that we aren't supposed to ask yes/no questions. The instructor asked how we could have phrased the question differently. I told her he should have asked the patient "How do you like the food?" and when the patient said "its gross" ask her "and how does that make you feel?". At least the instructor laughed. I was pretty sick of talking about feelings at that point. I don't have a freakin' feeling about everything! I have two feelings: content and tired...that's it. Anytime you ask me, I'm either content or I'm tired.

So I ask you: After reading this blog, how does my rambling make you feel?

Instructions

I have been told that some of you aren't leaving comments because you don't know how. I'm sorry, I assumed everyone did, but I forget that I grew up in the computer era so its just second nature to me!

If you look at the bottom of each post, you will see this:

posted by dandelionpicker at 9:59 PM 0 comments links to this post

If you hover the mouse over where it says "0 comments" it will turn into a hand. When it does that you can click on it and it will take you to a page where you can leave a comment about the post.

If you look at the post called "You Guys Are No FuN" and you look at the bottom it says "2 comments". If you click on it you can read the comment Kirin left me about the post and also leave one yourself if you like.

So there it is...now you have no excuse not to talk to me ;)

OK! I Know, I Know

Call me crazy but I'm at it again. If you're here just to read about my schooling, check back on Sunday. This has become my online "life" so now I talk about whatever I want!

I'm on a tofu kick (please don't tell uncle Sal) LOL. But these Tofutti Cuties are soooooo good!!! Evidently I've been spending too much time on the PETA website cause everytime I try to eat lately these pictures of these poor, helpless animals are going through my head. So, I'm *slowly* getting rid of the meat in my house, and the dairy, and the eggs (well, not all the stuff in my house, Matt does live here)...and I'm going to TRY and be a vegan for a while and see if I can do it. Just for fun. What's to lose? (Check me out, did you notice I learned how to use links?!).

I don't really care for meat or chicken or seafood anyways. I do love me some turkey, but I'll get over it. Its the dairy that may kill me. I'm a cheese and sour cream fiend. So I'm off to the Mustard Seed this weekend to see what other goodies I can find. And I believe Whole Foods is opening up here pretty soon. Its been under construction forever. This may be harder than I thought living in Cleveland. I love tempeh so I'm gonna pick up some of that definitely. I remember eating this stuff when I was younger and it all tasted terrible. This past week I've found some really yummy stuff...looks like they've come a long way. Its interesting to see when you read the labels how much dairy and eggs are in EVERYTHING. Jeez, I can't even have Ranch dressing anymore!

So we'll see how long this lasts. It may turn out to be one of those New Year's resolutions that lasts into February and is abandoned and never thought of again. Don't be too disappointed in me if I come back next week and have given up :( Everyone seems to think I'm nuts. But I think it will be fun, so I'm gonna try it!

On a school note:
I have an addition to my "Stupidest Things I've Heard At School" blog.
Tonight I heard:
"MAOI's. MAO Inhibitors. MAO Inhibitors inhibit the MAO."
Wow, no shit? You're kidding, right? Thanks for clearing that up for me. I'm not sure how I would have passed the test without THAT explanation.

Winter Has Finally Arrived

I want to personally thank Kirin and Pop-pop for sending the yucky weather my way :(

The snow arrived this morning. And its still coming down now. I hate Cleveland. And, as usual, no one at my apartment building bothered to shovel the walks so I got to trample through it this morning and then scrape 6 inches off my car. I got to do that 3 separate times today. Lucky me.

Since I am back in school now and can't go snowboarding, I would appreciate it if the snow would go away now. Oh, and my cousin Kara went snowboarding last weekend without me...and then proceeded to rub it in. I don't think my board's going to see any snow this year.

You Guys Are No FuN!

If you read this leave me a comment! No one ever leaves me comments!!! I LIKE comments. I'm not feelin' the love people!

Now I'm Absolutely Sure

Here is how I know Pop-pop and I are related:

Pop-pop's email to me:
"I got up late around 0730 and went to the kitchen, I put the coffee water tank under the spigot and turned it on. Nothing. No sound, no water...small panic, then I thought I"ll check the bathroom sink just to be sure. Repeat of kitchen. I thought well there isn't much I can do but I have some emergency water in the garage so I got it. And made the coffee".

Right on.
No coffee in the morning constitutes an emergency in my book. I would use the emergency water to make coffee too!

My new favorite thing!

This shit is D.E.L.I.C.I.O.U.S. Don't knock it if you haven't tried it. I like the peach one. I like it even better than Dannon and Stoneyfield. Seriously, try it. You'll never know its soy. Just thought I'd share.

I just got back from grocery shopping after a day at school (a looooong day). Yet it was so interesting. Two of my teachers for psych shared their personal stories with us. One has a son that was diagnosed as Schizophrenic and the other has a daughter that has Borderline Personality Disorder and is Bi-Polar. It was a very interesting lecture by both of them. They let us ask them questions and there were lots of them! I had lots of questions myself.

I can't wait to get started at the hospital next Sunday. I think this semester is going to be so interesting to me. Usually its hard for me to sit in class for 2 hours, let alone all day long, but I didn't even notice because I was so caught up in it. After they told us their stories and how it effects their families, we did some role-playing (which I freakin' HATE and I can't do...more on that later) and then we watched some of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", which I had seen many times and read the book a long time ago. If you haven't seen it, its a really good movie (even better book), but I'm sure Nana, Joe, and Steph probably have. We're also supposed to watch "Girl, Interrupted" this semester, but I own it and have seen it so many times I could recite it word for word. That's another good one if you haven't seen it.

So my clinicals are on Sundays again this semester and I'm at a state hospital on a forensic unit, which basically means that the patients I will work with are all criminals that have stood trial and been committed as criminally insane. From what I understand, most of them have been there a long time and are not dangerous. What I really like about this semester is that the hospital is about 3 minutes from my house, which makes the out-of-control gas prices and the fact that my lease is almost out of warranty a little easier to bear.

So back to the whole role-playing thing. Does anyone REALLY think this help us learn? Cause it doesn't help me at ALL. Last semester I couldn't do anything right in the lab in front of my teacher, it was a serious problem. They had their doubts about me. But when I got to the floor, I was awesome. Instinct just took over and I did what needed to be done, didn't even think about it. So today there were three of us in each group and she told one to be the patient and the other two to interview the "patient". Well, I kinda froze up. I didn't say anything! Our "patient" was so jittery and talking so fast that I was trying to think of something to say and I didn't hear anything that came out of his mouth! Good thing my partner is a counselor in real life and took over! I'm sure I'll be fine on the floor, but it was kinda nerve-racking. I'm not an actress, I'm a NURSE! (well, almost).

Last semester they had us practicing physical exams on each other all semester. Ok, we're all HEALTHY. We had to pass lots of physicals to even get into this school. What good is it doing me to keep practicing on healthy people?! "Listen for bruits and heart murmurs" they kept telling us...I wouldn't know a bruit or a heart murmur if I DID hear one cause I have no idea what it sounds like! It's so frustrating. I have a hard enough time trying to find a pulse half the time!

In other news, I did finally talk to someone at the school about the abomination of a clinical instructor from last semester. Her answer was pretty much this: "Ok, well don't worry about it. If someone asks you to do something just tell them she didn't teach you". Um, OK that wasn't the reaction I was looking for. And I'm sure that excuse WON'T fly in the end.

Now, go write SILK SOY LIVE! YOGURT on your shopping list. Report back what you think of it. That is all.

Round Three

I'm on the 3rd round of antibiotics now. Nothing is helping. My ears are pulsating in and out and I can barely hear. Its funny the first 5 minutes of the day, then it just gets annoying. You know how it sounds when you turn up a really old tv and there's all that reverb and stuff? That's what I hear all day....annoying, huh?

School starts tomorrow night. I'm not excited to go back. I was really enjoying my time off. Well, this semester should be interesting at least. Psych for 8 weeks, then OB for 8 weeks. Hopefully I'll get to see a baby delivered. I've never seen one before! Kinda sucks that the first one I'm gonna see is someone I don't even know, but oh well.

Hopefully I'll have some interesting Psych clinicals to write about!

Back to the Doctor

Sad Face...Sore Ears

Well it turns out that last week when I was sick and saw the CNP instead of my doctor, my symptoms weren't full-blown. When I saw her she said "looks like you have a slight ear infection and a sore throat, no big deal", and put me on some antibiotics.

Long story short, I still can't hear today, my ears have been plugged and won't pop. So I went back to see my normal doc and he looked in my ears and said "oh, goodness...wow, that looks like it hurts". DUH. Turns out I have two middle ear infections and my left eardrum ruptured. Well, that explains all the pain I was in last week. Throat is still infected too. So we stepped up the antibiotics and we'll see what happens.

I hope this is the first and ONLY ear infection in 2007...man those are painful.

Happy New Year!

Woo-hoo

I've never been all that big on New Year's. I barely stayed awake till midnight last night. I think I'm still sick and I was in bed by 12:08. The only time I will get excited about the new year is when I'm in New York in Times Square watching the ball drop. One of these days, I'm gonna go and do that. Its on my list of things to do before I die.

I don't eat pork, so today I made Matt and I Thanksgiving dinner again. I'm good at making Thanksgiving, so that's what I make. It turned out pretty good. My friend just informed me that in addition to pork on New Year's Day, you're supposed to eat something green. Some kind of superstition about wealth. Well, looks like Matt and I will remain broke this year because I couldn't find any brussel sprouts at the store earlier and I gave up.