Life-thinking.

Uh-oh. It's that time again. Where I freak out about what I want to do with my life and where I'm going. This time it's different though. I legitimately do not know when I want to go to grad school, and where. My want to get out of this state is pulling me to California, but my lack of funding is anchoring me to Arizona. I don't want to do grad school at ASU. I don't even know about GREs, when I need to take them, if I have to take them, how to apply, when to apply, etc., etc...

I hope this doesn't make me look unambitious. I really want to do great things. But I'm so impatient that it's starting to get in the way of the steps I should be taking to get to where I want to go. There are things happening that I want to speed along and see where they take me. I want to fast forward and see what position I'm in a year from now. What do my relationships look like? How prepared am I for graduation? What kind of money have I saved, or am I making? Do I still work at Black Angus? I finally find a job that I love and I'm not absolutely sure if I should keep it or if I should be looking for a job that is more applicable to my field of study. Should I apply for an internship or to be someone's TA? Am I good enough for that?

I started wondering if I should switch my major again. I've started to get bored with psychology, but maybe it's just that end of the semester bore I find myself in about a month before every semester's end. Then about a month before school starts I get pumped up again and psyched for school, then I start to get demotivated and stop being consistent with my class attendance; it becomes much more sporadic, especially once I realize what classes I "have to" go to and which ones I can skip. It's not like I enjoy missing class, I just fail to see the point of going and I feel like I'm wasting my time. Heck, I'm wasting my time writing a blog during class when I should be paying attention.


I would probably like to pick up a second major or something, but I would be far more interested in graduating in 2009 than sticking around for another 2 or 3 years to begin finishing something. I just don't feel as smart as I should for being in college this long.

aaand I'm back. Sort of.

Holy cow. So I was in the hospital Sunday at 11:30AM through yesterday afternoon and let me just say I never want to go there again. Unless to visit or if I'm having a baby. Because let me tell you people, it's not all it's cracked up to be. I was helpless for like over 48 hours of my life, and I hate that because I ask for help when I need it. I was being fed and letting my mom give me sips of water and juice. It was pretty ridiculous.

You know, I never mentioned what I was there for. I will probably have to repeat this story to a whole lot of people but maybe I've directed you to this blog because of that reason. So here we go, anyway... I guess it was Thursday that I started not feeling so good, because I didn't go to either of my classes. Not completely characteristic of me because I don't like missing class, nay miss my personality theory and research class because I'm doing very poorly in there and it would be in my best interest not to miss class. I'm starting to feel a little woozy as I'm writing this out so if I have to cut short to take a nap then I will. Anyhow, I was in bed pretty much Thursday through Saturday. Friday marked nausea, vomitting, all the gross stuff that comes with feeling sick, and dizziness. Saturday my mom came to check me out because I was feeling so bad that I was considering having Alex take me to the hospital. But she said just wait until Monday and we'll get you to the doctor.

So Sunday morning I went to the bathroom, sat on the toilet for a while and pretty soon couldn't see anything. I was really really dizzy and nauseated. My vision was like how you feel if you think you're going to black out, everything is dark and fuzzy. But the scary thing is that it wouldn't go away. I tried to shake it off, and I freaked out because it felt like things were closing in, and I literally felt for a minute like I was dying. I needed to get some help before I passed out or something. I called my mom and she came and took me to Tempe St. Luke's.

They took us about an hour after we got there, around 12:30 not a long wait, and the woman told me to sit in the chair. I started to get really dizzy again and leaned over in my chair. She said I needed to get in a bed so they grabbed me a wheel chair and took me to a temp room with a curtain. My blood pressure was really low. High fever over 100. Still feeling sick. It was horrible. They set me up with an IV in a most awkward place in my arm that made it nearly impossible for me to bend, rendering my right arm useless, and after 2 bags of saline they said I was ready to go home. That was fast, I thought. I stood up and I felt really dizzy still, started to black out, sat back down, the doctor, not the nurse who was about to send me home, said we should take my BP again. Sure enough, extremely low. They set me back up with a new saline bag, some antibiotic, and it wasn't until about 11Pm that night we were able to get a room.

I didn't get much sleep, if any at all. I had weird hallucinations when I closed my eyes so I was staying awake. They took my blood a lot. Poked me with lots of needles (which I absolutely hate, not that anybody really likes being poked with needles, unless you're into that sort of thing...) and was looking forward to the morning where the doctor would hopefully tell me I could go home. Turns out I was really dehydrated, so by this time I'm on my like 5th IV or something. Over the course of my stay I had my blood drawn like 6 times, once from an artery (most painful thing I've ever experienced in my life, wouldn't recommend it to anyone). And just as a guideline, any doctor who brags about how good he is at something is usually not that good at it. He stuck a giant needle in my right wrist, poked around, couldn't find this hidden artery, then tried again in my left arm. Ah, there it is. Frick, that hurts. Doctors have like no idea. I would put that pain second place to giving birth and I don't even know about that yet.

Anyway, the artery blood drawing was yesterday, but Monday morning they told my mom there was no way I could go home that day because my blood pressure was still too low, so they pumped me full of more saline. All together my stay in the hospital rendered me 12 bags of the stuff. My belly is still very swollen and my belly button looks like a horizontal line. I'm having kind of a hard time walking around, I'm guessing because of the swelling in my legs, or from the fact that I've very literally been in bed since like last Thursday... I had my mom take a picture of my arms all IVed and wrapped after all the needles they poked in me so I'll post that at some point. But basically it was one of the worst experiences of my life. I am resting at home fairly comfortably, still not feeling 100% but much, much better than had you talked to me Thursday through Sunday before I went to the hospital. Now it's just a matter of all this swelling going down. Yeah I look chubby but I think you can expect that when they force 12 bags of fluid into my body over the course of 48 hours (makes me sick just thinking about it).

That is basically my story. I had a gastric virus, dehydration, and a UTI. Still not sure where all that dehydration came from that made me so dizzy and sick, you guys see me nearly always toting a water bottle or some other liquid device. But I am glad we didn't wait until Monday to see campus health because I would probably be in much worse shape. Thanks for all your good wishes and concern! I love you. I want to get back to Tempe as soon as possible, I miss you all very much, plus I have so much homework to do, I just can't get myself to do it when I am still feeling like this. And hopefully this blog answered all your questions haha :)

Life in general is...

So I was just thinking. Thinking about... how for the most part I am pretty happy with what's going on in my life right now. Aside from everything like having to get my truck fixed to not doing anything particularly notable for Spring Break, to having that feeling that I SHOULD be starting on that paper we had due like a month ago but I have yet to do that...

Then I started wondering, when do you know you are really happy? Like when is that definition made? And when it is ok to tell people that you are really truly content? Not complacent necessarily, or stagnant in a negative way, just that you kind of are enjoying the place you are currently standing in. I've had people argue with me that when I am not 100% "right" with God that I can't really be truly happy/fulfilled etc. I am working on that in my own time. But for right now, everything feels pretty good. :) I have a great boy, I am leading a life not primarily dominated by stressful thought (except around midterms haha), I am hanging out with people who lift me up rather than make me feel like some aspect of my life isn't being given all the attention it deserves. It's a weird spell... I am starting to think more and more about what I want to do after college because when I talked to John today he made me realize that May 2009 is a lot closer than I keep imagining... it's very real... I need to start considering who to consult when it's time to get those letters of recommendation written, or how about when I freaking take my GRE? Is the $600 or whatever really worth the prep course they are advertising? When do I need to take it... how many times... where do I send the results, and WHEN.

At this moment, my ideal plan is to move to California in the summer of '09, get a year of residency under my belt, then apply to grad school. Where would I work in the mean time? Under whom? For how much money? And how much would I need to make to sustain the lifestyle I want to live in California (not much different from the one I'm leading now aside from renting/buying my own place, having a newer/reliable vehicle, and possibly surf every single day?)... haha ok so that last part is definitely different. But there are so many factors to consider. And I just can't move alone. I wouldn't know who to take with me (not my mom, I need to get away from Arizona tie-downs. Maybe she could come live there, but not with me). In Summer 2009, I will be 22 years old. Approaching 23. And I will need to say that I have done something sufficient with my time in undergraduate school. Right now I feel like I'm just trying to make the grade for that expensive piece of paper that tells my credentials. It's almost... defeating. I need to start doing some research and start making friends with people who have been where I am going. I still have no idea where to start or what to do. Should I look for a place to live first, or a place to work first? What kind of job should I get? How close to the beach do I want to be? What proximity is that to my job? It's all a little overwhelming.

So now what?

I'm starting to feel better, both in my throat and in my wrist. But as usual I'm letting my mind get the best of me and I'm starting to wonder about some of the stuff I'm spending my free time thinking about. I mean, it's really got me going. Now, who to talk to about it?

I guess I just really want Spring Break to get here and get over with. Another exciting vacation spent idling in dry, listless, boring Mesatown, AZ.

What else could go wrong??

So as you may have heard, I sprained my wrist on Friday night playing Broomball. It's healing pretty famously, but now I'm getting strep again and all my muscles are sore from falling so many times on Friday. Not good. So lots of things feel like they are going wrong. But at least I can count on Taylor for a pick me up that almost brings me to tears when I'm feeling like crap :) haha

In other news... uh, yeah. Everything else is pretty good.