meggie's Journal

3:16pm: ooooh

click here to find out which asian action superstar you are!

You are Michelle
Yeo. you are a responsible, nurturing and caring person. you like the romantic
side of life. whether it's

by a british secret agent or a master swordsman. you like it all. you try and
take care of the people

you care about. but sometimes they dont take ur help too kindly. but that's
okay. cause you got it all.

11:42am: proud to be an american/airport adventure
so as i'm sure you all know, or probably don't, my sister and brother-in-law spent the month of february in sunny mexico city. and i, in exchange for pug/house sitting, signing contracts and dealing with home inspections for their new house, was given free room and board.

tamara and josh were NOT in mexico city on a pleasure trip, nor did they enjoy any of the work they were there to do. they were there on an exchange between the u.s. military medical school and the mexican military medical school. what follows is a list of reasons that you should never get medical care in mexico.

* doctors don't go to college. at all.
* there is no screening process for persons to get INTO medical school.
* the residents (people who have graduated from med school and are getting more training at their specialty) have less experience than american medical students
* surgeries have 5+ residents just watching (in the u.s. there is a limit of 2 so that they can each do something in the surgery)
* surgeons are very cautious about foot-ware, you have to wear booties, but will not wear face masks so that they can sneeze onto the front of their shirts
* they will do a surgery when it isn't necessary or when (in the u.s.) they would already know that it wouldn't do anything
* everyone who gets medical treatment must pay up front. no treatment will be given if you don't have the money. this means that if they find something else wrong, they wont fix it. this also means that there is no post-op care.

there are any number of more things that t&j were equally horrified about, but i think this is enough to show you that if you get sick in mexico, better be airlifted back to the u.s.

ok, so that being said, i had the duty of picking them up from the airport. i called the airline to see if it was at all delayed by the snow, but it turned out that it was supposed to be landing 10 minutes earlier. so i packed myself and the pugs into the car extra early, as the flight was coming in early and i knew that i would have to deal with the beginnings of rush hour traffic.

then i noticed that i needed gas, wow, good thing i was leaving early. so i drive down to the gas station a couple blocks away and fill up.

unfortunately at the end of my fueling i notice that the puppies have been jumping around quite a bit. i also notice that my keys are inside the car. and as i reach my door i notice that my door has been locked.

so either the puppies stepped on my keys and locked the door, or they pushed down the lock on the door itself. now they are getting upset because i am not in the car with them (they are very people oriented dogs and get upset when their people aren't around). and i start freaking out because my cell phone, my puppies and my keys are all in the car.

i run into the shop and frantically (and a little unintelligibly) tell the cashier lady that my keys are locked in my car, and the puppies are in there. so she calls to someone in the back and tells him the story and he asks me what kind of car i have. i say i have a honda civic. he seems to think this is very bad news, and the mechanic is on a break taking his wife to the hospital. i freak out because it looks like either it will be extremely hard to break into or it will take a really long time, and as i am picking up t&j from the airport and all they want is to get home and see the puppies, this is an incredibly bad thing.

so he gets his slim jim out and walks with me over to the car, scolding me for not teaching the puppies to unlock the door. then he says in a gushing voice "you didn't tell me they were PUG puppies" and he starts trying to open the door and telling me about how he and his wife have two pugs, one faun and one black, and how his wife would just die because the puppies were so cute, etc.

then another guy comes over and brings some different tools with him, and manages to open the front passenger door, after trying a few times. so he opens up the door and starts getting his reward. a whole lot of puppy tongue, and the cutest balls of fur to ever jump excitedly on a stranger.

then he wanders off and the first guy sits down on the edge of the passengers seat while i get into the drivers seat and he starts chatting again about pugs, and how wonderful they are and how there are pug conventions in virginia that he always goes to, etc. so eventually he gets up and goes back to the garage, and i thank him copiously. so i drive off, and end up getting to the airport early as i did not run into any bad traffic.

therefore the moral of the story is that if you have puppies, they might lock you out of your car, but they will be the means to getting back into your car in a timely and FREE fashion.

11:56am: an entry?
who cares! well, anyway. anyone who does read this drivel, although there hasn't been very much of it recently, will read that on march 8, a certain someone is going to whisk down from the land of tall buildings and fenced trees and attempt a rescue mission on the person trapped in the snowed-in suburban wasteland. this will free said person from the responsibilities of two tiny and incredibly adorable yet formidable masters of defecation on carpets.

so wish me luck, i'm moving to new york.

12:31pm: coolest dream ever!
so last night i had this dream, in it i was a she-ra. not THE she-ra, but one with nifty powers that never really existed but i got to wear the cute leotard and boots, and have funky colored hair. anyway, for some reason there was a big meeting between the she-ra population and some group of evil men. for some reason they believed that one of the she-ra's with special powers must be destroyed. fortunately queen angela got wind of the real reason for the meeting and knew that it was me that they were after and they were going to kill me, so she told me to run for it. so i was leaping down staircases and got outside and i was in the health science building at u-dub. then i forgot where i lived and this nice indian-american student helped me home. it was great to have someone with me, because the evil guys could see out the windows of the tower the meeting was in, and it made me blend in more. anyway, i didn't make it home, but i made it onto a ship whose purpose was to destroy aliens. but sigourney weaver was on the ship, except that she looked like yoko ono, and i knew that the only alien around was the one that she was carrying. i tried to tell the people on the ship, but they didn't believe me. then a bunch of my she-ra friends showed up and we all realized that something was going to happen unless we could stop it, and so we spread rumors that sigourney ono was unpleasant and got everyone to not like her and so she went away.

11:38am: i'm 22!
i better have fun, it's all downhill from here! festivities today include: shopping, going to some art museums, eating spatzle mit gulasch, and some lovely white birthday cake and gelato from my brother's store. :)

happy birthday to me!

12:06am: the futile search for perfection
all day long i've been searching for perfection. i'm beginning to think it doesn't exist. what could i possibly find that would blend my tastes with what would possibly be beautiful on me? bleh. i'm so tired. shopping for wedding dresses is stoopid. i always imagined it as a little girl, trying on thousands of dresses, each one more beautiful and flattering than the last. but that's not how it is! oh, no! wedding dresses are made for people with normal proportions, for old-fashioned or flashy people, for people with no taste. i am none of those things. i want something distinctive, elegant, me, and flattering. why oh why can't this be a dress in the bridal shop or in one of the thousands of pages online?? or even in the patterns that my mom and i looked at? grr. i hate fruitless searching, i hate wasting hours of my time...not that my time is important at the moment, but still. well, i need desperately to go to bed, and if i never see another tulle skirt it will be too soon. *shudder*

5:49pm: my graduation present


my very first car, yeah! i'm very pleased. its a 2001 honda civic lx, sparkly and shiny! :) i feel kinda bad cause i know exactly how much money it cost my parents, and from being so poor for so long i think it was just ridiculus to spend so much. i have a hard time buying something to drink when i'm thirsty now, but my parents bought a car for me with cash. i'm excited about it, but it's going to be kinda necessary for me now that i have to move to maryland. both the back seats fold down, i could fit a bike in it! not that i own a bike... anyway, i'm just excited. :D

8:32pm: nastiness behind us now...
now that my life is set for another week or so, i can begin to relax, and take care of all the crap that i've been putting off because of all the other moving stuff that i needed to get done. sending out graduation announcements, giving my med schools change of address forms, sending out final official transcripts to my schools and getting my renewed drivers license (tomorrow!) are all in my plans for this down time. yaay, getting stuff taken care of!

11:14pm: it's funny
it's funny that favors that you would be willing to do someone, are the same as the favors you are completely not willing to do for someone when they are a bitch to you. huh, very funny. it's also funny what you forget about after however many months of no communication, and what you are willing to give up for a friendship.

10:09pm: a day of complete crap.
my day:
* wake up to head not feeling so good. wake up to unsettled and hungry stomach. wake up to no food in apartment.
* clean. self. apartment.
* pack. self. apartment.
* throw stuff away...a lot of stuff.
* spend 30 minutes just trying to get luggage into wonder-steve's car
* get gas
* arrive at airport an hour later than intended.
* arrive at airport lacking a proper id.
* check in at counter proves that unless i want to pay extra 240 dollars, i can't send baggage, as both items are overweight and one box is over size maximums.
* scramble to find id. futile. find old license, they'll accept that, whew!
* buy two boxes totalling 12 dollars and empty oversized box into them, also place enough items from overweight suitcase to make it under 70 lbs.
* bless wonder-steve. wonder-steve is my hero.
* random security checks on my baggage, hey, it's already open, right?
* get to gate, flight delayed.
* finally start to board, i'm in last boarding group.
* got pulled aside for second random security check
* LAST person on plane. no overhead bin space. have to go to back of plane and put suitcase on stoopid people coats. why would you fill overhead bin space with coats? stoopid people.
* total cost for getting on plane: 12 dollars and massive stress.
* total cost for being in keller and not having to deal with that shit again: priceless

10:26am: aaah, endo is finally ended!
yes. i know the pathways and mechanisms of thyroxine release. i know the effects of chronic stress and their subsequent effects on the levels of glucocorticosteriods. but mostly, i know that i am graduating. right now. yes. no more undergrad. no more silly classes that have no bearing on what i want to do for the rest of my life. i have finished my last final and now have just to sit back and relax before a lovely bone and gut wrenching move only two more times in the next month. aaah, sweet relaxation. smells like 409 and spackle, windex and baking soda.

9:45am: my words of the day...
Doctor Dictionary's

Word of the Day for Thursday December 12, 2002

fetid \FET-id; FEE-tid\, adjective:
   Having an offensive smell; stinking.

Merrian-Webster's

The Word of the Day for December 13 is:

putrid   \PYOO-trid\   (adjective)
     1 a : rotten *b: foul
     2 : morally objectionable

ha ha ha, i like the morally objectionable part. puts me in mind of a certain someone.

11:37am: my week
this is my week in what people have told me:


"no, there is no such thing as a december biology program graduation reception" (one month ago)
"hey! we all are so proud of our graduates at the biology program, that we are throwing a reception, please come! there will be cake and cookies! yes, we will in no way benefit you by giving this information to you in time so that your parents could be pleased and actually see their child graduate." (this week)


"hi, happy holidays! are you upset about something? well, i'm going to sue you for 35 dollars, and go back on the deal that we made. you're evil and demented, i hope you burn in hell. hope we can still be friends!"


"hi, you and your boyfriend will end up on the street because your parents care enough about you to have provided money for college for you. also, we are always in the right and there was no anal raping done of you by a certain nameless person."


i realize what theft is. i realize that certain people have double standards. it's ok to steal entire tubs of peanut butter and entire bottles of kahlua from me, loose my tupperware and not replace it, as i asked you to do, as well as never clean the apartment that you moved out of, even while living there as was agreed upon on the legal document of the lease. but when a deal was made that was unclear to one or both parties, that's stealing? i have to say, that i am only upset that i am a human being and that i caved against a soul-less immobile rock.

11:32am: just remembered...
i also dreamed that maggie0585 wanted to sell the couch and recliner to dave matthews...we we hanging out at his house and he said he'd take a look...so we all got in a car and drove to look at the couch. yeah, i hang out with dave matthews. IN MY DREAMS! ha ha ha

8:54am: strange dreams
i've been having a series of vivid and strange dreams lately. last night i dreamed that dave called me, ok, not so strange. then he told me that he called to give me some news and recommend a masseuse. his news was that he couldn't finish his movie in the alloted time because of changes to the script, and so he would need to be in new york for two more years. for some reason this meant: 'new york away from me'. i woke myself up shouting 'NO!'

my sister called me at 8 this morning. good thing too, as my alarm didn't go off. grr. but she was calling to chat...like i have loads of free time in the morning...uh-huh!

4:02pm: i should gradumacate EVERY year!
so here i am at uwmc again, and am i doing work for the hospital? heck no! am i cutting out little pieces of paper nicked from uwmc, with messages printed from uwmc printers, and posting about it on uwmc computers? of course! (ok, so i only stole a couple sheets of paper, i use ten times more when i print out work that i've done here.)

but anyway, making graduation announcements can be fun. you get to design what you want the to look like, pick out your paper, colors, other fun stuff, download fonts off the internet cause your ass-tastic computer has only 4, and use scissors and glue sticks and stickers. the only thing that would make it more fun is if you wanted to create the entire thing out of tape and polar bears. he he, that would be one mad polar bear when you took the tape off...

so out of the what seems like hundreds of things that i have to do, i've chosen to make graduation announcements first...hmm, ok. well, kinda makes sense. close to graduating, everything else is stoopid and pointless. like homework, and stuff like that. bleh, homework is stoooopid. i'm so looking forward to some time away from learning, i've been going to school straight through summer for the last two years, and the two summers before that i was taking distance courses, so it was kinda like school. i'm a nutcase and burnt out.

ok, back to pseudo-work!

10:58pm: holiday
cary grant. katharine hepburn. watch it. it makes you happy. :)

11:41pm: buffy night
so buffy night was very fun. greg showed up a little late, but that was ok, cause i still got to see spike naked, he he he. after buffy we popped in greg's new dvd, the special edition of beauty and the beast, turned on the subtitles for the songs and had a few drinks. it was SSOOOOO much fun. a very pleasant way to spend an evening. :D

alternate topic: recently i signed up for merrian-websters word of the day. i figured, hey, its always good to improve one's vocabulary, and by subscribing to the word of the day, it requires very little effort on my part. so i've started receiving these words, and they are words i already know! am i just smarter than the average bear, or are the words dumbed down? words like 'rationale' and 'proficient'. i feel like they are pretty common. i was thinking i was signing up for words that i perhaps wouldn't know, obscure words that one would never really use, and could learn something interesting by it. but if they are going to be words that i could just as easily learn from watching 'pride and predjudice' one more time, there is really no point in having a word sent daily. grr. why can't they just send random, crazy-ass words that no one would use in every day conversation? anyway.

i've decided, a shot of 'aftershock' is a pleasant way to spend one's evening. you accomplish very little, i had to put down my cross-stitch soon after taking the shot as i couldn't really see where i was supposed to be putting the needle, and as i had already sliced open my thumb cutting potatoes for the mashed potatoes served here tonight, i figured it would probably not do to draw more blood than necessary. but drinking is a nice way to ensure that you will get to sleep easily, mmm, i'm falling asleep now...

12:02pm: Letters of Recommendation and skipping class
so on top of getting my petition accepted (woo-hoo, i'm gonna graduate!) my letters of recommendation have been coming in! yaaaY! my voluteer coordinator has already finished, at least one of my professors has already sent their letter (but probably two at this point), and my final professor will get it done by the end of the week. :D yaaay! finally moving forward! now i just have to finish my hpsp application, and interview with my med schools. as much shit as they put you through, i'm looking forward to being done.

on another note, taking a nap in the health science library is much nicer of a way to spend the afternoon than going to my physics class. hopefully it wont become a trend though...hmm, physics class in an hour and a half...or sleeping for a few more hours... no, i'm going. i've already missed two lectures in a row and i have homework due the end of the week.

buffy tonight. :D spike! ooooh, spike! spike and meatloaf and mashed potatoes! oh, and greg will be there too. but mostly spike. *sigh*

9:54am: fozzie? ok...

	You are Fozzie! Wokka Wokka! You love to make lame jokes. Your sense of humor might be a bit off, but you're a great friend and can always be counted on..
Take the What Muppet Are You? Quiz!

12:28pm: my boyfriend is the cutest evaaaar!!!!!
yep, the cutest evaaaaar. definately.

6:37pm: is it bad...
is it bad that i ordered a pizza last night from 'mad pizza', even though it is one of my least favorite pizza places, (blecK!) just because they gave me a coupon for a free pint of ben and jerry's ice cream? he he, they should call it 'bad pizza.' wonder if i should be eating a pint of ice cream a few days before my navy physical...

oh, and what was up with buffy last night??? (err..don't read if you haven't watched it and are going to...) crazy scariness, esp. cause we were having lightning just like dawn was. brrr, shivers of seeing dead buffy mom with scary eyes. i almost peed my pants. twice. and how could the stupid geek boy kill the other cuter geek boy??? i wanted to cry! he wanted to be part of the scooby gang! and i'm totally confused...should willow not be using magic anymore, or was it all a lie?

11:31am: influence of movies on my everyday life
so i've been watching a lot of movies lately, so what? it's not like i can't tell the difference between real life and the movies! i didn't speak with a british accent for three hours after watching 'pride and predjudice' this weekend. i didn't think that i would actually turn into an ogre for kissing david after i watched 'shrek'. i haven't shaved my head after watching 'empire records'...yet. i think i'd be cute bald. and then i could work in a record store and steal money and go to atlantic city! i want to work in a record store, do you think that life could turn out like a movie?

anyway, i have some more interesting (or not) observations for everyone:

i was getting on the bus the other day, and i said hi to the bus driver, like i always do. instead of saying hello, hi, good morning or anything like that he said 'bird'. i thought perhaps i didn't hear him correctly and dismissed it, but when i got off the bus and said 'thanks,' he said 'bird' again. has anyone else had this man for a driver?

have you ever noticed how text book reading really piles up? a week ago i was only three chapters behind, but now i'm 5 chapters behind. text books are tricky that way.

no matter how efficient you think your life is going, something will always be there to slow down or hinder your progress. applications are a good example, because not only are there multiple forms to fill out, you have to send them money, order them transcripts, and rely on other people to be efficient for you. *sigh*

being a girl can really suck sometimes. if god exists, he should be shot, repeatedly, for all the shit he 'designed' girls to go through every month. let alone at the birth of a child. grr.

5:10pm: sometimes physics is just stoopid.
like today. physics is stoopid today. optics is stoopid. i hate optics. i always have. everything (positive/negative/virtual/real/etc) seems completely arbitrary. it actually says in the book that you have to fudge numbers and signs to get the right answer. i hate things that aren't precise. they are stooopid. hence the reason that i don't like politics/philosophy/english/ecology or any of those other subjective studies. things that aren't precise don't make sense. that's why physics is usually good, but optics sucks. grr.

anyway, i'm off to go bowling with snotling! mmm...coffee...bowling...coffee. coffee is good. yes...coffee is very good. studying with no coffee equals stoopid and not learning anything. stoopid megan.

12:22pm: feeling guilty about slacking...
ok, so i volunteer. isn't that good enough? do i have to feel guilty that i didn't go last saturday? sheesh. well, my future's happiness is a little more important than putting colored tape on videos, but when janet asked me if another girl that was supposed to be coming to volunteer on saturdays showed up, i had to divulge that i didn't know, cause i wasn't there. then i felt bad. again. i'm only here for a little longer, and i'm supposed to be buttering up janet so that i can ask her for a letter of recommendation, that i need pretty soon here. well, maybe if i get a lot done this saturday i'll feel better about it all.