there's a certain comfort in routine.

as Succot was drawing to a close, everyone was lamenting the end of the holidays and the forced return to "normal life"

i think i was the only one who was looking forward to it.

not that i didn't enjoy the family, food, more family and more food. it's hard to get adjusted to a school regimen when every three days I'm missing class. so now I've gotten my schedule all worked out. I've figured out exactly how much time i need in the morning so that i can sleep until the very last second and still have time to grab something to eat before i run off to the hospital. I'm managing to balance preparing in the morning before i leave for class so that i have everything i need to make dinner when i get home in the evening. and I've discovered that if i do laundry on Sundays, I've got the whole afternoon to do it so I'm less rushed and there's less of a chance that I'll lose a sock or turn an undershirt gray. (and if i do it on Sunday, Mr. FCG folds it :) )

the last day of camp is always somewhat surreal to me. everyone walks around in a slight daze, mumbling, "i can't believe the summer is ending" we had started packing everything up in the nurse's office already at the beginning of the week, but Friday was when it all really got packed up. the by midday the room had the empty look of summer's end. the walls that had been covered with the kids drawings were totally bare. the refrigerator that was previously stocked with Gatorade and ice packs was emptied out and unplugged. the water cooler and pretzel barrel were cleaned out and put away for storage, leaving two large rings on the counter. the door of the medicine cabinet banged against the empty shelves, clanging loudly. reminding me that my summer vacation is quickly drawing to a close.

i said goodbye and pulled out of the camp for the last time, reflecting on what I'd learned over the past eight weeks, still not believing that I'm going back to school in a week.

time to pull out my drug cards and go reserve my spot in Starbucks.

i'm resurfacing!

yes i know, it's been like three months since my last blog post, my apologies for that (i found couches by the way. yummy microfiber couches from Bob's Discount Furniture, and i love them)

so a lot has happened since April. i passed my finals, finished furnishing my apartment, got married, made it through sheva brachos, started cooking dinners and doing laundry, got a summer job working in a nurse's office in a local day camp, and celebrated my seven-week anniversary.

whew!

married life is great, blah blah blah, nobody's really interested in hearing about my philosophy, especially since a great chunk of my readers have been married like 18-20 times longer than i have.

now that it's already august (where did the summer go?) I've started working on my schoolwork. this semester i'm doing labor and delivery, oncology, immunology, and respiratory. i know i'm going to have a full plate, but i do plan on blogging every now and then.

shopping for a couch is not as easy as i thought it would be.

i never realized how many different couches are out there. reclining or non-reclining, leather or microfiber, different sizes and shapes, firmer cushions or softer cushions. and I'm not even going to mention the different colors.

the first stop was Ikea, probably the funnest furniture store, but not the best place to look for a couch. i know the store has like Swedish roots or something. aren't Scandinavian people supposed to be tall? because all the couches were very short and compact. i think it's designed for little squishy apartments. and not so much for comfort.

so off i went to Raymour and Flanigan. once i managed to dodge an overly friendly saleswoman, i was free to roam around and flop down on couch after couch. we happened to be in the store on the day of an extended sale, but the prices weren't that exciting.

and another thing i forgot to calculate-Mr. FCG (for those of you who didn't like the moniker, you should know that he has no problem with it) is a good 10 inches taller than me. so i need to find a couch that will be comfortable for him as well. so we grabbed a relatively tall frum guy and asked him to try out the couches. and we did the same thing yesterday to a poor unsuspecting 17 year old boy in a small sidewalk furniture store.

but i may have found something. slowly but surely, I'm getting there. last final is in a week and a half. then i can focus more on wedding plans and less on renal failure.

summer vacation, here i come!

as part of my psychiatric nursing clinical experience, my class conducted a screening in the college for anxiety disorders. we set up in a large room in the student union, and put up signs for free pizza. that's the only way to attract the attention of the college students.

we had the participants fill out a questionnaire about stress levels and anxiety. then based on that we discussed the possibility of anxiety disorders, stress management skills, and if needed, introduced them to student counselor on campus, so they could make an appointment to speak with her. once they finished talking we gave them a ticket which was redeemable for a free slice of pizza. the counselor running the screening explained that she knows a lot of the students only come for the free pizza, but it's worth it if she gets at least five or ten students to talk about their anxiety.

i think some of the students thought they couldn't get the pizza if they didn't have anxiety issues. so they made some things up. which made it very hard to keep a straight face when talking to them:

me: so you checked off that sometimes you have spells or attacks when you get anxious or frightened?

student: yea. sometimes, I'll wake up in the middle of the night, and then i can't fall back asleep for a little bit

me: is there something that causes these attacks?

student: well if i think about something bad that happened to me, it makes me have trouble sleeping

me: did something happen to you?

student: ummm....well my friend was sick, like last year

me: and is she OK now?

student: oh yea she's fine...

(at this point the conversation kind of deteriorated, so i gave her the ticket for pizza)

or take another conversation that my classmate Stephanie had with a student:

student: sometimes i get really anxious, and then my heart starts beating fast and i sweat a lot

Stephanie: what happens to cause these attacks?

student: like when i see mice

Stephanie: well i think everyone gets a little anxious when they see mice

I'm not making fun of people with anxiety disorders. it just amazed at how stupid some of the stories seemed.

This post is dedicated to all bookkeepers and accountants who have spent the last few weeks working tirelessly (maybe some have been a little tired) over the past few weeks to feverishly meet the tax deadline. This morning when sister1 got into the car, I realized that I had not seen her in three days-and we live in the same house! It was nice to get reacquainted with her for a bit. And I know that everyone who knows someone who’s an accountant is looking forward to seeing their parents/siblings/spouses/children/friends again. Welcome home, we missed you!

Pesach.

the time we were freed from slavery.

and we're supposed to free ourselves from being slaves to our own desires.

what are you a slave to?

i know right now I'm enslaved to my computer. yep, once again I'm waiting for an exam grade. we were supposed to email our professor before Wednesday so that on Thursday when she logged into her computer she would email everyone back. unfortunately for me, with all the Shabbos and chag, my week feels like it's been Friday Shabbos Sunday, Friday Shabbos Shabbos Sunday, Friday Shabbos Sunday....so i totally forgot to email my professor before pesach, and now i might have to wait until Thursday to find out how i did on my exam. but I'm not too worried, since everyone else in my class got in the 90's-psych nursing is pretty easy. the thing to remember is that involuntary admission can only happen when the patient is a danger to themselves or others. knowing that can help answer almost every single question.

in the beginning of the semester our professor told us that we should go see a Broadway show called Next To Normal, a story of a dysfunctional family affected by one of its members living with bipolar disorder. i had plans to go see Lion King with my future mother in law and assorted sisters-in-law, but the show was sold out. so on Thursday morning she got tickets to see Next To Normal. this wasn't a feel-good musical, where you leave singing. it was an emotional drama, and by the end of the show almost everyone was crying. but i must say, it was very powerful. my semester working with mentally ill may have opened my eyes to gain a little bit of what people deal with when they live with a mental disorder. i found it poignant and beautiful at the same time. highly recommended.

but the part of Pesach that's always been my favorite, and that which I've mentioned in the past, is the family part. first days we had a cousin from the Midwest over, a tradition three years running, and we did the second seder in the nursing home, like we did two years ago. second day lunch was spent at grandparents with Uncle2 and various other cousins. for shabbos we had Aunt from Far Away with all her kids, and we went to visit Uncle1. for the last days, we will be eating and hobnobbing with various other relatives. i know that by the time the dishes are all put away and the chametz is brought back out (hopefully not too late on Tuesday night, i need to be in the hospital at 6:50am on Wednesday) we'll be more than sick of each other and only too happy to get back to school/work, but for now, we're enjoying the chag, the weather, and the family, in a country where we are free to do as we please.

you know the feeling you get after you eat a big meal? when you're so full that you almost can't move? that's the feeling i get in my brain after I've spent any substantial amount of time studying. i feel like my brain is full, and talking about anything other than what I've been studying will take up extra gray matter that i need to memorize all the information. not only that, once i start studying different disorders, i'm convinced I've got them all. since i'm studying neuro i'm positive that the twitch in my eye is going to become full-blown trigeminal neuralgia. not only that, i spent the entire weekend diagnosing everyone i came across with various personality disorders.

so i'd advise you to stay away from me until the end of the week. i might start listing the lobes of the brain and their functions. or the twelve cranial nerves. or i might try to convince you that you've got borderline personality disorder.

nobody likes an overachiever.

one of the projects i'm currently working on for school, is researching and doing a presentation on the abuse of heroin. everyone in my class was assigned a different drug, and we started presentations this week. i had all my work written out, and i created flyers to hand out to the class with pictures on them. but the woman who presented first went all out and created a colossal poster, with tons of pictures and facts. now we all have to go back and add more stuff to our presentation so we don't look bad.

we should have made her go last

stupid lady

first med-surg exam of the semester...

my stomach butterflies are having quite a lively game of volleyball right now. i don't why i always have small panic attacks before my nursing tests. they say that mild anxiety is good because it helps you stay focused and allows you to block out any distractors. but right now the last thing i want to do is study. I've read and reread my drug cards and now i can't look at them anymore. I've taken and retaken the online quizzes until i know all the questions and answers by heart. now I've got about 35 minutes to kill before i can go take the exam.

and it's not helping that my study partner is telling me about how this professor loves to ask obscure questions on material that hasn't' really been covered...

being stuck in the house for two days should have made me more productive. i think it just made me lazier. i wrote a paper and prepared a presentation I'm giving to my class, and studied a bit, but because of all the snow days my two exams got pushed off a week, so I've pushed off my studying. it was a double feature in the Family Sitcom. in yesterday's episode, Teenaged Girl slept till 12:30 until she was woken up by Thirteen Year Old Boy complaining loudly that he was starving and didn't know it was a fast yesterday. thankfully the musical instruments didn't make their appearance until later that evening, after Accountant had given up her attempts at working from home. This morning things were slightly less intense, as The Whole Family cooked together for shabbos (not as beautiful as it sounds, trust me) and finished Purim baking.

now G6 may have been first to hang up her Haman men, but i one-upped her; i hung up twenty. ten in the living room and ten in the dining room. that's what happens when there is lots of time and not much to do. and since there's been no sign of my dad's friend with his plow, it looks like we'll be here for a bit longer. a Brooklyn Cousin was supposed to be coming for Shabbos and Purim but i don't know how's she's getting here since we are all housebound.

this year it is our turn in the Purim Meal Rotation, and my mom's been trying to figure out if she can fit everyone in our house without having to take the couches out of the living room. a certain rebbe will be gracing us with his (pantless) presence as always, but this year he is coming with a slightly smaller entourage, as his gabbai and shamash are both away, opening their own branches of his chassidus in other towns.

i did not have ample time to create a costume this year, so i will be dressing up as a nursing student with a diamond ring. very original. next year i will be forcing Mr. FCG to dress up with me (only he doesn't know that yet. I'm going to wait to break the news to him) as far as mishloach manos goes, i baked cake for everyone else, but this year i will just be giving two minim to one person-just enough to fulfill my obligation. if you are looking for me on Purim morning, just look for me in the college library desperately trying to find another article on Hindu culture and health care beliefs to hand in to my clinical instructor on Monday morning.

oh the joys of being a student.

wishing all a happy and safe Purim.

with all that's been going on lately, i almost forgot my blogiversary! even though i don't have class on Fridays, they usually end up being my busiest day ever. i reserve Friday morning for practicing my nursing skills, and this morning i got tested on my last two med-surg skills for the semester, and probably the least fun of the skills; catheterization. i didn't have a lot of practice with this skill, but thanks to a friend of mine who had extra time to patiently sit with me and demonstrate the skill on the mannequins, over and over until i mastered it, i passed, and I've got a few weeks until i have to start the second set of skills, IV and enteral feeding.

so i haven't had much time to reflect in the last year of blogging, but i know that a lot of things have happened since then, some good and some bad.

to anyone who's been reading since i first started, i hope i haven't been too disappointing with all my slacking off lately.

and to my family who i know reads this, thanks for supporting me through everything

and I'd like to thank the academy for....

No matter how many times i explain the shidduch system to my non-Jewish classmates, they still don't get it.

I've known Erin for about a year. i took Microbiology and two nursing classes with her. i explained the way Orthodox Jews date and get married, and although she found it bizarre, she got the hang of it. or so i thought.

then i got engaged.

and she said "so like, did you go out with him or your parents just told him you're marrying him?"

i don't think she'll ever get it.

and i passed the first three skills of the semester!

stump wrapping was pretty easy, i practiced on the mannequins in school and then on sister2 at home. my aunt offered her kids to practice on, but thankfully they couldn't be of much help.

the other two skills were pouching a urostomy bag and irrigating a colostomy. and no, it's not as gross as everyone thinks it is. last semester i helped an LPN change a colostomy bag. it could have been the patient (who was very friendly and cheerful) but the experience wasn't as bad as I'd heard it would be.

so now I'm down three skills and I've got three more parts to go

overheard on my way to class

Student: you didn't catch me with a cigarette in my hand, so you can't give me a ticket for smoking!

Campus Security: ma'am, were you just smoking?

Student: yes, but-no! you didn't catch me smoking, so i was not smoking! you can't give me a ticket! right now, there are like at least fifteen other people out there smoking who you can ticket!

Dear fellow students at __________College,

i know that your schedule is every bit as demanding as mine. and i know that it's probably very stressful to have to be in school every morning as early as eleven am. and i know that you have a full load, balancing your math class with Intro to Literature and Sociology of Family and Marriage, especially since you're also taking four gym credits. and i know that feeling when you're running late, and everything is going wrong, and you have to go back into your house three times because you forgot your notebook, your phone charger, and your calculator. i know this because only last week it took me fifteen minutes to get from my room to my car because i had to keep turning around to get things I'd forgotten.

so you're already in a foul mood, and you know it's going to get worse because you didn't get a chance to have a smoke yet, and you don't want to smoke in your car because that is just revolting and disgusting, and you know you can't smoke on campus because the security has been extra vigilant about handing out tickets lately, so you zoom into the parking lot and start frantically looking for a spot. but I'm begging you, PLEASE don't take up two spots, just because you can't be bothered to take an extra second to straighten out your car. you have no idea how frustrating it is to see spot after spot that's not parkable because there's a car taking up two spots.

Tonight my vacation ends.

well technically it ends tomorrow at 2pm when my class starts, but as of tomorrow morning I'll be in "school mode"

i know some people are bored by the end of their vacations, and ready to go back to school, but i for one could do with another two or three days of vacation. above all, i love having the free feeling of no obligations, and not always hearing my conscience nag me about studying, or reviewing.

my resolutions for the upcoming semester:

learn all the skills within the first month, and get tested right away

read a little bit every day so Shabbos afternoon can be reserved for sleeping

talk to my friends once a week so they don't feel like I've abandoned them

make sure to stay ahead of my class so i won't fall that far behind over Pesach

not use class as an excuse to miss weddings that i just don't feel like going to (unless it's a legitimate reason)

more from the auto show

blogging from the North American International Auto Show

when i saw the sign that said Blogger's Lounge, i just couldn't stay away. there was a big counter with big gorgeous iMacs that said "log into your blog and post what you've seen today" how could i resist an invitation like that?

so far Aunt Far Away and i have checked out all the Ford cars, entered a drawing for a free MP3 player, practiced virtual driving with a cardboard steering wheel, and sat in the driver's seat of the new Lincoln MKX. by far its coolest feature is a double mirror which enables you to see your blind spot without having to check over your shoulder.

i really wanted to practice the virtual parking assist but you only get to ride shotgun to an attendant, which isn't nearly as cool as sitting in the driver's seat and watch the wheel move on its own.

that's all for now. i have to go check out more cool cars and see if i can get a free t-shirt

today the Far Away Cousins came home from school and told my aunt that not a single one of their teachers discussed or even mentioned Martin Luther King today. coming from a New York high school, i wasn't that surprised, because they never mentioned MLK day, September 11th, Kristallnacht, Pearl Harbor Day. i'm not putting all those days in the same category, or listing them based on importance, those were just things that were never discussed in my school. (I was actually the only one who even knew what and when Pearl Harbor Day was because i did a report on Hawaii and the U.S.S. Arizona when i was in fifth grade)

But for an out-of-town school, i was mildly surprised that they didn't discuss it. perhaps even more surprising, was that some girls in high school didn't even know that it was a legal holiday (i think the district doesn't have buses)

so in my own way i'm commemorating the man who gave one of the most powerful speeches i've ever heard, and perhaps the largest demonstration for civil rights in the history of the United States.

Let freedom ring.

part of being a faithful Jew is about not questioning what happens, because we have no way of knowing what G-d's plan is. so when it looks like there's no way things are "fair" we have to realize that we're only seeing a thin slice of the master plan.

but it doesn't make it any easier when we're witness to a tragedy.

last night, a man was taken from this world. a man who lived his life as a generous individual, who loved people. a man who was not fortunate to walk the path of a religious Jew, but nevertheless lived a life of simchat hachaim. a man who worked hard to provide for his family, and the people who he knew. a man who always had a smile, and a joke ready, even when he was suffering and sick. a man who was loved by a lot of people, and will be missed by everyone who knew him.

i used to think i had brown eyes.

or maybe i used to have brown eyes. in any case, it made shopping for clothing very easy, because i knew i looked good in purples and grays. it made makeup easy too, because i used brown eyeliner and brown mascara.

but lately I've noticed that my eyes are not looking so brown. in fact, there are some days that they look downright green. which got me thinking; my eyes are a little less brown and a little more hazel lately. i hate hazel. it's like a wimpy excuse for an eye color because your eyes can't decide what color they want to be, so they wait to see what the weather's going to be, or maybe what color shirt you're going to be wearing, before they decide which pigment they're going to be showing to the world.

hello, you can't be lazy if you're an eye color! just make up your mind and stick with it!

in any event, now i have to find a good green eyeliner, and new eye shadow. and besides, i liked having brown eyes. and I'm not loving the hazel all that much.

whoever said that ice cream is a summer food obviously grew up way to quickly. and I'm willing to bet you'll find those people drinking coffee in the summer.

there's something about ice cream that's an all-weather, all-occasion food. the only time that's not optimal for eating ice cream is when you're actually thirsty, because it does nothing to quench your thirst, and will only make you thirstier. this probably a result of the salt that's found in ice cream, in addition to all the other solutes (sugars, fats, amino acids) that make your blood more concentrated and giving your hypothalamus the signal of dehydration.

in any event, ice cream is good a boredom buster, tastes good with waffles, and comes in white to minimize stains. what more could you want out of food?

when you go to an ice cream store you'll find two different kinds of ice cream eaters. the first category are those who are willing to try anything. every time they order ice cream they'll try out a different flavor. pistachio, chocolate chip mint, rose petals, garlic, grass, kishka...you name it. I've seen every single one of those flavors. the only one I've tried is mint chocolate chip. the reason why i don't take risks when it comes to ice cream is because i love plain vanilla ice cream, or cookie dough, and hate the thought of "wasting" an order of ice cream for something i won't be able to finish. take caramel or peanut butter for instance. I've tried the free samples and they were delicious. but it's very hard to finish a whole cone of caramel flavored ice cream. it's just too much. so i stick with the flavors i know i like.

when i was a kid i truly believed that ice cream was supposed to be eaten in a cone the same way soup was to be eaten with a spoon-i wouldn't have dreamed of eating it any other way. when i say cone i mean obviously mean sugar cone and not those awful fake waffle Styrofoam things. now i never eat ice cream in a cone, because i find that i end up with one big sticky mess.

so i just stick to vanilla ice cream in a bowl, and that makes me very very happy :)

3:30pm

Today I experienced a first at the airport-the first time I flew without checking in any luggage. I don’t think it’s even possible to fly to Israel with only carry-on luggage, and since I’m only flying to the Midwest I managed to pack two weeks worth of clothing into an overnight bag. I know, impressive.

I learned a lesson when going through security-it’s not good to wear a sweatshirt and scarf under your coat. Because they’ll make you take everything off. And people behind you can get annoyed. Especially when they’re juggling a lot of bags, three cranky kids and one unhelpful husband. But as I waited, I watched a guy get detained in those glass holding cells. I was hoping for something interesting to happen, while feeling a little anxious, because my bags were next to his, but fortunately nothing happened. After a few minutes a security guard came and let him out.

I’m wondering if the airline was trying to be funny when they put my flight at the same gate as the flight to Fort Lauderdale, like their way of saying “ha, stupid people, why would you want to fly from Cold New York to Freezing Michigan?” at least that’s what people have been saying to me for the past two weeks. But at least I know I’m going somewhere cold. All the people who are bound for Florida think they’re getting nice weather and are in for a bit of a shock. I heard the temperatures in Florida reached as low as 30 degrees this week.

So now I’m sitting at the gate and hoping that I’ll be able to pass my very compactly-packed overnight bag through the last hurdle so I can bring it on to the plane and shove it in the overhead bulk and spend the entire time worrying that I’ll forget to take it off the plane with me. But it’s all worth it, because when I get off the plane, I won’t have to wait around for luggage.

6:53pm

Well my flight was quick and uneventful. I always like to keep my phone on for as long as possible, and see how high up in the air I can still get cell service. Since I refuse to pay an extra fee for my seat, I’m subjected to whichever seat is randomly assigned to me by the airline. Middle seat in the second-to-last row. I thought the situation could not have been any worse until I saw my seatmate who was taking up all of his seat and just a little bit of mine. Not enough to actually request a switch (especially since the flight was totally full) but just enough to be marginally uncomfortable. Thankfully my other seatmate was slightly undersized, so I sat as far to the left as possible. The entire flight was spent my music on a little louder than usual to drown out the screaming baby sitting one row over. It seems like I've traded in one snowy landscape for another. If I thought I was escaping the white outdoors of New York, I was wrong. It’s snowing here and the ground is already covered with about two inches of snow. Still, the cold will not deter me. Vacation is about taking it easy and sleeping late and I can still do that with frigid temperatures of 15 degrees.

i hate the game of Clue.

it's the only game that my father refuses to play with my little brother, who loves it. my mother has no problems playing the game, and tonight i got roped (no pun intended) into playing with them.

for starters, i never remember the actual logistics of the game, and i need a little refresher course each time i play. the first round was over in about four seconds when i (unknowingly) gave away the answer. I'm still not sure how i managed that.

in addition, i kept accidentally leaving my top card face up, causing my mother, brother2, and sister2 to dive for the pens and start scratching off their paper.

while venting my frustration, sister1 announced that the "only way to play this game, like any other strategy game, is to cheat" but even with her looking at the other players' cards and texting me, i still couldn't' manage to win.

it's hard enough trying to remember who showed me which cards, i can't sit trying to figure out which card my sister is showing my brother, and what he's crossing off. I'm just as happy to let Col. Mustard get away with murder. but don't bother asking me where or how he did it. because i have no clue.

Blogger is reunited with missing ipod after three weeks

last night in an astounding turn of events, a local blogger's missing ipod turned out, seemingly out of nowhere. sister1 was sitting on the couch and noticed a baseball card sticking up between the cushions. she dug into the couch and flicked a handful of cards onto FCG's lap.

"oh, look what's here!" she exclaimed, and the ipod landed on FCG'S lap. there were exclamations of surprise and delight all around.

"i know that FCG has been very worried about her ipod. she called me every two days to see if it had turned up in my apartment" commented a friend

so far the ipod has not yet spoken about what it was doing in the couch or how it got down there.

"I'm just very happy to have it back" said FCG in a statement to the press "right now I'm just going to spend time recharging and reconnecting with my ipod"