A Quick Word... Because My Laptop is the Ultimate Shiny Object

I just got back from a lovely July 4th weekend with the Weavers. We hung out on the boat and then stuffed ourselves with hotdogs and the most delicious strawberry pizza ever. Thankfully, the order was not reversed. Food babies and bathing suits don't mix.

This is pretty much the last thing I should be doing right now, so I guess it's pretty predictable that I'm sitting in front of my laptop instead of studying or cleaning up my room/bathroom or folding clothes or making my bed or buying dog food. This whole responsibility thing is for the birds. I want my little kid summers back with the slip and slides in the backyard made from sprinklers, shower curtains, drying insulation tubes and Dawn.

The only outside time I'm sure to get these days is during the already sticky, early morning walk to Brody. At least we have a few weeks of break to look forward to. 25 days until Gross is over. Unbelievable. It feels like an eternity. I just hope I survive. If I were a less ADD person, I wouldn't waste my time hoping when I could actually be studying. If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride, right? Back to the drag... but not before I turn up the Tom Petty and/or Billy Joel and dance-clean around my house.

Musings on Being (Nearly) 24

Here's a corny little poem I wrote today on the chalkboard in Laupus Library when I should have been drawing the branching of the trigeminal nerve... Anatomy messes with your brain. And I'm out of practice, but I think it's a little bit fun.

Musings on Being (Nearly) 24

Tomorrow is my birthday.
Can we pretend to care?
Yesterday, I was 18.
I still feel like I'm right there.

But it's been almost a quarter century
Since I was spat out on the earth.
There was kicking and some screaming
And it's not changed much since birth.

What don't I feel at 24
That I did at 21?
I felt like I was growing up
But that life had just begun.

I thought I'd have a steady job.
I thought I'd have a house.
I thought I'd have a brand new car.
I thought I'd have a spouse.

Now I know that half of knowing
Is knowing you don't know,
And that falling on your face sometimes
Is the best way you can grow.

I'm just one of many ships
Tossed out upon the sea,
And if the waves can sink anyone,
Why wouldn't they sink me?

But ships like mine can weather storms
Though the bow may pitch and rock.
The passage will be treacherous,
But I come from tougher stock.

So raise a glass, my friends, to another year
And another dollar spent
On books and class and groceries,
On a crappy apartment's rent.

I'm still the girl you know and (mostly) love
And though life and school can take their toll,
They may erode my body and my mind,
But they'll never have my soul.

If I Only Had a Brain

As I went to lay my weary head on the pillow just a moment ago, I noticed that my hair was wet. Still wet from the shower I just took after a long day of cadavers, knee palpations and running at the gym.

And I realized that I haven't picked up my hair dryer in about a month. I've been the queen of frizz and air-drying. It's also a rare occasion that I wear anything that isn't part of a Soffe shorts and T-shirt combo. I switch back and forth between two pairs of shoes, my tennis shoes and my Rainbows, leaving a closet full of sandals and heels collecting dust. I've been using the same purse for about 2 months, and my Coach and Longchamp bags remain on the shelf.

I can blame it partially on summer, but I'm not sure that's the whole story. In short, I'm living in Brody, Laupus Library, the Health Sciences building and my apartment. None of which require a varied wardrobe.

The funny thing about that is that lately I've written a few fashion articles for The Rocky Mount Telegram. I'm the 20-something fashion expert without fashion.

I'm going to have to step up my game again though. A single gal can't be running around in gym clothes and a ponytail ALL the time. I'm going to try to cut back to most of the time.

On another note, I held my first human brain today. Not everyone can say that they've done that. I rinsed off the formaldehyde, flipped that bad boy over and bam, there's the optic nerve clear as day. Just like it is in the atlas. Then it hits me. 'Hey, I've got one of those too.' And one of those, and one of those, and one of those. Wow, head and neck is going to be a doozie to say the least.

But I do find everything really interesting. (Everyday does unfortunately bring to mind a new reference to The Wizard of Oz for whatever reason. Mostly the whole 'Snip, snip here. Snip, snip there.' part in the Emerald City. The difference is in the material being snipped.) The human body is this intricate machine, and I held the command center in the palm of my hand. A brain is a pretty heavy thing too. I'd say at least 5 pounds. I'm pretty impressed that we hold it up as well as we do.

Speaking of holding up heads with brains in them, I'm about done holding mine up for the day. I think I'll get back to the wet hair on pillow action. It'll be a pretty morning. Thank God for hair ties.

The 'Dids are back!

Well, I'm back to a bit of writing. Just thought that if I'm going to claim to be a writer, I should probably do some of it instead of drowning in anatomy books. Maybe I'm just kidding myself, but this feels like productivity...

For those of you who weren't on the list-serve for my original Katydids, let me explain the title. (Because if I don't, you won't know that I'm not a complete lame-o...) Basically, on the Bales side of the family, I was the first grandkid, and thus was immortalized in song. :) Something like "Look at what little Katy did, she brightened up all of our lives, she carries the spark of which we're all a part..." My uncle wrote it. He's always writing silly and not-so-silly songs for every occasion, is in local plays, Morris dances (yes, I know no one knows what that is)... basically he's a ham, but in the good silly way that most of our family seems to be capable of from time to time. I'm actually waiting for a call back from him about the lyrics just because I'm curious. I may post them later if I get the notion.

I should definitely be looking over my flash cards that I made for the muscles of the leg and pelvis. My roommate Bama (a.k.a. Amanda) and our friend Emily are in the other room surrounded by pictures of genitalia and the lower extremities, notecards strewn about like an anatomy pinata just exploded. I do feel a little guilty and that may make this a short post, but I thought I should get back on the blogging horse while I felt the urge.

Things are going well in grad school so far I suppose. I don't have the grades I'd like yet, but I haven't mastered the whole "studying-every-moment-of-my-waking-life" thing the way some of my classmates have. It's not like I'm not doing decently well. I have solid Bs, and as the second years reminded us, "Bs get DPTs," but I'd like to make As to stay equal to my classmates and create a bit of a cushion for myself with the whole required 3.0 thing. Ya know, just in case another class doesn't go so well in the future and I make a dreaded C.

Socially, I'm really enjoying Greenville. My classmates are all solid, good-natured people, and we seem to get along well. My friend Jesse and Molly (my sister) came into town this weekend, and last night, along with Bama and Emily and Emily's beau Alex, we managed to turn Jenga, Twister and Scattergories into drinking games. Emily and Alex even came by some moonshine (which I only took a sip of, because it smelled like pure death).

So I lucked into a roommate who I get along with (Thanks, Facebook!), I've been out with a few potential suitors, and it's awesome having Lindsey and Beth right around the corner. I've been going to the gym a lot lately with Lindsey. I figure the endorphins that I get from that may help me through my stress over gross, and hey, you need exercise too right? If I'd rather run than study, you know studying is brutal! Brutal, but worth it, and more often than not, I feel confident that I'm right where I'm supposed to be.

So that's my life in a nutshell at the moment. ("This is a bloody huge nutshell! How did I get in this nutshell?!" Anyone, anyone?) I tried to keep it brief, but you know me... or maybe you don't, this being cyberspace and all... Anyway, I'm rambling and it's 12:30 a.m. and I have to go cut open dead people in a few short hours. I'm out of practice, so don't judge me on this, but just rest assured, the 'Dids are back... more or less. (That means you, Courtney!)