Procrastinating

I should be reading, but I'm not. I did manage to go shopping though, so now I need ideas. Anyone know what to do with a top round steak? It was cheap, so I bought it, but I don't actually know what to do with it. Suggestions, please!

Also, everyone should watch the trailer for Igor!

Busy busy busy

I'm sensing a theme developing with this program. It revolves around reading and not sleeping. My to do list for this weekend:

Read 14 chapters in 4 textbooks (this doesn't include genetics reading, because I just don't do that)
Take an online genetics test
Take an online Nursing Science Quiz (after reading the 4 chapters that I'll be quizzed on)
SOAP write up of a neurological assessment exam (probably 3 pages, considering that I did my assessment on someone with a crazy health history)
Watch two assessment videos (about 30 minutes each)
Make assessment flash cards for General, HEENT (Head, Eyes, Ears, Nose, Throat), and Neuro
Study for my Path/Pharm test
Study for my Assessment test

I'll probably take the genetics exam tonight after skimming the book, since it's all basics that I should know. The rest of it, I'll sort out later.

Anyway, I know my posting has been infrequent this week, which is entirely due to the craziness of my schedule and the need for a night out last night. Because of the Memorial day holiday all of our normal Monday classes were shoved into our Wednesday schedule, giving Wednesday 10 hours of scheduled classes/meetings. It started badly, since I didn't realize that lab had been moved back to 8am and showed up at 9am. Luckily two other people did the same thing (one of them a professor, the other became my lab partner). We rushed through the HEENT assessment on each other and managed to finish almost everything.

After lab I skipped the NxSTEP meeting. NxSTEP is a program about professional deveopment, how to get a job, write a resume, etc. It was not mandatory, so I took a 20 minute break and got myself some coffee. Then I went to the Fuld Scholars meeting, which was blissfully short and sweet. All we have to do is 40 hours of research with a faculty member over the course of the year. That's it. No paper, no poster, no talk, nothing. Just do the work.

I then rushed back to the auditorium for the Path/Pharm test review, which made me feel much more confident about the test to be taken on Thursday. Immediately after the review was a 2 hour genetics class, which Joanna (the prof) managed to keep interesting and fun, somehow. From there we sat through 2 hours of awful Nursing Science lecture. That class is dull, the professor treats us like 2nd graders and we learn nothing worthwhile. Everyone hates it. Anyway, after that bit of torture was a 3 hour Path/Pharm lecture. Thankfully, Amy (the prof) cut it short by about 30 minutes. Actually, she just saw that everyone was trying to pay attention and failing so she asked if we wanted to go home and got a resounding YES. At that point I retired to the student lounge for an attempt at studying for the test, gave up after a half hour and went home. As you can probably imagine, I was quite hungry and physically exhausted, so I made some stir fry while chatting on the phone with Lauren, ate, watched a couple of videos for assessment the next morning and then collapsed in bed.

Thursday was much more bearable. Assessment was pretty straight forward, a lot of information but nothing too complex. I then had a few hours of break and spent my time on the phone trying to figure out why I hadn't received an insurance card yet, signing up for the med center gym, eating lunch, and studying for the Pharm test. Pharm started at 1, took the test (multiple answer multiple choice questions are very interesting) and then sat back and mostly tuned out the following lecture on the nervous system. I'm pretty confident in my nervous system knowledge at this point. After Path, I grabbed some dinner in the only open cafeteria in the hospital, and went back to the gym for a quick required orientation session. The guy thought it necessary to explain to me that the weight machines are for building muscle and the cardio machines are for burning fat and I just smiled and nodded a lot.

I then rode home, changed into lycra and rode back out to meet a member of the UR cycling team for a nice relaxing 30 mile ride. We took it easy, didn't talk too much and I finally managed to decompress from all the stress of the week. Post-ride I showered and went BACK out to the Distillery (kind of like a McMenamins) for a beer with classmates. There were about 20-25 of us there, with people filtering in and out depending on level of exhaustion and whether they had lab the next morning.

I got home around 11:30, fell into bed, woke up at 7:30 this morning and went to lab. It took us a full hour longer than our given lab time to finish the neurological assessments on each other and get all the info for our write ups. It was kind of fun though, testing balance, coordination, reflexes, etc. Eliciting reflexes is not as easy as it looks.

After lab I went over to the gym for a yoga class and some weightlifting. Feeling much refreshed, but rather hungry, I rode home, ate lunch, and took a two hour nap. Now that I'm awake and fed again, I need to get started on some of this homework so I'm not buried by it tomorrow and Sunday. With luck I'll even be able to ride this weekend. I'll try to post more often from now on so the posts are not quite this long.

More later

Ten hours of class today, pharmacology test tomorrow, ready to collapse. Will write a real post when I'm coherent.

Long Weekend

Three day weekends are great, but only when you have a way to fill them beside reading textbooks. So far this weekend I have:

1. Found my study coffee shop. Turns out it's called Muddy Waters, but it is more than a block away.

2. Bought myself a printer and a clothesline, although the printer is missing a USB cable. The clothesline works great, and my sheets smell all nice and fresh.

3. Met some classmates for bagels. Decided that Bruegger's bagels are far inferior to Brownstein's bagels.

4. Went grocery shopping, bought myself a doughnut and iced capp on the way home. Discovered that I can ride with an iced capp wedged into my baskets and not spill any of it.

4.5 Tried to go buy fruits and veggies at the public market, but found out that Sundays are flower days, so no food available. Luckily the market is open again tomorrow for Memorial Day and should have the regular food vendors there.

5. Read 13 chapters and 5 papers, written half of an assignment, done my math homework (dosage calculations), and watched 3 instructional videos on health assessment.

6. Procrastinated a lot.

Tomorrow, after I go to the market, I will meet some classmates at school to practice taking vitals, mostly blood pressures. Then I will finish the other half of my Nursing Science assignment (discuss whether nursing is an occupation or a profession) and maybe go for a short ride.

What does this list tell me? I need to make some friends.

The promised gossip post

Let's start with the girl everyone talks about all the time. Mostly because she talks about herself all the time. That includes class time. For example, in a 170 minute class, she spoke up 21 times (yes, we counted), which works out to about once every 8 minutes. And every one of those times she shared a story from while she lived in France, or while she worked in the trauma ward, or talked about a research study she's in for herpes (seriously), the list goes on and on. She has yet to contribute a useful thought to class discussion. Also, she's stick thin and always dressed like a runway model. The really sad part, though, is that she's a Fuld Scholar.

Next, Sara, who is almost certainly transgendered (male->female). She's one of the most interesting people I've ever met. She's got so many degrees it's scary, has lived all over the US, including Portland, and wears sparkly eyeshadow. She hasn't said anything about her gender identity, but based on her build, appearance, and the depth of her voice, she definitely appears trans. Some people seem uncomfortable with that, I can only hope for her sake that her lab partners are not among those people. She's not in my lab, otherwise I'd be looking forward to working with her.

The Princesses: That's what I call the girls that look perfectly made up at 8am, sit all together and giggle at everything, squirm when lectures touch on the icky or awkward, and generally seem useless. I don't actually know them, they're a clique already and will probably never interact with me unless necessary.

The Mormons: I think there are two Mormon men in the class. At least, they both went to Brigham Young University and they both have at least 2 kids, although they only look about 25. One of them did missionary work in Africa. I haven't spoken much to either of them yet.

Other than that, I just hear little bits and pieces of peoples' lives. Some of them have boyfriends/husbands that followed them across the country, some of them have 5 kids, one even played semi-pro basketball in Europe for a while. Everyone has a very different background, so it's interesting to meet and talk to them all. I seem to fall in with the slightly older crowd more often than not, which is okay, but I don't have stories about my 8 year old or my second pregnancy to share. I'm slowly finding people my own age that don't fall into the princess category and I imagine those will end up being my real friends.

First week report

Here's a quick summary of what classes I'm taking and what they're about.

Pathophysiology & Pharmacology: This is the scariest sounding class, but won't actually be that bad. It's mostly about drugs, how they work, and the diseases/symptoms that they can treat. The professor actually wrote the textbook, so her lectures are almost identical to the readings. I find this remarkably helpful.

Genetics: When I first saw this class on my schedule I thought, "Huh?" Turns out this might be my favorite class of all. Once we get past the really basic stuff, which I could explain in my sleep, we'll be talking about genetic diseases, genetic counseling, privacy issues, genetic testing, etc. Basically anything involving genetics as it applies to nursing practice. Also, the professor is awesome.

Nursing Science: This one will be dull. It's all about definitions of nursing, history, rules and regulations, scope of practice, blah blah blah. Some of it will be very important to know, but it's very dry. Luckily, class is only once a week. Unluckily, the reading assignments are huge and there's a quiz on the readings every week.

Health Assessment: This will be the hardest and most useful class. It's also the only one so far that includes a lab. In lecture we learn the theory behind assessing and examining patients (way more complex than you could ever imagine) and in lab we actually put the theories into practice. For example, I now know how to take blood pressure. We're expected to have the skills we learn in lab down solid by the time the next lab rolls around, so there will be a lot of practicing required outside of class.

These classes all run 8 weeks, so through the middle of July. At that point I begin a Therapeutic Interventions class and clinicals. Yikes. I'm starting a countdown already. One week survived, seven to go.

So, how did week one go, you ask? Well, basically all I can say is that I made it. As far as workload goes, lets just say that I'm almost caught up with all the readings that were assigned for day one, and that was after reading for 3.5 hours straight last night. Now, some of you may be thinking, "Why are you doing the readings? You never did your reading for classes at Willamette!" You're right, I didn't, at least very rarely. Well, all of the reading that I did last night applied to the lab I had this morning. That's 5 chapters of reading applied to a 2 hour lab. Seriously intense. By the way, I've given up on the idea of getting a job.

I'm still getting along pretty well with my fellow students. One of the faculty arranged a little bagel breakfast tomorrow morning that I will probably attend if I wake up in time. I seem to have fallen in with two main groups of students. There's Amy, Olivia, and Laura, who are somewhat quiet but very fun and will make good study partners, particularly Amy. There's also Jessica, Katherine, Chris, Lucy and Ally. They're very inviting, Katherine seems remarkably impressed by my bike riding and is the mom of a 10 year old, Chris is actually male which is a nice change (14 guys in a class of 100) and Jessica runs half-marathons, so we do a lot of talking about endurance athlete stuff. There's a lot of other fun and interesting people, and we're all still at the, "Hi, I know I've met you before, but what's your name again?" stage. It will be interesting to see whether these groups hold beyond the extra polite phase that usually lasts the first couple of weeks.

As for non-school stuff, well, I still do a little of that. I got the names and addresses of a few more people on the UofR cycling team, and will hopefully go riding with them soon. Also, my landlord moved out of the house with absolutely no warning. He says he'll be sending us contact info for paying rent, but hasn't yet. He also didn't leave a set of keys for the guy that should be moving in on June 1st. This guy is really pathetic as a landlord. On the somewhat positive side, since he's not going to replace the dryer he is going to reduce our rent. The amount hasn't been determined yet, but will be figured out by Robert, the formerly nameless roommate. I'm just going to invest in a clothesline, at least for the summer.

Before I get back to reading, I have to share a funny story from my Path/Pharm class. The professor was talking about communication (every professor stresses communication, not really a surprise) and put up a slide that just showed a bunch of sloppily drawn circles. This was apparently what her son had drawn in kindergarten when asked to draw what his dad does at work. The teacher called her and her husband in to talk to them about this, concerned that the boy had misunderstood the directions and should perhaps be held back for a year. Of course, they were appalled and immediately went home to talk to their son. They asked him what he had drawn and he said, "I drew what daddy does at work." Not understanding they asked him what he thought his dad did. He replied, "Makes rounds."

Oddly Appropriate

This is my horoscope for today:

You might believe that you are losing control of your life, yet you can rest assured that the circumstances will change. You may, however, have to put up with tough demands on your time at work. Even if you can justify taking time off, don't get your hopes up too high. Be ready to postpone your plans to avoid a conflict. Hang in there until the job is done.

And so it begins

School started with a vengeance. For anyone interested in my class schedule, you can check it out here.

Tuesday morning I arrived on campus at about 7:40am, in plenty of time to enjoy the free food and coffee and mingle a little before orientation officially started at 8. The food was good, I immediately ran into someone else from the Portland area, I got to chatting with a few people, and I perused my overstuffed orientation folder. We were soon called into the auditorium to be welcomed, over and over, by various people and warned, over and over, how hard this year is going to be.

The rest of the morning was spent in groups of about 20 moving among the classrooms for mini orientation sessions on different topics. I don't remember most of what they said, except the really important stuff. Things like, "Sign up for lockers on Thursday," and, "You'll be getting an iPod Touch." The rest of it just turned into a big jumble of words that I can't be bothered to sort out in my head.

Post-orientation we were fed a good lunch, I got to chat with a few more people, and even fell in with a nice group that was hanging out around a picnic table while we waited for our first class to start. Of course, our first class was the most intimidating: Pathophysiology and Pharmacology. We're just call it Path/Pharm. The instructor talked about a huge variety of things, mostly involving drugs and how drugs become marketed. She talked a lot about the "ka-ching factor," which is kind of important in developing and marketing new drugs. Another big topic was the complete lack of regulation of dietary supplements, like St. John's Wort, multivitamins, etc. Most interesting fact of the day: Someone did a study of what is actually in herbal supplements and discovered that in a single bottle the content of each pill ranges from 0%-400% of what is claimed on the label. Kind of scary. Also, please don't take St. John's Wort, especially if you're on birth control.

Class got out at 3:50pm, I hopped on my bike and pedaled back home as fast as I could. I then dropped my school stuff, ate a muffin and an orange, grabbed my racing stuff and hopped on my other bike to go over to Full Moon Vista and catch a ride with Shana to the GVCC race. For the whole painful story of the race, go read my other blog.

I got home from the race at 9:30pm, proceeded to eat a giant plate full of pasta, jumped in the shower, ate some more, packed up my stuff for school the next day, and then collapsed in bed around 11:30. My alarm went off at 7am and I was not happy about it. I got up anyway, grabbed my bowl of shredded wheat with bananas (I'm turning into my father) and ate breakfast while I dealt with the pile of awaiting emails. Eventually I convinced myself to get moving again and I arrived at school in plenty of time for my 8am Health Assessment class.

Health Assessment is going to be hard. The material itself is not hard, but there's a lot of it. This is where we learn how to chart, take health histories, do physical assessments, use all the fancy jargon and abbreviations, and generally get prepared to dive into clinicals in the middle of July. Lectures will mostly be on the theory, charting and history-taking. Labs will be practicing techniques on each other. We got the whole, "You will have to strip down and get poked and prodded just like a patient," talk. It was funny to watch some of the princesses in the class cringing.

After class we picked up our stethoscopes (mine's pretty and red) and scrubs (navy pants and white tops, whose brilliant idea was that?). Then we had our pictures taken, unfortunately mine will eventually go on the Fuld Scholars website for all to see. That took about an hour, so we still had an hour for lunch and my stomach was already trying to digest me from the inside out. I ate with a nice group, I even know some of their names, and then we headed back for Genetics class.

Genetics will be fun. First of all, I know all the basics. There are few subjects I know better than genetics, except maybe nerve development. Secondly, the teacher is wonderful. She's a recent graduate of our program, so she understands our pain. She said she would rather do her PhD three times over than go through that one year again. That's just an inkling of how hard this is going to be. She's also very funny and very energetic. It's going to be fun to learn how to apply all the genetics knowledge that I have to nursing practice.

After genetics, we had to take tests. I don't know why, but they were mandatory. The tests were the Nursing Entrance Test, which is a little assessment to see if we can multiply fractions without a calculator and whether we know basic grammar. It also included a section on stress levels, with agree/disagree questions like, "I need more friends," and, "My financial situation has recently changed." I think I might have scored high on that one. The second test was supposedly a values and ethics test, but I couldn't understand half the questions because I didn't know all the nursing jargon, so I mostly picked at random. We'll be retaking that one at the end of the year to see how our answers have changed. Hopefully I'll understand the questions then.

Once the test were over we were free to go home. It was about 4:30 by now, and I was very hungry, again. I had forgotten to grab muffins today. Anyway, I got a snickers bar from the vending machine to get me to the bookstore so I could spend another $200 on books and then I rode home. Laden down with all my acquisitions of the day, plus all the books that I had brought with me in the morning, I rode home slowly. Now I have to figure out which readings are the most important, because I'm already behind by about 10 chapters. I might also go through that overstuffed orientation folder and find the things I think I'm supposed to sign and return to them.

Right now I'm so tired and overwhelmed that I can't even think straight, let alone talk about the people I'm meeting, the obnoxious girls in class, the probably transsexual with about a dozen degrees, etc. You'll just have to wait, I'll get to it all eventually.

Potential Job

I've been looking around at job opportunities, and so far the pickings are pretty slim. My requirements aren't helping. I need 10 hours a week or less, preferably $8 or more an hour, and flexible, mostly evening hours. How's that for tricky? I've looked at the job boards for the hospital and university and haven't had any real success. So, I started browsing around on craigslist. Beyond the exciting discovery that the Applebee's down the road is hiring (absolute last resort), I found an ad for Kaplan teachers. Turns out the Kaplan center is really close to my school. Teaching would involve a couple of evening classes each week. Not sure what the beginning pay rate is, but raises depend on teaching success. So I went to the website and filled out the form.

I just got an email back inviting me to audition for them. I think I'm going to do it. The audition date would be June 5th, which gives me time to settle into school and prepare. Here's what they want:

Aspiring teachers and tutors are asked to give a five-minute teaching presentation to Kaplan staff and fellow auditioners. The audition must include some audience interaction so that we can see how you might interact with students. The best kind of interaction goes beyond yes/no questions and invites the audience to engage in the presentation and with you.

Doesn't sound so bad. Actually sounds kind of like Zoo Camp, without the singing. On top of that, the presentation has to be on a non-academic subject (bikes! birds! Canadians!) and use of the board is strongly encouraged (race tactic diagrams!). The hardest part might actually be finding a business casual outfit to wear.

If I audition well, I get to have an interview and then I get hired. For the first few weeks it'll be paid training (20 hours, to be exact) and then I get my own little class of aspiring National Merit Scholars to torture, I mean, teach. Considering all the tricks I've used to do well on standardized tests, that part should be pretty simple. And, last time I had any sort of teaching power I was dealing with groups of 30 six year olds, this can't possibly be any worse than that.

Foreseeable problems include: I don't really enjoy teaching, but I like it better than waiting tables. If it gets in the way of my Tuesday night races I'll be very upset. I can give up dancing if necessary, just don't make me give up racing. Time will become very short very quickly. But I'm used to that, and I usually cope rather well. It's not like I enjoy spending time at home anyway.

I think it's worth trying. So far it's the best option I've got.

Food, and other news

I think I've been talking about food a lot here, but that's okay because I think about food a lot. Cycling burns an incredible number of calories (at a fast pace it's about 1000/hr) so I do a lot of eating. And I'm trying to make a pretty big shift in my diet, so I'm thinking a lot more about what I eat. I'm even tracking what I eat every day, just for fun.

Anyway, I've made a few discoveries on the road to changing my eating habits. Some are pretty obvious, but make a significant difference when I actually do them, others kinda surprised me.

1. Eat more fresh produce. With the prices as low as they are at the public market, there's no reason not to buy it. It's nutrient dense, low calorie, zero fat, and just plain yummy.

2. Eat more often. I should have started doing this ages ago. I'm eating about 5 times each day now, which means that I eat less each time and have more energy throughout the day. Often what I'm eating is just a piece of fruit, some bread and hummus, or a muffin. But that's usually enough to get me through another hour or two.

3. Read labels. If I know what it is I'm about to consume, I'm more likely to consume an appropriate amount of it.

4. No food has to be ruled out as long as I'm careful about portions and total fat/calorie consumption for the day. For example, I made a box of mac and cheese today. Generally not a healthy food, but when I only eat a third of the box, and an apple, it's not that bad. I just made sure that my dinner was mostly fat free.

5. Plan ahead. I usually figure out what I'll have for dinner each day and then plan the rest of my meals based on that. I also plan to make leftovers, lots and lots of leftovers. They're starting to fill up the fridge because I'm saving them for lunches once class starts.

So there are my words of wisdom for healthier eating habits. It's working for me so far. I've got a lot of energy, my mood is more stable than it would normally be under the circumstances, and I think I'm starting to slim down again. No concrete measurements yet, since I don't have a measuring tape or a scale, but I think I am. Also, I'm recovering quickly from workouts, which means I'm eating right. If I don't consume enough carbs during/after a workout my glycogen gets depleted and the fatigue and delayed-onset muscle soreness is much worse the next day. Fun with physiology!

As for the other news, there's not a lot to report. I haven't even been outside today, since it's been raining and there was nothing to do anyway. I'm really looking forward to classes starting so that I can be busy again. I did get my first tuition bill in the mail. Not as bad as it could have been, thankfully, but it'll definitely eat up my savings pretty fast. Yay for the Federal Nursing Loan Repayment Program! They'll pay off most of my school loans if I agree to work in the US for two years after graduation.

Time to go make myself some turkey burgers to throw in the freezer... there I go talking about food again.

Improvements

Things are looking up today. I woke up pretty early and went down to the public market for another week's worth of yummy produce. I also ended up getting more flatbread (yay, pizza!) and a tub of hummus. Total cost for everything: $6.75 . I love that market. The only problem with it is the smell of elephant ears/beaver tails/fried dough that permeates the air. Hard to resist. I managed, but only by promising myself a treat from Tim Horton's every time I go out to Wegmans.

After I got home I planned to eat some lunch, chill out for a while, then go do an interval workout on my bike. Well, the weather sort of forced me to chill out for 3 hours. We had about a half hour of torrential rain, and then the sun broke through. I checked at least three weather sites to see if the sun was going to hold. They all disagreed, so I decided to go ride anyway. I got lucky and stayed dry.

When I got home I was incredibly hungry, so I cooked up some dinner (rice, tilapia, salad = yummy) and am now going to rest my legs while watching a movie. I'll probably fall asleep early tonight, that workout has hit me hard.

Classes start on Tuesday. I've had a sneak preview of some of the syllabi and it's going to be intense. I don't think I'm going to want to be going back and forth between school and home, so I'll need to figure out lunches and snacks and things to take with me. I've been doing very well food-wise and I don't want to fall back into bad habits when I get busy. Time to start cooking and freezing things, I think.

Rough day

Everything went wrong, starting last night. I was on my way to the swing dance when I got a flat tire. It was dark, wet, and I was about 3 miles from home in one direction or the dance in the other. I was stupid and didn't have a flat-fixing kit with me for Johnny. So, I walked home. At least I got to chat with Lauren and my mom during the 45 minute walk.

When I got home there was only a half hour left of the dance. I knew they'd be going out to the Dinosaur for blues afterward, and really wanted to go see didgeridoo guy, but just didn't have the energy to change the flat in the dark and ride out for only an hour or so of dancing. So I left the flat for the next morning.

Fast forward to the next morning. I get up in plenty of time to change the flat before I'm supposed to pick up my Zipcar to go shoe shopping. I change the flat, it takes me a full 40 minutes because the tire is so damn hard to get on and off. I'm panting and sweating and covered in grease, but ready to go shopping anyway. I get on Johnny, roll halfway down the driveway, and hear an awful hissing noise coming from my rear wheel. Turns out I had missed a piece of glass is the tire and it was now flat again. The really bad news is that I'm out of tubes that will fit those tires. I'm beginning to get upset at this point.

So I go back inside and look up the bus schedule. There's a bus that'll get me there just after my zipcar reservation starts, so I decide to go with that. While waiting for the bus I completely forget that I wanted to bring my iPod charger to the Apple Store to get replaced and I don't actually know how to get to the mall that has an Apple Store in it. I get on the bus, get to campus, realize what I'd forgotten, get even more frustrated with myself, and get in the car to go to the other mall that I do know how to get to so I can at least buy shoes.

As I'm turning right from the offramp toward the mall, I somehow fail to check the intersection or realize that I have a red light or something. I pull into the intersection, almost make it through, but there was a van coming and he clips the bumper of my zipcar. Now I'm having a really bad day. I pull off to the side, get his information, somehow manage to both write and not be crying yet. His van was already pretty beat up and he couldn't even tell if there was damage to his car. He really didn't seem upset at all, once he was sure that no one got hurt, which was comforting. Anyway, after I got his info, he drove off and I called Zipcar, expecting the worst. The lady on the phone was very nice and helpful, she made me give her all the details of what had happened and the other guy's information. She ketp trying to calm me down too, because at this point I was crying and shaking.

Turns out I'm liable for $500 worth of damage. The panel around the gas tank on that car (a Mazda 3) is dented and will have to be replaced, so it might reach that $500. The rear bumper has some pretty bad scratches on it too, but I'm guessing it's not that expensive to replace a bumper. Zipcar will do a thorough investigation and get the car fixed and will tell me what the repairs cost. Until then, my account is suspended so I can't use any more zipcars for at least a week. But, I do get to keep the Mazda until the end of my reservation, thankfully.

At this point I'm hungry, shaking, trying not to start crying again, and parked on the side of a busy road. Things begin to look up when I see that there's a Wendy's directly in front of me, so I go park there and order myself a burger and a frosty. That helped a lot. I figure I might as well go buy some shoes, so I go into the mall and look at every shoe store there and finally come out with a pair of pure white Nikes that should keep me standing for a 12 hour shift. They'll work for at the gym too.

Since I've still got the car for an hour I head out to Full Moon Vista and get Johnny-sized tubes and a couple of kevlar tires so that he'll be pretty much puncture-proof. I figure it's money well spent if it makes my transportation more reliable.

Now I'm wondering how I'm going to get home after I return the car, so I decide to go pick up Paris, stick him in the trunk, Mental Note: take both wheels off and a road bike can fit in the trunk of a Mazda 3, and drive back to campus to drop off the car. In my still shaken up state, I'd forgotten that Paris has Speedplay pedals. Second Mental Note: It is possible to ride relatively comfortably on Speedplays while wearing clogs.

Now it's about 3pm, and I've still got to print up an accident report form to send to zipcar and a membership application for GVCC. My roommates probably have printers, but they were both gone. So I walk the mile down to the public library and use their printers (for 20 cents a page) and walk back. I would've gotten a library card but they needed some ID with a Rochester address on it. Next time.

I spend the next hour making dinner and filling out forms. I make one of the most bizarre but oddly delicious pizzas I've ever had, managing to get very little sauce on the paperwork. I then mail off the envelopes, eat the rest of my pizza and get ready to meet Todd, the guy that runs GVCC. We go for a ride and suddenly things don't seem so bad. I'm sure I'll take that back as soon as the Zipcar bill arrives.

Things are looking up

I had a good day today. For all the juicy details, and pictures, check out my bike blog.

Tonight I plan to go to the weekly swing dance/blues at the Dinosaur. The didgeridoo guy will be playing. That'll be... interesting, at the very least. Right now it's raining, but I can hope it'll stop before I have to get back on my bike. Somehow I doubt it, though.

Tomorrow I've got a zipcar reserved to take me out to the mall for white sneakers and maybe a few more summer clothes. Oh, and groceries. I've got my road bike back, so I'm going to need to start eating like a bike racer again. Mmmm... carbs are my friend. Speaking of which, I'm going to go have some dinner.

Goodbye Oberon

 

My dad called to tell me that Oberon was euthanized today. He'd had what was probably a tumor in his spleen that spread to his spine and paralyzed his rear legs in a slow and painful process for the past several months. He'd been doing okay on painkillers for a while, but by the time I moved he was already clearly going downhill. I'm absolutely sure that it was the right decision, but I wish I could have at least been there. He was one of the sweetest and most devoted dogs I have ever met. I'll miss him.

Bike breakdown

I tried to buy shoes today. I failed miserably, but in the process my bike tried to kill me. Johnny lost his chain while I was riding in the middle of traffic on a relatively busy street. I managed to get over to the side without being run over, but it shook me up a lot. When I got home, I was in tears. Not just from being scared, that was just the trigger, I was crying about being stuck here by myself, missing my friends, the disappointment of my house, whether I can even pay for school, all the things that have been stuck on repeat in my brain and I've been trying to ignore. Eventually I got a hold of myself and, with a mental slap in the face, convinced myself that I at least needed to get my bike fixed.

I rode on very low traffic streets and bike paths to get to Full Moon Vista, the bike shop with the funny name that reminds me of River City Bikes. They even have espresso! The mechanic was great and tensioned my chain and tightened my headset for $5 while I tried not to drool on the Campagnolo wool jerseys. I also picked up a calendar of bike events in the state, including races. I've decided that I like this shop. It'll probably be my main bike shop while I'm here.

On the ride home I felt great. I could actually accelerate without worrying about my chain failing on me, so I was flying down beside the beautiful river with a big grin on my face. I then spent a long time looking at the info on all the races and putting them in my calendar. I made an awesome stir fry for dinner with all my fresh veggies from the public market (carrots and broccoli and zucchini, oh my!). There will be leftovers for tomorrow too. I'm doing my best to eat healthy, and to that end have started tracking what I eat. It's interesting, and I've had a few surprises as to what's actually in my favorite foods. Granola is a sneaky little bugger.

Anyway, I think I've rallied well from my little breakdown this morning, and while I wish I had gotten more accomplished today (I still need those white sneakers!), I've got time. One week, in fact, before classes start and life gets much more interesting. Oh, and my road bike should be here tomorrow. I think that'll warrant a ride to Lake Ontario, don't you?

Very tired

The blues party was great. I think I'm making real friends among the dancers. I didn't get home until about 5am, at which point I collapsed and didn't get up until noon. Then I had to go meet Mike at the Lilac Festival. It was fun, we wandered around and chatted about nothing in particular. After we had seen the festival we rode to a nice little restaurant for dinner and then wandered down the street for ice cream. At that point I decided it was in my best interest to head home, so I did. Now I'm just relaxing in an empty house for the evening. My legs are tired from riding and walking all day and the rest of me is just tired from too little sleep. But it was a good weekend.

Public Market = Yum!

In my continued search for good food, I finally made it down to the Public Market today. It was about the size of the Portland Saturday Market, but replace almost all of the crafty people with food vendors. It was great. There were the typical tables of fresh produce, but also handmade breads, maple syrup, wines, honey, meat and seafood, etc. There were also some little bakeries and restaurants in buildings surrounding the market and a lot of food carts. Apparently in New York elephant ears/beaver tails are just called "fried dough". I spent about $15 and filled my bike baskets to near bursting.

This afternoon the plan is to finish my Protecting Human Subjects in Research homework, which I keep trying to read, but always fall asleep instead. So, I figure if I'm baking muffins while reading the book I have extra encouragement to not fall asleep. I bought myself a muffin tin and ingredients for apple walnut muffins yesterday. We'll see how the plan goes. Chances are I'll just fall asleep anyway and burn the muffins.

I've got big plans for the rest of the weekend too. Blues party tonight, sadly way on the other side of town, and then meeting Mike, the bike shop friend, to go to the Lilac Festival. We're meeting at 2pm, so hopefully I'll be sufficiently recovered from the blues party. It should be a fun weekend.

Cheese, Gromit!

I went to the other grocery store near my house today. Wow, what a difference. Yes, the prices were a bit higher, but the food looked like I would actually want to eat it! Also, they sell Tillamook cheese. It's in the fancy cheeses case, which I find hilarious, but as long as I can buy it I don't care what case I'm buying it from. I also found some more staples of my diet (waffles, good peanut butter, etc.) It's very comforting to know that there is now food in the house that I will actually want to eat. The only major disappointment was the yogurt. I can't find large tubs of greek-style yogurt anywhere. I'm going to have to become less picky.

While I was at the checkout, I was packing the bags into my backpack for the ride home. The sweet old lady doing the checking out asked if I was walking home with an incredulous tone of voice. I told her no, I'm on my bike. She gave me a very shocked expression and then said with a concerned tone, "You make sure you take it easy out there, honey." It was very sweet, but I had a hard time not laughing. Especially since the ride to Wegman's was along the roads with the nicest wide shoulders I have yet to see in Rochester. The only bike-related mishap today was when I unlocked my bike to ride home. I didn't realize that it was weighted down on the side opposite me and it fell before I could do anything about it. No hamr to the bike, but about half of my eggs didn't make it. The casualties of shopping by bike.

I also got around to calling the city for a recycling bin today. Can you believe that this house didn't have one? I asked the landlord about it and he just shrugged it off, didn't care at all. So I am having one delivered sometime next week. I told the nameless roommate (I think his name might be Robert) and he seemed happy that I had gone ahead and called. We had a bit of a rant about our landlord together in the kitchen while I was making lunch today. I'm glad I'm not the only one that is frustrated. Apparently the dryer downstairs has been broken for about 4 months and he hasn't done anything about it. The house was advertised as having a washer and dryer less than 2 months ago, so this is really not okay. I'm wondering if I can buy one and just deduct the amount from my rent check one of these months. The guy I bought my mattress from also sells dryers for $100 and will deliver for no charge.

Shopping was the most exciting thing so far today. I will be going to a swing dance tonight. I even bought shoes for it, although they aren't dancing shoes. They're actually Keds. But they should work well enough, since I didn't bring my old worn out dancing shoes with me when I moved. I'm hoping that enough un-heated spin cycles in the broken dryer will get my clothes dry so I have something to wear.

Dancers are my favorite people

Yesterday was my first real test of biking around town. I rode down to Rite-Aid to pick up some bandaids and an extension cord. No problems there, except people kept giving me funny looks. Girls on bikes aren't exactly common around here. At one point I hit a big pothole and my chain dropped, which is somewhat annoying because on a single speed there's no derailleur to make it easy to get a chain back on. I managed just fine, partially due to the fact that Johnny's (that's my bike) chain was pretty loose. I might have somebody look at that and see if it should be tightened, especially since I lost my chain twice more yesterday. Anyway, while I was fixing my chain, a little boy noticed me:

"Mommy, what's that?"
"That's a bike."
"Can I have one of those?"
"You already have one, you just don't know how to ride it yet."

I was having a hard time getting the chain fixed and not giggling too loudly at the same time.

After my great shopping trip, which was mostly successful, the weather took a turn for the worse. I had planned to go exploring a little bit, but didn't really want to explore in the rain and wind. So I hung around the house reading about FDA regulations for human research subjects and watching movies on my laptop. There was a swing dance that night that I didn't want to miss, so I kept checking the weather report hoping to see some sign of it clearing up.

Around 8pm it was still raining and nasty out, but I had been inside all day and didn't want to miss the dance. So I pulled out my rain pants and fluorescent yellow jacket, packed up a change of clothes, double checked my route on the map, and rode off to the dance. The ride was quite pleasant, actually. I got to try out a pedestrian/bike bridge over the Genesee River, which was very nice. I'll be using that bridge every day to get to campus. I then followed a road that runs beside the river, which was also quite nice. It was about a 20 minute ride to the Tango Cafe Dance Studio, not as long as I had anticipated, so I had time to grab a cup of coffee and a wonderfully fresh chocolate chip cookie from The Mez which was downstairs from the dance studio.

After my coffee I was ready to go meet the dancers. When I first walked in there were only about 10 people there, which made me a little nervous. But it filled up fast and everyone was very friendly. The first person I really talked to was a guy named Matt, a student at RIT originally from Seattle, and he sort of took me in hand for the night. He introduced me to people and helped me get my bearings. I danced a fair amount and chatted a bit and had a very good time. The most interesting dance of the night was definitely the one with the deaf man. He managed to keep perfect time, probably using cues from me as much as anything to stay with the music.

After the dance, Matt invited me to join them at a place called "The Dinosaur". I was skeptical, but decided to give it a try. Apparently there is usually live blues music there on Wednesday nights and they go hang out and dance. Well, last night there was a one man band that somehow ended up beatboxing his way through a rendition of Kashmir. I'm not kidding. It was painful. But there was good beer and it smelled like fantastic barbeque, so I'll give it another try. According to the dancers, next week will be a guy with a didgeridoo, but he's actually good. I don't think I can miss my chance to hear a blues didgeridoo.

At some point during the evening I got an invite to a blues party on Saturday night, which is great. For those that read this and haven't been to one, blues parties are when a dancer invites a bunch of other dancers to their house and just plays good danceable blues music all night long. It's very fun. There's also a live big band dance on Friday that I may go to if I can get myself some shoes by then.

So after all of this excitement I rode home and got back around 1am. It was nice to go out for a night and get welcomed by a good crowd of people. I'm definitely making progress in the friends department.

Bike!

I slept in until about 11:30 today. I didn't realize that I was that tired. I decided to forgo to Public Market, since it closes a 1pm on T/Th. Instead I puttered around online while eating breakfast, took a nice long shower, puttered around online some more and finally made an exciting discovery. Ups.com said that my bike had been delivered! Yesterday it said "Estimated Delivery: 5/9/2008" so I was skeptical, but sure enough, there was a gigantic box on the porch! They must have snuck it on there while I was showering.

So, I drop all potential plans for the day and get to work on my bike. The bike stuff goes on the other blog. But, I made a potential friend at the bike shop. We exchanged phone numbers and will hopefully meet for food sometime in the near future. He seems like a nice guy, probably 30-something, and patiently explained that the road near my house is not pronounced the way any sane person would pronounce it. Seriously, it's "Chili." But, if you're in Rochester, the "i" sounds like "eye." I swear, that's way worse than Aloha or Couch St. Apparently there are many words like that around here and I should expect to be laughed at frequently. Can't wait.

So, despite the late start, I consider today a success. Maybe tomorrow I'll get to the coffee shop. Or get an extension cord with an adapter so I can plug my computer in in my bedroom. That would be nice.

Steep learning curve

The bus system here is starting to make sense. But it took me 45 minutes of waiting for a bus at the wrong stop for me to really start to get it. Portland is based on a grid, with buses running along each major arterial and a few special buses to places like OHSU and the zoo. Rochester, on the other hand, is not a grid. It's more of a wagon wheel. Think Ladd's Addition on speed. But, the buses run along each spoke. And I am lucky enough to live on approximately one of the same spokes as my school.

From campus I can take buses around the rim of the wagon wheel (I haven't ventured beyond that yet, except via Zipcar) or downtown, which is the hub, or back home. Today I went from home to school to a cute area called Twelve Corners to downtown (past the best looking museum ever!) and back home. The bus between downtown and home goes through some of the sketchy part of town, but in the middle of the afternoon the bus itself felt perfectly safe. I won't be riding through there after dark, though. If only I had figured out that I could buy a day pass instead of paying my $1.25 each time I got on a bus (no transfers here) today would have been a complete success! As it was, I only wasted about $0.75 anyway. Not bad.

Beyond the buses, I've learned some more about Rochester. My neighborhood is to downtown Rochester what Tigard is to Portland. Pretty close to downtown, but still mostly suburban and not a lot of character. I did bus right through what is probably the Hawthorne District of Rochester today. It's called South Wedge, and it looks great. There's a swing dance in that area Wednesday night that I will hopefully be attending. Downtown looks like it'll be some fun to explore, but it's obvious that Rochester jumped the shark a few years ago and is in a bit of a slump. Lots of places out of business. Apparently this is mostly because the town relies entirely on Kodak. Imagine what it would do to Portland if people suddenly stopped using Intel's chips like they've stopped using film. Also, Portland is very very white. Replace every non-white person in Portland with a black person, then triple that population and you have an approximation of the racial distribution here. I kind of like the change. Oh, and New Yorkers know where their car horns are and aren't afraid to use them.

I'm sure there will be more observations on the difference between Rochester and Portland in the future, but for now let's move on. I found a bagel place with the best bagels I've ever had today. My next projects: find a coffee shop for studying, a weekly dance I like, and a bike shop. The bike shop will probably wait until I have an actual bike here. Which will probably be on Friday. Oh, and I have my first homework assignment. Because I got a Fuld Scholarship I will be doing a research project, probably involving real people. This means I have to read a book called "Protecting Study Volunteers in Research" and pass a test to prove that I'm not going to torture people. Having me read about the Nuremburg Doctor's Trial and Tuskegee syphilis study is a good way to make me appreciate all the hoops that I will have to jump through to get a study approved.

Tomorrow I'll be going to the Rochester Public Market and probably beginning my coffee shop hunt. This place looks like a good start. It might be a little too far away, but I'll find out how good or bad the bus ride is tomorrow.

Day 1 Report

I've been here for most of a day now. Here's my impression so far:

The Good:
- Roommates that keep to themselves. I hardly even see them.
- Easily accessible bus stops. Less than a 5 minute walk from the house.
- Zipcar. I have a Matrix sitting in the driveway waiting to take me to Target this evening.
- Pizza delivery.
- Craigslist. A guy should be delivering a bed for me in a couple of hours.
- The weather. It is gorgeous out there.

The Bad:
- Roommates that keep to themselves. They're not exactly useful sources of information while locked in their rooms. And I will have to do my friend-finding elsewhere.
- Confusing bus schedules. Seriously, check it out.
- No bike yet. I want to go play in the sunshine.

The Ugly:
- My house is right in between the suburbs and downtown. 5 minutes to the west is the land of strip malls. 5 minutes to the east is a scary area of barred up shops and sketchy people that I've already been warned not to venture into. Luckily my immediate neighborhood is nice and it only gets nicer between here and the UofR campus.

So, things are pretty good right now. I got myself some food and other necessities and my room is starting to come together. I'll post pictures once the bed is in place. Tomorrow will be a day to explore campus and get my student ID, email, etc.

Welcome Home

I got my first glimpse of my new home about 2 hours ago from the plane window. It was cloudy and raining and looked a lot like Portland, except the trees are all short. One of my new roommates picked me up at the airport and brought me to my new home. It's a cute little house, currently occupied by me and two RIT students. There will be another student moving in next month. My room is small and empty, but I will soon fix at least that last part. I've already got a bed being delivered tomorrow from craigslist.

Besides getting a bed, tomorrow will be spent buying food and furniture and unpacking. I'll need to start learning the bus routes soon and have to hunt down the local bike shops. Sadly, my bikes won't arrive for a few more days, so I'm foot and bus bound for a little while. For tonight I wasn't feeling up to any misadventures on the unfamiliar bus lines, so I just ordered a pizza. It should be arriving any minute now.

That's all for now, there will be more to come as I explore my new home.