Saturday was sort of a non-day for me. I slept in, a lot, got myself up and moving way too late to go to the public market. Puttered around doing nothing, cleaned my room, finally got home from my shopping at Wegman's around 6:30, and then sat around and polished up my clinical paper for Pharmacology before going to bed.
Today, on the other hand, was a little more eventful. I went for my first ride with my new heart rate monitor. There's a post about it on my other blog. After I got home I went out to a BBQ with Sarah and family at the house of some of her friends. The original purpose of the event was to have me meet Sarah's friend Paul, but that luckily got somewhat diluted by the fact that today was the final of the European soccer championships and all of the men invited wanted to watch the game.
Sarah and Ronen picked me up around 2:30 and we arrived at the friends' (Eric and Nancy) house about 15 minutes into the game. Sarah and Nancy quickly disappeared with all the small children (there were three of them) to the backyard and I stayed with the guys to watch the soccer. It wasn't a terribly exciting match, but it was still fun to watch. By the time it was over we were all really hungry, so Eric cooked up the burgers and we got all the food laid out. The difference between a BBQ with my friends in Portland and a BBQ with this crowd is quite striking, and entirely the fault of the three girls. Everything revolved around the kids, which doesn't make it less fun, just a completely different experience.
I actually got to talk to people a little bit more over dinner, including Paul. He's an interesting guy, and fun to talk with. Obviously a little bit socially awkward, but not too shy so between the two of us I managed the social graces and he managed to keep the conversation going. He's an optical engineer, currently has a torn hamstring, and seems to play every sport known to man. He's also well over 6 feet tall, probably late twenties, a total geek, and completely adored by the three little girls (he makes remarkably good animal sounds and they love him for it). Basically, he's exactly my type. Except for the Catholic thing, but that didn't come up at all today.
Since Sarah is the most blunt and direct person I have ever met, she of course asked me on the way home what I thought of him. I'm sure she will be asking him the same thing about me as soon as she gets the chance. It'll be interesting to see what, if anything, happens next. I can tell that Sarah is loving her role as matchmaker and I am sure that if she gets any encouragement from him at all she will make sure I meet him again.
Regardless of the whole Paul thing, I had a really good time playing with all the little kids and meeting some more friendly people today. Tomorrow I will be going for a bike ride with another classmate, Elspeth, and taking a pharmacology test. I'll have to try out my heart rate monitor again. Yay for new toys!
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Friday, June 27, 2008
Birthday, demo, and babies, oh my!
I had a very good birthday. At the beginning of class yesterday morning, one of my friends wished me a happy birthday, which the turned into a big exclamation of everyone sitting around me saying, "It's your birthday?" and, "You're doing your final demo on your birthday!?" The outburst was loud enough to make sure I was bright red and everyone in the class knew that it was both my birthday and my final demo day. At least they didn't all burst into song.
After class, my partner Lauren and I went over to the lab to do the demo. I didn't know who would be evaluating me until I walked in and when I saw my two favorite professors (both named Pam) there, I was extremely relieved. Then I picked my randomly assigned system and got musculoskeletal. Yikes. Anyway, I just went on autopilot and must have done a pretty good job. Apparently at one point during the demo one of the Pams looked over at the other and whispered, "She's really good!" and the other replied, "Yeah, she's my student." Lauren did a good job at not giggling when she saw that. She actually did a very good job of not giggling at all during the whole demo. I managed to finish in 20 minutes, which had me scared because I thought I must have missed something, but I don't think I did. After I was done the Pams went off by themselves to discuss and after what seemed like forever they came back and talked me through what I could have done differently and what I did particularly well. They were both very encouraging and assured me that as the first person to do one I had set the bar pretty high. I'm very happy about the feedback that I got, since bedside patient care is the one thing I have almost no experience with (at least with strangers).
After the demo I went back to the student lounge and got mobbed with congratulations, birthday wishes, and questions about the demo. Sarah, of my newly adopted family, brought me an angel food cake with strawberries and whipped cream and it disappeared in about 10 minutes. It was delicious, and really nice to have my traditional birthday dessert. I spent the next 2 hours in the lounge talking to people, mostly about the demo. It was eventually time to go to class, and we all reluctantly filtered out to listen to a lecture on renal disease and diuretics.
After pharmacology, I was planning to head home and just relax until the usual Thursday class pub night. But, Sarah invited me over to play with her babies (Yasmine is 2.5 years old, Maya is almost 11 months). I couldn't say no to that, so I went and we had a lot of fun just hanging out and talking and playing with the two adorable little girls. Eventually Ronen, Sarah's husband, came home and he joined in the fun. We had dinner, went for a walk to a playground, and generally had a great evening.
At that point it wasn't worth it for me to go home, so I just went straight to the pub to meet other friends. Once again I got bombarded with happy birthdays and final demo questions. A couple of others had done their demos that day too, so we were all being congratulated and interrogated.
I got home around 11:00pm and finally had the chance to open my packages that I'd been waiting to open so patiently. Inside I found a heart rate monitor (Yay!!!!), a really good bike light (which I've been needing), a 4GB flash drive (very useful for school), and a beautiful big poster of a bike race. I was so excited that I wanted to play with the HRM right away, but had to get up for lab the next morning and decided I could wait until the next day. Oh, I also got a voicemail rendition of Happy Birthday that was left while I was taking a shower. I think the performers could use a little vocal training, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and blame it on the phone.
This morning I went to lab, and offered myself up as guinea pig for Lauren and Laura to practice their final demo stuff on. I had to leave early to get to a meeting for my Fuld Scholar research project. I'm going to work on the study about condom use decision by young black mothers. Apparently these girls, when asked about their sexual partners and contraception, don't include their "baby daddy" among their sexual partners, even if teir still sleeping with him. For some reason, he is given a different status in their minds and their more likely to take risks, like not using a condom, with him than anyone else. So the study is done by the county health deparment and their getting these young mothers (age 15-19) to talk in focus groups about the decision they make regarding sexual risk-taking and why. I'll be mostly involved in transcribing the focus group sessions, which I think will be very interesting. I'll also have a chance to do some recruitment and maybe help with the logistics of the focus group meetings. I'm really looking forward to it, although it will add a fair amount of work and stress to my life.
Now that I'm done with classes for the day I'm trying to work on a paper for pharmacology. It's not really started yet, but I should be able to get most of it written this afternoon if I don't procrastinate too much. I'm at my coffee shop, which usually helps me focus on schoolwork. Now that I'm finished checking email and updating everybody on my exciting life, I can get back to it. Thank you to everyone that sent me cards, presents or happy birthdays!
After class, my partner Lauren and I went over to the lab to do the demo. I didn't know who would be evaluating me until I walked in and when I saw my two favorite professors (both named Pam) there, I was extremely relieved. Then I picked my randomly assigned system and got musculoskeletal. Yikes. Anyway, I just went on autopilot and must have done a pretty good job. Apparently at one point during the demo one of the Pams looked over at the other and whispered, "She's really good!" and the other replied, "Yeah, she's my student." Lauren did a good job at not giggling when she saw that. She actually did a very good job of not giggling at all during the whole demo. I managed to finish in 20 minutes, which had me scared because I thought I must have missed something, but I don't think I did. After I was done the Pams went off by themselves to discuss and after what seemed like forever they came back and talked me through what I could have done differently and what I did particularly well. They were both very encouraging and assured me that as the first person to do one I had set the bar pretty high. I'm very happy about the feedback that I got, since bedside patient care is the one thing I have almost no experience with (at least with strangers).
After the demo I went back to the student lounge and got mobbed with congratulations, birthday wishes, and questions about the demo. Sarah, of my newly adopted family, brought me an angel food cake with strawberries and whipped cream and it disappeared in about 10 minutes. It was delicious, and really nice to have my traditional birthday dessert. I spent the next 2 hours in the lounge talking to people, mostly about the demo. It was eventually time to go to class, and we all reluctantly filtered out to listen to a lecture on renal disease and diuretics.
After pharmacology, I was planning to head home and just relax until the usual Thursday class pub night. But, Sarah invited me over to play with her babies (Yasmine is 2.5 years old, Maya is almost 11 months). I couldn't say no to that, so I went and we had a lot of fun just hanging out and talking and playing with the two adorable little girls. Eventually Ronen, Sarah's husband, came home and he joined in the fun. We had dinner, went for a walk to a playground, and generally had a great evening.
At that point it wasn't worth it for me to go home, so I just went straight to the pub to meet other friends. Once again I got bombarded with happy birthdays and final demo questions. A couple of others had done their demos that day too, so we were all being congratulated and interrogated.
I got home around 11:00pm and finally had the chance to open my packages that I'd been waiting to open so patiently. Inside I found a heart rate monitor (Yay!!!!), a really good bike light (which I've been needing), a 4GB flash drive (very useful for school), and a beautiful big poster of a bike race. I was so excited that I wanted to play with the HRM right away, but had to get up for lab the next morning and decided I could wait until the next day. Oh, I also got a voicemail rendition of Happy Birthday that was left while I was taking a shower. I think the performers could use a little vocal training, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and blame it on the phone.
This morning I went to lab, and offered myself up as guinea pig for Lauren and Laura to practice their final demo stuff on. I had to leave early to get to a meeting for my Fuld Scholar research project. I'm going to work on the study about condom use decision by young black mothers. Apparently these girls, when asked about their sexual partners and contraception, don't include their "baby daddy" among their sexual partners, even if teir still sleeping with him. For some reason, he is given a different status in their minds and their more likely to take risks, like not using a condom, with him than anyone else. So the study is done by the county health deparment and their getting these young mothers (age 15-19) to talk in focus groups about the decision they make regarding sexual risk-taking and why. I'll be mostly involved in transcribing the focus group sessions, which I think will be very interesting. I'll also have a chance to do some recruitment and maybe help with the logistics of the focus group meetings. I'm really looking forward to it, although it will add a fair amount of work and stress to my life.
Now that I'm done with classes for the day I'm trying to work on a paper for pharmacology. It's not really started yet, but I should be able to get most of it written this afternoon if I don't procrastinate too much. I'm at my coffee shop, which usually helps me focus on schoolwork. Now that I'm finished checking email and updating everybody on my exciting life, I can get back to it. Thank you to everyone that sent me cards, presents or happy birthdays!
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Final Demo
Tomorrow I do my final demonstration for Health Assessment. I made a mistake when I signed up to do it the first time and was forced to take either a time on the first day of the demos or the last day (July 10th). I did not want to have this hanging over me for the entirety of finals week, so I took the spot tomorrow. Only after I signed up did someone point out to me that I was going to do my demo on my birthday.
So, what is a final demo, you ask? I know you're asking, you're just not in hearing range. So I'm going to answer. For the final demo I will be watched by either one or two professors while I go through two different assessments on my partner (I'm working with a classmate named Lauren). Lauren will have to pretend to be a patient and I have to pretend that I've never seen her before. I then do a "5 Minute Head to Toe" which will actually take about 10 minutes, but that's expected and a randomly picked system from the following options: Neurological, Abdominal, Cardiovascular/Peripheral Vascular, Respiratory/Thorax, Musculoskeletal, or Head/Eyes/Ears/Nose/Throat(HEENT).
Each of these systems has between 25 and 80 things that we have to do. For each thing that we miss, we lose either 0.5 or 1 point (depending on how many items are in that system). I'm not sure exactly how they determine a passing grade, since all the systems have a different umber of required checks. While trying to remember all the stuff I'm supposed to be palpating, inspecting, listening and percussing for I also have to treat Lauren like a 95 year old woman that might fall over and break a hip at any moment. So, bedrails up, hold her as she stands or sits, minimize the number of times she has to change position, etc.
Right now I'm hoping to get the Abdominal System or HEENT because I know them pretty well. If I get Musculoskeletal or Neuro I'm in trouble. Neuro involves checking all of the cranial nerves (there are 12 of them), cerebellar function (similar to a drunk driving test), all kinds of sensory tests and all the reflexes (biceps, triceps, patellar, achilles, brachioradialis, and plantar). Ugh. Did I mention that I have half an hour to introduce my patient, get set up, have her change into a gown, and do both systems?
The only good part about this whole demo? I know before I leave whether I've passed or not. I won't know my overall score, but they'll tell me if I pass or fail. Oh, and since I'm the first person in the program to finish, I will become the most popular person in school for a little while. That should be funny.
So, what is a final demo, you ask? I know you're asking, you're just not in hearing range. So I'm going to answer. For the final demo I will be watched by either one or two professors while I go through two different assessments on my partner (I'm working with a classmate named Lauren). Lauren will have to pretend to be a patient and I have to pretend that I've never seen her before. I then do a "5 Minute Head to Toe" which will actually take about 10 minutes, but that's expected and a randomly picked system from the following options: Neurological, Abdominal, Cardiovascular/Peripheral Vascular, Respiratory/Thorax, Musculoskeletal, or Head/Eyes/Ears/Nose/Throat(HEENT).
Each of these systems has between 25 and 80 things that we have to do. For each thing that we miss, we lose either 0.5 or 1 point (depending on how many items are in that system). I'm not sure exactly how they determine a passing grade, since all the systems have a different umber of required checks. While trying to remember all the stuff I'm supposed to be palpating, inspecting, listening and percussing for I also have to treat Lauren like a 95 year old woman that might fall over and break a hip at any moment. So, bedrails up, hold her as she stands or sits, minimize the number of times she has to change position, etc.
Right now I'm hoping to get the Abdominal System or HEENT because I know them pretty well. If I get Musculoskeletal or Neuro I'm in trouble. Neuro involves checking all of the cranial nerves (there are 12 of them), cerebellar function (similar to a drunk driving test), all kinds of sensory tests and all the reflexes (biceps, triceps, patellar, achilles, brachioradialis, and plantar). Ugh. Did I mention that I have half an hour to introduce my patient, get set up, have her change into a gown, and do both systems?
The only good part about this whole demo? I know before I leave whether I've passed or not. I won't know my overall score, but they'll tell me if I pass or fail. Oh, and since I'm the first person in the program to finish, I will become the most popular person in school for a little while. That should be funny.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
How to not do any work: A 12 step guide
Step 1: Go for a bike ride
Step 2: Ride longer and harder than originally planned
Step 3: Get home tired
Step 4: Eat something
Step 5: Take a shower
Step 6: Eat some more
Step 7: Spread out homework related books and papers on table
Step 8: Pretend to read homework related books and papers
Step 9: Open a Word document and write an impressive sounding title
Step 10: Shuffle a few papers around for a while
Step 11: Go get more to eat
Step 12: Give up and go play on Facebook
Step 2: Ride longer and harder than originally planned
Step 3: Get home tired
Step 4: Eat something
Step 5: Take a shower
Step 6: Eat some more
Step 7: Spread out homework related books and papers on table
Step 8: Pretend to read homework related books and papers
Step 9: Open a Word document and write an impressive sounding title
Step 10: Shuffle a few papers around for a while
Step 11: Go get more to eat
Step 12: Give up and go play on Facebook
Saturday, June 21, 2008
FYI
After performing multiple assessments of almost all body systems I have determined that both Koko and Iceberg are in perfect health.*
*At least for a stuffed gorilla and polar bear.
*At least for a stuffed gorilla and polar bear.
Friday, June 20, 2008
End of Hell Week #1
I survived and did well on all my exams. Now I get a little bit of breathing room, supposedly. Except I need to stay on top of the written assignments so that I don't have to deal with them during hell week #2, which is coming up after the 4th of July weekend. Current assignment list:
- Nursing Care Plan (ugh, but shouldn't take too long)
- Clinical Paper for Pharmacology (this one will be fun!)
- Comprehensive Health History (ridiculously detailed, will take forever)
- Health Assessment Final Demonstration (I get to do this on my birthday. Yay?)
Notice the complete lack of exams for this week. I'm very excited about that.
Today was the class picnic. We had a lot of fun and I got to meet and play with many small children. Mostly Sarah's kids, because I have been officially adopted into Sarah's family. I even hung out with her at their house and played with her dog this morning. And she asked her two year old if I could come over and play again and the answer was yes. Apparently that's all it takes to get adopted. Oh, and she still wants to hook me up with her friend Paul. So I should expect an invite to a BBQ any day now.
Anyway, the picnic was good, and the ride with Bernie after the picnic was good, and tomorrow I'm meeting a guy that might be renting me a room within a 2 minute walk of school and down the street from Sarah's house. I'm really ridiculously excited about that. I'm sure I will write up a full report about it tomorrow. Oh, and my new roommate finally moved in tonight. I've barely met him, but I'm sure I'll write about him once I get to know him a little more.
Oh! One very exciting development on the landlord front. The oven broke this week, so I emailed Jon about it. He actually called me back the next day to tell me that he would have a new one ordered. This afternoon we got it arranged so that the delivery will be next Wednesday. I'm so impressed with his handling of this after the dryer fiasco. Maybe he's learned that he actually has to hold up his end of the bargain if he doesn't want to lose money. I sure hope so, even though I probably won't be living here beyond the summer.
I think that's all the news of the week. This is going to be a crazy weekend of writing, researching, and cycling. I think that's a perfect way to spend a weekend.
- Nursing Care Plan (ugh, but shouldn't take too long)
- Clinical Paper for Pharmacology (this one will be fun!)
- Comprehensive Health History (ridiculously detailed, will take forever)
- Health Assessment Final Demonstration (I get to do this on my birthday. Yay?)
Notice the complete lack of exams for this week. I'm very excited about that.
Today was the class picnic. We had a lot of fun and I got to meet and play with many small children. Mostly Sarah's kids, because I have been officially adopted into Sarah's family. I even hung out with her at their house and played with her dog this morning. And she asked her two year old if I could come over and play again and the answer was yes. Apparently that's all it takes to get adopted. Oh, and she still wants to hook me up with her friend Paul. So I should expect an invite to a BBQ any day now.
Anyway, the picnic was good, and the ride with Bernie after the picnic was good, and tomorrow I'm meeting a guy that might be renting me a room within a 2 minute walk of school and down the street from Sarah's house. I'm really ridiculously excited about that. I'm sure I will write up a full report about it tomorrow. Oh, and my new roommate finally moved in tonight. I've barely met him, but I'm sure I'll write about him once I get to know him a little more.
Oh! One very exciting development on the landlord front. The oven broke this week, so I emailed Jon about it. He actually called me back the next day to tell me that he would have a new one ordered. This afternoon we got it arranged so that the delivery will be next Wednesday. I'm so impressed with his handling of this after the dryer fiasco. Maybe he's learned that he actually has to hold up his end of the bargain if he doesn't want to lose money. I sure hope so, even though I probably won't be living here beyond the summer.
I think that's all the news of the week. This is going to be a crazy weekend of writing, researching, and cycling. I think that's a perfect way to spend a weekend.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Strange day
I've had weird encounters with people all day. First, I end up trying to reassure people about the pharmacology exam. I don't get stressed out about exams like most people do, so they all assume that I'm absolutely brilliant and must know everything about everything. They may be right, but that doesn't mean I'm going to be able to help them get over their test anxiety. It's a little weird to be surrounded by people 10+ years older than me and have them all wanting reassurance and consolation about a silly test.
I managed to escape the stress and panic surrounding the exam by going to the gym between classes. I wouldn't normally do that on a Tuesday, since I'd normally be racing on a Tuesday, but the sever storm warnings and hurricane force winds made my decision for me. While at the gym I did my usual round of weight lifting. A little while after I had finished with the leg press machine I hear an old lady ask the personal trainer/supervisor guy that's always there if he was doing leg presses. He said no, and she replied, "I thought it must have been you because it was set to 300lbs!" That made me grin, especially because I'm still in the light weight/high reps phase of my lifting cycle. Last time I tried to max it out I could press over 450lbs.
When I got back from the gym, I went to the lounge area to eat and looked around for a seat near ANYONE that wasn't reading the pharmacology text or reviewing flashcards. I found Sarah, who is very sweet and interesting to talk to (a former neuroscience graduate student), and ate lunch with her. Somehow our conversation led to talking about relationships (Sarah is married to an Israeli dancer with two little kids) and she asks me, "Do you like tall, quiet, geeky guys?" Apparently it's pretty easy to determine what kind of guy I like. She then starts describing her friend Paul, who is apparently perpetually single because he's quiet and geeky and awkward around girls. Oh, and he rides bikes. But apparently he's a little bit Catholic. So, anyway, Sarah now wants to invite me to a BBQ at some point this summer, and she just might invite Paul too. At least she didn't suggest setting us up on a blind date...
After that lunchtime matchmaking session, I took the pharmacology test. It went just fine. I wrote about high cholesterol, thyroid suppression, heart failure, and diabetes. I was also the second person in the class to finish, but that's pretty normal for me. The post-test debriefing and chilling out happened in the lounge area, as usual. During one of the conversations a girl that I knew was in our class but hadn't actually met before asks me, "Are you the bike racer?" Apparently I'm getting a reputation. Turns out her name is Elspeth and she does endurance races, mostly cross country skiing, but also mountain biking. So we talk bikes for a while, and I suggest that she do the Highlander century with me. She sounds interested, but worried because she doesn't have a working road bike right now. But if she gets one, I could probably talk her into it. But, at the very least, I've got her phone number and we're planning to go for Monday morning bike rides together.
As I was leaving school today, walking down the hallway, I hear Jocey, a girl that I sort of know, say, "That's Caitlin." She was pointing me out to Karin (Kah-rin, not Karen) and explaining that I'm the one that rides the yellow bike. Apparently Karin was admiring my bike, and my reputation as the crazy biker chick is growing.
Oh, and one last weird people thing. Sarah, the matchmaker, went to graduate school with Bernie of the UR cycling team. He was hanging out with her and asked if she knew a blonde Caitlin. Which she does, because there's a blond Caitlyn in our class. After what sounded like a very confusing conversation, it was determined that Bernie can't tell anything about a girl's appearance when she's wearing a helmet and sunglasses and should have just started with cyclist Caitlin. I guess there are much worse things to be known as. For example, the blonde Caitlyn is now known as the girl who got hammered at a bar and knocked over a guy in a wheelchair. She's also about 6'1" tall, so she's pretty easy to identify. Anyway, Sarah and I proceeded to spend some time talking about how much we like Bernie's legs. He has really good cyclist legs.
On the ride home today it looked like it might start to rain, so I decided to just try to beat it home. That was a mistake. For the record, in Rochester if you are outside without raingear when the rain starts, it's already too late to put the raingear on because you're soaked to the skin in less than a minute. On the plus side, I guess, the rain had stopped by the time I got home about 10 minutes later. And when I got home there was a big box of books and cookies waiting for me! I now have two full gallon bags of cookies in the freezer, divided into "mostly intact" and "falling apart". At least some of the mostly intact ones will be going with me to a class picnic in the park on Friday afternoon.
Tonight I just have to watch a video about doing an abdominal assessment, make sure my cardiovascular SOAPs are ready to turn in, and maybe review a little bit for my exams on Thursday. I'm avoiding any more (school related) reading until the weekend because I'm burnt out from studying for this pharmacology exam. That certainly doesn't mean that I won't be reading the historical smut books that arrived with the cookies.
I managed to escape the stress and panic surrounding the exam by going to the gym between classes. I wouldn't normally do that on a Tuesday, since I'd normally be racing on a Tuesday, but the sever storm warnings and hurricane force winds made my decision for me. While at the gym I did my usual round of weight lifting. A little while after I had finished with the leg press machine I hear an old lady ask the personal trainer/supervisor guy that's always there if he was doing leg presses. He said no, and she replied, "I thought it must have been you because it was set to 300lbs!" That made me grin, especially because I'm still in the light weight/high reps phase of my lifting cycle. Last time I tried to max it out I could press over 450lbs.
When I got back from the gym, I went to the lounge area to eat and looked around for a seat near ANYONE that wasn't reading the pharmacology text or reviewing flashcards. I found Sarah, who is very sweet and interesting to talk to (a former neuroscience graduate student), and ate lunch with her. Somehow our conversation led to talking about relationships (Sarah is married to an Israeli dancer with two little kids) and she asks me, "Do you like tall, quiet, geeky guys?" Apparently it's pretty easy to determine what kind of guy I like. She then starts describing her friend Paul, who is apparently perpetually single because he's quiet and geeky and awkward around girls. Oh, and he rides bikes. But apparently he's a little bit Catholic. So, anyway, Sarah now wants to invite me to a BBQ at some point this summer, and she just might invite Paul too. At least she didn't suggest setting us up on a blind date...
After that lunchtime matchmaking session, I took the pharmacology test. It went just fine. I wrote about high cholesterol, thyroid suppression, heart failure, and diabetes. I was also the second person in the class to finish, but that's pretty normal for me. The post-test debriefing and chilling out happened in the lounge area, as usual. During one of the conversations a girl that I knew was in our class but hadn't actually met before asks me, "Are you the bike racer?" Apparently I'm getting a reputation. Turns out her name is Elspeth and she does endurance races, mostly cross country skiing, but also mountain biking. So we talk bikes for a while, and I suggest that she do the Highlander century with me. She sounds interested, but worried because she doesn't have a working road bike right now. But if she gets one, I could probably talk her into it. But, at the very least, I've got her phone number and we're planning to go for Monday morning bike rides together.
As I was leaving school today, walking down the hallway, I hear Jocey, a girl that I sort of know, say, "That's Caitlin." She was pointing me out to Karin (Kah-rin, not Karen) and explaining that I'm the one that rides the yellow bike. Apparently Karin was admiring my bike, and my reputation as the crazy biker chick is growing.
Oh, and one last weird people thing. Sarah, the matchmaker, went to graduate school with Bernie of the UR cycling team. He was hanging out with her and asked if she knew a blonde Caitlin. Which she does, because there's a blond Caitlyn in our class. After what sounded like a very confusing conversation, it was determined that Bernie can't tell anything about a girl's appearance when she's wearing a helmet and sunglasses and should have just started with cyclist Caitlin. I guess there are much worse things to be known as. For example, the blonde Caitlyn is now known as the girl who got hammered at a bar and knocked over a guy in a wheelchair. She's also about 6'1" tall, so she's pretty easy to identify. Anyway, Sarah and I proceeded to spend some time talking about how much we like Bernie's legs. He has really good cyclist legs.
On the ride home today it looked like it might start to rain, so I decided to just try to beat it home. That was a mistake. For the record, in Rochester if you are outside without raingear when the rain starts, it's already too late to put the raingear on because you're soaked to the skin in less than a minute. On the plus side, I guess, the rain had stopped by the time I got home about 10 minutes later. And when I got home there was a big box of books and cookies waiting for me! I now have two full gallon bags of cookies in the freezer, divided into "mostly intact" and "falling apart". At least some of the mostly intact ones will be going with me to a class picnic in the park on Friday afternoon.
Tonight I just have to watch a video about doing an abdominal assessment, make sure my cardiovascular SOAPs are ready to turn in, and maybe review a little bit for my exams on Thursday. I'm avoiding any more (school related) reading until the weekend because I'm burnt out from studying for this pharmacology exam. That certainly doesn't mean that I won't be reading the historical smut books that arrived with the cookies.
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