For James

I haven't updated my blog recently because I don't feel like anything has really been happening in my life. However, I am updating today mostly because I found out that James apparently checks my blog everyday (hence the post title). I didn't really think people read this blog, but I guess I have at least one or two followers so I will try to update more often (no promises!).

I had a final last Thursday and I have a final this Wednesday so since I don't really have school right now I have a lot of free time. It doesn't even feel like finals because my classes are so easy and both finals are all multiple choice. Unfortunately I haven't been doing much with that free time. I've been playing games on Facebook (although I've pretty much stopped now), reading The Millennium Series, occasionally crocheting, and hardly ever doing anything on my to do list.

The Millennium Series is so good! I started reading the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo over the summer but I didn't get very far. Once I started reading it again I finished it in a few days, and now I've already finished the second one and am halfway through The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest. I'm excited for the movie to come out, but there are so many complicated things in these books that I don't see how they could ever explain them all in the length of a normal movie, although they manage to do that in a lot of other complicated movies so maybe they'll be good.

Crocheting is getting a little bit annoying. I thought I had this great idea of crocheting these little things to give to everyone (which can't be named right now because some people that read this blog might be getting one...), but it is starting to seem like not such a brilliant idea. They are getting rather annoying to make. I don't mind doing the majority of each one, but the last step is super annoying and frustrating and not any fun. I've made 6 but I still have at least 10 more to go!

And now for some good news! I got an interview at 2 optometry schools so far! One in Boston and one in Fullerton. I haven't heard from any other schools so I don't have any no's yet. I'm getting a little worried about the interviews though because I suck at interviews and they will probably be the most important part. I just have to practice, practice, practice!

I've also felt kind of awkward the last few days because we have an unexpected house guest right now. My dad's really good friend that he's known since high school has been staying with us since Thursday. He was supposed to be here last Tuesday but he was getting his van worked on in Arizona and it ended up taking 3 more days than they originally thought. Then on the drive here his van started making weird noises so on Friday he took it to a shop and they said it was going to take a few days and they weren't going to start until Monday. He just found out today that they hope to finish it by Wednesday so hopefully he will at least make it back home (which is in Baja) by Christmas! He's a nice guy, but it is just awkward having him in the house because I feel like I can't really be myself and do the usual things I would do (like lay around in my pj's all day haha!). But honestly I think it is way more awkward for him so I should just be grateful I'm not in his place.

I'm excited that my sister is going to be here in a few days! Although, as my mom pointed out, I will be seeing a whole lot of her pretty soon. I think her and Ben aren't going to be here until the 24th, which is kind of sad. This is going to be the weirdest Christmas I've ever had. This will be the first year since I was born (and since before my parents got married!) that we will be spending Christmas Eve at our house instead of at my Grandma's. It's just getting hard for her to have us all there, especially with Ben coming. I also found out that she doesn't want to go to a movie on Christmas day, which has also been our tradition every year. I'm kind of bummed about that, but I guess we'll just have to start making new traditions. Life goes on.

Well for not having much going on I guess I did have a lot to talk about. Hopefully I will update soon. And if I don't, early Merry Christmas!

-E

P.S. I literally just got a letter in the mail saying I got an interview at the school in New York. So excited!!! =)

application and crocheting

I turned in my applications!! I still have a couple of secondaries to do but I'm basically done!! Yay! It's definitely not the best application ever, but it's the best I could do. 

I've been wanting to crochet more, but I was putting it off until I finished my application. So today I finally finished the hat and scarf I started over a month ago. Here's a picture! (It's not the greatest picture, but with my dad as slow as he is at taking pictures it's a surprise I even have one to show) 

Also I finally felt like it was Christmastime today. I had listened to Christmas music for a couple minutes here and there but mostly it hasn't seemed like Christmas. But today my Dad bought me peppermint ice cream and hot fudge at the store (so yummy!) and then I crocheted while listening to Christmas music on Pandora. I'm still listening to Christmas music while writing this and currently "Santa Baby" is playing, which is one of my favorites! I also watched the first day of the Ellen Show's 12 Days of Giveaways. I wish I could win all that stuff!! So as you can see, today was a very holiday-y day! I almost wish I was in Colorado now so I it could be cold and snowy like a really Christmas! I guess I'll have all of that soon enough haha. I'll have to settle for a sunny and 75 kind of Christmas ;)

-E

good news and bad news... but mostly good news!

First the good news: I finally got my computer back! It's actually kind of weird using my laptop again after not really using it for 2 weeks. And I bought a hard case for it on Amazon which is supposed to come in a couple days so I just have to be super careful until then.

Other good news is that Laura visited this weekend and I got my charger back! It was fine sharing my dad's but it was very inconvenient sometimes so it's awesome to have it back. Oh and I also got to see Laura! We saw the new Twilight which I surprisingly liked a lot (maybe I'll even write a review!).

Now for the bad news, or really just the not so good news. I haven't finished my application yet and it's due in 3 days. Kinda scary, but I know I'll get it done. I worked on it today and I'm almost done with it. It's just so hard answering questions when I don't even understand the questions themselves! Here's one: "Based upon your personal background, please share what you will contribute to the Class of 2016 at Berkeley Optometry, and beyond, that will add to the range of interests and experiences of this incoming class." What do they want us to say? This question is super annoying because it's basically saying that you can't get into college if you're boring. I asked my mom what I should write and she basically told me I have no interests or experiences. Thanks Mom, you're the best!

Other slightly bad news is that I think I am getting sick. I had a coughing fit today even though I had no previous symptoms. Plus I was super tired even though I got the same amount of sleep as normal. Then I felt kind of feverish and out of it after dinner so I took some Emergen-C and that seemed to help so I'm going to take some more soon and hopefully I'll prevent myself from getting a cold (mind over matter!)

In other news, Fletcher and I went to Target at midnight on Black Friday and even though I originally wasn't planning on buying anything and there wasn't even that much stuff on sale, I ended up spending $200! Eek! I'm going to return a couple things and give some stuff as presents so hopefully it'll be ok that I spent way too much money. Then I also spent a lot of time on Amazon this weekend because they had Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals and I ended up buying all the Twilight movies (for $20 total!), the laptop case, and a couple other movies. But that was a lot less than I wanted to buy so I'm proud of myself! Haha!

-E

another post!

I'm so proud of myself for posting again so soon!

Even though I have a test tomorrow and another test on Tuesday, and I want to finish my applications by Wednesday (or more realistically by Friday), I turned my computer into the Apple store today so they can fix it! I decided this was the best day to do it because I want to make sure I get it back by Wednesday, otherwise I wouldn't be able to pick it up until Black Friday, which would definitely not be fun. I've had to wait long enough as it is both times I went. I don't get the point in making an appointment when you have to wait 30-45 minutes anyway!

I also stopped by The Walking Company because I want to get a couple pairs of boots from there (since Brittany can get me a discount!) They didn't have one pair that I wanted to try on and the smallest size they had in the other pair was an 8 so it was kind of a pointless visit. Wanna see the shoes??

This one is the practical, snow pair: http://www.thewalkingcompany.com/keen-hoodoo-high-lace-gargoyle-azure-blue/21924

And this is the pair that I am IN LOVE with! http://www.thewalkingcompany.com/ugg-classic-cardy-grey-cardy/4043
I like them in the navy color too, but I think these will go better with jeans (which I wear every day of my life).

I guess that's it for now. Hopefully by the time I post again I will have my beautiful, perfect computer back and I will have applied to optometry schools!

-E

Sad day

So I guess I'll just skip right to the chase. Yesterday, I broke my computer screen. Yes, my nice, new, beautiful, perfect computer!! It was sitting opening on my bed and when I went to sit on my bed it slowly slid off onto the floor. It didn't seem like that bad of a fall until I realized that the back of the screen had hit the corner of one of the drawers underneath my bed. And it hit right where the aluminum switches to the plastic apple logo, which is probably the weakest part of the entire computer. So now there is a dent in the back and the LED is completely broken.

Here is a really depressing picture:

Luckily I can still use it if I hook it up to a monitor (or in this case my 32" TV). However, I have to sit on the floor while using it now which is really starting to hurt my butt!

So I did some research on replacing it and I found a couple different answers about how much it would cost. I made an appointment at the Apple store for today and I while I was hoping it would be somewhere about $500 (or less!), I was really afraid it was going to be like $1000. So after waiting 45 minutes (even though I had an appointment!!) I found out it would only be $550! So they ordered the part today (which is just an entire new screen) and once it comes in I can turn in my computer and they will fix it!

I also realized today the advantage to one of those hard cases. I never understood them before, but now I am going to buy one and never take it off!

So luckily this isn't the end of the world, and it could have been a lot worse. And while I don't have a job right now at least I have some savings so I can afford this and Christmas presents and moving to Colorado.

So that's basically what is new with me. I am still working on my applications. I'm going to try to submit them this weekend, although if I don't have a computer that might be a little difficult haha.

-E

blog theme update

So I spent some time today changing the look of my blog, and it didn't end up changing that much, but I did finally come up with a better title. Since I updated the look of my blog, I felt like I should also update the blog itself, but honestly I don't know if there is much to tell.

Life's been pretty relaxing lately. I don't have a job for the first time in 3 and a half years, which is really nice. I should spend my extra free time working on my application and shadowing and stuff, but I don't. I do the LA Times crossword puzzle almost everyday with my mom. I watch TV with my parents every day and I'm rereading the Inheritance Cycle. (Oh and I go to school, but that's easy since it's community college.) See, I told you my life was boring and there's not much to tell.

My application is weighing a little heavily on me right now, but I've just been trying not to think about it, which is becoming somewhat of a problem. I really need to finish it in the next week or so. My goal is to finish it before Thanksgiving, but we'll see. I guess my one worry is that I don't have enough shadowing experience, but there's not much I can do about that now. I think I might try to shadow at least one place this week and I'll just hope that's enough. But seriously, optometrists never call me back!

I guess the only new thing in my life, is that I have taught myself to crochet. I literally went to Joann's the day after I wrote the post about not having any hobbies and I bought yarn and crocheted an entire scarf in one day, albeit a small scarf but still. Now I have spent the last 2 and a half weeks on my second scarf, so you can see it is going well haha. I was going to try to crochet some Christmas presents, but at this rate I don't think that's going to happen.

So yeah that's about it for now. Maybe something interesting will happen so I can finally write a decent blog post. Oh well.

-E

Hobbies?

So I'm going to have a mock interview for optometry school with the optometrist I (used to) work for in a couple weeks. Yesterday when my mom and I were at the movies seeing Moneyball (so good!) she asked me what I would say if he asked what else I am interested in or like to do besides optometry. The first thing I said was TV (because it's true!) and she said, "You can't say that!" But I feel like I should be honest, and I mean it wouldn't be the only thing I'd say, but why can't I like TV? She said I could say I am a movie buff but I can't say that I like TV. What's the difference? Are people just TV snobs? I got kind of annoyed at her after that and refused to talk to her anymore about it, but maybe she has a point. I need some new hobbies.

I tried to get into writing movie reviews, but that failed after my first one. (This would probably be an appropriate time to post a link to my movie blog, but it is way too lame for that.) And recently I've been thinking about reviewing TV shows, since I watch a lot more of those, but that's not why I watch TV. I watch TV so I can escape from life, not make a job of it.

Then there are the things I'd really like to get into but probably never will. Like photography. It is seriously really cool and I love looking at great photographs. It also seems like the hobby that anyone could do. Not to say that it's easy because I'm sure it's not, but it's not like you have to have some natural ability like you do with drawing or painting or whatever. But I feel like it's hard to get into it because you have to have a nice camera to take pictures that look like more than just Facebook profile pics, and those cost money. Now might actually be a good time for me to get into photography because since I am living at home I have access to my dad's really nice camera(s), but I wouldn't want to tell him what I'm doing with it. And honestly I'd have no idea where to start. What would I take pictures of?

So now I'm back to the fact that I have no hobbies. I used to play the guitar but that kind of stopped awhile ago. And I used to try to do yoga, but that only lasted a couple months. So anyway, does anyone (meaning the one person that reads my blog) have any suggestions of things I should get into?

Oh I just remembered that I wanted to try knitting again....

Ok I'm going to go start working on the 5 million things I have to do this weekend. Bye!

Blogging and community college

It's amazing how long you can spend on the internet when you have no work, no test to study for, no TV to watch, and a looming application that you don't want to work on. I spent the afternoon, evening, and night going from twitter to eonline to twitter to youtube to twitter and finally to this blog http://lostandtired.com/ about a father with 3 boys on the autism spectrum who also have many medical issues and a wife with debilitating medical problems. He also somehow manages to post a couple blog entries a day as well. I feel like if he can find time to blog, so can I.

However, it helps when you have something going on in your life to blog about and people that actually read your blog. Otherwise blogging is just an exercise in narcissistic self-indulgent drivel.

Normally the only things I have to say are about my worries about my life plan, self-pity that I have few friends and no boyfriend, and how I think more about the lives of TV characters than I do about my own life.

Today is a different story, though. I am currently having the most unusual experience in a class ever. My physiology class at Moorpark Community College is taught by this hispanic woman, who is also apparently a physician (which scares me a lot, and you'll soon see why). She is very "serious" about teaching and sent us multiple emails before the class even started to tell us how hard it was going to be and that we should plan on studying at least 12 hours a week for it (Ha!). However, it turns out that she is a completely incompetent teacher, which I guess is pretty normal at community colleges.

I must have looked very bored on the first day of lecture (and who would blame me when she barely talked about enough for me to take one page of notes) because the second day after class when I turned in my homework she asked me if I already had a degree and when I told her I had a degree in neuroscience from UCLA she said the next section would be pretty easy and boring for me.

Ever since then she seems awkward and unsure of what she is saying and she has literally asked me questions in class because she honestly doesn't know something. The first really weird day came when she both asked me to look up something on my phone so she could learn and explain it to the whole class AND scolded me for whispering in the space of two minutes.

Then during the next lecture when I was on my phone, which is a big no-no in her class (and why it is is beyond me) she said "Ellen, I know this is boring for you, but it's not fair to the rest of the class" and proceeded to tell the entire class that I already graduated from UCLA with a degree in Neuroscience. So what happened next was completely her fault.

For the rest of the class period, the kid sitting next to me kept asking me questions and after answering a few in a hushed whisper I told him I'd explain it later because she was giving me a dirty look. He continued to ask me questions and it's not like I could just ignore him!

So after class she calls me and a couple friends over (although she probably just wanted to talk to me) to say that she knows it's easy for us but that the talking distracts her and that people in the front were giving her looks like "aren't you going to stop this?" (seriously?? I doubt it! It's probably more like "we are so bored because you say things that don't make any sense and ramble on and on about the same thing for half an hour")

The MOST RIDICULOUS thing of this whole story is that she then ASKED ME TO SIT IN THE BACK OF THE ROOM! WTF?? I guess it's because I'm "distracting to her and the other students" but I think it's more because she is intimidated by me. It's like she half loves me and wishes I would just teach the class, and half hates and resents me.

I dunno. I sat in the back of the room today and tried to keep my mind busy while she re-lectured about stuff that she already "taught" us and told us that she was behind and we have to read most of the book on our own.

I guess we'll see if it gets better or worse. I'm going to try to just be ignored, but when she blatantly says things that are wrong, it's a little difficult not to speak up.


Wow, I didn't mean to write this much. I probably just scared away the one person that will see this from ever reading my blog again. Oh well.


- E

i'm just going for it!

So I've decided to just jump headfirst into pursuing optometry, because it interests me, and it seems like a good job and career, and you can't really ask for much more in life. I'm taking an expensive OAT prep class right now and it's kind of stressful because I don't have a lot of outside study time available, but I'm trying to stay on top of it and I think it will definitely be worth it in the end.

My biggest fear right now is that after finally deciding that this is what I want to do with my life, and strongly pursuing it for months, that I'm going to get rejected from every school I apply to like I did for grad school. But I guess I shouldn't really think about that right now and I should just focus on doing the best I can.

In order to be more confident about my decision, I shadowed an optometrist in Thousand Oaks over my spring break, and it turned out to be a great opportunity. The optometrist, Dr. Tim Trinh, graduated from UCLA in 2003 and from UC Berkeley's optometry school in 2007 (which is where I most want to go right now) so he was a good source of information about the optometry school process. He was just an incredibly nice and honest man; he even took me out to lunch and paid for it! Since he just opened (or I guess re-opened since he bought it from someone else) his own private practice about six months ago, he gave me a lot of information about the business side of optometry, too.

It was a pretty busy day at his office, which only consists of him and his optician/receptionist/whatever-else-you-need-her-to-be woman, so I got to watch a variety of eye exams. The very first man that came in was probably around 70 years old and his English wasn't very good (I think he was some sort of eastern European) but he had his daughter with him who helped translate. The optometrist had this cool digital microscope so I could see what he was looking at on a computer screen. I got to see what a cataract looks like, and I got to hear Dr. Tim make his standard joke of "Having cataracts is good because it means that you have lived long enough to get them" (Ha Ha). I also got to see first-hand how optometry exams can be somewhat challenging when there is a language barrier. The optometrist would say the usual "Which one is better? One or two?" to which the patient would respond, "Two." Then he would say "Now which one is better, three or four?" and the patient would respond, "Two and four." The optometrist would try to explain that he should just say three or four now, but the patient didn't seem to get it. There was much back and forth of "Three or four?", "Two and four," "No, just three or four," "Two and four," until finally the patient's daughter translated as we all laughed and he finally seemed to get it.

I also quickly learned that giving eye exams to kids can be frustrating, as well. There were these two brothers who came in, ages 7 and 9, and both already had glasses so they were old pros at the eye exam. They didn't seem to have my childhood problem of saying absolutely nothing when the optometrist asked me to read the line of letters on the chart until she got so frustrated with me that she yelled "Just say something!" I guess I've always been a perfectionist, and I was afraid of getting any of the letters wrong! But anyway, these two boys did really well during the exam until it came to putting eye drops in the 7 year old to dilate his eyes. He was really frightened of it for some reason. I guess some people have a weird thing about their eyes (yes, Laura, I'm talking about you). I'm not sure if he was afraid it would hurt, but he was squirming out of the seat and moving his head around like crazy. I don't know how Dr. Tim managed to get the drops in his eyes (all three sets of them!) but somehow he did. I guess that'll be one thing that I'll have to learn how to do in optometry school.

The most interesting patient of the day was also the youngest: an 8 month old baby girl who had already been wearing glasses since she was only 4 months old. Her mom had noticed that she was developing a lazy eye and even though her pediatrician said it was fine, Dr. Tim told her to bring the baby in so he could check her out. It's actually pretty bad for a baby to have a lazy eye because the brain learns to ignore the information coming from that eye and that part of the brain won't develop properly, so even if the lazy eye is later corrected, the vision won't improve. So Dr. Tim did an objective eye exam and discovered that she was really farsighted, meaning she can't see near things. She was so farsighted that in order to see far things she had to turn her eyes inward (like we do when we focus on something close to our face). He gave her glasses to try to correct the lazy eye, but they hadn't fixed it, which is why the family was back the day I shadowed the optometrist. So now he has referred them to a pediatric ophthalmologist at UCLA to see if she needs surgery. It's rather sad for an infant to already be having eye problems, but hopefully they will get it all worked out and she will have a normal life!

I learned a lot of great things that I never knew about optometry in just 8 hours that day and I'm hopefully going to shadow him (or even get paid to work for him!) more this summer, so I'll get to learn even more. He's really happy and loves his job, and I'm excited to feel like that, too, one day!

So enough about optometry (Well, for now, since I'm sure I will talk about it a lot in the future). In other news, LAURA GOT ENGAGED! FINALLY! I am so freaking excited for her, it is not even funny! And they might get married in late summer, which means we (well I guess it is more of a "they" but I feel like I am involved. Haha!) get to start planning it now! Tomorrow I am driving up to SLO with her mom, and all of us plus James are going to tour a potential wedding venue and then go to a bridal fair on Sunday. Yay! I can't wait! I feel like I'm more excited about Laura's wedding than I would be about my own. But I guess only time will tell...

I'm off to get some studying done and then sleep so I can be ready to go in the morning. More on optometry, graduation, and my equally annoying and interesting comparative literature class later.

a much needed update on my life

So I've been holding off on posting anything about grad schools on here because I was worried that I would be rejected from them and then I would have all my lost hopes on the internet forever. It turns out that that was a good decision, because I have been rejected... from all of them... except UCLA... which I will probably be rejected from sometime next week.

A few weeks ago when it had been a month since my Arizona interview and I realized that I was probably going to be rejected from my best hope at going to grad school next year, I had a sort of quarter-life crisis where I realized that I didn't really know what I want to do with my life. For years, I have just assumed that I would go to grad school and become a "scientist" and I never considered anything else, which now seems really stupid. I mean I should have realized that when people asked me what I was going to do with my life and I replied, "Um... research?" that maybe going to grad school wasn't the best thing for me. I'm realizing that maybe I don't have a passion for it. I still love neuroscience, and I love a lot of the research being done in it, but I'm not sure if I want to actually be doing any of the research.

This brings me to my next problem: If I don't want to go to grad school and get a PhD and do research for the rest of my life, then what do I want to do? This question has taken up most of my allotted worry time in the last few weeks. Everyone says that I should just do what I want to do, but what if I don't know what I want to do? What if I never know what I want to do...?

Optometry has been something I have been seriously considering. I really love the IDEA of being an optometrist, but I actually have no clue if I'd like it. I'm planning on shadowing some optometrists, but I'm not sure what good it will do me. I feel like this is such a sudden change that I don't know if I can trust my feelings about it, because what if they go away just as fast as they came?

Currently my plans after graduation are to continue working at the CTO while taking a few extra classes I need for optometry school and moving back home. I kind of feel like I'm jumping into the optometry thing in order to have something to do and something to work towards, but seriously, what else would I do with my life?

I guess I have a lot to think about in the next few months, and in the mean time I'm going to enjoy my spring break and work on my eharmony profile (yes, I joined eharmony, but that's a story for another day).

Since this post was kind of depressing, I'm going to end it with a really awesome song that has been stuck in my head all day:

observations in jamba juice

So I'm sitting here at jamba juice (again) and I realized that I was slouching which is something I've been trying not to do. Then I look up and see the girl sitting next to me is slouching too. And as I look around the room I realize that almost every person here is slouching!

Obviously people haven't always slouched. I'm pretty sure that it's a recent development in the last couple decades. So isn't it weird to think that society somehow dictates how we sit?? I mean everyone knows that what is acceptable in common society often influences what we do and how we act but it's weird to think that it controls something so mundane as how we sit down.

Anyway I had this random thought so I thought i'd take this opportunity to write in my blog! Maybe i'll start a new one called "musings of a bored college student" lol.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

man i really suck

So apparently I really fail at blogging. Maybe it's because I know no one reads this or cares. But I have a break right now for half an hour anyway so I figured I should try again. Although I probably should do some work since I've been super lazy lately and I have a lot of stuff to do in the coming weeks.

I am currently sitting in the student union drinking one of those new probiotic yogurt smoothies from jamba juice (strawberries alive flavor) because I had a coupon to get it for only a dollar and I think it's my new favorite one!! It's so yummy and creamy and good!

In my last post I promised I would write about the presents I got for xmas so I guess I'll do that now. As they say, better late than never! An external hard drive and a wonderfully fuzy and warm north face jacket were my two big presents. I also got seasons 4-7 of gilmore girls!! I recently started watching the series again starting at season 1 and I'm already on season 4. That show never gets old! Other presents include $50 gift card from betty, 2 $15 itunes cards, a yoga mat and pants, headphones from my sister's bf ben and a few other miscellaneous items.

Speaking of ben, he's so awesome! He stayed with us from december 27 to january 5. It was fun to hang out with him and my sister. Even when the 3 of us were squished (quite literally since ben is 6'3") on our tiny couch watching tv.

On more recent news, I went home this weekend (for the second time since school started again 2 weeks ago haha) and it was wonderful as usual. I just love going home because home is like a little bubble where the rest of the world doesn't matter and I can just sit on the couch and watch tv and movies. I did see 2 movies in the theater though! The King's Speech with my parents and Black Swan with my parents and Brittany! They were both so good and I think either one deserves to be best picture, although maybe Black Swan a little more so. The leads in both certainly deserve best actor or actress, respectively. I'll try to post in my movie blog about them this week.

Speaking of movies, the Golden Globes were this weekend and they were both good and bad. Good in that natalie portman, colin firth, claire danes, the kids are alright and boardwalk empire won. Bad in that the social network won best picture and glee won 3 awards!

Ok that's it for now but this was kind of fun so I'm going to try doing it again soon!

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5