Bria's Blogie

Summer, Testing, Bookstore: Randomness at It's Finest

This blog is going to be a random compilation of what would have been a couple entries, except I don't care to make them that way. First, I will make an additional suggestion for my free summer to be scrutinized by the public (meaning I want your opinions, PLEASE!). Then I will go onto my latest product testing and my thoughts on the university bookstore. Now, please continue to read.

On Next Summer--

A few entries ago, I began to wonder aloud what I am to do with myself next summer. I have absolutely no plans at all, a totally blank slate to work with. So I had a brainstorm today. I'm only taking 11 hours in the spring semester, and so will have some free time. I was thinking that I could study up a little bit and take a test to get certified as a personal trainer. With that and with the college degree I'll have in May, I should be a rather desirable trainer. I could take that and apply for a trainer position on some cruise line. Work and travel AT THE SAME TIME! That could be fun. I don't know what that pays though. Would need to look into that. Cons: 1)The test costs anywhere from $200 to $350, depending on what agency you get certified with. Then for the study materials is another few hundred dollars, so the total cost ranges from $300-$700! Of course that's about the cost of a class at a community college, so in the grand scheme of things, it's not that bad, really. 2)Then I might have to get re-certified in CPR. Not that that's a big deal; I've only been certified three times now. It's just that would be some more out of pocket expense. Pros: 1) another certification to wave at future employers and more letters to put at the end of my name haha 2) learn how to plan and implement an exercise routine, which I will be learning in PT school too 3) fitness work experience (since all I have right now is tennis camps and volunteer stuff) 4) like I said earlier, work and travel at the same time.
 *shrugs* Any words from you would be helpful. 

I'd still want to take a few weeks off and go on my own adventure somewhere. Good news though! I have a friend that is the same boat as I and looking for some fun too! Hooray for Kassia, my fellow adventurer!

I've been wanting to try out some of those highly advertised whitening strips. (Yes, I've fallen victim to mass advertisement. *hangs head in shame*) I was at the store earlier in the week for toothpaste and found a little kit from Crest called Healthy Radiance that has weekly strips and a toothpaste for about $10. That's way cheaper than the month's supply of daily strips, plus I got the toothpaste I was in need of. I'll let ya know how that one goes.

 The bookstore is so un-American. They can't stand competition, which is an American institution. That's why we have a free market economy. I tried to call the store this week to get the info for the book I'll be needing this summer. All they would tell me was that the book was in and that they "don't give any other information over the phone." I just asked for the title and author! Not even the ISBN! That would give away that I didn't want to buy through them. Whatever. They wouldn't help me over the phone, so I went up there today. I felt like a criminal jotting down the info. They sear a hole in the back of your head with their stares as if you were stealing something. I suppose I'm stealing revenue, but it's not my fault that they can't compete with on-line retailers. I ordered the book I need today on-line for half the price the bookstore was offering if for. I rarely know a movie line to apply to a current situation, but here's one: "Stick it to the man!"

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Normalcy

I have this urge to write rather frequently at the moment. Humor me.

So after the swimsuit escapade yesterday, I've indulged in a new suit. I've have my eye on this particular one for a couple years actually. I needed a new suit, the suit was on sale... what other excuse did I need? Here's a link to it, 'cause I really am that excited about my suit!

Got out of class early today. Worked out with the extra time. I am so out of shape. Piddled around most of the afternoon and evening, getting some homework and laundry done.

The only truly exciting thing about today was my trip to Wal-Mart a few hours ago. As I was leaving, a couple male employees caught my eye. They were each wearing bright, floral print dresses, heels and carrying equally bright bags. One wore a turquoise bucket hat and the other a blonde wig. I think they must have lost a bet on last nights NBA final. Haha. I was quite literally rolling in the aisle. I love Wal-Mart on the later side. Seeing all those weirdos that frequent the store in the late night or early morning hours make me feel much more normal.

Here's to normalcy!

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Do days come wrinkle free?

I thought my today was kind of interesting.

My today and yesterday kind of ran together. I couldn't make myself go to sleep, so I crawled in bed, wide awake, at about 3 am. The alarm for my morning jog went off at 7 am and I said, "No freakin way!" And then proceeded to reset the alarm for 8 and roll back over. 8 arrived and I reset it again for 8:30. So when the final alarm went off, I catapulted out of bed, into my clothes and off to class. (For that part to be interesting in the slightest, you must understand that I NEVER hit snooze or reset my alarm. No, I mean NEVER.)

In class, the fact that I didn't read yesterday came back and bit in me on the rear. I couldn't discuss much in class. Bummer. I love to discuss in class. I just couldn't make myself do ANYTHING last night. Ok, I did finally did give myself a mani and pedi, but that's the only constructive thing I did all day yesterday.

Came home from class and had some Grandma's leftovers for lunch. Then I took a nap. This is where the trouble begins. As I laid down, my lovely neighbor, Jett, decided to turn on some music. It probably really wasn't that loud, these walls are just paper thin. But I could hear it none-the-less. I think he must have a camera in my room, because for the past 2 days every time I lay down, on comes his music. *rawr* EVEN last night at freakin 3 am, Jett was there on the other side of my wall with his music on. So I slept for about 2 hours, because I was feeling lazy.

I get up and find Carmen-- the roomie that doesn't actually live here, long story-- and her boyfriend banging around in her room. Eventually, they each come out with a huge pile of stuff and she informs me that she is moving out RIGHT THEN. Great. So here we go again with the new roomie search. What is it with people and giving little to no notice about moving out? *rawr* I called Tink about it and did some much needed cleaning, so I could take my aggression out in the cleaning.

It is about 98 degrees out here, so I decided to hit the school pool for the rest of the afternoon. Catch some rays, read what I should have read last night for class. I got about half way through the reading when I noticed I was about to melt and so jumped into the pool. I swam some laps, jogged a few and jumped out. Just as I was about to lay out again, the little plastic connecter-do-dad on the back of my top snapped and off came my top. Good. So freakin gooooooood. At least I had been facing the wall at the snapping moment. I hastily covered up as best you can with a bikini top and pondered how I was going to get my t-shirt back on without any of the guys in the pool noticing. Took me about 10 minutes, but I figured it out and left.

So now I'm back at my apartment, a little on the grumpy side. I am SO ticked about Carmen moving out with no notice. I am upset about my swimsuit, because I really liked that one. It's lime green with white polka dots. Well, it WAS.... On the up side though, I finally made contact with my internship guy and so have an appointment to go get all the creases ironed out on Wednesday. I am kind of excited about getting a new swimsuit. I wasn't going to get one this year, but now I kind of have to. So, I'm going to eat some more leftovers and then go hunt for a new suit. Hope everyone's day was better than mine!
 

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What to do with myself?

So I got to thinking yesterday-- dangerous, I know. Since I am graduating on time next May I will have the entire summer off. I haven't had a whole summer off with no class or observations for PT school to do in FIVE years! I'm not sure I'll know what to do with myself.

I talked to my dad about it and he suggested going and working with some famous PT. My question is, do PTs get famous? Perhaps famous is the wrong word... very good at what they do. I suppose that must occur because there are specialists. 

I'm not so sure I want to do anything school related though, because like I said, I will have not had a break from such things in five long years. Perhaps I should do something fun. I won't get summer breaks at all during PT school and people in the work force don't get summer breaks either.

I was thinking maybe find a fun job outside of this town I live in. It also happens to be my home town AND where I will hopefully be going to PT school. Thought that would be a good way to scratch that get-out-of-town itch. Just for a few months, ya know. Of course it's rather difficult to find a land lord in a strange town that would be willing to let me rent a place for such a short time. Or at least I would think it would be, since I haven't done any looking. There is a tennis camp held by Texas A&M that several of the people on my team have taught at in the past. That pays $400 a week, plus they give you a place to live. That sounds like a good option.

Then I thought of family I have around the country. I've got some a couple hours down the road in far west Texas, others in far south Texas, some in South Carolina and some in the D.C. area. I'm sure someone in there wouldn't mind me living with them for a few months if I pulled my weight. That could work.

Then my friend, Daniel, suggested traveling. I love to travel, so that's very enticing. He's going to Malaysia next summer, so I thought of jumping on the bandwagon with him. But after researching the price tag, I would only want to spend that kind of money on going to a place that I REALLY wanted to see. The only thing I know of in Malaysia is a couple friends that Daniel and I share. *shrugs* While that would be fun, they're not my best buddies, like they are his.

On visiting friends though, I do have a friend in South Korea who came to visit last Christmas, but I missed her due to my great uncle's death. I wouldn't mind going to visit her. Then she lead me to another friend I made at the same time as I did her, who lives in Germany. That could be terribly interesting as well. And of course I still have my passport from last summer, so it's not like I'd have to jump through the government hoops this time. 

I wouldn't want to go anywhere on my own. 1) It's not safe in the world we live in to be a lone female American anywhere, and 2) it's no fun. So I'd either have to go somewhere where I already know at least one person or find some people to go with me. Not necessarily a good friend, but someone that I know reasonably well and trust.

Plane tickets are terribly expensive though, so maybe somewhere closer to home? I thought of maybe getting some good camping equipment and hiking through a state or two of the Appalachian Trail. Since reading a book on it last fall, I really do want to do that some time.  What better time? Good camping stuff is expensive though and not too many of my friends are outdoorsy enough for that long of a trek. That would definitely be testing me too! That would require some training as well; people don't just magically hike 20 miles a day with 50 pounds of pack on their back, you know.

So, any thoughts or suggestions? Want to go somewhere with me?

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May-mester

If it's possible, I think my summer may shape up to be just as horrible, if not worse than the spring. I just started may-mester. I'm taking a Hispanic culture course. My last class to complete my Spanish minor. I feel like my head is in a vice. The class is a "hybrid" meaning we go to class, but we're doing a lot of stuff online. I hate that the homework is due each evening by midnight. I often will leave homework half done to go out with friends or to just take a break and then get up a little early to do it before class. Can't do that with time limits. At least I didn't have as much homework tonight. Yesterday I probably spent twice as much time on the homework as I did in class... and I spend 3 hours a day in class! *sigh* Well, I guess I've already jumped in the water so I might as well take a deep breath and dive in as deep as the well of knowledge goes in this course. No turning back now since today was the last day to drop.

What's bad is that the class is keeping me from doing other things that I realllllly need to get done, like I still haven't gotten in contact with the people that are supposed to be hosting me for my internship starting next month. I have yet to pick up my room. (I HAVE to keep my room picked up at all times. Normally I operate just fine as long as there's a path through the mess. Because my room is the size of a shoe box, there is only a small path through the furniture WITHOUT junk on the floor.) I also really need to call some friends that I didn't get a chance to talk with much last semester because it was crazy. I'm going to try to do that on Saturday. I really need to spend some time with Greg this month too, since none of either of our friends are taking may-mester, it's just us here right now. Good time for us to bond some. Except neither of us has time with our classes! ARRRRGGGG!!! I guess I'm just going to have to make a point to NOT take a nap before I call the internship people tomorrow. I can't leave this week without making contact with them.

I need a break from life. Where is that pause button? Or maybe some ice cream will do... yeah. :-)

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Babble

Be forewarned that this is going to be one of those entries that has no point and doesn't go much of anywhere. I just felt like writing.

I have one final left and then the semester from Hell will be over. *the Hallelujah chorus erupts* However, I am continually kicking myself about this final. I was planning on not really studying for this one because it's comprehensive over this semester AND last semester of chemistry. I'm no good at chemistry anyway, since it has so much to do with math, but I'm supposed to remember TWO semesters worth of crap that I really don't care about? Yeah, right. I am studying really hard though because I did terrible on the last test; if you happen to see my butt, please send it back to me. I think I've studied it off.

Simeon, my sugar glider, just woke  up. I got him a new branch to climb on today and some other play pretties. I think I'll go see if he likes them. He seems to appreciate the extra climbing surface. He's also rather scared of the washers I hung on a string. They move and shine. :-0 Doesn't seem to know what to do with the toilet paper rolls I threw in there. I had never thought of that, but when I was at the pet store today they were selling these colored cardboard rolls with shredded paper in them touting that "Critters love these things!" I recalled that my hamster loved such things many moons ago and was about to pick one up for Simeon, when I said to myself, "Woah, I'm going to pay $4 for a toilet paper roll and some shredded paper?" So I came home and pulled the empty rolls out of the bathroom, stuffed them with some TP and threw 'em in. We'll see how that goes. I'm having fun watching him be scared of the washers though. hehe.

Oh, I keep forgetting to tell the blog community that I get to graduate next May!! I'm so excited because that means I get to go to PT school on time, graduate with my friends and have a whole summer to myself! What a wonderful life. God really does come through the clutch. I couldn't be more pleased. However, the price is this summer; I'm taking three hours in may-mester and seven hours each summer session. You're only supposed to take six. Everyone keeps telling me I'm crazy. Three of those hours each session are an internship though, so really I'm just working. It will still be a challenge though. The real class I'm taking is physics... both semesters. *gag* When I took physics in high school I understood the first lesson... and that's about it. I've had friends do physics and an internship at the same time in the summer. (Actually, one's doing it this summer.) So I know it's possible. I may just go crazy in the process. Oh well. :-) I was crazy before anyway.

I watched Juno this evening for a study break. It was cute. I would not want my teen to watch it though. It kind of sends mixed messages about the kosher-ness (yes, I just made a word) of teen pregnancy. I thought it interesting though that big media put Juno saying no to an abortion in there though. However, there was one scene that was rather touching. Juno asks her dad if two people really can stay married forever. Her father responds with something like it's really hard and takes a lot of work. The key is to find someone that still thinks you're pretty when you look like crap and still likes to hang around you even though you're in a crabby mood. He said find that and you've got someone who thinks the sun shine's out your butt no matter what and you're all set. I liked that. Greg says I look beautiful a lot. The funny thing is that he most often says so when I'm wearing jeans and a t-shirt, hair a mess and no make-up. This past month I've been in a perpetual bad mood, and I unloaded it all on him. I apologized for that last Sunday and he totally blew it off like it was no big deal at all. Like I had just stepped on his toe while we were dancing or something. I think I'll keep him.

Well, I'm getting tired and this blog does have to end somewhere. As Tigger says, TTFN, ta-ta for now!

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(The Beginning of) My Dream Coming True

I realized at about 2:30 this morning that I am now less than a month away from applying to physical therapy school!!!!

OH MY FREAKING GOSH!!!!!! 

My dreams are on the verge of beginning to come true (hopefully).

I can't decide if I want to shout for joy or hurl in nervousness.

I suppose I should save the shouts for when/if I get in. And I haven't gotten sick over excitement in years. 

I guess all that's left is to pray. Do that for me, would ya?

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