Some Days You Just Have to Blog

Some days are so crappy there is nothing better to do at the end of the day than to sit back and blog about it.

I have to work from 9-12 this morning. I didn't get to bed till 2 last night, so I wasn't thrilled about waking up. Worst part was, for the first second after waking up I thought it was saturday and I had set my alarm by mistake. No go.

I take a shot for a bowl of cereal, then promptly realize there is no time for that, so I construct a peanut butter and jelly sandwich which I figured would have a similar carb count.

On the way to work there was a car accident, so I manage to get to work 5 minutes late. Not bad considering.

Work was fine, but I ended up leaving 10 minutes late. Not a huge deal, but I have to be to school by 1pm, and school is 45 minutes away. I realize I forgot one of my lab manuals essential for my class, so I must stop at home first. Luckily, home is on the way. I get home, grab my binder, and a coupon for Arbys. I hate fast food, but I'm hungry and once again late, and already had pb and j on the run once already. I'm on R right now, so I get to the car and decide to guesstimate carbs for Arbys and shoot up. I also decide to do this without testing first, but hey, I feel in range. I decide to cover for 60 grams of carb for a sandwich and medium french fry. Probably a low estimate, but I figure I'll go with it for now, then correct later if I need to. I take the dose, then watch as the cover to the one and only syringe I have on me falls into that space under the emergency brake that no one knows where it leads to. I happen to have a screw driver on the floor in my car, and try to get at it with that, but no luck. I don't want to throw an uncovered syringe I may need to use again back in my bag, so I open my meter case, and have an "Ah ha!" moment. There is a lancet cover not being used. I decide to try it over the syringe. Perfect fit. And I am on the road again.

I get my food at Arbys, and it's actually surprisingly good. I hate driving and eating. Yeah, hey, all you people with automatic transmissions- try shifting and eat ing and stearing and clutching and gasing and braking all at the same time. But I proved it could be done.

I get to school 10 minutes before class starts. Yes, good fortune has been bestowed upon me! Unforunately, the parking gods are not with me this day. My class I have today is in the one and only academic building on the outskirts of campus. I cruise through the street parking near that building, go down two blocks, nothing is open. Well, at least nothing legal.

I turn around and decide to check out the parking lots in the middle of campus. The first two show nothing. I go to the third. Here I see not 1, no 2, but 3 cars taking up more than one spot. I get ticketed for the most minor parking infringements. Why are these people not ticketed? I know why. Because it's 10 degrees out and no security guard wants to be in the middle of a parking lot looking for cars to tick. I find a spot 5 blocks away from my class. Parking successfully killed 8 of the 10 minutes I had to get to class.

I race to my class, then remember I injected in my thigh because I figured I would be sitting for awhile. Diabetes conscience (a small part of your brain anterior to your cerebellum- yes, I made that up) tells me this racing will cause the insulin to absorb faster and put me at risk for hypoglycemia. Oh well, I underbolused, remember?

I get to class 2 minutes late. Well, better than what I pulled off for work this morning I guess. Professor is handing back exams. I see the grade distribution put on board. Only 2 As in the class. Wow. I get my paper back and am glad to see I am one of those As! Yay!

That class goes uneventfully and brings us to 2:15. My next class is at 2:30. One the 4th floor. Of a building on the other side of campus. Yay, more racing.

I get there right as class is suppose to start, put my lab coat on, disinfect my lab bench, and decide it's time to test. I leave the room (it's a microbiology lab, testing in class would violate every infection control rule I can think of). I get into the hall, and open up my meter case to see one stinkin strip. Better make it a good one. It wasn't- it was and error message.

Professor comes to class 5 minutes late (it's about time someone is late besides me!). Lab instruction brings us to 5 pm. Then professor hands back two tests. I got a B+ on one, and failed the other. One out of two ain't bad I guess.

After lab I have to go to the computer lab to finish typing a paper I'm working on. I get to computer lab. I open up my files. It refuses to open. Darn it! So I settle on going home, of course hitting rush hour traffic. I get home at 6:15. I eat dinner, still not having tested since my fasting blood sugar this morning.

I eat, then go upstairs and test. I clock in at a lovely 133. Some days I think I would be better off just ignoring diabetes more often.

I bolus for the meal, plus a half unit correction for kicks, since I get suspicious about numbers that seem too good to be true. Then I get to work on the paper. I though paper would take no time to finish. I was wrong. Health histories of pediatric patients are long. Very long. Three hours later and 20 pages (SINGLE spaced) later, I'm done. I go to print. Not only is my meter error messaging on me, my printer is too. Darn it.

We have one more print I shall try, otherwise, I need to try at school again tomorrow. I think I solved the problem for why the file won't read though.

Tomorrow I have a test for this same 8 am class the paper is due for. Have I studied for said test? No. I can't do everything. It's 20 to midnight, and I have to get up at 6:30. So over and out. Tomorrow is another day.

Me Too

I stole this idea and got the same results.

You Are Boston

Both modern and old school, you never forget your roots. Well educated and a little snobby, you demand the best. And quite frankly, you think you are the best. Famous people from the Boston area: Conan O'Brien, Ben Affleck, New Kids on the Block

What American City Are You?

Sometimes I Amaze Myself

Today I went up to the camp I work at. I had lunch there and did the unthinkable- I forgot to cover the lunch carbs with a shot. About an hour later I felt high. Go figure. At this point I realize why rather quickly (duh!). So I go out to my car to get my meter that is sitting in the freezing cold outdoors. I test at 130. WTF? SInce I feel high and 1 unit usually brings me down about 50, I decide a half unit would put me at 105. So I do it. An hour later my meter has warmed up some, and the half a unit is already making me feel better. I clock in at 180 this time. Okay, that is more like it. I figure this means I was to the tune of 205 before. I take another full unit. Now three hours later I'm ready for dinner and at a smooth 103. Sometimes I amaze myself at my ability to make a come back!

I dream of ...

diabetes. Anyone else do this? Once I dreampt that music came in regular and sugar free varities and I could only listen to diet music. This pissed me off because I love listening to music and all my favorite songs became out of the question.

But I just had that dream once. I do have a recurring dream though, that my two best friends have diabetes and I don't. It's an odd dream. And it's always the same. It's especially odd because in the dream I don't have any of the knowledge about diabetes I have as a result of having diabetes either.

Am I the only weirdo that actually dreams about it?

Funny Thing Happened

I have been working on a nursing paper for several weeks now, and just needed one more article to cite this evening. I have been on my library's online database for the last two hours, and finally found an article that was perfect to use. I typed up the final bit of the paper, then looked at the author's name to credit her, and realized I recognized the name. The author that wrote this article that is finally letting me finish this paper runs the site that I found huge amounts of help through when I was dealing with hyperinsulinemic hypoglycemia and a "mystery GI illness" (which is now dx'ed) as a young teenager. I have barely given this site a second thought, but I met one of my favorite online buddies through it. What a coincidence! Check out her site here: http://www.lehman.cuny.edu/faculty/jfleitas/bandaides/

Sometimes I can Be an Idiot

Monday I went to school. It's a normal thing for me to do. After school, I drove home. My first clue something was wrong should have been when I turned on the air conditioning in my car. It was 10 degree outside, and I couldn't stop sweating.

I kept driving.

And driving.

Soon I was two miles from home, but all I wanted to do was sleep. Sleep, and eat, and get the sweat off of me. I watched the fast food restuarants wizz by me as I kept driving. It briefly occured to me that I may have been low, but hypoglycemic me decided I was just looking for an excuse to eat junk food.

I kept driving. One mile from home. And hitting every red light on the way. The steering wheel slipped in damp hands as I navigated the icey roads to my house.

I felt into my backpack on the passenger seat. There is always copious amounts of sugar there. At this very point in time I had 5 suckers, a full roll of glucose tabs, and a bite sized chocolate bar. I ate the bite sized chocolate bar.

While digging in my backpack, I felt the vinal case of my meter. "TEST!" Every instinct told me. But I was too focused on driving.

3 blocks from home. More red lights and a slow old man driver. Damn it. Slow driver causes me to hit another red light.

One my street. No cars- just stop signs now. Two to be exact. Drive...drive...drive.

I'm in my driveway now. I grab my bag. It's too heavy for me. I just want to drop it. The door feels heavy to shut too.

I make it in the garage. Oreos!!! I grab the roll of it, and head to the kitchen. Before even taking off my coat I start eating. Do I eat the oreos in my hand? Why no. I grab the diet coke and the hard boiled eggs in the fridge. Half a diet coke and 3 eggs later I start in on the oreos. Six oreos later I test- 39. Nice. I down a glass of milk, lay on my bed, and wake up two hours later.

Allison Got Me

Four jobs I’ve had in my life:

Target
Babysitting
Camp Counselor
Tutor

Four movies I can watch over and over:
Chronicles of Narnia (saw it in theators twice, patiently awaiting April 4)
Father of the Bride 1 and 2
Parent Trap (reminds me of my favorite place- camp)
Runaway Bride


Four places I have lived:
Just NY


Four TV shows I love to watch:
ER
Strong Medicine (last week was the last episode :()
Late Night
Uhm...I think that's it

Four places I have been on vacation:
Brisbane Australia
Florida
Vermont
Ontario (family owns a vacation home there)

Four of my favorite foods:
Chicken Fingers (gosh I love those greasy things!)
Peanut Butter cups
M and Ms
Carrot sticks (honest)

Four websites I visit daily:
Blogs (I check my live bookmarks)
E-mail (I have several accounts, but we shall put them together for now)
CWD
Slickdeals.net

Four places I would rather be right now:
Camp
Vacation Home
College Graduation ;)
In Bed (which is where I am heading considering it is 1 am!).

Now I shall tag Skytor, Tommy , and Martha.

My All Time Favorite Geek Computer Things Part II

I told Kerri awhile ago I was planning a part two to this, so without further ado, here we go. Just click on the title of an application to go to the page where it can be downloaded for free.

Yahoo! Widgets
Ever see Dashboard on an Apple computer running Tiger? Okay, this is basically just like that. If you haven't, this is one of the coolest new trends going for computers. It lets you easily see all kinds of info, like weather, sports scores, movie times, calendars, clocks, and to do lists on you computer desktop in the form of "widgets." Widgets are even cooler because you can change the way they look through opacity and color changes. Very cool. Works on Macs and Windows and previously known as Konfabulator.



Inkscape
This program I really have no use for. Many of you will also have no use for it. Many of you will have a good use for it, but anyway you slice it- I think it is super cool. Basically, it lets you draw stuff. It has shapes you can choose from, and you can alter their colors, form, size, and orientation to make them look however you want. It also lets you draw in your own stuff and add text bubbles. Sort of like a really hyped up version of paint. Availible for Linux, Macs, and Windows machines.



Session Saver
Okay. So I kind of cheated on this one. Why is that you may ask? Well, because this is not an application in and of itself. To use this, you must be using Firefox. Yet it has come in handy for me many times, so therefore it only seems right to mention it. What it does is it saves your online sessions. You can set it to either automatically pick up where you left off online every time you get off (if you ever get off ;)), or you can set it to only pick off where you left off if your system "crashes." So basically how it works is, you have 3 tabs and two windows open, one which you are typing a lengthy blog entry in. All of a sudden you get the dreaded message "Firefox is not responding and must be shut down. Select 'End Now.'" It's happened to all of us, but Oh No! your lovely blog entry you have been working on the past half hour. Have no fear, you installed Session Saver. Next time you start firefox, all the windows and tabs you had open are exactly as you left them, even down to your blog entry. I even had my power supply die once while I was typing an e-mail. When I got the new power supply working and powered up again, my e-mail was still there. Very cool.

Netscape 8.1
Firefox and Opera have a special place in my heart as my favorite browsers. However, Netscape 8.1 came out last week and deserves a looking at, especially if you visit sites that require you to be in IE a lot, or share one computer that doesn't allow setting up separate accounts with many people. Netscape lets you set up accounts on the browser and save passwords and info. That way you know your kids can't read your e-mail or buy something with your credit card, but you can still save your info so you don't have to type it in everytime. Also, you can set parental controls on different accounts, so you can rest assured your three year old can only visit pbs.org and nickjr.com. Finally, it lets you view pages like IE displays them or like Firefox displays them with a click of the button, making there be almost no reason to use IE. Only availiblke for Windows right now.



Trillian
Another Windows only program, this is an easy way to stay logged onto all your im'ing programs at once. It also manages away messages for all of them. It has some cool smilies, and it automatically logs all you conversations so you can see them later, though this can be turned off. You can add skins too. Definitely worth a look if you use im a lot.





If you liked this list and haven't seen the previous list yet, it can be found here.

Feel free to suggest other software utilities you like in the comments section. I love hearing what programs other people use.