End of Week One

I'm recovering today after a very fun party that went really late last night. Some of Daniel's brothers decided they wanted to have a party at our place, so a TON of people came over here last night. It was a blast. There were lots of new people I didn't know, and some old favorites of course. Theta Chi just initiated three new brothers, and two of them came. The best part is that Daniel's best friend Jeff hit it off with Hope's friend Kristen. Both of them studied abroad in Italy, and they both love Glee, so they talked about that all night long. We are so happy for Jeff, because he doesn't have a lot of luck in the dating department, but he's so cute and smart. He really deserves an awesome girl, so we were thrilled when he got along with Kristen so well. When all was said and done, 5 people crashed here because there wasn't anyone to drive them back to campus. When everyone was finally asleep somewhere, it was about 4am. Everybody had a great time. I have been feeling pretty bad all morning, and Hope was nice enough to go to the grocery store and get me a banana, some fresh fruit, and a vitamin water. It helped so much, and I feel way better now.

The rest of my weekend has been spent studying. This anatomy class is going to kill me. It's been one week and I'm overwhelmed with the material. I had my first lab on Thursday, and it really helped me understand the material better. I spent 3 solid hours looking at tons of slides under the microscope. I am very good at using a microscope now! By the end, I was looking at slides under the microscope and hiding the name on them to test myself. I did pretty well. I've already started reading next week's material. It's on the bones of the skull. Well, not just the bones. We have to know every bump, line, hole and cavity in the skull: inside and out. This class is going to take a lot of work, but I'm definitely up to the challenge. I find every bit of it fascinating. After the end of the quarter, I want to go see Body Worlds. It's an exhibit that travels around the country, and right now it's in Denver. I saw it in Phoenix a couple years ago, but it will mean a lot more once I've taken anatomy. The exhibit is a bunch of real cadavers that scientists injected plastic into. The result is a perfectly preserved human body. They pull back different layers and show you all the parts of the body and how they work together.

My nutrition class is also really interesting, but it makes me feel really guilty. I am hyper-aware of everything I eat, and the software we're using to track our meals keeps telling me I'm eating more calories than I should. That is not good for my self-esteem. I already feel like I've gained weight and I'm on my way to being fat. I also feel guilty about every bowl of ice cream, every handful of M&Ms, every tablespoon of butter in my food. And even worse, every time I read the textbook, it makes me hungry! I think I'm driving Daniel crazy with my new initiative to use less butter and salt and more vegetables. He already thinks we eat healthy enough. Hopefully I'll relax a little bit as the quarter goes on.

This week I was talking to my dad and explaining how I'm not going to be able to see Grandma and Grandpa for a long time if I don't make it out to Phoenix or to Utah this summer. So he said we should find a time for me to go out there for the weekend. I suggested Easter and he agreed. So on Thursday night I'm flying out for the weekend! I am excited, and really stressed out about it. I'm excited because I have never missed Easter with my family before. I also haven't been to church in such a long time, it will be nice to see some friends again. And now Sarah is 21, so I really hope we have time to go out one night. I'm stressed because I have to fit in all my usual weekend activities (homework, cleaning the house, grocery shopping, laundry) on Thursday or when I get back. Hopefully Daniel will take care of some of it too. He can't come because he is playing the tuba at a church service on Easter morning. That's another reason I'm glad I'm going to Phoenix: Daniel is busy that weekend with rehearsal and performing. I'm planning on spending as much time with Grandma and Grandpa as possible, and I'm really excited to see Nicole too.

At work on Friday, I made another gel. This time I used the right agarose, but Laura (my supervisor) sort of sabotaged my effort the first time by giving me the wrong equipment. Even though it wasn't my fault, I still felt bad for wasting an hour. So I started over, and this time it seemed to be working. When I added the samples into the wells, it wasn't working the way it was supposed to. But I figured I would run it and hope it worked anyways. I wasn't very optimistic it would work. I imaged the gel, and it worked beautifully! Laura was very happy with the results. I felt a little reassured after that. I really can run a gel.

Week one, finished. Just nine more to go!