So tired right now

I'll be putting on a movie and crawling into bed very soon. What a happening chic I am at midnight on a Saturday. But I did just get back from a party, so I suppose I'm not the Crazy Cat Lady just yet. Anyway, today's studying didn't take as long as expected (thanks goodness!) so I headed over to April's for my last free load of laundry at Clairmont and to help her pack up some things. Got to see her new apartment and now I can finally imagine summer. For about a month now everyone has been talking about how great the summer is going to be and all the parties and with finals and work and qualifiers I just haven't even been able to imagine a time when I won't be studying or otherwise stressed out. But today at April's FROG (Furnished Room Over the Garage) I was finally able to picture it - lazy afternoons waking up on the fouton, Scott making breakfast, afternoons and evenings sitting outside...and then it hit me - 22 days from now, I will actually have weekends during which I can do nothing. I can sleep in and chill with my friends and not feel guilty. And her place is just so obviously a place of happiness. It has a similar vibe to the Belmar Estate. It's just awesome. And she put a fouton in the living room and now refers to that as my room. Which is just about the nicest, sweetest thing. Went over to the boys' new place last night and the three of them living together remind me a little of Belmar too - it just makes me happy to see them all in one place. And lastly, I've decided - after my qualifying exams I'm going to get "a stress relieving massage, pampering facial and special sea salt manicure and pedicure treatment." Oh, and a much-needed haircut. It just might be the best $250 I've ever spent.

Random Musing

As most of you know, I'm not really much of a Catholic. But I still sort of claim to be a member of the religion because it's how I was baptised, it's the type of service I most frequently attend (not that I attend any sort of service all that often), and although I doubt they would really mind if I converted to something else, it seems fairly important to my Mom and Grandmother. It is, of course, often difficult to be a liberal feminist and a Catholic and there are many times when I have had to bite my lip or simply remain silent during services (i.e. during call and repeat prayers when the priest asks us to pray for something I simply cannot honestly pray for, like the abolition of abortion). Anyway...I very rarely take communion as I wasn't confirmed (which I suppose technically means I'm not even Catholic in the first place) and I've never been to confession. To most people it probably isn't a big deal, but I personally consider it a small sign of respect that I remain in my seat and obey this rule of communion (although, as April points out, I could go up and receive the blessing anyway, I'm just not supposed to take the wafer or wine). But now that there's this big hullabaloo about denying communion to people who are pro-choice or even support or vote for politicians who are pro-choice or in favor of stem cell research, euthanasia, or gay marriage (I get a check for all of those categories) I kind of want to take communion. I realize that no one would know, thus not really making this a public statement or anything, but I feel sort of compelled to do it as a personal statement. Is that disrespectful? Or just silly?

Sigh

I got to this site by clicking through five different ones, so I'm going to use bad blogger etiquette and just link to the final one instead of giving everyone credit for getting me there. Anyway, end result is, apparently some conservative bloggers are all offended that the Nick Berg story isn't getting more airtime than the Iraqi prisoner abuse story. There's plenty of discussion that I could delve into about that (Tom Tomorrow covers it pretty well), but I'll cut to what I find most disturbing - the particular blog that I've linked to uses a list of the most searched-for phrases on popular search engines to prove that people care more about the Berg story. But he doesn't seem even remotely bothered that people are searching for the video of Nick Berg being decapitated. They're all pissed off that the media has been editing it prior to the actual decapitation. Call me crazy, but that seems a lot more like morbid fascination than actual concern over the story. We all know what happens after the video cuts on the nightly news or cnn or where ever one happens to be watching it, do we honestly need to see it in all its ghastly detail? I know, I'm dancing on the hypocrisy line since I often talk about how it is our moral duty to subject ourselves to disturbing images (for example, coffins arriving in Dover) to fully appreciate the consequences of our national decisions. But I think it's reasonable to state that there's a line of decency that does not need to be crossed. (i.e. we should see images from Dover but it is unnecessary to air battlefield images of fallen soldiers)

And another thing...

Just realized that the previous two posts are fairly grumpy and complaining sounding. It's just because I hate to have to work and study at the same time. But I really do realize how lucky I am to be working at the CDC and how tremendously awesome it is that a mere 9 months after moving here saying I'd like to work for the CDC one day, I am! And once I actually have some work to do, it sounds like it'll be pretty cool work. I'll be helping out with the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Management System (PRAMS) and all the reading I've been doing for the past 3 days talks about how the results of this ongoing study have decreased infant and maternal morbidity and mortality and influenced policy decisions to provide better information and healthcare to expecting mothers. So, you know that whole helping people, making the world a better place thing? These people are doing it. And, for the summer, I'm one of them. :-)

Tired.

Sacked out on the couch this evening instead of going for a jog. So I managed to keep up this schedule for...oh, right. Two and a half days. Blarg. I am so not cut out for the working world. Went to bed before midnight last night for the first time in I can't remember how long. I remember from past summers that it usually takes me a week or two to adjust to working full time, but I'll be part-time next week and the week after and taking qualifying exams the weeks after that...so it'll be halfway through June before I "adjust"! Oh well. Anyway, I'm just procrastinating studying more logistical regression crap....blah....

My Life

6 am wake up. work at cdc for 8 hours. hurry home. go to the gym. run to school. work on consulting project that will not end. study for qualifying exams. eat. sleep. repeat.
Hopefully, things will improve next week, when I cut back to half time at the CDC. But since that means more hours studying, I doubt I'll be all that much happier of a camper. (last week I had a nightmare about sufficient statistics. Sufficient statistics! that is the second time ever, in my entire life, that I have dreamed about math/stat. with the weeks to come, I fear it won't be the last)
Anyway, my point is that if between now and June 15 I am short with you, or grumpy, or I don't return your im/e-mail/phone call...please, please, please don't take it personally. I will repay those who are particularly tolerant of my mood swings, but I doubt I'll extend personal apologies to every individual who will deserve one. So consider this one giant preemptive apology.

oh, and the new blogger kind of sucks. hope it stops that soon.

Was totally a grown-up today: woke up, went to work all day, listened to npr on the drive home (though did wish I was cool enough to have satellite radio in my car so I could listen to Air America), went for a jog, finished up some work for my other job, studied for my qualifiers, and cooked some food for the rest of the week. Wow. I think I just turned into my Dad. Right there, after the npr listening and the jog. Whoa. I mean, I love and admire the guy, but I'm not so sure I want to be his doppleganger. Anyway, first day of work was ok, a little boring since bureaucratic nonsense means I can't even use my computer yet, so spent all day today reading about the survey I'll be analyzing and taking a dumb safety quiz.

In other news, was yelling at the tv this morning as they tried to turn the whole human-rights-abuses-in-Iraqi-prison thing into a gender issue. I had this whole rant worked out, but I'm just too tired now...suffice it to say that it's the five millionth example of equality means equality, dammit. for better and worse. When women do horrific things, like posing with naked prisoners in compromising positions, it isn't somehow more or less horrific because it's a woman in the picture. It's just plain horrific because it's just plain wrong.

wondering if new comments worked?

whoa. whole new blogger. neat.

so it's been a good weekend, my two whole days of relaxation before work and the return to studying tomorrow. Slept until 1:30 yesterday afternoon, which made me tremendously happy. Then sweated my way through the free Indigo Girls concert on campus (sweating from the 90 degree heat + 90+% humidity; free concert because it's graduation weekend and the Indigo Girls are Emory alumns). Crashed a cocktail party for graduating seniors last night, and spent all day today shopping with the ladies. Probably spent a little too much money, but feeling really good about my purchases: green silk shirt, jeans, capris (the first pair ever to fit me), groovy brown slacks, pinstripe pants, and a hot little pink and black and lace tank top, because April has become obsessed with me wearing more pink. Right. Pink.

Currently bumming around the apartment trying to wind down enough to get to bed at a reasonable hour, since I start work tomorrow and have to get up early but haven't gone to bed before 2 am in about a week.

Also, feeling slightly guilty about being a bad public healther and releasing what is probably a drug-resistent strain of some upper respiratory viral infection thing into the cat population. I'm sorry, but finishing up Cleo's round of antibiotics just ain't happening. It's hardly my fault she spits all the pills out and I'm done getting torn up and pissing her off for nothing.

Right. time to finish filling out pages of background info. for my security check tomorrow. Oh, workin' for the man.