’nuff said, really.

i read a blog called “lily of the valley”. she’s swedish. she posted this.

THREE NAMES THAT FRIENDS CALL YOU;
1. heather
2. athena
3. heath (my brother only)

THREE MOST IMPORTANT DATES IN YOUR LIFE;
1. the day i was born, i suppose
2. the day i graduated from my MBA program
3. the day i started nursing school
4. i would add that any day i met someone important in my life, like my best friend, or my ex-husband or my boyfriend, were very important days

THREE THINGS YOUVE DONE IN THE LAST 30 MINUTES;
1. arrived at Mo’s
2. balanced my checkbook (looks good)
3. caught up on my blogs

THREE GIFTS YOU WOULD LIKE TO RECEIVE;
1. the winning lottery numbers (or reasonably priced health insurance)
2. for a certain teacher to be replaced
3. real dialogue and bipartisanship in government

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE HOBBIES;
1. shopping
2. dancing
3. organizing

THREE PLACES YOU WANT TO GO FOR VACATION;
1. paris
2. praha
3. the slate islands off madagascar

THREE FAVORITE DRINKS;
1. diet coke
2. diet coke
3. diet coke (i don’t even drink coffee anymore)

THREE THINGS FOUND IN YOUR PURSE/BAG;
1. beat-up hello kitty pencil case
2. agatha christie novel
3. grocery bag that rolls up into a tiny ball so you can always carry it

THREE FAVORITE COLORS;
1. black
2. black and white
3. pink

TOP THREE HANGOUTS (I am assuming these are by quantity);
1. coffee shops (even though i don’t drink coffee anymore)
2. the nursing building at Temple College in Temple, TX
3. my car

at the bennu…doing some homework…

mark shields, of shields and brooks on the PBS news hour (previously Lehrer Newshour, previously McNeil/Lehrer Newshour) reminds me of my dad. he has the same mannerisms and speech style. and he is really smart, like my dad (though different topics, obviously). anyhow, i feel all squishy when i hear him talk. like i am getting the happy familiar parts of my dad.

i thought of something else while i was driving home tonight. but can’t remember. too much nursing school

i will be reading my mortified monologue at Bedpost Confessions tomorrow night. 8pm at the USAA (next to Spiderhouse). it is terribly amusing (anatomically incorrect porn i wrote as a 14-year-old) and there will be some more sophisticated stuff as well. tantalizing and entertaining. you should all attend!

wow, this one went much better. going to taste it now….

omg! i have been so busy (btw, omg is the only textspeak that i am willing to use. i find it funny). so so so busy. SO much homework. some drama too. but i’m still here and i have had time to take some very amusing photos lately. the first set are entitled “only in the south”:

as seen on south congress!

and where, pray-tell, are they taking these animals?

mo, jules and i went to see christen vale, cross-dressing hip-hop artist. wow. seriously, it was an awesome set. the music was really good. the tune was great, the rhyme and rhythm were fantastic. choreography was fabulous and flawlessly executed. she and her straight man, t-gravel, were perfectly in sync. i was just really impressed considering how thrown together christen looked. i am told she is going for the crack-whore look. i can see that. the music was p.diddy/missy elliott all the way.

this photo is from the last song. not sure why t-gravel was dressed as a deer, but it worked. and yes, at one point she did sit on his back and ride him across stage. i can’t seem to find the words to explain how awesome this show was!

lastly, on my way out to my car on wednesday morning i noticed an older gentleman standing staring at this giant red truck parked in my parking lot. he was just standing staring at it. i looked at the truck and thought “huh, seems like it is leaning to the driver’s side front. must be an optical allusion because of the angle”. i thought i must be wrong because the old guy was staring at the read passenger side. is there were something wrong with the front driver’s side, he would be on that side, right? anyhow, as i drove away i looked back and saw this (photos taken after class)

so, how did the driver do that? and how did they get the truck to my parking lot with a tire that broken? that would take a big-ass tow-truck. miraculously, to me at least, it was all fixed thursday afternoon and they drove away. i thought it was crazy.

went to the pie fundraiser at austin MOMA last night. i baked a blackberry pie and it was gone in no time. everyone loved my crust! andrea, the woman in charge, even started her speech with the serendipitous yoga encounter with the girl with the pie tattoo (me!) as proof the event had to happen. it was sold out even! i enjoyed talking to other pie makers. and i got a super kick out of answering the question “which bakery are you with?” with “none. i just like to bake!”. took a bunch of pictures but don’t have my camera cable in austin. i’ll post them next week.

this article, researchers find another piece to the AIDS puzzle, explains a huge leap in the understanding of how the body fights HIV/AIDS. some people, 1 in 300, don’t get sick from the virus. their body keeps it in check. now we know why. after studying ~1500 people with this trait, it was discovered that on “chromosome 6 that code for a component of the immune system called HLA – human leukocyte antigens – which distinguish the body’s own cells from foreign invaders,” a much faster response to the HIV virus occurs. “these HLA proteins can grab a piece of the viral protein and ‘hang it out the window.’ That, he said, signals that something terrible is going on in that cell. ‘Then, the killer T cells come and blow up the factory.'” basically, the HLA’s in these “controllers” signal faster, so the T cells can stay on top of the reproducing virus. in some “controllers”, no virus shows up in a test, though antigens for HIV do.

i find this incredibly fascinating. not just because of the possible advancement in AIDS therapy it suggests, but because of the what it says about genetic mutation. as was mentioned in the article, if HIV were a disease you could acquire through social contact (or maybe from a mosquito like malaria) eventually those with this genetic trait would be the only ones to survive. isn’t that amazing?! thank goodness you can’t acquire HIV that easily, but i am just amazed by how small genetic differences can make such a huge difference in how we respond to the biological world around us. when i am finished with my nursing program i would really love to go into research. oncology drug research is doing some amazing things too. it is all just so cool!

btw, i actually passed my pharm exam. in fact, i not only passed it, i got the same score i did on the last test. what is up with that? i studied a FRACTION of the amount on this most recent test compared to the previous one. i had seriously thought i failed. and not just nursing school failed, less than 75, but regular school failed, less than 50. go figure. i do plan on studying a BIT harder for the next one. we have no tests next week so i will be able to get ahead on my studying. thank goodness.

why is the capo trying to eat my stethoscope?

i have AWESOME neighbors! a couple found the capo, called me and then sat with him for almost 2 hours until i got back to town to catch him. i spent almost 3 hours sitting on a blanket in front of a drain pipe waiting for him to come out. then i got VERY scratched catching him. THEN i noticed his eye was really messed up. we drove to the emergency vet in austin. they wanted him to see the eye expert on monday. HE said it wasn’t a herpes flare-up (the capo has ocular herpes) but a wound. said we could stop the pain killers (but i am going to save them for a future event), reduce the antibiotic drops and start a new drop. just short of $300 later, things seem to be ok. YEAH! i got my kitty back! YEAH! optimus has his brother back!

went to the rally to restore sanity satellite in austin this weekend. it was really cool. i would have rather stayed with the DC feed the whole time, the local bands weren’t worth missing colbert being himself, but overall it was awesome. my sign was very popular:

you can also find our photo on the huffington post

and a reference to my sign (it isn’t quite the same wording as mine, but it is nice to know i am not the only one afraid of fear and spiders!) on NPR

john stewart ended with an awesome speech about just being nice to people even if they thinking differently than you do. i hope people were listening and the feeling lasts.