Hello Blog

Well my last post was 8 months ago.

To be honest I have not even THOUGHT about blogging for at least 6 of those months. I am an athletic trainer who works with a winter sport - which means I have no life. Which means no time for life updates, and no real life updates! ha

In all seriousness there are many things that have changed since August and there will be more to come. Once I know a bit more facutal information for future planning, I will expand upon this. Until then, I just figured I would let you know that I am still alive.

I also think it is time that my blog gets a new look...its time for a change!

Cheers to change.

Life is too short sometimes.

Today started off crazy. I woke up to my phone ringing from a number I hadn't had saved. I answered it and it turned out to be D's dad...wondering if D was around, and to call him as soon as he could. D looked at his phone and had 16 missed calls...we knew something was up.

He called one of his friends and found out one of his buddies he played baseball with in hs and another friend of his were in a car accident last night/early this morning. One of them passed away and the other was in critical condition with some pretty bad injuries. D was able to go to the hospital to find out more information, but my heart aches for them. For the boys, for their families and friends, including D...

I have had a lot of time to think today, and sometimes I think life can just be cut too short for some. I am a strong believer in things happening for a reason, but, when you are living in the reality of it all, it is sometimes so hard to see the reason. I guess it is just a reminder to live your life the way you want to live it now - don't put it off. Say your I love you's and tell people how you feel when you feel it. Do what makes you happy, and treat people kindly.

God Bless those involved - my love and prayers are with you. <3

I know...

...it has almost been two months since my last post. I would feel bad, but I know there are only about 3 people that actually read this thing.

In addition to this, not a whole lot has changed in the past 2 months. I am still not completely done with my schoolwork (although I felt ambitious yesterday and actually did do quite a bit of work), still unemployed (more on that later), and still trying to enjoy my summer despite said emotional battles. Two things that HAVE changed in the last 2 months, is that I became an !aunt! (YAY!) and that all of my classmates have left me ::sad faces::. I have to admit it is weird living here without them. They have been my life for the last two years, and now most of them I will see next year in St Louis (that is where all the ATs will come together next to drink and learn). "At least we have that," we all say, which IS true and I am thankful for that. It is just weird when the next chapter of your life is upon you and you are not ready. Normally I am the person who is excited about flipping the last page, ready and willing to move on to see what happens next; but, lately I feel as though I am stuck re-reading the last 3 paragraphs after realizing I just looked at them rather than read them. :: sigh :: how mundane.

Besides playing the "woe is me" card, I have been up to a few things over the last two months....

I went to New Orleans!!!! (This statue is in memory of Hurricane Katrina) While in New Orleans I.......

...enjoyed and strolled down Bourbon Street....

...kissed Bob Dylan...

...(okay, not really...)...and I enjoyed all of those that were down there with me!

:)

New Orleans was a blast, and I was fortunate enough to get to hang with a lot of fine individuals while down there. Once I made it back from New Orleans I went to a wedding with D for one of his friends, Joey....

 ...then started the Goodbye Parties for my lovelies....

...then Tay's mama came and hung out for a few days, but took her away to ChiLand... :(

 ...I then participated in a cornhole tournament over fourth of july weekend....

...then after being 11 days past expected, little Evelyn Rae blessed us with her presence!!...SIDENOTE: if you want the entire birth story and everything you would want to know about this cute little baby, see CR's Baby Blog....

...I then attended the first Nicole and James' Wedding event: Engagement Party! in New York!...

 

...and celebrated my love's birthday (a little late since his bday was over the Nic and James' festivities....

Well, it appears I actually HAVE been doing something with my life...hmm...sadly, that last picture was taken at the end of July, which means it has been a while since I did something besides job hunt and play Donkey Kong with D....and believe me you, we play a lot of DK. 

Hope this caught you up on my exciting life as of late. More to come on that whole job thing, and it is my goal to update more regularly so I dont have to recap two whole months of stuff in one post! 

Updates, Updates, Updates

Well, I have OFFICIALLY passed my Thesis Presentation!!!!! YAY!!! I still have to finish some of the writing, but, I am on my way to realllly being done. Since defending, I have been trying my hardest to enjoy summer, and so I have yet to really work on my homework. Perhaps tonight for a little?

Today I have been working on the job front. I have applied to 4 different jobs since this morning! This may not sound like a lot, but it has taken me pretty much all day to do this. I have decided searching for jobs is one of my least favorite things to do in the world. Haven't heard back from anywhere thus far...but hoping one of these days this will change. Perhaps going to our (athletic trainers) National Convention will help me get ahead!

I will be leaving for New Orleans in 2 days!!! ::screams of excitement::!!! I am not even sure what to say about it except for that I am SO pumped to be going to my first NATA conference, and that it is NO (since I have always wanted to go, but have yet to make it there). I plan on seeing and catching up with as many people as I possibly can, as well as have one last big hoorah with my ODU loves, as well as possibly get a job interview/lead, as well as enjoy all N'awlins has to offer, and of course learn some things. Overall, should be awesome. I will take lots of pictures and bring the update back next week.

Lastly, I suppose I should announce some big news....I have a boyfriend. Following my sister's blog, I will now refer to him as "D." If you know me at all, then you know this is one of the craziest things you have ever heard. I am not trying to make a thing of it...and just trying to go with the flow and see what happens, but, I have been smiling a lot lately sooooo good job D.

Ummmm I believe that is about all that has happened thus far...but I look forward to updating on how AWESOME New Orleans was and how I hopefully have more updates on the job front! Cross your fingers!!

The Waiting Game...

So I turned the first drafts of my chapters in on Thursday of last week - which was a feat. They were not even due until Friday, so, me turning in something A DAY in advanced, well, is pretty advanced for me. Thinking I was going to get my revisions back sometime early this week I decided to take a mini road trip over the weekend to take a mental break.

My friend Tay was going to Chapel Hill, NC to visit an old classmate of hers who did her graduate studies at UNC, and she had asked if I wanted to join her. Naturally, after feeling good about turning in my chapters, I figured it would be a good break. Overall the weekend was pretty fun! We got there late on Friday and went out to the bars on Franklin Street where we met lots of other fun ATs. The plan for Saturday was originally to go to the beach, however, Mother Nature had something to say about it. So instead we roamed around campus and avoided the rain, and even stopped at a cute little bakery/gelato shop for a treat! We then preceded to watch umpteen hours of the NJ Housewives until it was time to go out for the night. This night one of the roomies, who is not into the Chapel Hill scene, wanted to take us out in Raleigh. We went to this club where thankfully we got in free, due to her knowing one of the bouncers, and it was ridiculously crowded. It could have been fun, buuuuut all they were playing is techno and having people bumping into you for a solid 2 hours just gets annoying - not to mention the men who feel that walking past you in a crowded area allows them to slide their hand in inappropriate places as they pass. You also have those creepy guys that just come behind you and just start grinding on you....had I thought about it I should have utilized "the face."

If you do not know who this is, or what I am talking about, please visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wRXa971Xw0 and enjoy.

Ok. So after the creeptastic experiences at the club, they continued at the local fancy establishment - Waffle House. Finally after gorging on a choco chip waffle, and almost starting a riot at the WH, we (the "Pretty Gang" as we became known as) crawled into bed at around 5:30am. WHEW. It was then time for the mini vaca to come to an end and we packed up and headed home.

Luckily, we had already made plans to meet up with Nicole to go see Bridesmaids once we arrived back to VA. Let me just say that I was NOT expecting to laugh as much as I did. It was hysterical. Although my favorite scene is not yet available for your viewing pleasure, here is a verrrrrry shortened clip of another funny part (unfortunately the clip does not get into the funniest part of this scene, but I guess you'll just have to go to the movie): http://www.imdb.com/rg/VIDEO_PLAY/LINK//video/imdb/vi3876101401/

After the awesome wrap up of my weekend, I have now just been anticipating the arrival of my revisions. However, I am still waiting. I have been hanging out with my friends who are working on their stuff, so I have been trying to do some of the little things I can do while I wait; like my abstract, presentation, and poster, but.....I am now pretty much done with that stuff. I have applied to a few jobs, painted some art for the Baby G Nursery, looked at dogs to adopt, created and started my new workout plan, and now blogged. Not sure what I will do next, besides of course just sit here like this lady...

Updates

Well it has been a while. Lets roll through the updates:

Soooo I kind of graduated on Saturday. When I say kind of, I mean that I walked for graduation....I wont actually be done until the end of this month. Before I get into that, here are a few of my favorite shots from the day....

Whaaat?! We are graduating?!?!

YAY!!! We ARE graduating!!!!!!!

Too cool for school.

Alright, sooo the scoop on the rest of the story. It all started back in February. One of my classmates turned in her "final" thesis and that is when things started heading south. This classmate had been one of my groupmates - meaning we had collected and reduced data together, but were taking different pieces of it for our own projects. We also had the same doctoral student. Needless to say, with our chapters, we apparently were not being pushed into the correct direction according to our PD. Because this was the first time she had seen our writings for a while, it was not until then, that she had realized it. After this, things started to get crazy. My PD then wanted all of my writings CH1-4 to see if it could be salvaged. Turns out, the statistic I ran was not completely fitting for my type of data. Because no one knew the exact stat to run, I did a little research. Unfortunately, it is not available through SPSS. awesome. So, I then met with a stat guy in our department, and he suggested ordinal regression. Okay, so I ran all of that, and read the chapter, but was still fairly confused. In a meeting with my PD, we started discussing what the results actually meant, and she said that she could not even fully grasp the idea of it. This was about three weeks ago. Since then, my project was determined to be too difficult for a masters thesis, and more suitable for a dissertation. So as you may have guessed - my project has changed. Goodbye old thesis I spent almost two years on, and welcome aboard new thesis. Well then, it was determined that there is no way that I could get it done (it as in all new chapters) in time now, so graduation in august was the only way. So, as I said I kind of graduated on saturday.

So now what I have been doing is working my ass off on this new project. Oh, I also forgot to mention, that now my project is too simple to be a thesis, so now it is a project. Honestly, the only thing that changes is the presentation for passing - thesis=45 min present; project=15 min present. I was disappointed at first. Simply because I looked at it all as a major failure. But after talking to my PD and some Doc students who all did projects (which I didnt know) I felt a little bit better. However, I am still wishing that May 7 would have been my last day and I could be lying on the beach....

...soon though! I have to admit, I went to the beach on Monday for a few hours.... I had to. It was beautiful.

So that has pretty much been my life lately....stressing out about everything, and continually telling people that I have no idea what I am doing with my life next year (which is also getting annoying. more on the job hunt another time.). However, trying to remind myself that it will all work out, because it always seems to. It has been hard to stay positive through these last couple months, but, thankfully I have crazy good friends who always seem to keep me afloat.

Whew. Well we are all caught up now. Once I finish my chapter 5 here shortly, expect more posts soon. Oh, and I promise to be much more positive in the following posts! :)

Until next time.

Life is funny...

A friend and I were talking the other day about how funny it is that people our age are at such different places in our lives. We have friends back home and even in the area that are engaged, or married, or even have children! People we know are buying houses, and unpacking all of their belongings and buying flood insurance, and all sorts of things I cannot imagine at this point. Life is funny that way, I think.

Now do not get me wrong - I am SO happy for all of these in my life that are at this place! However, not only do I not feel old enough for these things, but they are of no interest to me at this point. I don't know what it is, but I just feel like there is so much more for me to do before I "settle" down. Now some may argue you do not have to lose this sense of adventure when you get married (or the rest) it just provides you someone to do things with. Okay. Good argument. But, finding the right person, or the person(s) you can stand to do these things with is easier said than done. In the meantime - quoting my favorite viral video star, Jenna Marbles, "I got stuff to do." Not that I really know what this stuff is that I am so anxious to do...time will tell...or at least that's what they say - whoever they are.

I am not sure if this newfound sense of adventure is in part due to my days as identifying as a student coming to a close, or I just have the kind of personality that is always looking for more. Perhaps a little of both. The thought of "the real world" is both scary and liberating to me. I have never JUST been an athletic trainer. I have always had 10 million other things to do, some including homework. Life without homework...sounds like pure bliss! I feel like I will have so much more room for activities! Or perhaps boredom? What if I pick the wrong place to move to? There are only old people and families, and nothing to do? Or what about my place of work...what if I pick the wrong place and I hate it? Up til this point in my life I have had the advantage of insta-friends (as one of my doc students calls it). You are in classes with people and they are in the same place you are and it is easy to form friendships when you are going through life together....well, that ends here. I mean, I am not a shy person...although I sure used to be...so, making friends comes fairly easy to me for the most part. But what if where I go, there are slim pickins? If there was a way I could pack up all of my friends from all of my stops around the globe and bring them with me, and they all be happy, then that would be ideal. ::sigh::

I don't even know what this blog post is about anymore... just "blah"gging now.

Okay. Enough ranting about nothings for the night. Maybe again some other day.