MIA but Returning Soon!

Yes, I'm fully aware I've been missing for 3 months.

I have a damn good excuse, that being school.

Yeah, I posted last in March. Yes, March y'all. Sorry. I had a crapton of finals and such, then I had to go out to classes for 3 weeks in April. Then, as soon as I got back (the last week of April), I started working/interning for 80 hours a week.

...No, no typo there. EIGHTY HOURS PER WEEK. I'm there from 6:45am until 11:15pm most days. Give or take a few minutes. Please mind you, I've also been working every other weekend, so I have two days per week that I'm only there for 8 hours. But I digress.

So, yes, I AM still alive and sort of kicking, given the circumstances.

This blog WILL be coming back, though it still won't be super frequent posting, simply because I don't have the mental energy to do it.

However, I'm currently scheduling 2 posts to be up within the next week or so. One of which will be published tomorrow because I need to get some crap out into cyberspace and I don't really have anyone to discuss it with in real life. Well, I do...but she has her own ish to be messing with/worrying about. And trust me, y'all aren't getting the full story because I don't know who's going to be reading this.

Anyhow. Today was my day completely off from work and internship, and I didn't get out of bed until I had been in bed for 12 hours and then I proceeded to watch YouTube videos, catch up on some blogs, watch Made of Honor/Keeping up with the Kardashians (which hello, how behind am I? Oh right, haven't had a chance to watch good trash in a few months...yes, first world problems right here), and eat.

Not going to lie. Working 16 hour days makes you lose weight. I'm not trying to scarf down food before work/on my way to work, oftentimes including Chick-fil-A or something worse...I'm maybe eating something light at 6:00 (or at 9:00, depending on how my stomach feels), then having a fairly light lunch, then a somewhat substantial dinner. I cut out my late-night-after-work eating, as well as my nearly-nightly beers. Plus, while stressing myself out, I've been giving myself GI problems. Yes, TMI, but when the food doesn't stay with you long, you can't absorb the calories. I've also been having issues from too much processed food...so uh...that's keeping me eating better.

Anyhow. Tomorrow (well, later today at this point) there will be another blog post up! Not quite as peppy as this one, but like I said...issues to get off my chest.

Why I've Been Missing / Spring Break

Wow. I am so GOOD at disappearing from the blogging world.

I don't mean it, I promise! I've just...well, before my previous entry last week, I had been out of town for a week and half a whirlwind of a few weeks before/after that in terms of school mess. Tests, quizzes, assignments, and just listening to lectures! Plus working 40 hours a week. Oy. There was one point where I was awake for 40 hours straight. Yes, being awake that long makes you feel drunk.

Thankfully, next week is spring break, and while I still have schoolwork due this week, my number of lectures is dwindling. The week after spring break, as well. I do have a few assignments I need to work on over spring break, but...eh, whatever. They'll get done. I've already started on one of them.

In the meantime, I'm planning on cleaning the bajeezus out of my living quarters. I'm not gonna lie, besides just needing to be organized BIG TIME, I also need to actually clean. It's by no means the dirtiest place I've been (nor is it the dirtiest I've allowed my apartment to become), but I haven't cleaned in...awhile. My main motivation on this is I just got 2 Scentsy warmers and 9 sets of wax and they smell DIVINE. However, I do need a clearer countertop for my large warmer that I got...so starting as soon as I finish this post, I'll be doing some cleaning and organizing before bed.

Yes, it's 1:45am and I'm going to be doing housework and homework. Don't judge me. I get home from work around 11:45pm. I don't normally get up until 10am or so, which doesn't leave tons of time to get stuff done.

Coming up later this week will be some new posts - I promise! What kind of posts do you want to see? Let me know in the comments!

TGIF

Yes, I'm like 95% (totally made-up stats y'all) of the population when I say I look forward to Fridays nearly EVERY week.

It's normally our slowest day of the workweek, leaving me with ample time to get work things done and not feel rushed, as well as leaving me with a few hours to get schoolwork done as well. Win/win, right?

I also normally get to begin my lazy weekends with my boyfriend, starting with our weekly Friday-night-at-11:30pm trips to Denny's as soon as I get off work.

Unfortunately, this weekend is not the case.

The pitfalls of working in a hospital is that they tend to be open 24/7. In most hospitals, this means the lab needs to be staffed on the weekends too. And, because we are currently shorter staffed than a sewage plant, I'm pretty much on the working-every-other-weekend rotation. Because also factoring into this is the people that we can't seem to get rid of that suck at their job, and thus can't be TRUSTED to work a weekend.

Ah, the inequalities. Being good at something means you get crap pay and you have to work more weekends.

Anyhow. Boyfriend has to work too. The shift before me. So we don't get a chance to see each other at all this weekend. (No, we don't live together and we only typically see each other on the weekends.)

Thankfully, our days off coincided enough to have yesterday off together and then Monday, our anniversary, we both have the day off as well.

So, while I am happy that it's Friday, it's also a bit bittersweet. Oh well. Maybe I'll get some blog posts written up for you guys while I have some time to myself.

How is your Friday going?

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

Today was honestly the most stressful and busiest day at work I've had in the lab ever. And I've worked there 2 1/2 years.

I came in to mountains of stuff, and when outpatient services are normally finish by 7 or 7:30...we got done after NINE. And that didn't include everything that went along with it. I had the feeling that I was just treading water for the entire first 6 hours of my shift. It made things go by extremely fast, but holy crap, were we busy.


I finally got access to all of my classes for school. I'm super excited about that, even though I'm not really looking forward to this semester...Molecular Diagnostics, Chemistry, Microbiology, and Blood Bank. I'm kind of excited about Blood Bank, as the bf thinks I'll enjoy it because it's like a huge puzzle. Who knows, I might. However, in our lab we sort of outsource our molecular stuff (I enter in results for it all the time, but I don't run the tests) and chemistry just bores the crap out of me. So, we'll see.

I also got part of my order from Victoria's Secret today, yay :) I accidentally ended up getting a matching set, lol. Go figure. I pulled them out of the bag and was like "Oh, hey. I don't have any patterned stuff that ACTUALLY MATCHES, so here we go". I also stopped by Walmart after work to get new nail polish, new headphones, and some binders. I tried printing off all my notes for class and ended up getting a quarter of the way through Microbiology lecture plus all of Chemistry lecture. I already had Blood Bank lecture and lab printed off, but it's going to be like a damn tree getting all of this printed. Retail therapy FTW though. I'll be making my own tabs for my notes again, color and pattern coordinated. And once I figure out what I want to do with my nails for my birthday week, I'll do them as well.


I did have the worse insomnia and anxiety last night. I wish I knew what my problem is. I went to lay down with J at 2am (he has to get up between 2 and 3 for work) and just started BAWLING. The kind of bawling where you're taking the weird little gasps for air and you're getting snot all over the place. And I ended up not falling asleep until 8am. So, uh. I got about 3 hours of sleep. Go me. I don't know if I'm anxious about school or work or what. Friday night I had a work-related nightmare in which I was actually, in real life, awake and J was trying to calm me down and I wouldn't have it...I was still halfway stuck in the dream. I remember it all, too.

The Disappointing Weekend

Gosh. I've gotten my days and nights all messed up again. Just in time for school to start again. Convenient, no?

This weekend was, unfortunately, rather disappointing. One of my close coworkers had her last day on Friday, and thus she decided her "outside of work" going away party would be Saturday evening at a restaurant/bar. I'll admit, I slept in a little late; I was finally able to sleep on Friday night, so I took advantage of it. And apparently I should have gotten up earlier. J also slept in...until 5pm. Well, we got up for a few hours and napped.
Anyhow. The party started at 7, we didn't get there until about 7:45. It was extremely awkward for me. There were a total of 10 of us there, and I didn't know any of them terribly well except my coworker and J. We were at a long table and of course I was at the opposite end of the table as my coworker. The other people there...3 of them we also worked with, but I'm on a different shift and not horribly comfortable with 2 of them. Then there were guests that had been brought which I didn't know at all. It was actually rather miserable for me.

This is why I hate going to social events with people I'm not super close with. I always feel awkward and wish I could be somewhere else. And I get extremely irritable. So, I just continued drinking. For two hours.
After that, 6 of them decided to go to a hookah bar and the other 2 decided to go home. I didn't want to be in the awkward situation anymore and didn't want to spend the money, so we also decided to go home. In which J and I stayed up until about 2, intended to do things today.

I couldn't wake up until 3. I was in a horrible fog. This is what I get for taking sleeping pills, I suppose. And J didn't want to do anything, like take back the clothes we got him that didn't fit. He managed to sleep all day, and I fell asleep again for an hour around 6pm. I feel like such a lazy slob.
And I also hate feeling like I'm wasting weekends like this. This is my last real weekend off until May, and that's horribly disappointing. All the rest of the weekends until then will be absorbed by school and/or me working. Or both. My classes officially start on Thursday, but I've already listened to one lecture and I'll be listening to more as they become available. I work next weekend, but for the weekend after, I'd like to be ahead enough in my schoolwork that my birthday (the 13th, which I'm working) can actually be celebrated and I can really spend time with J.

I'm just really disappointed right now and I'm not entirely sure what's wrong with me.

Obligatory

Ah, of course. The obligatory New Year's post. I'm sitting here watching the Orange Bowl while my boyfriend is trying to go to sleep...over my yelling and clapping. And he wants the Cinderella team to win, so I'm even more obnoxious because I'm pulling for FSU.

Yeah, well. I don't have a "2012 in Review" to post...the main thing of substance I remember from the year is getting accepted to lab school, and completing my first semester with a 3.9 GPA. I'm sure some other things happened...many of them disappointing, but whatever. 2013 is a new year.

So, let's start with the resolutions that we all know I'll fail at at least SOME of them.

-Make my relationship better with my boyfriend. We've been fighting a LOT, especially since I started school, and some things I've not so proud of have gone down. I'd like to fix it. I'm tired of being in this limbo state, and these last few days have done wonders for our relationship...we spent this weekend, Monday, and today together.
-Get back on track with my health. This includes both my eating and working out.
-Have another amazing semester of classes at school. My clinicals shouldn't be a problem, but this upcoming semester has all kinds of potential to be problematic. I'm aiming for a 4.0, just because that's what I aimed for this semester and I can't really do any better than that, now can I? ;)
-Get work settled. I'll be done with school in mid-December, and I'd either like to be working as a tech at my current hospital by then, or have a job lined up outside of my current hospital if they aren't willing to work with me as much as I'd like.
-Get my blog on! I'd love to get something good going on with this blog, whether it morphs entirely into a lifestyle blog or continues to focus a lot on health and healthcare.

I think 5 is a good number to have. And I don't really feel like it's acceptable for me to fail at any of them. It's stuff I was planning on working on anyhow, it's just out there now. Heh.

2 1/2 Months...

Yeah, y'all, I ignored the blog for 2 1/2 months. Sorry!!! I'm glad to be back, even for a little bit though.

Slight update on life:

-Got a 3.9 GPA for my first semester of Med Tech school. My transcript says that brings my overall GPA to a 3.49. I'm a smart cookie, sometimes :) And that one class that I got a B in...let's just say that after the first exam, I had a 68% in the class. So I'm MORE THAN HAPPY to end up with an 89% in there.
-Boyfriend and I are still together. Nope, no more exciting news with that. Heh.
-Work is becoming less miserable. I have a really good friend there that's my age, has a good personality, is smart, reminds me a lot of myself, really. So I like the 4 hours a day I get to work with her. The other 4 hours of my day, I tend to spend a lot of it engrossed in Netflix, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. Ya know, getting paid to browse the 'net. Speaking of, it probably wouldn't hurt if I could just update easily from my phone from work. I should look into that. Then again, last semester, if I wasn't working, I was listening to lectures online.
-When I was out doing some stuff for school 3 weeks ago, I weighed myself and I was down 10 pounds from my heaviest weight. I'm still about 10 pounds from my goal, but all considered...I'll totally take it.
-Which, speaking of, I kind of fell off the healthy bandwagon. I just got SO SWAMPED with school. My eating didn't get that horrible, until finals week, but I had to quit working out. I couldn't put aside that hour and a half a day to do Insanity anymore, and all the other workouts were kind of boring me, to be honest. That, and I wasn't getting results from anything else. I'm planning on changing that soon. Like maybe tomorrow. My eating is cleaning back up though, after the week of finals plus the week before Christmas and working 11 days straight. Yeah, I've been back to working overtime.

So, as a result...I'm not sure HOW MUCH of this blog will necessarily be health related anymore :( I'm having the feeling it's just going to go to lifestyle blog...so I may rename it if I come up with something witty.

In the meantime...a nailpolish tutorial will come tomorrow. I did a version of it about 2 weeks ago, and of course it's sad and chipped right now, so I'm planning on redoing it tomorrow. It's just how to do the glitter gradient stuff, but honestly...I had to figure out how to do it correctly because I couldn't find ANYONE who gave a really good description of it anywhere.



Hope y'all had a good holiday season! I'll be back tomorrow :)

Stress

I'm just ready for this semester to be over. My body is wearing down from it all...or well, I think it's from school. I've had headaches almost daily for the past week, my stomach is going crazy, I can't figure out my sleep schedule (I feel like I'm constantly sleep too much or too little), and I'm just ready to be able to be NORMAL again.

I know this isn't going to happen for awhile. On the plus side, after Friday, 3 of my classes are done except for on-campus labs and finals. I'll have 2 lecture classes and a lab class left for ~1 month. I'm going to love having time to work out, clean, and cook again. I'm not going to lie, I can't remember the last time I vacuumed, the last time I personally cooked something from scratch (I don't consider freezer meals that I put on the skillet to be cooking), or the last time I had a real workout where I was drenched in sweat and felt relieved afterward.

I've just been...excessively stressed the past month or so. I try to keep my relationship off of here, but it's a definite roller coaster. I also try to keep specifics about work away from here, but it's reached the point to where I'm wanting to change my schedule drastically to a schedule that really DOES NOT WORK for me to avoid certain situations or even just quitting because management can't seem to really help me out. I'm putting a lot of pressure on myself to have a 4.0, work 40 hours a week, look great, eat well, have a cozy apartment, put together good meals, but...I'm breaking down.

Surprisingly, as I'm writing this, I'm nearly ahead for this week ahead, which I've normally been down a few lectures going into each week. I'm figuring out what I'm wanting to do next, what I want to get ahead in, and I'm thinking I might just finish up my body fluids stuff and call it good.

I'm hoping to make this website more useful again in the future, but right now I'm using it as a mini-outlet.

Updatin'

Life has been HEC-TIC y'all.

And I'm not going to lie...I have kind of fallen off the bandwagon, so to speak. And I feel hypocritical trying to be all "GET LOTS OF SLEEP AND WORKOUT AND EAT HEALTHY" when I'm not even doing that.

So, I'm just going to be honest.

I've essentially quit working out. I still am walking for hours a day at work, depending on how busy it is and what I'm doing, sometimes I literally don't stop walking at a fast pace (as fast as I can walk before I break into a job) for 4 hours. I have not been doing Insanity anymore. I DID like how I was looking, and I haven't really "worked out" in about 3 weeks and I have noticed some negative changes. I do want to finish the program, but it's going to be at a much more decelerated rate. For me to do one of those workouts, I need to have a good 2 hours free...an hour to do the workout, some time to cool off, time to shower...and some days I'm not having enough time to SLEEP, so working out got pushed to the side.

I quit tracking my meals, but I am still eating healthfully. However, my liquid intake...I've taken to drinking more often than I was due to work stress, and I've also been downing a few Zero Carb Zero Sugar Rockstars a week.

My sleep quality and amount has also decreased significantly. I've been waking up in dead panics, some nights not getting enough sleep at all, and so on. It's frustrating and makes me a cranky panda, but it's what I'm having to do for school.

I've been having a LOT of work problems, relationship problems, and I've been trying to keep up with school in the midst of it. It's hard sometimes, I'm not going to lie. Today was the first day I felt relief, because I have ONE test on Monday that I feel pretty good about right now (and I haven't even studied yet), then I don't have another test until a week and a half after that. I'm used to having 2-3 tests per WEEK. I also had been called for jury duty, they weren't going to let me off for school, but they finally posted who they're going to need next week and I'm completely off of jury duty (they said I could expect to be checking the website for 5-6 weeks...they said for me to not keep checking back). That is the BIGGEST weight off my shoulders right now.

School is going really well right now. I'm taking 7 classes, and I believe I have 2 Bs and 5 As. One of those Bs is an easy fix to bring it up to an A as well, so hopefully I can manage to pull off a 4.0 if I continue kicking it in gear. That's been my goal for the semester.  One of my classes is completely done on Thursday except for finishing a paper I'm writing for the class, and another class is completely done the first week of November. All of my lectures are done before Thanksgiving break, then I have a week and a half of labs and some finals. Some of my finals are actually done before I go out to do the lab portion. I keep telling myself if I can just do this stuff one week at a time, take all of this one week at a time, I'll be fine. And that's what I've been doing. I'm not looking ahead that I still have x number of tests, I'm looking at "Well, I have a test on Monday, a quiz on Wednesday, and 3 assignments due Friday"...beyond that, I have lectures, which I can postpone as need be (I'll often spend a few hours on Saturday knocking some out...sometimes I get ahead for the next week even!)

So that's an update on my life right now. I will be trying my hardest to post more often, but the last 3 weeks have been killer...last week I had 3 tests, 2 quizzes, and 2 assignments due! And that was just one week, not including all of my lectures and the study time I put in!

Getting Back

I haven't actually written a post in about a week...all the posts I made last week I wrote in advance and scheduled.

Then life hit.

I got super busy, had some issues with work, and got in all-around a fairly nasty mood. I'd like to partially blame the female hormones, lol.

I'm feeling better, but I haven't worked out in a few days, so I'm feeling very anxious about that. I shouldn't be, especially since I haven't had the time to do so. But it also makes me feel hypocritical to be writing "You can always make time for a workout, etc!" when I haven't done so. I'm still attempting to figure out a good schedule for myself, and last week there were 3 nights where I managed to get 6 hours or less of sleep per night. I really enjoy getting 8 hours, especially when I've been doing a lot of physical activity, but it just wasn't in the cards last week. I had my first test (which I made a 91% on...more on that in a bit), I had multiple lectures to get through, 3 quizzes, 3 assignments...all of that was Wednesday onward.
Then I had to work this weekend, which allowed me to get through about 6 lectures and 2 assignments. I try to get ahead on the weekends when I can...which is what was allowing me to have time to workout, do school work, as well as getting domestic things like grocery shopping and cleaning the bathroom sink done ;)

My stress level has been through the roof lately. I HATE HATE HATE making negative posts, but hopefully it can help someone else out. My job has been getting worse by the week. I tried to talk to my boss's boss on Friday afternoon, but she wasn't in her office. That's going to be a top priority for this week, because last week I came home so frustrated that I was crying 3 times. Out of 5 days. That's ridiculous!
I'm also putting a ton of stress on myself about school. Like that 91% I made? It's not good enough for me. I should have made a 100%! This is my attitude about it, and while it's a good thing from a career standpoint, I guess, it's horrible on my mental and physical state. I'm just going to have to keep plugging away at it though. It's just insanely important to me that I understand everything, that I can remember everything, etc. and so when I'm doing these classes, if something is contradictory-seeming to me (which, there is one thing I'm in the middle of, actually), I have to go and research it myself. I've only had one instance thus far, but I've already spent over an hour trying to find a way to justify why some results are the way that they are.

So guys! I'm going to get back to writing those posts, hopefully they're helpful to some people. I'm trying to figure out a blogging schedule...I may just do 4-5 days a week, with tips and such 3-4 of the days and personal posts the other days. We shall see what happens! Be sure to check back though :)

Getting the Word Out

So guys. I got a Twitter solely for this website. It's @HealthAndSnark...I got original, I know.

I also have an email account if you want to email me anything...if you have questions, want to link up, want a guest post...it is HealthAndSnark [at] gmail [dot] com. Or if you have something you want me to delve into for you...I may already have some ideas coming about it, but if not, I'm more than open to doing some reason or just giving my opinion!

I'm trying to promote this site! I'm also wanting to be able to link to other blogs/sites! I don't care if you're a mommy-blogger, fashion-blogger, or fitness-blogger, I want to link to you! I will be adding in some of my daily links, but if you would like to be linked, please either leave a comment or shoot me an email. And if you want to link me back, that would be awesome as well :)

I hope everyone is having a great day! I'm trying to get some school stuff taken care of as the end of the week closes in, but there will be a new post tomorrow with real content. I have a running list on my phone right now of topics, and I'm putting them in as I think of them.

How I Got Into Healthcare

I said I was going to post this awhile back and never did.

The way I got into healthcare is not a long story, but how I ended up doing what I'm doing and what I'm going to school for IS.

 

My father passed away at the age of 43 (a few days prior to his 44th birthday) due to colon cancer. I was 9. He had been diagnosed with cancer about 3 years prior. I don't know a lot of the specifics even to this day because it kills me to ask my mom about it and I end up bawling my eyes out for hours afterward. I don't know what stage he was diagnosed at, but he was given less than a year to survive at the time, so I'd probably say Stage 3.
Ever since, I wanted to be able to do something to stop others from suffering in that way. And not just the patients with cancer, but their families and friends as well.
In elementary school, when all kids have the various ideas of what they want to do when they grow up, I had wanted to be everything from a teacher to an astronaut to a doctor. I stuck with doctor for awhile.
In middle school, before I knew much about cancer still, I had decided I wanted to do research and find a cure for cancer. Some kind of treatment that would kill the cancer.
In high school, I learned a little bit about cancer, and I was also involved in forensic science classes along with my many other science classes. At that point, I had flipped back into wanting to be a doctor, but more specifically a medical examiner.
I began my college career as an Undeclared major, switching in the first semester to Chemistry. Hah. After I completed my Calculus I class that first semester, I realized I did not have it in me to take all the way through Calc IV. So I switched to Forensic Science. It was still a fairly new major in my college at the time, and it seemed to combine Chemistry with Biology fairly seamlessly. That second semester of my freshman year, I took Intro to Forensic Science and kind of had my hopes dashed about that degree as well - I had wanted to work in the lab, more in the biological field rather than chemistry or fingerprint analysis or anything like that, and the professor had indicated that before too long, the department would be fairly automated and I felt I wouldn't have much of a job. However, I stayed in that major and enrolled in some more classes that would work in multiple degrees. One of them was Microbiology. In the fall of my sophomore year, I spent more time studying for one test in that class that I have studying for any other class in total, and I was genuinely intrigued with it. So, I went ahead and switched over to Biology.
From that point, I stayed a Biology major. We had a wide variety of science electives to choose from, as long as some of them fit into certain categories (ie: Animal Physiology or Human Physiology, x number of junior/senior level courses, etc). I stayed with a lot of human-focused classes...I took human anatomy, human physiology, pathogenic microbiology+immunology, virology, biology of cancer, etc. Biology of Cancer was when I finally figured out that they already had cancer drugs for many types of cancer that were fairly effective at killing cancerous cells, as long as the cancer was caught fairly early. I started applying for research jobs anyhow, hoping to get on with doing some kind of research that would benefit humans. I had a friend of a friend that told me to apply at their workplace, since I had a BS in Biology, and there should be plenty of openings.
And I got a job in the lab as a laboratory assistant. It was implied to me multiple times that I would be able to progress into a tech position, although when I started the job I had no idea what that really entailed. I worked there for a few months before realizing that that was what I really wanted to do. After getting impatient, I finally applied to a school for an associate's degree in laboratory science, however I strongly disliked how the program was set up and quit after a week. There were multiple schools in the state that offered a bachelor's program, so I started researching those, applying, and taking some prerequisites for them. Unfortunately/fortunately, I didn't have all of the prerequisites fully completed by the time I interviewed(which was last fall), and I feel that is the main reason I was not accepted. However, I found out about the school I'm currently attending not long after, and saw that I could apply by May and be accepted into the fall class. So, I applied, was accepted, and here I am! I have been offered a few opportunities to get trained on-the-job for a tech position, however it would take longer, be less comprehensive, and I would not be a fully-certified tech. So, I decided to do the school route, which will take a total of 3 semesters and have me be certified in 4 areas, versus on-the-job training, which would take a full year to just get certified in 1 area. It was also not absolutely guaranteed that I would get that training, it was just somewhat implied that in downtime from the job I would be accepting, that they would train me in a tech capacity. And I didn't want to take that risk.

I want to be able to help people. I don't feel as if I have the patience or personality to be a nurse or doctor, and lab stuff makes me extremely happy anyway. The fact that I could possibly save someone's life from one lab test is the type of thing that keeps me going.
Right now, I do love what I do. I love being able to help doctors make a diagnosis due to either helping them order the proper test, resulting it out, or simply preparing the specimen for analysis. But I want to be able to do more, and be more active in the process.

Better Frame of Mind

So, after having the weekend off (well, somewhat), I'm in a better frame of mind.

In fact, after my last post I got some good news, as well as some not-as-good news. The good news was that the school where I'm having my exams proctored decided to give me nearly a 50% discount, because they hadn't realized I was going to be up there for ~25 tests, haha. They also seemed much more willing to let me come up there early, etc. So that made my Friday much better.
The not-as-good news...I'm not going to discuss. It involves some money I wasn't really counting on getting anyway (but obviously it would have been nice had I been able to get that money)...but it seems that the money is probably not going to end up in my hands. Karma...is all I'm going to say.

I've been eating way too much lately. Bleh. I've been eating TONS better than last week when I was visiting my parents, but I'm just eating more than I'm burning off right now. I'm trying to get a schedule established though, and I think I finally did, to where I can get back into doing Insanity for 5-6 workouts/week (any time there is a Fit Test day, I skip that day of working out and use it as an extra rest day). I normally work out only 4 days of the week, though sometimes 5 depending on how tired I am, and therefore there's a day or two where I do two of the workouts (one in the morning around 10am, the other after I get off of work around 1am). I also have mentioned that I normally walk quite a bit at work...it depends on the day and who else is working, but some days I walk in excess of 5 hours at a very fast pace (if I were moving any faster, I'd probably consider it to be jogging), so I have been working out in that way.

With school, I'm definitely staying on track. I believe I mentioned it before, but there's 3 classes 4 days/week and then on Fridays there is normally 2+ assignments/quizzes due. By the end of the weekend, I try to have Monday's classes done and therefore I can chill out a little bit during the week and try to get about 2 lectures done per weekday. Some days I slack off and other days I'm more motivated, but I'm trying to keep up with what is done each week. In addition, if I work on the weekends, I can get a few more lectures done while there (last weekend I believe I got 5 done, many of which were from the previous week because I had been on campus in labs and not in the lectures).

I'm super proud of myself though. I'm glad I'm having the motivation to get my schoolwork done, get my health under control (with eating and working out), as well as still having time each day to have leisure time, whether that's watching TV, reading health blogs, organizing things, or paint my nails ;)

Discouraged

I'm definitely discouraged with a lot of things now. I never meant for this blog to be a negative one, so I'm going to try to keep posts like this to a minimum.

But work has gotten me way down. It's spilling over into other areas of my life. The really sad thing is, I used to LOVE being at work. I loved my job, my coworkers, everything. Now...the only reason I'm staying there is so that they'll pay for part of my schooling.

I'm also incredibly frustrated with my living situation. Anyone that follows me on Twitter is probably aware of it. I have two horrible sets of neighbors...one set has about 6 people living in a 2 bedroom apartment, taking up no less than 4 parking spots per day, often leaving me with nowhere to part. This set of neighbors also is loud (often with domestic disputes, but sometimes just music, slamming doors, loud cars, etc) and they are the reason I have roaches. Yes guys, I have cockroaches in my apartment. It's disgusting and embarrassing, but everything I've tried thus far will not get rid of them. I did not have roaches in the 4 1/2 years I lived here before these idiots moved in, and then about a month after they moved in, I noticed a couple in the kitchen. They've now moved to all rooms in my apartment and there's more than I'd like to admit.
Then I have the other set of next-door neighbors. This set rented their apartment a month before they were going to move in to set off a bug bomb. Which made myself and other members of the building physically ill. A girl upstairs was vomiting for days. Nobody was told there was going to be a bug bomb set off and we had to figure it out on our own. This is after they spent an entire weekend cleaning with harsh chemicals and I got a migraine because my entire apartment reeked of bleach. These people constantly have maintenance in there, or so it feels, hammering on something, even if it's just them pounding on the door to be let in. The woman also wear shoes all day, and shuffles her feet in shoes that sound like the plastic children's dress-up heels. They cannot close their door quietly, no matter the time of day, and one weekend they were entering and exiting their apartment until 4am.

I also got notice this morning about an inheritance that I was supposed to receive about 3 years ago. Us ( the family) has taken it to a lawyer because the executor of the estate has been extremely flaky. Well, they sent my $1500 check to some address that I had NEVER lived at about a year and a half ago. I had called the office about it, they said they couldn't cancel the check but that they'd send me a new one - that obviously never happened. I found out this morning that someone endorsed the check and cashed it IN MY NAME, probably the SOB executor of the estate that had been stealing from the account anyway, and now there's $73 left in the account. There was still supposed to be about $15000.

Between some of the people I interact with at work, my neighbors, and the previously mentioned SOB executor, I'm disgusted with people in general lately. I am genuinely a nice, thoughtful, caring person. I don't do it because I'm afraid to get punished by God or whatever, I ACTUALLY care about people. But why is everyone such an asshole lately? Maybe it's just me getting older...but even when I worked in retail, it didn't seem THIS bad. And I worked at TJ Maxx, which isn't exactly the classiest place, especially when you have people arguing over a penny discount, lol.

Finally

I'm finally starting to get back to my normal healthy stuff. I ate a lot cleaner today than I had been (I still had a dessert with dinner...but I've been trying to do that so that I don't go on a wild rampage when I'm PMSing and go after ALL THE SUGAR IN THE WORLD)...and I'm hoping to start getting back into exercising tomorrow, since I have a day (mostly) off of work.

I'm extremely proud of myself with my schoolwork though. I'm trying to stay ahead of my stuff...I'm not as far ahead now as I was on Sunday, but the schedule is 12 lectures/week, normally with an assignment or two due on Fridays, and possibly a test. Right now I'm already sitting at almost 4 lectures done for the week. One of them has little "review quizzes" in it and I'm doing fairly well on those, and two of them have objectives to help you study. I've been keeping up with those as well. All of this was also after I basically goofed off yesterday and today during my designated "school time", but I did get a few lectures done at work.

Work is continually getting me down. I HATE dwelling on it and I feel like I sound like a whiny brat about it, but when I walk in the door and my boss stops me and in an accusatory tone, asks if I erased his weekly schedule (literally, his hours for the week) AS I'M WALKING IN THE DOOR AFTER CLOCKING IN...that puts a damper on your day. Which, no, I didn't erase it and I did not want nor need the lecture about it. I told him who did it and he continued to harp on me. That does not help my mood and does not make me want to continue working there or even for the hospital itself. The latest I have to stay there to receive the full-tuition stipend will be May/June 2014...so I may be looking for a new job then. I won't be working for him at that point, but he also has a horrible habit of annoying both people that don't work for him and never have, as well as people that have transferred into other departments and he tries to force them into taking overtime, etc.

Enough ranting. I wanted this to be a positive post! But, I do need to get back to some schoolwork. :)

T'day

I feel like today was the longest day ever.

I woke up at 5:15, got ready for school, drove the 45 minutes to school, had lab for 4 hours, drove back to my parents', packed up my stuff, then drove the 5 hours home from there. It's 8:20pm now and I'm EXHAUSTED. I have had crazy insomnia lately, but I think it's mostly due to my schedule being all out of whack.

But, I now have clean clothes, a wireless connection in my apartment (which I wish I would have known that my modem was also a wireless router before I dug out my old router), and...yeah. I should probably be doing some stuff for my classes right now but I am just WIPED. And I still have to work 4 days before I get a break...which isn't that bad. Especially since I will be doing school stuff at work.

Which speaking of...it's really bad when I'm this exhausted mentally and physically from school and I considered it a vacation because I dislike my boss so much! I'm dreading going back to work for that sole reason...I honestly do like what I do and I like a lot of the people I work with, but he just makes my entire life miserable.

I feel like I've gone through a massive transformation in the past 3 days. I feel like I'm radiating happiness. It's so weird. I never knew that school was going to make me this happy, to be honest. I'm really excited. I sound like a huge dork, but I'm just THAT excited to get started in the professional part of my field ASAP. I love learning anyway, and this kind of stuff is the exact stuff I would be interested in researching on my own...I do a lot of research to the side on workouts, nutrition, etc. and while this isn't involved in that part of it, it's HOW YOUR BODY WORKS. And when we get certain results from lab tests, how they can tell you exactly what's wrong with you, or be at least more accurate than WebMD. All from a simple chemical reaction with a colored indicator. How I got into healthcare will be a different post for a different day, but man. It just makes me happy.

And with that, I should finish unpacking my massive piles of laundry and eat some dinner. I should also workout too, but that may wait until later tonight. This sounds dumb, but I have two workouts to catch up on from last week, then I'm considering this week entirely a cheat week (I've been way over on my calories, but had I worked out, I would be under by a few hundred every day) and starting back up with my workouts and good eating on Monday, since that's what aligns with both my Insanity schedule that I have written out as well as my MyFitnessPal app.

Intro Post

Healthy Eating

I'm currently trying to clean up my eating. I've been working on this since about April, but more hardcore the past couple of months. I've been tracking my eating via the MyFitnessPal app on my iPhone, and I have to say I'm pretty fond of it. Right now I'm just trying to get more healthy food in...I eat a lot of processed/frozen food, and I definitely don't eat enough fresh fruits/veggies/whole grains. I don't eat enough veggies period.
But, I have gotten portion control down, as well as how much I eat in general a day. Tracking your intake is amazing for showing you just how much crap you eat. And I also tend to eat when I'm not actually hungry...when I'm bored, upset, watching TV, etc.

Fitness

I've been doing the Insanity program for 2 weeks now, I'm starting week 3. Starting out with the program was ROUGH. The first time I tried it, I couldn't even make it through the warmup without feeling like I was going to die on the floor. Then I would pause more often, extend breaks, etc. Now I'm at the point where I will extend breaks to get more water or if my joints/muscles are absolutely killing me. I've found that having my own music on instead of listening to their music really motivates me into finishing the workouts (I listen to a lot of Katy Perry, LMFAO, and Breathe Caroline Pandora stations as well as music I have downloaded of theirs).
I do modify a few of the exercises, almost entirely (if not entirely) ones involving push-ups. I have weak wrists, so I'll often hold a plank position/modified plank position for the time that the exercise is being done. Or I'll do "girl" push-ups on my knees so that there's less weight on my wrists.
Before starting Insanity, I really didn't work out. I walk at a fairly moderate pace at least a few hours per night at work (sometimes up to 6 hours a night), five nights a week. Before starting Insanity, I was using the Nike Fitness Club app on my iPhone and then did a week's worth of Jillian Michaels' 30 Day Shred (I started on Level One for a few days, stopping being challenged and moved up to Level Two, but even that seemed fairly easy after two days, so then I switched to Insanity).
I do my full 6 Insanity Workouts a week, except I skip the days I have fit tests and have an extra rest day. I mostly do my workouts after I get off of work, and sometimes I end up doing more than one workout in a day. I try to not torture my boyfriend and avoid doing them when he's around, so my Friday and Saturday workouts often get done earlier than scheduled.

Work

I work in a hospital lab as a lab assistant. I do a lot of the ordering of tests, processing of specimens, answering phone calls, etc. It's definitely a fast-paced job, and I do like it, but I'm ready to move up in the lab world, hence why I'm going back to school to become a tech. I'm also have issues with my boss currently, which makes things even more painful at work (it's painful because I'm ready to move up and I know that I will be able to in about a year and a half maximum, hopefully sooner).

School

I'm actually travelling today to go register for school and get all of that kind of junk done. I'm doing it online through a school in another state because there really isn't a feasible option for me where I live to get it done. I already have a BS in Biology, which got my foot in the door in the lab, but it's much easier for me to go back to school for a year and a half (and get a second BS) and get fully certified than it is to try to work my way up in the lab otherwise. Plus I would likely never get fully certified otherwise. It's the smartest move for me, plus I have the feeling I'm one of those people that will be a perpetual student.