Three's Company is back on TV!!! This is a dream come true **swoon**! Now if they would only put Hogan's Heroes back on, Grrr....

Congrats to my brother

Song: Ramblin' Man (gotta love the Allman Brothers!)
Mood: Proud and excited
Snack: TimTams (from the UK I think)
With: My mama in the room
TV: M*A*S*H coming on (I love you Maj. Burns, Capt. Pierce, Capt. Hunnicutt)

I just got back from my brother's residency graduation and it was really, really special. There are only 10 people in his year so everyone is tight and supportive. It was really an honor to be there, seeing my brother finally make it to the end of his medical journey. It was cool for all the families to see all the doctors graduate really, but in my case, it was even more amazing. My brother has been very sick since he was in high school. Doctors told him he would die before reaching 30. Then they told him not to bother with med school because he would be dead before ever even graduating. Now he's 31 and finished with his residency. He's my hero. I just hope at least SOME of his genes are present in me! :-D
My brother is one of the most intense, hilarious, courageous and intelligent people I have ever met, perhaps THE most so. Seeing him "make it to the top" tonight so to speak was really a touching and prideful experience. His medical problems are not over, but he has done more than anyone ever gave him credit for. He never gave up, he never moped or asked for special attention. He never played the victim and he never stopped sticking up for himself when the odds seemed stacked against him.
So, here's to my brother and his perserverence! God bless him and keep him strong.

"I've been to one World Fair, a picnic and a rodeo and that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!" -Kong, Dr. Strangelove

Hi everyone. Here I am again. Sorry I've been so neglectful but I have almost no PC access up here so just getting online is a major struggle. But I'll be back home--early--next week so then all will return to normal.
I really need everyone's prayers right now because my landlord is selling my place and the new owner can switch everything up. Everything is in the air at the moment and it gives me an uneasy feeling. It also makes me second guess the plans I've made for the near future which also is not a very nice feeling. It's a queasy feeling that doesn't end, and won't end, until the new owner replaces it with a fuzzy warm feeling. St. Joseph is a patron of real estate so feel free to tell him I need help.

I've been busy doing a million things: creating a scrapbook/photo album for my brother as a graduating-from-residency present; working out at least an hour a day, sometimes more (amazing for me); visiting everyone I know up here; shopping, planning, worrying, eating; watching movies galore with my mom in the evenings (finally Dr. Strangelove, The Russians are Coming the Russians are Coming!!, Wit, Lost in Translation, et al.); stressing over decisions and indecisions (like Capt. Pierce on Col. Blake: "The desk from behind which he launched a million indecisions"); watching the World Cup (yeh, USA stinks but I'm supporting my true love anyway: Brasil! Brasil! Brasil! Kaka, I love you--and yes, I'll only say that once); watching with heavy sorrow my beloved Braves go down the tubes; caring for my sweet pink grafted cactus that I got a month ago; but mostly reading reading reading. Every classic I ever wanted to read has now been dropped in my lap, thanks to my enormous bedroom library that I started growing a couple decades ago. Jules Verne--Hemingway--RFK's writings--Arabic, Spanish, French, Latin--Robinson Crusoe--Sophie's World (a little superficial and dorky, I admit, but hey, I started it when I was 14 or so and feel compelled to finish it up.) And so on. I've learned the details on the Cuban Missle Crisis, the Austrian-Italian battles of WW2, what Socrates looked like, and how to say "I understand a little Spanish, sir," in Spanish. Oooh, don't you envy me!?
:-D

Currently I'm missing L and Z and LG (and even CJ!) who are all down South right now partying without me. I'll be home just 2 days too late to ride the wave. They're riding a tractor right now and getting ready to be downtown all evening. Wah! LG promised to take me tractor-riding the minute I got in, which only mildly eased my heartache.

Tomorrow I should be in PA again visiting more family.

Anyone who cares enough about me to check this after all the weeks I left it go--I LOVE YOU!

You can do it!

Ever since I got up here I've been on a fitness craze...cutting back my food intake, working out at the gym for an hour a day...but today things reached a whole new--and weird--high. I bought a Gazelle.
Yup, Tony Little's Gazelle fitness machine. That funny looking thing that that crazy guy on TV is trying to hawk off at all hours of the night and day--the machine that no one in their right mind would spend any $ on. The machine that I would always look at and laugh at and say, "WHO would buy that!?" Now it's mine.
OK, in my defense, I did only buy a very cheap version of it and it does tend to give me a good workout. But still. It's Tony Little. The guy with the mullet who yells, "You can do it!" Oh well. I'll respect myself when I'm in awesome shape and have the lung power I've always dreamed of.

Sad News

Well everybody I'm disappointed to report that I will be unable to go to Ukraine this summer. There are various reasons but I can sum it all up by saying that the program was not giving me many answers to practical questions, and the specific sub-program I was going on was brand new and not well organized. The fact that I'm a girl came into play in that no other volunteers were girls, so they would all be staying safely at the seminary while I would be somewhere else (they hadn't even figured that out yet, with the clock ticking to go time.) Lastly, I would be spending 2500$+ on this short trip and with the program being so poorly run and with LA looming on the horizon, my mom and I both decided that this was becoming a bad decision.
Am I disppointed? Yes. Sad? You betcha. But I'm also a little relieved because the past 2 weeks have been very stressful for me. As time got closer to leaving the USA, I thought that the program directors would stay in touch more and answer my emails, etc.--but instead they remained as elusive as ever. This is nothing against them, by the way. It's the notorious Ukrainian way of running things. Their sense of timing is different. And a lot of these directors do not even speak English. But it would have been a lot of $ for my mom and I to invest in such a short program that may or may not have even been what I was looking for.
I'll get to Ukraine someday, no doubt. But when I go I'll do it in a safer and more concrete fashion to be sure!

I'll be a bit busy the next few days so you guys may not hear from me by phone or email, etc.--but of course I'll start hounding you all again in a bit.