From Frogtown to Radtown

My almost six-week-old daughter has a virus called RSV and a double ear infection!

That’s what happens when your baby is born perfect even though you did lots of things “wrong” pre-pregnancy.

On the school side of things, I have been getting behind just a little and am definitely not going to make dean’s list this semester, but I’m okay with that.  School has dropped way down on my list of priorities.  Ava, paying bills, keeping up my relationship with Bryan, school, relaxation time; those are pretty much the top 5 and in that order too. 

Don’t get me wrong I’m not going to be failing anything, or even getting any Ds but as of right this second, one week before spring break, I’m assuming that I will get 2 ‘A’s and 2 ‘B’s or 2 ‘A’s a ‘B’ and a ‘C’.

Over spring break, it’s not really a break though.  I need to write a report on the Virginia General Assembly, specifically the bill that proposes making it a law to release any/all mental records to your institution of higher education before enrollment.  I need to write a report comparing the reporting and writing styles of newspapers for two different eras in time.  I also need to go out and shadow a reporter for an entire day and write about that.  I need to finish my Diet Analysis project and I need to start putting my portfolio together.

I’m sure that’s not all I have to do that week, that’s just all I can remember right this moment.

Well wish Ava luck on her road to recovery, her granny is saving my butt and watching her for me while I do work and sleep.  And thanks to her granddaddy as well for diagnosing her and calling in her Rx.

I first saw this on the Today Show yesterday(1/27/09) but when I looked it up on the American Chemical Society(ACS) website, I found that they have known about it for a few years now.

Apparently there is a virus, that’s very common, that can lead to obesity.  According to the ACS, “infection with human adenovirus-36 (Ad-36), long recognized as a cause of respiratory and eye infections in humans, transforms adult stem cells obtained from fat tissue into fat cells.”

These findings were presented at the 234th national meeting of the ACS in Boston.

Approximately 30 percent of obese people have AD-36 and 11 percent of lean people have the virus.

The National Institute of Health has funded a study that identified a certain gene in the virus, called E4Orfl, that appears to be involved in the fat accumulation of animals infected with AD-36.

It is unknown how long the virus stays in the body or how long the virus can have an effect after it’s gone.

rain rain rain.

That’s all it has really done in the past week or so and I love it.  Yesterday, Radford received what I assume to be officially a shit-ton of rain.  I don’t really know how much it was but Kristine and I went out and drove around at 4 a. m. and there were puddles I haven’t seen in a year or two and the windshield wipers weren’t really helping much.

I’m hoping the old saying when it rains it pours doesn’t only apply to negative instances; things have been going really well and I want that to skyrocket.

Bryan and I are trying to get better jobs which requires a little preparation.  In a few months, we’ll be good to go and then hopefully life will get a little easier.

Isn’t that a dreamy view?  That will never happen.  I guess we’ll see.

So, I slept through class at 10 a.m. this morning.  The alarm did not even go off at all.  But at least it wasn’t totally my fault.

Bryan and I are getting our shit together so to speak.  We are done doing some things we shouldn’t have been and it’s going to save us in the long run.  But for the next month or so it’s going to be a bitch fest and we are going to be broke, broke, broke.

I can’t wait to get this semester over because then I only have a summer and two semesters left.  Which in calendar time equals about one year and one month.  That’s good.  I’m pretty excited about that.

I hope this all works out. life i mean.

<i>Spring brings change for Whim, Papa Johns,

So Whim is the magazine I have been working for and it is getting all changed up … “for the better”.  They always say that.  I’m sure this really is but I just can’t wait to see.

Whim is moving to wordpress.  Leaving cantaloupe.  That’s okay, weird name anyway.  We are also going to start having staggard content to get up to date on the internet age.  He said it will be more of a blog type style.

I’m hoping they will let me blog on events around campus or the city.  I am going to try to have more events covered and written in here so I can show him that I have been doing good at it.

Donald’s birthday is coming up so I wrote him a letter but I haven’t mailed it yet.   I’m too lazy for all that.  I also wrote to CJ but have yet to mail that as well.

My poor buddy Matt got demoted from GM of Papa John’s and is now getting paid less and working with people he doesn’t even like.  I hope he leaves there because he doesn’t deserve that.

I mean he wasn’t great at his job but they definitely should have given him the tools to be great before telling him sorry you’re demoted.

Bryan might be  quitting Highlander!!!  WOOHOO.  We are trying to get our lives together so we can create another one.  Isn’t that ridiculous.

Kristine wants my child to be the reincarnation of my grandfather.  That would be pretty cool.  I wonder if I would ever know.

Either way things are constantly changing except ..1-the consistency of change 2- the fact that i have to work 3- the continual fuck ups up Radford University administrative offices on my paperwork!

For some reason I have been finding it hard to find motivation to do things.  The only real motivation I have to do anything is because it needs to be done and I am a naturally motivated person.  But the way I am feeling, if I were someone less motivated I could become unemployed and fail out of school by May or even next week.

I’m not going to because it’s just not in me to do that but I wish it was.  Or I mean, I wish I was one of those people who could just go through life like there was some ultimate goal or there is no goal and I’ve never even thought about having one.  Does that make sense?

Well anyway, I need some point to this trudging on especially since many societies/cultures and religions believe that there is just a little less than four years left in the world.  Kristine is also one of those, (refer to a post from a few days ago titled “obama drama”).  It’s a scary thought and I think it’s depressing me honestly.

 Total random side comments:

96 in mstd 226

B in mstd 304 and

the rest is an unknown grade for me.  But at least the first two are good!

So I had to withdraw from a class, as i mentioned in my last post. The class is called Specialized Journalism, where you learn to write for a beat. For those of you that don’t know a beat is a specific area of expertise a reporter covers. The most popular beats include court/police beats, education or health beats, etc.

So as you can imagine writing an article takes lots of thought, interviewing and time. The problem is, I don’t have the time to go meet with 8-10 people, interview them and then get the paper ready. My professor Sandra Kelly seems to be an understanding lady so I went to her and told her that I don’t have enough time to do her class this semester, I was sorry and hopefully we could pick it up next semester.

Kelly:What’s it like to go a day in your shoes?

Me: Well yesterday(Monday), I spent midnight to 4 a.m. in the hospital with my friend Kristine.

Kelly: Well there’s your problem you need to stop mothering people and look out for the number one.

Me: That’s what’s wrong with the world today

Then I left, extremely pissed off.

The whole reason Kristine had to go to the hospital was because her temperature was extremely high and lots of flu symptoms.

Turns out it wasn’t the flu, it was some king of viral thing. I think I gave it to her as we had the same symptoms for the same amount of time she just got sick as I was getting better.

Now here we are three days later, she is better and I have a sinus infection.

Well try  SinuCleanse, it actually works.

That’s all for now, I’m finishing up Whim and then home to get perma stoned.

I promise I will give you loyal readers more of what you ultimately crave … soon?  I hope so.

-Kristine, Erika-hospital

-Withdrew from a class

-thinking of another job

-Hillary Clinton is now my new candidate (pretending I had money to have one)

I’m in class now so I have to go but what’s funny is there are only 3 of us here and even though Staniunas is pissed he’s just goofing around.

so peace.  I shall return.–soon!

Well with all this work(36 hrs/week) and all these classes(only 12 credits) I’m not getting lots of sleep.  Well not only that but the same things keep happening over and over again.  It’s pretty boring.

Get money. Get bills. Lose Money.

Class.Work.Sleep.

Walk dog. Do homework. Laundry.

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Other than that I can say I’ve had the same general set of dreams my entire life. Hopefully I will find time one day to explain that craziness, but now let me tell you how my computers are always breaking and I’m getting more and more convinced that I am ADD.  If I turn in another thing late this semester I’m just going to give up right now while I’m still way behind.

Alright.  Hopefull more later but I must go get this computer fixed and find a better one to finish my assignment on—it was due almost 12 hours ago.-great.

Cars piss me off.  They can make a Mack or a Peterbilt to run for a million miles but not a Chevy or a Ford?

Driving , driving, driving and then no guages, no lights and no engine noise.  No power steering.  There I was stuck on the corner of Main St and Madison St.

Bryan did not answer.  I called the cops.  They come and then Bryan shows up.  We hook up the jumper cables.  Nothing happens.  A man stops and has a set of jumpers with the box.  Nothing happens.

That nice man and Bryan push me into an actual parking spot.

A few hours later Bryan and I go to take the battery out of my car in hopes of taking it to Advanced to get a new one.  We didn’t have the right damn tool.  It was the wrong size.  So we go to advanced get the tool, go back to the car take the battery out and then go back to advance for a new one.

So we replaced the battery.  Bryan starts my car, drives .5 miles and the lights start going dimm.  DAMMN

So now I have to take my car to get looked at and spend shit tons of money at an actual place on a damn vehicle I don’t even need.

No class tomorrow-  Martin Luther King Day

RIP granddaddy

Screw you Brady …  you ruined her day.