Unpaid work

Yesterday I started my volunteer gig at a physical therapy department at a hospital. My first day was great except that I got hungry towards the end. I like the place, I like the interesting machines, the hydroculators, the oxygen tanks, the crutches that were really shiny. It’s a pretty large rehab space. The PT that I will be working with seems fabulous so I think I will be able to learn a lot.

But most importantly, I get to wear a blue coat. Not as impressive as a white doctor's coat, but still, it's a coat. I'd totally look like I'm part of hospital staff if I could just scratch “volunteer” off my id card.

Pippi

Idag såg jag en tant som spelade fiol på en såg precis som i Pippi Långstrump!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pippi_Longstocking

Snow

It snowed AGAIN. Enough already, it's not pretty. I think technically I'm supposed to shovel now that Sean is not here (under agreement with the landlord). I'm SO not shoveling. All the neighbors are already out there with their shovels. But I'm not going to. Why should I break my back just so that people can walk by our place comfortably? If it's so difficult to walk through a few inches of snow, then don't walk by our apartment. And, the snow always melts within a few days anyway, so really. A general rule that I follow is that if you ignore something long enough it will disappear.

Now where did I put my coffee?

rate=k[A]n[B]m

I've studied way too much chemistry today. Integrated rate laws, equilibrium, reaction rates, my head hurts. I need to do well on a test coming up.

Luckily, my sister helped me figure out how to use my new fancy calculator. I still don't know how to go from the notes section back to the regular screen, without turning the whole thing off and then on again, but oh well. I am improving though - when I first got the machine I didn't even know how to turn it on. I bet if I read the manual really thoroughly I could figure out how to email people from my calculator. I bet that exists.

The cat and I are sharing a bottle of wine tonight (if I can find enough change in the apt. which I will). Next week I hope I'll get a chance to hang out with people who are not furry.

Talk

Since I'm not working, and since most people I know are, I don't get to socialize or talk to anyone until late afternoon or evening when I have my classes. My daytime conversations have been reduced to one-or-two word sentences, like this:

deli-man: Hey, how you doin'? That's all?
me: Yeah...
deli-man: Cold out, huh?
me: Yeah, terrible.
deli-man: Gonna get worse this weekend.
me: Really?
deli-man: u-huh. Take care now, have a good day.
me: Thanks. You too.

Same conversation every day, with some variations depending on the weather.

Crunch

There was an idiot at the gym yesterday who was running on the treadmill in his regular clothes. Why would you go on the treadmill in your jeans? He was running really fast too, my guess is at least speed 8.0, much faster than the regular gym guys next to him. The craziest thing I've ever done at the gym is work out without shoes, socks only, but that's because I forgot to bring my sneakers that day. Not nearly as weird as the dude wearing jeans.

R.I.P.

Last week I killed a mouse. I haven't told many people about this since I'm struggling with guilt, shame and confusion. The mouse was stuck to a gluetrap behind the fridge, still moving, so I decided to put the trap and mouse in a plastic bag, put the bag on the floor in the hallway outside, and wack it really hard with the wooden part of a broom - blunt-force trauma. It's my first kill ever.

I have killed bugs before, of course, but that doesn't count because bugs are not real animals, they're bugs. There's also a sense of satisfaction after you kill a bug (which is not the case after a mouse-kill), as if you did something good for humanity. "Great job, I'm impressed," my friend Amy usually says when I triumphantly call her to tell her I squashed another little bastard with the yellow pages.

A mouse, however, is an animal. It has a family and a social network. If I tell people I killed a mouse, most likely they will say "eeeeeewwww" or "oh-my-Goood" or "nooo waaaaay" which will put me in a guilt-ridden defensive mode, having to justify my deed with lengthy explanations. And even if people tend to agree that the mouse had to die (sure, it's better to kill it than to let it die slowly) inside they're still thinking "eeeeeew" and they'll never look at you the same way again. I'm a killer.