I Guess Life's Not Meant to be Peachy All the Time, Right?

"No its not, or else we wouldnt appreciate the peachy times.  And we'd be super shallow with lame stories"  That's what Mallory said in reply to my half-way rhetorical question above.  True story.  Had a little bit of a rough day today.  Well overall, not really, compared to some others.  But its been frustrating and little things have been annoying me. I'm glad Mallory works night shift and I can talk to her all evening and vent.  Thanks Lady!  

Not to get too in depth about boring stuff, but I'm stuck between a rock and a hard spot with the Honour's Thesis plans for the year.  Both myself and the other student like one of the particular questions that our teacher has set up for us to do; but she mentioned it first that she was really interested in it, at which point I figured I better learn to like the other.  The hard thing for me is that the topic she is getting to do seems like it is much more attractive, from a proffesional board review perspective; and these projects will either make or break our chances of going straight into the PhD program after this year.  So do I sell myself short and go for the less innovative of the two topics?  I feel I have no choice.  Good news is, I'm determined to make something of the project, so hopefully I can find some good interesting information for my research that might make it slightly more 'cutting edge' like the other.  My biggest concern is how they determine who gets 'Honours 2.1' and if the projects are similar, and there is only a certain number of spots available, whose is going to look better.  I guess I'll have to figure out a way to be competitive with what I end up getting.  I'll keep you updated.  If you would rather not listen to be bitch even more for the next paragraph, please don't hesitate to skip onto the one after that :)

Annoyed also today by the fact that I can't watch my guilty pleasure TV shows online over here.  Copyright laws apparently don't allow you to watch shows on ABC or the CW unless you IP address is in the US.  I had no idea!  That is wack!  All I wanted was a little taste of home and I got jipped.  Lame.  Since I am ranting, I'm annoyed that I waited too long to go to the gym and then it got dark outside.  This town is super safe, but I'm still slightly afraid of the dark. I know, lame. I'll get over it sometime.  The photos that I am attempting to upload to the computer from my phone are taking fooorreeevverrrr.  I made a peanut butter and nutella sandwich for dinner thinking that would be delicious...some sort of hazelnut-peanut butter-heaven-in-my-mouth kind of tastiness, and it was rather dry. It ruined the taste of the nutulla all together.  I was very disappointed.  Lastly, I'm annoyed I don't have a bike yet.  That'll make things easier. Okay onto better more important things..

Lets see...In the past few days I have been getting much more involved in everything for school. Contrary to American belief, alcohol can really help out in your studies.  That is why we have Rafters, the Uni Bar on campus.  Today they held a 'Mature Students' Cheese and Wine gathering.  It was good to meet other people who are in the same boat as us - meaning we aren't wearing our floaties like the little freshers we see all around campus.  We are the big kids ready to feed the freshers to the sharks when they annoy us...only kidding.  But really, there are so many young, ankle-biters, if you would (aussie term for a kid) that it was fun to have our own function!  Coach (one of the orientation leaders) is also a 'Mature Student' in the Primary Ed department and he came up to Dawn and myself and talked with us the whole hour about school and places around town and things to do.  Boy that mate can talk.  But he also has really pretty green eyes, so it wasn't too hard to listen.  Or just get lost in them. Haha jokes again.  Anyway, that was fun for today.

Tomorrow our 7 day free gym membership expires.  What am I to do now?  Good thing we recieved a whole ton of other free brochures on Monday.  We have enough to get us to different gyms throughout the week - sweet!  I guess I may start to have to go to the gym on campus after that which is about a quarter size of the on at UNM, and will be filled with ankle biters for the first 2 months without a doubt.  But I'll make the best of what I can.  I found a forum for off campus housing today with several people looking for roommates!  The prices are very reasonable - only a stretch because I am only allowed to work 20 hrs/week or else I will get kicked out of the country according to my Visa.  Ugh.  I am determined to make it happen though.  As much as I love it here, with free rent for the time being; living with a couple older people not only means I'm the third wheel (again in my life) but also it puts a damper on the social scene if you know what I mean.  Especially cuz one of them is my supervisor.  I don't want him knowing when I'm out partying all the time.  Haha he need only know of me as the wonderful student I really am ;)

We went and met with the lab guy, Jason, today to get an introduction.  Everything is so much more secure out here.  Definitely a good thing.  I guess CSU has had a couple bad instances - not the CSU here, but out in Wagga Wagga.  One of them someone accidentaly mixed two chemicals together (I can't remember what they were) and it blew up and he lost an eye and had a bunch of nerve damage in his arm.  The other person was moving a thing horses jump over in Equestrian shows, and it fell apart and crushed him...in opposite directions.  Yep, he died.  No bueno.  Those happened a while ago, but ever since, they have tight rules about a lot of things to save their butts.  Can't blame them.  Jason had some good stories about things he's done for students in the lab...

One time he got approached by two students who were using probes to stimulate the muscle.  The probes were the kind that go into the muscle and apparently the students didn't read through the directions all the way before they tested it on him.  Long story short, they set the wattage up slowly, and when it wasn't doing much to Jason, went all the way up to 500 watts.  It caused his bicep muscle (were the probes were placed) to contract so his arm was flailing up and down until they shut it off a few seconds later.  The next day they came back and asked how his arm was doing - that night they read through the manual and 500 watts was the maximum setting for a quadricep muscle, not his biceps.  Woops!  Good thing they didnt do it on his left arm - his heart would probably be toast!

Another group asked him to test one of the isokinetic machines we have in the lab for muscle strength testing.  He did the whole protocol and they never actually told him what they were doing.  Afterwards, he tried walking away and he could barely stand on his leg.  Essentially, he found out later, they tore up all the muscles in the knee as part of a rehab protocol to see how long it would take for a person to be able to walk again and put weight on it...hmm that would have been good to know before hand, don't you think?

A different student was conducting research about muscle temperature.  They stuck a needle in the subjects and then stuck a thermometer down through the catheter and taped it in the quadricep muscle.  The subject had to go and walk around campus with it stuck in there for the test.  Jason didn't want to do it until he saw someone else first, so the student did it to himself.  After he did okay, Jason did it and he said it was so painful.  The little needle inside was flexible so everytime his muscle would contract, he would feel it against the fibers.  He didn't, but later 5 of the 6 subjects had vaso-vagal reactions and actually fainted.  Whoops.

This one doesn't directly involve Jason, but two students were doing another study where they used probes that go inside the muscle.  They had 2 in the quadriceps and the probes had a hook at the end.  When they tried to pull it out, it got stuck on a vein.  Instead of the probe coming out, blood started gushing out everywhere. Haha yea, that's no good. 

Moral of the story?  If anyone asks me to be a guinny pig for their research before they get it passed by the Ethics committee and such, I'm going to simply say, "Oh!  Jason told me he would love to try that! You should go ask him!"

Last bit about the lab - we totally have a DEXA machine - for testing bone density and such, you can also get fat mass, lean body mass, so on and so forth from these machines. (Yes there is controversy about how accurate they are; but still we are cooler then you back there!) In the US, you aren't allowed to have them in labs like ours because they have radiation, but here if you have a certification you can.  Pretty cool (for all you ex phys buffs out there)! 

Alright, if you made it through all of that, I commend you.  I now have about 10 of 70 pictures downloaded, so I assure you I will post them soon!  I love hearing from you guys, tell me whats going on with you in an email or fb message!  Love love!

Ps - Extra love out to Maddie today; It's been 1 year since her daddy passed away and I can't imagine how she is handling it.  Keep your head up sugar.

Also, lots of prayers out to Michael's family and our friends who are attending the hearing for Robert Sanchez who is up for conditions of release.  God will do what's right.  Love you all and miss you everyday, Michael.  <3