Let's try this again...

One of my favorite lines from Harry Potter, “Another year has come and gone…” It’s like a visual representation of the thrill everyone feels rounding that final turn on the way to see grandmother. The anticipation overwhelms and comes pouring out in various ways.

Well, for me another year has come and gone and in between blog posts nearly yet another year has come and gone. So much has happened that it doesn’t bear repeating as I just don’t have the strength to write it all down. However, since I am no longer gainfully employed what better way to while away the hours (or minutes as it were) than updating this blog.

I’m ruefully addicted to Facebook and Twitter, however those tiny little boxes just aren’t big enough to restrain the afore mentioned anticipation. I believe Twitter to be a micro-poetry site instead of micro-blogging. Finding the correct phrase and using just the right English [billiards] to turn a phrase in less than 140 characters is no mean feat; and apparently beyond me as my meager following will tell.

These social devises have long been a curse in blessings clothing. I see them mainly as a way to keep in touch with friends or pass along/collect information. Rarely is there anything of deep Societal import found on these social websites. So, in an attempt to obey my own fear and loathing of making Facebook the place to go for political commentary and after already explaining my ineptitude at Twittering I turn again to you dear old lost friend the Blog to pour out my meandering thoughts.

I imagine I will still fall into bad ‘ol habits of posting something to Facebook or Twitter that should be posted here and I ask you to keep me honest.

Rude Awakening

Gross out warning:

So this morning I get up to relieve my sinuses of some pressure and I go into the bathroom. at first I didn't bother to turn on a light but when I spit in the sink it just seemed like it was a little darker than usual. After being sick for so long I have become aware (overly so) of changes in things like this. So I turned on the light and spit again. This time I noticed it was dark and brown colored. So I opened my mouth...

My blood pressure must have skyrocketed because my entire tongue was BLACK! It had a black coat on it. My mind was racing what in the world could it be? Was it something I ate? I didn't eat before bed, plus I was so freaked out that I couldn't remember what I ate last night. Did a bug jump in my mouth? Is it some sort of warning sign, symptom, side effect I hadn't read about?

Up till then, other than the stuffy sinuses, I felt fine. I was having a bit of nausea from the sinuses but nothing way out of the ordinary. So I go into panic mode and think about what I need to do...call poison control or BPO or should I just wait for a minute and see if it goes away? Should I brush my tongue to get rid of it or wait and leave it for the doctor to see?

So I decided to brush my tongue and Google it, maybe that would give me a better understanding. I found these two articles: Black Tongue 1 Black Tongue 2

That kind of stuff should be all over the place as warning signs. IMHO there should be warnings on commercials and people should talk about it and you'd think I would have heard about it or someone would have said something about it.

So, I'm not sure if it from the antibiotics but since I took my last dose yesterday I'm thinking maybe it was the pepto I took for nausea yesterday. I sure hope that's it. I just can't take much more of this.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this little story. More than anything I hope it informs you in case it happens to you.

Still sick, will I ever get better?

So as we know from my post 12 days ago I have been sick. I went to my primary care physicician last week to get a second opinion. Before i saw my PCP I was given a TB test just to be sure and it came back negative for TB.

My PCP wasn't sure what was going on either however she ordered an Asthma test another x-ray and a CT scan. She left my medication alone and gave me some other medication to help calm me down.

She looked at the X-ray and decided that the "schmutz" was still there (that was her word). I asked her if she knew what I had and she said it was walking pneumonia. She told me to finish my course of antibiotics (which for the record have made me light headed and nasusious) and ruined a very fine weekend with my g/f. I'm not mad at the antibiotics as long as it works.

Today I went for my CT scan and was told that my sinuses looked pretty bad from the allergies and that she was prescribing me yet ANOTHER medication for that along with the flonase I am already taking, plus the antibiotic, plus...well you see where this is going.

At any rate I feel like crap with no end in sight. The doctor did tell me that if I started seeing escalated symptoms to come back to her OR if I wasn't better in a couple weeks it might warrant a hospital stay.

At any rate I'm still sick and really just want to feel better more than anything else right now. The best thing about all this is that if you go through a real bad sick period your fingernails stop growing (this happened when I had my back surgery, look it up, it's true!) and I just had to clip mine today so I'm holding that out as hope!

One Sick boy...

I am sick.

Been sick for a month.

Trip 1 to the doc.

Decongestant no worky.

Trip 2 to the doc.

250mg z-pack...no worky

Trip 3 to the doc.

Chest X-ray clear.

Starting 500mg Levaquin tomorrow.

Tired of being sick.

Not a Haiku.

St. Patrick's Breastplate

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through the belief in the threeness,
Through confession of the oneness
Of the Creator of Creation.

I arise today
Through the strength of Christ's birth with his baptism,
Through the strength of his crucifixion with his burial,
Through the strength of his resurrection with his ascension,
Through the strength of his descent for the judgment of Doom.

I arise today
Through the strength of the love of Cherubim,
In obedience of angels,
In the service of archangels,
In hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
In prayers of patriarchs,
In predictions of prophets,
In preaching of apostles,
In faith of confessors,
In innocence of holy virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.

I arise today
Through the strength of heaven:
Light of sun,
Radiance of moon,
Splendor of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of wind,
Depth of sea,
Stability of earth,
Firmness of rock.

I arise today
Through God's strength to pilot me:
God's might to uphold me,
God's wisdom to guide me,
God's eye to look before me,
God's ear to hear me,
God's word to speak for me,
God's hand to guard me,
God's way to lie before me,
God's shield to protect me,
God's host to save me
From snares of devils,
From temptations of vices,
From everyone who shall wish me ill,
Afar and anear,
Alone and in multitude.

I summon today all these powers between me and those evils,
Against every cruel merciless power that may oppose my body and soul,
Against incantations of false prophets,
Against black laws of pagandom
Against false laws of heretics,
Against craft of idolatry,
Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,
Against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul.

Christ to shield me today
Against poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against wounding,
So that there may come to me abundance of reward.
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the threeness,
Through confession of the oneness,
Of the Creator of Creation.

day thirty

It's baffling to me that I've hung on to the idea that I'm writing for 30 days when 12 weeks later I finally hit "day thirty."

I haven't went back over my posts mainly because i don't want to see all the spelling and grammar mistakes and I don't want to re-live the frustration and aggravation of not really meeting a goal. So I'm going to pretend like it didn't happen or did happen, or...whatever. Therefore w00t, to me I'm finally dinged 30 and hallelujah!

Writing is something I despise nearly as much as professional basketball, annoying conversations, crowded shopping centers and Illinois Nazis. I guess I'd be more apt to write if I knew people were depending on it (not hat I don't appreciate the 3 folks that do read this and your encouraging comments) or if I ever did anything that was worth writing about.

I know, I know probably some of the stuff I do, does count but I just hate writing that much. I try to make it story worthy but I'd just as soon TELL someone about it as sit down and type it all out. Plus it was a lot easier to write when my lap top was able to connect to the internetS via wireless which has since went the way of the DoDo and I have no idea why. To sum up: Blogging kind of stinks for me because it's a media that I don't enjoy. I wonder if it would be better to Podcast! HA! That would be great, something that is even more time consuming, to not keep up with.

Reagan asked me several weeks ago if I would keep this up after the 30 days was up and I told her that I wasn't sure and I'd have to wait and see. Well the time is here and I'm still not sure. It doesn't seem like something I have much reason to keep up. I dunno, maybe I'll have a reason to keep up with this but as for now I'm just happy to have finally finished my personal commitment to it and we'll see what tomorrow holds. Maybe I just need a better topic than "me "to write about, hehe.

day twenty-nine

Today I had a judicial with a student who knew me two years ago when I first came to Belmont. It was interesting reminiscing with him about the good 'ol days and then...I sanctioned him.

Here's how it went down. This guy comes into my office. He and I start chatting about his judicial a little. In the middle of it he says "Do you remember me from Maddox?" Maddox Hall was the first hall I worked at when I came to Belmont. I didn't mind it so much being all freshmen men. It helped me get acclamated and I loved the experience. It was like I was a freshman all over again and those guys I met that year have kept in touch and vice versa. Now many of them are juniors much like I am in my junior year at Belmont. All that to say I had someone to grow up with at BU.

We've all done a lot of growing up but he reminded me of something that I had completely forgot about. I'm kind of big on respect. To me disrespect is the highest slap in the face there is. while walking the halls of Maddox one day I found some graffiti that was highly inappropriate. Not only was it disrespectful to the resident living in the room but it was disrespectful of the young ladies visiting and the mothers that might come up and my supervisor at the time.

I called a floor meeting. Many of these things I let the RAs handle as I like to support their authority but it really ended up being something I handled myself. I was that hacked off about it.

While I was giving them the 5th degree about all the aforementioned problems with writing that kind of filth, I became so fed up with holding those fliers with the graffiti on it I tossed the wadded up papers into a trash can about 30 feet away...without looking.

No big deal, right? Lucky shot, right? Sure, but what did this kid take from that. He said "Heh, that was pretty bad ass, huh?" Sigh... Yeh, bad ass, but that wasn't the point. I wanted them to learn about morality, respect, being a gentleman, etc. while still keeping some freedom to express themselves. Instead apparently at least one kid took from it that I did something "cool."

My challenge is this: that if the thought of doing something "cool" reminds you to be respectful then, great, go for it. I just wonder how many times I've had an amazing thought, been speaking about it and done something that was little, insignificant or distracting but effected the other person/people so much they'll remember it 3 years later and totally miss the point.

I can only hope that when I do stuff like that it isn't distracting from the ultimate purpose. For all I know 50 men from that freshman hall took out of that meeting...don't piss Nate off, he'll no-look your head into a trash can.