To my best frenemy

Dear Graduate School,

I really wanted to be friends. I practically begged for your friendship in my application and you accepted my pleas and my pledge of sisterhood. Or so I thought. In recent months, I've started to feel like you don't really care about me anymore. Like you never cared about me. Like all you wanted from me was my money, my time, my health, and my sanity. And I gave them to you...all of them, and what have I gotten in return? Ulcers, migraines, 10 lbs of stress weight, and all for what? A piece of paper? A bit of prestige? Tell that to my student loan debt, bitch.

As of this moment, graduate school, you and me? We are not friends. Not. Friends. At. All. But I want you to know that you can stress me out, take my money, pile the pounds on me, pilfer my time, and suck out my soul but I will vanquish you in the end. You'd better start running because I will hunt you down and kick your ass from here to Thursday.

Love and kisses,

Kristen

Still alive...

So I am a terrible blogger. I think that's the theme of this year's blog adventure. I have so many good ideas of things I want to blog about and very little time to actually follow through. *sigh*

At some point I really do want to blog my Turkey trip both so I don't forget all the little fun things that happened and so that you all can see my amazing pictures. Unfortunately, my workload this quarter is insane and I don't know if/when I'll get the post finished. *sigh*

I just wanted to let people know that I'm still alive and hanging in here. Graduate school isn't quite what I thought it was going to be and I alternate between loving it and learning a lot and hating it and feeling like a total idiot. So that's been....interesting. Someday I'll tell you all about it. Today is not that day. *sigh*

Poor excuses

Dear Blog,

I apologize for having neglected you the last few weeks due to being swamped with margaritas, reading, and lounging on the beach/in the most awesome pool ever. It was a rough 2 weeks, waking up every day at 9, eating a breakfast prepared by someone else and then putting on my bathing suit and jumping in the water/lounging with a book all day. But the fun ended on Saturday and now I'm back in Chicago running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get packed and organized for my trip to Turkey which commences in a day and a half. I have yet to wash laundry or pack and for some reason have become fixated with scrubbing all the grout in my bathroom and dusting the all the crown moldings in my apartment.

Long story short: I will not be blogging for the next 3 weeks due to packing, organizing, scrubbing grout, dusting moldings, and being in Turkey. I shall return mid-September and will post a plethora of pictures of Istanbul etc.

Love,
Kristen

Why My Pseudo-Family Rocks

I have the best pseudo-family ever. Since I left their employ to go to college 6 years ago, we've kept in contact and I've been back to NJ to visit them regularly. I was back there in July for the first time since my wedding and they felt so bad that we weren't able to spend any time at their beach house that they offered to fly me out this weekend to spend 2 weeks with them at the Jersey Shore. Woot woot! Hooray for a free trip to the beach!

L.A. Theatre Works

Dear L.A. Theatre Works,

I love you and I am so happy to have found you on Saturday night NPR. I am even more excited that your fabulous work is available in podcast form so I can listen to it on iTunes. "La Bete" so far is fantastic and I can't wait to hear the end!

Love,
Kristen

How Not to Go Down a Waterslide

• Step 1: Fall off your floating chair in the deep end of the pool, getting water up your nose and turning you into a sputtering, flailing mess.

• Step 2: Give in to taunting by 9 year olds who find it hilarious that you are sputtering because of a little water up your nose and who start making chicken noises at you when you tell them there is no way in hell you are going down a waterslide.

• Step 3: Exit the pool but first trip on the step and skin your knee. Do not pay attention to the foreshadowing of said knee scrape.

• Step 4: Walk up the rock steps to the top of the waterslide, not paying a bit of attention to how high up it really is.

• Step 5: Prepare yourself to slide down the slide by sitting down at the lip of the slide, then slip on the wet rocks and begin careening down the tube slide, completely unprepared for what is to come.

• Step 6: Spend the entire time in the slide getting plastic-burn on the back of your legs because the slide is completely dry, swearing because of said plastic-burn, and trying to figure out how best to enter the water to avoid a) losing the top to your swim suit which has somehow come loose b) smashing yourself on the rocks on either side of the slide exit c) drowning in the deep end of the pool.

• Step 7: Fail at the first two of the goals listed in step 6.

• Step 8: Make the 9 year olds promise not to mock you for eternity for failing spectacularly at something as simple as going down a water slide.

• Step 9: Swim over to the swim-up-bar and pour yourself a drink.

• Step 10: Repeat starting with Step 1 if you did not learn your lesson the first time.

Extreme Gym Class for Kids, or How My Vacation Made Me Feel Out of Shape

So the family I was visiting in NJ is the family that once upon a time I worked for as a nanny. The family is comprised of 2 awesome parents (more on them in a future post) 4 fabulously fun girls, and 3 dogs of various yappy-ness. The girls range in ages from 9 to 18 and all are tremendously talented athletes. All 4 girls are training hard this summer for their respective fall sports (college, high school, middle school, & elementary school) at a local gym whose mission statement is something to the effect of "making your children into professional athletes in just 3 easy steps"*

I drove the carpool to the gym bright and early one morning and let me tell you, I got a workout just watching these kids. I was amazed to see the sprint trials the 9 year old's group was doing that day: ladders back and forth across the gym with almost alarming speed. And let me tell you, those 9 year olds were FAST! The 13 and 15 year old's classes overlapped a bit and watching them do squats and chest presses with not much less weight than I lift was definitely a reality check. I am in better shape now than I was in high school, which I am tremendously proud of, but I felt like such an out of shape soccer mom watching these kids pump iron, hard, for 90 minutes.

So after gym class, I went home, had half a donut in consolation, and swam in the pool the rest of the day. Swimming counts as exercise, right??

*ok I made up the 3 easy steps part, but the mission statement does involve making children into "professional athletes."

More to come

So I'm back from my week long vacation to the always lovely New Jersey (no really, it's beautiful there) and I have lots of things to blog about. Unfortunately, I have to work the next 5 days in a row so I'm not sure when said blogging will occur. I'll try to throw something up when I get home tonight or first thing tomorrow so be sure to check back to read all about the following:

1- extreme gym class for kids
2- how not to go down a water slide
3- why my pseudo family in New Jersey rocks
4- a brief outline of my next adventure

Ew

Dear brown, smelly sewage water leaking down my bathroom wall and through to the common room floor below me,

Why, oh why, did you have to grace me with your presence at midnight on a Saturday instead of noon on a Thursday, when the maintenance guy is in the building? I mean, could you have at least given me a few hours notice so I could move my toiletries out of the impending flood? I know I can just boil them all to remove the traces of feces but think about it...would YOU want to wear a retainer to bed that you knew was previously dripped upon with poo water? I thought not. Ew. For real. Just...ew.

unhappily yours,
Kristen

Re:

Recently a friend of mine mentioned that there aren't very many pictures of me on this blog. In response to her comment, I give you an entire post of pictures:

Re-enacting a picture from our wedding day at the Central PA Bride Fair.
(September 2008)
The husband and I doing our best impression of a WASP-y couple with an adopted "Asian" baby girl. Her name is Maureen or Mo for short.
(December 2008)
Us being totally geeked out by our shiny new Field Museum Membership. Hooray!
(December 2008)

With my family in Vegas for my brother's 30th birthday party.
(February 2009)

Surveying the battlefield at Gettysburg, PA.
(March 2009)

Me wearing a dog face headband that was on sale at the Gettysburg National Battlefield Gift Shop. I have no idea why they were selling said item of randomness, which is most certainly why I had to try it on.
(March 2009)

Celebrating my very first loaf of Challah bread. Yum!

(April 2009)

Us on the double decker carousel at Six Flags Over Chicago.
(June 2009)

So there you have it...photographic evidence of the last 10 months of my life. :)

A Haiku

fifty-seventh street
has a beach of which I'm fond
water, sand, and sun.

...

So the husband left yesterday for Istanbul, Turkey. He'll be there for 2.5 months and I'll be here in Chicago. I feel lame for missing him so much already...it's almost 4 a.m. and not only can I not sleep, but I can't even bring myself to get into our bed because I know it just won't be the same without him there, snuggling up to me, stealing all the blankets and then complaining that I'm a bed hog (which is totally true).

It's going to be a long summer.

Round 2: FIGHT!

Dear ivory duvet cover that I love so much,

Please learn how to be blood* resistant.

Love,
Kristen

*Not that kind of blood...ew. It's the husband's blood actually. He's got a sizeable cut on his knee that keeps ripping open and twice now this week he's knelt on the bed gotten blood drops on the duvet (he never thinks use bandaids). On Friday night, the first time it happened, we were just getting in bed after a long night and I was super annoyed that I had to peel the duvet off the comforter, spray it with Spray-n-Wash & wash it before going to bed so the stain wouldn't set. This time he's all upset with himself and all I can do is laugh. We literally just put it back on the bed last night. My husband is hilarious.

It's not all bunnies and rainbows...

Recently my sister-in-law and I had an argument of sorts. She asked me for some advice, I gave it to her, she didn't like what I had to say and freaked out which led to angry facebook messages and texts (because god forbid she pick up her effing phone when the husband or I called her to actually talk). In the end, I told her that sometimes the truth hurts and her response was to make a comment to the effect of "I know, but I'm happy and that's all that really matters," which got me thinking about the ridiculousness of that statement and the sense of entitlement I see in my generation and the current tween/teen generation.

Don't get me wrong, happiness is important...no one should have to live their life unhappily, BUT, part of being a responsible adult is being able to say "You know what? XYZ would make me really happy, but I realize that it's illegal/immoral/stupid/would hurt the people I love and who love me, so I'm not going to do it." This is the lesson that I think our generation and the one after it have missed entirely. Being happy does not mean getting everything you want. It does not mean that people should always cater to your whims. And it certainly does not mean that you have the right to be rude and inconsiderate to people who tell you things you don't want to hear. The real world isn't all bunnies and rainbows and you have to be able to recognize and understand that for people to take you seriously as an adult. Being happy is a choice. If you want to be seen as an adult you've got to stop bitching about not getting what you want/not being able to manipulate people into doing what you want and make the choice to be happy regardless.

"Earth To..."

Dear Earth,

Today we celebrate you and all your greeny-bluey goodness. Thanks for being composed of 80% water that is undrinkable but full of delicious and interesting sea life. I appreciate the land masses such as the lovely one I currently inhabit, although I do regret that a significant amount of your trees have been lopped down to make paper plates and cups and those little sleeves that keep your hand from burning when you buy a hot coffee. I don't really have a place where I can plant a tree for you today but I am just letting you know that I've pledged and paid $$ to several organizations that will plant trees for me. I'm sorry your air is getting clogged with exhaust and pollution, and while I know it's not entirely my fault, I'm really sorry that your climate is getting warmer. I hate being too hot because there's only so much clothing one can remove before one is considered indecent -- and in your case, the only things you have to "take off" are people and animals and no one really wants that to happen. I hope that we, the people of the world, can work together to improve your oceans, lands, forests, & air quality and in doing that improve our own quality of life.

I heart the Earth.

Love,
Kristen

Every party has a pooper

So after throwing myself a little pity party last night I woke up this morning and decided to stop whining and start doing. I went grocery shopping with the husband and bought a whole bunch of delicious fresh produce (fava beans, grapefruit, apples, asparagus, white mushrooms, sweet potatoes, carrots...yum!) and we planned a menu for the week. I went to the gym with my workout group and ran hard on the treadmill and then did some ab work. So I'm feeling better about the weight/health issue.

The weather is still sucky but I can't change that. My friends are all still students but I'm going to try to meet up with at least two of them each week be it for a quick cup of coffee or a shopping trip. I'm still going to be spending my days alone but I think I'm going to try to venture into the community a little more, find some actual volunteer work (screw you, Field Museum!) and hopefully things will perk up.

So today I say hooray for party poopers, especially when they're pooping self-pity parties. :)

Lamentations of a Torpid Blogger

Dear blog,

Apparently I am the world's worst blogger. I don't even think I deserve to win the world's worst blog award...I'm that bad at blogging. It's not that I haven't wanted to blog, or that I haven't had anything blogworthy, I've just been horribly, incredibly lazy. Every time I've had something I could blog about I've ended up with a hundred equally terrible but at the time compelling reasons why I can't do it now or should wait until later. It's not really a good excuse, but there it is.

Why, after such a long time am I now breaking the blog-silence?

Because I'm annoyed. And kind of sad. I'm mostly annoyed with myself but I'm bugged about a lot of other little things too:

I'm bugged that Chicago weather has been so unpredictable this spring. One day it's 75 degrees and beautiful, the next it's 42 and snowing. I realized when we moved here that we were moving to one of the few places in this country that is colder than Utah, but I thought that maybe we could avoid the spring weather roller coaster by leaving the Beehive State. Not so much. Instead my joints hurt and my hair and skin are a mess from the constantly changing temps and humidity levels.

I love my friends here, but I'm annoyed that I don't have any who aren't students. I have so much spare time on my hands it's not even funny but everyone I want to spend it with is either studying or trying to catch up on sleep.

I'm annoyed that I haven't found anything constructive to do with my days except sit home alone baking and making cards. While those are two things I find enjoyable, I really, really, really miss being around people and I am growing tired of spending my days by myself. And it's not as though I haven't tried to find more constructive ways to spend my time. Last month after attending the Member's Night at the Field Museum I was SO EXCITED to sign up to volunteer there but it's now been a month since I submitted my application and I haven't gotten any responses to my inquiries as to the status of my application. What once seemed a really exciting way to spend my last few months before I start my Master's program now seems like just another rejection.

I'm bugged that somehow between Wednesday evening and this morning, with no change in diet or habits, that I've managed to gain 8 lbs...I mean, what. the. f*ck. is. up. with. that? How does that even happen? I thought going to the gym 5 days a week and killing myself in this boot camp class was supposed to make the numbers on the freaking scale go down!?!? I keep trying to figure out how this happened. Maybe the scale was wrong today. Perhaps it was wrong on Wednesday. It's also entirely possible that I'm dehydrated and retaining water. I really don't know and all I want to do is curl up in my bed in my fattest pjs with a soft, homemade cookie and a cup of hot cocoa with fresh marshmallows.

And lastly and probably most importantly I'm annoyed that instead of doing something about all of these little annoyances, I am just whining about them on my blog. To make matters worse, I'm whining on my blog after a weekend full of tons of fun things I could be blogging about instead (Vagina Monologues, a cupcake quest, the best manicure I've had in a long time, a great night out with friends).

Gah. I'm not sure what I need right now but I need it STAT. This is shaping up to be a really long week.

-Kristen

An apology of sorts

Dear blog,

I apologize for neglecting you this last month. Things have been busy and while I have thought about you and even started several posts, I just couldn't get them finished and published. I am giving myself a blogging score of F-. :(

But, I have good news...


GUESS WHO GOT INTO THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO?!?!


ME ME ME ME ME ME!! Hooray! I am so excited. I think the program is going to be difficult but I'm really excited to do something new.

That's all. Again, I'm sorry for being a terrible blogger.

Love,
Kristen

Hooray for me!

It's my birthday today! Hooray for being 25! I've got to go get ready to go across town to get cupcakes to celebrate. Yum!!

An Open Letter to the President, Senators Dick Durbin & Roland Burris & Anyone Else Who Will Listen

Dear President Obama & Senators Durbin & Burris,

I am writing you this open letter today to discuss the current healthcare situation in our country. Until now, I had employer provided benefits that, while not stellar in my eyes, were very good. Recently, I lost my job and chose to find an independent insurance plan rather than pay the $800 a month for COBRA benefits. I figured an independent insurance plan through my same provider (Aetna) would be less expensive than COBRA and would offer comperable coverage. Little did I know...

After being accepted by Aetna to one of their Managed Choice Open Access plans I thought things were fine. And they were, at least until I received my credit card statement with the first month's premium charged to it. The premium Aetna charged my card was a 90% increase from the amount I was quoted. 90%!!!!! Naturally, I was shocked so I called Aetna and was told by a member of their underwriting staff that because I had had surgery to correct a deviated septum 2 years ago, they consider me has having chronic sinusitis which is a pre-existing condition and basically means they can charge me whatever monthly premium they want. I am in the process of filing an appeal on this outlandish claim because since the surgery I have not had a single case of sinusitis and not a single sinus infection. The surgery worked to fix the problems and as any reasonable person would expect, once the problems were fixed they are no longer problems. I should have known that this did not bode well for the Aetna Managed Choice Open Access plan.

As luck would have it, I ended up needing to go to the doctor this week for an ear infection & cough. After finding a physician in Hyde Park who would take the insurance and who could get me in this week, I was hopeful that things were looking up. Not so. I saw the doctor this afternoon and he prescribed 2 medicines to help me get better, Levaquin - a common antibiotic and one that is highly favored by Otolaryntologists, and Asthmanex - a steroid inhaler to help clear up the cough and congestion in my chest. My husband and I really liked the physician and talked about making him our primary care provider in the area as we walked to the local CVS to fill the prescriptions. That's when things took a definite turn for the worse. When it was finally my turn to pick up my newly filled prescription I was given a rude awakening. The Aetna Managed Choice Open Access plan does not cover brand name prescriptions until a $500 deductible has been met and since both drugs were brand name (and not available as generics) I would have to pay nearly $275 for my much needed medicines. I was completely caught off guard as I did not see ANYTHING in my Aetna application that stated that there was a separate $500 prescription deductible. Had I seen that there is no way I would have applied for the plan. I immediately came home and calleld Aetna and the agent I spoke to confirmed the $500 deductible for all non-generic prescriptions. With me jobless and my husband in graduate school, paying essentially an entire month worth of grocery money for 10 days of drugs was not an acceptable option.

I called the Dr.'s office and asked if there was anything they could do to help. My doctor's nurse was able to change the antibiotic prescription to one that was generic. She had some samples on hand of the inhaler that she gave us for free because it's not available generic. I really have no other way to thank her than with my words, so to Diane in Hyde Park my most heartfelt thanks go out to you. I am so appreciative of your compassion and committment to caring for your patients. I will never forget this thing you have done for me. Thank you.

President Obama, Senators Durbin & Burris, and any and all who are reading this: Insurance and drug companies in America are no more than institutionalized highway robbers. To charge people who need medicines hundreds of dollars for essentially 10 days worth of drugs is absurdity and we need to change this now. Insurance companies should not be able to make up pre-existing conditions just because they feel like it. Insurance companies should not be able to "bait and switch" applicants and charge hugely increased premiums after advertising different amounts. Insurance and drug companies should not be able to hold patients hostage to paying extortianate fees for necessary prescription drugs. We need change in our healthcare system and we need it now.

I cannot believe there are millions of Americans who put up with this kind of treatment from insurance companies and prescription drug-makers every single day. It chills me to the bone to think that there are elderly people and children in our country who are unable to afford their medicines because of these exhorbitant fees levied upon them. The American dream promises all who live here the freedoms of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and I think there are many who find it very difficult to adequately pursue that little thing called "life" when often times medicines and Dr. visits are tossed to the wayside because food and shelter are more pressing concerns. When prescription medicines cost the same as a month's worth of groceries it is time for a change.

President Obama, Senators Durbin & Burris - Please fix our healthcare system. Please make it work and make it affordable for the millions of us who have lost our jobs and our quality insurance. Please make it affordable for students and blue collar working families with children to support and many mouths to feed. Please let it help the elderly in need of care. Please make this a top priority in your administration because if those of us who are forced to pay these mountainous fees cannot afford it for much longer. Please help us.

Sincerely,
Kristen