Feeling A Bit Bookish

So inspired by my friend Jennifer's recent blog, over at Crazy Shenanigans, I've decided to blog about the different books I like!

I realized today that most of my favorite authors create a book series, not just one individual book that stands on its own. When I like a character, I don't want to quit reading about them! I just wish the series would go on and on and on... and knitting and knitting and knitting... just channeled PeeWee Herman for a sec but you get the picture. That is sort of what's going on for me with Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse novels. I love all the characters in these books (and True Blood on HBO!) and the series is continuing, but I always wait for the books to come out in paperback and she can't write fast enough for me! I'm impatient! So I started reading some of Charlaine Harris' other series and have found that I like them quite a bit too.

Continuing with the vampire theme, I have read the Twilight Series multiple times (except for the last one I've only read a borrowed copy once cause its not out in paperback yet). I feel like a teenager reading those books but I just love them. I was in Blockbuster a couple days ago and I saw a 6 year old boy go up to the display of fake movie boxes that advertised the New Moon movie. This is where I overheard him telling his mom that Jacob was better than Edward! Really!? For one thing, Edward is definately better than Jacob! ...and secondly, why is a 6 year old watching this movie?! Okay I am going to stop now cause there may be some Team Edward/Jacob arguments going to happen but that is just my opinion! And also that the books are way better than the movies. And Bella Swan is a pretty crappy character anyway, so ya gotta love everyone else in the movie & books.

And the first vampire series I fell in love with is Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. My love of these books started with the movies, which is pretty much the safe route to go so you won't go getting all mad and riled up like I do when the movie doesn't measure up to the awesomeness of the book. But anyway, I still think Interview With The Vampire is a pretty great movie; Queen of the Damned, however, not so much. I am still working on this series too, but need to get caught back up since I haven't read them in a long time.

My favorite author of all time is James Herriot. He was a veterinarian that wrote books about his times being a vet in Yorkshire, England. He introduces you to different characters he encounters, his family, friends, and the various animals he took care of as a vet. Very good reads for people of any age!

Mystery novels are my favorite genre of reading material. Agatha Christie is the Queen of Mystery, in my book and lots of others. I have read so many of her books and still have a ton before I could even fathom being finished! I was even played Mrs. Boyle in the play The Mousetrap in middle school! ha ha ha This is where my love of her books began anyway, not my acting career. This is not considered a series, but some of the detectives and their backgrounds are used many times throughout her work.

Okay, I'm running out of steam on this post so I'll just end it with the book I'm currently reading: Animal Farm. I really dislike all things political but Phil got me this book cause it's one of his favorites, so I decided I could get through it. I am finding that I am actually enjoying this read! It suprises me a lot, but I am looking forward to relaxing and reading this book right now! It's pretty fitting too with all the politicallyness stuff going on right now... but I don't want to get into that!

Happy Reading!

Lucky Animals Love Cupcakes!

So I finally finished reading the Michael J. Fox book, “Always Looking Up”. It was like a rundown of all that has happened in the last 10 years since he wrote “Lucky Man”. You don’t have to read “Lucky Man” to understand this book, but he does refer to it some. The book is divided into 4 parts: Work, Politics, Faith, and Family. The majority of the book is on Politics, which I am not a big fan of, but he made it interesting in the fact that it was about him promoting stem cell research for Parkison’s Disease. My favorite part of the book is the one on Family. I think it interests me most because it’s like getting a glimpse of a celebrity’s life behind all the cameras and shows they are all like the rest of us. Michael J. Fox is very knowledgeable about the disease he is afflicted with and is not afraid to make fun of himself. He is a pretty witty guy throughout the book and I would definitely recommend people to read it.

I am now starting to read George Orwell's "Animal Farm". I had read part of it in high school as part of a requirement, but never got the chance to read the whole thing. Phil got me the book for Valentine's Day cause it is one of his faves.

I watched the movie “I Love You, Man” for the first time this week! It was hilarious! Now I finally understand some of the quotes I hear my friends talking about like “Totally… Totes McGotes”! Good stuff there. I need to share this movie with Phil because it has The Hulk in it and we are a little obsessed with all things Hulk, more so him than me.

Please go vote for Dorothy, from Kitchen Koala's, cupcakes at I ♥ Cuppycakes! They are caramel Irish cream cupcakes and look so pretty! You can see her post on them here.

My Worst Break-up Ever

I have been a little preoccupied lately. A very big event happened in my life this past Saturday, and it took up most of my time and thoughts preparing for it: March 13th, 2010 was the fateful day that SRTA broke up with me.

Let me give you a run-down. SRTA stands for Southern Regional Testing Agency. Instead of having a National Clinical Board, someone has decided to divide all the states into their own testing regions, and they even overlap states to make it more confusing. Anyway, I decided to take this test with the mindset that if I ever moved away from West Virginia that it would be somewhere to the warmer South. Like you all know, I was pretty worried about my patient showing up for the test and qualifying. These were my main worries… And here is how my time spent with SRTA was like a relationship:

• A relationship starts off with a hope, just like me preparing for this test and hoping for success for my future career.

• In the beginning of a relationship there is always a little worry that the guy doesn’t like you as much as you like him. This is like my worry that my patient wouldn’t work out.

• In a relationship, there should be butterflies in your stomach whenever you see that special someone, just like I had on my “date” with SRTA that March 13th.

• In a good relationship there are times when there is smooth sailing and everything is happy, as it was when my patient arrived the day of the board exam AND qualified!

• In a relationship there are ups and downs. One such down in my relationship with SRTA was that I had forgot to fill out part of a form, but it was nothing that I couldn’t apologize for and correct. And this had no bearing on my final score.

• At the end of a date in a relationship, there are those butterflies and questions like “Did he think it went as well as I thought it just did?”. This is how I felt after my clinical board.

• There is a time in a relationship where you are comfortable with the situation and who you are with. After I took the clinical part of this exam, I also had to take an electronic portion. I came out of this part thinking it was ridiculously easy.

• In a not-so-good relationship sometimes the person leads you on. Monday morning I checked my SRTA account to find out I had a big ole “PASS” typed out on the screen before me. This just confirmed my previous feelings of comfort.

• In a relationship you can be dumped. This is what SRTA did to me Monday evening when I found out I failed my clinical portion of the exam. My heart was broken.

This is me after I found out SRTA dumped me. Like what I've done with my hair?

• At the end of a relationship you can be sad and sometimes mad at who broke up with you. I was mad! I feel like SRTA lied to me and about me, and also sold me false promises of hope during my time with it. I was also sad because all the hard work I put into the relationship was now null and void. I talked to my girlfriends about this exam and they backed me up like good friends do. There were 6 of us in the same relationship and SRTA broke up with 4 of us and kept its 2 favorites (sort of The Bachelor-ish). We came together and shared our stories after the final rose, I mean after the exam was over. It makes me feel better to know I have people to go through this with me, but that also makes me feel really bad cause I don’t want any of us to fail. We all are good at what we do and can’t help that the judges grading us couldn’t see the same thing. It doesn’t help that I added up my score and found out I got a 74.75%, only 0.25% away from passing. Another girl got the same score, which makes us a little skeptical.

So now it’s time to start a new relationship with a SRTA in a different school. I have to pay another $915 (ridiculous! SRTA is only dating me for my money!) not to mention go through the turmoil of finding another board patient that would be willing to come to WVU to be screened and then be able to go to Bridgemont Community & Technical College in Montgomery, WV on April 30th. And so my life continues to be stressful for at least another couple months, and I feel bad for Phil having to put up with the moods I have during this process. He’s a trooper though, and at least I know he is my everlasting relationship.

A Cat Jumped On My Face!

I was thinking I was going to actually blog all this Sunday evening after Phil left, but he is not feeling too well tonight so I sent him to bed with Ibuprofen at 7:30pm! I hope this means he'll feel better in the morning and will want to get up earlier than usual to do something fun!

Since you all read about how bad last week was, I tried to be very optimistic this week! And it did make a difference... I found a board patient Thursday! This makes me feel a million times better! I just hope they are reliable and will show up! It would be nice to have a back-up patient too for just about that reason alone, because I am almost 100% certain they meet all the requirements to be my board patient.

That brings me to today, well last night too, cause Adam came to visit me! We spent the day together today and went to eat Indian food for lunch! It was so great to be able to just talk and have someone listen and to know they care! Not like I don't have anyone else around me that cares, but Adam has been my #1 best friend for a very long time and he just understands me, and I him. Out of our talks came the title of today's blog, in case you were wondering! Adam told me this and it cracked me up, but also made me want to start my cat farm more than ever!

While Adam was here, he started talking about making a Bucket List. I had actually considered it before, and have made my "Things to do before I'm 35" list, but he made me excited to actually start this new list. I also LOVE watching that show on MTV called "The Buried Life". So I thought that when I come up with an idea, I would just add it to a list on the side-column on this page! Go look for the beginnings of it now!

Almost 5 minutes after Adam left today, Phil pulled in. He wasn't himself really and it concerned me. He said he hadn't felt good since yesterday but just thought it was because he was having a hard day at work. But he still doesn't feel well. We did end up going to the mall to see "Alice in Wonderland" and he made it through. Once we got back to my place though, he went to bed like I stated above.

Now with my review of "Alice in Wonderland"! I thought it was great! We went to see the 3D version, but to tell you the truth I would like it just the same in 2D. The story is the same one we grew up knowing, but the special effects and acting was great! Johnny Depp was, of course, amazing! The acting made me forget they weren't the actual characters. I would recommend that you go see it. Very colorful. There was only one questionable part of the movie that made me think "why did they do it that way?" and seemed kind of out of place with the time period of the movie. I won't ruin it for you though!

Have a great weekend everyone!

I won't be late for this important date!

Okay, who else is super-excited to see Alice in Wonderland like me?! I feel like I have been waiting for this movie to come out forever and finally it is here! This movie has Anne Hathaway as The White Queen, Helena Bonham Carter as The Red Queen, and of course Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter.

This Friday (March 5th) it will be in theatres and I am going to definately be there. It just so happens that Phil will be in town and so will my best friend, Adam! So I am going to drag them along. I actually might not have to force Phil to go to this movie. He and I have talked about it before and it seems he may actually be interested. There are few movies Phil and I have watched together that a) he hasn't fallen asleep halfway through, and b) we both enjoyed. The movies I talk about are The Incredible Hulk and The Hangover.

Sidenote: Do you know why the Mad Hatter was mad? It was because of mercury poisoning. Hat makers used mercury to make the felt used for the hats. Now ya know! I learned this tidbit of info during my board review class when I was supposed to be learned dental hygiene stuff...

Sink or Swim

It all comes down to this: I have my clinical dental hygiene boards coming up (March 13) and have less than 2 weeks to find a patient, and hopefully a back-up patient as well. These boards are super expensivo, meaning $1,040! And if don't find a patient, or have a patient that doesn't qualify, then I lose all that money and have to figure out how and where I'm going to take the boards again and pay the money again. They are so hard to find a patient for because there are so many requirements needed for the patient:

1. They cannot be allergic to Latex.
   
2. If they need to take a pre-med before having their teeth cleaned, they have to bring in a note from their physician.


3. They have to have most of their teeth with no extensive periodontal problems.


4. They cannot have a lot of cavities.


5. They have to have so much tartar on their teeth in just the right places.


6. The patient has to come in to be screened (once), come in early in the morning on a Saturday and be able to stay for an extended period of time for the actual exam (twice), and finally come in again for me to finish cleaning their teeth if they want (three times, I'm out).

So I've been trying my hardest to find this diamond in the rough with no avail. It doesn't help that it keeps on snowing here! *Patients hear that snow is coming and cancel their appointments days in advance.* I feel like I'm living in a frickin' snow globe!

On a more optimistic note, Monday is the start of a new week and [hopefully] the start of good things to come! And when I have this all over and done with, it's smooth sailing to graduation!

If anyone is around the Morgantown area, hasn't had their teeth cleaned in awhile, and can come see me in the next 2 weeks, let me know! And a big thanks to my friends and family who have been trying to help me out! You have no idea how much it means to me!

Going for the Gold

I haven’t blogged for a while, but during the whole snow-in I blogged a lot so I figured I am even. I have been sorta busy the last week. We had a stupid Dental Law Exam yesterday. And I am probably calling it stupid because I failed it the first go around, but it was stupid. It was a free exam, as in no money needed, except that since I failed it the first time and had to pay $20 so I could take it again. I could take it again immediately after I failed it. I could look at what answers I missed (I missed 3 that were true/false), then take the same exact test immediately after. I passed, of course, the second time but they got my damn money. Roomie and I thought we deserved a pedicure after this stupid exam. Now I have pretty purple toenails with a flowers on them. It’s nice to know that something so simple can make me so happy.

As you can see I changed my layout. Thanks to Miranda for giving me the html for the 3-column design! I changed my background too. Thanks to Jennifer and Angie for leading me to it! I have always thought that I wanted to learn how to quilt. I LOVE QUILTS! My great-great grandmother had made me a quilt when I was a baby and Phil’s grandmother quilts all the time. Maybe I’ll ask her if she’ll teach me. I think it would be better than my attempts at knitting. I only knitted ¼ of a scarf then lost interest and forgot how.

I went home last weekend and went bowling for a family birthday party. This was a new experience to bowl with the family because we usually just sit around, eat, and play board games. My 2 ½ year old cousin is getting so big! Everyone was around eating birthday cake when she says “I am so happy to see all of you today!” and then preceded to say everyone’s name! Too cute! It’s not like Phil and I get to see her very often so when she said our names ,with no prompting, it melted my heart. Valentine’s Day was great too! Phil went the “semi-homemade” route like I did and put together a picture album of picture of us together. He also got me the book “Animal Farm” (one of his faves) so I could read it too. I had painted him a mug at The Wow Factory with fishes on it. And I put a little furry little “Luv Puff” stuffed animal inside.

So I have been watching very little of the Olympics. Every time I turn the TV onto the channel, it is going to a commercial. And me hating commercials most of the time (thanks to at-home TiVo usage) likes to turn the channel and watch multiple shows at one time. So by the time one show grabs my attention, I forget about the Olympics. I did watch all of the opening ceremony. KD Lang was Awesome with a capital A. And I loved the tree scene with all the people dancing. I have caught a few curling “matches” but have not been able to figure out the scoring or anything. I refuse to look up the rules because I like trying to figure it out. Info Tidbit: The 2002 Winter Olympics is where I first heard Josh Groban sing and have been hooked ever since.

Roomie and I watched “The Hangover” for the second time on Thursday. That movie cracks me up with everything that each character says. This makes it one of my favorite movies of all time. I still wanna know where the chicken came from. We rented “The Time Travelers Wife” at Blockbuster yesterday and watched it. It was soooo good! It got kinda confusing, but in a good way that keeps you thinking. Tonight we watched “Julie & Julia” and I loved that movie too! It is what inspired me to blog right now! We are watching so many movies now because I brought my DVD player from home!

I think that is all I had to catch up on… I’ll need to remember this for next time and won’t make my posts so long! Have a good week!