Good bye 2010, hello 2011!

Today is the last day of 2010. I do this thing every year where I can't possibly imagine that the year is over because when I was at the beginning of it, I was thinking that next year will never come and that time moves so slowly! However, in the blink of an eye, time has flashed forward and here we are at the point that we prepare to greet a new year.

This year has been full. Very full. I spent 10+ months in Boone and in a classroom (summer school = fun. not.) which gave me a fantastic summer weather-wise...but not so much life-wise (Jon was the only "life" I had outside of school). I spent 1/4 of the year snowed in (or it at least felt like I was). I went longer than that without seeing grass...or even the ground. White stuff (i.e.: snow) was my blanket for weeks at a time. I finished my fall semester with a mere 14 credits remaining in my undergraduate career. Made it on the dean's list both semesters (the summer sessions don't count) this year. I have cooked and baked until I was blue in the face (figuratively)...and this pleased Jon greatly (the cooking and baking part). I have worked to save lives and make people feel better (and perhaps I've done well with that). Lastly, but definitely the most exciting, I got engaged to my wonderful, amazing, handsome, adorable and sweet (now) fiancé yesterday. :-)

Exciting news!

I have some exciting news!

11 days and counting...

As I sit here, I can't help but to think that school starts in just 11 days. And in just 11 days, I will begin the final semester of my undergraduate career! Now that is exciting! I have the lightest course load I have ever had in college this semester: 14 credit hours. Here's what I'm taking...

• Principles of Learning -- A psychology class about the basics of learned behaviors and the learning process.
• Child and Adolescent Psychology -- Another psychology class that looks at the psychological, physical, cognitive and social development of children from birth through their adolescence period.
• Health and Fitness -- This is one of those "required" classes for physical education...the good thing is I should be quite good with most of the stuff (according to Jon, who has already taken that class).
• US and Canada -- That's what it's called. It's a geography class and I think that will serve me very well in my future career endeavors.
• State and Local Government -- This, along with the geography class, completes the requirements for my concentration (social sciences). I think this will also serve me well in my future career endeavors.

And that's my final semester in a nut-shell. The way my schedule works, I don't have class before 11am and I don't have any Friday classes! :) I will likely be continuing research in "Fat Talk" with the head of the graduate department for psychology. I'm looking forward to that, as well.

Once I get through my first classes, I'll give you an update on how I think the semester will go. Until then, I'll enjoy the thought that my final semester will be a very easy one and I'll breeze right through to graduation in May! :)

Some notes on cardiac arrest

When I work in the field as a paramedic, there are many strange things that I come across. Strange things in relation to a cardiac arrest situation are no different. Here are a few things I've noted that are funny (though not in the circumstance) that made me take a step back when I got there:

Here's the picture: dispatched out to a 70 year old man in a nursing home..."cardiac arrest". We get there and the patient is, indeed, in cardiac arrest. He is on the bed (which has little cushioning...but it not a firm surface in the least bit) and the staff are doing "chest compressions". Instead of really doing chest compressions, all they are doing is pushing the guy into the bed and letting him bounce back up. No compression of the chest is occurring -- just a lot of bouncing.

This is useless. You can bounce the patient to high-heaven...but unless you compress their chest to squish (really technical terms here) their heart between the sternum and spinal column, you are not going to get a pulse back. Sorry. Compress the chest and there's a chance.

Cooking, cooking...always cooking

Mom and Dad LOVE it when I come home from school on my breaks to work. Why? Because I cook. A lot. And bake. A lot. Of the few full days that I have been home, I have spent most of them (like 75% of them) in the kitchen. So, here's what I've been doing:


Hibachi chicken:
I made this for the first time a few weeks ago when I was back at school (you can find the post here). I made it for Mom and Dad...with a few leftovers for me to take to work. They seemed to enjoy it because when I got home from work the next day, there was none left.


Mint chocolate chip cookies:
Yummy! I have been enjoying making these delicious cookies for my "goodie plates" for my grandparents and my boyfriend's parents. Mom and Dad have enjoyed eating them as well. You can find the recipe for that here at AllRecipes.com. If you like mint chocolate chip ice cream, you'll like these. (By the way, the "mint" extract is peppermint extract.)


Pumpkin crunch:
This is a delicious recipe that I got from my former roommate's mom (who loves to cook...and is fantastic at it!). I couldn't tell you where she got it so I can't give the "proper" credit...but here's the recipe for that:

I didn't fall off the face of the earth...

...though I certainly feel like I've gotten close to the edge. Since my last post, I have been buried in work...and, as of today, I am buried in SNOW. I'm not pleased. I mean, really, I have seen enough snow for the season in Boone (already...and yes, I know more is coming) and now, I have about 5 inches dumped on me here in the Raleigh area (and it's STILL snowing). I really feel like I'm back in Boone. I came home to get a break from the cold weather and white stuff. That has obviously not happened. :(

So, my last week has gone something like this:

I have been baking like crazy on my two days off (Monday and Wednesday). I made some yummy goodies: mint chocolate chunk cookies and pumpkin crunch. I'll likely share those in a later post. I have gotten good reviews on the cookies...but none on the pumpkin crunch (don't think it's been tried yet). I tried it and decided it tasted pretty good. I gave a plate of baked goodies to my grandparents and to my boyfriend's parents as a Christmas gift. (I have a difficult time coming up with things to purchase...but I can come up with things to bake or make, so that's what I generally do.) As I write this, I am eating a nutritious and delicious breakfast of those cookies. Yum! (Church is canceled and I'm going on the assumption that Christmas, part 5, is also canceled/postponed. So, here I sit, in bed, on the computer, updating you on my life...)

I worked two 24-hour shifts this week. One was done the standard way (come on in the morning and get off the next morning) while the other was done in reverse (come on in the evening and get off the next evening). I like the reverse for many reasons: I don't feel so rushed when I am getting ready and heading into work and the fact that when I get off, it's really bedtime so I can go to sleep and not have to worry about sleeping all day (those are the main two). However, the major downside is that if you have a bad night, it's the first thing that happens so you know you'll be up for 24 hours (or more if you're not likely to take a nap before you go into work, like me). Monday night-->Tuesday night shift was pretty simple. Nothing too major to worry about. Thursday morning-->Friday morning was very rough. Difficult calls (emotionally and physically) and difficult patients. I was glad to see the end of my shift on Friday. However, my day was not even close to over...

Bring in Christmas celebration, part 1: I came home from work, showered and cleaned myself up from the mess I had become over the previous 24 hours only to leave the house again for another 12 hours (all on about an hour of sleep or so). I picked up my amazing boyfriend who agreed to accompany me on the rounds to the grandparents' houses again this year (he must love me if he agrees to put up with my crazy family). We went to lunch with Dad's Mom at Ruby Tuesday's. We went back to her home and everyone opened gifts.

There was a small break between parts 1 and 2: Christmas Eve service at church. I played paramedic (or was at least at the ready) during the service simply because I can't seem to get enough of it.

Part 2: Mom's Dad's house...with all his wife's family there too. You must understand that this is a small house. When you put my grandparents, my parents, my brother, his girlfriend, her son, me, Jon and my uncle all in there...there's not much other room. We had appetizer-types of food for dinner there. We stuck around for about 2 hours. I was getting really tired and needed to get home for some sleep. So, we left, I returned Jon to his parents' home and I came home, crawled in bed and crashed.

Part 3: Christmas Day with Mom and Dad. This was probably the shortest of all the celebrations/gift opening sessions. Mom and Dad finally got up around 8am and we opened gifts. I had to finish getting ready and leave soon thereafter to head out for part 4...

Part 4: By far...the best part. I spent the day with my amazing boyfriend and his family. I am thankful for his/their hospitality and allowing me to join them on Christmas Day and celebrate with them. We had an absolutely delicious meal prepared by Jon's mother: turkey and rice and green beans and rolls and potatoes. It was so delicious! Jon surprised me with a beautiful locket necklace. He did not put pictures in there (slacker) so I need to find some to put in there...but it is gorgeous and I love it! To top off the evening, it had started snowing by the time I left his house. (Now, there are several inches on the ground.)

Part 5: Was supposed to take place today...not sure when that is going to happen now. It was supposed to be at Mom's Mom's house. I doubt it will happen today simply because Mom and Dad are afraid of the snow...haha.

This coming week: lunch date with Heather-bear, work on Tuesday night...and (saddest of all) preparing for Jon to leave the country for a few days to go visit family in Canada.

Christmas break!

Well, it's finally here! Christmas break! It came two days later than expected (thankyouverymuch snow/ice/stupid winter weather to push exams back two days). BUT...it's now here. I got home (I still call the Raleigh area "home" even though I really feel like I just come here to visit and Boone is truly my home) Wednesday evening after Jon finally finished his last exam (:-P). Thanks to my professors, I finished up even earlier than I would have had the exams happened as scheduled...

My film "exam" (really, a presentation/pilot pitch for a television series) was originally scheduled for Monday at 9am. As of the Friday before (December 10) was moved to Wednesday (December 15) at 9am because of the impending winter storm. Well, the storm hit and canceling was the right move (just seemed silly to do it so far out). With the way the weather was behaving, my professor emailed our class on Monday afternoon and said to email our presentation and film clip of our pitch to her instead of attempting to come to class to present it there. Score. One out of the way.

My history and systems exam was also supposed to be on Monday at 6pm but was moved to Wednesday, along with the film exam. My professor emailed the class on Saturday and said that he was going to post the exam online and we were to complete it and submit it to him by 10am on Tuesday. This test was now open book and open note. Again...score.

Trouble with exams

As luck would have it, the winter is already being problematic. Last weekend, we had quite the snow storm with some lovely ice mixed in there. As a result, the first two blocks of classes on Monday were canceled as well as everything after 5pm. I had to leave town that afternoon to appear in court and I'm glad I didn't stick around for my 3pm class as the weather seemed to quickly deteriorate after I left at 2pm. Tuesday, the university was "open" but it was reading day so it really didn't affect anything. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were exam days and everything was held as normal.

A Grammar Lesson

Bryan Bledsoe wrote an article for JEMS.com (found here) in order to give a grammar lesson for those writing in some official capacity (i.e.: EMS run reports). I could not agree more with what he had to say. I'm going to share some of that, and add a bit more from in and outside the realm of EMS.

You don't need an English degree to understand that phrases like "LOL" or "2morrow" do not belong in any report the fills an official capacity, or even in the corporate world. These are meant solely for the purpose of text messaging between two friends. I heard the other day (from an unofficial source) that "no one" under the age of 20 is sending emails anymore but rather relying on text messaging.

The fact that young people are using grammar like this in their every day life should worry the professional world. We don't need this kind of thing in the workplace. But what's worse is that they don't know how to use words that they attempt to use in every day life. For example:

Staffing the ambulance

I saw a story on JEMS.com about possible staffing changes coming to Austin-Travis County EMS. (Here's the video story of that if you're interested. Here's another story about the same issue.) I have a particular interest in this EMS system. Our former assistant medical director for my place of employment is now the medical director for this system. He's been there for a little over a year now. We miss him up here, but we have a new assistant medical director trying to fill his shoes.

Anyway, the current staffing of those ambulances in A-TC is with two paramedics. A lot of places do that. A lot don't. What they are trying to move to (from what I heard in the story) is to a system with a paramedic and an EMT on each truck. Every rig will still have a paramedic on it.

Here's my take on this:

Sweet tooth and snow

I have a sweet tooth. It's a permanent condition for me. My weakness: chocolate. Hot chocolate, milk chocolate (in all forms)...yes please. (No dark chocolate, though. Too bitter for my liking.)

I like M&Ms. I like the regular one, the peanut ones and the peanut butter ones. I went to Wal-Mart this evening to get my wonderful boyfriend some food so he can survive the next few days while I am testifying in court (that will likely be another post) and not starve because he can't get out in the snow to get food. So...anyway...I found this:

I had seen the ads for these M&Ms a few months ago when they were trying to determine their "spokesperson" for the new pretzel M&Ms. Well, because of my chocolate craving today, I got some. I have to say, they are pretty good. Jon's not sure he likes them (because of the salty + sweet combination). I have to say that they are growing on me and I think I like them.  I also got some of these:

First snow of the season

Today, we are got the first (real) snow of the season. Earlier this week, we had flurries and a dusting on the ground. That was different today. I woke up this morning to a winter wonderland. There's a solid 2-3 inches on the ground. The...slightly disturbing sight of the day was watching my bus attempt to go down my hill. I'm guessing it took him about 20 minutes, at least, to get down the hill. He would momentarily let off the brakes and, after putting them back on, would slide quite a distance (at the least 10 feet every time). This was on the least steep part of the hill, too. Should be interesting when I head out tomorrow.

Side of the apartment complex

Back of the apartment complex