Introducing Sir Fancy!!

This is Sir Fancy. He lives with me now ever since my sister gave him to me for my birthday. She almost didn't and can you blame her? Sir Fancy is awesome!!

I thought it would be a good idea to give y'all some background info on Sir Fancy. That way, if you ever meet him, you won't have some awkward new phase to go through. You will already know a little about Sir Fancy and be able to comfortably approach him in spite of his awesome.

Sir Fancy is from England (obviously since he is knighted). As you can see from his picture, he is a very classy rabbit that enjoys wearing a top hat and a monocle. He graduated from Oxford and is currently sixteenth in line to the throne. He prefers to eat crumpets and takes two lumps of sugar in his Earl Grey tea.

Now you may be go be jealous that Sir Fancy lives with me and not you :)

The Grasshopper Conspiracy

I thought I'd take some time before my afternoon classes today to enlighten y'all on a very important topic: the Grasshopper Conspiracy.

I have a very deep and real phobia of grasshoppers known as acridophobia. In the past, I just mostly ignored it since it wasn't really a huge part of my life. However, I have since moved to an apartment out in the country and have found myself surrounded by the nasty things. This has led me to realize that there currently is a Grasshopper Conspiracy that the grasshoppers don't want you to know about. I have risked my life to bring y'all my findings on this deep seeded conspiracy plot.

Quite simply, the grasshoppers are out to get me, and possibly y'all as well. They know I am on to them and have since tried to kill me and gain access to my apartment to launch an attack. There is nothing I can do as they are apparently indestructible. Here are my reasons:

1. On two separate occasions, I have almost been run off the road by kamikaze grasshoppers. They flew at my car and lodged themselves in my windshield wipers causing fear and panic to take over. I nearly drove into the ditch, but was able to quickly roll up the windows and put the wipers on high power to eliminate the threat.

2. After both car incidents, I was greeted at my apartment by several grasshoppers sitting on my patio, waiting to avenge their lost comrades. These were the scouts, ascertaining my position in which to share with the others.

3. Several days later, I awoke to find no less than three giant grasshoppers measuring several inches in length on my patio and attached to my screen. My cat realized at this point the plot was in motion and ran to hide under the bed.

4. The grasshoppers then went into full out attack mode and on several occasions spent hours jumping repeatedly into my glass patio doors in an attempt to break through the glass and gain entrance to my apartment so the army had an in.

5. When this did not work, they returned to watch mode and are now often spotted sitting in groups, surrounding my patio and waiting for me to emerge so they can strike.

6. One large grasshopper did make it into the garage and waited by my car for me. When I returned to the garage later, I found it had been run over by another car, thus eliminating the threat for the time being.

7. One large grasshopper did gain entrance to my apartment by means unknown, but either died or was killed by my watch cat before I returned. The dead grasshopper was thus vacuumed up by me before inducing a panic attack. My sweet mom risked the grasshoppers finding out about her to come and empty the vacuum canister for me.

Now you may think that the grasshoppers are still smaller than us and thus easily disposed of by feet or poisons. This is not the cases as illustrated by these findings:

1. There are no poisons that kill full grown grasshoppers. In order to kill them, you must find out where their eggs have been laid and go after the babies. This would be an acceptable exception to my previous "don't kill baby animals" rule.

2. Grasshoppers cannot be stepped on as my mom soon found out. They are too crafty and nimble and easily avoid feet.

3. The grasshoppers know that you can't kill them and thus, the big brown ones will actually fly at you, hitting you in the head and other body parts. This is a minor attack until the reinforcements can come and finish you off.

4. Snow and frost do nothing to the grasshoppers. I was hopeful that the first frost would eliminate the grasshoppers but once the first frost and snow came and went, I observed no less than five grasshoppers on my patio and in my wood chips.

In light of all of this evidence, I can scientifically conclude that the grasshoppers are out to get me in what is now know as the Grasshopper Conspiracy. And now y'all know about it too so the grasshoppers may now be after you.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Christmas in October?

In keeping with the TV themed posts of today, I just saw Christmas Vacation is playing tonight. Really CMT? Christmas movies in October? Now I love Christmas. I am one of those people that plays Christmas music nonstop right after Thanksgiving and watches every Christmas TV special that comes on. I even leave my tree up through January and often watch Christmas movies that month too. But I mean, come on. We still have to get through Halloween and Thanksgiving!

Please don't kill baby animals

Yes, that is right. I am coming back from an almost 7 month long hiatus to tell y'all not to kill baby animals. Some background:

I have been stuck at home for the last two days due to my shitty ass neuro disease. Yesterday, I couldn't be on my feet without my legs shaking like I was in an earthquake. Today I thought I was doing ok, so a couple hours ago I took a shower and got dressed with the hopes of going to my MCAT prep course tonight. Yea, that didn't work out so well. One shower and I am down for the count again! Like I said: Shitty. Ass. Neuro. Disease. Anyway, these last two days I have had the rare opportunity to watch some daytime TV. There is nothing on daytime television so if you haven't had this opportunity, you are missing nothing.

Since I am a nerd, I have spent my daytime TV hours watching the Discovery and Animal Planet channels. Once again, I am a nerd. Well, I was mostly watching a marathon of A Haunting on the Discovery Channel (why I want to watch a show about things that scare me when I am basically immobile on the couch, I do not know), but I decided to make a detour to Animal Planet. The show was about animals that kill others of their species. I am thinking vultures, hyenas and animals picking off the old, weak ones of the herd. I was wrong - sooooo wrong!

The show was mostly about animals that kill BABIES of their species!! I lasted about five minutes of the show until I watched a male lion that had taken over a pride kill three cubs so he could get with their moms. Horrified, I quickly decided to go to the much happier subject of demonic hauntings and possessions.

Then, I decided to watch a show I have a morbid fascination with, Bizzare Foods with Andrew Zimmern. Basically this guy goes to other countries and eats the weirdest crap he can find while telling the camera how good it is. Hey, as long as I don't look when he eats the grasshoppers, I'm generally ok with being grossed out safely at home with my frozen pizza and mac and cheese. But today he went to the Phillipines and apparently the people there looooove to eat - you guessed it- BABY ANIMALS!! He ate deep fried baby chicks (whole) and steamed duck eggs that were 18 days fertilized - yea, at 18 days it looks like a baby duck.

This whole experience makes me wonder what the heck I am thinking getting into the medical field. How am I going to handle watching human babies and children die when I can't even watch March of the Penguins without bawling?? Ponder that for me.

So the moral of this post is: Please don't kill baby animals!

To end on a slightly lighter note, it snowed here this weekend. (This actually helped further my grasshopper conspiracy theory, but more on that later.) I hate snow with the fire of a thousand suns - which should melt the snow but doesn't. You'd think after almost 23 years in this state I'd be used to it but I seem to hate it more every year. So, here is an LOLCat that accurately depicts me in the coming months:

Irony

Today I got a letter from the dean of the School of Education congratulating me on winning a $1,000 scholarship for next year. Why is this ironic you may ask - well, because I have recently decided I do not want to be a teacher. The big irony is that this scholarship is given to someone who has shown dedication to the field of education and to helping underserved population and I had spent the beginning of this semester receiving several emails from the head of the department of elementary education telling me I was not good enough to be a teacher. When I finally dropped the semester, the head emailed me and told me I had made a "wise decision".

So I am not good enough, yet I am obviously committed enough to be honored with one of the largest scholarships the School of Education gives? WTF?

March Madness

It's that time of year again! I love March Madness!

I actually have a bracket in a group this year and have been checking it non-stop. After the first round, I am winning! Boo-yah!!!

Even better, Wisconsin pulled off their upset last night. Unfortunately, the winning shot was made by Trevon Hughes. He is such an arrogant asshole (this is widely known and accepted on campus). So yay Wisconsin, boo Trevon!

Bring on round two!

I am a dork.

So I had to run some errands for school today and I was once again struck by my own dorkiness. I went to Barnes and Noble to get some books I could use in creating lesson plans for third graders and I decided to wander over to one of my favorite sections, the medical books. I ended up getting a human anatomy coloring book. For fun. Yep, I am a dork.

Inconceivable!

There wasn't much on TV last night, so I found myself watching a show called Criminal Minds. After about five minutes, I realized one of the characters was played by Mandy Patinkin. I spent the next hour waiting for him to say, "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." He never did :(

How??

Ok, I know I need to blog more often and I finally found something to get me started. I watched a show on TLC tonight called "I didn't know I was pregnant". Ummm.... what?

The first lady didn't know because she didn't gain weight or feel anything. She claims she took two home pregnancy tests but that they were negative so she didn't think about it anymore. Umm, so not having your period for nine months didn't cause any concern? I think that would require a doctor's appointment where they could have told you there was a baby in you!

The second lady didn't think she could get pregnant during perimenopause so she thought all the symptoms and weight gain were from that. Once again, duh - perimenopause is when your body "preps" for menopause. You don't just have a period one month and then all of a sudden cease. There's a bit of tapering and side effects and things. Go see a doctor!!

Third lady: was obese and had not had a period for fifteen years because of it. She goes on a crash diet and loses thirty pounds. She has morning sickness, fatigue, back pain, and spotting - none of which seem to tell her to go to the doctor. Her water breaks in bed and contractions start (not that she understands any of this yet) so finally she goes to the hospital. They tell her she is pregnant but before they can figure out she is in labor, she feels like she has to go to the bathroom. That's right, she had a baby into the toliet - but this stupid lady still doesn't realize it!! The nurse leads her out while another nurse quickly attends to the baby. WTF?? Turns out, this lady has twins.

The last lady has lots of cramping and spotting and gains only a few pounds. Like the rest of the idiots, she doesn't see a doctor - after nine months of this. Even better, this one is from Wisconsin. Damn it... (edit: phew, they were from Illinois and vacationing in Wisconsin)

All of these cases could have been prevented by these women seeing a doctor. Luckily, all the babies survived and were fine. I am just ridiculously frightened that these kids are allowed to stay with these stupid women.