Big Changes Coming

Today was my last day of working at Primary Childrens Medical Center microbiology lab. It is hard to work your last day at a job you enjoy. Often when you leave a job you leave when you dislike the work environment or the people you work with or something. It is much harder when you don't dislike anything at work and really enjoy the time you spend with your coworkers.

All that just to say that it will probably be a difficult transition as we go to a city where we don't have family, friends, or coworkers already in place once we arrive. It will be good in the long run, but not necessarily easy at first.

For those who haven't heard, we're moving to Chicago in less than 2 weeks. Wow that is coming quick.

TV

I don't watch much TV. In fact, I don't even own a TV. That said, I think my favorite channel on TV is Discovery Health. The other day I was at the gym and the program playing was 'I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant' about women going into labour without knowing that they were even pregnant.

'Nuff said.

Email From an Old Friend? Not So Fast!

Last night/this morning at 12:05, I got an email from an old friend that I used to play in a band with, but who since moved to DC for school and I've barely heard a thing from him for several years. The email was addressed to contacts with names or emails starting "a" through "c".

It read as follows:

How are you doing? I am sorry, but I travelled to England for a Seminar and I am stranded here. I need a favour from you because i was robbed by a taxi driver who drove off with my bag where my money,and other valuable things were kept. I hate to bother you, but i will like you to assist me with a  loan urgently of about $2,670 USD to sort-out myself back home.
      I will appreciate whatever you can afford and i'll pay you back as soon as i return,Kindly let me know if you can be of help? so that i can send you the Details to use when sending the money through western union or money gram since that's what works here in England.

Thank you
 
Brian

There is something hilarious to me about internet scams, but I should probably facebook him to let him know his account's been hacked.

Anxiety and Excitement

So far I have had two dreams about what life will be like being in school again this fall.

In the first, I arrived at school to find that "school" was actually just some guy in his garage talking about health and medicine with nine or ten of us who I guess got duped into paying tuition. This dream did not leave me very excited about the fall.

In the second, my school was this amazing Utopian community with all white marble palaces for classrooms surrounded with beautiful green fields full of eager students walking to their classes. I know, eh? Pretty impressive. To make things even better, when I got to class, and was sitting in the crowd, I started looking around and realized that some of my best friends from over the years were sitting scattered all around me. We had a joyous reunion and were all there studying and working together. I can't imagine a happier way to start off a return to school.

Generally I don't believe dreams should be used to predict the future, but sometimes I think dreams are pretty good at pointing out the things that I am both scared silly about, and very excited about (especially when they are about things that we have yet to experience). In this case, I am scared silly about heading back to class, and also incredibly eager to start this new chapter of life.

Looking for that Receipt

Like many married couples, Janelle always wants it warmer than what I like. This means that as summer heats up, I get unbearably hot, and Janelle becomes happier. To help appease me as summer starts arriving we decided to use a Wal-Mart gift card we'd been saving and buy a fan. When it broke only a few days after we got it, I was disappointed, but not terribly so, since I knew we could get a full refund.

I unplugged the fan and asked Janelle for the receipt.

"You haven't taken out the recycling yet, right?" she asked.

"Why? Did you throw it out?"

"Yeah, I am pretty sure I did, but at least we still have it, right? It is just somewhere in our recycling."

Knowing that it just as well could have been me who tossed the receipt, I earnestly went to work this morning going through our entire garbage bag of recycling, item by item, looking for our receipt. Is it in this old olive can?, nope. Maybe stuffed in the macaroni box? Nope.

With boxes, cans and papers spread over the floor and counters, it was nowhere to be found. I called Janelle again. "Are you sure you put it in the recycling?"

"Well, not entirely. You probably won't like what I'm going to tell you, but It might be on the kitchen table in a stack of papers."

Sure enough, my baby was right. The receipt had been right there the entire time (while I was sorting through our recycling just inches away).

Armed with my receipt, I was able to return our fan for the refund. Now if only I could find a good, reliable fan.

Universal Health Care

Janelle was reading status updates on facebook earlier this evening and came across this:

"[Dr. Schauffhausen] is amazed how people think universal health care will somehow improve care. It is just a different form of insurance payments. There are actual things we can do to improve health, and I'm pretty sure insurance has nothing to do with it." {name has been changed}

As someone who knows that universal health care comes with a trade-off, but still thinks everyone should be able to see a doctor, I was really disappointed to hear this. For people in the upper half of society universal health care will not improve health care, because you are already insured. Try living without health care for a year, however, and you will know how millions of Americans live. Any health care is better than slowly dying and not being able to do anything about it.

Despite my knowledge that I will cover some of that cost, I think the trade-off is worth the peace of mind in knowing that everyone has an equal chance.

Obviously this is something I feel passionately about. If this post makes you feel like you need to say something (either side of the issue), I would like to know your thoughts (I'll try to be open-minded).