chicago crazies

Background: I am currently a senior in college, so I've applied to optometry graduate schools (short, sweet, and to the point). I'm at the stage in my journey where I've been hearing back from the schools requesting I grace them with my presence for an interview. So far, I have completed four out of six total requests (still waiting to hear back from one place that isn't rolling admissions), which is way over my goal of two(!!!).

This past weekend, I went to Chicago. It was my first real time in Chicago (I've been to the airport before, but only for a few hours on a layover to Minnesota, where I smashed my face on the gelato counter because I leaned too far forward trying to look at the flavors). Anyways, it was quite the experience.

Prior to my trip, I had been wearing myself thin (metaphorically, of course. I've been eating so much that I'm surprised that I haven't gained 20 lbs this semester). Traveling to and from other interviews in Texas and Pennsylvania from the previous Thursday until Tuesday, staying up late and getting up early to study for my exam that I thought was Wednesday but was actually Thursday (the Philly airport's WiFi was being difficult so I was already behind), taking care of my sick roommate because I love her, sweating like a madman in my painting class because either the AC is broken or my professor is cold blooded, and leaving class early to pack for my Thursday afternoon flight were only a few of the crazy things I've had to deal with this past week. I was stressed coming into Chicago, putting me in a cranky mood for my flights (plus the fact that I had to leave my roommate to battle her cold by herself was upsetting #momstatus).

Sidenote: this was the first round-trip, layovers included, I have ever gone on by myself

As I was making my way down the removable hallway (not sure what they're called, but they are the tunnels that connect from the airport to the plane that are usually really cold or really hot), I got a terrible whiff of the unfortunate combination of stale alcohol and body odor. I wasn't the only one, the guy in front of me asked me if I too thought it smelled awful (after asking if I went to U of I even though I was wearing W&M sweatpants, whatevs). Luckily the plane smelled better, until I got to my seat. Of course I would be sitting by the source of the smell, not to mention the fact that he was so large that his stomach was spilling into my seat both under and above the armrest. Any hope of using my left armrest vanished (just like the man sitting next to me in the terminal when I took a bite of my apple and squirted juice on him, oops). I kept telling myself that it was only a 2 hour flight and that it would be ok. By the end of the flight, my neck was so cramped from leaning away from my neighbor that I was afraid I would be stuck in that position for a while. I was so ready to stand up, but as soon as the seat belt light went off, the large lady in the seat across the isle from me was already standing in what would have been my spot/what was my comfort zone. Here's where the claustrophobia kicked in. I no longer could use the isle space to lean away from my neighbor. Instead, I had to shrink down in my seat to avoid contact with either of them. Twenty minutes later we were finally deplaning. We made our way to baggage claim, and holy taxi there was so much traffic. Luckily my friend who lives in Chicago was driving so I didn't have to worry about getting hit by a stray car behind the wheel. Instead of the usual 45 minutes to get back to her place, it took well over two hours. But whatevs, we were bonding and singing and having a great time! Unfortunately I had to go to the bathroom, but I didn't pee my pants which was a plus.

So that was long winded, I'll just list the rest of my...bummer accounts because this blog post would easily turn into a novel if I elaborated on all of them.

I was late for my interview because the traffic was ridiculous.
The man behind the desk kept calling my friend and I "lady friends" and "girlfriends" ...awk.
I was so tired during the entire time at ICO, I just wanted to go home.
The 45 minute trip back to my friend's house actually took 2.5 hours (not to mention I almost peed in her car).
On the airplane from Chicago to Charlotte, this airport man made me check my baggage, when there was clearly enough room on the plan for me to store it in the overhead compartment.
There was a mechanical issue on the plane, delaying the flight over an hour. I was sitting on that plane for so long. Luckily I was sitting beside this very small Asian woman instead of a large stinky man.
When I finally arrived back home, I quickly discovered that my suitcase didn't make it with me. I had to wait until past 11 that night for them to deliver it to my room (when all I wanted to do was sleep/go to my friend's birthday party).

This post seems a bit complainy, but I haven't mentioned the point. Even though all of these unfortunate  events seemed to keep accumulating for me, my attitude towards them wasn't what it would normally be. Usually, I'd just get all mopey and unpleasant. This time, I didn't even mind (especially dealing with being late to my interview). Hearing everyone on the airport complain about not getting to bring onboard their carry-ons and having to wait for what seemed like forever on the plane that didn't have air-conditioning, I was surprised that I didn't have those same thoughts (even though I had to be in Charlotte for my connecting flight). I was filled with a sense of peace that whole weekend, a peace that was definitely not from myself, but from God. Philippians 4:13 has never proved to be more true in my life. It says, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Going into this weekend, I had no strength. No matter what I tried to do, drink coffee, go to bed early, I just couldn't attain that energy that I needed to get through the weekend. I asked for strength from my God, and He delivered. There is no other explanation. Sure, sometimes I have doubts, but instances like these are why I cling to my faith. Jesus provides even in the craziest situations, and nobody can convince me otherwise.

tommy can you hear me

When I was a little girl, my dad introduced me to music. We jammed/danced to James Taylor, Elton John, The Beatles, and most memorably, The Who. On the way back from the beach the other day, I found one particular album on his ipod - Tommy. For those of you who aren't familiar with this rock opera, it is about a little boy whose father went missing during the war and never saw his child. Because of influence from the mother and the mother's lover, the child becomes deaf, dumb, and blind. Eventually, he becomes a pinball hero. It sounds silly, and it is, but it is a brilliantly compiled album and I highly recommend it.

Before you go judging the content, just think about the last song that you listened to. I can guarantee the lyrics are better than most out there now. I'll leave you with some song lyrics that really speak to my soul.

"When he come up in da club he be blazin' up, got stacks on deck like he savin' up."
-sounds like a nice, wholesome fellow

"I'll trade my soul for a wish, pennies and dimes for a kiss"
-my soul is worth way more than a wish, ijs

"Gettin' drunk of the thought of you naked."
-I don't think that feeling you have is "drunk"...

"Told myself you were right for me, but felt so lonely in your company, but that was love and it's an ache I still remember."
-talk about run-on sentences. Ok why do all these singer/songwriters stay in awful relationships? I'm not tryna have a relationship with people who make me feel lonely when they're with me

"I just thought we could find new ways to fall apart"
-why in the WORLD would you want to do that

" ..... " just the entire Starships song...wut did I just listen to ? Or any Nicki Minaj song...? wuuut

What has this music industry turned into...

crazy man with a pregnant wife

My art professor's phone rings in class.
"Hold on, my wife was supposed to give birth yesterday, let me check if it is her. Yes, it is. I'm going to quickly finish explaining this exercise and I'll call her back."

Me: "Or you answer it now."
Rest of the class: "Yeah..."

I can't believe I ordered my professor to do something...

He answered the phone.

lol

the very best

I'm the kind of person who gets really emotional about things (i.e. basically EVERYTHING makes me cry - sad, happy, scary, you name it) so if I shed a few tears while writing this post, you'll have to deal/you won't even know because you're looking at a computer screen and not my face.

So last semester I was kind of a mess - a super emo kid who wasn't happy with anything, mega complainer (at least in my head and to Marisa), bump on a log, pothole in the road, every single red light on Monticello and Richmond Rd...combined... You get the picture.

Over winter break, I went to Passion. [Background: Passion is this super huge christian conference where tons and tons of college-aged students go to Atlanta to listen to talks, jam to some awesome worship music, have discussion groups, etc.] OMG (literally). It was so good. I learned so much about myself and so much about my God. With Him, ALL things are possible. I knew it before, but my experience with Passion absolutely made it a much more tangible thing to grasp. In summary: YAY!!!

Ever since then, I've just been in this phenomenal mood. So excited and happy and joyful, basically all of the good emotions. I am really enjoying all of my classes and professors (I decided I liked them all BEFORE they gave me chocolate covered espresso beans and cookies...excellent course evals here we come). Also I'm RUNNING AGAIN!!! After my foot...incident..., my abilities to run (or even walk for that matter) were vastly hindered. Thwarted no longer! I'm mega out of shape but that is soon to change (cue tears...wow told you I was lame). You know what? Not everything has been the best, but I still had this great attitude about everything. It's so cool and awesome and God is good! Another thing, I AM NOW A DECLARED ART MAJOR!!! Along with bio, but whatever. Art is my jam, so excited, so excited (more tears) SO EXCITED ahhhhhh!

So lolz at what I just wrote. SO MUCH JOY I wanted to share with the WORLDDDDDDDDDDDDD id rather date a spider or a rat den u

You may be thinking, "Wow, Katie. You are a freak." and you know what? Words can't bring me down!

:D

disaster strikes at panera

Today, I drove some friends to Panera (Oh, PS I can have a little bit of gluten now! yay). I  figured that I should maybe branch out and try something besides my usual - the chicken caesar sandwich (sometimes with broccoli and cheese soup). I saw that the steak and cheese panini looked promising, so I decided to give it a whirl.

Just in the first bite, something seemed off. It tasted like a sicky-sweet version of horseradish, which could only mean one thing: a mayonnaise-based spread.

Omg.

But I couldn't freak out or anything, I had to be calm and collected so the girls would trust me to give them a ride back to campus. I needed to be a good example, I couldn't be all complaining and whiney. That's just not cool. So I decided to suck it up and eat the rest of the sandwich. Mistake.

"Keep calm, Katie. You'll be ok. Be a big girl, it'll be alright," I told myself over and over. It was very difficult to hear my reassuring words since my mind was a whirlwind of chaos and destruction.

I couldn't finish the whole sandwich, it was too awful. I just felt my arteries clogging and my world coming to an end. I finally made it back to campus..

As soon as I got to my room, I told my roommate the horrible news. I was almost in tears. She suggested that I brush my teeth, which would seem like the logical thing to do. But no. Not when that awful taste lingered in my mouth and down my throat, which, btw, felt like it was closing up (it was probably just the excessive coating of lard drowning my esophagus). I was not about to contaminate my tooth brush. I finally just brushed my teeth because I couldn't stand myself anymore, but that didn't help the taste go away (or rid me from the feeling of self loathing). The only thing I could think of besides getting mouth-throat-stomach replacement surgery that would help soothe the pain was to swallow mouthwash. It helped, but now, four hours later, I still feel contaminated, violated, unclean. When will this feeling ever go away? Days? Weeks? Months? YEARS?!?

After basically my whole life of being terrified and outright disgusted by mayonnaise, I finally eat a sandwich with mayo on it. What did I learn? That I was correct in thinking mayonnaise was an evil that should be avoided at all costs, including the privilege to go out to eat with your friends. They say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, but I question the validity of that statement since the past four hours I've been miserable, and I'm not sure if I can ever heal from this experience. I'll manage.

Hopefully.

the horrors of losing teeth

If I could erase one thing from my childhood, one thing that I never would have had to go through in my juvenile years, I'm pretty sure I'd choose losing my teeth. Sure, at first it was alright, but as soon as I ate that first meal after my tooth was gone and got a corn chip stuck in the tender wound, it was no longer an exciting step into big-kid land. It was torture. Not even the tooth fairy's money could make up for that kind of agony.


You know what? I can't even remember losing my first tooth it was THAT BAD. Erased from my memory, gone.

When I was in third grade, I lost a tooth that came with more pain than it should have. I was swinging in between two desks in my old second grade teacher's classroom, when I slipped and landed flat on my face. Blood was everywhere, the wind was knocked out of me, and one of my teeth was lying on the floor next to me. No stitches, but the next day I had a pretty sick fat lip. Just in time for picture day, nice.

Five of my teeth were pulled by the dentist. Now, getting teeth pulled is awful. It means your grown up teeth aren't ready to come in yet, leaving the fresh pink gum vulnerable for even more time - more opportunities for corn chips to stab you. I remember one of the teeth that the dentist pulled sailed over my head behind the counter. Great. Not only do I have this tender gash in my mouth, but the tooth fairy wouldn't even pay me full amount.

The worst thing about losing teeth is that there is no pleasant way to do it. You can yank it out before it is ready, but then it bleeds a lot and you have this open wound in your mouth for longer than it's worth. Or, you can wait until it falls out on its own, but then every time you eat apples or corn on the cob you risk bending the tooth in the wrong direction, causing pain or early removal of the tooth. Nothing involving the loss of teeth is joyous; it's a lose-lose-lose situation.

I hated pulling out my own teeth. My cousin, Amanda, would sometimes stay with us during the summer, so I got her to pull out numerous teeth. I think our guests were weirded out when they'd come over to find me laying in Amanda's lap full of bloody paper towels and a pile of teeth on the coffee table next to us. I think our record was three in one day.

From second grade to seventh grade I looked forward to the day where I'd lose my last tooth. I was in Finish Line at the mall getting ready to buy a new pair of sneakers. As the lady went to get my size, the tooth came out. It was a premature loss, so the blood flew. Luckily for me, my mom had a stash of napkins in her purse. Unfortunately, the only means of disposal for the bloody tissues was a see-through plastic bag. When the lady came back, I was holding bloody tissues in one hand, my tooth in the other, had a bloody tissue in my mouth, and my mother was holding the see-through bag of bloody tissues. Poor lady.

The day that wound was healed was a joyous day, never again would I have to go through the horrifying experience of losing a tooth EVER AGAIN. Then, four years later, came the day I had to get my wisdom teeth cut out.

Getting your wisdom teeth removed is the pinnacle of tooth loss. Rather than just days before you could eat the chips and salsa at the Mexican restaurants, you have to wait WEEKS, sometimes even longer than a month. My diet consisted of jello, yogurt and Ramen (preparing me for college?). When that experience was over. I thought to myself THIS TIME, never again. And I was right. Sort of.

Some time during high school, I started having these horribly realistic dreams about losing my teeth. Once, for example, I was in Walmart waiting for my friend to check out. While I was waiting, I reached in my mouth and pulled out two of my molars that were stuck to each other along with some barnacles. You'd be surprised (...or not) to hear that that was one of the tamer tooth-losing dreams. Time after time, I'd have all of these dreams about my teeth just falling out or becoming absurdly loose. Normally, I'm cool with my dreams because they are so outrageously crazy that I know they aren't real. The teeth dreams, though, seem more realistic than life itself. I was talking to one of my friends about them, and she told me that when you have dreams about losing teeth, you feel like you're losing control of your life. I'm a super stressed out person all the time, so I think it's a valid point. In a few days, I'm going to take the Optometry Admissions Test, so of course last night I dreamt that I was still losing baby teeth (the still having baby teeth dreams aren't as bad as the losing permanent teeth dreams...). I woke up counting the teeth in my mouth, making sure they were all there.

They were.