National Multiple Sclerosis Society Walk

So, I'm really excited b/c for the first time ever, I'm participating in a charitable walk! I always thought my first walk would be for Breast Cancer Awareness, and maybe for AIDS, since I'm a big advocate for breast cancer awareness. I have no idea why or where that came from, but maybe it all started with when my college roomie's sorority promoted Breast Cancer Awareness, and I was forced to buy a pin. ;) Incidentally, I mentioned again to BF last night that I'm doing the MS Walk on April 9th. He said, isn't that the same day as the Breast Cancer Awareness walk? I said, no way! I didn't believe him!

Well, I didn't completely NOT believe him b/c then I dug through my jewelry chest to find the pink ribbon pin to wear this AM, next to my "Team MS Walk Captain" pin and red dress/heart disease awareness in womenpin. I'm secretly trying to go for more "flare." Well, it turns out that Breast Cancer Awareness Month is October (and Heart Disease Awareness month is February). Not to mention April is Autism month, May is Better Speech and Hearing Month, and May 23 is World Turtle Day.

Turns out the BF was messing around w/ me. Seriously, I should have known, though. How would he know when Breast Cancer Awareness Day is? Anywho, so I can focus b/t now and then on the MS Walk. BTW, for more info, pls visit the other blog I frequently update, http://nsslha.blogspot.com or better yet, visit my personal MS Walk homepage!

Actually, I know this will sound cheesy, but after Monday night's NSSLHA meeting, I feel even more compelled to get as actively involved in events as I can. It's very inspirational to see when people really do care and want and do make a difference.

On a random note, I had a very cool "what a small world" event on Monday. My classmate/NSSLHA President uses the same cool MTV mug as me. I finally asked her where she got it. Turns out, my bro sent her sister a few when he used to work at MTV! Them 2 actually go way back to the UCLA/Sunset Village/Unicamp days! Haha! Very cool coincidence! Not to mention, both her and I went to UCSD (although she's a year younger than me).

A first time for everything

I totally ran on fumes today. Again, I went to bed around 3 A.M., after BF insisted I get some rest. Unfortunately, I didn't finish preparing for my Big, Small Potato's session today, so I couldn't sleep well and even DREAMT about messing the session up. I rolled outta bed at 5:20 and had a good few hours at work, despite feeling pretty gnarly in the morning. I was feeling pretty good leaving work...until I got my first stupid traffic violation!

I guess I wasn't awake nor caring about the careless pedestrians walking. Well, subconsciously (or "subcortically") I was b/c I didn't make a sharp left turn (from a one-way street onto a one-way street). In any case, I got the sirens and the stupid policeman telling me that once the pedestrians take one step onto the road, we have to stop. Maybe my Coke bottle glasses prevented me from using my peripheral vision??

Humph. Imagine my surprise in finding out that I have to go to Traffic School! (Yah, yah, when was I born? Yesterday.) Anywho, I actually had a good day at school for once. Possibly b/c I only have one class on Tues/Thurs. Still, I got a 25/25 on my paper (when the classmates that shared their grade, got a 22 or below) AND I actually came up w/ all the final rules to the phonological exercises we did in class. Yahoo! That stuff is actually very interesting and sort of fun. Basically, we sit there and analyze a child's speech/language to figure out what patterns of error s/he consistently make (so that we know what to treat in therapy). At first, errors appear random, but upon closer analysis, you see that kids actually consistently make errors. It's like doing detective work from a different angle. :D

My crazy classmate was totally harping on me today, too. She said, "wow, Cheryl, you look really good! It must be that Ginseng you're taking!" LOL I only mentioned the ginseng to her since she's a Costco pill-poppin' fewl, too. Her excuse is that she's really old. Actually, I think it is (psychologically) increasing my blood circulation b/c I haven't been freezing lately. In fact, I've had lotsa hot flashes. =X Hm.

At least BSP's not-snotty-session went okay, today, despite me running out of activities. He sorta sprayed on me while I had him imitate some words. I wonder if it's always going to be his dad that brings him now. Having his mom observe me and give me input really helped me. Just makes me realize even more, how important it is to have parental involvement, whether your kid is developing "normally" or not. Since she hasn't been around, my supervisor nixed some of my more complicated/optimistic objectives and had me start off at the most basic step of having him do immediate imitations of whatever I said. **yawn** My partner fell asleep while observing us. Hopefully, Thursday will be a little more exciting for us and our observers. =P

Super Bowl XL Sunday

I love Super Bowl Sundays!

Only b/c I love the junk food and ETOH associated with it. I don't know the 3rd thing about football, no matter how many times it has been explained to me. I.e.:

Are they going to introduce all of the MVPs?
Yes.
Why?
B/c it's the 40th Super Bowl.
You mean they don't always announce all of the past MVPs during all the Super Bowls?
[No answer.] (Which prompts to me to believe that "b/c it's the 40th Super Bowl" was a non sequitur to my question...either b/c BF didn't hear me right, he was just trying to shut me up, or both.)

Oh well, nm who won, b/c I got my fill of the new Pizza Hut Cheesy Bites pizza. :) That was delicious b/c I love cheese, and I am a very cheesy girl. =P Unfortunately, I can't celebrate Super Bowl the right way; no ETOH today since I've got heaps of reading to do. However, I've already planned that if we do not do anything for V-Day (since I get home around 8:45 P.M.), I will eat and drink myself to a sugar-high-heaven w/ a box of See's or Go Diva and a bottle of dessert wine (compliments of my best friend).

Dude, can I just say that today I'm totally living vicariously through my family! I just called my dad and he said, "uh, hold on...hey, is this where we exit? There's Rio." Rio? As in Rio in Las Vegas? DUUUUUDE!! What about me?! I was just daydreaming earlier today, about going sometime soon, too. For now, I have my mind set on real plans for a spa day over Spring Break.

I hope they win big. Like as big as a brand new car.

Saturday Outing

After months of whining to my bro about how I never get to do anything fun, I joined him and his friends on a walk from 3rd Street to San Vicente and back to the Farmer's Market (the one where the old man plowed through and killed a few people, last year) and ended up at the Lighthouse Buffet (rated top 5 buffets in the nation by Food Network!). Talk about being out of shape, the hour walk (+ 50 jumping jacks, as mandated by former We Ho cheerleader friend) along the beach was tiring! But it was a very nice way for me to get some fresh air and au naturale, non-medicinal, non-herbal stress relief.

Speaking of beaches, I just spoke w/ a friend who's visiting home, and she's down in SD. Lucky! I miss the SD beaches (so I'm glad I'm vicariously living through her as well). Back in college, I used to love hitting Scripps b/c the sand is absolutely breathtaking. You'd see slivers of purple (my fave color) w/ all shades of grays & silvers, all sparkling like glitter under the sun. (So what if I like all shiny, sparkly, glittery things?). But nothing beats the craziness of LA's beach "culture." Just on our hour walk, we saw soOOooO many bums, runners, doggies, old folks, and babies. Very interesting mix. Oh yeah, and one stark-raving lunatic. There's always at least one of those that are yelling about something totally nutty around Venice and/or Santa Monica. No matter how many loonies I encounter, I'm always still really shaken as if it's my 1st time in crazy L.A.

Man, all this beach talk just makes me feel like I definitely need to get out more -- another thing to add to my list of "things to do after I quit work." One day, I will have a real tan. One day. Even if it's a dirty Venice Beach tan. =P

Random (as I work on class notes): it bugs me that people still do not know how to use the bullet-style or number formatting in Word, so they tab everything to make it look perfect. It's so deceiving. Once you correct their typo, all the spacing gets messed up! Seriously, dude, it's not all that difficult. If I've learned anything from work, it's how to format a document. You want a tab leader? You got it. The only thing I haven't figured out (non-format related) is, where in the world does your document go when you've been working on an e-mail attachment, saving it (no, not "save as"), and you quit out of it just to have it disappear into a Black Hole? I've done that twice now, which is "so not like you, Cheryl" and haven't found it in Temp Settings/Docs or anywhere else.

Come to think of it, I've been doing these stupid mistakes that are "so not like you, Cheryl" more often than I'd like, these days. I.e. when co-worker spoke w/ me re: mistakes on entering timesheets, she said, "that's so not like you." Well, maybe she was just being nice.

Another random: I had the luxury of watching "Mythbusters" while I (slowly) ate my dinner, and it turns out that it's better to walk in the rain than run in the rain, if you're concerned about getting wet. Who knew? I never even thought about the difference. All my life, I've been told to "run! It's raining!"

Friday Funny

I took the day off from work, and boy did I need it! I slept from 12:30 A.M. to 2:00 P.M.!! Dang! Every morning I wake up sleep deprived, I say to myself, I just want to sleep like 12 hours straight. But heck, sleeping 14 is even better!

I went to Petco (Lil F's fave store) and bought 5 fish for the Lil Focher (but dude gave me 7). Dude, the Big Lil C F had another growth spurt! Within the last month, he surpassed 4 inches after a growth hiatus, and he is now at 4.25 inches! I almost bought another turtle b/c it was about the same size as Lil F, but I know Lil F's daddy would have had a fit if I brought another turtle home.

Anywho, then I went to Costco (my fave store). I picked up 2 cases of Ensure for Gramma, since she hasn't been eating much (teeth and tummy problems), some food items, and a bottle of Ginseng herbal Rx. As I was checking out, the young cashier dude and bag/box girl both asked me like twice if the Ensure was mine. I kept saying yes, and then finally, I blurted out, "actually, they're for my gramma so they're mine, but not really, and I duno why I feel embarrassed and have to justify by telling you guys."

Yes, I did ramble on like an idiot like that. I tend to do that when I'm embarrassed.

The best was the box girl said, "don't worry. This one time, I was putting this lady's stuff in the cart, and she said, 'uh, can you not put my Depends on the top of everything? It severely lowers my fawkable factor.'"

EWWWW!!!!!!

Dude, but that is so funny! Some people are so crazy!!

Re: the ginseng pills, my classmate told me she's been taking some herbal pills from Costco and she thinks they've been really calming her down. I picked these up b/c it's supposed to help stress levels, not to mention last weekend, my family kept telling me I need to drink ginseng. Well, I'd rather be a pill-poppin' fewl than drink stuff that tastes like shoe. Further updates on whether this stuff works will be provided in future posts.

Since I just took one, I think I'll test the stress-level-regulating factor by going to do some schoolwork now.

Sleep Deprived

This morning, I hit rock bottom in terms of my level of functioning. The problem is not that I go to sleep after 2 A.M.; the problem is waking up at 5:30. Weekday after weekday. Today, I got talked to at work, after a morning of mistakes that are "so not like you, Cheryl." Seriously, I wish I knew the secret to these attorneys superhuman powers. I.e. one travels b/t LA and SD multiple times a week, was coaching T-ball, made it home in time for son's game every Friday when he wasn't coaching, while representing the firm's largest client in a case that is setting a precedent in healthcare standards. Talk about sleep deprived. I get an extra hour of sleep than these workaholics do, and I can't manage to enter all their precious billable time right. I should get fired. And get severance.

Again, my last day is changing b/c Dr. F moved our midterm day. My co-workers forewarn me re: burning bridges, but I keep justifying to myself that it doesn't matter. I'm leaving the law field. No turning back. So, what's the big deal if I happen to burn a bridge? But me being the paranoid person who keeps receipts and statements for like 5 years, can't help but wonder if it will come back to haunt me.

Last night, I visited my best friend, a day after her birthday. I kinda liked that I was more spontaneous this week, visiting people despite my crazy schedule. I had a great time w/ her, her hubby, and their new doggy. She also made me do a quick reflection on my current transition in life. She asked me, aren't you excited? You're well on your way to your new career!

Actually, I can't quite remember exactly what she said, but she made me smile inside-out. Despite all my stress, delirium, and hysteria, I really am excited about my new career. Maybe a part of it is knowing that my life is headed in a specific direction and I find a lot of satisfaction being in this field. Who knows, maybe it'll be different once I'm out of school and finally in the field. Maybe it'll get even better since I won't have reading assignments and exams any more!

Berkeley Cousin's Birthday!

Yay! Today is Berkeley Cousin's 21st b-day!!! Dang, I remember when I turned 21. Awesome times, man. I hope nosebleedingly beautiful Berkeley Cousin has a kick~@$$ day/night (since I am also living vicariously through her). In that case, I hope she gets thoroughly wasted inside out (since I didn't on my 21st). Dude, I think I owe her at least 3 drinks by now for a few real favors she's done me. Yeah, sometime, soon, girl, sometime soon. ;) Dude, we should totally go clubbing. LOL DUDE! Since Dr. Cousin is coming home, we should TOTALLY all head up North and hit the night scene!

Okay, now I'm just getting way ahead of myself and daydreaming. Although I still think that's not too bad of an idea...I prolly thinking that b/c I've been dry for a month now and wouldn't mind a good stiff one right about now. That, or a triple venti latte.

~ ~ ~ ~

So I spoke w/ Berkeley Cousin to wish her a good one and she said, I'm at a friend's having alcoholic beverages (I think that's what she called it) and ice-cream! I said, that's awesome, 2 of my favorite things at one time?!?! Genius! Then a split second later, I thought and said, uh, don't you mean you're having daiquiris? LOL

Either way, she said we'll have ice-cream and alcoholic beverages next time we're together. Dude, it's on! :D

She sounds so mature, calling it "alcoholic beverages." Me? Call it a cocktail, beer, pick-me-up, night-cap, whatever the heck you want, as long as it's got ETOH!