Being poor students, Nate and I keep Valentines Day very simple. One day, maybe I’ll push for dinner and flowers and the whole nine yards, but for now, a brownie every year is enough.
Hope you get to spend today with people you love :)
PS. Check out the video on the Google homepage today, it’s adorable!
Day 06: 5 people who mean a lot to you (in no order whatsoever)
My family (includes Mom, Dad and Paul. If animals were “people” I would include the animals) • Nate• Alison• Kara• Liz• My Grandma
5 People is simply too few. Hopefully, the others know who they are.
awww don’t we all feel warm and fuzzy inside now?
There is an infamous story in my family from a million years ago when my parents where in college and they encountered the “biggest bumble bee ever discovered by man”. My dad came home on day to find my mom huddled on the couch, cowering at the bedroom door where she had trapped said bee. My dad scoffed at her, opened the door to the bedroom, closed the door very quickly and ran to go get something with which to kill, what he admits was indeed, a massive bumble bee. Apparently the bee was eventually hit out the second story widow of my parents apartment and landed on the pavement below– still visible from above, which they count as a testament to the sheer girth of this bee.
Nate, Liz and I had a very similar experience with a very big bumble bee. I really can’t imagine that my parent’s bee was any bigger than ours, because ours was literally the size of my nose. His buzz was audible from all corners of the apartment and we all shrieked in fear (including Nathan) every time he flew towards us. I found him in the kitchen, roaming around the light fixture, buzzing furiously. I immediately called for Nate, Liz followed, and the next twenty minutes were a blur of screaming and Nathan trying to spray the poor thing with some Windex.
Then the bee flew into a crack in the wall and disappeared.
Oh fuck, we all thought, we have an infestation of giant mutant bumble bees living in our newly rented apartment.
Because it was only one bee and we really couldn’t do anything else, we all decided that it was best to let it go until we saw another bee. So commences the paranoia of bee-watch twenty ten.
The next morning at about 6:30, I awoke in my new sun-filled bedroom to the sound of buzzing. LOUD buzzing. The bee was not only in my bed, but also in my face.
“Nate it’s back, it’s back” I screamed while climbing over him.
“What?What’s going on?” he drawled at me, totally confused and freaked out by his insane and panicked girlfriend.
“THE BEE IS IN THE BED” I shot at him, still scrambling. Nate then jumped into reaction mode, trapping the bee in-between the sheets, only to look over at me and say in a very confused voice “the bee is in the bed???”. Nate patted down the covers, hoping to have squashed the monster, however upon pulling back my white duvet cover, the big bee flew out and over to the wall. I hit him a couple of times with a moccasin and watched him sputter to the floor behind the dresser. We heard no more buzzing and determined the beast to be slain. Then, because it was six thirty in the morning, Nate and I went back to bed.
Two hours later however, the bee was back, buzzing desperately against our bedroom window.The funny thing about this bee was that, although humongous, he was harmless. After all that agitation and attack, he was less interested in Nate and I and more interested in getting outside. Bumble bees, despite their size are docile little things… apparently. So, I grabbed a cup and a folder and attempted to scoop him up to take him outside, but he would have none of it — he wanted out that window. Cautiously, I pulled up on the window locks, arching my arms as far away from the bee as possible and cranked the window open as far as I could — he made a bee line (hehe) into the back yard and buzzed out of sight. We have not seen another bee in the house since, thank god.
and that is the story of Emma, Nathan, Liz and the bee.
The Wicker Man -- yes that's a helmet filled with bees.
Thanksgiving is not one of my favorite holidays, mostly because the day revolves primarily around the consumption of things I don’t eat (turkey, gravy), but I’ve found that I really do miss it terribly while I’m up in the wintry north. Especially right now, when everything is overwhelming and so many of my friends are in (metaphorical) dark and dreary places. So, just as a reminder that things are not so bad, I’m going to be stereotypical and sappy by stating 10 things I’m genuinely thankful for (in no particular order). Ohhhh all we need now is a really big pumpkin, Charlie Brown and a pickachu float.
1. My family: I know, it’s so typical, but I have a really awesome family/ set of parents. I can count on them to be honest and supportive with whatever I do. They aren’t perfect, there have been ups and downs, but they are consistently loving. It makes my life so much better.
2. My roommate Liz!: My roommate last year was hellish. Seriously hellish and Liz is SO the opposite of hellish. We get along so well and she is a great friend to have. I’m so thankful that our housing situation came together like it did. It has elevated my opinion and over all experience of Toronto ten fold.
3. Nathan JJ Storring: Do I really need to spell this one out? It would take me pages to go over all the good things Nate does for me. So I’m just going to leave it at that.
4. Chocolate Bars: in any form. They can seriously turn a bad situation a little bit better. They are a small comfort but a necessary one.
5. Southwest Airline Rapid Rewards Tickets: They let me get to and from Toronto (and by Toronto I mean Buffalo) a lot more frequently than if we didn’t have them. I salute you Southwest. (also the peanut deal is damn good).
6. Acalanes High School: I say this begrudgingly because really I didn’t enjoy high school (save for my junior year), 
but the education I got at Acalanes is really incomparable. They really prepared me for college. I don’t think that my U of T experience would be the same without them. Really. I’m serious. It was hell, but I’m thinking it was worth it.
7. Critical Approaches to Literature with Professor Cannon Schmitt: I went into this class thinking it was one thing and then discovering it was something completely different. Basically this was Philosophy with a hint of English thrown in. I really don’t like Philosophy and the course load was really heavy. We’re talking 70 pages of hardcore unabridged Norton Philosophy a week. I didn’t get through most of it. However, this was one of the most rewarding classes I’ve ever taken. It has opened my horizons to analytical possibilities that I was totally unaware of. It has enhanced my other classes because I can draw on Derrida or Jameson to make arguments and strength understanding. Originally I was going to sell the Norton they make you buy but now I’m going to cling to it for the rest of my life. If you have the opportunity to take this course, DO IT. Its horribly difficult but in every way worth it. (funny how that is the longest paragraph)
8. My Friends Back Home: I can not wait to see you. There is something so comforting about going home after a long time away and having the exact same people at your fingertips as you did in high school (or before). I really consider most of them my sisters (and I have a couple brothers). I would do anything for them. No matter how long we are apart, we always come back together.
9. Theatre: Acting keeps me sane. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t care if I’m going to be doing it professionally or in school or on the side or whatever, I just want to be doing it. I can walk away for a year (or two) and it’s still the same constant wonderfulness that it always was.
10. Photography/ Photo Albums/ Kinkos Print It Yourself: I have this insane problem where I keep everything because I hate forgetting things. I keep useless crap because it’s tied to a memory of one kind or another. Photos are not useless crap but managed to capture those memories all the same. I love photo albums and taking pictures. I love capturing moments, I think its beautiful.
Oh and then there is running water and electricity and food and stuffl like that- all those basic things that I take for granted every day. I’m thankful for those things too. AND you. Because you’re reading this and it’s horribly self involved on my part but yet you’re reading it, so you must on some level care. Which makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. So thanks- to everything and everyone on this list. I hope you have pie today and I hope it’s amazing.
“Surgeons are control freaks. With a scalpel in your hand you feel unstoppable. There’s no fear, there’s no pain. You’re ten feet tall and bulletproof. And then you leave the OR. And all that perfection, all that beautiful control, just falls to crap.” -Meredeth Grey
I come from a family of medical professionals. My Grandmother was a nurse, my biological Grandfather was a surgeon, my Nonno was family practitioner, my step grandmother was a nurse, my great-aunt was the head of nursing for Kaiser hospital Oakland, my aunt is nurse, and the list goes on. I have second cousins, step- aunts and uncles, and other distant relatives who have titles far too difficult to figure out all in the medical field. Seriously. I am surrounded by medical professionals. Despite medicine being the family business, I have never been corralled into becoming a doctor, nurse, podiatrist, psychiatrist, whatever. In an alternate universe, however, where having a family wasn’t high on my priority list, and I didn’t have so many other things I wanted to pursue, I would totally become a general surgeon- no questions asked.
I have a profound interest in medicine (it’s clearly in my blood and with all of the family members passing down “the medical gene,” I would guess that it flows through my veins as abundantly as red blood cells), though it hasn’t always been that way. Without the family prodding, I had to discover the fascination on my own. I used to watch House (before the plot became more about the character’s drama than about the medical drama) and am a Grey’s Anatomy addict- seriously. For years, my interest lay dormant, fulfilled by my weekly dose of medical dramas. This past summer however, while browsing through the hundreds of books lining the walls of my parent’s office, I came across one called Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande. A small novel, about 250 pages packed full of case studies, and surgery explanations (I know how to insert a direct line into a patients chest- the hard part is getting the IV around the clavicle bone and into the main artery without puncturing the artery all the way through. Apparently, it’s a lot harder than it sounds). Every page captivated me and I got through the book quickly, readily picking up the sequil- Better: A Surgeons Notes on Performance.
Apprenhensively, I went to my various grandparents to explore what it was like to be doctor or a nurse. Cautiously, I asked questions because I wasn’t sure where they would stand on the idea of their beloved granddaughter considering becoming a surgeon. My Nonno seemed impartial, simply doling out facts and antic dotes while my Grandma discouraged the idea immediately. Ultimately it didn’t matter what either of them said, I have no interest in continuing my schooling for another 7 years with 7 more years as an intern before I become a resident- even then it’s a lot of work.
So I live vicariously through surgeon’s memoirs and Grey’s Anatomy. I imagine myself a general surgeon or diagnostician (If I was to, I would specialize in one of those). The tiny problem with being an amateur medophile is that I now am an amateur hypochondriac. I use they word “hypochondriac,” but I mean more that through my research I have become well-informed and I am intrinsically a worrier. However, I do not wake up in the morning with a pain in my arm (probably from sleeping on it funny) and immediately suspect that I have a spinal cord tumor. It’s more along the lines of that for a couple of days I’m feeling foggy, have cluster headaches, a sore throat and a crick in my neck (from sleeping on it funny) and call my parents to make sure I don’t have meningococcal meningitis. Or I get a huge gash on my leg from running into the rusty stairs in the back of my building and watch it, wash it and whipe it very carefully to insure I don’t contract necrotizing fasciitis, but everyone else is worried about tetanus.
The world of medicine inspires me and interests me, but it’s not the world FOR me. I don’t think I could ever actually insert a central line in the real world or watch people die every day. We all have impracticale, unattainable fantasies, mine is to be Meredith Grey.
