I'm Graduating!!

So I am officially graduated already, but I won't be walking at convocation until May 23rd. I have had a few requests for info, so here is the announcement.

My fabulous friend Angela did the photography. She's pretty much the best ever! I can hardly wait till the 23rd!

No more slave labor!

So I bet you all thought that slavery was abolished in the US, right? WRONG! I have spent 17 weeks between ARUP and IHC as a slave. Yup, you heard me right, a slave. I have been doing clinical internships, and I guess someone decided that the most efficacious way for us to "learn the lab" was to pretty much work like the employees. Don't get me wrong, it was a fabulously good time (well, most of the time), but it's hard when you work over 40 hours a week and only get paid for less than 8 of them. Alas, clinicals are over. I am most definitely sad, but I've already had a couple of interviews and received a few calls about Medical Technologist positions available all over the nation. Now I have to decide... and for those of you who know me well, I don't do decisions. Heck-- people used to have to order at restaurants for me because I was so darn indecisive. So, if anybody has any recommendations or inclination to make some decisions for me, I'm highly open to suggestions! ;)

Well, since my last post (yes, I realize that was a while ago) my sister and nephew came to visit. SO MUCH FUN!! My nephew is a doll, although he weighs quite a bit more than one. I can hardly wait for them to come back and visit so I can work on my upper arm strength and teach my baby some more fun sounds to make with his mouth! So I know what you're thinking-- this post could not possibly be complete without pictures, right? I completely agree. So here are some pics from Nikki and baby's (Michael, after my daddy) visit to Utah for conference weekend. Enjoy!

Look what a happy baby! (He loves when we make the "kissy" noise) Can you believe this was taken about 3 hours after his bedtime? Yup, he's a real trooper!

We both love a little wind in our faces, so we were having fun by the fan. Grandma snuck up on us and took this picture. Too bad you can't see the way his hair was standing up in the breeze.

Girls night out was so much fun! I can't wait till Nikki, Michael, and Ben come to visit in 2 weeks! I must be the luckiest sister/aunt in the world!

My random picture post

So I thought I would try Ashley's random picture challenge, but I'm going to break the rules a little and use the 7th picture, because the 6th picture was actually a diagram of the coagulation cascade, and honestly--it's not that interesting to most people. Besides, I REALLY love the 7th picture:

This is my daddy!!!! Doesn't he look totally cool with his crazy hair and earrings? No, his ears are NOT pierced. He never wanted his daughters to pierce their ears (too late now), but I always wanted to wear earrings, so I bought these clip on hoops all the time. One day we went waterskiing and my dad put on my earrings to keep them safe for me. Since he had been out driving the boat after skiing a couple of times himself his hair was all windblown and crazy too. He totally looked like one of those old guys that tries to look like all the teenage boys. We thought it was so funny-- we just had to take a picture. Every time I see this picture it makes me smile. I really love my daddy, and I am incredibly grateful for all the wonderful memories I have of times we've spent together. He is such a wonderful example of faith, strength, compassion, love, tender-heartedness, integrity, and dedication to all those who know him. I know I wouldn't be the person I am if it weren't for all the time and hard work he has put in to raising me! He's been so sick lately, it's hard to see him struggling like that. I just hope we can keep creating enough fun memories to last me forever!

Crazy expensive real estate in a buyers market?

There has been this trend in my neighborhood lately where people buy houses, tear them down, and then rebuild huge mansions in their place. I find this so amusing, that I end up looking up the houses in the Utah MLS listing services just to see how much they are selling for, and, if I'm lucky, to see a few pictures of the inside. With the economy being down, it has become a buyers market, and I have considering buying sometime in the near future myself. While ogling some of the houses in the area, I came across my dream home! Too bad I don't have the nearly $6 million they are asking for it.... yet...... Hah! I probably never will, but it's fun to look at nonetheless. 

And now, without further ado:

                                My dream home-- the castle on the hill

I'm a lemming!

I can't believe I actually caved and started my own blog. I've really enjoyed reading my friends' blogs because they all have something interesting and fun to share on a regular basis. I'm not going to make any promises that I will be either interesting or fun, but I sure will try. Hopefully you, my friends and family, will derive some sort of value from the posts to come in the future. 

Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, I want to address something that was on the news the other night. 

The idea of being able to vaccinate against multiple strains of flu is incredible to me. I get so excited over advent of new medical technologies and treatments. However, I think this article is misleading to the public. Sure, it would be awesome to be able to inject antibodies against some of these viruses and diseases, but it's not really feasible right now. Antibodies are specific to each individual and injecting foreign antibodies can lead to an immune response against the foreign antibodies, and perhaps even trigger an autoimmune type response that could be really dangerous. Don't get me wrong, I think what these scientists are doing is brilliant and is definitely leading in a direction that could bring about a good vaccination -- I just think the media jumped the gun on this one and didn't point out that such a product would not be on the market for quite some time, and is most definitely just in the "idea" phase of development.

Ah, now I feel better. Not that I expect anyone to read that little rant of mine, but it was just something I needed to get off my mind.