i'm a little confused

everywhere we look these days, on the news, in magazines, even on oprah, everyone is talking about reducing energy use and greenhouse gases, recycling, being more earth-friendly. and i think it's great. i'm not an environmentalist by any stretch of the imagination, but i do think that things need to change so i'm glad people are talking about it.
we're supposed to use reusable cloths instead of paper towels, we're supposed to change over our light bulbs, avoid chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, bactericides. we're supposed to save the polar bears and the honey bees. i hate throwing away plastic things, like the massive amounts of ziplock bags we go through during the school year with our little bag-lunches. so i wash them. yes, i wash my ziplock bags that cost about 3 cents each. they say it takes forever for plastic to break down in landfills... okay, so i'm supposed to put my lunches into reusable plastic containers. but then they say that i shouldn't be microwaving my lunch in these reusable plastic containers because they're giving off xenoestrogens into my food which will eventually give me breast cancer. well, i don't want that, so at work i take my food out of my plastic container and put in on a plate before i microwave it. but now i've made even more dishes which means i'm using up more water and they say that we need to reduce our water use because it takes energy to heat it and is hard on our little earth. i'm confused.

i would like to live healthier. i mean, we try to eat healthy, eat a lot of fruits and veggies, try to make food that's low in all the bad fats. i'd rather walk somewhere than drive if it's within walking distance (yes, even in -30). lately i've heard a lot about using all-natural household cleaners. that would be great, but how much does that cost? i would also love to have a car that's nicer for the environment, say, a hybrid, or better yet, an electric car or that car they designed in france that ran on compressed air. sure that would be great, but who has the money for these things? and how come these things aren't more available?

the other day i was at a bookstore and i was skimming through a book that was all about how to spend less time on housecleaning. it was full of good tips. sounds great. i was all into it, reading about 5-minute bathroom tidy-ups and getting rid of dust mites in the bedrooms. it was good. but then... a tip on how to dust your plants every once in awhile. wrap the pots in plastic bags, put the plants in the tub and give them a quick shower. and then just toss all the plastic bags. okay, good idea, but i was slightly surprised at that last step, since everywhere i look we're talking about saving the planet. even a book on the display beside me is called "1001 ways to save the earth". i keep skimming. i'm now reading a chapter about cleaning the kitchen. kitchen sponges and towels, they say, are so full of bacteria that when you use them, you're just spreading the bacteria around and giving them a new place to grow. their solution: change your towels daily and get rid of all sponges, just use paper towels for everything. really?? i keep reading. "to save a few minutes of cleaning up, line all your pans with tin foil before you use them so later you can just throw it out." [hmmm, that seems like a lot of waste....] "cover your entire countertop with wax paper whenever you make a meal, so you don't need to wipe it later." [what?! how long does it take to wipe a countertop??] but this was the last straw: "your kids don't need to eat on your good dishes. you can save 20 minutes a day by having your family eat with disposable plates and cutlery." are you crazy? every day?

i shut the book and put it back on the shelf. okay, so maybe i don't use geothermal heating or recycled toilet paper, but that all seems like a ridiculous amount of unnecessary waste. i think that we're doing okay, with our canvas grocery bags we bring to superstore and when we turn the car off when we have to wait at a train-crossing. and i think i'll just continue to wash my little ziplock bags.

thank yous to those who commented on my last post. i appreciate it.
so right now we're just in a 'waiting' stage, where we just wait and pray. i'm in the middle of my 2 weeks of holidays. in the beginning of may, i'm starting my summer job - assistant director at day camp! well, assistant director/leader-in-training coordinator/camp nurse. weeeeee! should be fun. i had planned that we would have a relaxing summer, take it a bit slow, maybe head out west for a multi-week camping trip. well, God had something different in mind - that i would be the person to head up the brand-new leader-in-training program, and be assistant director where the admin part of my job starts in may. okay! good-bye relaxing summer. hello ministry! oh well, this is the last summer i'll ever be doing camp as i know it, since i'll be doing my senior practicum next summer and then graduation.... wooo-hoooo! so ya, if you know of any high school kids in the city who want to be a leader-in-training at a christian day camp for a few weeks, let me know. i don't think there are any rules that they have to be from our church.

so yes i'm on 'holidays'. i've been doing some crazy spring cleaning (ex. vacuuming under the bed which hasn't been moved in 4 years. yikes!!), and working a bit for the good ol' tree nursery, delivering to the home depots (ex. yesterday i worked almost 10 hours - i haven't done that much physical work in a very long time), and enjoying this amazing spring weather. deee-lightful!

with friends like these, who needs enemies?

we face an ethical dilemma. see, R has a group of friends that he has made during his time in education and this group is all graduating now, and looking for jobs as art teachers, competing with one another. there already has been one case where 2 of these friends (from the same town) were interviewed for the same job in that town and one of them got the job. everyone has decided that no matter what happens in the next few months during the scramble for jobs, they still want to be friends. so we all congratulate that friend on getting a job, while the rest of us (i'm including myself in this because i feel involved) wait anxiously for new job postings.

so the dilemma is this. what happens when we find out about a new position? is R obligated to tell his friends about it, because as a friend, he can help out his friends? but what if it is what he is looking for? R mentioned this the other night, and i had never thought of that before. my first reaction (and still is my opinion) was, "no way! they can find out about new jobs on their own!" my reactions about these types of things are quite selfish, and i fully realize that. but really, this is a competition here. one friend told R about a job posting once, but he already knew about it. do we repay the favor? my brother just graduated from education this year too, but he's teaching physics and chem, so thankfully there's no competition within the family!!

so i want to know what you, my loyal readers, think about this. am i just being selfish?

done!

i'm done i'm done i'm done! i am officially done 3rd year. wow.... i can't really believe it yet. i just came home from writing a 2-hour exam and then a 3-hour exam. and yes, it is saturday. but that's okay, because I AM DONE! when i walked to school today it was the first time i had left our teeny apartment in 64 hours. i intended to go outside on thursday and friday, but i just kept studying.... and this morning there was that beautiful fresh, anticipatory feeling in the air -you know in the summer when it's 15 degrees in the morning, but you know that it's going to get up to 30. that's how it felt today. (it didn't quite get up to 30, but i still didn't need a jacket!).

the other day i was paging through some old blog entries and i had written about how scary 3rd year was going to be, how we're now expected to know so much and do so much critical thinking etc. well, it's true, it was a tough year and they did have some crazy expectations, but i survived and pulled through and i think i'll end up with a pretty decent GPA. so anyways, i don't want to spend any more time on here... i've got to go have some brainless fun.

hello? hello?

okay seriously, does anyone else get telemarketers/phone survey calls 4 times a week like we do? i'm not even exaggerating in the least when i say it's every other day. i understand that these people need to do their jobs (i have a few friends who've been surveyers), but seriously, 3 or 4 calls a week? its driving me crazy. R always laughs at me when i get the surveys, because i simply cannot say no, even if i'm in the middle of something. a week or so ago, i had a 25 minute survey about mr. clean magic eraser. i've never even used the thing! seriously, i have better things to do than to answer, "do you feel that you have a lot in common with other people who use mr. clean magic eraser?"

surveys are usually okay, but when they're trying to sell me something.... sometimes i like when internet companies call, because no matter how they try to persuade me, you can't convince me that paying "only $40 a month" is better than free. yes, dial-up sucks, but for now it is okay until we actually have an income. that's when i start asking them, "so i would have to pay for internet??" "well, it's not much and it would be soooo much faster than what you have now." "well, yes it would be faster, but is it free? oh it's not free? but ours is free. and yours is not free?"

the other day i had someone call and ask for pamela. pamela used to be a roommate of mine. i told the woman, "pamela moved away 4 years ago." well then she wanted to sell something to me instead. "but i'm not pamela," i tried to insist. i asked her to take our number off her list.

when i get phone calls, i have my finger beside the button to hang up, so if you call and you don't say "hello" within 2 seconds of me picking up the phone, i will hang up on you (you know, the 2 seconds of silence before they're phone call from india connects to your line). so if you ever call us and i hang up on you, its probably because we haven't received our daily dose of telemarketers. so why am i ranting about this right now when i should be studying? well i was happily studying when the phone rang and i answered it innocently, since i was expecting a phone call from a friend. i said, hello, and there was the pause, then the click and then a 'hello?.... 'hello?'... i didn't know what to do. so i didn't do anything at all. didn't say a word.
then she hung up on herself. ha!


okay back to work now....

okay, so i'm still about a year behind...

cutie-pies!

i love our random dates....

significance: i had never seen ryan's naked chin before

i think i talked all about this day last year....

in other news, i passed my skills lab demo. we get 2 tries and it's pass or fail, so it's quite a relief to get that over with after only one attempt. i had to give jake (one of our dummies) an IV medication and change his abdominal incision dressing and clean the ol' penrose drain. it was nerve-racking as the instructor was watching us with a clipboard in hand, subtly trying to correct us ("is that a good place to put those forceps?") and then letting it go if we could catch on to those subtleties and fix our mistakes. oh hey, since i'm already at the computer and not studying the GI system for my final exam on saturday, why don't i find some pics of our lab for ya. here we go.....

here's rae with jake (this particular jake has a tracheostomy and a central line! how fun!)