mishaps – Imaginary Sunshine

Reflections & A New Year

Michelle — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 02:55:04 +0000

2012 was the year that I…

Took classes that I truly enjoyed in university
Took my first distance education course (purely online, even the final!)
Finished off my very last semester in university with high grades (!)
Graduated. Walked across a stage. Have a funny cap and a piece of paper with my name on it that says that I accomplished something (sort of)
Went on vacation for the first time in years (because apparently a 4 day trip where I spent most of it on a bus doesn’t count)
Went spelunking for the first time and had a lot of fun
Got into nursing school
Yet again worked as a customer service rep
Stood up for myself and reported my supervisor to Human Resources (yeah, that did not work out well – still glad I did it)
Started nursing school – met so many people, learned so many things about myself and others – finished with an A average for term 1
Turned 23

And what’s in store for me for 2013?

I start up at school again on Monday, I have a new clinical placement that’s going to be mildly hellish to get to for morning shifts if I start at 6:30am (7:00am won’t be as big of a problem). I’m taking 6 courses (pharmacology [online], pathophysiology, microbiology, clinical skills, group learning, and clinical). I’m going to be on campus three days a week, thank goodness I have a locker in a decent location (already got my schedule – that I still need to print out). Of all the classes, the one that’s new to me is microbiology- so that shall be interesting. The only new textbook that I need to get is the one for microbiology, and the instructor is really pushing for the ebook because we need to do online quizzes (via the publisher’s website) anyways. The website says it’s $70, which isn’t bad at all… But the thing I dislike the most is that I can’t resell it when I’m done! The reason it’s so cheap isn’t actually because it’s an ebook, it’s because we’re not getting all of the content. The ebook of the entire text is the exact same cost as a physical book. Which is ridiculous (in my opinion) because they should have saved some money on not printing and binding the damn thing and made the ebook cheaper. So I’m glad we don’t need the entire book, because it would have been $200 otherwise.

Other excitements in my life include getting a new laptop, a new bag (purse, not backpack) and a couple new dvds. The non-excitement is learning how to use Windows 8 because it’s a new operating system and I’m not used to it at all. My new laptop is not a touchscreen, so I find the Start Menu a bit tedious, to be honest, and I miss having a Start button. Also, it actually took me a while to find the ‘shut down’ button and I ended up having to read in the book where it is! They’ve completely hidden it (under Settings, FFS), not user friendly at all. One thing I do like about it is the Instant On feature. Takes seconds for my computer to go from black screen to the me being able to log in – which is pretty awesome, if you ask me!

A sitting duck, Christmas and other thoughts

Michelle — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 05:00:04 +0000

Hello, hello. *wave* I don’t blog very much, do I?

Since the 10th, I had: completed all of my finals (I’ve received final grades for 3 of 4 courses so far), baked (a lot: a dozen dozen cookies!), slept in (mmm) and I did something absolutely horrid to my left foot. From the moment I woke up Friday morning until today (and still continuing), my foot hurts whenever I put weight on it. Which means that walking more than five steps is pretty much out of the question. It has gotten better (so I can walk more than five steps!) and it’s gone from a sharp pain of my foot trying to go “WTF are you doing, woman? SIT DOWN NOW before I make you sit down!” to a dull ache. I got new shoes during Boxing Day sales (the only day since last Thursday/22nd) that I had left my house and those have actually really helped. I was overdue for a new pair of shoes and having new shoes with very cushy arch support has helped a lot. But I was home from the 23rd-25th and did absolutely nothing beyond leaving my room to go and sit at the dinner table and such things like that. I also laid on the couch a lot, because my foot hated me immensely. I don’t know what I did to my foot to make it hate me so, but not putting weight on it has helped. Whatever happened, it has gotten a little bit better.

I’ve been doing a lot of sitting, laying down and just resting in general. The unfortunate thing is that the nerves decide at times that it doesn’t like all the rest and I get the feeling of pins and needles on the bottom of my foot. I can’t win, I swear.

Christmas was lovely with my family. My sisters and I got my mom a designer handbag that she was wistful over in the store but then set aside when she saw how much money it cost (my sister went back later to buy it, we went in 3-ways on it because it was so pricey). For sister J, I got her Sock Innovation by Cookie A and a skein of deliciously squishy alpaca sock-weight yarn. For sister D, J and I got her a floor lamp for her condo along with a box of energy saving lightbulbs (no sense in buying her a lamp without them as the box said, in big bold letters, No Lightbulbs Included. My dad finally told me two days before Christmas what he wanted, but I hadn’t been able to go shopping, so he got a fancy I.O.U. (and a tin of cookies that was just for him that he didn’t have to share with anyone in the family!) for 2 photo frames that he wanted for these odd-sized photos of his parents (I never met them, both of them died by the time he was in his early teens). I had never seen larger photos of my paternal grandmother (most of the photos my dad has of her are fairly small or not that clear) and she looks just like one of my aunts, and I have the same cheekbones as her! It’s kind of cool to see that in a photo, just the family resemblance and what of me I can see that I got from her.

I got some fun gifts this year. My parents got me (another) Blythe doll, she’s #9. Has fantastic blue hair and I’ve named her Mollie (short for Molybdenum, which is element #42 on the periodic table). I also got chocolates! My favourite: hazelnut hedgehogs. Noms. One sister crocheted a doll hat for me and also gave me a lot of knee-high socks (store bought, not hand knit). I’d been lamenting the fact that I hadn’t gotten around to shopping for socks, so it’s nice that she did that for me! She got all argyle patterns because most of my knee highs are in argyle. My other sister got me a gift certificate to a spa, which I’ve never been to before. It’s a certificate for a pedicure session, which I’ve never gotten one before. So fancy. I need to book my appointment!

In other news, I’ve been working on applications for nursing programs. I’ve also been doing a lot of knitting. Pictured above – I finally finished my first pair of handknit socks! Unfortunately they were a little bit too short in the heel for me but they fit my mom perfectly, so she got another present for Christmas and she loves them!

Plans in the near future include finishing application essays and whatnot, getting things ready to hand into the schools in January. I’ve also got a few textbooks to buy (least number of classes ever for a term for me but yet this may be my most expensive term yet when it comes to books!). I’m also working on being a lot more positive about things in my life, and that will be including the removal of the negative people, because I really don’t need that. Like that quote from Eleanor Roosevelt says, no one can make me feel inferior without my consent. (I mostly wish I could cut my aunt out of my life, but I really can’t, seeing as how she’s married to my uncle and my parents wouldn’t go with it.)

Happy holidays!

Mastering Procrastination

Michelle — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 04:40:21 +0000

It’s always when I have a million and one things to do that I end up blogging. Why? Probably because I could be one of the many Queens of Procrastination. Next week I have a couple of midterms and a lab quiz. I’m more worried for my lab quiz than I am the midterms. Why? Mostly because I did very poorly (but not a failing grade) on the first lab quiz (worth 5% of my total grade, so I’m not entirely nervous about it yet). And the other two midterms? Multiple choice. Yes, I know, be happy for me that I ended up taking 300-level courses for my secondary concentration that ended up with fully multiple choice tests. (Have I also mentioned that I’m horrible at multiple choice because I generally second guess myself?) Luckily I like my professors and they’re fairly approachable. Even if they’re dropping F-bombs in lecture because their ancient laptop freezes for the umpteenth time while connected to the school’s “secure” wifi network.

In other news, I bought candy on November 1st because that’s when it’s cheap. I bought Tootsie Roll pops, mini Hershey chocolate bars, mini Kit-Kat bars, little boxes of Smarties, a bag of mini lollis, Halloween-themed Lindt chocolate balls, Halloween-themed Kinder Surprise Eggs and a box of 120 mini chocolate bars. Nom nom nom. I knew I always loved November. And it’s not just for the sugar rush either.

I was told by my friend’s mom that I’m a (and I quote) “horrible influence” on her daughter this week. Why? Because I told her daughter to do what makes her happy and that it’s okay to kiss a boy that she’s dating. Zomg. You would have thought I told my friend that it’s perfectly okay to shoot up drugs and get wasted during a midterm or something. Public enemy no. 1, that’s me. Then again, I may have said to her face that she was crazy. Because I honestly do believe that she is. Which also did not help her perception of me as being a horrible influence. But really, who tells their daughter that they have to marry a guy first and then date him? And that if you hold hands, you’d better be married first? Crack pots, that’s who. Even my own mother thinks that it’s really weird and completely backwards (I found someone with parents more traditional/strict than mine, with an extra helping of crazy-pants added in there).

Now I’m going back to studying because I have lots of things to do! I also get invited to my sister’s birthday party, which was very generous of her considering she’s having it at the house that I live in and I plan to be in the house at the time of the party anyways. I’m only going for the food though. And if her friends start singing karaoke again, my ears may bleed. (There is very few things worse than listening to grown men trying to sing soprano when they really should never ever ever try to hit those notes because their range is not that high. Also, they sing 90’s pop songs, because what’s what we have in terms of karaoke discs.)

How updating a program made me hate my printer

Michelle — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 18:15:39 +0000

The last week, I’d been tweeting about how much of a pain my printer was being. It just flat out refused to print anything for a it. Then I uninstalled and reinstalled my printer’s programs and associated drivers. Awesome, my printer will print anything that is not in PDF format. This was a problem for me. Why?

All of the lecture material, lab material, journal articles that I need to analyze and charts that I need to be able to know for my classes? They are only available in PDF format.

At first I thought that it was a Windows Vista issue (yes, I use Vista, please laugh it up). The error that I was getting said this:

Spooler subsystem app has stopped working and was closed.

I had uninstalled and reinstalled my printer drivers multiple times over the last week. I searched for many different combinations of ‘printer spooler error’ with ‘Vista’ and my printer model (HP, by the way – besides this issue, I rather like it, it’s not that heavy to move around, for starters). Until yesterday (after the third or fourth reinstall), I finally decided to look up the error that I was getting with “adobe reader”.

Guess what the problem was?

Not my printer, my laptop, my operating system or any of the drivers. It was because I had updated Adobe Reader after being prompted to. And then it just killed my computer’s ability to print PDF files. What-the-ever-loving-fudge.

After tweeting about finding a solution, a few people thanked me (because they had also developed hateful relationships with their printers). What I did to “fix” the problem was download another PDF reader and use that to print from instead of Adobe Reader. I’m now using Foxit Reader, which you can download (for free) from the official Foxit website or the CNET website (and read their review on the program as well!). (Note that when you’re installing the reader that you need to pay attention to all the check boxes, it’ll as if you want to make certain websites your home page or if you want to install extra toolbars onto your web browser, ew.)

Problem solved!

A Michelle who can print off her lecture and lab notes is a happy Michelle!

Year of the Rabbit and other exciting news

Michelle — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 06:25:04 +0000

I’m a few hours early for my time zone, but happy new year to everyone who celebrates it. It’s the Year of the Rabbit and a lot of stores have been capitalizing on that with ads that are all red and gold with white fluffy bunny images on them. So there’s just been a huge lead up to it. I don’t actually do much for the New Year with my family when it falls on a weekday. When it falls on the weekend, I sometimes go see parades or out for tea with extended family. We don’t really do that when it falls on a weekday because everyone’s busy. But apparently being busy and such doesn’t exempt me from taking part in a intensive house cleaning. Dust bunnies were inhaled and destroyed, I feel that this bodes well for the new year.

School’s going fairly well. I have my second midterm of the term tomorrow (for ecology). So far the course seems alright, a lot of it has been review so I’ve mainly focused on what little new material that there has been. I’m hoping that the midterm will be fairly straight forward. The professors had fairly ambiguous wording on the practice midterm and a lot of the questions were fairly open ended.

In addition to schoolwork, this week I’ve helped a few online friends set up a website, 4alissia.com. It’s a website that’s dedicated to raising funds for the cancer treatment needed for a 3 year old girl living in the USA. Right now the plan is to hold an auction on eBay via the site, a bunch of us in the Blythe/doll community are making things or coming up with things to donate for auctioning off. I’m working on a few knitted and crocheted Blythe items to donate for the auction. But if you’re interested in learning more, please check out 4alissia.com.

My other web projects are going well right now. I’ve been moderating myself for the amount of time I spend on all my other projects and blogs – school work does have to come first, especially since the month-plus of hellish midterms on a weekly basis has begun. In other words, I limited myself to checking email addresses that get a lot of incoming email only once a day. It’s horrible, I know. But I still mostly get a 24 hour turn around time which I think is pretty darn good. Most of my email is related to school (study groups, profs – I tend to answer those ASAP) and the doll community (because I run BlytheLife.com). And I’m practically always on Twitter anyways… I have a lot of stuff planned for all my sites, including updates for the ones that haven’t gotten one in a while. So pretty happy with the pace that I’m keeping for all of my websites right now, for the most part.

And now… I’m off to sleep. Happy New Year!

Jumping ship for a new cell phone carrier

Michelle — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 04:14:19 +0000

Isn’t it pretty???

I was previously with Telus (although, I still sort of am, for about another half of a month). But my contract is ending (very) soon and I tried calling in and seeing if they had any sort of incentive for me to stay with them (all I really wanted them to do was to be able to price match an advertised student plan that was available through one of their competitors). But instead, after the first (super friendly) customer representative I got, I was passed onto their retention department and the woman I got tried to get me to agree to a more expensive plan than the one I was looking at (from their competitor’s website) or a plan that had the same price, but with a lot less included things. Also, the plan she wanted me to agree to was advertised on the Telus website and was available to all new customers, so there wasn’t really anything ‘special’ about it. I wanted them to be able to match it for me with something equivalent, not make excuses about how their plan is so much better.

The second customer service representative I got tried to convince me that the follow plan was an excellent deal and was comparable to the one I was wanting to see if they would match the price for the plan over at one of their direct competitors:

$30/month + taxes for:

150 anytime minutes
Unlimited nation-wide family calling (this only applies if there’s more than one phone under one account holder)
Unlimited evenings and weekends (local) starting at 9pm
Voice mail (3), Call Waiting, Call Forwarding
Free local calling on my birthday (whoo…?)
Unlimited local calling for 1 month
Unlimited local talk, text, picture & video messaging for 5 numbers

Which is actually worse than my current plan (200 anytime minutes, evenings and weekends starting at 9pm, free local calling on my birthday, I had unlimited talk and text for 3 months when I first signed, and unlimited talk and text to 8 local numbers). I don’t actually care about the picture and video messaging, my big thing was having unlimited texting, essentially. But I also wanted to Telus to match this student plan (which I qualify for) over at Rogers:

$30/month + ‘government regulatory recovery fee BS’ + taxes for:

150 anytime minutes
Unlimited evenings and weekends (local) starting at 9pm
Call Waiting, Call Forwarding, Group Calling
Unlimited messaging (text, picture and video, email, IM)
Unlimited social networking access (via preinstalled apps for sites like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc.) and unlimited on-device mobile browsing

But they wouldn’t match it. The first Telus customer service representative I got was really nice and seemed to think it was a ‘doable’ plan for me, but he couldn’t authorize changes like that so he had to pass me along to someone else, who tried to talk me into their other plan (the first one listed) and how it was ‘equivalent’. Or, better yet, tried to pass off a $40 student plan to me that had slight differences (200 minutes, earlier evenings/weekends at 6pm, unlimited talk/text/picture/video to 10 numbers plus the unlimited text/picture/video messaging, and 100mb of data usage per month). Why would I want to limit myself with 100mb of monthly data usage when I could get a phone that comes with unlimited mobile browsing (please note, I did not get a smart phone – the unlimited mobile browsing add-on can only be applied to non-smartphone handsets).

Plus I took advantage of a promotion going on at Bestbuy where if I activate a new cellphone through them, I get an extra 800 points through their rewards program (equal to $10 to spend in store on anything). Plus there’s a referral program going on at Rogers where one of my friends and I get a little bonus, 60 days from when I signed the contract.

So I ended up with a new cell phone, a new carrier, a new contract and, most importantly, and new phone number that essentially sounds like a tongue twister except for the last four digits. But… I’m happy with the phone that I got! Of course, the sales representative at the store was working as slow as molasses (over an hour to activate a phone? He kept on wanting to clarify my date of my birth, even thought it was clearly shown on one of my pieces of identification for the credit check.).

One of my Twitter-ite friends pointed out to me that if I needed a phone just for emergency purposes, it’d be a lot cheaper to go with a prepaid phone – and it would be. My sister uses prepaid phone with Rogers (same carrier that I’m with now) and she loaded up $100 on it last August and it’s not even used up yet ($100 worth of credit won’t expire for 365 days). She uses her phone sparingly and doesn’t talk on the phone all that often (well, as compared to how much she used the phone when she was in her teens…). But the thing is… I don’t think I could go back to not having a cell phone. I text far to much and I’m reliant on my phone for a lot now – alarms, calendar, texting, phoning people (not very often though – my usage has been under an hour per month for the last year). Plus it’s just an easy way for people to get a hold of me, like if we’re meeting up somewhere. So while it’s expensive, I do use the features that come with my phone and fully intend to utilize all the features that come with my new plan (besides, well, stuff like call forwarding).

And I’m not trying to bash Telus with this post. I’ve always had excellent customer service with them, my first cell phone was set up quickly and easily and I never had any issues (besides one billing issue where someone from my ‘unlimited talk and text to 8 numbers!’ came up as a long distance number because they didn’t have a 1 [the country code] in front of the phone number) with them. But I kind of expected more from them in terms of the end of my contract and if I was going to renew one with them, or anything like that. I asked them for a comparable plan and to match the price of an advertise plan, not even beat the price – just match it. To be honest, if they had, I probably would have decided to resign with them for the new contract (and to get a new phone, my first one – the LG Chocolate – is all cracked up on the key/number pad). But instead, they decided to offer me what was available to new customers right on their website and it was not what I was asking for to begin with so… Toodles to Telus.

I liked you, I really did, and it was a nice three years, but now I’ve found someone else. They were just.. a better fit for me. It’s not me, it’s you.

Pretending to be busy like a bee

Michelle — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 20:56:39 +0000

So I’ve been a little busy lately, what with a new website project and all… BlytheLife.com

Oh, I’ve also learned what every good webmaster knows: have giveaway, will have hits/comments/linkbacks skyrocket. Which isn’t bad, to say the least.

Other things in life, since my Canada Day incident with a cat and subsequently stupid people have been fairly low key and fairly tame. I paid my credit card bill, have thought out what courses I want to take next year (although if the fourth years keep on filling them up, I don’t know what I’m going to be taking next year because I wanted my fourth year to be my ‘easy’ year – if I take 28 credits like I want to for my 3rd year, I only need another 20 credits for my 4th year, whoot). I do have a good chance of getting into two classes that are on my ‘want-to-take’ list – my academic advisor is teaching/lecturing for those and she said that she can force-add me into the class rosters if needed.

Oh! I met my paternally approved ‘BFF’ on Saturday. So hilarious. She wants to go to the same school as I do, but my dad lied when he said that she was starting this year, she’s actually finishing up her secondary education still and has one more year to go. She wants to go into pharmacy, not nursing. I don’t know a thing about the requirements for fulfilling first year pre-pharmacy, or what pharmacy even looks at. She wants to go into the Faculty of Science for her first year, but doesn’t like math, chemistry, physics or biology. I just said ‘good luck’ to her, as if pharmacy requires general first year science, she’ll need to take all four, at least 2 classes each, plus 2 classes of English. Anyways, I’m really not sure why my dad thought it’d be a great idea for us to meet/talk/whatever when she doesn’t even want to go into the same program as me. I can’t even give her any advice for application or admissions requirements because they’ve changed everything since I entered my school. Besides the fact that I’m domestic student… and went through the Canadian public school system… Sigh.

In other news… Finally finished up a new crochet pattern (just editing my writing – fixing typos, grammatical errors, etc.) and then going to get that up on chelle-chelle.com. Not feeling the greatest today for just a mountain worth of reasons. Starting with my voice, or lack thereof. Off to go and crawl back into bed soon. Or maybe I’ll just have some marshmallows. … sugar’s my catchall cure for everything.

Cranky? Me? Never!

Michelle — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 03:59:05 +0000

Today at work, it started innocently enough. I arrived, I said good morning to everyone, I got my tea. And then one of my coworkers (who delighted in unplugging my mouse from my computer to see how long it would take for me to realize it was unplugged, what a childish idiot) decided to unplug my mouse while I went into a short meeting with my supervisor. I came back, tried to maximize one of my windows back up, the mouse icon isn’t there, I go and plug my mouse back in. This coworker was (wisely?) not there waiting to see my expression. Such a jerk. When he showed up again, and asked me with this gleeful little smile how my computer was, I asked him how old he was. And then he sputtered his age and I informed him that he was old enough to know better and to keep his hands off of things that weren’t his. Oh, and then at this point, his supervisor walked into the room and laughed that this coworker got put into his place by someone half his age and thanked me for lecturing him. Ugh.

In other news, I’ve been working on new content for one of my other sites, been getting photos taken of new jewellery that I’ve made and I’ve been working on a new crochet pattern for an toddler/child’s hat… I’m pretty sure I’m going to be getting my lovely coworkers to test them out on their kids for me. Because, you know, I’m lacking in the children department – but my hat idea would look pretty darn ridiculous on me if you saw it, lol. But considering all the work that I’ve put into it so far, I’m thinking only 2 hat sizes for the one pattern. I’m hoping to make it my first ‘for sale’ pattern. Cross your fingers!

And my aunt and uncle keep on inviting themselves over for dinner. Which is super annoying, because it leads into my aunt talking to me about how nice it is that I’m working in an office job and how cute it is that I’m employed. She makes doing office work sound like it’s such an easy gig just because I’m just a girl (she even alluded to such a thing!). Do you all realize how difficult it is to bite my tongue to her regarding her own trainwreck of a son? So difficult. But actually saying stuff about her son would be such a major insult to her, because it’s just not something that’s “done” in the culture that they’re so invested in. Family is, after all, family. And we’re supposed to all stick together, no matter what. Lah de dah… Clearly they’ve never taken a biology class where you learn about cutting out the diseased part of the body… Diseased part = cousin, body = family.

C’est la vie.

I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t !@#$ing care.

Michelle — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 03:37:29 +0000

I don’t care if you’re related to me (and happen to live in the same house as me), it does not mean you’re allowed to:

Lend out my jewellery pliers to a visiting relative when she wants to fix something. No. That’s what the regular pliers are for. Not the pair designed for crimping that cost over $25.
Go looking through my (messy) closet to lend my clothes to someone else (who isn’t even the same size – this should have been super obvious).
Use my nail polish as paint.
Borrow stuff off of my desk without asking first – there’s a reason that no one else in the family uses my Staedtler pens and that’s because you all abuse them and leave the caps off and misplace them. Grrr.
Never. Use. My. Sandals. Again. Your feet way too big. And you owe me new sandals. Why? Because you tore one of them with your massively-way-too-big-feet. Duh.

And that was my Monday (after I got home).

From country bar to the ER

Michelle — Sat, 29 May 2010 19:01:31 +0000

Last night I went out to celebrate the 21st birthday of a very country-music loving girl. It started off well. I got picked up by a super awesome designated driver (C) and there was already another girl in the car (M), who I mistook for the birthday girl because of a) the hair, b) I only saw her from behind because c) the windows were all foggy. We picked up said Birthday Girl (B, only because her letter gets taken and I don’t feel like using numbers…). I can’t remember how many people there was in total (~10?). It started off well.

We got there super early (by early, I mean there was at MOST 10 other people in the bar when we got there at 8pm-ish), B went and got herself a drink, we all sat around a talked, there ended up being more people. I ended up with a drink (yay for vodka…), other tables started being filled.

And then one of B’s friends came with a bunch of boys, people started dancing more, more drinks were ordered. And then this guy sat down next to me. Like right next to me. I thought it was one of those invited boys from an invited person from the group I was with – no such luck.

Let’s call him Julian, because what’s what he said his name was. He started talking about himself. Where he was from, what he did. And then, wouldn’t I like to meet his friend? Doesn’t he look great? Wouldn’t I want to dance with him and did this Julian mention that he was single? Ahh, hilarity ensued. Julian went “So, you look like a smart girl. Right? I mean, that’s what I first noticed about you, you look really smart.” (I wanted to ask if it was the glasses or the Asian thing…) and then I answered back with “Thanks, my boyfriend thinks so too.” and that was answered with “You’re very subtle. Very subtle and cute. I like that about you.” And then Julian switched seats with the friend he introduced (Brian). Would I like for him to buy me a drink? Erm, no thank you. He starts talking to me, I try my very best to ignore, but it’s kind of hard when some person is trying to get your attention and putting his arm around your shoulders. Grrr. K rescued me by going “I’m going to the washroom, want to come with me?”. Are there trees in a forest? Hell yes.

I will have to admit – the music was not as bad as I thought it would be (but B, you will never get me to admit it out loud!). It was mostly country (not to my taste) but there were some songs that I did recognize and could sing along with. For instance, Taylor Swift? Yeah, I totally sang along to that and danced a bit to that and to other songs as well. And, erm, yeah, I could recognize songs, but not artists or song titles, oh well!

Awkward Person #1 (Julian) came back with a cowboy hat on and told one of my friends that he bought it just to impress me (a.k.a. he stole it off the head of one of his friends) and so they were going “OMFG, GO FOR IT! HE’S SO CUTE!!!!” (dood, not taking advice from people who aren’t dead sober and that I don’t know how impaired their judgment is when drinking – and he wasn’t cute).

J: You know, if you didn’t have a boyfriend, I would date you.
M: And if I didn’t have a boyfriend, I would not date you.
J: You’re a bitch. And sincere. Very sincere. I like that.
M: Right…
J: I bet I could love you if I was dating you.
M: Okay then… *edges further away*

Sometime later, Awkward Person #2 (Brian) was sitting next to me (but not right next to me, so that was okay) and he looked super depressed and was drinking by himself and his friends would come by and try to cheer him up. Oh well… At that point, we decided we would go (it was around 12:30am at this point). We tracked down people, pulled people away from boys that they found (yeah, I’m kind of a killjoy sometimes). Oh Birthday Girl, I’d like to remind you of what you said to that boy while holding onto him. And not letting go.

B: They’re saying I have to go home now… I don’t wanna go home… I don’t wanna go home…

Yeah, lovely. So I got a hold of M, who’s a very cheerful drunk when she’s in a bar and around other people. I pull her out and we’re waiting for the others to get out. And she starts talking about how she wants to walk home (it was lightly drizzling and we live too far to walk). She wants to walk and starts talking about walking home and jumping off the bridge, or oh, there’s a street over there with traffic, she wants to just walk into oncoming traffic. Not cool. She’s taller and bigger than me and had far too much to drink and was trying to fight me to leave. The others come out and we convince her (I’m still not sure how) to get into the car and our lovely designated driver (C!) drives us back to the city that we all live in, yay.

M passes out and then partway home, she starts breathing more audibly and makes crying sounds. The two in the backseat noticed a huge series of cuts on both of her arms. We couldn’t just take her home because she’s a) suicidal and b) lives alone. So we debated for a bit and then drove to the ER at a local hospital. Oh, we also parked in ambulance only parking for a little bit before moving to the 15 minute parking only for patient drop off. Go us. Birthday Girl was awesome, at that point M was a little bit of awake. We debated what we were going to do. Parents were called to let them know where we were – except for mine (my land line was replaced with a ‘internet’ phone that’s connected to the internet and frequently when I call home, I get the “Beep, beep, beep, the number you have dialed is not in service, please check your area code and try your call again.” <- I just select “Home” from my contacts…

None of us really knew M too well (C and B are coworkers, K and I have only met her 2-3 times), I dug through her wallet for a Care Card, but her driver’s license worked well enough for the person handling the triage desk to fill out the paperwork. She was put into the cast room for a while before they got a bed ready for her. We got so many questions asked about her and we just didn’t know a lot of the answers. She was moved when they had an area ready for her

It was maybe 2:30am-ish when K called her dad so she could get a ride home, I got home too. Hugs were given. I got home and just fell into bed after changing into pajamas and was trying to figure out how the night ended up like that.

Since my home phone wasn’t working last night, no one in my house knew anything that was going on. I told my parents when I woke up this morning (…. at 8am, not enough sleep) that the phone just plain sucks and told them about what happened. They said we did the right thing and then my dad goes “Why didn’t you just call though?”. Selective listening ftl.