Thursday, December 31, 2009

While I'm wide awake

Here is the original for those types who turn on the director's commentary while watching DVDs.

Relationships
1. Make wise relationship decisions this year
Well, my relationship decisions for this year were as follows:

Winter and Spring in Tampa: I took myself completely off the market as I transitioned from a short but whirlwind relationship.

Summer at home: I burned a bridge and spent months trying to prevent myself from rebuilding it while busying myself with work and friends.

Fall and Winter in Madison: The bridge was rebuilt. And I was too exhausted and jaded from school and work to figure myself out enough to become someone worth dating.

So were my decisions wise or unwise? I guess it's a shade of gray. But it isn't exactly progress, is it? If I'm keeping myself accountable with these resolutions (which is the point), then I can't possibly give myself credit for this one.

2. Spend no more than a month in "No Man's Land"
A month? I don't know if I could say that I spent a day in No Man's Land this year. Which has its positives and negatives, really. All told an improvement though, I'd say.

3. Find myself a good MLC marriage track girl
I only spent a couple days this year visiting MLC, and I definitely did not spend those days actively searching for a wife. That's ok. This resolution is facetious, but I still maintain that I'm almost infinitely more likely to find someone there that I'm on the same page with than I am at UW.

Experiences
4. Half-facetious resolution that was lost on the cutting room floor.
Wasn't accomplished, wasn't attempted, wasn't serious, and didn't
belong in the "Relationships" section before. Ha.

5. Go to at least one MLS game

(September 26)
I went to my first MLS game with my roommate and his girlfriend, as we watched Chicago tie Toronto 2-2 in a thriller. We had such a good time that we went down twice more (for playoff games), even appearing on Sportsillustrated.com as a result. Jordan and Heidi got season tickets for next year and I'm sure I'll join them for a number of those games. It's a passion now. Go Fire!

6. Go Clubbing
Regretfully, no. I think it's regretfully, at least. I do think that it would be an interesting experience.

7. Actually go to the beach.
(February 21)
I did, on several occasions. They were some of the many pleasant memories I have of my second semester at USF. I'm really looking forward to seeing everyone in a week.

8. Remember to celebrate Stabby the Green Pepper Day
(April 10)
And to great fanfare! This will probably be a resolution next year too, after which it will just annually become second nature.

Personal Improvement/Achievement
9. Finish with a cumulative 3.9 GPA at USF
(~May 2)
A surprise 4.0 for the second semester ensured that I ended my time at South Florida with a 3.93 GPA. Good thing, too, because I could only dream of doing that well at Madison. It's a whole different world.

10. Learn to cook passably
I didn't really even attempt to do this. Oops.

11. Find a way to play soccer at least twice a month
(up until October)
I was doing so well with this one, but predictably it got totally derailed by the Wisconsin winter. I even had a fall/winter indoor league lined up, but I was way too busy with work to do much more than entertain that idea. However I played often during the summer and took every advantage of the Florida weather to go outside and kick around. A winless intramural season was tough, but then again I was one of like 3 people on that team that had even played soccer before.

12. Keep the Lord in my life
Although I fret about the other things on this list so much, at least I've still got the most important one.

13. Work and find enjoyment in it
I started working at the ol' Targs in July and it's been way more enjoyable than my first (fast food) job. Sure, it's not always a blast to stock tampons or fold clothes for hours on end, but I have definitely found enjoyment in a lot of it. Particularly when Shallow Blake goes to work.

14. Swear less
What is it about living on campus that makes it so easy to swear? Oh, probably that everyone around you does so constantly. Even so, I'm always careful about who can or can't hear it...mostly it's done in the confines of my dorm room. Knowing that anyone and everyone can see what you do on the internet, I maintain the "Al Michaels Standard of Verbal Decency" while I do my social networking.

15. Get a scholarship
I thought about giving myself this one, considering that I do have a fairly substantial corporate scholarship at the moment. However, I mentioned at the start of the year that I wanted to get a scholarship in addition to that one, which is not something that I accomplished or even tried to do. I guess there were just other pressing needs over the end of the summer.

So I accomplished 7 out of 15. That's just under half...

16. Accomplish at least half of my New Year's Resolutions
(8 of 16)
...until now. I'll be back tomorrow.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Well.

I'm not really even sure what to say right now. For the third time in the last 4 years, a relative of mine has passed away during the week of New Year's. This time it was my Grandma Marie, who was technically a step-grandmother (having married my maternal grandfather after his wife passed in the 60s), but was always treated as my Grandma growing up. I don't have much eulogizing to do on here, as I've almost just become kind of numb to the whole situation anymore. I'm more saddened and prayerful for my Grandpa, who despite his own constant health problems now has to face the death of his wife for the second time.

I was in the middle of my New Year's Resolution post, but I mean, that can wait.

I don't know. This time of year and these last six months have really been something.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Digressions

If included every digression I wanted to while blogging, each post would probably be about twice as long, and make about one tenth of the sense. Still, I tend to take mental note of what pops into my mind like those Vh1 music videos of the late 90s (You know...? I'm thinking of something real, right?).

Here are just a few I encountered, vaguely categorized.

Concerning Pokemon and the phenomenon of PPPDecember
- Any time a fad gets too popular on Facebook, I see it as my opportunity, nay my DUTY to be a smartass about it (I get it from my parents, I think). However, I'm not that opposed to Pokemon Profile Pic December, as I have fond memories of Pokemon just like everyone else. Even so, I couldn't just join in. Therefore, my roommate and I agreed to start with "Obscure and Worthless Pokemon Trainer Card December" and work our way toward a pretty amusing coordinated profile picture war later this month. Way to go me for way over-analyzing facebook fads.

- I enjoy the amateur psychoanalysis based on what pokemon one selects as their profile picture. Don't pretend it doesn't happen.

- Perhaps it's due to my upbringing as a conservative Lutheran, but I refuse to warm up the idea of any pokemon beyond #151. Even Mew is kind of a stretch... I stopped paying attention to the series well before they released the, like, 500 more pokemon or whatever that there are today. I never saw what was wrong with the 150 we had.

- If you don't pick Squirtle out of the 3 choices at Professor Oak's laboratory, you are probably a terrorist.

- If I were to play by the rules and pick a pokemon profile picture, I would probably go with Tangela. A bundle of vines with huge eyes in tennis shoes? How did Pikachu get to be face of the series over you?!

Concerning Pandora
- Pandora is something I held off using for quite a while, but I have definitely started to see the benefits the more I use it.

- What if there was a Pandora for dating? You just enter in a person that you like a lot of the qualities of, and it shows you several similar options based on your preferences. I'll bet someone has made a youtube video about this or something.

- I make a lot of jokes about liking pop music, but I like it way too much for my own good. The 3 stations I rotated between tonight are probably pretty embarrassing.

- One of them was "Live your Life" by T.I. featuring Rihanna. I won't say the other two, but I'm willing to put myself out there over that song. I don't care, I really like it, you guys. It's one of about 3 rap songs I will defend my like of to the grave. The other two have already gotten mentions in blogs this year.

- The more normal Lady Gaga's music and image gets, the more I like it. Which of course means that there is an awful lot of Lady Gaga that I hate.

- At least I still listen to old Relient K?

Concerning Snow, Career Opportunities, Friendliness, and the use of the term "Sweetheart"
- I'm actually pretty sure I want to move back to Tampa after I graduate from UW-Madison. There are a lot of things about the city that I am in love with, and I just thrive a bit more in the friendly, laid-back atmosphere of the south.

- But we'll see. I've been pretty sure about a lot of things.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

After my 5th blogiversary post, here's my 109th total. Epic.

I've always been kind of opposed to the overuse of the term"epic," but if Al Michaels can say it during Sunday Night Football, I can too. This is also how I justify the phrase "What the hell?"

On the way out of my last economics lecture, I overheard a girl saying to someone else, "Well, then, you should blog about it!"

So I guess I will then.

I owe my general readership a more detailed explanation for the appendix and emergency surgery references sprinkled around my internet doings. I guess I'll just jump right into it...

It all started on Wednesday night, not long after my post "And We'll Say Hello" (because I'm sure everyone reading this can picture which post that is based on the title...). UW systemers would remember this as the snow day, which I was fairly lukewarm about considering that I only missed one class as a result and still had to work my 7-to-midnight shift at the ol' Targs. Regardless, I was still pretty cheery at the thought of a snow day and the night got better when I and most of my coworkers were sent home from work at 9:30 because pretty much no one braved the roads to shop.

In usual circumstances, my roommate Jordan and I go get dinner around 11 PM or later, because we both work late shifts pretty consistently. However, that night, due to the roads, all the university food places were closed early. We were both pretty hungry so we started entertaining the idea of calling for a pizza. The standard digestive anticipation (I don't really know what phrase to use for it, but I think everyone more or less knows that feeling right?) I felt in my stomach was increasing as we weighed our options of all the local delivery places.

Within a couple minutes of researching, that feeling had grown to actually be pretty uncomfortable. Eventually it didn't feel as much like hunger, but more like nausea or indigestion. At about 10:15 or so I decided I wasn't interested in ordering anything anymore, and I ate an apple and went to bed with the intention of sleeping off the increasing stomach pain.

10:30, of course, is a ridiculously early bedtime for most college students, especially for one that regularly works past midnight. I just felt that miserable. It didn't get any better, as the pain continued to increase as I tossed and turned until about 2:15 AM.

My first inkling in discomfort or sickness is to assume the very worst. However, since I know this is kind of a weakness, my actual course of action is to pretend that nothing is wrong whatsoever and try to tough it out. Since I've got that mental override pretty firmly planted in my distress gameplan, it can take quite a bit for me to overcome that and actually try to fix something that is wrong with me.

The abdominal pain, while at that point being the worst I could ever recall (I couldn't even stand up straight at its worst), would not have been enough to seek help on its own. But the chills...

I was absolutely frigid cold. It must have been a sight to see. I was laying in bed, bundled up in a comforter, sweatpants, two pairs of socks, 3 layers ending with my warmest sweatshirt, and a hat and gloves, and I was still shivering my teeth off. My roommate was in the same room writing a paper at this point in an undershirt and gym shorts...

I got out of bed and took my temperature to see if I might have a fever to go with the chills, assuming at this point that I might just have a new stomach flu virus. My suspicions were laughed at when the thermometer read "95.9".

95.9?!

Assuming that the thermometer was broken (but not really ruling anything out at this point), I took my temperature again. 96.1. Wow.

Doing what anyone who grew up on the internet would do next, I hopped on my laptop and WebMD'd the possible causes of an abnormally low temperature. After ruling out hypothermia (Why is that even on webMD? Do people really need an online diagnosis after getting pulled out of freezing lakes?), I determined that the body's reaction to an infection was roughly the only sane explanation for the ice cold temps.

At this, I vetoed my fear of being a hypochondriac (would that be hyperchondria?) and called my dad. Thankfully, he's usually up at 2:30 AM - I wasn't going to hedge my bet on university health services, given that most other university services were undermanned due to the snow.

After debating all of our options over the phone, he finally offered to come into town and bring me home, in hopes that I could get a doctor's appointment the next morning. Jordan stayed up until my dad got there in case anything happened (what a good roommate...seriously, I'm so grateful for that), and he got there at about 4. I made it home by 5 AM and passed out under quilts as the exhaustion finally overruled the pain.

In hindsight, I probably should have taken some painkillers. Huh.

I woke up after about 4 hours of sleep feeling quite a bit better. It didn't hurt too much at all and I was beginning to think that the whole thing might have just been some nightmare false alarm. I had a doctor's appointment anyway though, so I figured I'd go just for the sake of going. I drove myself to the doctor's office and after a short consult, my doctor basically said "The low temperature's a bit concerning, so we'll send you to the hospital for some lab work and a CT scan just to make sure it's not appendicitis. It probably isn't though."

The doctors in Lake Mills are notorious for ordering completely unnecessary tests for the sake of caution, so I was pretty skeptical. For instance, they've made it a habit of diagnosing everyone in my family with "heart murmurs" and ordering echocardigrams - which always end with the tech at the hospital wondering why an echo was ordered in the first place.

I figured I'd drive to the hospital (in my beloved Watertown), humor myself with the tests to justify all the class I missed, and head home after a false alarm.

I had the blood taken, I had an IV put in, and I had my CT scan. The tech running the scan started to take the IV out after the scan was over, and a nurse said "shouldn't we leave that in just in case he needs surgery?"

The tech replied, "Nah, I don't think we'll have to worry about that."

(Spoiler alert: Thanks a heap, pal)

At that point I was pretty certain I was fine. Obviously I didn't look like someone dealing with appendicitis and I didn't really feel like one either. I sat in the lobby, opened a Time magazine, and awaited my clearance to go home.

I might add now that my doctor told me that he wanted them to call him with the results so that he could tell me himself. The waiting area receptionist summoned me to an office near the reception desk and told me to pick up the handset.

I expected, "Hey Blake, this is Dr. Basarich. You're good to go."

I got, "Hey Blake, this is Dr. Basarich. You do have appendicitis, and we've already scheduled your surgery. They'll tell you what to do when you hang up."

Hooooooooooly frick.

I got a chance to call both of my parents (both of which were at least an hour away at work) and tell them about it, and then I was led into my surgery waiting room. I was for the most part still pretty calm at this point, although I was really just trying not to think about it. The anesthesiologist started some preliminary stuff as I sat in the operating bed, and then she just sat in there and talked with me for a while. For that I am forever grateful. It was about an hour before my mom got there, and I was rolled to the operating room about 5 minutes after she arrived...therefore, if not for the friendly anesthesiologist, it would have more or less been me and my thoughts (with a break for a new iv drip installation on my hand. Hey, thanks again, CT scan tech) for an hour leading up to emergency surgery.

I should send her a Christmas card, or something. She was incredibly reassuring in an otherwise fairly scary and lonesome situation.

I really wasn't all that scared for the most part. I did a lot of praying, and I kept reminding myself that this is an incredibly routine surgery that they probably do all the time. I never considered myself to be all that much in danger, but still, there were the nagging doubts.

"I'm going under, there's always a little danger with that."

"What if this is the time the routine surgery goes wrong?"

"They are cutting into my abdomen. Whoa. Hold on a second. I've had mouth surgery, but this..."

"This is emergency surgery...EMERGENCY. surgery."

Soon enough, though, I was in the O.R.

Soon enough, I was out of it.

I don't know how long the surgery took, but it's not like I would have noticed either way. I woke up completely drugged out, groggy, and in a fair amount of pain, but also thankful to be awake. The recovery from there was slow...I wasn't able to get out of bed for several hours after that, and I just about collapsed walking the 5 feet to the bathroom. All while hooked up to the IV. Blegh. No one said it would be pleasant.

My mom was with me the whole time, and Evan and my Dad came to visit for a few hours that night. I got a few calls from relatives (i.e. the Monkle) but for the most part I wasn't out spreading the news.

I watched some college hoops, #6 Syracuse vs. #11 Florida in Tampa (...sigh), and got as much sleep as is possible with abdominal wounds and nurses coming in constantly to check your vitals. The next morning I had a little bit of breakfast (I made it 23 hours without eating anything. Which isn't quite a day, but is still longer than I've ever gone without sleep) and chilled in the hospital until my 5 PM discharge. Wheelchair on the way out and everything...rollin' like a big shot.

Hospital stays aren't great, but they are what they are...the tough part is the restrictive period afterwards. It's been five and a half days since my surgery and only tonight have I eaten my first full unrestricted meal. Walking to class is tough. Shoot, walking up stairs has been tough. I'm not allowed to pick up anything of any weight for some time now, and since my job involves lifting, I have a surgeon's note saying I can't go back to Targs until January 2nd. One one hand, that sounds like a bit much to me; but on the other hand, stocking stuff all day in my current 'old man' physical state would probably be pretty disastrous.

So now I'm back at school just in time for finals (I don't have one til Thursday, so yes, I can afford to blog tonight) which have barely been of worry to me compared to my physical state.

Finals are kinda strange this semester. This semester on aggregate has been so ridiculously terrible compared to any other I've ever had that I'm probably just going to call mulligan on it and start going for that other major I wrote about on the night of the appendix attack.

I'm not sure how strongly I'm going to be able to finish this semester, but part of me feels like I have a few pretty reasonable excuses if I don't. Well, there's never a reasonable excuse to not try your best, but if ever there was a semester to just close out and forget about, it would be this one. Calculus, 20 hour work weeks, 7 school days in the last month lost to bouts of swine and appendicitis...yeah, I'm ready for a change. Maybe next semester I can actually have time for a social life, enjoy what I'm learning, and feel like I'm working toward something I actually want to do after college. A boy can dream...

So there's my appendectomy. I definitely went more in depth than I thought I would, but I've gone a whole semester with only quantitative assignments - I'm kind of yearning to write now and then. For that reason, I keep wanting to write more and more blogs (3 in one week's time is already a ridiculous pace. That probably hasn't happened here in years), but I'll hold myself back for a little while until after finals. After that, I'm going to be blogging at least twice more regardless of motivation - I've got resolution recap '09 and 2010 resolution making to take care of.

Until then, I've got some tests to take. After that, it's sweatervests, Tampa, and bowl games for a whole month. I cannot wait.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Five Alive

Delicious, yet unrelated

After five years, Flight 109 is still alive and kicking...more or less at least. I've blogged semi-regularly recently, just in time for the sudden resurgence of blogging I've noticed lately.

Generally anniversary posts are reflective in nature, or at least have a fair amount of substance to them. However, given the exceptional circumstances which engulf my present situation, I'm going to leave this post as more of a memorial marker than a contemplation.

I'll probably have a reasonable post about said circumstances ready within the next few days, but for now I'm resting on my laurels. After all, this is my first time ever making a blog post without an appendix, so I'm understandably exhausted. Blog stamina is stored in the appendix, see.

So I'll just say this: thanks to everyone who has followed this humble little journal, whether it's just been for a few posts or if you can remember reading this in 2004. Thank you to anyone who has commented on a blog post, either online or in person - you have no idea how nice of a feeling that is. And thank you God, for blessing me in countless ways over the last five years which are chronicled here.

War and Peace Out.

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

And we'll say hello

Snnnnnnnnnnnnow Day!

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is notorious for its complete unwillingness to call a snow day (like, once in the last 20 years), but for whatever reason last night's blizzard was ridiculous enough to lead to cancelled classes. Having driven in it (and having to drive in it again tonight to go to work), I can say that it is pretty bad out there but I don't think this would qualify as one of the two worst snow storms in Madison of my lifetime. Ol' Chancellor Biddy must just be the charitable type when it comes to missing school.

I didn't get out of all that much today. Today was one-class Wednesday and I still have to go to work tonight, but at least I got to sleep in, eh? Plus I suppose there's just the added excitement of learning about it the night before. It makes you feel like a kid again. I got to enjoy hearing it from some of Evan's roommates, who are all characters. It's always a good time over there when everyone is together and last night wasn't an exception. Even though the power went out for 2 hours and it was freezing in there.

We've entered the last full week of classes, and boy will I be glad to be done with this semester. This semester's workload has been fairly insane and I'm looking forward to a jam-packed winter break...3 Christmas parties (with new sweatervestery to be purchased!), a Tampa weekend, a tentative MLC trip, and maybe a Badger hockey game sprinkled in here and there. I can't believe there used to be entire weeks where I had nothing going on...

I'm so excited for break because I'm so sick of school. The class load this semester has been enough to get me to consider a few different paths in college. I'm no longer a lock to be majoring in marketing. I still want to be doing the same type of thing as a career as before, but I think I might prefer another way to get there. The alternate major I'm considering is "Journalism-Strategic Communications" which admittedly sounds a bit more convoluted than marketing, but is described simply as a "blend of the studies of Advertising and Public Relations." That's more or less what I wanted out of Marketing, so I'm going to take the entry-level course for that major next semester to determine if it is a better fit for me than Marketing.

I still fail to fully understand what the best fit for me is, but that's a big part of your first few years of college, right? My qualms with marketing were that I have no interest or skill whatsoever in accounting, finance, management, or really any business-school factor that would be included in 'Marketing' but excluded from Strat Comm. However, the rhetoric and presentation of advertising is what got me fascinated by marketing in the first place. I have a hunch that I would thrive considerably more by building up that side of my interest than trying to force myself into a path I'm not as sure of.

So I haven't switched majors yet, but I'm taking next semester to decide. I built next semester's classes specifically to knock out required gen ed credits and keep both Journalism and Business doors open. This next semester is a big one.

I thought I had it all figured out by now...but I still kind of do. I know roughly what I want to do when I'm done with school. I'm just at a fork in the road - where both roads probably lead to more or less the same place anyway.

I'm hoping that maybe the whole "have everything figured out at age 18" thing is more my own mental creation than the reality.

Although, I'm gonna be 19 soon. Better get on it. Everyone knows THAT's the age where you need to have everything figured out.

See ya again in 3 days.