You know I'm bored...

[ NOW ]
Current mood: excited about the beach
Current music: A/C flowing
Current hair: sleep-ready
Current clothes: robe
Current annoyance: myself for not going to sleep
Current smell: Jon (In a good way!)
Current thing I should be doing: Sleeping, studying, packing for the beach
Current desktop picture: a picture of my and Jon's feet in the hammock at the Frio
Current favorite band: no one in particular
Current book: Naked by David Sedaris
Current cd in stereo: a country mix Vicki made me
Current crush: Well, Jon. Duh. and Twix, of course.
Current favorite celeb: Amy Adams


[ DO YOU.. ]
Smoke?: only very rarely and whilst quite intoxicated
Do drugs?: NO
Have a dream that keeps coming back?: Nope
Remember your first love?: Yup.
Still love him/her?: No. I wish him well but that is all.
Read the newspaper?: Not very often.
Have any gay or lesbian friends?: Yup and they are totally cool!
Believe in miracles?: Yes
Believe it's possible to remain faithful forever?: Absolutely.
Consider yourself tolerant of others?: Unless someone is doing something to offend or hurt me or my friends, I am usually pretty cool with people. Or when driving... (see last post!)
Consider love a mistake?: Not at all. Love is a blessing.
Like the taste of alcohol?: Mostly. But I do think that warm beer tastes like what I imagine piss tastes like.
Have a favorite candy?: I've been hankering for a Twix a lot lately
Believe in astrology?: I like stars, but I don't believe in the Zodiac sign type stuff.
Believe in magic?: Only between two people.
Believe in God?: I believe in a higher power, for sure!
Have any pets: No. Only a sweet pup that I consider my nephew :-D
Go to or plan to go to college: I'm a grad! Still taking some classes at ACC so that then I can go to grad school!
Have any piercings?: Just the ears.
Have any tattoos?: No.
Hate yourself: No. When things happen that I could hate myself for, I choose to learn from them instead.
Have an obsession?: Always something.
Have a secret crush?: Again, just Jon and Twix

[ LOVE LIFE ]
Ever been in love?: Yes
Do you believe in love at first sight?: Nope. There is certainly attraction at first sight. But love has to come from getting to know someone as a person. You can't do that "at first sight"
Do you believe in "the one?": I believe in the right person to spend the rest of your life and love with


[ETC]
Have you ever played a game that required removal of clothing?: I'm almost 24... Of course I have
Have you ever been intoxicated?: Again, I'm 24. Yes.
Have you ever been caught "doing something?": I believe so
Are you a tease?: It' been mentioned before
Shy to make the first move?: It's been so long I don't even remember. Not shy, but I'd rather not.


[ LAST THING.. ]
Bought: Alamo Drafthouse food YUM!
Ate & Drank: Fried Pickles, Fish Tacos, and a Milkshake. (health, I know!)
Read: Lippincot's Nursing Drug Guidelines for pharmacology class
Watched on TV: 30 Rock

[ EITHER OR.. ]
beer or cider: if they were the same price and both always available, cider
drinks or shots: depends on my mood, but shots never turn out super in the end.
cats or dogs: Dogs
single or taken: Absolutely 100% taken
pen or pencil: Pen
gloves or mittens: Gloves
food or candy: Food... or candy... I don't know! They both rock!
coke or pepsi: Coke


[ LAST PERSON YOU.. ]
saw: Jon! I'm with him right now!
talked to on the phone: Anita, the lady who was in charge of my car at the shop today
hugged: Jon!
instant messaged: Margaret
kissed: Jon!

[ WHAT IS... ]
Your bedroom like?: messy
Your favorite thing for breakfast?: Fruit or yogurt
Your favorite restaurant?: Madam Mams
What's on your bedside table?: books and candles, my phone charger, pictures
What do you eat when you raid the fridge late at night?: Whatever is in the fridge...
What is your biggest fear?: living life without love
Do you know how to play poker?: my momma didn't raise no fool!
What do you carry with you at all times?: My cell phone and my keys, including my mace!
How do you drive?: like a responsible, non-dummy
What do you miss most about being little?: Being relatively carefree
Are you happy with your given name?: Yes! A perfect match. Also my perfect drunk/avoiding creepy men at bars name is Devon.
What color is your bedroom?: Blue
Have you ever been in a play?: Quite a few
Do poor, homeless, or starving people sometimes annoy you?: Sadly, yes. There are many avenues through which they can get help, yet they choose to sit on the side of the road staring uncomfortably through my car window.
Do you consider yourself to be a nice person?: Yes. I think I am a pretty kind-hearted person with good intentions.

"Driving for Dummies"

Who ever thought that they would need to make a "driving for dummies" book? If you are that dumb, maybe you shouldn't be driving. And how in the world did you earn the money to buy that car that you are driving, dummy?

Driving IS NOT for dummies.

It is a huge task that too many people shrug off. We have these swanky cars with super luxury written all over them, and you can have a GPS going, a call on your bluetooth, a video playing in the background while your kids are arguing over who gets to lick the silver spoon next, and all the while, you ARE actually on the road, going 60-80 mph, a truly neck-breaking speed. Literally. You would think that a lot of people forget that small fact by the way they drive.

I don't know if it's like that in all cities, or if Austin is especially bad. I feel like everyone here is either going slow and can't seem to stay within the lanes, or they're going WAAAAY too fast and just can't decide which line to stay in, so they zip through all of them. Jon's theory, which I have good faith in, is that everyone on the roads in Austin is either drunk or high.

I find myself saying really rude things to people on the road. In general, I'm just a really unpleasant person while I'm in the driver's seat. I'll be talking to my passenger, telling her about some awesome thing or other that Jon did or some cute thing I saw, and mid-sentence, *TOUERETTES* just kicks in and I let some poor, unknowing dummy on the road have it. And of course they will never know what I said about them or their driving skills, but whoever is unfortunate enough to be in the car with me sure hears it.

I feel like driving is bad for my health. I'm tempted to pick up biking whenever possible, but that seems unwise, seeing all the dumb-butts on the road! They'll just knock me off my bike one of these days, like they did with my sister. I guess if I am going to have to encounter these dummies, I might as well be in my big plastic and metal hunk on wheels as well. Better odds, I suppose.

I just need to say it one more time... Driving is NOT for dummies. "Driving For Dummies: Page 1: DON'T DRIVE if this book is your best bet. Drop your keys off at the door and take the bus home." End of book.

Better yet, let's just get rid of that book altogether.

I rest my case.

Today is Monday, Tomorrow is Friday

That's right! Jon gets back from training tomorrow night and then I have Wednesday-Friday off! Which means that essentially, tomorrow is my Friday! Huzzah!

On Wednesday, I have to go to class and we are taking my car in to the shop to get it all squared away. Then, we are both getting MASSAGES! Yay! And I think we will end the day with a date at Alamo Drafthouse. I'm super excited! Thursday, we are waking up early and trucking it over to the beach! There for 3 nights, soaking up sun, catching some waves, and eating cheap, cheap Tex-Mex food!

Then back to real life, but we can deal with that later.

The class that I am taking right now is Pharmacology. It is such an interesting class to me! I love the math part of it :) (yes, I know. I'm a big old nerd for enjoying math. That's ok, I know I'm a nerd!) I feel like I am really excelling in the class. I think that the class really ties together a lot of the things I learned at UT that felt so... meaningless. Between Physiology and Pharmacology, all of that tedious information that never fit together FINALLY FITS!

I charged up my camera battery to take with me to the beach. I feel like I need some sort of creative outlet. And as I mentioned before, photography has always intruiged me, so I need to get into the habit of tote-point-click! I also really want to try creating mosaics. I once saw a really interesting coffee table mosaic, and I really want to creat one of my own! It was such an interesting piece! I feel like finding some way to let out my creative energy will really help me out when Jon is gone next year. Help me focus some energy on creating!

Thank goodness tomorrow is (my version of) Friday! It's been a rough month! Massages and Beach, here I come!!!

An update...

(Hopefully to be followed with more updates, on a more regular basis!)

I am so envious of Ryan's camera. I really have always had a fascination with photography, and he has a slammin' camera! Mom and Dad have a pretty awesome camera as well. I need to *yoink* it for a day or two and see what I can do with it. Ryan was at the lake with us this weekend and took some AMAZING photographs, which I can't wait for him to publish! As long as I can't have such a badass camera, I might as well charge my dinky little battery and keep on trucking with my close-to-zero zoom pocket camera! Be on the lookout for new pictures!

Anyways...
For a couple of years, I have been searching for the best career path to take. Combining my past experience working with adolescents in a middle school counseling setting and my current experience in the health care field, I have finally formulated my dream job! *Drum roll, please!* I want to work with adoelscents in a clinical health setting in which I could provide both mental health counseling and whole body health, specifically incoorporating sexual health, addictive health, and nutrition. "What's even better than finally putting your finger on your dream job?", you ask... It's finding the PATHWAY!

I recently and FINALLY made the decision to GET MY STUFF TOGETHER and aim all of my attention and energy towards applying for the Alternate-Entry Masters of Science in Nursing degree at The University of Texas, my alma mater! The program is designed specifically for folks like me who have a Bachelor's degree in something other than nursing. The first 15 months will be an intensive, fast track nursing program, at the end of which I will be qualified to test to become a Registered Nurse! Immediately following that, I will enter the Master's portion of the program. I can work as a nurse during that time, if need be, or I can barrel on through the Master's program and come out with an RN and MSN! My ultimate goal with this is to become a Nurse Practitioner, which may take a few more steps dependnig on which Master's track I take. I'm debating between the "child health" track, which seems to be fairly obvious why that would be a good option, and the "family psych/mental health nurse practitioner" track, which also has its obvious reasons! With the child heath option, I would still have to do a bit more schooling in order to qualify to test to obtain an NP license, whereas with the FPMHNP option, I would qualify immediately following completion of the program. At this point, that sounds more ideal! But, I need to weigh out all of the pros and cons of each and see which one overall fits me and my ultimate goals the best.

I can't begin to explain how exciting it is to me to have had this realization and to finally know exactly how to work towards exactly what it is that I want to do!

Dream job... I'm on my way!