Adult job

So i now have an official adult job and it scares me!!  since this job is really just a job to fill the space between undergrad and med school it scares me even more....because i am supposed to make "contacts".  I honestly have to wear fancy clothes and call up docs from UCdavis and schmooz....but the good thing is....they pay for trips!!!!  February they flew me out to a conference in New Orleans....i stayed on bourbon st and canal....right in the thick of it....and tomorrow i am flying to san francisco for another conference .  As it turns out, docs dont like to stay in motel eight, so we are hitting up the Hiatt at peir 49.......Dont be haters y'all (ok i am WAY to white to pull that line off). 

I guess uncomfortable pants and pointy shoes are a small price to pay for an all expense trip to one of my favorite cities, right on the pier.

Funny names

So at my new job (I work as a research director at Primary CHildren's Medical Center) I get to look at A LOT of kids charts. One thing I have really enjoyed are the odd/hilarious/sad/ peculiar names people name their kids. I feel for these kids I really do....sometimes parents are just asking for their kids to hate them later:

My favorite for the day is


MAXIMUM

NO JOKE! can you IMAGINE the jokes, innuendos, and all sorts of stuff kids will come up with......if i were this kid, i would refuse to ever go to math class

teacher "maximum, what is maximum allowance of volume of h20 in the jar?" \

He better be a poly sci major

ABC tag

Here we go...
A- Attached or single: Depends on who's asking! attached...
B- Best Friend(s): Mike and Nicholas-right now I am lacking on female friends in SLC (dont worry lyndsi-you are always number one)
C-Cake or Pie: ALLERGIC TO BOTH-damn gluten!
D- Day of Choice: Saturday!
E- Essential Item: insulin pump, timbuk2bag
F- Favorite Color: love them all at different times...right now i am into burnt orange
G- Gummi Bears or Worms: BEARS!!  something about the worms freak me out....maybe cuz i used to experiment on worms
H- Hometown: St. George, UT
I -Indulgence(s):too many to list....soydream, chips and salsa, organic PB, long runs, outdoor equipment (mainly coats....i have about ten different parkas), books, good CDS (way into peter paul and bjorn right now)
J- January or July: Oh man, they are both good.  they are also both right toward the end of the season which makes you kind of sick of that season at the time....but i love them both
K-Kids: does my boyfriend count?  i have plants...thats kind of close
L-Life is incomplete without: diet coke, mike, and the outdoors
M- Marriage Date: April 24th, 2009!  hahahah- JUST KIDDING!  that would be news to the Mister
N- Number of Siblings: 6, good gravy my mom was a champ!  had us all natural too!
O- Oranges or Apples: not into fruit as much as veggies....but id say clementines, but if they are big oranges, then apples.....im a weirdo
P- Phobias or Fears: Crickets!!!!  no joke-i find spiders fascinating, but i am scared to death of crickets....and being tickled to death...also not a joke, there is NOTHING funny about being tickled
Q- Quote(s): geez i dont know, there really isnt one i live by.....so ill go with an old favorite "its better to be a slug than a dead slug, right coach?"
R- Reason To Smile: It is getting warmer outside! i get to go skate skiing tomorrow, and next weekend i am in san horhey mt biking, then i go to SAN FRAN with work  :)  YAY!!
S- Season: spring and fall, the others are good too, but it is best running in spring in fall
T- Tag Six: whoever 
U- Unknown Fact About Me: I once got a pine needle stuck in my ear, i also once got my headdress stuck in the scenery during the korean ballet, hmm.....i have never been stung by a bee, i have three chronic disorders (with 7 kids it is inevitable that one would be defective), i once almost died when the hospital misdiagnosed appendicitis and sent me home on morphine....then they tried to kill me when i came back...long story really, and pretty gross at that (that is a lot more than one....so just pick your favorite)
V- Vegetarian or Oppressor of Animal: i was a vegetarian for six years!  but try to be a vegetarian and celiac...you are asking for cornmeal the rest of your life
W- Worst Habit: Picking my face (stupid zits).
X- X-Rays or Ultrasounds: hmm....they are both fine, what a dumb question though huh? WHO CARES?  i guess x is difficult...
Y- Your Favorite Food: chips and salsa....the hotter the better...with big chunks of veggies in them....and lots of garlic and cilantro
Z-Zodiac: Sagittarius....and i live up to it too!

Book Tag!

Grab the book nearest you. 
Go to page 123. 
Go to the 5th sentence on the page.
Type in the following 3 sentences.

The performance of the heart is measured in terms of cardiac output-or the rate at which the heart pumps blood into the arterial system.  Defined as heart rate times stroke volume from on ventricle, it averages 100 to 200 milliliters of blood per kilogram of mass per minute in birds.  A large proportion of the oxygenated cardiac output from the left ventricle goes directly to the legs for the purpose of heat loss.

from Ornithology:  second edition.  I wouldn't necessarily recommend this one to anyone....unless you love birds and science and are a big nerd (sadly i really enjoyed this text book and took this class for fun).  I tag Lyndsi and Crystal.

NO TV

So i dont have tv in my house.....(gasps, cries!) And i decided to post about it simply because people are SO funny when you tell them you don't watch tv.

The thing that really gets me is that people act like i am a better person for it. I promise you, throwing out my tv did not instantly improve my sinful tendencies....in fact, the only thing it really did was give me more time for reading, running, and homework. i am pretty sure hitler did not own a tv-with that said i think we can all conclude i am not an enlightened being for not having a tv.

the other really funny thing about no tv, is that SO much office gossip is about what was on tv. it is always a bit awkward when conversations go a little like this:
"hey robyn, did you watch american idol last night"
"nope, pamela, no tv remember"
"oh....yeah......well.......it was really good"
"really?"
"yeah there was this guy, and he sang this song and he looks a lot like my brother, but sounds more like my little sister...its like the high pitched whining....but in a good way, you know?"
"what song did he sing?"
"i dont remember....that one, that the older guy used to sing...uh you really just should have been there"
"ok, great"
awkward silence followed by something like this: "you are SO much better of a person than i am for not having a tv"

sometimes i think that having a tv would save me the time of having dumb conversations like this.

with that said, i do have a dvd player and i do love the office and scrubs.....so really i am not that much more righteous than the rest of you!

skate ski adventure

So for those of you who don't know me too well (ie most everyone who runs across this blog) I am obsessed with picking up random sports....really...if there is a club on campus i sign up for it. so far my endeavors include squash, lacrosse, xcountry skiing, downhill skiing, snowboarding, crew(probably the hardest i have tried), running, snow shoeing, climbing, road biking, mt biking, mountaineering (only did that once...but willing to give it another go), water polo, kayaking, surfing.....ok, i really could go on forever, and the list of things i want to do...probably twice as long.



the part i left out, is that i never do any of these things particularly well..I am a definite clutz and typically make some sort of fool out of myself while trying to accomplish a new sport. For example, my first white water kayak adventure-i accidentally got a rope wrapped around my neck...and blacked out from strangulation, which coincidentally saved me from drowning! (its funny in my head, cuz who the hell gets a rope wrapped around their neck while kayaking! I DO! so feel free to laugh :) i am alive after all)



so last weekend i checked off my list skate skiing.....For those of you southerners (most of my blog) skate skiing is like really really fast xcountry skiing on really really thin skis. this of course is a recipe for disaster.. I pulled my poor recovering boyfriend from off the couch and made him try with me. we were warned by multiple people that we were in for it.



My good friend who is a mad athlete agreed to give us a lessonand i have to admit, it was a ton of fun! it is my new most favorite outdoor winter endurance activity. If you have a chance, take a lesson (its totally required because technique is key). Mike and I were the slowest out of the entire track, but we loved every minute of it and WHAT A WORKOUT!! funny thing is, the next day the only thing truly sore was my neck....from falling over and over again.
No this isnt me, once again
did not take pictures!

happy winter sporting, too bad its almost spring...that means i need a new spring activity...maybe skydiving!

Happy valentines baby!

Valentines Day, as a teenage girl, always inspired thoughts of some sort of "love miracles". Filled with wishful dreams each year that some boy may just express his undying devotion to me, usually made v-day a big bust. But i must admit, my current boyfriend has a way of turning v-day into a terrible event....for the second year in a row, he has not disappointed.

Mike decided to go skiing this year on v-day with his lab. It was about one thirty in the afternoon while i was plugging away at work that he called to let me know he had had a little accident.

Problem is, mike's lab is chalk full of extremely talented skiers, those post docs who ski'd the alps put utahns to shame. Being it is only his second season of skiing, he reminds me of a kid trying to be one of the big boys as he runs off willy nilly to throw himself off of double blacks and ski until he can no longer stand. So yesterday after hours of intense skiing mike decided to go on "one last run" down honeycomb canyon. As far as he can remember, he was trying to turn, lost control of his skis, started sliding, hit a tree, fell for a while, hit a rock, heard some screaming, fell a bit more, and landed. Turns out his little fall was about a thirty foot cliff right under the chair lift. The screaming were people terrified that they were witnessing this poor boy's demise right before their eyes.

It is oddly fortunate that mike mainly ran into things on the way down head first. The times his head "bounced" off of rocks probably kept him from breaking legs and arms and slowed his decent. It's a miracle he didnt snap his neck. Since he had a helmet on he came home with only a minor concussion, some pretty bad scratches, and very sore muscles. Our valentines date consisted of me making sure he didn't fall asleep and slip into some sort of catatonic state. V-day always inspired some sort of hope in me for that v-day miracle. The funny thing is, I always knew when i met the right guy, my valentine's day would feel like i had always imagined when i was young....i guess concidering my boyfriend didn't die, i can say i finally got my miracle.

love you babe, wear a helmet!