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About Me:

Hey everyone, I am Cathryn. I am going into my 5th year of pharmacy at Butler University. I am also working toward a minor in Science, Technology & Society! In my spare time, I enjoy hanging out with friends and writing. I've been working on NaNoWriMo and am hoping to be published at some point in the near future as well. Most of the time you can catch me studying in the library or browsing the Internet. Oh, and did I mention that I got married last summer?

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Archive: January 2011

Desert Rose, not just a weird song by Sting.

Posted on January 20, 2011 by Cathryn

Last summer, as many of you know, I went on a plant-hoarding binge and got a whole mess of plants for the apartment. I soon learned that I’m not the greatest plant parent, and the apartment is a really harsh environment for the tropical varieties.

We started off with Bambi the bamboo, that peace lily whose name I can’t remember, Alphonse the aloe vera, and Rosie the desert rose. Bambi died in a horrible car accident (I left him in the car over night and he died, go figure?), and the peace lily shriveled up and nearly died in the dry apartment, kind of like the skin on my hands right now. Anyway. Alphonse and Rosie are still here.

AND. For the first time in over a year, the desert rose actually bloomed!

In the middle of a snowstorm!

Better yet, there are two other blooms on the same stalk. Soon, Rosie will be the prettiest plant at the ball!!

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The trials of scheduling REVEALED.

Posted on January 20, 2011 by Cathryn

Are you looking at going to pharmacy school?

GREAT! Here’s what you’re in for!

8 AM compounding lab. On a Friday. Followed by a 50-minute lecture. Then, lunch break. Then, 50-minute lecture. Then, 3-hour case conference.

Apparently, I have a death wish.

But you know what? I’m going to power through this. Even though I don’t function on less than 8 hours of sleep, which is going to prove interesting because I’m 90% certain I will be getting less than 8 hours tonight. It’s 11:33 PM and I still have some studying to do and lab things to look over.

Let’s just say that Starbucks is going to be my savior tomorrow, even if it costs me $6 for the caffeine I need. And it will. It’s Starbucks.

In other news of how I fail at life, my room is still littered with the spoils of semester move-in. At least all of my sweatpants are on top of the mess. All I care about right now are sweat pants. :)

So since it’s only day 3 of spring semester and I already feel overwhelmed, here’s that lovely finals shot of Kass and Ashley partaking in pickles in front of the open refrigerator.

Driven to MADNESS.

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It’s … Jersday.

Posted on January 20, 2011 by Cathryn

I’m pretty much all caught up with Jersey Shore.

I still can’t wrap my head around why I like Jersey Shore. I’m not in love with it, but I can’t deny that the show is entertaining. And, listen, I understand that reality TV isn’t the mind-stimulating educational television that a collegiate scholar should partake in.

Whatever. I just like when Pauly uses goofy voices to personify Snooki’s hair bump.

There’s definitely some sort of social commentary just waiting to be dissected. These people are famous for partying, and yet I can’t exactly hate them for making millions just for using a duck phone and going clubbing. As far as worthless partiers go, they’re kind of decent people? I mean, in comparison.

That, and they’re really good at what they do.

Maybe, as a boring college student who studies and checks sites like [this] all the time, I can live vicariously through all of their CRAAZY LIVES. Also I think it’s hilarious when they fight with each other. I wish I could find the context to yell at someone with a Jersey accent and make fun of their grandmother’s marinara sauce.

But, alas, my life is no more than asthma classifications and stuff about IV piggybacks.

I guess I can at least find solace in the fact that I have no interest in Skins, which has fictional conquests of debauchery that are even more disturbing than the fabricated “real lives” of the Jersey Shore cast. Meh.

Kids these days.

Skins, aka, I wish I could relay enough sarcasm to you so I could pretend I would be interested in watching this awful show.

(For those of you who want to jump to defend the British version of Skins over the American version, go ahead. I won’t know what you’re talking about anyway.)

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MY SIGN CHANGED?!

Posted on January 19, 2011 by Cathryn

This is an emergency.

So the Zodiac changed, right? I thought, “HEY! I don’t give a hoot! Mine probably didn’t even change anyway!”

One day, you wake up an Aquarious, and the next, you’re a Capricorn.

But I think I should look at the positives of this, and not the negatives–like how the “Age of Aquarious” can no longer be my theme song, and Weird Al’s horoscopes song for Aquarious can no longer inspire me.

Aquarious:

A travel is in your future when your tongue freezes to the back of a speeding bus. Fill that void in your pathetic life by playing whack-a-mole 17 hours a day.

POUT.

But look. Capricorns are cool, I guess. Their symbol is a giant goat with a mermaid tail, which gives us the best of both worlds: the petting zoo and mythological sea creatures. These are things I can really get behind and support.

Aquarious is represented by somebody dumping water out of a ceramic pot. That’s really wasteful, guys. I’m glad this goatmaid’s got my back and respects the environment.

…. Wait a minute. According to CNN, my zodiac sign hasn’t changed. IN A WORLD FILLED WITH UNCERTAINTY, WHICH INTERNET NEWS SOURCE OBTAINED VIA GOOGLE SEARCH DO I BELIEVE? :(

I really talked myself into the goatmaid…

I'll call him George and I will hug him and squeeze him and never let him go!

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Curtis, come back to Facebook.

Posted on January 18, 2011 by Cathryn

I hate everything about Facebook. You’ve all read my rant about it. I think it’s a big joke. No, Facebook, do not suggest that I write on my father’s wall. No, Facebook, that friend suggestion you made is someone I’ve never talked to, nor do I plan on talking to. Get over yourself.

Anyway. Curtis deleted his Facebook. Why? I don’t know. It was too time consuming or mainstream or something. More importantly, this left me engaged to no one on my relationship status. I made an account for my favorite romance novel hero (I’ve never read a romance novel cover to cover…), Cade Palmer. But Curtis doesn’t know that. I don’t even know if Curtis will find out at this point.

That makes me giggle.

It’s not the same without Curtis. How am I supposed to send him funny youtube videos and links I find? How do I document cool links I like on Curtis’s wall for easy access when I need to show them to other people?

Yep. That's my fiance.

(I wish I could copy every pretentious line from the author’s tiny biography.)

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First Day Back

Posted on January 18, 2011 by Cathryn

I got an email from my professors last week talking about how our labs are going to start on the first day of classes. I thought to myself, “Haha, fools with labs on Tuesday.”

Oh, wait. That would be me.

I started off spring semester with a Self-Care lab at 9 AM this morning. It’s not an intense lab like Advanced Dosage Forms on Friday (how much more advanced can dosage forms get, though?), but we practiced taking blood pressures today. This is a difficult task for having not done blood pressures in over a month. And I found out I have a counseling assessment in one week. SIGH.

Even more challenging than starting school is bothering to go grocery shopping. I loathe grocery shopping like I loathe stubbing my toes on sharp edges of chairs. But we were successful on our trip, finding treasures such as frozen single-serving mini pies (apple and berries, respectively), as well as buy 1 get 1 free notebooks. You can’t beat buying 1 and getting 1 free.

I also claimed the prize of cherry Pop Tarts.

Sooo Curtis and I vowed to take more pictures of ourselves. I don’t know why we decided this. Every picture we took on my camera is blurry or one of us looks dopey. So you get this Hyperbole and a Half story and picture.

HEEEE.

There’s still hope that Curtis has some good pictures on his camera.

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Black Swan

Posted on January 7, 2011 by Cathryn

WARNING: This movie is intense.

I love Natalie Portman. I think my distant affair with her stated with V for Vendetta and continued on, even with her less than satisfactory performances in Star Wars Episodes I-III. We just got off on the wrong foot.

"Don't even talk to me, Anakin, I just know you're going to Force choke me and kill me via plot device!"

But listen. Black Swan is amazing. I thought Portman did a spot-on job playing a dancer. I kept on having to remind myself that she wasn’t a dancer by profession. I thought she was really, really good. After glancing over IMDb’s trivia, apparently the physical therapist scene was a real session. Wow.

If you can stomach some crazy, horror film-like scenes and a lot of drama, I highly recommend this movie. You won’t be disappointed. :)

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Songs I hate right now

Posted on January 7, 2011 by Cathryn

This will be a fun post. It’s all because the CD player in my car has been misbehaving and skips with every tiny bump I hit. So I’ve been subjected to the radio.

While I enjoy talking about things I … enjoy, let’s talk about stuff I hate.

Bruno Mars. Who does he think he is? “Girl you’re amazing just the way you are.” “If perfect’s what your searching for than just say the same.” Did you get those lines from a Harlequin novel?

And further more: “I’d catch a grenade for you / … Yes, I would die for you, baby.” Okay but would you? Considering the entire chorus of the song is some masochistic proclamation of love, I don’t think it’s a figure of speech. You would literally stop in front of a speeding train for me, the hypothetical object of affection in your song.

I would not catch a grenade for Curtis. Do you know why? One, it would hurt. Two, I would get blown up, and splatter all over him. That’s just rude. Plus, if I was really catching a grenade for him, wouldn’t he be standing somewhere in the vicinity to also get blown up?

I digress.

Rihanna and Eminem. Just stop. You’re strange, mixed messages about domestic violence are both confusing and disturbing. Additionally, the chorus of the song is annoying as snot, and I’d prefer not to hear it on the radio anymore.

B.O.B. and Hayley Williams. You two need to stop pretending that are planes are like shooting stars. How can something pretend to be LIKE something? If you’re pretending, you’re already creating that simile. Get it? Take that unnecessary “like” out. Oh, and get off of the radio.

Ke$ha. Okay, honestly, just keep doing what you’re doing. I can’t even pretend like I hate it. Pretend. Like.

You look.... great. Just. Just stay on the radio.

Bruce Springsteen can write music. Just sayin’.

Show a little faith, there’s magic in the night / You ain’t a beauty, but hey, you’re all right.

See, Bruno? I’m still swooned by “Thunder Road” and I didn’t need to hear your fluffy lies.

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Books! Books! Books!

Posted on January 7, 2011 by Cathryn

Winter break means BOOKS.

As I stated in my last post, I have James Joyce’s Ulysses. We’ll see how that goes. I haven’t read literature since Charles Dickens in my Europe class sophomore year. Sooo. Been a while. But I’m a literary pro thanks to AP English in high school.

Next on my list is Tim O’Brien’s In the Lake on the Woods. If you didn’t already know, I’m a huge sucker for war-related fiction, and O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is one of my favorite books (well, short story compilation, really) of all time. I’ve started this new book and I absolutely love it so far–it’s about a politician whose wife disappears in the woods. The authorities think he killed her. DUN DUN DUN.

Thennn I asked for my brother to get me the True Grit book for Christmas. I haven’t started reading it yet, but I want to. I also want to watch the original film and the new one. So many things on my agenda.

Hopefully even when I get back to school, I can find some time to read. I guess if not, there’s always summer! (What student DOESN’T say that when it comes to reading?)

Can't decide if this original cover is creepy or goofy.

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Why I should be banned from Half Price Books

Posted on January 7, 2011 by Cathryn

Seriously though.

I went into Half Price Books today looking for Ulysses by James Joyce. Why? Because all pretentious writers have read it. I guess.

I marched right into the store and found the Literature section. There are a lot of authors with the last name of H–I noticed this. Anyway, I found a copy that had a mustache in the cover art with no highlighting inside, so I claimed it.

Then I met the friends I went with in the CD section. This is where it all went south.

I wanted to get a Doors album, anything that was in my price range. I couldn’t find one. I thought that scanning the voluminous markdown CDs would score the album I was looking for. Instead, I left with Radiohead, Spoon, The Wallflowers, and The Strokes. At least they were on markdown?

Well, one of my friends and I were not satisfied, and we thought a quick trip to the Half Price Books on the other side of town would have what we wanted. So we go, we walk in, we attack the CD section, and in less than five seconds, we had the albums we came for. Good day.

Sooo I now have a million CDs scattered around my desk right now. I am not ashamed.

The guy who rang us out at the register is pretty confident that The Strokes have a release date set for their next album. I’m still skeptical of lead singer Julian Casablancas.

He doesn't seem trustworthy.

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