I decided to drop my Summer term class after all.  It had nothing to do with the teacher and it had nothing to do with being assigned to read books before the class even started.  (Actually, I’m going to keep reading The Lord of the Rings trilogy since they’re already on my radar.)  I simply decided that I need a break from something.  I’d prefer to take a break from work (not my new job, just work in general), but since I can’t, school is next best thing.

I have too much going on all at once to have to worry about an accelerated class too.  Changing jobs has taken a toll on me.  I really like my new position, but it has taken some getting used to, especially as far as the schedule is concerned.  I can dictate my own schedule, but I have existing appointments I have to work around so I’ve had to work 11-hour days a couple of times since I started.

Trying to figure out my health is taking a toll on me too.  I’ve noticed that I’ve been feeling a lot worse lately, which is in line with IBS.  (The more stress you’re under the worse IBS becomes.)  The more and more I’ve started to pay attention to the things I eat, I seem to feel icky after I eat anything with gluten or anything with dairy.  I haven’t been able to pin it down to one or the other yet.  (Corey thinks it could also be sugar.)  I’m slowly going gluten free, but I don’t want to go completely gluten free until I’ve talked to my gastroenterologist tomorrow.

My regular doctor told me I should know after two weeks of being completely gluten free if I feel better, maybe not completely better, but remarkably better.  I’ve decided to go gluten free for two weeks (starting this Sunday) and still eat dairy.  If I don’t feel much better, I’ll also cut out the dairy for a couple of weeks.  Then, I’ll introduce gluten back into my diet to see if one or the other (or both) are the culprits to feeling bad after I eat.  If neither going off of gluten nor dairy helps, then I’ll cut out the other allergen foods and work from there.

It’ll be nice to not worry about school while I’m figuring out my new job and figuring out my new eating lifestyle.  Plus!  I get to read what I want for 10 weeks. I’m hoping to up my number of books read drastically during this little hiatus.  Wish me luck!

I saw my doctor again today.  He confirmed that it’d be beneficial to go off gluten for a bit to see if it helps.  He said I don’t need to worry about seeing an allergist because sometimes their tests aren’t the most reliable.  He just suggested that if going off gluten doesn’t work, then I should try going off of the major allergy causing foods, like dairy, nuts, soy, and eggs.  He’s also referring me to a gastroenterologist to see what he thinks because there’s still a possibility I do have Celiac since my blood test was positive.  He also said I could just have a sensitivity to gluten, which is much better than Celiac.  It means that I’ll feel badly when I eat gluten, but gluten won’t cause the same kind of damage it does to people with Celiac.  I could also have colitis or IBS.  Hopefully, the gastroenterologist will be able to give me some answers.

As you can see, I have a few options to give a try.  We’ll see how I feel after I give up some yummy foods. Now, it’s just a matter of stocking my house with gluten-free things.  I’m going to go simple for the first little bit by just eating veggies, fruits, and lean meats.  Then, if I notice that not eating gluten helps me feel better, I’ll add in the gluten-free carbs.

*****

My Spring term class officially ended yesterday.  I didn’t have a final exam; I just had to hand in a final paper worth a sixth of my grade. Depending on how I do on my paper, I’ll either have a low A or a high A-. I’m really happy with how well I did in this class.  It definitely wasn’t the easiest class since it focused mostly on principles of literary theory, but I did learn a lot.

*****

My new class starts on Monday.  My teacher is pissing me off more and more.  The main reason is the assignment to read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy before class even starts.  In her first e-mail, she told us we had until the end of the first week to get them done.  In subsequent e-mails, all sent this week I might add, they now have to be read by Monday. I’ve only finished The Hobbit so far.  I’ve been too busy with my current homework, new work schedule, and everything else life has thrown at me to spend the time I need to get the other books done.  Luckily, I get to choose the book to focus on during the class so I’ll just choose The Hobbit.  I still need to read the other three books because she said we might draw on them during the term for more information.

Finally, she signs every one of her e-mails as “Sister” blah blah.  I know I’m going to BYU, but do teachers really have to go by Sister or Brother blah blah (unless they’re religion teachers, of course)? Ugh! I had to send her an e-mail yesterday and I deliberately called her “Prof.” blah blah.

I’m actually considering dropping this class, not because of my teacher, but because I’ve just been s0 busy with everything that I’m a little stressed out right now.  Plus, I’m a little overwhelmed with my new job.  Starting a new job and a new accelerated class at the same time doesn’t seem like a good idea.  The only problem with dropping my class is that I can’t take it in the fall because it conflicts with my other classes.  The soonest I could take it is in the winter.  Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem, but it directly corresponds with the class I just took so I don’t want to let too much time pass by before I take it.  Decisions, decisions.

As many of you know, I’ve been extremely unhappy with my job.  After seven years of writing boring training manuals, you just get kind of tired doing that day in and day out, you know?  Plus, I clashed with my manager a lot.  I didn’t feel like he really appreciated me.  Nor did I like his management style.  He’s a nice guy; just not a very good manager, in my opinion.  It’s been a hard six years.  (I know I just said that I’ve been doing this for seven years.  I actually had the best manager for the first year of my old job and then he moved to a different department.)

Anyway, I don’t have to worry about that anymore! I still work for Henry Schein, but as of today, I’m no longer in the Practice Education (Training) department.  I also no longer write training manuals.  Hallelujah!  I’m now in the Coaching department and my new title is Profitability Account Manager.  In my new position, I’ll coach dental offices on how to be more profitable using the resources and information in their software.  I’ll also help develop the curriculum (kind of like my old job) for the coaching topics.

My schedule is still fairly flexible (except during this transition period when I’m taking over appointments the previous person in my position scheduled), and my new manager is awesome.  I’ve actually worked with him for the entire time I’ve been working at Henry Schein–10 years.  In fact, he’s the one who trained me to use the Dentrix software.

I was a little frazzled today trying to figure everything out, but I think I’ll really like this job.  I’m excited to be working with offices again.  I’m also excited to be doing something different.

Anyone who knows me knows I’m not a cold person.  I get hot so easily.  I have always advocated that it’s better to be too cold than too hot because you can always put more on to warm up and you can only take off so much to cool down.

At work, I’m underneath an air vent.  Not only does this air vent gush out cold air all year around, it also gushes out the air full blast. It’s ridiculous!  I’ve never been so cold in all my life!

On a typical day, you can find me wrapped in my slanket (thank you, Luisa) trying to keep warm.  On some days, I’m so cold that my slanket isn’t enough.  On those days, I’m not only wrapped in my slanket, I’m also wearing a sweater, a coat, or both.

I feel like I work in the Arctic.  My overall body temperature is changing because I’m starting to feel cold in other places too.  I didn’t like being a hot person, but I don’t like being a cold person either.  Isn’t there a middle ground?

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Blood drives are regular occurrences at my work.  Normally, I’m fairly gung ho about participating in the events hosted at work, but I’ve always shied away from donating blood.  I’ve always been afraid it would hurt and I was worried about passing out.  I seemed to never feel well whenever the blood drives came around either, but I think that was psychological more than anything.  Most importantly, I hate getting stuck by needles.  Needles and I are definitely not on speaking terms.  I get very lightheaded and nauseated if I watch the needle go in so I have to turn away when the actual poking occurs.  (That didn’t bother me until I saw my older sister Caryn get an epidural. )

On Friday, my work held another blood drive.  For most of the day, I ignored it, didn’t give it a second thought.  However, right after lunch, one of the executive secretaries started to encourage people to give blood because there was only one person in the chair at that moment.  After a lot of internal debate and some external debate with some of my co-workers, I finally decided to donate blood.

Fortunately, my phlebotomist was very skilled.  I didn’t feel the needle going in at all.  I only felt a little bit of pressure, which I was extremely grateful for because I’ve had some pretty awful experiences when I’ve had to have my blood drawn.

Apparently, I’m a slow bleeder.   Federal regulation stipulates that you can only have a needle in your arm, while donating blood, for 20 minutes.  This helps prevent infection and irritation to your vein.  Most people can donate an entire unit (one pint) of blood in no more than 10 minutes.  It took me a little over 18 minutes to donate an entire unit.  At one point, I had three phlebotomists working on me trying to get my blood to drain faster.  I guess if I ever get in a bad car wreck, there’s a good chance I don’t have to worry about bleeding to death.

I was very nervous at first, but donating blood wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.  I think it depends on the phlebotomist you get.  I should’ve done it a long time ago.  I’m fairly certain I’ll donate blood again, even though I have a bruise the size of a small kiwi on my arm.  (I followed the directions precisely and didn’t take my bandage off until 4 hours later.  Corey thinks it has to do with the phlebotomists moving the needle around trying to get me to bleed faster.)

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Last year, because of the economy, Henry Schein canceled all Christmas parties.  We weren’t sure if this year would be the same.  About a month ago, Henry Schein sent an e-mail to all of its divisions stating that company-wide Christmas parties were still canceled, but individual department parties were okay.

My team decided to go to the Rodizio Grill for lunch and see A Christmas Carol afterward.  When I found this out, I was both excited and worried.  I love the Rodizio Grill, but have you seen their menu?  Welcome to Calorie City! I decided to enjoy myself because I haven’t been to the Rodizio Grill in more than five years.

When we got there, Megan gave everyone a cracker, which is a brightly colored paper tube, twisted at both ends.  It usually contains a party hat, joke, and some type of trinket.  If two people pull it, it’s supposed to give good luck to whoever has the larger end, kind of like a wishbone from a turkey.  They’re traditional in England around the holidays.

My cracker contained a green crown, a joke of Laffy Taffy quality, and a plastic compass. When I saw that Gentry got a purple crown, I quickly said, “Hey-Gentry-can-I-trade-you-crowns-kay-thanks!” At that point, I basically commandeered his crown without waiting for an answer. He had to know it was inevitable with my obsession with purple.

If you haven’t been to the Rodizio Grill, I recommend you try it at least once … unless your a vegetarian because servers bring around a variety of meats grilled in a traditional Brazilian way.  As you can imagine, this can be quite delicious and very fattening. Luckily, I’m not much of a meat person so I only ate some of it while shying away from the chicken hearts completely.  Not my idea of a good time.

I did eat a lot of the awesome grilled pineapple.  It’s glazed with brown sugar and grilled to perfection.  In pineapple, there’s an enzyme that causes your tongue to become raw when you eat too much of it.  However, that enzyme is neutralized during the cooking process so you can eat as much of the grilled pineapple as you want without killing your tongue and I definitely did.  I think I ate an entire pineapple, but I don’t feel guilty about it because it was so yummy and worth the amount of calories I consumed.

After lunch, I had a meeting with a financial aid adviser at BYU so I wasn’t able to go to the movie.  Honestly, I wasn’t too heart broken about it because I’m not much of a Christmas movie fan.  I do like the story of A Christmas Carol so I might go see it with Corey some time.

All in all, I think I can speak for everyone when I say, “We had a great time.”

Happy belated birthday, Dayna!

I didn’t think I was going to make it back to school in January because of recent events.  But, miracle of miracles happened and I still get to go! I’m so excited and nervous all at once!

Today, I finished confirming my schedule for Winter Semester 2010.  I’m taking 9 credits, which makes me a 3/4 time student.  I figure that since I’ll be working full-time I shouldn’t take anymore credits than I’m already taking.  The classes I’m taking are Japanese, Doctrine and Covenants, and Writing & Rhetoric.

So I can still work full time, I’m taking evening classes and working during the day.  I’ll be going to work at the butt-crack of dawn–6:30 am. I don’t want getting up that early to be a huge shock to my system when I start school so I’ll be going to work 30 minutes earlier than the week before each week until school starts.  I hope my body will adjust quickly.  Wish me luck because I’m going to need it!

Even though this looks to be a strenuous and busy schedule, I’m looking forward to it.  I have wanted to go back to school for nearly the entire time–10 years–I’ve been gone.  I’m looking forward to a different kind of challenge.  And, I think only the English class will give me a challenge, if it even does.  I guess I’ll see what the semester holds.