Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Why It Gotta Be A BLACK-Out!?!

Today at work; not so great. It started out pretty well. There wasn’t too much traffic on the way. I did get beeped at twice while waiting to get out of the Eckerd parking lot. Someone didn’t want me to wait for the pedestrian crossing in front of me. A little after I got to work Darrell got a call from Sarah that she is going to be at the bus stop at Ikea soon and she needs picked up. I think she missed her normal bus. It wasn’t clear when she would be there because she left a message. When he tried to call her back she wouldn’t answer. Of course everyone wanted to be the one to go get her. We should have taken a bigger group it would have been even more fun. It was Darrell and I that went to get her. We pulled up to her and she totally didn’t know it was us. She just kept standing there while Darrell was banging on the window. She got it after a few seconds and climbed in. So we went back to work. Darrell and Sarah make me laugh a lot at work; it was a fun car ride. That was the fun break of the day. When I got back a few of us went to give blood. That was the not fun break. No big deal till I was done and they let me up from the chair. I walked over to the cookie table and as I sat down I was feeling hotter and hotter and rather light headed. I said to Mary Anne that I wasn’t feeling well and put my head down on the table. The next thing I know I hear Kim, the head nurse, calling my name asking if I can hear her. I heard her call my name about 5 or 6 times before I could answer and even then it was really hard to open my eyes. It was a new experience for me; I’ve never passed out before. It would’ve been cool if it ended there but it was another hour before I left. I was back in the reclining chair for quite awhile. Every time they put my feet down I kept getting really hot, nauseous, and dizzy again. Finally, on the third time, I was well enough to go sit in a normal chair. I sat for a while at the cookie table drinking as much juice as I could. I felt well enough to go back down stairs after a few minuets. I went down and sat at my desk going through waves of cold and hot, dizzy and dizzier. After sitting there for about 40 minuets and everybody asking, a lot, if I’m okay I called home for my parents to come and get me. I could barely stay in the chair let alone get any work done. I’m feeling a little better now. I’m still a little dizzy but I was able to eat dinner and of course write all about my exciting day. I’m just sorry that I didn’t get the chance to say “goodbye” as I blacked out. My brother did that once and that made the nurses pretty upset. I told everybody that story before we went up. I was going to do it but I thought I was just going to vomit not loose consciousness. Too bad too, I don’t plan to get the chance to do it again.

Monday, November 20, 2006

Indian Fall

I’ve had some interesting “Indian” experiences the last few weekends. It’s not as packed full of Indian fun like my friend Greg’s weeks are. He was just sent to India by his company. He wasn’t as excited about it as I would have been. He got really sick on the trip home from his last excursion to India. He ended up in the hospital for 3 days when he got back. He thought that would be a good enough excuse to not have to go back. But a few days after he got back from China the CEO of the company thanked him for being willing to go back to India, and so soon too. So, I’m sorry Greg that you missed our safer Indian experiences.

Two weekends ago I had my chance to experience Jaljeera. How exciting after the review it got from my friend Lori. I went to the apartment of a friend, Ratna. She is a co-worker of a friend of mine that likes to play Scrabble. She had a scrabble night and I was invited. My friend, jokingly, demanded that she make Jaljeera. Extra crispy at that! Of course she made it. It reminded me of a drink that I had tried in India. I was given a glass of sugar cane juice in a social situation that I couldn’t refuse it without really insulting the guy. The juice is squeezed from the sugar cane with an old, rusty, oily press with water that was clearly not going to get along well with the bacteria in my stomach. But it was too late to refuse so I just prayed that it wouldn’t kill me (this is a good example of learning to pray without ceasing). I know what those of you that have tried Jaljeera are thinking. A glass of seawater is almost as salty as Jaljeera, wouldn’t sugar cane be sweet? The sugar cane juice was sweet with pockets of extreme saltyness. The same flavor spice as in Jaljeera. I didn’t make it through the glass, of the Jaljeera or the Sugar Cane juice. Paul was able to drink his whole glass. Way to go on that Paul. After that I was so shaken that the best I could do in scrabble was to loose with less than 1/3 the amount of points as Paul whom also lost to Ratna. I did much better during the rounds of Uno. I should mention that the Chai, Gulab Jaman, and the other things that they served were really good and made me think fondly of India.

Then this past weekend I found out that the latest Aishwarya Rai movie Umrao Jaan was playing in a theater in Pittsburgh. Actually I found that out at Ratna’s apartment. So I asked my friend Chansonette if she wanted to go see it, knowing her love of Indian things. So we got a small group together to see it Saturday night. When I was a few blocks from her apartment I got a frantic call from her that she and her friend were looking online and the movie wasn’t showing. Crapski! When I got to her place it had been confirmed. So we rented another Ash movie from an Indian grocery store. On the way there her Indian friend found out about my time in India and asked if I learned Hindi. Then informed me after I started to speak in Hindi to her that she speaks Telagu. Which was just as well because the 2 sentences that I got out were about as much as I remember from 2 years ago. Anyway the movie was Mohabbatein. It was a lot of fun, had Big B, Ash and Arukh Khan. It was much better to watch at home (Jeanette’s home actually) because we talked and commented on and laughed all the way through the Love story. I can’t wait till we can do it again!

Sunday, November 12, 2006

AWW TAGIT!!

I know that you posted this a long time ago, Tiffany, but here are some of my answers. There were a lot of questions. So I decided to cut out some of them and do the more interesting ones.

FOUR JOBS YOU'VE HAD IN YOUR LIFE:
1. Lab Tech at Univ of Pittsburgh
2. Building Manager at my Church
3. EMT
4. Lab Consultant for a Hospital in India

FOUR JOBS YOU WISH YOU'D HAD:
1. CIA Field Agent
2. Green Beret/Navy SEAL
3. Doctor (surgeon)
4. CEO/President of a HUGE company. They don’t have to do any real work.

FOUR MOVIES YOU COULD WATCH OVER AND OVER AGAIN:
1. The Long Kiss Goodnight
2. Matrix
3. Mystery Men
4. Bride and Prejudice

FOUR CITIES YOU'VE LIVED IN:
1. Delhi, India
2. Raxaul, India
3. Pittsburgh, PA
4. Washington, DC

FOUR TV SHOWS YOU LOVE TO WATCH:
1. Studio 60
2. Heros
3. The Unit
4. My Name is Earl

FOUR PLACES YOU'VE BEEN ON VACATION/TRAVELED TO:
1. Disney World
2. London, BABY!!
3. Cancun, BABY!!
4. Maui, Hawaii

FOUR WEBSITES YOU VISIT DAILY:
1. BBC News
2. Tiffany’s blog
3. Dave’s blog
4. World of Warcraft.net

FOUR OF YOUR FAVORITE FOODS:
1. Garbage Plate from Nick Tahoes
2. Permanti’s sandwhich
3. Skittles
4. Cookies

FOUR THINGS YOU WON'T EAT:
1. raw meat of any kind
2. Jaljeera
3. Coffee or anything coffee flavored
4. Goat brain. (One of the Docs in Inida wanted to make it for me. Lucky for me he never followed up on it. Though the word is that it’s really good.)

FOUR PEOPLE YOU’D REALLY LOVE TO HAVE DINNER WITH:
1. Kofi Annan
2. John Stewart
3. Aishwarya Rai
4. Tiffany, cause holy crap you’re funny!!

FOUR THINGS YOU ARE THINKING RIGHT NOW:
1. My throat hurts
2. What the heck will I do for the Peace Corp
3. What the heck is “bringing sexyback”
4. Why does the video I’m streaming keep freezing up!?!