Monday, June 27, 2005

10 Things That Are On My Mind


  1. Tom Cruise is still cute but he also gets on my nerves. This is especially true with that Matt Lauer interview he recently gave.
  2. I saw and visited with a TON o' patients today.
  3. I have realized how important the simple act of smiling is. Just that one act can brighten another person's day significantly as well as improve relationships with people.
  4. Kim is in Cabo right now. I wish I were in Cabo right now. If Kim is reading this, will she please get a little tan for me too?!
  5. I had a dream I got stuck in the elevator. Then, today, I thought it almost came true.
  6. If I got stuck in an elevator, I would probably scream and then, of course, sing song tunes until I passed out and the janitor found me.
  7. Why have I put all my homework off until tonight???
  8. Vannah White has the easiest job in the world.
  9. My cousin went to Sonic this week. She remembered to press the little red button. I'm jealous.
  10. I left some spaghetti in my car, in the heat, for 4 hours. I wonder if it's still good? Oh well. I've just eaten it so hopefully it was.

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

One Year Anniversary of Grandma's Passing


My Grandma (1909-2004)

This week marks the one-year anniversary of my Grandma’s death. Therefore, I’d like to share with everyone a little bit about who this remarkable lady was during her time here on this earth. I believe it is well worth your read.

“To Know Vern Was To Love Her”

The above quote was said of my grandmother at her funeral. To know her was, indeed, to love her. She was one of those people a person could go to for just about anything. They never had to fear being judged, or having their secrets told, or losing her respect. She was like a living “Melanie Wilkes” from Margaret Mitchell’s famous novel, “Gone With the Wind.” A beautiful soul shining with integrity.

Growing up, I spent much of my days with my grandma. When I was in the first grade, my grandfather got really sick with cancer and the family decided it was best that he and my grandmother move into town to be near my mom (a physician) who could take care of him. They ended up moving right around the corner from us and there was even an alley that connected our homes. My brother and I spent most of the evenings after school over at their house. We were afraid of being at home with my dad when my mom was at work. My grandmother was our savior. In fact, she was the first person, besides my mom, whose shoulder I can remember crying on. Her words were always so comforting. That is how we really bonded.

My grandfather died when I was in the sixth grade. Grandma lived alone for seven or eight more years after that before she fell, in her early 90’s, and broke a hip, causing her to have to live in a nursing home. A funny thing, though, was that she also drove her car clear up until the age of 90! Finally, we just told her that her car was broken (though it wasn’t) and that she couldn’t drive anymore. She never once complained.

Her Early Years: The Sprouting of New Life Paths

My grandmother grew up as the daughter of a well-loved physician. In the early 1920’s she attended Texas Women’s University which, then, was a very private and elite school (and is still a very good school today). What was her dream? She aspired to become a physician just like her father. Her yearbook even referred to her as the future “Dr. Stevens.” Things were working out as she had been accepted into a prestigious medical school. Then, however, the unthinkable happened…

One day she received a call from a family member saying that her father had suddenly fallen ill after having been infected a few days earlier with an unsterilized syringe. She was told to come quickly because he wasn’t expected to make it. Shocked, she rushed to be by his side. Her father died that day in his early 40’s. She was devastated. He was her best friend. She was left with the responsibility of supporting her mother and two young brothers. Her dreams of going to and of affording med school were dashed. What did she do? She became a teacher.

My grandmother taught school for 41 years. What is so amazing about being a teacher is the amazing impact one can have on so many lives – impacts that are never forgotten. When my grandmother died in June, several of her former students turned out for her funeral. These were the people she had taught as first graders who were coming to her funeral when she was 94 years old. Imagine the impact she must have had on their lives! All spoke of how they loved her so. Remember, “To know Vern was to love her.” It surely was.

I’ll never forget my grandmother and the impact she had on my life. She was the only grandmother of mine that I ever knew. It was she who was the first person to tell me that saying “Oh my God” wasn’t a good thing (though I still slip and say it from time to time). She was the only elderly person that willingly watched “Night of the Living Dead” with me – and liked it! She was the first person to teach me that “A Christian must have faith, virtue, love, knowledge, self-control, and brotherly kindness.” God couldn’t have blessed me with a better grandmother. It was an honor to know her for the short 23 years that I did.

Saturday, June 18, 2005

Me? Old at 23? Hmm...

Nah. Not really, but sometimes I do think my senses are slowly fading as I age. ha ha. Let me explain --

#1
First, I've been noticing that I often have some difficulty hearing (not that I don't listen). I've found that when I am in a room where everyone is talking (such as at a party; loud restaurant; large gathering) and someone begins talking to me, I have a lot of trouble focusing my attention in on what that one person is saying to me. It's hard to sort out all the background noise. So, I don't know if that's more of a "hearing" difficulty or an attention one. Secondly, if someone is more than about 10 feet away from me and speaking to me it often sounds like they are mumbling. This happens to me quite a bit at my internship. It can be embarrassing sometimes because I'll ask the person to repeat and when they do I still don't hear it. There are various other situations where people sound like they are mumbling. Who knows -- maybe they all really are mumbling!

#2
My eye sight seems to slowly get crappier as the years go by. I've worn contact lenses sense high school (I think it was) and they usually work pretty good, though they can't make things perfect. Lately I've had to focus a lot harder while driving at night because, though I'm wearing my contacts, it has gotten harder to see at night. My mom says I need to be eating carrots and getting more vitamins (is that Vitamin D?). I suppose I should -- I just don't like carrots and I don't like taking vitamin pills! Also, I got some new contacts a few weeks ago that are my usual brand and prescription but for some reason they are a little blurry. Maybe the company messed up my prescription.

#3
Also, this has nothing much to do with the topic but -- I SUCK at reading lips!! Never have been able to master that talent. A person was trying to ask me something the other day during a staff meeting but I could not, for the life of me, interpret what she was saying. I felt really stupid. lol.

Anyways, just had to share. Maybe I'm on some Totally Hidden Video show where people are playing games to make me think I can't see or hear that well. How cruel those mind games would be!

P.S. Have YOU experienced any of these difficulties?

Thursday, June 16, 2005

Totally Rude Customer Service

Last Friday, on the way to my internship, I stopped at a gas station near my home. This is the gas station I typically go to since it is the closest to me. Now, I've decided, I'm never going back there again. Allow me to explain...

I am not one of those technologically advanced people -- you've probably seen my cell phone (Let's just say some call it my "Zack Morris" phone) . So, I don't use any kind of gas cards/credit cards to pay at the pump when I get gas. I do it the old fashion way. Pay the cashier with cash.

When I pulled up to the pump on Friday and selected my fuel grade, I literally stood out there for a little over 10 minutes waiting for the clerk to start the pump; business there was VERY slow (aka. very few customers) and very slow service wise (aka. slow customer service). How ironic. Still, my pump hadn't been started yet. I watched as the clerk chatted and laughed forever with a friend/customer there inside the station. This made me a little upset because I was in a hurry and had been there over 10 minutes just waiting to get a measly $10.00 worth of gas.

Finally, I decided I would go inside and just ask if I could go ahead and prepay. I reasoned that maybe she had just gotten too busy talking and didn't notice I was out there (even though she had started the other person's pump). Whatever the case, this would speed things up. So, I said very nicely, "Hi, I was just wondering if I can go ahead and prepay for my gas?" Then she clicked the button and switched the gas pump on and said, "Noooo honey you can't prepay" in a VERY whiny, sarcastic tone with a smart look on her face. She said, "YOU should have waited until I started the pump." Grrr! Trying not to complicate the matter, I didn't bother to tell her how long I had been waiting there for her to actually pay attention and START the silly pump.

So, she makes me go all the way back out, pump my gas, and then come back in again to give her my money. When I handed it to her she rolled her eyes, put a fake smile on her face, and said, "Oh GOOD!" (and that was it -- no "have a nice day" or "bye bye" or anything following that). I was furious and she knew I wasn't happy.

I am never going back there again. First off, that is lousy customer service. One should never say something like, "WELL, if YOU had just done this and not THAT..." to a customer. I don't usually get so mad like that but she really set me off. She had no excuse for treating me the way that she did.

Sunday, June 12, 2005

Smart People Do Dumb Things, Too!

Yesterday my cousin and I had quite the experience at Sonic...

My cousin and I got together in the late evening to go see the movie "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," which is supposed to be pretty good. On the way to the movie we decided to stop at Sonic to get some burgers to sneak into the theater with us (you know theater food, it's sooo expensive!).

Well, we pulled up to the little stalls at Sonic where people order. It was about 9:50 p.m. We had 20 minutes until the movie was to start -- plenty of time. So, we decided what we wanted and got our change together and all that jazz. Well, it was taking forever for them to get our food out to us and we were beginning to get pretty angry with the lousy serivce. However, the place was crowded so we figured that was probably the reason. So, we waited, and waited. Finally, at one point, we got a pizza box out of the back of my car, opened it, and pretended like we were eating pizza. We figured that when the waitress girl walked up we would say, "We ordered a pizza while we were waiting on our food to come out,"... [hee hee hee]

Well, it came to be 10:10 p.m. and we were still there. We had missed our movie! That service was ridiculous -- we had been there a little over 20 minutes. So, we sat there for a few more minutes when, suddenly, a thought occured. I said to my cousin, "We did order our food, right?" and she looked at me for a while and then said "Yes;" and I agreed that we had. However, we got to thinking about it more and decided that we really couldn't remember if we had ordered our food. lol. So, we began laughing at the thought of it. So, fearing the worst, I did what anyone else would have probably done -- I pressed the little red order button for service...

A girl answered and, feeling really stupid, I said, "Hi, I can't remember if we ordered our food." Surely they must have thought we were high or something. ha ha. So, the girl said, "Uuh, you can't remember if you ordered your food?" I said that was correct. Then she went on to tell me that we hadn't ordered and she laughed. So, I ordered (even though my cousin wanted us to get out of there and spare us any further embarrassment). FINALLY -- we got our food! Though we did try to go to another movie we eventually decided to just rent one. Boy, what a funny, funny time we had last night!

I pray such a thing never happens again -- and I think I'll stay away from that Sonic for a while!