Energy

I don’t get it. For the past two days I have been exhausted and now I can’t sleep. I feel tired but just can’t seem to fall asleep. On possibly a related note, I have also been feeling like I should get off my lazy ass and do something physical. I feel like I’m going to die on the inside if I don’t change my lethargic habits. Almost to the point where I feel like I should actually get a physical… make sure I’m okay. I think the last physical I had was in 1994 or 1995 – something a long time ago. My chest kinda hurts occasionally too…

On an unrelated note: Only 21 more days until I’m off to Chicago. Getting kind of excited and kind of nervous. Not really sure what to expect/do getting into the US as a student or what to do about finances etc. etc. :P Excited to meet new people. I can be quie a talker sometimes too, which could be a detriment to my studies. Hopefully I keep it under control. Only five more days of work to go too – and one lunch meeting tomorrow.

I should try sleeping again…

Wrapping-up

Summer is quickly coming to an end. I only have nine more days of work to go, four of which are the next four days (I don’t work Friday’s in July :D, and I have quite a few days off the closer we get to August). I finish work in sixteen days and leave for Toronto (and then to Waterloo and eventually to Chicago) in about twenty-four days.

I should start thinking about getting myself organized so when it comes time to make the big step across the border with my “non-immigrant VISA”. As for finances, I am covered for school but for personal finances I’m in the dark. Apparently we will go over financial information for Canadians as soon as we arrive but at the same time I still wish I could have funds easily set up before I arrive. Unfortunately there aren’t any ‘TD Canada Trusts’ in Chicago (or the American counterpart: TD Banknorth). Not to mention I would sure like to exchange my finances when our dollar is at or slightly above par.

I should also clear off/organize my computer/external hard drives before I cross the border… which reminds me. My laptop hard drive has started to make screeching sounds of death as I hear the drivehead bounce around and kill my computer. It’s only happened twice but twice too many, so I wonder how long this computer will hold up.

On another topic, it’ll be nice to be in the US for shopping purposes… (minus duty :P) which makes me wonder how that works if you’re in the US for months at a time. I also wonder how cheap it is to travel within the United States. My friend Mike is in San Francisco/Los Angeles/somewhere in California and a patient at work mentioned they go to school in Los Angeles and it got me thinking that the Western United States would be pretty cool to see. Although there are a bunch of places I’d probably want to go, but just don’t have the time.

So in one month today, I will be finished my first day of optometry school and living in Chicago. It’s interesting how quickly life can and will change on you…

Maturity

I always seem to write about this every once in awhile.

It’s hard to believe that in four years I’ll be a ‘doctor’. Someone that the public entrusts with their health, albeit, only the eye (and possible systemic diseases noticed through the eye) – and I’m only 22 years old. Suddenly that feels really young and at the same time at each birthday it’s the ‘Shucks, I’m getting older.” I suppose I’m only done about a quarter of my life. I have a university degree to show for it (an Honours degree ;) ) and I suppose that’s it. I guess in four years a “Optometric Doctorate” will sound impressive but at the same time I still can’t believe I’m mature enough for that. Of course, in four years (and the previous four years before that) I have (or hope to have) matured quite a bit.

Moving the the United States is the next big step in my life, I suppose. Soon I will have government authority to stay within the United States of America, not as a tourist, but as a student. I will embark on an educational journey that will enforce the rest of my life, and at the same time will start with the immature-ness of ‘first day of school syndrome’. I picture optometry school to be very serious and educational, but I know that when you get a bunch of 20-somes together, you’re going to have a party. No I’m not against parties, but you just know there will be those that won’t stop partying, and those that won’t party at all. I hope to strike a balance, even when I’m not a huge ‘party-goer’. And by party I mean classic college drunkfests. I picture myself more as a classy wine and lactose-free cheese person. Maybe with some silly charades to lighten the mood. lol Perhaps that’s just my mood at the moment. I’m sure at times I just like to be crazy and not care.

Anyway, I suppose what I was getting at was ‘how old do I feel in comparison to how old I actually am’. But then there’s the ‘how old do you think I am?’

An interesting question for myself and others.

Shingles

Well, Canada Day long weekend I came down with a bout of Herpes zoster, also known as “shingles”… on the face. It was/is a boatload of fun. Head-stabbing fun. In case you don’t know what shingles is, as I had no idea as well, it is latent chicken pox virus that resides in nerves throughout the body that randomly decides to go BAM “Let’s break the F out again!”. It can happen anywhere and only affects that one nerve. I got it in the trigeminal nerve of the face. Fun. Anyway, it started on Thursday/Friday and I went to a doctor on Sunday and he’s all like, “It’s a good thing you came in now because it’s very close to your ear and (because I mentioned my eye was twitching like mad) you definitely don’t want that spreading to your eye.”

So naturally I Google’d/Wiki’d things (he told me to! lol) and yeah, not very pleasant if I had let it just keep going. Basically it could affect my hearing and/or vision permanently – to an extent unknown since we caught it early. So really now all I have to deal with is unsightly blisters/sores on the left side of my face and the random feeling of a knife being plunged into my skull/ear. But thanks to good ol’ science, we have the miracle of drugs.

Speaking of which, twentyfive pills of generic 800mg acyclovir (anti-viral) is $95.20CDN. Yikes. Apparently it’s used to treat genital herpes (phew, I’d rather have shingles lol) and used in AIDS to prevent other Herpes family related things. Since I had Friday to Tuesday off, I only missed half a day of work.

That’s about all that’s different so far. In other news, very geeky news, Diablo III was announced and I am ecstatic (minus the fact that it probably won’t be released for awhile and that I will never have a computer that can play it). I played Diablo II for ages and actually have been playing it lately since the announcement.

It’s like old times, except this time I’m showering daily. lol