Thank you Red Hot Chili Peppers

As I've mentioned it has been a VERY BUSY TWO WEEKS, not hard, but super super busy. Today as I was driving home for the billionth time in a week contemplating on everything that is on my plate right now-a song came on. Just a little song is all it took for me to smile to myself. Thank you Red Hot Chili Peppers for writing Scar Tissue. And thank you 103.7 The Mountain for playing it at that moment. I needed it.

WW: Week 4

You may notice that I skipped week 3. yeah I did. enough said.

This week however I rocked it losing 4.6 pounds total! I am making way better decisions than previously in my life and it feels good. Walking will continue this next weekend when I feel I am able to not be in pain and walk and that I will have time mostly!

I head to Spokane (armpit of Washington) to present at the Washington State Association of School Psychologists. I'm getting nervous. Then in March I head to Chicago and present at the National Association of School Psychologists. The reason I say this is I AM TOTALLY SLACKING On my walking and I have to do a half marathon in five weeks! Things will change, I just need to get over last week's "week of hell 1" and this week's "week of hell 2" then I will be back on track. Two jobs, grad school, and wedding planning are sucking my life from me rapidly.

Taking Jim for Granted

Doesn't that sound like the name of a movie or something? Or perhaps just "Taking Jim" sounds better. Either way, I am taking Jim for granted.

The other day he said that I hadn't written anything about him on my blog in awhile which I thought was an attempt at some attention so I better do it and the fact that it is totally true. I haven't heeded him the attention that he deserves.

As you know, I've had a shoulder/neck injury so bad that at the Seahawks game last week I sat crying for two reasons, one they sucked and two I was in an intense amount of pain even on lots of painkillers, anti-inflammatories, and muscle relaxers. So in comes Jim's part in all of this. The doctor literally said "any time you can get a massage-do, it will help." So I took that as "any time you can get Jim to give you a massage-do." So I did. In the last 16 days, for as long as this has been going on, he has been whole-heartedly giving me massages whenever I asked or even looked in pain. Just another reason I love him. Oh and he makes me dinner a lot, oh and he prints things out for me at his office a lot, oh and he brings all my heavy bags in and out of my car, oh and he's freakin' adorable.

New Job

As If I'm not busy enough I decided to go get a second job to help with my schooling bills along with the wedding bills. SO, without further adeu let me introduce you to my new job. My title is "Research Assistant," and I work for the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Washington. This particular study has been going on since 2001 in which the two principal investigators received A HUGE AMOUNT of money from the National Institute of Mental Health, a branch off of NIH, for a longitudinal study looking at depression and conduct disorder in middle schoolers. They are looking at commorbidity issues and now taking it into adulthood. We are now in phase 7 of this and all the middles schoolers are now 12th graders and/or out of school. I go to their house or a place to meet and interview them for 3.5 hours and then someone else at the same time interviews their parents for about 2 hours. It is pretty intense but the people we interview have gotten the hang of it after 7 or so years. They make money so everyone is happy. There are very stringent rules when you are dealing with research and everyone needs to be trained the same way for inter-rater reliability which may or may not affect validity issues. So I've had a few intense training sessions and they will continue until they feel I am ready! Which should be at the start of November! Thank you Jennie for hooking me up with this job!

Now I've done research before in my undergraduate years where I worked with pigeons and then I worked on another research project in which we looked at pro-anorexia websites and categorized what anorexics had commented on, fascinating stuff. However, this time I don't have to enter all the data, we have someone for that to keep it unbiased. I just do the interviews and pass my computer to the other researchers! However, this is also majorly funded at the standards are 100 times more than what I am used to for research. I love it!

Injury Stops Training

So for the past week I have been in such intense pain. So much pain that I couldn't even lift my arms to wash my hair in the shower. I have done something to my trapezius so the doctor thinks. I think she is full of crap. She gave me medicine to reduce the inflammation but no pain medicine. Luckily I called my uncle up and he gave me a blessing and some prescription ibuprofen which has helped a little. I really am just shocked at how much I'm in pain. Seriously I'm in pain, sitting, standing, walking, anything. I'm just in constant pain and it had gone on for 9 days now. I can't sleep and I'm just frustrated. My muscle relaxers that I had from a previous injury don't even alleviate anything which makes me think it isn't a muscle injury. I am willing to try anything. But first, I just need something for the pain.