Why I love spring...

Sorry if you are expecting one of those girly "why I love..." blogs, but I'm not that kinda girl, nor am I that kinda writer. Sure, I like flowers, sunshine, and flip-flops, but I got something better in mind.

I'll be honest; I'm having a really, really bad day. But one thing brought a smile to my face, and about made me pee in my pants. It's absolutely horrible. I shouldn't think it's funny, but I can't help myself.

Every spring at Maryville, geese decide to make all of the entrances of the buildings the place where they want to nest. And since our school is very "mother nature" friendly, there are entrances blocked off so that the geese can lay their eggs there and there are signs up telling students to use other entrances. But college students could care less about the geese and their procreating... but the geese are very good at teaching us a lesson. Majority of my classes are in this one classroom and outside the classroom is a nest and a main entrance to the building. Of course, I pick a great seat to be able to view all the action. A couple come walking towards the building. The goose flies right at their heads; they go diving in the grass. The goose is not discourage, he continues his attack by following them and pecking at them as they crawl away. Victim number two of the morning: girl on cell phone ignores signs and bright orange fence. Goose attacks, and she takes off running and screaming and finds refuge in the building. It was great. I was taking a test, and I had the hardest time concentrating, cuz all during class I heard cries of terror coming from outside. I (and everyone else in my class) was giggling the whole time.

And that is why I love spring...

New Orleans Pictures, The Sequel: Things Just Got Messier!

Well, I got some more pictures from my New Orleans friends. Once again, pleas ignore the little intermission between my two picture posts. You could use that time to use the bathroom, fix your hair, get a soda. Enjoy.

Here is the main room of the warehouse that we cleaned up. There were two buses, to vans, a couple of old cars, and a lot of crap to clean out of this place. And it really stunk and it was really dirty, but it was fun. I almost punched a girl in here... but that's a story for another time.

A house hit by the storm.

Here's me and Brett tearing down the walls. I don't really know what I'm doing in this picture. Kinda looks like I'm grabbing my boobs... but I'm not. I think I might me dusting myself off. I don't know.

You can kinda see a line that goes around the house from where the water was; it was very noticeable in person. The water was at that line for quite some time. It so hard to imagine...

Um, here's me on a toilet in the warehouse. Don't worry; I cleaned the seat really good, and, no, my bare-butt is not touching the seat.

Due to lack of running water, we got to use these... yeah... Three of us girls were working at the warehouse by ourselves when these were dropped off, so we were the first to use them. They actually smell pretty good when no one has crapped in them yet.

Here's our group before a meeting on what we will be doing this week.

There are a lot of street artists in the French Quarters; here's one guy's work. I thought it was a cool picture.

Here's where we slept. 200 people in the tent. And the cots were really squeaky, so things were kinda loud at night. But it really wasn't that bad. Well, it kinda sucked when it got really windy, but the tent held up pretty well.

Here's most of our group by the Subway that was in the warehouse.

Every night, we had intense gaming. Here we are playing some hardcore catch phrase. Always a good time.

There were random cars and boats everywhere. See the "X" on the house? At the top is the date the house was checked for bodies, on the left of the "X" (behind the tree) is the animal body count, and on the bottom is the human body count; luckily, there was none at this house. But could help but look at the "X" on all the houses when you drove by.

Here's me showing the bull who's boss... him. But at least I stayed on for longer than eight seconds...

Here's us on the food line. We were having rice and smoke sausage (blarf). I have no idea what I'm looking at. I would make up songs to entertain everyone as we baked in the sun. It was good times.

Here's a house that hadn't been touched yet. We went exploring... okay, trespassing. They had an indoor pool, and it's water was completely black, and their hot tub was floating in the pool.

Here's French Quarters, pretty much untouched by the storm.

Here's me and Ben, my new buddy. He's a good sport.

Here's our group outside of our tent.

Yet another house.

And us working on the bay. This area was covered with all sorts of junk.

Well, I hope you enjoyed; the sequels are usually not as good as the originals, but I hope this one broke that stereotype. I don't think there will be anymore pictures, but there is always the possibility that this could turn into a trilogy...

EnaMan and the Cooch Delivery!

It's amazing how much can happen within twenty-four hours...

My dad and his volleyball team were celebrating their state victory by getting my dad a tattoo (he told them he would get one if they place at state) and going to a River Otters (minor league hockey) game. It ends up that it was colon cancer awareness night at the game and there was a guy dressed up as a six foot enema, and they passed out a stuff character named "EnaMan", as shown in picture above. I came home from working the night shift and was like "what the crap (tee-hee-hee) is this?" How horrible... EnaMan; protecting the world from his colon-congesting nemesis, the Constipator. Honestly, who thought this would be a good idea?

And for the next part, I will be talking about something really gross, so if you can't stomach blood and guts, I don't recommend reading the rest-seriously. I got to see both a vaginal and a c-section delivery last night. It was amazing. First I saw the vaginal birth. It was a young girl, and she did such an amazing job. They need me to hold one of her leg up while she pushed, so I was right there. It was gross, it was amazing, it was freakin' awesome. But after she had the baby boy, I almost passed out, not from the grossness of it but because it was so hot in there and I think I locked my knees and kinda stopped breathing while she was pushing. So I had to sit down and then have someone walk me outta the room, which was kinda embarrassing. My guy buddy came rushing out of the room, picked me up and asked me if I was going to die and if I was okay. Once he realized I was fine, he teased me mercilessly the rest of the night. I'm never going to live it down. Then we got to see a c-section, which was even more awesome. Here's the gross stuff; they cut a slit in her stomach and then rip it open. And when I say rip I mean they grab the sides, put their back into it and pull. It was unreal; surgery stuff is crazy to watch. Then one nurse had a glove on that came up to her shoulder and went through the woman's vagina while two doctors pulled on the baby from the cut they made. It was so cool! They let me help out with some stuff; I got to do the arterial blood gas of the ambilical cord and help unhook stuff. I was on cloud nine! As of today, I think I want to be a Labor and Delivery Nurse Practitioner. But that could change by next week when I see something else real cool. And of course, I had another dream about having a baby; it seems to happen everytime I have L&D clinical. Oh, yeah, as for the "cooch delivery"; I was talking to one of the women I work with (who is kinda ghetto, and freakin' hilarious cuz she doesn't have the greatest vocab.) about what I got to see. She said, "yeah, I got to see my niece's delivery by cooch last week..." I died laughing! Cooch delivery; is that the technical term?

New Orleans Pictures, part 1!

Do to technical difficulty, I had to put my New Orleans pictures in two posts, so after looking at "New Orleans Pictures, part 1!", please proceed to "New Orleans Pictures, part 2!" Sorry for this inconvenience.
Thanks for all the prayers. Other than a ton of bruises, I did not get hurt. It was an awesome trip. There were about 1500 college students down there last week. At our camp was about 300. We got to share 8 showers total (four for girls, four for boys), and about 12 porta-potties. We stayed in this huge circus tent that held about 200 people. And the food... well... it was edible. I felt pretty old; one of the girls that went asked me if I spoke at her school when she was in junior high (I was a sophmore in college then), and another girl asked me if I spoke at a girls conference she went to (that was while I was at Lincoln). We would joke about my age all week; example, they wouldn't let me have any Trix... cuz Trix are for kids, not old farts like me. But I had a blast. We helped gut out houses and a warehouse, we worked at the camp that we were staying at by cleaning and serving meals to the homeless/poor people in the area, and we helped clean a college in New Orleans. Here are some pictures. Unfortunately, they are not in the order that I put them in, so they kinda jump around from day to day.

On the first day down there, we had off and got to sight-see in the French Quarters. This is all of our butts. I'm second from the right; the really skinny one.

On night, some of us went to Bourbon St. after working. We went dancing; being the goof that I am, I broke out into the "running man", and the dj saw me and got the whole bar cheering "go white girl, go white girl, go" which, of course, encouraged me to free style. It was freakin' hilarious. Then at this other place, we got to ride the mechanical bull for free (thanks to the cute brunette on the right in the picture). And the girls behind us had to pay. Ba-ha-ha! I had always wanted to do that; it was really fun and I actually was able to stay on for a long time.

This is me and Amie at Applebee's.

Here's me ganking a sign at the warehouse that we were cleaning out. Don't worry, I asked the guy who owned the place if I could have it.

Big trees like this one were down everywhere down there.

Here's me gutting a house.

Here's some of the stuff that we gutted out on the first day. You can't really tell, but I have a layer of dry wall dust and other crap in my hair which made me look like I had gray hair, which led to more old jokes.

Here's some more gutting. The water line went up to about the door frame, so almost everything was ruined. We were about to find some photo albums and paintings that were not damaged. As silly as is sounds, that would be one of my greatest concerns if my house was flooded.

Here's me once again tearing up the place. I had to tear through 3 layers of dry wall, these little wooden slats, wall paper, and plaster. It was ridiculous. The kitchen was work (that's the picture up above). It was wall paper, on top of dry wall, on top of this thin cardboard type of stuff, on top of about an inch of wood, on top of the little wooden slats. It took forever to tear it down.

New Orleans Pictures, part 2!

Now for round 2.

A lot of the houses in New Orleans looked similar to this. It was amazing all the damage that was done. Every single house down there needed to be worked on. Stores were ruined. There were boats in yards. Cars were sprawled everywhere. It was heart breaking.

Here's our daily attire for working on the houses.

Here's a balcony on Bourbon St. in the French Quarters.

Me after a day of work, covered in dirt.

Cleaning on the shore, showing off my guns.

Here's some of the group on St. Louis St. in the French Quarters

After Ellie and I pretended to flash for beads on Bourbon St., Ben decided to go all the way. This guy cracks me up.

Getting some beads on Bourbon.

Our group in the French Quarters (I'm in the middle on the top row).

Amie, me, and Hillary.
If I get some more pictures from others, I'll share. It was an awesome experience; I hope to go down again. But I'm definitely glad to be back home; sleeping in my own bed and not sleeping in the presence of about 200 people in a tent that could possibly blow over from the strong winds, getting to use a bathroom with running water, and getting to use make-up and a blow dryer. I have lots of funny stories, and got to see God do great things, but it's too much to blog. So if you want to know, give me a call.

Sure, their E.R. is okay, but their popcorn is amazing...

One of the perks of being a nursing student is that all the hospitals in the area come and try to recruit you... and bring lots of free goodies. We get candy, cups, pens, note pads, bags, and even chapstick. But my favorite, so far, is:


I leave for New Orleans on Saturday. I'm so excited! I don't know anyone on the trip, so hopefully I'll be making some new, cool friends. Pray that I don't get sick or hurt (I have no health insurance). When I get back, I post some pictures. Have a great week!