Working from home

Is bad, because I spend too much of the day doing the dishes and exercising and futzing around.

Is great, because once I actually get down to business, I complete things I haven't been able to make myself focus on for months.

Home wins!

I-tee

I wish I could hug the whole country and make it better. It's not fair at all. Tragedy should spread itself out at least a little, but it always seems to strike hardest in the same places. What an awful nightmare.

I sent money to Partners in Health. It feels like so little. I wish I had a hospital boat.

Thyroxine

For a while now I had been having problems focusing on work. The structure of the end of grad school was partly to blame -- with a whole unstructured day in front of you, it's pretty easy to watch 4 West Wing episodes and think you'll still have time to work later in the day. But it became increasingly difficult to concentrate even if I was really trying. I felt foggy and stupid and lethargic, and I began to wonder if I was depressed.

I was depressed, and stupid, and lethargic, and so I went to the doc. She ordered a thyroid test, which came back borderline high on the TSH and normal on the thyroxine levels, but also a thyroid antibody test that came back positive, meaning my body is trying to take out my thyroid. I started up on thyroxine pills in mid-December and immediately felt better. It was probably a placebo effect at first, relief to know why I'd been feeling so bad. But I've continued to feel a lot clearer in the head since then.

I'd had a thyroid test years ago, but I think stupid Hopkins didn't order the antibody test. Who knows how much earlier I could have staved off these symptoms if the full round of tests had been ordered.

A

I started signing my emails as just "A" in college. It probably seemed to have some kind of stylistic motivation, but, honestly, I have the worst time typing my name. It's qwerty unfriendly. I often capitalize the second letter. For something that should have a lot of muscle memory attached to it, I sure screw it up in a lot of new ways.

Back in MD

The house is cold, but the TV is big and has football on it.

Work is tomorrow.

Also, my knees are way sore today after doing squats yesterday. Like, I can't even walk.

Worst paper ever

Every time I flip through The Trentonian I feel brain cells dying.

Once there was a way

Last year, I didn't mind so much being up in NJ for the holidays. But this year I've missed home a lot more. Even though I've had fun here.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! I'm resolving to post more and play a lot more video games in 2010.

Yesterday we trekked over to Halo Farms for ice cream and came back through the rougher parts of Trenton, accidentally. We had delicious dinner at Villa Mannino, and later on proceeded to gobble up almost a whole pint of ice cream. When midnight rolled around, Joe didn't want to crack open the champagne, so we had ginger ale in champagne glasses instead. I also watched more Three Stooges yesterday than I ever had previously, and it turns out I didn't hate them!

The thing about this New Year is that it marks the occasion of me being almost 30, and given that the last decade rollover feels like yesterday, the next one will be here soon enough, and I'll be almost 40! But I'll put that aside to focus on the current day.