more embarrassing than losing my keys on a daily basis...

looking over my blog this past month, i have been pretty pessimistic - i've had bad nights serving, gave birth to kidney stone #2 {i think...}, procrastinated on homework, and lost everything on my hard drive.  so on a more optimistic note, i have a slightly embarrassing and slightly hilarious story to share with you all today.

it all started at 10:00AM when i made my way for school.  i parked my car and attended all three of my classes {it was beautiful today by the way, i full on laid out on the grass during my hour break this afternoon}.  i didn't leave campus until after 4 in the afternoon - which is kind of a long day on campus for me - and i walked to my car like i always do.  when i got to where i had parked, i noticed my car was missing and that there were temporary construction signs all along the road informing people not to park there unless you want to get towed.  strangely enough, the place where i parked was empty. {seriously? how did i miss these this morning?} also, my phone was dead.  so i memorized the tow company's phone number and walked the rest of the way to our house.  when i got home, i called tanner in desperation - i was frustrated about the whole thing so tanner said he'd be on his way home soon to make sure we could get my car before they close.  then i called the tow company, which went straight to an anonymous voicemail.  so i decided i needed to go on a walk back to the crime scene to investigate the signs and to make sure i didn't somehow miss my own car {because wouldn't that be so embarrassing?}

i called tanner again on my walk back and our conversation went something like this:

me: i'm walking back to where i parked just to make sure i didn't miss my car.

tanner: did you really not look to see if your car was parked there?

me: well of course i looked, but i just don't think it really got towed. it doesn't make sense!

tanner: are you sure you didn't park somewhere else?

me: {pause} oh. my. gosh. 

yep. i definitely parked two blocks east of where i thought i parked and found my car undisturbed just where i left it and i'm having trouble deciding if this is better or worse than if i had actually just missed my car in the first place...

in mourning

my computer crashed.

one minute it was running just fine - 

and the next all i could see was a flashing question mark inside an {extremely annoying} bouncing folder.

i'm seriously sad.

not because i have any connection to that laptop, 

but because i was stupid and never once backed anything up.
not even once.

so there goes all my music, all my pictures from the past four years, and every single

thing i have written during my college career.

yes, that is sad.

i'm hoping i kept some weird folders of papers that i'll stumble upon

or realize i really did develop all of my pictures from china 

{like i meant to} 

or even better - come across an external hard drive that 

i happened to back everything up on in my sleep.

but for now, i will mourn.

nostalgia for an era i've never known

this week my grandma {i.e. Gran} was tagged on facebook in a bunch of old photos that i am obsessed with, they are beautiful.  i love how they are black and white, i love the styles of the time {hair and clothing alike}, but mostly i love the people in these photos.  

part of me wishes i could have experienced this time before the age of color television, fast cars, cell phones, wireless internet, digital social networking and video games.  before the time when nearly every person you pass on the street is too busy talking on their cell phone or listening to their ipod to smile friendly or wave hello.  but the other part of me loves checking my email on my iphone throughout the day, listening to music anywhere i go, video-chatting with family and friends across the country, and of course playing angry birds while i wait for a doctors appointment or sit through a boring lecture.  nevertheless, something about these pictures is romantic to me, but i'm sure that's how the past is always remembered.

i think it was either last summer or two summers ago, but my grandparents were telling me and tanner about how when they were newlyweds, their car broke down at the point of the mountain on i-15 and they had to wait over an hour for a car to drive by to get help.  can you even imagine?  we were also  talking to them during the summer about the biggest changes they've experienced in their lifetime, and i can't remember what car my grandma was talking about specifically, but she said she could not imagine technology progressing any further than this car.  {gran, do you remember what i'm talking about?}  which makes me wonder where the world will be fifty years from now, because i cannot imagine anything cooler than smart phones.

anyway, here are some lovely photos you'll enjoy {and i hope it's okay that i'm posting these on my blog...}

stunning woman, gorgeous dress

my grandma and great-grandma

my grandma is on the right and i so wish girls dressed like this still

my cute grandparents

love this one too, how beautiful is she?

grandma, great-grandma, great-grandpa, and great-uncle

i am so grateful to be apart of this family.

my friend/enemy, procrastination, has come to visit

why oh why do i still procrastinate everything in my life?

i have a 6-8 page paper due by midnight and i just barely started it.  

by it, i mean the research, which means i still have to write most of it.

oh boy.

and blogging is just prolonging the time when i actually have to work,

which i should probably force myself to press the little "x" on this tab

but instead i'm promising myself i'll work super hard after.

i mean, i don't really have a choice now, do i?

so here is a summary of my weekend so far:

1. working till midnight friday night

2. server meeting bright and early @ 9:00am (yes 9:00 am is early in my life)

3. breakfast at communal with tanner = yummy

4. homework all afternoon and all night saturday

summer, please come as fast as you can, okay?

oh, and i always take forever to take all my tips to the bank so last night tanner insisted we take a picture of me with all my tips i've collected over the last little while because i refused to let him throw it on our bed and roll around in it.  yes, we are really really rich {just kidding, not really at all}.

  

kidney stone: episode 2

two years ago - or was it 3 three? - i taught english in china and i loved {almost} every minute of it.  ever since i left, i've wanted to go back and hopefully me and tanner will be able to someday soon.  also in case you didn't know, i had kidney stones in china...and that's where the {almost} comes in of the "loved every minute of it."  well, the past couple of days have reminded me of those restless nights in chinese hospitals because i am 100% positive that i am passing another stone (two days ago i was pretty sure, but a doctor's visit this morning confirmed my suspicions).  ever since i got back from china, i've had similar, though not nearly as severe kidney pain from time to time, and i've had two CT scans that confirmed the presence of stones.  in fact, the last CT scan i had in the fall said i still had about five stones in my right kidney, though none of them were very big.  well anyway, no need to panic yet, the pain so far is not even close to the severity of pain i felt two years ago, but the past couple of days have been the closest since.  i'm crossing my fingers it will pass quickly and painlessly!

so i broke out my journal i kept in china and sure enough i found my chinese kidney stone experience written in detail and so i thought i would post some excerpts here because it is still one of the more interesting stories i have to share in my life so far.  I cut a lot out but it is still pretty long, but i figure no one wants to read five whole pages, right?  anyway, feel free to scroll down to the pictures if it gets too wordy for you.

Sunday - November 23, 2008
Brighton in China (as suggested by Dad)

I just experienced 3 of the most intense & miserable days of my life.  I came home Wednesday night from Kate's apartment feeling completely normal.  I had seen another friend, gone to "English Corner" at the school, and hung out with Kate.  I was changing into clothes to sleep in when I felt a sharp pain in my lower left-side back.  I laid down & the pain was bad, so I asked {my roommate} Shelby to get me water & tylenol.  She thought it was just a pinched nerve & I agreed so I tried to sleep.  But anyway I positioned myself, the pain would not decrease at all.  For a while it was okay, but the pain came back even stronger and this time accompanied by nausea.  I kept changing my position, but I could not escape the pain.  I turned on my computer to listen to music to try & help myself relax and take my mind off the pain, but at 3am, I was desperately pacing our apartment hallway and I called Travis, one of 2 boys part of ILP, asking what I should to do &  for a blessing.  I decided I would wait till the morning, but an hour later after continuously vomiting, I knew something was really wrong.  I called a driver's number that I had (Huang) & with my broken Chinese and coughing into the phone, he somehow knew I needed a ride to the hospital.  

Tara, Shelby, my translator Mary, and I got in the car with Huang (me with vomit bucket in hand) and went to the ER at the People's Hospital in Shiqui, Zhonghshan.  It was dead.  We had to wake up the receptionist to check in and I saw a doctor who sent us to the 2nd story.  So my friends wheeled me up to the 2nd floor and once there, there were no doctors to be seen, no lights, and the hallways were gated and locked closed.  So we rushed downstairs and I was livid.  This time a nurse came upstairs with us & she was walking so slow.  I was screaming in pain and yelling at her obscenely.  She called through the gated door/hallway for a doctor and the doctor walked out groggy & slowly as if she had just woken up. I could not believe this - was this not the emergency section of the hospital?  Why did no one care that my body was in extreme pain?  She brought me to a room to have an ultra sound and I learned I had an 8mm x 5 mm stone.  Kidney stones the size of a grain of rice are supposed to be extremely painful to pass, so this seemed unreal.  I really wanted to escape my body, but what else could I do but just feel it?

They put me in a room full of people, gave me two shots for pain killers & hooked me up to an IV with water & sugar.  My bed probably was not clean but I didn't care.  I was glad to know what it was & to have something finally be done about the pain.  I fell asleep for an hour at most and I woke up feeling significantly better.  I had to go pee so Shelby came with me to carry the IV bag & there are of course nothing but squatters.  So she stood in the squat-hole-stall with me holding the bag as I squatted.  And there was no toilet paper or soap to be found anywhere...comforting.

I had to meet with another doctor and walking through the hospital, I felt like I was in a Chinese train station.  it was noisy, overly crowded, and chaotic.  There were lines of people to the reception desk that looked like where you buy train tickets.  I saw 2 parents holding their bottomless toddlers over the floor to poop.  America sounds so good right now.

***Skip to Lithotripsy Surgery***

They laid me on a bed over this bubble thing (which I now know was just an ultra sound) They gave me headphones and strapped me to the bed.  The dr stood in another room and started zapping me with the laser, it killed.  It lasted an hour & a half and the laser zapped me exactly 1000 times. The dr was so excited when he crushed it that he came to me to give me a double high-five - i guess that's the closest we could get to crossing the language barrier, which i thought was pretty funny. Unfortunately, I was too weak to even move, I really couldn't focus on anything or anyone.

The rest of the afternoon I was really in and out of consciousness.  Conscious when I was throwing up...unconscious when I wasn't.  The drs noticed and wanted to know if I wanted any nausea medice.  Are you kidding?  Do I want nausea medicine?? Do I?? I've only been throwing up  constantly for 3 days!!  I have no idea why they waited so long to offer it to me, China is so weird.  

I woke up the next morning feeling feeling significantly better and despite everything, I still love China.

***Back to Teaching***

I went back to teaching this morning.  I still feel sore & tired, but the kids were so cute.  Big-headed Michael saw me through the window & bolted out the door yelling "teacher Brighton!" & gave me a big hug.  I didn't have much of a lesson, but I had fun playing with the kids.  I was telling Michael (who speaks English pretty well on his own) about being sick & when he finally understood what happened completely, he started translating to Eric, who is not as good with English as Michael, and Eric looked at me so concerned and said, "Teacher, you happy...or sad?"  I thought it was sweet that this was the only way for him to communicate his concern.

and to make this blog post complete, here are some photos of why i really love china.

the beautiful scenery, those kids, the hilarious and interesting cultural differences, fruit markets (yes those are mangoes!!)...but no, not their hospitals.

and the best part of the week was...

welcome to the world sully!! i can't wait to meet you, i love you already.

congrats chris and azy!

dear blog, i'm venting!

tonight i learned a new dimension of "the crazy customer," oh how i love friday nights and dealing with crazy people.

here's what happened:
i take the customer's bill to run her card.
i run the card.
the card is denied.
i run the card again.
the card is denied, again.
i go to the customer and say "i'm sorry this card isn't working, do you have another card i can try?"
customer says {rather sharply} "why isn't it working?"
i say "i ran it twice and it is being denied."
customer says "it shouldn't be denied."
i say "i'm sorry, here is the slip that says it's denied. that's just what the computer is telling me."
customer says "does the computer run cards as debit or credit?"
i say "credit, but debit cards usually work just fine."
exasperated, she tells me to run the card again.
i run the card again and it is denied again.
i put the card in manually, and it magically works.
i return the card to said customer and say in my fake cheerful server voice, "well it worked the 4th time, here you go."
customer says {undeniably rudely} "yeah i figured."

as the customer is walking out, she looks at me and says "i want to talk to you. you could have handled that situation a lot better than you did." since my manager is standing right there, he asks her what happened.  she goes on - yelling, i'm not kidding, yelling {for approximately 3 whole minutes} - about how she knew her card should not have been denied and how i just stood there and argued with her about it, refusing to run her card again.  I said, "I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to argue with..." she cuts me off and says, "see! she's arguing with me right now!" and goes on to say over and over again how the customer is always right and how it would do me good to remember that.

the customer is always right the customer is always right the customer is always right the customer is always right the customer is always right the customer is always right. your tips are going to suffer. that was so wrong what just happened.  storms off before anyone can even respond.

let's not forget she was yelling and pointing her finger at me the whole time.  let's also not forgot how nice she was to me when i greeted her. "oh i love your name, what a beautiful name, that's such a lovely girl's name, i've only met one other person with your name blah blah blah."  bipolar?

seriously? how can ANYONE think it is okay to treat another human being in this way?  i don't get it, something weird must happen when a person enters a restaurant and becomes a customer.  i wonder if she realized a massive earthquake hit japan today...

i realize this is a rambly post, i just feel like venting and i'm crossing my fingers hoping i never have to deal with someone like this ever again!  

march march march

this is me saying good-bye to the dreary, icy, windy, snowy, and cold days of february and welcoming in the {hopefully} sunny, warm, green, bird-chirping filled days of march full of cropped jeans, light jackets,  sandals, picnics, bike rides, ice cream cones, slushies, and pink drinks... {although i am sure there will be at least one more winter storm}

this also means we can start opening our windows to let in the fresh air and stop using our outrageously expensive electric heaters...

and let's go back to the windows for a second...this will be especially nice for our bathroom, which if you didn't know you were living in the middle of a desert, you might think you landed yourself somewhere in the tropics when upon entering our bathroom even hours after showering, you are attacked by a gush of humidity...which is actually really gross and sticky, especially in a bathroom.

however, this might mean we'll have to invest in an iron as the humid climate of our bathroom has become a convenient place to steam the wrinkles out of our clothes because as i'm constantly reminded - things like irons {and staplers in particular...} are not part of a housing contract.  

and one last thing.  the first week of march means me and tanner met two years ago and it really doesn't seem like that long ago to me.  but oh am i grateful tanner was fired from mimis two short years ago & thank you to pizza factory {i.e. kelsey} for bringing us together.

and speaking of love and getting together - congratulations to my friends erica and alex who are engaged to be married this coming june!