Happy Birthday to me =) I turned 20 yesterday. Today my sister called me and after chatting a bit I said

"so you didn't call me yesterday..."
"yeah, so?"
"think Jessica, think really hard"
"um...ooooooooooooooooooooh...I mean, I couldn't get to a phone. I mean, I couldn't call you because mom was on the phone all night, I mean..."
"mom didn't call me either"
"um..."

Yes, I was definately feeling the love from the family =)

Haha, but the rest of my day, and even my whole week has actually been really awesome. First of all, I found out that I have an interview with Queen's Medicine in March. It's strange to think that this might actually become a reality because I've spent the last three years trying to take things one step at a time. This summer, people would often ask me about applying to med school and whether or not I was nervous. I always said that I'd worry about my marks first. When that was taken care of, then my references. When that was done, then my MCATs. Then applications, and finally interviews. I think that choosing to only focus on one area at a time really helped keep the nerves in check, I could just concentrate on doing really well in that one thing. Now I'm at the end of that road and the interview date is looming and my stomach has definately started to turn and I don't even know how to begin to stop it from doing so.

Thanks to the people who said "Happy Birthday" or who fed me cake in the library, or cake in cell group, or cake in my living room that melted all over my coffee table. And to Viv who exploded out of my closet in a somewhat botched surprise =) And especially to my awesome housemates.

Speaking of which, lately the three boys have been taking great delight pushing the limits of my gullibility/naivete. In the last week, they've tried to convince me that you add wax to Chinese cakes, that Mike bought a whole wad of counterfeit $5 dollar bills at Pacific Mall, and that S Club 7 was calling to wish me a happy birthday. I pride myself on the fact that I didn't fall for that last one...but the first two...

I don't write serious blogs too often. I figure that there are enough serious things in the world to put us all on Prozac and someone has to be lighthearted and willing to be laughed at. But I just finished reading my friend Trudy's blog, and some of the difficulties that she's going through with her Grandma's illness. As much as I love going to school here, the hardest thing about leaving home is not being able to be there for times like this. I mean, you can call and email all the supportive messages you like, but it can't replace the fact of you physically being there to give someone a hug.

Troid, I'm so sorry you have to go through this. I pray for you and your grandma and the rest of your family everyday that God would be able to bring you peace through this situation *Hugz*. Love, love, love, all the love that I have, all the love from Gregory too =)

There are times when I amaze myself with my own stupidity. Despite doing relatively well in school, I have a lot of 'oh' moments. Things that make perfect sense to most people never occur to me.

I live on the second floor of our house and the boys in my house all live on the third floor and they're always complaining about how warm it is in the house. They fall asleep while studying and run around the house in wife beaters and shorts and whine about how the girls downstairs are costing us a fortune with the heating bill. I on the other hand, shiver so hard in my room, that I sometimes confuse the chattering of my teeth with the beats from my music. I've developed this technique of sealing in the heat with my blankets in bed. It involves me dressing up in 2 pairs of socks, a t-shirt, a sweatshirt and long pants. It also involves me using my big pillow to stop the draft from my window from going down my neck. Next, I have to tuck my blanket around my feet, then under my sides, then around my neck. Then and only then, am I able to get warm enough to get some sleep. Not catching a cold in my room is a fine art.

After going through this bedtime ritual for the last month or so, I mentioned it to Melinda, who straightaway asked me if I had checked whether or not my heater was on...

Oh...

It was so warm in my room this morning, I woke up in a sweat (yick!)

Other than my idiot escapades, I also got to go snowboarding this weekend with a group from my fellowship. I've realized that it's about time I started stepping out of my box. I'm not anti-social, but it does take me a while to feel comfortable enough with people to open up to them and be myself. So I have a tendency to stick to those few people I know well. But this weekend, none of my close friends were able to come snowboarding with me and instead, I was forced to spend time with people I don't normally talk to. And it was really great. I met some awesome people this weekend, and became a lot closer to some of my other friends that I don't see or talk to much and I don't think this would have happened if I had just stuck with Viv or Pris or Andy the entire day.

Happy Birthday to Melinda! My only other "estrogen" housemate and the one who keeps me sane when the boys have decided to cook up a feast and have left evidence of it all over the counter-top. I know her actual birthday is tomorrow, but I'll be spending tomorrow falling down a hill strapped to a snowboard so I thought I'd make mention of it today.

Melinda is one of my favorite people to talk to. She's extremely well read and has an opinion on anyone and everything. And while some people might find this arrogant or irritating, I love it. Why? Because it's a refreshing change from people who are so apathetic that they don't really seem to have an opinion on anything! Melinda's personal mission in life is to make us all recycle, eat healthier, exercise more, conserve energy, read non-fiction, do volunteer work, and most importantly, vote.

Anytime anyone asks me about her, I always tell the same story, so while I realize that some of you may already have heard this one, I'll tell it again because it's one of my favorite "Melinda moments" =)

When we were in Gr. 11, the two of us used to sit across the aisle from each other in Calculus. One day they were passing around the class list with our marks on them, and when the sheet came to me, she leaned across the aisle to check out her own mark. However, as she did so, her entire desk started tipping over, with her in it! When I noticed this, I tried to catch her, but soon realized that I wouldn't be strong enough to lift her back to an upright position. So instead, I decided to slowly lower her onto the ground. In the meantime, Melinda, instead of standing up or straightening her desk, continued to sit perfectly straight in her slanting desk, gripping onto the top of her desk with her hands so she wouldn't fall right out of it, and with the most confused look on her face, as if she didn't realize that she was at a rather precarious angle.

Anyways, when she was about 6 inches off the ground, I realized that I had better move my fingertips, or she was going to land right out my delicate, porcelain, lady-like digits. So I let go of her as gently as I could and she fell with this really quiet thud in the middle of the classroom. So quiet that our teacher didn't even notice and continued working out examples on the board while Melinda was sprawled on the floor, still in her desk. Just as quietly, our friend Shayan came over and helped Melinda up and picked her desk back up, and went back to his own seat. Our teacher didn't even turn around until I started choking from laughing so hard. And of course, by the time she did, I was the one who looked like the idiot. Melinda was sitting in her desk, upright, busily scribbling down notes, Shayan was doing the same, and I had turned bright purple and was shaking silently in the corner trying to hold in my glee.

Happy 20th Birthday Melinda! No matter how old you are...

I'll always be younger than you =)

Is it just me, or is Alias really starting to stretch their storylines? I know February sweeps are coming up and all, but really! In one episode, Lauren has gone from well-bred, pseudo-British adoring wife, to Covenant-loving, Vaughn-betraying, murder-plotting sharpshooter. I know Alias did a big plot twist like this last February when they took down SD-6, but that story line took a full year and a half to set up! It at least had a semblance of realism; well, as real as a show like Alias gets (how many languages does she know anyways?). But this plot turn came out of absolutely nowhere, and to me is a sort of warning sign that Alias might suffer from the same 3rd season crash that hit Ally McBeal and Felicity. I dislike Lauren as much as the next Alias fan but they could have given her a little more character development than this!

In other news, I'm sick. Can't breathe out of my nose, feel like I'm going to cough up a lung, aching all over, shedding virus particles all over the place, don't want to do anything other than sleep sick. And I want my mommy...

Wow, I think I've hit a nerve with some people (see comment on my last post). Oops... I really didn't mean to offend anyone with that last post, male engineer or otherwise =)

It's a problem that I've always had to deal with. See most of the things I say are jokes, and I always make the mistake of assuming that other people know that. But then I read that comment and went back and reread what I wrote and thought "wow, I really do sound like a witch!". Once when I was in Grade 7, one of my friends had a crush on a "guy" who's an anime cartoon character. And I, as was my usual habit, started making jokes about it thinking that they would be considered as such. Well, she didn't take it quite that way and she's hated me ever since. Which makes me sad in a way, albeit she was a bit of strange girl and even if I hadn't said that we wouldn't exactly be best friends. Still, I managed to make someone hate me just by having what I thought was a "good time" but was in reality an insensitive assumption on my part. So, to my anonymous commenter and to any other males who may have been offended by that last post: I'm sorry! I don't deserve to go to Sci Formal, although Viv who has no part in my transgression, still deserves a date.

In response to my last post, someone (who wisely chose to remain anonymous) decided to comment "trust me. u need a guy. just use him for what he's worth, regardless of how ugly he may be~".

First of all, I don't NEED a guy =) I'll admit they come in handy sometimes, like when my computer needs fixing, my chair needs fixing or my taxes need doing =) But these are all things that with time, I could probably learn to do myself. I'd just break a few computers or chairs and get audited a couple of times while I was in the process of learning. But speaking of USING guys, Vivien and I spoke a few months ago about how much the two of us would love to go to Sci Formal. Mainly because the ArtSci one is pretty tame in comparison, and supposedly our Sci Formal is rated one of the best in Canada. (Which always made me wonder, what kind of people travel across the country attending formals and then creating a grading system?) Anyways, the two of us decided that the best way to garner ourselves an invitation would simply be to date a Queen's engineer and then dump him the day after =) Well, that's a bit obvious. Maybe a month after. That way you get the best of both worlds, you get to go to formal but you don't have to worry about what to get him for Christmas =)

A few days ago, I was bragging to my friend Aaron that I could manage to install an iPod on my computer without the help of a guy.

Not only did it take 8 hours and 3 CDs to backup all of my files, I forgot to deinstall Norton Antivirus and I've lost the CD for it. And now that I've reinstalled Windows, I'm still getting all kinds of error messages! Not only that, the whole point of me cleaning up my computer was so that I could hook my iPod to it, and when I tried to install the iPod, it tells me that it isn't compatible with Windows 2000 Professional. It only works with Windows 2000 SP4 and XP. So after I sent a panicky help message, Jeremy kindly informed me that SP4 just means service pack 4 and I can very easily download it off the Microsoft website (hehe...oops!). So now I've managed to install the iPod software, but when i plug it into the USB port, it tells me that I don't have the right driver. It gave me the location of a compatible driver on my computer, but when I go to look for this driver in explorer, it isn't there! Someone help!