Some things from today:

"The joke about the penguins?"
"Yes"
"Two penguins are standing on a floating ice chunk. One penguin says to the other, 'You look like you are wearing a tuxedo. The second penguin says, 'What makes you think I'm not?"
"That's it?"
"Yes"
"Why is that funny?"
"People laugh at it."
-my recollection from A Prairie Home Companion (the movie)


"What you still need to know is this: before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we've learned as we've moved toward that dream. That's the point at which most poeple give up. It's the point at which, as we say in the language of the desert, one 'dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon.' "
-from The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

"The man in that room wants to order some breakfast."
-last line from The Squid and the Whale

Is it weird to give a couple money for a wedding present in the form of a refund from the phone company? I've got this refund from Telecom for $26.34 kiwi dollars on my last statement and I think the only way to get that money is to give the statement to my friends who can redeem it when they go back to Wellington. Money is money, right? =)

Movies I am looking forward to, for a multitude of reasons:
Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man's Chest
A Prairie Home Companion
The Last Kiss (new Zack Braff movie in Sept)
Word Play
Krrish

Things I need to do by the end of the month:
3.4 CEUs
thank you notes

I had the most delicious pear the other day. I don't think I've ever liked a pear as much as I did that one. The reason heaven is going to be so good is that we can just get fruit without having to buy it at the store and it will be fresh and sweet with none of this squeezing to see if it is ripe.

I have three empty photo albums sitting on my couch. (Thank you, Jenn, for getting me started!) This means I am on the road to organizing my photos. That was my fear with having a digital camera - never developing anything.

When I used to dream about what New Zealand would be like, I imagined myself doing some sort of Julie Andrews - Sound of Music - spinning around on top of a mountain with my arms out wide and my head thrown back, eyes to the sky. I may not have done such specific twirling, but I think I lived with reckless abandon and I loved it. My dream now is that no matter where I am, I will LIVE with my arms out wide and my head thrown back, eyes to the sky. This dream is a digital picture of myself that I have in my head - same fear as before.

Have you ever come to the point where you feel at an utter standstill with someone because there is something unsaid, staring you in the face, but no one has the courage to say it? Or the opposite, saying something you really didn't mean at all? I don't know where to go with that. Fear is certainly involved here as well.

But then, I say to myself. HELLO. Why are you so afraid? If you can't remember what PT/INR lab values mean, and you don't want a critical level to get passed you, then pick up your lab book and LEARN IT AGAIN. So I did. And now it doesn't scare me.

And to Joanna, thank you so much for your comment some days back. You don't know how much good that did my heart. Congratulations, Belizian bride (is that a word?)!! I hope you got to spin around in your dress.

Three new friends in two days. That has got to be a record or at least it makes up for the 3- month-long friend-making drought I have endured here in A-town (can I call Austin that?). Anyway, I must say that the lovely people I have spent time with these last weeks are surely of the highest caliber and if they were all I had for the next forever, I would probably cry myself to sleep every night due to sheer joy. Large happy bliss-filled tears soaking my half-dried pillow (half-dried because the moisture from the night before had not yet evaporated). I am thinking of Lucille Bluth just now - moisture.

That was a fun use of hyphens, whether or not correct usage.
Hyphens make my world go round.

Ok, so my new friends are Kristina, Cesar and Alisha. Their numbers are in my phone and I am planning to call them to help me celebrate my 26th birthday next Tuesday. They are also new to Austin, so they don't know people, just like me. I think we have unofficially formed the Desperate for Interaction and Social Support group aka D.I.S.S.

I need to talk to God more.

And hydrate.

I think I found it. When I was in Australia, staying at the hostel in Cairns, one of our roommates told me about a book that she was reading that had been passed on to her from another backpacker and so on and so on. Seems it was quite the buzz among backpackers, some special novel written several years ago (1988), but making it's rounds again (and translated into 56 languages). Backpackers spread the word when they find something worth exploring. I didn't write the name of it down, thinking I could keep it in mind. I lost it after all the transition home, but I think I found it again. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. I can't wait to start - I feel like there is a secret inside waiting to be discovered.

First I have to finish reading Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. I read her short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, back in summer school at the community college in an American Lit class - LOVED IT and wrote a paper on it.

All this free time has served as a pleasant reintroduction to my supreme adoration for books. The long hours of nothingness have also allowed me to have a healthy desire to get back to work, which I will do tomorrow! Yup, I got a job in Austin. I am the RN Team Leader for the South 1st - Austin Regional Clinic. This also means I will most likely be going to bed at a more decent hour seeing as I will need to be at work before 8am. UGH. Positive and negative.

Now that I have a job, I am rethinking things. Maybe I will buy a house. What does this mean for grad school? What about going overseas? I am so glad I can look back at my past experiences and see how everything has worked together to prepare me for the next thing. All the good and the bad - even what still doesn't make sense. And that next thing is certainly not without challenges, but it is next and I am ready.