It's almost December already

This sign appears on the Anschutz Medical Campus between the north and south wings of Education Building 2. I think it's hilarious. Not even the illustrative stick man wants to go see the dentist.

The semester is winding down! We don't have any more academic sessions in Skills. Finals start in like two weeks. Most classes have one exam remaining. There is no class Thursday or Friday. I'm almost certainly going to pass the term.

In fact, I have a good chance to make a 3.5 GPA or higher. That's exciting to me, given the struggles I've shared in this forum. I wonder if this is my own ego talking, or if maybe my readers feel the same way. Almost like, "Aw, look at li'l Buffalo Pharmer... he's come so far!" Well, I think having this outlet has helped, so even if you don't feel like you contributed to my success, you did. Thank you.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It's pretty much the only one that still means what it's supposed to mean. And Labor Day, maybe. But Thanksgiving is, and has always been, a day to get together with family, feast on some fantastic food, and be thankful for all the blessings in your life. Christ is gone from Christmas, and definitely gone from Easter. Memorial Day is a day to get drunk. So is St. Patrick's Day, although that may be more appropriate. Fourth of July? Drinking holiday. New Year's? That shouldn't even be a holiday. I'm still not clear about what we're supposed to celebrate on that one. MLK? Sweet, a day off! Halloween? Let's dress all skanky AND get drunk! You see my point. Thanksgiving remains true to its roots. I like that.

I think that's all I have right now. The Nuggets look pretty good, don't they? Yeah, they do. Thanks for stopping by, and come back soon.

Well this all blew up in a hurry

A lot has happened since I last posted.

We got a house. It's in Thornton, which is closer to several of our friends and also (a little) closer to school for me. It's also not much further from work. It's a great balance, and it's a lot smaller payment than we used to have. That was the entire object of this move, after all. We're getting a nice house of the same size in a good neighborhood for something like $70,000 less than we sold the old one for. And if the real estate market turns around like everyone says it will, that house will go way up in value. So that's all good news.

Now the loan approval is tricky. In the last month we've seen business levels at work drop from near-record highs (largely due to the novelty of 24-hour gaming and higher bet limits) to all-time record lows. My paychecks are half of what they used to be, and still going down. I believe we'll recover, and if we don't I'll find a different job to get the bills paid, but the loan underwriters may not agree with me. So at this point I feel like I'm holding my breath and hoping. I should find out at some point this week, which is good, since we have to be out of our house by the 26th. (If you live in Denver and want to help me move, that'll be the morning of the 24th.)

Yesterday I took the last exam in Science Foundations I. That class is done. I will pass it, although not with an A. That's OK. Your GPA doesn't show up on your pharmacy license. I'm thinking I'll probably have a B in the course. It feels good to have finished something already. That was quick, wasn't it? Tomorrow is the final exam for Principles of Drug Information. I've already earned a C in that class (if I skip the final) so no worries there. The potential sad news is that we could lose people from our class this week. Actually, I think they let you finish the semester first, but you can't continue in the curriculum if you have one F or two Ds, or a GPA below 2.0. So anyone who fails one of those classes, or gets a D in each of them, it's no more pharmacy school for that student. I don't want to see my class shrink. We've already dropped from 161 to 158 students (I don't really know what happened to those three, but they were gone after the first week - probably accepted somewhere else or realized that pharmacy school wasn't the way for them) and I know we'll lose some more along the way, but it still breaks my heart to see someone put in that much work (and tuition money!) just to fail out.

The ethics committee met for the first time last week. I can't discuss anything that was said in the meeting, but it looks like it's going to be a busy year for us. I dig it.

How about those Bears? That week 1 loss was a little bit of a fluke there, but JAY CUTLER is lighting it up. Now imagine what he could do if he had some real receivers! Maybe the Bears can sign Brandon Marshall in the off season, or trade for Calvin Johnson.

It was cool to see the Rockies make the playoffs. It was heartbreaking to see No-clutch Troy Tulowitzki make the last out of two home games with runners on first and second. But the Rockies are for real, and everyone important is under contract, and if ownership forks over a little bit of money in the off-season, the Rockies will contend for the National League West next year. We can talk about the Cubs later. I like to stick with a winner.

And thankfully, basketball season is soon upon us. I'm sure the Nuggeys will be a frequent topic for me in the near future. Plus, I'd like to see more of those cool NBA ads on my blog. They look more professional than the little text ads that pop up normally.

We've been calling this week "hell week." We had two tests (Science Foundations I, Law) yesterday, one tomorrow (Drug Info), and one Thursday (Professional Skills Development). My case gets especially fun because I had a training class (Advanced Customer Service) at work yesterday and I get to go in to pick my new, less money-making schedule this afternoon. So that's two of my days off that I go up to Black Hawk for instead. I'm going to make a total of nearly 22 dollars for those two days. That will at least cover my gas for the trip. I'll have to make sure I stop off at the Golden Gates casino to enter their football pick-ems contest. It pays $250 to the weekly winner, and I was close two weeks ago (13-1, but three people were 14-0).

I don't really want to overload you any more at this point. I'll try to get a picture of the new house up and talk a bit more about it next time. Thanks for reading, and come back soon.

3 months and counting

Well, the Nuggets did like I wanted and took care of business. It was cool to see graphic basketball ads next to my blog instead of the usual pharmacy tech school text ads. Hopefully the boys in powder blue can go take it to the Lakers. I think at this point they're over any psychological hang-up about historical trends or not being able to win in LA or any of that business. I hope.

Orientation starts three months from today. This means I'm going to post two countdown entries in three days, since Saturday will be 90 days. I hope you like the countdown!

There's still been little change in my enrollment progress. More of the waiting game. I did start memorizing the top 200 drugs to help fend off the boredom. I have 25 down, 175 to go.

A little off-topic

I had the itch to blog, but there's been no change in my pharmacy school adventure, so I'm going to talk about the latest bandwagon hometown heroes in Denver - the Nuggets.

I've been rooting hard for this team since they acquired Chauncey Billups. I love the Nuggets, and basketball might be my favorite sport to watch. Sadly, Denver is a one-sport team. Two years ago, the Rockies went to the World Series, and by the time they made it that far, the bandwagon was enormous. What people never talk about is that the Rockies were near the top of their division all year, won 92 games, and finished the regular season winning 13 of 14 games. It wasn't until about number 10 of those wins that anyone even noticed. But by the time Rocktober rolled around, everyone was a "hard core Rockies fan." Then when the Red Sox scored 6 runs in the third inning of game 3, suddenly it was all over and they were the same old Rockies that had let us down for so many years. Even though that wasn't true. I mean, it was the freakin' World Series! What Rockies team in the past even sniffed something that awesome?

I'm off the already off-topic topic. My point is that our fans are so fair-weather for any sport but football. Even in the midst of losing Jay Cutler, a lot of Broncos fans honestly believe that (1) they're better off without him and (2) the Broncos have any kind of a chance to make the playoffs this year. Ridiculous. Meanwhile, the Nuggets are in the midst of their best season in team history - ABA included - and only now can we start talking about them. On the day the Nuggets clinched the Northwest Division, the Rockies had won something like three games in a row. But the only topic of conversation on sports talk radio was Jay Cutler. This was some 10 days after he was traded to the Bears. Even after the Nuggies took it to the Hornets in round 1, no one seemed to notice. The record-tying 58-point road win in New Orleans wasn't even nationally televised. It drives me crazy that now, all of a sudden, the Nuggets are worthy of discussion. People, they've been this good all year. Why do they have to come within 2 points of sweeping the Mavericks for anyone to notice? Where were you people all year long?

Well, I'm glad I got that off my chest. Now let's go watch them destroy Dallas in game 5.