shinoseishi's Xanga

Thursday, November 05, 2009

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:33:27 GMT

When I was younger, I always heard people say to pinch your nose when taking nasty tasting medicine. Being a somewhat sickly child and always taking to take some children's medicine or another, I've had plenty of opportunities to "pinch my nose." Let me just say this: pinching your nose doesn't get rid of the taste. I realize a large percentage of taste is based on smell, but when it comes to yucky flavored syrups, that percentage isn't enough to help.

As an adult I still have my fair share of vile tasting medicines, but I'd adopted the "just-suck-it-up-and-take-it" attitude. Here are some tips and tricks to dealing with medications that taste bad.

-Pinch your nose... Okay, that's only part of it. Pinch your nose, swallow a gulp of air (it makes your ears feel muffled), and hold your breath before taking the medicine and then once you've swallowed the medicine gulp down your beverage before exhaling. Why? Well, what I've learned is that tastes are more potent when you inhale or exhale. So, pinching your nose and swallowing that gulp of air eliminates most of the immediate taste and then holding your breath until your mouth has been rinsed by your drink takes care of the after taste.

-Suck on some ice beforehand. The ice numbs your tongue and lessens the intense flavor.

-If you have to down a large amount of nasty flavored stuff (e.g. magnesium citrate... blarg), if you can, chill it. It's the same idea how some people are able to drink water from anywhere so long as it's cold. Not all water tastes the same, but so long as it's cold, it's tolerable.

-Use a straw and then place the straw on the back of your tongue where there are less taste buds. I actually picked this up as a trick to downing my alcoholic beverages, but it works well with medications you have to take in large volumes quickly.

-Have some bread or crackers on hand for immediately after you've drank your water to wash it down. A bland starchy food is a great neutralizer for spicy foods and strong flavored medications.

-My last suggestion would be oranges or orange juice. Oranges are used to naturally cleanse the palette between food courses and the citrus flavor gets rid of the medicine flavor pretty well.

Any other suggestions?

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 03:31:52 GMT

(Elphaba):
I'm limited
Just look at me - I'm limited
And just look at you
You can do all I couldn't do, Glinda
So now it's up to you
For both of us - now it's up to you...

(Glinda):
I've heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you...

Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
I have been changed for good

(Elphaba):
It well may be
That we will never meet again
In this lifetime
So let me say before we part
So much of me
Is made of what I learned from you
You'll be with me
Like a handprint on my heart
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have re-written mine
By being my friend...

Like a ship blown from its mooring
By a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a skybird
In a distant wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you

(Glinda):
Because I knew you

(Both):
I have been changed for good

(Elphaba):
And just to clear the air
I ask forgiveness
For the things I've done you blame me for

(Glinda):
But then, I guess we know
There's blame to share

(Both):

(Glinda):
Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood

(Elphaba):
Like a ship blown from its mooring
By a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a bird in the wood

(Both):
Who can say if I've been
Changed for the better?
I do believe I have been
Changed for the better

(Glinda):
And because I knew you...

(Elphaba):
Because I knew you...

(Both):
Because I knew you...
I have been changed for good...

For Good - Wicked Soundtrack

Friday, September 25, 2009

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 06:29:32 GMT

It's sweet that you checked here.

Good luck on your test.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 22:51:24 GMT

"If in the skylight, tawny afternoon a drift of care
It's only love, but gone in the way of everything.

If in the morning of your soul, a brush of tenderly imagined lips,
It's only love, but gone in the way of everything.

If in the messy cocktail dregs of a midnight glass, a teardrop falls,
It's only love, but gone in the way of everything.

If in the singing twilight of the dawn, you give your heart unwanted,
It's only love, but gone in the way of everything.

Then what in the hours of your life is love?
It's here and gone, and gives its name to everything."

Jasmine's poem - Dancing at the Blue Iguana

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 05:26:12 GMT

If I Survive - Hybrid

Breathing shallow,
I'm slipping away.
Hanging in the gallows,
I'm starting to pray.
How careful it was planned to do away with me;
So kill me if you can,
But words won't make be bleed.
So what if I survive,
And live to tell the truth?
Imagine my surprise,
To find me living and so very much alive!
I'll find a new life and hide,
If I survive.
But I swear you're going down if I survive!

I'll find a new life and hide if I survive.
I'll find my own place in time if I survive.
I'll learn to forget the crime if I survive...
But I swear you're going down if I survive!

If I survive I'll tell on you.

I'll find a new life and hide if I survive.
I'll find my own place in time if I survive.
I'll learn to forget the crime if I survive...
But I swear you're going down if I survive!

Monday, July 27, 2009

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 06:41:59 GMT

Real life update? Alright.

I'll start with the positives.

-I passed Pharmacology. That is a huge accomplishment to me on it's own.

-I got a job at a large hospital as a nurse extern. Essentially, I'm doing what I do in clinicals, except I get paid. And I get to do more, really.

-I had my 22nd birthday last on Sunday, the 19th. It was a quiet affair, but a welcome mellow pace to my hectic week of orientation and work.

-My dog, Max, learned how to jump over the wall of his pen. This isn't necessarily a good thing, because he isn't house trained, but it made me believe that he is the smartest of my dogs.

-I'm still passing my summer class, which takes place over the span of Summer I and Summer II. Meaning, it ends August 3rd. Finally.

-I move into my apartment in Wichita Falls in less then a month. It'll be nice to have my own bedroom and a bathroom I don't have to share with anyone.

-Fast and Furious comes out on Tuesday.

Now for some negatives.

-I work the evening shift (3-11p) 40 hours a week which leaves me tired and unable to have much of a social life during the week.

-I might be passing my summer class, but it's just barely. And it occupies a large portion of my time and thoughts, neither of which I can afford to waste.

-I have yet to break it to my parents that I won't be graduating May 2010, but December 2010. I don't have the heart to break theirs.

-With work and school, my time for recreational reading has all but disappeared and that saddens me because a large part of my ability to cope with reality comes from the escape into surreality. Not reading has created dull and unmemorable dreams that don't encourage me to aspire for more.

I feel that work is a blessing and a curse. I love feeling productive, learning clinical skills that I can use in my profession, earning money, not feeling like dead weight. The problem is the lack of sleep that comes with having an evening shift and trying to fit school work into the mix. It's taking me longer then I expected to adapt to the nocturnal life. If I could stay up until 4am and wake up at noon without feeling confused and overtly tired, I would be most grateful.

As for graduation, I've been living a lie for quite a while. Part of the secret reason I'm working so much is so that I can pay for that additional semester that my parents don't know about. I won't hide it from them, but I won't have them carry that burden. I'm ashamed that I let it get this far and when I look back at it, if I had confessed then, I wouldn't feel as guilty now. I've said the lie so often, sometimes I almost believe it. That I want desperately to believe it doesn't help much.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:41:57 GMT

I always feel sad when I dream about him.

As for if I dream about him because I'm sad or if simply dreaming about him makes me sad, I don't know.

I just know that every time I wake up I feel like I need to find out what has happened to him or where he's gone.

And I know that I can never find out anything about him.

Usually, when I dream about him, he looks exactly like he did in high school. Same haircut, height, physique...

This time, for some reason, my mind actually allowed itself to change how he used to look to how me might look now. His hair was shorter and he'd dyed it blue, he'd grown a couple of more inches (even though he was tall to begin with), as for his physique, he was still gangly, but had gained some muscle.

In this dream I talked to him like I would have never able to do back in high school. It was casual, lighthearted, and easy flowing.

Even before the dream ended, I was sad because I was aware of my oncoming consciousness.

What happened to him and why do I still feel sad when I think about him?

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 04:24:57 GMT

I don't know why I still bother dressing up when I see him. He doesn't notice or care anyways.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:09:26 GMT

I dreamt there was a rain so sudden, even the birds didn't have a chance to react. When the rain ceased, the bodies of injured and dead birds littered the ground.

My family drove around a church parking lot and collected 8 hurt, but still living birds and brought them home to help them heal.

The birds were so small. They were the size of chicks but in reality, some of those birds would never be that small. There was a blue jay, a house wren, a mocking bird, a chickadee, a bird with mostly grey feathers and a yellow chest, and the rest were somewhat nondescript.

We we all got home, I hurriedly found a shoe box and made a communal nest for them all. I used crumpled up newspaper to line it.

When I looked at the group of birds, they had somehow returned to being eggs.

I put all the ends in the shoe box, surrounding each egg with newspaper to keep them from rolling away, and then I covered the box with a thin cloth, so that if the eggs hatched again, the birds in the box wouldn't suffocate but they wouldn't be able to hop around and make a mess.

I went to sleep in this dream, and when I woke up, the wind was howling and the birds in the shoebox had hatched and were chirping. They were hungry, so I fed them, but for some reason, I couldn't remember what I fed them.

I had to go to class, so I placed the open box in a small room and then left.

When I got home, all the birds were in the box and it was covered with the cloth again. I quickly removed the cloth and saw that all the birds were still alive, but one bird was being trampled by the other birds and bleeding at the bottom of the nest. The other birds were starting to peck at it because they were hungry. That bird looked os miserable, I rushed to the kitchen and tried to find food to feed the hungry- turning cannibal- birds.

I poured all the birds onto the kitchen counter, to get them off the injured bird, and then ran to the fridge and decided to feed them raw ground beef.

When I returned to the counter, my aunt had picked up an unhatched egg that had been in the box and was wiping it with a towel when she suddenly dropped it.

I was expecting to see bird yolk or a half formed egg, but what I saw made my blood run cold.

On the counter, surrounded by it's broken shell, was a whole- albeit miniature- rattlesnake. Since it hadn't had the chance to hatch, the snake was dead, but starring at it's corpse, I couldn't help be terrified at that miniature rattle snake.

It was literally the snake in the birds nest, and if given the chance to hatch, it would have probably killed all of the birds and eventually found a way to bite me before I knew what was happening.

I woke up at that realization.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 05:59:28 GMT

How do you know a book is loved?

Is it by how worn out it is?

What about how neat it's condition is?

Wear or preservation: which means the book is loved more?

Something I've noticed, I re-read just about all of my books. I have a group of books that I read a couple of times a year. Some of them were new when I bought them, others were used. I guess it can't really be helped that objects (like people) age. I remember my new books have white sides, an unbent spine, and no creases on any of the pages. They remained in that condition even after I read them the first few times. Years later, I still treat them with the utmost care, but their pages have yellowed, the spine has so many creases it's almost impossible to read the title on it, and, somehow, the pages have gotten bent.

But this is over years of being read by me.

I'm assuming the same thing happens to library books except it's amplified due to the hundreds of people who read the books. I guess it's possible for a book that has been in-print for less then a year to have more wear then the books I have owned for more then 10 years. It's probably true that most people aren't has obsessed with keeping the books in the best condition they can.

What I really don't get is how a book, that has been on the shelves for less then 6 months, has managed to get water logged, pages crumpled almost up to the spine, food spilled on it, and the cover is almost falling off.

Does that mean the book is loved and people are reading it? Or does that mean that people are just careless?

...yes, this rant is over a book.