My so Charmed Life

Well, not exactly, more of a plane trip! Hushbear told me today that since the Spring semester doesn’t start until January 20th we can go to Australia! Yay!!!!

I think we will leave somewhere between the 5th & the 7th because whatever day you leave, you are there 2 days later because of the time change. We’re going to go to Melbourne first then on to Sydney again. I’d like to have a week in Melbourne just for vacation then a week in Sydney since hushbear will have to work while in Sydney.

We flew premium economy on Air New Zealand last time and it was worth it. It’s such a long flight that coach would just be miserable. This time that might not be an option. I’ve priced it and it’s from $1900 to $2600 for coach and from $5000 to $13,000 (yes that’s 13K) for premium economy. The 18 hour flight from Los Angeles turns into over 33 hours of travel time from Houston to Sydney! That’s insane!

I’m excited though, Sydney this January was so much fun. It was really relaxing and I can’t wait to go back. I found a few vrbo places which would be nice. We loved the one in Paris (we had the blue master bedroom). The hotel we stayed at last time we were in Sydney was really nice and had breakfast included. It wasn’t one of those go down and get stale bagels or cereal, it was a real breakfast, cooked to order if you wanted. It was nice not to have to go out for at least that one meal.

As much fun as Amsterdam, Brussels, & Paris were this summer (I went to the Panthéon and visited Voltaire’s tomb after an accidental climb to the top!) and London the year before, there was something about Australia that had me looking into the possibility of moving there. It helped that it’s so pretty and the weather was beautiful the entire time we were there!

I’ve booked my tickets to Michigan for Christmas. I leave on the 19th of December and return on the 27th of December (the day after the boy’s 7th birthday). Hopefully it will snow this year, we barely had any snow last year until the very end of my visit and that’s not any fun. I just don’t want snow on travel days!

I love this idea!

Stuck in Dallas, not sure how long we will be here. My friend JH checked on our house. We have no fence, like the entire thing is gone. His girlfriend did point out that we do have a fence, it’s just not in the usual fence formation. It’s scattered all over our yard.

Apparently all of the power lines around our house are down and our neighbor’s tree is in the line that attaches to our house -cable & phone maybe? We are on a corner lot & the big pole in the back yard that the lines attach to is at a 30 degree angle and might be in our pool soon.

My best guess is that we will be in Dallas for another week. I am worried & want to get back to see the house, but hushbear can’t leave his guys here in Dallas.

I think that the new President of UH and her administration are doing a terrible job with post-hurricane management. I know they are trying to avoid make-up days but seriously, they aren’t saying if classes are canceled until the day before.

Houston is going to be under a curfew from dusk to dawn until Saturday. I think it would be safe to cancel classes for this entire week. The vast majority of the city does not have power and many people are without running water.

Students should not have to be concerned about potential absences. Even if they decide to excuse those days missed, those of us not able to go will have a disadvantage because we missed class.

…and on a lighter note, the genius that is Tina Fey:

Freaking awesome!

I had a blast in Europe! Amsterdam was mostly boring, I think if you aren’t into drugs or hookers, Amsterdam is a little meh. We were walking around near our hotel and some girl was rubbing her goodies all over the window. After a moment of confusion, I noticed the red lights in the window. We didn’t get to go to the Van Gogh museum & the line outside the Anne Frank house was too long to wait, but hey -we went on a canal cruise, ate some really freaking good pancakes, and saw hookers through a window.

Brussels was so pretty. I had no idea how nice it would be. I wish we had taken a day off of Amsterdam and spent one more in Brussels. Oh well, if I’m ever in the area again I guess…

I loved Paris!!!! I seriously cannot wait to go back. It wasn’t as relaxing as Syndey, so that’s still #1 to me but Paris was awesome. We went to Versailles, I went to Voltaire’s tomb in the Panthéon and accidentally went up the stairs to the top (long story). We went to Notre Dame (but not to the top) and La Conciergerie where prisoners (including Marie Antoinette) awaited their trials during the revolution. I’m sure a lot of the historical stuff was boring to everyone else, but I had a lot of fun. Hushbear took a lot of pictures, but he is taking forever to put them up.

I really like my classes for the semester (for the moment) but French might be harder than I thought. The professor teaches it differently than any other language class I have taken. I took 3 years of Spanish in JR high/high school & 4 semesters in college. French is similar, but I keep pronouncing things like they would be in Spanish.

Of course I am looking forward to my class with Dr. S. I’ve been wanting to take it for 2 semesters. My Modern France class seems like it will be interesting as well. The professor started out with the French Revolution and since no one else in the class knows anything about it he kept calling on me. (eek!) I was able to answer most things, but I couldn’t remember when they changed the calendar and one other thing. I hate speaking in class. I’m getting better but I still don’t like it.

The biggest problem this semester is the location of my classes. They didn’t reserve a room for Modern France so we are stuck in the far corner of the campus in the engineering technology building. It takes more than 10 minutes to get there from one class & close to 15 to get from there to my next class on the other side of campus. By the time I get to my classes I am red in the face and all sweaty, it’s so attractive.

I have more reading than I realized I would. 21 required books & 4 optional ones. Any chance I am buying the optional ones? Hell to the no!

…is kind of lame.

I’ve been doing well for so long and now it’s baaaaaack! 😦

I am very happy to be on monotherapy, it’s a goal that many epileptics strive for and I have done quite well on just one drug. However, I switched from my wonder-drug (Lamictal) to the recently released generic. No bother right? I’ve switched from Tenormin to Atenolol & from Ortho-Tri-Cyclen to the generic du jour (thanks McKesson) without a problem. I work in a pharmacy I know that they are equivalent, I was actually excited about the generic coming out.

Yeah, not so much. I didn’t even just switch outright. I take two 100mg tablets twice daily (the 200mg ones are far to big). So I went with one brand and one generic at the same time for several days. That was just because I still had some of the brand and I wanted to make sure the transmission went smoothly.

Thursday was my first day on just the generic, so Friday made it my first full day. Friday morning I broke a bowl when I had a myoclonic jerk and the bowl fell on the floor. I finished getting ready and went to my internist only to be diagnosed with asthmatic bronchitis (right before I leave for Europe). While in my amazing internist’s office, I managed to throw my phone across the floor. Luckily it only has a few scratches & isn’t damaged at least as far as I can tell.

I called my neurologist’s office and explained what was going on. The doctor had just left but his nurse called him and he actually returned my call himself in under 5 minutes. (I dare you to try calling your doctor for something; you’ll be lucky to get a call back from the nurse or lord help you the P.A. the next day.)

He told me to immediately switch back to the brand that obviously the generic wasn’t working for me for some reason and called in some emergency orally disintegrating Klonopin. (That drug stops the myoclonics and hopefully will stop a grand mal from occurring.) He was worried that the myoclonics were a precursor to the full grand mals and wanted to stop that if at all possible.

I missed my final exams which really is a pain in the ass. Now in addition to getting ready for Europe, I have to take those exams. The worst part about taking the exams late is that when this stuff happens my mind is even more of a sieve than usual. I just know I’m not going to do well on them. I would have just gone in to take them, but I was seriously worried about falling down on the floor convulsing.

Everyone thinks it’s so great that I get a few extra days to study for them, but it’s really not. With the Klonopin going through my system I can barely focus and can’t study at all. I’m afraid to stop taking the Klonopin because I don’t want the myoclonics to start back up.

Yes, this is a pity party thrown just for moi, but screw it. It’s my blog and the 3 of you who will actually read it have heard about most of this already.