and when its party time...i party by myself because i'm such a special guy

options i considered for my new year's eve:

plan one: watch the fireworks in baltimore over the chesapeake bay

plan two: go to NYC with friends

plan three: go to NJ with my 95 year old grandma to keep her company

plan four: sit around my house in TN with my parents bc i was forced to return to TN instead of staying in the northeast bc i passed out in a museum & felt like crap for 3 days. going out in k-town wasn't an option b/c
a) there is nothing to do here anyway
b) when i went to the store alone today my mom interrogated me on how much food i'd eaten and forced me to take snacks & water with me for a 1 hour trip - apparently anytime i leave the house i might just keel over

guess which one i ending up doing?

a recipe for pain

1 particularly virulent norovirus strain

18 hours without food due to said virus

4 hours sleep deprivation thanks to a certain 2 year old whom today woke the entire house at 5am by pounding on her door & screaming, which only ended when her mother opened the door & loudly said,"WHY ARE YOU SCREAMING?"

5 oz. of wanting to spend quality time with Boy before he leaves for Albania


combining these factors will result in:
1 fainting incident at the National Crime & Punishment Museum
2 cut lips from hitting the floor pretty hard
1 little brother who thought i was dead from a brain aneurysm

lesson learned: even if your brother really wants to go to a museum, if you are that sick, he'll probably have more fun without you

A Tennessee Christmas

last saturday my family went to get our chirstmas tree. lately we've been getting our tree from this little farm in fall branch, tn (population: 1,300). i've never been before bc they usually get it before i come home. it was a very southern experience.

after picking out the tree we wanted, two monosyllabic teenagers came to cut it down for us. they put it on a sled and dragged it behind a tractor up to the prep site. first they propped the tree in this thing that shakes all loose needles and branches off. the boys couldn't do it themselves so they enlisted the help of a classic east tennessean - old man, gray beard, camo hat, lacking a few teeth, distinct accent. a few minutes later the owner of the farm showed up & started chatting with me. upon discovering i study public health he responded, "did you see my mississippi outhouse in the front yard?" i hadn't noticed it so he showed it to me, including the outdoor shower. not that any of it was functioning; no, it was just for decoration. bc nothing says classy like an outhouse in your frontyard.

a quick learner

i've been to a lot of holiday parties in the past few weeks. some form of beef has been served at almost all of them. i'm not sure what possessed me to eat the beef, but i did. maybe it was the peer pressure. one would think i would have stopped after getting sick the 1st time. or the 2nd. or the 3rd. but, no, there is still some leftover beef in my fridge from my latest social venture and i intend to eat it tomorrow.

personality tests

last night i had a few friends over & we got to talking about personality tests. i love personality tests bc i don't have to waste time getting to know people before deciding that i don't like them ("you're a white/red? oh, ummm, i have to go...")

in the color code test, i am a red with blue & yellow tied for 2nd. while i like the color code, it is a bit simplistic. i prefer the myers-briggs test, which describes you with 4 letters (2 options for each one). i often find it scarily accurate, but don't agree with everything. here are some highlights from my MBTI:

ESFJ (extroverted, sensing, feeling, judging)

interested in others
have a strong desire to be liked/need approval from others to feel good about themselves
take responsibilities seriously
value security, stability, & details
have very well-formed ideas about the way things should be & freely express them
driven to control & manipulate
respect laws/rules & believe other should as well
traditional
like structured/organized environments

i just got lost...i'm just waiting till the shine wears off

every time i've driven somewhere for the past two days i've gone the wrong way: turned the wrong way, taken the wrong exit (twice), gone south instead of north on the freeway (also twice), and so on. on the way to church, RationalThought's house, other friends' homes, to my own house...without fail, i have gone the wrong way.

i either have too much on my mind or have been in a drunken stupor for way too long.

family fun

i got a lot of quality family time in november. it was surprisingly nice. my niece, of course, demanded to be the constant center of attention.

Boy wants to take a nap, but apparently it is his birthday:

the siblings. OlderSister is hiding her twin-filled belly:

we played dress-up in grandma's clothes. Babes looks particularly awesome:

i wish Boy knew how to take a picture that was actually in focus:

why is she topless? i do not know. she just took her shirt off & than ran away yelling "i want to be naked!" so i gave her some candy.

thanksgiving

thanksgiving was good this year. the best i've had in a while. probably bc i didn't bring any boys home this year so it was relatively stress-free. unlike PopularBloggingFriend, my parents are totally fine with me not bring boys home. they aren't too concerned with matrimony. instead, i disappoint them with my lack of education (a masters from a prestigious university is not adequate). my dad & i had a long talk over the holiday that went something like this:

why don't you go to med school?
b/c i want to be an epidemiologist
but you like medicine right?
well, i like infectious diseases, but i also like the statistics part
if you like math you could get a PhD in BioStatistics
yeah, i've thought about that, but i like the health aspect of epi
why don't you go to med school?
i don't want to be a clinician
well, you then need to get a PhD. in BioStats.