Brokenhearted, pt. 2
So, I got out of school last week. Looks like I'm still maintaining a 4.0.
I started summer semester this week. I need to take five classes over the summer and 5 over the fall to graduate on schedule. I've never taken a full load over the summer, before. It's insane. All the summer classes are accelerated - a whole semester's worth of work, compressed into ten weeks. Papers and projects and gobs of reading due every day. One of my classes is double-accelerated - two four hour long classes a week, with all the work squeezed into five weeks. Matt Lauer, it's the first week, and I'm already behind on work.
My summer classes:
Theoretical Approaches to Reading and Writing
Teaching Reading Through Literature to Young Adolescents
Integration of the Arts in Education
Introduction to Theological Studies
Spanish Guitar 2
Heh. You can tell I'm nearing the end of my degree - most of the classes have really long names.
Also, on the chest-bursting front, I went in to get an EKG. As I'm checking in, they ask for my religious preference. In case I need a quick funeral or something, I guess. I tell them I'm a Druid (reformed, not orthodox).
Some samples of dialog from the preparations leading up to the event, as I was lying nearly nude across a table:
Nurse: "You look kind of tense." (*squirts goo all over my chest and begins to stick electrodes to me*)
Me: "I don't do this very often."
Nurse: "I do!"
Me: "Is it more fun on your end?"
Nurse: "Oh, yes. Hey, your ribs are too bony, I can't get this thing to stick. Speaking of which, when I take these off, it's going to rip out a bunch of your leg hair."
Me: "...Neat."
Then they get to the actual EKG part. It's the same technology used for ultrasounds, to see babies while they're inside the womb. Which gives credence to my "incubating an alien" theory, I think. Anyway, they stick this dealie to my chest, and I can see my heart on the screen. It's incredibly detailed - I can see all the little valves opening and closing, the different parts pumping and flexing. The sound is amplified, too, so I'm clearly hearing the funny "squish-POP-thump" and thinking "Holy hell, that's the thing that's keeping me alive."
Weird experience, over all. I get to find out the test results next Friday.
"And hearts aren't made of glass,
They're made of muscle, blood, and something else.
And they don't so much as break as bend and tear,
But we have what it takes to keep it together."
"Bikes and Bridges" by Defiance, Ohio
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