Falon’s World

This morning, Eric dropped me off bright and early downtown to meet Rebecca on our way in to take our final test – the ASCP Board of Registry exam to get our MT and then we’d be done with school forever!!! I was so nervous, we both felt a little sick going in and the in-depth process of photo-taking and fingerprinting to even take the exam was mildly stressful. But…seeing the PASS was the greatest thing ever!!! Now I’m just waiting for my scores in the mail

Immediately after we were done, we picked up Colleen and headed up north to Traverse City to pick up Rebecca’s new puppy. Names that were being considered were: Murphy, Baccheaus and Bertier.

When we were almost there, Rebecca called to say that we were close only to find out that her puppy hadn’t been picked up and readied from the owner’s house…so we stopped for lunch and ice cream and then went back to pick him up.

Love at first sight!

The drive home was very thought-inducing for Rebecca as she struggled to name her new pup – the final name is Gus!

Meet GUS!

Eric came over after Gus had his bath and took some photos as well:

He’s a smart little thing! For more puppy photos – Eric’s are HERE and mine are HERE.

Tonight was the CLS program’s graduation. Unfortunately, no one was able to come for me, so I kind of adopted Rebecca’s family as my own. It was a decent ceremony with lots of good food.

Our favorite professors!

We’re finally done!!!!

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Today, I rode to Detroit with Rebecca and her parents to see Colleen graduate. I even got to take one of the cameras with a couple of lenses so I could take some photos:

Congratulations Colleen!!!

Well, today is Grand Valley’s graduation ceremony. I was only walking because Grandma and Grandpa Gray were going to be coming early especially to see me, but due to unforseen and extremely unfortunate circumstances they were unable to attend. Also unfortunate, I had already said I would walk and family was coming to see it so I was obligated to continue. The ceremony seemed rather long to me but we got it done and Eric was able to take some good photos. It didn’t really seem like that big of a deal though because I know I still have 3 more weeks of clinical rotation to go before I’m truly done with school.

As we walked to our seats:

Eric said he “might’ve” teared up a little at this point I had no idea (and neither did he) that this moment was so important to him!

We went out to lunch with the fam in Allendale, at Main St Pub – it was delicious!

After lunch, we went home and took a nap before getting ready to meet everyone out for a couple of celebratory drinks. Of course, it was absolutely pouring…

We stopped at McFadden’s first for a small party of mostly Social Work majors:

Next we went to Mojo’s, where CJ was playing to have a couple more drinks and hang out with a different crowd:

I am officially done at Grand Valley State University…

This week is the CLS program of GVSU’s Spring Break. So, going with the routine of the program, we were required to give up most of our break to drive to Troy, MI and fund our way throughout the MSCLS Spring Meeting. Not only that, but we were required to go to a certain number of sessions, present our projects and write a paper – happy Spring Break to all!!! *sarcasm*

The event was actually pretty interesting, I enjoyed the conference but for the fact that I was forced to be there. The sessions were mostly interesting and the people very nice – we also got a lot of free stuff related to our career choice. I got a new purse on the way home that is absolutely adorable!

Tonight we took a nap and then got up late and headed to Relay for Life at Grand Valley. It is an all night event with people taking turns walking around the track the entire time. During this there are different talent-type show/events on a stage in the center. Surrounded by people with tents and other bedding to be comfortable the whole night. I’ve never attended and it was definitely an interesting experience. Rebecca is really into it and plays a part every year so we went looking for her when we got there.

There were a lot of very amusing and entertaining things to watch!

The rest of Eric’s photos are HERE.

Here I am, behind on my blog yet again. I suck. I also forgot some important things when I wrote my last update. We’ll try to cover that now.

MEEKO

My beloved little pet flying squirrel, Meeko, died. He had a seizure a couple of months prior that I had witnessed but nothing since so I thought it was perhaps a one time thing. Unfortunately not

RIP little guy:

LINEDANCING

I went linedancing with Rebecca a couple of times, absolutely loved it! Wish I could find time in my schedule to go to actual classes to learn more dances, it’s such a blast.

MIDAS

Midas hasn’t been getting the attention he was accustomed to after I stopped going to Agility with him, so Eric and I loaded him and Kya up (Mason was getting loads because of SAR) and took them to the park several times.

MORE RED HAIR

Here are some more photos of me with red hair – still loving it!

THANKSGIVING

Thanksgiving was delicious and at Grandma and Grandpa’s of course. I really wanted to get some good photos of Eric and I and of us three roommates as well:

CLINICALS

I’ve so far been through Micro, Urinalysis, Immunology, Chemistry and Hematology and worked at St. Mary’s, Blodgett and Butterworth. I love it! I’m very much looking forward to graduation and working in this field!!!

BRANDED

Branded, whom Eric and I have been avid fans of and partied with often, has ended as a group. Most of the band is continuing to do music in various other groups, but Branded as we know them, is done

There was some drinking:

Some dancing:

Some posing:

And plenty of crying (and me trying to make the criers feel better…):

Lots of changes, that’s for sure…

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So…I have been MIA for…months now. A lot has happened but with school…I haven’t had time to write. This will be a quick catch-up…sadly truncated but the best I can do at this time.

PHOTOS

We shot some more engagement photos and also a wedding at the end of the summer. I have decided that weddings are not very enjoyable for me but I ended up taking some stuff that, after Eric’s skillful manipulation in photo shop, turned out spectacularly! He’s started playing with us having our own photography business “On The Run” but I like to just be the back up and not have anyone depend on my shots. These are two of my favorite photos (that I actually took):

KYA

Kya is a “normal” dog now, 100% with me and 95% with Adam and Eric. She’s always happy when I come home and loves to cuddle. She’s learned to wrestle with me, which is hilarious – she has pent up energy that she doesn’t know what to do with that results in her doing this weird head-body shake thing. She still adores Midas and her and Mason have just gotten to the point where they will play together, carefully. She barked and tried to block me when we had friends over awhile back – something totally new, but perhaps she’s feeling some loyalty.

MASON

This is not the only blog that has been neglected, Leapin’ Labs is sadly behind as well. I will have to catch up on that later. Mason is doing spectacularly with SAR. Really progressing well and will hopefully be taking his first test in the next month or so. We have quite a few pictures, but they’re of course not posted yet. He’s got the hang of the game and we’re just starting to add things to make it more difficult.

MIDAS

We had our very first agility trial. We NQ’d our first run, Jumpers with Weaves. Midas was puking his guts out the whole day and I was about to yank him from our second run but decided to go with my gut and run him – we got FIRST PLACE!!!! There are videos, the first one is here and the second one here. He got worse as the night went on and we had to pull from the second day. Eric was at a football game so the only photo we have is this crappy one I took with my phone:

SCHOOL

Ah school. The bane of my existence. It has taken up so much of my time. After the first couple of weeks, I started to get there around 7 am and not leave until 7 pm. Usually just going home to do more homework or more studying. It was a miserable existence and I’m so glad it’s done. It got to the point where I was unhappy all the time because I didn’t have time for anything remotely enjoyable. I lived from homework assignment to homework assignment. I never comprehended just how difficult this semester would be. The last 9 days we had 13 tests, three projects and that’s not including the homework assignments. Now I’ve started my clinical rotations – I’m at Blodgett for Micro and absolutely love it. I can only hope the rest of them go as well.

DIET AND EXERCISE

This summer I went on a massive diet and lost 30 lbs. Then I joined Snap Fitness and gained around 5 lbs back. Hopefully muscle. There are no After photos of me since working out, maybe later. These are the photos from my weight loss though:

I think this photo shows the most change, although most people comment on the change in my face…

FRIENDS

Through the misery of school, I spent an enormous amount of time with Josh and Rebecca and we’ve all become quite close. They’re some of the best friends that I’ve ever had. Here are some photos Eric took of us:

There are many, many more, including some really good ones of Adam and I:

The rest of the “good” photos are HERE. Then there are a bunch of funny ones HERE. Enjoy

THE DEATH OF OLD GOLDIE

We decided to drive Old Goldie to Marquette for the football game, leaving at 2 am. We were just north of Gaylord when Travis (who was driving at the time because Eric was falling asleep) hit a deer….totaling the van. I had to call Mom and Dad at 5 am to come and get us and we had to wait for 4 hours at the local Big Boy. The entire experience was miserable for me, compounded by some rude and heartless comments made by Mike and having to leave the van up there for $30/night…there’s no happy ending to this story. We are now down to one vehicle.

THE FUTURE

Hopefully I will be able to keep this updated better in the future…but we will see.

Oh, and now I have red hair:

Well, I made it through the end of the semester…finally. *whew* It was hard!

General Laboratory Practice = A

Diagnostic Microbiology I = A-

Health Care Management = A

Semester GPA = 3.833 (the highest I’ve ever gotten!!)

Yay!

This morning when I went to get into the shower, I noticed a bruise on my arm…in a funny pattern. I asked my prof about it this afternoon and she said that probably someone either nicked or went through one of my vessels and it bled out a little – hence the bruise. But, this is days after my blood was drawn. Weird huh?

(notice the bruise follows the path of my vein)