The ER. How much does it hurt?

Friday morning I woke up and developed a terrible pain in my left abdomen. I thought that it would be just temporary, and I would still be able to go to school, but I was sure wrong. It at points reached level 7 intenseness in pain, and I could not make the agony go away. I ended up going to the ER instead of school, because it sure looked like learning wasn’t going to do me any immediate good. I laid on a hospital bed for around an hour and a half, while the hospital staff tried to figure out why the heck I was there in the first place.

Finally, after laying in pain, the were able to figure out from a cat scan that I had a kidney stone, something that usually only older people get. I was injected with narcotics, and then told I could leave while I was still drugged and unbalanced.

To top it all off, once I arrived home I took a nap and woke up with no pain. The stone had passed. Unfortunately, I decided I wanted to take a shower, because I was feeling grimy. Bad idea. With drugs still in me, and the fact that I was still weak, I ended up fainting. Halfway through my free fall I banged my head, and then nicked my back on the tub spout, which caused me to wake up. On the bright side I felt great after that and had the opportunity to go on a walk and enjoy the sunshine that Astoria has been experiencing. I felt rather chipper considering all things.

While in the ER, one of the things that came to mind while I was laying there was Brian Regan’s account of the ER. When they asked me to rate my pain, I couldn’t help but think back to how he had described it. Level 8 is a good number if you like morphine. The video is shown below.

A Special Parking Spot and Visit

This past Wednesday our school had the opportunity of hosting a town hall meeting for our county, due to our auditorium being big enough to accommodate all of the community visitors that showed up. The reason for this meeting was the visitation of Oregon Senator Ron Wyden. Ever since he has been elected to office, he has held a yearly public meeting in each county.

A couple of students got to go to the meeting including me. My interest in going was to see a real live US senator, along with trying to learn more about what the political debate topics are right now. I didn’t really care what was going to be said or if anything got done, just as long as I learned something.

The discussion wasn’t too hard to follow, until people started asking questions about healthcare, insurance, and anything else that is medical.

When the meeting was over, people who didn’t get a chance to ask the senator questions crowded him for one last say. A fellow student and I decided to try to get a quick handshake from him, which turned out to be a whole lot harder than it looked. Even though the meeting had been fairly calm, a small crowd around Wyden started getting riled up and the assistants started escorting the senator out of the building. We tried to cut him off at the entrance doors but there were still people around him and his advisors were trying to speed up his journey to his car. Finally in the parking lot before he loaded into his car I was able to shake his hand.

Some people that must have felt they still hadn’t given him an earful were still muttering to themselves after Wyden had left. I even had one guy stop me as I was reentering the high school and telling me he wanted to apologize for politicians robbing today’s generation of something or the other. I said I was fine with whatever he was talking about and he said I shouldn’t be about whatever situation he was referring to. I then decided to head to lunch before he could complain more about whatever was keeping him irritated at politicians. I saw him standing in the hallway when I turned my back a few seconds later looking like he want to share his life’s burdens with another student or community member. What an experience. I don’t know if I could be patient enough to be a politician if I had to constantly meet people like him. 

Due to community members coming to visit, the front row of our high school was roped off for visitors during that day. As an incentive to make sure students didn’t park in this zone, our principal left his personal parking space up for grabs. I didn’t expect to get it as I am usually not the first car or even the second to arrive at the high school. Imagine my surprise when after getting out of Seminary I pulled up to the high school with the principal’s space still open. I took full advantage of the situation and enjoyed being parked in a coveted spot for a day.

I Love My Ducks

The University of Oregon Ducks football team are playing in one of the biggest bowl games in the history of the program on New Year’s Day. They go against the Buckeyes of Ohio State. A month or two back, when people started see that Oregon had a shot at the Rose Bowl, a group of college students from the university created a video to show the appreciation and support for the Ducks.

It has become a big hit and is the unofficial hit song of the season for the football team. Chip Kelly, the Oregon head coach even showed to it to his players because he liked it so much. Whether or not it gave the team an inspiration boost is still unknown, but the video ended up proving to come true. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s worth a look. It’s an added bonus that the song’s got a catchy beat.

Oregon student group “Supwithugirl”.

A Touch of Fire

One of the classes that I am taking this year at Astoria High School is a class called Chemistry and Cellular Biology. The class is taught by Mr. R., and he does a great job of making it interesting.

He recently did some demonstrations to show reactions that can happen with chemical compounds. The mixture of methane gas with water creates methane bubbles. Mr. R. would than show us his pyrotechnic skills and throw the bubbles into the air, followed by lighting them with a lighter. The end effect can be seen in the picture below.

The class is the second I have taken from this particular teacher. Highlights of the class for me have been making root beer, ice cream, and holiday suckers. I’ve also enjoyed experiments that have involved fire.

Chill Hits Astoria

The chill that hit the Western states back in the first week of December hit us as well. Although we weren’t able to acquire precipitation like some of the places, it still got really cold for here. Because we didn’t get any snow, we decided to spray a few things to make it look like a winter wonderland. Hopefully the snow will come soon. Another white Christmas would be a great surprise.

Happy Holidays to everyone! Enjoy the snow if you have it!

Lincoln and Kennedy: Crazy Facts

This year is U.S. History for me and we recently got done talking about President Lincoln’s assassination. My teacher gave me this fact sheet that I found really interesting describing the correlation of the assassinations of Lincoln and Pres. Kennedy.

   

• Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846. John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.
• Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860. John F. Kennedy was elected in 1960.
• The names Lincoln and Kennedy each contain seven letters. Bother were particularly concerned with civil rights.
• Both Presidents’ wives lost a child while living in the White House. Both Presidents were shot seated next to their wife. Both Presidents were shot on a Friday. Both were shot in the head.
• Lincoln’s personal secretary, whose name was John (Nicolay), advised him not to go to the theater. Kennedy’s secretary, whose name was (Evelyn) Lincoln, advised him not to go to Dallas.
• Both were assassinated by Southerners. Both were succeeded by Southerners. Both successors were named Johnson.
• Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808. Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.
• John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln was born in 1839. Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy was born in 1939.
• Both assassins were known by their three names. Both names are comprised of fifteen letters.
• Booth ran from the theater and was caught in a warehouse. Oswald ran from a warehouse and was caught in a theater. Booth and Oswald were assassinated before their trials.
• Lincoln was shot in the Ford Theatre and Kennedy was shot while in a Ford Lincoln.

As you can see, there are a surprising amount of similarities between the two presidents and their deaths. It just goes to show that you will never know what you find in history.

Jelly Belly Factory

Our last stop while in California was heading over to the famous Jelly Belly factory, home of the world-famous gourmet jelly beans. I was looking forward to the candy just as much as the tour, to tell you the truth. While I was expecting a great tour, what I got still surprised me.

This tour told the story of how the Jelly Belly candy company came to be and how the legendary jelly beans were made. Along the way we got to see the beans being made, which was a very interesting process. Their history includes how President Reagan’s liking of Jelly Belly beans led to them becoming America’s unofficial candy.

Due to trying to protect company secrets, or maybe to make the experience more worthwhile, we weren’t allowed to take pictures on the tour. Therefore, I don’t have any pictures of the tour.

After the tour we were handed a good size bag of jelly beans, to satisfy any cravings we may have felt on the tour. My family also went to the adjacent store and picked up some “Belly Flops”, which are reject jelly beans that were packaged because of their size. They taste the same. We also got some bags of different flavors and some souvenirs to complete our experience. Visiting the factory is worth the effort if you ever get the chance.