Graduation and a Game!

Yeah this is a rare post but it fits since these past things don't happen all that often :). This past month I finally graduated from Oregon State University with a degree in Business Information Systems and a minor in Russian. The funny thing is I started college back in 2003 and just barely finished this past June, ugg. Of course I do have the excuse of being gone from 2004-2006 but it still took me 5 academic years to finish since I took so long to decide on which major to focus on.

It was a very sunny day as you can tell. What you can't see is that the left side of my face was burning in the sun the entire afternoon because they read off over 180 names for Ph. D. students, for the love!
This was the first time getting out of the sun where they offered cold orange type drinks which weren't all that great but they had peanut butter chocolate chip cookies which made it worth it (that and my face finally started to cool off).

I added this last one cause it makes me think I was brooding over what the heck to do with this degree I received. In all reality I was just checking it out to see if it really was legit and if they actually put any money into making it.

You might have guessed from the title that my dad and I went to a baseball game this past week. It was a Seattle Mariners game that went 13 innings (9 is the normal but the game was tied and went into extra innings). It was an interesting game to watch but hitting on both sides was pretty bad or inconsistent. The Mariners had plenty of chances to win the game with the bases loaded and no one out but as usual this season they choked and did absolutely nothing. Ichiro was 2/5 with a single and a double which was cool to see. In the end the Cubs won 3-2 cause the Mariners couldn't execute, the first base umpire made bad calls for both teams, and the pitching/defense for the mariners made mistakes at the worst times.

We had pretty decent seats compared to the spots we've had in the past and everything was visible. It was apparent that the large players on the field honestly couldn't bat the ball any farther than the little guys which was sad since everyone had warning track power :(.

This is proof that my Dad and Dave Myrold were there and that I didn't just snag the picture off the internet somewhere :). I almost forgot but we got complimentary towels for being part of the first thousand or something to show up to the game. Nothing spectacular but free* nonetheless (free in the sense that we didn't pay extra on top of the price of the tickets, hehe).

I think that's all I got. I'll probably be staying up in Salem for the summer while I search for a full time job while doing on call work for this job I have in Salem troubleshooting computers for the Salem-Keizer School District as they are remodeling most of their schools. Oh, btw I haven't stopped playing the piano and I'm decently proficient at quite a few songs, not just 2 or 3 note plunkers but full fledged pieces.

Don't get injured without insurance...

It appears that I am a very unlucky person since coming off my parents insurance because since I have been uninsured I have had 3 incidents worthy of going to see a doctor. One of those incidents actually required immediate attention unfortunately (the latest one).

The first one happened about a year or so ago playing basketball where I had to rebound a ball off balance because I got bumped and landed wrong on the outside of my right foot. Because of that I had a very bruised pinky toe that took a couple weeks till I could walk normally on it again without pain. I have a picture but nobody likes to look at feet. I still can't bend my pinky toe all the way down without noticeable pressure to this day.

My second incident occurred six weeks ago in basketball as well where some Asian dude in church basketball was playing apparently too seriously and jumped on me when trying to get a loose ball and forced my finger at the end of the joint to bend really far when my finger was completely straight.As you can tell it wasn't all that pleasant. The joint is practically healed but it is crooked (if you can't tell I'm not surprised cause I point it out and someone has to stare to notice) and doesn't bend all the way. Oh, I went in to the *free* walk-ins at OSU's health services to get it checked out and it took an x-ray for them to be like "yep it's broken", WELL DUH. That cost an annoying 80$. When I came back after 3-4 weeks the doctor finally listened to me that my finger was crooked and said "well it is a little late now, it is set in place", wow... After that he said I could go see a specialist and probably have hand therapy or something to help. It would cost like 80$ just to get a consult and more to do the therapy so obviously I turned that down. The funny thing is I told him I didn't have insurance yet he kept referring me to things that would cost extra money when it was his fault for not listening to me in the beginning so this wouldn't have happened. FRUSTRATING.

This final incident (hopefully the last) occurred this past Wednesday during Tennis. I am not proud of this one in the least. To keep things short let's just say I hit myself in the face with a tennis racket. No it was not on purpose and yes I really was playing tennis. It all comes down to a bad court, a bad bounce, and me trying to adjust to play the ball and ending up hitting myself in the face with my racket. I will never give advice in any sport now because I've obviously lost all credibility as to my skills, *sigh*. I broke off a HUGE chunk of my front tooth and cracked my lip open. I had to have a root canal and my tooth filled in until I can get a crown. Thanks to Bro. Curtis Clark from my home ward this was all done on short notice, i.e. within 15 min. of the accident. For this I am extremely grateful (and to not look like a pirate...).

Pictures speak a thousand words so I'm putting in the foot injury picture. Don't stare too long cause that's gross and feet are just plain gross.
Moral of the story

Stuff happens and you just have to deal with it even when the timing is absolutely horrible. I say this because I haven't been injured since early high school and since turning 25 I have had 3 considerably bad incidents. For anyone that wants stuff to happen to them so they have something to talk about, you're dumb. If I sound a little mean I'm sorry but this past week has been less than desirable considering it's spring break. On a side note though I can successfully play about 4-5 songs on the piano now (with both hands!!!). Hey, give me a break. I haven't had piano lessons since I was 8.