Beware: The Chibis Have Taken Control!

So, yesterday was my birthday and I have to say one tremendous thing for social networking... it is a lot harder for your friends and distant relatives to say they forgot. Talk about an outpouring of warm fuzzy feelings. *_* You guys are the awesomest. How old am I? Now... a woman never reveals these things, does she? ;) We'll put it this way... my mother is 29. Does that help? ^_~

Anyway, for the actual day of my birth, I got to get out of class early and study for a Linear Algebra test and my Calc professor allowed me to take the test home as a take-home test. (OK, I'm auditing the course and she doesn't actually get to give me a grade, but still it was awesomely nice of her, don't you think? ^_^)

...You'll note, I think these all fall into the "Yay" category. *sheepish grin* What? I like math. ^_^

Anyhoo, in more commonplace gifty terms, a friend of mine from chorale (who is a vocal instructor), gave me a free voice lesson to help me for solo auditions next week. I tell you this mainly to tell you that it's nice to hear a quasi-objective professional opinion that I have a good voice. Secondly I tell you this to tell you this: I CAN STILL HIT A HIGH 'C'. *boggles* That'd be this note up top here for those of you non-music people. And here I thought the time I hit the 'D' one step above that when I was 15 was a fluke. O_O I guess I can't say that anymore if I can still hit that 'C'. O_O;;; I guess I really am a soprano. ;) Now if I could just open up my voice up there... look out world, here I come. ;D Also, low and behold, when I'm relaxed and enjoying myself, I really do have a vibrato. ^_^ Now if I could only learn to control it... O_o;;;

OK, enough music babble. ^_^ Other gifts to myself: Took a friend with me to go see Hair #9 in Hartford this past weekend. 4th row orchestra, 3rd and 4th seat from the left aisle. Yeah, baby! But I already babbled about that, so I will spare you the details. ^_~ Final gift -- and the one that gets the "accidental" label -- I, er... forgot which userpic package I had and picked the one that gives me 210 by mistake. O_o;;; So... erm... yeah. Oops.

*slow smile*

And so I give you icons!! :D

Paris & Steel: So. Much. Love. Both the new icons come from screencaps of Paris and Steel's "At This Performance" Appearance on 11/8/09. This was back when they were both understudies for the Broadway show. Their rendition of Hair is very well done (this icon was snapped at the ending pose) and it's always fun to see them having so much fun. ^_^	All About the Body Language Also from Paris and Steel's "At This Performance" Appearance on 11/8/09, this one from the interview prior to them singing. Paris is just too adorable in this shot and it's clear from watching them (and because they own right up to it) that they enjoy performing together because they're good friends on top of it. So cute. So much love, again. ^_^

As usual, feel free to steal, but please let me know and credit if you do. ^_^

OMG, I ALMOST FORGOT! O_O Tomorrow is the big family b-day festivities and my mom is making me chicken curry... AND PRISCILLA CUPCAKES. *_* I love my mother. *beams*

You know... I really wish that people would just say what they mean instead of leaving me to guess, because whenever I guess... I guess wrong. When my parents, sister and I discussed my birthday and decided to do it on the actual date of my birth, the caveat was, "But if we do it on a Tuesday, it'll have to be at 6 or so because Jon will be at work." Silly me, I assumed that meant that I was expected at 6. So why am I getting frantic phone calls at 4:45 demanding to know why I'm not there yet? How was I supposed to know that "We'll do this at 6" actually meant, "Jon will get here at 6, but we expect you at 4?"

Great. Now, I'm in a bad mood. *grumbles* Happy birthday to me. *sigh*

*shakes self* You know what? I am just going to wrap the fact that I have finished Part 6 around me like a blanket and go enjoy my London Broil and strawberry shortcake, damn it. And I am bringing my laptop with me to do edits later on if I see fit. It's my party and I'll edit if I want to. :-P

So... I realize that I haven't posted in a while. You'll have to forgive me for that, but the reality is that my life is busy trying to turn into complete and utter sh*t. Those of you who have been following the saga know that I have had a love-hate relationship with my job and my boss for the better part of the last two years. Around 6 months ago, a third doctor was added to our practice which made things complicated for a while, but for the most part, improved life dramatically for all involved. The three of us work together well, we communicate well and overall play nicely together.

So what's the problem, you say? Well, I'll tell you. Since hiring this third doctor, our higher-ups realized that apart from a few months over the summer, our practice really can't support three doctors. Hmm. Well, that's not good. Problem number 2: the practice 30 minutes north of us is losing one of their two doctors to a new hospital opening 30 minutes north of them. Problem, you say? Solution, says they. It's simple math really. We now have 4 doctors and 2 hospitals that can support 2 doctors each. Simple, right? Of course not right! Naturally, this means that one of the three doctors who work so well together needs to leave that practice to work with another vet who is less than one year out of school and has ambition that far outweighs and overreaches her ability and moral fortitude.

Hmm? What's that? Oh, why yes -- I was the one who ended up moving northwards.

Bitter, party of one? Your table is ready.

Now, I was promised that this other doctor was going to be leaving the practice at mid-summer. Two problems here. One, she's been talking and making changes as though she has no plans of going anywhere. Two, she's a miserable little **fill in the blank with derogatory explicative of your choice** and I can't work with her for another week, much less another 2-3 months!!

*pantpant*

And in the midst of all of this, I am turning 30 in 16 days. Now, don't get me wrong. I don't consider this a very big deal. I've always figured that if you're only as old as you feel (a sentiment in which I whole-heartedly believe), then I'm 6 for life. However, whenever you hit a milestone birthday (13, 17, 21, 30...), you can't avoid at least a little bit of stock-taking of your current position in life and comparing it to where you thought you'd be by that age. Now, for the earlier milestones, you're measuring your life accomplishments strictly in terms of what you've done in school. Thirty is the first one where you've had time out in the "real world" to complete and fill out some of the lines on your "life goal list": buy a car, get a job, be financially independent, buy a house, have a family, etc. And when you get to 30 and realize that you have only accomplished one or two of those things -- and you aren't satisfied with how you've done either one -- it's a rude awakening.

For the longest time, my entire life goal list had one line and it read like this: Become A Veterinarian. And I did that. It was a grueling and degrading experience, but I survived veterinary school and came out the other end with the piece of paper in hand that would allow me to step out into the workforce and finally be the thing that I had spent the last 15 years dreaming of becoming.

...And then I realized that that piece of paper isn't worth crap. No matter how much I learned in school, I didn't really feel that I could do this job that I worked so hard to be able to do. I felt completely unprepared and generally wanted to run screaming home to mommy every time an emergency that I didn't know how to handle walked into my practice. So I spent the next year or two learning all those things that they should have taught me in school. And by the time I hit 28 or 29 I started to realize that my goal list had now stood empty for those two years.

That was not a good moment. So, here I am at 29, almost 30, and I have a job that I don't like that I traded up for a job that I hate, an apartment I like in an apartment complex I can't stand, friends I adore but never see, a chorus group I sing in but dread going to on Monday nights because of the exhaustion that will set in by Tuesday morning, and a family that I want to be around for that lives three states away. And the one and only goal that I invested myself in reaching... isn't enough to make me happy anymore. In fact... it's making me miserable. And I have nothing else to replace it with.

*sigh* And is if that wasn't enough stress right there, I have my mother whispering in my ear that my biological clock is ticking and that if I wait another 3-5 years to return to NY (as I had planned), then it takes me 2-3 years to even make friends, much less find a boyfriend... do I really want to be starting a family at 37 or 38? *falls over* Like I needed that on top of all the other anxieties?? I don't even know that I want a husband (much less children) and now I'm supposed to rush to find one just so I'm not too old to do anything with one once I get him? What the hell is this, a drag race?

So what's the point of all this? I... I don't really know. I suppose I just needed to get it off of my chest and onto paper. I needed to get it out of me and into another medium so that I could see it clearly. I don't like making decisions under duress and I don't like being forced into life-altering ones because I'm running away from something less pleasant. And if I've succeeded in giving myself a little objectivity here, then I've accomplished what I set out to do. Thanks for the support. ^_^

And a ziesen Pesach to all those celebrating along with me tomorrow!

*eyes clock*

12:13 AM

*coughs*

...Make that today... *sheepish grin*