Acute Labyrinthitis

Don't be too alarmed, but this last week I had a bout of "acute labyrinthitis", at least according to the first doctor I have seen since I got my swollen "stress bump" checked out at the BYU student health center in 2002 or 2003. Carrie continues to mock me for never seeing a doctor, claiming that I am being an idiot when I avoid going to the Missouri State Taylor Health and Wellness center because it is free for me. She claims that if I was seriously ill that going in early would not only be practical but would help me feel better. Little does she know I would rather suffer silently than admit real weakness.

Anyway, while I was at work on campus I started to feel woozy. I assumed that it was because of low blood sugar because all I had eaten that day was a 2 bowls of Kix. I love Kix because it is light and delicious. I feel like I could eat a whole box, but that is probably because it does not fill me up very much. I only had an hour before Carrie would come to pick me up, so I decided to wait until i got home to eat. But my lightheadedness escalated quickly. I stumbled down to teh student union building in search of the most food for my buck. The obvious choice: Wok and Roll - local Chinese fare. Carrie finds it hilarious that when I was feeling lightheaded and nauseous I went and ate a plate of greasy Chinese food. But it seemed like a great choice at the time.

I ate my "2 item combo platter" and stumbled back up to the fourth floor of our building where my office is to wait for my blood sugar to reach normal. It didn't, and the room continued to spin around me.

Carrie finished work and came to get me and I slept for the rest of that day, only to wake up for a few hours to eat some chili and to watch the Truman Show. I went back to sleep with Carrie near midnight to wake up again at 8 the nest morning. I still was feeling a bit woozy, so finally went to the campus health center where I was diagnosed with "acute labyrinthitis, also called vestibular neuritis --- This is an inflamation of the balance apparatus of the inner ear, probably caused by a viral infection."

I have since fully recovered. It just went away after awhile.

I have always disliked tag

I have never liked the game of tag, and so I was very reticent to participate in this blog tag. It is probably because I was and still am a very slow for how small I am. I remember my own father asking me to "unhook the piano" I was clearly carrying with me to first base during one of many little league ground outs.

But then again I did not like any sort of recess games. Recess games were always a big deal, and thus everybody knew that I was not good at them. When I was little our school was being renovated so we of the Mary Lee Burbank school shared recesses in first grade with Daniel Butler kids and then in 2nd and 3rd grade with Roger Wellington school kids. There was always intense rivalries in playground kickball, soccer, and football. I remember being consistently picked near the end. Those were some tough times, but then again, I was a bit of a social idiot in elementary school.

So that's why I have always hated tag, and so I apologize for being so slow to respond.

6 Questions Tag:

1. Six places I go often: Hill Hall (Missouri State psychology building), MSU Center for Assessment and Instructional Support (graduate assistantship), Spherion Staffing Services (my job), church, and the left side of our loveseat (where I use my computer to do HW and use the internet)

2. Six people who email regularly: I email my boss every day to let her know I am at work and she responds. I email myself often research articles and nerdy sport statistic spreadsheets that I have made. My grandmother, Rosemary Fletcher, has emailed me for almost 10 years and when I was on my mission she printed out her emails and sent them to me. My mother has followed in her mother's footsteps and emails every week, but she has put her own original stamp on her family letter. Facebook, blogs, and graduate school have ended what email habits I used to have.

3. Six of my favorite restaurants: Logan's Roadhouse, Cielito Lindo, Papa Murphy's, Hickock's, Red Robin, and Tucano's

4. Six places I would rather be right now: in bed, Sportscenter anchor desk hosting sporscenter, Turku, Finland (especially if it was Christmas time there), Helsinki, Finland, Rome, and London.

5. Six TV shows I like to watch: Sportscenter, Seinfeld, Cash Cab (it makes me feel smart), The Presidents or The States specials on the History Channel, the Office, and Most Extreme Challenge or America's Funniest Home Videos with Carly in the room because she laughs hysterically when she's sees other people get hurt, which makes me laugh.

6. Six people I TAG: Anyone who feels ths need.

6 Quirks:

1. I have annoying hairs at the end of my nose. I do not think anyone else can see them very well unless they get very close to my face and they are looking for them, but I hate them all the same. I have been picking at them for years. When I get nervous I will rub and pick at them so much until I have a big red spot at the tip of my nose.

2. I hate the feeling of dry glass in my hands. Sometimes if I feel like a glass is feeling too dry I will run the outside of it under water before using it to drink something. It gives me the heebi-jeebies.

3. I never learned to tie my shoes right. I started strong, but I never progressed to what Carrie has told me is the "adult" way to tie my shoes. This explains why i lost every tying-the-shoes-relay-race in elementary schoo. That, and the piano I was carrying when I ran back then.

4. I can sleep anywhere at anytime. Airplane, strange place, subway train, it does not matter.

5. I can get so energized/competitive at things that my body shakes from the catylcholamine levels - the chemical that is released during "flight or flight" moments - especially if I feel slighted or severely disrespected.

6. I am a rule nazi. For example, if people cut me in line I have a tendency to immediately do whatever I can to humiliate the cutters so that they learn their lesson. Punishment does not work unless you do it immediately. Otherwise you are wasting your time.

TAG!

We've been tagged by our good friends, Melissa and Brandon.


I know you are all dying to know more about us, so we happily obliged.

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to talk about ourselves. :)

6 Questions Tag:

1. Six places I go often: work, Missouri State, the gym, church, Wal-Mart, and the library.

2. Six people who email regularly: This just makes me feel bad because I don't get many regular emails. Clearly I need to be better about staying in touch with my friends and family.

3. Six of my favorite resteraunts: Cielito Lindo, Olive Garden, Macaroni Grill, Ruby Tuesday, Red Robin, and Papa Murphy’s (does that count?).

4. Six places I would rather be right now: Laying by the pool, getting a massage, going on a shopping spree, visiting family and friends, or on an extended vacation. But really, I do like to just relax at home (which is where I am at right now).

5. Six TV shows I like to watch: Cash Cab, Jeopardy, Law and Order, The Office, Unwrapped (Food Network), and The Soup.

6. Six people I TAG: Jill, Emily, Laura, Carrie, Candace, and anyone else that wants to share a part of themselves with the blog-o-sphere.

6 Quirks:

1. I hate getting into an unmade bed. It really bothers me when the sheets seem “wrinkly” or bunched, so if the bed didn’t get made in the morning, I will make right before we get in.

2. I like to keep records/make lists. I can tell you what we had for dinner on almost every given day this past year. I can tell you what days I went to the gym, forgot to read my scriptures, bought gas (and at what price), or did laundry. As I’ve gotten older I’ve gotten more thorough.

3. I blow my nose kind of loud. I don’t mean to. I just never mastered doing it in a quiet way.

4. I am really concerned about getting salmonella poisoning from chicken. Whenever I am preparing chicken, I always make Anthony check to make sure it is cooked through.

5. I love melted cheese. I often make restaurant choices based on what kind of cheese dip they have.

6. I love to tease people and push buttons to get reactions. For example, my dad drives a SUV and I like to give him a hard time about his “carbon footprint.” Tony is a die hard Red Sox fan and I like to point out Yankees players that some might find attractive.

Finally Cashing In On My Love of Sports

It seems like so far in my life, all I have done is contribute to the giant cash cow that is professional sports. There is a history that must be told...

It all started one day after we had moved to Belmont and I was hanging out with my new first-grader buddy, Andrew Creedon. Andrew, with an older brother around, had already moved to the level of sports loving where he spent his personal money on sports- he had a very cool baseball sticker book about the 1987 season. I was still blowing my 50 cents on candy mostly. I quickly became obsessed with the sticker book. I remember spending all of my money on packs of stickers. Good players got stickers that were twice as big, while the smaller players' stickers were smaller. I may have perused that book so many times that I can tell you who the big sticker players were for each team. I know an odd amount of information about the baseball season of 1987, the first "year of the home run". My love of baseball baseball exploded after that, as did my spending on baseball related materials, as I branched out quickly into baseball cards and earning enough "fun points" to go to games with my Dad by doing chores around the house. From Topps to Major League Baseball, these corporations had ingeniusly ensnared another young mind to sports addiction.

I practiced and honed my early math skills with sports statistics. It was pretty difficult to wrap my elementary school brain around earned run average, but I got it. I learned long division and percentages all with the help of batting averages and free throw percentages.

But up until this last week sports had only taken from me. Sure, it has given me hours upon hours of entertainment, but financially sports has never given back, and that is not because I did not have plans for it to. I, along with every naive middle schooler from the early nineties, thought that I would be able to sell my baseball cards for a profit at some later date. I do not think that those cards have appreciated at all in value since then, but I could be wrong. I also had dreams of becoming a professional player and broadcaster, but those dreams have seriously faded with the reality of my lack of physical size and ability and the impracticality of a sports journalism career. I still hold out hopes that after I have made my millions I will start at the bottom of a baseball organization and work my way up, capitalizing on my organization psychological background. Doesn't it seem like Theo Epstein or Danny Ainge would love to have someone enlightened like me with the Sox or Celtics?

But sports never has given me anything financially back, that is until a few weeks ago when I went on to a local sports trivia show on the radio and won! Carrie used to work at the same radio station, and thought that the guy who did the trivia show, Charles "Chuckles" Booms, was a bit eccentric. Judge the picture for yourself. The day after the Red Sox came back from impossible odds to beat the Rays they ran a sports trivia show themed: The Biggest Sports Choke Jobs. After hearing the locals struggle with the first two Red Sox related questions, I felt that I had to call. But by the time it was my turn the Red Sox questions were over, and the host smugly said that he doubted I was going to get this question right: During the NFL playoffs, the Houston Oilers were killing the Buffalo Bills 35-3, but ended up losing to the Bills. Which QB led the Bill comeback?

Luckily for me, my best friend Jon Hook was obsessed with everthing Houston because he had just moved from there, and we watched that whole game. I knew that the question was tricky because Jim Kelly, the hall of fame Bills QB was hurt and his back-up was in that game, Frank Reich. My answer garnered $15 at a local eatery.

I have now decided that i am calling this sports trivia show as often as they will let me and cash in on my previously useless knowledge.

Thank you Frank Reich for leading that memorable comeback. Thank you Dad, for raising me right. Thank you Jon Hook, for being obsessed with Houston Oiler football. To all of the sports fans out there: Do not despair. Sometimes it does feel like you are involved in a horribly abusive, one-sided relationship. But sometimes sports pays.

BOO-yah!

I hope everyone had a safe and happy Halloween and no one found any razor blades in their candy! We had a great time. We really like to make the most of our holidays so we had a Halloween week. We started things off last Saturday at our ward's Trunk or Treat. Anthony is on the Activities Committee so he was busy setting up and cleaning up and I painted faces with the Primary Presidency. It's a good thing I'm in school because I could never make it as a make-up artist. We dressed up as Michael "Squints" Palledorus and Wendy Peffercorn. What you can't tell from the picture is that I am wearing a swimsuit (the jacket was to enhance modesty and to keep me warm), my sunglasses were on the table, and Anthony pegged his pants.

Tuesday night Anthony went to a cornmaze with the ward youth. Our fun continued on Wednesday when we went to the Jones Pumpkin farm to find a pumpkin. Turns out the lady who owns the farm grew up in Brookline, MA. Anthony makes friends wherever he goes. Thursday night I baked pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and our traditional ghost cake (spice cake with cream cheese frosting).Friday (Halloween) we hung out with our friend Katie and her sweet daughter Lizzy--the cutest Snow White in town. Then we stopped by a party hosted by a one of Tony's fellow students in the I/O program. All in all we had a fun Halloween week.

*Bonus Material: So we re-watched the Sandlot to get ideas for our costumes. We did a google image search. Anyways, this is the guy who played Squints all grown up. Not exactly how we pictured him...