Life as of late.

"The sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever, so you can rest medicine." Ah...NyQuil...and your non-drowsy companion, DayQuil. You were my savior whenever I got a bad cold. Helping all the symptoms at once, what a brilliant idea! But now, those damn meth labs (I'm assuming that's what happened) have made you remove the cough suppressant. This makes you pretty much useless to me now. Because the cough is always the problem with me. The other symptoms provoke a cough, and then when they're gone the cough stays. But if I have a decent cough suppressant then it doesn't get bad enough to give me the dreaded bronchitis. No, not the bacterial kind, just the kind that irritates my bronchial tubes to the point where the only thing that's making me cough is the fact that I'm coughing. And then I have to go to the doctor (which I hate) get the special codeine cough syrup (which is kinda fun but makes my head a bit foggy - not good when I'm a law student) and wait for the miserable coughing to stop. Usually long after the actual cold has gone.

In case you couldn't guess...yes, I had a cold. Yes, I now have bronchitis. And...it just snowed in Boston again, so I don't really want to go outside since the cold, damp air just makes everything worse. Luckily it's "spring" break for all Northeastern Law students. Spring break in February in New England...right. Maybe they expect us to all escape somewhere tropical. It's right about the time when we need it most. Although really, in general I prefer cold weather and am really cranky when it's hot. I'm only cranky that it's cold right now because I'm sick and need to avoid contact with the cold weather as much as possible.

In other health news - I may have gallstones. I went to the ER a couple weeks ago because I had an unusual sharp stabbing pain in my right side that was like nothing I'd ever felt before. By the time all the normal tests had been run and they said that was probably it, the pains had subsided (another sign that it's gallstones) so they told me unless I really wanted to wait 5 hours for an ultrasound RIGHT THEN, that I could just go home and schedule an ultrasound through my regular doctor. Meaning whoever happens to be available at the school health center. So, I went home. My ultrasound appointment is on Wednesday so I'll give an update after that.

Let's see, what else. My very good friend from college, Andi, got married a couple weeks ago. I skipped a couple days of class, flew all the way back to Oregon, and drove through snow to get over the mountains between Portland and Bend just to make sure I could be there. And it was all worth it. I had a lot of fun being what we ended up calling "half a bridesmaid." Which meant that on the day of the wedding, I rode around in the limo with Andi and her bridesmaids, went to lunch with them, helped set up...I just didn't have a matching dress and didn't stand up there during the ceremony. Which was a wonderfully short 10 minutes, followed by a 7 hour reception. Definitely an Andi-style wedding, she's always been the kind of person that wants to get to the point, and then have fun.

Anyway, it was great to reconnect with her. After undergrad she went to grad school in Hawaii so we somewhat lost touch, especially since I'd stopped signing in to most online chat things. Every time I signed in I got stuck for hours, and I have better things to do with my time. So, anyway, we caught up with a lot of things, and we're going to talk through Google chat, which I've generally limited to use with law school friends since they're all just as busy as me, but she's busy too so it works out. That should make it easier to keep in touch with her now. And she'd like to visit Boston eventually so that's something to look forward to.

Other than that, the most recent development in my life is that my friend Vanessa and I are going to move in together in September. I'm really excited about it. She's a great friend and we get along really well. And we had the "roommate talk" so that we could go over the problems we've had with previous roommates and see if it's going to be a problem here. Nothing will be a problem, so we decided it will work and now we're just working on all the details. I'm going to move in to the same complex she's in right now, we're just going to get a 2 bedroom instead of the 1 bedroom she's currently in. It's a fantastically nice complex that's less expensive than you would expect for someplace that nice. My 1/2 of the rent will be just about what I'm paying now, but I'll be at least twice as comfortable. Right now I'm in a tiny, poorly located "one bedroom" and I sleep on my futon in the living room because the only thing that can fit in the "bedroom" is a bed and nothing else so it was either have a bed in there and then have no room for a couch because of all my bookshelves and other furniture, or sleep on the futon, turn the "bedroom" into an office and essentially have an expanded studio. But when I move I'll have my own real bedroom, a good sized bedroom, and I'm just going to buy a new bed (well, at least a mattress and box spring and I'll put it on that metal frame you can get until I find the perfect bed frame) and the futon will go back to serving its purpose as a couch that people can sleep on if they need to spend the night. And she has a pull out couch (yes, the living room is big enough for two couches!) so when people come from out of town there will be no worrying about where they'll sleep. And, if that weren't enough, this place also has giant walk-in closets, and each person has their own good-sized bathroom complete with linen closet. And every unit has a washer and dryer. Yes. Quite an improvement from my current situation. So, I'm very excited. I get to move to a nice place with my great friend and have lots of fun next year.

Well, I think I got through all my latest news. I really should post more often so I don't spend an hour writing out everything that happened in the past month.

You call that a mountain?

I forgot to write about my ski trip! The trip itself wasn't too exciting, except to say that I did a lot better than on previous trips so I feel like my skills are improving. What I wanted to write about, however, was a little comparison between a "mountain" and what I personally consider a mountain.

It all started with me noting how long it took to get to the ski resort. See, the length of time in the car to get to the ski resort on Mt. Wachusett from Boston and the length of time to get to Timberline on Mt. Hood from Portland is about the same. I believe Mt. Hood itself may be closer to Portland, but you spend a lot more time getting up the mountain. I'll get to that.

The first thing I noticed was that even though the drive was the same, you certainly can't see any mountains from the streets of Boston, even when you're on a rather large hill. You can see Mt. Hood from any street in Portland with a clear view to the east. So I immediately knew we must be going to a smaller mountain. Especially since I didn't know there was a mountain in Massachusetts to begin with.

Well...smaller doesn't begin to describe it. I think my exact words when we pulled up were "Aw, it's a little mountain!" with exactly the kind of cutesy intonation you're probably attaching to those words. When I got home, I looked up statistics on both mountains, and here's what I found in regards to elevation:

Mt. Wachusett - 2006 ft.
Mt. Hood - 11,249 ft.

Need I say more?

Back to the length of time in the car - Timberline Lodge is up the highest on Mt. Hood and is also the only ski resort in North America that offers year-round skiing (yes, that means summer) - which means it's pretty damn high. Thus the reason it takes so long to get up the mountain.

So. There's my comparison. And this is why, whenever I visit home, there must be at least one clear day so I can get a good look at "my" mountain. The mountains here just aren't the same.