This is the newest ribbon I am authorized to wear on my uniforms. It's the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal....Ok, so I think everyone in the Navy (military?) gets to wear it but I still like that I get to wear 2 ribbons now instead of just one! :-)  

Here is my certificate of my first skydive! The pictures are part of the certificate and aren't of us. The lower pictures are of tandem jumpers which is what we did.  

Today was a beautiful day...a little nippy at 15,000 feet but perfectly clear. How do I know what it was like at 15,000 feet? I know because that's about the altitude we were at when I left the plane, somersaluted twice and spent 60 seconds free falling towards earth before the parachute deployed and we spent 5 minutes floating to the ground. Yep, that's right, I went skydiving today!! Can you believe it? It's seems surreal even to me but it's totally true! Micah, his dad, and I did tandem jumps today which means we were strapped to an instructor who really did all the work...we just enjoyed the thrill of falling at terminal velocity. :-) Talk about an adrenaline rush! I also discovered that it can be kinda hard to breath when you're falling that fast. Wish I had pictures of us during the dive but we weren't willing to pay the $80 for pics and DVD as much as i wanted it. But we did get pictures of us all suited up and Mrs. Holden took pictures of us as we landed so I'll try to get some pictures on here. I would recommend that everyone try skydiving at least once...not sure if I'll do it again but it was definitely worth going today!

www.skydivesuffolk.com

Another article to ponder...
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/02/22/schiavo.court.ap/index.html

This whole topic is a difficult one and there are so many issues to think about. But the one thing that struck me when I first read about this is what a horrible way to let someone die...just starve them to death? I guess seeing them in a vegetative state would be hard but wouldn't it be even harder to pull the tube and then over the next few days (or weeks) watch your loved one starve to death? Thoughts? Opinions?

Tomorrow night I start night shift again...this time for an undetermined amount of time. I am expecting it to last at least 8 weeks. Just one of the downsides of being a military nurse...though Lindsey at Johns Hopkins goes back and forth more frequently than we do so maybe it isn't just a military thing. I am kinda excited about working nights cuz it's a more relaxed environment and calm...and no discharges which means less paperwork! But of course it's a change and so I have to get used to working with different nurses and different corpsmen. I am going to miss my Filipina friends on day shift!

Read these two articles first:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/02/10/tracking.students.ap/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/02/17/tracking.students.ap/index.html
And then let me know what you think.

I think the idea was a good one. Why are the parents so upset over the idea? It keeps the students safe and the school itself. In some sense colleges do the same thing with ID cards...so students aren't tracked around campus but at CU anytime we went into Chuck's, chapel or our dorms it was recorded (as long as we scanned in of course!). I wish the ACLU would go bankrupt or something!

As expected I had a wonderful trip to Ohio!

The highlights: (in no particular order of course :-))
-seeing Molly
-seeing Kevin and Katie
-seeing Matt and Chrissy
-seeing Beth, Joel and my nursing professors
-seeing my grandparents, aunt, cousin and maddy
-snow on the ground and snow falling on saturday
-ice skating
-game night
-pizza and movies
-Phantom of the Opera
-CU chapel
-sibling bonding at applebees
-chrismas presents from Baguio and Bangkok
-wonderful homecooked meals
-washing the dishes ;-)

The lowlights (is that a word?):
-arriving an hour late
-leaving
-melting snow
-airplane pretzels

Happy Belated Birthday to Lindsey Ellis!!