Last Fall Semester...

Well, I started school last Monday and it is not going to be an easy ride! ISU shares the program with Boise State University, so all our classes are in the basement of the library where they have a system set up where Boise can view and participate in our lectures and we can view and participate in theirs. It gets kind of annoying because anytime you want to say something, you have to speak into a microphone so that Boise can hear you. Anyway, my classes this semester are:

Clinical Chemistry


Clinical Hematology


Clinical Immunology/Transfusion Medicine


Clinical Microbiology
Molecular Biology
Molecular Lab Methods
Intro to Clinical Lab. Science

So, you can start praying for me any time! ;-) Just kidding. It's nice to be in a program because we only have 3 teachers, and they all know the homework load. This way they know when they are overwhelming us! The funniest part about this is, my Molecular Biology teacher (who was my Genetics teacher 1 1/2 years ago), is actually going through the program with us because he wants to have a BS in CLS (even though he already has a BS/MS/PhD in Microbiology already). It's funny cause when he's lecturing and asks a question, he says, "It's okay, you can talk to me. I'm your fellow student." We have a lot of laughs. I know a few people in my program already, so that's nice. Shawna (Crouch) Dance is actually in my program (for those of you from Ashton) and we've become fast friends. We actually had Immunology Lab together this summer. Her dad went through this same program.

Kenny is loving his program! He is actually on a field trip to EBR-I today, which is out by INL. It was a nuclear power plant back in the 50's, but was shut down due to nuclear meltdowns. No one was hurt/killed that I remember. I took a tour of it last summer and it was very interesting! I recommend it. It's free.

A lot less work and a little more fun!

So, to try to have a little fun this summer, a couple of friends (that I worked with at Fish & Game two summers ago) and I went around to some of the boating/fishing Sportsmans Access sites that we used to work at. We wanted to be able to spend some time together, and I thought that it would be fun to do this. So we took our favorite route and on we went to reminisce:

This is Dana (holding her daughter Lucy who, at the time we worked together, was swimming around in Dana's stomach) and Jerahlyn. They are posing in front of Daniel's reservoir by Malad. The outhouse door had been pulled off, one which we made, painted, and hung when we worked there. We even made a makeshift lock on it that was a door handle and a lock. We were pretty proud of our wittiness and were sad to see the door was gone.

By the time we got into Malad, we were hungry, so we decided to stop and eat at the Dude Ranch. Whenever we used to do the Oneida County route (Malad), the Dude Ranch was never open--especially when we were craving mashed potatoes. That's a small town for ya--open and close as they please (like the Downey Library)! So we thought we would see if they were open this time and they were! We were so excited that we had to take a picture with the "Open" sign in the window. And on the window to the left, they advertise that they have "Ho-made Pie". :)


Here we are eating in the Dude ranch (Dana, me, Jerahlyn, and Lucy). We all had to have our mashed potatoes. :) YUM!


After eating we decided to go to Deep Creek Reservoir and instead of picking up trash, measuring the ramp, cleaning poopy restrooms, weed eating, or painting handi-cap parking signs, we decided to sit on the dock and soak our feet (left to right: Dana, Lucy, me, and Jerahlyn's one foot--she sprained her other ankle, so it was wrapped). I would have liked to jump in and swim, but the water was kind of yucky and had some floaties.


Of course, we had to see what kind of condition the restroom was in, so Jerahlyn volunteered. She reported that there was no toilet paper, the lock was broken, and it was kind of dirty. On the cement pad that she is walking on, you can see some handi-cap parking stripes. We painted those along with the actual handi-cap sign, but you can't see it. It was fading and chipping away--that's what happens when you don't buy Sherwin Williams paint I guess! :) We had a fun rest of the trip and enjoyed some scenery while reminiscing of funny stories and experiences. I am so happy that I had the opportunity to work there and make these two friends because we do have a lot of fun together and we can be ourselves. The type of work we did could have made that job really crappy, however we three made it fun and that's what counts. You could have the best job in the world, but if you don't have good company it could make it the worst job in the world! We had a lot of fun together and still do!