Leap Years

“I’ve seen hatters before,” she said to herself: “the March Hare will be much the most interesting, and perhaps as this is May it won’t be raving mad — at least not so mad as it was in March.”
– Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

It’s March. For as long as I can remember, March has meant rebirth. Because, for as long as I can remember, February has been soul sucking darkness. Actual bleak gray coldness. Not really so much anymore. February in Alabama is near heaven. But March still feels like rebirth because it’s always felt like that. After February, the hard part is over. Once March 1st arrives, it’s smooth sailing. Granted, March through May can still be pretty crappy in terms of weather, but every day doesn’t feel like death. It slowly warms up and the intermittent sunshine is enough to keep you going.

On Thursday, it was sunny and 82 degrees here. I don’t think I can ever go home. Readjusting to NY/PA weather is just not an option.

Anyway, these past two weeks have been insanity. Two finals on Monday morning mean that as of Monday afternoon, I will have completed 3 grad classes and 3 undergrad classes in basically 9 weeks. If I’m still alive on December 14th, that’s the day I graduate. If I’m dead, it’s going to be a Pheidippides-esque tragedy.

Here’s a list of the things I intended to include in the blogs that never got written this week (Pittsburghers, skip to #4 because you already know all about #1-3):

1) This post about Malkin’s hat trick.

Rollie the Goalie’s two-handed jab triggered some kind of primal Russian working class freakout from Malkin; like getting whipped by a guard and summoning superhuman strength to take over the internment camp. So Malkin lit his ass up for a hat trick.

As far as Pittsburgh sports blogs go, Sauce and The Boss is one of the more hilarious ones.

2) This list of people who won’t be Steelers next year in alphabetical order (yes, this is a list within a list)
– James Farrior
– Chris Kemoeatu
– Aaron Smith
– Hines Ward (NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO…)

This week was basically my worst nightmare. I hate football right now. It’s going to be SO WEIRD watching Steelers football without them and the replacements will have to work hard to prove their worth in my heart.

Note to self: Stop getting emotionally attached to Steelers and start caring less about sports in general.

3) AJ Burnett got hurt right away, had surgery, and is going to be out for 2-3 months. Whomp. That’s a fail. Yep, this is what it’s like to be a Pirates fan.

4) This 50 minute PBS documentary about elephants. Relevant: elephants = people

5) THE U.S. MEN’S TEAM BEAT ITALY. This sums it up pretty much:

So it wasn’t a Confederations Cup match – so what? This was a young US side playing without their star player (Landon Donovan withdrew from the game with bronchitis) and with many of their squad still in MLS pre-season training. They were up against a mid-season Italian side playing in Genoa, the spiritual home of Italian football, where they were unbeaten since their first game there in 1924… The Italians had certainly never been beaten by the USA: not in 11 meetings; not in 82 years.

Dempsey became ONLY THE 4TH AMERICAN TO SCORE AGAINST ITALY (and one of those previous goals was in the ’30s). Plus, there was the assist by Altidore who’s kind of hit or miss but still one of my favorites. And let’s be honest, the whole team is kind of hit or miss. Minus the backfield. They’re mostly miss. Although, things seem to be coming together as of late so we’ll see what happens. I’m cautiously optimistic.

Here’s the goal:

The World Cup qualifiers start on June 8th. Hooray! I love the build-up almost as much as the actual World Cup.

6) Wednesday was a leap day and I was too busy to remember that it was a leap day until I saw that the date on my phone said February 29th and it was the best surprise ever. Leap days are celebrations because you get an extra 24 hours to be alive. They’re especially awesome because of the whole March 1st thing being so close… even though that seems counterintuitive (like if you hate February, why would you be happy about an extra day in February?). But actually, because it’s not a normal February day, it just feels like magic. February 29th is like platform 9 3/4 or something. It shouldn’t exist, but it does. And it’s the gateway to something enchanting. And crazy unexpected things happen. Like spending time at a river house and getting some awesome thrift store finds and the U.S. men’s team beating Italy!

I can’t wait ’til Leap Day 2016. I’m not going to be caught off guard this time. I already have the countdown running and plans will be made. Athough, sometimes impromptu plans are actually the best and this year it worked out wonderfully. I got a 5/5 on my medication administration check-off (anyone need some IM injections?) then Rachel and I went to her parents’ house on the river in rural-ish Alabama and her mom fed us delicious food and then we thrifted for a long time at various places in and around Fairhope and then her mom fed us more delicious food. So, basically it was the best day ever even though Thursday and Friday ended up being terribly stressful because I didn’t really do anything all day Wednesday. I was also punished for my laziness by having an allergy attack. But Benadryl is a miracle drug and I was 100% fine by Thursday morning. WORTH IT.

Although, I’m kind of sad I skipped the USA/Italy game now. I did watch it that night but it would have been more epic to see it without knowing the outcome. But actually, I might have died from happiness so maybe it was a good thing I missed it.

Anyway, I basically took today off too. It was Premier League soccer all morning then took a nap and had a nightmare about having to do a wizarding skills check-off at Hogwarts and I woke up thankful that it was Saturday and that I wasn’t at Hogwarts or a wizard. Upon realizing that the school stress was creeping into my dreams, I decided to continue to bum around for the rest of the day and just relax. I didn’t even put on a bra until like 4PM. It was awesome.

Tomorrow I have to cram for the finals but then I have SIX DAY MINI-VACATION before our first clinical rotation starts. I’m going to Atlanta and to the beach. Happily ever after.