Random and choppy is the best I can do

-Auditioned for Women's Glee Club and even after two years without exercising my vocal chords, they offered me a spot! Soprano 2. What what.

-Classes suck. Except for Music 203.05 aka Women's Glee Club.

-It's cold as fuck and I forgot my gloves in the jacket I forgot at home. Genius.

-I can't fall asleep because I took a two-hour nap after class today. It was my first day back in clinical and with a new instructor (she drills us harder than my former clinical instructor, which I appreciate). I had an inexplicably low blood sugar of 38 (think death--I want my blood sugar to be around, like, 100) followed by a blood sugar of 56. So I wasn't allowed to do much in the hospital today. I felt beyond useless.

-After a bad day of being glove-less, useless, and sugar-less, I came home to a beautiful bouquet of flowers from Trevor (picture at the top). It's our six month anniversary today. Instant mood uplifted.

-Because I can't sleep, I decorated my room with photos of my family. For Christmas, Dad divided up his vast collection of pictures between Abby, Seth, Sarah and I. I have photos of Grandpa in his military uniform in 1944, Grandma with friends, Mom's mother Nonny holding baby Sarah, uncles and Dad as little boys, Mom in Italy as a teenager, Mom and Dad at their wedding and tons of pictures of the four of us kids growing up. I put a collage of these random pictures on my dresser under the glass covering and tacked some onto the cork board on my desk.



-Back on Twitter. Not regretting it.

-I love Miike Snow for some reason.

-These next several weeks are filled with lots of Glee Club, sorority recruitment, training sessions to be a leader for MLK Day of Service (more about that later), more recruitment, recruitment workshops, more rehearsals, Belize meetings, and studying. And maybe some living free of commitments and responsibilities. Yeah, right...

Tidbits of randomness

Randoms...and still nothing about New Orleans...but I will get around to writing about it...one day soon...

-Christmas, celebrated on Christmas Eve, with Mom, Dad, Sarah, Seth, Abby and Alex was nice and relaxing. We saw Avatar in 3D and ate chili and cornbread for dinner before we opened gifts. Sixty dollars to Sephora from Abby and Alex, a knock off Chanel purse from Seth, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist on DVD from Sarah and $350 and assorted books and CDs from Dad. Mom plans to take us shopping for clothes as our gift on Monday. I saw Nine yesterday with Sarah (OMG I love Marion Cotillard) and Sherlock Holmes today with Alex's parents, Alex, Abby, Mom and Dad. I love family and free movies.

-A gynecologist yelled at me about my diabetes earlier this week. He was an older man I'd never met before who clearly didn't understand the differences between type 1 and type 2 diabetes. When I sat down in his office, he blatantly said, "You're not gonna live to be 50 and if you do, it's not gonna be a healthy 50." He also insulted the job done by my endocrinologists, who know far more about diabetes than a gynecologist does. I left his office in tears. My dad jokingly offered to slash his tires.

-My purple insulin pump is here, sitting in a box in the kitchen. Before I can use it, however, I'm to take a "refresher" course at Children's Hospital to relearn how to work it. When I told Trevor how ugly I'm afraid it will look, he responded, "It looks sexy and I love it." But what I'm dreading the most is the onslaught of people who will be asking questions about the device that's attached to me, making my illness even more visible. I hate that I have to wear this thing again....but I will get over it in order to be healthier.

-I have an appointment on Monday at the post office to get my passport. Belize, here I come.

-I need to buy something ridiculously sparkly to wear on New Years Eve. Along with fake eyelashes and those fake gemstones that stick to your skin. I'm 'bout to go all out.

-I'm going to audition for Women's Glee Club at school, if they have space. If not, I'll try out in the spring. This Glee Club does not dance, thank God.

-I probably drank an entire bottle of wine by myself last night and for some reason, I woke up at 7:30 this morning. I need to go back to bed now.

A Bad Moment in a Good Day

Today I listened as an overweight woman, who has had an enormous stick up her devout ass since before I can remember, yelled at her beautiful, formerly-anorexic niece, whose wedding is this weekend, about losing weight in order to fit into her wedding dress. Makes me sick.

Happy Two Year Anniversary

A very very very happy day.

Today just goes to show: if ever you lose faith that you'll never climb out from rock bottom, look to the future. Eventually, you will find the strength to get your ass out of there and you'll find happiness at the top.

I'm so unbelievably happy right now. I have so much to look forward to... Mashing potatoes with Mom while she listens to Frank Sinatra in the kitchen. Watching football with Dad and Seth. Continuing the Viall sister tradition of wearing pajamas to the dinner table on Thanksgiving. Sitting by the fireside, talking to my family and the friends we consider family. Reuniting with all of my friends. And, most of all, being with Adam two and a half weeks from today!!!!

I'm a lucky girl to have so much love in my life.

I'm the happiest person on Earth

December 10: Complete final exam at 3:18 PM, immediately get in the car with Sarah to drive to Cincinnati, pick up Dad, drive straight to Abby's in Atlanta

December 11: Drive from Atlanta to Fort Benning for Adam's graduation from Basic Training!!!!!!!!

December 12-14: Hang out in Atlanta to celebrate Abby's 30th birthday!

December 17: Adam is home for two weeks!!!!

From my sister Abby

Even some of my closest friends have been totally surprised to discover that I have two more older siblings. The reason being that my half-brother and half-sister are more than a decade older than me - Seth is 28, Abby is almost 30 - and they lived with us only for brief periods of time when I was very young.

Moreover, Abby and Seth had radically (quite literally) different adolescences that my sister Sarah and I could never relate to. Both of them suffered an array of behavioral and mental problems after witnessing a messy divorce between my father and their mother. So, as a result of much of this, we never became very close.

It was never "my sister Abby," it was always "my half-sister Abby."

As I've gotten older, however, that has begun to change. I've been able to connect much more with Abby and Seth in recent years. After I got my tattoo, Abby called to commend me and, since then, we've been e-mailing a couple times a week - which is probably the most we've ever communicated in my entire life. In those e-mails, I've learned so much more about my sister - her thoughts and experiences at the CDC, her advice on college, how my relationship with Adam mirrors her relationship with her husband, etc.

In all, we have come a long way as a family.

This is a recent e-mail I received from Abby that meant a lot to me...

"Okay, this was going to be longer......but I just wrote something nice and long, and then hit the friggin delete key by accident. So you get the abbreviated version now--argh!

Anyway, having just spent about 20 minutes listening to one of my favorite--albeit often gloomy and awesomely sarcastic (I appreciate dry wit--as it's the kind I favor myself!)--co-workers bemoan her possiblilty of being diagnosed with celiac disease, I had ample time (in the private of my head, that is) to marvel at your own comparatively stalwart reaction to diabetes. This woman was certain that being so diagnosed at age 32 was a tragedy, a tragedy! And I'll admit, I had to sympathize--no bakery goods would be hell for me! But she was so morose and pessimistic--so absolutely without hope or resilience--that it put my experience with you in better perspective. I've often heard Dad marvel that you don't bitch about your diabetes, but it takes listening to the bitching of someone with a similiar, life-long chronic condition to underscore how admirable your strength really is."