Hale's Ales

Today I had lunch at Hale's Ales. What a great brewery! I had the bacon & bleu cheese burger and the Supergoose IPA. The burgers are giant and a bit on the greasy side for my taste but that did not stop me from going to town. The potatoes had a pretty good seasoning to them but were quite dry and left much to be desired. Now the the crown of the meal, the beer. The Supergoose IPA was a great hoppy beer but with a very clean and refreshing taste. They do have a limited menu but I got the impression that what they did they did right. I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking for some hearty pub food and a great beer.

4301 Leary Way NW

Seattle, WA 98107

Photography

Back in middle school I took a class on photography. It was something that was both frustrating and enjoyable. We used to have to roll our own film in black bags, I was so terrible at this. As a result only about half of the rolls of film shot were not completely exposed before clicking the shutter release. After that class was over I got busy with other things; soccer, school, moving back and forth across the country and photography was something that got put away in the back of my brain as something that I used to enjoy. Eventually I went to college, then pharmacy school (where I still am). At some point during all this digital SLR cameras hit the scene. They were SO cool! I could see the multitude of possibilities swimming around in my head. Unfortunately they cost way more than I could afford. In September of last year I went to Israel and next month I will be going to Thailand. Because of this I decided to finally buy one and I bought the Nikon D5000. It came with 2 lenses (18-55 mm and 55-200 mm), a bag, memory card, and a couple of instructional DVD's. I was set! Since then I have purchased Adobe Lightroom and have been trying to teach myself the ins-outs of this great program. My plan is to write about my exploration into this renewed hobby of mine to hopefully see my own progress and maybe help out other beginning photographers.

First week down

The first week of my first rotation is done.  I am at a major health system corporate office for my first rotation.  So far this has been a good experience.  Management is not really my thing but I have decided to go into this whole thing with a positive attitude.  We have spent most of our time in various meetings.  One thing that has been really interesting is to see how things are managed from a health systems perspective.  One of the meetings we went to was a tactical planning meeting to strategize how to handle the novel H1N1 virus.  Decisions are made on a much bigger broader scale.  It is just strange to see what goes into some of these decisions.  I need more time to think about what I think about it.

5 more tests

Only five more tests to go.  Hopefully I can make it because I am totally in coast mode at this point.  There is nothing that I want more than to just be done with classes.  Now that I am this close to being done however it is a little scary.  I know that you learn a lot in rotation but I don't feel like I really know enough to go on rotation.  Surely this is not the case because I have done fine in school up until this point but it is still a little bit nerve racking.  My only goal in pharmacy school was to not fail any exams and so far so good.  Just five more... I can do it!

Seminar is almost over!

Less than 24 hours now until seminar is over!  Never before in my life have I worked so hard on something for school.  It is going to be a great relief to get this off my shoulders, both literally and figuratively (I have been carying a huge folder in my backpack).  Even with all of my preperation and work I am still scared to death to give this presentation tomorrow.  It is not that I do not know my topic, or that I am worried about failing, it is just nerve racking to be giving my first real lecture/presentation.  There have been rumors of somone taking a beta blocker before giving their seminar to help with the nerves, unfortunately for them they ended up passing out.  Another idea is that of a couple of my other friends who plan on taking a shot or two before getting up there to talk, which like the beta blockers sounds like a great idea but I just don't think I can do it.  Well at least it can be said with relative certainty that I will not fail and tomorrow there will be a huge stress removed from my life.

My seminar

As a part of my program in pharmacy school I have to do two seminars.  My first one will be on February 11 of this year and is titled "Levetiracetam use for seizure prophylaxis in traumatic brain injury."  The process of doing a seminar is to present on the disease state of condition, analyze two studies that look at your treatment, and come up with conclusions.  It is a very long process in which I have been able to put my procrastination skills to the test.  The original plan was to have everything pretty much completed by the time the semester started in January.  This did not happen (surprise surprise).  Anyway I have conducted much of the research and am now just trying to put it all together, hopefully it will come out alright and on time.  The plan is to have it done by next Wednesday to do a practice run.  I am so ready for school to be over already... It has only been one week.

Resolutions.

New Years resolutions are so cliche.  Last year was the first year in quite a few that I even made any.  I made two last year, to get in shape and to be more direct with people about my opinions, feelings, wishes, etc..  For someone who does not want to make New Years resolutions because they are cliche my first one was the most cliche one of all.  The reason for picking that was because I had gained a lot of weight during the previous year and was having chest pains.  I felt it important for my health to get in better shape.  The second resolution I made was because I have a big problem telling people what I want or even talking to people in general.  Well I was quite successful for the most part until the beginning of this last semester when I put on all the weight I had lost.  I managed to be more forward with people (but still lost a girl I was dating because of my inability to talk about anything personal).  So this year I have decided to make resolutions again.  But rather than make different ones I have decided to continue with the same resolutions as last year.  I realized that somethings just take longer than a year, I know I can succeed because I did get in shape (just relapsed)  and I have made progress in my conversational skills I am just not all the way yet.  The new year has given me an excuse to refocus and think about the reasons that I failed before so hopefully I will do better this next year.