How Old are the Empowered, Tap Dancing, Siamese Kittens

I have recently felt empowered to do anything and everything I want. I am currently training for a 1/2 marathon and the other week I ran 10 miles for the first time in my life. That is something I thought I would never do because I've never really enjoyed running. With this new feeling of empowerment I decide to undertake another thing that I never thought I would be able to do. I am learning to play the guitar. I started on Saturday with a guitar I found at my parents house, and already I know half a song and like 10 chords. I guess I just got sick of always saying I wish I could play, when for heaven's sake, what was stopping me? So the fact that I know 10 chords is further (farther?) than I ever thought I would be. It's slow going of course and I have blisters on my fingers, but as long as I stick at it I will be able to soon say, "I play the guitar."

The other day I was driving to the store and I saw a sign that said "Siamese kittens: $20" I thought that was funny because the first thing that popped into my mind was a picture of actual Siamese, or conjoined kittens. Where are they conjoined, I wondered. Then I started really wondering if there was such thing as conjoined kittens and sure enough, I found this picture and others like it.
This morning I was running along Canyon Road in Provo and I saw this sign:
Oh great, I thought. There is a man with a top hat doing a tap dance ahead. Needless to say, I never saw him. Maybe he was taking his morning break or something.

I went to my friend Megan's house yesterday and met some of her friends. She introduced me to a guy named Mike who then said, "nice to meet you Abby...now how old are you?" I looked at him funny for about 30 seconds thinking why on earth he needed to know how old I was. Like ohhh you're 19, okay cross you off my list. Or what if I was 25 would he be thinking, welp, too old for me? I told him I was 14 attending EFY and just here visiting my friends. He finally realized how it was a little strange to say that and then we all started laughing. Apparently he thought I was a different Abby that he and my friend Megan had been talking about earlier, and it would have made more sense if I was her. We had a few good laughs about it.

Dating is like Job Hunting:

Since I was recently spending a lot of time job hunting, I realized how incredibly similar it is to dating. Here is why: You go to the board (at the Student Employment Office at the WILK) and look around the jobs trying to find which one's you're interested in. Some people prefer late night or on-call jobs, whereas others prefer more stable and regular day time jobs.

A person who is job hunting reads the qualifications to decide whether or not he/she is fit for the job. Some people reach for the stars and apply anyway to places they are not qualified, while others don't even look twice at the jobs they feel they can't get. Some people are so desperate that they just apply for any and every job that comes their way hoping to find one quick. Others are more picky, wanting a specific kind of job at a specific pay and therefore tend to take longer to find the perfect job. .b. and sometimes never find it.

After applying for jobs some people are so lucky that they end up interviewing at 5 or 6 places and their dilemma is just having to choose which one. Others aren't so lucky and don't have as many choices, if any, to choose from. Sometimes a job tricks you in its advertisements, making it look like a fun, worth-while job; then later you find out it was all just a facade and actually the job is boring and no good. Sometimes (though less often) the job is actually cooler than the advertisement made it look.

Most people are absolutely elated when the finally find that perfect job. Some people stick around in the job for a long period of time and end up moving up and staying for good, while others get bored easily and are more inclined to 'job hop' between jobs every 6 months or so. Sometimes a person will accept a job and then after a week of working get a better offer and take that one instead. Some people aren't even serious about having a job, they just want something to fill their empty time, so they show very little commitment but get all the benefits of the work place anyway. Those are my least favorite kinds of employees.

Can you see what I mean? Job hunting and dating are pretty similar.

Stuck in a Toe Jam

Upon returning from New Zealand three of my fingers went through a grueling infection. The infection was acquired from a little thing the Kiwi's like to call Bush Lawyer. Our instructor told us they are just as mean and nasty as the lawyers we have here in the US. It's just a thorny vine all throughout the bush in New Zealand. The tiny thorn's grab hold and don't let go so if you continue walking with a bush lawyer stuck to you it rips up whatever it is stuck to. In my case it was my middle finger. I don't know how the other two fingers got the infection but it was quite nasty and at times painful. It started about 3 weeks before I got home and ended a week after I got home.

I thought the nasty, ugly infections were gone for good, which they kind of were because it didn't come back in my fingers....instead it migrated to my 'pointer' toe. I complained to my mom that it was a little tender one day from a blister that had been there and popped. She said it was just new skin and would be tender until it calloused over. The next day my toe swelled to almost the size of my big toe. It was about an inch taller than the big toe too (which for some people is normal, but I was fortunate enough to be born with toes that are slightly smaller than the toe to the left of it, producing a nice gradual descent.)

It was purple and nasty looking under the surface and it hurt like no pain I have felt before. I walked with a limp because I couldn't let my toe touch the ground. It hurt bad enough when I was just sitting down, so I didn't want to add pressure. I couldn't even fit my foot into my shoes. I showed my dad and he told me I had to go to the doctor. So I paid 15 bucks to have the doctor tell me nothing about what it was. He just said to take the prescribed antibiotics and soak the toe 3 times a day for at least 20 minutes each time. Oh, then he shot me with antibiotics in each hip.
I started to soak and soon enough the nasty purple stuff on the inside popped to the outside and the toe began to drain. The pain was gone after that and I could even run again! I'll let you look at the pictures to see what happened from there. I'm happy to say that it is almost completely better now. There is just a small scab looking thing on the top, which the doctor told me I can't pick, and it is still slightly large. Apparently when you have an infection it digs underneath the skin and lifts up some dead skin. I can't really describe it but in all of my fingers and my toe I had a pocket of dead skin ready to be peeled off.

1. The first few days of the infection. Notice the size of my pointer toe compared to my other toes.

2. After it drained 3. You can see the white pocket of dead skin I was talking about. It
went all the way around the toe.
4. This is how it looks today...almost better! (Still unusually tall)