As seen by the fact that we are not all married to our middle school and high school sweethearts, most relationships don’t work. There are those few rare exceptions, but for the most part, people have to go through a few breakups until they find the one that lasts.

Now, some breakups are mutual. Some people move apart, or just grow apart emotionally. Others breakups of course involve one person falling out of love with the other, one person cheating on the other, or a number of other, sometimes unexplainable, reasons; for instance, when someone just cuts off all communication from the other person with no warning…

But what about after the end? Once the breakup happens, how long does it take to really get over that person? Some people say you should take half the time you were in the relationship to get over it; for others, it may take only a day, a week, or perhaps a month depending on how long the relationship lasted. Some people may never fully get over their relationships.

Now, what I’m talking about here is not just just the romantic-type of relationships. I’m talking about friendships. How long should you take to get over the unexplainable end of a friendship? I guess there is no real guideline for either situation, but it’s just something to think about. I just hate that someone (whether it be a boyfriend/girfriend or some other friend) can cause so much stress when you know they are not worth a second of the time you spend worrying.

Yes, that’s right… no more staples! If you haven’t seen this thing yet… you have to check it out! It’s the staple free stapler! Yet another thing to add to the awesome inventions of the world list… and it’s environmentally friendly! What could be better!? I got this randomly in the mail as a gift and am absolutely amazed by the thing.

yes! that’s right… June 21st of 2008 I will finally be graduating from college. woo. Graduation apparently got pushed back because of of the U.S. Open which is being held at Torrey Pines… so, I will graduate a week after I finish classes.

I had my final yesterday… another quarter has come and gone. I hope I did well in that class; but as always, I’ll just have to wait and see. The weather has finally cooled down and I put another fan in my window to bring that coolness in and it has worked beautifully. Also, I finally unpacked my last box yesterday from moving in. It was full of little things that don’t really have a place so I was dreading trying to go through it. But, while doing so, I found some old pictures so I hung those up. It feels a little more like home in my little room now and it’s cleaner, so life is good.

For bacteriology this session, we did a project on MicrobeWiki (turned it in last week). Yes, I have now contributed to the Wikipedia community… but this site it a little more legitimate than the regular wikipedia site because not just anyone can go on and edit the articles. So, here is my little bacteria: Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis. He’s actually not a nice bacteria at all. There are plenty of those, but of course I had to find one that kills animals. Go figure. Yes, it is very sad… but interesting all the same.

Lately I’ve been noticing a lot of those benches along the road… you know the ones, they are either next to bus stops or next to absolutely nothing and you never ever see anyone sitting on them. Well, all of the ones that I’ve seen lately have advertisements on them. They aren’t advertisements for brands or stores as you might expect (except for the one advertising King Stahlman Bail Bonds). No, they are mostly advertisements for the bences themselves, saying things like, “Your advertisement could be here” or “Benchside adversiting – the most effective advertising available, Call Now!”

Now, my question is…If bench advertising is so effective, wouldn’t businesses see them, and call those numbers to get their advertisements up as soon as possible. If it were THAT effective, then why do they still need to advertise for themselves!?

…just a thought.

So, maybe this is something I should have known already, but oh well… I learned today that a proton and two neutrons together are referred to as a triton. Interesting, considering the triton is our mascot; all this time, rather than cheering for a fish man with a spear, we could have been cheering for the nucleus of a hydrogen isotope! At this point, I’m really not sure what would be cooler…

Someone recently told me that he could guarantee that within the next few years, I will only have about two friends from high school that I keep in contact with. He, being a few years older than me now, said he doesn’t know anyone who actually stays close to their high school friends as the years go on. People change, and you lose interest in the things that kept you so close when you were younger. You will run into people years later and say hi, but have nothing to talk about because you are so different; or you may not even remember them, or care to remember them. Well, I would just like to take a second to say that I don’t, and will never, believe a word of that.

Maybe it’s the small town I grew up in. Maybe it’s the era of Myspace and Facebook. Maybe it’s just luck. But so far… four years out of high school, and I’m pretty happy with the number of people I still keep in contact with. I remember talking to a friend’s mom at a high school graduation party; she told us how hard it is to stay close, but that we really should try because it will be worth it. Well, maybe four years is not enough to tell, but so far it hasn’t been too hard. I may not talk to these friends every day, but when I do, no time seems to have gone by. I recently got a message from a friend I haven’t talked to in months, one that I haven’t talked to in years, and a postcard from another just saying hi! These friends are rare, they are awesome, and I know that I am lucky to have them. And, though, yes, I realize many of these friendships may fade as the years go by, I have no doubt in my mind that these people will always be important to me. They have made me into who I am today and even if they are not in my life in the future, they will still help me to become the person I hope to be.

I knew my four best friends by the time I was in the second grade. The ‘best friend’ term was thrown around through the years, but always came back to the same people. We are all very different, but at the same time have so much alike it can be frightening. Growing up, we have all changed immensly. Sure, those things that kept us close when we were younger may have faded away, only to be replaced by newer and better connections with each coming year. That’s the beauty of growing up. Sure, we may no longer play with My Little Ponies in the hot tub or plan to wear dresses to school on the same day. But, since high school, we have grown together, matured together, witnessed the marriages of friends, mourned the death of a friend, and have seen friends bring new life into the world (all of course, are friends from high school). And, even though that ‘together’ may not mean we are in the same part of the state or country, we are together nonetheless. In years to come, we may look back on these times and laugh at what we do and talk about, just as we do now looking back at high school, but all the while we will have one thing in common; each other. And that my friend… will never change.

So, thank you to all of my amazing friends… the ones from high school and beyond…the ones that have always been there for me; thank you for never worring about how weird it might be hanging out or talking even if we haven’t talked for years. For the future, just remember: I don’t care if we haven’t seen each other in 10 or even 20 years, of course I remember you and of course I want to know what’s going on in your life. Of course, because you are my friend… and friends last.

ooo… I almost forgot. I also started reading Harry Potter… and it’s wonderful!

This last month or so has been pretty crazy. I went home for about a week before starting summer school in the beginning of July. And now, first session is already over and I’ve started the next one! So, another quarter gone. It was a fun one though even though it was so busy. I took public speaking and molecular biology. My public speaking class was the best! Seriously, everyone in there was really cool and supportive and we all got to know each other pretty well and loved our professor. She was pregnant at the time (still is…due in September), so at the end of class, we gave her a gift for her baby and a card that we all signed and it got all emotional! *tear* But, yea, overall, I loved my class. Molecular, being a huge lecture on Monday Wednesday and Friday nights, and considering I didn’t know anyone in the class, wasn’t quite as fun… but wasn’t too bad!

I have also been working on Pharmacy School applications and studying for the PCAT (which I will be taking later this month) which has been kind of crazy. I finally decided that that’s what I want to go for, so I talked to the advisor at the career center and he said that I should get everything done as soon as possible and get my PharmCAS application (an application service that most of the schools use) finished by the end of July, which included finding letters of recommendation, writing my personal statement, sending transcripts, and all of that good stuff. So I got that part done, and now I’m moving on to all of the supplemental applications. Good stuff.

I went home a few weeks ago because almost everyone from Texas (family…not everyone from Texas… they definately would not fit in grandma’s house)… decided to come out to California to visit! We went wine tasting and hung out on the lake most of the time. It was also Erin Mathews’ wedding that Saturday! She looked so beautiful… it was out at Rancho De La Fuente by their pool (the result of which: I ended up with tons and tons of mosquito bites!)

The weekend after that Holly came down and stayed with me because the company that she works for, Gentle Giant Studios, had a huge booth at ComicCon. She got me in on Saturday… we rode down there on the trolly, which I live very close to and yet never seem to utilize except on special occastions like that (it’s always very exciting). It was so cool though; she showed me all of the pieces on display that she had painted!

This last week, Marissa came down to visit! After my final on Saturday, I met up with her and Bethany at Sea World… love that place! We went to see some of the shows which are awesome… but the funny Biff was working at PetsRule instead of Sea Lions Tonight, so that was a little sad. The show was still good, but not quite as funny as the last time. I feel a little bit like a Sea World nerd right now… but that’s ok.. I’m not a crazy as some. We got season passes though so we have to use them well (paid for a day, got the rest of the year free..woohoo)! The Sea Lions Tonight show is one where they make fun of all of the other shows at the park… even better to watch when you know people that work there that have talked about all of the rumors and reputations of the trainers that they make fun of! Great Stuff.

On Sunday, I went up to LA with Deo to see Jess, Lisa, Kim and Ben. It was Lisa’s birthday! So yay… happy birthday Lisa. As always, it was so good to see them. You forget how long it has been when time goes by so fast! I hadn’t seen Kim or Ben since we were getting ready to leave Siena! Jess is moving to Chicago soon, which is crazy.

Well, I guess that’s all for now. Gotta go read more about microbes!

xoxo, Ky

ps. Here is a picture of my awesome public speaking class:

(Top: Jason, Kaneesha, Nadia, Sumeet, Matt, Jeannie; Bottom: Pablo, Dion, Winnie, Christine, Jessica, Me and Liza)