Save the Koala

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I love koalas (and if you don’t already know that about me… then I kind of wonder who you are and how you came across my blog).  I haven’t seen one for awhile, but A.J. and I are planning a New Year’s Australia trip, and a visit to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary is always on the agenda.  🙂

I just discovered that July is "Save the Koala Month" and the last Friday in July is "Save the Koala Day" down in Australia.  The Australian Koala Foundation does lots of things to raise money and awareness about the plight of koalas.  See, koalas themselves are protected by law in Australia, but their habitat/food source is not.  More than 80% of suitable koala habitat is on private land, so people can do whatever they want to it (meaning chopping it all down) so the poor koalas have nowhere to live.  And I guess that sometimes they get attacked by people’s dogs or fall into people’s pools (seriously, it’s recommended that if you live in a koala area and you have a pool you should dangle a "stout rope" in the pool so the koalas can climb out if they fall in).

Anyway, I don’t really know much about the plight of the koalas.  But I do know koalas are cute, and I like to look at pictures of them, and if there’s a whole month devoted to koalas, well that just has to be the best month of the year!

The 4th

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So not even 24 hours after arriving back in Seattle, it was time to celebrate the 4th of July – or, as it is known over at the lake, the "Who has more fireworks" competition.  🙂  We went to A.J.’s dad’s house on Lake Serene (in the Lynnwood area) and spent a nice morning and afternoon playing outside – there was ping pong, basketball (with games of both "HORSE" and "JILL" :-)), kayaking, and swimming in the lake on the "Oasis Island" of fun.  This first picture is me with a braided water lily boquet that A.J. picked and braided for me.

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These are some of the "getting ready for fireworks" pictures.  Chris has a propane torch that he and A.J. used for lighting off the massive show Al had stored up for the night.  There’s also a picture of some of the fireworks… just SOME, beause there were SO many more than what you see here.  It was really an amazing night – and a LOT of fun.

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This last picture is me with a glow stick headband – also very fun.  Next year we will have a lot more glow sticks on hand for our audience to enjoy.  (FYI Mom, these were the glow sticks that A.J. got for us to use in St Louis that we kept forgetting to pull out.)

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Admiral’s Club

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I am at the St. Louis airport right now, up in the Admiral’s Club – that’s where the fancy people hang out before they board their airplanes.  A.J. and I ate some complimentary cookies and drank some complimentary water and tea and OJ… and now I’m using the computers with complimentary internet access.  I suppose it’s not all "complimentary" since you pay for a membership.  BUt it’s really cool.  Nice and quiet and relaxing with leather chairs and magazines and newspapers.  Such a difference from waiting in the terminals.  When we get to Seattle we’re going to go check out the Club there too, so I can see what it’s like.  A.J. the traveler has already been to both of these clubs a few times, now it’s my turn to get all excited about them. 🙂

A.J. with a cookie:

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Our morning snack:

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My friend Rich

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This is Rich:

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He’s in med school with me.  We’re taking a class together right now, and today we were out in Belleville, IL (about 30 min from St. Louis) to learn all about Basic Life Support and Advanced Cardiac Life Support.  We had an hour off for lunch and we were going to go to this little Mexican place Rich knew of, but they were closed due to a "Boil Order".  What is that you may ask (I certainly did).  Well, it means that the water pressure in Belleville was not high enough to ensure that contaminants would not leak back into the fresh water – thus all tap water becomes potentially contaminated and people are advised to boil it before using it.  This also makes restaurants close down, since they can’t very well clean anything in dirty water.  So everyone ended up going to Jack-in-the-Box instead.

Mani-Pedi

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I got my very first pedicure today… see:

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I told my sister yesterday that I planned to get my nails done today and she told me I should get a pedicure too – what a great idea.  It was really fun and relaxing and now my toesies look great in my flip-flops.  I had to do a lot of running around errands today (groceries, Costco, etc.) so I decided that to make the day more fun I would treat myself a little bit.  So I did the mani-pedi, and I got a new skirt at Target (purple, longish, really comfy and pretty and I can wear it to work or on days off), and I bought some smoothies and watermelon at the grocery store.  It was fun and set the happy carefree tone for the rest of my day.

I’ve been packing my suitcases for my 3 months away and there’s so much to bring – everything I’ll need for work and then all the comfy fun clothes for the time off I’ll have too.  I think it’s the shoes that take the most decision making power (since they take the most room and eat up my weight limit too).  I love all my shoes and I will wear ALL of them if I have them, so I have to figure out which ones I will wear the most (or which ones I’ll miss the most).  Oh the decisions.

For now, I’ll take a break from all that and do some studying.  I’m learning Basic Life Support and Advanced Cardiac Life Support tomorrow (long day) so I have to study that a little as well as do questions to keep my mind fresh for my Step 2 tests that are coming up in 2 weeks.

Starbucks will make you fat (but only if you let it)

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So I had a little lecture on nutrition today and part of it was an exercise designed to get us to think about the things people consume each day without really thinking about how many calories they are eating – like when someone stops at Starbucks for breakfast on the way to work.  Now, I’ve actually looked at the nutrition details for Starbucks fare in the past and was astounded at the shear number of calories that can be packed into a little pastry (or a big drink).  I decided to look up the nutrition information on my favorite pastry, the Marble Loaf:
Marble Pound Cake A little lighter than the original English cake (made of a pound of butter, sugar, eggs and flour), but still deliciously dense and buttery with decadent chocolate marbled into the batter. Availability may vary by region.

 
Serving Size 113g
Amt Per Serving
Calories  400
Fat Calories  180
Total Fat (g)  21
Saturated Fat (g)  11
Cholesterol (mg)  130
Sodium (mg)  370
Total Carbohydrates (g)  49
Fiber (g)  <1
Sugars (g)  29
Protein (g)  6
Vitamin A  15%
Vitamin C  0%
Calcium  4%
Iron  10%
 
 
 

So yes, eating one piece of Marble Loaf counts for about 20% of my total calories for the day (assuming a standard 2000-2500 calorie diet).  Good thing I usually share it with A.J.  🙂  And I can order one of my standard drinks – Venti Unsweetened Black Iced Tea (and then add Sweet-n-Low) for no additional calories.  If it’s cooler weather and I go for my favorite Grande Vanilla Steamed Milk (no whip) I tack on 330 calories (120 from fat).  I should start ordering my drinks with nonfat milk – that would reduce it down to 230 (0 from fat).  And finally, if I am in one of my rare iced mocha moods, I get 180 calories (20 from fat) with a Grande Nonfat Iced Mocha without whip.  Adding the whip gives you 130 more calories, 110 of which are from fat!  Good thing I like iced tea. 🙂

Graduation 2006

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Just a little note to let everyone know that A.J. and I will be graduating in May 2006.  His hooding ceremony for law school is on Thursday May 18, and my hooding ceremony for medical school is on Friday May 19.  This is all going to happen here in St. Louis – so if anyone wants to take a little vacation and come to see us graduate next year we’d love to see you!

Ruby

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My sister got a new puppy a little bit ago and sent me some pictures… and since the puppy left a comment for me I figured it was time to put her pictures up here too.  I haven’t gotten to meet her yet, but in two weeks I’ll be back in Seattle and we’ll have lots of time to play.

Jill Cook, MS IV

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Doesn’t that just look cool?  So different from MSI or MSII or MSIII – it’s in a league of it’s own. 🙂  And that’s me now because I just got done with my last shelf exam for my last required rotation of my third year of medical school.  From here on out it’s electives, pediatrics, fun times!

As an aside – it was actually kind of fun to show up for my exam this morning because the WHOLE third year class was present for exams today.  See, throughout the year we have all been assigned to different rotations with different schedules and so we’ve taken exams at all different times.  But today was the end of the year for everyone so we were all there.  I haven’t seen some of my classmates for a long time – the ones I never had a rotation with at the same time – so it was like a big reunion.  And now I’m heading off to a class picnic in the park and dinner out with some friends who I won’t be seeing for the next 3 months since I’ll be back in Seattle.