wyn157

i had to get fingerprinted for my new medical license, so earlier today i made my way to the plymouth police department. after paying the $5 to get my paw prints recorded, i was led to a room that had a counter, a ruler marked on the wall, and a fingerprinting area.

as the cop was dipping my fingers in the ink, i asked him, "this washes off easily, right?" and he was like, "no it takes a couple days." so me being me, i responded w/, "WHAT?! oh noooo!" he then asked if i had somewhere to be over the weekend, and after i told him i didn't have any big plans but i'd rather not look at stained fingertips all weekend, he told me that he was just kidding, and that it washes right off. phew.

true enough, after the fingerprint cards were all completed, i was given some gritty (exfoliating?) hand cleanser that smeared the ink all over my hands -- a sure sign that it was coming off. after my 'ick' sound, i was told that i was lucky, b/c they don't give the criminals hand cleanser and paper towel. tooo funny, but surely that's not true? i mean, would they really fingerprint someone and then have him leave marks on everything he touched? hmm.

in any case, the cop was like, "you don't do a lot of manual labor, do you?" to which i replied, "only w/ a pen." ha, i have become such a smart ass. after we'd finished laughing though, i was told that my prints might actually be rejected, b/c i had really really small ridges! he said that if that happened, i should soak my hands in warm water for an hour next time, b/c it helps to accentuate them... just like when they pull ppl out of rivers... um, ok. as painless as the procedure was, i'd hate to be right back there doing it again. i hope they don't reject my poor soft-handed fingerprints!

well, we're back from thailand! we had a great trip -- it was a fantastic way to celebrate our anniversary. thailand is one of those 'in' places to visit right now, but surprisingly most of the tourists we came across weren't from the u.s. maybe the torturous flight there has smthg to do w/ it? i mean, we met these americans who are currently living in saudi arabia, and they said it only took them 6 hours to get to phuket. 6 hours! man, i was so jealous.

overall, i would say that although bangkok was sketchy at times, it was more unique and exotic, and we loved our day trip to kanchanaburi. i mean, where else can you pet tigers and hold a grown tiger's head in your lap? we also got to play w/ these adorable tiger cubs and pet a moonbear. phuket was beautiful, and although the nearby caves were cool, i feel like you can go to the caribbean and do the same thing.

phuket was relaxing, but i'm glad we didn't only visit phuket, b/c to be honest, i would've felt ripped off if we'd flown halfway across the world to swim in the pool and lounge around on the beach. i'll write more later!

there's a lot of traveling to be had over the next few months. first there's thailand for me and T. then at the end of april i'm going to seattle w/ 3 friends for another free conference. then finally in june T and i will be going to florida for a wedding. and then of course, there is the whole moving thing.

all this traveling is really going to make time fly. i mean, i already feel like time whizzes right by me, but w/ so many things to do and places to visit in the next few months, the end of my residency will be here before i even know it. it's crazy, isn't it?

but i am so glad that the end of residency is going to end on a good note. and by 'good note' i don't mean anything related to work. i'm referring to all the excitement that's bound to occur over the next few months. i guess i'll have to take it one step at a time before i get overwhelmed. and for right now, that means i'm just going to be excited about our trip to thailand, which starts in 2 days! :)

aagghh. i am so excited for thailand! it seems hard to believe that at this time next week, we will be on a plane across the world. this next week is going to go by sooo slowly.

as some of you may know, our plan is to go somewhere every year for our anniversary. it won't necessarily be exact, since this time of year isn't exactly the optimal time to travel to many places (i.e. too cold for many parts of europe). but we're going to make a real effort to go somewhere to celebrate, in either march or april.

last year we had an unbelievable time on our honeymoon in curaçao, but it was also a super expensive trip, and hopefully not all of our anniversary excursions will be that way. we managed to keep costs down for thailand, partly b/c our hotel in phuket was paid for by T's thankyou points. :) plus, food and drink in thailand is a ton cheaper than they are here, and the side tours we're planning on are a lot cheaper than the ones in curaçao.

the biggest downside to this trip is going to be the actual traveling. on the way there, we have 2 stopovers. we're going from detroit to atlanta, atlanta to seoul, and then seoul to bangkok. but get this. we're flying air asia from bangkok to phuket during our trip... and that means that on the return home, we'll have 3 stopovers. we're going from phuket to bangkok, bangkok to seoul, seoul to atlanta, and then finally atlanta to detroit. i'll be wearing my scopolamine patch, but we'll have to see how it goes...

in preparation for our thailand trip, earlier this month T and i went to our respective travel clinics and got vaccinated up the wazoo. i'd already gotten my hep A shot, so i ended up getting the typhoid and flu vaccines from the travel clinic.

yes, that's right. the FLU! i hadn't gotten the flu vaccine this year b/c... well, b/c i'm not sure i've ever had the flu as an adult... but apparently, thailand has a year-long flu season. i was still going to skip the shot, but then i thought about how awful it would be sick while on vacation. so there i was, getting the flu vaccine in march. i'm surprised they still had any left to give. but then again, they probably keep it stashed for ppl like me...

bangkok and phuket themselves don't have any reported cases of malaria. but the other cities (kanchanaburi and phang nga) are a little iffy, and neither of our travel clinics could tell us for sure whether we should or shouldn't take malaria prophylaxis. we aren't even sure if we're going to be in those areas at nighttime. but when we were in curaçao i got bitten 25-30 times, and T started to catch up towards the end of the trip; apparently we have quite the tasty skin haha. so to be on the safe side, we both got the malaria pills.

i'm thinking though, that the chances of getting malaria are slim to none to begin w/. on top of that, even if i were bitten by a malaria-infested mosquito, w/ my defective hemoglobin and all, i'm pretty sure i still wouldn't get malaria. and those pills were pretty expensive! i'm starting to think i don't really need them at all.

after all, my brother and parents went to thailand a couple years ago w/out any prophylaxis or immunizations whatsoever, and they came back fine. :p