8 Things

Another day at home, but the end is in sight. Last night my throat still felt awful, but in the last 5 hours — just in the time since I woke up this morning! — there has been an almost total change. My throat barely hurts at all! It’s going away as quickly as it came on. Finally. To celebrate, I’m drinking as much as I can. (Water, not alcohol! Heh.) I’ve basically been dehydrated since Sunday afternoon because even drinking was horribly painful. I know it was only three days of really bad throat pain but geez, it feels like so much longer when you don’t want to eat, drink, talk, or even open your mouth. Man. Strep throat seemed a lot worse as an adult that I remember it being as a kid. Thank goodness it’s ending.
The worst part of the whole ordeal is that I actually had a bunch of commitments at work this week, some of which I still managed to uphold but some that I had to scramble to fill. I am one of only two active, certified ARD Support Officers — and the other one is currently in Nepal. (I’m so jealous!) So I’m the only one available to do any and all ARD work, and this month has actually been pretty full of just that. I went to work Monday morning, not yet realizing the full extent of my being sick, because I had to do a database check. I was supposed to be there Tuesday morning as well for a load checkout, but there was no way I could go in (instead, I went to the doctor) and while I tried to find a sub, there wasn’t really anyone available. Thankfully, the ascent FDO was able to take care of the work himself without the usual help from ARD.
Yesterday morning I had to work a sim, so I didn’t have much choice — I had to go in, since I’m the only ARD in the country. After that I had to go check the 8 flight copies of the rendezvous procedures book. By flight copy, I mean the actual copies of the book that will fly into space on STS-124. (And yes, we checked to make sure it was ok that my strep throat self could look at the books.) I can’t believe they actually take 8 copies into space (one each for the commander, pilot, and 2 of the mission specialists, plus a backup for each of those), but NASA is nothing if not diligent in having backups for the backups! Redundancy is an important concept in spaceflight, to be sure. All 8 copies looked fine.
Needless to say, I am very glad I’m getting better, and will be very glad when Bini gets back from the Himalayas!!
And on a completely different note, because Katy tagged me, I guess I’ll play along and list 8 things about me, though at the moment I’m gonna stick to just 8 instead of following overachiever Cassie who did 100. 😉
1. When I was in 5th grade, I really, really wanted to get my ears pierced, but my dad didn’t. Finally, he offered me a deal — if I practiced my flute every day for a month, I could get my ears pierced. I’m not sure if he thought I would do it or not, but I did. So I got my ears pierced, but I also credit that deal with making me a great flute player (I made All-State band in high school and played formally from 5th grade through grad school).
2. I have never been one of those girls who “always wanted to be a mom,” and it’s hard for me to imagine having a child of my own. But I know that I want them, because the thought of being 80 years old and not having a family makes me very, very sad. And I know I want more than one, because I love having siblings myself.
3. Someday I would really like to own a small business. I don’t actually have a specific thing in mind, however, and have thought about everything from my own graphic and web design business to a coffee shop to a running store (though there’s not room in the Houston market for another running store, I don’t think).
4. I love spaceflight. And I love NASA. But I’m not sure that I’m really meant to be an aerospace engineer, even though I’ve dedicated 6 years of secondary education and another 6 years of my career to it.
5. There aren’t many foods that I truly despise, but one of them is melon. All kinds of melon. Yes, even watermelon. “Oh wait,” you say, “you just haven’t tried a good one yet.” Yes. Yes, I have. I have tried many melons, many times, and I simply hate them. Yet strangely, I’m ok with melon-flavored candy and gum.
6. I went on the occasional date in college and afterwards, but nothing ever progressed beyond a few dates. When I was younger, my lack of relationships bothered me, because I felt like not having a boyfriend meant that there was something wrong with me. As I got older, I realized that — duh — I didn’t need a relationship to be happy with my life. And of course, as the cliche goes, that’s when I met Jose.
7. I played soccer and swam on the swim team as a kid, but had stopped by the time I became a teenager. I didn’t try out for the high school soccer team because I claimed it would be a conflict with marching band — and maybe it was, but really, I didn’t try out because I didn’t consider myself much of an athlete, and I was scared that I wouldn’t make the team. I didn’t start running until I was in grad school and it was only a couple years later that I finally felt comfortable calling myself an athlete.
8. I have become more of a girl in recent years. I still don’t think I could be described as particularly “girly,” but I have developed an appreciation for nice jewelry, wearing skirts, pedicures, and the color pink that I just didn’t have 5 years ago. I still hate makeup, though.