So Friday was a pretty cool day. First thing in the morning I drove Gabi to work. I like driving Gabi to work it gives us more time to just be with each other, oh and time to plot our take over of the world governments. We often will do lunch together…its nice to get that extra time together…its a nice boost in case the morning has been crappy…anyway.

So I dropped Gabi off at work and came back home. I needed to be on the road at 1pm so I killed some time by watching an episode of Battlestar Galactica. By the end of that episode it was time to be on the road. I needed to be at school by 2pm because I was participating in the Tri-Beta Scholars Olympics. It is a Cystic-Fibrosis fund-raiser that creates smaller pools of money to aid research that often needs small boosts to complete projects. A worthy cause. After reaching the school I meandered to my team…the Scholars Academy Team. It was a fierce competition the Scholars Academy vs. The Tri-Beta blue vs. the Tri-Beta red vs. the Tri-Beta black (Tri-Beta is a biology honors–and there was a lot of ‘em) vs. the physics dept. vs. the mathematics dept. vs. the aviation dept. vs. the Business dept. and last but not least the computer science dept.

It was a heated battle royal consisting of the the soccer ball relay…the egg toss…the clothespin/milkjug challenge…the skip/hop/crabwalk/scooter-push relay…the jump-rope challenge…the balloon butt-pop challenge…the guess how many M&M’s challenge..the sack-race…and the quiz off. Fields of battle have never know such carnage!….may the fallen rest in piece.

So I was pitted against my fellow charitable geeks in the milk-jug clothespin drop. (made 1 out of 12) I am a bit too tall for that game. I then was entered into the egg toss…my partner (who was on crutches from a sprained ankle) made it to the final 5…we had a final toss of over 150 feet…but we finally cracked…why is it in battle the children suffer…those poor avian offspring….so fragile…so young…so tasty. Having done well, I then was informed that I a 300 pound man with a huge blister on his toe was going to be the leader in the relay where I would have to skip half a football field to tag my partner who would then hop and so forth…oh the humiliation. This man should not jiggle his body fat with the force or the multiple directions that resulted from the torrent of skipping….oh the humanity…if only I was wearing a kilt at the time. I, however redeemed myself with my large ass…in the balloon popping relay where one had to deposit a balloon on a chair, in high winds mind you, with only his/her teeth and then sit on it…lets just say I have the fastest ass in the midwest. Then of course the quiz off, where each of us takes turn in the hot seat….math has never been my forte, so of course I get a math problem. I had never heard of the Fibonacci sequence. My question was “In the following sequence 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 what is the next number? Having never heard about this before….having no deductive reasoning skills…having only dumb luck and divine intervention I place a 34 as the answer, and it was….so much relief. The next question I got was “What is the term that refers to a personal attitude that causes a division among cultures?” Easy…prejudice…two points thank you very much. My last question….argh…”How many books did Socrates write?…..HOLY MUTHER F(*^&*^(*&^…..and then it dawned on me ZERO…Plato was the first to write down Socrates philosophies.

In the end….drumroll…..SCHOLARS ACADEMY WINS THE CHAMPIONSHIP and we get a engrave plaque in the school learning resource center….HUZZAH…and we raised collectively over $6000 for Cystic Fibrosis Research….by this time it is 530ish and I have to change into the suit I brought.

Suit…why are you changing into a suit, you may be asking?…well at 7pm the induction ceremony for Sigma Theta Tau begins. And what the hell is that? Sigma Theta Tau is the International Honors Society of Nursing and I somehow miraculously made it in.

Normally, I don’t make a big deal about these things ever since the parents died, but it was nice because John was able to come at the last minute after some personal stuffs worked out for him. Also, Ed, Jane, Dani, Vivian (Gabi’s grandma) were able to come…that was really cool that so many would come to be supportive of me, and I thank each and every one of them with all my heart.

So, John arrived first and we hung out for a bit and I got a chance to show him the Flyers den, which is one of the student cafe/lunch spots. It has a mini-bowling, arcades, pool, TV, etc…food…smoothies…and a movie theater and music stage (calling Seelie Court and Bounding Main) upstairs. I hadn’t had lunch so bought drinks and an apple each, then wandered a bit. Would have loved to show him the antiquated library but it was closed.

A bit later everyone else showed up and we entered the Chapel where the ceremony was held…I’ll reserve comments on the ceremony itself for personal discussions. Anyway…I managed to surprise the family because not only was I being inducted into the Honor Society but I received a scholarship from them as well, so that was nice.

After the ceremony, we headed off to a very nice dinner at The Public Landing (http://www.publiclandingrestaurant.com/). Had a great prime rib dinner with garlic mashed potatoes, portabella mushroom and onion…yum. After dinner, Jane (Gabi’s step mom) had ended up in a conversation with a lady at the table next to ours…turns out she is a board member of the Lewis cultural diversity board. Well, Jane of course was telling her of the nights events and introduced me. Ok…you need a bit of back story here…A few weeks ago I presented a poster at a professional nursing conference at Rush-Copley, at which Edwards hospital expressed an interest in my work that I did at Advocate Christ Hospital. Well, this lady asked me about the work that I did that cause such interest…I told her…and then she introduces me to her husband who happens to work in an administrative capacity at Provena St. Joseph Hospital…and so she would like me to send her and her husband information on the work I did…This is pretty cool that my undergraduate work is spreading like this….It has actually caused Lewis university to prompt me to get written permission, to keep track of who has this information and why, from all my group members, from the college of nursing, and from the interested hospitals because of the intellectual property rights involved. I am being encouraged to write this project up for one of the nursing journals, such as Nursing Spectrum a publication from Hoffman Estates.

So, overall a great night…lots of great things happening…and lots of great friends and family.