Twenty-nine...hmmm

It doesn't feel much different than 28 - that's for sure. I turned 29 on Monday. It was quite uneventful. Slept late, went to my parents' house, ate dinner, ate cake, watched Brat Camp (seriously, that was the highlight up to that point in the day), talked to a good friend, John Cole (that, then, became the highlight), and went to bed. Now, I've just got a year to go until I'm 30. I think I'm more excited about that one because I get to open this letter and listen to a tape that I recorded of myself when I was 14 years old. I think that should be really cool.

So I went to the doctor today because my mom freaked out when I showed her these bumps that I have on my back. One is kind of large - the size of a small egg. Turns out they're just lipomas (John told me that on Monday night - he's a surgical resident). No big deal. There's a very small chance of them becoming malignant, but not likely. Dr. Moore then asked me if I had any questions and I asked about my blood pressure. Now, I know that I've had hypertension since I was in high school, but I've never taken it too seriously. I know that I should probably be on meds because my BP stays around 15o/100. Anyway, he said that if I've had this problem since high school, I should expect to have a heart attack at 38. Well, now I didn't expect him to be so negative about it. I thought to myself, "hmm, I wonder if it'll hurt?" So, I told him I'd track it for a month so that he could have a better picture of it. Then, he'll put me on meds if he thinks it's necessary. Dang it - I don't want to start taking medicine every day at this early age, but what are you going to do? I figure if I die at 38, I will have only taught at the university level for about 5 years and that is way too short of a time for the amount of time I'm putting in to getting my degree.

Go Condoleeza Rice! That woman is just awesome. Did anyone else think she was awesome when she answered questions before the 9-11 panel? And now she is being scrutinized as she is about to be appointed Secretary of State. In my opinion, she's brilliant, loyal, and the right person for the job. Thanks for reading.

Holiday Review

Sorry it's been a while since I lasted updated my blog, but I had the holidays and traveling and coming back to work, etc. The holidays were great. I got to spend time with my family and that is always a wonderful blessing. In fact, I got to meet some family that I had never met before. I went to a huge family reunion the last week of December. It was the Garza-Ramos reunion, and it was held in the Rio Grande Valley. It was awesome. A little history for those of you who may be wondering. My great-grandfather (father of my grandfather on mom's side) was named Bacilio Garza. He married San Juana Ramos and they had two children. She died and those children were given to Vicenta, San Juana's sister, for her to raise. When my great-grandfather saw how Vicenta cared for his children, he fell in love with her and married her. With my great-grandmother Vicenta, he had 14 children. One of those children was my grandfather, Fructuoso. So, all of those kids' kids and the kids of those kids and even some of the kids of those kids came together for this family reunion. There were between 800 and 1000 people there - which is totally cool if you think that all of those people came from the initial three. Also, that's not everyone. It's estimated that there are over 2000 in the family. How cool is that. So, I got to see a lot of my cousins and I got to go down to my grandparents' ranch in Rio Bravo, Tamaulipas, Mexico. I remember going to the ranch as a kid to see my grandmother and my uncles and aunts. I love those memories. It's interesting to think about how time, which can seem so slow, can at other times seemed to have flown by. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and that 2005 is filled with many blessings. Thanks for reading.