It seems like everywhere I go, someone is trying to trick me. Clever and flashy ads surround me, lying as much as the law allows to get me interested in their wares. The internet is booby trapped pretty much everywhere nowadays. Television is horrible, too. Programers are trying to reel me in with shocking stories and gratuitous sex. The news sucks, it's governed much the same way. The music industry has me wrapped around their finger by controlling what I listen to on the radio and then jacking up the prices of CDs so that I have no choice but to listen to what they cram down my throat. Politicians are the greatest manipulators of all, their whole purpose is to fool us. And don't even get me started on the horrible abuse drug seekers, and all sorts of other people, impose on the healthcare system.

At the end of the day, I just want to get away from all that. I want to go where I can be surrounded by honest people who love me and have my best interests in mind.

That's why I hate men.

I hate that men have made me hate them. I hate that I can't talk to a guy without wondering what devious scheme he has in mind for me. I used to only have guy friends. I loved them and they would have done anything for me. But I was younger then and in a serious relationship. After the break-up, I had to face the adult world for the first time...and all by myself. I've learned a lot in the past two years and much of it has been shared on-line with you guys. You've had to suffer just as much as me through all of my boy trouble. I just wish that I could spare us both.

During the times when I was most unhappy and most self-hating, I didn't mind the shitty treatment I got. In fact, I expected it. As my dad always said, when you dress like a slut, expect to be treated like a slut. Don't consider this my confession, consider it my proclamation: I was a slut. I thought, if men are allowed to do it, why can't I? Why can't I be the one who has sex with them and then never calls them again? Why can't I be the one that doesn't care?

That line of thinking certainly got me into trouble, remarkably, I pulled through without attracting any diseases, babies (the worst STD of all), or assaults. Most girls aren't so lucky.

I learned my lesson but I had to go through a lot of pain. I know now to respect myself. It's just that I don't trust a single man I come across. The last guy I dated, who led me to believe he was divorced, wasn't divorced at all. As I was driving to my biology final, he called me to tell me that it was too hard to be away from the children and he was getting back with his wife. I've dealt with this deception since the tender age of 13. He was three years older than me and made a bet with his friend that he could get me into bed. He didn't, but it certainly left an impression on me.

My ex boyfriend is amazing. I was lucky to be with a great guy who loved me. Despite a messy break-up, I still consider him my best friend. But I'm starting to think that he's the only one out there like that. I'm sick of this. I want to trust so badly...why are they making it so hard?

I never thought that I would call anyone stupid for booing Hillary Clinton, but...

Setting a date to get out of Iraq is like having your psychiatrist say, "Let's see if we can wrap up things with your scizophrenia by the end of the hour."

I'm more confused about life right now than I ever have been. It's not a bad thing. Everyday, something happens to me that makes me grow and learn and become stronger. The problem is that things are coming at me so fast I can't process them. I could write a book about what's happened to me in the past month that would be a sequel to what's happened in the past year and a half which would be preceded by the first of a three part series about my life since I turned 17.

On Friday, I found myself stuck babysitting someone who I had thought was interested in dating me. When I met him for a drink, I became caught up in a world of dysfunctional relationships, self hatred, and major drug abuse. This person was no longer my date, he was no longer my friend...for five hours he was my patient. However, I didn't have to keep my professionalism.

I told him he was selfish, I told him he was manipulative. When he said he wasn't hurting anyone, I made sure he knew he was. When he said, "Just drop me off at this corner, my grandma will come pick me up," I said, "And do you think that she really wants to deal with your sorry ass right now?" I told him to grow up and start acting his age. I told him he was one fucked up mother fucker. I was not going to play the game that his ex-girlfriend (who I had met that day at the pub) had played for 10 years. I wanted him to know just what a piece of shit he had turned himself into, what his addictions had turned him into.

His ex helped me out enormously, she spent a lot of time on the phone with me coaching me through his behavior. She even called around to see if I could drop him off at any of his friends' houses, since he refused to go to his. But I was horrified the more I spoke with her. "If he gets out of the car, just let him go," she said, "At that point, it's not worth it." What had this woman put up with? Why was she even dealing with it now? She kept saying, "You know, he's said a lot of really good things about you," and I made it perfectly clear that I was not interested. "It's a different story when he's sober," she told me. I thought, God, you're like the poster girl for a co-dependant relationship.

I spent five hours with this man until he sobered up enough to get out of my car and walk into his house. The next day when he sent me a text saying that he was sorry, I wrote back, "I hope you don't think that a text message makes an adequate apology." Apparently, he did, which is why he will spend the rest of his life in unhappy addiction and never know what it's like to be with someone like me.

That was not what I signed up for, but in a way, I'm glad it's what I got. I don't ever want to be caught up in that situation. Looking at it from the outside, with no feelings attached, really opened my eyes. Any woman who puts up with that kind of behavior, even one time, is a dumb bitch. But the whole expirence left a bad taste in my mouth and made me feel as though I needed to bathe my soul. I haven't slept well all weekend, I just don't feel right. Maybe tomorrow I will meet someone that will restore my faith in humanity, but I doubt it. The inherent goodness that I have always believed in is quickly being destroyed by reality.

6/6/06 has come and gone and we all made it without witnessing the end of the world. While I'm glad that I will be able to pursue a career in nursing and paramedicine without the weight of armageddon on my back, I'm a little disappointed that I still have to take my lab practical tomorrow. Guess it's a good thing that I decided to study instead of listening to all the extremists.

I often get the question, "Is working in the emergency room anything like the TV show?" I usually just explain to people that no, no it's not...there are no cute doctors. However, sometimes I go into the fact that the television version is overly dramatic, I mean, who jumps up onto a gurney to do CPR?

Last week, I had to jump up on to a gurney to do CPR.

It was exhilarating, I'm not going to lie, but it was also terrifying. CPR is a brutal sort of process and when you pump on someone's chest and their ribs crack underneath your hands, it's scary. So there I was, doing compressions on this old woman while the stretcher is rolling down the hallway and I've got myself convinced that I've broken her rib cage. It's not like this is the first time I've done CPR. I'd just never done it on someone as tiny as her. After two compressions, I was pumping with one hand.

She made it, I'm happy to say, no broken ribs to date. There was a certain sort of satisfaction that I felt along with that, though I didn't feel it until hours later when my heart stopped pounding. We had another patient start to crash while the old woman's code was still running, so my head was spinning even when my shift ended. When the shit hits the fan, you don't follow a normal thought process. A normal person would run away. Instead, something else takes over and it feels like your true self comes out. Your world changes because you are changing someone's world.

Even in the middle of all of that, even during the time when I thought I was going to tear my hair out from all the madness, I knew that it is what I love. It's what I live for. There are times at my work where I feel horizontal to the ground I'm being pulled in so many different directions. It's during those times of chaos that I feel most in control. God made me like this for a reason and I'm going to pursue that to the fullest.