Against everyone's seemingly good advice I decided to give blood just hours prior to taking a midterm. I have never really had any issues with feeling sick or in poor health after giving blood, and since I was told the later spots were full, I decided I would go for it.

This had to be my single worst donation experience to date. The first step, printing my basic info like name an blood type wasn't even carried out correctly. My mini physical and background check went equally poorly, as the person wrote down all sorts of wrong and erroneous information. This was followed up by a brief visit to the donation chair where a Romanian flabotamist in training could not find my extremely obvious vein. To my relief I was called away to once again restate my travel history and clear up the prior confusions. I returned only to be greeted by the same Romanian woman who promptly informed me that she was not allowed to perform the procedure without supervision and then scrubbed my arm with iodine for what seemed an eternity. Directly following my iodine bath she looked around sheepishly and stabbed me hard with a needle, no supervision to speak of. The supervisor arrived to discover that the needle was not in far enough and the sphygmomanometer (read blood pressure cuff) was leaking. My usual 4 minute donation time sky-rocketed to a 13 minute marathon of frustration. Each time the sphygmomanometer deflated the blood flow stopped, and I assure you it deflated rather quickly. To top it off the Romanian woman kept walking away, so the flow would remain stopped for some time. To add insult to injury the woman kept putting the blood bag on the floor for some reason which moved the line which wiggled the loose needle.

All in all I found that despite the horrible donation experience, donating before the test wasn't so bad. I didn't feel any effect of blood quantity on my testing experience. Unless of course my unusually bad handwriting during the exam was an artifact of blood loss.

My conclusion is that giving blood is fine just before an exam, just avoid Romanian trainees and make sure to answer all questions clearly and concisely. I'd recommend the experience. Two thumbs up. Fun for the whole family.

I feel more and more homeless as time goes by. Long ago I gave up calling my parents' house my home. I barely get a decent nights rest in the bed I spent my formative teen years in. I can't really call my current room home, although it is roomy and has everything I currently need. Its not as bad as I make it seem, we have a chef, a cleaning service, no curfew, plenty of room, and my snake is here. Still, it doesn't feel as homey as it once did. I think the issue lies in my constant state of motion at the moment.

I haven't spent a weekend here in the longest time. Every weekend something new comes up, sometimes well planned, sometimes completely unexpected. I've flown to L.A., driven across the country in a pick-up truck, rented a house with friends and driven an R.V. to a college football game just to name a few of my past weekends. I have more coming up too, like a Bar Mitzvah and who knows what after that. I just can't seem to keep myself rooted in one place for more than five days. I think my snake is getting lonely and putting on a hunger strike to protest.

I'm out and about so much that I have fooled myself into believing I need new technology to keep myself organized, connected and productive at all times. I find that I am constantly browsing today's selection of PDAs and smartphones for the one that best suits my made-up needs. I feel like some sort of victim of über-modern marketing scheme for over active tech nerds. How could I not need such a new expensive device when I am away from my school and my computer so often. I mean we all have to be productive don't we? Perhaps it could also feed my snake while I am gone. Maybe then he wouldn't be so lonely.

More often than not I find myself thinking that my recent homelessness is a sub-conscious way of telling myself I need to move on. I know this consciously, but maybe my brain still doesn't believe I understand.