The craziest things seem to keep happening to me and unfortunately, my truck seems to be involved as well. Last week after dropping off my car pool buddies I get a call from one of them asking if I know how to jump start a car. I say sure and ask if she has jumper cables. She does so I turn around and pull up facing her car. She has a 98 Volvo and has been told that her battery connection isn't the greatest and something like this might happen.

Both of us are "pretty sure" we know how to hook up the cables but to be on the safe side she calls her boyfriend to double check. While she is on the phone with him we hook the cars up, black to black and red to red. My car is running and she gets into her car to start it but nothing happens. Her boyfriend suggests that I rev my engine a little and she try again. I get in and rev the engine and she tries the car again again nothing happens. As soon as she gets out of her car I get out of mine and we both notice smoke coming from the place where the cables are connected to her battery. I quickly turn of my truck. Unfortunately, this does not solve the problem.

The smoke is getting worse and worse and eventually we see smoke coming from the connection of the cables to my battery! The situation is escalating quickly. The smoke is now a visible plume that can be seen from a distance. A few people passing by stop and stare. Within seconds the cable catches on fire!! Katherine and I are running down the street, she on the phone with her boyfriend and I on the phone with 911.

Out of nowhere I guy runs out of the apartments across the street with a fire extinguisher and puts out the fire, takes the keys out of Katherine's car (her car was not on, but I guess this is what your are suppose to do) and yanks the cables off of the cars. The police and the fire dept show up, but the mystery hero had already fled the scene.

After calming down we try to think of what the heck could have caused this to happen. The fire dept stuck around for awhile examining the batteries and the cable, and came to the conclusion that it must have been a bad cable. I think they were also pretty upset that the fire had been put out before they arrived!

Anyways, there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with the internal operating system of either vehicle. My truck does have a "shiner" to the driver side headlight and bumper where the cable melted into it. Did I mention this happened just days after I picked up the truck from the body shop?

So the next incident happened yesterday on the way home from school. Once again, it was me and my car pool buddies. Now, I know that the windshield wiper on the driver side of my truck needs to be tightened and its worthless otherwise. Its something I have been putting off but I know needs to be done. I just avoid driving on days that there is inclement weather. Little did I know that the mother of all storms would be hitting us yesterday on our way home. I tested the wipers before we left school and as I predicted the driver side wiper didn't do anything but what I did not predict was that the passenger side wiper would fall off completely!

Long story short, we ran into some major weather on the way home and had to pull off on the side of the road and tape the passenger side wiper back onto the arm so we could at least stay on the road! I'll keep the blog updated if I have any new adventures!

I got my truck back!! The total bill for repairs came to $13,500!! Thank goodness for car insurance. It's definitely one of those things I hate paying for every month. I consider myself to be a pretty darn good driver but I have to say that so far, I think the car insurance companies are in the red as far as I am concerned! Also, my truck looks better now than before it went in to the shop :)

Thanks State Farm!

I'm Drowning!

Okay, I'm officially humbled. After spending about 16 hours studying for my most recent Pharmacology Exam I received a devastating 74%. Ouch! I have a "History and Physical Exam" test on Monday. I got up at 7 a.m. this Saturday morning and put in 7 hrs. I need to do at least another 7 hrs tomorrow in order to feel slightly ok about this test.

I don't know what it is but I feel like I am barely staying afloat. It's one test after another and I am frantically cramming for each test. I don't have time to get ahead because we have at least one test every week. If I don't put in at least 16 hrs of studying for each test, I feel unprepared.

I just feel anxious all the time! Hopefully during Spring Break I'll get a chance to get ahead and I won't feel this constant pressure.