a revolutionary love

oh the craziness

2011-11-27T14:09:00.000-08:00

I just finished watching the ESPN special on the Auburn/Alabama rivalry. It was more depressing than interesting for me... it was a harsh reminder of what people are willing to do or say for the football team they love. I should have counted the number of times the word HATE was used. We were compared to the Israelites and Palestinians. There were stories of an Alabama coach receiving death threats from his own fans after 3 consecutive loses to Auburn, a former Auburn coach stating "NOTHING is bigger than Auburn" (nothing? really?), and then, the all too famous Harvey Updyke.

That man LOVES him some Alabama football. On this documentary, he proudly showed his collection of over 50 Alabama hats. His children have been given Crimson Tide themed names. He stated that after the iron bowl last year he felt like someone had reached inside his chest and ripped his heart out (dramatic much?). And then, he was so incredibly angry at Auburn after that game that he decided his revenge would be aimed at 130 year old trees, accompanied by absolutely no remorse. Why did he do it? "There's just too much Bama in me." What?!?

So yes, he may in fact be crazy. But he is also extremely passionate, loyal, etc and head over heels in love with one certain thing. This analogy was brought up in church today. What if I loved Christ so much that people thought I was a little nutso? I mean, I'm not going to go and take up herbiciding but the Bible does say that Christians will be persecuted for their faith. If I really took a stand for Jesus would I lose relationships that I value? Would I put my education or future job at risk? Probably wouldn't be putting my life in jeopardy too much in good ole Mobile, AL/Bible belt territory, but that happens every day to Christians around the world. You bring up traveling I've done, college football, J Crew, Disney World, etc... I'll talk your ear off about any one of those worldly subjects and many more. But I wanna be the crazy kid that talks about Jesus all the time, because I should be blown away by how much he loves me. And what would my reasoning be for the craziness?

"There's just too much Jesus in me."

Love it!

my motel drama

2011-11-17T02:54:00.000-08:00

Staying in hotels by myself has brought to memory my first (and only until now) lone hotel night, when I was interviewing for medical school at UAB. I remember driving in at night in awe of the skyline, and my hotel was located up on top of a hill where I'd have an awesome view of the city. I walked in, approached the front desk, and said, I'm checking in!

They immediately handed over a key and said you're in room XXX and your roommate is X. Come again? My WHAT?! At first I thought it was a joke, but after realizing they weren't laughing. I said, 'a roommate??' to which they replied 'yeah, you thought you'd have a room to yourself?" In the next few moments, my female brain did not disappoint, I had about 17 different thoughts going on at one time- how can I have a roommate, they didn't say anything about that on hotels.com?? what if this roommate is a grown man?? I was so looking forward to a night by myself to relax before tomorrow? I've already paid for this room so what can I do now? They can't MAKE me have a roommate, can they? My moments of despair was interrupted by

'you're with this group, aren't you?'

I look around to see a big group of adults, that looked like a mix between wannabe bikers and ex-inmates.

'No....' I replied to which another hotel worker said, yeah... I didn't think you looked the part. So I was then checked into my private room and it was not too bad. I feasted on a Sonic dinner and watched a Lifetime movie. Probably the only lifetime movie I've ever watched, and it was depressing. So maybe bad choice there... But fairly good stay. UNTIL... I woke up in the morning and there was no hot water coming out of the faucet. Called front desk, oh it was out. For the whole entire hotel. So I don't remember what exactly I did this morning to get ready, but I did not shower. I also was rejected at UAB. Coincidence? Maybe not....

interview extravaganza: week 1

2011-11-13T13:29:00.000-08:00

So 8 days, 1150 miles, 6 beds, 5 cities, and 3 interviews later, I'm halfway through my big interview stretch. Have to say, I've having a BLAST. I'm staying in NICE hotels for free, eating at fancy restaurants (again, for free), and road tripping and traveling all around the east coast. I think the money I've spent on gas has probably been made up for by the amount of free food I have received. And it's been awesome. Not for the waistline though, after thanksgiving might have to start being better. Don't even really mind the interviewing. Peds people are pretty nice across the board, so mostly everything is laid back and friendly.

Things I've did last week

-Visited the beach!

-Went hiking in the mountains outside of Greenville. 4.4 miles, I felt pretty awesome. And it was beautiful!

-Went to Athens for the Auburn game (Not the most enjoyable game ever, but fun regardless).

-Drove hours upon hours... Probably close t0 20 hours so far? But that includes my detours (getting lost) and driving around for an extended amount of time in Charleston looking for a parking place (must be trained on how to parallel park and also to navigate busy downtown areas). I have never driven more than from Auburn and back to Mobile by myself but I've actually enjoyed road tripping it. Very surprised. I've got a sweet karaoke mix going of songs I could only belt out if I'm by myself, listening to Bossypants by Tina Fey on audio- Hilarious!, made some phone calls to friends and family, and then the getting lost keeps you entertained too. Also, the trees lining the interstate are absolutely gorgeous. Every different shade of yellow, orange, and red you can imagine.

-Visited with several people that graduated from USA, people have been very hospitable to let me come and stay a night or two!

-So far I've interviewed in Columbia, Charleston, and Greenville SC. Tomorrow is Augusta, GA and Charlotte and Wake forest are also this week.

I'm also realizing things I'm gonna miss. Family of course, and I've made some of my best friends these past 3.5 years, I can only hope we all end up at the same place (obviously not gonna happen, maybe the same area of the country?). And what a gift to be surrounded by Auburn people everywhere in Mobile. While I was in Greenville I got hopeful every time I saw orange, but of course it was always Clemson. I appreciate the football enthusiasm regardless though. But wherever I go, maybe I will be able to find an Auburn crew.

DID YOU KNOW...

In augusta, people in tiny houses can rent it out for a week to people coming in for the masters for 3 grand?!? And If you have a super fancy house you can get 40 grand?? For one week!! Noted.

Alive (Mary Magdalene)- Natalie Grant

2011-10-24T14:22:00.000-07:00

Who but You
Could breathe and leave a trail of galaxies
And dream of me?

What kind of love
Is writing my story till the end
With Mercy's Pen?
Only You.

What kind of King
Would choose to wear a crown
that bleeds and scars
To win my heart.

What kind of Love
Tells me I'm the reson He can't stay
Inside the grave

You.
Is it You?
Standing here before my eyes
Every part of my heart cries.

Chorus:

Alive, Alive
Look what Mercy's overcome
Death has lost and Love has won!

Alive, Alive
Hallelujah risen Lord
The only one I fall before
I am His
because He is
Alive.

Who could speak

and send the demons back from where they came

with just one Name?

What other heart

would let itself be broken every time

until He healed mine?

You.

Only You

could turn my darkness into dawn;

running right into Your arms

Alive! Alive!

Look what Mercy’s overcome;

Death has lost and Love has won

Alive! Alive!

Hallelujah, Risen Lord,

the only One I fall before
I am His because He is...

Emmanuel, the promised King

the baby who made angels sing
Son of Man who walked with us,

healing, breathing in our dust
The author of all history,

the answer to all mysteries
The Lamb of God who rolled away,

the stone in front of every grave

well....

2011-10-17T14:58:00.000-07:00

I've been kind of mad at God lately... and afraid to say that out loud to anyone not knowing if that was an acceptable thing to say. I've been bitter for having the same struggles that get me down over and over again, when I wish he didn't make me that way or atleast wish that he could change those things about me. Last night at dinner I was talking to a friend about it, and she reminded me that we're in a relationship with God. That means talking about the things that are bothering us. So I'm mad? Tell Him! Maybe it's ok to have an angry conversation with God (plug for the following book, angry conversations with God that I mayyyy have just bought!). And I did.... I've done a lot of praying today. Just about everything that's been weighing on me and why I don't understand it. I still don't have those answers but I know I need to be spending a lot more time reading my Bible and praying. This afternoon, I turned on the radio and the following four songs played in succession. I really listened to the words and couldn't help think God perfectly picked those songs for me to hear right then. If you wanna hear them too (they are excellent), click on the title to go to a youtube video.

Allelujah- The Museum

When hardship comes to prey on hopes
And troubles seem to linger on
When death rolls on taking ones we love
You are the hope that keeps us on

When all this seems the battles lost

And such disease is spreading on
When life grows dark and our lips are parched
You are the hope that we sing of

When death is past and sins are gone
Alas forgiveness here is won
All daughters and sons we will stand as one
We're safe at last in the Father's love

Alleluia, Thine the glory
Alleluia, Amen
Alleluia, Thine the glory
Revive us again

Lift me Up- The Afters

Waiting for the sunrise
Waiting for the day
Waiting for a sign
That I’m where you want me to be

You know my heart is heavy
And the hurt is deep
But when I feel like giving up
You’re reminding me
That we all fall down sometimes
But when I hit the ground

You lift me up when I am weak
Your arms wrap around me
Your love catches me so I’m letting go
You lift me up when I can’t see
Your heart is all that I need
Your love carries me so I’m letting go

I know I’m not perfect
I know I make mistakes
I know that I have let you down
But you love me the same

And when I’m surrounded
When I lose my way
When I’m crying out and falling down
You are here

I can see the dawn is breaking
I am feeling overtaken with your love
I don’t know what I can offer
In this moment I surrender to your love

Suitcases- Dara Maclean

How can you move when they’re weighing you down
What can you do when you’re tied to the ground, yeah
You carry your burdens, heavy like gravity
Just let them go now, there’s freedom in release

You can’t run when you’re holding suitcases
It’s a new day throw away your mistakes and open up your heart
Lay down your guard, you don’t have to be afraid

Just breathe, your load can be lifted
There’s a better way when you know you’re forgiven
Open up your heart, lay down your guard
You don’t have to be afraid

Can you imagine what it’s like to be free
Well, send those bags packing, they’re not what you need
Abandon your troubles on the side of the street
Just let them go now, believe me

There’s nothing hold you back now, just run

Where I Belong- Building 429

Sometimes it feels like I'm watching from the outside
Sometimes it feels like I'm breathing but am I alive
I will keep searching for answers that aren't here to find

All I know is I'm not home yet
This is not where I belong
Take this world and give me Jesus
This is not where I belong

So when the walls come falling down on me
And when I'm lost in the current of a raging sea
I have this blessed assurance holding me.

When the earth shakes I wanna be found in You
When the lights fade I wanna be found in You

2011-09-06T14:19:00.000-07:00

Hi! Remember me? I've been pretty awful with this thing for awhile now. Maybe I'll try and be better. Update on life, just applied to 17 pediatric residency programs last week, got my first interview offer this AM, now just sitting back and waiting for more to see where I'll end up! It's scary, but also super exciting. Besides Austin, TX all of the places are in the southeast so hopefully I can keep from getting too far away. Right now I'm doing a month rotation in the pediatric ward which for the most part has been lovely. I just love the kiddies. I have 1.5 weeks there before I move onto something else.

One thing I've been convicted about recently is loving people. Totally not a new concept or a thing I've just realized I have a problem doing. Instead it was just shown to me in a new light. At community group a few weeks ago the topic of heaven was brought up. Something that really isn't talked about much at all, which is crazy. We don't know much about the details, but hello it's heaven! Perfection! All the troubles that we deal with now, gone. Worshipping Christ in person. Kind of scary to think about being in His presence? Read Revelation 4 and 5, one of my favorite parts of the Bible. So heaven=awesome. And as Christians we shall be there for eternity. Imagine eternity as a never ending line. And our life on Earth? One teeny tiny dot located on that line. So in a million billion years, think I'm going to look back and say, 'man. I'm glad I made a big deal out of the time that person hurt my feelings. Really glad I was passive aggressive and wouldn't talk to them, glad I made them feel like a bad person for what they did. Looking back on it, so worth it??' I'm thinking no... Instead what if in a million billion years I could say, hey you, I'm glad you are here with me in heaven! I really showed you the love of Christ in that situation by forgiving you and just loving you. And through that you you came to know him better or maybe even came to know him for the first time and then you did the same thing for others! I'm pretty sure I'm gonna be rejoicing with my friend standing next to me, not looking back on who did me wrong when I was on Earth. Or looking back on the other things I deem so important, like fitting into my lovely Limited dress that I bought 1 year ago but now am unable to wear, or the grades I made in med school, or how delicious pizza from Papa John's is (leading to problem of being unable to wear limited dress, but that's off subject), or how exciting it was to go to the national championship game, or which social events I did and did not get an invite to, etc. It just all pales in comparision to the relationships we form and being Christ to those around us and telling others about how awesome He is because that's the kind of thing that we will take with us forever. All I do is go through my day thinking me, me, me. If I sit back and think about it, it's frightening how selfish I am. It's human nature of course, but I really need Jesus' help to overcome that human nature and live like I'm called to live. Because, its waay obvious that I can't do it on my own.

2011-08-12T21:18:00.000-07:00

For the past 3 weeks I have been studying for the 2nd part of my boards which I take next Saturday in Birmingham. It has been rough. Times where I am way burned out and can't answer another question. Bloodshot eyes from staring at the computer screen for hours on end. Vitamin D deficiency from never seeing the light of day. Sporadic bouts of depression from my severe lack of human contact. Today my fortune cookie said "Give yourself some rest, you need it." How perfect! But one good thing about all this studying is I get constant reminders of how amazing God is. In so many ways. Have you ever thought how does a heart keep beating for 70+ years? It never takes a break. If it does, you're in big trouble. In a moment's time I'm thinking about what I want to write and somehow that's conveyed as my fingers type it away. As scary as it is learning about pregnancy and embryologic development and the multitude of things that can go wrong, how amazing is it that the vast majority of babies turn out just perfect?? I just read a quote, what if you woke up tomorrow morning and only had the things you thanked God for yesterday? Eek! When's the last time I said, thanks for the hair on my head or taste buds or fingernails? It's quite mind boggling to think that people do not believe in God. I took a whole course in college on Cell biology. A cell. The basic unit of life. And we are made of a mere 100 trillion of them. Crrrazy. Ok back to the learning!

red rain strikes again!

2011-06-16T16:02:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when I'm in surgery and I get edged out by someone higher up on the totem pole than me so I can't see anything... or when I'm retracting while meticulous and unexciting work is being done... I daydream. About the meal I missed while being in surgery, what it will be like to not have to wake up before 5am, things like that. But also in my head, I've been constructing a list, something like '100 reasons why I will never be a surgeon.' I think 2 months of surgery rotation is just the perfect time for me, because I have liked it for the most part but anything more might just have done me in. I'm on CVT right now, and they do some boring loooong surgeries and they make you get up too early but they also do some really cool stuff. I mean, who has gotten to see/hold a beating heart inside someone's chest? ME! Today I was in surgery with a certain attending dubbed the name 'red rain.' Why? Because he likes to make it rain. There's just a little bit of pressure getting blood through the arteries, and if you have to cut into one, most surgeons like to clamp them pretty quickly or else blood goes shooting everywhere. And it can shoot pretty far, several feet. However, this surgeon is so apathetic to the event of someone else's blood jetting onto his face that he just lets it rain for a moment. Or several moments. This OR room when he was finished was not for the faint of heart and the poor resident's neck had been victimized also. I managed to get out of there unharmed. Tomorrow we have 3 surgeries, and next week we have some really cool things we'll be working on. One is a suspected teratoma they gotta cut out. If you don't know what that is, please see the following picture. tertoma . It this tumor that can contain crazy things like teeth and hair. Its digusting but also awesome. Stay tuned for my thrilling end of surgery rotation blog.

already but not yet

2011-06-11T14:46:00.000-07:00

First thing, I am on my last rotation of 3rd year with 2 weeks to go. Crazyy. I've liked this last rotation alright (surgery), but I have missed my morning quiet time a lot. Having to be at the hospital before 6 has knocked it out. And I haven't been great about finding time later in the day to make up for it. Not that I've turned into a terrible person, but I definitely can tell a difference when I'm not spending time every day in the word. Lesson learned, life changes and you gotta roll with the punches! When I don't have to be at work til 8am and all I have to do before then is get myself ready, not too hard to wake up and read for awhile. Life won't always be like that but I should never put my #1 on the back burner.

Last week at church we talked about Romans 7. Paul says "For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing." Amen, brother! I have always read this and thought, thats exactly how I feel! But for the first time I thought about WHO was saying this. Paul. The man who wrote a majority of the New Testament. The man who traveled all over telling people about Christ. The man who was beaten, stoned, and put in prison for Christ. The man who loved Jesus so much he longed for death to be with Him. The man who eventually became a martyr for his faith. Wow! I would have not thought I could relate to that guy. You'd think he would never mess up! But he struggled with the same exact thing every other Christian struggles with- our flesh. We are new creations in Christ, but we are slightly schizophrenic, 2 personalities in one. Flesh vs Spirit. Vs 25 says "I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin." Sin goes and takes advantage of our flesh weakness because it can. It's a constant battle pulling us in the exact opposite direction of where we want/need to go. I often feel guilty because I just can't seem to get certain things right. I'll say I need to stop a certain sin, and then later on I find myself doing just that. Or else there's something I know I need to be doing, and yet I don't do it.

So yeah, that kind of sucks. But yey! I read a commentary that said if I can identify with Paul in this, I am blessed! When we struggle that hardly means we aren't living for Him, it's only proof that we are longing to live in Christ because we recognize the sin in our life. In fact, the Christian that doesn't see the struggle is more alarming. We have to hate sin before we are to turn from it. Until we reach the end of ourselves we aren't going to look to God. What if we all agonized over our condition like Paul did?

So what do we do? How do we fix it? Well, we can't. But good news, He can! I loved this analogy... A woman was once paralyzed in a diving accident and taken into the hospital. As she was lying on the bed, the sheet covering her body fell off exposing her to those in the room. She desperately wanted to cover herself but couldn't do it in her own power. So I have these silly sins in my life I want to fix. Turns out, I can't fix them myself. As much as I try like this woman did, my body will not do what I want it to, and worse, it's obeying something else! We do what we despise, and what we desire we can't accomplish. We cannot and will not be able to do it on our own. It'll only lead to frustration and failure. It's all about the grace. I don't have what it takes to get my heart to where I want it to be, so who will rescue me if I can't do it in my own efforts? Thanks be to God- thought Jesus Christ our Lord! He can deliver me and everytime I get to the place of sin I must depend on Him and cry out, I can't do it but you can! He will empower me to live differently and experience victory. I still will fall and thats OK, because I can get back up again and rely on Him to keep me moving towards being conformed to be like Jesus. Day by day being made new.

I am already new in Christ but not yet to the finish line. But He will complete what he began. God's intention is not to leave me in the power of sin but He wants me to be transformed. Slowly but surely.

colossians

2011-05-22T19:39:00.000-07:00

I recently finished a girl's bible study on the book of colossians. I adore the woman that has been leading the bible study, God uses her to teach me things that make me smile because it's something I so needed to hear THAT day. The last night was over colossians 3 and 4 which is a lot of goodness, but the beginning says we must set our hearts on things above, and put to death the things that we used to hold close- 'sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed'. When you put it that way, I want to put to death those things too! They sound pretty yucky but obviously can have quite the appeal or else I wouldn't be needing to put anything to death. He goes on to list some more things- 'anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language'.

The one that got me most was slander. Making a damaging/ malicious statement against someone. I love ephesians 4:29 which says "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen." But do I do this? Nope! I should only be speaking of others in a way that builds them up, choosing NOT to say anything that will hurt their reputation. Whether that's a mean resident/attending in the hospital or a friend that has hurt my feelings or a complete stranger that may have done something that I could make fun of... we've all heard it best said- if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all! One point that really got me, who are the people in my life that I should only talk to God about? I have a great Christian girlfriend and I find myself talking to her about things or people I have struggles with, and I use the excuse that I am looking for advice when deep down I'm just wanting to vent. I got to learn my lesson with this just a few days after the bible study. And it ended in someone getting their feelings hurt and me feeling just awful about it. When if I would have remembered ephesians 4:29 and remembered that I should only go to God when I have frustrations with another person, I would have not hurt a really great friend. I should never make someone pay for the sins they committed against me. Whether that be me going and talking to someone else about them, or refusing to forgive them, or giving them the cold shoulder, etc... I must remember that God never made me pay for the sins I committed, instead he paid them for me.

Another point made was there are 2 ways to live the Christian life. One is defeated- giving in to a certain sin because you believe it is just too hard to give up. And second is victorious- knowing at every decision point he can enable us not to sin! How great is that? Not that we won't sin, because we sure still do. But we do have the power deep within, Christ's power, to say no to the temptation. We're still human so the flesh will always be trying to drag us in the opposite direction. I can think of many times in the past week where I've been at the decision point to not say something hurtful to someone's character. Just at dinner tonight I can think of several instances! I have the voice saying in my head, ehhhh you could probably just keep this one to yourself! Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't. I need the strength in those moments to depend on the Holy Spirit to empower me not to take the bait and sin.

vs 12-14

¹² Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with

compassion (deep awareness of other's needs),

kindness (actively caring for others, not looking for us to be cared for),

humility (knowing we're in the same spot as everyone else, I am no better than them),

gentleness and patience (not expecting others to be sanctified at the speed I think they should be).

¹³Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. ¹⁴ And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

2011-05-20T09:48:00.001-07:00

I haven't posted in awhile, life changed pretty drastically three weeks ago when I started surgery. Went from 5 hour days to 13 hour days. Went from working one weekend on psych for an average of 4 hours, to being on 24 hour call every 4th day. So I've already done 5 days of 6am-6am, only one more to go, woo! So yeah, surgery has been quite the time commitment! I was worried about being miserable, but I've kinda liked it! I've spent most of my time so far on Trauma, where we wait around for trauma alerts to come in. This is anything from a wreck to a gunshot wound to a fall that is critical enough that it deserves a lot of attention. When you are a trauma alert, either EMS or an ambulance brings you to the hospital. They roll you in and you get moved to the trauma bay bed. Immediately all your clothes are cut off and about 10 people stand around you (with more watching), poking you to see where you hurt, asking you questions (if you can answer them), sticking you with needles, yelling things to each other- 'breath sounds clear and equal! pelvis stable! C spine clear!' Then if you are stable they roll you off the CT and Xray too if you need it. If you're not stable you might have to be taken back to emergency surgery. Then from there, broken bones are fixed, lacerations are sutured, internal injuries are monitored to make sure they don't worsen... It's not a place anyone wants to end up. I mean, you'll get good care. But you never want to have to be there. I've made a mental list of things I should NEVER DO that I might avoid ever being a trauma alert. They include

#1- going seat belt-less. The majority of the people we see are unrestrained drivers or passengers, sometimes ejected sometimes not. And probably the people that did wear seat belts that come in would be dead at the scene without it! It's just crazy. It's such a simple thing!! I had that drilled into my brain as a kid, so it's never been a problem for me. I can remember my sister bursting into tears when she was little because my mother had started backing out of the driveway and she didn't have her seat belt on yet.

#2- ride a motorcycle. These things are death machines, people. Don't do it! ATVs also very bad news.

#3- hang out with the wrong crowd- gunshot wounds and stab wounds galore.

#4- go to a gas station at night- there have been several gas stations that have been robbed lately. Also good rule of thumb, don't go anywhere at any time of the day near USA hospital.

#5- dont be drunk and do stupid things. Driving for starters, like this one dude that was drunk and drove off a bridge. Or think that you are coordinated enough to stand on something high off the ground. You aren't, you're gonna fall off, trust me. Drugs go in this category too. There's a terribly sick patient who got hit by a car who probably had drugs on board.

#6- don't breed evil. I saw a woman who had 2 huge slashes on her face that were bleeding a lot. Why? Her daughter cut her. Frightening...

#7- for the love of all things good and pure, definitely don't combine any of these things!! That's even more recipe for disaster!

It's sad. A lot of these people won't ever be normal again. There's many of them that have limited to no brain function, living off machines. It's scary how in a second your life and everyone around you's life can change so drastically. And it can happen to anyone... so be careful out there! And there's exceptions to the rules. The only pediatric trauma alert we had was a boy who had gotten hit by a car. Even though he wasn't able to talk after first coming in, I got pretty attached to him in the 3 hours I was there. Made me remember how much cooler kids are than adults. I went to go visit him last week at the children's hospital and thankfully he's doing a lot better so hopefully he'll be ok.

I still have 5 more weeks of surgery, but I think I'm gonna make it without losing my mind or becoming too depressed.

when all means fail

2011-04-28T08:25:00.000-07:00

With all the mess that has happened and is happening right now in Alabama and around, I thought this blog entry was very appropriate. Yesterday David Wilkerson, a pastor of a church in NYC, wrote this. He also died yesterday in an car accident.

When All Means Fail

The first few times I heard the song blessings by laura story, I thought it sounded really cheesy so I never really listened to it. I was like, whyyy is she singing about rainbows? But then I actually read the lyrics. Wow. Pretty dead on. When the most treasured things in our lives are taken from us, its hard to see that as blessings. Or his 'mercies in disguise'. And truly this side of heaven we may never understand why we were brought through certain trials. He may reveal it to us, he may not. But he loves us way too much to give us lesser things. I know there are lots of things I can look back on and say that sucked when I was there, but man am I glad it happened that way. God knew what he was doing- surprise, surprise. There are others things I can't do that about yet. Or I can look at things in others people's lives and it doesn't make much sense to me either. But so great one of the last lines in this song, that our pain, our achings in this life, are just showing us we weren't made for this world! We don't fit in just right... so of course life isn't gonna be perfect. Far from it. But oh just wait.

Blessings

We pray for blessings
We pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love is way too much to give us lesser things

‘Cause what if your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You’re near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

We pray for wisdom
Your voice to hear
We cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt your goodness, we doubt your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough
All the while, You hear each desperate plea
You long that we'd have faith to believe

When friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know that pain reminds this heart
That this is not our home

What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy
What if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are your mercies in disguise

oh the wonders of caffeine

2011-04-23T01:36:00.000-07:00

Let me tell you the great thing about the past 2 months- it's been like a vacay. After I finished peds (tear...), I moved on to neuro. I am no big fan of neurology to say the least, but I sure did love this rotation. It was eeezzzzzzzz. I may not have learned anything, and it may seem kind of like a waste of tuition money when I didn't get anything out of it, but I do have my best grade of med school to show for it. Doesn't make too much sense, but such is life.

Then I moved on to psych. Psych I love. Also has been kind of a cake walk. I have learned a ton more, was given a lot of freedom to make decisions, doing doctor-y like things. However, half way through the rotation my attending had a bit of a ruptured appendix, so for a while we were basically working with the residents and they were good to let us go pretty early. But then I got moved to working with a child psychiatrist. Outpatient stuff, not getting to do anything, but cool because it's kids and the doc is teaching me a lot. Still working very few hours. This whole rotation I haven't come close to working 8 hours a day. I may say more about psych another day...

Needless to say, I haven't been needing/depending too much on caffeine lately. I'm not a big caffeine person to begin with, maybe a starbuck's frappuccino or a diet coke from time to time. Tonight after dinner I decided to stop by starbs, since I wanted to do some studying. I got a grande mocha lite frappuccino. Yum. That was seven thirty. IT IS NOW THREE FORTY FIVE. Glad tomorrow is saturday and I have no plans but to sleep in... So I'm currently catching up on the latest infomercials, you know they just don't show enough of those during the day! I may retry to sleep pretty soon here, but I feel like I could keep going.

Surgery here I come. I hope the caffeine will work for me then as good as it did for me tonight. I will be needing it.

Isaiah 53- take two.

2011-04-22T18:27:00.000-07:00

A servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling, a scrubby plant in a parched field. There was nothing attractive about him, nothing to cause us to take a second look. He was looked down on and passed over, a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand. One look at him and people turned away.

We looked down on him, thought he was scum. But the fact is, it was our pains he carried— our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought he brought it on himself, that God was punishing him for his own failures. But it was our sins that did that to him, that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins! He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed. We're all like sheep who've wandered off and gotten lost. We've all done our own thing, gone our own way. And God has piled all our sins, everything we've done wrong, on him.

He was beaten, he was tortured, but he didn't say a word. Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered and like a sheep being sheared, he took it all in silence. Justice miscarried, and he was led off— and did anyone really know what was happening?

He died without a thought for his own welfare, beaten bloody for the sins of my people. They buried him with the wicked, threw him in a grave with a rich man, Even though he'd never hurt a soul or said one word that wasn't true.

Still, it's what God had in mind all along, to crush him with pain. The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin so that he'd see life come from it—life, life, and more life. And God's plan will deeply prosper through him. Out of that terrible travail of soul, he'll see that it's worth it and be glad he did it. Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant, will make many "righteous ones," as he himself carries the burden of their sins.

Therefore I'll reward him extravagantly— the best of everything, the highest honors— because he looked death in the face and didn't flinch, because he embraced the company of the lowest. He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many, he took up the cause of all the black sheep.

isaiah 53

2011-04-22T04:53:00.000-07:00

¹ Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
² He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
³ He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

⁴ Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.
⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
⁶ We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

⁷ He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before her shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
⁸ By oppression^[a] and judgment he was taken away.
And who can speak of his descendants?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was stricken.^[b]
⁹ He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.

¹⁰ Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the LORD makes^[c] his life a guilt offering,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
¹¹ After the suffering of his soul,
he will see the light of life^[d] and be satisfied^[e];
by his knowledge^[f] my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
¹² Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,^[g]
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,^[h]
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.

Is this real life?

2011-04-18T17:49:00.000-07:00

David after Dentist

Don't complain about the thorns on roses, be thankful for roses among the thorns.

2011-04-16T09:12:00.000-07:00

The inspiration of this post is a lady named Fanny. Fanny Crosby. She lived a looong life- died in 1915 just before her 95th birthday! (i feel like i've been around a good while, that's my life x 4!) In her 95 years she wrote over 8,000 hymns. eight. thousand. Maybe you've heard of To God be the Glory? Or Blessed Assurance? Good tunes. On her 92nd birthday she said "if in all the world you can find a happier person than I am, do bring him to me. I should like to shake his hand." What a cool chica! Oh, by the by, little small thing. No big deal, but she lost her sight at 6 weeks of age. Completely. She never saw a sunset, never knew what her husband or children looked like, never saw a thing in this world. I may not have 20/20 vision but I can walk from here to the door without bumping into anything (probably), I can pick up my Bible and read the words, I can sit down and watch a movie with my roomies. I can drive a car. I can become a doctor. Oh man could she have used that to get some pity. But look at what wisdom she had at age 8 when she wrote the following poem:

Oh what a happy soul I am,

Although I cannot see;

I am resolved that in this world

Contented I will be.

How many blessings I enjoy,

That other people don't;

To weep and sigh because I'm blind,

I cannot, and I won't.

How great is that? Later in her life she said "It seemed intended by the blessed providence of God that I should be blind all my life, and I thank him for the dispensation. If perfect earthly sight were offered me tomorrow I would not accept it. I might not have sung hymns to the praise of God if I had been distracted by the beautiful and interesting things about me." And even cooler this realization- "when I get to heaven, the first face that shall ever gladden my sight will be that of my Savior." Love it!

Philippians 4:4 says "Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again, rejoice." Fanny is such an awesome example of this! If she had started writing hymns at birth, that would be about 84 hymns a year, more than one a week. That's a lot of rejoicing. Man, do I need help with this! I don't rejoice always! I don't even always rejoice in the good things I should be rejoicing about, i definitely don't rejoice in the little annoyances of the day, and hands down, not rejoicing in the hard hits that come my way. But oh do I have so much to rejoice about. Plus the simple truth that God has this amazing plan for my life. So that everything that comes my way, big or small, good or bad, its not all just chance happenings, God ordained it to be because He is GOD and He knows us better than we know ourselves! The things that don't make sense, they make sense to Him. What would it be like to look at a hinderance so great as blindness and say, "I never wanted sight! It would only be a distraction from my worship of God!"

I have a friend who has dealt with something heavy their whole life. It be so easy to say woe is me, and I'm sure people would take pity on them. Yet you almost forget about their battle because they never complain. It's a truly endearing quality about them. I doubt they so much see it as an entirely good thing, but hopefully they can see the good that has come from it. How that struggle has been a part of shaping their life, and the lives that they've been able to touch and will touch and CAN touch in the future in a way that you and I could just not do because we haven't been in that same boat. And I am talking about one specific person but really it could be anyone because we all have our own battles. What if Ms Fanny had been bitter towards God for taking her sight from her and just sat back and let people care for her her whole life? And what if she hadn't been blind? Would she still have become a songwriter or would she have pursued other things that she couldn't do due to her blindness? Countless numbers of people have been touched by the words of her hymns. God had a plan.

Now we can rejoice always and NOT necessarily be happy in all situations. You won't find a verse in the Bible that says, Be happy always! I'd rather be happy always, but stuff happens. Really really devastating things happen. If a loved one died and I was just bubbling with happiness and acting completely normal, something would be wrong with me. Happiness is a fleeting emotion that depends on the circumstances of our lives. Joy is not. It's something so much deeper that comes from faith in Christ and Him becoming a part of us. It's delighting in Him who has died for us and loves us more than we can imagine. And that will not change. The joy of the Lord is our strength! John 15:11 shows He wants His joy to remain in us and for that joy to be full. May we know the joy God has to offer us and may we remember that joy and rejoice through the trials of life because of a Savior that is always faithful.

Be this the purpose of my soul,

My solemn, my determined choice;

To yield to God's supreme control,

And in my every trial rejoice.

-Anon

all you need is love

2011-04-12T14:19:00.000-07:00

So I'm going to a girl's bible study and we just started on colossians, and I wanted to share something we talked about last night. Something that I need a lot of help with. LUV.

How are people suppose to know that we as Christians are different? John 13:34-35 tells us by loving others as He loved us. How did He love us? Unconditionally. Without limit. With an extreme love that is beyond our understanding. Imagine the following- you are completely innocent but wrongly accused of something someone else has done aaaand the penalty is death. You know EXACTLY who the real culprit is and you even have all the evidence you need to prove them guilty. Yet you say nothing. So far sounds like something I would never do but just wait.. Then you're getting ready to be put to death in front of a crowd of people. And there is that person. Pointing and laughing. Saying hateful things about you. Turning their back on you as you die. And you still say nothing, fully knowing that person may never understand or appreciate what you did for them, or feel any remorse or be sorry. What if it wasn't just one random person, but every single person you've ever loved? And that you thought loved you? We tend to focus on the physical pain of Christ dying on the cross and sure it was a horrifying death but can you imagine what kind of emotional pain that caused? Taking on the weight of the sins of the world, a world that is enemies of God? Even if we're Christians we've all been enemies of God at some point. We've all not loved him, even hated him (James 4:4). Can't be friends with the world and loving God at the same time. I'd say I'm pretty friendly with a lot of worldly things. Like BFF kind of friendly. And Jesus came and died for us who would at best constantly choose sin over Him (by the second), at worst would reject His name forever even doing all in their power to destroy Him and His people while on earth. In that moment, hanging on a cross, who has ever deserved to be more angry, more resentful, more frustrated, to just say I give up, yall ain't worth it! And now every time we sin to look back and say, hello? Do you so easily forget that I did this for you? And to point out every fault, every way we have hurt Him. Or to say, sorry. You lost your chance, that's it. Nope! He loves us regardless. We are in a constant state of being loved and there's nothing we can do or not do that could ever change that. It's a love we can't even fathom.

Last year I had dermabrasion done. It "smooths" the skin aka they sandpapered off the majority of my face. If you'd like to see something gross, I'll send you a picture of what I looked like after they did it. Scratch that, I'll just go ahead and swallow my pride and post a picture on here...

SICK. Lemme tell you, I would not do this again and I wouldn't have done it if I'd have known what it entailed. My face was so raw for the next week it hurt to touch, to shower, to do anything. And it took a lot longer after that before the skin was normal again. Too painful. What if this was God's outlook on us? Looking down at what our world has become and saying if I'd have only known that this was gonna be how things turned out, not worth it. All the pain, I wouldn't have done it if I'd known everyone would still be rejecting me. But he doesn't! If only one person would have been saved by Him coming and dying, that would not have stopped Him. It was never not worth it to Him.

So I John 3:10-11 says LOVE is how the world knows we are children of God. We love one another. Period. Not we love one another... as long as that person loves me in return! Or if they deserve it! Or if they aren't difficult and challenging to love! No way outta this one, no exit clause. Just love. And that is evidence to a watching world that there's something different, that our hearts have been changed. Love regardless because God loved me regardless! Ok so major problem... that's like incredibly hard. Incredibly unnatural for us humans. Colossians 1:11 says that we are being strengthened with ALL power so that we may have great endurance and patience. Endurance to not succumb, to stand firm in the midst of trials, to not give in to what is easy. And patience- "the bearing of annoyance, misfortune, or pain w/o complaint, loss of temper, or irritation"- self restraint, slowness in avenging wrongs, not seeking wrath or revenge, what we think is our rights. I've been hit hard with this patience thing a lot lately. Thanks Jesus! You know I need it bad! haha. When I want to snap back at someone, when I want to walk away from loving someone, when I want someone to know just what they'e done to me! (or atleast tell other people what someone has done to me for a little commiseration), I should stop in that moment. I must ask for patience. (sidenote: just had this image. Jesus, sitting around a table up in heaven with some bros, and saying, 'ugh you won't believe what that girl has done this time' and then everyone around would be like 'yeah, that girl is cray-cray, when's she gonna get her act together? why do you put up with that?'... yeah that doesn't happen. If we're with Christ our sins are forgiven and he sees us white as snow! righteous! (Col 1:22) And those that don't know Him, he's just waiting for them to come to Him and he'll be there with open arms). So God can bestow me with the ability to be patient, to love. We are empowered with the kind of love that Christ loved! Fav verse ever- Ephesians 3:20- his power is at work within us. We can love as he loved and forgive as he forgave. We can extend patience because we're forgiven much and loved much.

This is def convicting to me. I have failed at this time and time again and I will continue to fail at it time and time again. But I know that I'm a work in progress and that God will finish the work He's begun in me (Philippians 1:6). I tend to get overwhelmed by my sin and how far I feel like I have to go. But that's me being impatient again. God doesn't take us and in one second we're suddenly perfect. But I can look back on my life several months ago and see what He's done. And as long as I can continue to do that, as long as I'm moving in the right direction and growing in Him and taking his truths and applying them, then that is all he asks. I still have to convince myself that that's the truth...

shine like the stars

2011-04-08T05:39:00.000-07:00

"Rejoice always, pray continually, giving thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." I Thess 5:16-18

"Do everything without complaining or arguing." Phil 2:14-15

You know, some things in the bible are up for interpretation. Some things you really have to think about to understand. Not so much here. These verses are incredibly clear, no wiggle room. Rejoice ALWAYS?? Pray CONTINUALLY? Give thanks in ALL circumstances?? Do EVERYTHING without complaining? When I'm dealing with someone difficult, when I'm in a situation that really isn't fair, when I almost get in a wreck because of someone else's mistake, when my computer breaks, when I get sick, etc, etc. I'm suppose to say, "thank ya jesus!" Thank you for the infestation of bugs in my closet right now. Thank you for the sunburn that won't stop itching. Thank you for the 40 page article I have to read by Monday. Thank you for the tear in the back of my dress that my mother noticed at the very end of the day that might have given some people a show. Yeah, sounds funny, but every situation God has something to teach me. I just have to ask God to reveal to me whatever He's got and help me glorify Him through it. I haven't quite figured out the greater purpose of the sunburn, but I'll get it. And not only thanking and not complaining, but rejoicing! Ok, and those are the bad things. What about the things I take for granted? Thank you for my bed. Thank you for my Bible where I can read these verses. Thank you for my dinner. Thank you that I can go to sleep without worrying about my safety. Thank you when I wake up in the morning. Thank you for shampoo. for a toilet. for hot water. for a roof. for family. for friends. for clothes. for a car. for a church. And the list goes on and on and on and on. So blessed. I forget it a lot. The rest of phil 2:14-15 is pretty awesome. I wanna shineeee. I got a ways to go.

I'm captivated!

2011-03-30T15:58:00.000-07:00

"Take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ." 2 Corinthians 10:5

Every thought... man I have a lot of those. I'll start thinking about one thing and about 10 seconds later wonder how I got to what I'm thinking now. This taking captive my thoughts thing is really hard for me! I have a tendency to let Satan feed me his lies and once he's got a foothold he really goes for it. You know, somebody looks at me funny and soon I'm having a pity party because the world hates me. Ha, that's a slight exaggeration but its along those lines. Or If I feel someones wronged me and I start resenting them or thinking badly of them, I've taken the bait. And if we have these thoughts and we dwell on them, we are likely to act on them in a way that will not be so pretty (James 1:14-15). Today's thoughts are tomorrow's actions! What if I made the conscious effort as soon as a thought that is not Christ-like enters my mind that I'm going to stifle it? Satan's good. He knows my weaknesses, he knows my insecurities, he knows just the place to stick the knife in. But lucky for you and me we've got someone so much greater on our side. And the enemy is scared of His name. I like this version of the verse too: "We capture every thought and make it give up and obey Christ." How cool is that? Phil 4:8 gives us a pretty clear picture of what our thoughts are suppose to be. So solution! With every thought that comes to mind I need to say, "Ok liz, is what I'm thinking true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy?" HA yeah right. People would either think I had Parkinson's from how slow it would take me to speak or they'd think I was nutso as every few seconds I appeared deep in thought, mouthing the words of that verse. But this, and the entire rest of God's word helps give us an idea of what we should be thinking. So once we know God's thoughts, we can better separate them from Satan's (or ours, which may be one in the same a lot of the time). Sanctification! So when I start getting impatient in traffic, or I get annoyed with the person that made a rude comment, or I'm fearful of saying something about Jesus because I don't want to offend someone, etc... that's when I have to take responsibility of my thoughts. And say be gone!! Cast it out! Have a bible verse to recite at that time or maybe just start praying! God can purge us and cleanse our hearts of the messy things, but we've got to be willing for Him to do it. He can restore and heal us. I have to remember I'm not a victim of my thoughts. And also its good to know that these things I struggle with, the sins that seem so prevalent in my life, they are NOT me. It's a lie of the devil that I am an insecure person. The insecurity is a sin that's being lived out through my body. It's not like I want to be insecure! (Romans 7) And now that I have recognized this sin in my life, whenever I have a thought that is putting my security in something of this world and not in God (and that's a whole other story... I've got lots of those things) I can so "no siree girlfriend, your security is in Christ!" So no one and nothing is gonna take that away from me! And in time, it will get easier. If God and I start fighting this together, we're gonna beat it. It's not instant gratification, but this is the first step- taking our thoughts CAPTIVE and making them give up and obey!! How awesome that we have that power in Christ?

Patience- my nemesis

2011-03-18T14:06:00.000-07:00

so i was just reading this psalm...

"how priceless is your unfailing love!

both high and low among men

find refuge in the shadow of your wings.

they feast on the abundance of your house;

you give them drink from your river of delights.

for with you is the fountain of life;

in your light we see light."

Its all quite lovely, but i got stuck on the verse "feast on the abundance of your house". someone once gave me the illustration that god has this magnificent feast for us but were on our hands and knees on the ground looking for crumbs that may have fallen underneath the table. Sounds pretty dumb right? But that's what we do! We sell god short, or we don't realize what he has to offer, or we think we're content with just the crumbs, or that it's all we deserve... for whatever reason we're missing out BIG TIME. Over Christmas break I talked to some Christian mentors about how I knew I was not walking with the lord anymore and that there were things I had not been willing to give up that I knew were just hedges in my walk. They said we hold onto things so tight sometimes and it's so hard to let go that God has to come in and pry our fingers open and just take whatever it is because we weren't willing to give it up on our own. But it's for our good and for his glory. He's shaping us and making us into the person he wants us to be, and I want to be just that. So some changes have come easier, others God had to do some prying. Serious prying. It hasn't been easy, but it's so incredibly clear that it was for my good. I've been able to fully focus on him with fewer distractions and it's been just awesome. I love my quiet time, before if I did it it was kind of out of habit or to check it off my list? I've prayed so much for god to remove certain sins from my life and he really has! Things I've been struggling with for who knows how long. All around fabulousness.

And now I'm having to pray for something I don't want at all-patience, which if you know me you know I'm terrible at! Waiting at a doctors office, traffic, people who talk slow, people who are slow in general, toaster ovens, commercials, etc. Well now I want to fix a certain situation and I want it fixed now! I guess it's just human nature to want to take care of everything on our own. But certain things in my life right now I can't do a thing about. Not that I havent tried and failed, probably even my efforts have made things worse. I just have to trust in gods timing with it, always keeping in mind that he works for the good of those that love him. So I can have this pretty picture in my head of how I want something to be, and it may look great, but it's not the picture god has in store. I'm still trying to hunt for the crumbs instead of loving Jesus with all my heart, focusing on him, not being strayed by the things of this world and enjoying the feast he has for me.

I don't know about you, but I love food. So this is a good illustration for me. Yum.

bad parents

2011-02-24T06:59:00.000-08:00

2 most excellent songs

2011-02-24T06:04:00.000-08:00

Chris Rice- Untitled Hymn (Come to Jesus)

Casting Crowns- Voice of Truth

Oh,what I would do to have
the kind of faith it takes
To climb out of this boat I'm in
Onto the crashing waves
To step out of my comfort zone
Into the realm of the unknown
Where Jesus is,
And he's holding out his hand

But the waves are calling out my name
and they laugh at me
Reminding me of all the times
I've tried before and failed
The waves they keep on telling me
time and time again
"Boy, you'll never win,
You you'll never win

But the Voice of truth tells me a different story
the Voice of truth says "do not be afraid!"
and the Voice of truth says "this is for My glory"
Out of all the voices calling out to me
I will choose to listen and believe the Voice of truth

Oh, what I would do
to have the kind of strength it takes
To stand before a giant
with just a sling and a stone
Surrounded by the sound
of a thousand warriors
shaking in their armor
Wishing they'd have had the strength to stand

But the giant's calling out
my name and he laughs at me
Reminding me of all the times
I've tried before and failed
The giant keeps on telling me
time and time again
"Boy you'll never win,
you'll never win."

But the stone was just the right size
to put the giant on the ground
and the waves they don't seem so high
from on top of them looking down
I will soar with the wings of eagles
when I stop and listen to the sound of Jesus
singing over me

well...

2011-02-18T21:22:00.000-08:00

So it's been awhile. I'm about to finish my pediatrics rotations which I'm super bummed about but I'm going knowing I'll be back again soon... I have absolutely loved it and am 100% sold on peds. The residents are great, the attendings are great, I've learned a ton, and let's face it, kids are just WAY cooler than adults. I've become attached to one patient in particular, a 4 year old with ALL, acute lymphoblastic leukemia. She got diagnosed last summer and is in the hospital now with a fever. The other night she got transferred to the PICU which meant she wasn't on our service anymore (and the patient I got to take her place was a 17yo incarcerated female who was hallucinating... but that's a different story), so I went to see her and when I left she said, "bye elizabeth! I love you!" ahhhhh. she has my heart. So first, the kids are obviously ballin. Also, the residents are great. A lot of them (ok, basically all) are foreign so it's been cool to get to know people from different countries. Today was the birthday of the resident I am on call with. So since it was his birthday, he bought us all dinner. What? That's apparently the way they celebrate in Nepal haha. Another one of the residents brought britni and I cake for our birthday! And then everyone sang us happy birthday!! All of them are so nice and helpful, and so thankful for us helping them. I usually feel as a student that I'm more of a nuisance than anything, but they've made me feel like I'm an intricate part of the team. And the attendings... Some not so good, but most are awesome. Yesterday I got to do a bone marrow aspiration with my fav, which was amazing... I totally rocked it. I'm holding out for the chance to do a lumbar puncture too! So yeah, to sum it up, peds is the best. The kids make me smile. I don't wanna leave them, but I guess I gotta help out the crazies, the neurologically impaired, and the ones that need cutting on.

2009-08-27T20:40:00.000-07:00

I'm such a dedicated blogger. Quick update on life...

1- made it through my month of no meat. I might have cheated unknowingly a couple times. Chicken broth style, but no real meat. One night, rationality slightly impaired, I came in and heated up a turkey sausage Jimmy Delight to eat (yeah, they are delish). Luckily, I fell asleep in the 1.5 minutes it was in the microwave so I dodged a bullet there.

2-I've had 4 quizzes in the past 2.5 weeks. 2 100s, 1 i missed 1 question, and then it gets embarrassing. FOD- Fundamentals of Doctoring- a class most people do not take seriously. Well I really wasn't taking it seriously. I did not read the chapter that we had a quiz or, nor do I have common sense apparently. Here's an example of a question...

Drugs are bad. True or False.

I choose False. Then we see the results of the question and 74 people said TRUE and 1 person said FALSE. That was me. On 4 of the questions, I was like the only one that got it wrong. Or maybe there were 3-4 other people. I made a 40 on the quiz, and afterwards SMITTY was laughing at someone for missing 1. I'm an idiot.

3- I have a pet named Spot. He is a sweet potato. I discovered him in my pantry after he sat there for about a month and he has done some serious sprouting. Like 2 feet tall probably. I'm taking suggestions on what to do with him. One, use him as a centerpiece. Two, leave him be and wait for him to take over my apartment. Three, plant him.

4- My current food obsession (edit: NEW food obsession. I have many) is Jello Pudding. The sugar free mix of course. I go through a box every 2 days, pistachio is my favorite discovery so far.

5- just realized all the updates I came up with except 1 have to do with food. I have a problem.

2009-07-29T07:43:00.000-07:00

Week 1 of my semi-vegetarian diet went well. There was one incident... that involved lentil soup made with chicken broth, but it was an accident and it won't happen again. I've eaten good-tons of seafood and tofu and veggies and fruit... ah I love food. And to continue with that, I leave for Kansas City today to attend a family medicine conference. Thanks to the family med department at USA, everything is paid for. Flight, hotel, transportation to the hotel, the actual conference, and best of all, food. Apparently the conference provides vouchers for breakfast and lunch, and we are getting $55 from our family med department for food. Which means allison, kacie, and I will be dining at only the best and most expensive restaurants in kansas city for dinner every night. There's an opening social where I plan on winning either a Wii or a $30o gift certificate to apple. During the day, I hopefully will learn things about medicine. But now I've got to go pack and find some 80s outfit to wear to that social... good times.

say no to meat and lock your doors at night

2009-07-24T12:56:00.000-07:00

It's been a month or so since I've blogged, bad me. I've been traveling, and it was grand. It would take me 10 years to write about everything so I'm going to spare you. But I loooove puerto rico and I loooove Boston.

In more recent news, I am currently challenging myself to a month of Pescetarianism. Before your mind wanders too much into what that is, it's a diet that excludes birds and mammals. I am definitely not the vegan type, I need animal products such as eggs and ice cream. Straight up vegetarianism isn't for me either, because I love fish too much. But being a pescetarian, I can do. I might miss my poultry, but red meat I will gladly say goodbye too. Why am I doing this? Maybe I'm trying to get on PETA's good side, who knows. I'm on Day 3 now, and I must say its going quite well. Tofu, mahi mahi, salmon, scallops... what more could I ask for? I might soon need to learn how to cook fish though, because my 3 dinners the past 3 nights were prepared by my sister, my dad, and Bonefish Grill.

I've been remembering my dreams a lot within the past couple weeks. There was the one where I racing in the 200 backstroke, and I woke up to find I was actually kicking in the bed. Then there was the one where I was pregnant, for the 2nd time, definitely not married. I was surprisingly disappointed when I awoke to find out that one wasn't true. I also had one where my mother, sister, and I were planning some kind of bombing, and I got caught and was on my way to jail. My mom and sister totally got away with it.

Last night I woke up at 3am to use the bathroom, and on the way I realized my front door was shining (I was half asleep, not on acid). That was because I had not closed it all the way and the light from outside was coming in. (Now I do these things sometimes. Like when I have a lot of things that I'm carrying I sometimes walk inside and leave my keys in the lock, forgetting about them for several hours. I usually remember to lock my door at night, and almost always remember to close it all the way, so this was kind of weird) I went and locked it and got back in bed. I was in the middle of trying to decide if I should make sure no one was in my apartment when I fell asleep. That's when I had a most frightening dream.

DREAM: I woke up to people outside my apartment making a lot of noise. Turned out to be some creepy killers or rapists or something, I don't know. Then I saw one look up at me and start running towards my door. I ran to lock it and tried to dial 911, but my hands were shaking so much I kept hitting the wrong keys (something like this ALWAYS happens to me in scary dreams. Like I try to yell and nothing comes out. Or someone's chasing me and I can't seem to move faster than a snail's pace. Is that just me?). I ended up calling my mother and telling her I was really scared and they needed to come over. Somehow, I end up at a hospital perfectly fine. Not sure what happened with the rapists.

It was really scary and I'm always closing my door from now on at night. And probably during the day too. Now since it's 11PM on a Friday night, I guess I'm off to bed to see what scary/interesting thing I can dream about tonight.

gardening

2009-06-23T09:24:00.000-07:00

My next door neighbor (at my parent's house) asked if she could pay me to plant some flowers for her. I woke up at 645 this morning to get over there early in attempts to avoid the heat. While toiling around in the dirt I had an epiphany. I hate gardening. I don't like sweating, I don't like dirt, and frankly, I don't think I'm very good at it. But I was thinking about all the older women I know, and they LOVE to garden. Especially my mom. Am I the black sheep? Or is gardening something that once you turn 35 it turns into a major hobby?

Please. Let me know.

Also, on an unrelated note, my mellow mushroom waiter guessed I was 16 the other day. Granted, he was weird and there's a pretty good chance he was high, but this is nothing out of the ordinary. He guessed my 17 year old sister was in fact, 17. Story of my life.

VBS blues

2009-06-19T08:48:00.000-07:00

I was teaching VBS (vacation bible school) this week and I am probably the VBS staff's worst nightmare.

First, I missed a training session I didn't know existed. Then I left to go out of town until the night before VBS began. Apparently, I was suppose to call all the parents before it started, but didn't know that because I missed the training session.

Flight delay in New York because of a FLAT TIRE. C'mon Delta... This resulted in us missing our connection in ATL. This resulted in us having to spend the night there and catch the first flight in the morning at 7:45. On the bright side, I did get a $14 voucher for food that night and I get a $100 voucher to use sometime in the next year. But it also meant I was arriving in Mobile 10 minutes before I was suppose to be at church teaching VBS.

Got to church, there was confusion, my kids ended up missing the opening ceremony because again, i missed the training session so I didn't know exactly what I was suppose to do.

I call the parents that night. One of them says she asked her daughter what she learned that day and all she could tell her was "God flies at night." awesome...

Then I felt really bad all Tuesday, convinced myself I had swine flu.

The next morning, my sister was off at the carpool area trying to round up our kids. She comes back and says, are you feeling better now? I said yes.. and she said ok good, because they are canceling VBS because some kid that was here earlier this week had swine flu. (which may or may not be true at this point, still awaiting the results from CDC but it's looking like thats what it was).

So yeah, they are rescheduling the last 3 days of VBS and I'm pretty sure they checked my schedule to make sure I wouldn't be here for those 3 days.

poll: which is scarier?

2009-06-17T20:34:00.001-07:00

Possum really unhappy with the cat?

Madeline's cat really unhappy with my kitty? This was right after she got a bath so her hatred for Samson was especially strong.

My vote is for the cat. Look how cute this baby possum is!

NYC: An Intro

2009-06-15T12:37:00.000-07:00

New York is dirty and smelly. The people are weird and everything is ridiculously expensive. I got lost at least 10 times and the weather kinda sucked. With that said, I freaking LOVE it. I went to DC in March, and while the company was nice (shout out to anna and priyal what whatt), DC is lacking a certain charm that I felt in New York. Plus, it's kind of a bore. I plan on writing a lot more about my trip, but I didn't want to write some super long blog that everyone would be scared to read. So, first, top 5 things I love about New York.

1. The People. Where else could you find a man walking down the street carrying an enormous snake (5th avenue... during a parade. There were TONS of people around) Or a man shouting "Obamacondoms.com, for all your hard times"? Or a man dressed up as the statue of libert

y? Side story to that... as I was attempting to take this picture, my

mother behind me all of a sudden started bursting into laughter. After some moments of confusion I realized I was standing on a grate and my dress was going all marilyn monroe on me. This was Times Square on a Saturday night. So, my family is dysfunctional, my mother obviously thinks crowds of people staring at me and my underwear is hilarious.

2. The food. Oh, the food. It started with

olive oil and roasted fennel gelato from Mario Batali's restaurant (Iron Chef anyone?) and ended with an enormous piece of divine strawberry cheesecake from Carnegie Deli. In between that there was Bobby Flay's restaurant- Mesa Grill, high afternoon tea (to the right... yeah I ate a lot of sugar on this trip), soup dumplings, etc. On the last day we went to Aquagrill, a restaurant in Soho where I could have picked out a $500 meal consistingof 1 ounce of caviar, an oyster sampler, and a bottle of wine. I settled for a yellowfish tuna sandwich which was only about $12 instead.

3. The Subway. So it took awhile to figure out, but once you get the hang of it, it's not so bad. While I felt that DCs was a tad easily to decipher, it is not as practical because NYCs system goes everywhere you would need to go. Might still have to walk several blocks, but its doable. And there's always somebody down there playing music. Guitar, drums, violin, you name it. My favorite was on our last night, as we were leaving Times Square we walked down to the sound of The Meetles, a Beatles cover band. They had a huge crowd and were really good. We only caught the last couple of songs they did but it was really cool.

4. The Countries represented. To start, there's just so many foreign people it's not even funny. I heard accents that I couldn't even tell you where they were from. Chinatown is just great to walk around. Its the only place I saw cats the whole time I was there... hmm. Lots of ducks hanging up in windows, all kinds of fish and fruits and veggies to buy. Its really legit, it looks almost identical to the small town where I lived when I was in China. Madeline bought some bubble milk tea while we were there. The "bubbles" are tapioca and the drink is very sweet. A bit strange but it was good. We also went to Little Italy which is in fact, very little, just one street. Come to think of it though, the only time spent there was in a shop run by Chinese people... so didn't really experience that. Sunday was the national puerto rican day parade. We were one of the few non-puerto ricans there, but I still found it very cool. Its just neat to watch how excited they all were and how proud they are of their culture.

5. It's like, famous. I kept on thinking things like, oh here's the lobby of the Empire State Building they show on Elf when he first walks into the building. This is where Phoebe runs like crazy through Central Park on Friends. These are the steps (of the Met) that Kevin James sits on in the movie Hitch. This is the statue they always show in the intro to 30 rock. And so on and so on. Our waiter at Mesa Grill was telling us all the movies that were being filmed in NYC then and all the celebrities that he had randomly seen. I also went on the NBC studio tour and got to see the SNL set and Jimmy Fallon's late night studio.

SOOO, Summary. NYC=awesome. If I'm not lazy, I will write some more details.

hey.

2009-06-09T23:21:00.001-07:00

As you all have noticed (the 4 of you that will read this), I haven't written anything in awhile. That's because I'm not doing much with my life and loving every minute of it. It is quite depressing that it in June 10th since we got done with school on May 8th. How is it even possible that its been a whole month? Oh I remember rushing through that Physiology miniboard (because I couldn't stand one minute longer) just like it was yesterday. Please summer don't go!

Oh, as a last follow up to my new year's resolutions, here are their success rates. Because it is funny how much of a loser I am...

1. 4.0 for spring semester. FAIL. This one was kind of a joke anyways... I did want an A in physiology though, and I got a B. B stands for barely scraped by too.

2. Healthy eating. FAIL for semester. SUCCESS for summer.

3. Exercising regularly. FAIL for semester. Didn't even train for my triathlon. Strangely ever since then though, I've been doing grrreat.

4. Become more responsible with money. FAIL. unless you count the little organizer I bought to put my receipts in. And I did return 2 swimsuits today that I had paid $280 for... But my reasoning behind that was, I could get 3 not as cute suits for the price of 1 of those.

5. Avoid boys. EPIC FAIL.

6. Find something exciting to do this summer. SUCCESS!!! YES! This includes, but is not limited to, Disney World, NYC, Puerto Rico, ATL, and Boston. And not planned but is a must... going to visit A LOTT in the Big Easy. It would have been impossible for both 4 and 6 to be successful, and 6 won out.

NEW GOALS:

*Expect nothing from myself. Then I cannot be disappointed by missed goals.

*Drop out of school because obviously med school makes me eat everything I can find AND makes me incredibly lazy.

*Win the lottery.

*Transfer to an all girls school. Do they have those for medical school?

I'm leaving for NYC in the morning... at 7, which is in 5 hours. I think I might try to go to bed!

done with school, disney world, summma

2009-05-18T21:41:00.000-07:00

Well well well. Done with the first year of med school. I hung on, thats about all i can say. And all I care to say. Moving on...

I gave myself little recovery time between finishing school and heading to the happiest place on Earth. It was a great week, there didn't seem to be too many people there so we got to do all our favorites lots of times. tower of terror 10x. And the aerosmith coaster 5 1/2 x. Yes, that's right. For those that haven't ridden this ride (I do pity you, it is the best. ever.), it is in the dark and you start by blasting off to 60mph in like 3 seconds. Well, on our third time to ride, it blasts off as is normal but then we enter a not dark, but fully lit room. Cool, but not normal. When we get to the very top, we stopped. After 5-10 minutes 2 workers show up, tell us to get out (not to the left, or i would have plummeted to my death), and walk down about 4 flights of stairs to the bottom. Not my worst nightmare, but close. Disney was kind enough to give us a fast pass so that we could risk our lives and ride it again. Just kidding, I trust Disney. Did you know no one has ever died on disney property? They haul you off to a hospital and pronounce you dead there. Disturbing and so not surprising. Death and Disney do not go together.

Another priceless moment. One day, I passed a cute little family. Little girl, probably about 6-7 in a stroller wearing a tinkerbell costume, dad pushing the stroller, and mom following behind. Out of nowhere, the girl looks at me and screams (seriously screamed, it was frightening) WAR EAGLE!! Took me a second to realize I had on an Auburn shirt, look up to see the dad had on an Auburn hat, and after a few seconds of shock I was able to return a war eagle. This girl has been trained oh so well.

Also, the morning we left, I went and took my trash out at my apartment. On the way back, I went a different way then I usually do and took a lap around the pool to see how it looked. (Awesome by the way, I will be spending some quality time there this summer.) Well, I get back to my apartment and while I've been gone a newspaper has shown up in front of my door, and I've gotten a second monthly newsletter from my apartment. I had already gotten mine when I left earlier, so they had put a new one by my door in the time that I had been gone. I try to open my door and the key will not budge. I had forgotten to lock my apartment the night before, so my logic is that someone was and still is in my apartment and put the privacy lock on so I can't get in. After about a minute of freaking out with the key and lock, I look up and I'm at apartment 623 and not 723. EFF! So I run. It all made much more sense as I was headed back to my building. Also didn't notice that my wreath had magically disappeared... I'm so smart.

So, its summer time. I've got lots of goals for these next few months. I'm going to be productive and accomplish them all.

Physiology has failed me

2009-04-07T23:36:00.001-07:00

med school has made me hate physiology. not really, but it is not as fun as it used to be. I was so excited for this class, and it is slowly but surely, wearing me down, and taking everything out of me that I have to give. I am afraid that the hormones I love so much will become just as terrible under the teachings of Dr. Lincoln. darn that dirty old man.

Here, I wanted to insert stephen's video of dr. lincoln, but 1. i can't find it 2. only people in my class read this and have more than likely already seen it 3. if anyone isn't in my class and reads this, they probably would not think it is funny or understand it at all.

Right now, It is 2AM in the morning. This would be ok IF I was actually studying. Instead, for the last 3 hours, I've been gchatting, blogging, and doing other pointless things. Good thing there is no pressure on this next test on Friday. I'm pretty sure I only have to make a 42 to keep my 100 in the class (med school is so lame, my mind needs to be stimulated).

I'm just going to insert random facts for the rest of this entry:

BEN FOLDS. amazing. one of my favorite concerts I've ever been to. Freaking hilarious (he sang a song about Mobile!) and he plays the piano like a fiend. Seriously, his hands were just a blur across the keys.

I LOVE TINA FEY. 30 rock is officially the greatest show ever. I think I've already mentioned that about a million times, but oh man, I love it.

30 DAYS til I'm done with my first year of medical school. No way it's been that long... sike! it seems like it's been a lifetime. If I knew what I knew now, would I still do it? YES but I would have done some things very differently for sure. Things that would have made my life sooo much simpler. And I would have better grades.

VP of AMA. That's me. What, what?

17 HOURS was how many hours straight I was at school today. All of that time was spent in our classroom minus AMA meeting at lunch, dinner in the conference room, and some bathroom breaks.

STRONGER- Kanye West is a fabulous song. I also love Robocop. who woulda thought... Shout out to Allison Lott for bringing these lifechangers into my life. The words of these songs will touch you.

THE GRAMMAR of this entry is probably awesome. don't care. it's too late to be doing this kind of thing.

fitness fails me again

2009-03-28T20:55:00.000-07:00

Just like my trusty Fitness magazine brought me the spinach smoothie, I found another article of interest in the latest issue: "Drop 10 lbs THIS month!" The plan is threefold. 1-doing their toner exercises twice a week, 2- doing cardio 3x a week, and 3-eating 1500 calories a day. Not so bad, eh?

So Thursday morning (probably as a way to avoid studying) I decided to try out their toner exercises. I open up to Part 1 where it showed a really fit girl doing all these easy looking moves. I get started on the super leg slimmers: the arabesque, salute, and static lunge kick-back, which all end up being versions of the lunge. Well, about 5 in I am feeling the burn. After 10, I'm huffing and puffing. At about 20, I realize I am sweating profusely. And yet for some reason, I continue all the way to 60. It didn't look pretty, but I did it. After taking about 20 minutes to recover, I move on to the amazing ab flatteners, but they confuse me. Next, are the best butt toners, but as soon as I realize that these are all squats (my legs are still on fire), I quit.

Thursday was very painful, but Friday was even worse. The little things in life, getting out of my car, walking down stairs, moving... became such a challenge. Now, approximately 64 hours later, I still find myself involuntarily groaning every time I stand up or sit down. New York celebrity trainer Justin Geilband did say I would "sculpt muscle fibers I've probably never reached before." Amen to that.

So here's my take on this whole strategy. I did the first three moves, but what if I would have kept going to do all 12? I might have been able to make it through that first day, but that next morning when I woke up I would literally be unable to get out of the bed. So, stuck in bed for an entire day waiting for the pain to subside, can't get to food... I'd probably lose a couple pounds right? And when I reach the point where I'm able to move again, its almost time for the second dose of 12 toner moves followed shortly by another day of bed rest. After a month, thats at least a whole weeks worth of not eating at all. And there's your 10 pounds.

i love the internet.

2009-03-24T20:56:00.000-07:00

Wow, I haven't blogged in exactly a month, but possibly the only person that has noticed is my dad. I don't have anything to say about the time that has passed. All I can remember about it is that I made my lowest grade ever in med school, I went to DC, and I haven't gained back my motivation to study since getting back. Oh well, on to bigger and better things! Since I wasn't so successful with my new year's resolutions, I have a new one.

http://www.youshouldhaveseenthis.com

It is 99 things on the internet (mostly videos) that are hilarious/awesome and deserve to be seen. I will see them all and feel a sense of accomplishment that medical school is unwilling to give me. Right now I'm on #21.

Some that I HIGHLY recommend

2)charlie bit me. cute kids. cute BRITISH kids. OMG mate, I love this one.

6)charlie the unicorn. very strange, but also very funny if it's your kind of humor.

8)numa numa. old school, still amazing.

10)george lucas in love. this is a bit long, but the very end is hilarious. The rest is funny too but the end makes it.

16)dramatic chipmunk. It's only 5 seconds, unless you watch it over and over again which I do sometimes.

19)fail blog. Just discovered this and I had to limit myself to looking at only the first 4 pages because it was cracking me up. Mostly idiotic things that people do.

Maybe next time I blog it will include my favs from 21-40 (which i already know will include christian the lion and leprechauns in alabama)

ihop adventure

2009-02-24T20:58:00.000-08:00

Today was a terrible day. While everyone else was downtown getting drunk and catching beads (not that this is what I wanted to do, just saying...), I woke up at 7:30 and immediately got to studying physiology. At 1 o'clock I realized my productivity was waning, so I decided to break. I transferred to Anna's where she fed me pizza, then I miserably studied (with still about half the productivity I had in the morning) until about 7:45. Then it was IHOP time.

Today at IHOP, everyone could get a FREE 3 stack of buttermilk pancakes. IHOP sketches me out, but I will eat almost anything that is free. So, with Anna driving, we went and thoroughly enjoyed those pancakes. At the end of our meal, we discovered Anna's keys were missing. After searching the places we would have preferred them to be (in her pockets, at the table, i even looked through my purse) we found they were locked in her car, still in the ignition. And the car was running. Then, she forgot her phone number and the color of her car all within the span of 5 minutes. People, this is what med school is. Our brains are disintegrating bit by bit (some faster than others apparently).

This has never happened to me. Luckily, Honda makes it very difficult to do such a thing. I cannot lock my car without my keyless entry unless I pull on the door handle while I push down on the lock. But I have done some stupid things while driving.

1. tried to get out of the car while it was still in drive

2. tried to put the car in park while it was still moving

3. tried to turn on the car when it is already on (done that a lot, herbie gets angry)

4. recently I endangered 4 very nice people's lives by setting my mileage to zero while I was turning. When the wheel straightened out, my arm got stuck and twisted around, and I ended up in the other lane.

So, conclusion of the night, we waited for about 45 minutes for AAA to show up. In the meantime, Steven (who also happened to be partaking of the free pancakes with his fam) broke apart an umbrella and tried to use the metal piece to unlock the car. Unsuccessful. Lee asked almost every person leaving IHOP if they had a coat hanger in their car. Unsuccessful. We did talk to a girl who had locked her keys in her car earlier that day, and she said the AAA guy told her more people locked their keys in their car on Fat Tuesday then any other day of the year. I wonder why...

10pm on a friday night=bedtime!

2009-02-20T20:05:00.000-08:00

some of my new favorite things:

- Gelato. So much better than ice cream. Thanks to Allison's recent betrayal, we were able to go to Serda's downtown with her $100 gift certificate. They have gelato, and it is fabulous. Allison and I shared 3 scoops- tahitian vanilla, bananas foster, and dark chocolate raspberry truffle. Each is as amazing as it sounds.

- 30 Rock. The 2 funniest shows on TV come on back-to-back on Thursday night. Thanks to Netflix, I've seen almost every episode (only 3 left, then I'm switching to arrested development). You should check it out. Tina Fey is a genius.

- Netflix. It brought me to 30 rock.

- Statistics. Who woulda thought? Please don't judge me.

- Not going to class. It's amazing what I can get done in two hours when I'm not sitting in that classroom.

The perfect afternoon? I will skip class, go to Serda's, order some gelato, and watch 30 rock on Netflix. I need some help figuring out how to work the statistics into that plan.

things more important than studying

2009-02-16T06:19:00.000-08:00

So, this morning started out like any other day. My alarm went off at 7AM and I got out of bed about 3 minutes later. (Correction: this is nothing like a normal day, in which I usually snooze for about 40 minutes). As soon as I got up, I turned off my alarm, so I was a bit confused when I heard it going off again about 5 minutes later. I went it there and it was actually someone calling me, a number I didn’t recognize. This is what followed…

Me: Hello?

Random Dude: Is this Elizabeth? (said very energetically)

Me: (awkward silence)…. Yes?

Random Dude: GOOOOOD MORNING!!

Me: (much longer awkward silence) Thank you?

Random Dude went on to tell me that my friend Allison (LOTT not to be confused with any other Allison I know) had written an email saying I needed a wake up call because I was grouchy in the morning and always late to class. The only words I was able to get out were awesome, thank you, yes, etc. I won a CD and a $10 gift certificate to Serda’s. Allison however, wins a $100 GC to Serda’s. Does this seem unfair to anyone else? She spends about 2 minutes writing an email full of deceit and I get embarrassed on the radio? I’m wondering the impact this will have on my medical career. I’m sure hundreds of thousands of people across the gulf coast were listening to 92Zew this morning at 7:15, and after hearing that Elizabeth Donahue, who is in med school, is mean and has no concept of time, they’ll probably think I am going to be a terrible doctor. When in actuality, I am a very nice person and I am never late to class. That is because I do not go, but that’s irrelevant.

And apparently this is not the first time they’ve tried to call me. One morning a couple weeks ago I was still asleep and got a call from a funny number which I did not take. And I’m glad I didn’t because who knows what I would have said in my half-conscious state.

quick update on life

2009-02-11T13:32:00.000-08:00

1. I've been on a mission along with some amigos to see all the best picture nominees for this year. I'm still missing Milk and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. But the 3 I have seen...

-The Reader- I wasn't a huge fan, but everyone else that I went with loved it. Its just not my kind of movie.

-Slumdog Millionaire- absolutely amazing.

-Frost/Nixon- also not my kind of movie, but I enjoyed it. I did fall asleep a little bit, but

that was only because we went at 10:30 at night.

I am super excited about seeing He's Just Not that Into You and the Shopaholic movie. I am pretty sure the latter is going to be terrible, but those books are my favorite so I can't not see it.

2. I made a 94 on my physiology test. I studied hardcore for this thing so I'm glad it paid off. It was the first A I've made in about 5 months, and it's also been quite awhile since I've been above average. It is exhausting being in a class with a bunch of geniuses. The only problem is, I made a 94 on my first anatomy test... and then I ended up barely making a B in the class, so this trend will hopefully not continue.

3. Sunday was my birthday. I had lunch with the fam, and I went canoeing that night. The canoeing was lots of fun, even though I saw none of the advertised "creatures of the night". It was a good day, but also highly unexciting. Its a bit depressing that birthdays get less important every year.

4. I'm lacking the motivation to study right now. I have to be in a really good mood to study, and I'm not right now. Not entirely sure why... I probably should go for a run and work up some endorphins.

January 2009

2009-01-31T07:19:00.001-08:00

Now that it's the end of January, I decided to look back on my "new year's resolutions" and see how things were going.

1. 4.0 for spring semester. Well, in histology I have made 40, 60, and 60 on our 3 quizzes, and an 82 on the first test. This is not conducive to making an A. I would have to make A's on all the rest of the tests and bring my quiz average up to an A. But luckily, I don't really care. (is that bad?) A B sounds just fine to me. If halfway through school I decide I want to be an orthopedic surgeon or a dermatologist, I may regret this nonchalant outlook (that's one of my favorite smart sounding words to use by the way). What I do care about is Physiology, which I just had a test in on Friday. I will have to report back on its outcome, but I feel pretty good about it. OH! And the way I hoped to achieve this goal? By paying attention in class? Not happening. I think I have decided to just not go to histology anymore, and then I actually do make an effort to pay attention in phys. But gchat is just too hard to pass up when a teacher is droning on about mitochondria and endothelial cells. BOOOR-ING.

2. Healthy eating. There have been good days and bad days. Probably more bad then good. I'm gonna get back on that TODAY. Yeah... I'm going to Cracker Barrel for lunch and having duck a l'orange for dinner. maybe tomorrow then.

3. Exercising regularly, even worse. I'm not entirely sure I've exercised at all. Unless walking up the stairs at school counts, because it takes about 2 minutes for my heart rate to subside after that. Good cardio workout. BUT today I am going to print off the entry form for the triathlon I want to do and send it in. Then I am forced to exercise, lest I want to die halfway through the swim part of the race.

4. I just realized there wasn't a #4 in my previous list. YEY, I've been successful in sticking with #4.

5. More responsible with money? Well, I've bought a lot of food. Too much food. Just checked my statement for Panera transactions for the month of January... 7. Ridiculous. But I have branched out too- mexican, seafood, greek, british? (a pizza named for the Beatles from mellow mushroom) New plan, when I go get groceries today I am going to take out $100. That is what I will use for food for the month of February. Once I run out, I can no longer eat! It's shorter, I should be able to do that right?

6. Avoiding boys... well this one is just difficult. They are too plentiful. I am going to med school prom solo, when I could have had a date, so maybe I'm halfway successful here.

7. Find something exciting to do this summer, nothing new here. The thought of lying around doing nothing, taking occasional road trips and other mini vacation things sounds quite enjoyable though.

A bit of inspiration for your day

2009-01-19T10:25:00.000-08:00

Is it Christmas yet?

2009-01-14T04:54:00.001-08:00

So I have made it through close to 2 weeks of my 2nd semester of med school, and so far, I am only failing one class! Technically, I have 100s in everything except Histology, because I've made a 6/10 on our only quiz so far. [UPDATE: I just took another quiz and made a 4/10 bringing my average to a 50%] I despise this class. If someone has some inspirational thoughts as to why the cell and all its organelles are worth sitting in class for 2 hours and learning about, please let me know.

But these 2 weeks have not been all bad.

Creepy moment of the week:

A group of us went to a Mexican restaurant on Saturday night. Not that memorable, the food wasn't amazzing. But the moment that sticks out in my mind was when this old lady (when I say old, she was probably 50 but looked about 92 because she's probably been smoking 5 packs a day for the past 35 years) came over and asked Jenny is she was Kate's mom. When Jenny said yes, the lady replied "You better be glad I'm not a thief because that baby is precious!" Check, please? Luckily, we made it out all right, with everyone accounted for.

Depressing moment of the week:

About 11 o'clock Thursday night, Florida (and TIM TEBOW) become national champions (not depressing at all),but this marked the end of college football. Until September. There's still several weeks of pro football left, but that doesn't fill the hole in my heart that is present in the months from January-August when I'm awaiting the start of college football.

"This is so amazing I want to cry" moment of the week:

This Sunday I went to "From the Top" which is an NPR show that happened to be filming in Mobile. They bring on kids that play classical music, interview them, and they play a song. The first guy that walks out was a sight: 18 years old, dreads down to his waist, and he played the.... drums? electric guitar? maybe even the saxophone? No, he played the flute. Next was a 12 year old who played Clare de Lune on the piano which was easily one of the most beautiful things I have heard in my life. And she was so incredibly graceful doing it. I did tune out for about 30 seconds trying to figure out the movie that they play this song in. Ocean's 11. At the end when they are are standing by the fountain. Next was a guy that played the bassoon and then a 13 year old that played the violin.

Inspiring moment of the week:

Last night I went to a pediatric interest group, which is always great because they always have amazing food. A pediatric cardiologist came and talked to us, and she was just really cool to hear from because she LOVES her job. Gets me excited going to things like this, because a lot of the times I forget why I'm here, focusing on the troubles of the day whether than looking ahead to the end result. School sucks but I am here for a reason.

Reality check moment of the week:

I want to go to Europe this summer. But I also want to go to Honduras, Puerto Rico, and New York. I realize I cannot do all these things. Europe would be great, but I don't have plans, I don't have anyone to go with, and I would cost a lot. I could theoretically do all three of the other things, probably for the same cost as going to Europe. Honduras is a medical mission trips, hopefully can raise money for that. Puerto Rico only involves buying a plane ticket. New York, well Madeline wants to look at schools so thats a good excuse to take a major road trip and visit lots of places.

"I judge myself and my whole family" moment of the week:

I'm not sure this even deserves words. Promise this is the first time this has happened... at least I hope.

a new year

2009-01-01T09:33:00.000-08:00

Last night I was honored enough to be present for a first annual Mobile tradition. Much like the Times Square Ball drop of NYC or the Peach drop in Atlanta, Mobile wanted such an event to bring in the new year. So Mobilians began to think, what are we most proud of? What do we want to be remembered by? That's when City Councilman Fred Richardson came up with it- the moonpie.

"It cuts across

economic status. It cuts across race.

The Moon Pie brings people together. If I had picked some other object, it could have divided the community. But the Moon Pie, nobody has anything against the Moon Pie... They [the critics] see it, and many of them don't like it, but they can't stop it. It's coming whether they like it or not!"

Fred Richardson

So the planning was underway. Richardson contributed $9,000 from the city's discretionary fund for the construction of a 12-ft tall, 600-lb electric pie. Makes sense. Why not spend taxpayer's money on something completely pointless when our economy is in the hole and our kids don't get to go to music class because there's no funding for our public schools?

And not that that wouldn't have been PLENTY, but Chattanooga Bakery, the inventor of the Moon Pie in 1917, concocted the world's largest, 55-lb, 45,000 calorie pie for the event. Look at the beauty.

So how was my experience?

We got there around 11:30, and unfortunately the edible moonpie was gone. We did scrape some remains from the bottom, but determined it wasn't safe to eat.

See that itty bitty yellow dot in the background? That would be our grand electronic moonpie high in the sky. And its not that small because I was at the back of a huge crowd, or because my camera can't zoom. They had it so far away, it just looked that tiny. You couldn't even read what it said, and it did NOT look like a moonpie.

I'm so proud to call Mobile my home.

Wrapping up 2008

2008-12-29T13:29:00.001-08:00

As 2008 comes to an end, I look back on its high and low points. It wasn't so bad. I graduated college, got into med school, and finished a semester without losing my mind. So overall it was a good year. But I've got big plans for 2009.

A few of my goals include (not always realistic, but I'm setting the bar high)

1. 4.0 for spring semester (that's the really unrealistic one). Really I just want an A in physiology. This will require paying attention in class (hopefully I haven't forgotten how), which is sad since class has become a social time for me. But I think this might be necessary to succeed. When I look back at my first test block, I wonder what happened? I went from making all As... to not. Strangely enough, this is also when I discovered gchat. and began texting heavily.

2. Healthy eating. Starting out with the basics: three, not four meals a day. not eating my body weight in ben and jerry's on a regular basis. fast food... ew. no more. My philosophy usually is, once a day is shot as far as eating healthy goes, then I might as well make the best of it and eat as unhealthily as is possible. This is not a good theory.

3. Exercising regularly, which I would have to do to get to my real goal- a triathlon in pensacola at the end of april. 1m swim, 24m bike, and 6m run. The 6m running is the daunting task to me. I'm not really a fan of running, and the most I've ever run is 3m. Plus, the few times I've tried to run this past semester I've ended up with a killer cramp in the side before I hit the corner of my street. Also, it would be wonderful if someone wanted to do this with me. Any takers?

5. Being slightly more responsible with my money. Luckily, most of the money I spent/wasted last semester was on food, so if I'm following through with goal #2, this one will fall in line too.

6. avoid boys, 'nough said.

7. find something exciting to do this summer. They keep telling me this is my last summer, ever. I want to spend it in Europe, so maybe I should get on the planning.

All these lead to a happier me, which is what I need. These past few months have been a bit of a emotional roller coaster, and it took me awhile to pinpoint the cause of my distress. This break has been a nice opportunity to look back on the past semester, see the things that I didn't do that I need to and the things I did do that I shouldn't have. And now I've got a fresh start and it's gonna be killer. Watch out 2009.

my spinach smoothie

2008-12-23T09:40:00.000-08:00

While perusing my Fitness magazine the other night, I came across the article "Superfoods for a super body." Sounds good to me... the list included lemon, broccoli, dark chocolate, potatoes, salmon, walnuts, avocado, garlic, spinach, and beans. Yum! I can handle that, I eat most of these on a regular basis, minus the avocado and spinach. So I was especially intrigued by the idea they gave for spinach.

"Spinach is a healthy- and flavorless- add to any smoothie. You won't taste it, we promise!"

Spinach isn't my favorite, so I figured this was a good way to add it in. This morning I tried it. Some frozen spinach, a cup of milk, a banana, and a handful of strawberries. And guess what? you could take it- ALOT. And it was disgusting. There is the possibility that I added too much spinach, but I didn't want to waste anymore of my fruit and if I tried much more of it I might have gotten sick. Terribly disappointing. Moral of the story, do not believe everything you read. Or better yet, if something sounds like it will be terrible, it probably is (minus my black beans brownies of course).

2008-12-20T07:23:00.000-08:00

Hi I'm Elizabeth and I am a Facebookaholic. I have been clean for 4 days now. Don't ask me why I did this, because I don't know myself, but I will tell you it felt good. and I do not miss it. It is somewhat a problem that it is the only form of communication I have with many people, now forcing me to get the 411 on my acquaintances second-hand, and it does make me a major hypocrite for years of judging those that aren't on facebook. I have also experienced severe peer-pressure to return, but I've held my ground. I will be back someday, but for now I'm enjoying my break from society.

I'm now depending on gchat and blogs to keep me entertained, and both are failing me right now. I need more people to start the blogging. Or if anyone has other websites that they use to waste time, let me know. Also, it is now Dec 20th and I haven't gotten one Christmas present. I went into Barnes and Noble yesterday and they had some super cool books so I think I will return there.

all the cool kids are doing it

2008-12-19T08:54:00.000-08:00

Seeing as how I deactivated my facebook account (temporarily) and the glorious fact that I have absolutely nothing to do these days, I decided I'd start a blog to pass some of the time. I used to have a livejournal back in the day, it was titled "my crazy life" (that must have been sarcasm) and my last post was 123 weeks ago. It mostly consists of lame surveys with the occasional update on my life.

Some of the highlights I'm reading...

1. the time I argued with an 11 year old girl that I didn't know over who was going to get daniel radcliffe (the guy who plays harry potter).

2. I was told I couldn't teach vacation bible school because I had to be at least 2 years older than the kids. The oldest kids were 5th grade. I was 19, she thought I was 12.

3. My consideration of physical therapy as my career (ew)

4. The time I went to Shogun for a friend's birthday and not only was the cook a creeper, but he spilled soy sauce all in my lap when he knocked it over doing one of his tricks.

5. I used to be so cheap. One time I got charged $2 for a ringtone that I didn't get. I went into the store to get it taken care of, and I came out and I had gotten a parking ticket. I had put money in the wrong meter... oh the irony.

If I had more time I'd continue reading these to see more of what a loser I was/am, but I'm getting ready to go across the bay to go see a friend that works at olive garden, maybe do a little shopping, and hopefully go to the pier in fairhope. It is Dec 19th, and it is a frigid 72 degrees outside. How I love the weather in Mobile. It was so pretty yesterday, my sister and I went to the park and that might have been the most enjoyable 2 hours of my break so far. I swung on the swings for at least 20 minutes straight, threw the football some, and chased geese. There were over 100 canadian geese, and we ran right into their little group to see what they would do . Most ran away from us, there was one fiesty white goose that we decided was their fearless leader who tried to snap at us. I would have done more immature things, but Madeline has slightly more dignity then I do. But as I was swinging, I had the epiphany that this is the way life should be. I want to be a kid again... If you people don't see me back on january 5th, check the park.