Grad School Here I Come

It's official - I'm going to PA school! I received my first acceptance letter from DeSales University and I am so excited! It's such a relief to know that I am officially starting grad school next summer. I have been invited to another interview in Mesa (at A.T. Still University/Arizona School of Health Sciences) in a couple weeks and I am still waiting to hear back from several other universities. I'm hoping I only get accepted to 1 or 2 programs so I don't have to deal with the drama of deciding where to go (I think we all know how I tend to struggle with indecision.)

I flew out to Philadelphia for my interview at DeSales two weeks ago and I absolutely loved it there. The school is about an hour north of Philadelphia (near Allentown.) The region is blanketed with trees in all of their autumnal splendor and the winding country roads are dotted with charming old houses and quaint little towns. I was very impressed with the university, but there are definitely some advantages and disadvantages:

PROS:

• Amazing scores on the National Certification Exams (100% First-Time Pass Rate over the last 6 yrs. (99% overall); scored first in the nation 13 of the last 15 years.)
• They offered to arrange international rotations for me!
• There are a lot of Hispanics in the area so I would get to use my spanish.
• They have a unique integrated curriculum and are one of the few schools to provide rotations and patient experience throughout the first year.
• All of the clinical sites are within 20 minutes so I wouldn't have to relocate.
• Affordable housing & tuition (comparatively speaking.)
• The dance department is in the same building as the PA program and I might be able to take a class or two.
• NO THESIS!!!

CONS:

• No Cadaver Lab (I realize that I can learn Anatomy from a book... But seriously, dissecting cadavers is pretty much my favorite thing to do. This could very well be a deal-breaker for me.)
• No Singles Branch (There is a small singles branch in another stake about an hour away. Everyone I met seemed really cool (and a lot of them were in grad school), but I think it would be hard to meet people and get involved living so far away.)

A Portrait of Neurosis: Part 1

My first few years of college I actually attempted to cook for one.

Then I went on a mission and when I came home all I remembered how to make were microwave brownies and no bakes. Somehow I couldn't remember what normal people eat. As a result, I was forced to establish new eating patterns.

Unfortunately, this is what evolved.

I go to the store every couple weeks and buy things in bulk. Then I go home and spend hours washing everything and putting it in little Ziploc bags. I never eat meals, I just snack throughout the day. The menu this month consists of the following:

• Blueberries
• Edamame
• Cherry Tomatoes
• Grapefruit
• Snow Peas
• Cucumbers
• Carrots
• Plain Almonds
• Baked Tostitos w/ Fresh Salsa
• All Natural Fruit Leather
• Sugar-free Chocolate Pudding
• 1 small can v8
• 2 bottles of flavored water

I know what you are thinking, and yes, I did measure my blueberries with a measuring cup and count my baked Tostitos (14). When it came to the grape tomatoes, however, I just threw them into the bag haphazardly.

Now I realize that this does not constitute a balanced diet. But hey, who needs grains and dairy products? Don't Jello Pudding and Tostitos count? The Jello is sugar-free and the Tostitos are baked - that should count for something.

Additionally, I will sometimes prepare a simple main course in the evenings (depending on how busy I am with school/work.) This usually consists of something such as fish, baked chicken, or a particular kind of salad that I will eat obsessively for several months before developing a sudden revulsion to it, at which point I subsequently refuse to eat it for years. The food items I am currently (and indefinitely) intolerant to include the following:

• Oriental Mandarin Chicken Salad
• Cod or Salmon
• Baked Chicken
• Chicken and Rice (or Noodle) Soup (a former breakfast item)
• Snow Peas (pending)
• Carrots (pending)
• etc. (I could go on, but I'll stop here.)

I'm not exactly sure if my eating patterns are a symptom of my own neurotic tendencies or the result of being single for entirely too long.

I am going to blame it on being single.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: I would like to thank Ziploc for supporting my habits and aiding me in my quest to destroy the environment one baggie at a time.

Heaven

This morning my 3 yr. old nephew announced that he had a dream about daddy last night. He reports that daddy is in heaven, that he's happy, and that he's doing "heaven work."

A Good Old-Fashioned Family Tree

My sister gave my mother a framed picture of our family tree for Mother's Day. She was really excited.

"Oh look," she exclaimed, "now I can see how your father and I are related!"

What?!!!

All I can say is disturbing. Extremely disturbing.

No wonder it has taken me such a long time to post on my blog. The blogging receptor in my brain is probably damaged due to inbreeding and unable to respond to the hormone blog-inephrine.

This explains a lot.

There are some things you could go your whole life without knowing.

I wish this had been one of those things.

Woe

When I came home from Chile I thought my gastrointestinal woes were over. Not so. I have had 3 episodes of the stomach flu in less than 3 months! At least there are some pros to being sick on American soil:

1. I don't have to fill the tank every time I flush.
2. I have yet to throw up in a leaky ziplock on a bus.

What more can a girl ask for?

How To Be Productive

I find that I am at my most productive when the pressure is on. What - six quizes, a test, 2 papers, (all due by Tuesday), my senior project, grad applications and a full time job? Sweet! I think I'll wash my car, go grocery shopping, clean the bathroom, do my laundry, file my nails (vowing yet again to stop biting them once and for all), clean out my purse, reorganize the kitchen pantry, and run some errands. Then, I go home, sit down and write a to-do list. I write down everything I just did and then I take great satisfaction in checking it off. I don't just check the box - I scribble it out too. It feels better that way. Next, I write down everything I need to do. Then I put the list away so I don't have to look at it anymore because it stresses me out.

When I finally reach the point where I can't think of anything else I could possibly do, I buckle down and get to work. There will be no distractions from this point on. My laptop purrs to life and my fingers begin to dance nimbly across the keys. I navigate swiftly from one point to the next. Clearly, I am a woman of remarkable skill. Years of schooling have left their mark. First, I elminate the distractions so as not to get side tracked. Hotmail, MSNBC, CNN, itunes, my friends' blogs, their friends' blogs, their friends' friends' blogs, and finally on to the online quizes. . . . No, not my nutrition and chemistry quizes - the other kind of online quizes. You know, the kind where there are no wrong answers and you find out all sorts of interesting things about your personality that you never would have known if the fifteen-year old who wrote the quiz hadn't posted it on the internet? That kind of quiz.

Okay, so I didn't study for my chemistry test, write my papers, take my quizes, or work on my project. But hey, at least now if someone asks me what kind of ice cream best describes my personality I can confidently reply "strawberries and cream" without even pausing to think about it. I am kind of disturbed, however, to find out that my my mental age is 60-68 and that if I were a murderer I would be a hitman. Hmmm . . . maybe I better just stick to chemistry.

Jason 1983~2007

On Tuesday, February 20th, my little brother Jason headed out early to take his little boy Brayden to preschool. On the way to the car he fell, hitting his head. A neighbor alerted Jamie and she called 911 before rushing to his side. Being the stubborn guy that he is, he insisted that she call them back and tell them he was fine. Before she could, however, his speech began to slur and he started having a seizure. He was able to regain consciousness and speak to Jamie before the ambulance arrived, but when they pulled away he was having trouble breathing. Mid way to the hospital his heart stopped beating. They worked on him for forty minutes but they were unable to revive him.

I was in the ER helping take care of my nephews when I heard the news. At first I just felt disbelief. It wasn’t long, however, before the tears came. Despite the difficulty of it all, I have felt an underlying peace. Just two days before the accident we held a family fast for Jason. Almost two years have passed since he was involved in a dirt biking accident that nearly took his life and since that time he has been living in severe pain. Although he never complained, at times it seemed as though it was just too much for him to bear. We had been praying and fasting for a miracle and while this wasn’t what we were hoping for, I know it was what he needed and I am grateful he no longer suffers. I love the way Brigham Young describes it:

"We shall turn around and look upon it (the valley of death) and think, when we have crossed it, why this is the greatest advantage of my whole existence, for I have passed from a state of sorrow, grief, mourning, woe, misery, pain, anguish and dissapointment into a state of existence where I can enjoy life to the fullest extent as far as that can be done without a body. My spirit is set free, I thirst no more, I want to sleep no more, I hunger no more, I tire no more, I run, I walk, I labor, I go, I come, I do this, I do that, whatever is required of me, nothing like pain or weariness, I am full of life, full of vigor, and I enjoy the presence of my Heavenly Father."

Although it still seems impossible to comprehend life without him, I rejoice in my knowledge of the plan of salvation and I look forward to the day when I will see him again.

Life Lessons #1

You are reading the blog of the proud owner of used sawmill equipment from the distinguished LPS Equipment & Acquisition Co. (check it out at http://www.lps-inc.com/).

For the low price of just $3,289.00, some lucky fella out there is hacking and sawing away at what we can only hope is wood. Meanwhile, I have a monster credit card bill. Three thousand two hundred and eighty nine dollars!!!! That's approximately 70% of my entire last year's income! And what is he doing with sawmill equipment anyways? At least he's sensible. No big screen tv for this guy. No siree, he's gonna work to earn his big screen - even if it means he has to chop down an entire forest to get it. (Either that or there's some huge illegal underground sawmill industry out there somewhere. Who knows, I'm not really all that into wood.)

In the end, I have learned several life lessons:

#1 - Don't sign up for a credit card from Amazon just so you can get $30 off on your stupid $150 microbiology book that you never even read (granted it did have some really cool, albeit graphic, pictures of weird diseases.)

#2 - In the event you do succumb to the $30 bait, don't just throw your credit card statement away every month without reading it. (Even if you never use the account and didn't even activate the card.)

#3 - In the event you do throw away your unopened statements every month, hope that you get lucky and the same guy that uses your card uses somebody else's card who does open their statements every month. Then, hope that they call the credit card company and that the credit card company traces other purchases to your card and then calls you to inquire as to whether you did in fact purchase used sawmill equipment. Otherwise you're in big trouble because you already threw away last month's statement with the notification of said purchase and you wouldn't have even noticed until it went to collections. (Not that they could have found you because you didn't give them your new address when you moved because you were sick of throwing away those pesky statements every month.)

Talon

Meet my new adorable little nephew Talon. My mom thinks he looks just like me when I was a baby. Dang, I must have been cute! Lucky for Talon, his older brother Spiderman (formerly known as Brayden), keeps a close watch over him to protect him from any would-be-predators.

.

Lost in Cyberworld

The following is an excerpt from a message I left on my former landlord's answering machine. Imagine with me, if you will, as I clearly and distinctly recite my forwarding address:

". . . I now live at 3-7-5 Elm Road @ Provo Utah dot com . . . (insert long awkward silence, followed by an uncomfortable chuckle) . . . I mean 84597."

Ahhh . . . the age of technology. Gotta love it!

P.S. For those of you out there who wish to either stalk me or send me any more bridal/baby shower invitations, you may reach me at the above address. To everyone else, this is not my real address.

Jen, Ph.D.

It's official - I finally graduated! For those of you who have been keeping a running tally of my credit hours the final count is in (drum roll please) . . . 212! That's right folks, 212. "But can't you get a bachelor's degree with 120 credits and a master's degree with 160?" Why yes, yes you can. Which is why I have decided to declare an honorary doctorate of undergraduate studies. BYU hasn't officially recognized it, but I'm pretty sure it's just because they don't want to set a precedent. Luckily I'm not one to be beset by the need for recognition for this miraculous feat (accomplished in a mere 4 1/2 years of intense study) so I won't bemoan the fact that after all the blood, sweat, and tears I am hereby qualified to return to the same job I had in high school. Do not fret, I have not yet abandoned my educational endeavors. In addition to working full time, I am currently enrolled in 11 online credit hours so that I can apply to go to more school and hopefully one day break the 300 credit line barrier. Upon reaching said milestone, I will retire to the woods where I will write a book entitled "How to Get Real Smart and Still Get Paid Minimum Wage."