Just A Small Countdown...Or Up?

2 more days of classes (a total of 3 classes left in my pharmacy education at MCV)

4 finals remain (with 5 projects left to complete)

6 days until Jessica comes home (Yes..I really am counting these days)

8 days until my 'summer break' starts (yes it's only a week long, but hey that is something)

10 days until my 5k Mud Run (break out the old running shoes)

12 days...(well there isnt really anything significant for days 12 or 14)

16 days until I start my 1st rotation (and the beginning of my final year as a pharmacy student!!!)

CAN you tell I am excited?!

How your Friday might start if you were a pharmacy student....

Alarm clock blares at 5:45 am and you roll over screaming at yourself internally for not going to bed at an earlier hour. You stumble out of bed and somehow manage to make it to the bathroom. The next thing you know you are wide awake because you are blasted with freezing cold water, you never turned on the hot water. Once dressed (which in itself was an epic battle), you make your way to the kitchen to throw some awful concoction into the blender for breakfast because you would never have time for a real breakfast. With your plastic cup of nastiness, you grab your bags and run out the door so that you can make it to class in time.

The drive to school is a blur, it only took you 15 minutes and you wonder to yourself out loud if you actually ran a few stoplights as you walk to class. In class you make the professional niceties to your Teacher and the TA's, then you sit in your seat trying to make nice with all the other people at your table while also trying to re-cram all the information you studied the night before back into your brain so that you can answer a few questions right.

Your table competes in some loud activity, you aren't quite sure what just happened. Then you and your partner try to finish an exercise that has no bearing on your future. Time stops when the professor announces that it is your turn to practice injecting yourself with insulin (of course the bottle is saline), but you know your irrational fear of needles and the thought of sticking yourself is to much to bear in your sleep deprived state. (What is even more unbearable is the thought of lifting up your shirt for the TA, so that they can watch you) You stumble back to the little room and fumble through the counseling and preparation points for a patient; then you unwrap the needle and take a deep breath as you prepare to stick yourself. "If I just jab it really quick it will be over," you think to yourself and then attempt to accomplish this task.....

Pain surges through you, but the pain is confusing because its not your abdomen that hurts; instead it is your thumb. Your face turns a thousand shades of red and you think to yourself this can't get any worse. And then you stop, because you realize you still have to show that you can stick yourself in the abdomen. You unwrap a new syringe and complete the task with your head hung low. The TA tries to assure you that you did a great job, but you yourself know that you are the retard who stuck their thumb...

***This story may not be interpreted as fact. If any of you readers try to pass it off as facts, I will deny it till the day I die (maybe...)

In stories, as in life, adversity teaches us things we cannot learn otherwise. Adversity helps to develop a depth of character that comes in no other way. Our loving Heavenly Father has set us in a world filled with challenges and trials so that we, through opposition, can learn wisdom, become stronger, and experience joy.

President Uchtdorf

In Every Cloud, There's A Silver Lining

I'm ready to start rotations. I'm ready to get away. I think Jesse was right, I'm either going to knock my rotations out of the park or I'm going to fall flat on my face. But with the motivation I feel within me to do well so I can move on, I'm bankin on the first. All I know is that I need to change this up; my mind and spirit are starting to itch-its time for a change. It is time to start somewhere new.

But down the road the sun is shining
In every cloud there's a silver lining
Just keep holding on (just keep holding on)
And every heartache makes you stronger
But it won't be much longer
You'll find love, you'll find peace
And the you you're meant to be
I know right now that's not the way you feel
But one day you will

You wake up every morning and ask yourself
What am I doing here anyway
With the weight of all those disappointments
Whispering in your ear
You're just barely hanging by a thread
You wanna scream but you're down to your last breath
And you don't know it yet

"...and I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.

In a few breaths' I will speak some sad words to you. But you must hear them the same way we have agreed to see scars now. Sad words are just another beauty. A sad story means, this story teller is alive. The next thing you know, something fine will happen to her, something marvelous, and then she will turn around and smile."

Introducing Benjamin Michael

This is my new cousin...I'm so in love.

Well I Never Seem to do it like Anybody Else

Have you ever had one of those moments in life where you are driving down the road and you think to yourself, "How is it that this song fits me so perfectly?" I'm a big fan of music. I always have been; especially since I do not see myself to be very eloquent with words. I've always believed that music could tell my story for me and today, "The Long Way Around" fit perfectly.

I wanted to bear my testimony yesterday, because I received a beautiful witness of Heavenly Father's love for me personally on Saturday. I never got out of my seat, but my heart was screaming my testimony right out of my chest. I've been struggling for quite some time now and the struggles only keep getting harder. The Brow informed me that this struggle, this mountain is probably one that will take a while to climb (a year or longer if you want the exact words). And I know that this is one of the most honest statements that she has ever given me.

I've let the adversary into my thoughts and I've let him weigh me down with fear and with insecurities and with so much more. And on Saturday, I considered not going to the temple because I wasn't sure that I could enter those sacred walls with my heart so heavy. However, the Brow convinced me otherwise and I am so glad she did, because it was one of the most significant moments in my life.

I've learned about the Lord's love for me individually over my life, I've never struggled with the fact that He has always been there supporting me. My struggle has always been with myself. With the fact that I am imperfect, that I am stubborn, that I insist upon "taking the long way around." I struggle with the fact that I think I am smarter or stronger then I really am, I struggle with me. But sitting there inside those hallowed walls, for a small moment, I felt the love in part that my Heavenly Father has for me. That warmth and comfort of his love was a testament to me. It was a heavenly reminder that Heavenly Father already knew that I would "take my time and take the long way around."

I'll never be perfect. And the Brow is right, this latest struggle is going to take longer then I want it to because I'm going to have to look hard at myself and cut out more then I might like-but in the end, it's the only way to bring peace and joy into my life.

"I've been long time gone now, but I've always found my way somehow, by taking the long way around. I'm getting it back on the road, but I'm taking the long way, taking the long way around. I guess I could have made it easier on myself, but I could not follow. I never seem to do it like anyone else...I can still be found taking the long way around."