Greater

Citius, Altius, Fortius

It's finally here...watching swimming at the Olympics is high on the list of my favorite things on the planet.

Stay discovered

One of the professors in my program forwarded this blog post to us after having had a discussion about intellectual property and publications. It's a pretty cool take on a pretty undiscussed topic...in essence that the people who discover things weren't really the first people to think of it...but they were the first to 'keep it discovered'. And they are often the first ones to take a bunch of thoughts other people may have had but make connections that other people may have not. Good stuff for recognizing your worth but not going overboard with it :)

I also love that a professor in Occupational Therapy talking with students in Health Services suggested a blog on Entrepreneurship...this is the beauty of an interdisciplinary degree people!

So as not to take credit where credit is not due, full blog is here:
andrewhargadon.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/05/ideas-are-cheap.html

Spring in the South

I always forget how spectacular March and April in Charleston is...and sitting at the battery even when you are reading chapters on designing clinical research trials is hard to beat...

Life Like That

I heard this song on the radio yesterday...it's pretty much amazing.  Life Like That - Sidewalk Prophets

Leap Year

Happy Leap Day!  My day started with the usual cup of lovely coffee on the way downtown for class.  After my brain was as full as it could be I headed back home for the ladies to come over to celebrate the fact you only get this day once every four years.  We obviously needed chips, salsa, and chocolate because that is our standard operating procedure.  I promptly locked my keys and cell phone in the car.  Thankfully I have a spare at the house and the grocery store is only 5 minutes from the house so Brandy came to the rescue.  And now we are enjoying the movie Leap Year and dreaming about a Christmas trip to Ireland/London/Scotland...no really...we are feeling it.

Zzzzzzzzz

My posting history is tragic and the year is barely started...apparently PhD students don't have blogs.  Either that or they don't have jobs.  I barely have the energy to type but I feel obligated to at least let everyone know that I am in fact still alive.  I finally went to my blog list and started reading the blogs I used to follow all the time and realized that it's been since...wait for it...November since I read any of them.  Which then made me realize it's been quite some time since I posted my own.  So, here are a few of the highlights and lowlights from the past month...



- my grandfather died

- all my cousins and aunts and uncles had a beautiful celebration of his life

- I'm loving the job

- in a very scary way I'm loving statistics...I know, clearly I need mental health assistance

- it just took me an hour to organize my list of things to do...that is NEVER a good sign

- I've eaten my weight in s'mores and ice cream as rewards for just getting through some days

- I've drank my weight times 8 in coffee as rewards for just getting out of bed



A few facts I've learned in the past month...

- the word occupation in occupational therapy means the things that 'occupy' your time...it makes so much more sense now.  By the way OTs are kinda amazing I figured out in the process of learning about them.

- reviewing 9233 articles to find the ones that relate to my literature review can actually be just one of the to-do items on a list of 20 things to do this week...tragic

- it seems as though literature reviews may be a pretty standard 'oh, I need to do a literature review real quick' thing in my life for the next 4 years...and beyond

- you can in fact listen to the same Jesus Culture DVD over and over again every night while you study and it never get old

- Words with Friends and Scramble are spectacular ways to take a mental break from studying...again, the fact my 'break' is a word game likely lines me up for the mental health assistance

- Emoticons are very addictive...if you do not know what this is get yourself an iPhone and download them, I'm in love (I would insert an emoticon with hearts in it's eyes here if this was a text)



So...happy random Thursday.  I'm giving up on accomplishing anything else tonight and instead I'm going to head to bed.

Panama 2011...at long last

It's January.  We went to Panama in June.  It's absurd, I know.  But, I will not be deterred.  There are a lot of people that sent me money or supplies or prayers for our team or notes that they were thinking of me!  And because of them I WILL post pictures from Panama 2011!  In the interest of sanity, you will unfortunately not get the in depth story of the past two years.  The amount of reading is already stacking up on my desk and the semester is only 3 days in.  But, before I begin, I am doing this!  

In some ways the Kuna Islands in 2011 were the same as they always are.  The people are beautiful.  The trip is hard.  The islands are hot.  You feel motivated and exhausted at the same time.  But the trip this year was also very different.  The islands were more commercialized because they were closer to the mainland - in fact one of the Silas actually spoke English.  And the islands were smaller, we were usually done clinic half way through the second day on each island.  Because we were closer to the mainland we drove to the boats instead of flew...that will likely not be happening again now that we've lived through the experience to see another day :)  No soldiers this year, and the team was bigger so there was a different group dynamic.  In some ways that was sad because we had such an amazing group dynamic last year, but in other ways it was good.  You learn different things when you are in different groups, and part of what I love about going on these trips is how much I learn.  We had a service team this year, which was really cool because they did different tasks around the island as people needed help.  We had more translators which was wonderful.  And at the end of the trip we stayed for an extra day in Panama City which was a nice way to decompress and see part of the country that we never get to see other than out the window of the plane.  

Every year, it is a privilege to be part of the missions team.  I am blessed beyond measure to have been able to go, and to those of you who gave me support in so many way, thank you.  

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
www.onetruemedia.com

The 2012 Wishbone

Apparently it's 2012. Classes started yesterday, which means all those good intentions for all those exciting blog posts and all those long talks into the night to catch up with friends and all those to do list items that didn't make the priority list when the semester were in but I was sure would get done during break are back on the back burner. Last semester I was taking 12 credits and could barely keep up with the reading. This semester I am taking 15 credits and working 30 hours a week...riiiight.

So, expect blog posts to not increase readily, however, I am planning to try to post short funny stories to remind everyone who cares to know that I am still alive that indeed I am still alive :) The first of these stories you get today...

When Brandy and I were cleaning up the beach house getting ready to head back home we found the wishbone from the turkey we had cooked that week. We figured we may as well break it and each took a side to pull. 30 seconds later the top of the wishbone that tells you who gets their wish came flying off the top and flew across the room and Brandy and I stood there laughing at the broken pieces in our hands. And that is how 2012 began ladies and gents...expect a rather random and unexpected ride :)

Simply remember

...I simply remember my favorite things and then I don't feel so bad...


When I am in the need for a few I can simply remember some of my favorite things of Christmas Eve 2011...coffee with devotions, icing chocolate roll cookies and eating half of them, sneaking through the aisles of Walmart, little faces staring at the candles at service, singing carols while finding lights for the first time in charleston...in essence having a beautiful day to just enjoy Christmas.







Merry Christmas!