mehh

do you ever find yourself looking for answers, but then realize that you don't really know what the questions are?

yeah, me too.

weird feeling.

happy monday!

HALLELUJAH.

for several reasons.

a) it's christmastime. the savior, the bread of life, was born and placed into a feeding trough. symbolic, no?

b) i got offered a job that i interviewed for a few weeks ago. while it will most likely kill any semblance of a social life that i try to have, it will be an amazing learning experience.

c) i took my pathophysiology final this morning, effectively finishing my second semester of nursing school. two semesters down, only two left until i'm a bonafide nurse.

d) today i got to meet and talk with patients on the oncology unit at primary children's medical center. i colored in a princess coloring book with an angelic hairless child. 

how fitting it is to say, in all caps to emphasize my point, HALLELUJAH. 

that nefi, he's great.

what i've been searching, pondering, and praying about lately... 

(kind of long. sorry, not sorry.)

2 nefi 4:17- 35

 Sin embargo, a pesar de la gran bondad del Señor al mostrarme sus grandes y maravillosas obras, mi corazón exclama: ¡Oh, miserable hombre que soy! Sí, mi corazón se entristece a causa de mi carne. Mi alma se aflige a causa de mis iniquidades.

 Me veo circundado a causa de las tentaciones y pecados que tan fácilmente me asedian.

Y cuando deseo regocijarme, mi corazón gime a causa de mis pecados; no obstante, sé en quién he confiado.

Mi Dios ha sido mi apoyo; él me ha guiado por entre mis aflicciones en el desierto; y me ha preservado sobre las aguas del gran mar.

 Me ha llenado con su amor hasta consumir mi carne.

 Ha confundido a mis enemigos hasta hacerlos temblar delante de mí.

 He aquí, él ha oído mi clamor durante el día, y me ha dado conocimiento en visiones durante la noche.

 Y de día se ha fortalecido mi confianza en ferviente oración ante él; sí, he elevado mi voz a las alturas; y descendieron ángeles y me ministraron.

 Y mi cuerpo ha sido conducido en las alas de su Espíritu hasta montañas muy altas; y mis ojos han visto grandes cosas, sí, demasiado grandes para el hombre; por lo tanto, se me mandó que no las escribiera.

Entonces, si he visto tan grandes cosas, si el Señor en su condescendencia para con los hijos de los hombres los ha visitado con tanta misericordia, ¿por qué ha de llorar mi corazón, y permanecer mi alma en el valle del dolor, y mi carne deshacerse, y mi fuerza desfallecer por causa de mis aflicciones?

Y ¿por qué he de ceder al pecado a causa de mi carne? Sí, ¿y por qué sucumbiré a las tentaciones, de modo que el maligno tenga lugar en mi corazón para destruir mi paz y contristar mi alma? ¿Por qué me enojo a causa de mi enemigo?

 ¡Despierta, alma mía! No desfallezcas más en el pecado. ¡Regocíjate, oh corazón mío, y no des más lugar al enemigo de mi alma!

 No vuelvas a enojarte a causa de mis enemigos. No debilites mi fuerza por motivo de mis aflicciones.

 ¡Regocíjate, oh mi corazón, y clama al Señor y dile: Oh Señor, te alabaré para siempre! Sí, mi alma se regocijará en ti, mi Dios, y la roca de mi salvación.

  ¿Redimirás mi alma, oh Señor? ¿Me librarás de las manos de mis enemigos? ¿Harás que yo tiemble al aparecer el pecado?

 ¡Estén cerradas continuamente delante de mí las puertas del infierno, pues quebrantado está mi corazón y contrito mi espíritu! ¡No cierres, oh Señor, las puertas de tu justicia delante de mí, para que yo ande por la senda del apacible valle, para que me ciña al camino llano!

 ¡Oh Señor, envuélveme con el manto de tu justicia! ¡Prepara, oh Señor, un camino para que escape delante de mis enemigos! ¡Endereza mi sendero delante de mí! No pongas tropiezo en mi camino, antes bien despeja mis vías ante mí; y no obstruyas mi sendero, sino más bien las vías de mi enemigo.

¡Oh Señor, en ti he puesto mi confianza, y en ti confiaré para siempre! No pondré mi confianza en el brazo de la carne; porque sé que maldito es aquel que confía en el brazo de la carne. Sí, maldito es aquel que pone su confianza en el hombre, o hace de la carne su brazo.

Sí, sé que Dios dará liberalmente a quien pida. Sí, mi Dios me dará, si no pido impropiamente. Por lo tanto, elevaré hacia ti mi voz; sí, clamaré a ti, mi Dios, roca de mi rectitud. He aquí, mi voz ascenderá para siempre hacia ti, mi roca y mi Dios eterno. Amén.

english?? here ya go... http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/2-ne/4

what?? how is it that nephi, the great, faithful, awesome prophet, thinks exactly the same things that i think??! this is amazing. feeling weak and almost incompetent sometimes is totally normal, but how we deal with that is where we find spiritual power. the lord sees weaknesses different than he sees rebellion. we will always be weak in one thing or another, but that doesn't mean that we are bad or that god loves us any less.


mi alma se regocijará en ti, mi Dios, y la roca de mi salvación

flesh-eating drugs

'tis the season for peppermint soymilk steamers from starbucks. it's like drinking a liquid molten candy cane. it's like pure christmas spirit in a beverage.

the radio station 100.3 is only playing christmas music. kudos to them for not giving into the whole you-can't-play-christmas-music-until-after-thanksgiving idea. 

do not google image the term 'krokodil drugs'. gross. we learned about it in my policy class last week (a giant tangent). it's a drug for people who have passed the point of meth being a strong enough drug for them. it comes from russia and it's brutal. you inject it and the side effects are.... flesh necrosis. usually at the point of injection. first your skin turns hard. hence the name, krokodil. but then, flesh necrosis. yeah, your skin literally falls off. often to the bone. there's like a 90% mortality rate.

i know this is all so random, but that's my life, baby. 

xo

i just don't understand how artists like miley cyrus can be famous and make it big for "singing" and for being "talented" when there are actual talented singers out there who make actual music. 

i think one of the most talented unknown singers out there right now is brandi carlile. seriously, why doesn't everyone know who she is?

because i can't choose just one and because i'm overly obsessed, here's another one....

i've yet to be able to go to one of her concerts. but the day that i do will practically be the best day of my life.

people watching

i learned recently that an acceptable plural form of the word cello is celli. yeah, who knew?

i went to the symphony a little bit ago. i love that at the U, feeling cultured is free with every student id. 

now, i'm particularly adept at people watching. i quickly found the three most interesting people in the symphony. it's amazing how much you can learn about somebody just by watching them play their instrument.

so person #1. unorthodox bassist. you know how you're supposed to hold the bow a certain way? well, this guy held it the OPPOSITE WAY. i mean, he still used his right hand, but instead of the back of his hand facing front, the back of his hand faced backwards. what? i have never seen that.

person #2: the oldest living violinist. seriously, this man was probably 95 years old. his hair was pure white and he was in that shrunken state so that even when he was sitting up tall, he was probably one head shorter than everyone else. oh man, he was just so cute. 

person #3. i saved the best for last. he was the principal 2nd violinist. man, his face was priceless! if i was the conductor, i would have been watching this guy's face the whole entire time. it would be so distracting! he was so emotionally in tune with the music. on his long notes, he literally would close his eyes, look up, and sway. it looked like he was meditating. kind of. when the song picked up he would eye those notes down and he would get them. there was no escape for those notes. there is no way to explain the method to this form of genius, but it was awesome. totally made the whole concert for me. 

alright, so what lessons did i gather from symphonic people watching?

find something that you love and do it! find something that you want to do until you're 95 and old and shriveled! don't apologize for doing something differently. if you love it, that's all that's important. go out there and do it. don't do things half-heartedly. 

when you pray, pray.

when you study, study.

when you're in something, be in it.

if you're someone's friend, be their friend.

when you play the violin, play that violin.

play that bass with your hand backwards. 

find what you're passionate about and do it. 

i think everyone will be much happier when that happens. 

mientras tanto, soy feliz

pre job interview job interviews? weird. whatever.

the perfect snowglobe of a winter wonderland that i woke up to at 5am? magical.

the cutest old man wearing uggs with his pants tucked in at the hospital? adorable.

speaking spanish and conversar-ing with spanish-only patients and family? takes me back to the good old days. and reminds me that i need to learn medical spanish. 

the best institute class ever with the best teacher who literally changes your life just a little bit every single lesson? mind-blowing.

the upcoming pathophysiology test i have? oh shoot.

my life? magical, wonderful, awesome. i love it. 

there are very few things that bring my family as much joy as neil diamond's christmas album. i don't even know how it happened, but somehow this became the first album we would listen to on the day after thanksgiving while we were putting up the christmas tree. always. 

 my little missionary brother specifically mentioned in an email that he was celebrating the fourth of july by listening to neil diamond's christmas album (he's a good boy and wouldn't have a regular album). he said he couldn't think of anything more american than neil. 

also a few months ago my little missionary brother wrote me in response to a few things i was complaining about and he said and i quote "when life gets hard to handle, Neil." wow, as i was typing that out just now, i just got the double meaning. oh, carson, you are witty. how did i miss that before?

i busted out his christmas album today in honor of the first snow. 'tis the season! 

anyway, let us pay homage to the man who defines americanism and without whom, the christmas season just wouldn't be complete.

where'd his face go?

so there's this episode of grey's anatomy where this little boy is really scared to go into surgery because he doesn't know what's going to go on. one of the doctors (george o'malley) asks for special permission to be able to take this little boy into an OR to see a surgery. it's supposed to be a really easy, clean surgery. a laparoscopic appy or something like that. something where he wouldn't actually see anything.

anyway, george accidentally takes the little boy into the wrong OR and the little boy sees what i got to see recently during my clinical nursing rotation through the OR.

what is it that this little boy and i saw?? well, take a little look for yourself. if you just can't wait, scroll ahead through the youtube video to around 1:00.

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeekk!!!!!!

yeah, that's right. i got to see the process of surgeons taking someone's face off. while it wasn't exactly what it looks like in grey's, it's the same general idea. they just incise up and around from ear to ear and then start working away at pulling down. i got to see about 5 hours of this. when i left, they still weren't done! they were still working around the eyes! 

isn't that truly amazing? seriously! how in the heck did someone ever figure out that you could peel someone's face off and then put it back on. and who in the heck was the first person who consented to allow doctors to do that? 

i wonder sometimes if we sometimes go too far in medicine and take on a god-like role in preserving life when naturally, life shouldn't exist. that in itself is a topic for another day. it's just amazing how many things we can do and how many things we've been able to figure out about the human body. 

i'm so happy i'm doing what i'm doing now. i love it!

meet the new roommates.

We had a ward gathering at my apartment recently. I was in charge of introducing myself and my two other roommates. Oh boy, it was fun. It was intro a la statistics style. For your pleasure...

between us 3, we have had 74 roommates. 

we've lived in 20 different apartments, 7 different states.

we have 3 bachelor's degrees from BYU and are all now enrolled at U of U.

we took 442 credits and 26 religion classes total at BYU.

collectively, we have been playing the piano for 45 years!! whaaat??

we've served 3 missions, to 2 countries (canada and paraguay)

combined, we've had 39 companions and served in 16 different areas.

we've had 24 different callings since we started college.

we've done ordinances in 20 different temples.

we've visited 4 different continents and 15 countries.

we own 31 scarves, 84 pairs of shoes, and 62 tubes of chapstick/lipgloss/lipstick - 45 of which are owned by one person -- take a wild guess. yup, that'd be me.

just 2 broken bones - both pinkie bones.

3 surgeries - 1 each.

we've run 2 5Ks, 1 10 mile race, 4 half marathons, and 1 ragnar. actually, that was all 1 person. there's only 1 runner in the house.

together we've had 7 boyfriends ranging from semi-serious to pretty dang serious.

we've kissed 18 boys. 2 of us actually kissed the same boy, back before we even knew each other. small world, right??

i love my living situation right now. i'm so lucky to be with such great friends. it's a riot every single night!

why i've been AWOL

i do like blogging. i really do. i like writing. i do!

i found out i liked writing on the mission. weird, right? not poetry or novels or anything like that. this kind of writing. bloggy-type writing. i got to do it every week with my email home on the mission. i had a captive audience and pretty much the best material anyone could ask for. paraguay and the mission provided for some pretty entertaining stories. turns out my real life right now provides for some pretty entertaining stories too. 

so why have i been AWOL for like the past million years? what has happened since my last post that was like back in FEBRUARY? 

i graduated from byu. (yaay!!)

vacayed in AR for 2.5 weeks.

started nursing school at u of u.

had the busiest summer semester imaginable.

almost died taking my pharmacology class. that class was a beast.

3 hours commuting every day. yikes. made for good study time though.

tried to maintain a fun social life for my last little bit in provo. summer in provo is just too fun.

i invested a lot of emotion dating a boy who told me he loved me. it didn't work out but that's for the best.

oh and i moved to salt lake. 

so needless to say, i've had a few things on my plate. but now things are a lot calmer. my semester is much more mellow. no 3 hours every day of commuting. no staying up way too late and waking up way too early. no more pharmacology (that in itself makes everything calmer). and i found myself missing writing. 

it's not the great american novel or anything like that. if anything, it's just the weird, jumbled ramblings of my random mind. but it helps me feel good. 

on body image

i'm taking a women's health class this semester and for our first assignment we had to do five interviews of different women across the age span, analyze differences and similarities and then write about what body image means to us. this was extremely interesting to me because my ideas about body image and body self confidence have changed radically since i was 14. literally, 180 degrees different. 

it reminded me how rough it is to be growing up and having distorted views about what the body should look like. 

i just thought i'd include some of what i wrote in my reflection paper. i kind of changed it a little bit to make it a little more bloggy-like.

I used to be extremely critical of how I looked, what I weighed, and the size I could fit into. I remember going into high school at 5’6”, 110 pounds. People thought I looked anorexic and asked if I was. Of course I wasn’t, my weight just hadn’t caught up with me yet. My junior year I finally started gaining some weight. I shot up to 123 pounds and I got stretch marks on my legs from gaining that weight, even though I still only weighed 123 pounds. I was a dancer and was very lean and toned, but still I was devastated. I felt so fat. Of course it didn't help that I was in front of studio mirrors every day in a leotard and tights. I couldn’t fit into my favorite size 3 jeans anymore. I remember thinking that if I ever passed 125 pounds, I would have slipped out of control and I wouldn't be a good dancer anymore. During this time I tried to completely shut out junk food and sugar. Of course it didn't work. I didn't quite understand moderation back then either. It was either eat really well or be a total failure and eat all the food. I tried so hard to make sure I never passed 123. Granted, I still was so thankful for my body and for the abilities I had to dance. (Although I still curse my inflexible hips and hip flexors to this day...)

And yet my weight kept slowly creeping up (And yet somehow it never crossed my mind that it might be muscle mass! My senior year I started running regularly and I was dancing more than ever. I swear my calf muscles could have cut somebody). My weight seemed to balance out and I weighed between 125-130 as I started college. Thankfully, I didn’t gain the typical freshman fifteen, and even lost weight (due to a lengthy battle with mononucleosis).

My perception of body image has completely changed in the past few years. After years of eating to not gain any weight and years of trying to maintain that perfect dancer's body, I now eat to be healthy. I feel healthier now than I ever have back when I would diet and restrict myself from certain types of foods. I have a healthy relationship with food and love eating. And I eat often. 

Now I really see and appreciate my body for what it is. I exercise because I like the feeling of my body moving. I eat foods that make me feel good. Healthy foods make me happy. Junk makes me feel like junk. I'm very strongly anti-diet (my entire senior research paper last semester was about how diets are ineffective and largely detrimental to health). 

Yeah, so I may not wear a size 3 anymore. And yeah, I might have gotten stretch marks on my inner thighs just by hitting 120 pounds in high school. I might have varicose veins in my legs from walking so much every day on my 18-month mission. And hey, I may not weigh what it says on my driver's license anymore (I think it says 125. Close, but still off).

But you know what my body has done? 

It's taken me hundreds of miles on runs. It's helped me train for three half marathons, a 10-mile race, and a few 5Ks. 

It helped me dance for ten years. Literally, probably thousands of hours of dancing. 

It helped me make it through the experience of living in Paraguay for a year and a half. Seriously, that deserves a round of applause.

My notions about health have all changed. Part of it is due to the number of nutrition classes I've taken at BYU. There's nothing quite like the relationship between your body and what you eat to fuel it. It's amazing what the body can do for us.

so, here's the question: what has your body done for you?

doubt not, fear not.

"and jesus answered and said unto them, verily, i say unto you, if ye have faith and doubt not, if ye shall say unto this mountain, be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea, it shall be done." 

-matthew 21:21

"doubt not, but be believing. come unto the lord with all your heart." 

-mormon 9:27

"look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not."

-doctrine and covenants 6:36

i don't know if you can tell, but lately i've been studying about doubt. 

doubt cripples our faith, weakens our self-confidence, distorts our reasoning, and all-around handicaps us. 

god is perfect. he cannot lie. his promises are sure. so when we doubt what he has promised us, we are placing parameters on our heavenly father. isn't god the most powerful, omnipotent, loving person in the universe? so why would we do that? why would we ever believe that there was something god couldn't do? a miracle that he couldn't perform?

well, of course we don't do it intentionally, (at least i hope not) but it does happen. i made a list in my study journal yesterday of promises that i've received from heavenly father that i've doubted. i listed 7 things. 7 promises that i received personally from heavenly father via revelation, inspiration, patriarchal blessing, etc. SEVEN THINGS! seven major parts of my life that i, for whatever reasons, decided weren't ever going to happen, weren't right, or that i had missed out on. 

so i made this resolution to stop doubting right then. i believe that god is a god of miracles. i trust that god's timetable is his own and that his promises are binding (if we do our part, of course). 

so after i make this resolution, i am happy and content. i have a dove chocolate next to me and decide to ask a question on it. (**side note: ask yourself a random question next time you eat a dove chocolate. they always have random phrases on the underside of the wrapper. for some inexplicable reason, the candy always gives you the answer that you need.)  initially, it was hard for me to come up with a question that didn't imply doubt. so i simply asked, "what would god have me know"? 

dove chocolate: trust in those that you love. 

boom! exactly what i had been studying for so long, literally wrapped up in one little line. trust in those that you love. we love our heavenly father. it only makes sense to trust him unconditionally. 

"BE NOT AFRAID, ONLY BELIEVE."

-mark 5:36 

the advantage of dating your textbooks.

"i have a date tonight. and a date tomorrow. it's too bad i don't actually like anyone right now." - roommate

"unfortunately, i have a date with a textbook tonight, like always." -me

"that's good. at least your textbook will always be there for you." - roommate

what a great perspective. too bad i didn't think of that myself. 

other happenings:

*i'm taking the bio 100 challenge exam tomorrow.

*utah's post-grad nursing school application is due next tuesday. i'm basically done, except for the bio 100 challenge exam and uploading some essays and my resume. yay!

*finished my first week of my last semester of my undergrad. so sad.

adios, 2012.

[disclaimer: this is LONG. i bet my mom will be the only to make it to the bottom. but this post was more for me and being able to look back over the last year than it was intended for anyone else. but if you make it through, congrats!]

2012 has been one of the most interesting years of my life... 

after spending 18 months in south america, this last year was the first that i spent back in the united states. 

the year started out perfectly as i went on a little family vacation to the most beautiful place i've ever been or seen - spain. we went to malaga, sevilla and stayed in marbella, right on the mediterranean sea... i can't get over how beautiful these places are! even carlos baute and marta sanchez sing about marbella (listen here)

we also took our adventure over to english territory at the rock of gibraltar, where a monkey literally tried to groom me after nearly giving me a heart attack by jumping on me. then we jumped continent over to morocco, where we almost got robbed and if you ask my sister, she'll tell you we were a second away from getting murdered (she's dramatic like that).

after 10 perfect days in europe, it was time to head back to school. i was a week and a half late in the semester and that made me really nervous, but it all turned out okay. i hit the books and i hit them hard. after a year and a half of not being in school, it was good to be back and i was more determined than ever to be successful. 

i've been studying ever since! an entire year straight. i've had a total of about two or three weeks break where i've not had classes. and i've learned most of all that i love school! 

so that's TWELVE straight months of studying.

i spent EIGHT months of the last year as a hard-core vegetarian. actually, i don't really know how hard-core vegetarians can be, but i did learn how to make some good tofu and veggie burgers/hot dogs.

FOUR of those months i didn't eat any processed foods at all (with the exception of cheetos...)

i was single for a total of SIX months and taken for the other SIX. those TWO relationships, differing in their levels of seriousness, made me grow more than i thought was possible in such a short period of time. thanks to those boys, who will always have a special place in my heart, i know exactly what i want, what i don't want, what i'm willing to compromise on and what i can't compromise. invaluable lessons, even if they were painful. 

i studied my butt off and got TEN A's and FOUR A-'s from BYU. oh and unfortunately there was that ONE C that snuck up in there. curse you, stupid 1 credit chemistry class that i never spent time on! 

TWO months straight i practically lived in the cadaver lab. i came home smelling like cadavers every day. yum...

not to mention, working TWENTY hour work weeks the entire year. 

i ran my THIRD half-marathon in october in a few minutes over TWO hours. not my best time, but okay i guess for having hardly trained at all. 

i managed to kill TWO beta fish this year. you know, the indestructible, almost immortal fish. one lasted for three days. the next lived for a glorious six-ish months. he committed suicide by jumping out of his fishbowl. seriously.

the tombstone for the first fish

since last december, i've been on FOUR different continents (s. america, n. america, europe, and africa). oh, how i love other peoples and cultures! 

as for next year, it will probably be the craziest yet. it includes a lot of unknowns as i graduate in april with a bachelor's in public health. 

what's next? i'm applying to post-grad nursing schools everywhere. namely, university of utah, georgetown, george washington, nyu, johns hopkins (just for fun). i'm still trying to find some more, even though i've been researching schools for a few years now, but i think that might be it. 

other plans? public health internships. public health jobs. the only problem is that i'm passionate about so many public health issues that i wouldn't know how to narrow my search down for specific jobs.

eeeeeeeeesh. so many options! 

i don't have any idea where i'll be this time next year, but here's to hoping that it will be fantastic!

i owe this last year not to myself, but to the people that heavenly father put in my life to help me grow and learn and change. this includes roommates, co-workers, mission companions, study friends from classes, ex-boyfriends, church leaders, and family. you all mean more to me than you know, so thank you!

bienvenido, 2013. chaucito, 2012!