I have a dream...

Many dreams will remain only dreams, but some will come true. Which ones are which? What determines how much time and energy we put where? How do we know?

I don't know the answers to these questions, and like many of my dreams, the picture is cloudy, the sound is garbled, and the ending is cut off... all I know is that at some point we have to give ourselves over to the process. Along the way, some things will fall apart, some things may fly up in our faces, still others may just sort of eerily fall into place: but all are choreographed by the Master.

Right now, I am living in the beginning of a long-time dream. I have a job, an apartment, and some really great opportunities. Put simply, I am blessed. There were some hiccups along the way and there will be more to come I'm sure. For now, I'm just gonna keep dreaming good dreams...

Here are some pictures of my first place!

My stoop and my bike

Hallway

Bedroom closet

Bedroom

Bathroom counter

Bathroom

Living area

Kitchen (view from the dining area)

Dining area

Quick Update

Just a short note this month as I am juggling so much schoolwork and end of the semester/end of my undergraduate career busyness. I guess the big news is that I got an apartment to live in next year! Starting in August, I will be moving back to "Clinnon" and living in a cute little apartment in town while I attend school for a degree in funeral services and work as an apprentice in the funeral home. I am excited for the next few months and looking forward to a trip to Spain in May and a summer in the mountains of Montreat, NC. Many adventures await! Stay tuned for posts in May with pictures galore from graduation and Spain!

Proud Parents on Honors Day

Honors Day 2012, PC, with Tyler

GDH countdown.

 This is the time of year when college students all across the nation are playing frisbee, sunbathing, and gearing up for that last month of school. It also, however, happens to be the time when we get sick and tired of the food in the dining hall. We joke that they are cleaning out the freezers, and that may well be true.

At PC, there are communication issues with updating the online menus, but we can pretty much tell what's for dinner within the first steps of walking into the beloved Greenville Dining Hall (GDH). By the time I actually get into the range of visibility of the food, I'm groaning and complaining.

"Mea Lasagna," yum.

Snapshot: I'm standing in the middle of the Classics line and the "Vegetarian"/Soup section, having just realized my only edible option is pizza...again...and I'm saying to my friends: "Four years of this! Ugh!"

Since these are the last few weeks of GDH  (38 days to be exact), I thought I would update my GDH blog post. (Check it out here. There are more pictures...)

Kelly found a pearl!

The chicken fries were short-lived, once we found out what they were...

Pie: The best Thanksgiving food

Loch Ness Monster

Ok, so maybe we play with our food. But nobody said we are grown up yet. Here's to having to feed ourselves from now on.... we'll probably miss you, GDH, but not at the moment.

Signing off for the month, praying for a great end to a great year at PC!

Thanksgiving: 2011

 setting the stage 

 keeping things clean

 breaking out the fine china

 deviling some eggs

 cooking up some grub

 Thanksgiving staples: sweet potato custard and dressing

and the pièce de résistance: smoked turkey

New Digs--Senior Year at PC!

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things [Mountain Edition]

When you live in the mountains, everyone assumes you are mountainous. That is, you hike (unlike those "flat-landers"), you know how to evade bears, you buy/eat local, and that you don't have any trouble with losing power for extended periods of time. While these things may or may not be true about me, I am doing my best to blend in with the locals.

Some of my favorite things:
1. Carrying a backpack wherever I go and not getting weird looks.
2. Stocking that backpack with lots of neat stuff such as snacks, water, my camera, a flashlight, work supplies and even a first aid kit.
3. Walking down the mountain to work.
4. The creek outside my window.
5. Afternoon rain showers.
6. Learning about random things one can only learn about at conferences---e.g.- The decision making process for the 2013 hymnal and hymnody in general (Speaker: Mary Louis Bringle; Info: http://presbyterianhymnal.org/)

Not so favorite things:
1. Lugging a backpack around.
2. Working long hours.
3. Walking back up the mountain to get home from work.
4. Extreme temperature fluctuations.
5. Getting caught outside in thunderstorms and braving the wind, rain, and falling limbs to make it inside.
6. Sitting (or standing) through upwards of 4 lectures a day and dealing with sound/technical problems as I pretend to know what I am doing.

All in all, it's not so bad.

Lake Susan and The Left Bank 

 

Porch of the South Carolina Home 

Wildflowers 

"Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God." Psalm 90:1-2 (ESV)

Ride Sally, Ride

If you would like to, you may click on this link [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfuHgzu1Cjg] for some theme music as you read this post.

I have been pretty busy so far this summer. I painted the dining room, refinished a cabinet, turned 21, and kept the road hot as I moved to the mountains for the summer.

I feel like the past 30 days or so have been filled with lots of packing, driving, unpacking, repacking, and more driving.

I got a new camera for my birthday, so more pics will be in order.

As I adjust to living "on my own" and cooking some, I will be sure to document some of my adventures. I am also looking forward to hearing many speakers at the conference center this summer and meeting lots of new faces in the general store. I am blessed to have this job and on those long, difficult days, I will do my best to remind myself of this gift.

Here are a few pics I have taken recently (more to follow from the new camera, I promise)

21!

chocolate pudding and bottled cokes, what more could you ask for?

Dead Week

There comes a time each semester when all the energy spent paying attention in class, all the getting up early to study, and all that going to bed late after talking with friends begins to take its toll. One's body starts to fight back. First comes the sneezing, then falling down stairs, having weird food cravings, drooling in public, people sleeping just about anywhere. You name it, it can happen..

At PC, we call it dead week--and that's not because there's nothing going on, it's because we aren't quite sure we will make it out alive.

Next week, we will have exams. We are all stressed out. We are all complaining. We are all frustrated. There is simply too much work to be done.

There are these little moments in between everything, however, that make it all ok.

It never fails that you run into an old friend from weeks gone by and spend 10 minutes talking on the side-walk, just catching up on life. You spend a lot of time studying in random places and discover the secrets hidden within the walls (or rooftops) of campus. You linger at meals just a little bit longer--swapping stories, solving the problems of the world. Then, there are the outfits. No matter what you are wearing--and chances are it is something you wouldn't be caught dead in at any other time in your life--there is always somebody wearing something even more ridiculous. I am a fan of the whole "slip some clothes on over your pajamas and run to the library" thing.

We wonder out-loud why we choose to put ourselves through this; we mourn loss of sleep.

There are moments when we sit down for tests and our minds go blank. There are lots of typo's in our papers, lots of late night visits to Sonic, and plenty of caffeine buzzes going around.

This is my shout out to all the college kids wrapping up the semester. You will get through it! Just keep putting one foot in front of the other--and try not to fall down any stairs.

Here is a picture of my desk from this weekend, (I think I wrote a total of 27 pages):

Arts and crafts for Immunology students (see the resemblance):

IgG made of Easter eggs

IgG

The Luck of the Irish

Call it bad luck.

Call it work. Call it school.

Call it whatever you want.

Just don't call me lazy. 

(counterintuitive to my last  post, I know)

This is what I have been up to:

Psychopharmacology- Models of Depression

Psychopharmacology- Cortical hypoarousal in ADHD

Psychopharmacology- GABA cell surface recceptor

Immunology- T cell activation pathway

Immunology- IgG

Immunology- Complement activation

Immunology- Western Blot/Electrophoresis of Bovine Serum Albumin