.relief.

i can breathe again! i passed my practical exit exam and now i'm gearing up for my 2 internships and then ta da, graduation! i can't believe i'm at this point in my life. i feel like i was just writing about how i got accepted into OT school! i feel really fortunate to be pursuing a field that wants to help people so much. it's what i feel God made me to be, to be a servant, to help, to make someone's life just a little bit better, even if for a second. that's why i take it so hard when i don't do that, when i make someone's life more difficult, or when i end up hurting them instead of helping them. i just want to be a good person, someone that Someone will be proud of, that will make Him smile. i don't ever want to seem demanding, i just want my life to feel like it has some sort of meaning. i have already been so blessed, anything more, would just be bonus. well as you can see, i'm not being very productive with my packing, but it will come together. there's also no pressure, i don't have to take everything with me, my landlord/roommate is so understanding and such a Godsend. i start on 2/15 in tampa, so please pray for me! i love love all of you for your continual support and prayers. please know that i am so blessed and grateful for all your love.

.2009.

i raced through this year that in my mind is divided into 3 semesters of blood, sweat, and many many many tears. i started up the year by cutting into cadavers and starting a workout program after my wellness fitness profile told me i was overweight and borderline obese. gross. eased into a great break in key west and time at home before spending the summer glad to immerse myself into more OT classes than my general science classes. oh and i can't forget the infamous family reunion in vegas. yup. summer break involved surprises and disney and korean spas and loving my friends so much. my fall was full of presentations, a conference in baltimore and fear. am i really taking exit exams in january? the thought still gets me a little nauseous. i can't believe i'm sitting here with a week separating me from here to florida and back to the grind of mock clinic. i really am not ready.

accomplishments? two 5Ks, dropped some pounds, ran my longest distance of 8 miles, learned how to semi drive stick.

2010...praying i do well in mock clinic, pass my exams, rock my 2 internships, graduate, pass my OT boards and score a rockin job! this is my year to shine! who knows, i might even let the heart melt a bit. <3

.small.

i'm kept itty bitty, the moment i even think i'm anything greater, He puts me back in my place. it keeps me so grateful for every blessing He gives me, the meaning behind each means so much more. i've continued to struggle academically through my master's program, and really, i am used to feeling behind and insignificant to my peers, but i really did let myself down through my recent performance on an exam. maybe i was just so overconfident with it, but really, i didn't think i would do as poorly as i did. it just makes me feel so dumb and screw what anyone else would ever say about me, but i care about what this means to doing well overall, that i will be a good therapist some day. i wish there was some way to translate how much i care about people into these exams. sometimes, i'm just so tired of it all and i'm ready to walk away. i'm just not convinced that this is all worth it. but i go through it, feeling often alone, feeling often overlooked. just an itty bitty speck in this world, nothing more. so i'll keep going, and hoepfully i'll have that chance to rest and be able to enjoy it all for once. <3

.yucky.

it's a yucky week full of projects and tests, so what better way to procrastinate then to blog! i was flipping through the channels and not studying for my gerontology test and came across sugarland performing on abc. i'm not a fan, but i had caught a part of them being interviewed on oprah. something that caught my ear was when jennifer nettles told oprah, she couldn't believe she got paid for what she did. when i saw her performing tonight, i could see the passion excude from her, and i thought, "wow, that's love". that's just awesome. i caught up with an old friend and we just talked for hours on end, and at one point, she said, "you're going to make a great OT". it was a really affirming message. i heard it right when i needed to hear it.

i think that's what's so wonderful about having a faith, we're taught that there are no coincidences in the world, that when you're meant to hear something, see something, encounter something, it all comes together.

<3

.blessings.

i don't often get to blog about how awesome things go down, so i definitely wanted to record this as a very good day, and that things are meant to happen one way or another. for some time now, my classmates and i have been attempting to lock down our internship sites for next year. we list down our top 10 places for IIA, then top ten places for IIB. if no one puts the same place as you for your number one choice, then you automatically get that place. if more than one person puts the same place, the computer "randomly" chooses. i got my IIA site at a mental health hospital in california automatically because no one else chose it. but then i had a 50/50 chance of getting my site at the cancer center in tampa b/c someone else had chosen it as their number spot as well. she ended up getting it, and i went to my number two listed site which was a hospital in st. petersburg. so i thought, well, maybe it's a blessing in disguise, maybe i was meant to go to this hospital instead. but the cancer center was still on my mind, and so i went in to the clinical education office and forfeited my site in cali so i could go to the cancer center. so if you're still with me, this means that i had cancer center in tampa for IIA and hospital in st. petersburg for IIB. well a week ago, i got an email and a note saying that the hospital in st. petersburg had canceled my site, and would i like to choose my number THREE site or did i need to set up an appointment? we set it up for today and that was that.

timing is everything. i had scheduled a locksmith to make a key for my landlord's car and we had agreed he would stop by any time b/t 10-11 today. well as 1130 rolled around, i started to get a little nervous thinking that maybe i screwed up all my appointment times. i left a message over at the clin ed office and she called me back at 1150 telling me we were scheduled to meet at 12. oops. all good, we pushed it to 115 so she could get lunch. the locksmith finally showed up at 12. yeah. i dunno but that was done and when i got to the clin ed office, it was like, okay, let's get this show on the road. i had narrowed down my options to another hospital in st. petersburg and a peds place in bradenton. i asked her more about the hospital, but was dismayed to learn that it was offering outpatient and hands, both of which i had NO desire to shadow in. upon asking about the peds place, she had told me it was taken...by the girl who had gotten the cancer center spot for IIB! it seems they had canceled her but taken me! so it was a true blessing in disguise! if things had happened the way i wanted them to, i would've been canceled out of that spot! so my fieldwork coordinator started searching for more peds sites or places that would offer peds in combo with other populations. then she stopped and said, oh, how bout this pediatrics place in lakeland which is in south orlando? i didn't remember seeing it on our list, and she went searching for the paperwork after realizing it wasn't filed in our master list. after some detective work, she found the paperwork. it hadn't been filed b/c it had just came in. i was blown away. talk about timing! she said that it's a good thing i came in when i did, otherwise, we might not have considered this place!

the rest of the day was just a wowers. i had inadvertantly traded in my ethernet cable for my wireless router instead of just securing a new one from comcast. i went in and explained my situation and they were able to find it and return it back to me, and then i was able to finally fix my wireless router to my computer.

i just felt like, wow, so many great things have fallen in place today and i just felt really happy, which i haven't felt in a really long time, and i feel blessed i get to share that with you.

please pray i get confirmed for that lakeland site, or you'll soon be seeing a blog about how i went about trying to find yet another site to take me!

.rock.

so i turned in my sites for fieldwork today. as part of the MOT degree, one has to participate in 2 12 week fieldwork experiences. i submitted a request for a mental health hospital in the bay area of san fran, and the second one for a cancer center in tampa. we'll cross our fingers to find out if i got them. the second one is iffy because someone else is gunning for it. the computer makes the final decision. i really hope i get it. it would be such a nice change of pace from the the disappointments that i've been feeling day in and day out. this semester has been so much of a challenge for me. i know school is hard, but i'm so tired of feeling so dumb. i don't want to be dumb, i'll take even average. even at my fieldwork site, my clinical instructor makes me feel so dumb. it just makes me wanna cry. i know life is hard, i know life can suck, but i just need SOMETHING to make my day go just a little bit easier. sometimes i find myself looking at pictures from back home, because my friends are my rock. they help me to believe in myself, and they believe in me when i have given up on myself, as i do time and time again. i'm so tired of writing mundane entries, i want to write about how awesome life is! i want to write about being so giddy it hurts, that i can't wait to wake up in the morning and tell you all the wonderful things that happened today! why can't i have that? i've been running on E for a while now. i can't seem to find the energy or the strength. i'm just so tired. i'm tired of being tired. i'm tired of trying to smile and act normal, when i know i'm not normal!
maybe i'm the one who belongs in a mental health hospital. maybe it will help me feel normal. who knows.

.procrastination.

okay, i have been giving myself 15 minute increments all morning. "15 minutes and then you'll get up", "15 minutes on fb and then you need to log off", "15 minutes to read blogs and blog", etc...
i am obviously trying to avoid studying for my 3 finals, even though it's crazy vital i do. i'll get there, i just can't believe it's already saturday morning. oh i am so excited that this semester is almost over! emotionally and academically i don't think it was as rough as 1st, but still as intense. i have learned so much about myself by being challenged, humilated, humbled, while being consoled and supported by my peers. i don't feel as alone as i did 1st semester, and i'm glad, because this was starting to become such a lonely road, and i was really questioning whether i had made the right/best decision in pursuing this Master's degree. but i keep trying to look at the big picture, and looking at what i really want to do and where i want to be.

i will soon have to choose internship sites and while i have been able to narrow down the type of populations i want to work with, my eyes have been scanning the whole map. east coast? west coast? home? far far away? familiar? completely foreign? i want to be somewhere i will thrive, and really get the best from my internship experience, but where??? i know, i should be fortunate to even have this dilemma, so i should look at it a bit more positively. we'll just have to see. <3

.motivation.

it's our last week of classes before finals. i can't believe i'm at this point. this semester truly flew by. it's going to be just as whirlwind when i go to key west and then home to jersey. again, i can't believe it'll be 4 months since i've seen my lovelies. i'm super excited, and i get to kick it off with a mets game with my godsons, their family and fellow sporting buddy.

maybe it was all part of my hormonal kick, but i was really angry on the treadmill today and ended up running for 45 minutes which amounted to 4.4 miles. nothing happened to me directly today, but all these crazy thoughts of past circumstances started popping up in my head and all of the sudden i was running like i was gonna catch up with someone and pound them. yes, very violent, but hopefully therapeutic. it also didn't help that i stepped on the scale. i'm stuck at this 2 pound hiatus. i can't seem to lose them. but i'll blame the hormones, and again, i blame the hormones because my weekend was fine. easter was lowkey, but again, all good. i was annoyed that i didn't get as much work done as i wanted to, but who can resist mary poppins and sound of music. dang you abc family, you won this round!

pray for that i hang in there and focus so i can rock these 2 practicals and 4 exams! thanks!

.break.

.clearwater, fl.

since i stuck around thursday and friday and did school work instead of enjoying spring blink, i decided to go and visit my cousins in tampa on saturday into today. i was really anxious about going, because i knew how much work i had to do, it was a 3 hour drive, and i was going to lose an hour to daylight savings time, but honestly, i really really needed to do it. i'm really glad i did. i caught up with cousin cindy and got acquainted with her 2 year old emi, who i haven't seen since her baptism. it was super awesome, and she couldn't help remarking how good it is to have family around. i agree, although i consider my friends family, so i was thinking more of loved ones back home. then we went to lunch at bahama breeze, which wow, is actually in wayne, nj now. well anyway, yeah, this one was along the water. so so pretty. i didn't get a picture of it, but hopefully cindy will hook me up w/ the one she took on her iphone. then picked my cousin welo, and the 4 of us went over to clearwater. so pretty! i wish we had more time there. i will definitely have to make a repeat visit. as i put my feet into the water, i realized that the last time i had touched water from the gulf, was when i was in cancun for spring break 7 years ago. dang. i got to meet up w/ some transplant friends from jersey, and we had some sushi which still doesn't compare to half-priced u-yee's. it just feels so much better on the stomach and the wallet. called it a night, and was very disoriented this morning with the time change.
on the way to our brunch, emi and i did a photo shoot. this is just one of many.
cindy said that when i left, she was tearing up a bit. too cute. i raced back to st. augustine after lunch to catch the 6pm mass and so i'm finally home after some grocery shopping to brace myself for this week. exam tomorrow, debate on wednesday, and 2 practicals thursday. please pray for me as i hold on to my ponties.

.threats.

my farmer's market sweep. so fun. strawberries, cherry tomatoes, cabbage, cucumbers, red potatoes, sweet onion, bananas, vidalia onions, broccoli, romaine lettuce, carrots, and bok choy.

i couldn't help but laugh the other day while i was making my vegan mac and cheese (which by the way, came out really well) because out of the blue, my mother's threat about waiting till i finished school to have a boyfriend came back to haunt me, almost too well. funny how the world works. it started to warm up this weekend, and i was excited to throw the flip flops on again. it was so nice at the farmer's market and everything came to less than 20. sigh, i love warm weather but it gets me so nostalgic! i was thinking about some pretty good times, and i hope there are some more on the way. we have thursday and friday off, but i'll be trying to brace myself for a CRAZY next week. yuck, i hate that i have to think that far in advance. anyways, i have a mother pathology exam tomorrow, so lift one up for me if you can. tanks!

.numbers.

the value of my life has been revolving around numbers. i needed a certain grade value to attain a letter score. i needed an accumulation of those points to be high enough to be accepted by a university. i needed my GRE score to be above a certain number. i needed to be a certain weight and accomplish a certain number of things before my nth birthday. today i got a slitty score on my biomechanics exam, and the score on my evaluation and assessment class wasn't so hot either. and are they true indicators of my intelligence? numbers rule my life right now, and it makes me cry every other day, x number of times. i don't know what i'm doing wrong, but i really want to do well. i just don't know how to make that happen, because the numbers keep telling me i'm a real whack job. i hate that numbers rule my happiness, that numbers keep me from smiling, from sleeping at night. i find myself really praying and hoping that i'll see certain numbers, and i try not to count the number of broken pieces of my heart when i get my scores back. i give myself 10 minutes to do this and x number of minutes to study until i get a break. but where does it bring me? i wish the noise could go away, but i would find myself counting the seconds until it ended.

.monuments.

it's starting to get darker later. that's so super exciting to me. it was in the low 70s today and the air felt like spring. i had a dress on for a presentation, and it made me look forward to the weather warming up so i'm not so polar. if only i could get the buildings at school to match my thermostat, then we would be good to go. until then, i am forever bringing something to cover up in because it is absolutely frigid. i have turned to a regular mister rogers, walking to my closet, and deciding which hoodie i should sport for the day, and which tennis shoes to put on. i still need to visit the lighthouse. i don't think you're allowed in it at night, which is kind of a shame. i remember when we could go to the top of the washington monument at night. maybe that's just in my imagination, but i do recall doing that. walking the monuments at night, i never did that enough while i was at gw. i never did take advantage of where i lived, and i'm doing that again now, as i have been to the beach only when guests come into town. so operation lose double face has something to do with that, in that i would really like to be able to put on a bathing suit and enjoy the beach.
so many ideal situations, so little time. <3

.zumba.

i went to my first class yesterday and it was awesome! i would recommend it for anyone that's looking to work out and learn some dance moves. we did the tango, cha-cha, salsa, indian banghra dancing, the jive and some other really fun stuff while getting our asses owned by the instructor. she can really shake it! i looked the fool up there but tried my best to keep up. then i had to cut out of the class early so i could make it to class on time.

i got my one of my 2 fieldwork assignments, and i'll be driving to gainesville every friday starting in february. not fun to drive 2 hours, but will be excited to work in the mental health area. i still don't know where i'm going for the 2nd one, but i pray it's an awesome site. we've been pretty jipped this semester in terms of opportunities to shadow what we want to do.

i was on xanga randomly last night and as i was reading through old entries, i wondered at where that "fun" stace went. i guess we all have to grow up sometime.

.pounding.

i kinda wish my head would stop pounding so i can function without wanting to take my head and ram it into the screen. i was feeling a little dizzy before and thought if i laid down and slept a bit, i would wake up feeling like a brand new person. but i woke up and hated the world. nothing looks appetizing either. do you ever get like that? i just went grocery shopping and the fridge is stocked, but opening it made me nauseous. i don't know what that means, so the hot tea with honey consumption continues, interspersed with pirate's booty, which reminds me of the cheese curls i would eat in the philippines. it's a weird comfort food.

classes went relatively well today. it was good to see my classmates again. in the first class, the professor has each one of us say our name and what we did over break. mine was classic. "i'm stacy, i drove home to nj, was sick every single day, drove back to florida and don't want to do that ever again." that was the best i could do which didn't seem to compare with the first girl who announced she got engaged over break, or the guy who went on a cruise to the bahamas. whatever, i could tell how jealous they were when i shared.

go gators. i don't know what that means, but i'm rooting for this florida team because i'm trying to be a local.

plus: didn't junk out on food today.
minus: didn't work out because i wanted to pass out.

.crunch.

okay so this was my kitchen floor yesterday morning when i was stumbling around at 6am to get some last minute studying in before my physiology final. some kashi cereal fell on the floor when i went to pour it, and normally i would throw a profanity out and immediately clean it, but at 6am, i stared at the floor and shrugged my shoulders and walked away. it was so liberating! it was so...sleeping with the enemy redeeming where she leaves the towels uneven. it wasn't going to hurt anyone, so i just left it. it was awesome. i don't think it was an "accident" per se, but a sign of needing to let the hair down a little bit more.

i really hope i passed anatomy. i don't know what i will do if i didn't. i'll find out tomorrow i think.

it's the only thing i really want for christmas.

.breakfast.

i learned to eat yogurt on top of my cereal while backpacking in germany. how cool does that sound? this morning i was happily munching away at an ostacy original concotion of kashi, special k, peach soy yogurt with almond milk. i might have just made someone throw up in their mouth a little bit, but hey, i love it so shut up. it made up for oversleeping this morning. yeah, i don't know why but my phone was shut off, not because the battery died, but because it was powered off. and i didn't do such a thing. so my alarm did not go off, and i missed taking out the trash this morning. yes, i should've done it yesterday.

"interesting" happening today. i was handing back papers and tripped over a power cord in front of all my classmates. full on fell on all fours where you scrape your knees kind of fall. the whole room gasped and stopped talking. i stood up thoroughly embarrassed and looked at everyone. they looked at me. knowing i had no more face to save...i raised both arms and declared, "ta da!".

the whole room lost it. i know. only me.

.joy.pain.

observation was super cool today. i was at a school for deaf and blind kids, and it was so so very awesome. i want to go back and observe some more, and perhaps submit paperwork so i can do my internship there. i just fell in love with the kids there. this school is the largest of its kind in the united states. this is where ray charles went to school. neat, right? i could go on and on about how freakin awesome this school is. oh, and it was 10 minutes away. oh and i felt so extremely blessed to attend this site, as there were only 2 from my school assigned there. so booyakah, i was so so so happy, and i don't care that i've used the word "so" 394857 times. (finally, something about my grad program to make me smile!)

so while i was there, my hot best friend leaves me a text which states, "let me know when you got a free sec, got some cute news for you." as i was leaving, i called her, and before she could say anything, i said, "okay, so tell me who's either pregnant or getting married." she just starts laughing, because i was right, her sister-in-law is due in april. so true though, right? seems we're at that age. yuck and yuck.

.ball of soundness.

i was just thinking that sometimes i feel so overwhelmed, and the only thing i can think of that makes me feel better is to just find a nice corner of a couch, wrap myself up in a down blanket and read a good book or sleep. it's a security of mine, it's a way of escaping this world that seeks to bring me down at times. i don't want to doubt myself anymore. they wouldn't have asked me into this program if they didn't think i couldn't hack it. so what's the problem then!?!

it's just that i want to wrap myself up in a blanket and make the world go away right now. i want it to make sense right away. i want to banish all the smart people that get 102s on their practicals because they answered the two bonus questions. i want to cover my ears and muffle the sounds of congratulations and satisfaction. i want to feel as good outside my blanket, as i do inside. i want clarity and conviction. i want excitement and inquisitiveness.

i want to succeed more than i can or you could ever imagine.

.done.

my lab practical went well, although it was strange: i missed the easiest things, like bony landmarks. i could identify muscles, but i couldn't figure out the bone on the thumb. but overall, i think and hope i did really well. i've been staring at these freaking structures non stop for the past few days. it should be interesting to see what stays and what i forget by tomorrow. so i have two exams coming up, and this time around, i'm determined to rock them. in the same breath, i'll be up in jersey next week for a wedding of a dear friend. i feel so bad that i'm so in my own world that i haven't been psyched up for it. i'm sorry dear m for so selfish, and that the timing of things SUCK! please dear friends, no one get married until 2010, or else i might not be able to go. sometimes i feel like i'm putting my life on hold just for school. it's icky, and it's a reality, but not. i mean, this isn't "real life". real people get to go out and have fun and be able to go to their friend's wedding without having to take a proctored exam the next morning. freakin ridiculous. i pray it's all worth it. and i really do miss you. sorry for my lame update!

.removed.

what keeps us going day to day? what drives us to persevere? what causes us to say yes to another day? sometimes, i honestly just want to veto the day and sleep it into tomorrow. but i know that i can't do that, as tempting as it seems. unfortunately, i have to push through and hope that the shoes won't be too heavy. and some days, all it takes is a smile, a simple compliment, a text, a call or an email to make it worthwhile. i want to prove to myself each day i wake up that i can do it. i need to do this.