A Lack of a List

                I had every intention of making a list of things that I could talk about in a choice blog since I knew that we’d probably be getting a whole lot more of these. Unfortunately, I have not yet started that list, so you’ll just have to read my random ramblings (hey, that’s alliteration!) for now.

                I guess I could just bore you with the upcoming events in my life… It’s really not that interesting, but in reality, I have nothing else planned, and there’s a three hundred word limit hanging over my head.

                After school today, I’m going home with one of my best friends. I don’t really believe in having a single “best friend” despite that the word best implies that nothing can surpass it, but that’s just me. I don’t like ranking my friends, so I choose to make my smallest circle of friends worthy of the title “best friends”. Anyway, for about an hour and a half or so after we arrive at her house, we plan on staying boarded up in her room (or the living room, whichever she chooses), and we will play Minecraft. Now, I’ve never played before. I’ve wanted to, but the demo version that I tried… Well, it probably could have gone better. Needless to say, as my fingers are dashing across this keyboard faster than an impulse sent from a nerve to the brain, I’m pretty exicted about it to the point of makng mulpitle typos. My friend has told me about a hundred stories of what happens when she plays Minecraft with her brother and his friends, and that has made my excitement and anticipation for this day grow even further. After that hour and a half, we’re going to go to my friend’s older sister’s house and, after a hearty, grease-filled dinner of pizza, we will accompany my friend’s niece and nephew(s) around the neighborhood dressed in ridiculous costumes, going door to door to get free candy from people that I’ve never met before in my entire life (Halloween really is the shiftiest holiday of the year…). After that, everything is like a normal day, but the day after offers another reason to celebrate.

                Seventeen years ago, as of 1:42 in the morning, a bundle of joy arrived into this world. That would, of course, be yours truly. Forty-five years ago that same day, at a time that I’m not sure about, a different bundle arrived as well, but to my grandmother. That would be my dad. So, on November first, my father was born. A little more than a year after he and my mom were married, I was born. On his birthday. I guess you could say that I am the ultimate birthday present (could say, though I admit to having more than my fair share of times where I’m sure my parents wanted to string me up and hang me by my toes from the trees in the front lawn). So thanks, mom and dad, for making and keeping me, and thanks to my dad’s parents for making and keeping him.

                Finally, this weekend (at least Saturday) is going to be jam-packed full of stuff to do. First off, starting at nine in the morning and ending at quarter after ten, I will be at the school associated with my church, volunteering my time as a teacher’s aide in the second grade(WARNING: The next few sentences will be heavily religious. If you do not believe in that sort of thing, I suggest you either leave this page now, as I cannot promise anything about future blogs, or just skim ahead to the next thought segment). The second grade is a pretty important year in a child’s religious education. As a second-grader, children will perform their first reconciliation, in which they confess their sins for the first time. This is important because it is, in most cases, the first time that a child will actually remember being close to God (since most children are baptized as infants, the only memories they will have will be from the photos supplied for them later in life). This is also important because, before the students can receive Holy Communion for the first time, they must confess their sins, which requires the sacrament of Reconciliation. After that, I’ll probably go home and possibly get some homework done. A little before one o’clock, I am going with a friend or two to the football game at Ralph Stadium (exactly who I am going with aside from this one friend is uncertain as his family or some of his friends may carpool with us). Normally, I don’t really have an interest in football, but seeing as how I have not seen this particular friend in a long time, I am willing to make an exception for the sake of old friends. Overall, I predict the next few weeks to be pretty memorable if not completely entertaining.

                Well, that pesky word requirement has been more than met- I have almost tripled the required number of words by now. Perhaps next time I will actually have something planned out to write about instead of wasting my words and your time on trivial matters like my agenda for the next four days.

If Life Will Give Me Lemons...

                I’ve given a lot of thought to what I want to do with my life ever since I was little. I’ve had multiple ideas of what I’ve wanted to do, often switching from one idea to the next or combining the ideas. I think at one point I wanted to be a doctor, a lawyer, and a teacher all at once. Of course, combine that with the dream that nearly every six-year-old girl has (being a mother to at least one child), and that makes for a very daunting future filled with years of selflessness, college loans, and craziness. Since age six, I’ve clearly thought more clearly about what I want to do with the rest of my life (as in, I will not have more than one completely time-consuming job [such as a doctor, a lawyer, or a teacher] at a time while simultaneously trying to keep a sane and healthy family).

                I find it ironic that the first thing I ever wanted to be was within the same major of what I plan to pursue ten years later. When I was little, I wanted so badly to be a doctor. I would go around the house with a dress-up purse that was big enough to hold the play doctor’s equipment and give everyone “check-ups” with the hard plastic tool to check reflexes and the tiny stethoscope that hurt my ears whenever I tried to use them. When I told my aunt a few months ago that I was pursuing a major in the medical field (pharmaceuticals or medical doctor; I haven’t decided), she told me that she was far from surprised. In fact, she said that when I was playing doctor as a child I would tell her that when I was older and a real doctor, I would “heal her up good” or something. Thankfully, my grammar has improved along with my realization that I cannot pull off three full-time careers at once, or we may have had some issues with my sense of reality.

                Now it’s my senior year. Applications for college and financial aid and scholarships need to be written and I need to mentally prepare myself for the changes that await me. I know for sure that I’m going to college as a science major with a minor in creative writing (because even if you’re the world’s best brain surgeon ever, you can still write a little on the side in any free time you have, right?), but I have yet to decide a college to attend. Where you go determines how easy your trek to success is. Obviously attending a community college will be easier than attending an Ivy League school like Harvard or Yale. I want to try to stay local, but as for choosing a definite place to start my college education… Well, I’ll keep you posted.

                So now, if you aren’t completely bored with this already, I’m going to say exactly what I want to do after college. I have a pretty good idea of what I want for myself, but obviously just because I plan it one way doesn’t mean that life will just go along blindly and allow me my fantasies. I know for sure that creative writing will have a place in my future. The way I see it, I can have nearly any job that I want and still have time enough to write short stories, novels, poems, or even just a blog. Who knows, while I’m off in the medical field, I could be simultaneously making it big in the literature world! Anyway, as for my major, I’m still not completely, one hundred percent sure about whether I want to be just your normal, run-of-the-mill medical doctor or if I’d rather take my other option and become a pharmacist. Obviously I would need a billion and a half years of schooling for each (hyperbole- I’m guessing between eight and ten years for either option), but for each option I take there are opportunities that I’m giving up. Pharmaceuticals would give me a chance to excel in chemistry, which I’m already pretty good at, but would cost me the ability to make a direct difference in the lives of the patients I treat. A medical doctor would give me the opportunity to directly influence and help people, but a part of me is afraid that I’d either be a major screw-up or I’d get too grossed out by what comes through the doors. I’m not overly squeamish, but sometimes I’m a little afraid to try to push myself to see if I really have the stomach to be a doctor. I’m not a huge fan of just leaving things up to fate, but maybe in this case, because my choice for my major is up in the air, I’ll just have to wait it out and decide at a later date. Nobody said I had to decide my entire future tomorrow, right?