Senior Fall Reflections (Part 1)

Ah, reflection time.

Well, this was my best semester academically. I don't know yet whether my grades will show it, but this is the best I have ever been, academically. I remember reaching the limit of how much time and effort I had previously been willing to put into a class, how much the class was entitled to, and going far, far beyond that limit. I ended up cutting out intentional social time, though the social time still happened frequently. I attract people, like bees to sweet sweet nectar. Can't help it.

This wasn't my best "me" though. I still have yet to encounter that version of me except when I'm in ministry, on the mission field. Not being in ministry, my youth pastor moving from Texas, where I could occasionally talk to him in person, to California, it continues to take its toll. I feel the effects of the lack of accountability. I forget what standards I have and why I have them. Fortunately, I still keep up with my friend Cameron, who continues to be an example, even when he is going through a rough time, and I'm able to remember my roots as I go through my own struggles

There were many days this semester when the only thing getting me up in the morning was that head trauma patient and the memory of those children being put through needless pain, and my increasing desire to become able to help them. I love pushing myself to minister on mission trips, working harder and harder, but I just want to be able to effectively work against the suffering.

I've had to try to figure out where I'm going. Shortly after my trip to Uganda, I definitively decided not to take the MCAT, and, therefore, not to apply to medical school this year. That left me with a search for grad schools to attend in my gap year between undergrad and medical school. I looked at public health programs first, which my advisors recommended to me. What they didn't tell me was that public health is generally a computational, analytical type of career. Numbers aren't my thing, and Excel and I aren't pillow friends, so I realized that public health probably isn't for me, though the idea of maintaining a standard for the health of the public in a given area was inviting.

I'm tired. Maybe I'll continue later...