Famous Last Words for Week 14

Well everyone, here it is - my last assignment for this class. It has been so much fun to use this class as my creative outlet this semester. As a science major, most of my papers are research based. This means making a structured paper with an obvious INTRODUCTION title, PURPOSE, METHODS, and - well, you get the point. Yes, this course has been a bit demanding in terms of the workload, but the fact that I could work ahead, could do extra credit, and could miss an assignment here or there without worry completely made up for it! My grammar still may not be the best and I may not always know exactly where my commas and dashes go, but this class has certainly improved those areas of my writing.
Not only has this class been a creative outlet for me, but it has also enhanced my writing in other areas. Over the course of this semester, I have been filling out secondary application letters to various medical schools that include many short essays. I truly believe that my essays would not have been as good as they were without the help of writing stories for this class. I think that my creative spin to those medical school essays helped to make my application stand out. So far, I have received two interviews and one acceptance into medical school and am still expecting more to come!

(Mock lab at Campbell School of Osteopathic Medicine. Web Source: The Sanford Herald)

Famous Last Words for Week 13: As the Semester Gets Closer to an End

Wow. I have to say that each semester of college seems to go by faster and faster! This one has been particularly busy causing time to just slip right past me. This semester I am enrolled in 18 credit hours and work 25 hours a week. Between the two of those things, I spent very little time at home this Fall and many hours in the Bizzel and Second Wind Coffee House with my nose in a textbook or 10 inches away from my laptop!

It is crazy to think that in just two short weeks, this semester will be wrapping up and winter break will be upon us. Until then, I still have five finals, another medical school interview, three midterms, a research project, and six assignments standing in my way (yes, I spent the two hours on D2L procrastinating studying to figure those numbers out)!

I'm almost there and then I will only have one semester left of my undergraduate! Crazy! It's incredible to think that a new chapter of my life is coming so soon and I am terrified and excited to greet it!

(Bizzel Memorial Library. Web Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Famous Last Words for Week 11: The Creative Mind

As the end of this semester draws closer and closer, I have discovered that this course has rekindled my ability to write creatively. As a science major, I often get very caught up with the facts and statistics of my topic that will go into my papers and lose a lot of the creativity. Having the ability to use this course not only as a way to let my imagination run wild, but also as a way to practice putting my imagination on paper (figuratively speaking). I have noticed that doing this each week through this course, my creative writing has spilled over to my other classes in a very rewarding way. I often receive compliments from my professors saying that my writing style is refreshing to read and a nice break from the generic bland scientific papers that normally read. Being able to add my personality to my papers makes them far more interesting for me to write and more enjoyable for those who have to read them. It's been interesting to come to the realization that the learning process is far more important than the letter received for my efforts. When that finally clicked for me, classes became more interesting and I retained more of what was being taught, thus still obtaining the grades that I previously crammed and procrastinated for. I am very grateful to have the opportunity to be in a class that pushes me to be creative, but does not grade on her definition of imagination. It's a really amazing way of running the class, that if taken advantage of as a student can be very rewarding.

(Open Mind. Web Source: Openclipart)

Famous Last Words: Week 8

So since my last famous last words post was about my medical school interview with North Carolina, I thought that I would follow that up this week with some information about how it actually went! First off, the interview was this past Tuesday and I flew out to the school on Monday. When I went to Will Rogers Airport in Oklahoma City to prepare for my 1:10p.m. departure, I was completely unaware of the chaos that was coming. After three changed flight times, my first flight of the day was almost four hours delayed as I finally left for my layover in Dallas at 5:00 p.m.. When I arrived in Dallas, I rushed to my next gate only to have the door closed in my face and a airline worked tell me that I was a minute too late. So, I was placed on the next flight of the day scheduled to leave at 8:20 p.m.. Of course that would be to easy for that one to work out too. Naturally, that flight was also delayed until 10:00 p.m. causing me to lose the rental car that I had booked weeks in advance. Awesome right? I finally arrived in North Carolina at 1:30 in the morning, exhausted and without a way of transporting myself to my hotel that was an hour away. So I sat on my phone for the following thirty minutes desperately trying to find ANY rental car business that was still open this late - or early. Luckily, Alamo was still open and got me into a car quickly and painlessly, which was very uplifting after such a stressful day. By 2:45 a.m. I finally arrived at my hotel just in time to get three short hours of restless sleep before having to wake up for my interview that started at 7 a.m.! The school was beautiful and the staff and students were incredibly kind and welcoming, but by 2 p.m. when the interview was finally finishing up, I was ready to fall asleep right there in the middle of campus. Unfortunately, my flight home was almost immediately after the interview and I still had a car to return! After running through the airport barefoot and in a suit with my heels dangling from my hands, I made it just in time to catch my flight home. It was a frantic and stressful two days, but hopefully it will all pay off when I find out if I got in or not next week!

(American Airlines. Web Source: Wikipedia)

Famous Last Words Week 3

So this past week has been quite exciting and eventful - well at least from Friday to today has been! On Friday morning I received a call from Campbell University School of Osteopathic Medicine inviting me to an interview! For those of you who are not going the medical route, this is HUGE news! Campbell is one of my top choices because of their dedication to community service and mission trips, so I am beyond excited that they are considering me as a possible future student at their school! Later that same day, I was able to share my news with some pretty incredible friends at the Second Wind potluck dinner for all of Second Wind's baristas and student group members to come together for the first time since last semester to share delicious food, catch up with old friends, and meet excited new faces. It turned into a very enjoyable evening of Apples to Apples and Mario Cart on the Wii. It's amazing to be a part of such a family-like group in college and I am so thankful for the relationships that I have made during my time there. If any of you are looking for a great place to find a delicious cup of coffee, a place to study, or some exciting new friends to meet, you should certainly check out Second Wind Coffee House on campus corner! Back to the medical school application process, yesterday I received a letter from Midwestern University College of Osteopathic Medicine telling me that my application is currently in the running for obtaining a possible interview at that school! Man, growing up is exciting, stressful, and terrifying all at once! Getting closer to my dream is both incredible and nerve wracking, but I trust that God has a beautiful path planned for me and I am ready to follow it!

(Bountiful Potluck Yummies: Web Source: Wikipedia)

Famous Last Words: Week 2

For this weeks Famous Last Words post, I would like to reflect on my week overall. With school getting into the swing of things and life and work also in full gear, this past week was quite busy! Each day I wake up at 6:45 a.m., get myself ready for the day and sit and sip on a cup of coffee for at least ten minutes of quite calm reflection time before really starting my day. I then bike two miles from my apartment to campus and - depending on the day - go to class or go to the library to catch up on some work. If it is a Tuesday or Thursday where I don't have class until 10:30, I usually use the time between 8-10 to work on medical school secondary applications, which I am extremely happy to have finally finished this past week! After class, I have just enough time to bike back home, change into work clothes, cram a sandwich down, and then jump into my car and head to work. Once at work, I spend the next 6 hours of the day caring for patients at the physical therapy clinic I have been working at for the past almost two years. When the last patient leaves the clinic, I head home, eat dinner around 8:30 p.m. and then get a couple hours of studying/homework in before going to bed and starting all over again. So ya, this will be my life for this semester and most likely the next. It should be very busy, but also hopefully enlightening time in my life where a lot is going on and changing. Outside of the normal weekly activities, this week was especially exciting because I actually got to scrub in and be very up close and personal during a operation that surgeon I have been following was performing. Before that, I had to watch from a least a 5 foot distance, which makes it a little more difficult to see everything going on in the surgery.

(Morning Cup of Joe: Wikipedia)