Relax...

Every final exam I've ever taken has been a big deal at the time.
And whatever happened, life went on.
I take a final today, and the same will happen: life will go on. Somehow, maybe not the way I'd have chosen, but then again, who's steering this boat?
Clara's got a good point. Practically speaking, what's the sense of worrying?
And on a higher level, knowing that God is in control can take a whole lot of anxiety away, if we just remember that fact.
As my dear friend told me, "Study like it depends on you; pray like it depends on God."
If anyone else would care to pray for me, I would greatly appreciate it.
And in 5 years, Clara, maybe I'll be treating y'all in my PT clinic!

Non-commital Update

Yes, I did at one point (ok, several points) within the last year or so state emphatically that I would forevermore "stay away from military guys."
But there's always the exception that proves the rule. (How many Marine pilots own a Breviary, I mean, seriously?)
As per usual, my cross seems to be the distance between current states of residence (states meaning, Connecticut vs Washington STATE).
Dreaming on, ....

Understanding Providence

I am constantly reminded that God places people in my life for different reasons, not all of which I will ever know. But the more reasons I do know, the more grateful I am to Him.
It's the week of my final, but I'm still able to enjoy the company of friends--good people whom I've just come to know in the past few months through my dear friend, Sharon. Last night there was a Christmas party at one of the resturants, thrown for all their customers as a "thank you" for their patronage. Several people from the parish came; and I at least recognized most of them, thanks to the tireless introductions Frank and Sharon have consistently made these past months. It was a truly enjoyable time, just being there among good, kind people--listening to their stories, laughing with them, and then sincerely looking forward to seeing them again.
Yes, graduate school is difficult; and if I'm not supposed to continue, God will let me know. But at least I also know that there's more here for me than school. I have gained so much from all these people I've come to know, even though I've known them for a short time. Their generous kindness and warmth have given me comfort and encouragement I never thought I would encounter so far away from home. And if I'm not meant to continue here at school, whether after this semester or after another, I will never regret having been here.
Thank you, Lord, for the people you place in my path to make my way easier.

My 11th son

I have come to love so many different names. This is because I like some names because of the beautiful sounds themselves, and others because of the people they have named in the past. For example, everyone who knows me wells is aware that my first son will be named Caleb, the stud who stood by Joshua in the Old Testament even after all the rest of the Israealites flaked out on him. By the time I get married, I'm going to need about 37 children, just so I can use all my "favorite" names!

New one today: Anthony. I really don't like the nickname "Tony," and even Anthony was on my secondary, or "middle name," list.

But the exam I was really worried about today? Mom told me she prayed to St. Anthony to help me "find the right answers." How appropriate, since that's literally what these multiple-choice exams require. (I never knew it could be so difficult to take an exam where it's 100 questions with the answers right in front of you.) I just looked at my grade: YESSSS!!
I realized, then, that St. Anthony is probably one of my most-invoked saints. I admit this is partially a reflection of my absentminded and ditzy tendencies. But seriously, if his intercession can find missing car keys, cell phones, airline itineraries, and important legal documents,* why shouldn't he be my patron for anything else? I mean, every prayer request is a "search" for something. I'm looking to "find" my way through graduate school, I pray for friends to "find" comfort in the midst of tragedy, I long to "find" my vocation, ...etc.

Today I finally came to the full realization that the name Anthony belongs to a very special saint. I don't know where I am in my list of names for my future children--I think around my 11th son. Even so, I might have to insert this one into my line-up directly after Caleb.

That's right, still second to Caleb. I mean, really; let's not get carried away.

*yes, personal experience, all of them.

My new Favorite Thing

Recently, I've become very good at going to bed early.
...G'nite.

There have been countless times in my life where I've stood beside my sister.

I cannot remember the two years of my early life without her; she's always been next to me, as far as I can recall. We stood together during the rough times in elementary school, with the ups and downs of homeschool intensities. We stayed side-by-side in junior high, braving the parochial school after several years of homeschool. Our increasingly contrasting personalities made our alliance in junior high rocky, but we felt the need to maintain it, and did so even against our own inclinations. And when our family moved to the Philippines in our early teens, we had each other to cling to during the ensuing culture shock. Upon our return to the States, our friendship grew deeper, and we cultivated it further through daily prayer together during high school. I went away to college; we wrote letters. She came to college; we caught up with each other over the holidays. Then I left and we grew closer again.

There's been a pattern in our relationship: our love is most palpable when we go through the most difficult of seasons.

But it was my honor and joy to stand beside my sister on her wedding day in November: to love her without also shielding her from the attacks of outsiders, without ducking around our differences, without sobbing on her shoulder or holding her sobs in mine. ...With pure joy in her happiness and contentment in her peace. To say she was beautiful, to say she was radiant, to say she was in love, ...yes, all true... but what was most brilliant about her on her wedding day was her peacefulness.

As I stood beside her that day, I felt a different kind of closeness, as well as a new distance. We've bridged our distances in order to stand together in the past. This time, she built a bridge and crossed over it. And all I could do was thank God for her joy and His love made evident in the person of her new husband.

My God continue to bless you, my dear sister, and may we stand together again and again through this rugged journey of life.

Calling All Angels

If you see this, please pray for me...
I've got to do well on some big exams tomorrow and Thursday, which themselves are only preliminary to the final I have to do well on the following Friday.

What I Shall Have Decided To Do

I keep telling God, "If You want me here, You'll help me get through (this semester, these exams, this class, ...)"
So far, I'm still here.
Just now, I decided what I will do if I don't pass my finals these next few weeks: I will fill out an application to be an "inflight crew member" (aka: stewardess) on my favorite airline, JetBlue.
Despite my desire to be a physical therapist, it's kind of comforting to have a backup plan.

Well, look at that

I find this result truly fascinating...

VIOLET You surround yourself with art and music and are constantly driven to express yourself. You often daydream. You prefer honesty in your relationships and belive strongly in your personal morals. Find out your color at Quiz Me!

Ever wonder?

No matter how much you dread a certain pending situation or event, somehow you end up getting through it just fine. And the dread isn't really serious dread, after all: you weren't really afraid that your mortal life would be over, or that you would become seriously injured or deformed, at least in most cases. You're nervous, you're anxious, you're worried, but it's a "comfortable"--for lack of a better term--level of apprehension. If you don't think so, just try to imagine what your job would be like with no co-workers to deal with or problems to solve; or what your studies would be like with no exams or difficult concepts to work through. ...Yuck! There must be some level of stress in order to keep life interesting. Likewise, there must be some level of apprehension to accompany the more stressful times.

Many of my friends tell me they're happy. I don't have any millionaire friends among them who sit around and do nothing, so I can't speak for them. But everyone I know seems to be overcoming difficult things on a daily basis. It seems to be part of humanity to undergo and then overcome stress. After all, it also seems to be part of humanity to welcome a "break." What's a vacation unless it's a "break" from something, whether interpersonal relationship dealings, or complex tasks, or the unending routines of household management?

I was talking with a few friends over Thanksgiving, and we happend upon the concept of fulfillment--specifically in lieu of C.S. Lewis's "Surprised By Joy", which I haven't read. I think I want to read it, though, because it sounds like it might speak to this issue of life as we live it. There has to be something to hope for, but as a hope--not as an actuality--because any fulfillment that can be attained in this life will be dissatisfying. So hope is the better thing, at least as long as we're still on earth.

As far as overcoming obstacles, all of these small accomplishments are like small foreshadowings of the great obstacle of death that we are to pass through. Perhaps that is why it's so difficult for us to remind ourselves that we can never "deserve" or "earn" heaven; it's just not possible. We'd like to think we can.

Just like we like our anxieties and worries to be taken seriously, and we like to be applauded and congratulated (or at least we congratulate ourselves) when we overcome them.

But can you imagine what real dread is?
How about dread of something that really cannot be overcome by our power?
How about dread of the loss of heaven--something we cannot attain by our own worthiness or our own justification?
Lasting dread: not just a stress to make life interesting, but rather, eternity without God.

I don't know but that it must be some kind of virtue to even partially comprehend this type of dread--and then more virtue again to accept God's mercy in its stead.

Back to the Music Box

It's like riding on a Merry-Go-Round that takes forever, but you know you're back where you started when you see the music box.

I've just gotten over the worst bout of homesickness I've ever had in my whole entire life. And now I'll be going home for the weekend. So I'm gearing up for the distinct possibility that the same severe homesickness will be back after this trip.

But Thanksgiving was great--old friends, new friends, and awesome food.

In recent news, I'm considering the pros and cons of Dallas In The Summertime--wouldn't that be an uninspiring song title! One major problem is the color of my car: black. My sister suggested carrying around oven mitts with me, in order to get in and out. hmmm.... Also considering the pros and cons of Washington DC In The Summertime.

At present, just trying to finish up these last few weeks of an almost-impossible semester, or so it seems. Prayers are, of course, always welcome and never wasted!

Moving Out

A man moved into the room adjacent to mine in this small upstairs boarding house.
Which means I'll be moving out.
In the span of less than 30 minutes, I met the new tenant, talked to my mother, gave notice to my landlady, and arranged alternative accommodations for next term.
Meanwhile, I'll be moving my stuff and my-self out of this place as quickly as possible!

random concerns

If something happens to me and I die suddenly, how will my parents log onto my computer, if it happens to be shut down at the time of my death? Is there a way to by-pass the password? Also, I'm not a minor, but I don't have a will. Is my dad automatically granted POA, since he's co-signed almost every financial endeavor I've taken in my entire life? Would my banks give him a hard time if he tried to go and close out all my accounts?

This is along the same lines as my continual concern about whether I should carry some form of ID when I run. In case something happens, the police will at least have some idea of who I am.

The things I ponder, even as I force myself to read about the metacarpophalangeal joints....

Buddhist Baptisms

"Bye, now! We're going to attend a Buddhist Baptism!" yells the man who is married to one of my best friends, as he jets out the front door. I am left alone in their house to chuckle at the suggestion implied by the sarcastic comment. What isn't funny is the truth contained within the joke.
The truth is that the baptism is at a Catholic Church--at the parish across town, where we would never think to go for Mass, except in extreme circumstances. One of those Catholic parishes that seems to hold onto the fear that it will be "too Catholic" for its parishioners. Because of this, everything that happens takes on a form of relativism, modifying practices and rubrics--sometimes even doctrine--to meet the perceived comfort level of the parishioners. The currently popular but misguided principle takes effect: If we do not clearly tell people the difference between right and wrong, less harm will be done.
This philosophy finds its origin in the observation that people are often attracted to a perceived good that is not necessarily in union with the objective, or actual, Good. This reality, however, is due to our fallen human nature. It is one of the effects of sin. It should not be encouraged or exploited by our Church, which St. Paul refers to as The Pillar of Truth. Rather, the goal of each parish should be to educate its parishioners so that they may recognize the difference between a perceived good and an actual good. And then after that, encourage them to seek after the actual good.
Fortunately, the Roman Catholic Church herself stands firmly in the Truth, as she has from the beginning. But she is ailing, suffering from a sickness in her members--a disunity in her body.

And thus, the Buddhism analogy. The first precept of Buddhism is to abstain from harming living beings. This includes killing animals, insects, plants, etc: anything that has life is put on the same level of equality. There is no distinction between vegetative, animate, and rational souls in the Buddhist system. In fact, one of the highest forms of "blessedness" in neoBuddhism, according to my friendly source of Buddhist information, consists in starving oneself, since eating anything inevitably does "harm" to some living being.

So the analogy is quite simple: Buddhists actually believe that all living things should be treated with the same reverence, simply because they are living. Some parishes in the present state of our Church operate on the principle that all parishioners should stay at their own comfort level, regardless of whether they are in accordance with objective good.

Thus the term "Buddhist Baptism."

They just came back.
"How was the baptism?" I asked.
"It was valid," came the reply.
Sad that in these times, that's often the most we can hope for.

PT dancing

You should see the moves...

We've got sequences made up for all sorts of stuff--

-motions in each of the cardinal planes and the axes that correspond
"Sagittal! Sagittal! Sagittal! Ci-i-i-rrrcumDUCTION!..."

-motions tested for each of the motor nerve roots
"C5. (clap). C7. (slap). C5,C6.C5,C6...."

-contortions for special tests at each of the joints
"Patrick's! Straight leg RAISE! Kernig, and Alternate Sign?..."

Yeah, we'll be a popular crowd out at the bars!

My angel called

I studied in the PT lab at school this evening with one of my classmates, Michael. He's a really good guy; we actually studied "together, separately," which is effective for both of us: we both concentrate on our own studying, but there's also someone there if we run into a question or problem.

As I shut down all my computer windows at the end of the "session," my desktop background (one of my Garden of the Gods photos) popped into view. I moaned. "I just wanna go home," I whined to Michael.
"Sephora, if you go back to Colorado, I'm going back to Boston!" he countered with impeccable logic.
"Huh?? Why does that make any sense at all?" I snapped back, irritated that I was not being allowed to sink into self-pity, due to the skipping and jumping of my cognition neurons at the incongruence of the statement.

Michael has a girlfriend at home, with whom he is very much in love; he has told me on a number of occasions that he'd rather just get married and forget these next three years of school. I continually tell him that he has a responsibility to be able to provide for his future family, and that getting this degree is the best idea at this point. This is what he really wants to do for a career, anyway.
So apparently, my feelings are so strong on this point that I will stay here in school just to make sure that he does, ...right.

Anyway, I walked out of the building into the dark, crisp air of the emptied parking lot. Somewhere in front of me, a very sweet guy named Michael was calling his girlfriend in Boston. Somewhere 1800 miles west of me my family was settling down after dinner in a cozy mountain home living room. Somewhere 3 miles east of me lay a lonely bedroom, a pile of books, and a full coffeepot. ~sigh~

I got in my car, and checked my cell phone. 2 messages.

The first was from my very good friend, just back from the trip to my sister's wedding and the extended vacation into Kansas to see relatives. Yay! She's back! I'm feeling less lonely.

The second was from an "unavailable" number, who called twice, one minute apart. "Hey, at least whoever this is left a message," I thought.
A young man's voice spoke kindly in my ear, "Hi, Sephora; I think I have the wrong number; but, may God bless you, too, and have a great day.... Bye."
I saved it.

As I drove home toward my pile of books, I started to wonder how many people in my neighborhood must be far away from home; how many are in agonizing relationships they can't bring themselves to leave; how many of them don't have anyone, here or miles away, to love them or miss them. I essence, how much I actually do have.
That guy and girl in the car behind me--where are they going, and why? Are they borrowing a car for a study break / donut run, or are they just coming back from a day of sightseeing in the City?

God loves me so particularly, He sent me a message through a stranger. Sure, the stranger said it was a wrong number, but God knew I'd hear Him: "Behold, I have given you all this, and you still consider yourself oppressed?"

I think maybe it was my angel.

Pudding

I'll see my first patient(s) today. It'll be at a walk-in clinic, so not even the Clinical Instructors who work there know who I'll see. Kind of scary; I've been in school for less than three months, and here I am, about to go out and do examinations on people. Today, if I get to do a spine and a shoulder exam, I don't have to do another clinical on December 1st! That means I'll have that day off. (which means I might change a certain airline ticket so that I can be back in Colorado Springs a few days before my friend's wedding...)
So I guess today is the first real test of my clinical knowledge. As my clinical advisor at school said to us, "The proof is in the pudding. This is the pudding."

The Church Suffering

Yesterday I was a special witness to a great day in the lives of my sister and her new husband. A great day for them, for each of our families, and for the Church.
The experience of attending this kind of wedding--and even participating as a member of the wedding party--is a certain euphoria. Because it's such a good thing for the world: two good, Catholic people come together as one to follow Christ through the vocation of marriage. So incredible, this witness to Christ's love for His Church.

Welcome to the family, Matt! Now I have three brothers!

After this great event, I was a witness to a scandalous occurrance at anticipated Sunday Mass up the road. For the Communion Hymn, instead of singing the "Litany of the Saints," the music ministry sang the "Litany of Souls." Names that were mentioned between each "pray for us" were members of the parish who had died in the past year and beyond--names of relatives and friends given to the organist by parishioners. Even Ronald Reagan was in there, according to friends of mine who were listening more closely than I.
"Last year, All Souls Day was on a Sunday, and we did this. It was such a hit, we do it every Sunday in November now," the organist told me after Mass, when I went over and asked her "[just exactly] what was that?"
So now a letter to the parish priest is in order, who unfortunately, concelebrated at my sister's wedding, and knows my family. It's kind of difficult for me to speak up when things like this go on in the parishes around my home, since my parents both work for the Diocese.

But I figured that eventually, the day would come.
It has.

Nighttime Productivity

I've marveled before at the disproportionate amount of time that seems to be contained in the hours of darkness when sleep is the natural activity.
This evening, I have reconciled myself to the fact that I'll be awake most of the night, doing work for the rest of the week before I leave for Erin's wedding. As a consequence of this plan, I am sitting on the bed at 1am with my laptop in my lap, but no work done--barely any work started. I have time...I have all night, after all.

Me: I can't wait to come home.
Mom: I'm so glad you're looking forward to it. But you know, there's going to be a lot to do. I'm going to need you from the moment you arrive.
Me: That's fine. I don't mind. That's why I'm coming. In fact, I wish I could've been there to help you out over these past few months.
Mom: No, no, that's fine. Just as long as you're aware that it's going to be crazy-busy when you do get here.
Me: I understand. I do need to get some work done for school, though, while I'm home.
Mom: Umm...well, hmmm. ...Can you do it on the plane?

Hence, the all-nighter before I leave Connecticut!

Bukas na Mukha

There's a pretty even distribution among my friends who tell me
1. I'm really hard to get to know
and
2. My life is an open book
In fact, the same friends have made both observations!
I guess both can be true, since actually knowing a person doesn't have much to do with what they choose to reveal at any given time.
In the Philippines we used the phrase, "bukas na mukha," which meant, "open face." It didn't refer to a type of sandwich; it referred to the ease with which others could tell what was on your mind. Even there, I received both comments 1. and 2. from the same friends.

I think part of it is that when something makes me happy, I feel the need to tell others about it, whether or not they care. When I'm upset, I usually use all my energy up being upset, and don't save any evergy with which to hide the fact.
Yet still, those who don't know me well do not understand why I am particularly happy or sad or angry: the thought processes that bring me to those points. What I value in life and in people--things that attract or repel me--and what I look forward to from day to day, are secrets hidden from all but my close friends.

And so here I am, not three months into my graduate program, and I find myself in this bizarre social dynamic with my classmates. It's the unique character of early relationships which combines a superficial friendliness with the closeness that follows from sharing one anothers' joys.
I can't even count the number of people who greeted me today with, "Are you excited?" or "How's your sister?" or "Two more days! Do you have your dress ready?" or "Isn't it snowing now in Colorado?"
Most of them don't even know my sister's name--although some do!--but they all know that she's getting married this weekend in Colorado. And they know that while I'm home, I'll be seeing my newest neice for the first time; of course, they all heard the news when she was born a month and a half ago!

It's not really a bad thing. Weddings and births are exciting occasions, and well-wishes from strangers are generally sincere and gracious. Plus, there's no question in anyone's mind that I should be allowed to miss half a week of class for such a joyous event.

As long as I get my work done. ...hmmm. better get to that...