update + just awkward

Yikes! 
It's been over two months since I blogged last. I gotta say, I kinda miss it. 

Life update: This semester is flying by. In a short month & a half it'll be done & gone, then I'll have super intense summer school. It's called the Summer Practicum, and it consists of a test everyday at 8 am, 4 hours of lecture, 4 hours of lab, go home at 5-6pm, cry, study, maybe eat, sleep, and repeat for about 11 weeks.  If I survive that, then I'm assigned a hospital lab for a year (my senior year) of clinicals. I'm excited, nervous, happy, and sad all at the same time. Big things are changing this fall. I know I won't be in North Dakota, and there's a 95% chance I know where I'm going, but I don't want to post it here in case it changes.  If you message me, I'll probably tell you! :)

But probably the biggest news is that I finally have a sweet little baby sister! After 4 brothers, she's here. :) She's absolutely beautiful, and I'm heart broken that I can't hold her until the end of the month. 

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And here's the awkward stuff I've done, seen, felt or heard in the past weeks. Enjoy ;D

First of all, it's still cold here. What a surprise. ;) haha I'm not complaining; I know I'll miss it in 3 months... ok, maybe 4.

*in ballroom dancing*
Me: I was homeschooled.
New partner: Really?! You seem pretty normal.
Me: gee thanks, buddy.

Biking on a frozen lake during Spring Break.... haha because biking on a frozen lake not during Spring Break is normal...? :-}

My lip started bleeding during a test. That either means I was nervous & bit it, or it shows you how dry it is here. Or both.

The one day I decide to not wear long underwear, the fire alarm goes off in the union. It was only -2 outside. Why...

Skiing down a hill and almost running over a squirrel. He was so close that his fur probably touched my ski. Stupid squirrel.

A ballroom TA (teacher's assistant) thought I was a TA. Either he's not very observant or I'm not a bad dancer. I'd like to think the second option. ;)

When a police woman drove by while talking on her cell phone (it wasn't hands free). Isn't that... Illegal? 

The guy in front of me at Subway was wearing Hawaiian swim shorts OVER his jeans. 

 The three littlest <3

 

On Sunday it was relatively warm and sunny. On Monday, a blizzard came through and canceled school for two days!! Happy first day of April from North Dakota. :D

moving on & moving

as the denial wore away and the uncertainty of what i would do this coming fall burned more and more in the back front of my head, i scrambled for options. do i move to hawaii with my family? do i not? do i try to find a school in wa? what do i do?

before i had an answer from the program, my plan was to move to hawaii if the dental hygiene was a no. in other words, hawaii was the 'failure' route- if that makes sense. so when the answer was no, i was extremely against moving there. i spent long nights searching schools/other degrees in washington: radiology and diagnostic medical sonography (ultrasound stuff). i wanted to stay in the amazing wa state. i only needed to take two more classes to apply to the sonography school, but they were consecutive classes- meaning i would need to take one and then the other. that would have taken time and money. scratch that plan.

back to the drawing board. 

what to do. what to do. what to do.

and then one night it hit me...

WHAT IF I GO TO NORTH DAKOTA WITH MY BROTHER?!

whoa, this could be cool. 

(he had applied months in advance for the aviation program.)

ever since i visited a 'real' college, the university of washington, i had a little incentive to go to a university. the campus was beautiful. i think that once you attend for a few years, walk the halls, study your butt off, and receive a diploma from a university, a little bit of your heart stays there. you have a little pride in your school. at least this is what i think happens.

so i looked through the university of north dakota's (und's) catalog. what degree can a get in the medical field that isn't a doctor or nurse? and is there any degree i can finish in 2 or 3 years? 

medical laboratory science caught my eye. a 4-year degree, but from the list of classes required- it looked like i had already taken a quarter of them. one year = done. :)

I applied and was accepted* within a couple weeks.

that was easy... really easy. 

*let me clarify- when i say accepted, i'm talking about und, not medical laboratory science (mls). after about a year, i'll apply to the mls program, but supposedly it isn't hard to get into. i'm hoping that is true.

and then i had second thoughts... why am i moving to north dakota? why am i leaving most of my family (5 out of the 7)? i want to live in hawaii now. why? i had a few meltdowns; for a week or two, i was literally dead-set on hawaii. but i finally realized i was just scared about it new change. and i finally accepted that fact, and it helped. a lot. 

so back to north dakota. yeah... north dakota. NEVER in my wildest dreams had i ever thought about the idea of going there... moving there. ever. just a few months ago, it would have been more likely for me to visit australia or new zealand than to move to this northern very-hot-at-the-moment state. crazy how God works, huh?

more than just a few people have asked me why und (university of north dakota).  people from washington and people from und think I'm crazy. with confused faces, they ask, "so, why north dakota?" which is short for: why did you choose to come to a school in a super flat and boring state? my doctor jokingly said, "i didn't know there were schools in nd." and he asked if i was going to school for buffalo herding. he's a character, but he's almost right. this place is boring.

i don't really have a good answer for these people. but i do know God has a reason for all of this. He brought me here for some reason. i don't quite know why yet. all i know is i'm excited to find out. all my other plans have fallen through; this one hasn't, so there is a reason. 

as most of my family is hawaii bound, nate and i are north dakota bound. 

with the help from friends, we loaded up a car & u-haul truck and hit the road. 

1,500 miles, 5 days, and 4 states later, we enter grand forks, north dakota.

my mom and three other brothers did the trip too. so the vehicle/driver ratio was 2:3. 

while we're in the midwest, we're visiting family in minnesota/wisconsin/illinois/canada. 

busy busy busy summer! i can't stress enough how much driving we're doing. 

it's a good thing i don't mind road trips/driving. :)

we like hanging out in the back of the u-haul. (before it was loaded with mine and nate's junk.)

we said hi to napoleon and kip and tina and deb and pedro and uncle rico :)

good thing we weren't planning on staying...

oh, the life of a trucker. ;)

(doesn't my baby brother's car seat adds a little something to this picture? hmmm)

not as confused

A while back, I blogged about my disappointment in not being accepted to the dental hygiene program in Washington State- click here to read it. I was extremely confused and, well, disappointed. For awhile, I lived in denial. I didn't want to believe the letter they sent me. How was it possible that they wouldn't accept a student with a 3.96 GPA and above average test scores?

A few days before.

I didn't get an email with my test score numbers, so I went to the testing center, and asked the lady at the desk what my scores were. She looked them up and printed them out on a paper. All three scores were above average. Excitement. Hope.

I get 'the letter'...

Fast forward a couple weeks.


I'm finally able to get an appointment with the director of the program. She looks at my transcript and test scores on her computer. Then, she starts the I'm-sorry-you-failed speech. Ok, she wasn't that harsh, but it seemed that way. I cut her off before she could finish it by handing her the paper with my test scores. Then, she was confused.

 "With scores like this, you should be in the program," she said.

 "Really?!" I'm shocked, but not ready to believe it. I already accepted the fact that I'm not in, and I don't want to be let down again.

 "Well, I don't want to take away someone else's opportunity to be in the program," I said. (They only accept 20 students per year.)

 "Oh no, I would have to make an exception and have 21 people in the program."

My excitement is rising, but I stay composed. She still has to talk to the testing center to figure this whole mess out. I leave her office a little happier than when I walked in. I call my mom and tell her the whole situation, and then I tell my brother the whole story as we drive home from school. I know my happiness can flee at any moment with a simple phone call, so I keep myself level-minded.

And as we're driving home, I get that phone call. It's a lady from the testing center- the one who gave me that paper with the scores on it a few weeks back. She apologized as much as she could. She probably said 'I apologize' and 'I'm sorry' 15 times during our 2 minute conversation. The story goes that when I went to see her in person, she gave me the scores of a different person. Yeah. Big mistake. I'm not mad at her though. It's probably because I stayed level-headed. I knew something was up, something I couldn't fix. People I've talked to say I should be mad at her error and at the whole program. But why? I was over it a long time ago. No reason to get upset. It wasn't God's plan, and I'm not arguing with Him. One things for sure, I'm not confused anymore. :) To this day, I don't know my scores, and I'd like to keep it that way. I honestly don't want to see how badly I did on them. Some things are better kept a secret. ;)

I'm planning on blogging about my next steps in this journey called life soon. Stay tuned.