.thirty five point two five.

Yup. That's right...my group's research proposal scored 35.25/45 on our application to present at the AOTA national conference in Philadelphia next spring, so we won't be going. Again...thank you God for answering prayers, even when we don't understand them. So these 3 positive things a day are more difficult that I thought, but I'm not giving up yet.
1. I'm REALLY stressed out writing this initial goal plan/intervention session for my IMAGINARY client with borderline personality disorder and substance abuse issues...to the extent that I didn't think I was going to make it to church tonight. But one of the girls in my bible study who is in my little prayer group just texted me begging me to come, so I am. It is nice to feel loved. :)
2. I got a hilarious text message from a dear friend in the middle of me trying to write an intervention plan for my dear, fake client about moose sweat. It made my morning.
3. The director of our program looked like a complete fool in front of our guest speaker today and it was quite hilarious. Definitely a light-hearted pick-me-up for the 2nd years who needed it this week!! :)

.ouch.

Well...this whole "3 good things a day" thing is much harder than I thought it would be. Hmm....I suppose I am still in the slump of being in school/school kicking my butt/can I PLEASE graduate...but this is more difficult than I thought so........here we go.
1. I had my first day of my first competency today. I had a great case study and wrote a pretty decent 7 page paper in the allotted 2 1/2 hours. Creating the intervention plan for Friday is going sub-par at this point, however.....hmph.
2. God answers prayers. Not always in the way we want to OR the way that's easiest for us to deal with, but he still answers prayers....and I'm SO thankful for a God that works in ways mightier than I can see....even if it makes me grumpy for the whole afternoon/evening. :)
3. Last night (after the last post) I had a WONDERFUL evening with a friend and her mom. I shared pictures/stories from my summer and it was a wonderful night to catch up on life. :)

.spanish.

Ok. Here is my attempt at three happy things for today (one of which just HAPPENS to be a huge prayer request!)
1. I found out that I can take medical Spanish in the spring during my last semester of classes.....WOOHOO! Although I can't take the school OT or ASL classes, I'm stoked to get back into Spanish.
2. My teacher curved our test (that I failed) so I now have a B-....hey, I'll take it.
3. I have the opportunity to go to Mazatlan, Mexico for 8 days in January with 6 girls from my school. The only problem= finances AND the fact that I need to decide what I'm doing within 5 days. I pray that God will open up doors to provide and that my parents will be open to the idea of letting me borrow money and go. PRAYERS!
4. Everyday I realize how blessed I am to have the boyfriend that I do. He is just over-the-top supportive, especially this semester as I've been freaking out about school and whether we can make our relationship work out despite being consumed by OT school/med school for him.

:)

.pdf files.

The best conversations happen at the weirdest times...and most often, they also come when I need them. So today at school, about 75% of our class was complaining about how they failed and/or got a C on our online test over the weekend. Yeah...super lame. After that time, I walked over to the library with a friend who was working on creating some PDF files for her job. So...we got to talking about how we (along with the 53 other second year OTSs) hate school this semester. They are trying to train us to think like OTs, but we just aren't understanding their teaching style, apparently. So my friend and I got to talking about how we are both normally QUITE optimistic people who just try to find the good in everything...but that we've been failing for the last month. It is just extremely difficult to be happy when you're surrounded with grumpy people all the time and you aren't doing well in school (aka this semester). Last night, she shared that she started a "happy moments" journal. Basically, she's writing 3 things a day that happen that are good, so she ends each day reflecting on the happy things in her life and not the sad/frustrating/annoying ones. Definitely a good CBT theory activity to stop focusing on the bad things in life. I concur. I have decided that my blog will be turning into the list of Em's happy moments. I suppose I shall start with today/yesterday.
1. All things camp. I work with a student on campus who used to be a camper and he SERIOUSLY brings me so much joy. Even though I'm just his on-call attendant for 2 nights/week, whenever he calls me, it's SO fun to just go talk to him and hang out for a bit. Yesterday, I also spent the afternoon with my beloved Canadian friend, the boy, and two other camp friends at CAMP! We walked around property and saw the new horse barn and rec pavilion that were only half finished when I left camp ~2 months ago. Just walking around camp and hanging out at our favorite place (which overlooks the lake) was AMAZING. Someday, I'll add pics to Facebook. :)
2. I got MAIL! My Daddy-O sent me a letter in it with some STAMPS! I looooooooove being a pen pal, but I always run out of stamps so quickly. Hmph. Now I can write more letters....YAY!!
3. Lily has arrived. For those who do not know, I have an un-biological twin. She had a baby. She's super adorable and I can't wait to meet her. Regardless, I would call that a happy thing...so here's a shout out to Team Hildebrand and Baby Lily! <3

.bb situation.

So, I will openly admit that I have a weakness for People magazine. It's my guilty pleasure, per se. This week in People, NOT ONLY was there a huge article about Teen Mom (ok...I also have a weakness for trashy reality TV) there was also an excerpt about bed bugs. Today when I opened up my Yahoo email, the front news story was about bed bugs in NYC. Clearly these things are taking over, which brings me to my conclusion. Over the summer, God used these stupid little bed bugs to remind me of the fact that He has a plan greater than I can see. At one point over the summer, the "bb situation" (the staff code for "oh crap...every cabin has been infested by bed begs") was more than I could handle. Really, it was more than any of us could handle. I'd never seen a 80+ person staff ripped apart by anything like this before. No one was sleeping because we were doing laundry til 3-4 AM and we were sleeping on concrete ground...for multiple nights. Not to mention that we couldn't live in our cabins AND the vast majority of us were showing bed bug bites mid-way through the week. I thought that I had made it through the clear, when one morning I woke up and I literally cried to see a few dozen bites on my left arm. That was my breaking point. Sure enough, God came through and I lived through that week. Not only did I live through it, I THRIVED the rest of that week. I have amazing memories from the rest of that week, including the highlight of my summer: adaptive water-skiing. Best ever.
Not only with the bed bugs, but God continues to blow my mind. My HS "sweetheart" (or whatever you prefer to call it) got married over the weekend. I remember at one point in my life when we broke up, that I thought life would never get better than the time I spent with him. False. Looking at his wedding pictures (um....yes, I am a facebook creeper), I realized how much happier I am now than I was with him. By going our separate ways, I have found true joy in what I'm doing (the camp/working with people with disabilities part...not so much the school part), learned what life is REALLY about, and found an even better guy. Win. <3

.speechless.

It takes a lot to make me speechless. I either have to be exhausted (beyond the point of slap happiness), exxxxxxxxtremely mad, or just in shock. "Just in shock" would be the polite way to put how I'm feeling now. Just about two hours ago, I found out that one of my favorite campers from this summer passed away from ALL (a form of childhood leukemia). He was 16, a junior in HS, and had been diagnosed for just over two years. I got a call from a counselor in my cabin during his week and we cried for awhile and then I got on Facebook to see that all of my campers from our Leadership cabin that week had posted things on their statuses about our friend. After seeing everyone's statuses and hanging up the phone with my friend, I was just in complete shock. This awesome kid who I had spend a solid 6 days with just 6 WEEKS ago had passed away. Such a shock.....
I knew that when he first came to camp in 2009, the doctors said he had less than two years to live. Seeing him at camp in 2010, I wouldn't have guessed anything was wrong. He exceeded every goal he set for himself (including trying watertubing, being a junior cabin counselor for a day, and hiking a combined 3 1/2 hour HIKE in a matter of 18 hours WITH his ankle brace on). I suppose I was really able to bond with him during watertubing and the leadership all-nighter on the last night of camp. I was in charge of watertubing and I remember having to talk him into just TRYING it; he ended up LOVING it and going multiple times and being SO excited to tell his parents about what he did. And then there was the all nighter.....
This camper had been talking ALL week about wanting to tell his story, so during the all-nighter, I promised to listen. He flat out told us how he knew he was sick, the whole process of starting chemo, living through leukemia while trying to be a regular teenager, coming to camp in 2009, still fighting leukemia...basically everything about his life from June 2008-present. The BEST part of all is that through his whole story he kept talking about how he knew that his faith was the only thing that would get him through this situation. He had his heart set on being a youth pastor and he knew that God had given him this challenge to be a light for Him and to use his testimony to change the lives of others when he was a pastor someday. Hearing his testimony made me speechless...what a strong, unwavering faith even in THE TOUGHEST of times! The most ironic thing, is that his last Facebook status ever says "I'm at home resting...." I'm am SO thankful that he loved the Lord and that He used this camper to touch so many lives while he lived here on earth. I have SO much respect for this camper and even though he will be missed here on earth, I can only REJOICE because I know that he is no longer suffering, but he is in HEAVEN!!!!
At the same time, I am reminded at how truly precious life is. You never know what day could be your last. Such a hard, but real lesson to remember. <3

.short people.

I love my friends. I am just SO thankful that God has given me such great friends in Indianapolis...just being back here feels so much like home!! More importantly, God has given me the gift of seeing people through His eyes, so even though my friends may be crazy different, I love them for it! So last night I went to hang out with two of my camp friends who recently moved to an apartment together. It was a GREAT night, but I'm sure that if anyone else had seen what we did all night, people would have been so confused. It was me, my friend with prosthetic legs, and my other friend who uses a wheelchair. We ALWAYS get strange looks when we go out places, but whatever. Getting to spend time with these guys has been such an eye-opening experience; it's crazy how much people will stare at things that are different from themselves! We had SO much fun and then we went back and the guys taught me to play Risk. It was a CRAZY long game....long enough that my friend was walking around without his legs on and my other friend was crawling around his house, instead of using his chair. When I got up to leave, one of them commented that I must have a thing for "short people", as both of the guys are sitting on the floor. It was a great comment and made me realize how strange it would look to some people, but how it seems strangely normal to me. And then (of course), being ONE WEEK back into school, I was already having all sorts of OT thoughts on how their apartment could be made more accessible. I'm such a nerd....:)