.3 and 3.

Ok. I can do this. Or that's what I'm going to tell myself....honestly, I am VERY VERY VERY stressed and on the verge of sickness, so I'm just going to go ahead and lay out 3 prayer requests and 3 of my daily happy things in order to write at least more than like 2 blog posts for November...
Praises:
1. My grades are actually pretty close to where I'd like them to be.
2. The student I assist on campus told me that he thinks I'm a wonderful person.
3. Carrot Cake ice cream by Ben and Jerry's.....tangible proof that God loves us.

Requests:
1. Competency: I have to write two 8+ page papers this weekend for a competency next week with a REAL adult with REAL disabilities. I am scared....to death. Not to mention all of the planning that comes next week to write goals/plans for them...ugh.
2. Finals- I need to kick butt on some finals and I KNOW that I will be dead after competency week...so I'm praying for some sudden burst of energy from somewhere...not to mention I'll spend my 23rd birthday (and the boy's 24th birthday) cramming for the ergonomics and biomechanics finals....
3. Friend- My favoritest research group member (who had also recently started to come to church/Bible study) has been out of school for a week. She is having some really severe mental health issues, and right now we don't know if she'll be able to finish the semester (aka graduate with our class). Prayers prayers prayers for her....even thinking about the details of the situation makes me want to cry. :(

On that note, the next time I probably blog I will be: done with classes for the semester AND 23! :)

.paper chain.

Well, week 10 is coming to a close. CRAZINESS. But, I am glad to report that week 10 was hands down THE BEST week I've had this semester :) So I was some sort of homework-doin' maniac on Saturday and it made me have a fabulous week. I got way ahead on a handful of projects and this week has just been AMAZING! And I am so thankful for that....I suppose one could say I am thoroughly enjoying the calm before the storm :)
1. Monday I had the opportunity to "do life" with my 6 closest friends from school. We had a soup and hangout night where we made THE LONGEST paper chain I've made to date...and that's saying something since I love paper chain making. As of 11/1/10, we had 361 days until graduation. Needless to say, that paper chain took up all of my friends dining room and living room. :)
2. Last night I had the joy of spending time with my research group. A year ago, we were 6 randomly selected girls sent to work with our program director on an unknown research project. Now we are a close group of friends (although we have our FAIR SHARE of fights/arguments) with a potentially super cool thesis project....we'll see how cool it is in another couple weeks once we analyze our data!
3. Tonight I had a great day (minus the 3 hour lecture to start off my day). I got to play with some 'thermal modalities' in one class (including paraffin wax...amazing). Then we went on a field trip to play with adaptive communication devices....again, way fun. I just got home from church tonight and I am just SO thankful for so many wonderful people in my life. It was just refreshing to see so many good friends all in one place at one time :)

.employable.

God's timing is perfect. I can not see it or understand it, but somehow, it's just perfect. I must keep reminding myself of that with the ridiculous amount of things happening in the next three weeks and the next 361 days. In three weeks I will be done with the semester....just 20 days to finish an INCREDIBLE amount of projects/papers/online forums and a handful of tests. Crazier, is that I only have 361 days until I am EMPLOYABLE. I don't know if that is a word, but in 361 days, I will have a legit degree and can start practicing with a temp license. HOLY COW. Somehow, I'm going to get through this all....regardless, here's my three highs:

1. I just got home from a game night/dinner party with my 6 closest OT friends. We have somehow made this ridiculously awesome group of girls this semester and I LOVE IT. I would probably be failing this semester without them. Basically, I'm going to be one sad girl when we all spread out (literally...Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, and Texas) for fieldwork....eeek! However, it was a much needed break from the craziness known as this week.
2. I got a letter from my HS best friend today. It wouldn't be such a big deal, but timing and her living several time zones away has kept us from chatting on the phone for MONTHS and hearing about each other's lives. Literally. It sucks. I almost started crying today when I got her letter...it was SO uplifting and JUST what I needed to hear.
3. I share a birthday with this new fellow in my life....some would refer to him as my boyfriend (which is in fact true) but I prefer to call him "Hey You" or something like that. KIDDING. But really, we share the same birthday...it happens to fall RIGHT in the middle of his exam block II for school and right before my finals for the semester. Sooo.....oh happy day, we will not be getting to hang out on our birthday, HOWEVER, we keep talking about doing something amazing to celebrate tests being over. More on the celebrations later....I'm sure it will be epic. :)

.swift.

I wish everyone could understand camp. That is my conclusion. It is probably the ONLY place in the world where no college/graduate students are judged for belting out HSM (High School Musical), Taylor Swift, or Justin Bieber alllll the time. And not only that, but it's through our ridiculousness that we become such good friends. Regardless, I took a break from life and went to camp on Saturday, which was AAAAAAMAZING. I got to see some good friends for the first time since July and LOTS of amazing campers. 5 of my 9 girls (including one of my all time favorites) from the 2 week session of camp were there, so it was AWESOME to see them again...and they all had AMAZING costumes. We spent the whole day playing in the leaves, making caramel apples, decorating our spooky cabin, and carving pumpkins. SO fun. So, in attempt to look at the positive things in life and not dwell on the fact that I could break down at any given moment due to stress, here's the top 3 good things that happened over the weekend. :)
1. Listening to 'You Belong To Me', by the one and only T. Swift with my favorite camper of all time. Everytime this song played during camp (which was probably twice a day for two full weeks.....) she would always come find me and we'd dance and sing to it. Well it started playing and she hunted me down from the other side of the cafeteria and said that we had to dance to OUR SONG. So precious...I about lost it.
2. Four of the campers in my cabin over the weekend play on the same wheelchair basketball team. They got to "break in" the brand new sports pavilion with some intense basketball skills and some sit volleyball. Seriously, those girls would beat the crap out of me in basketball anyday.
3. Being able to escape real life and spend 13 hours in "the woods". This is one of my favorite places in the world and being able to spend time here with such amazing people was fantastic. It made me realize that there is SO much more to being a good OT than just knowing facts from the book....it's about being able to work with people who have different abilities and make the best out of what we've got. <3

.10-20.

I know that could quite possibly be the lamest title of a post ever, please forgive me. This is going to be quite short and postings from me are going to be minimal over the next few days/weeks (side note: 4 weeks, 5 days until classes are over for the semester). Continuing on, school is going to be ridiculous over the next 4 weeks. I can't even count the projects/competencies/tests/data analyses without seriously having a panic attack. Regardless, in the midst of it all, God is still proving himself to be mightier than all this ridiculous earthly stress stuff, and that He is the one bringing me through all of this. So, here's my top 3 of the day:
1. I FINALLY got the home address of one of my fave campers who passed away last month. I've been waiting for it to write to his family and tell them what a positive impact their son had on me (and our whole cabin) during the last two summers.
2. I got an email from one of my favorite adult campers. He was asking me if I was going to be working at the retreat in November, which I am sadly not, however, I told him he'd better come in December when I'm there! I love that this guy (hmm.....probably like 70 years old?) sends me emails. He has a some major difficulty with fine motor skills, but his email mostly made sense and it made me happy to know that he was thinking of me! :)
3. Homemade treats. I'm still enjoying pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, pumpkin seeds, and honey chex mix I made while I was home!

.heart.

We hear it everywhere..."home is where the heart is" and "Ohio: The Heart of It All". Luckily, I've been blessed to have my home IN the heart of it all. :) It's been a pretty good weekend at home, but basically every time I come back, I feel a little bit older. Tonight I went to the HS volleyball game where I babysat for one of the graduating seniors when she was in ~4th grade and three of my little swim team girls are now SOPHOMORES and are on the varsity team. Weird. I sat at the game amongst a bunch of old familiar faces, wondering how these parents could POSSIBLY have kids in HS now....haha. Seeing my name up on the wall for All-Ohio swimming from 2004 makes me seem WAY old. That was over six years ago!!! Craziness. So yes...I feel quite old and slightly out-of-place in Findlay anymore. However, Findlay still has that good ol' feeling of going just about anywhere and STILL seeing someone I know. :)
Ok....here's 3 of my happy things of Fall Break...
1. Baking pumpkin chocolate chip cookies with my seeeester :)
2. Going to Dietsch's and then driving around Findlay with my family and 2 other adults squished in my dad's work car....
3. Having a break from homework and getting to spend some quality time with the family :)

.ramen noodles.

Ok...so let's start off with my three happy thoughts before I stand on my soapbox and talk about stuff I like.
1. Today we (my research group) finished entering our data for our thesis project. WOOT! Definitely a big relief, and we are still about 10 weeks ahead of most other projects in our class. We'll just have to wait and see if our research was actually effective ;)
2. Fall Break=tomorrow. I haven't been home/seen the family since early/mid August, and I'm excited to go home and do fun fall/Findlay things :)
3. Hoodies. I can't express how much I love wearing a nice hoodie...whether it's school, sleeping, just about anything...I just love a good hoodie. I suppose this revelation just hit me while I was sitting in class today....:)

Ok...so my soapbox/important social issue would be universal design and universal acceptance of individuals with disabilities. I suppose this fire has been ignited with the work I've done the last two summers, but it has become especially evident in the last seven weeks of working with a student with cerebral palsy on campus. Basically, it makes me SUPER SUPER mad when "average Joes" treat people with disabilities like they aren't real people. I know some people stare because they are genuinely interested in the person's ability/condition, but when people start giving dirty looks, then I want to start throwing punches...haha...not really. Additionally, I would consider myself a huge advocate of Person-First Language and hearing people (especially OT professors) speak without using it drives me CRAZY! Regardless, over the weekend, the student I work with was voted Homecoming King of the university. Granted our university is pretty small, the fact that he still won is AWESOME. It makes me happy to go to a university that is accepting diversity to the fullest.
Although this student's physical abilities are extremely limited (basically less than 50% of his left arm is the extent of ability to do anything) , he is AMAZING. I spent most of my evening shift with him just talking and laughing about all sorts of things...life, being a psychology major, The Office, laughing about his condition, ramen noodles, reminiscing on our camp memories.....such a fun night! You would never guess that he had a severe disability if you just heard him talking on the phone...you'd only know because he looks different. I suppose that this is just a big social issue that's important to me because SO many times, people can't understand why I do what I do. It's just about loving people...whether that means helping them eat, wiping butts (ehh....I never said my jobs were glorious!), helping get dressed, or just helping with simple everyday schtuff.

A person with a disability is still a person, I just don't see what's so complicated about that.

.smiles.

I am trying REALLY hard not to smile directly AT my computer right now. It has been a good night. And honestly, a plain good weekend. :) Right now, I'm happier than I've been in a couple weeks, so yay for that.
1. Relaxing weekends make me happy. Although I did a reasonable amount of homework this weekend, I got time to just hang out. Lovely. I spent Friday night IN (a rarity for me!) and watched a movie and worked on our roommate puzzle with one of my roommates. Saturday I got to spend almost the whole day with a certain boy. :) OSU creamed IU, so that was fun on my end. Then we walked the canal and saw Dinner for Schmucks which I HIGHLY recommend for any Steve Carell fans reading this. DEFINITELY was a day o' fun after not seeing him in a looooong time.
2. My job. Well....yes, I work 3 VERY VERY VERY part time jobs, but the one I was busiest with this weekend was working for a student with cerebral palsy. He is HILARIOUS and super smart, but just lacks the physical ability to do most things. He was voted Homecoming King yesterday and we went out for celebratory McDonalds afterwards...so I learned how to drive a handicap-accessible van. Cool. And today he told me that he was really glad that I am working with him this semester and he thinks I'm going to be a great OT someday! :) Seriously...he's so nice...no wonder he's our Homecoming King!
3. Feeling motivated. I ACTUALLY did well on a test this semester (granted, it was a B, but at this point...I'll take that!) I do strive for A's but I've really been learning the importance of actually being able to deal with people, as opposed to only knowing ALL of the book answers. :) No more tests this week...so that's a good thing. Just one project to finish up and then FALL BREAK!!! I'm headed home for the first time in 2+ months. :) AND my sister is coming home from school since she knows I'll be in Findlay....yay! :)

.beautiful.

Good news....6 weeks down and 6 to go!! I'm excited to go back out and do fieldwork and get out of the classroom. In more exciting news, 55 weeks until I'm done with classes for my whole life! :) WEIRD! So...in 56 weeks, I could be a real person. Weird. Anyways...the week ended on a pretty good note. OT school is truly a rollercoaster ride at this point, but I'm TRYING to make the best out of it :)
1. In our OT prayer group this morning, my friend (she's from Ukraine) started praying outloud in Ukranian during our popcorn prayer. SOOOOO beautiful. I'd never heard ANYTHING like it before...it was just seriously awesome.
2. Beautiful weather!!! Last weekend I went camping in the chilly weather and this weekend it's going to be "sunny with a high of 75" <--- probably even a bit warmer than that actually. I think the boy and I will be hitting up the canal for one last time this year after my team (OSU) crushes his alma mater (IU). Fabulous.
3. I'm going home in ONE WEEK. I don't really get excited about going to Findlay all that often, but it's been over 2 months since I've been home and seen my family. It should be good schtuff. :)

<3

.chats.

Even though I'm in the midst of the chaos of midterms/being 5+ months away from being a semi-legit OT student on fieldwork....I am relatively not stressed out at this moment (granted, that could change at any given moment.....). Regardless, here are my top 3 things o' happiness.

1. A good Facebook chat with a far-away friend. I got to talk to my favorite (and only) Irish guy friend, who just so happens to be quite good friends with the boyfriend. It was nice to catch up and hear about his clinicals at home....I'm pretty certain I could hear his accent through the facebook chat. hahahaha.

2. Short days of class. Today, my 8:00 class and 1:00 class were cancelled. Better than that, my 2 1/2 hour afternoon lecture was only 50 minutes. Amazingness. And I forgot how awesome it is to sleep in on a school day :)

3. I FINALLY got more than a 14 minute chat with the boyfriend. Literally, I've been limited to 15 minute phone calls for the last week. As ridiculous as it sounds, we haven't seen each other in nearly 2 weeks, even though he lives 12 minutes away. He's been studying like crazy for his exam block which ended TODAY and he's coming over and bringing my Jimmy Johns to celebrate his fall break... :)