These are a few of my favorite things

The crisis has passed..... I removed my run-away bag from my car. (Actually, I needed some of the clothes that were in it and I had to start packing for leaving the country again.)
I didn't work yesterday (I slept in until 11) and I didn't work today and I probably won't work tomorrow, unless I get called (which would be awesome, since I'd make double time), but strangely enough, I'm not bothered by it at all. Okay, I'm completely broke. But last night I was looking through a book on photography that had some awesome pictures of kids in slums in India and I started thinking. There was this little girl standing in the middle of a monsoon flood and she had a purple sari wrapped around her so that all you could see was her huge brown eyes and her little open mouth. She was completely filthy and beautiful and I wanted to wrap my arms around her and take her home.
It's really the little unimportant things in life that are so important, that are worth fighting for. I found a list that I'd written a long time ago of 35 of my favorite things- completely random, but it got me pondering quite deeply. So here it is.... the abridged version, since there are a lot of things that I love and that make me feel alive, and since my censor (Alpha) made me edit it. But I challenge you to read it, and think of the things that make you feel alive, and make a list, and see if you can go experience some of them this week... and maybe leave a comment telling me what some of your favorites are.
Snowflakes
Drinking eggnog
The color red
Sailing on a wild ocean (or lake)
Jazz
Juicy, ripe mangos
The sound of Italian words
Running in bare feet
Spicy food
Inserting IV's
Traveling (anywhere!)
Lying in the sand
Warm tapioca pudding
Trombones and tubas
Swimming
Black tea with milk
Frangipani blossoms
Explosions (when I'm far enough away!)
Colorful skirts
Praying
Wide open fields
The exhilaration of starting a new adventure
Any kind of flowers
Babies... as long as they don't leak on me
Ice skating on a lake
Books
Going for walks
Watching the sun rise
Sleeping outside under the stars
Donuts
Ripe passion fruit
Polymer chemistry equations
Debussy's Claire de lune
Ice cream.... any kind
Being in the middle of a crazy, wild storm
Dinner with my whole family
Hanging laundry on a line

Are you enough without the gold?

In the last day I learned three important things that totally lifted my spirits.
1)The rest of my class also failed yesterday's exam, so at least I'm not the only stupid one.
2)Coffee makes the world go around. I don't know how I survived 5 days without it.
3)Last night I watched parts of 'cool runnings' with Alpha and learned something important. The Jamaican bobsled team was preparing for their Olympic run, and the night before their big race, the sled driver had a chat with the coach. He asked the coach why he had cheated, many years past, while competing. The coach said that even though he had already won a gold medal, winning was so important to him that he would do whatever it took to win another one, including cheating. He told him, if you're not enough without the gold, you'll never be enough with the gold. How will I know if I'm enough without the gold, coach? The driver asked. You'll know when you cross the finish line tomorrow, the coach told him. And the next day while on their run the bobsled crashed with the world watching. Instead of walking away in despair, that driver got up, and told his teammates they had to finish anyway, and they picked up that bobsled and carried it across the finish line. He was enough without the gold.
I thought about that last night while I studied for my microbiology exam today. Am I enough without the gold? Or does doing well matter so much to me, that I'll cheat, or spazz out, or give up, or become one of those obsessive-compulsive people that no-one wants to live with?
Isaiah 49:4- But I said, “I have labored to no purpose; I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing.”...Yet what is due me is in the Lord's hand, and my reward is with my God.

The coach was right, you know. I studied like a braniac most of the night and when I crossed the finish line this morning and found I also did badly on my microbiology exam, I thought, it's okay. I'm enough without the gold.
I'm sorry to be exposing my emotions like this to everyone. It's a hard lesson to learn. I have one more exam tomorrow and then I can lick my wounds for a few days before heading back to Antigua. But I want to share it with you because I think we are all on the same journey, just in different ways, and we can learn from each other and encourage each other. It's a glorious thing to fight for something and to win, but it's an even more amazing thing to fail at something and still have the grace to pick yourself up and keep going on.

Pathology exam (the censored version)

So....I've come to the conclusion that when those Israelite guys said they only ate vegetables and water, 'vegetables' was a code word for 'Jewish food' or 'what we normally eat'. Because I'm telling you, eating only vegetables and water did nothing good for me.
Last night was my 5th day. I'd done well on my first exam (15% higher than the class average, apparently) and was studying for my second exam and all I could think about was toast, or eggs, or coffee, or anything but vegetables. I lost 8 lbs this week and as time was going on I felt stupider and stupider. I've battled nausea for about 3 days and I thought if I even looked at another carrot I was going to throw up. I've been studying SO hard, for hours on end, not sleeping much, and I felt like I was getting a handle on things, but I was crashing fast. Last night at about 10:00 I couldn't take it any more. Alpha suggested blueberries and I wanted to throw my textbook at her head but I didn't have the energy to pick it up so I crawled into the kitchen and ate some cold leftovers and made a cup of tea.
Wow. I seriously don't know how I made it 5 days on just vegetables and water.
I studied for a few more hours and then went to bed, praying for my pathology exam (at 7 this morning!) Some time in the night I woke up and had this intense pseudo-religious experience- it was a vision of me preparing for my exam and sitting down to write it- I sat bolt upright and I said, “I am ready to discharge all my emotional energy and everything I am into this exam”. I felt filled with joy. It was pretty crazy. When my alarm went off at 5:30 I bounced out of bed, prayed and read my bible for a bit, then studied, then ate some cereal (YES!!!!) and tea and settled down at the computer to conquer the beast.
The exam was a gong show. About 50% of the questions had spelling mistakes and poor grammar but they were super easy questions. About 10% of the questions were so totally random and based on things I had no clue about. About 10% of the questions were justifiably tough but I felt like I reasoned them out well. I took my time, purposely went through all the choices even if I knew instantly what the answer was. I double checked my answers. After a couple of hours I submitted the test. YES!!!! I could taste victory on my tongue. I had studied pathology like it was going out of style this summer. I had made hundreds of colored flow charts and flashcards and had gone through almost all the practice questions in a review book and studied the textbooks.
You can imagine my shock when my mark popped up on the screen. I know I have revealed many embarrassing things about myself on my blogs (and I'm about to reveal more!), but I am honestly too ashamed of that mark to even tell you what it is. Suffice to say it was below the passing mark. I blinked a few times. What the ****. I've ******* studied this ******* pathology until I ****** **** *****. (Actually I don't remember what I said but it was something unrepeatable).
I sent a very upset email to my professor telling him that his answer key must be wrong and could he recheck it. Then I walked into my bedroom, climbed under my blankets and curled up in a corner of my bed and cried my eyes out.
I don't handle failure very well. I've never done anything with the intention of losing, even stupid things like skipping grade 12, running a marathon without training, picking fights with big guys, or entering a cook-off with fake poo. I lay there all curled up and tried to imagine why I could have failed after I had literally studied my guts out for this test. I honestly feel like I know the material.... I will be a good doctor..... but maybe I am deluding myself. Perhaps I don't have what it takes to get through medical school after all. Dropping out of school cause I'm not smart enough has never been on my agenda. I thought God was in it. For goodness sakes, I've been praying up a storm over it. I know lots of people fail exams, but how many people care as much as I do? I couldn't stop crying.
I fell asleep. So many intense moments in my life have been followed by me falling asleep and waking up feeling different- and this was no exception.
I bounced out of bed and into the shower and was almost mad at myself. Right there was the one stupid reason why I was actually in med school in the first place. Every time I failed at something and got knocked down, I was stupid enough to get up and try again. Man, Heather, can't you learn? Can't you just give up?
I played scrabble with my mom the other day and she had to leave halfway through to go shopping. She tallied up the points and declared that she was in the lead, so she had won. You didn't win! I shouted at her. You quit! There's a difference! I won because I didn't quit!!!!
Well, telling you all this has been an emotional release for me. I'm ready to study for next exam tomorrow. This one is just as much a beast and I am just as scared. But I'm not a quitter. I'll figure out something with pathology- I dunno, maybe the rest of the class failed too, and we'll get our marks scaled. Maybe there is a problem with the answer key. Maybe I did well enough on the homework to pass the course anyway (actually it is well-known that professor never gives anything but 'pass' to all his students, no matter how well they do on the tests). Maybe I'll get kicked out of school and can start my own university.
At any rate, I'm going to win eventually..... if only because I refuse to quit.

*Consoling chocolates and cards can be sent to my home address.

Could you pray with me?

This week I was praying about my school and my upcoming exams. I always ask God to anoint me with wisdom and help me to study, to honor him, and I was reading in the bible about different people that he anointed with wisdom. I read about Shadrach, Meschach, Abednego and Daniel, who were taken as slaves to Babylon because they were smokin' good-looking, had aptitude for every kind of learning, were well informed and quick to understand. So these four guys were pretty smart to start with. But then, on top of that, God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning. I've often prayed that God would anoint me like that- with his knowledge and understanding. I may not be as naturally smart as those guys, but the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, so at least I have a shot at wisdom!
But this week I read the several paragraphs in between: how they asked to eat nothing but vegetables and water in order to keep themselves holy. Oh great. Vegetables and water.
I decided to do a 'Daniel fast' for a week- from yesterday until all my exams were done- eating only vegetables and fruit and water and praying about my exams as I studied, and praying about some other things that are on my heart and mind. I'm not totally sure why I made that crazy decision.
Yesterday I had a wicked headache as I went the first day in about 2 years without any caffeine. I felt sick and had to take an extended nap and didn't feel like studying and didn't feel like eating at all. But I persevered. Today I didn't feel like studying either, but I went on-line to check my university's interactive blackboard, and discovered to my horror that one of my professors had posted notes for our microbiology class that we were responsible for knowing for the test- about 700 pages of material that we hadn't previously covered. I was already overwhelmed. Now I don't know what word to use.
I've felt this way before, usually once a semester (and this is my 7th year in college!), that I was facing a mountain that I had no strength on my own to climb.
Sometimes I don't even know why I'm in school and the only reason I continue is that I don't know what I'll do if I drop out. (But I've learned it's never good to ponder those questions at moments like these.... I'll save that question for a day when I've had more sleep and a bit of coffee.)
It seems impossible that I will do well on my exams this coming week, and actually know the material. I need 70% just to pass, and I feel like I am pretty close to the edge. I've worked so hard, I've really given it my best shot this summer (okay, maybe I shouldn't have gone camping....) but in the end, it's not enough. I've got a couple more days to study and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that everything I have in me, everything I am, is not enough. Wow, I even feel like crying right now.
I'm telling you this to invite you to pray with me this week. (Don't try the vegetables and water fast, it really sucks.) But I want to be able to tell you at the end of this week, guess what, just like those four guys in Babylon, God anointed me with his wisdom above and beyond what I could supply.
So I'm waiting.... expectantly.... a little hungrily..... studying hard..... and looking forward to seeing God come through.

Brilliance arises out of neuroticism

There is a fine line between craziness and brilliance, I have always thought. Yesterday I was feeling closer to the crazy line, but after spending all day furiously studying microbiology and making great strides in my intellectual musings, I decided I felt closer to the brilliant edge. Truly, one of the cardinal signs of brilliance is the ability to craft pithy statements out of mundane responses. It began to flow shortly after I arrived home this evening.
It was long past dinner and my mom asked me if I wanted anything to eat. In fact, I had been so caught up in studying that I had forgotten about dinner and didn't feel hungry. But instead of staying that, I popped out this witty little phrase: "Knowledge is the sustenance of the brilliant."
It didn't stop there, my friends, oh no. Some time later Alpha suggested pina coladas. Instead of saying no, I answered, "Alcohol is for philanderers."
Later on my mom asked for help unzipping a dress, and I replied,
"Why don't you ask Dad?" and then, "All great romances began with a dress that a woman couldn't undo herself."
(Even brilliant people have to dodge metal spatulas sometimes).
Later on I went downstairs and commented, "It's colder than a Sistine crypt in here."
When Alpha offered me some of her cheerios as a snack, I replied, "Cheerios are for the feeble-minded."
And then when I was lying on the floor while she quizzed me on DNA viruses, she suddenly pointed behind my head and said very quietly, "A mouse!"
I am not given to emotional exhibits when it comes to small creatures, but I have to admit that I leapt up very quickly with one thought on my mind: get away from the mouse. It took only a second to realize Alpha was laughing at her little joke. I am proud that I did not scream, but it really didn't matter because my heart was racing so fast I couldn't even breathe. When I was able to speak again I responded,
"Fooling the gullible is like throwing fragile teacups around."
So you see, even though I have been studying too hard and am going slightly crazy (I actually put my run-away bag in my car today, in preparation for leaving), there may be some delightful results from all of it. (Besides passing my tests!) I am planning on writing a book, full of wise quotes. It will be witty, it will be brilliant, and above all else, it will be useful. You can carry it in your pocket and whenever you need an appropriate response for a question, you can just pull it out!
Anyway, I'm heading off to bed, for truly great minds are nurtured in the canyons of sleep, as someone once said. And we all know that a wise person listens to the counsel of others, even if it happens to be yourself.

Studying the brain is frying mine

There is this strange phenomena I have noticed when I have been studying for a long time. (Like today, when I studied neuroscience for several long hours. Which by the way, is an interesting paradox in itself: using the brain to study the brain. It’s like the dictionary definition of ‘dictionary’ or describing popsicles as tasting like popsicles.)
Anyway, back to phenomena. It seems that the longer I study, the crazier I get.
There have been moments in my past when around final exam time I crashed and burned and did things like ate my earplugs, jumped naked into the pond at the entrance of the university, lit several things on fire, got very very intoxicated, etc.
But recently, since I haven’t had a discreet beginning and ending to my semesters (I pretty much have to study all the time), the craziness gets spread out. Kind of like amortizing a mortgage over several years instead of trying to pay it off all at once. It sounds like the collective result of this would make me appear less crazy, but this week, since I have been in medical school for 11.5 straight months AND final exams are approaching in a few days, the episodes of craziness are becoming more frequent.
My family can testify. They will tell you, if you ask, that I have verbal diarrhea right now and frequently spazz out over little things. For example, while trying to explain to them at dinnertime an interesting concept about the brain, I was told to ‘hush up’, which only made me talk faster and louder.
I noticed the neurotic tendencies beginning to arise a few days ago. I decided to run away. I found a little bag and instead of studying, I spent about an hour filling little bottles full of shampoo and rolling my clothes so they would all pack in. I packed teabags, a screw driver set (just in case), some granola bars, a bible, a thin blanket, and a flashlight. I packed the bag and set it in a corner of my room and planned the note I was going to leave for my family. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be back on Sunday.
The only problem was, I wasn’t sure where to go. I didn’t have enough money to get a plane ticket. I was going to drive to Kelowna and show up at the McGoran’s, but then I thought, that’s probably the first place my parents would call looking for me. Maybe I should just drive as far as I could and sleep on the side of the road, huddled under my thin blanket and making tea and unscrewing things with my screwdriver set.
The phone rang this morning and it was a friend asking if I could pick her up at the ferry on Friday. I said yes without thinking, and then after I got off the phone I suddenly remembered that I was going to run away, and now I couldn’t, darn it, cause I had to go to the ferry.
After I studied for way too long today I went to the bank and then went to the maternity store across the street and walked in with my stomach sticking out. I stroked it as I looked at the clothes, as pregnant mothers always do, and gave a knowing smile to the cashier. Will this make me look fat? I asked, holding up a shirt. Honey, you’re allowed to look fat, you’re pregnant.
I contemplated neurological defects of fetuses whose mothers do drugs, while I tried on maternity tops and smiled at the very pregnant woman next to me. I bet she wondered what I was doing in there. I sort of did too. But I spent most of my paycheck on maternity clothes anyway.
The other night at 2 in the morning I had a sudden urge to sew. I sewed a dress on my mom’s machine and then crashed into bed. I don’t know what possessed me, but the next night, the same thing. I sewed a skirt. The next night at 3 I was up mending clothes. When I finally get to bed I lie there still, feeling my heart beat in my chest and the blood pulsing up my neck to my brain. When I hear the whine of mosquitoes I reach up to the light and turn it on and then lie there. Sound is interesting and confusing. A mosquito will often sound as if she is to your right or left (it’s the female mosquitoes that bite) but actually she is right above your head. If you’re trying to place the sound of the mosquito, look directly up and then listen. It has to do with the way sound waves from above you reach your ears. Anyway, I kill several mosquitoes. Then I lie back in bed and look at the black splotches they have left on the walls. When I am tired of that I turn off the light.
At any rate, it is already late and although I haven’t finished telling you my thoughts about craziness and neurological dysfunction, I do have some things I want to sew tonight. I am going to study neuroscience a bit more (please pray for that exam! It is on Tuesday morning, and I think it would be highly ironic if, while studying for an exam on the brain, I lost my mind) and then I am going to sew and then I am going to bed. But not until I’ve brushed my teeth. Maybe twice. My toothpaste is really good.

Taking heart amidst uncertainty

Well, this is just a plain old serious Happy Heather's Hullaballoo entry. I haven't written for a while because I've been camping, but now I'm back home in the books again. Next week I have comprehensive finals for all my courses (one a day for four days) so I'm frantically trying to learn several textbooks worth of information and desperately hoping it will stay in there long enough to pass the tests. Or ace them, if I have to.
After that I have a WHOLE WEEK OFF with NO HOMEWORK although I might get a head start on the next term and start some reading. I fly back to Antigua on September 5th and am there until October 9th, I think. I'll be stopping over in New York for a day or two each way, and I hear there are some big important museums there, so I might go take a look.
Beyond October 9th , to save everyone the trouble of asking, I have no idea where I'll be, what I'll be doing, how long it will take me to graduate, if I will even graduate, what country I'll be in, etc.. In fact I have no clue. Am I bothered by it? Sort of. I wonder if I'm learning to trust God, or if I'm just so darn weary of being anxious about nothing working out the way it was supposed to that I can't fight it anymore.
Last night I was flipping through an old diary and I stumbled across an entry I wrote five years ago at a church conference. A man named Mark had spoken a prophetic word over me: I had just written 'Mark' at the top of the page and then his words underneath. He said, you've laid plans, but God is going to change them all. God knows the desires of your heart and he is going to give them to you, but in a way that is different than you would expect. Just wait for him and trust him.
Last night I thought, if I could remember Mark's last name, I could look him up and borrow someone's shotgun and go and shoot him. Because the truth is, every single plan I have laid in the last 4 or 5 years has been completely overturned. It is hard to believe that God knows the desires of my heart and intends to give them to me when I keep telling him what they are and he keeps giving me the opposite.
I'm not saying this in a bitter way at all; sort of tongue-in-cheek, because I read this great verse in the bible today:
“Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart, and wait for the Lord.”- Psalm 27:14
It takes strength and spirit to wait for God! At one time in my life I considered making a cd- it would be a motivational cd that was full of whoops and hollers and people shouting, you can do it! Keep up the good work! Almost done! Looking good! The cd would go on for a couple hours like that and I was going to market it to students studying for their exams to play in the background. The truth is, we need encouragement to be strong and take heart. We need the slaps on the back and the person standing on the sideline cheering and handing us water as we run by.
So if anyone is reading this and feeling discouraged about anything, you're not alone! Be strong! Take heart! Wait for the Lord! If I can make it through, so can you!

Safe, or wild? Hmmm....

A couple of weeks ago I was working at the hospital for my practicum and I was wearing pretty formal clothes. Finding myself in a world of well-dressed people, in the last year I’ve accumulated some dress pants, blazers, a somber gray skirt, some grown-up looking pairs of high-heels and pairs of nylons. I put them on and put on my makeup and do my hair so it looks neat and sit and walk around the hospital and peruse charts and make intelligent conversation. I deal with life and death issues and act mature and try to cultivate the image of a doctor; someone you could trust. I came home from work that day and my mom looked at me and she said, “You look like….. a doctor.” I sort of looked at her and then at myself and I felt this strange sense of unhappiness.
Our church and family went to Bowen Island last week for our annual trip and I wasn’t feeling very well and was super tired and just sat around all day. I didn’t go swimming in the ocean cause it was too cold, I didn’t go fishing cause it was too dirty, I didn’t play sports and bounce around having fun cause it was too much effort. At some point I found myself sitting on a lawn chair with a book and looking out and suddenly feeling so unhappy. I can’t believe this is happening to me. This is what I’ve always dreaded and always said would never happen. I’ve grown up and become an adult and got serious and I am no longer wild and free-spirited. I’m content to watch other people have adventures instead of having them myself. I’ve become safe.

But then I found myself camping this weekend with my very large extended family. Ten of us slept in one tent, the air so cold we could see our breath, bundled up in layers of clothes, talking and laughing and throwing candies at each other and eating chips. Alpha and I did a rendition of the JFM-R radio show and we all dissolved into laughter when her and I sang the ‘Paul Lake lullaby’. In the day I jerry-rigged the sailboat with bungee cords and went sailing, lying on the deck of the boat with spray coming up and soaking me, every now and then nearly capsizing at the hands of the absent-minded skipper. We went running and hiking up the mountain and I took the little kids for rides on the back of my bike and I played crib and scrabble and ping pong and lay on the grass reading a book and trying to study. I had a little fight in the parking lot with my siblings that involved using my niece’s dirty diaper as a projectile. I found a bucket that looked like a good slider and I carried it to the top of a dusty hill and tried to slide down in it and ended up bailing into the bushes.
I voyaged out to ‘Splash Island’ and spent many happy hours talking and playing and wrestling with the others and taking turns being thrown in the water and fighting for our lives. There was only one bloody nose and a few scratches, which made for a fairly tame weekend. I got thrown in the lake about 50 times and had a play fight with my Dad and on separate occasions with Alpha and a tarp, Robin and a coffee cup and a towel, and Kyle and a wet noodle. I got totally owned about 6 times.
Driving home on Monday night it was hard to find a comfortable way to sit because of all my bruises. My feet were caked with dirt and my nail polish had all chipped off and my hair was wild and tangled and I had a bunch of new mosquito bites. I’d ripped some clothes in one of my fights but had just balled up all the dirty ones on the back seat and drove home in nothing but a ripped sundress. I could feel the sand in my hair and my ears and when I finally got home I tried to wash it out before jumping in bed.
I’ve never felt so alive. I’ve never felt so myself, and as if I belonged.
I’m going to be a doctor, that is true. I will be trustworthy and mature and intelligent and caring. But the other half of the equation is that I come from a pretty wild family. I can’t undo that part of myself or hide it under a somber skirt and a pair of nylons and grown-up looking shoes. I’m hoping those things will make me a better doctor. At the very least they help me survive in Antigua and someday they’ll help me survive in Africa or some other jungle I end up in. God didn’t mean for us to lead boring, depressing lives. He is a God of risk and adventure. He is a God of excitement .
“Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy. "Safe?" said Mr. Beaver; "don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good.”