Summer days. Day 1000. retitle 50/1001.

Yesterday evening was wonderful! M, L and myself hit up the olive garden for some delicious italian cuisine. I got the lasagna classico, and tiramisu for dessert with a side of coffee. MMM! What a delicacy! I love Italian cuisine! That was #24 btw :)

#8 is read a book/month. Last month I read Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. It was amazing! I highly reccomend it. The writing flowed, kept the reader captivated by the wash of emotions of the main character, and ended with a satisfying end.

At the moment for the month of may, I have recently begun Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy. It seems to be a good book so far, though I hear it is a very sad book. Jude has already made one "folley" in his life by falling for Arabella and wasting a good year and a half on someone who is not well matched for himself. It is good though, because for now he is back on track!

Here is the next 25 goals to bring the number of goals to 50:

#26: Donate something to a charitable organization at least every 6 months.

#27: Tithe regularly (once I start my job)

#28: If I don't get into grad school for micro or immuno and instead go on to education, take courses for second bachelors degree in Chem

#29: Join Key Club.

#30: Join Pre-Med Club.

#31: get real estate license.

#32: Do Research with a professor in upcoming school year (hopefully aimed toward micro/immuno.

#33: Get 3 reccomendations.

#34: Take Calc II and III

#35: Take Physics I and II with Calc

#36: Once I have a gym membership, swim at least once a week.

#37: Play in LU symphony orchestra

#38: (I'm probably repeating myself, but if for nothing else, reiteration) Study for GRE and Bio GRE.

#39: Take GRE and Bio GRE.

#40: Turn in application for employment with the University to HR.

#41: Get CPR/AED certified.

#42: Find a low hour job at school for during the school year.

#43: Master that one concerto that I forget the name of at the moment, by Bach. (concerto in D major?)

#44: Visit D.C. (Business District with Smithsonian Institutes)

#45: Maintain a positive state of mind.

#46: Take vitamins regularly.

#47: No fast food except on emergencies (on the road with other people and no other food options)

#48: Have devo at least 5 times a week.

#49: Memorize a memory verse per week.

#50: Pay off Parent plus loan, pay off citi loan.

Oh my word. This goal setting thing is hard! [that is, to create so many goals! I've probably already repeated myself in some capacity or another] Hence I am going to readjust this and call it 50/1001.

Today is just gorgious out there! I hear it is suppose to be dramatically warmer today and begin to feel a bit more like summer than the past couple of days. I just tried my french press for the first time and it is wonderful! My coffee tastes so clean and delicious! Today is going to be a busy day of organizing, finishing my lifegoal plan as outlined by the site i cited yesterday, and studying ( i switched my schedule around so now I have Organic Chem I w/lab, Micro w/lab, Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy w/ lab, Intro to probability and statistics, and Paleontology which totals 18 credits. The more head start on learning all of the material the better! Also I heard Comp. Anat is really hard, so I need to hit the books!

That's all for now.

101/1001 Day Zero Project

I just stumbled across one of the neatest ideas ever: Make 101 goals to accomplish in 1001 days and record major feats and progress via blog! I think I'm going to give it a try. As Yoda always said "Do or do not, there is no try." So I guess a better term for my goal of the "Day Zero Project" would be "I am going to do this!"
I first must formulate my goals, which may take a couple days, but I can start now.

Goal #1: Graduate undergrad.

#2: Make deans list.

#3: Clean the house top to bottom.

#4: Get our yard in proper order (weeded, edged, mulched, etc.)

#5: Run a Half Marathon.

#6: Run a Marathon.

#7: Build up a base savings of 1K.

#8: Read a book a month.

#9: Get my BMI to an adequate distribution of muscle:fat

#10: Practice violin at least 2 hours every week.

#11: Follow up with thank you, birthday, special occasion cards on time.

#12: Read through the Bible by 12/31/2010 and again by 12/31/2011

#13: Get accepted into teachers certificate program and masters program after undergrad

#14: Study and do awesome on my GRE and Biology GRE

#15: Grow out my hair

#16: Stop procrastinating (including doing something that needs done but using it to procrastinate something else)

#17: Volunteer 100+ hours in my community.

#18: Become a better time manager.

#19: Over summers study for at least one hour/day (this summer study organic chem and physics)

#20: Read the chapters for my classes before the classes.

#21: study at least 1hr/class every day during school semesters.

#22: Set up potential lessons for information sessions about bio and/or future potential curricula and activities for future lessons when I eventually teach

#23: Become more organized.

#24: Spend time with at least 5 friends every week.

#25: Stop eating ice cream (I'm part lactose intolerant i think, and it's bad for me)

I think that's good for now! This is a lot harder than I thought it would be. This gives me an idea to set up lifetime goals, but not today. I have to get started on working my A list at the moment. Maybe tomorrow will be the day I begin to formulate. I found this awesome site I want to check out though that I highly reccomend:
http://www.mindtools.com/page6.html
It talks about how to set up goals and life goals and how to break down life goals to the every day!

That's all.

Schools out for the summer!

So it has been just over a week since I finished my last final, and the relaxing days of summer are here for a moment. I am soaking in as much of it as I can, despite the chilly, grey weather. I have a huge to-do list which has all but gotten lost and nothing listed has been breached, for now. That is all about to change as soon as I finish this post! I am still in the process of unpacking all of my stuff, and still have more in my car, unfortunately. I have no idea where it will all go, but maybe this would be a good opportunity to sort through it and give some away.

Our lilac bush outside smelled delightful for weeks but its flowers are now faded. My sage plant/bush is flourishing beautifully with its purple flowers at the moment, and the rose bush surprisingly put out a few flowers too! Everything outside is alive, and fresh!

I need to go for a run. At the moment I'm training for a really tough 10k coming up fathers day weekend. It's in the mountains and is 4 miles uphill and about 2 downhill. The first four are killers, and the last two are killers of the shins because it's hard to break the impact of the momentum you gain running downhill for two miles straight! Despite all of that I'm excited. It will be good to get back in shape. I haven't had the chance to get to the gym for over a week now because I'm out of school. Hopefully my job will start soon so I can get a gym membership at golds asap! I want to give plasma too, but at the moment I'm on the deferral list because my hematocrit level was consistently too low. I'm hitting up the docs later to get it all checked out.

I think later on I'll study some Organic Chem to get ahead of the eight-ball (so to speak). I purchased the "organich chem I for dummies" book and workbook, so hopefully that will give me a little head start of the course so I'm not so bogged down with 18 credits and possibly one of the hardest/need for hard work classes of my undergrad.

That's all for now.

Sayings and Such.

"It is not by outside forces that lead to the fall of a great power; it is dissension within. One seeks solidarity by outward focus, or one seeks destruction."

"Never be content with mediocrity. It is the seed of apathy and the fertile ground for a misguided leader to steal the freedom that allows you to enjoy your mediocrity, or to make something more. In so stealing that freedom, you have no choice and must wallow in your chosen state until you wake up and realize what has occurred, or you must live with it until you slip away forever."

Picture of the Day.

I love this beautiful, delightful, and fragrant flower!

Devotions and Reflections.

Today I looked at Matthew 7 in my quiet time and a bunch of verses (pretty much the whole thing) popped out at me. Jesus is speaking and covers a wide range of topics that I will transcribe below:

7:3-5 "And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, Let me remove the speck from your eye, and look a plank is in your eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."

I think that sometimes we as fallible human beings are prone to the bad like self-righteous prideful and vain conceit that gives us a false sense that we are always right and it is the other person and the whold world who is wrong or needs to change. If we adjust our view and rid ourselves of that self-righteousness, we may find that the speck we may have seen in our brother's eye was not really the fault of the brother rather a scratch in the lense of the glasses we had worn and the plank in our own eye inhibiting us from seeing reality and truth.

7:7-11 "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!"

I think three things may be surmised from this passage: the goodness of God, the power of our communication with God through prayer, and the need to step up and do it.
God likens himself to an earthly father and a child. The child asks the father for something he needs and surely the father will provide for the child. This passage tells us that God is like this and so much more, because well, He is God and that father is only human and still has evil tendencies. The second thing to keep in mind is the power of prayer. God says that if we ask (pray), seek (continual prayer and keeping eyes open to the people and situations around you and going on with confidence in the direction of your request), and knock (again pursue with confidence in God and His grace to fulfill your request) and the door will be opened (request answered).

This next passage is critical to the Church in maintaining a biblically sound doctrine that adheres to the essentials of the faith. With our relativistic agnostic culture, it is rather easy to try to soften up or water down the message. When that happens the carriers of the message become less salty, and what is the point of salt that has lost its saltiness? We are to be carriers of the truth. To deny absolute truth would be to deny one of the laws of logic; the law of noncontradiction. Without further ado...
7:13-14"Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it."

Listening to the last bit of David Wheeler's sermon tonight I felt convicted of being indifferent to my fellow peers and fellow citizens. I go through these calloused stages that render me indifferent as a form of self-preservation and self-defense because if I don't care, then I don't have to feel, or rather I don't have to deal with the feelings I feel when they leak out of their compartmentalized box. I wrote in my previous post about those who are ignorant martyrs who walk around with a lum face as though they had got the worst hand. Have I ever stopped to ask them why they force a half-smile/grimace? have I asked them if there is anything I can pray for them for? For all I know, a tradgedy could have just taken place in their life and are still cleaning up the shattered pieces and piecing them back together. Each person deals with grief differently and I need to have compassion, and ACT on that compassion.

I read Chapter 1 of Building dynamic faith by Jerry Falwell and I suppose these are a few things that God has been showing me today, so Thank you Lord Jesus :)

martyr complex.

Dear Heavenly Father, God Most High,

Please help me to work through my bitterness and frustration. It makes me so bitter when people get martyr complexes about them and they think that their situation is the worst on the face on the earth and feel the need to walk around looking constipated with an irritable forced grimace to meet my smile. Do they honestly think that they are the only ones going through trials? Do they honestly think that my life is a picnic with the prairie dogs and a stroll with lollipops, rainbows and unicorns? Ha! But God, my bitterness needs to turn to compassion for they do not know; in short they are ignorant. Lord, I lay down my bitterness at your feet. Please now give me your strength and power to overcome this foothold of sin; bitterness. You are God most high and my Father in heaven. Thank you I can approach you, and for giving me the strength to overcome trials and temptations. Please give me wisdom to know how to uniquely handle all of the situations that will arise today.

Love,
your humble daughter