Why yes, Sir, I do have a(n everchanging) plan!

I have everything planned out. At least for the next, oh most likely, 10 years of my life. Or I think I do. I know the general idea of what I want to do, the outline, but don't know specifics:

Undergrad in 3 years, Med school, residency, fellowship, live a happy life saving lives and having a life.

 I've decided against taking a year off in between undergrad and med school after talking to a pedes surgeon who went to BU and BUMC. "If you CAN get in, please do it. Keep trucking." Good advice, I'd say. BUT that changes things up a bit for my in my plan making. I was hoping to take the MCATS fall and spring of my third year, which is normal, but for me it's my senior year, and the year when I'm doing all my applications and such. That starts to compact things a bit...and that's fine. BUT that means also no year off to get clinical experience and more volunteer work and find a job at a hospital. Which means I now need to get on that starting this fall. Which leads me to this pickle I am currently in:

 Do I stay on BUTF and squeeze that in, along with my overloaded semesters, along with volunteering and trying to get a job at the hospital? OR Do I leave the team so I can get the experience I need for getting into Med school?

I know the answer without hesitating, but I don't want that to be the answer. I mean, the team is my family. I am at ease with them, have made wonderful friendships, have experienced the real team-ness that I never did in high school sports, have learned what it takes to be a DI athlete, have learned how to train myself, different techniques for said training, and have learned more things about myself that I thought I would. I have also questioned my ability as an athlete, and realized that maybe I'm not top-notch, and that maybe I'm more cut out for self training. I don't really know. Maybe I've had the experience and that's enough?

 My mother has been telling me over and over again that I don't need to be on the team. I'm not going to be pursuing it as a career (and Lord knows that's the truth), I won't be going to the olympics anytime soon, and I need to focus on school as a number one. And that's true. But it's something I don't want to cope with!

I want to be able to do everything. Pursue everything I can. Get 4262462413857 degrees in everything possible, as well as be a surgeon, a family practice doctor, a pastry chef, a photographer, a vet, a marine biologist, and a famous cellist.  The doctor dream being the top priority. 

Anyway, ranting...

I do know that I'm not going to continue with track after undergrad, and it would be foolish to even want to. I know that I need a lot of community service and clinical experience to even be considered for medical school admissions (and especially if I decide to apply to an Osteopathic Medical school).

If there was a way I could make fantasy books real and somehow obtain a time turner (even though they were all destroyed), I would be very happy. Can someone jump on that for me?

Thanks. 

Anyway.

I don't know what to do. I mean, I do. But really, I don't. I don't want to be a quitter. I don't even want to quit. I want to do everything. I just wish that what was right for me would include time for athletics....

help!

On a brighter note, my first day of being Senior Guard down was successful. I love it. I love my pool (I thought I would hate it. How wrong I was!) I love the guards (so far anyway). And I believe this is going to be a great summer. 

I've started compiling a reading list with Bailey...So if you've got any good reads, let me know, please!

Oh Oh 'twas magic, you know.

Isn't it funny how quickly memories fade?
One minute you're smack dab in the center of the best time of your life.
The next? Still enjoying yourself, but you've long moved on.
I think it's so strange! When I scrounge around my memories and replay them, it's like watching a home video. I don't relive them, but rather I watch them as they happen. It's like I've forgotten what it felt like, what emotions I experienced, and it makes me wonder how I ever got into that? It all seems so strange, and almost impossible to experience things like that again. It's very similar to the feeling you get after watching a romantic comedy, like 27 Dresses, or How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. After you watch the path that Kate Hudson and Kathrein Heigl take, the way and the simplicity to falling in love, or at least experiencing something like it, it makes you yearn for that and wonder if getting there is that easy. It makes you wonder if that's what life is really like; it's like a dream.  I'm sure that's exactly what the writers and producers are aiming for, after all, but sheesh! That tactic works so well. And of course, then you get anxious, and start wondering 'hmm...what shall I do?' and 'does this mean so-and-so really could be for me?'

 Of course, that's all bullcrap, and just things your mind concocts, but hey, it's fun while the feeling lasts :P

 Bizarre!

Anyway, on a brighter note. Tomorrow is my last final of the year, now onto Summer. Oh, thank you for coming! How I've missed you so!  Good luck to everyone who is still in school (KU) and those here who still have finals (BU) !!

Cheers!

Money money money!

Edit: April 22
Ok, NOW the transfer is official. COM to CAS.
Why phojo to psych?
I love photography. I love shooting people, things, whatever. I love doing it for myself and for others. I just don't think I want to do the complete candid, not as artsy shots. To me, photojournalism is all with newspapers, magazines, and that kind of media. What I want to do is take pictures for people to please them, to put on display, to keep in their house or office, and that's not exactly what phojo offers. Also--I can pursue photography on my own. I have a business at home, I have people to shoot, and will eventually get my website up and running (it just might take a while!). Also, trying to be pre-med AND get all the COM classes in, all in three years, would be a big struggle. It's easier this way. And, there's a lot of writing for the journalism program in general, whether it be phojo or print jo or whatever (I mean...duh, it IS journalism) and I am not a very good writer. No, scratch that. I'm a crappy writer. So...yes...better this way. I can just analyze people instead and then take their picture...then cut them up ;)

A little over a month until first paycheck. That means, I will have my money to buy this.

YES.

It's funny how expensive lenses are. I mean, you can buy a body of a camera (the actual camera) for a few hundred dollars, and then the lenses. Oh, the one I really want, nearly the same as the one on the left, but Nikon...$5,500. Ridiculous. That's more money than I've ever made in my life! Or close to anyway.

Cheap alternatives are fine. I do have a semi-fisheye that works perfectly that I got for $40.  It's good. Offbrands aren't all so bad!

Anyway. New photos up on Flickr: The Marathon, Turn off the Lights (an experiment in the bathroom), and the meet at UConn. Check 'em out. Please, enjoy!

Yes!

By golly, George, would you look at that!

I sit. I wait. I wait some more. I shoot. 

Capturing the perfect picture takes patience, dedication, and of course, a steady hand.

I began to love photography when I was in the 7th grade...or maybe earlier? Who knows. Since then, I've been practicing, shooting, shooting some more, wrecking roll after roll of film, playing around in the dark room, buying expensive equipment, and trying my talent in different fashions. 

I recently rediscovered all of my pictures from the past few years...as well as rediscovered my Flickr account that I've had for a while now. 

Until last week, I was a registered COM student majoring in photojournalism. I realized that 1. I don't need to get a degree to do what I love (at least when it comes to photography...other things...surgeon things....a degree may be required by law). 2. It's just as easy to go out and find something interesting, fascinating, wonderful to capture on your own as it is to do it for an assignment. 

 Sure, I miss Malone's weekly assignments, but after 3 years with him, I have some idea of how to be creative on my own!

Anyway. This is short. That's fine.

Happy Terrier Day!

Happy Birthday, King Philip III

And, if you missed the link above, go see my flickr here :)

Edit

Photo to-do list. Some can be completed here, some--not so much.

1. Shoot words using different photographs for each letter

2. illuminate and object in the dark with light from a small light....long shutter, small aperature

3. shoot smoke..black backdrop, hand held flash from below

4. stars--long long long shutter

5. moon-iso 100, aperature f/22

6. pitch black, open shutter and use glow stick to light up something and to draw names and shapes in midair 

7. Meg and Justin couple's shoot

8. Step-brother's senior portraits

9. Find a new location at home to shoot at....that's just as cool as loose park!

Home is Where The Heart Is

Someday I'll wish upon a star

And wake up where the c

louds are far

Behind me.

Where troubles melt like lemon drops

Away above the chimney tops

That's where you'll find me.

There's no place like home. 

Three exams this week, then it's to the 1 month

 remaining point until I'm homebound. Until I get to spend every single day outside, soaking up the sun, watching little kids play. And also laying with my family in the pool drinking margaritas, wasting the day away.

 

Anyway, that's beside the point. 

This weekend we went to Tufts for the annual Snowflake Classic.  It was beautiful in the morning, and into the early afternoon. Everyone did great. Then as 4:00pm approached, our good friend, the sun, went away and the temp. dropped something around 1308513˚. Still. The women took the title, men took 4th, great performances by all. Snowflake-Women for the women and Snowflake-Men  for the men. 

I'll actually post something worth reading eventually. This is more just...not.

Cheers

You Were So Pretty In the Days You Spoke Your Mind.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, 

There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

There is a society where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar.

I love not Man the less, but Nature more.

-Lord Byron

Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet

 and the winds long to play with your hair

-Kahlil Gibran

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else. And for everything you gain, you lose something else.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the summer I work at a nature camp as well as lifeguard. I work with children and with animals (reptiles, too, to be technical).  

Some days at camp I take the kids on a journey to the Indian Burial Ground, where all the old Indian chiefs who used to live on the land 

are buried. There is a great stone circle composed of 

about 28 different shaped stones. Each represents one chief. The area is holy, and still run by the Indian spirits.  If you try and dig up one of the stones, or attempt to find any of the chiefs you will be cursed. 

  This is completely untrue.  

The location of the 'Burial Ground' is in the middle of the forest, where the only sound you can hear is that from the animals, the insects 

and the wind. It is a small clearing completely surrounded by towering trees.  Everywhere you look: green.  It's places like these that I can see myself setting up camp and living for the rest of my life.  It is secluded but completely inhabited, quiet but pressingly loud, and shaded but full of light.  When I go into the forest I shut my eyes and imagine myself in a whole different world. One that has no petty drama, no other people, no problems, no technology, no automobiles; just Nature and me. 

 Being alone with Nature is a whole other experience; completely polar opposite to the world I live in.  In this other world, I can breathe. I can walk without worrying about stepping on and crushing those delicate eggshells. I can look without worrying about who I might see, or what I will see--because I know I will see beauty.  I can live without having to think, or worry, or deal with conflict. I can yell at the top of my lungs and nobody will hear me, I can live without having to worry who I will offend, or who got too intoxicated to function.  I can just be.

     In this other world, everything is perfect. When it rains, it pou

rs.  And then the sun comes: the leaves, the ground, the rocks, everything, is left gleaming and glistening in the beams of light that manifest.  This world, my ideal world, is perfect. Not one single flaw exists. In this world, I can be me. I can be happy. I am happy in this world. 

Times like now, when pressure begins building, stress levels are reaching the top, the drama-o-meter is just about break, I would really love to go back to my other world.  Times like now, I notice myself daydreaming more. Shutting my eyes and imagining myself walking through the woods, dodging spider webs, climbing rock and mud walls, walking through the creek, and finding my own personal solace. 

Somewhere to go to get away from the ecclesia that is my life. Somewhere where I don't have to deal with everyone's personal problems. Times like now, I wish that I could just live for me, do my own thing, go through my routines and not have to speak with anybody.

  Right now I'm nearing my limit of bunkum. Bunkum being everyone else's bunkum. Bunkum being synonymous with poppycock, codswallop, flapdoodle, garbage, nonsense, rubbish, and the list goes on. I'm tired of dealing with explosive tempers, despondency, vileness, and in general, the vast pool of turmoil I've been forced to swim in for... quite a while now.  I'm not sure what to do exactly, as living in the city can make it difficult to find a serene place to go to empty the mind and relax the self. 

Forty three days until it is over. Until everyone can go home. Until we start our break. Until Change occurs. Until we lose some things and gain others. Until everyone else's crushes, inamoratos (or desired inamoratos), and objects of affections can be separated and diminished. Until life becomes normal again. Until the sun shines all day. Until I get my 14 hours and 55 minutes of sunlight (summer solstice, if you didn't know). 

There are things I wish I could say, but for one, this is not the place, and two: I don't know how to say it. I don't know how to say anything without getting sprayed and buried with lava, or having nuclear fission happen to my entire body.  There are things I want to tell you--but it can't happen.  I can't be the start of WWIII, this is supposed to be the New Deal. If I say these things the Axis will reunite and be joined by another. It can't happen. I don't know a way to do it without that happening.

 So I guess for now, it will go without saying.