Without Wax

This is just too funny/cute not to post!

"So what are your plans?"

This seems to be the question I've been getting lately, along with, "Where are you going to school?" Although they see like pretty straight forward questions, the answers are anything but. At this exact moment, I'm not in classes [although I will be in a few weeks at good ole ICC]. But I'm looking into programs at other schools for this fall.

As for my plans, well let's just say plans change, especially when you're me.

I've wanted to be a doctor for as long as I can remember. A few years ago, I was at my aunt and uncle's house and started reading a book my aunt had called "Baby ER." After reading that, all I wanted to do was be a Neonatologist. It was a perfect fit, I knew I wanted to work in an intensive care unit and I absolutely love babies. A lot of people commented saying it would be so hard to see babies that small, that sick, and to see them die. But I had a different mindset. I knew that those would be hard, but saving just one baby would make it all worth it. So Neonatologist it was. I was accepted into Saint Louis University with a major in Biology/Pre-Medicine and I started shadowing a few different types of physicians just to make sure I liked the hopsital environment. Shadowing the physicians confirmed some of what I already knew, I wanted to work with kids and stay away from adults [as patients] at all costs, but I also found a new love in the form of the Pediatric Intesive Care Unit. This made me want to work harder and do my best so that I could finally be doing what I loved.

Well, as it seems to always be with me, things didn't pan out quite how I'd hoped. I loved SLU, don't get me wrong, but ever since the day I unpacked freshman year, things just weren't clicking. I had a great group of friends who I love dearly, was pretty involved in a great organization on campus, and loved the SLU community, but I still looked forward to going home and dreaded going back when the weekend was up. To this day, I don't know why I felt like that. I think it may have been a combination of missing family birthdays/get togethers, being away from friends that had all been through an experience that bonded us in a way that no one else understood, and just plain homesickness. Whatever it was, it disappeared as soon as I packed up my room junior year. Now that I was home, all I wanted was to go back to SLU.

Now that I've been home for a little over a year, I've had a lot of time to think about what I want to do with my life, and I'm pretty sure I want to be Super Woman, because that's the only way I'm going to be able to accomplish all of this. My first love is and always will be medicine and ultimately I think I will end up doing something in healthcare. What that will be, I'm still not sure. I've tossed around the options of being an Athletic Trainer or Physical Therapist quite a bit lately and have been looking into some schools with those programs. Of course, SLU has fantastic PT and AT programs so I may very well end up there again. Medical school has still been on my mind as well, and although it would take more time for me to get there now, I'm more than ready to accept it as a challenge and do whatever it takes to get there.

I'm sitting here, watching the Opening Ceremonies with some friends at SLU, and Biji starts thinking of ways that she can be part of the Olympic Experience. After much consideration and brainstorming, we still haven't figured out how she's going to accomplish this but it did bring up another topic, Bucket Lists. I made one after I saw the movie, The Bucket List, but I have absolutely no idea where it's at now. I started a new one tonight thought and will share after a few of you share a couple things you have on your Bucket List.

UPDATE:

My Bucket List so far...[I'm still thinking of things that I can actually do now]

1. Attend the Winter Olympic Games
2. Attend the Summer Olympic Games
3. Attend a Women’s World Cup
4. Attend a Men’s World Cup
5. Watch the sunrise on every continent
6. Watch the sunset on every continent
7. See the Northern Lights
8. Attend a Cubs game
9. Attend the Super Bowl
10. Put feet in Pacific Ocean
11. Put feet in Atlantic Ocean
12. Go on the LOST tour in Hawaii
    
13. Attend a movie premier
14. Write a book
    

As you can tell, I have a new look for my blog! I debated on revamping this one or just starting over. There's not a whole lot on this one, content wise, but knowing me, I would delete this one and then later I would need something, so a new look it was. Give me a few days to get it how I want it, but I should start posting a little more regularly. I have a few ideas that will keep me posting even when there's not a lot going on in my life!

"Outlined against a blue, gray October sky…Notre Dame will rise again."

Okay, it may not be October yet and the skies haven't been blue-gray, they've been a wonderful shade of baby blue and yes, we're only one game into the season but I've never been so excited about Notre Dame Football!

Here's a video that pretty much sums up how I feel this season is going to go!



GO IRISH!



*If anyone can tell me who said the first part of the quote at the top, and what it was about, you get 10 points!

I apologize Aubrey for only posting two of the promised three posts! I didn't want to overwhelm you ;-)

The past few weeks my mom kept bringing the idea of going camping up but I completely disregarded it [as would you if you knew my mother] because she only went on one camp-out with me when I was in Girl Scouts because she had to sleep in a cabin and she couldn't shower in the morning. Well low and behold, we went tent- camping [as my mom refers to it] this past Thursday-Friday at Turkey Run in Indiana.

The Wednesday before this, was when I went to St. Louis for the WPS game. The game didn't start until 7 and then we had pictures after, had to drive home, and make a Steak N Shake run for the people at my house so I didn't even get home until 1:30 Thursday morning. I slept napped until 4:45 and we were on the road by 6. Once we picked out a campsite, we pitched this monster of a tent.
This picture doesn't do it justice. It's a 10 person [grown men] and it can fit three queen size beds. It's a good thing we got it though because there were 8 of us. After we got settled, we started tried to start a fire for lunch. Turns out Zach isn't that great with fires we want him to start. Eventually the smoke turned into flames and we were able to eat.

After lunch, we went canoeing. Let me just start out by saying thatmy family everyone completely underestimates my abilitles. Things started out a bit rough but once we got the right groups of people it all worked out. It was a gorgeous day for it!

We all came back to the campsite after that excursion. My mom went to shower [yes, probably the only reason she was able to make it these two days], I napped, and the other 6 went to the pool. That night consisted of washers, food, and fun!

The next morning we were awake [too early in my opinion, I'm on vacation, remember?] and had breakfast and headed to the state park to hike. I wish I would've taken my camera because it was gorgeous!! We went back to the campsite, had lunch, played washers [Melissa and I are STILL unbeaten! Any takers??] and packed up to head home.

It was a great two days with perfect weather and I'm so glad I was able to go!

Sorry about the strikethrough...I thought I did it right but aparently I didn't!

As most of you know, I'm a bit of a soccer fanatic, to say the least. As much as I love men's soccer, I was growing up and playing when Mia Hamm and the '91ers were at their peak and have been following the Women's National Team ever since. After the WUSA failed because of lack of money, the National Team has been the only women's soccer that's ever on, until this year. The Women's Professional Soccer league started up this year with 7 teams [8 next year with Philadephia] and it's been awesome to have multiple games on every week! I had been trying to go to games all season but most of them are on Sunday's or during the week so I was unable to go because of babysitting. On July 26th, I was able to attend my first game, and it was definitely worth all the trouble it took to get there! Zach and I drove up that morning and met Caitlin, Hannah, and Maeve at Chuck's Southern Comfort Cafe which I highly recommend if you like barbeque and live in the Chicago area! We had time to kill after lunch so we all headed to Caitlin's to hang out for a little bit. We all parted ways and Zach and I headed to Toyota Park for the game which was Chicago Red Stars vs. Washington Freedom. Toyota Park is such a cool stadium. The fact that it was built for the Chicago Fire and used for other things and not vice versa makes it all the better in my book. We had amazing seats for the game and it was a great game, even though Chicago lost, meaning they were out of the hunt for a playoff spot.