Too Much

As far as I know, I'm pretty screwed up. Most people know that about me.
The thing is, I hate being told what to do. I have pride issues. I need more humility, but not so much that I become a pushover. I really need to figure out who I am.
So, when people tell me I have to figure out who I am before I'll have a chance to achieve what I'm in college for I disregard what they say and continue on, averagely.

I know that I don't fully understand who I am, but I am trying to. I find out new things about myself all the time. This is where my need for humility comes in. Not only do I hate being told what to do, but I hate getting help from others. I hate it when people pay for my meals or simply buy me things they think I would like. I don't want to be thought of as poor or inept. This completely contradicts my thinking on getting an education. My thoughts have been "Hey, I'm paying for it. I should get a good grade because this is what a good grade costs," or "They should understand I have an attention disorder and offer me extra help." See my contradiction?

The thing about the brand of freedom that Americans are offered is that they have to work orders of magnitude harder according to their disabilities or inequalities in order to get what they want. There are no free rides. I've always thought that the United States was the land of opportunity, but one's level of "opportunity" is determined by one's personal wealth. There's no wonder why poor families can't rise out of poverty. "Opportunity" is another word for how much money one has in the bank.

Now, I don't believe in luck. The whole concept of some mystical balance between success and failure that hands good fortune out to the deserving or takes it from the wicked is lost on me. Keep in mind the phrase "only the good die young." Although that is a generalization, it negates karma. If luck truly exists, then it exists as Seneca said it exists: "Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." To me, opportunity will not come unless it has been prepared for. So, if I am to achieve this dream I have of being a doctor and prolonging lives, I'm going to have to face my fear of dangerous debt as well as my fear of failure. I'm going to have to find a way to pay for medications that will allow me to manage my "difference." I'm going to have to take risks. Risks scare the hell out of me, but they make success that much sweeter. In order to get what I want, I'm going to have to do things I don't want to do.

That's all for now.

I've been busy lately

My trip to Kansas was incredible. I never thought I would have enjoyed myself as much as I did. Lawrence is a gorgeous town. Downtown Lawrence puts Norman's Campus Corner to shame. While the people in Kansas are just as nice as those in Norman, Lawrence's atmosphere is more welcoming because it offers a small-town appeal. Norman is quickly becoming a corral for the big-box stores, the corporations, and the low-quality get-rich-quick stores. Instead of using Norman's natural appeal to draw respectable Mom and Pop businesses it has played the game of the corporations and sold off its identity. KU won their men's basketball game against Villanova while I was in The Granada at the Explosions in the Sky concert (which was incredible). When I walked out the door there was a sea of blue shirts celebrating the win. Total strangers joyfully clinked their drinks together while yelling at the tops of their lungs. Now, imagine OU had made it as far as KU did (KU ended up winning the National Championship). What would the scene have been in Norman? It would have been quiet, boring, and business as usual. Sooners don't have much school spirit outside of football. Any day besides football Saturdays is painfully mundane. This is supposed to be a college town. If anything like what happened in Lawrence had happened in Norman I can guarantee that "the law" would have shown up to disperse the crowd.

That's what happens in a state where it takes less training to be a police officer than it does to be a beautician (nearly 5x more training for a beautician - and not all beauticians are good at what they do). Chew on that.

Change of subject.
Last Friday I went to Tulsa to the OSU Center for Health Sciences where the OSU College of Osteopathic Medicine is located. The medical school there is small and everyone knows each other. That's the kind of medical school I want to go to. I have hope of getting in also. My options are narrowed down to two medical schools right now: OSU and Guadalajara. I may be offered the option of attending medical school somewhere else, but I will go there only if I can't get into my top two. I had an incredible day in Tulsa. The medical school is top-notch, yet hometown. It's a D.O. program, which means there are more areas of treatment offered to help patients. The approach is whole-body and focuses on fixing the problem rather than medicating the problem. I'm ready to go to medical school! Let's hope Oklahoma State takes me. If not, see you in Mexico!

This summer I'm enrolled in weight-lifting and Spanish as well as a certification course at MooreNorman Technology Center that will allow me to work closely with patients and hospital staff. Not only will it help prepare me for future interaction with people needing health care, but I will be building relationships with doctors who have gone through what I'm about to go through in medical school. It's funny, but I will have earned 185 college credit hours by the end of the Fall 2008 semester and still won't have what I need to graduate with my two degrees. All I can say is that I wouldn't have made it this far had I not learned to enjoy school so much.

That's all for now.

Short Adventure

I know I said I wouldn't be heard from for a while but I felt compelled to leave a note before leaving on my trip to Lawrence, KS to see the band Explosions in the Sky. If you don't know of them I suggest doing some research. I've fallen in love with their music.
Anyway, I had planned on taking a friend with me but things didn't turn out the way I had originally hoped.
No matter. I've decided to see how much I'll enjoy going somewhere on my own. I'm looking forward to it. Fuel may be expensive but I can handle it. It will be a 9-hour round-trip.

I've been listening to a lot of music lately. It helps me make better sense of the arguments I have about God in my head. No matter the differences I have with the people who falsely claim to really know God, I can't help but continue to search for Him and to do so without their coaching. It wouldn't matter if I had tangible proof that God did not exist. I will always want to believe he really is out there. I'll always have this sense that he is. I'll always look for him. He is in everything. And whether or not Jesus Christ truly was the Son of God will not change the beauty in his words or the spiritual poetry in what he taught. Regardless of the doubts I have and the renunciations I've made, the hateful thoughts and spiteful attitudes I've had toward the God and the Christ whose mouthes today's "Christians" so nonchalantly speak for, I cannot continue to pretend that there is no higher being. He's out there. He's in the room you're reading this in. He's in the cellular pathways I study. He's behind the evolution I firmly believe in. And even if Jesus was merely a thought put down on paper, I'd like to believe that God was behind that thought. It's a thought I can believe in. Because of that, I can say that I believe in Jesus Christ.

I'm sorry for the bad things I've done, but I don't regret them. I wouldn't know what I know if I hadn't made those mistakes. All evil is undone by good. Good things came from the bad things I've done.

I do not think of the Bible in literal terms. I take a loose metaphysical approach. Even then, I won't budge on the portions where Jesus speaks. I'm not going to proselytize and try to convert anyone. I had to find my belief on my own. The only thing I can do is encourage others to do a bit of soul-searching. Whether you come to the same conclusions I have makes no difference. No one can make you believe something.

It's nearly 2:00pm and I have a long drive ahead of me. Feel free to drop me a line. Being alone on the road is exciting, but daily loneliness is another thing altogether. I'll always have the need for someone to talk with. I'd like to have a brother or two. Someone to talk nonsense with, have a heated argument with, drink a beer with, play catch with, or just hang out with would be a welcome change for me.

Not Going to Be Easy

I've decided to go ahead and stick with school. Because of that decision I've got a lot of things to do. I've got to be advised, enroll, study my butt off, and WORK OUT. I have such a low amount of motivation when I don't work out. Anyway, I'm putting off until later what I should be doing now. I'm going to do well this semester. I may not know what's going on right now, but I will. My goal now isn't to pass with flying colors but to know what is going on and be able to tell others what I've learned and am supposed to have learned.

With that, I'm going to get to work. You may not hear from me for a while. I'll try to post messages as I find the time.

That's all!

"I Enjoyed That"

Driving home from my vacation I'm reminded that I have some important decisions to make soon. I could use a good friend with a good ear who is willing to call me on my crap and keep me from excusing everything away. My excuses are why I'm in the pickle I'm in, but now it's time I pickled the beast.

I'm caught between (1) finishing my college education (a mediocre performance so far) while earning a nursing assistant certification and then continuing to medical school in Guadalajara, Mexico - if they'll take me, (2) studying abroad for a semester or two, (3) taking time off to work and travel for a while, (4) transferring to another college, or (5) just disappearing for awhile until I can get my head on straight. Sometimes I feel like life is going by faster than I can learn to take advantage of it.

I don't feel overwhelmed at the moment . Even though my trip was only three days it was enough for me to relax and put things back into perspective. Roswell was kind of a dud, but Carlsbad Caverns was fascinating. Even though the caverns themselves were a gypsum-limestone reef at one point, the formations inside took hundreds of thousands of years to form once the reef was drained of its seawater. Persistence leads to beauty. It can take a long time before one's work is acknowledged and appreciated. I suppose I should take heed of the caverns and not feel so badly about taking so long to get my two degrees. The most important thing about pursuing a goal is enjoying the journey while working toward fulfilling the goal. The achievement of the goal is just a validation of the good times experienced along the way.

This is an exciting time in my life and I almost let that sense of optimism and hope slip away from me. I'd love to change the world, but without that positive spirit and ability to enjoy the ride there isn't much point to having a goal to achieve if in the end I can't look back on the good, hard work that was accomplished and think, "I enjoyed that."

In Transit

Well, I'm in the car with my family writing this. We're just now passing Groom, Texas on our way to New Mexico for a short getaway. This is the first time I've been outside the state in well over a year; the last time being on my mammal studies trip to Colima, Mexico. I have to say that getting out of Oklahoma is a bit of relief. As great a state as it is there's only so much I can take. Moderation is key.
Anyway, we always celebrate crossing the border by screaming "yee-haw" and laying on the horn. It's a tradition. It may seem ridiculous, but I don't care. There are some things about my family that I think are really cool.

Groom is nice... in the dark. I can't really tell much about it. It's got a water tower that leans worse than the Leaning Tower of Pisa and a massive white cross. I guess people who convert to Christianity because of that cross are well-Groomed. Go ahead and sigh exasperatingly.

The plans on this short trip are to spend the first day in Roswell, New Mexico, scouting for UFOs and trolling the small shoppes and museums. My brother Chris is the geek of the family so the first day really belongs to him. I'm going to enjoy it though. The second day we're going to Carlsbad Caverns. My parents thought that we'd go see the bats there, but I told them it's too cold for bats to be there. You never know though, I could be pleasantly surprised. I'm just ecstatic that I'm out of Oklahoma if only for a couple of days. The saying "there's no place like home" may be accurate, but it's both rhetorical and - in my case - irrelevant. I've experienced home. I know what it's like. But there's so much out there to see. I guess my reasoning in wanting to see all that I can is that there's no place like home.