Taking the easy way out.

There is a women currently sitting at another table across the room at the coffee shop. As she is drinking her frappe, she is talking on the phone with her friend. This woman is telling her friend that she is going to buy a certain weight loss product because since sales on that product are skyrocketing, it must work.

She is continuing to talking about it, saying how 80% of the people taking this particular product lost an additional 5 pounds more in a certain time frame without exercising or dieting, just by taking the product.

She wants the easy way out. She wants to lose weight but doesn’t want to do any work.

Aren’t we all like that? It might not specifically be with weight, but I assure you, we all have something that we want without going through the work of getting there.

I am sitting here attempting to work on a case study that is due on Monday for pathophysiology, and I don’t want to do it. I want the A in the class, of course, but if I am not willing to do the work, I know that I won’t get that A.

I need some motivation to get me through this semester. Unlike a weight loss product that you can take to somewhat make you lose weight, there is no such product to make you somewhat get an A.

Motivation, where are you?

Valuable stars

Man. Talk about procrastination. I wrote half of a blog post over the summer and never posted it.

Over the summer I took three summer classes and on top of that had to study for the dosage exam before this semester started. One day, as my summer classes were coming to an end, I grabbed some lunch at Chick-fil-a and sat down to study a bit for one of my finals. As I was sitting there, I overheard a man talking on the phone to his friend and he was complaining about a few things going on in his life, mainly about a ticket he hadn’t paid from 3 years ago in MD, which caused his license to be suspended in SC. There was a sentence he said that really got my attention, “What have I done in this world to make me have all this grief? “

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The last week of my summer classes, I was watching ‘wife swap, and a scene really got me thinking. A mom that swapped families was talking to the dad of that family about his son’s behavior, which was unacceptable to her. Her solution was to give stars for good behavior, which they could use for TV time, computer time, and such, and to take away the stars when they were not obeying her and acting out. In this one seen I saw, the son was completely acting out and disobeying so the “mom” told his dad that he would not be about to go to football practice because she was going to take all his stars away.

When the dad heard this, he told the women that she was not going to make his son stay home from practice because it was something that he loved to do. So he told the “mom” to take away his stars instead of his sons. And she did.

After the son came back from football practice, he was still being completely disobedient so his father told him that he was not supposed to go to practice because he broke the rules, but he let him and said:

“I gave up my stars for you because I didn’t want you to miss out on football practice.“

And can you imagine the son’s response?

“So?”

This is what Jesus did for us. Gave up his live, his stars, so we could go on living. And my response is somewhat like that little boys.

“So?”

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And to wrap this all up, I am such a procrastinator. Not just for not posting this for months, but for putting off writing my 5-page paper till the day before it’s due.

But that is what college is for.

Isn’t it?

coy shai

this is something that i wrote 2 years ago when i was working at my coffee shop. it brings back so many memories 0f the time that i work there and i can't wait to work there tis summer.

ice tea lady

there's this older lady that comes into city dock (well, there's a bunch of older ladies that come in, but this one's special to me.). the first time i saw her, she came in about 10, when the morning rush was over walking ever so slowly with her cane in one hand and her bag in the other. my manger (who is weird and fun and spastic all at the same time, and that's her without expresso) told me to ring her up a grande ice tea and a scone. she gets her ice tea in a cup with no ice and then a cup with just ice. (when i first started i wondered how the heck she could remember everybody's drink, and now i remember most everybody's). she set her bag down on the table at the back of the store, the one that's most isolated. then she came back to the register to pay. she asked, as she was juggling her cane and wallet, if i wouldn't mind carrying her food to the table. i took it over and she thanked me. she is so sweet. then she preceded to take out her crossword puzzle and her newspaper. and then sat there for over three hours. 
   she has come in a bunch of times since then and has always gotten the same thing. butlately, i haven't seen her.

whip cream boy, tall coffee mom, and chai dad.
there is this little boy who comes in with his mother and sometimes his father. he is soadorable. "can i have some whip cream", he asks in his such adorable little voice. his mother always gets a tall coffee; his dad a chai tea. when he is all done with his whip cream, he comes around to the entrance to the back, or his parents pick him up, and he says "sank you". but one day, he didn't order any whip cream. just sat in his mother's arms and looked at me with those big smiling blue eyes and that full head of blond curls. when i asked him if he wanted any, he said no.  

glasses lady
she comes in and gets a couple things for her coworkers in the store next to us. always gets two tyg ice teas, only one with lemons, and a jumbo vanilla latte. but the other day, shechanged it up on me. and got a jam'n tea instead.

people disappear. people say no. people change.

one woman came in with her two year old son, and told me, after we had talked for a bit," i can see you love children by looking in to your eyes."

when my mom came in to pick me up one day, i overheard kerry, the owner of all the docks, tell her that she thinks i am wonderful. i pay good attention to detail and she knows that when she leaves me in charge, i'll get the place cleaned up and looking great. i was surprisedwhen i heard that. (i guess all those years of doing dishes and chores did something. )

i am finding out that people can be a blessing too.

When it's teleprompting you, I pray you'll let it through

I have come to absolutely love snow days. They are some of my favorite days. The best feeling of days such as these is not the excitement of seeing the snow fall, not the pleasure of doing nothing, but the thrilling feeling I get when my phone buzzes with a text from school saying that classes are canceled for the day. Now that is what makes snow days the best. 

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Last week I went to a Newsboys concert with some friends from school. It was freakin' amazing! I helped set up for the concert and got $100 for doing it, too.  You would never realize how much work setting up a concert actually is. 

During a lull, I got talking with a guy that was also setting up. He said that he was from a drug recovery program. He was addicted to PCP and had been sober for 18 months. This program, he told me, lends guys out to help set up for concerts. Ricky said that he has helped out with Newsboys, Building 429, Zoegirl, and others. Ricky's personality is so much like Grandpa's that it is uncanny. Cracking jokes and whose whole goal is to make people laugh and help others. 

We got our own private concert during the sound check that happened after everything was set up. See those three screens? Chris and I put 2 of them together, and man are they hard to do. The canvas screen stretched across the frame and snapped down, which is just like putting our swimming pool cover on out pool. During the concert I was just waiting for some snaps to come undone. Haha. No worries, nothing happened. 

Michael Tate from DC talk came out and sang a few songs with the Newsboys. He was also the guy that sang the songs during the sound check. Amazing voice.   

They made smoke too. It was freezing, or so said Ricky. 

And just because the concert wasn't awesome enough, they had a platform for the drums that rose up and revolved! Amazing! 

And at the end of the night, no screens fell apart. Success! 

125 dollars a day

So what do you do the night before an exam? 

I have found plenty to do.

Youtube magic school bus, check facebook, replay newsboys songs, clean my room, make my bed, do my laundry, read blogs, calculate the cost of being at school next year only if they don't change the price of tuition, think about and pick my favorite harry potter movie out of the three that I have seen so far, listen to my suite mate and her boyfriend have sex in the next room, look at the holes in the wall and try to come up with a good story on why I didn't turn in the pink sheet with the information that i didn't make that hole, think about what would happen if I never found a guy to marry, dust my furniture (whaa? I never do that!), try not to cut from the stress of the exam tomorrow, wonder why there are people running up and down my hall, think about studying for the exam tomorrow, think about the tour I will give at the open house on saturday, and so, so, so many more things. 

Now, I have to pose this question, why?  

No, not why my suite mate is having sex in the next room, not why I dusted when i never ever do, not even why the heck am I calculating the cost of being at school next year, or even this year for that matter. 

But, why am I procrastinating on studying? 

Doesn't one procrastinate on things they don't want to do, such as cleaning up the dog poop, cleaning the mold off of the sink (okay, okay, its not quite mold yet..), telling a friend something that you don't want to tell them and they don't want to hear? 

I want to be in school, yes? 

Of course I do. I want to get a degree in nursing, I want to help people, I want to make them smile in the tough times, I want to do something meaningful, I want to do nursing. 

So why do I procrastinate on studying when I want good grades in my classes to pass them?

Why do I procrastinate on studying when those tests will lead me to my degree then to my job? 

Why do I procrastinate of studying when it is costing me $125 a day to be at this college? 

Yeah, I don't know either. And the only thing this post did was make me procrastinate more. Back to the grind stone, back to chemistry and microbiology for me.

acceptance

What is it? What does it feel like? Well, for me that explains most of my afternoon and evening. At school here, campus crusaders have a girls bible study that meets on Sunday nights. Tonight we decided to forfeit the bible study to have a "share" night. A night where we get to know each other better, hear about one another's hurts, blessings, pains, joys, and just a night where each girl catches the others up on what happened in their lives before we all met. Let me just say right now that it was amazing. I have never felt fellowship like that. As each one of us shared, nobody had a judgmental attitude and nobody acted like anyone was crazy. Just genuine caring all around. 

Myself, I am a person that loves to listen to others much more then sharing what I am thinking and feeling. I love knowing how people are doing, whether it be good or bad or somewhere in between. So tonight when I was listening to the other girls talk about themselves, I started to tear up. You should hear some of their stories. Actually, it's more then just a story, it's a story about someone's life. What they are going through and how they dealt/are dealing with it. In most of the stories, there was a lot of sadness, a lot of pain, some joy, but more then anything else, there was honesty. That meant the most to me. Nobody was fake, nobody felt the need to hide who they really were and nobody felt the need to hide how they really feel about certain situations. It was very refreshing. 

I shared my feelings about having a special needs sister, depression, cutting, low self-esteem, you know, all that fun stuff. 

Tonight was a milestone for me, in a sense, because I shared about my cutting. That topic is one that is very hard for me to talk about. Maybe since it is still fresh, or maybe because I was so ashamed of doing it. Whatever the reason, it felt really good to be able to talk about it without feeling like people are going to judge me. Don't get me wrong, I am not "over" cutting; don't think I will ever be. It has been 294 days since the last time i embarked on a cutting phase. And yes, i am counting every day.  I am striving for the one year mark. I can make it. I know i can, right?

Purpose

I have a blog, now what? What do I write about first? Do I start out with something that I have been thinking about for a while? Do I start out with something funny? Or something about myself?  

I want this blog to be about me. About my thoughts, about my ideas. But not only that, I want it to be ... I don't know. I have a hard time getting my thoughts out onto "paper". I end up doing a good job, but it takes a while. Maybe I just have to many expectations of this blog. 

One of the reasons I wanted to start a blog was because I wanted to keep a journal of my thoughts, of my ideas, and pretty much just who I am at this point in my life. To keep a chronological "book" about my time at college, about me living through the rest of my teens and the beginning of my 20's. And perhaps, just perhaps, through my journey of dating and marriage. Don't worry, I am not saying that I have a guy in mind, but ever since I was little the only thing I really wanted to do with my life was to get married and have children. 

Right now I am going to school for nursing. It has it's high points and low points. I am only in my first year, but i can already feel the pressure of getting good grades. Wanting to be a nurse is just not enough, I am realizing. The competition is huge, and good grades are mandatory, or so it seems and feels. That B+ is not good enough, not even that A-, the A+ is what we are all pushing for. 

I hope I will not get lost in the shuffle of grades, and competition and all those other things that go along. I need to keep my eyes on the finish line. What exactly am i going to school for, and why. 

My name is Rebecca, and I am going to school to become a NICU nurse. I have such a heart for children, babies in particular, and I want to help them survive. I want to give them a chance to live, just like Christ has done for me.