What happened this week?
It started last week. The night we arrived at our new apartment, after our 2000 mile drive from Colorado, I made the mistake of checking my email. It was 9pm and I should have gone to bed, but I did not.
There was an email stating that there had been an update to my FAFSA and I was not eligible for financial aid. What? I had accepted the loans already. I didn't sleep well and spent much time praying for peace and a little perspective. It would have been nice to run down to the financial aid office but I could not. The next day we had a UHaul rented and we had to move out of storage and into our new place. So we did.
Thanks to God, I began to get some perspective. Every stressful time in my life I have been able to learn something new. Sometimes it turned out like I wanted and sometimes not, such as the case with the MCAT. But I was always given new insight into myself, life and God by these situations. My life has been deepened and enriched by each moment spent out on the tippy-tip of the trembling limb where we have chosen to make our nest. Thus after some quiet time, thought and prayer I was thankful for yet another test of my ability to relax and let the things go I could not handle right then and still be motivated to take care of what had to be done. Thankful...in a day or so, that is unheard of for me. :) Maybe I'm learning/growing.
I discussed with Charles what I thought was happening. I was planning on applying to start the 14 month BSN (bachelors of nursing) this next summer but if my financial aid was running out I may not have the money to do that. It is good to have another head during these times because he suggested I look to see if I could apply for spring 2010. So I did. This year they had extended the deadline to Aug 17, 2009 and the day I found out was Aug 15, 2009. So I had a lot to do in two days if I were to apply. This is where three essays and getting all the schools (high school and colleges) to mail out my transcripts on Monday, August 17, because they had to be postmarked by then.
Sunday I filled out the lengthy application and finished 1.5 essays out of three. Monday I faxed and called all the schools (that were still open) and begged them to send out my transcripts that day or at least tell me if they could not and save me the $70 application fee. They all promised and that was over 3/4's of the day just to get everything taken care of as far as transcripts. Then to finish the application. It's a long boring process and I'll spare you the details. We'll just say after they closed the application early (mistake on their computer's part) and I had the run around at NCSU to get my transcripts to drive them to UNC I was able to submit the application less than 2 minutes before 11:59 August 17, 2009.
Thursday I was finally able to make it in to the financial aid office (9am sharp so there'd be no lines) and figure out what is going on with my financial aid. I have been expecting financial aid to run out. The government only allows students to borrow a set amount from them and I accrued a pile of debt by going to private college the first time around. I knew I would run out of financial aid in the next two years but this was a little early. (By the way graduate limits and undergraduate limits are two different things I am still doing undergraduate classes.) Come to find out it was a mistake on the lender/government's part. So things are back to normal. I will not run out of financial aid for a couple of years. WHEW!
But now I have an application in at the UNC School of Nursing so we'll see if I get in. If one person did not follow through on the transcripts I don't have a shot and I have no way of knowing until November. So we'll see.
Why nursing I thought you wanted to be Dr Heather? Nursing, well it could take me two years to get into medical school and I am running out of useful undergraduate courses to take. Nursing would give me experience in the daily life of medicine, give me a good income and provide a back up, Nurse Practitioner, if medical school should fall through. So if after two years of applying to Dr school I don't get in I will have worked two years as a nurse and since I have to work one or two years to be eligible for NP school it would allow me to slide right in.
I have it all buttoned up right? Not so fast. Read the sailing post before this one. Life is NEVER buttoned up. Plans are good but I am finding that life/God has its own ideas when it comes to plans. And so far I have found that it doesn't generally follow my plans and I am much happier when I am willing to let go and learn to sail with the winds.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Changing Like the Wind
Muscles bulged, white knuckled fingers wrapped around the halyard and eyes squinted to see the top of the sail. Did the mainsail catch on the hook? Are we ready to go? The jib, pregnant with wind, pulled at us, our feet were braced in the water that tickled our knees. There was the hollow clang of the ring settling on the hook and we all began to look at the job in front of us. Batten down the snacks, jackets and shoes, sail and tuck the mainsheet in its cleats then bruise shins and stub toes while scrambling topside because sailboat 888 is not staying by the dock for very long.
Our eyes turn to the open lake, wind creating a map of it's directions and speeds around the lake. Out to the starboard side a it is like a crazed weaver created a cloth with random texture, some of the water nubby with wind and other parts smooth and soft like velvet where the breeze has lifted her skirts and floated past on lace pantaloons without touching down.
We were in a nubby section and the boat is sliding backwards toward immanent collision with the dock at a frightful speed. The mainsheet yanked forcefully from the stainless steel of cleats allows the mainsail to slide across the hull, we ducked our heads one right after another in a silly looking dance to miss the mainboom's skull crunching reach as it swings overhead. Turbo lifts his black fuzzy ears as it comes toward him and drops to the trampoline deck with an omph. Once it is settled in its new location it causes us to bear away, out of the wind's strength, and gives us more time to get all the tack arranged and ready for the warm breezes that are pushing across the lake.
After an appropriately democratic discussion on where best to tie down the mainsail we begin come about and the boat begins to heel. The three designated scramblers, Charles, Dad and I, scratch and tumble under the mainboom and onto the hull that is hovering above the water by several inches. We do not want to capsize, what a mess that would be, we don't even know how to sail let alone right an upside down boat. Thus we are off across the lake heading toward our current destination, the other side of the lake.
My hair pulls out of it's ever present black hair tie and finds a way to tickle my nose and slide into my mouth. My heel touches the water and it releases diamonds from its murky depths that land on my leg and slowly make their way back to the whole. Eric, at the helm, has the smile of the toothpaste model, his hand holds the tiller firmly. Dad and Charles lean out over the hovering hull, holding spider web guy wires, their eyes shut to the wind. Dad is dipping his backside toward the water to see how close he can get before it drags. Turbo the breeze pets him, ruffling his hair on his head, then his back and then lifting his tail for one last tweak, lays with his chin between his feet. His frosted eyebrows move up and down as he looks around at the liquid and shoreline birds sliding past. It is silent among us.
In front of us a velvety spot appears, much to large to avoid and immediately the wind stops. The heeling hull comes down to the water and Dad's posterior comes down into the water and he yelps. He and Charles laugh while splashing around to get out of the water and back topside. We're learning. So there we sit. Wind happening all around us, other sailboats speeding on toward the other side. We look over the edge and our faces stare back at us a perfect mirror in the middle of a lake wracked with wavelets. We pull out the paddles and begin to paddle toward the nearest nubby spot in the lake but we don't make fast time. Sometimes it works and sometimes we wait it out until the wind blows up on us again. It will, it always has, it may take awhile but it will come running by, pick up our languid sails and we will fly again. We may have to adjust our course, or our goal but we will sail again.
Our eyes turn to the open lake, wind creating a map of it's directions and speeds around the lake. Out to the starboard side a it is like a crazed weaver created a cloth with random texture, some of the water nubby with wind and other parts smooth and soft like velvet where the breeze has lifted her skirts and floated past on lace pantaloons without touching down.
We were in a nubby section and the boat is sliding backwards toward immanent collision with the dock at a frightful speed. The mainsheet yanked forcefully from the stainless steel of cleats allows the mainsail to slide across the hull, we ducked our heads one right after another in a silly looking dance to miss the mainboom's skull crunching reach as it swings overhead. Turbo lifts his black fuzzy ears as it comes toward him and drops to the trampoline deck with an omph. Once it is settled in its new location it causes us to bear away, out of the wind's strength, and gives us more time to get all the tack arranged and ready for the warm breezes that are pushing across the lake.
After an appropriately democratic discussion on where best to tie down the mainsail we begin come about and the boat begins to heel. The three designated scramblers, Charles, Dad and I, scratch and tumble under the mainboom and onto the hull that is hovering above the water by several inches. We do not want to capsize, what a mess that would be, we don't even know how to sail let alone right an upside down boat. Thus we are off across the lake heading toward our current destination, the other side of the lake.
My hair pulls out of it's ever present black hair tie and finds a way to tickle my nose and slide into my mouth. My heel touches the water and it releases diamonds from its murky depths that land on my leg and slowly make their way back to the whole. Eric, at the helm, has the smile of the toothpaste model, his hand holds the tiller firmly. Dad and Charles lean out over the hovering hull, holding spider web guy wires, their eyes shut to the wind. Dad is dipping his backside toward the water to see how close he can get before it drags. Turbo the breeze pets him, ruffling his hair on his head, then his back and then lifting his tail for one last tweak, lays with his chin between his feet. His frosted eyebrows move up and down as he looks around at the liquid and shoreline birds sliding past. It is silent among us.
In front of us a velvety spot appears, much to large to avoid and immediately the wind stops. The heeling hull comes down to the water and Dad's posterior comes down into the water and he yelps. He and Charles laugh while splashing around to get out of the water and back topside. We're learning. So there we sit. Wind happening all around us, other sailboats speeding on toward the other side. We look over the edge and our faces stare back at us a perfect mirror in the middle of a lake wracked with wavelets. We pull out the paddles and begin to paddle toward the nearest nubby spot in the lake but we don't make fast time. Sometimes it works and sometimes we wait it out until the wind blows up on us again. It will, it always has, it may take awhile but it will come running by, pick up our languid sails and we will fly again. We may have to adjust our course, or our goal but we will sail again.
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