I was recently told that all things – both good and bad – come in sets of three. With 3 rejections under my belt as of Wednesday (no need to elaborate… they are all water under the bridge), I’m ready for the acceptances to start rolling in!
Acceptances or not, though, the last week has been full of great things around campus, around the Tacoma community, and especially around the weather forecast.
Last Thursday, the 17th, I was part of the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation’s Be The Spark Dialogue day at Lincoln High School (you may remember that I talked about the training in my last post). The experience was just as positive and powerful as I was expecting it to be! The students that I worked with have faced countless adversity in my life, but they are such power individuals with pride for their community and passion to change the status quo. They wanted to pursue everything from forensics to dermatology to gay rights activism… and they are only high schoolers! After spending the day with them, I am even more hopeful for the future of Tacoma and of our entire generation! Here’s a great picture of the whole group dancing during our lunch break:
The whole point of the dialogue is to get the students to have a real conversation and to challenge them to find their “spark”, or their reason to improve their lives and their communities. Here are the sparks that our small group (led by me and another Puget Sound student, Caitlyn) came up with. They are pretty inspiring, if you ask me!
That night, we had a full moon… Although there’s not much to say about that, it WAS quite gorgeous, and totally worth sharing a picture with you all:
This entire week, Sigma Chi (one of the fraternities) is having a fundraiser – Derby Days – that pits the four sororities on campus against each other in a competition to win various contests (trivia, lip syncing, etc.) and raise the most money. Gamma Phi has won the past 2 years, but competition is close this year! We’ll see how the points end up when Derby Days ends tonight, but regardless, the money raised all goes toward a great cause: Blue Energy.
Then, the big news that you are all waiting for… WE GOT SNOW ON WEDNESDAY! The snow started falling late Tuesday night, and by Wednesday afternoon we had a couple of inches. Not enough to cancel any class yesterday or today (much to the chagrin of many students… myself not included, since I’ve got to school in much worse conditions at Lake Forest), but definitely enough to transform the campus into a bit of a winder wonderland (and require the deposition of salt onto the sidewalks – aka ice rinks – this morning). Here are some pictures from the past couple of days:
As the snow started to fall on Wednesday, sitting in Oppenheimer Cafe felt like I was in a snow globe! If this wasn't already my favorite place on campus (it was), it definitely is now!
What makes it even better? Why, the student barista's snow-inspired costumes, of course!
And, of course, the requisite shot of campus (the walkway near Todd Field, and a little bit of Warner Gym and Wyatt) covered in snow.
This morning was my dental school mock interview, where 2 professors and 2 staff members interview me. It’s used for multiple reasons. One is simply practice for my real interview next year (the interview is video taped so that I can remember what I did well and what I need improvement on). The second is so that the Health Professions Advising committee can write a committee recommendation letter, making my application even stronger. I am taking time off, so the process is just starting, but it’s still exciting that the possibility of being a dentist is becoming real. The interview went pretty well. I definitely have some things to improve on, but I have plenty of time to practice… and the feedback from the panel was EXCELLENT. I keep finding more and more reasons to love this school just in time to leave it in May. Alas, I’ll keep growing until then.
So, now, I’m just sitting in Oppenheimer Cafe, watching the snow melt under the shining sun, and waiting for my noon Biochemistry class. Today, we are wrapping up glycogen synthesis/breakdown regulation, and watching two student presentations (which should be really interesting; one is on a possible staph infection antibiotic). Life is good, and I’m waiting patiently for the pending 3 acceptances.