Pikchas

Here's a bit of an update on how my first few weeks up here have been...In picture form!

The Old Room, right before I shoved all that junk into boxes and said bye-bye for the last time.

The New Room

My official EMT student uniform, pants, badge and all. I feel so cool.

I get so excited for every class!

The roommates at a corn maze that almost lost us for good.

Ward Opening Social

Roommate Dinner at Big Jud's

All six of us split this burger, an order of fries, and two orders of onion rings, all for about $4 each. College eating rarely tastes so good.

Well, that's my semester so far in picture format. I'm trying to see if I can make it all semester without seeing a doctor this time. I've failed two semester in a row on that front. Otherwise, I live and breathe for my EMT class. It's amazing, to say the least!

Things I've Realized

You know you're in the paramedic program when:
1. given a case study in bio lab, instead of trying to figure out how the poison affects the patient's system on a molecular level, you create a plan for treating the patient when first on the scene.
2. you make a game out of trying to identify the make and model of stretchers used in tv and movies.

 That is all.

On Being 19 and 10 Things I Learned

I think I like being nineteen. I've been an adult for more than a year now, and have worked out a lot of the kinks that come with getting thrust into responsibility. At the same time, I still have a year left to be a teenager. That means I still get to make stupid mistakes and blame it on teen-dom. At the same time, most people actually treat me like an adult now. It's not that creepy if I still want to hang out with some highschoolers. I still pay a ton in car insurance, but the rate went down just because I turned nineteen. It's like the company was congratulating me on successfully surviving childhood. Granted, I'm still holding out for the 25-year-old discount jackpot, but I have a few more years for that. I'll just enjoy being nineteen until the next summer, when I'll have to jump that strange hurtle: Twenty.

This blog was supposed to go up a day or two ago, so I'm a little late with this post, but:
Ten Things I Learned During My First Week of School:
1. Guilty pleasures are a lot more fun when the entire apartment is in on them. Example: Twilight. There, I said it. My roomies and I had a Twilight movie marathon this weekend.
2. After a long week of school it is entirely possible to sit in a living room for nine hours, watching four-and-a-half movies, eating junk food, and downing massive Horkley's sodas.
3. In the food chain of paramedicine, no one is lower than Ambulance Drivers (according to my department head).
4. Even two hours of law and ethics can be bearable if the overlying subject is interesting enough.
5. It is possible, but not advised, to live off of brownies.
6. It is possible for all SIX of my approved EMS instructors to be called out on the same morning, causing class to start an hour late.
7. At any given accident in Rexburg where an ambulance is called, one or more of my teachers is probably on said ambulance.
8. I have to practice saying "We're going to do everything we can," instead of "you're going to be okay" for everything. I don't like it, but I have to learn.
9. Everyone gets oxygen. (Unless you're hyperventilating)
10. My roommates are incredible. I really lucked out with the apartment jackpot this semester.

This semester has started off beautifully. I'm happy and healthy, and excited to learn something every day. I've also been called as RS 2nd counselor. I've never had an RS leadership calling. Heck, I spend every week I'm home in primary, teaching small children the basics. I can keep them entertained with coloring pages and bribe them with goldfish. While my roommates insist that I can still bribe with goldfish, it's very different, having a calling like this. I've met with my presidency once so far, and I love it.

As for the rest of life, I kind of feel like I can conquer...pretty much anything. I'm nineteen and fearless. So you know what, World? Bring It On.

3 Med+1 Psych+1 El-Ed+1 Home Ec

= My New Family.
Not even kidding, the combination is hilarious.
I've lived in my new apartment for seven days now, and man am I in love! My roommates are all amazing, and we've spent more than half of our nights together up way too late talking about the most random things. Plus, we have one pre-nurse, one pre-medical assistant, and one pre-paramedic. We're always comparing notes, asking questions, or having weird conversations like:
"Check out this picture in my book!"
"Where are his clothes?!"
"He's wearing socks..."
"Is he pooping?"
"No, he's dead. It's a picture of Dependent Lividity!"

Basically, life is going amazingly.
I have a great apartment family, I live for my EMT and capstone classes, and spend more time with my nose in textbooks than I have in a while. I even got to watch my first mock accident today in EMT lab, when the paramedic students got to drive up in a school ambulance and everything! I'm so excited to get my license! My teacher explained it perfectly. Most people see an accident and feel helpless. People who go into EMS are the ones who hate that feeling enough to do something about it. And I'm definitely doing something about it.

Anyway, it's late, and I'm waking up early to study tomorrow (plus my roommate is asleep. I'll write more later!

Love always,
KT

100 years

Twelve years ago yesterday, my family officially moved to our home in T-mec. Yesterday, my mom picked up the keys to the new house. Last Tuesday I spent fourteen hours in a car, drove through four states, and landed in Utah. Thursday I was on the road again by five a.m., and four hours later I was moving into my new apartment in Rexburg. It's amazing how much can change in short amounts of time, and how little over the span of years.
Change is good though. I'm not talking about promised change coupled with propaganda messages, I'm talking about growing up, moving on, developing into who you were always meant to be.
Growing up is hard, though; this I know. In packing up my bedroom back home, I filled an entire black trashcan (you know, the kind you put all your other trash bags into to wheel to the side of the street for the garbagemen?) with stuff from my room. There are three trashbags full of consignment stuff from me alone, and one is filled entirely with stuffed animals. There was a lot of trashing, and scarily, a handful of things saved for...wait for it...my future kids. Almost my entire life is packed into four or five boxes, two of which are filled with books. Everything else I own is up here at school with me, and all of it fits into an apartment shared by six girls.
I think growing up often means realizing what you can live without. It helps you eliminate the inessentials and think about what's important. One of those five boxes is filled with fragile pictures, teacups, and other heirlooms that represent the things I own of value. It's amazing how much we think we need until it comes time to downsize and get rid of it all.
We do that with our minds eventually, too. We think about the important things, we realize which memories we need to hold onto, which grudges we need to get rid of, and which "tough-stuff" things we finally need to accept and move on with.
I read an interesting blog entry from ThoughtCatalog, "A Checklist For The Age 19". It seemed appropriate, being nineteen myself. I really liked what the author had to say. My favorite, though, is the last on the list:

Every so often, you will need to scream. That’s okay. That’s allowed. Scream. After all, you’re just a kid. You’re only 19.

It's true, you know? I've been a legal adult for over a year now, but at the same time, I'm still a teenager. Once again, I'm the youngest in my apartment, but strangers trusted me with their lives for almost a thousand miles of driving. Before I turn twenty, I'm going to have an EMT license and will be trusted with people's lives from inside ambulances, but I still can't rent a car and I still call my mom almost daily.
I think 19 is the year to get it all out. To be a little bit more wild and rebellious than you have been and will be again. To start paying your own bills (if you haven't already). To really figure out what you're doing with life. I'm working on it, but I still have plenty of time. The thing is, I think nineteen is the time to realize that you don't always have plenty of time. Eventually, you'll be degree-less, jobless, and homeless if you don't realize that time runs out. Thank goodness mistakes are expected in this life. I would fail at being 19 otherwise.

This is Me Collapsing To The Floor, Part 2

I know I haven't blogged all summer, but not that much has really happened. I went back to work for a little while, my parent's house entered Escrow, I helped find a nice rental house, and I started packing my bedroom...last week. The most exciting thing to happen otherwise was burning myself on the popcorn kettle, and the burn ending up looking exactly like a guitar pick.

All said and done, tonight is my last night in this house, and then it's bye-bye forever. It's not too bad, I guess. I'm excited to go back to school and start the next semester. I've cleaned out my room and consigned, well, almost everything. Seriously, there are huge trashbags sitting around waiting to go elsewhere, full of clothes, knick knacks, stuffed animals, and tons of other stuff. My next task is finishing my closet and packing all the little things in my room into a box, so come moving day, all the boxes in my old room can be moved to my new room and wait patiently there until Christmas. That's the game plan anyway. Let's see if I can get that done today, shall we?

Next post: Coming From Rexburg with Love