A Clean Room

I feel like I can finally be comfortable in my own room again. It has been a pig sty lately, but as of yesterday, it is nice and clean.

Before:

After:

Doing the happy dance

I AM DONE WITH EXAMS!!!!!!!!!!

Yesterday when I got home from school I was completely fried. Deanna and I went for a bike ride to celebrate, but I had no energy whatsoever. So we decided to hang out in front of the TV to watch Canada's Next Top Model and enjoy some Bonnie Wings (Bonnie's famous chicken wings) and a long island iced tea.

Today however, I woke up feeling somewhat refreshed and free. I can officially do the happy dance today and let me tell you it's a pretty good dance.

Tonight I unfortunately still have clinic at school, so I must go back tonight and then again next week, but in the meantime, I am off to go and do some cleaning. My room and study areas are in some desperate need of TLC.

Let Summer Officially Begin!!!!

Drawing Near

Well, this is it! The end of school is drawing near...the end is in sight and I couldnt' be more thrilled. There is 1 exam left tomorrow afternoon and it just so happens to be the hardest one of them all. I got marks back though from the ones I wrote last week.

Pathology Final Mark: 90%

Sports Injuries Final Mark: 82%

I am quite ok with both of those marks, which made writing today's exam a little bit easier.

Yesterday I had some momentary freak outs that led me to tears, but I think I was just feeling so overwhelmed with all the information that I am trying to desperately cram into my head that I just couldn't handle it anymore. I just needed to be alone and to be able to cry.
This afternoon on my way home from school I was doing some reflecting over the last couple of weeks and I started to feel a little bit disappointed in myself. I have poured countless amounts of time and energy and all of myself into my studying and have neglected my time with God. I guess one could say that I have put Him on a shelf during exams rather than rely on his strength, which I have so desperately needed.
I have run to God, spent time with God over the last couple weeks when only I have needed something. I have failed to enter his presence with the shear joy of just being able to raise my hands in worship and praise. So when I got home today I immediately ran upstairs to my room and put on this song and just praised the Lord of everything.

LORD OF EVERY THING (you can listen to it on www.jonbuller.com)
BY JON BULLER*

Rock of ages, bread of heaven
Oh the victory You have given
All my sin and all my shame
Now redeemed in Jesus name

Here I raise my hands and sing
To my Saviour to my King
This simple song is all I bring
To the Lord of every thing

You are Lord o’er land and sea
Yet from the depths You rescued me
For only one You would have died
I am that one now justified

Here I raise my hands and sing
To my Saviour to my King
This simple song is all I bring
To the Lord of every thing

To You Lord I lift my soul
Righteousness my only goal
Forever always You’re the same
And I will not be put to shame

Here I raise my hands and sing
To my Saviour to my King
This simple song is all I bring
To the Lord of every thing

All creation sings Your praise
A majestic song we raise
Here in awe, here terrified
Yet in Your wonder now we hide

Here I raise my hands and sing
To my Saviour to my King
This simple song is all I bring
To the Lord of every thing

Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!To the Lord of every thing!


Well, I think I'm off to walk down to Starbucks for some much needed coffee for the long night ahead.

Spa Day

This morning, bright and early me and 4 amazing friends headed off to the Elle Spa for manicures or pedicures. Whoever's idea this was, was completely brilliant. What a great way to start off the weekend and a fantastic way to spend a study break.

Kristy, Aimee, Laurie, Deanna and myself met up at the Fyxx for some coffee and good conversation before heading off to get our nails done. The weather this morning was absolutely gorgeous and so we sat out on the patio and enjoyed a good cup of coffee.

Laurie, Kristy & Deanna

Me & Aimee

Here are some of the pictures taken at the spa. It was a great little place. I would highly recommend going there if you need or desire some pampering.

Kristy and I

Laurie

Hanging out while waiting for our nails to dry. It would appear that my socialization skills have gone out the window with all of the studying I have been doing cuz here I am singing along to Mandy Moore! Oh dear!

Can you guess who's toes are who's?

The whole group.

Thanks for a wonderful morning girls!

Completely Fried

It has been a long week it seems, yet at the same time I am not sure where all the time went. I have crammed my head so full of knowledge that I can hardly keep my eyes open anymore. Classes are coming to an end and yet I still find myself at school so much. Go figure.

On Tuesday morning after our pathology exam, a bunch of us were completely wiped and so we decided to hang out in the school library and do some palpations (something we need to do for our anatomy practical exam). However, this is what a majority of us looked like instead:

Jenn didn't even make it to the couches

Carmen pretending to be super chipper

Marni was the only one who actually opened up a book to study. Way to go Marn!

Our class is predominantly made up of women. We have 3 guys in our class total out 23. So you can only imagine how crazy it can get sometimes with all of the estrogen and hormones floating around. Well our dear friend Adam decided he needed to do something about all the crazyness so he went out and bought a rather large box of mini chocolate bars and stuck them in Marni, Jenn and mine's locker (yes we all share). What a great guy! I have to say that even though I am not a huge fan of chocolate, in fact I don't really like it very much at all, I have nibbled on the occasional bar since Adam stuck 48 of them in our locker.

Wednesday was my parent's 26th anniversay, so to celebrate they wanted to take us kids all out for dinner to the Keg. It was a very delicious dinner, but by the time my steak actually arrived I was pretty much full from the appitizers and the salad. It was a very nice evening with very good food and probably one of the best long island iced tea's I have ever had (and I have to say, I make a pretty good one :)

My parents

Kevin & Dominika

Derek & Courtney

I was the only one who was dateless which kinda sucked, but I guess my turn will come eventually.

The Family Returns

My week by myself came to a smashing hault on Saturday evening when I got home from church. The family had returned. I have to say that as much as I was enjoying having an entire house to myself, it was also very nice to see them. I missed them, especially Cole. Saturday night I put him to bed, so the 2 of us laid in his bed, said prayers and told some stories. He wanted to tell me all about his week in Minneapolis and even though it was already 8:30 (way past his bed time) we spent a good half hour talking. I love this age. One of my favorite quotes from the other night was this:

Cole: I am going to invite all of my cousins and friends to my birthday party.

Kara: Can I come to your birthday party too?

Cole: No....cuz you aren't my friend.

Kara: Oh, what am I then?

Cole: Silly Kara, you are like my sister.

It was very sweet. I ended up falling asleep in his bed around 9pm and slept all the way through the night until 8:00am. Apparently I was pretty tired.

Sunday morning, Cole woke me up so that we could play and although I did miss him, I definitely did not miss the quiet mornings. After some Nintendo playing, Bonnie, Cole and I walked over to Bread and Circuses for some breakfast and then came back home to play outside for a bit. Cole had picked out a couple of different gifts for me while they were gone and presented them to me Sunday morning. He was extremely proud of his supersoaker water gun that he got, but was even more excited to show me mine.

Notice his smug little smile :)
I have a feeling these are going to be some very unfair water fights. His reasoning for picking the small water guns for me was because he wanted to win. At least he's honest about it!

Sunday morning also included me taking the training wheels off of Cole's bike. We didn't make very much progress due to frustration on his part, but we will be trying again very soon.

Right: Skateboarding

Goofy Faces

Today was my first exam...Sports Injuries. It didn't go as well as I had hoped considering all of the studying and effort that I put into it. I am just glad I am done with that forever. One exam down, 4 more to go with the next one being tomorrow. Jenn and I spent the day studying today from 9-3. There was no way we were going into the exam unprepared (apparently we did not succeed). I am officially and completely wiped and overwhelmed with exhaustion.

Jenn leading us through some secret pathways to get from our car to school. Some of the places she led us were not all that inviting looking. Our school is in a rough area of town, but my fearless leader was sure she knew what she was doing, so I followed.

This is what Jenn and I looked like prior to the exam beginning. We are exhausted!

Enough is Enough

I am fading very quickly it seems. I am running out of motivation and energy for school. I am tired of reading textbooks and colouring muscles. I cannot wait until I can sit down and read something other than a textbook or notes from class. I can't wait until I can really sit down and enjoy a cup of coffee while reading rather than drinking solely for the purpose of trying to stay awake to read. Ahhh, those will be good days.

Only 2 more weeks until I can trade these books....

for these ones!

I have been thouroughly enjoying the house to myself this week. It is absolutely glorious to walk into a quiet, empty house at the end of the day. It will be sad to see it end on Friday, but I have missed my little family here too.

Tonight I am working in clinic at school. I have a feeling it is going to be a long night.

Birthdays, Clinic and Slurpees

It has been a jam-packed weekend. I am not entirely sure where the time has gone. I had great intentions in spending a majority of the weekeend studying for exams, but I have to admit, I have done a very terrible job of it. It appears that I am very easily distracted. Actually, Friday night I did spend a good few hours studying in the evening, but I did not study nearly enough as I wanted to.
My headaches have come and gone, ranging from different degrees of pain, but I feel like I am on the mend now. Friday afternoon I had my last clinic rotation for Fridays so that felt very nice. However, it was extremely slow and it happened to be my turn on desk (which basically means that I was responsible for collecting payment from clients, booking new appointments if need be and pulling files, etc). The last hour was especially painful for a number of us. One might think we had far too much time on our hands based on the pictures below (by the way, we were not working on an actual client - one of our classmates was on the table, just so you don't think that were completely unprofessional - haha):



Our church was involved in something these last 2 weeks called "Love Winnipeg". On Saturday a group of us headed down to Siloam mission to help out in the kitchen, clean up and other odd jobs. It was a pretty neat experience and got to know a few people. I found it really neat how the people who work there full time have this incredible heart for the people who are less fortunate. God has blessed them with an amazing gift and I really admire the work that they do.
Saturday evening after our church service, Steph led the first of 3 dance classes. I know it sounds crazy, since we attend a church that is affiliated with the MB conference - Yes, Mennonites were dancing. For some people rhythm came easier than others, but overall it was a really fun night. After dancing a couple of us girls headed back to Kristy's while the guys and some girls went to watch the hockey game.






Left: Cole and I at church enjoying some much needed slurpees.





Today was supposed to be the beginning of my "Hibernation Period". Well, once again, I did not do a very good job studying. Dan and Bonnie left for Minneapolis for the week - I have the house to myself and I am VERY excited. I set my alarm for 9am this morning with the intent in getting up to study. However, I came downstairs and decided that the house needed cleaning in a very bad way and if I did it today, then I would have 6 days to enjoy the cleanliness. I also needed to go and buy groceries because there was absolutely nothing in the cupboards or in the fridge, so that took a good hour and a half. Once all was said and done, I headed over to Cousins Deli to study with my friend Jenn from school for a couple hours until I was interrupted with a phone call from my mom.

It was my brother Kevin's birthday yesterday, so my parents decided that tonight we should all go out for supper to celebrate. So yet again, another activity to engage in instead of spending the evening studying. We went to Pizza Hut (not my choice in a birthday dinner, but apparently Kevin was craving pizza).

The Birthday Boy!

Dominika

Me and Derek

My parents (they take quite the pictures.

No wonder we can't ever take a good family picture)

So, I just got home a little while ago and it's already 9:30pm. So much for a day devoted to studying. I am praying that I have a little more focus throughout the week cuz it would appear that my motivation and desire to study and be in school is very quickly diminishing.

Migraine Update

Well for those of you who have been praying and who are interested in what has been going on with my migraines, here it is. I went to the doctor this morning (I love having her clinic right across the street) and she suspects that it just a sinus infection, so currently I am on antibiotics. This should take the headaches away and relieve some tension in my head. If for some reason this doesn't work, then I will go back and see her in 5 days and we'll figure something else out.

Thank you for all of the emails of concern and prayer. That means a lot.