Thursday, May 15, 2008
Swallow the whistle
Odom left Boozer at the 3 point line on his last dunk, but somehow Booz managed to foul him while he was in the act of throwing it down. Maybe next they'll get a continuation call on a Milsap charge after they steal the ball and put up a full court shot.
Laker er NBA officials
I'll admit that I am a Jazz fan, but the first 4 minutes of this 4th quarter are incredible. Somehow the Lakers seem to be getting clean blocks EVERY time the Jazz drive the lane at the same time they are bailed out on the other end. Why don't they call the game rather than the reputation of the players. Harpring didn't even touch Bill's son, but somehow he got whistled. Even Deron with his impressive resume doesn't get any calls. Milsap gets whistled for a charge every time he drives, but Gasol can bowl over everybody in his way on two consecutive possessions while the officials are chatting with Nicholson. I'm officially jumping on the conspiracy bandwagon. The NBA wants a Boston-LA final. The Pistons and Hornets can already start preparing for 2009.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Graduation
After 4 grueling years (well okay only 2 of them were grueling and the last one was wonderful) I graduated from Medical School. It was awesome. Obviously I've been looking forward to this for some time now, but the actual graduation was better than I could have imagined.
There were a bunch of festivities in Pikeville that lead up to graduation, but they were mostly a waste of time (except it was nice to catch up with classmates) so I won't waste space here with that.
I was full of emotions from the time that I put on my graduation robe until I went to bed after the Cavaliers game that night. We started out backstage for the processional and as we walked to our seats I passed Melissa sitting with my mother as well as my brother with his wife and son (they came down from Cleveland). My dad wasn't sitting with them because he was walking in the processional as well.
The commencement speaker was listed as some Kentucky health official and I was expecting a long boring talk about how we are the future of medicine and we need to be examples to our community blah, blah, blah. The address that he gave was nothing of the sort. He spent most of his career as a small town general practitioner and used various experiences during that time to illustrate how important it is for us to be worthy of the trust we will receive from our patients as well as pointing out the role of humility, honesty and many other basic tenets of being good physicians. I thought it was one of the best commencement addresses I have ever heard.
After the commencement address we proceeded with the awarding of degrees and the hooding ceremony. I started across the stage and received my degree on one side then walked to the other side where my father placed the hood over my shoulders.
There are various embraces that I have engraved in my mind. Some of these include embracing my parents before I left on my mission and then again when I returned home, holding my wife on the day of our engagement as well as the day we were wed and again with the birth of each child in our family, and the hug I got from Melissa when we were accepted to medical school. On Saturday I added three more to the list. First came the embrace I received from my dad directly after he placed my hood over my shoulders. No words were exchanged, and none were needed. Second came after the recessional. After leaving the gym I was looking for my dad and I saw him near the doors looking somewhat emotional. I high-tailed it over there to thank him for hooding me and he gave me a hug and told me how proud he was of me. At 31 years of age I am dumbfounded by the power my father possesses to fill me with confidence and validate all of my emotions just by expressing his pleasure in my actions and accomplishments. The final embrace (in reverse order of significance as you may have deduced by now) came just before I returned to my seat after receiving my diploma and hood. Melissa had come up closer to take a picture of the moment that my father hooded me and she was still standing near the bottom of the stage. Rather than head straight for my seat I stalled for just long enough to give her a hug. I think one or both of us may have said congratulations, but the feelings within that embrace I shall never forget.
Throughout graduation I contemplated on the emotions that I was experiencing. I had looked forward to this day for so long and now that it was here I felt different than I had expected. For a few hours there was no thought of the money, or the prestige of being a doctor (not that I think I have ever dwelt on that too much anyway). I wasn't concerned with being a positive influence in the lives of my patients or my community. I wasn't even thinking about how nice it would be to be able to take care of the needs of my children in the years to come. For a few hours it was about personal accomplishment. That may sound somewhat arrogant or selfish and if so I am sorry, but on Saturday for maybe the first time in my life I finished something that took more than I thought I had. This was definitely not something I did alone. I had a lot of help from my friends, family and especially Melissa, but when I sat down to take the tests for which I had spent so much time preparing it was just me (with a lot of help from above).
There is a positiveness that comes with accomplishment as I'm sure many of you out there have felt. That feeling comes not from doing those things that you know you can do, rather in doing those things that God knows you can do. Medical school was one of those things for me.
There were a bunch of festivities in Pikeville that lead up to graduation, but they were mostly a waste of time (except it was nice to catch up with classmates) so I won't waste space here with that.
I was full of emotions from the time that I put on my graduation robe until I went to bed after the Cavaliers game that night. We started out backstage for the processional and as we walked to our seats I passed Melissa sitting with my mother as well as my brother with his wife and son (they came down from Cleveland). My dad wasn't sitting with them because he was walking in the processional as well.
The commencement speaker was listed as some Kentucky health official and I was expecting a long boring talk about how we are the future of medicine and we need to be examples to our community blah, blah, blah. The address that he gave was nothing of the sort. He spent most of his career as a small town general practitioner and used various experiences during that time to illustrate how important it is for us to be worthy of the trust we will receive from our patients as well as pointing out the role of humility, honesty and many other basic tenets of being good physicians. I thought it was one of the best commencement addresses I have ever heard.
After the commencement address we proceeded with the awarding of degrees and the hooding ceremony. I started across the stage and received my degree on one side then walked to the other side where my father placed the hood over my shoulders.
There are various embraces that I have engraved in my mind. Some of these include embracing my parents before I left on my mission and then again when I returned home, holding my wife on the day of our engagement as well as the day we were wed and again with the birth of each child in our family, and the hug I got from Melissa when we were accepted to medical school. On Saturday I added three more to the list. First came the embrace I received from my dad directly after he placed my hood over my shoulders. No words were exchanged, and none were needed. Second came after the recessional. After leaving the gym I was looking for my dad and I saw him near the doors looking somewhat emotional. I high-tailed it over there to thank him for hooding me and he gave me a hug and told me how proud he was of me. At 31 years of age I am dumbfounded by the power my father possesses to fill me with confidence and validate all of my emotions just by expressing his pleasure in my actions and accomplishments. The final embrace (in reverse order of significance as you may have deduced by now) came just before I returned to my seat after receiving my diploma and hood. Melissa had come up closer to take a picture of the moment that my father hooded me and she was still standing near the bottom of the stage. Rather than head straight for my seat I stalled for just long enough to give her a hug. I think one or both of us may have said congratulations, but the feelings within that embrace I shall never forget.
Throughout graduation I contemplated on the emotions that I was experiencing. I had looked forward to this day for so long and now that it was here I felt different than I had expected. For a few hours there was no thought of the money, or the prestige of being a doctor (not that I think I have ever dwelt on that too much anyway). I wasn't concerned with being a positive influence in the lives of my patients or my community. I wasn't even thinking about how nice it would be to be able to take care of the needs of my children in the years to come. For a few hours it was about personal accomplishment. That may sound somewhat arrogant or selfish and if so I am sorry, but on Saturday for maybe the first time in my life I finished something that took more than I thought I had. This was definitely not something I did alone. I had a lot of help from my friends, family and especially Melissa, but when I sat down to take the tests for which I had spent so much time preparing it was just me (with a lot of help from above).
There is a positiveness that comes with accomplishment as I'm sure many of you out there have felt. That feeling comes not from doing those things that you know you can do, rather in doing those things that God knows you can do. Medical school was one of those things for me.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
New House
We signed on a house in South Bend! After flying out on Sunday we spent most of the day on Monday looking at housed with our realtor. We narrowed our favorites down to 3 and went to look at them again on Tuesday. We visited the bank and signed our life away again (though a $120,000 loan doesn't make us too nervous considering our $160,000 in school loans already). We returned to the realtor and she drew up all the papers for us to sign to make an offer. The seller accepted our offer after it was presented and we got a call from our realtor shortly before 10 PM with the good news. We have a bunch of inspections planned for the next couple of weeks and if everything goes well we are scheduled to close on June 6th.
Melissa and I were very excited when we looked at this house and ecstatic with the listing price of $120,000. We were pretty much sold on the house but didn't want to have to pay out a bunch of money up front so we made an offer of $119,000 with the seller agreeing to pay $3500 in closing costs expecting the seller to counter with $120,000 with closing costs, but to our delight our initial offer was accepted. We learned that the sellers realtor had advised them to counter our offer, but they were very happy with the offer and didn't want to hassle with the whole thing anymore. We could have probably gotten the house for less, but the seller could have certainly gotten more out of us (we would have paid the full 120 plus closing costs if pushed) so we feel really good about it all and apparently the seller does too.
We are now in Pikeville for the graduation festivities. I'm somewhat happy to be here and somewhat disgusted to be here. The only reason we're here on Thursday with graduation on Saturday (night) is because I'm sure the school has some unwritten deal with the city that they will spread graduation out as much as possible to fill the hotels and restaurants this week. At any rate we left the kids home with grandma and I miss them dearly.
Friday, May 2, 2008
The Unsung Hero
I have received a lot of congratulations over the past few weeks regarding my impending graduation from medical school. So I thought I'd take a little bit of space to congratulate Melissa for what she has done the past 8 years.
In the summer of 2000 Melissa and I started dating. She had satisfied all of the requirements for graduation from SUU but had decided to stay in school and get a double major as well as accept her elected position on SUUSA. In a short span of time we decided to get married and she decided to resubmit her graduation papers and move to Salt Lake City to live with her family and get a job. During that engagement time she worked hard making money so that she could pay for much of our wedding as well as my Spring tuition at the University of Utah (I had money saved for that but it went towards a ring and a honeymoon).
We had decided that though Melissa could easily afford a car with her new job it was not a wise move for us. So she carpooled with her sister into work and rode the bus home from work each day while I drove my car around the east side and up to North Salt Lake to pack FedEX trucks.
When we got married Melissa continued to work and supported me through my undergraduate education. After a year or so of marriage I decided to completely change our lives and start preparations to go to medical school. As always Melissa was very supportive of this decision even though it meant more school for me and more work for her.
When Spencer was born we made the difficult decision that Melissa would continue to work while I stayed home with him. This was a much harder decision for Melissa than it was for me, but we both knew that her working would be much more beneficial for us and I couldn't mess Spencer up too much during those first two years (the results of that last bit are still up in the air).
When we finally went off to medical school Melissa happily (or at least she put up a good front) left her family to come with her husband and child to Eastern Kentucky. Those Kentucky years were rough for her. The first year wasn't too bad for eaither of us, but when second year rolled around all heck broke loose.
At the beginning of my second year of school things got a lot harder for me and Melissa, now with two children (one of which was dealing with numerous ear infections) at home, had to take up the slack. I struggled through some tough times and wasn't much help for Melissa at home. She encouraged me, fed me, and took care of the kids all with a smile on her face. As my study time increased my home time decreased. I regularly left for school before the kids got up, and came home after bedtime with only a half hour visit for lunch and dinner (which Melissa always made for me). When spring rolled around and I got that itch to play some sports Melissa loaded up the kids and brought them to the fields so they could be with dad while he played frisbee. Looking back I realize how selfless she was during that second year.
Melissa agreed to again move across the country to Yakima, WA so I could continue my medical education and if that wasn't enough we moved again to my hometown of Cedar City to finish up. While in Cedar she never complained as I spent my lunch hour with my Dad in his clinic (a very enjoyable experience for me).
We could easily have matched into a program that would have kept us close to family, but Melissa's stupid husband just felt like we should go back to Indiana and once again she happily agreed. So now we're off to South Bend for another 3 year adventure.
I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be a week from graduation without Melissa. So while I am congratulated for the next little while for my accomplishment I want to congratulate and thank her for our accomplishment. Congratulations Melissa!
In the summer of 2000 Melissa and I started dating. She had satisfied all of the requirements for graduation from SUU but had decided to stay in school and get a double major as well as accept her elected position on SUUSA. In a short span of time we decided to get married and she decided to resubmit her graduation papers and move to Salt Lake City to live with her family and get a job. During that engagement time she worked hard making money so that she could pay for much of our wedding as well as my Spring tuition at the University of Utah (I had money saved for that but it went towards a ring and a honeymoon).
We had decided that though Melissa could easily afford a car with her new job it was not a wise move for us. So she carpooled with her sister into work and rode the bus home from work each day while I drove my car around the east side and up to North Salt Lake to pack FedEX trucks.
When we got married Melissa continued to work and supported me through my undergraduate education. After a year or so of marriage I decided to completely change our lives and start preparations to go to medical school. As always Melissa was very supportive of this decision even though it meant more school for me and more work for her.
When Spencer was born we made the difficult decision that Melissa would continue to work while I stayed home with him. This was a much harder decision for Melissa than it was for me, but we both knew that her working would be much more beneficial for us and I couldn't mess Spencer up too much during those first two years (the results of that last bit are still up in the air).
When we finally went off to medical school Melissa happily (or at least she put up a good front) left her family to come with her husband and child to Eastern Kentucky. Those Kentucky years were rough for her. The first year wasn't too bad for eaither of us, but when second year rolled around all heck broke loose.
At the beginning of my second year of school things got a lot harder for me and Melissa, now with two children (one of which was dealing with numerous ear infections) at home, had to take up the slack. I struggled through some tough times and wasn't much help for Melissa at home. She encouraged me, fed me, and took care of the kids all with a smile on her face. As my study time increased my home time decreased. I regularly left for school before the kids got up, and came home after bedtime with only a half hour visit for lunch and dinner (which Melissa always made for me). When spring rolled around and I got that itch to play some sports Melissa loaded up the kids and brought them to the fields so they could be with dad while he played frisbee. Looking back I realize how selfless she was during that second year.
Melissa agreed to again move across the country to Yakima, WA so I could continue my medical education and if that wasn't enough we moved again to my hometown of Cedar City to finish up. While in Cedar she never complained as I spent my lunch hour with my Dad in his clinic (a very enjoyable experience for me).
We could easily have matched into a program that would have kept us close to family, but Melissa's stupid husband just felt like we should go back to Indiana and once again she happily agreed. So now we're off to South Bend for another 3 year adventure.
I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be a week from graduation without Melissa. So while I am congratulated for the next little while for my accomplishment I want to congratulate and thank her for our accomplishment. Congratulations Melissa!
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