Submit

"Congratulations!

You have successfully e-submitted your application to VMCAS."

You know what that means. That means I was up until 3 am last night staring at my computer screen trying to decided if I was finished with my veterinary application. I'd read all of the instructions, twice. I'd rechecked my courses work, probably five times. I'd read, edited, reread and edited my personal statement possibly a hundred times.

So there I sat.  Almost confident that I was done. Earlier in the night I was feeling so overwhelmed and stressed about the whole ordeal. But by 3 am, I was calm and I slowly looked through everything a last time, said a prayer and hit 'Submit.'

Out of my hands now! As someone once told me (yesterday), if I'm meant to get in this year, it will happen. Guess we will just wait and see (and try not to stalk the mailman).

Gymnast is to Veterinarian as...

"I stand off of the mat, awaiting the judge’s signal.  The sun coming through a window illuminates the uneven parallel bars and you can see chalk floating in the air. Level 8 gymnastics state championships. My heart is pounding.  The judge raises her hand, signaling me to go."

In retrospect, it is really cool to see how gymnastics has shaped me.  At this point in my life, 50% has been spent participating and 75% total time spent associated with the sport (I have coached for going on 5 years now).  It doesn't just teach you strength, endurance, flexibility and cool physics-defying skills. No. It is so much more than that. Just a few things I know I have taken from gymnastics include: teamwork, goal-setting, mental strength, determination, dedication... the list goes on and on.

When thinking about my personal statement for vet school, I realized how applicable and important this non-veterinary interest was to me.  The paragraph above is actually the first paragraph of my personal statement, which I plan to submit to VMCAS next week.  I decided to weave gymnastics into my statement, starting with that true story from my last competitive year. 

Veterinary medicine requires basically all the skills I outlined above that gymnastics helped develop in me.  I am not saying I am at an advantage, just that I am grateful for the opportunities I had as a kid. I always find myself telling my girls that I coach that they will learn SO much more after they are out of the sport. And it's true!

Gymnastics is a big part of who I am. I know it has and will pay off for my future in veterinary medicine.

I thought I would share some of my old gymnastics pictures as well :-)

Level 4 competition (wonder how many points I lost for that toe point!)

 I met Olympic gymnast Amanda Borden at a gymnastics camp!

My first Level 7 floor routine was to Ricky Martin's "The Dub of Life"

Level 7 Beam

Level 8 Floor

Helping Haiti

Ever since being in Haiti in May, I have almost constantly been looking for ways to help. I came across this article in the Purdue Agriculture Connections recently and found it very uplifting.

http://www.agriculture.purdue.edu/connections/summer2010/02_mission_of_hope_continues_in_Haiti.shtml

So uplifting that I took time to email the guy and thank him for his article and tell him briefly about our trip. He was thrilled to hear from me and insisted on meeting with me. So that's what we did! I met Branly Eugene last Friday and we had a good discussion about Haiti and what we are doing to help.

It was interesting for me to hear about how he grew up in Cap-Haitien and has been living in the States for some time. He expressed to me how he as always felt an obligation to help Haiti through his blessings of education and opportunity. He plans to use his education (now working on his PhD in Agronomy!) to go back to Haiti and work on a long term solution. Sounds familiar. I would love to make a difference in Haiti with my agriculture/animal sciences background. So much so that a professor here at Purdue has offered to take me with him to Haiti this December. He is planning a service learning trip (hopefully with Heifer International) for next December, so this would be an "exploratory trip." Very cool!

I may be going to Romania next May too. I will officially be a world traveler at that point, should it happen (you aren't a world traveler until you have been across an ocean.) It is also a Heifer International Animal Sciences Service Learning trip. It would be 3 weeks and formatted very similarly to the 2011 Haiti trip. Love it.

I will be praying about all of this for sure. We will just now have to see how that cards fall. What are you up to God?? :-)