A Mere Thank-you

This mission trip was nothing short of amazing. Complete strangers were brought together to help a community that truly needed it; a community that I was now a part of.

            On April 27, 2011, I joined my fellow classmates by huddling in the hallway, waiting for disaster to strike. Our power was out, so no one knew when, or even if, we were going to be hit by the oncoming tornado. The scariest part of the ordeal was the fact that if that tornado would have kept its’ course and gone through my dorms, I would have been another number in the rising death count. Having that feeling that you could have died really puts things into perspective. Eventually, one of the RAs walked up and down the hallway, telling us that the main tornado had passed us, but another one was expected to touch down in the next half hour. Everybody just stayed in the hallway because it felt better to be around people than to be alone. Finally, all the danger was gone. A group of us decided to stay up until the power came back on, so we played Texas Hold’Em by the light of the emergency lights in the hallway. Our group dispersed around 12:30 am to go attempt to sleep.

            The next day, the power was still out, so my roommate and I headed to Northport to charge our phones in order to stay in touch with our families. We ended up going into a Radio Shack where a T.V. was tuned into the Weather Channel. I sat in awe of the destruction that I saw. Businesses that had inhabited the main streets about 24 hours ago were in ruins. The videos showing the massive tornado brought tears to my eyes. I had to try to do something, so my roommate and I went to several places, offering any kind of help that was needed. We went down a side street that connected to 15^th Street. The destruction was horrendous. Trees had literally been uprooted completely. There was not a single unbroken window in sight. Cars were wrapped around telephone poles and completely crushed by other debris. I watched people say goodbye to their homes and leave with nothing except the clothes on their backs. After you witness something like that, you will do just about anything to help.

            My opportunity came with Angels 4 Alabama. As soon as we set off for our first stop in Louisville, I knew the trip would go well. A close bond had appeared between us in the matter of a few hours. The people had such great attitudes and were truly doing God’s work.

            Throughout the week, I was personally able to do most of my work in the warehouses that had sprouted up as people needed certain items to continue with their lives. The distribution warehouse on 15^th Street was where I spent two and a half days. That warehouse literally looked like a Walmart, with greeters and everything! In all seriousness, the human contact was amazing, and I felt like I had really helped some people at least attempt to go back to normal life. There was one family I remember specifically. A woman and her son came in, and they seemed a little flustered, whether it was because of the weather or their situation, I’m not entirely sure. By the time we got to the exit, I had both of them smiling and telling different funny stories. As they were leaving, the mother turned to me and just hugged me a few times, repeatedly thanking me and saying I was a blessing to their family. I didn’t really know what to say. Even after they left, I kept thinking that I might have changed their lives by giving them everyday items, such as sheets and paper towels, and just giving them a shoulder to lean on.

            You know, a lot of people tell me that I’m an inspiration to them. I like to tell them that I’m just an ordinary person that put into a different situation, and I’m just living my life the only way that I know how. I would just like to say that all the people that I met while on this mission trip, whether I was helping them in the warehouse or they were in my group, are the ones that inspire ME! You really showed me the love of God through every smile, laugh, and hug that you shared with me. I know I had kind of wandered away from God in the last few months, but during this trip, God showed me that He’s still here and that life has so much more meaning to it when He’s a part of it.

            I’m hoping that when I come back to Tuscaloosa in August, the town will look a little bit like what it used to look like before that tragic storm. I know that it will take a while, but God holds Tuscaloosa in His mighty hands. I just want to thank Him for allowing me to do my small part in repairing the broken town that I now call home. Thank you, Lord, for opening my eyes to better see Your light and grace through the work of all the other churches and also through the smiles and laughter that comes from the people who have no reason to be cheerful or happy. Thank you for sending me with such a great group of people that truly know You and show Your love in both their words and actions. I can’t express my thanks in all the words in the world. So, thank you.

Changing your mind...

So I realize it has been a while since blogging. It seems like I kind of forgot about this wonderful blog. Well, according to this title, I shall be talking about changing your mind. Or mine. Hmmm...haha anyways, recently I decided to change my major, which is pretty huge, especially for me. It seems like I have wanted to be a veterinarian for like EVER (actually only since I was a freshman in high school). It's funny because when I was younger, one of my friends had always dreamed of being a vet. In fact, whenever we played together, we always ended up "operating" on one of my stuffed animals. She was always the vet and I was always the vet technician, basically like a nurse. As I got older, the idea of being a vet really took hold in my mind. I thought that would be the coolest thing ever! When it came to pick my classes for high school, I had immediately begged my mom to let me register for the Introduction to Agriculture class that would eventually lead to taking the pre-vet class later on in my high school career. She told me absolutely not and wouldn't I rather take an accounting class? That definitely did not fly by me. When I was a sophmore, I begged her again to let me take the class. She instead wanted me to (again) take the accounting class. Thankfully, the accounting class was completely full, so she let me take the agriculture class. I was so stoked. Finally I could follow my dream of being a vet! At my IEP, the people even arranged for me to job shadow a vet to make sure I could physically  do the job. An IEP is probably one of the worst things invented (it's a meeting where they basically just talk about you and how you are doing in classes and whatnot. Because I'm so independent, these meetings were a TOTAL waste of time, but that's besides the point). All through the rest of high school, I was prepared to do whatever it took to make my dream come true. I ended up visiting the vet school at the University of Illinois. You could not get me to leave! I just had question after question about the school. One of the professors was already planning on how to allow me to do equine surgery! How cool is that?!?! When I started at the University of Alabama, my heart was still set on someday practicing veterinary medicine on animals of all shapes and sizes. However, as the year began to fade, I began to think about whether I truly wanted to spend the next 8-10 years studying to be a vet. Was I still passionate for the practice? Was I willing to spend all that money on college tuition? In the end, will I be happy with my career choice? Will I be able to make a positive impact on the world? All of these questions swirled around in my mind. Finally, I decided that no, I wasn't passionate for the practice, no I'm not willing to spend all my time and money on this career, no I don't think I will be happy in the end, and no I don't think my impact on the world will be very big if I become a vet. As of right now, I have decided to become a teacher. Hopefully, I can teach either science or math because I still love all the things to do with biology and the world's systems and everything along those lines. You know, I had a great English teacher in high school. His first year teaching was my senior year. He not only taught us what was on the curriculum, but he also taught us life skills and gave us advice on how we should live our lives. I want to be like him and inspire a kid to make his/her dreams come true because I know they can do it. Teaching is a difficult job, and those who decide to teach aren't paid NEARLY enough for what they do for the kids of today. I just want to be that teacher that everyone respects and can learn a good lesson from. "If you can make guacamole from the lemons life gives you, then you have learned something." A quote from the guy who inspired me to do what he does best: teach.

I'm not in Kansas anymore

So the last few days have been pretty rough. You might have heard that deadly tornadoes ripped through Alabama. Well, that tornado just so happened to be a few hundred feet from where I was sitting, huddled in the hallway with a lot of the people in my dorm. The devastation is incredible. Thankfully the tornado missed all of campus and all of the dorms. However, 15th Street and McFarland Ave. were badly damaged and destroyed. A lot of people lost everything: their homes, their jobs, and some even lost their lives. Most people were out of power for about 3 days, but some are still struggling after this tragedy. School was canceled for the rest of the week, and our finals were canceled as well. I actually found this out from the radio because our power was out. Let me tell you, when it's nighttime and you don't have power, it gets REALLY dark! We had emergency lighting in the hallway, but it's definitely not the same. Instead, I stayed up until odd hours of the early morning playing poker on Wednesday with some of the guys and getting a football thrown at me to try to flip me over with some of the guys and my roomie. Memories were made in the midst of this tragedy, but all I could think about was going home. Then, I felt kinda selfish because a lot of people don't have a home to go to, but God spared me for a reason. I'm not done with whatever my mission is here on Earth. I just wanted to take some time to thank the people I know for always being there for me, even when I'm being slightly difficult lol. I also want to say that I want to take time to be there for you, whoever you are that is reading this. I want to be a better, positive person that you can always lean on. Sometimes it's tough and I don't always have the time with studying and basketball practice, but you can depend on me. No matter what. Tell your friends and family that you love them because you never know when your going to take your last breathe. Appreciate the little things and throw some carpe diem in your life : ) Go do something for someone else because there is always someone who is hurting or going through a harder time than you are. Live epically. 

Crunch time

So there are about three more weeks of school in the semester. This basically means that all the profs will be trying to get last minute lessons, hw, quizzes, or tests in before finals week. Here, finals week is the first week of May. My schedule is I have my biology lab final April 26, a week before all my other finals (which is actually really nice). My next final is my Primate Religions and the Human Consciousness (don't ask: it's an honors seminar class that I wanted to get out of the way.) Of course, this is at 8 am on Tuesday. My next final is my chemistry one. I have struggled all semester with this freaking class. I have not managed to score higher than a 50% on any of his tests. Nobody likes his teaching methods (or non-existent teaching methods). I just can't wait to be done with his class. This final is, of course, at 8 am on Thursday. Later on this awful Thursday, I have my biology for majors final at 7 freakin pm. I should do pretty good on this test, but I know I will be completely burned out at this point. Usually during finals week, I get so stressed out that I can hardly eat (and eating is one of my favorite things to do!) I also end up buying a bunch of mountain dew to allow me to stay awake and somewhat focused. As I previously wrote, I get very easily distracted when I'm supposed to be doing something productive pertaining to school. Finals week is just a major nightmare for college students. I thought it was rough goings in high school. I didn't even fully understand the meaning of "extremely stressed out" until I got to college! And to think it's only gonna get worse...hmm on that note, if anybody reads this (which I doubt that they have) and have an interesting finals week story to share, share away. Best of luck and peace out yo.

Ah, the memories

A lot of my friends that are still in high school and play wheelchair basketball just had the wonderful experience of nationals. This year, it was held in Denver, CO with juniors (varsity, jv, and prep), women's, DIII, and the championship league. Let's just say there were a ton of people there! It kind of made me sad because this tournament is the highlight of pretty much any basketball player here in the U.S. You play hard all year, get a bid to nationals, and you just play. Usually, this is one of the few times that you can see all of your friends from different teams all at one time. The wheelchair basketball community is relatively small and very spread out among all the states. Many memories, relationships, and points are made during this epic weekend. I remember the first nationals that I went to (which was quite some time ago lol). It was held in San Jose, CA and I turned 12 while I was there. It was actually very frightening because all the kids were wayyyy bigger than me and had known each other for a long time. One of the best memories was when we were all just hanging out in the hotel lobby when this single amputee came up to me and asked if he could pick me up. I said um no (stranger danger of course). Well, he picked me up anyway, and I suddenly got very tall. I remember he introduced himself as Brian, and then proceeded to put me back down on the ground. Fast forward to now. Brian Bell, the single amp that picked me up, is a U.S. Paralympian and has played for Lakeshore, the University of Illinois, and finally the U.S. How crazy is that?!?! I think it's pretty cool because he is a beast when it comes to basketball. Well anyways, my last nationals as a senior in high school didn't quite go as well as I had wanted it to. I went with both my juniors team and my women's team. With my juniors team, we won the first game fairly easily. My women's team did not do well at all. We ended up playing in the last place game (which is ok). I ended up scoring 14 points (a career high by the way.) I was pretty proud of myself because of the new career high in scoring and because I had ended my time with them on a good note. With the juniors, however, there is not a happy ending. We played Houston, and if we had won that game, we would play for 5th/6th place (which I would have been pretty happy about). When I got to the game (I had missed some of the warm up because I was with the women), I found out that one of our bigger, better players was going to be leaving at halftime to play with his men's team. Now, as a player who played for 2 teams, I can understand being torn about which team to play for. It is an unwritten rule that if it comes between playing juniors and adult, you play juniors because you only get a certain amount of years on that team. You can play with the adults until you drop dead. Well, he left and we couldn't scrape up the win. Let me tell you, I felt so abandoned by my teammate and I was extremely upset with him. Did our game not even matter to him? Why should I play my hardest if he isn't going to? What made it worse was my coach (who I have never really gotten along with) pulled me aside after the game to try and reason why he let my teammate play with his men's team. I maybe half-listened to this shenanigan filled discussion and left to go watch another game. Because we had lost, we ended up playing for 7th/8th. That game was probably the worst game I have ever played. I didn't even want to show up, but I did for my last game as a high schooler. In the beginning, I was furious with my teammate and showed it by slamming into a few of the opposing players (I managed to get 2 fouls within the first 5 mins. of the game). At that point, I only played half-heartedly. I just wanted it to end. As the last buzzer sounded, I could feel tears welling up in my eyes. You might be thinking, Aw she was crying because it was her last game, and she was gonna miss her team. Wrong. I almost cried tears of joy because I was finally done with having to deal with all the drama and whatnot from the team. I had not been treated very well at all during the 2 years that I played, and I was dang happy to be rid of it all. The team had one last thing to do: silly string the seniors. I honestly have no idea where this tradition came from, but if you're a senior, you're totally screwed. The entire team is given silly string and they all basically ambush you right outside the gym. Me and my best best friend had smuggled some of the silly string cans from the stockpile (don't ever let the parent of one of the kids getting stringed buy the weaponry: we WILL steal it). As we approached the ambush, we uncapped our own weapons and pushed outside, catching everybody off guard (nobody knew that we were going to retaliate.) Even though we did pretty awful, I still felt accomplished (there's no other feeling than the feeling of complete power when holding a can of silly string). Again, no other feeling than spraying some people that were awful to you with some silly string. The moral of the story? Don't give crippled people silly string. Or any other weaponry. We WILL take over the world. Follow me on Twitter or Facebook. Peace out yo.

Those times when...oh shiny!

Anybody have those times when you should really be focusing on something school-related but you just can't? Yea at this very second, I am indeed procrastinating on studying for a biology test because I'm unable to completely focus on chromosomes and whatnot. In fact, I'm getting distracted from writing this blog! Those days where you know you have to get something important done, but other things keep running through your mind, or interesting people keep walking past, or your favorite song just came on (for like the 3rd time?) Yea, story of my life at this moment. That's one reason why I can't study outside or in the library. Anytime someone walks past or turns a piece of paper in a book, I have to look up. Anybody else have this problem? Anybody else know how to solve this problem? Because right now I'm having some major issues. Ok, it's time to go be ADD about something else. Short, sweet, and to the point I suppose. Peace out yo.

It's about that time of year

So I went outside today, and it's almost 90 freakin degrees which is pretty warm considering it's only April. I'm used to it staying cold until about May, so this is weird. Anyways, so everyone is outside, trying to get their tan on, and most of the girls are wearing very small swimsuits and stuff like that. These are the girls who are probably in sororities but don't live in Tut, or they are girls who want to be in sororities, but got weeded out. It's kinda funny how self-conscious us girls can get around one another. Especially us disabled girls. We are all aware that because of our disabilities, we will never look "normal." It's just a fact of life. Then it made me realize how obsessed we all are about how we look. Not to completely throw my sister under the bus, but she is always complaining about how she needs to work out more because she is "getting a little big." I'm like dear, sweet sister of mine, you look fine just the way you are! But no, instead she insists on getting ridiculous workouts, like Insanity, with her motivation being "swimsuit season" chanted over and over as she can barely catch her breath and sweat pours down her face. Is it really worth it what we do to our bodies to make them more appealing to other people? Personally, I say no. I work out to be at the top athletic shape I can be and so I don't gain the freshmen 10 (seriously, these dining halls will get ya!) I don't do it to look better for other people, instead I do it for myself. I can understand if you are working out in order to lose weight because your weight is causing you to have health problems, but I feel like any other time people work out just to make themselves seem better to look at or more attractive (which is quite annoying I must say.) Why can't people just be happy about the way they look? However, I will admit that I too had a time in my life where I wanted to look better. I was 15 and I was shopping for my first Homecoming dress. Well, my disability includes having my spine kind of stick out a little around where it stops (I call it my bump lol). I had to find a dress that was big enough to fit my bump into. Let me tell you, this was no easy task. We spent at least 2 hrs trying to find one that I liked, but also fit into. I finally found one, but it was probably a little too small (my mom ended up zipping my bump into the dress a little the night of the dance. Can we say worst few hours of my life??) A few weeks later, I went in for my normal check-up and brought up the issue about my back. I wanted to know if there was any way they could make it smaller and less noticeable. They said yes there was a way, but this would include a surgery where I would have to lay on my stomach for a long period of time, and there was the chance that during this surgery I could be paralyzed. My early teenage self then had an epiphany. Was it really worth it to get this surgery just for cosmetic reasons? Am I willing to sacrifice what little feeling I do have in my lower half just to fit into a smaller dress? In the end, I decided that no that surgery would be ridiculous to have, and I'm just fine the way I am. God made me this way for a purpose. Why shouldn't I be happy with it? Ok there's the end of my rant. Follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/mouseinhouse05 or find me on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/wizards04. Peace out and tell someone you know that they look really good today: just the way they are.