Soothingly Through the Park

Soothingly Through the Park, originally uploaded by a b franzen.

Day 66

So I did have another picture, but thought this one was better for today. Yes, it is one that I took a few months ago... but I have been such a slacker, not doing anything after work tonight that I thought I should continue that and put up an 'old' pic. Hey... I wanted to post this one at some point anyways. Today is a good day for it, I guess.

So i thought i would put up some pictures quick of the area that sara is in over in thailand right now. I have no idea if this is what things actually like like where she is, but hey, roughly the same area....

photo by kinginexile.

Thailand is 94% Buddhist and, apparently, the Hill Tribes have a significant animism aspect to their beliefs.

These next few are just some pics from the same province that they are in right now:

photo by Araleya.




the last two photos are by yongsh ( Malaysia ).

They Keep on Telling Me

They Keep on Telling Me, originally uploaded by a b franzen.

Day 65

You are missing one of the two really nice seasons in the STL. It is like everything celebrates the end of winter. The fields and people's garden, sides of the highways, and even a majority of the trees all help to kick off the party of spring.

Hope you got to Moo Baan Kok Noi safely.

Too Fast

Too Fast, originally uploaded by a b franzen.

Day 64

Weekends go way too fast.

Grad schoolin'

So i am pretty sure that most of you that would be reading this will already know... but ya never know. this last week on i received my official acceptance to Baylor's PhD program for sociology of religion. should be a good time.

it is pretty amazing how all of this has worked out for our next steps in life. we had really no idea which schools i may be able to get into when we had to make sara's rank-list for residency programs and had to take a guess at it. we ranked TX first thinking, and hoping, that Baylor may be my best chance, but we were still pretty on edge about it because i had already received a rejection from them last year. the day after match day for sara i flew down to TX for my interview at baylor, which was lovely. we are pretty excited about it all. the hospital that sara will be working at is a big one and i think will have lots of opportunities once she gets into it. the program at baylor is likely the best one in the country for the area i want to go into, so that should make the next step easier than it otherwise could have been as well.

anyways, thanks to all of you for caring about us, helping us, and praying for us throughout this past year. the support has been very meaningful to us.

Stuck

Stuck, originally uploaded by a b franzen.

Day 63

I am not off to a good start... I already missed yesterday.

Goin' to Coe's tonight to help study for the oral exam coming up. Last night I had a late night talk with Ed. Got into grad school. It is all very funny to me. Now I feel even more so like I am stuck in the middle of two places. Closer to where I want to be, but still obliged to be were I do not want to be.

I think a lot of times that is a good thing, even if it may suck. Forces steps in a different direction, staving off complacency and encouraging innovation. At least that is what I say today...
____________________________

So, Sara is gone for another 3-or-something weeks. We shall see if I can keep it up for another round! project's original description, in case your memory is anything like mine:

"This is, in essence, a visual 'open letter' to sara while I am home alone the next few weeks. Things I see, things I am doing, things that make me think of her, or just things that catch my eye... you know, 'when the light is just right."

Can it really be March 25 already?

This year has flown by! To me this year has been fragmented....I associate July to mid October with last school year as I was actually working hard as I did most of my 3rd year of school. October to December was a blur of time spent in Dallas and then flying/driving all over the country interviewing, so that seemed like its own eternity. January floats around somewhere with February merely a memory...maybe that is why it went so fast because in my head it was 3 different parts (although I suppose that should have made it go slower?!?!). And now here we are in March, almost 1 week after the Match where my destiny was determined to be in Dallas (for the next 3 years), 2 days before I leave for Thailand, and instead of packing or sleeping I'm writing a blog. I haven't had more than 5 hours of class/hospital work since November besides a 2 week rotation while in Seattle, and I'm wondering how the heck I am going to be ready to be a doctor here in less than 2 months and start a job where working 80 hours a week is normal, let alone how I am going to treat patients in Thailand who may have different diseases than I am used to seeing and that don't speak the same language as me.

But God is good, He is SO good, and all will fall into place as it already has begun to do, and I will adjust to working my butt off and feeling like an idiot on a daily basis (actually, that still happens even though not working long hours or spending much time in the hospitals), and Thailand will be amazing. Life is such a fantastic whirlwind of an adventure.

Not a whole lot of point to this blog, just that this year has seemed to fly by and I really can't believe I am almost through with medical school and we will soon be moving to Dallas. Yikes :) Time to finish my to do list for tomorrow and go to bed. Lots more on Thailand upon my return!

Party!

sorry it has been such a long time since we put up a post here. we have had a lot of things going on and i seem to live at work as of late. anyways, a few weekends ago we were able to have people over for a party!



we loved the wine and cheese party that our friends hannah and landon had back in college so much that we have wanted to have one of our own for a while now. the other weekend we were finally able to both be around at the same time with some friends in town too, so we went for it. I assigned wines to people and sara made charms for all of the glasses for people.



sara and i got different cheeses from around the world that went well with the wines we had and then had some cholate fondue and other snacks out. it was a good time. we ended up with a pretty good mix of different wines, which means we also naturally ended up with some pretty good times as well.



here is a bit of the aftermath... we didn't end up with all that much left over, surprisingly enough. we did make a few recipies over the next few days to use a few of the bottles up, but for the most part we put a pretty good dent in it all.

alright, off to bed....

Proof that maybe only women should go to the grocery store

I wanted some ice cream tonight, so sent Aaron to the store to get some (the store is a 2 minute drive from our house)...he'll never turn down an assignment to go buy ice cream. I also told him to pick up some salsa and he was going to get some pop as we've been out for a while.

He comes back about 15 minutes later with no salsa, caffeine free pop, and chocolate ice cream. (Apparently he didn't know this - one point back to him - but I'm not a fan of chocolate ice cream, and although I did have a bowl of it, I'm not sure it was worth the calories)

I love my husband dearly and am thankful that if I ask him to go buy icecream, he will, but now I must go return the pop tomorrow and buy the salsa we also needed. Shoulda made him a list.

reading the inundation

it's raining books!, originally uploaded by overthemoon.

It is kind of funny what the internet has done to my life. Thanks to Amazon, I now feel almost totally lost in a book store. I got a gift certificate from some friends to Borders and I had the worst time finding the books I was looking for. Don't get me wrong, I easily found something that I like, but I didn't end up with anything I went in looking for.

There were just books everywhere and so many to look at! I don't know how they had things categorized or anything like that. I am used to typing in what I am looking for, finding it and adding it to my cart. Sometimes more is not better, and I was a bit annoyed not only with the fact that I felt a little lost in one of my favorite places, but that my enjoyment of it has been a bit tainted and distorted by the onset of Amazon. Funny how computers and technology can impact and distort our understanding, and enjoyment of 'familiar' things around us. Oh well. I still left a happy camper!

Delicious Library

So I like books a lot. What can I say. A friend of mine showed me this computer program the other night that I just got. It is called Delicious Library. It basically just helps keep track of all of a person's books and what not. You can track what you have read and what you have not yet read, ratings for books, notes on them... anything! You can create different 'shelves,' so it can be easier to organize... say medical books and everything else. Then, if you ever lend out books you can have it track that too. It will put a reminder on your calendar to get the book back when you want it and it can link up to their email too, if you would want that.

But best for last... it uses the webcam on the computer to scan the barcodes on the books to import the info! No typing it in or anything like that. it scans it and get the cover picture and information from Amazon. Kind of fun.