Monday, August 27, 2012

I finally have a future, and other noteworthy happenings



I have a friend who has heard me say many times over the past months that I have no future.  She always got a kick out of it, but unfortunately for her the time has come to change my mantra.  Over the past few months I've been trying to figure out what I should do with my life, and I had kind of reached a logical conclusion (logical, but not really exciting).  Going back to grad school for physical therapy had become increasingly more out of my reach and unreasonable, so I was deciding to settle for a program to become a physical therapy assistant.  Which isn't necessarily a bad choice, I just felt it wasn't quite living up to my potential.

In the midst of my future musings, I read an article about how athletic training is starting to progress in England, and I discovered a program for a Master's Degree in Sports Therapy in England.  This program sounded so exciting, but at the same time I realized this really wouldn't do anything for me career-wise.  But it refused to leave my mind.  Over and over again, it would sneak in and seduce me, make me wish my life was different so that this option would make sense.

In my personal scripture study, I kept reading different stories of someone, or groups of people, that was in need of something good, or important, or life-saving, but they weren't given the blessing until they asked.  It led me to wonder what God is waiting to give me, if I would but ask.  So I took the chance, and asked if it were possible, that I could go to Europe.  

A few weekends ago we had a big regional single adult conference, where one of the speakers challenged us to make a mission statement of our lives.  As I sat down to ponder this, it literally took me 45 seconds before realizing that the statement that is most descriptive of my life is "Never Stop Dreaming".  And because this is me we're talking about, it wouldn't be complete until translated into a foreign language, so I decided on "Non Desinas Somniare".  And once I realized my mission statement, I realized I needed to actually live up to it, and I started to take the thought of school in the U.K. seriously.

A few days after that, I was reading a conference talk in preparation for institute by Elder Scott, called "How to Obtain Revelation and Inspiration in Your Personal Life".  In the middle of reading the talk, the strong feeling came over me that I needed to go to the U.K. for school.  So I said okay.  I still didn't have an option that made sense, but who am I to argue with a prompting?  The next day as  I was researching school options, I discovered the program for me, a Master's in Physical Therapy (well, Physiotherapy, if you want to get technical) for people who have a Bachelor's Degree in a related field.  That's me!!

And so now here I am, applying to multiple schools across England and Scotland, actually envisioning myself moving to another country in a year.  One time in Boston, when I was still trying my hardest not to B-minus out of school, I tried to threaten God.  I was very involved still at that point in my life with various Italian things, and was aware of a few universities in the country with physical therapy programs.  I told God at one point, thinking I was being clever with threats, that if I got kicked out of school in Boston, I would just go to school in Europe, thank you very much.  I thought he'd see it as me being a little too crazy and so he'd help me stay in school in Boston to prevent such a drastic choice.  Turns out the whole time he was thinking to himself  "Finally!  She's starting to get it..."  

In other noteworthy news, I decided to research my future life by finally watching Doctor Who.  Unfortunately I didn't get the word from my sister about her free month trial of Netflix until there were 2 weeks left, and therefore spent this last Friday watching 11 45-minute episodes in a row, just so I could finish Season 6 in time to start the new Season 7 (which premieres Sept 1st) with my roommate.   Turns out 11 in a row is just a bit too much, by like 8 or 9.  You have no idea how many times I yelled at the screen for them to just kill the Doctor already (in my defense, by watching all of the seasons too close together, I haven't had near enough time to mourn the loss of David Tennant as the 10th Doctor and am still angry at the 11th Doctor for existing).  But now that Netflix is officially canceled, I think life can start being productive again.  Just in time for grad school applications!!