First Day of School

Today was my first day of school. I am going to handle it the same way I handle everything here, with some sarcasm, some humor and some trepidation. The best way for me to recap this would be in style of conversation. The conversation took place between my brain and my Bio 109 Prof..

To be fair, before this happened I had a math class that was great.

Bio 109 Session 1 Recap of Awesome:
I walked into a 200 seat lecture hall. It made me feel awesome. All I could think was, I’m in college, for realsies and I think I like it. I found a seat, sent a couple of text messages and watched as my 2 profs fiddled with a microphone. To be quite honest, I didn’t catch their names.

Lady Prof: Hello and welcome to biology 109. How many of you took 108? (3/4 of room raises hand). Well great, how many of you are bio majors? (3/4 of the room raises hand, myself sheepishly included). Well I am Dr. Somethinoranother and this Dr. Looksjustlikemyunclerobert. We will both be teaching this course throughout the semester.
Brain: She is chipper, but uncle robert looks just like my uncle robert, he even has that same eddie bauer shirt…weird.
Lady Prof: On Friday we sent out the email with the course syllabus, you all should have gotten it and printed yourselves a copy…
Brain: WHAT?! This is not going well so far…
Lady Prof: …If you have not yet registered your clickers please do so today as we will start logging clicker responses tomorrow and it is 5% of your grade…
Brain: WHAT THE HELL IS A CLICKER????
Lady prof:…The only thing that we reiterate about the syllabus is that there is absolutely no cheating. If you are caught cheating you will be prosecuted to the full extent of UMKC policy…
Brain: Good policy for sure
Lady Prof: …alright, we are looking forward to a great semester, good luck to all of you, with that I am handing this over to uncle robert.
Brain: I wonder what a clicker is…I really need to figure that out quickly…
Uncle Robert: Ok, chapter 27 Prokaryotes…
Brain: PRO-KAR-Y-OTE…did JP or Mr. D. ever mention such a thing???
Uncle Robert: Whenever I outline a specific thing like this it means it will definitely be on the test…
Brain: Things to Wiki: Clicker, prokaryote, plasmids,horizontal gene transfer…this list got longer…
*While furiously note-taking my brain was also writing an open letter

Dear CIHS,

I am extremely grateful for the education you gave me, however, as I sit here in my first college bio class I have a few observations that may serve you well. While I dearly loved my science teachers as my hand cramps from the speed necessitated to take semi-accurate notes I must say I feel grossly under-prepared.

I have a few suggestions:
1. Less gummy bear sacrificing, more fast talking
2. Apparently 2 class periods at 50 minutes each is plenty of time to cover an entire chapter
3. No more being funny
4. I want to reiterate the talking faster…it’s important

Uncle Robert: ok, that is all for today, bring your clickers!
Brain: Huh, that was a bit overwhelming…

I already feel better, but at first I questioned life, the universe and everything. Here is to tomorrow…

Grace Like Rain

I started this post 3 years ago.  I think Advent is the appropriate time to finish it.

One of the most impacting moments of my life in Kansas City occurred in the first 2 months that I was here.  Everyone on the base was told to shut down their offices at 4pm and be in the prayer room for a very important staff meeting.  The bookstore shutdown and we all made our way to the PR not knowing what to expect.

When I walked in the door I saw a letter on all of the screens signed by Mike Bickle, Rick Joyner and Jack Deere.  The information within the letter was heartbreaking.  Paul Cain was being removed from ministry because of moral failure.

Julie Meyer was leading worship.  The last song that she sang was Grace Like Rain.  This little ditty is an updated version of Amazing Grace.  I remember singing that song in that context and my heart being more grateful than ever.  For the next hour Mike Bickle poured out his broken heart before us and wept as he spoke.

In this Advent season of reflection I always recall that moment as it was one of the most impacting of my walk with the Lord.  Even in the midst of great failure and grave consequence He always offers us grace.

Why Not?

Here at Well, Blue life is underway. I’m still waiting to hear from UMKC but have been assured there should be no problems, picked up a side project for IHOP, cut down to 10 hours a week at Desert Stream, interviewed for a hostess position at the Blanc to open on the Plaza, Tae is walking (he started at 8 months, 8 MONTHS!!!!!), working out our student loan situation, Jesse is finishing up his first semester of generals, he is working from 4am to 1pm as stocking crew at Lowes and he and his brother Josh just shot their first promo video for their aspiring production company.

We also have our share of bumps, as life does. Tae in his zeal for walking fell on my computer…according to Apple it will cost $755 to fix, this autumn has been so rainy that we haven’t been able to drive the bike anywhere limiting us once again to a one vehicle family, etc., etc..

In other news of the amazing kind, our car needed a major repair and an acquaintance from out of the blue paid for the whole thing. No reason, just did. That is the kindness of God, I don’t even know how the person found out about the car, they just wanted to do it for us. How often does that happen? It was almost a month ago and I’m still on cloud 9 about it.

So what happens when life is this full? When you reach that point of ridiculously delicate balance? Well, it would be too easy to just keep rolling in such a stride. Something big has to happen to remind you that you are not in control. Of anything. I’m not in control. I’m pregnant.

That’s right, baby #2 (and final might I add) is on the way for no particular reason other than we don’t have much going on anyway.

A friend was recently quoted as saying ““If there is anyone in the world who can go to school while pregnant, raising a nine-mo. old son, be married, and work, they are Char Wells. Only she’ll do it all in stilettos.” Thanks Matthias, that was incredibly kind. I hope and pray with everything in me that you are right.

The Med School Spiel

I had another appointment at UMKC yesterday.  This time with one of the academic advisors at The School of Biological Sciences.  He gave me the “the med school spiel”.  Our conversation went something like the following:

Dr. Reed: Hi, do you have an appointment at 3?
Char: I do.
DR: That’s with me, come on in.

We take a moment to exchange pleasantries and settle into the office.

DR: So, you’re trying to decide between biology and chemistry?
C: Not really, I think I’m pretty set on bio, the program seems really well rounded and it seems more the thing to do when being pre-med.  It also comes fairly easy for me, except for the calc requirement.
DR: Our calc professor here is actually really amazing.  Also, It’s really easy to double major in chem and bio for both the B.A. and the B.S. and if it’s med school you’re going for, I have to give you the med school spiel.
C: Sounds like you’ve done this before.
DR: 90% of the people in the biology program here want to be doctors, I give the spiel a lot.
C: Is it a good spiel?
DR: It’s well rehearsed
C: Let me get a pen.

Dr. Reed took a deep breath in and began

DR: Ready?
C: Yep.
DR: As I said, 90% of the students in this program currently think that they want to be doctors.  80% of them will never apply to med school.  When I was in college all you had to do to get into med school was have a good GPA and a solid MCAT score.  This is no longer the case because people who were brilliant were getting accepted to med schools everywhere but had no idea what it was actually like to be a doctor.  The second they got near a sick person, they jumped ship.  Nowadays, when a med school accepts 100 applicants they want to produce 100 doctors.  That means that your GPA and your MCAT are now 65%-70% of what they are going to look at.  The rest is made up of shadowing, volunteer work and leadership capabilities.

C: Could you tell me about those?

DR: They’re going to want to see 100+ hours of shadowing from you over the next three years with 5 or more doctors in all different specialties.  They’re going to want to see that you volunteer 1 weekend a month for the next three years and when you volunteer, take control of something and organize it, don’t just be someone being told what to do.  How do you feel about this so far?
C: I’m a mom, a wife and I’ve worked strictly for non-profits for the last 5 years.
DR: You’re off to a better start than most people here are.
C: I also know that I want to do something more research or lab oriented, like pathology, because I don’t really like people.
DR: You’re a woman after my own heart, I don’t like people either.  I got my BS in bio because I wanted to be a doctor and that is what you do when you want to be a doctor, but then my third year I started doing research in ecology and was hooked.  So I got my Ph.D. and now run a large research project here.
C: You have a Ph.D. and a successful ongoing research project and this is your office?  It’s in the basement, had you noticed that?
DR: Uh…
C: Sorry, too soon? Let’s start over.  Hi, I’m Char.
DR: I’m Dr. Reed
C: Dr. Reed?  Really?  Do you ever watch-
DR: Let’s go forwards, not backwards
C: Agreed.
DR: We also have other research projects here that would count towards your leadership activities.  You could start as early as your sophomore year.
C: Awesome, I love research.
DR: Also, med schools want to know that you have a back-up a plan.  Doctoring isn’t for everybody and they want to know that you are being realistic about the process.
C: No worries, I am already formulating a back up plan.

I went on to ask him since he is a parent and a husband if he really thought that someone who has a baby, a job and a husband also in school could really actually make it through 4 years with a 3.6 or higher and a 30 or better on the MCAT.

DR: It won’t be easy, but if you do it, med school, relatively speaking, will be a breeze.
C: I doubt any med school would ever want you to say that to anyone, even speaking relatively.
DR: They’ll never find me here in the basement.
C: The Director of Admissions has a really big office, lots of windows, but then I think you’d have to keep your desk cleaner.  Does that second computer have a purpose other than iTunes?
DR: We have 4 advisors in this academic unit, you can see any of them or you can just pick one of us.
C: I might pick you, unless one of the others have an office somewhere other than the basement.
DR: We’re all in the basement, in fact, I have the biggest office…in the basement.
C: Do the rest of them have Ph D.s?
DR: That is neither here nor there.
C: I suppose you’re right.  Cute kids.
DR: Yeah, I used to hate kids so it’s good that mine are cute.
C: At least you don’t discriminate, you dislike people of all sizes, if you dislike people, why are you an advisor?
DR: Do you have any other questions?
C: Just one, could I use your phone?  I left mine in the car.
DR: Dial 9.
C: Hey thanks.

We also looked over my transcripts and learned that because of my dual credit courses and my AP test scores I have an entire semester of gen eds done already.  Meaning that even though I’m entering in the spring, I could potentially graduate with the bunch that started this past fall.  Sweet.  He also very astutely recognized my pronounced math phobia and told me to get over it which I greatly appreciated.

One day closer to Dr. O’Hara Wells.

My First Visit to UMKC

Yesterday I had an admissions appointment as well as an appointment with my prospective counselor at UMKC.  It was emotional.  I sat in my car in the visitors lot of the Admin Building and just thought “What am I doing?  This is a silly idea.”.  Jesse implored me to get out of the car, walk across the street and stroll into my first appointment.  I gathered my courage and decided it was time to do this thing.  As I walked in my phone rang, it was a training participant for our LW Leadership training in a week and a half.  He had some questions for me.  The blessing and the curse of working from home.  As I instructed him about what he needed to do I hadn’t noticed that Jesse had followed me in the car and was cat calling out the window whenever he got near me.  He circled a few times.  That’s my mister.  The phone hid my embarrassment from those I shared the crosswalk with.

I walked in and said I had a 2:30 appointment and the students at the desk, one Indian, one Latino and one African American (we’re not in Cambridge any more) got my paperwork and showed me back to the advisor.  I had won the lottery.  The Admissions Department at UMKC has a new director and he wanted to know the process of interviewing prospective students, he chose mine to sit in on.  I told them a bit of my story and the director immediately wanted to know everything about IHOP.  He and his family moved her recently and had looked for churches and had considered IHOP and he wanted to know everything.  Yeah…I don’t even think Mike Bickle could tell you everything about IHOP.  “We pray, all the time, that about sums it up.”

My biggest concern going into this meeting was my lack of an ACT score.  I don’t have one.  I didn’t take it.  IHOP as I’m sure you’ve guessed, didn’t really require that.  I had said already that I was 5 years out of HS and they remarked, “ACT scores are good for 7″, great, I once again said “I don’t have them, I didn’t take it”.  I feared the worst…I can’t take the ACT,  I would get like a 12…maybe a 13 if I tried real hard, I would probably do best if I didn’t even open the math section.  The director looked at me and then to the advisor and said “Tylena, why don’t you go get her that waiver form that and that addendum to the FAFSA form from across the hall”.  The woman walked out and he turned to me and said “You said you had a baby this year, that would definitely mean that your income went down from last year.  Fill out the addendum and I bet you’ll get to come here for free plus qualify for loans and grants to live on.  As for the waiver, it’s so you don’t need to submit an ACT score, I’m the one who approves it so don’t worry about it.”

And there it was.  I guess this is it.  This is what I’m supposed to be doing.

I also met with an Academic Advisor from the School of Arts and Sciences.  She would be me counselor if chose Chemistry as my major, unfortunately biology is calling my name.  I have an appointment with the advisor for the School of Biological Sciences tomorrow.  I don’s know why my heart is set on bio, the counselor yesterday said the word that strikes fear into the hearts of many men is required for that major.  Calculus.  An entire YEAR of Calculus.  At least I won’t be bored.

I’m confused

I read the speech. I read the follow up questions. And then I read them both pretending I was my dad. Neither time did I find anything alarming.

Please, please, fill me in.

This Glorious Year

Glorious in a very specific sense. A II Corinthians 4:17 sense. This momentary light affliction has been working in me an eternal weight of glory.  This trying year, 2009 is currently the best and worst in my memory.  For the first time in a long time Jesse and I have long term vision.  Both of us.  Vision.  Long-term ones.

Jesse is back in school. He is working toward a film degree from KU. Currently taking classes at our local community college, he plans to transfer when he has reached the maximum. He has worked with a counselor at KU to build a path that will take him to Lawrence, KS in two years. I am so proud of him. He did 4 years of theology, really intense theology. When he was finished with FSM, he knew he wanted a film degree, but the project the 4th year students came to call “that which we do not speak of” chewed him up and spit him out academically for a couple years and now he is back in the game.

Jesse had an impression from the Lord a few months ago that something really wonderful was going to happen in September. Being humans, we figured someone would give us a billion dollars, or half a million Euro, we’re not picky. This past week I had to fill out my job evaluation from the last year. As I answered the questions I cried. A lot. I figured that shouldn’t happen. A year ago I loved me job, with everything in me, loved it. And honestly I still do, but something inside of me has changed. Something inside of me is no longer feeling fulfilled to capacity here (for the record, I have no plans of quitting any time soon). This has happened with nearly every job I’ve held (there is one that outshines the rest, but we’ll get to that later). At the good ol’ bookstore my heart was in it to win it but I was bored. Really, really bored. And there wasn’t something there that held my interest any longer and I couldn’t handle it, so I found another job and quit. Thinking that this would satisfy my soul, I was happy. For two years. Oddly enough, the same amount of time I held my most recent position at the bookstore. 2 years is not a long time to have a job. Really, it isn’t. So in the last few months I’ve thought of and made plans for about 5 new career paths. Homeopathic medicine, Event Coordination, MBA with an emphasis in marketing, executive movie producer and the one (we’ll get back to this).

Over the years the only job that I loved was in a lab. And I mean loved. Abnormally so. Specifically in microbiology, but really, anything in the lab made me happy. From calibrating pipettes to autoclaving old plates to loading up the mini-vidas with a few prepared L. Mono specimens ready for results (if they came back positive, so help me God, in a food lab, that and C+ Staph was the end of the world for food suppliers, oh and E. Coli in ice machines, seriously people, don’t get ice out of vending machines, I beg of you). No matter what the work, I was in love.

What did I really want to be? An M.E., that’s right, I wanted to go to med school to work with dead people, what a dream.  Actually, ever since I can remember, I wanted to be doctor, it was the first and last thing I remember wanting to be. But, my life got side-swiped in 10th grade in a way that I would have never expected. Jesus invited me to come away for a season and iron out the dysfunction that had ruled my life. I am simultaneously grateful and loathing of this time. On the one hand I feel that I have wasted valuable time, on the other I know that I would never have the confidence in myself to do what I want to without it. The last 5 years have been an absolute treasure. I can’t say that I would want it any other way.

As Jesse found vision for life I decided that the best thing for us would be if I jumped on board with him. Jesse and his brother Josh plan on starting a production company. The best course of action for me seemed to be getting involved in this. Going to business school so I could run the business side of things while they did the creative stuff. This morphed into the thought of being executive producer since most of my life is already centered around keeping the men in it on task (my sister in law is actually better at this than I am, but she is going to be a teacher). Over the last few weeks I realized that while I would love to support my husband in his ventures I’m much better at this from the marriage side, not the admin side as I can be, well a little bitchy. When I realized this I was super discouraged.  Fourth career plan in 4 months down the drain. I had no vision. The Bible tells us that people perish for lack of vision. Perish.  For-realsies.  And in this last year I have felt myself slipping away.  Getting lost in what others say about my strengths and weaknesses, losing my confidence in my abilities and some days drowning in self pity.  But then September hit, and a leaf turned over in my life.  As I filled out my job evaluation I remembered the longing of my young heart, my love of that smelly analytical laboratory (mmmm, autoclave) and the one thing I counted myself out from time and time again.  As I felt this desire awakening once again, I talked to my beloved husband about it and him being amazing, told me to go for it without reservation.  I want to be a doctor.  I want to go to school for 15 years and spend my weekends reading medical journals.   I want to pay off student loans for the rest of my natural life.   I want to be in front of a microscope identifying all manner of malady and I want to offer alternatives to harsh medications for people who want it.  This has kept me on cloud nine for the last week.

Some may ask, what about Tae?  I will be a better mommy than I have been yet with a good goal as part of my life focus.  This will force me to overhaul my life and organize and structure it appropriately.  I have vision.   A good, solid, vision.  I truly believe that I will be a better everything (mom, wife, friend, Christian) with this goal before me.  And I’ve already began to intercede for the MCAT.

In this past year there have been moments where the only thing we’ve been able to delight ourselves in is the Lord (Tae is included as he is the most amazing gift we’ve ever received).  Psalm 37:4 says “Delight yourselves in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.”   Jesse and I over the years have both, for one reason or another discounted the desires of our hearts, not realizing that these things came from the Lord. Now after a year of truly delighting in the Lord we have them back, and we’re serious and passionate about them.

Please pray for us, as we are indeed about to both be in school, both have jobs and both have a baby.   I know, it’s kind of crazy, but it just wouldn’t be our lives if it wasn’t.

Still in Love

Taegan is nearly 7 months old. 7 months. He weighs 18 pounds, is 27 inches long, has a smile that will slay you and has never been vaccinated, (because I’m a hippie). The last 7 months have been the most challenging that Jesse and I have ever had. The funny thing is that really, none of it has anything to do with our gorgeous and amazing son. He is the light of our lives, his smiles, his giggles, his velociraptor impression all have done nothing but vastly improve the quality of our family and our love.

Due to, let us say ‘the economy’ since that seems to be the thing to say, for the first time in our life together we have been financially strapped and emotionally spent, leaving little grace for the others short comings that we have always so easily breezed by in the past. About a month ago on one of many infamous drives home from St. Louis, we both cracked. I cried as I expressed to Love how far from him I felt, how terrifying it was to feel out of sync with him and why I felt these things. He listened and responded similarly expressing his fears and pains about the events that have transpired over the last few months.

After the conversation I felt better, like I had just puked up a rotted concoction of emotion and raw pain. It felt like zero…empty…lack of substance. It felt like something needed to fill a void and quickly before I started reflecting on the things that I’d wished he’d said or the things we could have done differently to avoid our predicament and put me right back as a ball of nerves and ill on rancid perceptions.

As I fell asleep in my own bed (always very helpful) I whispered a prayer to my Jesus. Let tomorrow be new.

The next morning I woke up like Amy Adams as Giselle in Enchanted. The world was once again magical, but more importantly, my world was again beautiful. I looked over at the man who holds my heart and giggled like a school girl.

I quickly remembered why I’ve been in love with him for so long, why I was patient when he didn’t ask me out FOREVER, why I had a child with him before I was 30 and why waking up to his sleepy face and incoherent mumblings before 10 (more like 11) make my heart so alive. I was made for this. I was made to reciprocate.

In the last week Jesse and I have been simultaneously poorer and more in love than we have ever been. There is something about having nothing that makes you realize you have everything. We have Jesus and we have our amazing little family in our little corner of the world and it is nothing less than stunning.

Things Are Looking Up

Jesse got a job this last week and starts on Monday. I am so proud of him. Never in my life did I think I would be blessed with such an incredible man.  His integrity and ability to be honest about where he is at makes me love him so much.  Not to mention how amazing he is with Tae.  They’re quite the duo, I’m in love with both of them more than I knew that I had the capacity to love.  That was just a side note.

Some thing that has been interesting to me is how we have gone through the majority of this trying time in the season of Lent.  The Lenten season was the time when Jesus was drawn by the devil into the desert and tempted for 40 days.  In this time I have been tempted in many ways to lose hope and faith, to be hopeless and to have “just” cause for it.  However, what I have been learning about in this time is how ungrateful I am.  I’m ungrateful for my gorgeous house, my amazing job, my stunning family, the grace of God and the saving of my soul.  It’s easy enough to fix.  I have determined to start each day thanking the Lord for His mercy, for my family and my home and to let the praise of the Lord be in my mouth.

In other updating news, Tae is smiling on purpose now.  Oh. My. Gosh.  He smiles at me and my heart is so full, he loves me and he doesn’t know why, and honestly I don’t know why I love him either, I just do, it’s innate.  I’m in love.  Jesse pursued me and came after me and his actions made me love him, Tae has done nothing but exist and my I’m completely head over heels for him.  How much more does the Father love us?

Numbers

11 days is how old Tae was when Jesse got laid off. 25 is the number of places that Jesse has applied to and 1 is the number of interviews he has gotten. One fourth is the number that currently represents our income. 6 is the number of weeks old Tae was when I was offered a second job, 7 weeks is how old he is now and how old he was when I took aforementioned second job. 62 hours now represent my work week.