Hello world! A lot has been going on in my life over the span of the last few months.
Ok, more like a lot of little things that may have actually given me that minuscule nudge to maturing. This summer I got to work at the hospital and the privilege of getting to be thrown in that atmosphere was eye-opening. I want to be a doctor more than anything. The past two years I have greatly questioned that want and in the past year I gave up on that dream. This summer changed all of that. Lets just say it reinvigorated my dreams of med school and a career in medicine.

This summer also provided something else I have needed for quite some time. Some reassurance that I am in fact heading down the right path, that I haven't lost track of the morals that have been instilled in me, and more importantly that I am not growing into some mindless jerk. This summer was in fact successful. I am going to be fine and those morals that I have lived by my entire life are there, if not stronger than before. I guess the best thing in a time of question is to remove all distractions and get engulfed in something entirely outside of what you have been doing to really get a hold of things.

This summer a colleague of mine at work, who I became good friends with, was subjected to a racist remark that she herself did not hear. I however did hear the remark and- ok you really never know how you are going to deal with these situations until you are faced with them. After a few hours of battling over what to do I called my mom to help me attack the dilemma. To my surprise she was reluctant on me reporting the incident because it could jeopardize my future employment at the university. To which my response to her concern was that I did not go to catholic school for 18 years, be taught the difference between right and wrong, to speak up when an injustice has occurred to just do nothing when something like this takes place. That if my doing the right thing means I can not return to UTMB for employment then I do not want to work for an institution that promotes keeping quiet. I went on and did what I felt was right- I reported my shift leader for making a blatant racist remark.

The point of this is not to get some kind of praise or anything but that it really surprised me that I was so adamant on sticking up for someone other than myself. That while I have changed to accommodate the town I live in now-- the true me is still there. But that it also taught me (something I've always known) that you shouldn't change to fit in. I was good about this in high school and staying true to myself but I guess when you move to a new city and have to virtually start over in the friend department staying true to yourself can be quite difficult. But I see now there is no reason to change if anything maybe I need to change who I choose to surround myself with. Maybe I have been trying to fit in with the wrong crowd.

Now to present day. I have found myself missing doing volunteer work or just being helpful in general. In high school I always made time to help my math teacher with whatever she needed help with. Then my high school demanded we do community service and at the time i hated it. I hated it because it was forced but looking back I enjoyed knowing I was helping someone else. So tonight I went online and searched for some volunteer positions in the area. There are a few that caught my eye but the one I would like to do the most is volunteer at the crisis center. I e-mailed the director and hopefully she can find me something to do!