A Moment of Happiness

Every hardship; evry joy; every temptation is a challenge of the spirit; that the human soul may prove itself.

-Elias A. Ford

At this time exactly one year ago, I was in Algeria – checking out Roman ruins, being fed exorbitant amounts of food by my many family members, driving through the bridges of Constantine, taking advantage of the fact that I was the only one traveling with my father and thus he bought me everything I looked at, and being asked by everybody second cousin to say something in English.

hi dzayer. i miss you. let's reunite real soon okay?

This year – my winter break and Intersession could not look more different to that vacation.

This year, every day consists of my making my coffee in the morning, packing a sandwich and heading off to my local library for eight hour study marathons in preparation to take the MCAT at the end of this month. To say that this is not a fun time would be an understatement of epic proportions. Thankfully, my mother convinced me to stay home in DC while studying which means that I don’t have to worry about general housekeeping/cooking/etc that I would have if I had returned to Baltimore to study. While this means that I am no longer working on perfecting my Nutella thumbprint cookies (which by the way, are pretty flawless cause my dad finished half a batch in one evening and he doesn’t even like Nutella), it is nice that I can come home from hours of convincing myself that functional groups and Newton’s laws are important enough for me to remember and get to de-stress with my parents and sister.

I usually can pull out some positive spin from whatever is going on in my life, but really right now I am in either “study” or “try not to freak out about studying” mode. Considering I have under twenty days before I take this exam, and one I hopefully intend to take only once, I figure that it is one of those toughen up times. And, in all honesty, this is part of the path that I have wanted to follow since I was a child.

Realistically, it is easy to tell people “doctor, lawyer, engineer, writer, curator, chef, etc” when you are asked your career aspirations. They are just words. I could as easily say I want to be on Broadway, but as any of my closest friends can tell you, I couldn’t carry a tune if you gave it to me in a child-proof bucket with a lid. My point being, there comes a point when the words we say, the dreams we claim to have, the aspirations that we so easily assign to our futures must begin to become a reality. And with the beginning of the realization of those desires often comes waves of hard work and a test of your dedication and passion. Would I rather be reading, perfecting my cookie recipes, preparing dinner for my family and knitting during this Intersession? Absolutely. But I have goals and I am the only person that can make them happen and so I huddle in a cubicle every day and work until my fingers cramp.

We had the first snow of 2012 today! This is the view from behind my house. (I stole this picture from my baby sister, as per usual she is my favorite photographer)

I have always hated blog posts that are irrationally and unrealistically inspirational; I feel like they are a mockery and incredibly facetious. But if I may be so bold as to dabble in some thoughts; there are certain qualities inherent to all us, the distinct ability to push ourselves to try for something more than we currently are. Passion and drive are not virtues assigned based on birth place or circumstance but rather intrinsic qualities of the human spirit that need naught more than nourishment to be integral to achieving one’s aspirations. Aspirations that are educational, personal, physical, etc in purpose. Whatever it is that you want, there is some path, some puzzle pieces that can be put together to make it a reality. So the question always is – how bad do you want it?

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