Finals are (thank God) almost over. I nearly missed a psych final this morning because I thought it was at 9:00 when it was actually at 8:00. Thankfully I made it there in time, after miraculously not being pulled over for doing 80 all the way to campus. 

The last week has been pretty crazy, with finals, my birthday, and getting ready for Christmas. I was scared for a while that being out of work over the break would mean no money for rent or my car payment, much less Christmas gifts. But 12Stone's Intentional Acts of Christmas pretty much saved me. The church handed out $300,000 in cash to its members a couple weeks ago, to be used to help someone over the holidays. With the $100 each Mike and I got, we helped my parents buy Christmas presents for my sisters. Without that, they probably wouldn't have had anything. My mom's been out of work for almost a year, and my dad doesn't make much as a bookstore manager. Knowing that Christmas was the last thing they were worried about, it felt good to be able to help them (not to mention, I LOVE Christmas shopping). 

The Intentional Acts of Christmas ended up helping me too, though. A couple weeks ago I posted on the website about my needs, and someone contacted me and gave me a little bit of help. More than I expected, actually. It's because of things like this that I am learning day by day how to rely on God for my every need.

So now, I'm off to find my wonderful fiance a birthday present (he's 25 on Wednesday!), then study for my last final, Personality Theories. I will be nothing short of ecstatic when exams are finally over!

I think I'll try defying gravity

After being in Athens for six months, I think I have just now started to appreciate how awesome and beautiful this place can be. I lived here once before, about 14 years ago. But actually being a student at UGA is (expectedly) so much different. It has definitely taken some getting used to after going to Perimeter for almost three years. I went from a tiny college with five buildings to a huge university where I had to rearrange my schedule because 15 minutes wasn't enough time to get from class to class. It's impossible to get on a bus during class changes, just as impossible to find somewhere to study during finals week, and sharing a campus with 30,000 other students can get pretty overwhelming. But I can honestly say I have loved every minute of it. To me, there's something really cool about finding the perfect place to study (which I found yesterday - the second floor I didn't know existed in the Starbucks downtown), or sitting in the SLC with a coffee from Jittery Joe's and watching all the people walk by. They're such little things, but they make the whole experience even better.

Since I've been here, I've done a lot of thinking about what I want to do after graduation. I'm only a few classes away from having a BA in psychology, but there's not much in that field without a graduate degree. None of the grad school programs here looked that interesting to me, so I've decided to go back to my freshman-year plan of trying to go to medical school. This means I have to stay at UGA at least another semester beyond when I planned to graduate. I have to take six extra classes in chemistry and physics, and take the MCAT sometime in the next year or so. If you're wondering, yes, I'm crazy. I've wondered if I can even do it, because my grades have honestly not been wonderful lately. But I think if I really try and put my mind to it, 

I can get there somehow. 

I guess with this, and everything else, I'll just have to wait and see.