Senior Year Blog

The only thing that I contributed to Judson's traditional pageant was my friend Kezia/Little Red's Mary Jane shoes! It's wonderful to be a senior and just get to sit back and enjoy the show. The Jr/Soph class did a great job putting on the play for their big sisters. It seems like a million years since my Jr/Soph year when I was "Olive of Orlando" in Kokonut Kapers. It was fun and made me get to know members of my class a lot better, but I definitely do not miss the going-to-bed-at-the-crack-of-dawn-after-pageant-practice-and-homework feeling!  

Another friend, Audra, was the wolf. Her good friend Nick goes to South Alabama and came to see her perform. As pageant is at night, he needed a place to stay, so I offered him the guest room at my house. My sister is a freshman at the University of Houston, so her room was free for Audra, as well. It ended up being kind of a Comedy of Errors. I didn't know it, but Nick is highly allergic to dogs and cats. My family has four cats and three dogs, one of which is an indoor German Shepherd. He also didn't know to bring his allergy medicine. To make the poor guy's night worse, the light in the guest room didn't get turned off, which kept my pet finches awake. They trilled all night, so he kept on waking up thinking a cell alarm was going off. The next morning he tried incredibly hard to be postitive. It was a little difficult though, through all the sneezes and tissues.

It was fun having friends over, though. The next morning we all went to St. Wilfrid's Episcopal, the church I grew up in. Sunday was quite appropriately our annual Bring A Friend To Church Sunday, complete with a very delicious potluck dinner!

Guess what?! Judson is going to have a concert/lecture tango band October 15^th! There were auditions for six Judson students to learn the milonga tango to perform at the opening..aaannnddd I got a spot!

I'm super excited about learning the tango. I've been taking dance off and on since starting in elementary school in the community school dance program that Judson used to have, but haven't really gotten into ballroom yet. So far, we've just had one girl's practice and one couple's practice with our partners, six random guys we recruited, five of which are from MMI. We've already basically learned the entire routine, just brushing it up. The day of the performance, we'll get instruction from a tango teacher.

All of the dancers are providing their own dresses and shoes. I've been shopping around.  I had some old ballroom dance shoes that I used for Judson's professional dress days, but they were falling to pieces! I figured it was a perfect time to get some new ones. I wore them for the couple's practice and they're absolutely amaaazing! (See below.) I love all of the gorgeous lines that tango dresses have, so instead of settling for a regular dress, I'm getting a tango dress from an online ballroom dance store. The one I found is solid black and could be used for semiformal events later. If it fits, it'll be even more amazing than the shoes!

I'm crazy nervous about the dress not fitting. The one I fell in love with is non returnable. I just ordered it, so won't have much time to find an alternative if it doesn't. My friend Christina, one of the other girls selected for the tango, has incredible workouts! She does arms and a jog Mondays and Wednesdays and an ab workout Tuesdays and Thursdays. I've been trying to join in on her Monday and Wednesday workouts. I can already feel them working! I'm also using the elliptical in the Judson weight room as often as possible. I've found that I can read for my writing course while I'm doing it! Hopefully all this exercising will pay off when I try on the dress!  

I just got back from an informational interview with Dr. John Wheat of the University of Alabama's Rural Medical Scholars Program. The Rural Medical Scholars Program is currently my top medical program choice. If I enter RMSP, I will get a one year "General Studies in Human Environmental Sciences" masters of science with a focus on rural health at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. The next two years, I would go to medical school at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, followed by clinical rotations the next two years in Tuscaloosa. The goal of RMSP is to train aspiring medical students from rural backgrounds who have an interest in practicing medicine in rural areas. Since I've grown up in Marion, am most interested in primary care medicine, and love small town living, I fit the program well.

I really do hope all goes well and I'm accepted. The coursework for the masters program and the RMSP activities are selected to give a good framework for medical school and future rural practice. They range from Biochemistry/Molecular Biology I (taught partly by Dr. Wheat) to courses called Community Clinical Processes I and II. Something about the program must be working well! According to data from 1997 to 2001, the Rural Medical Scholars program students had an approximately 10% higher graduation rate than non Rural Medical Scholars UAB medical students.

In addition to the Rural Medical Scholars Program based in Tuscaloosa, there is a sister MS/MD program at Auburn, RMP (Rural Medical Program), with basically the same system. I need to get more information about the RMP program, but will definitely be applying when I apply to RMSP.

According to Dr. Wheat and Dr. Brandon, the RMSP medical director, one big thing that I can do to boost my application is to get more rural physician shadowing. I'm hoping that I can shadow over school holidays. School courses, assignments, and obligations are catching up!       

Our Painting I oil paintings were graded this week. I only got a B on project 1, a brown shoe (see above). Mr. Adams gave some pointers to improve it. I followed them, so should get upped to an A. The painting still needs more work on the funky insole. I'm a bit sick of it though.. I don't think it's possible to look at a dusty old shoe for more than a week without wanting to chunk it or dump paint on it. Who on earth would want a shoe hanging on their wall? Think I'll let it sit for a while and come back to it.

My Painting I Project II piece is a paperclip. We were supposed to come up with still lives. Since I got tired of the shoe in the first week, I decided to do something I couldn't get sick of - a light blue paperclip. It's on a nice purple construction paper background with a strong light, so has really cool shadows. The purples and blues are putting me in a much better mood than the browns, blacks, and mud tones of the shoe did. I decided to use a really big rectangular canvas and only show part of the clip. This painting is certainly going way more quickly than the old shoe painting. There is still a little bit of work to do, but not much.  

The only bad thing about my paperclip is that my hands will almost certainly have a blue tinge until it's finished. I need to remember to bring good soap to class. I keep forgetting it. Today I had to drive home with paper towels on my hands so I wouldn't get light blue fingerprints on the steering wheel. It was a bit tricky transferring the paper towels to shift gears, but I managed! I might as well go ahead and find blue nail polish that coordinates with my paint.

I'm glad I decided to branch out my senior year. I'm really getting into all of this painting. It's a good break. I'm planning to join Art Club. I've been interested in joining for ages, but have always thought I was too busy with other campus obligations. This year, there are ideas for a trip to the Frist in Nashville, an Empty Bowls dinner, weekly movie nights, and sale of artwork to earn money for museum trips. I can't wait!