shapings of my life

Tonight, Loma Linda University celebrated it's centennial celebration. Personally, I just finished my 9th week of medical school, and next week I have my second set of tests. I heard Lee Strobel speak tonight, the author of many books, most known for his book The Case for Christ. The night before, I took a break from studying and listened to Lisa Ling, famous for being on the View and for a lot of her documentaries on National Geographic, and now having even her own show for the Oprah network.
Just to catch up on where I have doing the past few months after I came back from Korea was during the summer I went on a family trip with Brinja up the northern coast of California to the Oregon coast. It was awesome and we got to see the great big sequioa trees and spend time in the redwood natioanl park. I also went on another family trip with my parents to the Grand Canyon. Unfortunately, my brother wasn't able to make it since he was taking his Step 1.
The past year has been awesome and definitely a life changing experience, just like how my year abroad in Europe (particularly Spain) was. I lived in the amazon Basin for four months! how awesome is that! Spending time in Iquitos, and especially taking care of the girls at the crisis center was seriously awesome, and I still remember all their names and faces. I miss Milagros, Nelcy, and Angel especially. Traveling in Peru with Brinja was such a great experience, and learning about the Inca culture and seeing Macchu Picchu was breathtaking. Then going back to the motherland, Korea was a great experience in itself. I loved teaching and honestly being the center of attention..hahaha.. I was able to make them excited to learn English, and make them laugh. I believe I was a really enthusiastic teacher, and I wanted to be the best teacher so my students could have a fun time. As a result, I think my classes were really fun and I was able to make great friends with a lot of my students. Particularly, I got close with two students who were older women. Their names are Jini and Bailey nuna..hahaha, they say they'll come this past summer, but we shall see. But, I was able to see the culture of Korea, and how much of it has changed. I was able to identify with Korea, and at the same time feel like a complete stranger. I was also able to visit the beautiful countries of China, Thailand, Vietnam, and well..I guess Hong Kong isn't a country in itself..but anyway, definitely learning mroe about Korean culture and living in three different countries the past three years and traveling to about 20 countries has definitely made me much more of an open person and expanded my views on many different topics.
Well, back to real life. As I was saying, I am in my ninth week of medical school, and really I believe only medical students and doctors can really know the experience of what medical school is like. The metaphor of drinking from a fire hydrant is pretty accurate, and I haven't even started second year! Anyways, it's definitely been a challenge, not that the material itself has been difficult adn academically it's been challenging, but the transition from all my exciting adventures in Spain, Korea, and Peru from now being stuck at Starbucks or int he classroom studying all day isn't the easiest. I've also been focusing just on the stress and hardships of medical school that I stopped focusing on others and serving others. I guess I started becoming more selfish, and from this I started getting more depressed.
Well, it's Friday night and almost midnight, and I decided to write tonight just as a reminder that life isn't just about me..or medical school..and it's much more than that. Lisa Ling talked of her experiences and the horrible things that are going on in the world today, and how privileged we are that we can help make a change for the better. It was an inspiring talk. I liked the end of her talk, where she gave a story about a person about why all these bad things are happening in the world.
This is the story. There was girl one day where she looked on the news and around the world seeing all the bad terrible things happening. Such as 9/11 and the tsunami.She asked God "God if you're there, why are you letting all these bad htings happening? Do you even exist? What are you doing up there? Why? Why aren't you doing anythign about this???" then there was a solemn silence. Later that night, she all of a sudden woke up, and heard a voice, and the voice said this.. "I did do something about it, I made you..I made you..I made you" That story was really powerful in that really, God made us, and gives us the privilege to do good. He equips us with the knowledge and power to do amazing things, and I think I forgot about that while I've been just stressing and studying about school.
Tonight Lee Strobel's talk was also great. His sermon was entitled "Tastier salt, Brighter Light."
He talked about 3 principles, and incorporated them with three men from history. Ignacius, a former martyr in early Christianity, held on to to the first principle, truth. He died for Jesus Christ because he believed in the truth, and that we have the truth today. The second person was Pascal, an amazing scientiest and philosopher. Although he had all these truths about Christianity, it wasn't just truth but experiencing Christianity personally. We have to experience it personally. The third was William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army. His was on servanthood. Although his sermon sounds fairly simple, and I'm sorry I shortened it completely, it was just inspiring as well.
Well, I guess I decided to write this to remind me that although I can get caught up int he stress of medical school, that really life isn't just all about me..and that when I start just focusing on my hardships I lose focus of what's really important in the long run. I want to become a better Christian, and what I've learned my past year abroad is that service is truly what makes me happy, and I should never forget that. That is the reason why I want to be a doctor, and I guess the long draining hours could help me lose focus of that, but just in case I read this again, I want to remind my future self that "You can be the change you want to see in this world" and that serving others is what not only makes me feel that life is fulfilling and happy, but it makes Jesus smile too.