Learning is not for the faint of heart.

I've been thinking, a lot. Here's the kind of stuff I've been throwin' around inside my brain.

do I feel like I'm behind because I dropped out of school for the semester? yes. am i still angry and bitter about my car accident happening the first week of classes? yes, i am still angry about the timing and bitter about how up in the air my injuries were following the wreck...because that's what caused me to have to withdrawal. If I could go back and change that, yes I would. I would have continued my education and already gotten a semester of classes in my new major under my belt. But now, I have to start this fall. That's ok though. I was refunded all of my money for the semester as of this week- and I can't tell you how amazing it felt to hold that piece of official paper from ISU in my hands, telling me all of the $2500 was my parent's money again. After so much crap I went through, I hated doing it, i absolutely HATED doing it...all the running around and getting these medical documents signed and seeing this doctor to get an official letter and having to explain over and over again what happened in the accident, and it finally paid off. All my hard work finally gets rewarded. Thank you God.

I may not have been studying for exams and writing essays and papers these past 4 months, but I have been learning about life. What is more important in the long run? Education, or Life? My answer is life, although education is very far up there. I have been taking tests of my own and writing important papers and seeing what grades I get for my work. I have failed several tests. I was surprised by some of these failing grades, I was hurt, I was upset. But in school, whenever I didn't do as well as I thought I would, I went through a short "grieving" process, then moved on and just tried to do better the next time. Thus is the way I must deal with life's failures. I've realized that just because things are not the way they OUGHT to be, in some perfect world with no sin and no pain and no shame, that it does *NOT* lessen my worth and value as a member of the human race and most importantly as a child of God. People like to think how things SHOULD be. How we OUGHT to act. That 2 + 2 ALWAYS equals 4 and if it doesn't, the world has ended. That not being where we think we're supposed to be, no matter what drives us to where we think we should be, somehow means we are inadequate, that we are the opposite of good, that we are in need of being rescued. Well, my journey through life has brought me to believe these are futile thoughts, aimless roads, and vain directions. There are no equations or formulas or scientific methods to get us to where we all desire to be and need to be.

Maybe this is easier for me to understand because of the way my mind works. My brain is heavily creative, artistic and abstract in its thought-process. I don't think in charts and graphs, or numbers and analytical geometry.

I've been failing a lot of tests lately, but unlike the Iowa State students who already had their final exams, MY final exam isn't set in stone yet. I still have time. I still have time to do extra credit and get more points and get my grade up to where I want it to be. Of course, I dont have all the time in the world... it's inevitably coming for me. But, I'm not going to freak out like I used to about these things. Maybe I am actually becoming an adult. That's my biggest test, if you haven't figured it out yet. And I'm trying to prepare for my final exam the best I can.