Aggie Bucket List

Everybody has a "Bucket List" of things they want to do before graduation. I started one my freshman year, and actually have quite a few things accomplished! It looks like there is A LOT to do in the next year though! In honor of crossing off "Meet the Yell Leaders", I figured I would share the rest of my Aggie Bucket List!

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• Sleep in Research Park
• Pond hopping through the fountains on campus
• Visit the Aggie Barn
•  Get into Kyle Field when there is not a game
• Ride your bike down the dorm hallways
• Night out on Northgate
• Photo Scavenger Hunt across campus
• Camp out for tickets to a game
• Aggie Ring Day!
• Picture with Reveille
• Visit the Bonfire Memorial at night
• Eat at the Dixie Chicken
• Camping at Lake Bryan
• Attend Silver Taps and Muster
• Meet the Yell Leaders
• Paint yourself all blue and get a free meal at Blue Baker
• Put a penny on Sully
• Country dance with a stranger at Harry's
• Ski or sled with friends down Mount Aggie
• Hammock on Campus
• Paddleboarding on Lake Bryan
• See the sunset/rise over the lake/beach
• Go to First Fridays in Downtown Bryan
• Picture with Dr. Loftin (while he was still President)
• Play capture the flag on campus at night
• Midnight Yell
• Date to Midnight Yell
• Eat a plate of over-sized pancakes at Hullabaloo Diner

Masters?

The only "Masters Program" I ever even debating participating in was the Masters Swim Program for all of those ex-competitive-swimmers who just miss the water. To be honest, I only debated that a whole 2 minutes in my head.

But today when I find out that I could add on a masters degree to my degree and finish in just an extra year. I began to consider it. And although I have over 3 weeks to make a decision, of course my brain goes a mile a minute and begins to debate every single option possible option. Shocking, right?

This is a conversation I had with one of my friends tonight:

Friend: "Kys, what do YOU want to do with your life. What is YOUR dream?" 

Me: "I want to go teach children who don't have anything at all. To teach them to write their name, to teach them to read so they can read "I'll Love You Forever" on their own, and to teach them all about Jesus" 

Friend: "Okay. Now you need to take the steps to make that happen. If that means another year of school, okay. If that means actually looking at places in America or overseas, okay. If that means accepting that you might not live near your family and friends, okay. You need to follow YOUR dreams. Not your family's dreams, not your friends' dreams, not anybody else dreams for you. YOUR dreams."

Looks like I have some thinking and soul-searching to do over the next couple of weeks.

Don't Waste My Time (and the perspective that later came)

I guess I must do a very good job of not seeming stressed and overwhelmed daily to the rest of the population. I mean, Rachel sees it, and my best friends study with me so they know that it exists. But I guess the rest of the world assumes that I have all this surplus of time.

That's the only logical explanation as to why they would blatantly WASTE my time. Right? I had office hours for work today from 10:30-12:30, but a student needed to meet with me and she had class until 2, so I told her I would could stay late and have a conference with her at 2:15. So when I was 2 hours AFTER I'm supposed to get off and the student doesn't show up, I believe I have grounds to be frustrated!

Then I went to work on a group project. Thankfully my group is wonderful, but the class is super frustrating. Way too many projects with way too little explanations. Put a group of perfectionist education majors in a setting with no guidelines and no directions... we get frustrated, stressed, and easily flip out. 30some education majors flipping out at once? It isn't pretty.

I came home to take a 15 minute nap before water polo. I figured I could wake up in a better mood than I was in previously. Well, 3.5 hours later I finally woke up. Thankfully, I was feeling quite refreshed!

Then I got a phone call that put today into perspective. One of my friends from camp has CF. She has been sick a lot over this last year and she is back in the hospital. Her lung function is down to 27%. At 25% she goes on the transplant list. At this point there is not much they can do for her. She is in isolation, and even her own family isn't allowed in the room with her. The average life expectancy when she was born was 17 years. Over recent years that number has increased, but it isn't looking good right now.

So while I was frustrated by spending 2 extra hours at work (2 hours which I spent working on other things that I would have had to do anyway, 2 hours that I will get paid for), my friend was laying in a hospital bed and her family was given some shattering news. That definitely puts things into perspective. I may be frustrated when somebody wastes my time, but I'm blessed to have time to waste. Some people just don't have too much time left.

Happy Spring Break to Me.

It's the Monday of Spring Break, I'm sitting all alone by myself, I had frozen food for lunch, and I just wrote a 26 page paper... Happy Spring Break to me?

Together

I can't wait to live life together with these girls this summer.

Camp Cho-Yeh's Leadership Ladies 2014

Hanna, Cambria, Katy, Erin, Kylie, and Allyssa.

I Don't Want to be a Classroom Teacher.

Don't get me wrong, I love my major (most of the time) and I have a passion for teaching. I just don't want to be a classroom teacher.

For the last three years my dream has been to go to teach in an orphanage. The only thing was the fact that the United States does not have an orphanage system anymore (which is a GREAT thing), but I do not necessarily feel called oversees for more than a couple weeks at a time. Would I love to go back to Honduras for a couple of weeks on a mission trip? YES. Do I want to pack up and move their to teach full-time. No.

So where did this passion leave me? I really had no idea, I was just trusting my Father to guide me through college and open the doors that needed to be opened for this dream to turn into a tangible vision that I could pursue.

Y'all. I think I am beginning to get an inkling about what that might look like.

This past month at Breakaway we have been working on raising money to support a couple of ministries who are fighting to free present day slaves. We are supporting the International Justice Mission who goes into hostile environments and pulls children and women out of slavery and human traffiking. We are supporting Tiny Hands International who are building homes in Nepal on the border of India to stop and protect children from being trafficked across the border. Then we are supporting a local ministry called Restore Her which is a part of Still Creek Ranch which helps children recover and provide them a safe bed.

How great are those ministries? Tonight we had a guest speaker who started up Restore Her. I got interested and looked up Still Creek Ranch to see what it was all about. And what did I find? They have their own school! I lit up when I found this - their school functions to serve the students at Still Creek. To serve those who have been given up on, turned away and neglected.

I think I might have found my "American orphanage". I am so excited to dig further into this and see what this might mean for my plans after graduation!