Dear All,

It is time for the inevitable Christmas Letter (it is the only way I can prove that my entire year has not been wasted). Let’s see…the year starts with January, right? Actually it starts from where the last letter ended – which was before I got my grades back from the Fall of 2005. Hang on, I think I blocked that out of my memory …Moo. I have to confess (this is hard) that I didn’t make 4.0 that semester. The 24 credits got the better of me and I got my first B. Considering I was expecting more than one I should have been grateful, but the fact that I did get just ONE made be think, “Dude, why did I have to get any?” Amazing how ungrateful we can be when God chooses to bless us, isn’t it? God’s blessing it certainly was – and the next semester was no different.

Since I have this crazy notion that God wants me to be a doctor it was necessary that I take the MCAT in April. So, I took 13.5 credits and studied like a house-elf for the MCAT in the meantime (Audio Osmosis CDs over and over and over and over…). If you have ever been a sponge, and as a sponge you have soaked up all the stuff sponges soak, and then you have been wrung out by, like, Mr. T, and then left at the bottom of a very deep, dry well for about 20 years you might know how I felt after the MCAT. Imagine eight hours of consecutive, cumulative finals in Biology, Inorganic Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Physics and English (including two essays). My brain was mush. God was good though, and I made it through. And then I had the glorious experience of waiting two months for my scores.

When the long awaited scores came in they were…well…not quite what I had been hoping for. Not horrible, but not stellar either; bad enough that I talked (seriously) to my advisor about retaking the test in August. In the end I decided not too, for a lot of reasons. I proceeded to apply to seven Medical Schools (only one of which has rejected me so far and two of which have offered me interviews).

We are now in the post secondary application waiting period. For the uninitiated the basic time line of Med School application is this: (1) Pay $ to send an initial application to a bunch of schools, (2) Pay $ to send a secondary application to some schools (if you are asked), (3) Pay $ to interview at some schools (if you are offered an interview), (4) Pay $ to do a second interview at some schools (this may or may not occur), (5) Pay $ to hold seat at some schools (if you are offered one), (6) Pay $ for the rest of your life to go to ONE medical school (after you decide which one to go to). At any point in this process you can be rejected outright or waitlisted. Waitlisted is bad because it extends the “Do I have to retake the MCAT?” period for an undisclosed amount of time. All I can say is that it is a good thing this is God’s idea for my life and that He has everything under control – or I would REALLY be freaking out.

The amazing thing is that God blessed me with a resurrected 4.0 in all of my courses for the spring and I finished the semester with at least part of my sanity intact. Having passed my EMT-Basic state test in January I was running with the Rescue Squad regularly during the semester with the exception of the month of April (for obvious reasons), and continued to run during the summer as well. I didn’t work this summer because I really wanted to get some more experience in health care situations and knew that I couldn’t do all that and work at the same time.

I ended up shadowing a Physician’s Assistant and an Internal Medicine Doctor (D.O.) during different parts of the summer as well as running with the rescue squad and doing all the necessary paperwork for applying to medical school. At the end of July I finished my shadowing and resigned from the rescue squad, anticipating that I would not be able to continue commuting to Fredericksburg consistently for Rescue Squad work on the weekends. The rest of the summer was taken up with renovation and remodeling projects, both here at home and at my new abode in Richmond (out of the dorms at last, Praise God!). We finished up with new floors, new carpet, new paint and even some new furniture (yard sales are the bomb!).

After all that work Jenny and I took the opportunity afforded by frequent flyer miles and a gracious credit card company to travel to San Diego for eight days. Jenny spent most of the time at a conference called “ Costume College ” in Van Nuys ( L.A. area), and I (and two friends who traveled with us) bounced between San D. and L.A. doing anything and everything that came into our heads.

During that week I had my first experience kayaking on the ocean complete with view of sea lions in their native habitat (glorious!). We also visited Seaport Village, Balboa Park, Pt. Loma, Horton Plaza (complete with a show by the Lamb’s Players and dinner at Rock Bottom), Grossmont Center with the new Casa de Pico (still the best Mexican Food on the planet and really good kamikazes), the J Paul Getty Villa (indescribable), Whimsic Alley (Harry Potter Fans of the world Unite!) and many other places in between (did you know that Roy Rogers has a beach named after him?). We had a great time, although it wasn’t long enough (it never is). I came back tanned (okay, burned), and happy. Jenny spent most of the time at the Airtel Hotel in Van Nuys dressed in historic costumes which covered most of her body, so she came home white and happy.

School (I still haven’t found an alternative path to becoming a doctor) started at the end of August and has been really weird this semester. I have been less focused on my grades (miracles happen) and more focused on the reason I am in school to begin with – Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior. I have been faithfully attending InterVarsity Christian Fellowship’s Thursday night gatherings and have enjoyed the time spent learning about my reason for living. I made a commitment early in the term to make this semester about Jesus and not anything else. It has been an interesting ride ever since. I have made some good decisions along the way as well as some poor ones (yeah, had to withdraw from Biochemistry and lose my Chemistry Minor – moo). Overall, though I have learned a lot, (besides Biomechanics, Biomaterials and Bioethics), mostly about how amazing the God I serve really is and how much I don’t deserve or appreciate Him – at least not as much as I should. The next week of school finals and projects looks completely impossible to me, but as I learned last year, (and now have engraved on a rock sitting on my desk courtesy of a tacky souvenir shop on Coronado Island ), “With God all things are Possible.”

This holiday season I wish you the best of everything that God has to offer, but most especially I wish you the joy that I have found in knowing Him as my personal Savior. Jesus came as a baby to die for the sins of the world and to give us all hope for the future; all we have to do is accept Him.

Merry Christmas and may God richly Bless you,

Till next year,
Bridget