A reason for every hurdle

I am not quite sure where I see my life leading me so I have decided to take every day at a time. And with each day I take a step to my overall goal. I want to make a difference, I want to be remembered and I want to change someone’s life. The first step I see in achieving this goal is to complete my undergrad and get my degree in Biomedical Engineering. I entered Biomedical Engineering because I wanted to help look for a solution to the disease that took one very special man in my life away from me, Cancer. Since my few years in college I have decided that I enjoy talking to people about what I am passionate about and spreading awareness more than research. And for this reason I am not quite sure where the years ahead of me are leading. But once again, before I can look to the future, I have to look at today.

They always say that you are going to be broke when you are in college, but I had no idea what to expect. Being broke when your parents are covering most if not all of your expenses is quite different then being broke yourself. I have never felt the pressure and helplessness that I feel when I add up my bills to 1172 and I only got paid 593. I hate having to ignore the calls from all the people who want their money; I’ve now given up worrying about my credit. And then on top of bills the living expenses and forget about doing anything for yourself. There is no more helpless feeling than the feeling of being in debt to people who you don’t even know. All I can do is breath and know that this too shall pass. This saying has become my mantra and I have lived to learn that in time it all does pass, and at least for me, when I look back I can see a reason for every hurdle I had to jump and every detour I had to take. So I know that in the end this will only make me stronger, but for now it sucks.

Let your heart become so saturated with love that you are able to ride the waves of change with equipoise and find new meaning in everything that happens

–Gurumayi Chidvilasananda

xoxo 

Nediva♥

The Beginning

After blogging over the past two months in Costa Rica I have decided that I throughly enjoyed talking about nothing, so I have decided to continue and document my race to achieve my goals. I am not quite sure exactly what it will entail but I hope that whatever I write someone can relate to.

xoxo
Nediva ♥

A light at the end of the tunnel

So close to being done! One more week left. This past week and a half has been work work work and only a little bit of play. Seeing as our final report is due at the end of the week and we have presentations on Tuesday, there was not much room for slacking. So I don’t have much interesting to talk about (unless you would like to know the ins and outs of my project, which I would be happy to share). We did have another trip to Sámara which was amazing as usual, a lot of paper writing, a little bit of hammock laying.

The one fun thing I did do this week (besides having my advisor take me our for ice cream, can you say sugar cone, double scoop, dulce de leche and galleta YUMMM!) was, (brace yourself mother) ROLLER SKATING! It was so much fun. I went with Hillary and we held hands the whole time (how romantic). Hillary is not the most experienced skater so it was fun watching her run over little kids (… unless she was aiming for them, which is quite possible lol). I have included a video of my little endeavor… Enjoy!

xoxo Almost home!

Happy Thanksgiving!

(11/28/11)

It was a six hour bus, fairy, bus ride so when we arrived in Montezuma, we found our hotel, checked in, and looked for a place to eat. We found a little Italian place that half the group thought was too expensive, but we decided to go anyway and got the deal of the day. It was a yummy cheese personal pizza and an amazing mango smoothie for only 1500 calones or about 3 dollars. Can you say steal? And it was sooooo good.

After that we laid on the beach for a little, jumped in the pool overlooking the ocean for a little then got ready for dinner.

Thanks to two guys, Thanksgiving was saved. Turkeys were cook and potatoes were mashed. We all came together for a big group dinner and it felt, for at least a little bit, like we weren’t so far away from home.

 In Montezuma, half of the group stayed at a hotel while the other half rented a house. The hotel (where I am staying) is absolutely beautiful; Right off the ocean with a swimming pool and a view to die for. It is also right next to town, which isn’t too bad either. Our Thanksgiving dinner however was held at the house (which none of us knew where it was) and we had to find our way there. So two boys said that they would come meet us at the hotel because there were too many turns to the house to give directions and cell service doesn’t work up there. We waited for twenty minutes and the showed up, very very sweaty. We thought it was because they had ran to get us, but once we started up the path to the house we completely understood. It was some serious San Francisco hills going on. At least four large (and I mean steep and large by my standards so you know that’s serious) hills we had to go up. By the time we reached the house we all (especially me) looked like we had decided to pour water on our heads because we thought it would be entertaining. We were seriously soaked. But that didn’t stop the party. We wiped off the sweat and dug into the guac while the boys finished our amazing meal. 

(11/29/11) 

I was up and at ‘em bright and early. A few of us decided to go zip lining since we had not been able to go yet since in Costa Rica. The zip lines were amazing and half way through we stopped at a waterfall that we were able to jump into for a quick refresher. Then we zipped back to where we started. I was great. Here is a quick video that pretty much sums it all up.

xoxo

If swimming is such a good workout, explain whales

Today (11/23/11) I only had to work a half-day so I was happy about that. I got out of work at 11 and met up with Hillary to do a noontime run. But the moment we were going to head out it started pouring. The thing about being in a tropical place is that it is storming one minute (legit cats and dogs) and then clear the next. So we decided to head to the University where we run and then wait it out. When we arrived at the university (about a 3ish minute walk) we waited for a few more minutes then decided to just go for it. We ran a mile in the pouring rain, and when I say pouring I mean pouring, there were times when I couldn’t keep my eyes open because the water was coming on so strong. Little to say when we got back (even though we ran another two miles without the rain) it was hard to tell whether we had gone swimming or running. But it was an interesting experience. 

Soaked...
After this I went to this really cool café place and got an amazing Chai and Hillary had a delicious sandwich. The windows were lined with mosaics and there were cool pictures on the walls, it was a nice place. We then returned home and I went to sleep (yes it was only about 5:00pm) it’s been a few tiring days back to back. The rest of my night was pretty routine, some laundry, some eating, some TV, and blog writing (DUH).

Heading to Montezuma tomorrow for Thanksgiving! I hope you all eat well and eat a lot!

xoxo

Internet Silliness

Unfortunately I had no internet access for a little over a week, and then when I returned to my hotel I found that I no longer get internet in my room. So let me just say I have been a little lazy when it comes to posting, so I will be posting things that I wrote last week and will eventually catch up. So if I say things like looking forward to Thanksgiving... you know why.

Enjoy ;)

Thanksgiving #1

It is every kids dream to have their favorite holiday twice a year, let me just tell you, my dream just came true. If you couldn't tell by the title of my blog I love food (come on it says Food Endeavors right there), so you can imagine my excitement when i find out Thanksgiving is coming, full force, twice this year. Tonight was (as seen in the title above) Thanksgiving number one! And it was amazing. My advisors planned the whole thing for the entire group, and they supplied the turkey and desserts and each room was to bring in a side dish. My room (I) made corn, and was delightfully surprised by my newly found corn cooking skills (not that it is a hard dish or anything but I was impressed). I cut the corn off the cob, boiled it in salt water for a little and then melted butter and garlic powder in a pan and coated the corn. It was crunchy and buttery and garlicy and delicious.  At 6:00 we all headed downstairs excited for this feast and it was more than worth the excitement. I would love to go through everything I ate but this would then turn into a novel and all that turkey is making my eyes heavy so thats not going to happen.

This amazing picture will just have to do.

Besides all of this excitement (my tummy is so happy!), today I ran a quick two miles, worked from the hotel so I got to be a little lazier, and did an aerobics class at lunch which was an interesting experience. it is already interesting enough to take workout classes in spanish, but every one else in the class seemed to be a regular and so I got a lot of questions about where my name was from, where I was from, I even got an applause for being new to the class. But the teacher worked me hard. After my class I worked more on my project and then cooked my corn, and you know where it goes from there (stuffed my face). 

Thats all she wrote for today, and man oh man am I gonna sleep good tonight!