Broken Hallelujah

It has come to my attention that 2014 is proving to be a challenging year for some people, myself included. Whether it be problems within the family, losing a friend too early, a health issue, extreme cold, or even uncertainty about what to do with their lives, 2014 has not been too kind to the people around me. So how do we find hope and strength in a hopeless and tough situation? For me, it has been through the song "Broken Hallelujah" by The Afters.

The inspiration for this song came to this band from the book of Job in the Bible, specifically from Job 1:15-22. In this portion of Job, Satan comes down and destroys absolutely everything that Job possesses. He loses all his animals, his property, and all his children. If I were in Job's position, I would be extremely pissed off at God. Instead of being angry, Job shaves his head and tears off his clothes, gets gown on his knees and cries out, "Naked I came from my mother's womb and naked I will return there. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord" (Job 1: 20,21). Despite his suffering, Job blesses and worships God.

My favorite line in Broken Hallelujah is "With nothing left to hold onto, I raise these empty hands to you. Here's my broken Hallelujah." When I hear these words, I envision myself on my knees with my hands raised telling God that even though I have nothing left to give and may be angry at Him, I will continue to praise Him because I know that something good is going to come out of this. As I've gotten older, I have found that when everything in my life seems to be out of control, the one thing that I can control is whether or not I continue to worship God. If I choose not to give God my broken hallelujahs, as Job did, I probably would not be able to come out the situation well.

If 2014 has reared it's head at you and is challenging you to no end, remember to still praise God in your anger.

Goals for 2014

A new year is quickly upon us. Going against a classic New Year's tradition, I have not made any New Year's resolutions. Instead, I have set up a list of goals that I want to achieve in 2014.

1. Be more organized.
       I would say I am a pretty organized person, but there is definitely room for improvement. In order to be more organized, I plan to have a chore schedule, which will help me keep track of what I need to do every day, week, and month in order to be more organized and clean.

2. Get a job as a certified nurse assistant (CNA).
         This is more of a needs-to-happen than a goal. Getting a job as a CNA will help me get more experience in a clinical setting, which will help me in my applications for nursing school. It will also bring me more income so I can save up money for things such as trips that I want to go on, buy some necessities, and maybe eventually move out of my parent's house.

3. Get As in all of my classes.
        This is another needs-to-happen since I am retaking classes so I can apply to nursing school. As I learned in my last round of applications, accelerated nursing school is extremely competitive and average grades will not cut it. If I want to be a strong applicant, my grades better be damn near perfect. It would be really awesome if I could get into nursing school this year and start in the fall of 2015 at the latest.

4. Apply to nursing school (see goal #3).

5. Make a trip (or two) out to Chicago.
         There are two things awaiting me upon my arrival to Chicago: my college roommate/BFFL and my relatives. Two of my cousins are graduating high school this year and I would love to be able to make it out to Chicago for their graduations. I also want to spend time with my college roommate in real life and not over Skype (though seeing her on Skype is fantastic). However, my parents have made it clear that if I want to go to Chicago, I must provide my own airfare. Clearly goal #5 is dependent on goal #2.

Those are all my goals for 2014. Hopefully, they all happen this year. 2014 is already looking like an exciting year, but I will take it one day at a time and continue trusting in God's plan for my future.

A Lesson in Time Management

The month of December was an extremely busy one for me. I had at least one event scheduled for every day of every weekend. This is the list of events that I attended in December

• Cirque du Soleil performance
• Jackie Evancho in concert
• Christmas at the Corner (my high school's performing arts Christmas showcase and performance)
• Our Lady of Guadalupe Mass
• Advent prep concert
• Christmas party for homeless kids and teens, put on by my church 
• White elephant party
• Best friend's graduation party
• 5-year high school reunion
• Brother's graduation party

Between all of these events, I still had to go to class, study for an exam and a final that were within two days of each other, finish my microbiology lab notebook, take an online quiz, write a 4-page paper for microbiology, write two essays for my ballet class, bake cupcakes as extra credit for microbiology, and perform onstage for my ballet class. I was pretty busy and stressed throughout the better part of December. But, it was a blessing in disguise because I had to refine my very rusty time-management skills. So if you find yourself in a busyness such as this either periodically or constantly, here are some strategies that I found helpful during the month of December.

1. Set a schedule for each day

        One of my weak points is that if I do not plan what I am going to do with my day ahead of time, I will get little to nothing done on said day. Looking at everything I had to do, it was imperative that I set a schedule for the next day. Most of the time, this meant waking up earlier than usual and getting out of the house to do my studies. 

      Corollary 1: start your day as soon as you wake up. Yeah, I know this sounds pretty obvious, but I like to lay in my bed for a while before actually getting out of bed. Even then, my day doesn't start. For me, the day doesn't start until I take my shower. So by setting a schedule for myself, I gave myself a restricted amount of time to lay in bed and had to get in the shower as soon as I got out of bed. This meant that I was showered, dressed, had my hair and make-up done, made my bed, and had eaten breakfast within an hour-and-a-half to two hours of waking up.

      Corollary 2: Find a study spot where you can actually get work done. Again, another seemingly obvious one. I have found that I do not study well when I am at home. So when I find myself with a heavy load, I know I need to schedule time to get out of my house and actually get work done. For me, these study places are the youth room at my church or a library. These places are ideal for me because it is quiet and there is minimal distraction from both life and the Internet. Let's be real; the Internet is a horrible distraction in this day and age.

2. Make a list

        Whenever I have a lot to do, I find that making a list helps me prioritize. By list-making, I have an organized way to look at what needs to be accomplished. After I write my list, I see what is going to take the most time and the least time and decide from there what I am going to do first. I usually end up doing the things that take the least time first so that I can have the satisfaction of crossing something off my list ASAP. 

3. LADIES: If you have an event to attend in the evening, do your hair in the morning. 

         I found this especially helpful because could cut out a good chunk of getting-ready time by showering and doing my hair in the morning, which was already part of my schedule for that day (refer to point 1.1). Showering and doing my hair in the morning meant that I only had to do/ touch up my make-up and get dressed in the evening, which took a grand total of 25 minutes at the most. I shaved a good hour off my getting-ready time just by doing my evening hair in the morning. The styles I chose were ones that were versatile and could go from day to night without a hassle. 

4. Take some time for yourself. 

         If you are doing a million things every day feeling like a chicken with its head cut off and don't schedule any "me-time", you are going to suffer from a case of burn-out. Take an hour throughout your day to do something that is not on your list of things to do (read: something to temporarily take your mind of your busy life). This could be anything from exercising to watching a favorite show to mindlessly browsing Pinterest. 

The strategies I mentioned really helped me get through the month of December. At the end of it all, I was physically exhausted and took a good 4 days to be a hermit and recharge myself. But I managed to go evenly distribute my time between events and studies mainly by making and sticking to a schedule.