When I was a kid I wanted to be....

As children so many have these huge dreams to be a princess or a millionaire but ever since I can remember I wanted to be a vet. I have always enjoyed being around animals and I just thought that was what I was going to do. I was set on going to Auburn University and going to vet school and openeing up my own practice somewhere. Well as we grow our interests change and different qualities develop. My want and desire to be a vet pretty much left me when I was around 15 years old. I still loved the whole medical aspect of it but I didnt have that want, to really work with animals anymore. Then nursing came to mind. I had never really thought about this profession before but I decided to start checking into it. I love being around people and helping people...theres no way I'm going to be cooped up in an office all day...just not going to happen. haha. So with nursing I get to work with medicine and people..perfect:) and also nursing is a pretty flexible job which is good especially if you want to have a family. Also, you can always find a job..there will never be too many nurses(which is a bonus). This summer and still even now I have a job at a doctors office here in town and although I just work in medical records I have been able to see some minor procedures the doctors have done and learn more about nursing. Being there has just fueled my desire to become one and do well in the profession. I dont know exactly what specific feild I will want to go into; probably something with children cause I adore kids. So yes, what I wanted to be when I grew up did change but not drastically, I still want to work with medicine, but instead of animals, with people and I am very excited to have the chance to do so.

5 Alternate Blog Names

So heres a list of 5 different possible names for my blog:

tripping_over_nothing :)

What in the WORLD?

Randomness

Ashley's Blog

Not So Great Expectations

Literacy Narrative

ok sooo i had a hard time deciding on what i was going to write about for this paper. did anyone else? I am so used to writing a research paper or something like that...not a paper abour myself! So how I;m understanding this whole literacy narrative thing is that it is basically a story about something that has helped you in your reading or writing skills right? well i hope so ;) Its harder than i thought it would be to write a story about myself...i feel like i keep going on and on and I'm just running my mouth. Anybody else feel that way? I DOO! haha But anyways I had no clue what to write about and then just decided to write about my senior project which was a 15+ page thesis paper on a classic book. Sounds exciting huh?? ;) It was pretty crazy writing those 17 pages but once I was done with it i felt like I could write anything! haha...so I guess this post is just an encouragement to all of you guys having to write papers...YOU CAN DO IT! dont give up! i know it seems hard now, but i promise, if i can write 17 pages ANYONE can write as much as they please! and im being dead serious. Ohhh k well Music Appreciation is about to start...im not going to say what i think about this class...maybe my girl Brea and I will have some laughs like we did last class...that made it go faster! haha ok well im out! PEACEEE

Life in Montgomery

All of my life I have lived in Montgomery, well Montgomery's surrounding areas. For the first five years of my life i lived in Montgomery but then my family and I moved about 50 miles away from Montgomery, towards Tuskegee, to a place called Cotton Valley. So many times I have felt like I'm in this little bubble here where I live and that nothing really great goes on in Montgomery. But I have learned to love it over the past few years. I love how everything is pretty much about five minutes away and how its a kinda large city, but doesnt have that real industrial big city feeling. Montgomery has a small town feel to it and I have grown to love that. For a while all I wanted to do was get out of here because I felt trapped in this "little bitty nothing to do here town" but I have been able to see other cities and places around the world and I am thankful for a place like Montgomery.
I have had the opportunity to travel alot and I have never really come across another place like Montgomery. All the other cities I have been to are so so crowded and filled with that industrialized atmosphere. Now dont get me wrong, I LOVE traveling and going to those big cities like New York or London but I have noticed that the places I love the most that I travel to, are the smaller towns which remind me of where I am from. I was able to go to England last summer and loved London but the countryside of England is what I loved most about the trip. The Cotswald area is just breathtaking, and again, the small town feel stole my heart. I dont think i could live in a huge city like New York City, although I love it for a few days, after those few days I am ready to come back to Montgomery. I love the life long friends and my family that I have here, I have very much enjoyed growing up here.

Biology...What is life?

So my first Biology class began with the question that everyone has: "What is life?".  We discussed it and it basically boiled down to the fact that living cells determine whether something has life in it or not. Even after something is what we consider dead, there is still life because some of the cells are still living, but will eventually die without the proper nutrients i.e. the basic oxygen. My professor said something very profound to me in my first biology class, he said that everything living, must have ORDER. This got me thinking. If living things must have order then how could we have NOT ben created by a higher power, by a creative being? How could a "big bang" cause order and life? How could that have caused our intricate body systems to begin and keep us alive? The more I study biology or anything about this world it points me more towards knowing and affirming my belief in God.
But this question made me think of an even different question that everyone has which is "What is the MEANING of life?". In different classes that I have taken we have discussed this question and asked ourselves why are we here? How are we here? What caused this place we call the universe come from and why did it happen? These are questions that people have different theories on and ideas about. The reason we were put here on this earth was to glorify God. This is hard to understand but it is why we are here, to bring glory and honor to the King of kings and Lord of lords. All of creation points towards His majesty and awe. Just our bodies being able to function show how great and powerful and creative He is. "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." Col. 1:15-17

The Box

The movie The Box came out I think sometime last year starring Cameron Diaz and James Marsden. So many people said how horrible and slow the movie was and how James Marsden completely ruined his one actual serious role. I saw this movie completely different. Ok yes the acting on his part was not GREAT but the movie over all sent a very powerful but also disturbing message. The movie was pretty unrealistic but the main plot was that this man went house to house with this box. He would meet the people in the house and tell them they would get a million dollars if they pressed the button that was inside this box he was carrying around. Well, there was a catch, if they pressed it, yes, they would recieve the million dollars, BUT someone they had never met or knew would die the moment the button was pressed,.
The whole movie was based on them trying to figure out if they were going to push it or not..when in the end they finally did. They pushed the button and someone else who they did not know was killed. This movie raised a question. The man who was taking the box around, his goal was to see how much humans valued life. How much they thought a persons life was worth..even if they did not know them. This made me think, how much to i value my own life, or the lives of others? Would I give up someone elses life just so I could have the million dollars, something that will eventually run out? How much do i really care about those around me? Would I kill someone to get a million dollars or something that I really wanted? Was it worth it? This movie just made me realize how much i cared about myself instead of looking around me and caring about other people. We have got to wake up and start caring about more than just ourselves. "Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.  Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. " Phil. 2:3-4

Goodbye

So today i said goodbye to my best friend. I know it may sound cheesy but it was horrible. She is going leaving tomorrow morning to go to college down at the University of Mobile. There are many people in my life that I love and spend time with but she was more than just a friend, she was a sister. We did everything together and its going to be so hard not seeing her like everywhere I go, whether that be at church, school, out to eat, literally anywhere. We were always together. But her leaving makes me see how much she means to me, the tears I have shed over her leaving remind me how much I love our friendship we have had over the years and I pray will continue to have.
It's strange how many times someone has to leave you for you to see how much they actually mean to you. Like the saying goes, "You never know what you have until it's gone." That is so very true in many cases. This is why we should not go a day without telling the people we love, that we love them. It's scary to think that those people wont be around forever, maybe not even another day. We are not garunteed tomorrow, so don't waste a chance to tell someone how much they mean to you, it could be your last chance.