easter to early may

My last post ended on Palm Sunday (April 13).  Although I was at the review course for the PT board exam, I was able to attend the 5 o'clock gathering at Passion City Church.  That week was another busy one - we had a huge group project due for our Health Promotion class, and my group was only about half done.  In addition, we had deadlines approaching for research, with our paper and poster due and oral exam coming up.  Friday, I took a carload (Anika, Ashley, Dan, and Kevin) to Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Alpharetta for Passion City Church's Good Friday Atlanta service.  It was great, despite the pouring rain.  We managed to be just barely under the covered seating, and only got a little bit sprinkled on when the wind changed a bit, but there were people out on the lawn sitting and standing under umbrellas and tarps.

kevin and dan, lauren, ashley, anika, and me at good friday service - it was COLD!

I spent most of Saturday reading and editing our Health Promotion group project, putting together my slides for the group's presentation of the project, and writing my portion of our research paper.  Sunday morning I got up before dawn and took a different carload (Anika, her friend Alvince, Marius, and Dan) to Stone Mountain for their annual Easter sunrise service.  I recruited another 4 people to join us up there as well.  None of us had ever heard of the service, so we were surprised to learn that this was the 70th year in a row it had happened.  The sunrise was beautiful, although we were very cold.

anika, alvince, marius, me, and dan waiting for sunrise

easter sunrise service

I got home and decided I really wanted to go to Passion City Church's Easter service - but it was out in Alpharetta at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater again and I really didn't want to drive.  At the last minute, I found a carpool with a spot for me.  I decided to bring my tarp with me just in case we ended up on the lawn.  Sure enough, we were too late for seats, but the tarp meant we could sit down and stay dry.  It was a great service, and I'm glad I made it out there and also glad I didn't have to drive.  It was amazing that it was free - there was an all-star lineup of well-known Christian worship leaders up on stage.

easter service at verizon wireless amphitheater.

I spent the rest of Sunday and most of Monday back on the huge paper - I finished it around 2 am Tuesday morning.  It was 43 pages of text plus references and appendices.  We also had a PowerPoint presentation to give as a group in class that day.  Somehow we survived, and "all" I had left was research.  That meant finishing our poster Thursday, finishing our final paper Friday,  preparing for our oral examination the following Wednesday morning, and presenting our poster the following Thursday.  I definitely kept focused on that Thursday, May 1, as it marked the day I would be FINISHED with school.

We managed to pull our poster together and submit it, did our final paper edits from our (at least) 12th draft, and then had a gathering at Dr. Greenfield's, our primary research advisor.  It was nice to relax a bit and just hang out with the group - all five student researchers and three advisors attended, as well as two spouses and Dr. Greenfield's oldest daughter.

Saturday I took off from schoolwork and went for a hike.  I did my usual number and gathered a pretty random group of friends to hike - Anika and Marius from the Emory climbing wall, Katherine from Graduate Christian Fellowship, and James and Jonathan from Passion City Church.  We went out to Tallulah Gorge expecting to hike into the gorge and swim in the swimming hole at the far end - but as we drove in, the woman collecting the parking fee asked if we were planning to go the the gorge floor, because it wasn't open due to aesthetic water releases through the month of April and May.  We hiked around the top of the gorge and down near the bottom for a total of over 550 stairs down and back up.  Then we headed across the road to go swim in Tallulah Falls lake, and found out it was ALSO closed for swimming.  Sigh.  We ate lunch by the lake before heading back to Atlanta.

falls in the bottom of the gorge

katherine, anika, jonathan, james, marius, and i were so surprised that this overlook
gave us a view of MORE WATERFALLS!

The next morning I got up super early again and went with Gina, my climbing wall co-worker, to Stone Mountain for sunrise - she wanted to go to the Easter service but set her alarm an hour too late!  The sunrise was even more beautiful than the previous week, and we were able to sit wherever we wanted for the best view.

sunrise over stone mountain lake

gina and me at the top

After church, I got together with my research group to brainstorm on possible questions for our oral exam, then went home and started delving more deeply into the information to prepare.  The next morning, I was planning to get up and spend six hours with the first year class, helping out in open lab for the General Medical Conditions class and for their mock practicals all afternoon.  Instead, I woke up at 4:30 am with horrible stomach pain.  I missed all day as a preceptor, but felt better in the evening so I went to the Grove at Passion City Church.  Stomach pain hit me again during the last song, so I dropped off my passengers and hurried home to go to bed.

music, lauren doing watercolor, winsome wall, group shot of me, lydi, natalie, and laura

I woke up the next morning feeling pretty useless again and had to miss class that afternoon.  While staying home feeling poorly, I still managed to do some studying for my oral exam.  I emailed my professors Tuesday night asking what to do if I couldn't get out of bed Wednesday morning either, but ended up dragging myself in for my exam.  Fortunately, it went well.  I was excused from helping out with the first year practical exams as there were enough other preceptors available to cover.  I joined the rest of my research group briefly to discuss how we planned to present our poster the next afternoon before heading home before my stomach pain got too miserable.

Thursday, May 1, finally came.  My group had to spend the first two hours listening to other groups present their posters, but our turn finally came.  I got to go first, so by 4:15 pm, I was DONE with school.  It felt so good to be finished!  After the poster presentations, there was an awards ceremony.  I came away completely surprised to have won three awards!

lindsay, elizabeth, travis, me, and alycia - research dream team

awards

That evening, the class gathered at Ormsby's for a celebration.  I went for a little while and then headed home to bed.  Although I gradually felt better, I ended up not getting completely well until May 7 - a week and a half later!