random odd mixture of stuff

Helloo!

First of all, thank you all so much for your replies to my desperate post about medical electives! I posted it in a mildly stressed moment when I suddenly realised that *everyone* else in my Clinical School basically has something planned already (& some are even starting to get rejected from places because the popular hospitals are all getting booked up).

So thank you all for your really kind and helpful replies! You provided me with such a wonderful diversity of practical ideas and locations! I am definitly exploring them!

As with most things in my life, I have entrusted my elective location to St. Joseph's care.
In case you haven't realised...I THINK HE IS FANTASTIC!!

There is an old Catholic custom to attach to an image/statue of St. Joseph a note with one's petition written on. The note serves as a continual petition to St. Joseph, much like a candle lighted before a sacred image. It also makes concrete our confidence in St. Joseph.

In one of the Churches in my town there is a beautiful old stone statue of St. Joseph, and if you look carefully by his feet, you see about 20 tiny bits of paper that people have hidden behind his feet in the stone with their petitions on! My heart skipped a beat when I first saw it and it made me so happy to see the trust and confidence people have in St. Joseph!

So that is something I have done with my elective; and have attached a wee note to my picture of St. Joseph on my bedroom wall!

A few years ago I really really wanted to go work at a Catholic summer camp, during my summer holiday. I'm not sure why I wanted to so much, but I really really wanted to!
I spent (I kid you not) over a year and a half wasting hours and hours and hours of my time on the internet looking for a decent place to go to in America and in random other places round the world.

I found nothing.

So I decided to completely give up looking and abandon it all to St. Joseph.

Well, 3 months of continous prayer later on March 19th (..St. Joseph's feast day!) I was randomly surfing the internet for something totally un-related to a summer camp and what did I randomly come across...but a beautiful wonderful site for an amazing CATHOLIC summer camp in the USA!

The dates for it were perfect; I flew out the first day of my summer holiday, and came back 10 days before World Youth Day 2005, so I managed to go to WYD too!

(and the summer camp was brilliant! I worked with Catholics youths aged 14-19, the Camp was totally Catholic, we had daily Mass, rosary, adoration, weekly stations of the cross, reconcilliation, and it was 100% focused on Christ and His Church! AND I made some really great freinds!) (*waves* hi Maggie!)

Coincidence?

Personally, I don't think so! In my humble little experience, whenever I try to control anything through my own efforts it always totally fails, but whenever I let go control and rely on God's help (usually through a Saint's intercession (I'm not good enough to do it on my own!)), it all works out so much better than I thought!

So thank you all for your suggestions for electives! I am gonna give up my desperate search now, and explore your suggestions, pray more and see where God leads me!
As it is 2 months of my life, I want it to be of benefit for me spiritually as well as academically!



In other news...Chris & I went to a restaurant this evening (only because we had a buy-one-get-one-free voucher & my dad had given me some $$ as a present!) (oh, also tomorrow Chirs & I are 'celebrating' our 4 month wedding anniversary!! wow a whole 4 months...!)
(coincidently, we also started dating exactly 4 years ago; November 30th 2002! I was only 19 and Chris was 20!)

anyway, I can proudly say that in the restaurant I didn't recognise a single song that they were playing throughout the entire meal!

woohooo! I am totally out of touch with the trashy modern music!! Given the song's lyrics seem to be even worse than I remember from when I was "in touch" (like, when I was 17), I see this as being a step in the right direction of detaching myself from the worthless superficiality and hedonism of today's secular society!!

~~~

Finally, please please, in your charity don't forget to say a prayer for our sweet dearly beloved Holy Father these days while he is in Turkey. I know there are a couple of Novena prayers ciculating round the net for him,( e.g. see St. Peter's Helpers), but let's all try to say a Hail Mary to our beautiful Vigrin Queen, that she may protect and guide her Son's Vicar on earth especially now that he is in Turkey, (and some Turkish people really don't seem to like him much.)

God Bless,

-x-

ps--

Chris has spent all day working on some maths question that someone told him about.

The person who told him has to work it out as part of their degree, but Chris has spent almost all day trying to work this out...just for the fun of it..!


....in fact he is still next to me right now with a piece of paper still trying to work it out!!

...so if you happen to be a mathsy genius...please help him out!

You have 12 coins, 11 of them are the same weight, one is different, but you don't know if it is heavier or lighter.

You have a set of scales which you are allowed to use 3 times in order to discover which coin is the odd one out, and whether it is heavier or lighter than the rest.


(I have already given up trying to work it out!)

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