Moving Home After College

In my daily perusing of news headlines, I came across this article that quoted almost 85% of college grads move back home, mostly due to the difficulty finding jobs in the economy. I can certainly believe it. However, the economy wasn't why I moved home after graduating from JBU.

I guess in a way it was, but I had a good reason. I graduated in December and literally moved the next day, mostly due to my parents and their large vehicles being available. My plan was to start Physician's Assistant school in May, and so I could either stay in Siloam and find a job to pay rent (not likely and not desired), or I could move home and get a part-time job while I wait to start PA school. I loved Siloam and my roommates, but I was ready to grow up!

I absolutely loved living at home. I ended up living there for 3 years. When I moved home, my brother was a junior in high school, and since I had been away at college during most of his junior high years, it was a blessing to get to hang out with him and eventually see him graduate high school and start college, all while I was in town with him. I also know my mom loved having me there. And I loved hanging out with her. When I knew I would be moving out of state to Texas, it really saddened me that I would be leaving. It had become "home."

I also was able to reconnect with high school friends, attend graduate school only a 15 minute walk from my mom's house, participate in the celebration of KU's 2008 National Basketball championship, serve my church's youth group and intern with them for a summer, and most of all, be around my family. Not having to pay rent for those 3 years has saved me thousands, but I know no price tag would be worth that experience.

So while some may see moving back home after graduation as a step back, I see it as a time to recconnect with family, reassess goals for the future, and because of the supportive environment, come out a little stronger and more focused than if one got a job right out of college. We all need those times to figure stuff out. And I'm glad I did it at home.

The Joy of Giving

Some of you may know, but this spring I've taken part in the Dave Ramsey class called Financial Peace University, a series of 10 lessons on video and guided discussion times. I took the class back in college, but living on loans at the time, I wasn't able to apply what I was learning very well. Since getting a full-time job last year, I've realized my need for some re-teaching and accountability with the other classmates that attend. Thus I enrolled.

First of all, if you don't know anything about Dave Ramsey, you should know this: He loves Jesus. All of his advice and teaching comes from a foundational knowledge that our money is not actually ours, but God's. He has also been in the financial arena for about 30 years, so he knows what he's talking about. AND he's super funny. These aren't boring, blah blah complicated videos, they're HILARIOUS. You will be entertained and enlightened!

Enough about Dave. So, I recently realized that I was using the "extra" money at the end of my bills for things like gifts, clothes, random stuff, etc. and I should really just make a category for that in my budget so I'm not going overboard in any one direction. I get paid every 2 weeks, so this past paycheck had "gifts" on it, which was great because my niece Austen is turning 3 in a couple weeks. When I asked my brother what she wanted, he texted, "Disney princesses." So I headed to Target with my $25 cash in hand (instead of swiping a card - there's more pain and knowledge involved in using cash).

I cannot express to you how much fun it was shopping for her gift! It's almost like someone had handed me the $25 and said, "Go!" It felt like I wasn't spending my money, but someone else's! And I really was - it was the money God had entrusted to me. Really, God is the owner, and we're just the asset managers. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!!!

Our last week of FPU was Thursday night, and it was the most important lesson: on giving. Dave's point was that you can do all the steps, follow all of his advice, but unless you GIVE, you're missing the point of life. And giving can be so much fun! Not only does it give us a taste of how joyful it is for God to give us good gifts, but we get to bless others! My goal in life is to be monetarily rich ONLY so I can give it away. I can't wait. :)

Why I'm Not a Germaphobe

I successfully, but not intentionally, did not post at all in April. It's not that I was too busy, or didn't have any great ideas for posts, but mostly that my ideas and creativity flow came at all the wrong times: the gym, during work, etc. As a singer/songwriter recently said, "Being a songwriter is very inconvenient to my lifestyle. All my ideas come at the most inopportune moments." After I discovered the "memo pad" feature of my cell phone, I began saving these moments of brilliance so that I could later, when I have a 10-20 minutes stretch of uninterrupted time, remember and then subsequently post. This is one of those topics.

I work in a hospital. All day long I scrub in/scrub out, use the hand foam after each patient I touch, wear gloves when handling a patient, and wash my hands a lot. I don't even work on the floor; I work in an outpatient clinic, where supposedly the "healthy" people are. Even so, you could argue that they are bringing in germs from home, leaving them in the clinic, and then sharing them with other people who in turn go home and spread them. Either way, I work in a place where germs are the bad guy, and we do EVERYTHING we can to supposedly wipe them out.

Yet there's an interesting phenomenon known as HAI - hospital acquired infections (when you get sick because of exposure to a bacteria in the hospital). Some HAIs are due to caregiver error or lack of precautions, but some are unavoidable. There are such strains of some bacteria called antibiotic-resistant strains, like MRSA, which have evolved and simply do not respond to antibiotics. MRSA is why your doctor won't automatically prescribe you an antibiotic when you're sick - he wants to make sure you need it before he gives it to you. Overuse of antibiotics is what causes most antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria, and sadly, they're on the rise in America.

In other parts of the world, they don't have these problems. A coworker of mine traveled to Haiti last year on a mission trip and worked in a medical clinic for a week. If they could get a hold of gloves, they were lucky. There was soap, and that's about it. An American hospital official would call the conditions highly unsanitary, yet they don't have any of the antibiotic-resistant strains we do, and certainly don't have the high number of HAIs. If they aren't getting sick while in the hospital, maybe they're doing something right. Could it be possible that we are over-sanitizing?

I think we are. I will continue to use sanitary precautions at work, mostly because we get in big trouble if we don't, but I certainly leave it there. I use hand sanitizer at home only once in awhile, and sometimes when in public places. But even not having much of an immune system won't drive me to be over-zealous about my germ care. I know that some germs are good for me; they help to develop immunity to certain diseases and in general strengthen my immune system, which I need. Just like some bacteria is good for your gut (hello yogurt!), some germs are good for your body.