Ican not help using this color font today because it is a shade of blue green that ocean here in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands assumes around dusk as the lights from the setting sun are bouncing off of it. The picture to the right is our hotel. It is a Marriot Resort, of course, because it is all Coach Felton uses when we travel. The picture to the left is the view from the hotel patio and bar into town at night time. Quite stunning if you ask me. I am here with JT's job because they have a tournament. Not a shabby place to have a basketball tournament if you aske me. I am just happy for some down time before I head to medical school. Everyone on the trip continues to tell me that I will be living in a place like this for school, but I have to reassure them that Dominica, though it shares in the beauty, that is about where it stops.
Since being here I have come to interesting crossroads in thinking in several ways. In wanting to become a doctor, I must deem myself a scientist and delve into the miraculous world of science. However, after seeing the bluest of the ocean's colors and intricate peaking of the hills and how the small white house hover and almost float on the hillsides, I can not, even as a scientist, ever deny God and his omnipotence. I had a similar and more powerful sense of this watching my doctor deliver a baby. I am, however, sure of this. I, like many scientists do, will struggle with the battle between science and religion, but I know that my God will always win out. The smallest fetus in an ultrasound at 8 weeks proves that. When the smallest heart beat pounds loudly through the speakers coming from a peanut-sized person on the screen, I will know that science and God coexist.
The second crossroads I have come to has been thinking about my travels to Dominca and how it will affect my relationships. Since moving to Georgia, I have been forced to live without close family. I have finally made the adjustment in that I have friends and a job that I love. I am finding family in the Herrmanns and Feltons and Jones. Now I am leaving. My high school basketball coach, John Kolasa, told my team during the last game of my senior before the state tournament game,"Look around this room and deep into the eyes of the people around you. Take in this moment because I guarantee, for whatever reason, you will never again be with these people at the same time ever again. Life happens and people change. So take it in. And Don't forget." I have never forgotten that feeling of trying to take someone in. I feel this way now. Like a sponge, I am trying to soak up every moment with my new friends, my old friends, my family, and my husband. And, at the same time, I feel that I can not get enough. Because I have learned in my short life that we can not predict what will happen next and when we will see one another again, if ever. I guess this is a shout out to those people I have ever loved. Everyone of you is a piece of who I am. If I never see you ever again, know that you are special to me. I know that sounds hokey but that is the point to where thinking has drifted today.