A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor." -English Proverb
Hello world! For those of you who are new, welcome to the Luminstruct blog! I am currently working on a "365 Word Project" where everyday I will be posting a reflection on a word and today's word is "Complete".
We are almost half way through the week already and I am completely exhausted already. I have had this feeling multiple times this past month, some days after I come home from work, I collapse on my bed and don't wake until an odd hour of the night where I then use that random time to finish a blog post and then return to bed an hour later. I don't advertise this lifestyle to many, but I do think it is important for you to realize that hard work is not always joyful and full of rainbows, sometimes it can be draining. With that being said, do you want to know what the kicker is? I have never felt so proud and accomplished of what I've done in these past few weeks! Sometimes all you need is a little elbow grease and a good outlook on life to help get you through the trying moments. There are two reasons why I know everything will be aright, and here they are:
Reason #1: On April 18th, 2003, I heard a chilling scream coming from my home. I was at a neighbor's house at the time which was three houses away, but the shriek was loud enough for me to still hear it. It was my sister. She had been jumping on a pogo-stick in the garage and it slid out from underneath her. The only things to catch her fall on the hard concrete floor were her chin and front teeth. We had rushed her to the hospital. I had never been so scared for my sister. She was whimpering in pain and her mouth was spaced open just wide enough for me to see all of her teeth soaked in blood and some laying on her tongue, not even connected to the gum-line anymore. With it being my personal pogo-stick I had claimed full responsibility and vowed to destroy the retched invention as soon as we got home. I was inspired by how calm and collected my dad was as we sat outside, waiting to hear the results. It wasn't until a few years later that I realized he was outside with me just because he was just as upset as I was and couldn't stand the idea of seeing his daughter in that much pain. I still don't know how my mom was able to be by her side. My sister was then given many stitches and had her jaw wired shut to encourage the healing process. Her mouth could only open wide enough to fit spoonfuls or a straw of pulverized meals for a certain amount of time and throughout the next few years, doctors were still pulling teeth fragments out of her chin and were lining her teeth with many different types of braces in order for them to successfully return to the ridge of her gums and eventually to also return back to their normal setting. Looking at her now, you would never realize she endured such a difficult journey. The only indication you could see is her odd passion with teeth. She has now obtained over 300 hours of shadowing with dentists and orthodontists, and her recently received dazzling scores on her DAT (Dental Admission Test) as she prepares to go into dental school in a year in hopes of making a positive impact on her future patients, just like her doctors had made on her.
Reason #2: It was the fall of 2012 and I was coming to college for the first time! I had quickly become involved with some organizations on campus, but I never realized one of my main activities was going to be spent taking care of my roommates as they returned from nights out on the town. I was not really the kind of student who drank during his freshman or sophomore year at college (before I was 21), but I do have vivid memories of roommates throwing up in trashcans, having to give friends piggy-back rides because they couldn't walk home, as well as various times being the designated driver. I thought it was all just a phase and it didn't bother me too much until my sophomore year. My biology courses began to get harder and I got a new roommate who seemed to enjoy drinking and partying more than doing any other activity. I soon realized there were aspects of my freshmen year that I had taken for granted such as normal lighting (which had been completely replaced by black lights), quiet nights (which had been replaced by crazy suite parties every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday), as well as other aspects like not having my fish aquarium with alcohol in it, not having a fake ID business run in my family room, and not having my bathroom become home to a 500 can "beer-amid" which had been constructed in a three week time-frame. I suddenly went from the caretaker role my freshmen year to "the guy we are trying to force out of our room in order to get a new guy in his spot." I was never going to grant these guys the satisfaction of knowing this, but that year was one of the most stressful and discouraging times of my life. With our RA living right next to us, I had thought this would be a deterrent, but we were "lucky enough" to get the "bro" who didn't want to approach a conflict and wanted to be seen as the "cool RA" who was everyone's friend. After my roommate had then moved into some crazier ordeals and I found myself in some compromising situations myself, I quickly realized I had to remove myself from the situation and could easily do a better job as an RA than our RA has been. I then became an RA, fell in love with it, and decided working in student affairs was what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
So why am I sharing these stories (besides showing how awesome the Jestel family is)? I have learned that if you look at your complete history of who you have been and changes which have led to who you had become, many of these changes have been influenced by difficult times in your life when you have felt completely exhausted, depressed, or hopeless. There is an English proverb that I have always liked that says "a smooth sea never made a skilled sailor", and I think this is very true. You will never know where your limits are or what you're made of, until those limits have been tested and you've been given a reason to prove yourself. Luckily I haven't reach the point of depression or hopelessness yet, but the fact that I come home exhausted most nights while I have been at Piedmont does not really discourage me, it mainly just makes me look forward to the next time I can look back and say, "Wow! Look at how that experience shaped me!" Goodnight all :)
Question Time: Tell us about a time when your limits were challenged and how did it form you into the person you are today?
About the video: This video was posted a few days ago and is a similar video to the First Kiss video which was released a few months ago. I know it is a bit odd, but in some ways I actually enjoyed this video more than the kiss video. The director tells the viewers in the behind the scenes clip that a form of violence minus the aggression is a form of intimacy which deals with the social interaction of trust. In many ways, these participants are willfully accepting an experience they have never experienced before and it is a cool response which is shown. This video is a bit different than the main topic of this post, but when you take a look at a difficult action or situation in a different light, you might see a light that you never saw before. Enjoy.
We are almost half way through the week already and I am completely exhausted already. I have had this feeling multiple times this past month, some days after I come home from work, I collapse on my bed and don't wake until an odd hour of the night where I then use that random time to finish a blog post and then return to bed an hour later. I don't advertise this lifestyle to many, but I do think it is important for you to realize that hard work is not always joyful and full of rainbows, sometimes it can be draining. With that being said, do you want to know what the kicker is? I have never felt so proud and accomplished of what I've done in these past few weeks! Sometimes all you need is a little elbow grease and a good outlook on life to help get you through the trying moments. There are two reasons why I know everything will be aright, and here they are:
Reason #1: On April 18th, 2003, I heard a chilling scream coming from my home. I was at a neighbor's house at the time which was three houses away, but the shriek was loud enough for me to still hear it. It was my sister. She had been jumping on a pogo-stick in the garage and it slid out from underneath her. The only things to catch her fall on the hard concrete floor were her chin and front teeth. We had rushed her to the hospital. I had never been so scared for my sister. She was whimpering in pain and her mouth was spaced open just wide enough for me to see all of her teeth soaked in blood and some laying on her tongue, not even connected to the gum-line anymore. With it being my personal pogo-stick I had claimed full responsibility and vowed to destroy the retched invention as soon as we got home. I was inspired by how calm and collected my dad was as we sat outside, waiting to hear the results. It wasn't until a few years later that I realized he was outside with me just because he was just as upset as I was and couldn't stand the idea of seeing his daughter in that much pain. I still don't know how my mom was able to be by her side. My sister was then given many stitches and had her jaw wired shut to encourage the healing process. Her mouth could only open wide enough to fit spoonfuls or a straw of pulverized meals for a certain amount of time and throughout the next few years, doctors were still pulling teeth fragments out of her chin and were lining her teeth with many different types of braces in order for them to successfully return to the ridge of her gums and eventually to also return back to their normal setting. Looking at her now, you would never realize she endured such a difficult journey. The only indication you could see is her odd passion with teeth. She has now obtained over 300 hours of shadowing with dentists and orthodontists, and her recently received dazzling scores on her DAT (Dental Admission Test) as she prepares to go into dental school in a year in hopes of making a positive impact on her future patients, just like her doctors had made on her.
Reason #2: It was the fall of 2012 and I was coming to college for the first time! I had quickly become involved with some organizations on campus, but I never realized one of my main activities was going to be spent taking care of my roommates as they returned from nights out on the town. I was not really the kind of student who drank during his freshman or sophomore year at college (before I was 21), but I do have vivid memories of roommates throwing up in trashcans, having to give friends piggy-back rides because they couldn't walk home, as well as various times being the designated driver. I thought it was all just a phase and it didn't bother me too much until my sophomore year. My biology courses began to get harder and I got a new roommate who seemed to enjoy drinking and partying more than doing any other activity. I soon realized there were aspects of my freshmen year that I had taken for granted such as normal lighting (which had been completely replaced by black lights), quiet nights (which had been replaced by crazy suite parties every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday), as well as other aspects like not having my fish aquarium with alcohol in it, not having a fake ID business run in my family room, and not having my bathroom become home to a 500 can "beer-amid" which had been constructed in a three week time-frame. I suddenly went from the caretaker role my freshmen year to "the guy we are trying to force out of our room in order to get a new guy in his spot." I was never going to grant these guys the satisfaction of knowing this, but that year was one of the most stressful and discouraging times of my life. With our RA living right next to us, I had thought this would be a deterrent, but we were "lucky enough" to get the "bro" who didn't want to approach a conflict and wanted to be seen as the "cool RA" who was everyone's friend. After my roommate had then moved into some crazier ordeals and I found myself in some compromising situations myself, I quickly realized I had to remove myself from the situation and could easily do a better job as an RA than our RA has been. I then became an RA, fell in love with it, and decided working in student affairs was what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
So why am I sharing these stories (besides showing how awesome the Jestel family is)? I have learned that if you look at your complete history of who you have been and changes which have led to who you had become, many of these changes have been influenced by difficult times in your life when you have felt completely exhausted, depressed, or hopeless. There is an English proverb that I have always liked that says "a smooth sea never made a skilled sailor", and I think this is very true. You will never know where your limits are or what you're made of, until those limits have been tested and you've been given a reason to prove yourself. Luckily I haven't reach the point of depression or hopelessness yet, but the fact that I come home exhausted most nights while I have been at Piedmont does not really discourage me, it mainly just makes me look forward to the next time I can look back and say, "Wow! Look at how that experience shaped me!" Goodnight all :)
Question Time: Tell us about a time when your limits were challenged and how did it form you into the person you are today?
About the video: This video was posted a few days ago and is a similar video to the First Kiss video which was released a few months ago. I know it is a bit odd, but in some ways I actually enjoyed this video more than the kiss video. The director tells the viewers in the behind the scenes clip that a form of violence minus the aggression is a form of intimacy which deals with the social interaction of trust. In many ways, these participants are willfully accepting an experience they have never experienced before and it is a cool response which is shown. This video is a bit different than the main topic of this post, but when you take a look at a difficult action or situation in a different light, you might see a light that you never saw before. Enjoy.
Take Away:
Tomorrow's Topic: "Grace"
