Getting to know one another…

My friend DM  had a neat idea… He interviewed a bunch of people who regularly read and respond to his blog, in the hopes that we’ll all get to know one another better.  You can see the list of people DM tagged by clicking on the link attached to his name.  These are the questions he asked me, as well as my answers to them.  It was really sort of fun to be ‘interviewed’ and I liked answering the questions.

D.M.  Describe yourself in 3 to 7 words.      

Melissa:  Inquisitive, Slightly Guarded, Stubborn, Loving, Quiet, Intuitive, Low-Maintenance  

D.M.  What are the things you enjoy doing  when you have free time  (or wish you could do if you had free time) and why do you think you enjoy them?…. take as much time and space as you need to answer this. 

Melissa:  You might regret having given me permission to write as much as I want to on this one…  Let’s see, I like to: 

Read.  Reading is a means of escape for me.  I can dive into a story and enter into another world.  Right now I’m trying to read all the Newbery Award books, because they’re quick, easy reads and usually have some sort of moral story behind them. 

Write. I love to journal and I love to blog.  I am not good at saying what I’m thinking or feeling, but writing everything out in one form or another provides such a feeling of release. 

Paint and Draw.  When you do artistic activities, you have to use a different half of your brain than you do when you think about analytical, logistic-type things.  You can’t paint and think at the same time.  I love to paint and draw because doing these things forces me to shut my brain off for a little while.   

Walk my dog.  When I am home from school, my German Shepherd and I will do three or four miles around the village every night.  It’s nice to be outside, and the exercise feels good. 

Go to the beach.  I love Lake Ontario, and being there always makes me feel very refreshed.   In the summers, I spend hours at the beach by myself.  I plop a lawn chair in the sand, and spend the afternoon reading or writing.  I look for sea-glass, and wade in the water.  I won’t go swimming though.  Secret confession:  I am afraid of swimming with the fish, and so I never go out past where I can see my feet (which usually means I never go out past my knees). 

Drive in my car and sing.  I can go for hours along the back roads, singing at the top of my lungs.  Belting it like that makes me feel confident and on-top-of-the world, for some reason.  And, I swear, I sound the best in the car… it’s like it’s the only place where the acoustics are just right…  J 

Spend time with my siblings.  I laugh loudest and hardest when I am with them.  I feel the most real when I am with them, and the most loved. 

If I had more time (and more money), I would like to travel more, go see more plays and concerts, and go to more museums.      

D.M.  This is a deeper question…not to be morbid..but make you think.,..at the end of your life, what are some of the things you would like people to remember about you? 

Melissa:  I want to be remembered as someone who loved Jesus, loved other people, and who loved herself.  I want to be seen as someone who wasn’t afraid to grow and try new things, and who encouraged others to do the same things.    

D.M. Share a favorite recipe  

Melissa: 

Breakfast Casserole:*I always make it with ham, instead of sausage, and I put broccoli in it.  And I don’t put in the mustard.*

• ·     2 slices bread
• ·     1/2 pound bulk pork sausage
•  ·     1/2 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
• ·     3 eggs 
• ·     1 cup milk
• ·     1/2 teaspoon ground mustard
• ·     1/4 teaspoon salt
• ·     1/8 teaspoon pepper

1.Remove the crust from the bread and cut into 1-in. cubes. Place in a greased 8-in. square baking dish. In a skillet, brown the sausage over medium heat until no longer pink; drain. Sprinkle the sausage and cheese over bread cubes.

2.In a bowl, whisk the eggs, milk, mustard, salt and pepper. Pour over the sausage and cheese. Bake at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes or until puffed and golden.   

D.M.  Tell us about a typical day in your life… 

Melissa:  I get up at about 5:30 and read and write until my first class at either eight or nine.  Some mornings, I have to catch up on homework or study before I go to classes.  On most days, I’m in a classroom until 2 or 3 o’clock, and then I work until 5.  My friends and I eat dinner in the dining hall at 5 every night, and then I usually drive to my church for some sort of meeting or event.  Most evenings, I’m back on campus by nine o’clock or so, and spend the rest of the night doing homework, either in my dorm or in the nursing lab, and go to bed around 11 o’clock or a little afterward.   

D.M.   You are going to school to be a nurse…what is it about nursing that you are drawn to? 

Melissa:  There are so many different aspects to nursing.  I love how challenging it is and how much it requires you to know.  I love that, as a nurse, you’ve always got to be learning new things.  I love working with people.  Nurses do more than just take care of patients; they act as educators, advocates, counselors, etc.  As a nurse, you’re required to view people holistically, and get to care for them on a holistic level.  Yes, you care for patients physically, but you also care for them psychologically, emotionally, socially and spiritually, to some degree.  I think it’s an honor to have people come to you at their most vulnerable, and to entrust themselves to your care.   In caring for others on a daily basis, you are given countless opportunities to show people Christ through your actions, and to give people the dignity and respect they deserve as human beings. 

Ha… in answering your question, I think I just unintentionally just wrote the essay portion of a scholarship application I’ve been struggling to fill out over the last few days…