Woohoo

Please visit me at my new home.

www.lindimartin.com

Thanks.

swim...bike...run...

hello there, friends. so, i've been gone from blogger for a while now, and i bet you are wondering what's new with me? well, i am competing in the captex triathlon in austin, tx on may 28 (memorial day). i will be swimming 0.9 miles, biking 25 miles, then running 6.2 miles.

this is the part where most people look at me like i am crazy. so, let me explain. all of the training and even the race itself are just a small part of the bigger picture... i am in the process of raising $2600 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society through Team in Training. so far, with the generous help of friends, family, and co-workers, we have raised $950 for the cause. please help us in our fight toward a cure for blood cancers by donating to my web site at

www.active.com/donate/tntntx/lindi

no amount of support is too small, and i appreciate you just taking the time to read this message.

thank you,
lindi

the return

get ready folks. it is almost time for my return to the blogosphere.

a sigh of relief?

so, as i am sure you are all anxious to hear, i was accepted to UTD. woohoo. so, take the last post with a grain of salt and the understanding that sometimes people just need to vent.

as for UTD... the one class i desperately need to take this fall is CLOSED. as it would be, of course. this journey was simply not meant to be an easy one. so, now what do i do? well, i have started the ball rolling. on wednesday, i e-mailed the professor of the class with a request for special, written permission from him to appeal to the registrar for admittance into the class. my other option being wait until the start of the semester and pray that someone drops the class and i get his or her spot. it has worked before, trust me. yet, i am not so good at the waiting. especially not when my entire future (as a pa) rests on whether i gain admittance into a single class. at least things are exciting.

in other news, emily, jen and myself are supposed to find out about our duplex tomorrow. according to our realtor, we are at the top of the list of applicants for an amazing property (shown right). we get the entire downstairs, including the rad little screened-in porch. i am excited because now i will have a place to store my bicycle. let me tell you a bit more about our future (fingers-crossed) home: it has two full bedrooms and a study/den. the study/den actually works well as a third bedroom. it has a closet, lots of windows, built-in bookshelves and two doors, one to the hall outside the kitchen and one to middle bedroom. the middle bedroom is, well in the middle of the house. there is a huge kitchen with a separate breakfast nook, and fairly new appliances. there is central heating and air-conditioning. a washer and dryer! and a gigantic living room complete with a gas fireplace. oh yeah, there is also a dining room, a nice pantry, and a private driveway with covered parking, a storage shed and a lovely privacy fence and automated gate. that's right folks, we are going to be living in the lap of luxury. complete with one bathroom. for those of you who say it cannot be done. we shall prove you wrong. three girls, one bathroom, one simple rule, and voila... no worries. now let's all hope worthross gives us the home we have been promised.

here goes nothin'

this post exists for no reason apart from it being a purely cathartic exercise. last night, lauren needed to stay at work late and finish a project, so i went up to his office to keep him company. we were there for approximately six hours. during that time, i completed and submitted a graduate school application. i never could have anticipated how nervous i would feel as i clicked the final submit button. for at least a month, my future is in the hands of people i have never met or even seen before. yikes. applying to school is a bit nerve-racking, when you haven't done it in a while. it reminds me of kayaking. each time i slide into a kayak, clamp my spray skirt around the lip of the boat, and push off the shore into the water, i wonder if i still know how to do an eskimo roll. i have done about two thousand eskimo rolls in my life. seriously. thousands. i used to be a kayak instructor, i have demonstrated the eskimo roll more than enough times to know that i can in fact successfully manuever my way back to safety in the event that my boat capsize.

i have been a student for the better portion of the last 20 years of my life. and yet, this limbo period between submitting an application and receiving a letter from an admissions office seems to keep me in a slight state of panic. what if i don't get in? what if UT-D doesn't think i am good enough to take three classes before continuing on to a masters' degree? these nervous thoughts should not dominate my every waking moment, and yet, there are butterflies in my stomach. i think i have just gotten to used to the idea of instant gratification. i have become impatient. i do not want to wait. i want to know right now, UT-D: are you going to let me into your school? or have i toiled for naught? i think if i was indifferent toward becoming a PA, i would not care at all what UT-D had to say about things. i would shrug off an acceptance letter, as though they were handed out like tracts at a screening of The DaVinci Code. just as likely, i would receive a rejection as a sign of what was simply not meant to be. but this is not the case. i want desperately, from the core of my being, to become a physician assistant. it is the perfect career for me. too bad the program is so damned competitive. everyone keeps telling me there is no way i won't be accepted to pa school. my response to such encouragement is merely more inner turmoil. what am i going to do if i don't even get accepted to UT-D? or if i go to UT-D (therefore forefeiting my very high-paying job, and health benefits) and don't get into pa school, what in the world do i do then?

The Lost Art of Conversation

So, I am currently listening to the Diane Rhem show on KERA 90.1. Her guest is Stephen Miller; he is the author of a new book of essays titled, Conversation. The essays detail the history of the art of conversation, and how conversation is rapidly declining during the current era. He is completely correct on this issue. The first known conversations ocurred in Ancient Greece between Socrates and Plato, yet conversation did not reach its peak until the 18th century, specifically in Britain. In the 1700's it was terribly important to incorporate conversation into every aspect of life. Conversation was the centerpiece of each component of life, be it at home, in business, or at a social function. The key aspect of the British mastery of conversation is the emphasis on politeness. Please note politeness had a much more significant connotation in the 18th century. It meant more than just simple decorum; 18th c. "Politeness" is better defined as a will to be good humored. It is mutual respect and interest between all participating parties. If you do not believe this argument, pick up a novel by Jane Austen, or perhaps one of the Brontes, Oscar Wilde, or even Thomas Hardy, then tell me that conversation was not relished by 18th century Brits. Skipping a few hundred years to present day... Where has the art of conversation gone? It is becoming lost in this virtual world. We have traded straight-forward, face-to-face conversation and sociability for our cell phones, internet, iPods, and E-mail. Take my office for example: E-mails are sent from offices literally two or three feet away from each other. There is an utter lack of true social interaction. We would rather sit in our comfy office chairs, staring up at our computers, than walk across the hall or even next door to sit down and have a conversation with another human being. Now, I am not disregarding the positive benefits of being a part of a mobile society. I enjoy E-mailing Lauren all day long since we are across town from each other. I enjoy getting instant messages from Patti (at my office), when it may not be feasible to have a face-to-face conversation. But I still love to engage in conversation. I was raised in a family that required all five members be present for family dinners each week night. When I was in high school, I may have found this to be über lame, but now I look back fondly on the times I was blessed to have had robust discussions with my parents and brothers. Lauren and I make it a point to devote time every day to just sitting and talking with each other. It has been easy for us because conversation has always been such a fundamental part of our relationship. We enjoy talking with each other. We enjoy discussions. We do not have all of the same view points, and we have very different backgrounds, so our conversations are always interesting and thought-provoking. We are very much engrossed in this virtual world, with Lauren's Palm Treo and my iPod Nano, but we still appreciate the benefits and beauty of quality conversation. So, where am I going with all of this? Simply to encourage the public at large (or the two or fewer people who actually read this blog) to participate in robust conversation. Find a friend who is a good conversationalist and enjoy discussion once again. Let us not let our society squash the brillance of conversation. Let us not allow ourselves to become habituated to anonymity. Let us all rediscover the amazing and thrilling facets of the art of conversation.

Ode to Lauren

i am fairly certain that i have the best boyfriend in the entire world. he is sweet and kind and hilarious. and this morning at 07:00, he delivered a handmade fresh-fruit arrangement to my house for no particular reason whatsoever. he is just wonderful like that.