challenge or bust...

I am preparing and contemplating what the "best answer" is to the question, "what makes you different?"

I have a lot of ideas but none of which are completely satisying to me. First of all according to Myers-Briggs I am an INTJ--a personality type that makes up less than 1% of the world. I want to use that but I also feel like the Myers-Briggs personality test is not always well received especially if interviewed by a skeptic.

I believe I am different because I think of challenges in life as the only way to achieve maximum satisfaction and happiness. I have asked many people what they think of when they think of a challenge and many of them think of it as a nuisance, a phenomena that gets in the way of happiness rather then, what I think it is, a catalyst for happiness.

The greatest gifts I have received in life came in the form of a challenge. There have many times in my life where I have been a loser, an underachiever, an irratant, and noncompliant. There have been times where I choose not to work my hardest, I have been disrespectful and rude to my parents and to others and I have deliberatly choosen to be selfish, unkind, and attention seeking. In every scenario I was challenged to be better. I was challenged and I responded. I was challenged and conditioned. I was challenged and as a result have experienced a happier, and more satisfying life. The same effect that I want to offer people. Every athlete will tell you that if a coach yells at you, it means they see potential in you and want you to be better. Just as in life, if a teacher yells at you and disciplines you for not turning in your homework or not studying for an exam, it means they care about you.

I want to offer the greatest gift, a challenge, everyday. I will be graduate as a registered nurse next month and will seek out job opportunities that allow me to challenge my patients to be the best that they can be that day. I want to be in a position where I can tell them that they are acting in a pathetic way that is not compatible with the life I want for them. I want to reshape the current healthcare model and revisit tradional the "done to death" core values that almost every institute and organized entity operates from and find a home for the core value, challenge. I care about people differently then most. I care about people and their potential.

I am so very disatisfied in the lack of challenges we provide our youth today. In 1605 Sir Francis Bacon warned all people that "knowledge is power" and without knowledge one will die as an unpriviledged slave to your ownself. 1605!!! We knew over 400 years ago the importance of education..we should have this absolutely mastered and all people should be education to the maximum of their potential. Instead we have the brilliant idea that persons can decide for themselves, at the mature age of 16, to drop out of highschool. No child left behind? Another brain-e-ack idea that not only doesn't challenge a person to learn...it slows the progression of everyone else in the class. How does it get this bad? I mean this is really truly bad.

I am different because I believe that knowledge is power and I believe that without your health you have nothing. I am giving myself 10 years. I will get the highest possible degree in nursing and will work tirelessly to make a difference and enfore the importance of challenging each person to be in their best health and to pursue as much education as they can. If in 10 years I feel I have made no difference I will either leave healthcare and buy my dad's business or leave the country.

I am AK and I am different.

March Madness

March is historically my favorite month of the year. In Iowa, it starts getting nice out, it is a true catalyst for summertime, and it means the my two arch nemesis months, January and February, are the furthest away, but mostly I love it because I love march madness.

I love March madness...I love basketball, I love competition and I love the emotion that college basketball brings. I love filling out the brackets. Every year I am sure that I picked all the right upsets and I convince myself that I am right. This year is no different I am sure that I picked all the right teams and that I will win $10,000 and a trip to Meet Dick Vitale in Indianapolis for the final 4. That is just how I think. And by the way I did pick Murray State to upset Vanderbilt!

I love March madness because its unifying. It's a great conversation starter. There isn't anyone who doesn't know that March madness exist. I love it because its exciting and unpredictable. The research is vigor and the analyst are strategic and gifted individuals who get paid to study basketball and assign each team a seed. It is a brilliant tournament and upsets act as evidence to justifying and support playing out each game.

I love the tournament because I can relate so well to it. I feel like all of my life experiences can be assigned to one spot on the bracket. I have been the overrated person in life and let people down. I have been the underdog and have surprised the world. I have been the champion and the loser, the one and done, the forgettable and the unforgettable. I have been the buzzer beater and beaten at the buzzer. I love march madness, I love the phenomena of life, and I love how to two relate.

Kentucky to win the championship. 83-91. It will happen.

Stupid rules are a result of stupid people

In my first blog I went over the ground rules and one of the first rules was that I would blog when I want to blog and never in between. I want to blog tonight.

I want to blog about stupid rules and how stupid rules have affected my life. First I write this assuming that everybody realizes the existence of stupid rules and how they negatively affect their own lives. My biggest problem with stupid rules is that I feel like they are only in existence for one of two reasons...one being the existence of stupid people and two being so that when the stupid rules are broken, the government or whoever implementing the rule can collect a fine.

Stupid rules and how they have negatively affected my life.

1) In my wonderful private grade school and high school, gum chewing was not allowed. This is a stupid rule..it exists for only 2 reasons 1- because a stupid person couldn't find the garbage and instead threw the gum on the ground or stuck it under the desk and 2- so that teachers could collect $5 every time they caught a student chewing gum or offer them, in exchange to paying the fine, a detention where they would get free labor from kids.

2) Students, at all times, had to wear socks..stupid. It exist because a stupid kid didn't wear socks when it was -25 degrees and while waiting for the bus after school got a case of the frost bite and lost 2 toes.

3) Kids, in the state of Iowa, can legally drop out of school when they turn 16! No, when you turn 16 you can drive your parents car to school and back...you can't drop out! This is a stupid rule..and adds to our stupid population. We have enough wack-os with college degrees we certainly can't take care of drop out kids.

4) Having to stop at a red light/stop sign even when nobody is coming. This is a stupid rule...no accident has ever occurred because someone ran a red light when no one was coming. Does this mean we can go, no matter what, when the light is green? See, education is power..not street lights...Humans, well at least those who didn't drop out of school at age 16, should be smart enough to stop when a car/person/thing is in the way and go when no one is coming.

I cannot even calculate just how many hours I spent in detention or JUG (Justice Under God) for breaking these stupid rules. Under no circumstance was my education or safety compromised while breaking these rules.

I just think there are better options to fixing the problems that instigated making the rule in the first place...education is power. Instead of disciplining people who break these rules safely...educate those who broke the rule and either harmed themselves or someone else. Example...educate the kid who lost his 2 toes because of frost bite..don't make it a rule that every student has to wear socks all the time.

I am interested in hearing the rules that you all think are stupid....