Dreams do come true.

Update time. I just finished up my first year of the Doctorate of Audiology program here at USU. The first of four!! Sometimes I still have to pinch myself that I am here. I have never done anything so rigorous and yet so satisfying. I have always dreamed of going to grad school, doing humanitarian audiology, inspiring children and families of those with hearing loss and living in a cute country town. And I am doing it all. I graduated from Brigham Young University in April of 2016, a year after I got back from Phoenix. It was a surreal feeling to walk across that stage and get my diploma for my Bachelors of Science in Communication Disorders. For some people it was just one more monotonous ceremony to sit through, for me though, I was surprised at how touched I was by the moment. I still remember the feeling of a sense of pride. Of that sense of accomplishing something someone once told me I would never do. And now that graduation seems so long ago as I am comfortably living in Logan, Utah (the cute little country town I was dreaming of), actively taking summer classes for my AuD program here at Utah State University (the grad school I was dreaming of, still working on being able to cheer for the athletic program here though... baby steps...) and am still wishing I was back in Cambodia where I got the opportunity to participate with Starkey Hearing Foundation and other members of my program in a hearing health care mission in the first part of May. (the humanitarian audiology I was dreaming of). Details of that trip will be shared in the upcoming posts!

But seriously, I can not get over how incredible my life is right now. My mother had the chance to come up and visit me here in Logan a couple weeks ago. We walked where I walk every day (the two buildings I live in), the clinics I work in, the sound booths I test patients in, the Sound Beginnings program where I will be working with children with hearing loss in a Listening and Spoken Language emphasis program beginning this summer. It was a bittersweet moment to watch my mom caress the hearing aid color swatch samples and ear mold material samples that we spend so many hours trying to pick what colors I wear through out the years of wearing hearing aids. I can't speak for her, and hope someday she will write her story, but her little girl that once was being tested in the booth is on the other side of the glass reaching out to hopefully be a blessing and inspiration to those like me. Dream big. And make those dreams come true.