Sea of Uncertainty

              With a few moments to myself, in an empty house, I feel the need to write a few lines, while these emotions are fresh. I just left our Stake Presidents’ office to complete the last part of my application to BYU! Tomorrow morning the U of U is holding an open house for transfer students from SLCC. I will be attending that as well, just in case I don’t get accepted to the Y.

                I feel that because I want so badly to get into the Y, I won’t. Just because. It’s just my luck to get accepted to Universities around the world (even though I haven’t applied anywhere else, mysteriously acceptance letters would fill my mailbox in the coming weeks) and the school that I so desperately hope to get into, rejects me.

                Against the advice of so many people in the medical field, to just give up on the Y and go to the U because there I will have opportunities to meet and rub shoulders with people in the Medical field that can help further my career aspirations. Against the advice of so many, to just give up on childhood dreams and silly football loyalties of going to the Y, and do the smart thing, stay in your comfort zone, go to the U, stay in Salt Lake,  get a great education from an awesome school and still live here in Salt Lake. Against all of this, for some reason beyond explanation, I want so badly to go to the Y. It isn’t because of childhood dreams of playing football for the Cougars, or loyalty to my family’s “team.” I wish I could explain it…but I simply can’t.

                Perhaps it’s for exactly all the opposite reasons why I should stay here and go to the U. Maybe I want to get out of Salt Lake, live in a tiny apartment with my family of 6, and struggle through college. Maybe I don’t want to meet and rub shoulders with individuals of the medical field that can help me get into the program I want. Maybe I want to run away from Here, and disappear in Utah County and re-emerge years later as a successful man. In whatever career I happen to choose throughout these next crucial two years. To be completely honest, these uncharted waters I am leading my family into scare me so much, I have difficulty sleeping at night, wondering if I’m making the right decisions. The decisions I choose now, not only affect me, but they affect my entire little family! That type of responsibility, that type of weight on one man’s shoulders is enough to make one physically weak. And hopefully bring him to his knees. In prayer.

                I can’t tell you how scared I am of the unknown path we’re on or where we’re headed. I can’t tell you how unsure I am of what I want to do when I grow up, or how I plan to support my family as we grow older. I can talk all day long, of my plan B’s and my plan C’s or plan D & E if those all fail, but I can’t, for the life of me, tell you what my plan A is. All I do know, is I want to go to college, and further my education. I hope to find out what I want to do during these last two years of college. I know that I want a career that will allow my wife to never have to work again, and allow me time to spend with my kids. I don’t care about money or material things, as I did not have those things growing up. Driving a beautiful foreign car, or having a vacation home in the tropics doesn’t appeal to me. All I want is more time with my family.

                The one thing that helps me through this sea of doubt, is my wife and the anchor she is for me. Where ever this crazy road takes us, which ever career path we end up at, we will be in this together. Throughout this difficult time, throughout the stresses of school and work, her smile alone brings a calm and serenity to this sea of doubt that I cannot explain. I’m positive she has no idea how much I love to come home to her smiling face, and to be greeted by my crazy kids running from their room to hug me at the door. In this sea of uncertainty, my precious cargo, my family, will anchor me through the storm.

Medicinal use of Sprite

    Tongans use many different "home remedies" to fix injuries and ailments from broken bones to burns and scrapes; from the common cold and flu to migraine headaches to sore muscles and joints. Growing up I can think of several different occasions where these "home remedies" where used on myself and my siblings. Many times, I thought they were completely ridiculous, but our Tongan Elders swore by these remedies.

    One time my older brother Sateki, was skateboarding down a very steep hill, behind my grandparents' house and he hit a rock and flew off the board. He landed on his back and slid several feet before grinding to a halt, sustaining serious road rash injuries to his shoulders and back. We rushed him to our grandmother's house and immediately she pulls out a stick of butter, and begins generously applying the butter all over my brothers' roadrashed back. He screamed out in pain, but obediently allowed my grandmother to finish the application of the entire stick of butter. Later in life, as we grow and learn about injuries and how the body heals itself during traumatic injury, I learned that applying generous amounts of butter directly onto an open wound, such as road rash, is exactly would you should never do! My grandma is so funny!

    Many of us have horror stories of dislocating a joint such as a hip or shoulder, or spraining an ankle or knee. The Tongan remedy for this is to be taken to a trained individual such as a chiropractor or other joint specialist, but not really trained in a traditional chiropractor school; more of a talent or specific knowledge passed on from one generation to the next. These Tongan massage therapists fota or "massage" the affected or injured areas and cause a great deal of pain to the individual. I will say, I was a skeptic of this practice at first, until I saw first-hand, someone with sore joints and muscles walk out of the session pain free.

    Anyway, the Tongan "home remedy" I seem to have remembered the most from my own childhood, is the remedy used to cure upset stomach, and the stomach flu. As a child, I can remember coughing so bad that I would begin to vomit. When I would have food poisoning or the stomach flu, I can remember the same remedy being applied to help cure this as well. A Super Big Gulp of Sprite! Yes, I can remember staying home from school because I was vomiting the night before, and my mother buying me my very own Super Big Gulp of Sprite, and it was made known, that this Sprite was only for me and no one else was allowed to touch it! I'm not sure if the carbonation or the lemon-lime flavor actually cures upset stomach, but for some reason it always helped me feel better. I can remember feeling special knowing that the Super Big Gulp in the fridge was only mine. I felt special staying home from school, watching cartoons sippin' on this magical elixir.

    Now that I have kids of my own, I see myself using some of these "home remedies" with my kids. Although I haven't used a stick of butter on my children's open wounds yet, I have run to the store in the middle of the night, on several occasions to buy my kids a Super Big Gulp of Sprite. I sit them on the couch with a warm blanket around them, turn the TV to the Cartoon Network and make sure everyone in the house knows, the Sprite in the fridge is only for the sick kid. I make them feel special, like my mom did to me, and within a day, the vomiting stops, and which ever ailment they were suffering from is completely gone. This is the widely used, but largely unknown Medicinal use of Sprite. J