keeping the hope alive.....

So this past week has been fairly good for me. I did turn 21 on Monday. Also, I am continuing to do well in my classes.
I am making a lot of new friends this year at school, and that is good. However some of my close friends from last year are starting to go down a road that I don't think is good. They are getting into drinking, and trying to have me join in, but I don't think that is something I want to do, at least not in the sense of getting drunk.
Also, some days I wake up and just wish I could be someone else. Not that my life is particularly bad, but sometimes I just wonder what the future holds, it is so open right now.
My ankle is starting feel better, I can walk agian, which is great. However it will still be at least a month before I can run and play frisbee again.
This is my plan for the future. I have at least 4 more years before I graduate as a Nurse Practitioner. Then I hope to either go work on a mercy ship with YWAM for a few years, or go do some work in Africa. Mercy ships are where you go and work on a large ship, and just travel around from port to port, and at each stop hold free clinics for people to come for check-ups. That would be awesome, because I have always wanted to go out on the ocean for a long period of time, and I think it would be great to see more of the world, and help people at the same time. If I go to Africa, I would go work with some sort of mission project, where I could directly help those in need. Whichever one I choose, or can get into, I will probably do for two years, and then the future after that is really up in the air. Probably would come back to the states, and work somewhere in a hospital.
More immediate plans, in two summers a group of friends and I are planning to buy touring road bikes, and ride across America. We would need to do research, but there are a lot of people that have done that sort of thing, and why not. Six weeks of riding, and sharing in community with close friends, and forging memories. I think it will be awesome, and I hope that we really do it.
peace.