Manning goes to Mile-High City

Even with it being finals week, I couldn’t just let this story go without a comment. It’s Peyton Manning. After being let go by the Indianapolis Colts a little over two weeks ago,  Manning visited several teams to see where he might be comfortable playing next. Today, multiple news sources – ESPN first – reported that Manning had chosen the Denver Broncos. It’s going to be so weird not seeing him in a horseshoe uniform. ESPN photoshopped Manning into a Broncos jersey…and it was bizarre. Maybe I’m just not ready for it yet…but wow. It’s…different.

But I’m glad Manning found a team that he seems to really like and feel good about. I was so disappointed in the Colts for dropping him, so I’m glad he has a place in the NFL still. I understand that the Colts were looking at rebuilding the organization, and that clearly meant drafting Andrew Luck. I would have liked to see Luck be drafted but mentored by Manning – what more could you ask for? But the Colts had different ideas and let Manning go. John Elway pounced.

Denver’s been the site of Tebow-mania all year long. Everyone loves Tim Tebow. It put Elway and Coach John Fox in a tight spot, since fans were so adamant about their love for Tebow despite his questionable skills. Fox deserves a lot of credit for adapting the offense the best he could to Tebow’s skill set. But with all that said and done, how can you argue against getting Peyton Manning as your QB? Elway’s smart. This was a clever political move, and a good escape route from the Tebow saga. It’s fitting, since Elway is considered one of the greatest, if not the greatest, Bronco of all time. So for him to come back and turn around the organization, and then engineer the addition of Manning – well, he’ll get more love than ever. It’s impressive that he’s able to contribute to the Broncos in these two different ways – as a player and as an executive – to achieve the same goal of reaching the Super Bowl.

I did a report on Manning’s injury and surgeries for school this year. His case is sad but fascinating at the same time. His persistence and willingness to recover from multiple surgeries is really amazing, and it shows just how passionate he is about this game. I was so hoping he’d come back from this last surgery, and he seems to be on that path so far. Clearly Elway was impressed with his range of motion. One thing I’ve heard throughout all of the news reports is that Manning is the one who put extra time and effort into the process of choosing a team, and insisted on throwing in front of each team despite their assurances that his health was not a concern. He also handled the situation in Indianapolis with a lot of honesty and grace, which can’t be said about everyone there. He’s a consummate professional in everything he does, and I could definitely see him as an executive of an NFL organization in the future. I can’t see him staying away from the NFL. I hope he doesn’t.

So for now, we all get to sit back and watch as for the next step in this crazy free agent season – Tebow’s future. He’ll most likely be traded by the Broncos. But watching Manning with the Broncos…that’s going to be so much fun. I’m also interested as to what free agents will take an interest in the Broncos now that Manning is connected to them. Some of his former Colts team members are free agents. Like I said – this is going to be a lot of fun. It’s still going to be weird watching him put on the Broncos jersey, but hell, it’ll be weird seeing Luck in a Colts jersey as the primary QB of the team. So this season is going to be really interesting for a lot of people. And it’s best of all as a fan – we get to watch it all unfold without all the pressure that comes with it (well – most of the time).

The end is near

I don’t even know where to start. In exactly one week, I will have taken my last final of my undergraduate career – Microbiology, a class that I have been pleasantly surprised by and really enjoyed this term. I’m happy to end the term on this note, but I’m so freaked out because I can’t believe my undergraduate career is officially going to be done after that. I still remember watching my parents drive away freshman year and thinking I would never make it past week 1, let alone 4 years. Yet here I am.

This past term has been one of my roughest at this school. As with everything here, though, somehow bad terms are always accompanied by some wonderful things. In terms of classes, my term should not have been too difficult. But the professors always keep things interesting and keep me on my toes, so this term was much harder than expected. While I don’t mind the workload usually, I had more moments than usual when I just couldn’t keep up and needed to take a breather. But I can successfully say that I conquered Microbiology Lab, my arch nemesis of the term. My fantastically brilliant TA and his hardass quizzes killed me, along with the first practical. But the second half of the term was all mine. And once again, I’m amazed how fast things can chance in just a few weeks. 10-week terms certainly do teach you a lot.

It was also my last term of classes with my best friend and roommate. We met two years ago during our toughest year of this major – sophomore year. Through the horrors of organic chem & physics, we became inseparable. But then she had to go on her internship, leaving me in classes. And six months later, we switched, with her being alone in classes and me on co-op. So when we both finally were on the same page for one last time, it was for my senior year. And it was really wonderful. As much as this term burned us out, we were burned out together. And it was a really great last hurrah. I didn’t feel like my college experience reallly started until I met her or my other friends in our little group. So it was really perfect to start and end college with her 🙂

My job search has been pretty unfruitful for now. Most positions I’ve been interested in are unpaid, and I was hoping to find some type of paid internship for a few months so that I could try to start doing something to my loans. But for now, I don’t have anything lined up. Which may be a blessing in disguise, actually. I think I really need to go home  and spend time with my family. I miss my parents a lot. When relative came to visit a week ago, I was super-bummed since I could only see them for a day before I had to return for a last week of classes and final exams. Of course, they were leaving on the day of my last final. Things like that sometimes make me question if I’m ready to go on this long path to medicine, where I will probably have more conflicts with compromising time. And I knew that going in. Sometimes though, for whatever reasons, it feels more shitty. I know I’ll have to deal with it. And I will. Most of the time it’s not bad. It’s just those times when it is really bad, I have to make myself remember why I’m doing this.

Personally this term wasn’t entirely a success or a failure. So I’d been crushing pretty hard on a close friend of mine for a while, and while he was aware of my crush, he was also getting over somebody else. So it was a weird relationship for a while. Eventually I got officially rejected and things sort of returned to normal, but it’s still a bit sad when I see him, just because I see what potentially could have been. Thankfully, graduating and not seeing him every day might be really helpful for a while. He’s still my friend, but sometimes a girl just needs some time.

Looking ahead, though, I’m waiting to hear back from my post-bac program. I applied a month ago, and when I checked in last week was told that I’d be contacted for an interview. So here’s hoping! 😀 I’m really anxious to hear form them. I’d really like that to be set in stone so that I have something certain to look forward to. Right now I feel like I’ll be very much in limbo, since I’m also jobless. My wonderful English teacher (one of many awesome English professors at this school), told me about another internship that I’m super-interested in. So that’s a silver lining on my cloudy job search 🙂

Tomorrow, though, is going to be some major retail therapy with my two best friends and roommates. King of Prussia, get ready. We’re coming 😉 There’s not much better medicine than a girls’ day out to a freakishly large mall that includes a Forever 21. And after that, we’ll be recharged for finals.  And after that…well, I’ll be studying the following picture pretty closely.