Riding on the coattails:)

So Wednesday there was a charity kickoff to raise money for toy drive for children at the hospital. I attended the event for a little while. There were children from a bunch of local schools, the mayor or LA, and you know... AARON CARTER! haha it was so funny to see him up close. Then Sister Paule dragged me and Tricia into a photo with him. I didn't even like him growing up, but I am pretty sure 4th grade Christina would have thought that was pretty cool.

Then after that I continued with the WORST 12 hour shift I have ever had. Things were just really busy and I was working with a nurse who is really thorough. She had given me 4 patients. I have only just moved up to having three patients on Monday. I could handle 3 normal patients ok. However, these 4 patients were not normal. They all had some problem going on and I just didn't know how to handle them. My nurse was also on top of me checking to see if I had done a whole host of things I had not only not done, but didn't even know I had to do all day. It just made me feel inadequate and totally unprepared. I got out of work an hour late, which meant that Tricia was an hour late/I forgot to call her and let her know I was running late, so she ended up sitting outside the car (I had the keys) for an hour. I felt so rude. I also felt like I had failed that day.

Today was better. I had only 3 and it was a little less hectic. I actually felt like I made a difference in my patients' lives, like I taught them things. So that's good.

So tomorrow I am chopping my hair off! I have been looking forward to it all week:) I am going to a local beauty school because it is only $5 for a haircut:) I hope they do a good job! Then Saturday we are having a Gratitude Dinner. We are inviting 2 other VSC houses and Tricia's boyfriend Jimmy's house. It should be a good time. We are having Thanksgiving themed. I am pretty pumped! It should be tons of fun.

Please pray for my grandmother. She has cancer that has to be removed, but she is on Coumadin (a blood thinner), so she has to be weaned from Coumadin, onto Heparin, have the cancer removed, get weaned back onto Coumadin, and then be done. So just pray she is safe and that all goes well. I love her lots and can't imagine life without her. She is pretty spry, so I have no doubts she can handle the surgery, but just in case something goes wrong.... please pray!

So I hope that little rant was not too terrifying. I also hope my haircut is not terrifying. It better not be, I want it to look like Whitney Houston's hair in one of the pictures from her new album cover. And we all know Whitney is fierce, so my hairs should be fierce too!

Community Rocks My Socks

So (I have a habit of starting many of my thoughts with the ambiguous 'so'), My main thought of the past few weeks is how much I love my community. In my mind we were having a hard time bonding in the beginning. I felt like I wasn't connecting to anyone in particular and we weren't cohesive as a group, well not as cohesive as I had pictured my community in my mind. Then we went on retreat. It was fabulous! The Daughters' Provincial house in Los Altos Hills is absolutely one of the most beautiful places I have seen in my life. It is designed for relaxation/reflection. I think we were all rejuvenated after the rest and excited after seeing all the other volunteers from up north. We had a blast in San Fransisco! It is such a unique city. Since we have come back we have been spending time together. We hang out in each others' rooms and I just feel like we have all relaxed a little. We laugh a lot, we watch a ton of movies, we appreciate each other, we encourage each other, and we listen to each other when we are having a rough day. I am truly so grateful for each and every member of my community.

Work has been good. But being a baby nurse isn't always easy, especially when your baby is a little hypothermic and the temperature won't come up. It is also true that nurses can be the kind of people that eat their young. I had aforementioned hypothermic baby and was busy getting him the proper care for that. In addition to that busyness, it takes me 3x as long as an experienced nurse to do pretty much every task. So needless to say at the end of my shift there were a TON of loose ends to tie up, which I had to leave for the next shift to do, but at least my baby's temperature was stable! So the nurse I gave report to basically gave me a hard time for not finishing everything. In my head I was like 'I'M NEW!!!!! WERE YOU NEVER NEW AT NURSING BEFORE??' Cause I'm pretty sure you were, so CAN IT CRANKY! Well, I blasted some tunes in the car on the way home, so I got over it, and the Halloween dance party at the volunteer house in Boyle Heights helped, but I just hope that I can be patient with new nurses when I am the experienced nurse in the future.

Other than some frustrations at work, I have been very very happy these last 2 weeks. My community truly has been so great and I just have these little moments of intense gratitude for the people I live with. We have such a good time together and we are all really concerned for each other. I truly believe each one of them is a light in my life. I am so happy to know these people and to share experiences with them. So I can do nothing but be grateful and look forward to each day.

This weekend we are having a Matrix marathon! We are watching all of them straight through Saturday. Then I am going to have to do something rigorous/involving physical activity because sitting for like 9 hours straight is a little intense for me. We talked about making an obstacle course and having a relay race! Then we also talked about making a fort, so we'll see what actually transpires:) Whatever happens it will be great!

Peace and love!

Thank you Casa de Chuck Norris

So I have many thoughts, as I did in my last blog. In order to organize my thoughts I am going to use a thesis statement of sorts, so I don't forget to write about anything. Ahem. In this paper I will discuss my thoughts on my job, my trip to Houston, my feelings on nursing as service, and THE PHILLIES!!... in that order, or not in that order, depending on how I am feeling. Also please note, I just finished working 3 12hour shifts in a row. Hence, if my grammar, spelling, general coherence are more than lacking, I apologize... but not really. Just deal with it.
Ok, so about my job/nursing as a service (see, I already combined 2 ideas from the thesis:), I love my job. Well, I love the general field of maternal/infant health. I enjoy caring for/assessing/helping new moms and babies. However, not to sound incredible morbid, but nothing ever goes wrong with this patient population. The moms are all on the same medications for the most part, and if the babies take a turn for the worse, we send them to the nursery or the NICU(neonatal intensive care unit). So really I just shoot moms up with pain meds all day (yes I have given my fair share of shots in peoples' bottoms) and then try to teach them how to breastfeed. Thursday I had 2 moms who needed help with breastfeeding. Now, I have taken a course that consisted of 2 8hour classes about breastfeeding. I thought maybe I could help. Well, I had a difficult time. While I am not too hard on myself about this, I am just frustrated because I know I would be able to better explain to my moms what they need to do to breastfeed successfully if I had some experience myself. Not my fault, I know, but frustrating none the less.
So today I was in the newborn nursery. In our hospital, if the baby is healthy it stays in the maternity room with mom. If the mom had a c-section, or if there were any minor complications with the pregnancy, the baby gets sent to the nursery until they are stable enough to go to maternity with mom. If the baby is not breathing, etc, it goes to NICU. So I was in nursery today. It is SO COOL! I got to admit the babies. So right after the c-sections the babies come to the nursery. If there are any problems with the baby we catch them first and then handle them, or send them to the NICU if it is really serious. For example, one of the babies came from a mom who was diabetic during the pregnancy, so we had to watch him closely because his sugar could go too low. Another baby we had looked like she was really struggling to breathe when we assessed her and she did have periods where she stopped breathing, so we rushed her to NICU, and I mean RUSHED! It was so active and fast paced (we have so so so many births and c-sections that we were always getting new babies). I loved it. I think I might like to try my hand at NICU also. There was a volunteer in NICU at St. Francis a few years ago and they keep telling me they want me to go there and I want to go! I need the pts who are sicker and the action. Maternity is basically like nursing retirement. It is slow paced (not always but sometime) and people aren't sick! I want to protect new life and do everything I can to keep babies stable. It sounds so exciting! So I might talk to my supervisor and see if that could be a possibility. I don't know if it would be a logistical nightmare at this point, but it's worth the question.
Now, as to my feelings on nursing as service in general, there are a few thoughts. Obviously nursing is service by nature. You heal the sick/care for people. However, I mean nursing as an unpaid service. I realized that the position I am filling could be filled by someone who could be getting paid. The hours I work could be taken by someone who needs the hours and th paycheck. It's not like I am a volunteer at a school and am just an extra set of hands, or that I teach a class the school wouldn't otherwise have. I will be added to the schedule and I will have my own hours and my own patients. I know that not paying me helps the hospital, that is severely in the red..., but someone could be getting a paycheck for hours I am not getting a paycheck for. I know that I am an example to the other nurses, and it is a good lesson for me, but I don't like the idea that I am taking an opportunity away from someone else. This is something I will struggle with for the rest of the year.
On to something a little less dramatic, my trip to Houston/LA Casa de Chuck Norris! Dear mom & dad, THANK YOU for allowing me to go to Houston, best birthday present ever! It was a much needed break from the life I live here in LA. Southerners are just more friendly, so it was a good change. So we did a ton of fun things
-Had dinner with Tara at a fabulous cafe
-Had the experience of Fiesta market (which is a lot like our Food4Less in LA!)
-Died Katie's hair
-Danced the single ladies dance in the living room, only to realize that several neighborhood men were watching us through the window from outside on the sidewalk.......Sketch!
-Went out to Karaoke (which was a blast!)
-Had mass and dinner with the Jesuits and saw some SWEET magic tricks
-Saw the Phillies whoop Colorado
-Had a dance party in the kitchen (You are the girl, I been dreamin of!) MMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmm Papa, love it when you call me big papa!
-Got sandwiches at a vietnamese shop for $2.50, although one of them came with a rubberband in it, free of charge...
-Got pumpkin spiced lates!
-Went to the museum of fine arts
-Made pumpkin scones, and ate pumpkin scones:)
-Had spirituality night with Katie's housemates
-Slept over Tara's and watched revolutionary road while grading papers

It was a blast! Katie's community is solid! They are a lively bunch and I got on with them really well. So thank you to all of the casa de chuck norris for your generous hospitality and you smiles and laughter:)

Ok, I am going to help out at a flu clinic tomorrow bright and early, and I am BEAT physically and mentally, so I must away to my bed. Love you all and keep praying for me and my prayer partner! I am praying for my housemate, so keep her in your prayers:) You will be in mine!

It's October already?!

Well I don't even know where to begin... Welcome to my blog... it's pretty bare so far, but here is the first or (hopefully) many posts!

I think what I want to focus on in this post is why I am doing this year of service. I did not have an answer to that question when I applied for service organizations. I did not have an answer when I began the year. I still don't have a clear answer. For one thing, I knew I felt called to do it. I have been so blessed so I felt like I should give back, and this was a great opportunity to do so. But lately I have been having a lot of questions. Why couldn't I have just worked as a normal nurse and then done service on the side? What am I really trying to learn or accomplish in this year? What lesson about simple living should I be trying to glean from this experience.

At the end of this year I will probably be able to get a really good job (thank you CUA!) and live a super comfortable life (pretty quickly). So what am I trying to learn from this year that I can take with me? It has been interesting. I expected to come across some of those volunteers who hold the mentality that having money is a 'bad' thing. Like if you have money, boo on you. You are selfish and don't care about others. Or I at least expected to find people who made judgmental comments about the wealthy. I haven't come across that thus far. The Vincentians have a good partnership with the wealthy. They realize that we need giving/loving people who have funds in order to perform the services we give to the poor.

Then I got to thinking about the people who are what I like to call the the "giving-wealthy." So I don't have a lot of money to give right now. But I do have my nursing skills. So I choose to donate that to the poor. That's kind of easy because nursing skills are, by nature, healing and giving. People who have money can easily get attached to their money. It is easy to start to get attached to material things. Even Jesus says that it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. I am pretty sure he was talking of the "selfish-wealthy." The giving-wealthy, especially those who are of a Christian background, have detachment from their money and give away what they could use to gain more. So I am actually amazed by these giving people, and a little in awe. Gaining that detachment is SO HARD! I know I am attached to my things/stuff. My computer and guitar were stolen last Thursday and it was a real blow. I can't listen to my music, look at my pictures etc. It was a big deal. I tried not to let it get to me, but it has been a hassle.

So I think what I am trying to get at (after all that rambling. Sorry, I'm an extrovert... even via blog!) is that I hope that practicing living a year of not having will prepare me to live with what I need so that I can maintain a certain detachment from things, so that I can give what I can to the poor/the Church.

Realizing this has been a pretty big burden off my mind. I know I will probably realize other reasons why I did this year as I go through it, but I think this gives me a good starting point, a good ending point for the year, and a good lesson for the rest of my life. I am not gonna lie, it's not easy living simply. There are days when I just want some veggies from my mother's garden and a starbucks run, not canned black beans and stir fry vegetables, or mac & cheese. But I think I am learning that I have while others have not, and that I need to be conscious of wasting/being a steward of creation.

Ok I am tired of talking about that. On a lighter note, I AM GOING TO HOUSTON IN 5 DAYS!!! I cannot wait to see Katie! I don't even care if we just sit and stare at each other, I will be happy. I miss her so much! I am also getting rather homesick as of late. LA is cool and all that, but the area in which you live doesn't make your happiness. Having family and friends around you can make even the dullest surroundings exciting! Speaking of making your own fun, last night we had a murder mystery dinner at our house. We had 19 people. My housemate Anna wrote the plot and the characters. We all dressed up in 60's outfits and tried to figure out who the murderer was while having a splendid dinner. It was so much fun! Anna is a literary genius! The plot was so good and there were so many twists! Trisha, my other housemate, is totally into costumes and helped us get ready. It was a BLAST! Today I watched the BBC version of Pride & Prejudice with my house while drinking tea and eating muffins. It was so great! It was just the relaxing day I needed.

Tomorrow, Wednesday & Thursday I am back to work with moms and babies. Tuesday I am helping at Our Mother of Sorrows (Anna and Bassam, my housemates, volunteer there). So I am excited to get to work with school aged children:) Friday I leave for Houston! Then I come back Tuesday! It is gonna be a good week. It is strange that the 12 hour days seem so loooong, but the weeks seem to fly by. I cannot believe that it is October already!

I will be praying for everyone this week. Please pray for my safe travels this weekend!