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!