Kapachino

Thirteen Things

1. My day in the ICU yesterday was kind of boring. Both of my patients had brain aneurysms. They were awake, alert, mobile, and for the most part independent. That means there wasn’t a whole lot for us to do for them.

2. One of the patients was a woman from Baton Rouge, a really sweet lady, and I loved her Cajun accent. She hugged me when I said goodbye to her.

3. The other was a nice man who would have talked to me all day long if I’d let him. Once he found out that I majored in Christian ministry for my first degree, he told me his whole life story. It was very interesting, but for the sake of time I will just say that he was the founder of this ministry.

4. There was a job fair at my school today, where I talked to four different hospitals. I was then inspired and went ahead and applied for the graduate nursing program at all four places. The application for the one I really want, though, is a little more extensive than the others and thus I am not finished with it.

5. Luckily I know a woman who worked at that hospital for most of her life who agreed to write me a letter of recommendation.

6. I have decided that I am mostly interested in working in the areas of critical care and oncology.

7. I am really proud of my indoor soccer team, because we had an awesome come-from-behind win tonight.

8. However, I do not appreciate the fact that there were no female subs, meaning I had to play the whole game, and thus I am utterly exhausted. (It is a coed team and three girls are required to play at all times - six players on the field total.)

9. Tomorrow I have a clinical for my community health class. I make home visits to senior citizens for the Meals on Wheels program. I don’t like it a whole lot, but it’s not too bad.

10. My birthday is next week. I will be 26 years old. The celebration begins this Saturday and ends a week later.

11. I am giving up sugar for Lent this year. Lent begins right in the middle of birthday week, so I am going to stuff myself with cookies, cake, ice cream, brownies, and every kind of chocolate I can get my hands on before then.

12. I need to shower in a bad way. Sometimes showering is such a chore, like when I’m tired and just want to go to sleep. When I was younger I used to skip it if I didn’t feel like it, even if I had played a soccer game that night. I guess sleep has always been my priority.

13. But I don’t do that anymore!

One Year

Yesterday David and I, as a couple, turned one. It was the anniversary of our first date. We had decided not to spend much money on gifts, because we just had Christmas, both of our birthdays are around this time, and Valentine’s Day is coming up as well. But when I first saw him at church, he had these for me, along with a really sweet card:

(There are twelve of them.) We spent the afternoon together doing some romantic things that I loved and may talk about at a later date. But for now I will just say that we decided that our next dog will be an English Bulldog named Cobbler.

In the evening we went back to the restaurant where we had our first date, The Melting Pot. It’s a delicious fondue place. Really comfortable, private, romantic, and fun. When we got to our table there were more roses waiting for me, and they took our picture and framed it for us:

Then I gave him the gift I made for him, which was a mix CD of all the songs that really remind me of him for one reason or another. I made a case for it, and a booklet to go inside. In the booklet I wrote down excerpts from my journal of when we first were getting together, through our first kiss, and the first time we said “I love you.” He loved it, and I was glad because I actually spent a lot of hours on it!

What can I say, I love him!

I Heart Weekends

Whew. I am ex.haus.ted. It has been some week! It has been awhile since I looked forward to the weekend this much. I feel like I’ve been gone all week, driving all over the city from place to place, never home for more than 30 minutes at a time unless it’s to sleep. I have about two hours now before I have to leave again, and I am just loving it. Even though I surely have schoolwork that I need to do, I am instead going to begin working on the anniversary present I’m making for David, spend some quality time with Cleo, and maybe even get a tiny nap in. Ahh.

I should mention that my friend and I reconciled, which took a lot of stress off me. Although I am still worried about her, at least there isn’t the tension between us that there was before, and since I see her a LOT that makes a huge difference in my life.

Also, we were able to sell our entry for the Texas Independence Relay to another team. So even though we don’t get to run it, at least we will get our money back. I am disappointed that it didn’t work out like I wanted it to from the beginning, but we had so many team members drop out recently that I just wasn’t going to be able to put a full team together and manage it with only a month to go until the race. So this solution is really the best one given the circumstances. (Thanks, Katy, for pulling this off! I hope that we can do another race together in the future…something not quite so stressful!) I’m going to try to keep running, but for now at my leisure. It does make me feel good, and I hope to run some interesting races in the future, but maybe once I get out of school and have more time to train.

Anyway, my point is that I’m in a lot better mood now than I was at the beginning of the week. Now it’s time to relax!

Bad and Good

THE BAD:
~The aforementioned friendship troubles. No updates there yet.
~The relay team that I’m supposed to be in charge of is falling apart.
~Finding time to fit in class, work, clinical, studying, soccer games, book club, applying for jobs, running, and relationships.

THE GOOD:
~I love David, and he loves me. Our one-year anniversary is on Sunday.
~Being a nurse is great, and so is my clinical in the surgical ICU.
~Things to look forward to: anniversary, birthday, Over the Rhine concert, Valentine’s Day.
~Cleo is the best dog ever, and I am her favorite person of all.

Just a quick update because I don’t have much time this week.

Trying To Respond

I am such an avoider of conflict. It’s really not that great of a characteristic. I am having a very hard time dealing with this situation with my friend. The conflict was thrust upon me, and now I have to respond. The last time we spoke I wasn’t prepared, and things were left in a bad place. Since I didn’t know when I would see her again, I ended up leaving her a letter to read. It was honest and at the same time caring, but I’m worried that she will just see it as judgment and intolerance and miss the love. I’m doing what I can, but it’s hard.

In other news, I have my first clinical tomorrow. A 12 1/2 hour shift in the surgical ICU. It’s going to be a long day. I hope I like it.

And finally, for a break from this melancholy, check out my good friend Carmen’s video blog, One Leg Duck. This week I am a featured character, filmed on our recent trip to New Mexico. It’s a silly short little thing.

Troubled

What do you do when one of your oldest, closest friends starts acting in a way that doesn’t fit her at all, disrespects your friendship by being deliberately deceitful to you about it, and shows no remorse for anything? My first instinct is to avoid this person and have as little to do with her as possible. I know that’s not very loving, and I need to be there for her. But I really don’t know how to reach out right now.

A Stolen Meme

I wasn’t actually tagged by my friends The Klines to do this meme, but I’m sure that if they had tagged anyone, like they were supposed to, they would have tagged me. So I’m doing it anyway.

1) One book that changed my life:

Practicing His Presence by Brother Lawrence and Frank Laubach. It completely transformed the way I relate to God.

2) One book that you have read more than once:

I don’t do this very often because there are so many books in the world that I want to read. Sometimes I get really scared that I will die without having read all the books I want to. I know it’s ridiculous. But I have read The Lord of the Rings a few times because it is my favorite, and I wish I lived in Middle Earth.

3) One book that you would want on a desert island:

Um, The Bible is the only one that would never get old. Cliche, I know.

4) Two books that made you laugh:

Huh. Apparently I don’t read humor very often. But The Know-It-All by A.J. Jacobs was funny at times, as was A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.

5) One book that made you cry:

Oh my gosh, it’s totally embarrassing but A Walk To Remember by Nicholas Sparks had me bawling for hours, more than any other book I’ve ever read.

6) One book you wished you’d written:

A Prayer For Owen Meany by John Irving. It’s wonderful, and I love how every little detail means something.

7) One book you wish had never been written:

I honestly have no idea. I’m sure there’s one out there, but I can’t think of it offhand.

8 ) Two books you are currently reading:

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss and God’s Politics by Jim Wallis. I actually do keep my “Currently Reading” section up to date (see top right).

9) One book you’ve been meaning to read:

Just one? Well, I guess Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol has been on my shelf the longest. Although I have a list about a mile long.

Atonement, The Movie

I recently told you a little about the book we read for our book club, Atonement. Since it is Now a Major Motion Picture! we decided to go see it as a group. It took us a really long time to figure out when all five of us could make it together, but we finally settled on last night at seven.

Well, Leah ended up not being able to come. Amanda was late because she had to pick up Cleo from the groomers. Courtney, Sara, and I walked in right before the actual movie began because with rain and traffic it took us quite awhile to get there. So a bit of a rough start, but I was really looking forward to the movie and was set on enjoying it.

I was sitting next to Sara, and I noticed that she was breathing a little noisily but I figured it was just her congestion because she’s been sick. But then it became louder, so I glanced over and saw that she was completely asleep and snoring. Not too long after that Courtney got sick to her stomach and left to spend a good while in the bathroom. I noticed that Amanda was focused more on her phone than the movie. I think I’m the only one who enjoyed the movie in its entirety, although to be fair Courtney was really into the movie and couldn’t help that she got sick.

As for the movie itself, I liked it even though I thought it was a much better book. The music was especially cool. The girl who played Briony was really creepy looking. And that’s about the extent of my review. Apparently it won the Golden Globe for best motion picture, drama. Out of the other nominees, I have only seen No Country For Old Men, which I think I liked better than Atonement. But anyway, there you have it.

Fishing Trip

Ever since Boyfriend David got his fishing boat (which he shares with his brother and dad) and they started taking trips down to the coast with it, I have dropped hints, asked, and finally begged for him to take me out in it. Fishing is a huge part of his life, and I want to be involved in it. Well, yesterday he got a trailer hitch installed on his truck, which would enable him to pull the boat himself, and today after church we headed down together.

Here we’re putting the boat in the water. I backed the truck and trailer up while David unhooked the boat and drove it off:

Here is David baiting my hook. I didn’t want to deal with the live shrimp today, thank you very much.

They are just so disgusting:

Check out this action shot (yes, I wore my life jacket!):

I was so happy when I caught this little trout all by myself. I got a little too excited and reeled him in so fast that I flung him over the boat. But he stayed on the hook!

I would have been happy just with that little fish, but soon afterwards I got this one! It’s called a sheepshead and I think it’s pretty. I actually had to fight to reel him in, with David telling me what to do.

Here’s my man at the wheel of the boat, taking us home:

It was so pretty out there:

Here’s David getting the boat back on the trailer. As I was taking this he said to me, “This isn’t the time to be taking pictures!” Apparently he needed my help or something, but I just really wanted to capture the moment!

I had a really great time and I’m sure we’ll be going out a lot more often. Don’t worry, I won’t give you the play by play of every fishing trip, but I really wanted to document our first one together.
Anyone else do anything interesting this weekend?

Why I Don’t Like Politics

So there’s some political stuff going on in the country. You may have noticed. One thing I have come to learn about myself over the past few years is that I don’t like politics. At all. Lately I’ve been wondering why, and this is what I’ve come up with:

1. I am competitive by nature, and I don’t really like that about myself. I don’t like the way I feel or view others when I get caught up in a competition. I’ve been trying to be better and learn to deal with this, because I want to be able to enjoy games and have healthy discussions with no hard feelings. But in the sphere of politics, there are so many places to disagree, therefore so much room for argument. So I’ve just avoided it.

2. Because I’ve avoided it for so long, I don’t really know anything about it. I don’t know much about any of the candidates, or really much of what is going on in the country, or even what I think and why. So I find myself disagreeing with everyone simply because I want to keep an open mind.

3. I don’t like confrontation or fighting of any kind. Especially when I’m involved. I just want everyone to get along!

Last fall I had a conversation with one of my best friends who is very involved in politics and in fact works for a non-profit organization in that area. I promised her that before the 2008 election I would figure out what I think about the issues and be able to come back to her to have an informed discussion. This is a huge undertaking for me, and one I’m not really looking forward to. But. I don’t want to stay ignorant. So here I go.