Mom- don't freak out.

Did a little research today! Slowly working my way out of that denial stage, and Day 1 of Job Search...whatever that means....takes us to Atlanta, Georgia. Emory University and Medical Center.

This is one of the hospitals within the Atlanta network...pretty cool huh? Emory is one of the top hospitals is the world leading the way for research studies and clinical trials.

http://www.emoryhealthcare.org/index.html

Since 1905, Emory Healthcare has been at the forefront of medicine, putting cutting-edge interventional research and technology into lifesaving action. As the largest, most comprehensive health care system in Georgia, Emory Healthcare has 1,184 licensed patient beds, 9,000 employees and more than 20 health centers located throughout Metro Atlanta.

I looked at some of the credientials, and found out that Emory is featured in U.S. News and World Report's America's Best Hospitals for 2008. Also featured as a Best Graduate Studies Program. Which, by the way, they will pay for when you're employed by the hospital. The benefits and sign on bonus are amazing, and they seem to really take care of their employees. I have the number for the nurse recruiter, who specifically recruits new grads! I think one of the things that stuck out to me was their interest for new RN grads. They offer nurse residencies, and set each new grad with a nurse mentor, who will be there to support and teach you as you work on different units, until you rotate into an area that you really enjoy. Emory is part of an expansive netwok, comprised of 45 hospitals serving 65 communities throughout Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina and North Carolina. Lots of opportunity..but kind of overwhelming. Emory is huge, but it seems like a great place to establish a career.

Who knows...maybe I'll meet Usher :)

Things I'd be better off without....

I have come to loathe two things in my life this week.

A.) The Ultimate Fighting Championship. I just don't get it.

And it is a TERRIBLE night to work at a bar with free paperview....

B.) Snow.

Now snow and I have a bit of a love/hate relationship, so I would imagine it will be back on top soon. But I took quite a tumble yesterday, and have the bruise on my shin to prove it. It's safe to say that me and snow are officially over till next winter.

I just really needed to get that out there :)

We have to stop meeting like this...don't get me wrong, I like updating random strangers, my mom and a few close friends (to my knowledge that about sums up all my readers) on my life, but I would just rather be in bed at 1:15 in the morning :)

I just spent the past 3 hours looking up meds and nursing diagnoses for a care plan that I am writing. The mentally ill population is becoming very dear to my heart. I can't really explain it, nor did I see myself enjoying this class so much. But I am...I mean I had a conversation last week with a guy who though he was Kid Rock.

Really? Kid Rock?....Thank You.

Today was a great day. I mean clinicals cancelled, sleep in till noon, meet new friends, spend time with the old ones kind of great day. I'm So thankful for the sleep, I really needed it. And I'm even more thankful to be making new friends, even friends within the nursing department! It's amazing how without even vocalizing my needs, Abba meets me right where I am.

So I haven't really had much of an appetite lately. I have been sick for a few days, and eating kinda loses its appeal when I can't taste anything. But I am happy to say that at around 11:30 tonight I could taste again! I ravaged our kitchen for something to satisfy my growing hunger, and it didn't take long to realize that my 100 calorie packs and string cheese weren't going to cut it. Thankfully Crystal came back from her meeting with pizza roles and chips and salsa...that girl is my angel :)

So I am trying to figure out a way to decide where to begin looking at what happens after graduation. My current plan of action....denial....seems to be making things worse. I think I am going to start posting possible areas/hospitals that interrest me. So when I finally do, feel free to take a look and tell me what you think. I think we will start that in my next entry...the dryer buzzer just um...buzzed?...so thats my cue to fold before my work uniform gets all wrinkled. Oh right..i forgot to tell you Im writting from my laundry room. Random.

I'll leave you with this; lyrics to a song that just popped up on pandora. Praying that you are refreshed by the Lord's grace today!

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of our God
I will rejoice, I will rejoice and be glad
There is a fountain full of grace and it flows from Emmanuel’s veins
It came and it healed me
It came and refreshed me
And it came and it washed my sins away

Goodnight :)

I should be asleeeeeep

So it's 2am. I can't sleep. But believe me, I have plenty of homework to keep me busy. I also have no intention of starting it now. Word twist has become a bit of an obsession as of late, but I have lost the past three games. So I'll find temporary distraction in updating you on my life. Where I've been, what I've seen, and how I'm using what I've been taught. I don't know what to write to make this blog eloquent and fascinating to my readers...whomever you are. It's just real, and tonight it comes from a broken place deep inside, because that seems to be where I am. 

I have, by far, the best friends in the world.  They love me enough to let me borrow their car while mine is broken, to let the popcorn stay in the microwave a little too long because I like burned kernels, to come into Bdubs and tip me wayyy too much, to bring me Starbucks just because. I can also tell you that I have the most amazing family in the world. There is absolutely nothing we haven't been through, and still come out stronger and better for it. I am surrounded by people who love me more than I deserve to be loved. 

But in spite of all that, I feel alone. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't seem logical to me until I really am able to be honest about why I feel so disconnected. The truth is, I miss my Father's love. I miss learning new things about His love every day. I don't know when going to class and work and clinicals faded my life into shades of grey, but somewhere along the line, I stopped discovering His love and who that makes me. It frightens me to think that I could take His love for granted, that I could even forget that it surrounds me all the time. If I really am lonely, then the only finger I have to point, seems to be pointing back at me. God continues to be a sweet mystery to me. His love will never be commonplace or dull, but I am seeking it out in fresh new ways. These things I know: He is here, loving consistently, with a depth I pray everyday to understand. He loves me. Unconditionally, for all of eternity. 

You dance over me, while I am unaware

You sing all around, but I never hear the sound 

Lord I'm amazed by you and how you love me!

Paul calls us to be rooted and established in Christ's love. Growing every day in that love is the only way to understand how Christ loves us without boundaries or conditions. 

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

In all I do?

"In all I do, I honor you."

I found myself struggling to sing the last part of one of my favorite worship songs at church this week. If I could change the words to make myself feel a little better about saying it, I think it would go something like this:

"In all I do, I will try to honor you...but I'm not promising anything"

doesn't quite have the same ring....

I was reading a small devotional last night...and everything that I have been wrestling with (fences, honoring God, purifying my heart/motives) came screaming back to me. C.D. Baker writes:

"Don't tell anyone, but I can't live the Christian life...I've tried and tried...but I can't. I haven't loved God with all my heart, soul and mind, and I certainly haven't loved my neighbor as myself. The Big Lie that has weighed so heavily on me is that I can make my Christina life "work". It's a lie that has stood in the way of true communion with God, from fully appreciating the beauty of creation around me and the community of others."

But praise be to God, who has freed me of trying! He has shown me that only Christ can live that life through me as I get that "trying-harder" Self out of His way. How's that for perspective?

So lets see....

*I am back at school...ONE more semester!
And to sum up what I have learned this week: You CANNOT date your patients- no matter how sincere their marriage proposals are. Also...the xerox was responsible for the fall of the Soviet Union. Should be an interesting semester!
*Mom, congratulations on having the coolest blog....i love the 365 thing!
*I am currently completley obsessed with Adele... amazing singer/songwriter from U.K...who is, coincidentally, NOTHING like Amy Whinehouse.
*Not that I am already wishing my semester away...but only 5 weeks till Spring Break!

cozy on the fence

I guess you could call indecisiveness one of my character flaws. Not that I enjoy having people make decisions for me, but I rarely come to any finite decsion without a lot of thought (meaningful or not) and wavering back and forth. My indecisivness spans from deciding where to go for Sunday lunch to figuring out where to send my resume and start a career after college. More importantly, it effects my actions and the way I portray myself as a woman of God. As you can imagine, this gets me into trouble every now and then.

I love my friends, because the aren't afraid to call me out on my character flaws. I was recently told by one of my best friends that I need to stop sitting on the fence. Confused by the expression, I asked what he meant. He, more or less, told me to pick a side and plant myself. Naturally I got all defensive but decided to just let it roll off my shoulders.

But that hasn't really been working out so well. I havn't really been able to get the image or phrase out of my head. I guess I have grown to like the fence. I suppose it's comfortable. I come and go as I please..use it as a barrier for protection when necessary...but keep it to where I can see across to the other side as well. And I spent all day trying to figure out why that image is so distorted, and where the truth is in this whole thing. Why is the fence there? Did I put it up, or did I let God build it for me? Would he want me perched here? Where can I find the strength to stand for what I believe...what DO I believe?And how long until there is no fence at all? Is that even a bad thing?

I don't have many answers yet...anti-climactic, I know. But I'm going to keep digging and searching. I don't want to have that much control in my life. Tis the season for resolutions and new outlooks on life :)

So I am learning to appreciate blogging....this is the place where I can just write. Write about whatever...and I am going to start by trying to put to "paper" what my time has been like in Puerto Rico. I hope you do read it, as it is a raw reflection of the things in my heart and in my mind. Although I will warn you; Today's entry is pretty lengthy :)

Now that my trip is coming to a close, my assignment "post-practicum" is to sum up the entire experience in a series of daily journals. Easier said than done. Sitting here thinking about everything that happened this week, I am continually reminded of one thing. 

I am not my own. 

I am honest enough to admit that I came here not knowing what to expect, and had not given much thought to what God had for me here. I didn't come thinking it would be a vacation, per say, but I never thought that this trip would force me to look so personally into my own heart, to face things I have buried for so long, I wasn't aware that they were holding me back. 

I am also honest enough to admit that nursing school has brought along wave after wave of self-doubt and confusion. More than once I have considered  giving nursing school the title of the "thorn in my flesh" but I think that may be a bit dramatic. I never anticipated struggling as much as I have in college (personally and professionally). But in a way, I love that I have fought so hard to be where I am right now. Oswald Chambers said that faith can only become a personal possession through trials and tests. It is in the fight where it becomes a value so treasured that you will begin to fight to keep it. And though it has taken me four years just to begin to understand, I have never been able to fully rely on myself through this journey. All that to say, I seem to have a basic pattern of need when it comes to nursing. I go through periods of overwhelming self doubt and frustration, surrender, and peace. Then God, in his perfect timing, sends reenforcement, poignant affirmation that I am His child, and He has a plan for my life. 

One of the most amazing experiences this week was an interaction I had with a Canadian family in the Neuro ICU. This couple was in Puerto Rico for their second honeymoon. During their stay, the husband started complaining of a severe headache, and while his wife went to get him pain reliever, he began vomiting and lost consciousness. He was rushed to the hospital here at the university and was admitted with a subdural hemorrhage (an arterial bleed in the brain). The nurses pointed the family out to me, because the family only spoke English, and no one had been able to really communicate with them, so I went into their room...more like a roped off corner of a wide open space filled with sick patients and families and wildly beeping machines. I walked over and met the man's daughter and son. Since the accident, his children had flown down to be with him and their mother. I talked with his son and daughter, who both looked to be in their early 30’s. As soon as I explained who I was and what my purpose at the hospital was, they opened up. It was like releasing a floodgate, a deluge of every kind of emotion came pouring out. They expressed how difficult it has been because they can’t speak any Spanish, and how it was difficult to entrust their father’s life to this foreign healthcare system.  When I asked them how it was going, they said they were thoroughly impressed with the care their father had received, but admitted they had their doubts and had to overcome a lot of fear and cultural barriers. The talked about environmental and cultural factors they had to deal with, which they had never given any thought to. Their main concern was driving in a foreign place, where there seem to be no traffic laws at all. The daughter said her main concern was reaching her father, but that driving in San Juan was a major obstacle they had to overcome. (This was something we were able to bond with...because i tend to close my eyes and pray whenever we are in a car here.) It was amazing to sit and be able to talk with this family, who had experienced culture shock, on top of a family tragedy. As therapeutic as it was for them, I benefitted from the time with this family as well. I simply could not imagine going through this experience alone in a different country. They were able to confide in me and vent in their own language to someone who understood them, and could provide support. I was so thankful for the opportunity for God to use me, though I walked into the situation rather blindly. I continue to be amazed at the works of our Father. Surely His hand has been on me this entire trip, and I am fulfilling His purpose for my life while I am here. 

I am not my own.

“As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.”- Ecclesiastes 11:5