Keeping Up Appearances

Lately i've been feeling a little worn down, the spirits have been somewhat depressed you could say. after going to confession at work the other week i've really been trying to not let the difficulty of the job affect the care i give. like fr, anthony told me, i'm bringing something special to these kids, something that not everyone else in the hospital brings them, i just need to keep reminding myself that, otherwise i end up coming home looking like this picture!

so life has been quite busy lately, i know i'm horrible at posting but i promise to try harder. there's a lot of things in my life i'm going to try harder at. one is that i have finally joined a gym.

HIGHLY overrated this being "in shape" what is that any way? when the trainer at the gym asked me what my goals were i told him that it was to have the strength and endurance to hike through the jungles of third world countries. that seemed like an acceptable goal but it seems that Bally's Total Fitness does not have a specific exercise plan for training future missionaries. odd.

i have had a lot of visitors as well in the last month or so, first a good friend from college, then erin and lucia (which was so much fun guys!) and then just this past week my friend who had lived with me down in Ecuador. i love mary dearly but we always have the worst luck when we're together. i swear, if only MTV made a reality show about us...let's just say Real World's got nothing on us! and this past week was no exception. my car got towed! we were leaving the museum of natural history to go back to my car when i noticed oh so many cars along constitution ave. being towed, i started to become a little nervous and so, started walking a little faster. we were finally within eyesight of my car... and the tow truck in front of it, and i started running screaming "that's my car! where are you going?!!" the truck driver was good enough to stop and give me the address of the place it was being towed to. i asked him "what am i supposed to do? i'm not even from here?" and he told me "catch a cab, they all know where we are located" evil bastard. reason number 5,679 to hate DC. and so it was that as i watched my beloved daewoo being dragged through the streets mary and i hailed a cab driven be the nicest jamaican cabbie ever. when we got to the place he insisted on giving us directions back to constitution and then waited at the side of the road until i had my car back. he even was going to wave half of the cab fee when an oversight led us to hand him a $5 instead of a $10. the first truly nice person i've met since i moved here. he said it was because he's really from jamaica and not DC. and so, a $100 ticket later and a trip to the SE portion of DC later, the daewoo and i were reunited hardly the worse for ware. and mom, dad, if there is an inexplicable bill for towing sent to the house please direct it back here and i'm sorry for the inconvenience

also i have noticed that there are far to many smells in my life, i go to the hospital and am exposed to all kinds of foul repulsive smells, then i come home and it seems like i have a different cleaner for every different object in my apartment, and lotions and perfumes and laundry detergent etc. why? there is no need for so many different smells in one life and so it is that i have decided to simplify. i've just become so overwhelmingly nauseated by smells that this has become an necessity rather than a choice. so there it is, i have developed an allergy to smells.

in the work aspect of life i am still very much as i was. over worked and under paid. just kidding, to an extent. i do love my job but it can be very trying at times. i have heard from the PICU here and they have told me that i would be able to make the move in febuary. this is exciting but very intimidating. can i really be a PICU nurse? this means a lot more than i currently deal with. this means life and death and vents and ECMO and serious ethical questions. the question that most frequently comes to mind though, is am i smart enough? but i know that this is a ridiculous doubt, a fear of the unknown more than anything else.

tomorrow is anther day and i have to go to work again. i had off today which was wonderful, highly unusual but a welcome change of pace when i usually have to work every other weekend and this time around i only have to work this sunday.