IHOP Girl: Back for More

Friday, February 03, 2006

Back for More

Thank you my dear commenters for remembering your place on this blog. Hehe, no I love watching your conversations, and I love you all. It seems as if time is flying by, and I guess that is a good thing as it will bring me closer to seeing you all again. School is insane as always, but I love our Med-Surg class because our instructor is hilarious! In clinical yesterday she was telling us stories of her self administered rectal tubes (if you don't know what that is look it up), and by the end tears were running down my face I was laughing so hard - not to mention the fact that I will never look at a straw the same way again... Perhaps her creativity and funny stories comes from the fact that she was a nurse in Vietnam and has been teaching for years. Whatever makes her entertaining, I don't care all I know is that she makes class fun.

As for the rest of my life apart from school...Wait! I don't have a life apart from school, who am I kidding! Lol, ok maybe I have a small life one that consists of playing computer games, cleaning, and sleeping as a method to prevent total mental burnout. Actually this semester has such a different feel to it than the Fall term, and so I am still trying to adjust.

Alright, I'm off to class for our very first test of the semester, whoho! :-) More later...

3 comments:

ViNeYaRD WoRSHiP said...: Straws, my dear, were not meant for analogies (nor for vintages) - but that is clearly an aside. I hope your test was not too tricky...

Funny teachers can make funny tests, you know. After all, they know how to get their own laughs. Though I suppose you didn't say that this particular test was from the Lustige Professorin.

Again, I hope all has gone well, and your brain has not suffered greatly from inappropriately envisioning straws... At least not to the point where your testing ability was hampered (streaming tears notwithstanding).

VW; 10:00 PM
Jess said...: Clair darling, how did your test go? I'm so glad you have a fun instructor for your Med-Surg class, though I must confess I probably wouldn't have found some of her stories as hilarious as your class did...as sfl said, yikes! Anyway, just checking in to see how you are doing, my dear. Much love! :); 2:49 PM
brideofheaven said...: Hey Beautiful!

I got to your page! Yea! I am so glad that you are doing good and now I have a way to keep up on what is going on in your life.

I miss you like crazy and can't wait to see you when you get out here.

By the way, Alison and I decided to fly into Denver and then drive to Kansas City, so you won't have to pick us up. Thank you so much for offering though!

Luv ya girl!; 7:01 PM

Movie Night In...I love a good movie!

Mega Mind
Taking Chance (Will make you cry like a baby)
Charlotte Grey (A bit of a different take on Nazi Germany)
Series - Merlin (I LOVE BBC)
Robin Hood (Okay, a love Russell Crowe, you'll have to understand that about me...)
Kingdom of Heaven (Chuck full of acting power with an epic tale)
Miss Potter (Such a great film! Story of the creator of Peter Rabbit)
How to Train your Dragon (Possibly my favorite animated movie ever...I'm like a little kid, I watch it over and over)
Buck (Sundance winner, Biography of Horse Trainer, heart touching)
Lost in Austin (Modern day spin on Pride and Prej.)

Life as a nurse...

Great words by Reb Jeff: Vayishlach: Facing Death

"Rachel died. She was buried on the road to Ephrat — now called Bethlehem. Jacob set up a pillar above her grave. It is the pillar at Rachel’s grave to this day."–Genesis 35:19-20

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidui http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva_(Judaism), and preparing the notifications to the community, feel like little fragments of the sacred. I have been entrusted with the care and tending of the most powerful, complex and difficult emotions that a person can experience in life. I have been made, in some small part, a guardian of the memory of a departed soul — a life that touches upon many other lives.After dropping off my older daughter at her high school this morning, I made a stop at Treasure Coast Hospice http://www.tchospice.org/, a remarkable organization that sets a very high standard for the loving and respectful care of the dying. There, I visited a lovely man whom I have seen a few times in his hospice room. I sat by his bedside and listened to him (in full possession of his faculties) as he told me about his worries about his family, the support of his wife after he is gone, and the future of his children and grandchildren. I was deeply moved by the way he put any concern for himself — even while facing death — in a distant backseat to his concerns for his family. When my own time comes, I can only hope to have his awareness of the way that one life can touch so many others.Also at hospice, I visited a woman I have known for the past two years — a dear soul who is a former Jewish religious school director. I sat with her, too, singing psalms to her as I listened to her heavy and labored breathing. I have no medical training, but I have come to know the sound of a person who is close to death. The body begins to fight for each breath as it slowly looses it grasp on life. As I held her hand and sang, I realized that being a rabbi is no protection against becoming one of the people caught in the web of connection. I, too, am changed by the loss of a life that has touched mine.Later in the day, I met with a couple from our congregation. She had just learned that her brother died yesterday in a car crash. Coming to terms with the loss is made more difficult for her by the fact that she and her brother had not seen each other or spoken in five years. Sometimes, people think it is easier to mourn the death of someone who has moved out of your life. In my experience, though, it's harder. Grief is magnified by wounded love and regret. I have no magic words to say to ease the pain of mourning. All I can do is listen, become a vessel in which people place their stories, and offer compassion.Actually, there is one more thing I can do. I can have faith that "all I can do" is all that I need to do. It is enough.In this week's Torah portion (Vayishlach) Jacob watched Rachel, the love of his life, die in childbirth. He was overcome by grief. Jacob had worked for his cruel uncle Laban for fourteen years to earn the right to marry Rachel. Now she was gone. Because she died while they were traveling, Jacob had to bury her by the side of the road. He built a pillar of stones on the spot to mark the place as sacred.This is what we all do, in one way or another, when death enters our lives. We grieve and our hearts break. We wish that we could continue to walk along the path of life with our loved ones forever, but the dead cannot fully join us. We have to leave something behind in order to resume our own journey. So, what do we do? We mark the moment as sacred. We erect monuments — both in cemeteries and in our hearts. The stones we place on top of stones remind us that a life may end, but its sanctity is forever.The Torah says that the monument Jacob built for his beloved continues to stand until this day. A life that touches the lives of others never ceases to send living reverberations throughout the web that binds us all.