IHOP Girl: Extra Activities...

Monday, March 09, 2009

Extra Activities...

As you all know by now, I am trying to spice up life some, which when the weather is gorgeous like it has been the past several days is not so hard. The Human Society finally posted the new orientation days, and I am all set to get started with that next Sunday. I think it might be a nice change in pace will be fun. I'm so excited, after working the worst schedule the last two weeks I am finally going to have about a week off, and I'm THRILLED! I plan to see the neuromuscular clinic, go to the writers group, get through my SPCA orientation, and hopefully enjoy some weather. Alas, those wonderful goals are glimmers of hope at the end of the tunnel since I still have two more days to work before that stretch off.

I know that working three days a week doesn't seem like a lot, but believe me it isn't always a simple three days. For example my schedule has looked like this:

Work: Thurs, Fri,Sat; Off Sunday; Work: Mon, Tue; Off Wednesday; Work Thursday; Off Friday; Work Sat, Sun, Mon; Off Tuesday; Work Wednesday.

Now, another insight - one day off in between shifts is basically like having an extra twelve hours to sleep. On my first day off I'm beat dog tired, and really by the time I get up at 4:30 pm, most of the day is gone, and so are my plans for anything productive. Usually when I get home from work my feel ache, my neck is killing me, the dog wants attention, I haven't eaten or peed in 6 hours, and I'm not thinking straight. I usually refuse to take a shower when I get home (unless really dirty) because I can hear monitor alarms dinging in my ears in the shower (/e shudders at the thought). Some days, er nights are worse then others of course, but all consist of hours on your feet, cleaning up after someone constantly, answering lights, trying to keep your kid from dying on you, and dealing with parents who generally act like 5 year-olds. I'm telling you - I love what I do, but sheeeesh that first day off I don't do much...and so when I have a schedule like above with only one day gaps between them...you can see why you don't hear from me for long stretches!

Haha, thanks for listening to me ramble - I really should do a day in the life of me at work...it would be entertaining.

3 comments:

shrunken_frontal_lobe said...: Hmmm....

I see another poor animal becoming a companion for you Clair. Not a good idea. You must resist the urge to save every animal.

And about your job. You should get one like mine. Where every day is a vacation. I can't seem to tell the work days from the idle days. I have so much fun, I'm completely enraptured and consumed by visions of interstitial atoms diffusing through crystal lattice defects. The dissolution and coarsening of small powder particles surrounded by liquid metal causes me to swoon. Modeling the infiltration of porous powder beds with liquids is almost too much to take. I have to go home just to calm down each night.

You should have taken up engineering and science it's much more exciting than keeping people alive!

Hew!; 7:55 AM
Clair Bannerman (alias) said...: Hmmm as much as I adore atoms and the like I really don't think I could stand the molding part...If I change my mind I think I'll become an art teacher!; 11:20 PM
Lauralou said...: He likes it so much, he could sleep there!; 7:06 AM

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.