The Elderly are Wonderful People

The elderly are wonderful people.

They have all the stories in the world to share if you take the time to listen.  Having been placed in a long term care facility this semester, I now know more than I thought I did.  I was never a person to look down on the elderly or disrespect them.  I just think that I see them more now.  They are there waiting to be heard, to talk, to laugh...it's amazing to me that many people don't understand that.  There was a great quote from one of my textbooks about the elderly.  It talked about a grandmother of three and she said "I'm not old, I'm the same me I've always been!".  That quote really hit home to me.  Of course they're the same person!  They don't lose their personality or their values and beliefs as they age.  Sure, some may decline cognitively or physically, but they are still the same person.  Working with the elderly is both a challenge and a blessing.  I admit, when you are working to clean someone who cannot communicate with you, it is easy to take them for granted.  You just scrub away and try to get the job done quickly and smoothly.  You do not ask questions because you know they cannot answer you.  That is not how it should be done.  It should be done with dignity and respect and always taking a minute to think about how you would feel if you were in their shoes.  You need to look at the person.  You need to SEE them.  When you do see them, you begin to understand what they're going through...dealing with a body that doesn't do what it's supposed to do or dealing with a mind that doesn't stay on track.  When you start to understand them, you ask questions.  The question could be as simple as "How's your family doing?".    When I ask this, I often see their faces brighten and a small smile will appear.  They'll then go on to talk about all sorts of things like what they used to do as a child or how their parents raised them.  I believe that the act of simply talking to the elderly is one of the best things you can do for them.  It allows them to reflect on their lives and talk about the joys and triumphs they were a part of.  When someone shares their memories with me, I treat them like a treasure.  It is not only a memory of one specific person...it is a story passed down through generations...it is a life lesson...it is a part of someone's being.  

And that's why, without a doubt, the elderly are wonderful people.

Second Year Thoughts

So it seems I like to blog the most during Christmas break or at the times when I'm not busy...which in my mind, is totally understandable because of the mass amounts of papers I have written this semester.  With all of that writing going on, there was no desire to write for another reason.  I missed it though.  Writing is one of my most treasured hobbies that I have.
My first semester of actual nursing classes was really great.  We learned so much.  Nursing in the community setting is so much more than I had first thought.  Public health is really starting to interest me, but it's too soon to know exactly what area I'm going to go into.  I have had minimal exposure to nursing life yet so yes, much, much too soon to know.  My second year (so far) is much easier to handle than my first year of nursing.  I'm still busy, but it's a different kind of busy.  It's not the 'studying every hour of every day' kind - it's the 'group projects and group work and those people every day' kind of busy.  I like it way more now.  My clinical group and I have also gotten really close over the semester so that was just an added bonus.
Here's to hoping next semester is just as great!

My Face Grew 3 Sizes that Day...

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to get all 4 of my wisdom teeth removed.  -.-
Needless to say, it was not a very fun experience.  I was awake for the procedure (a decision I regretted immediately after sitting down in the dentist's chair).  I have had oral surgery before, but I think this time around was worse.  This time involved a drill.  Drills have no place being inside a mouth, let alone mine!  One of the dental assistants offered her hand to me during the surgery (her mistake!) and I'm pretty sure I squeezed the life out of it.  Afterwards, when all the awfulness was over, the dentist told me that he hadn't anticipated my bottom two wisdom teeth being so big and that he had had to break them into pieces to remove them!  Well, that explained all the horrendous noises...
I had taken a drug before the surgery that was supposed to make me feel all chill and relaxed, but it didn't really do anything for me.  I think it was meant for people with super high anxiety.  I mean, I was nervous but I wasn't freaking out or anything.  The only thing it did was make me really, really sleepy after the surgery.  It felt like I could've slept for days!
And today?  Well, my cheeks have become larger than my forehead and my whole face has taken on the look of a chipmunk.  The process of eating is so incredibly slow.  I want to eat and I'm hungry, but the amount of food I can take in at a time is smaller than a spoonful and the consistency has to be somewhere between soft and mushy.
Here's to hoping this chipmunk curse doesn't last very long!

Winery? More like WINery.

I love my job at the winery!  I'm kept pretty busy all the time and I'm not always doing the same things over and over.  I like some variety!  Whether it's making cheese platters, weeding the grapevines or talking to customers using my newly discovered knowledge of wine, I'm loving every bit of it.  It also hasn't gotten super busy yet so that may change...
Honestly though, working at the winery is such a great summer job.  I don't have to spend all day stuck indoors when the sun is shining.  I also work with some really great people.  I swear, everyone is funny there.  It's like if you don't have a good sense of humour, you won't be hired.  I'm pretty sure it's a secret job requirement.
Also, I've found that driving 40 minutes to work each day isn't too big of a deal (especially when I can use my Dad's gas tank on the farm to fill up) because it really gives me the opportunity to work on my future singing career.  HA.

A Sign of a Good Book

Have you ever read a book that you get so emotionally attached to, that you feel that you are personally invested in the outcome?  That you feel all the emotions the characters feel and get upset when they make an obviously wrong choice?  A book that haunts you with thoughts of it during your everyday life?  Or a book that you feel like you need a time to 'heal' after reading it before you read another one?
I just read a book like that.  It was Allegiant - the last book in the Divergent series.  Only a few books have done this for me such as the Chronicles of Narnia, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, the Twilight series (yes, yes I know), this one really obscure series I read when I was in Grade 7, etc.
I didn't even see this one coming with Allegiant because as I read the book, I wasn't feeling too emotionally attached to it.  It wasn't like it wasn't good, I just didn't get connected with it.  It wasn't until halfway through Allegiant that I really got into it.  It just struck me and made my heart hurt and made me feel everything that was going on.
Thought I'd share this since I'm currently in the 'healing period' after reading that book and I needed something to distract me from my emotionally distraught state.

A Fancy Evening

Last night my friend, Arielle, and I wanted to go out for supper somewhere good, somewhere different and somewhere slightly nicer than Boston Pizza.  By the time we realized we wanted to go out somewhere for supper, it was around 6:00pm.  So we set a reservation for 7:45 and set about getting ourselves ready since we looked a lot like street rats.  We put on dresses for the event even though it was a tad chilly in the city that we went to...

Once we got to the city, we found a parking spot in a parking lot near the restaurant.  I mean, it was pretty close to the restaurant, if you count 4 city blocks as close.

The restaurant that we had chosen to eat at was in a hotel.  When we got into the hotel, we were speechless.  It was SO fancy.  I'm almost positive that there was gold on the walls or something.  The restaurant was just as nice.  We sat down and were afraid to touch anything for fear of doing something wrong.  Arielle was super impressed with the menu since she lives a tragic life from having pretty severe allergies to gluten and dairy.  She ordered the mustard and pistachio crusted lamb and I just ordered a steak.  They were both so good!  It was the kind of steak that just melted in your mouth. 

Our first course (if you could call it a course) was a taste of the sea.  Literally, a taste.  I got a spoon with a minuscule amount of smoked salmon on it and Arielle got a mini shrimp cocktail thing.  Arielle doesn't like shrimp so she gave me the shrimp and I gave her the smoked salmon.  She attempted to separate the salmon from the creamy sauce that she was most likely allergic to.  She somewhat succeeded and the little spoon was a big mess when she was finished with it. 

When we first went in the restaurant, Arielle swore she recognized a man sitting at a table with a large group of people.  She thought he was from some Christmas Hallmark movie that she had seen and that he had played 'a bad guy in a coat that was trying to ruin Christmas'.  I thought she was crazy because I didn't recognize the guy at all.  Arielle was so positive and couldn't get it off her mind.  Halfway through our meal, we heard that table talking about Hallmark.  Arielle looked at me and whisper-shouted "HA!".  From then on, she was set on figuring out the name of the movie she saw him in.  A little while later, a man from another table went up to the Hallmark man and asked for a picture with him and commented on how he loved his acting in Hercules!  At this point, Arielle and I were freaking out because our experience with famous people was limited to the occasional country band that we saw at our local community hall.  Arielle figured out who the man was when our meal was almost done - it was Kevin Sorbo!  I then recognized him from playing the dad in the movie, Soul Surfer.  We didn't want to go over to him and ask for a picture because someone already had and we didn't want it to look like we were just recognizing him just because someone else had recognized him.  We didn't want to look like 'those people' who were just jumping on the bandwagon.  Feeling like failures, we ate the rest of our food and curbed our curiosity about Kevin by talking with the waitress. ;)

Eventually, our meal ended and our really expensive bill was delivered to us.  We left the hotel feeling a little more poor and slightly more cultured.  The 'cultured' feeling didn't last long because when we arrived back at my car, I had gotten a parking ticket for not paying the fee of the parking lot.  Oh well, the whole experience was an adventure like it always is when I'm with Arielle :)

DONE

The face of an extremely happy person ^^

I am officially done my first year of nursing and it feels great!  I've finished all the exams, taken a few courses I need for next year and have moved back home.  It is so nice to be able to do absolutely nothing and not feel guilty about it...at least until Monday when I start work at the winery. 

But of course, being me, I'm never really doing nothing.  I'm going on a road trip this weekend to see one of my best friends and her quaint new house.  A couple of days ago she asked me if I was busy this weekend and I wasn't.  I mean, I could be doing lots of other things but I liked this option better :)

This past Wednesday, I went Old Time Dancing with Teagan.  It was so fun.  I went into it knowing absolutely nothing about 'actual' dancing and came out knowing a whole ton of new dances.  Teagan had been there once before so he taught me a few of them.  I'd have to say my favourite was the Jersey.  In that dance, you take 2 steps forward, 2 steps back and then 4 steps forward.  With our long gangly limbs, Teagan and I could easily get straight across the dance floor in those 4 steps!  This led to quite a few almost-collisions.  Another favourite dance of mine was the Butterfly.  That one is just the old fashioned swing dance.  It was pretty fun just getting swung around all over the place! 

So, anywhos, I'm off to go see my pal and will have a wonderful time driving by myself and singing super loud to my music.