Sunday, March 16, 2014
Spotlight Sunday- Kenneth Shin
Today for my Spotlight Sunday, I'd like to but Mr. Kenneth Shin in the spotlight!! Kenneth and I met in college through one of the church groups I attended. I am so honored to know him. He is someone that really tries to make everyone feel extremely welcome and included. He probably knows more people on the UCSB campus alone than most people know from all the areas of their life combined! He really invests in his friends and makes sure to be at any event that is important to people. He gives his time away selflessly and is such an encouragement to all that know him! I have never heard a bad thing being said about Kenneth because he is really just such a genuine person and a lovely friend. A perfect example of Kenneth's friendship is that he reads this blog! As soon as I started writing it, he starting reading all the entries and continues to do so because he knows that this blog is so important to me! I never even had to ask for him to read it, that was just in his nature to do so. He makes me, and everyone else who knows him, feel valued and loved. For that reason-- I choose to spotlight you Kenneth! Thank you for being an incredible friend and someone that tries his best to connect to everyone you meet. Your love for others is incredible and inspiring!!!
Keeping to My Word
It's 2:43 but I promised myself I would update this thing daily and try my best not to let circumstances delay me! So here I am!! I just came back from an AMAZING night of line/swing dancing with some very dear friends of mine. It was so much fun! It pretty much always is... but still! It was such a blessing to see them all. I am continually reminded how absolutely blessed I am in friendships. Thank you so much God!!!
Because I can't really talk about my main good deed for the say because it would violate HIPPA (the confidentially agreement in medicine)... I have to just talk about a smaller good deed instead! Today I was able to choose love by dancing with someone that I didn't particularly want to dance with. I am all game for dancing with absolutely anyone to two-step or swing... however the DJ played a song that was meant to be kind of a club-style dance. Clubs style dancing makes me SO uncomfortable!!!! But some older gentleman asked me to dance-- so I accepted! Now before it sounds like I was iffy on my morals to please someone else... that wasn't the case. He was a really nice older man and we just step touched to the music in our own ways with a healthy amount of distance between each other. However, I really feel like it was important to him that I said yes. He was so respectful! I danced with him later to a two-step and we were talking and he mentioned that he just moved to the area and it was only the second time being there. He said that moved into the area after his wife passed away. He said that this has been one of the best nights he has had since her passing almost a year ago. I was so honored that he chose to share that information with me. He was such a lovely person. I am so glad that although I was not super comfortable with dancing to the first song, I listened to what my heart was telling me to do and said yes. I think it made both of our nights in the end.
Because I can't really talk about my main good deed for the say because it would violate HIPPA (the confidentially agreement in medicine)... I have to just talk about a smaller good deed instead! Today I was able to choose love by dancing with someone that I didn't particularly want to dance with. I am all game for dancing with absolutely anyone to two-step or swing... however the DJ played a song that was meant to be kind of a club-style dance. Clubs style dancing makes me SO uncomfortable!!!! But some older gentleman asked me to dance-- so I accepted! Now before it sounds like I was iffy on my morals to please someone else... that wasn't the case. He was a really nice older man and we just step touched to the music in our own ways with a healthy amount of distance between each other. However, I really feel like it was important to him that I said yes. He was so respectful! I danced with him later to a two-step and we were talking and he mentioned that he just moved to the area and it was only the second time being there. He said that moved into the area after his wife passed away. He said that this has been one of the best nights he has had since her passing almost a year ago. I was so honored that he chose to share that information with me. He was such a lovely person. I am so glad that although I was not super comfortable with dancing to the first song, I listened to what my heart was telling me to do and said yes. I think it made both of our nights in the end.
Friday, March 14, 2014
The Shortest and Sweetest of Them All
I am challenging myself to make this post only a paragraph. Strange (and oddly hard to do) for me since I love to just type all of my thoughts out like as they come out of my brain. However-- I am choosing to love myself today! I have had about 8 hours cumulative of sleep because of my insane week-- and since I have to be up at 0500 tomorrow... I am going to let myself get some much needed rest now that my midterms are all complete and everything else I needed to do is finished! My major opportunity to choose love today was that I went to the grocery store on my way home because it has a Wells Fargos inside of it. I saw a homeless person outside of it asking for spare change--not an uncommon occurrence over here. I went in an bought a bunch of fresh fruits and a couple other snacks and walked out and gave them to him. I then talked to him for about 15 minutes and prayed with him (upon his request) before I left. I totally forgot to deposit my checks at the ATM... but hey--what canya do?! It was blessing to meet that man. He had a truly remarkable story and completely blessed me! I could say so much more-- but I promised to love myself today too! So goodnight!
edit: My Oh My! In the hustle and bustle of doing all of my midterms and clinicals assignments before midnight... I totally forgot to do my Faithful Friday! So I am back here adding to Friday's blog because it is so important for me to do!!
Faithful Friday:
I would absolutely love to thank God for his faithfulness in these following areas this week:
- Friendship: I was so absolutely blessed to be able to spend time in Santa Barbara this past week and really be able to spend some time with some of my absolute best friends. They always bring such a revitalizing energy to my soul. I love them and an blessed by the truth, faithfulness, and prayer they speak into my life.
- School: I really love one of my new teachers. She is my teacher for a class and a teacher for one of my clinicals... so I get a double dosing. She really is so wonderful. She is easy to talk to, a lovely nurse, and really seems to care about her students. This was such a pleasant surprise and I am so grateful!!
- Family: It was my brother's birthday this week! I am so happy that I was able to spend time with him!!! I haven't really been able to see very much of him since he left for college 6 years ago... so it has been so incredible to really spend a lot more time with him. I feel like I found the missing puzzle piece I have been looking for for the past 6 years!
-Miscellaneous: I have been praying for a lot of different people this past week. Some of my prayers have been answered!! They were meant to be confidential, so I will not share them, but I am overjoyed in how the Lord is responding to our prayer!
edit: My Oh My! In the hustle and bustle of doing all of my midterms and clinicals assignments before midnight... I totally forgot to do my Faithful Friday! So I am back here adding to Friday's blog because it is so important for me to do!!
Faithful Friday:
I would absolutely love to thank God for his faithfulness in these following areas this week:
- Friendship: I was so absolutely blessed to be able to spend time in Santa Barbara this past week and really be able to spend some time with some of my absolute best friends. They always bring such a revitalizing energy to my soul. I love them and an blessed by the truth, faithfulness, and prayer they speak into my life.
- School: I really love one of my new teachers. She is my teacher for a class and a teacher for one of my clinicals... so I get a double dosing. She really is so wonderful. She is easy to talk to, a lovely nurse, and really seems to care about her students. This was such a pleasant surprise and I am so grateful!!
- Family: It was my brother's birthday this week! I am so happy that I was able to spend time with him!!! I haven't really been able to see very much of him since he left for college 6 years ago... so it has been so incredible to really spend a lot more time with him. I feel like I found the missing puzzle piece I have been looking for for the past 6 years!
-Miscellaneous: I have been praying for a lot of different people this past week. Some of my prayers have been answered!! They were meant to be confidential, so I will not share them, but I am overjoyed in how the Lord is responding to our prayer!
Thursday, March 13, 2014
All Caught Up
It's finally here! The moment where my days are back on track! Hallelujah! I never thought I would get here! Sure I am putting off writing a midterm, preparing an assignment for clinicals tomorrow, and preparing my presentation for tomorrow... just so I can be caught back up.... but hey! it's worth it to me to not have it looming over my head. I'm all caught up and boy does it feel good!
Today--oi vey! I had that test I wrote about in my last post.... oof. I had two other classes. And you can see the list of things I have yet to do is staggering high... but overall, today was alright! I am just about ready to crash on my pillow though so my typing fingers better get moving or else I will never get finished with all the rest of my assignments before my 2 hour "night's sleep" before rushing of to work in the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) at UCLA tomorrow! Phew! Type away little fingers!
Today I was just blessed by one of my dearest friends- Elizabeth. It just goes to show how sometimes the smallest things can make all the difference in the world to people--- something that encourages me as I continue to think of things I can do to show my love for others. Miss Elizabeth changed her profile picture to a picture of us both-- wooh. Big whoop! So extremeeeeee--- but really thought. It meant so much to me! I was going through a little internal turmoil struggle with someone else I am close to--- basically I feel like I give 200% in the relationship and feel like I get about 10% back. (We all have people like that--don't we!?) The person means a lot to me so finding the patience and choosing to love them despite their current absentmindedness and shortcomings has been both challenging and very important for me. So in the middle of this inner dialog that was ruminating in my head seeing that another one of my lovely friends changed her picture to one of the both of us was just so uplifting. It helped pull me out of my crazy babblings and out of focusing on everything that was not working out and let me remember that there are people in my life that absolutely give me all they can in our relationships. And this girl-- man she's a fantastic blessing! I was able to see her this past weekend and spend the night at her house. Through our conversations she told me about all the specific things she has been praying over me and over my life. Man how can that not lift you up!? All those times where I might have felt alone or unwanted, I had a friend that was thinking of me and talking to the Lord on my behalf. Shoot. If that isn't humbling, I don't know what it. I love this girl so much. She is an amazing sister and a beautiful person. So for my intentional act of loving-- I sent her a little something in the mail. I had already bought her the item a couple days ago, but hadn't sent it yet. I was waiting for a time when I could make it to the post-office. But let's face it-- in nursing school timing that might have been like 2 weeks from now. Instead, I asked the girl in the library next to me if she would please watch over my things (which she did! Thank you!). I sped walked across campus and to my car... pulled out the little gift and sped walked-it over to the on-campus Post Office that I forgot we even had. Then I sent that sucker on off for my beautiful friend to receive sometime soon. Thank you for all that you do-- loud and small-- Miss Elizabeth!
Today--oi vey! I had that test I wrote about in my last post.... oof. I had two other classes. And you can see the list of things I have yet to do is staggering high... but overall, today was alright! I am just about ready to crash on my pillow though so my typing fingers better get moving or else I will never get finished with all the rest of my assignments before my 2 hour "night's sleep" before rushing of to work in the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) at UCLA tomorrow! Phew! Type away little fingers!
Today I was just blessed by one of my dearest friends- Elizabeth. It just goes to show how sometimes the smallest things can make all the difference in the world to people--- something that encourages me as I continue to think of things I can do to show my love for others. Miss Elizabeth changed her profile picture to a picture of us both-- wooh. Big whoop! So extremeeeeee--- but really thought. It meant so much to me! I was going through a little internal turmoil struggle with someone else I am close to--- basically I feel like I give 200% in the relationship and feel like I get about 10% back. (We all have people like that--don't we!?) The person means a lot to me so finding the patience and choosing to love them despite their current absentmindedness and shortcomings has been both challenging and very important for me. So in the middle of this inner dialog that was ruminating in my head seeing that another one of my lovely friends changed her picture to one of the both of us was just so uplifting. It helped pull me out of my crazy babblings and out of focusing on everything that was not working out and let me remember that there are people in my life that absolutely give me all they can in our relationships. And this girl-- man she's a fantastic blessing! I was able to see her this past weekend and spend the night at her house. Through our conversations she told me about all the specific things she has been praying over me and over my life. Man how can that not lift you up!? All those times where I might have felt alone or unwanted, I had a friend that was thinking of me and talking to the Lord on my behalf. Shoot. If that isn't humbling, I don't know what it. I love this girl so much. She is an amazing sister and a beautiful person. So for my intentional act of loving-- I sent her a little something in the mail. I had already bought her the item a couple days ago, but hadn't sent it yet. I was waiting for a time when I could make it to the post-office. But let's face it-- in nursing school timing that might have been like 2 weeks from now. Instead, I asked the girl in the library next to me if she would please watch over my things (which she did! Thank you!). I sped walked across campus and to my car... pulled out the little gift and sped walked-it over to the on-campus Post Office that I forgot we even had. Then I sent that sucker on off for my beautiful friend to receive sometime soon. Thank you for all that you do-- loud and small-- Miss Elizabeth!
A Game of Cat and Mouse
I feel like I am always trying to catch up to this thing! Man oh man! I am going to finally finish catching up tonight-- note to self: don't expect to be able to go a whole weekend without internet and then catch up with your blog while in nursing school! Geesh! Homestretch though :) Thank you for being patient with me as I start to get back on track!
This post is for yesterday (Wednesday) :) Almost there! I have found that it hard to sometimes talk about how I have chosen love during the day because I want to keep some people's confidences and other times I have chosen to be extremely patient with someone that I am close to and wouldn't want to hurt them by divulging enough details about it. So keep in mind that while I may focus on one thing, sometimes many other things have happened during that day that I have actively decided to choose love for. Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and definitely Wednesday I can think of quite a few examples that would qualify for this! So rest assured-- I am not a one-hit wonder. I don't go around every day trying to do one good thing so I can check it off my list-- I am actually trying to choose love ALL day and writing about a few of those choices.
Wednesday I chose love by sacrificing my time for my friend. A lovely friend of mine needed some help in shopping for something pretty darn important. I needed to spent the day studying for the test I had today (Thursday, which I already know I bombed!)... but I decided to go and help my friend anyways. This was pretty tough for me because I'm that overachieving, not happy with anything less than an A, kinda person. This program really makes it tough for people like me! My average amount of sleep per night dwindled down from a staggering 4-5 hours in college to a measly 2-3 hours... with WAY more all nighters. So for me to say "I'll totally take the hit in the gradebook to go with you" was a really big deal. But it was important. Although it causes my brain and heart a little bit of inner turmoil to not be Miss Perfection-- well more importantly/precisely Miss Always Gives 110%-- in school, it was much more important in the grand scheme of things for me to go with my friend. Life is made up of moments. You either choose to be a part of them, or watch them pass you by. When I look back on my life I don't want to think-- I could have been there on the day that X bought that thing but instead I got an A on my test... In the large scale of things, tests don't matter. People matter. All the A's in the world won't be there to comfort me when I am going through hardship or laugh with me when things are going jolly. They won't be there when I need someone to cry my tears and they certainly won't be there when I reflect on who I was able to help. Life isn't about perfection on some test, it's about being present in the moments while they are in front of you. Tomorrow is never guaranteed. If I died tomorrow, what would all those A's have gotten me? How many moments of importance would I have missed to get something that meant absolutely nothing in the end? Well I am not saying that studying is not important, or that I will choose not to do it when something else comes along... but what I am saying is that there are moments in life that are worth getting a C over. And if choosing the C means that you can show your friend that they are really important in your life... then it's super worth it.
This post is for yesterday (Wednesday) :) Almost there! I have found that it hard to sometimes talk about how I have chosen love during the day because I want to keep some people's confidences and other times I have chosen to be extremely patient with someone that I am close to and wouldn't want to hurt them by divulging enough details about it. So keep in mind that while I may focus on one thing, sometimes many other things have happened during that day that I have actively decided to choose love for. Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and definitely Wednesday I can think of quite a few examples that would qualify for this! So rest assured-- I am not a one-hit wonder. I don't go around every day trying to do one good thing so I can check it off my list-- I am actually trying to choose love ALL day and writing about a few of those choices.
Wednesday I chose love by sacrificing my time for my friend. A lovely friend of mine needed some help in shopping for something pretty darn important. I needed to spent the day studying for the test I had today (Thursday, which I already know I bombed!)... but I decided to go and help my friend anyways. This was pretty tough for me because I'm that overachieving, not happy with anything less than an A, kinda person. This program really makes it tough for people like me! My average amount of sleep per night dwindled down from a staggering 4-5 hours in college to a measly 2-3 hours... with WAY more all nighters. So for me to say "I'll totally take the hit in the gradebook to go with you" was a really big deal. But it was important. Although it causes my brain and heart a little bit of inner turmoil to not be Miss Perfection-- well more importantly/precisely Miss Always Gives 110%-- in school, it was much more important in the grand scheme of things for me to go with my friend. Life is made up of moments. You either choose to be a part of them, or watch them pass you by. When I look back on my life I don't want to think-- I could have been there on the day that X bought that thing but instead I got an A on my test... In the large scale of things, tests don't matter. People matter. All the A's in the world won't be there to comfort me when I am going through hardship or laugh with me when things are going jolly. They won't be there when I need someone to cry my tears and they certainly won't be there when I reflect on who I was able to help. Life isn't about perfection on some test, it's about being present in the moments while they are in front of you. Tomorrow is never guaranteed. If I died tomorrow, what would all those A's have gotten me? How many moments of importance would I have missed to get something that meant absolutely nothing in the end? Well I am not saying that studying is not important, or that I will choose not to do it when something else comes along... but what I am saying is that there are moments in life that are worth getting a C over. And if choosing the C means that you can show your friend that they are really important in your life... then it's super worth it.
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Time Management
In the spirit of playing catch-up from this weekend, and knowing I still have a lot to study for my test tomorrow-- this once again will be short and sweet. Yesterday, I kept trying to find things to do for other people. I was in school all day, so there a lot of cool ideas I came up with just were not practical or attainable. I thought and I thought and realized that, sometimes, you just can't create an opportunity. When my last class started, we got some news. Background: we were supposed to have a midterm. Our professor promised he would narrow our studying focus by giving us a study guide of potential questions for the essay. He never did. We waited and waited and e-mailed the whole week with no response. Everyone was a little on edge. Would we still have it? Would we all fail it? How should we study? Background over. So we get to class and the professor gives us a good news/bad news announcement. Good news: No midterm today Bad news: It's a take home midterm with three essays and due Thursday. We also have another test tomorrow, so having to do a long take-home midterm was pretty rough. But my opportunity to choose love came up! One of the girls in my class, who is incredibly nice and works really hard, asked if I would please look over her essays after she finished them to make sure that she was on the right track. I wanted to say no. I had a test to study for, my brother's birthday, was meeting with a friend for something extremely important, and had my own essays to write. Busy girl! But she works so hard and really seemed desperate. So I said yes! She is lovely and deserves to be helped, even if it is just a bit more work for me. I thought it was so funny that I was looking for an opportunity all day to help someone and then when the opportunity came to me my first reaction was to say no because I am so busy. I am glad my mouth somehow said yes instead. It's a process, but I am definitely getting a little better at choosing to love others!
Monday Funday
Monday was spent still in the lovely city of Santa Barbara! Wooh! Typing what I wrote for my blog entry while I was computer-less makes me miss SB already! Well this is a short and sweet entry so maybe I can delay the waterworks a little bit... ;)
My opportunity to choose love today was done with the help of a few of my friends, so I am so thankful for them and their understanding! I was walking back to where I had parked my car, a few blocks over from the house I was staying at the night before (Thank you Elizabeth for opening your home to me!!!). I was supposed to go straight downtown to my Kristen's house... where she was being just an angel and making me breakfast! Then, I was supposed to come back to IV and hang out with my dear friend Jeff. Well that didn't happen! On my way to my car, I witnessed a pretty gnarly bike accident. Some girl was turning a corner and a skateboarder came out of no where and accidentally cut her off. She turned hard and her bike skid out from underneath her. She fell so hard to the ground and hit her head. Hard. Like you could honestly hear the sound. I rushed over to help her. The skateboarder stopped and was apologizing profusely and one other person came by to help us out. I was definitely far enough away that I could have just walked by and gone on with my life and with my plans... but my EMT/nursing/human qualities just could not do that. So I stopped to help her out. She was cut up on her whole right side and had a lot of bleeding under the skin of her skull. She lost consciousness too. Poor girl! I ended up locking up her bike at the bike rack nearby, did a quick trauma assessment, and then took her to urgent care. She was pretty banged up and all alone. She told me a lot about her life and about the terrible week she was having. I felt so sorry for her and her situation. I prayed with her and stayed with her the whole time. She did have a lot of bleeding right under the skin, but luckily no bleeding in her brain! A concussion--which are terrible--but nothing life-threatening. Praise!!! She kept saying she owed me and that she needed to repay me for being there to help her. This kinda made me sad because I would just honestly hope that as humans we are better than that! I would hope that other people would have done the same if they were in my place. I told her that I wasn't being nice, I was just acting how someone should act. I hope that she feels loved and valued.
Thank you so much for my friends for their understanding about me totally bailing! Especially since I was never to see Jeff at all that trip. Thank you, thank you, thank you! You really were so wonderful and enabled me to help choose love!
My opportunity to choose love today was done with the help of a few of my friends, so I am so thankful for them and their understanding! I was walking back to where I had parked my car, a few blocks over from the house I was staying at the night before (Thank you Elizabeth for opening your home to me!!!). I was supposed to go straight downtown to my Kristen's house... where she was being just an angel and making me breakfast! Then, I was supposed to come back to IV and hang out with my dear friend Jeff. Well that didn't happen! On my way to my car, I witnessed a pretty gnarly bike accident. Some girl was turning a corner and a skateboarder came out of no where and accidentally cut her off. She turned hard and her bike skid out from underneath her. She fell so hard to the ground and hit her head. Hard. Like you could honestly hear the sound. I rushed over to help her. The skateboarder stopped and was apologizing profusely and one other person came by to help us out. I was definitely far enough away that I could have just walked by and gone on with my life and with my plans... but my EMT/nursing/human qualities just could not do that. So I stopped to help her out. She was cut up on her whole right side and had a lot of bleeding under the skin of her skull. She lost consciousness too. Poor girl! I ended up locking up her bike at the bike rack nearby, did a quick trauma assessment, and then took her to urgent care. She was pretty banged up and all alone. She told me a lot about her life and about the terrible week she was having. I felt so sorry for her and her situation. I prayed with her and stayed with her the whole time. She did have a lot of bleeding right under the skin, but luckily no bleeding in her brain! A concussion--which are terrible--but nothing life-threatening. Praise!!! She kept saying she owed me and that she needed to repay me for being there to help her. This kinda made me sad because I would just honestly hope that as humans we are better than that! I would hope that other people would have done the same if they were in my place. I told her that I wasn't being nice, I was just acting how someone should act. I hope that she feels loved and valued.
Thank you so much for my friends for their understanding about me totally bailing! Especially since I was never to see Jeff at all that trip. Thank you, thank you, thank you! You really were so wonderful and enabled me to help choose love!
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