EVM Quote of the Day

"Flannelgraph: the Baptist iconography"

I am finally better - still taking an antibiotic though.

This next weekend is fall break - I cannot wait! I am going to Raleigh with Esther and Jonathan, specifically so that I can visit Duke Divinity School. Can you believe that I am already looking at graduate schools?! Freaks me out....

I am enjoying this year, though I miss some people who are no longer here - and at the same time, could do without some people who are still here. :) Making the most of it all though, and having fun.

I miss my family and can't wait until Thanksgiving when I get to see them again! Oh, and I guess I will see Deborah the week before when she comes to visit. :)

Friends at Furman are good, though sometimes I feel like all the drama that I put everyone through the past couple years is circling back and now I am the one providing support in times of crisis, whether or not I fully understand why things are so hard for some people. Good practice for a chaplain, eh? No, I am actually glad to be the one helping out now rather than having to depend on others for so much as I have in the past. I felt like a burden in the past and now I am the one who can help lessen the loads of the people who helped me shoulder my burdens. That was almost poetic...

Weekends at Furman

Well, I have been at Furman for 3 weekends now. The first two were super fun and very memorable, first with dear Andrew Ross and the following weekend, my surprise birthday party! Yes, I have incredible friends. And I am glad to finally celebrate being 21. :)

This weekend, however, I am sick, sick, sick!! :( I have been sick since Tuesday, and though I do feel better since then, I am still far from well. And I am super bummed, because I had to leave the football game early, and now, here I sit in my apartment, watching the food network by myself when I could be out to several different places with my friends. Ugh.... Being sick is so inconvenient. I just hope I don't miss anything super fun... I will have to make up for this lost weekend another time. Ok, back to Iron Chef and painting my nails.

Andrew Ross came this past weekend. :) It's only been 2 years since we have seen each other! Good times, good times... And I will be going up to Fredericksburg, VA at some point this year for sure. And Jonathan and Esther's wedding is going to be fantastic!

So far I have been really happy here at school. I hope this attitude is maintained throughout the year!

Back in the Bubble

Yes, I am back at Furman. Today was our first day of classes, and I realized that because my classes don't end until 4 or 4:15 every day, each day is going to be long. My Personal Finance class was only long enough to get a syllabus because my professor wasn't there today; however, that allowed me time to finish my 84 pages of reading I was assigned for American Public Address for the first day of class. That class is going to be a lot of work, but perhaps I will learn something useful. Tomorrow will be my first day of my Senior Seminar in religion, so I have no comments on that yet - except we have some pretty boring looking books for that one. It's weird to be back here - I feel like I have been sitting in class my whole life. And to think that I am considering another 3 years of this.... I just have to get back into a routine and my last year here will fly by. My apartment is great and seeing my friends after 3 months has been fantastic. I hope to make the most of the last 9 months we all have together. And the financial aid office still sucks. :)

Today my day-by-day calendar said "Count your blessings." It made me smile and hum a special little tune. :)

Summer has come and passed...

Well, summer has come and gone again. It is well into September, and early Thursday morning Mom and I will be leaving to drive back to school. I am very excited to get back and be with my friends, and, oh yeah, finish my classes. :) I am looking forward to what I will learn and to figure out what comes next in my life. My only complaint is that home and school are mutually exclusive. I wish it weren't so far away...I love being with my family, and this may be the last time I live at home. Maybe not, but maybe it will be. I can tell that everything is going to change so much this next year - by next September I will be headed into something completely different from Furman, and I have no idea what that is. I am just very grateful that it is all in the Lord's hands and no amount of worrying on my part is going to change his plans - it's only going to make this transition time of life miserable. And I refuse to be miserable. :) I have finished my time with Custom Design Builders, and it may be for good! And yet, I totally don't believe that.

Things I am looking forward to this year:
The Office season 4
Furman football
contradancing
sweet apt life
AFV with my roomie
tree talks
Little People, Big World new season (with alchie Matt Roloff)
festivals in the Vinings
my Subaru!!!!
Esther and Jonathan's wedding
GRADUATION!!! :)

bumper sticker of the day

Today as I was driving Deborah to swim practice, a black SUV drove by with a bumper sticker on it. As it flashed by, Deborah and I were able to glimpse the sticker, and it said "Fat People Are Harder to Kidnap." It was so hilarious!!! We laughed for about the next five minutes, then I dropped her off at the pool and came home. It definitely made my day though, and I wanted to share it.

friends...

tonight the final episode of friends was on tv, and it made me all emotional once again. i love my friends and i am going to be sad when we all go our own ways next year. as ready as i am to move on, to head into the next phase of my life, i am going to miss my furman friends. i love you guys. :)

a real post

Well, it has been requested that I post for real, so, because this friend is so dear, I will. :)

Summer has gone well - nothing really exciting, but not bad either. I finished my internship with the hospital chaplains a few weeks ago, and after a week off, I am working with Dad doing construction, yet again. Even though it is extremely un-fun, I know how to do it and it pays well. So I have about 2 more weeks of work, then I am driving back to school with Mom.

I am very excited to get back to Furman - I want this to be the best year ever, and I intend to make it happen. A lot of my friends are living in my apartment building (including Chris and Josh), and pretty much everyone else is in a close apartment building. I have determined that it all depends on my attitude, and I am working on that daily. I have goals, academically and emotionally, and I intend to reach them. This summer I have learned a lot about myself and learning to be content and centered, and I think that will help me this upcoming year. I am so excited about my future and all the things I think I would like to do. But it is all in God's hands, and He has a habit of changing my plans, so only He knows how everything will turn out.

One cool thing about this summer is that I turned 21! I had a nice dinner with my family to celebrate, and I plan on celebrating with my friends once I get back to Furman. I don't feel any older, but I did feel pretty cool last night when I ordered a cocktail in a restaurant and it was ok. :) They didn't card me though..and I really wanted them to. Perhaps that's just because I look so mature. :)

One of my summer projects was my scrapbook from sophomore year of college. I know I am a year behind, but at least it's getting done. It is quite nice, if you ask me. I am hoping to get some of junior year done too, but right now I am quite burned out on scrapbooking. Hopefully it will get done in the next two weeks.

This next year I plan on keeping up with this blog more frequently, but no promises. :)

I am questioning everything about my future all over again. Maybe chaplaincy would be a good thing after all...

week 6

Only 2 more weeks left in my internship. This upcoming Monday night is the picnic for the spiritual care deptarment staff and volunteers. I hope to get some pictures. :)

I found out today that there is a new movie coming out, "Arctic Tale," that features a walrus named Seela, pronounced exactly like my name. Of course, the only character ever to share my name is an adolescent walrus. What luck I have. I will definitely be going to see that movie solely on the basis of its name.

Looks like I am going to have a vacation-less summer. Hopefully making money will make up for my lack of a break from work. At least I will have a birthday to celebrate, right? I am really looking forward to the grand birthday party we are all going to share back at FU in the fall. :)

I got a new computer! It's a MacBook!!! I am sooooo excited!!! :)

quote of the week

Today when the four staff chaplains and I were at lunch in the hospital cafeteria, my boss said the funniest thing I have ever heard him say. We were all just chatting about nothing really, like how cold it was in the room. Then Mike, the department manager, just blurts out "I hate this job. I wish I were dead." Oh. My. Gosh. I laughed so hard for about five minutes that I was crying and couldn't breathe. It was as if the person who I was having such a hard time getting along with and understanding, summed up what I had been feeling for the past five weeks. It was incredible and hilarious and made my day. What a way to end the week. :) Only three weeks left to go.

On a side note, it seems as if I am always counting down to something...

Week 5

Well, this week has had quite the ups and downs. I'll take it day by day.

Monday
I had 3 floors to cover, so I kept busy all day. Normally I wouldn't be thrilled about having to see so many people, but when I realized that I always had something to do, I was grateful. I was able to visit a patient throughout the week that I met this day, so that was a positive experience.

Tuesday
This day was unbelievably slow. I saw only a few patients, then worked on trying to figure out a new decorating scheme for the chapel. I also helped clean out a cabinet in the office that we were able to get rid of to make room for a new bookshelf that we are getting tomorrow. Really uneventful day - let's just say that I took quite a long lunch.

Wednesday
This was probably the most emotional day for me all summer, so far. In short, we had a 12-year-old boy come in the Emergency Department with no heartbeat or breathing. He had had a bike wreck on the 4th, was fine except for a swollen shoulder and arm, and now was in really bad shape. I stayed with his mom and dad and another volunteer chaplain while he was getting tests done and stuff, then we were just waiting for him to get transferred from the ED to the pediatric intensive care unit. Robert, the other chaplain, decided to wait with them to get moved up there so I could go to lunch because we had already been with them a couple hours. So I went to lunch, but a few minutes after I got back to the office from the cafeteria, Robert called to tell me that the patient had just died. I was stunned - I did not expect him to die at all, and neither did his family. I went back to the ED and saw the family, and had nothing to say really, but just told them I was sorry and then let them go say goodbye to their son before leaving to get their other kids and go plan a funeral. I just don't understand why a little bike wreck could cause a sudden death days later - I think it had something to do with blood clots, but nevertheless, it just isn't fair that that little boy had no chance to wrap up his life or even really live his life. I won't ever forget that experience.

Thursday
Today I shadowed the social worker for the Women's Pavilion, NICU and the moms on the mother-baby floor who have babies in the NICU. I really liked it too. I mean, I realize it was only one day, and we had some really interesting stuff come up, but I still liked it. I am going to shadow a social worker in the ED also, to get that perspective. Perhaps this will be a career option for me, who knows? But today was a good day and I really like the social worker I followed - he is just fantastic. I am on call tonight (with another chaplain too), so I hope and pray I don't have to go into the hospital in the middle of the night. I think you all know that would not be my prime time to try to help people, or even talk to them.

Only 3 more weeks left, so I hope that I learn all that I need to and wrap up the internship appropriately. Each week seems eternal, but time really is flying by this summer. I need a vacation.

It is really starting to get pathetic how many "that's what she said" jokes I think of every day at work (and home too) and can never say. I would be so funny if I could say it every time I thought it!

Well, pretty much these days I go to work at the hospital from 8-4 every day. At night I read and watch tv. On the weekends I may go to the pool with my family or I may just do whatever else my family is doing. Only 4 and a half more weeks left in the internship....I can make it....

brief update

An update on the job:

I am learning to have patience and to not chew out my boss each and every day when he calls me "the intern" and acts like I have no brain cells. Seriously, I go to Furman and I make good grades without much studying. If he only knew that my theology is not going to change because of his narrow-minded rants about Lutherans vs. Nazarenes when he should be working on his communication skills. I just don't respect someone who chews out his banker and then tells me how well he knows Paul's writings about "true" Christianity. It would be nice if the hospital chaplain would care about people and try to encourage those who are taking care of them.

But that's just a little of how I feel about the arrogant asshole.

Week 2

Well this week I visited patients on my own for the first time. It is really intimidating walking into a hospital room, introducing yourself and asking someone if they want to talk to you or not. It's kind of like being in sales, and you are selling your time and conversation. Most people will chat for a few minutes, but you have some that are like, "You're a chaplain? No, I don't really want to talk." Then you leave the room feeling dejected and intimidated yet again. But there are a few patients that are really grateful for your company. Some people don't get any visitors in the hospital, and they are there for an extended amount of time, so they really like having someone just sit and listen to them. The average age of the patients (not on the pediatrics floor) is probably 75, so they really like to talk about the past and their lives when they were younger. Sometimes I get to pray with them, but most of the time we just chat for a while and I go on my merry way.

One role that chaplains play that I have yet to experience is dealing with the family of very sick or injured patients, or with the death of a patient. Some patients I talked with have died, but I just hear about it later from the nursing staff. Every time there has been a critical situation in the Emergency Department, I have not been there to deal with the family. Yesterday, however, we had a very exciting experience concerning a gunshot victim, a code blue (loss of a heart beat) and running through the hospital lobby to get to the operating room, all this with a nurse standing on the edge of the gurney doing chest compressions. The staff chaplain and I followed them, I guess to be there if the patient died, but we really served no purpose because the patient had no family or friends there. It was very exciting to see the emergency department staff jump into action and rush the patient to surgery. Very E.R. ...

Yesterday and today I was able to do a few projects in the office, preparing for next week. Michelle, one of the staff chaplains, and I are going to be serving tea and some baked goods to the nurses on 5 floors of the hosptil next week. I made about 100 cards with a prayer on them to give out to the nurses when they come by the cart we will have stationed in their respective break rooms. I also made some signs for a parent support club for parents with children in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit). We will be starting that next week as well, I think. I enjoyed the time doing computer work, opposed to my usual tasks of wandering around finding people to talk to. I have met some people that I had great conversations with, and there were a few that really inspired me to keep going, even though I do have a lot of down time in the office. It's not a fast-paced job at all, so I am learning patience as well. I also got to go to some rounds meetings in the NICU and the Women's Pavilion (which is where women who have pregnancy problems or other specifically female problems go). That is where all the people in charge talk about the patients, their problems, what they are doing for them and when the patients can potentially be discharged. I enjoyed that a lot as well - the staff is really great.

On Monday I am giving my first verbatim, which is a word-for-word (as best you can remember) write-up of a conversation with a patient, then a self-critique of your visit and interaction with them. I fully anticipate the chaplains ripping mine apart and telling me all the things I could have done better. But hey, I've only been doing this on my own for a week, right?

work isn't all that it's cut out to be. i hope the next 3 months end up having more than the past 4 days have. i do like being in the hospital though, but i always did.

First Day

Today was my first day in the hospital. I got a really cool name badge that is my access to everything in the hospital. I felt extremely superior as I was able to beep open doors in the ER and other units. I am clearly not superior though, as I got lost on more than one occasion. The ER units were extremely confusing - I am going to have to get a map for a little while.

Most of my day was spent in a staff meeting with the chaplains (Mike, Dorothy, Nathan and Michelle - and yes, their coolness factor is in direct correlation with the coolness of their names), where I listened to them argue about their volunteer program - who should do what, what they could all wear, what their name badges should say, yada, yada, yada. Then they proceeded to argue about whether or not they, the staff chaplains, should wear clerical collars once a week or once a month or even at all. I didn't realize it was such a big deal, but apparently it is. It was terribly boring, and by the end of the meeting I had a great plan for them, but I didn't volunteer my ideas, as they all thought they were right and did not want the intern's opinion. Oh, yeah, they call me "the intern" and I feel like Ryan from The Office. :)

The highlight of my day was when Dorothy and I responded to a cardiac arrest code in the ER. We got to stand in the trauma bay as the various teams worked on the patient. I don't really know what purpose we served, as the patient was unconscious and his sister never arrived - I really felt like I was in the way more than I helped. It was really cool though. I have read about trauma bays and all that in my favorite book (In The Blink of an Eye by Alan Doelp), and today I saw a really mild version of that. I did see them put a catheter in the man, and that was disgusting. I guess I am going to have to get used to stuff like that if I plan on being present in traumatic situations.

I didn't really do anything today beyond touring the hospital, getting lost, sitting in a meeting for 3 hours, eating in the cafeteria (worse than the DH), going to the ER and some more sitting around. Tomorrow I am supposed to start shadowing the chaplains and doing some rounds with them, so that should be good. By the end of next week or the beginning of the next I expect to be doing rounds on my own. Mondays and Tuesdays I will be in the Women's Pavilion - where women with problems unique to women go. Wednesdays and Thursdays I will be in Pediatrics and Pediatric ICU, and on Fridays I will be on one of the surgery floors. I expect that I will be called to do other things as the need arises, and I hope to get to work in the ER some. And with the fire department and police department chaplains too. Who knows, we will see. At least I didn't come home today dead tired and covered in sawdust!

As the summer progresses, I will dedicate some time and space to describing the individual chaplains to you - it is an interesting bunch and to say the least, it will definitely test my patience these next 3 months.