Kristen in Nicaragua

I was so lucky to have spent the last week in Nicaragua. We flew in and out of Managua but spend the majority of our time visiting rural cities. Our team was a group of nurses and we worked with this really great organization.

Seriously, how beautiful is this country? I loved seeing this view.

Part of the program is to train local health promoters to be able to provide some basic health care. Here I am at our vital signs station. I really enjoyed getting to know these people. They don't get paid for their work but they are totally committed to serving their community and trying to improve conditions.

Did I mention it was rainy season? We were outside a lot so I am glad I brought along an emergency poncho. I must have good taste because several of my colleagues had brought the same one.

So our work mostly focused on the children. We would measure and weight them to assess for malnutrition, check their blood for anemia, and send fecal samples to the lab to look for parasites. There was a treatment station for iron pills, deworming medication and a chance to see a physician. We saw over 400 children so we were busy. This little girl was so funny! We were at nap time at this point of the day and most of the kids were pretty cranky but this girl just slept through everything. We are checking her height in this picture and you can tell that she is still completely zonked. Next we took her over to check her blood. When we pricked her finger, she just opened her eyes and gave us an offended look and then went back to sleep. I was actually a little worried at this point that her blood sugar was really low or something but her mother assured us that this is how she always sleeps and sure enough, a little while later, she was awake...and crying.

Some of the places we went to were so rural that we couldn't drive to them. It was actually quite fun to load up a couple of horses with supplies and then hike to some little village on top of a mountain. And the views were amazing! Here is our group with a Nicaraguan medical student and health promoter during one of our hikes.

It was a great trip. I learned a lot about public health by being there. Which is good because I had to miss a week of classes to go. Unfortunately, none of what I learned will be on my biostatistics midterm tomorrow. Meh. As my dad says, don't let school get in the way of your education. :)

First Day of School

Okay, so this isn't exactly how I looked going to my first day of school but it is certainly how I felt. Like a little girl in pigtails and glasses, intoxicated by the smell of a new trapper-keeper. The first morning of classes has always been exciting for me. I remember those days growing up and how I would carefully layout my persona-defining outfit and new school supplies. Mom would take my picture in front of whichever bush was flowering at the time and off I would go.

This year, starting at an unknown campus, meant familiarizing myself with the bus routes and painstakingly studying the floor plan of the health science building which continues to baffle me. But despite sleeping through my alarm, I made my bus and found the classroom with two minutes to spare. I took a deep breath, opened the door...and the massive classroom was completely empty! This was seriously like a bad dream. Had they moved the classroom and I missed the memo? It took ten terrifying minutes with my email and course syllabus before I came to the comforting yet embarrassing realization that this class didn't start until Thursday. Well, it was a good dry run.

Go Huskies!

We pause from our regular blogging...

...to bring you a special announcement. For the next few weeks, you can follow my temporary blog here about my time in India.

The Kid

I had a moment today. Let me paint you a picture. I went out to my car and the battery was dead so I hopped on my bike to make it to my hair appointment. My normal shoulder strap purse wasn't exactly bike friendly so I substituted it with my roommate's mini backpack. I knew I also needed to go to the library so I brought my overdue book which happened to be targeted for young adults.

As I was waiting to get my hair cut, the combination of the bike, book, and backpack suddenly struck me and I felt the familiar feeling of a little kid playing grown-up. The only thing that felt out of place was that I was at a hair appointment.

That actually happens to me fairly often. When I'm working at the hospital or paying bills or getting my oil changed, I sometimes think, Am I really old enough to be doing this? When did I turn into an adult? I almost worry that someone is going to find me out and send me back home to my parents.

But with all due modesty, I was kind of a cute kid.

Bike, etc

I took a page from Emily's life and bought this:

I'm so happy to have a bike again! I spent many a joyful hour on a bike as a child and later as a missionary. In fact, I think I fell in love with this bike partly because it reminded me of the bike I rode in Magdeburg.

This actually isn't the bike I was talking about. I looked through all my mission pictures and I couldn't find a good picture of my Magdeburg bike. So I am posting this one instead. This was my first bike in Weimar. It was a mens bike, as you can tell from the high bar. I had some good times making that work with skirts. :)

Okay, back to present day. Naturally, since I bought the bike, we have had an abnormally high number of rainy days, even for Seattle. Yesterday, however, was sunny and beautiful. I rode down to the institute for a concert. It was my test run to see if I could handle riding to campus this fall. It had a few tough spots but overall, not bad. Riding home, along the lake, I just felt so content. As soon as I settle on a name (Ruby? Beulla?), I think we will get along just fine.

The "etc" part of the post is this: I am going to India this summer. Click here to learn more about my trip and if you feel so inclined, the opportunity to donate to a very worthy cause.

Thin Skinned

Tonight at work, a patient yelled at me. I'm sure it was the situation and not our simple misunderstanding that was the catalyst but I got the brunt of it anyway. The next time I went into his room, he apologized. It was sincere and I accepted. "That's okay," I told him, "I have a pretty thick skin." That was a lie. I said it because I feel like that is what nurses are supposed to have. We have to deal with a lot stuff so you have to have a thick skin to deal with it but mine never developed.

I remember one of the first days of my mission in Germany, being rejected for the first time and getting this awful feeling in my stomach. I thought to myself, "It is just because you're new to this. You'll get used to it." But I never did. Eighteen months and I got that feeling every time. Better than apathy, I grant you, but it's heck on the heart.

I can't think of anymore to write so I am going to spend the rest of my lunch break reading Ender's Game which I checked out from the library yesterday. As a Mormon and a bookworm, I feel a sense of obligation to finally read this book.

Oh and P.S- I am going to go to grad school. Pretty sure, anyway.

The thought in my head...

You know how sometimes you think that you have your life figured out because you think you know exactly what you want and so you start making plans and you get really excited about it and then you start telling other people about your plans and they start getting really exctied for you and you feel great about it but then you unexpectedly get into that really competitive graduate program, the one you wanted to get into but thought was off the table and the one that could help you get a job that you would love but the program won't let you defer even for a semester and so now you have to choose between two awesome things and you are having a hard time finding a way to have your cake and eat it too?

You know?

Wanderlust

Isn't German a great language? You know that I desire hiking which is how this word literally translates; "wadern" (to hike) and "lust" (desire). Parenthetically, my first hike of the season last weekend was lovely even if it did rain the whole time. But back to wanderlust. Of course, colloquially, it expresses more of a desire to travel the world than to hike. Now, if I was really speaking German (which I am sorry to say I haven't done in a few years now), I might use the word "fernweh" or loosely, "to ache for something far away", which I think also has a nice sentiment.

Well, I got it bad.

I feel like that sentence deserves its own paragraph because it is true. I love living in Seattle. I really do. I could live here the rest of my life, or in some other city that I would equally enjoy. But I'm not tied down here. Besides my job, I don't have any binding obligations. Nor am I in debt. And that leads me to have a lot of "If I don't do it now, I'll never do it" arguments with myself, thinking of distant lands where I would like to live. Of course, there's that voice that says, "Maybe you'll never get married or have a family and then you'll have 60 years to do that stuff. What's your hurry?" but that voice really bugs me so I pay it no heed. With two years of nursing under my belt, I feel like I have something to offer. So here comes another one-line wonder.

I quit my job.

I wonder if people daydream about being able to write that sentence. I didn't. I actually like my job and was nervous to talk to my nurse manager who, by the way, is awesome. And I actually didn't end up totally quitting. Here's my plan in a nutshell: travel the world for a year (give or take), volunteering with various medical humanitarian organizations. Right now my trips are at all stages of planning from about to buy a plane ticket to haven't even sent in my application. Potential trips include: India, Nicaragua, China and Cameroon. A few less exotic but equally exciting trips may take me to Ensign Ranch (as a girls camp nurse), Glacier National Park and to visit baby girl Hill (aka Lalalalalala). And my boss is awesome because she is letting me stay on per Diem so I can work between trips, setting my own schedule.


What I'm saying, folks, is that this blog might get a heck of a lot more interesting come August. Oh and post script, if anyone has any suggestions for other awesome trips, I still have some time in summer 2011. So if you know of anything...Especially something in Antarctica, per my serve on every continent goal.

Spiteful

I can't post pictures on my blog while I'm at work. But I'm okay with that. Ever since I concluded that I don't need a picture in order to create a successful blog post, I have been writing more at work. I learned in college that 3 am is my peak time for creative writing, anyway.

On my way to the hospital this evening, I heard a song on the country station. Did you know that I often listen to country music now? Last month, when my friend Jessica visited me, we had a long drive to Mount Rainier and back for our snowshoeing adventure. Wanting to be a good host, I deferred to her radio station of choice which was country. And now I like it. It turns out, it isn't that hard to be a country fan. After about a week, I had familiarized myself with the most commonly played songs and now I can sing along.

Well, tonight I heard a song that I hadn't heard in a really long time. "Earl Had to Die." I want to say that it is by the Dixie Chicks but I wouldn't bet my lunch on it. It is kind of a terrible song, actually. A girl gets abused by her husband and then she and her friend plot his death. If someone had told me this story as a news headline, I would probably shake my head and mutter, "Oh, that's tragic." But when they sing it, it is catchy and (dare I say it?) almost charming. And I like it, in spite of myself.

It is the equivalent of Cheetos. These are perhaps the most unnatural, processed snacks on the face of the earth. Now arguably, Twinkies might be more extreme, but those have never been a temptation for me. Cheetos, however, I really enjoy. Like in a, "If you could only have one food on a deserted island?" kind of way. It's really a shame. I have been trying to let Seattle's organic-trendy culture rub off on me. To be one of those people who shudders at the thought of letting white flour or refined sugar even touch their week supply of PCC produce. I get it. There is essentially no nutritional value from a bag of Cheetos. But I like it. In spite of myself.

Perhaps this brings me to the point of this blog. By nature, I would call myself a timid person. Actually that sounds pretty wimpy. I don't want to call myself that. Demure? Nope, don't like that one either. Reserved. That's it. A respectable trait. Although you would never hear someone say, "Oh, I had such a fun time with my friend last night. She is so reserved!" But this week, I want to do some things that are bold. Brave things. You know the kind of things that give you butterflies in your stomach just thinking about them. If all goes well with these things, maybe I'll blog about them next week and be a little less vague. For now, I'll just say, braver than killing a bug but less brave than jumping out of an airplane. These are things that I have been thinking about doing for quite a while. And I really want to do them.

In spite of myself.

From the trail...

While I was running today, my iPod died right in the middle of "I Will Survive". I guess it didn't have all its love to give. Also, I spent a disproportionate amount of time trying to find a close parking spot at the lake before my six mile run.

Irony noted, universe.

OctoBlogging

I just noticed that Kelli tagged me over a month ago for this blogging-game. Sorry, buddy!

This actually works out quite nicely. I keep thinking to myself, "I really should post something on my blog" because, as you may have noticed, it has been a while. There is a reason for that. The most obvious thing to post would be in regards to changes that I am thinking of making in my life. However, I haven't quite decided what those changes will be and I really should decide before I write about them. So until I resolve my quarter-life crisis (too early for mid-life), I will propel myself to the top of fellow-bloggers' sidebars by answering some introspective questions.

8 Things I'm passionate about

1. Obviously not maintaining my blog. Although blog stalking would probably qualify

2. The gospel of Jesus Christ, especially temple work

3. My amazing family
4. Encouraging my male peers to shave off their facial hair
5. Telling my patients not to take more than 4 grams of Tylenol per day. We are about to start a liver transplant program and this is the leading cause of acute liver failure. Lay off the percocet, people!
6. Using "good" and "well" correctly
7. Making really good Italian Cream Sodas
8. Organ Donation

8 Words/phrases I use most often
1. Hey, buddy!

2. That's true.
3. Peace out.
4. I don't know what to do with my life.
5. 11 East, this is Kristen. How can I help you?
6. Get 'er done.
7. What's shakin'?

8. Okey-dokey.

8 Things I want to do before I die
1. Have my picture in a conference edition of the Ensign.
2. Kayak from Alaska to Seattle.
3. Grow a family.
4. Get a black eye, maybe by getting punched in the face. Please don't punch me the next time you see me.
5. Get a tan.
6. Live on an avocado farm. Or own one.
7. Get Lasik eye surgery.
8. Be involved in humanitarian aide on every continent.

8 Places I want to visit
1. Portland, Oregon. This is about 4 hours by car from where I live now. I don't know why I haven't gone yet.
2. Alaskan cruise. Again, quite doable considering where I live.
3. China. I have loved every person from China that I have ever met so I imagine this to be a country full people with whom I would get along quite nicely.
4. Stockholm, Sweden. Preferably sometime in the next 18 months so I can see my parents the awesome senior missionary couple.
5. Devil's Pool, Victoria Falls, Africa.
6. The Celestial Kingdom. Except I would replace "visit" with "live".
7. The Appalachian Trail. Except I would replace "visit" with "hike it."
8. Glacier National Park, Montana.

8 Favorite restaurants
1. Cafe Rio. I could move back to Utah just to be close to a Cafe Rio.
2. The Saffron Grill- an Indian restaurant one block from my house that I haven't been to in a year.
3. Cheesecake Factory. About 10 miles from my house that I have been to 3 times in the last 2 months.
4. My mom's kitchen. When I was little and had to sit at the kid's table, my mom would call it "The Restaurant" to make us feel special, so I think this is an appropriate categorization.
5. When my roommate cooks. I am now using the term "restaurant" even more loosely.
6. Any sushi restaurant where the little plates come around on a conveyor belt.
7. A Döner stand in Germany, preferably run by a large Turkish man.
8. The Crab Pot. Bibs, hammers, and cups of melted butter. Heaven.

8 Shows I watch
1. Lost. I am determined to make it through to the end of this show.
2. Project Runway. For a long time I thought this was a reality show about aviation so I never watched it.
3. Glee. Welcome back!
4. The Mary Tyler Moore Show. I find that I can really relate to her.
5. The Dick Van Dyke Show.
6. Parks and Recreation.
7. The Office. Mostly out of habit.
8. Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution- this is my current favorite show. It is quite awesome.

For Gracie

*Read my sister-in-law's comment from my last post

Dear Gracie,

I'm so glad that you want to be an olympic bobsledder! In 2026, I'll be right there on the sidelines, cheering you on. You can do it, little buddy!

I love you!

:) Aunt Kristen

Bobsleigh

I saw this a few times at Whistler. I'm not sure the proper usage of "bobsleigh" versus "bobsled" but it has a nice ring to it. As though I should use a European accent and say, "Oh yes, just let me fetch my bobsleigh."

As promised, a part two to my olympic posting. We had a long and exciting day in Canada. After the two and a half hour drive, we had to take another two hour bus ride to get to Whistler. The atmosphere at the ski resort was infectious.

It was also very cold and I spent more money than I anticipated buying a hat, gloves and an extra jacket. Sorry, Emily, unfortunately they weren't the iconic red Canadian mittens that are all the rage. The shops have been sold out of them for several days.

We took the gondola up the mountain to watch women's bobsledding. It was packed at the top but by the end of the first heat, we worked our way up to the closest spectator spot. This was my favorite part. I loved watching them get ready, get a few final words from their coach, and perform their pre-race rituals which usually involved grunting and hitting each other. I'm glad to say no one wiped out all night yesterday, which was unfortunately not the case tonight.

This will give you an idea of how close we were. Wow! By the way, these ladies from Japan may not have won a medal but they should win a prize for the most beautiful sled.

We worked our way down the mountain, getting to watch the sleds zoom by at different parts of the course.

Here is the jumping picture I mentioned in my last posting. Marissa was the reason I went to Vancouver the first time and kindly let me buy her extra bobsledding ticket for our second trip.

Okay, I probably spent an inappropriate time working on this last picture but I sure had fun with it. If you haven't already seen it on my facebook profile, here it is again.

Well, we scoured the NBC footage of the event and I'm sad to say that I don't think we made it but hopefully I have presented you with sufficient evidence to assure you that I was indeed there.

I LOVE THE OLYMPICS!

Vancouver Twenty-Ten!

Okay, first of all, sorry these pictures are huge but I can't seem to figure out how to do the whole click-on-the-picture-and-make-it-bigger thing. So I just made them big to start with.

I went to Vancouver with some friends yesterday and it was fabulous. We didn't go to any events but got to soak up the olympic culture.

We stood in line for almost an hour to go to the olympic superstore, which seemed a little ridiculous but we sure wanted our souvenirs. I got this shirt which I felt captured the Canadian olympic spirit while being tastefully understated. Unfortunately, caught up in the excitement, I failed to properly read the label and consequently bought a man's medium instead of a woman's medium. By the time I realized how large it was, we were far from the store and may I remind you that took an hour of waiting in line to even get in the store. Definitely not going back.

I just googled, "how to shrink a t-shirt" and we'll see how it goes.

We saw some of the arenas and then went to the waterfront. Seeing the Olympic Torch was a much more inspiring sight than I imagined. It is huge! Bigger than my shirt! Also, there were tons of people around and they were all so nice.

I love my jumping pictures! We got a better jumping shot of my buddy Marissa and I but it is on her camera. I'll try to get it later. The city was giving away these Canadian flags because it was Flag Day which was perfect timing for our photo frenzy. We must have gotten some of the last ones because everywhere we went people were asking to borrow our flags for their pictures.

We got home late and watched Tivo'd olympics until really late. I have to say that I wasn't super excited about the olympics until yesterday but now I'm hooked!

So, hopefully, this will just be Part I of my olympic blogging. I may get the chance to go to bobsledding next week at Whistler.

Go team!

The Seven Year Itch

I probably should've suspected something was wrong when I woke up at 5 Saturday morning because my feet were itching so badly. After a string of night shifts, I had stayed awake all day in order to switch my sleeping schedule back to normal. So, in my sleep-deprived state, being awoken after 4 hours of sleep may give you an idea of how itchy my feet were. I gave them a good scratching, slathered on some lotion and went back to sleep for an hour or so.

I had signed up for an all day disaster relief training with the Red Cross. As the training started, the itching spread from my feet to my arms and legs. Luckily, my roommate who is also a nurse was sitting next to me. I rolled up my sleeves and asked her if it looked like hives to her (it is always so much harder to diagnose yourself). The rapidly appearing red splotches made it clear I was having some sort of allergic reaction. I itched like a 4 year old with chicken pox until our lunch break when I was able sneak away and buy some Benadryl. While it eased the itching, it did not help what was already an uphill battle to stay awake during the long and monotonous video segments.

Well, at the end of the day, I was trained to work in a relief shelter and I was also convinced that I was allergic to the antibiotic my doctor had put me on for a minor skin infection. I channeled my inner Sister Missionary yesterday wearing my longest skirt and highest blouse and now, thank goodness, the hives are all but gone.

So I guess I should just call it the seventy-two hour itch.

Honesty is it's own reward

Just talked to overstock.com- they are going to charge my account.

Untitled

I couldn't think of a title because these things have nothing to do with each other. But I figure that is the beauty of blogging. You can literally write whatever you want. So, here we go.

Last week, I had a dream that I was a pirate and I had to protect my loot from some nefarious thieves. It was awesome, first, because I felt like I watching an action movie with me as the star which is a big improvement from my normal dreams where I am at work. Secondly, it was awesome because the dream resolved (I won!) just before my alarm went off. I woke up feeling completely satisfied with my night even though I only got a few hours of sleep.

Yesterday, the world came crashing down on me. I had to find some more push pins to put it back on my wall.

Confession: this didn't really happen to me but I read it somewhere and thought it was funny. Also I do have a large map of the world in my bedroom and I figure that it is only a matter of time before it does fall down.

I bought a white blouse last Saturday. Late that night, I realized that it still had the antitheft

ink tag on it. I really wanted to wear it the next day to church so I had to weigh my options. I decided not to try to take it off myself as I'm sure that would have resulted in an explosion of ink. I ended up just wearing the blouse, ink tag and all.No one else knew because it was under a dress but occasionally I would bump against something and suddenly remember that I had a cone-shaped piece of plastic protruding from my side. In case you were wondering, I took it back to the store the next day and had it removed.

Recently, both a Jimmy John and a 5 Guys have opened within a mile of my house. My new motto- twenty-ten, the year of thin (yeah, I know, it doesn't quite rhyme) is facing some serious temptation.

I am obsessed with my new ukulele. With some of my Christmas money

(thanks mom and dad!), I bought a ukulele and 4 weeks worth of lessons. I originally bought the purple one you see below from a company that I won't name. I totally

loved this ukulele! Unfortunately, after they had charged my account, I got an email saying that they were out of stock and they were going to refund my account. I was bummed but found this ->

ukulele at a local music store which is also very nice. We began to make beautiful music together and I was happy. THEN today I

came home to find this huge box on my doorstep. It was the

purple ukulele!! (I still don't know why they used such a big box) I checked my bank account and they hadn't recharged me. Theoretically, I could do nothing and maybe get it for free, but I don't roll like that. I'll call tomorrow to see what the situation is. I'm hoping it will turn out like in high school when I would point out to my calculus teacher that he hadn't marked enough points off my test and he was so impressed with my honesty that he just let me keep the points.

Waste Not, Want Not

My parents are moving 1000 miles away, which is mostly good because it is a lot closer to me but a little sad because I really love that house. Over Christmas, my mom mentioned that I still had several large tubs in my old room. I thought it may be helpful in their moving process if I tried to cut down on the stuff they had to lug to Utah. However, as I went through my childhood memories, I struggled to get rid of anything. Even though most of these things I haven't seen or thought about in several years, when I was actually faced with the decision of whether to save it or not, I suddenly turned into a sentimental fool.

Of course there was the normal photo albums, debate trophies and cross-stitches but I thought I might share with my faithful blog readers some of the more eccentric items I found:

- Intergalactic Cow Day t-shirt, circa 1992

- A foley catheter insertion kit from my nursing school days (I actually did throw this away)

- "If You Give an Armadillo a Pizza"- my original short story from third grade that got an A+

- 14 Donny and Marie LP's with matching record player

- Roggenvolkornbrot- Canned bread from communist-era east Germany, given to me by a member while I was on my mission. I'm told that it has enough preservatives to last for another 50 years.

- A dolphin toothbrush that had been boiled and bent into a bracelet. I almost wore it back to Seattle until I remembered that it wasn't 1996 anymore. Man, I miss 7th grade.

This is just off this top of my head. There was tons of stuff like this in there. Why do I keep this

stuff? Part of me says, you never know when you might need it. But seriously? Will there ever come a time when I will suddenly have a need for the dried corsage that I wore to my brother's wedding eight years ago? Doubtful. But I'll keep it anyway.

What does this say about me? Mostly I think it says that I have been very blessed. That I had a happy childhood full of good memories. That I have good parents who helped me develop talents. That I went to schools that helped me reach my full potential. That despite normal growing pains, I have loved my life. And that makes me excited for my future life. I still have tubs to fill.

Maybe in another 10 years, I'll be able to part with some of these gems but for now I'm content to be a packrat. And if you comment on my blog, I'll keep it forever.