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?