The Aftermath of an Awesome Weekend.

This weekend was fantastic. There was so much I had planned to do and not only did I accomplish most of it, I had a fun time doing so!

First up on my list was my first ever 5K - The Mustache Dash! It was in support of prostate cancer research and survivors. I just thought it would be a fun run to start with - a sort of trial before the big thing in June. With this in mind, I figured I would aim for a time between 35 and 40 minutes. The course was much hillier than I anticipated, but I took the hills slow in order to spare my knees the pain and after a while I got in the zone. I brought my iPod along to keep me motivated, but honestly I could have done it without the music. The people around me were enough to keep me going! I found myself keeping track of certain people and pacing myself with them.

Anyway, I finished with a time of 36:33 - not bad for my first 5K, I think. Feeling that last burst of energy and sprinting the remainder of the course was exhilarating and something I will never forget!



Next on the docket was Ajax in Iraq. I believe I have already blogged about the play itself, so I will not go into further detail. I just want to comment on the fact that although I was only ushering this time instead of simply being a part of the audience, I felt like I was back home. It seemed that people were genuinely happy to see me and I, them. I even met some of the freshmen interested in theatre!

Immediately after closing was strike. Strike consists of deconstructing the set, rearranging the theatre, packing up the seating, putting away most of the lights, and cleaning. It can be a long process depending on how much help there is. I specifically came to closing night to help with strike, knowing that the reward of eating at Shari's was worthy of a late night. Sure enough, we arrived at Shari's around midnight and left about two hours later completely satiated and exhausted. Good times were had by all.

I crashed (literally - I was exhausted after such a long day!) on the couch at my friend Rhianna's apartment for the night. Several hours later, I awoke to a complete arrangement of breakfast items prepared by Rhianna before she left for rehearsal. The darling! I am not ashamed to say I started bawling. The thoughtfulness, generosity, and overall kindness I had experienced (especially from Rhianna) in the last twelve hours was overwhelming.



It may be needless to say, but I will say it anyway - friendship is a powerful thing.

Now I am left to my studies, but with the anticipation of seeing my family next week, I am willing to do whatever it takes to succeed this week.

Pico de Gallo

Pico de Gallo
I made this with every intention of eating it with tortilla chips, but ended up using this for breakfast and various other meals throughout the day. Needless to say, it didn't last long. This is a simple, homemade recipe for pico de gallo, easy enough for a college student to replicate.

2 large tomatoes
1 jalapeño
1 small onion
Cilantro
Lemon juice to taste

Dice the tomatoes, jalapeño, and small onion and combine. Chop the cilantro and add to the mixture, with lemon juice, to taste. Eso es!

Lofting

It finally hit me. I have only two and a half more weeks of my first semester of nursing school. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?!?!

I have four papers to complete and one project to present before I have to execute my final performance evaluation in high fidelity simulation and take the HESI (Health Education System Inc.) exam - all before Finals Week. 

That being said, I apologize for any late blogposts or poorly written/edited blogposts. I am doing some major self-care this weekend and I hope to have the energy to blog about it all, but I am also going to be very, very, very busy. Evidence A: my bed right now.

#nursingschoolproblems

Confirmation Class

I may have mentioned before that I am a confirmation sponsor for one of my cousins. Part of the responsibility of a sponsor is to attend as many confirmation classes with my candidate as possible. Being a short while away from Vancouver, one would think it would be easy enough for me to travel from Portland to attend all of the classes. Unfortunately, I am still a college student without a car and have had to resort to public transportation.

Fortunately, Portland to Vancouver transportation is easily maneuvered and I finally made it to mass and confirmation class with my cousins. It was great! I enjoyed spending time with my family and experiencing confirmation class with my cousins.

The class focused on human dignity - a topic I constantly think about in nursing school. It was refreshing to not only be able to talk about it openly from a religious standpoint, but also hear the thoughts of the candidates on the topic. The coordinator had prepared an activity to stimulate our interpretation of human dignity. The exercise consisted of a number of hypothetical situations with the option to make the information about the situations public or private with subsequent reasoning. Ultimately it came down to the individual's perceptions of publicity, privacy, and human dignity.

Dealing with the hypothetical is never easy for me, because I consider several possibilities at once which eventually results in indecisiveness. The candidates, on the other hand, seemed to have specific situations in mind and acted in response to them. I found it interesting from an anthropological perspective that their lived experiences varied little from each other and greatly from mine. For instance, there was a situation about a friend having a same-sex significant other. Some of the candidates thought it should be made public because they wanted to show their support. The phrase "be proud of who you are" was thrown around frequently in the discussion.

As much as I was trying to hang back and not become too involved in the discussion (in order to let the candidates flourish on their own), I spoke up on this particular occasion to play the devil's advocate. I spoke to homophoebia and bullying because I thought it was important to remind the candidates that realistically it is not quite as simple as "being proud of who you are." I am grateful no one seemed to take offense to my input as the candidates continued their discussion.

I truly enjoyed the experience of talking with young adults and sharing our faith. Confirmation class was similar to a refresher course for me and I find I cannot wait until next week!