If you use an inhaler for Asthma make sure and keep it at room temperature. If you keep it in a cold environment the gases will condense making the dose that you receive variable. So especially those inhalers for emergency attacks need to be at room temperature to make sure that when you need the right dose of medicine, you will get it!
Just saw Salmon Fishing in the Yemen with my beautiful mother. Absolutely adored it!
I can't stop thinking though about the character Ewan McGregor plays and how he believed all he would ever do is live an ordinary, dull life (the one he thought he was "supposed" to live) and how that kept him from looking outside the box to see how he could live. And it got me thinking about how I have been like this character for so much of my life. I don't exactly know why, but I think it all boils down to fear. The fear of risks turning out to be mistakes. The fear I won't know what it is I want to do because I am unsure of who I am. The fear of not doing what I should be doing. I know this is all been said before. So very unoriginal! But I guess they are original to my life since it is today that I realized this is me.
It's time to throw all that fear out the window and live a bit more. Once the fear is gone I can replace it with the gorgeous thought that each day is my own to create my life - something so completely and uniquely my own. It is the truest representation of myself, crafted by who I am and of course by God as well. I want it to scream this is ME and this is how I chose to LIVE.
So any advice? How do YOU live life to the fullest?
I don't know what I did to be so blessed. Every day I think, how in the world could I be any happier than at this exact moment! And then after the most gorgeous, adventurous dreams, a new day comes that makes me more happy than the one before. Thank you. Thank you especially to such wonderful friends that make every moment full of Joy.
Sometimes we go shopping at the Hospital!
My Lovely Med-Surg Clinical Group
Silly Sorah.
In hopes of preventing stress and instead focusing on effort and learning I decided not to look at my grades this term. Not once the whole semester! What kind of craziness is this???? It's my rebellion against a very imperfect system where effort, knowledge and application are only measured by your ability to answer multiple choice questions. So then all us A type personalities spend much too much time freaking out about A- instead of As!! Give me an essay! Interview me! Anything but select all that apply and mulling over single words in a test question!
I began this term wanting to remember why I am doing this program and what it is really about. Perfect grades are not what matter. It is learning and then applying my knowledge to help my patients that is all matters. Testing is merely a step along the way. So new measures of knowledge are in place. My patient's care. My ability to diagnose.
My love of what I do.
These beautiful friends of mine remember that. I often forget!
February Report: I loved February. I loved focusing on others and becoming more aware of things in my character and life that hold me back from serving and loving. Most of all I loved seeing how others were charitable. My roommate sacrificing sleep to talk to a friend, my mother praying to know what I need and saying exactly what the Lord needs me to hear, my friend being as excited about another friend's life as she is about her own, a nurse sacrificing her lunch to be with a scared patient, a friend who gives me a home in Baltimore every week, another who drives me to school when I can't. The list goes on and on. I loved witnessing those Amelie moments where someone was lifted so high by another's kindness. The KEY is prayer: praying for charity.
My First Marathon: A Lesson in Courage
March I have decided, since it is the month of my birthday, is going to be about striving to reach my potential and realizing that that potential is limitless. Sometimes I forget that what I can do in life and make of life all depends on my willpower and effort. It truly is. But at times it feels like statistics, other's opinions and possible risks have more determination over my life than I do. This month I hope to change that terrible perspective and start seeing my life as the opportunity it is. I'm going to do this by training for my first Marathon.
I fell in love with running in college. One day I decided I wanted to be able to run a mile in 8 minutes and I ran every day after. I love how meditative running is and how amazing it feels to push myself so far. I love that I can enjoy the beauty of this Earth as I run and soak it all in.
Best of all, I love seeing how far my heart can go. You see, I have had minor troubles with my heart since I was very little. I was born with an irregular heartbeat, but that is something I cherish as unique and it doesn't threaten my health in any way. I remember in Assessment class this past year a good friend of mine listened to my heart for the first time and exclaimed, "Nina, you have your own music box inside of you! It plays a melody all it's own."I love that my heartbeat is all my own. But my heart does have a weakness: skipped beats. A stressful childhood gave birth to an overworked heart that then responds more intensely to stress than perhaps it should. But I believe that it is strong. While it terrifies me when it decides it doesn't want to function properly, I believe that it is stronger for the stress it has endured. I want now to prove it.
From Gattaca: "For what it's worth, I'm here to tell you that it is possible. It is possible."
So I am running the Utah Valley Marathon on June 9th.
A lovely stroll around Johns Hopkins University. My second home these days. How absolutely lovely is the East Coast with it's old architecture and beautiful trees.
Front Entrance to Homewood Campus
Don't you just want to sit here with a book and Starbucks hot chocolate?
The birds are chirping now. Spring is almost here.
I am in LOVE with these!
Hopkins loves to decorate with first editions and gorgeous antique books.
The Cherry Blossoms are starting to bloom! My favorite trees! Soon they will fill the streets from Maryland to Virginia.
This is Lucy. She happens to be my little orangutan. Yes really! This summer she asked to be carried everywhere we went! Zoos, museums, parks, monuments, grocery stores…everywhere! I had the strongest muscles! On one of our adventures we saw this amazing documentary at the Natural History Museum called Born to Be Wild about a woman began an orphanage for baby orangutans. At this orphanage, each orangutan has it's own pseudo mother who carries it everywhere just like real orangutan mothers do.
Like this.
And as soon as images of these orangutan "mothers" appeared, Lucy called out, with a smile bigger than the HUGE 3d glasses she was wearing, "NINA! That's me!" and the name stuck.
Why won't you stay still?
Cute.
But really?!
Lucy just got a puppy a few weeks ago. How adorable are the two of them?
Sometimes Satie and I do face masks…Sometimes they get all tight and squish our cheeks to our noses…Sometimes it gives us sad faces and makes it almost IMPOSSIBLE to smile!
