The Creature Gullom

Miss Myra (not her real name) was an 88 year old visually impaired woman with a history of stroke that caused her to have impaired judgement and impulsive behaviors. The other day I went into her room to help a student check her blood sugar. We found her crawling on her bed screaming profanities. Miss Myra was rather "uninhibited" in both her speech and her actions and had no trouble making her thoughts and opinions known. People dreaded her because of this. In some ways she reminded me of Gullom from Lord of the Rings.
As we left the room after checking her blood glucose, I reflected on the experience. What do people like Miss Myra have to teach us? How can we remain cool and composed when she constantly hurls insults and threats at us? How can we have compassion on her and love her as Christ loves us?
The most repulsive thing about Miss Myra is not her insults, it's not her threats, its not her disheveled appearance, it's that she reminds us of ourselves. Looking at her is like looking in a mirror. The truth is that deep inside we are all like Miss Myra. "Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks." The difference between most of us and Miss Myra is that we can filter what we are thinking to make what comes out of our mouth socially and culturally acceptable. That doesn't mean that we don't have those same wicked thoughts. Unmasked, we are all like Miss Myra; our hearts are black and shriveled. We need God and His Holy Spirit to cover us with His grace and transform us into His likeness.

Let the Games Begin

Clinicals started again this week. Thursday was my students' first day of taking care of real patients in a nursing home. Fortunately, not a tear was shed and nobody (I kept counting them) hid in the bathroom! Sometimes it's the little things...
Today as I was wondering about the units on my usual rounds, I saw one of the students hurriedly carrying a large stack of towels down the hall. I figured she was on her way to a "code brown" so I followed her to see if she needed help. We were probably 5 feet from the room when I noticed that the carpet was damp. As we approached the room we found a lady standing with her walker in inches of water and an overflowing (and I do mean overflowing) toilet. In the few minutes it took for the maintenance man to come, the entire patient room had become a lake. It was a double room so the poor woman in the other bed was literally on an island. We managed to evacuate the lady with the walker to "higher ground."
I'm thinking this is probably the only the first of many awkward bathroom stories with students. Let the games begin!

Why Pets are Therapeutic

-Research shows that petting an animal can help with relaxation, a sense of well being and lower the blood pressure.
-God created Adam and gave him charge of all the animals. It was his job to wander about the garden of Eden and name them. Humans have an innate desire to care for animals.
-Animals mostly live in the here an now. My dog Olie lives every moment to the fullest. He seems like he thinks every moment is "the best ever." Every day I get home from work he acts like I've been gone a month, it never gets old. He doesn't hold a grudge. He'll give me puppy kisses minutes after I scolded him for chewing shoes. Olie doesn't worry about tomorrow and he doesn't care if he eats the same thing everyday. Ah, the things we can learn from dogs...

God's Puppy

My friend Lisa and I seem to routinely discuss our animals... She has two cats (that she got while completing her medical residency which strengthens my argument about the pursuit a doctorate driving one to pet ownership) and I of course, have Olie (the puppy) and Kosha(the cat). Sometimes I can hear her cats purring in the background if they happen to be sitting her lap when we're on the phone.
She was describing how nice it was to have a little animal who is content just to sit next to her purr enjoying the closeness and security she provides. "I want to be God's kitty," she said. "I want to be able to be content just to be in his presence and to rest peacefully there."
"I want to be God's puppy," I added. "I want to be excited to see Him and follow Him wherever He goes walking by His side. I want to learn to take joy in pleasing Him."
The cool thing is that instead of God's puppy or God's kittie, we get to be God's children.

Puppy!!!

I've always wanted a dog but I have always been able resist getting one by telling myself my schedule was way too crazy to accommodate one, until now that is...
I was carpooling with my sisters back home from the family reunion at Lake Crescent when we happened upon a pickup truck on the side of the road with a sign that said "Puppies."
Becky, being the big sister that she is, told me I needed a puppy and promptly pulled the car over. I tried to resist, I really did; but when she handed me a puppy I knew it was all over. Before I knew it, we were making an emergency stop at WalMart in Port Angeles for puppy supplies.
Two weeks later I'm still totally captivated by this puppy. He's just so darn cute and therapeutic. In my opinion, every PhD student needs one! Even my dad thinks he's cute.
Introducing Olie:

Graduate School is Like Anesthesia...

A friend of mine recently finished her schooling to become a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA). She described her job as bringing people as close to death as possible (without actually killing them [most of the time]) and then waking them rudely to the reality of post-operative pain and disappointment. This is how I'm feeling about the PhD program right now...

Exciting Provision

I did it, I passed calculus! It was an adventure I will never forget. I don't know that I learned a whole lot about calculus in the process, but I certainly will say that it was indeed a valuable learning in experience in other respects.
In short, this is what the adventure looked like:
Four afternoons with my good friend Sharon (and her three young kids) eating "grown up candy" (chocolate truffles) making up stories about my students to facilitate learning about derivatives.
Several evenings with my dad (who incidentally told me he had gotten a 'D' in calculus his first time) eating his purple Skittles while discussing infinity and beyond.
Countless late afternoons at school hunting down any students might be lingering in the halls (there was one certain Ukrainian girl who I could always count on) to assist with matrix algebra.
A much needed but impromptu tutoring session on a Sunday afternoon with a friend's fiance who just so happened to be an engeneer.
One Skype session from Mexico City with dad.
A 2 am calculus session on a floor in Mexico City with a "Philikrainian" (Philipino/Ukrainian) student discussing probability, Democrats, Jews, Democratic Jews and/or?
Frantically sent iphone pictures of my homework assignments to my professor from an airport tarmac in Phoenix.
Locking my computer in a room where I had no immediate access to the key the night before my final. (remember there was no textbook...)
Borrowing my dad's laptop but finding out the plug-in wasn't in his computer bag and his battery was dead.
Waking up sick on the morning of the final.
The calculator died mid final and I spent a sizable amount of time calculating by hand log base 3 of 81 thus not finishing within the timeframe.

I must admit that when I finished taking the final and left campus, I was sure I had failed. Only a few days earlier I had driven to Spokane for the orientation to the PhD program at WSU. During my long drive I had listened to some audio books by C.S. Lewis and had spent some time in prayer. One thing that God had brought to my mind was this: The persuit of goals and hard work are good things. Many times the goals we work so hard to achieive are even God given, but we often miss the point and loose focus. The question that was left lingering in my mind was this: How do I make the journey of getting a PhD (or the journey of anything else) into an act of worship that honors and pleases God?
As I left campus on that final day of class, I asked myself "How do I make flunking calculus into an act of worship that honors and pleases God?" I came to the conclusion that it wasn't the "flunking of the calculus" but the reaction to the "flunking of the calculus that would be the act of worship. What reaction would be most honoring and pleasing to God?