Let's see...I'm finally a real nurse...passed the boards, registered with the state of Michigan, blah, blah, blah. It's starting to sink in about how much responsibility I have, and it's making me wonder if I was in my right mind with I signed on for this. But I'm muddling through. Hopefully I can get a year or so of experience in and find a job that's more suited to my interests. Right now I work on an LTACH (long-term acute care) unit. I'm seeing a good variety of patients and learning a lot, but it's a pretty draining population to be dealing with. My people are often frustrated because they're in the hospital because of something that went wrong at another hospital, or they've been hospitalized for months. Most of them die or go to long-term care. I'd rather work in an outpatient cosmetic surgery center...give people boob jobs and make them happy! But I can't complain, really. I'm learning a lot and my coworkers have been really gracious and helpful. And then there's the patient or two that takes my hand and says, "Thank you for all you did for me." And right then it seems worth it.
And of course there's all my theological pondering. Lately I've been going to an Eastern Orthodox church. Long story, but I was introduced through a class that I took in January. The beauty of the divine liturgy is striking, I appreciate Eastern perspective on a lot of theological issues such as the Atonement, but I am just not convinced at this point that being Orthodox would be so much better than being Christian Reformed. I miss my CRC church a lot sometimes. So I'm "auditing" Orthodox catechism since a few of my friends are going through it as well. Weird? Yep, I know. I just keep thinking...maybe I can appreciate the beauty of Orthodoxy without actually making the leap. Maybe there's something to sticking with the communion that I was baptized into, and educated in, for that matter.
In other news, my roommate and I are moving to another apartment this weekend. I feel like this makes my college to real life transition official, for some reason.
Well, I'm going to try and get back into blogging now that I'm not studying for boards and going to EKG class. Hopefully I can post some more specific reflections on all of the above.
