oh precious positivity!

(photo: istockphoto.com)

My life has taken a massive turn for the better. I finally told my amigo exactly how I felt about the direction that we had chosen (which was not a positive one) and we parted ways, temporarily. I needed some space, so did he. When he's ready to come back, he will, and I will have to be patient and turn things over to God until then.

Today I was reading The Positivity Blog : www.positivityblog.com and came across this quote:

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.

George Bernard Shaw

He is so right! That George Bernard Shaw was an intelligent man. I certainly HAVE been blaming my circumstances for what they are. "I don't have enough money, this red tape is so thick, running hurts, etc. etc. " All of this is ridiculous! I have circumstances I want, and I am getting up to go and get them!

Some positive statements:

I am going running in a few minutes, for 20 minutes. I run 20 minutes, 3xs a week. This happens for the next 40 days.

I also spend at least one hour doing one chapter of one subject every day for the next 40 days. These subjects are in this order: Medical Terminology, Biology, Statistics, Arabic.

I call one friend or family member every other day.

Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.

H. Jackson Brown

Health and Beauty

Last year I spent some time on the college newspaper for St. Catherine University. I wrote a lot about health, specifically articles relating to health on college. I hated the deadlines and barely had any time to do research or write because I was so busy with school, homework, and ROTC. But now that I am not doing any of those things, I figure I might have some time to find a job, even if it were a freelance job, writing a health/beauty section. That was my original intent in starting a blog - that it was going to be about health and beauty on a budget. I gave up that idea after I started working on finding a job - but I could still do it if I wanted. I just need to get dedicated to the idea. At the moment, I am simply spending my time writing reviews on epinions.com. You should check them out : kjs_points is my user name.

All alone

I sincerely do not like being alone, especially in an empty, quiet house. It just leaves room for fear and that way-too familiar ache to rise in my chest, reminding me that I am thousands of miles away from my family and my so-called friends. HOUSE is a comfort (watching full episodes online is thrilling), and I have music, and my trusty books and bible, but all in all, I really hate being alone.

I was watching a movie the other day, or perhaps it was an episode of HOUSE, and I saw a woman working, taking care of her family and her profession, and it pleased me. It made me ache again and desire to work and have control again was overwhelming. So I've decided I need to sit down and write down what I want, and pray about what God wants for me.

Today I did my tax return. I'm getting quite a lump sum back (and I am so excited about it, all that money gets to go towards bills!) I can probably pay off my medical bills and that sum that I owe TCF... and maybe even have enough left over for a month of rent!

I realized why I like to read blogs. I read them because it is similar to reading a cheap pleasure novel. I get to experience different people's writing styles and peek into their lives for the five minutes that it takes to read their entry-of-the-day.

I slept at Y's last night after my drunk roommate started getting boisterous. He was pretty great, watching The Blind Side with me until three a.m., pausing it every few minutes to explain something to me or break into some story, and waking me up this morning with Nutella and toast. All in all, it was pleasant to sleep in a house with people, to wake up to people, and to be brought home to a quiet home.

Then I took a nap, did my taxes, organized papers, took a shower, did laundry, and watched House. Productive... but lonely.

What I want is a balance of productive and un-lonely. I want to learn, but am tired of doing it alone. I want to be productive, working out and getting ahead in my life, but I want to share the experience with a person rather than going about it on my own. I have been going about things on my own since I was 16... and I just want that part to be over. I want the experience to be shared, and shared in a stable environment.

Emotions constantly wreak havoc in my life. They seem like such a burden half the time when, in my mind, I know that they're a gift, and when they're treated properly, they're quite wonderful. I still feel overwhelmed by them half the time.

Who I am: Part time 19-year old girl, bouncing around from state to state, working jobs to hopefully pay rent, buy food, and pay bills. Emotional rollercoaster.

What I do: sleep, blog, attempt to work out, go on the internet, clean house, occassionally read a book, go places with Y and the occassional friend.

What I want to do: work out, read, run, do my own thing, meet people, clean house, be responsible.

How I get there: do one thing each day that brings me towards that goal and away from the bad habits that are currently defining me now. :)

adderall abuse.

I keep waking up at 11:30 in the morning. My alarm goes off at 9:15... but I press 'dismiss'. I do not even bother with the snooze button to re-disturb my sleep in another five minutes. I straight up dismiss that alarm, sending it back to the electronic hibernation center where it belongs! What does that Blackberry alarm think it is doing, disturbing my peaceful dreaming at 9:15 in the morning when most people with 9 to 5 jobs have already begun their days! I am a part-time non-college bum at the moment, and I can sleep until three in the afternoon if I please, thankyouverymuch!

....

Lies!

My circadian rhythm is way off right now. [Circadian rhythm -an internal biological clock that regulates a variety of biological processes according to an approximate 24-hour period (www.emedicinehealth.com), or the time that is your regular bed time and the time when you naturally wake up.) I should be going to sleep around ten and waking up at around eight am every day, ready to go about my day, but instead I am forcing myself to be awake until two a.m. and then sleeping until nearly noon! Let's face it: everyone needs sleep and a good nap in the middle of the day feels so good. But the flip side of it is something I see around campus and prevalent in college students: The abuse of Adderall.

Adderall is a medicine used by ADHD patients and is a psycho-stimulant. In a nutshell that means that it increases energy, alertness, can improve mood, etc. It's like cocaine or methamphetamine (www.webmd.com). But a few weeks ago I witnessed the abuse of Adderall as a drug - one that kept someone I know up all night, making it impossible for him to sleep and exhausting him the next day, leaving him feeling sick. This isn't the first person I have witnessed in the aftermath of Adderall abuse - and they do not think it is a big deal at all. After all, it was freely given to them, and the psycho-stimulant made it possible for them to stay up all night and have fun with their "friends", or study all night, or be extremely focused. Personally, if I wanted a psycho-stimulant, caffeine is available - and legal!

I want to make it perfectly clear that I do not agree with experimenting with drugs. I am a firm believer that those who use drugs and believe it is "no big deal" are only leaving room in their lives for bigger drugs to come into play and handing the remote control to their lives over to drugs, and away from themselves. I like having the remote control to my life, and want to keep it that way.

I also am a firm believer in not condemning those who have made the choice to use drugs. I think that the best way to guide a person back to what is legal is to lead by example. Therefore, I do not use drugs and do not encourage it, and will never agree with someone that drugs are okay, but I will be supportive in finding help if someone comes to me with a drug problem.

Back to my own circadian rhythm though: I need to start getting back into the habit of waking up early. So tomorrow when my alarm goes off in the morning... I am going to wake up. I hope. :) I'll let you know!

There is a lot that I want to write about: the new health-care bill, this news bit I found on cnn.com, and my lack of reading (!!!) that I need to catch up on... as well as some interesting life bits that have been going on at work/home. But all that must wait because (gasp!) it's half past midnight and if I want to wake up and regulate my rhythm, I have to sleep first.

Paging PIH

It was not my intent to be blogging again tonight! I intended on reading and studying my new books that I checked out from the local library and going in depth into the terminology before going for a run and cleaning house. But... after an hour I ended up on the Partners In Health webpage, clicking through the pages of the great work that they are doing. At least it is a better distraction than facebook!

(Check them out at www.pih.org or www.standwithhaiti.org/haiti ... and feel free to donate to them, they need it!)

I found out about PIH when my step-mom gifted me with Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder when I was a junior in high school. I didn't bother reading it until after my freshman year of college when I was bored, cold, and alone in my bedroom on a rainy day. I finished it within three hours, after dog-earing pages with medical terms I did not understand, highlighting quotes I loved, and feeling fully inspired to pursue the career in the medical field that I did not even know that I desired until picking up that book.

I have never had a hero before. Dr. Paul Farmer and the other co-founders of Partners In Health along with the team of medical personnel that they work with are all my heroes. I have never met them (although I would be more than excited to have the chance to sit and talk with them about their work) but their story is extremely inspiring to me.

I want to be a doctor that does what they do. I want to provide medical care to those with few options and have the guts to actually care about my patients instead of just their treatments. People in the medical field tell me all the time that I am just naive, that after awhile of working in the medical field I will lose my naiviety and be just as frigid as everyone else, but I do not see that happening. I don't want that to ever happen, because that would mean that I would not care about the true well being about patients anymore! I want to care about patients as people, not just as illnesses. Why do I want to do that? Because I would love a doctor to do that for me too!

Another reason why Dr. Farmer's story is such an inspiration to me is because he seems to be so fascinated by the world in the book. He spent time learning Hatian Creole and about the people, enjoyed nice meals with Tracy Kidder, ended up marrying, and yet still returns to Haiti to help. If I have an ounce of the dedication that he possesses, I will be able to eventually return to school and get my degree as well.

I get really excited when I get to learn a new thing about the body, or have something to look up, or am presented with an opportunity to learn about medicine or healthcare in general (and psychology too). I love that I have the opportunity to utilize my local library to get books to read on the subject before I am able to afford to go back to school so that when I do get to return to complete my education, I will have the knowledge stored up and the classes will be easier for me to pass! (And I will be able to focus on learning different languages, since that seems to be my most ominous challenge... that and organic chemistry!)

Anyway, please, if you have never heard of Partners in Health, please please I am begging you to check them out. Or at least take the time to read Mountains Beyond Mountains. It's not just for people who are interested in anything medical... it's a story about humanity, and about a man who is the living picture of what sacrifice and fighting for what you believe in looks like.

Rn-ing to RN

I love the smell of hospitals. The anesthetic, plastic, too-many-sick-and-injured-people-crowded-into-one-building smell. Call me crazy if you'd like, but that smell to me is like home. I do not get to smell it very often, since I am not plagued with some terrible disease or accident prone, however when I do smell it, it sings to me. It calls "Katherine, come to me, come work here, be a part of this, help......" I depart from it heartbroken at the thought that I am not there yet, not helping yet, and my passionate hunger to be there is left unsatiated.

I have to run to get there.

I do not mean physically run, although recently it's been drilled into my brain by my loving friend that doctors and nurses should be responsible for taking care of themselves if they think they should be capable of handling other peoples wellness. I have to run towards teaching myself. Towards tapping into the passion that is within me and expressing it through reading, dedication towards teaching myself since I am unable to afford school, towards voluteering at clinics, towards research, towards saving up money for school... towards life.

I have a lot that I want to share. I want to share about how infuriated I become when I think about the condition of our healthcare worldwide (not just here in the United States of America). I want to share how fascinated I am with learning about how the human body functions in each and everyway, and how diseases affect it. I want to share how frustrating it is to search endlessly for a job to be able to pay for my education, but still not be able to go to school until next year when I am officially a resident of this state. All of that can be saved for later dates. For now, I am going to go back to reading Medical Terminology Demystified (Dr. Dale Layman) and studying the human brain on www.getbodysmart.com. (Amazing website by the way, great for getting to know basic anatomy and a quick review!)