Monday, March 27, 2006
Pink-Poka-Dotted Scrubs, Here I Come
I think I might want to be a nurse when I grow up. For one thing, I don’t have my heart set on any other career and I want to be working towards something. I want to be able to help people, and nursing is always needed, in every country and culture.
Also, first aid is useful pretty much everywhere, and so no matter what else I become and study, I will have a valuable skill. Nursing will, hopefully, guarantee me a job wherever I travel, and I believe the hours are flexible—I will have to do more research on that.
Nursing skills will always come in handy—everyone is getting older and, on the flip side, children are being born all the time—old and young need nursing. I would like to see all the aspects of life.
I will be able to study other things that interest me while having a pretty reliable job.
I don’t know how good of a nurse-er I will be, but I like being with people, and I want to be more willing to get my hands dirty to serve others, so we’ll see. If, in a few years as you sit in the doctor's office, you see me coming at you with a needle, please don't run screaming from the building: it wouldn't look very good to my employers.
Also, first aid is useful pretty much everywhere, and so no matter what else I become and study, I will have a valuable skill. Nursing will, hopefully, guarantee me a job wherever I travel, and I believe the hours are flexible—I will have to do more research on that.
Nursing skills will always come in handy—everyone is getting older and, on the flip side, children are being born all the time—old and young need nursing. I would like to see all the aspects of life.
I will be able to study other things that interest me while having a pretty reliable job.
I don’t know how good of a nurse-er I will be, but I like being with people, and I want to be more willing to get my hands dirty to serve others, so we’ll see. If, in a few years as you sit in the doctor's office, you see me coming at you with a needle, please don't run screaming from the building: it wouldn't look very good to my employers.
Monday, March 20, 2006
Why Everyone Gets Sick in Winter:
Today I used up about a twelve-foot tall tree in Kleenex. It was surprising. I had packed away about a fifty-foot tall tree in Kleenex in preparation for the day and it is surprising that I only used twelve feet. ;)
I am sick today. So is more than half the world. I am not surprised about that either. It is winter—in winter people get sick. This phenomenon is really very easily explained.
It is winter. (Actually it is officially Spring—but if you look at the weather rather than the calendar, it is cold and snowy and that means winter.) In winter we get sick because our bodies have a self-preservation instinct and assume (sometimes wrongly, as in today for me) that if we get sick we will stay in our houses where it is comfortable and not go outside where it is an icy, cold world of mishaps on our un-iced front walks.
Secondly, we all get sick in winter because we are a sympathetic species and we like to keep each other company in our Kleenex-ridden state of sickness.
And finally, everyone gets sick in winter to remind us how much we really do love our health and to be even more excited for Spring in which we will dance in the grass and sunshine and make flowers out of our Kleenex.
I am sick today. So is more than half the world. I am not surprised about that either. It is winter—in winter people get sick. This phenomenon is really very easily explained.
It is winter. (Actually it is officially Spring—but if you look at the weather rather than the calendar, it is cold and snowy and that means winter.) In winter we get sick because our bodies have a self-preservation instinct and assume (sometimes wrongly, as in today for me) that if we get sick we will stay in our houses where it is comfortable and not go outside where it is an icy, cold world of mishaps on our un-iced front walks.
Secondly, we all get sick in winter because we are a sympathetic species and we like to keep each other company in our Kleenex-ridden state of sickness.
And finally, everyone gets sick in winter to remind us how much we really do love our health and to be even more excited for Spring in which we will dance in the grass and sunshine and make flowers out of our Kleenex.
Monday, March 13, 2006
Why War Is in the History Books
A few days ago in Seminary we had a hypothetical situation presented to us—it was our introduction to the war chapters in the Book of Mormon—and we were all brilliant historians who had been approached to make a pamphlet about ten of the biggest occurrences in America’s past. Almost every one of them was a war. We talked about why that was, and I want to write about it a little more here.
It makes sense, doesn’t it? War uproots pretty much everything in life, and it changes or kills those most intimately connected to it. I would like to do a study on humanity’s most influential and/or greatest leaders. I think whatever I found would be very interesting. I hypothesize that the majority, if not all of them, would have arisen from changing times, if not outright war.
If necessity is the mother of invention, then war is necessity’s closest sister. In wartime countries put more money into anything that can help, and by a natural consequence, a lot of inventions are by-products, or left-overs from war. Wars are a main part of humanity’s history because of all the inventions that come because of war.
Wars are a main part of our history because big causes have been won or lost and we like to remember our soul-lifting triumphs and learn from our devastating mistakes. From war we learn a little bit more about ourselves and what we are made of. And we see the hero in others when we might have missed it otherwise. We get stronger.
War inhales supplies and lives and land. We remember war because it changes our lives with suddenness that was always there, but able to be ignored until now. We remember war because it makes us change, fight, or die.
It makes sense, doesn’t it? War uproots pretty much everything in life, and it changes or kills those most intimately connected to it. I would like to do a study on humanity’s most influential and/or greatest leaders. I think whatever I found would be very interesting. I hypothesize that the majority, if not all of them, would have arisen from changing times, if not outright war.
If necessity is the mother of invention, then war is necessity’s closest sister. In wartime countries put more money into anything that can help, and by a natural consequence, a lot of inventions are by-products, or left-overs from war. Wars are a main part of humanity’s history because of all the inventions that come because of war.
Wars are a main part of our history because big causes have been won or lost and we like to remember our soul-lifting triumphs and learn from our devastating mistakes. From war we learn a little bit more about ourselves and what we are made of. And we see the hero in others when we might have missed it otherwise. We get stronger.
War inhales supplies and lives and land. We remember war because it changes our lives with suddenness that was always there, but able to be ignored until now. We remember war because it makes us change, fight, or die.
Monday, March 06, 2006
Music of the Soul
Austria has The Sound of Music; China has Yo Yo Ma; Europe has Mozart, Bach, and so many others; Utah has Corduroy, but good music has no boundaries! I love music! I am so excited to be in choir next year, and only a little intimidatedJ. A while ago the choir—our school has an amazing choir—gave a short assembly for the school. Among the pieces they sang was a Russian song, I don’t remember the name, but translated it meant Avia Maria. It was beautiful.
They started the piece and I just slipped into the music. I don’t even remember half of the song because I was so caught up in its beauty and the thoughts that it provoked in me. I think that is the mark of a good piece—it is so transcendent that it doesn’t force your attention on itself, but rather you naturally let it take care of itself and think about the people who wrote it, the people who have heard it, and your own life.
The song was different from the other pieces they sang. It was not only a song of praise, but you could hear the under-current of sadness and hardship,mostly overcome, but still a large part of the Russian out-look and way of life. I glimpsed a part of the people who had given rise to it.
I loved the assembly. I love music and I loved the Russian Avia Maria.
They started the piece and I just slipped into the music. I don’t even remember half of the song because I was so caught up in its beauty and the thoughts that it provoked in me. I think that is the mark of a good piece—it is so transcendent that it doesn’t force your attention on itself, but rather you naturally let it take care of itself and think about the people who wrote it, the people who have heard it, and your own life.
The song was different from the other pieces they sang. It was not only a song of praise, but you could hear the under-current of sadness and hardship,mostly overcome, but still a large part of the Russian out-look and way of life. I glimpsed a part of the people who had given rise to it.
I loved the assembly. I love music and I loved the Russian Avia Maria.
