Finding Joy in the Journey---Now

Well, it's almost time. I’m about to embark on the last semester of my undergraduate career. The semester officially started Monday, but for me, all classes are on Thursday. Besides the emphasis this semester on Public Health Nursing, I will be completing my Capstone project which entails 210 clinical hours at a hospital with a “nurse preceptor” (basically, a nurse, that I work with at the hospital), a scholarly paper, and a project. I will be doing my hours at Primary Children’s Medical Center in Salt Lake. While I’m not looking forward to the hour drive from Provo, it will definitely be worth it. In doing my Pediatric clinical there a year ago, I fell in love with the hospital and the Infant Medical Surgical Unit—the same unit on which I get to do my capstone hours!

Primary Children's has a different feel than normal hospitals. Colorful children’s artwork covers the walls and there’s cute, seasonal, kid-oriented décor everywhere. A happy and hopeful atmosphere radiates there. The first time I walked through the hospital, I saw a nurse coming out of a patient’s room and the nurse immediately spoke into his phone “Hey, I need to find a way to get a Play Station up here,” as if it was a vital medication. Right from the start, I knew Primary Children’s hospital was special.

Yesterday, to ease myself into the school year and the crowds of people, I made the trek up to campus to do a few errands. I picked up an academic calendar—the same one printed by BYU that I purchase each Fall Semester. On the first page of the planner, there’s a quote by President Thomas S. Monson:

“Day by day, minute by minute, second by second we went from where we were to where we are now. The lives of all of us, of course, go through similar alterations and changes. The difference between the changes in my life and the changes in yours is only in the details. Time never stands still; it must steadily march on, and with the marching come the changes…I plead with you not to let those most important things pass you by as you plan for that illusive and nonexistent future when you will have time to do all that you want to do. Instead, find joy in the journey—now.”

The moment I read this, while walking down the hill from campus, I silently declared it my motto for the semester. I want to leave BYU feeling like I took advantage of all opportunities. I want to make sure I gleaned everything possible from each small learning experience. I’m feeling the significance of being done with school soon, finding a job in the real world, and many other big changes that life is about to throw at me. What better counsel is there to follow than from the living prophet?

So here’s to early morning drives, to lots of 12 hour shifts, to my umpteen page scholarly paper, to 4 hour classes and weekly quizzes, to bazillions of NCLEX prep questions, and to hours of reading and studying. Here's to learning how to really be a nurse, to my last semester of college, and to finding joy in this journey.

unto mount Nebo

On Friday, I hiked Mount Nebo (near Nephi, Utah) with John Bradley, Sara Skidmore, and Matt Johnson. I was definitely not in the best of shape to be hiking the tallest peak on the Wasatch Front, but I made it to the top! This was largely made possible by numerous speedmo’s from John Bradley.

(‘speedmo’: a term used in the Hoyt family indicating the action of someone momentarily placing one hand on the back of the person in front of them to support and/or gently push the person along—thus aiding in forward motion; can be employed while hiking, biking, walking, running, etc).

In looking back at the hike, I’m happy to say that I made it to the top and back and had lots (and I mean LOTS…like 9.5 hours) of fun chatting time. Also, I took lots of fun pictures and slept wonderfully the night following the hike. On the other hand, I was extremely tired and grumpy on the hike down and the only apparent lasting result of the hike is that I’m sore and sunburned.

Not too bad, eh?

It’s funny how quickly can be forgotten the pain of going steeply downhill for four hours (I’m pretty sure I got a taste of what arthritic knees must feel like), or what five and a half hours of heart-pumping uphill feels like. There’s something amazing about reaching the top of a mountain and something compelling about getting there. At first, I move forward along the trail to see what is next...what new view will I meet? What will appear if I just make it to the next curve in the trail? Then at some point the scenery isn’t as motivating as it used to be, and I’m looking down, hoping that focusing on my feet will somehow propel them forward. It becomes all about placing one foot in front of the other.

Kind of going off on a tangent a little bit…hiking in the mountains reminds me of my dad and my childhood, how much he likes the outdoors and all the backpacking, hiking, and camping trips we went on when I was younger. I remember once we were backpacking in the mountains in eastern Oregon and after a few days, I told my dad it felt like we had been there two weeks. He seemed surprised and replied “I feel like we just got here.” Something else my dad has mentioned before (and which I think is really cool), is that there’s a lot about mountains in the scriptures, and accounts of prophets that went into the mountains to talk to God:

“And it came to pass that after I, Nephi, had been in the land of Bountiful for the space of many days, the voice of the Lord came unto me, saying: Arise, and get thee into the mountain. And it came to pass that I rose and went up into the mountain, and cried unto the Lord” (1 Nephi 17:7).

“And the Lord said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount…And afterward all the children of Israel came nigh: and he gave them in commandment all that the Lord had spoken with him in mount Sinai” (Exodus 24:12, 32).

Since Finals week is just around the corner, I've been thinking a lot about books. No, not textbooks--i'm talking books that I actually ENJOY reading (like novels and such). During finals week I always read a book. It's a little thing that keeps my soul alive and offers a glimpse of what life can and will be like after all the dreaded finals. There's only so much time that can be devoted to study during finals week. The rest is for reading good stuff (and, of course, cooking).

Some of my favorite book quotes...

(Disclaimer: I sometimes find significance in the words of Dumbledore and even Twilight's Bella.
So shoot me. Maybe this summer I will work on reading more high-quality literature. Until then, this is as good as it gets)

“…something in her own unique mind had roused the powers within her…a beauty neither of fine colour nor long eyelash, nor penciled brow, but of meaning, of movement, of radiance. Then her soul sat on her lips, and language flowed, from what source I cannot tell…”
-Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte

"...In every important way we are such secrets from each other, and I do believe that there is a separate language in each of us, also a separate aesthetics and a separate jurisprudence. Every single one of us is a little civilization built on the ruins of any number of preceding civilizations, but with our own variant notions of what is beautiful and acceptable.
-Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson


“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”
-Dumbledore


This was my happy era now. But I was surprised to realize how many things I missed from my own personal dark ages.”
-Bella.


"There is no justice in love, no proportion in it, and there need not be, because in any specific instance it is only a glimpse or parable of an embracing, incomprehensible reality. It makes no sense at all because it is the eternal breaking in on the temporal."
-Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson

A couple days ago I was a yoga-doing, herbal tea-sipping woman reading in bed about Rembrandt.

What happened to the stressed out Nursing Student?

Well, she re-surfaced the next day. Don't worry.

I just wanted the world and myself to know that I am capable of doing cool things like Yoga and reading for Humanities.

This semester seems as though it will be intense, but it really hasn't picked up yet (hence the reason I have time to post). I am loving my D&C class, Humanities 202 class, and surprisingly...my Psychiatric Nursing Class! Acute Care (ICU) class is okay so far--after all, any class that is three hours long is hard to love. Back to Psych: I am doing my clinicals at the University of Utah Neuropsychiatric Institute (UNI) in Salt Lake. Each week I dread waking up at 5 am and am less than happy to be going, but then I go to clinical and LOVE it!

This past week for an assignment we did a video-taped role play. I acted out the role of a psychiatric nurse counseling with another student playing the role of patient with a mental disorder. The point of the assignment was to work on communication skills. Sounds easy enough, huh? Well, that's what I thought too so I didn't study or prepare beyond glancing at a sheet of "therapeutic communication skills."

It turns out that watching and evaluating the recording with my teacher was the longest, most drawn-out 8 minutes I've had in a while.

Painful.
Embarrassing.

I remember vividly the TWO times my teacher made a positive comment (I'm proud to say that I'm somewhat capable of doing a suicide assessment and asking an open-ended question. yay.)

As my teacher talked to me and gave examples of how to communicate with psych patients--how to dig deeper and get to the root of their problems, I realized that communication is an art...one that I need to practice.

To demonstrate, my teacher asked me questions and I pretended to be the patient, I was amazed at how AWESOME she was at communicating. By the end of the little demonstration I almost believed that I WAS depressed and thinking about OD'ing on Ibuprofen (really just kidding).

So communication has been on my mind a lot lately. Maybe there'll be more on that later. And maybe I'll start reading for Psych class.

Create

So I'm Training for a Half-Marathon

Usually when I'm running I think "Next time I'll go with a 5K."

I haven't missed a work out yet (I say this with fingers crossed---Friday lurks 2 days away with 10 miles in store for me).

I do not enjoy 1) that everything from my hips and down yells at me anytime I move and 2) that I often pause at the top of a staircase while my legs ache for a few seconds and 3) mile 3 ALWAYS gives me tight hammies, and 4) I think I'm getting shin splints.

However, I have a quiet appreciation for things like my warm-up jog (because it's not timed---I vcan go as slow as I want and my aching muscles kind of come back to life for a mile), and the little fluffs of cottony stuff that drift by me in the hot summer air (and yes, sometimes I try to catch them).

I also love this new thing that happens where my legs just keep going sometimes---it's like they disconnect from the rest of me---my aching lungs, my brain telling my body it can't do it, my hot face and sweaty arms. The only thing connected is my ears and the only thing they hear is the sound of my feet. My legs just find a rhythm (albeit a slow one) and GO-GO-GO. The best thing of all is this kind of rhythm that happens only sometimes. Mind floating...numb...free. And that's what makes it worth it. At least, that's what I will keep telling myself.

"With our thoughts, we make the world."

(Washing dishes…)

This summer will be.

I feel a little piece of my soul perking up. It’s been dormant for a little while---not dead. Dormant.

Dor . mant [dawr-muhnt]

4. inactive but capable of becoming active;

5. Being in an inactive state during which growth and development cease and metabolism is slowed, usually in response to an adverse environment. In winter, some plants survive as dormant seeds or bulbs, and some animals enter the dormant state of hibernation.

6. Not active but capable of renewed activity. Volcanoes that have erupted within historical times and are expected to erupt again are dormant.

(On the trail…)

Pete made this trail. (“Well, I helped” he would say).

The evening found us in our hoodies, clinging to each other as we stood on the beach, the tide lapping a little below our feet.

We sat not touching on a heap of dry but wave-softened logs, watching the blazing streak of orange across the ocean disappear as the sun set.

Then the orange made its way into the sky.

The solitary tree on that outcropping of rock looks good. Like it once quivered being all alone out there but now it’s becoming okay with its place. Like soon it might even bask in the sunlight that illuminates it. The sunlight was always there…I guess the tree didn’t notice.

What if I was in an Arizona desert (where I’ve never actually been in real life) instead of this rich, green, lilies-of-the valley-and-bleeding-heart lushness?

Why does that even come to my mind?