Monday, August 18, 2003

"I'll keep a part of you with me, and everywhere I am, there you'll be ..."

What a weekend. A looooong weekend. Parts were good, parts were bad ... and I lived through it.

Brandy's moving day stretched into Brandy's moving dayS, with both Adam and Brandy working themselves near-to-frazzled. Her new place is quite nice, and she bought the prettiest quilt for her bed!

Emilie's moving day on Sunday got off to a very early start, which was a good thing ... since by noon there wasn't a parking space to be found in the 88 degree humidity. By that time we were cool and comfortable, setting up things in her room and watching the poor folks out her window. We got to meet one of Emilie's roommates ... a sweet girl named Kate who transferred to Clemson from Agnes Scott in Atlanta. Talked to Em this afternoon, and she and Karen are having problems with their high-speed internet hookup, but hopefully the tech guy will be around tomorrow to get them all fixed up. She had a broken drawer in her nightstand, and the guy came today to fix it. Hopefully the computer problems will be resolved that quickly.

Don't really know why her moving day was so emotionally hard on me, but man, was it ever. I cried and cried. I think maybe it's because she's in her first "on her own" situation ... before she was always with Adam. Also, I think the stress of starting the job added to the pain of seeing her go. I miss her. :-( But she sounded good this afternoon, and that helps.

The Job. I'm here to tell you I felt really weird being the only white person in orientation today. In fact, during the first couple of hours, I hated everything about everything and I sat there and planned my next step of taking the part-time job offered to me last week at Sunrise Assisted Living. But then we took a walking tour of NHC, and had a break ... and when I walked around and got to look into the patients' (residents') rooms, well, it all began to feel a bit better. I still don't like orienting with 6 black people all under the age of 26, but I'll survive. I have to remember that the job I've chosen is mostly held by minorities. And I imagine that the one and only male who's orienting for his new job in the food service department is feeling a bit "alone" as well. I just wish the LPN who sits next to me didn't smell so horribly of old nasty cigarette smoke. (And I like to smell smoke!) I have to fight the gag reflex when her breath heads my way. On my way out today, I ran into Emilie's 1st grade teacher. She was walking with her father, who lives at NHC ... unfortunately not on the unit I'll be working. So very nice to get a warm hug and see a familiar face at the end of my first day!

Thought For Today:
"Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain." (Mark Twain)

No comments: