the update

Last weekend was General Conference. Sara Dunbabin came down from DC (where she just moved to) and she stayed the weekend with me. Probably my favorite part was a night before we would both fall asleep we would just talk. That is one thing I miss about sharing a room- don’t get me wrong. I LOVE having my own room, but I remember staying up late talking to Kait and Jamie and Hannah and Paige. What good times. Anyway, so pretty much the whole weekend we just watched conference. I had a big test on Monday so I spent some time studying, but other that we cooked a rump roast. It was my first time making a roast and boy are they easy. I just put it in the crock pot with a cup of beef bouillon and a can of cream of mushroom and cooked it. It was SO good! I showed her my classroom and the Roanoke Star…and that was about it.

School went well this week. The Pharm test went well. This last Friday I had my clinical experience with the hospitalist. It was such a good experience for me. Not that I would for sure work in a hospital, but I realized that I do know some stuff and I could just picture myself being a PA. School is stressful physically and emotionally and mentally and sometimes it is easy to wonder why I’m doing this, so it was nice to have the experiences where I see the end goal and I remember that I’m ultimately going to be helping people and it is going to be wonderful. Probably my favorite part was that I could look at the labs and rule out part of the differential diagnosis. I also realize that I don’t know much, but at least I could do that. That is another thing I’m learning- humility. I don’t know anything compared to these seasoned doctors and I need to be okay with that. Humility is painful, but I guess it is important.

Saturday I volunteered at the Virginia Tech Science Day for kids. Our table was the smell and taste table. Probably the coolest part of the hwole thing was the green onion test. You plug your nose and see if you can taste anything. Then you unplug your nose…and you can tell it is a green onion. SO cool. Most of your taste is actually your nose not your tongue- weird.

Sunday was wonderful. Everything was on charity this week. Let me rewind and say that last week in my journal I talked about service and how I was questioning my efficacy and the importance of my small acts of service. Anyway, so with that in mind when we were talking about service Sister Creamer came up to me after the meeting and said how much she appreciated that I bring food over to her and just visit with her since she has been sick (with cancer). Then in RS Amber was talking about how she was having a super overwhelming week and I had emailed her a couple times to check on her and how they always came at the right time and helped her feel like she could do it. It was just nice to know that those small things really do have an affect.

The other cool thing was Jason (the EQP) and I were talking and he said that was texting Dustin and talking about me…so I read the text and it said something like ‘ I hope a really strong guy moves into the ward because we are going to need an EQP when I move and I hope that he falls for Betsy and that Betsy falls for him.’ I don’t know exactly what prompted that conversation but it was really nice that he said that about me especially cause I don’t feel like I know him that well.

A quick addendum…today (Monday) is absolutely beautiful weather! I had a little break in between class so I went home and I clean the apartment and opened the windows and turned on Kenny G. Oh man, what a great day! It just reminded me of so many summer days in california...cleaning and then having a pool party afterwards.