Talks with Mr. Martinez

There are people that you come across in life and sometimes you just want to know them more than you do. They share little snippets of their life with you, and as the stories of their lives unfold from their mouths, you start to come to an awareness that they have figured things out about life that some people never will. It is portrayed in their words, their faces, the way they carry themselves, their poetry, their art, their songs, the stories they've written and told.

I have a lot of those people in my life, I am fortunate to say. A lot of people I admire for many different reasons. I know people so full of love that everyone around them is somehow touched by their lives.

I've been working on campus after school everyday as a math tutor. I work a late shift because I have class every day until the afternoon. Sometimes we have people in there, and sometimes we just don't. That's where Mr. Martinez comes in.

One day, one of the first days, that I was working there tutoring, he wasn't aware that I'd been hired and tried to lock me out. We joked about it, and I explained to him that I was there every night now. He did his work as the maintenance man while I was in there working. I told him not to pay any mind to me, but just do whatever it was that he needed to do, and I wouldn't mind.
He is a nice man with kind eyes and white hair. Every night that I am there, he shares a little more about his life.

One night he sat down and talked to me, I mean really talked to me. He told me his philosophies on life and his job. He's been working there for nearly 40 years. He said that every day he gets up, and he looks forward to his life and his job. He takes pride in his job and doing it well. He is proud of our school and how it looks.

He shared his joy in his daughter, and I could tell he was proud of her hard work during pharmacy school. He spoke of the long drives he would take to go get her from her college in Portland, just when she needed to see a friendly face. It didn't matter that he had worked all night long. He would still go and get her to bring her back home for the weekend.

I never want to forget people like Mr. Martinez. I don't know if he knows that his small pieces of advice change my life just a little bit every night, but they do. His words matter.  I see these people everywhere throughout my life, and  I never want to forget their stories.


If you have a Mr. Martinez in your life, share your story! :]

Love,

Amber

Time to be inspired, It's fall!

One of my favorite seasons is fall! It's the most fun time to take pictures because the leaves are falling everywhere, and it just looks so beautiful. So I tend to get a little crazy snapping pictures of every. Single. Leaf. Be prepared for pictures of all this pretty fall that's happening outside over the next month or so.

Speaking of creativity:

A few years ago, I was doing an open mic night and I happened upon a girl named Jodi Marie Fisher. Some of you might know the same girl. She used to run the open mic nights at The District in downtown Boise. Well, Jodi and I became fast friends. I love this girl! She's definitely a kindred spirit. 

She's started a Facebook page to share her creativity with the world! Not only is she a musician, but my goodness she's amazing at creating art!

She has the cutest earrings on the planet.

Go check her out:

Jodi's Facebook Page

I also added her to my favorites section of my website, so if you don't have to search through all my blogs to find her again.

Life has been crazy as usual. I've had tests, deadlines, and also started a new after school job. It's not much, but it's something for now! I plan to do a more thorough update early this week sometime.

Here's a look into my life this week:

Love,

Amber

Learning to grow

There are days that you dread, and on those days you dread, you usually get to anticipate their coming.

Monday I got into class, and it was my worst nightmare unfolding before my eyes. We weren't prepared. We didn't know what was about to happen. For some it might not have been a big deal, but for me, it was pretty much my worst nightmare multiplied by a 100.

Have you ever done something that you just dread? The mere thought of it just makes you squirm uncomfortably?

We were told on Monday that the whole day we would be practicing physicals on each other.

This might not seem bad for some, but after they disclosed what this would encompass, I could feel myself squirming, feeling sick, and hyperventilating just to even think about it.

We were told we would get in a hospital gown, the ones that sort of fasten up, and have to be nearly naked at moments in front of our peers. Awkward. Very, very awkward.

I could feel a very prominent thought inside my head forming,  "I did not sign up for this!" 

It's not so bad if you actually have a doctor you see, but to have to spend a whole day in front of these people that I know on a personal level, people that I will see every day for the next two years except for weekends and holidays, and then add this uncomfortable scene into the picture.... Well it just wasn't what I really wanted to do. I'm conservative for goodness sakes!

This concept was a stretch. 

And then I thought about it, and then some more again, and then a little bit more. I thought hard.

I wonder how the patient feels to be in those places, exposed, vulnerable, and uncomfortable. 

Maybe this fear is a good thing as we learn to stretch ourselves. 

Maybe this fear is showing us how it feels to be human and in other people's shoes. 

This fear is showing us how to feel empathy for someone, because we have once been in their same spots enduring the feeling of being on the hospital bed and vulnerable. 

This raw fear was recreating a scene we might have to live in only a matter of months, but played out on the other side of the situation.

I guess things that make us think, make us think hard, will help us grow and stretch in a way that breeds compassion.  

You have to find understanding in all trials, no matter what they mean, big or small. 

Monday the lesson I learned is what feels to be truly empathetic towards another human being as a nurse. I will carry that in my heart as long as I live.

Empathy- the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another. 

It won't be forever.

My second week of nursing school is underway, and I don't think I will ever be able to fit everything inside my brain that I have to fit.

There are things for days to pack inside there.

I have found myself doing more homework in these last two weeks than I feel like I have ever done in my whole college career before now. I know you might think I am over exaggerating, but I am not.
There are places to check, hidden assignments, nearly missed posts, and I guess I feel like my pre-nursing college days were easy as peach pie compared to this madness.

It's good, and I am not complaining. I enjoy the class time, and I feel like I can't get enough of it. I just feel like we were nurtured more in my prior college experience.

In my pre-nursing school days, If you had a test, you would know that it's over chapter such and such, but in nursing school they give you a list of questions to look up, a list of maybe four books the information for the whole sheet of questions might be in, and that's it! So you have two books that are 2000 pages each, and you maybe even one of those four books are split up into two books, with an index that lasts for days...

I was not prepared for this, but I feel like I am grabbing hold of these concepts at least.
Nursing school is not for the faint of heart.
You work hard.
Your laundry goes unfolded.
You might be found crying  in bedrooms and cars from the sheer overwhelming feelings of the list of things you have to do.
You worry a little about how you're going to have a job.
You write just to keep your sanity.
You pray on the way to school and on the way home from school just to make it.
And you hope that at the end of the two years, you're there carrying a diploma that says you made it to the finish line.

Love,

Amber

Done, done, and done!

It's nearly midnight, and I am rushing to post something before my cell phone battery shuts off for good.

I'm realizing that living in this city has killed my cell phone battery, but I refuse to switch to other companies that charge way too much for way less than I have now just to get better signal.

I finally have everything turned in for school. I faxed my packet today. It was such a liberating feeling, but fear has started to set inside my heart a bit. 

Maybe fear isn't the right word for it. Maybe nervousness is a better description. 

I am worried that I don't have what it takes to get through these next two years. I have heard from so many people about how tough it is, and how they've designed it so it might be impossible to work during the process. 

I am afraid of failing. 

I never saw myself in these places even five years ago. 

I never knew I wanted something so much. Maybe all these past few months of struggling to get things turned in, living on a wish and a prayer, was Gods way of showing me that this is what I really wanted, so that I wouldn't take it for granted. I would remember how much I prayed and cried when I was afraid that I would be a day late and a dollar short, and I would use that feeling to power me through because I knew just how much faith it took to get to this place.

Even though it might be the hardest thing I have every done in my life, it will be worth it. 

My blog might be my only friend for the next two years. 

They gave us a letter to give to our family and friends from the nursing department that essentially says  we will be absent from their lives until this program is completed. 

I hope that I can write about every single, crazy second of the journey.

My future  posts might be non-complete sentences scrawled on restaurant napkins, but I am hopeful to at least write something.