The earth is tired

Sometimes, when I am in my little cold world here in the peg, shut in by blizzards and all i can hear is the sound of wind gusting around the corner of my building, this is all there is. It feels like i am trapped in this endless blowing wind and snow and although there is more world out there. i know this in my head, for right now, all that ends and there is only the blanket of white and howling outside. Somewhere out there, in this great big world, there are people whose lives just tore right apart...broken by nature...lost in a storm...not winter and this cold tomb I am in, but the earth actually breaking apart right underneath them and then water crashing down around them...I can't imagine the earth just opening like that and swallowing me up...I can't imagine how sad it must be to just stand on those empty broken streets and realize that not only are your loved ones gone, but your life is forever changed, your whole world, your little patch of earth just broke underneath you...the earth is old and tired, falling apart around you...
Someone out beyond this white is suffering...but I am cocooned in this place, frozen

these are the golden years...

one day we will look back on all this mess and think, "that was such a great time." Today one of my clinical mates was expressing his views on this fact. And then added, "But i am having such a great time in this moment too." In all of our worries about grades, the stress of assignments, the pressure of working in small groups and being constantly evaluated, being told we are 'adequate', trying to balance all this out with a life, and some people having families of their own already. And he (my classmate) is absolutely loving it!
and then there is me.
Truly, as I was thinking about his completely earnest admission I got alittle bit caught up in the fact that, yes, I am here...in a high intensity, lay it on the line kind of place right now. And I am working towards something that I keep telling myself is worth it in the long run (the looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong run). Every time I sit through a redundant lecture or participate in a time consuming group project I start wondering if i am wasting my time...but then I look around at some of my more 'hopefull' mates and hear them say things like, "this is the golden time...the glory days..." and as much as I really don't think this is very glorious or ever will be, in fact, it may be something I prefer to forget. This moment of deadlines, bus-stops, blizzards, and a sinus infection...is more than just the dreary getting by of it. It's more than just a means to an end. It's life, it's breathing, changing, moving, unpredictable and freakishly scary...and thats enough for me right now. I am at peace with that.

maybe, just maybe it even has a bit of a silverish lining to it...I'm not really the golden years type...so silver might just be as positive as I get, but silver is a precious metal too...

and now I am going to contemplate Lent...

Grandpa

today I saw a picture of my grandpa when he was younger, sitting at a desk doing paperwork I am guessing...I wanted to jump into that picture and ask him so many questions and give him a big hug...questions about his thoughts on life, family, and where he was at, right then, not the 20/20 hindsight that I know now, but all the daily stuff that you forget once your over and done it all. and a hug for right now; knowing that right now he is missing Grandma and if he would have known she would be the first one to leave, he would be a bit sad.
I made verenika for my sister before i came back to school...really lame verenika, but as my auntie encouraged me...as long as you have dough and some farmer sausage, usually everybody's pretty happy...so I hope that my sis got to eat it and remember how much Grandma loves her, and I love her and that it sorta tasted like verenika...
other than that I basically just relaxed with family the whole of reading week, had a few bad dreams about my clinical instructor grading me and the interview which happened today, but really I took reading week off...I played games with my neices and nephews...lost clue, lost risk...played games with my sis and bro-law, lost that one too...
stopped playing games cause I just wasn't doing so good...then I got sick...
so now I am in winnipeg with a man voice studying for a test on teaching and learning...
seriously, how redundant can this course get, I am in school getting taught and learning and now i am taking a test on learning and teaching...been there, done that...ok
i better go before this turns into something not so positive..
all I really wanted to say was, I miss Grandma, and i love Grandpa and I had a lovely reading week...the end.

Today

I got my first paycheck from working at the underwear store...I sell panties now...and swimsuits too but that isn't the funny part...ok it is kinda funny but not the funniest...anyway they got my address wrong on the paystub...they turned shaftesbury into shagesbury...I thought it was funny since it's valley day and now apparently I live on shagesbury boulevard...
I'm going to stop now cause I think this is funny enough for right now.

practical jokes work out so much better in your head than in real life

i am not really a practical joker by nature, i am more the...you share what crazy stunt you just pulled and I will laugh really loud at your brilliance person...but sometimes I do small things that i am secretly quite proud of and think, now that was funny and laugh a little to myself, hehehehehe, and thats the end of it...i don't usually tell anyone because these moments of mine are usually so insignificant others would laugh at my feeble attempts into the world of pranks...so, life goes on and I laugh as I listen to others share their imaginative stories and wonder where they ever got the courage to pull some of the stunts they do...
so, now that you all know i am not a practical joker, i will share my small foray into the world of self inflicted pain by pranking someone else only to have it get turned back on me, and make me wonder...why? why did i even think i could prank someone else?
My Dad was taking all these pictures on a pretty sweet little camera during the family get together last month...all of a sudden you'd look up and there would be Dad, with the camera, catching another shining moment in the Enns family history...randomly I saw the little camera, sitting by itself without Dad the photog present and I thought, wouldn' t it be funny to take some lame pictures and when dad scrolls through his memory BOOM you have been pranked:)
most people would take a picture of the laundry chute...or the washer and dryer...sadly i wasn't thinking this whole i am taking a picture and whatever i take it of, will be given to someone else to then do with as they will...so in my less than steller practical joking mind I thought...I will take a picture in the laundry room of myself...with 3d glasses from watching narnia...and Dad will be like...did I take this picture? what? who is this?...these are some of the thoughts I had going on inside my head, so when my mother found me snapping pictures in weird glasses in the laundry room and rolled her eye's I didn't think anything of it, I was so happy in my little moment of prankdom...my mother sometimes doesn't verbalize what she is thinking, in this case it would have helped me to hear, "Dad will have a really embarrassing picture of you to distribute if you keep those on his camera." but she didn't say anything, she just went back upstairs and let me tempt fate with my inability to think things through...which brings me to today....the culmination of the prank...
today i recieved a mass extended family email from my dad, detailing the trip home and how wonderful it was, and of course including pictures...yes, one of the pictures is in the laundry room, with a strange woman in heinous glasses...next he'll probably include a picture of me in the prayer letter along the prayer request section with the caption, please pray for our third daughter in nursing school we think the stress has started to get to her.
just another reason I should not try practical jokes...ever.
and no, there will be no picture for you...until my Dad gets facebook or starts his own blog

meh

so I gave a subcutaneous shot on my last clinical day...I'll admit I was nervous, because I knew my instructor was going to be watching me like a hawk and commenting on all the steps...so yeah I acted like I was a newbie and kinda was in semi shock and freak out mode, cept I wasn't really freaking out about giving the shot, just about my instructor micromanaging how I need to give it...protocol, protocol, protocol...the mantra I wake up to and dream of at night...one day it will be just something I do, but right now I am learning to be watched, analyzed, and discussed like some bad experiament or test subject gone horribly wrong...you see you are only actually human if you become a nurse, while your still a nursing student your like a hamster running in circles and getting...no where...meh
well that was a little negativity pooring out...woah....
anyway so then I was basically told to write a 'reflection' on my first injection...i kinda laughed a little, and thats when I realized this hamster's got game...cause my first injection took place 4 years ago, in a megacity slum, in the wee hours of the night on someone just born, I gave a baby their vitamin K...so yeah, I will learn your protocols and run my tail off in this wee little cage...i will write a reflection on my subcutaneous injection...and keep writing reflections on what you tell me to write about...and then I will become a nurse and i will leave this little cage to be a person again...right now i am your hamster...soon i will be a human again...because I am spartacus.

Ever wondered why?

Ok so here's a life long question, a deep thought provoking, profoundly theological conundrum...why are there so many greetings in Pauls letters, the end of all the letters are always full of random greetings...i always wondered why they kept those parts in the bible...I mean who cares about theodocles, and the two women at lystra (not actual quotes from any of the pauline letters) and why the whole 'council' deciding the new testament couldn't edit those parts out when they compiled the new testament...I even bet there were some of the council members who thought exaclty like me, and were like, well scratch those parts-lets only include the essentials of Pauls message...and they probably argued with the long-winded wannabies who wanted all the endless greetings to stay in...the jot and tiddle people you might say.
and that brings me to my long life of questioning...why? Why is this important enough to keep in the bible...those of us skippers can't even use these books for our benefit since the end of these books usually have nothing to do with the actual message of the book, they are just greetings to people we don't know, who are never mentioned again, and so we have to go back and read the entire book anyway. Lots of people had to read those parts for school copious amounts of times, poor preachers have to find reasons for those parts as they exegete their way through a book of the bible, with those of us who were listening to these sermons wondering why did I come today?...
then, I kind of had one of those brilliant light bulb moments where something clicked inside my head...and although I find myself truly happy by this, I do realize that from previous experience, what clicks in my head is not usually the most theological of reasoning or logical by any stretch of the imagination...and just because it clicks in my head doesn't mean it will find any sort of connection in yours...this used to deflate me once I would share out my thoughts in public. Because I found I looked like a bit of an airhead, but now that I know I am a bit of an airhead it doesn't worry me so much that everyone else doesn't get it, cause for me, it clicked...something i wondered about with thoughts like, "is there any point to this," all of a sudden is just quietly, calmly, and for me completely solved.
So here is my reason for why greetings are included in the bible...when you read a letter from someone you haven't seen for awhile and probably miss, you read it lots of times, you like the important parts about whats going on in their life, you get the message but you also aren't with them experiencing the same kind of life they are...you just get a letter about it and live vicariously through it...but the greetings at the end convey the fact that although your far apart...your still connected, you did once live a common existence, it can be a little reminder of where you stand in the writers life too...like when Paul mentions he is even writing the greetings in his own hand (to the Corinthians)...and all of a sudden the "love people you don't like and don't offend the weaker brother in the faith" message becomes less of a chore because he cared so much he even wrote greetings in his own hand....so if you are discouraged and you get this random letter that doesn't address any of the issues in your life at present and you are kinda like meh, they have a nice life but I am so not there right now...then they end it with, luv mum...or luv your sister and your all of a sudden like...oh yeah, your life is a part of my life...and your doing well, I luv my life:)
so my question was answered, why do greetings matter? Cause they ground you in your relationship to the writer and make the message personal, like a holy kiss personal:) and everything in the letter becomes special. Another question is answered, I see the light...maybe more like a candle than a light bulb but it's made reading the greetings and going to those sermons a whole lot more fun...so my friends, sadly there can be no holy kiss for us, but I do send you greetings in the Lord, with my own typing fingers even:)