What's the point

Life for me lately has been a bit hard. Being in nursing school, and in clinical three days a week, and then working at the hospital one or two days a week has started to exhaust me. I feel like all I do all day is give give give. I am naturally a very giving person, but when you have to care for people in every aspect of your life it can get to be a bit relentless. I feel like I have to give so much of myself, but I get nothing back. I haven't been taking very good care of myself, and my best friend has been kind of MIA for the past three months. I've had some really great friends to spend time with in the past few months, but for some reason no one seems to be able to make me feel better like she can. She's one of the few people who give back to me as much as I give to them. I've really missed her lately, and now she's talking about moving away for good, and I want her to be happy, but I want her to stay. I know I’m being selfish, and that’s not fair.

In school I’ve been working with seniors and we spend a lot of time learning about death, and dying with dignity. I was reading this article for school called And What Will I Remember Late in November? The editorial written by David J. Roy published in the journal of palliative care. This is just a bit from the article.

So this guy named Craig Holdredge wrote a book about understanding genetics in light of the forgotten factor of context. He talked about how when we observe a plant at any given phase of its development, we capture only a fleeting time-slice of the plant before us. The plant is never whole at a moment in space. The plant as a whole is created in and across time and what we see of the plant and any of its moments in space is only one of its developmental forms, soon to be cast off to give rise to another and later form. The plant's whole developmental process, its whole time-body, as it were, remains forever invisible to us. Plants however, are not persons. To recognize persons, to come to know them again, and to come to know ourselves again, we cannot bypass the existential act of recollection, of bringing together all the major events that we and others have gone through. Indeed, I cannot come to recognize myself, to know myself again more deeply, until I bring together, until I recollect, not only what I have gone through, but more essentially, all that I have gone through with others. I can exist biologically without such an act of recollection, but without this act my own personal existence and that of others risk being scattered like dust across the fields of the past.

Avalanche

So the new David Cook album came out, and debated on buying it for about two minutes...and I'm so glad that I did. Its like the best album i've listened to in a while!!! Rachel, you will love these songs!!! There is this one song, Avalanche its been stuck in my head. Here are the lyrics:

I feel alive beside you

And all at once

I am whole again

We fall into each other

You're atmosphere is all im breathing in

And in this rush

we are crushed

Carry me down

Rolling in your arms

Cause i can't remember ever falling this hard

Tell me tonight

All that we have been

Was nothing more

Than noise in side my head

crashing down, crahsing down

in your avalanche

in your avalanche

Theses scars we wear remind us

The more we change

The more we're all the same

Swept up in this emtion

We fumble through

And make the same mistakes

As we are led

To the edge

Carry me down
Rolling in your arms
Cause I can't remember ever falling this hard

Tell me tonight
All that we have been
Was nothing more
Than noise in side my head
crashing down, crahsing down

In your avalanche
Crashing down, Crashing down

Carry me down
Rolling in your arms
Cause I can't remember ever falling this hard
Tell me tonight
All that we have been
Was nothing more
Than noise in side my head

Carry me down
Rolling in your arms
Cause I can't remember ever falling this hard

Tell me tonight
All that we have been
Was nothing more
Than noise in side my head
crashing down, crahsing down
Was nothing more than noise inside our heads

Crashing Down

Crashing Down

I feel alive beside, and all at once I am whole again.

If you like the lyrics download the music!! Its awesome!! xoxox NAT

An Exercise in Grief

Ok so I know I'm the worst at blogging. But now that my best friend...who im sure is the only one who reads this is half way around the world i guess i should keep this more updated because when I'm awake she's asleep and when im asleep she's awake!!!

So first off....RACHEL YOU ARE AMAZING!!! YOU RAN YOUR MARATHON IN 4:11!! THATS FREAKING AMAMZING!!! I AM SOO SOOO SOOOOOO PROUD OF YOU!!! You will now be able to say that you ran a marathon at the age of 21!!! That’s soo amazing!!

So you know that if Rachel hadn't been in IRELAND she would have been on her phone the entire time she was running. You know Rachel has your phone number in her phone if you have ever received a phone call in the middle of a Saturday afternoon and Rach just wants to talk about how your day is going. She's a bit out of breath and when you ask her what she's doing she causally responds...oh I'm just running 37 Km in Edmonton while I'm here visiting my sister! I forgot my ipod...so I called you....and everyone else in my phonebook!!!!! Hahaha....i love those phone calls!!!

So I'm moving back to my moms house! It was a tough decision to make, but it just makes sense financially while I'm in school full time. So moving back down to Evergreen also meant that i had to quit my job at Sephora. It was a sad day, but it had to be done. School needs to come first. So December 1 I'm moving back home!! If anyone wants to help me move that would be sweet!!!
School has been absolutely crazy this semester!!! I've never been so busy before!!! I can not wait for it to be over!!!

School today was acutally so awesome! Normally this one class i have is SOO boring...like so boring i dont' go. But i'm so glad I went today. We had a chaplan come in and talk to us about the grieving process. It was soo good!! I loved it. I thought that you might find it interesting too. I couldn't stop writing stuff down!! There is this quote that you need to write down somewhere:

" Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of great loving that serves to counteract their grief and heal them" -Tolstoy

I thought about this A LOT this afternoon. Only people who love with everything they are truely suffer great sorrow. Its horrible when you loose but the pain is only so great because you loved so strongly. It is a testament of our ability to give so freely our love and kindness. It testifies that we are lovealbe, warm, kind, compassionate, considerate, unjudging, honest, willing, and strong. We give what we can to make those around us feel loved. The sorrow and sadness we feel when they leave us proves our devotion. This idea my at first discourage us to love again...to open up our hearts to something new because that pain and grief is soo much that we are scared to let it happen again. But Tolsty makes a wonderful point when he says that our ability to love so greatly is what will counteract our grief and heal us. So I feel it is so important to be able to get to a point in our hearts where we can let that ability to love heal us. Its hard. But there are things we can do, processes that we can go through so that we can love again. William J. Worden has 4 TASKS of Grieving that help us get there and i foudn them so interesting:

1. To accept the REALITY of the LOSS. To not complete this is to DENY.
2. To work through the PAIN of grief. To not complete this is to NOT FEEL.
3. To adjust to an environment in which the person lost is missing. To not complete this is to not ADAPT TO THE LOSS
4. To emotionally RELOCATE the person lost and move on with life. To not complete this is to NOT LOVE AGAIN.

These are the tasks that we have to do to be able to get to a place where we can love again. Through grief you learn to become an individual. You're not Bob's wife, or Steve's daughter, or Sarah's mother, or Loosers girlfriend...you're just you. You have to learn that you are independent of everyone and everything!! Its a really hard thing to do, but i think that if you can learn to do this you become a stronger person in the end. You learn to be in the place where the hurt happened and feel safe. You feel ok in opening your heart to something new, and unafraid of what might happen. YOU HAVE TO FEEL EVENTUALLY. Ignoring the loss, or running away from it won't make it go away. Grieving is one of the hardest thing we do as human beings. Everyone mourns differently, and in North America it is socially accepted to hide your grief or sorrow. But until we properly deal with loss, it will constantly eat away at our souls until we snap. Whatever your belief and value system is, it WILL be CHALLENGED in grief. It’s natural to ask questions. Why did this happen to me? What is the meaning to life? What am I supposed to do with my life? Will this hole in my heart ever go away? Why would God do this to me?? All of these questions are a natural part of grieving. Asking these questions doesn't show a lack of faith, rather it proves the fact that you HAVE faith. It is a way you show you're faith.....even though you question it, you still have it.

Anyways....sorry to go on for so long! I just thought it was sooo interesting!!!! Ok, so now that i've procrastinated for like an hour i've got to get some work done!!! xxxx NAT

The First Week of the Semester

Alright!! so its been a while I know. I've been stupid busy this past week, but today is my designated lazy day so I'm going to blog a bit!! Well maybe a lot! WARNING: THIS IS LONG!!

Last week was a bit nuts. Monday- Run 5km before class. I'm getting my 5km in every day!! Then my first class... Professional Nursing Theory from 12-2(in my opinion the dumbest class I'll ever take!!) Then i work at Sephora from 5-10. thank heavens Monday nights are quite. Tuesday i went to Institute from 9-10 with my fabulous roommate Saren. We were the only two in the class!! Brother Mandin is awesome and i love it!! It feels a bit like seminary but it defiantly starts off my longest day right. Then Pathophysiology from 10-12 and Pharmocology from 1-4. They are both really interesting classes, but it sucks that they are in the same room!! Tuesday nights i work at Sephora from 5-10!! A very long day! I also run...usually after work which i really don't like. I'm going to try and run before institute, but we'll see how that goes.Wednesday i have class from 10-2 and then the afternoon is quite. I planned on studying but ended up cleaning my room because Natalie Craig had temporarily moved in while she found a more permanent place to sleep. Then i went down to the south and did a 5km with Rach. It rocked!! We ran a wicked hill and it was awesome!! Thursday was my first day in the hospital for school. I'm on unit 32 at the Foothills on the evening shifts from 3-11pm. Its a general medical unit. The first day was busy because we were buddy shadowing a nurse! I didn't get my run in as i spent all morning getting my passwords figured out for the hospital computer system! What a nightmare!!! Friday I'm doing more patient research because today i have my first really patient!!! It was a pretty quite night on the until. Saturday morning i was up bright and early....to start my first day as a Nursing Attendant on Unit 101 at the Foothills! It was a really really busy day shift! I've never given so many bad baths in all my life!! Wow....thats pretty much all we did. I was shadowing again with this awesome nursing student form U of C named John. He's cool!! Saturday night was a long one. Rachel and i did a super quick photo shoot (pics below!!) and then we went out for dinner with a bunch of friends from high school! It had been a long time since we'd seen each other so it was really good to get together!!! my really good friends Zach Campbell and Sarah Widdup got engaged on Thursday so a big shout out of congrats to them!!! Yay for people getting married!! Then we went out to a house party that was pretty sweet..until Rachel decided to get her car stuck in a ditch!! Lucky for us there were several able bodied men at the party who pushed us out!! way to go rach!! Sunday was quiet..church and then dinner at my aunt Lisa's!! She's such an amazing aunt!!!

The only thing that keeps me sane is my BFF Rachel. She is my alarm clock in the morning, my motivation to run, my inspiration, my trainer, my distractor, she encourages me, she stops me from eating JBC's when i know i shouldn't but am too weak to resist on my own. Rachel is strong and kind, she is loving and generous with her affection. She has her struggles like everyone else, but she owns up to them and i know she'll make it through no matter what! She is brave and courageous. She doesn't pretend about anything. She makes me feel beautiful, and she lets me know that I'm not the only one who thinks that taking photos of themselves is fun!! I love her with all my heart. I would probably have crawled into a cave and died a few months ago if she hadn't been here for me! I couldn't have made it through the past 8 months without her love and support! She's funny and makes me laugh all the time!! She knows me so well and isn't afraid to say things that i might not want to hear. she puts up with all my shit and keeps coming back for more!! She runs 32 km's on her Saturday mornings while I'm either at work or in bed!!! She's my rockstar, my dancing buddy, my late night phone call person, my umm does this dress make me look fat ( and be honest) person. she's basically my best friend and i don't know what I'm going to do when she runs away to Dublin to run this marathon of hers!! Rach- i want you to know I'm so proud of you! you are an inspiration to me. you're honest and strong, beautiful and cheeky!! I love you!!!
Ok so I'll stop talking now and let you look at some photos that rach took of me!!

Lets just say i love it all!! I'll be crazy busy this weekend, but I'll hopefully get a chance to be back soon!! xxx NAt

Chruch Dances VS The Roadhouse

So this past week has been absolutely crazy!!!! I've had one class and I already feel like I want to die! Haha...ok so maybe I'm being a bit melodramatic but seriously this semester is going to be NUTS!!! School is stupid heavy....20 hours in the hospital a week, three other 4 credit courses, and a seriously heavy part time job....i just might die come December!

I have been stressing a ton about my schedule and how I'm going to do it all but i know i can! This weekend was exactly what i needed to get me focused! On Friday night Rachel, Amanda, Rob, Joe, Saren, Lachelle and I went to the YSA welcome week dance. Let me tell you...i was having some serious flash backs to the youth dances. It wasn't pretty. We were all dancing in the same place i always danced..and as per usual not one guy asked me to dance. Whats with that??? Am i totally ugly? Do i smell bad??? what?? I think my friends are good enough that they'd let me know if my breath was bad?? Oh wait....i forgot, i was at a MORMON dance....right, the dance where the guys are still afraid of girls even though they're 21 and older. Nothing has changed since high school..isn't that comforting?? So Friday night was kind of a bust for me. I was feeling really self conscious and insecure at the end of the night. Needless to say i was a bit cranky. (sorry guys!!) Saturday night was a completely different story! Rachel and i decided that we needed a night out on the town. So we got all dressed up, did our hair and makeup and went out! no alcohol was involved but we had the time of our lives! It seemed like fate was giving us a bit of a boost because we ended up meeting the HOTTEST guys!! And they were sober...which does not happen! We chatted them up for a while, danced a bit...and in general felt like we were being treated like the attractive, intelligent, well dressed, drop dead gorgeous girls we are!! It was FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC!!!!

Why should we want to date guys who won't give us the time of day when we've spent an hour on our makeup and picking out our outfits(aka the RM's) when there are totally smart, sober, educated, employed, HOTT guys at the bars are all over us??

Today was a good day as well. Church was really good. But the CES broadcast tonight was AMAZING!!!! President Holland gave an amazing talk!! If you want to listen to it here's the link: http://www.lds.org/broadcast/ces/0,7341,395,00.html
It was all about overcoming your trials. Which is pretty much what i feel like my life has been for the past year. He was so inspiring!!

Ok so all week I've been feeling stressed out to the max, and just so worried about everything. I've have had a crap attitude about it all up until about an hour ago. But I've decided to change my attitude, because that's the only thing i can do! So this is how its going to be. I'm going to be a ROCK STAR this semester. I'm going to love the library...i may even bring my own comfy chair to study in!! Who knows...maybe even a mini fridge under my desk with healthy drinks and snacks in it!! ( Wouldn't that be awesome!!) I will work my butt of at my part time job. I'm going to be committed and focused. They are going to LOVE ME!! My books are my new best friends...not only do they teach me valuable lessons but they help me burn more calories when i carry them!!! oh and wait till i tell you about this new boy I'm seeing!! He's amazing!! his name is GYM and I'm soo head over heals in love i can't get enough!! I spend like 3 hours a day with him...every day. The best part of that relationship is he never gets sick of me! and he makes me skinny!! Its the best thing that's ever happened to me!!

This is going to be a better week than last week.I'M GOING TO WORK HARDER. RUN FASTER. BREATHE DEEPER AND ACHIEVE GREATNESS!!

XX nat

Run for The Cure

So my run yesterday was soo hard!! Holy crap....45:13..soo long. I think it was probably because I was running at 1030 at night. It pretty much killed me but i did my 5km.

So my post today is going to be about my decision to Run for Breast Cancer in October. I want to have something to make me run everyday. I needed a race so that I have a goal that I'm working towards. So Rachel and I decided that we are going to run for a really good cause. We are trying to raise $1000 for Breast Cancer Research! Every little bit helps and we both would really appreciate any donations of any size. If you would like to donate to support a good cause you can go to our website.

https://www.cibcrunforthecure.com/html/personal_page.asp?track=2819903&languageid=1

We would really appreciate anything you can contribute!!!

Run 5km-$40, Bike 15km-$8, one day of hard core excersice....PRICELESS

So today was a FANTASTIC day!! Even though I hadn't planned on it, I ran the Sheep River Road Race today in Okotoks with Rachel and her family! It was SO good!! I ran my in my first race, the 5km in 38 mins and 42 seconds. I placed 140th over all in the race and i was 50/60 in my age category which was 20-29. It isn't amazing, but its a good place to start, i wasn't last!! Rachel ran her 10km race in 48:20 which is AMAZING!! Rach I'm SO proud of you! Then we moved my new couches to my house which was a work out in and of itself! Then just to be hardcore we went to the YMCA and biked 15km in just over 30 mins. I took my first cocktail of Ephedrine, caffeine and Advil and it totally gave me a buzz, but it also made me feel totally sick!! It was awesome! I don't know if I'll do it again, but i made it through the day. Rach has some pictures from the race that I'm sure she'll have up soon. All in all it was a really good day!!