My Week in Collage: August 20th, 2011-FOREVER

Remember when I used to faithfully post my week in collage every Sunday? That was when my life was not the most boring thing to ever exist. Pretty much every day of my life consists of sitting on the couch, watching an absurd amount of TV, playing Scrabble, wishing I had a dog to keep me company, and clinicals. So to keep up with the tradition of "My Week in Collage" I decided to post this week. If I don't post another collage for a few weeks, you can just assume it's still the same. ;)

Thank You, Technology.

The internet and modern technology = the best thing ever. I’ve posted before about my long lost exchange student, Iza, so I won’t bore you with a back story. But I’ve finally connected with her! Thanks to Facebook, I found Iza’s mom, who then connected me to Iza’s GooglePlus account. Since neither of us really understand how to use GooglePlus, we’ve exchanged e-mail addresses. I honestly cannot wait to hear from her and can’t believe it’s been 7 years since I’ve seen her. A lot has changed in 7 years, and I’m excited to tell her about my life and hear all about hers.

Thoughts on the elderly...

Everyone belongs to someone, and everyone has a story and a past. These are just a few of the things I have learned so far in my clinical. I’ll admit that I was less than excited when finding out I was assigned to a nursing home. The elderly population has never really been my thing; I find that I have a hard time being patient and understanding with this certain population. However, after meeting and working with my patient, it’s hard not to think of her children and grandchildren, as well as her younger days. She has a ton of pictures scattered around her room and on the walls- a few of her children, many of her grandchildren, a few of her in her younger years, and, much like my grandmother, a ton of random children and pets of people she barely knows (My grandmother had a picture of her "grandmonkey" on her fridge. It was a pet of one of the employees at my Poppy's nursing home) . Browsing through all of her pictures reminded me that she belongs to someone. She is someone’s daughter, mother, grandmother, wife, sister, aunt, and friend. She has a story. You see, me and my sweet patient are not that different. I’m hoping that with all of that in mind, I will grow in patience and respect for the elderly. After all, I would certainly hope that the nursing home employees treated my precious Poppy with respect. I know he may have been hard to deal with, and towards the end I know that he wasn’t always pleasant or good company. But he was a son, a brother, a father, a husband, and an amazing grandfather. He was not always old and dependent. He had a story, a past, and he deserved to be treated with respect, patience, and honor, just like my patient.

*me and my Poppy*

Follow Friday: MissRepresentation

Happy Friday, friends! It’s been a busy few weeks here with a huge nursing exam, fall break, some fun work with Team True Beauty, planning a trip, working with DoSomething.org, and the start of clinicals, so I apologize for being WAY behind on my Follow Fridays. But to make up for it, this weeks Follow Friday is going to MissRepresentation.

“The film Miss Representation exposes how American youth are being sold the concept that women and girls’ value lies in their youth, beauty and sexuality. It’s time to break that cycle of mistruths. In response we created MissRepresentation.org, a call-to-action campaign that seeks to empower women and girls to challenge limiting labels in order to realize their potential. We are uniting individuals around a common, meaningful goal to spark millions of small actions that ultimately lead to a cross-generational movement to eradicate gender stereotypes and create lasting cultural and sociological change.”

I’d seen previews for the MissRepresentation documentary and heard a lot of positive feedback online, so I decided to tune in and see what it was all about. This film started out with a startling fact that between magazines, television, radio, music, and internet, “teenagers are exposed to, on average, 10 hours and 45 minutes of media each day.” In case you were wondering, that’s almost 46% of a persons day, including sleep. Another eye opening fact stated that “American women spend more money on beauty products than on education.” I don’t know if it was these startling facts or the milkshake I had just inhaled (or even a combination of both), but my stomach began to churn when I heard these sad and incredibly shocking statistics. All in all, I can’t do the documentary justice, so I highly recommend you see it for yourself.

There are other ways you can support and get involved with MissRepresentation and here’s how:
1. Visit the official website.
2. Become a representative through the virtual volunteer program.
3. Download some sample talking points to discuss with family and friends.
4. Watch the film.
5. Pledge to use your voice to spread the message of Miss Representation and challenge the media’s limiting portrayal of women and girls.
6. You can also follow MissRep on Twitter and on Facebook!
So check it out! It really is eye opening and interesting!

See how easy it is for "reality" to become so skewed by the media? Because of this, women are measuring themselves against an impossible standard. It's time to stand up and take action. Do we want the next generation of girls to grow up comparing themselves to impossible media images?

Awkward

Awkward is:
-Realizing there’s no more toilet paper while using a public bathroom.
-Waving back at a person, only to realize they are waving at the person behind you.
-Saying goodbye to someone and then walking in the same direction.
-the spelling of the actual word 'awkward'.
-Britney Spears' movie "CrossRoads".
-Being 22.

No one warned me that being 22 and fresh out of college would be so awkward and uncomfortable. I mean, so what if I've been known to occassionally tear up during Britney Spears’ “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman”. Where the heck am I supposed to fit in? As a recent college grad, I still feel like I should be a part of the college crowd. Yet since I’m a grad, people (including loan collectors) expect me to be a part of the real world. Okay, fine, I’ll be a part of the real world! Wait. What? What’s that you say? I’m too young and inexperienced for any job other than the grocery store? At 22 I am the perfect mix of too old for college and too young for adults. Last year, which I like to call BG (before graduation), I had to worry about graduation and getting papers done on time. Last year there were dining halls on campus, diners 2 minutes from my house, and my parents mom still did my laundry. This year, or AG, I have to navigate my way through a new city, watch in horror shock excitement as my friends get married and have babies, and pay bills and loans with money that I don’t have due to my lack of job. This year I have to cook my own food (because I usually get too lost to find a restaurant) and do my own laundry. Now I know what you’re thinking. Poor Brooke. She’s such a big baby. Yes, I am. I know. But really, 22 kind of sucks. I mean, no one really prepared me for this. I was taught to write a resume and coached on what to say during an interview. No one ever prepared me for the awkwardness that comes with being stuck in between college and adulthood. So, if you’re still in college, take this as a warning. And if you’ve passed the awkward stage and are officially an “adult”, HELP ME.
Why is there no halfway house type situation for after college? I could really use some some of adjustment time!

PS- As a 22 year old, is it still okay to cry when you leave home? When will your parents house stop being your home? How many times a day is it acceptable to call your mom?

My Biggest Fear

Flying. In an airplane. I think I’d rather be bitten by a rattlesnake. It’s a quicker death. Okay, okay, so maybe I’m being a little dramatic, but seriously, planes freak me out. Was I always this way? Nope. In fact, I was a frequent flyer from the time I was born until 2002. What changed? Everything. I was on a flight from Wilmington to Connecticut for my aunt’s funeral. Everything was going fine until it wasn’t. My parents even said that in all of the years that they had flown, they had never experienced anything as horrible as that. There were people in the aisles crying and praying. It was rough, and my feelings about planes have not been the same since. The thought of being in a confined space, with strangers, way way way high up in the air, with someone I don’t know in control of the plane, and absolutely no way out…not sounding super appealing to me. Honestly, even seeing the inside of a plane on TV makes me nervous (but that could also be part of the underlying anxiety/panic disorder). However, over the past few years I have gotten much braver in other aspects of my life, and developed a desire for travel. Which brings me to my main point- I think I’m ready to fly again. I’ve been working a little bit with Team True Beauty lately and have been invited to an amazing event in Hollywood, CA in January. Everything in me wants to go and enjoy myself. I would love to meet some of the amazing girls I’ve been working with and get to be on the west coast! I know I have my limits. I know I can’t travel alone. That would give me too much alone time on the plane, time to panic and stress. I know I probably can’t travel without some strong anti-anxiety meds or sedatives. Heck, I can’t even really go to a concert without meds. I’m not even gonna TRY a plane. But what I do know is that if I go on this trip, it will be more than just a fun trip to LA. It will open the doors for so many more opportunities. If I can fly, I can visit so many different places. I can have confidence in knowing that I tackled my biggest fear. I can broaden my horizons.
So, what are some of yalls biggest fears and how do you overcome them? Any recommendations for a nervous flyer?

Drooling.

My jaw is on the floor. I just...I can't...it's just...too.perfect.for.words. That face. Those arms. The tiny tiny baby. The way he's holding the baby. I want him to hold my child our child this way someday. Creepy? Maybe. But just look at this. He even has those little muscley things by his hips that only people on TV and Ken dolls have. Dead.

The Amazing Maize Maze

If you have never done a corn maze, you are missing out. For real. Since freshman year my roommate has been telling me about the Amazing Maize Maze in Charlotte. Despite my anxious personality and extreme claustrophobia, I always thought it sounded really fun! So, 4 years later we decided to stop talking about it and actually do it. On Friday, we laced up our tennis shoes and headed to Rural Hill for the Amazing Maize Maze. From the parking lot, it really didn’t look that big or impressive. From inside the maze, it was. It’s a 7 acre corn field, with over 1.25 miles of mazes. Each year there’s a different theme, and this years theme was “Fit to be A-maized”. This basically just meant that the maze was carved out in the shape of a swimmer, biker, and runner. We were given a map with 12 blank squares where our puzzle pieces would go. There were 12 mailboxes hidden within the different levels of mazes and each mailbox contained a piece of the map. We hiked through mud, sang some Journey, made some friends, and got pretty ridiculously lost, but we had a blast. And it only took us 2 hours and 21 minutes! Haha! So, like I said, if you’ve never done a corn maze, you should totally try it. It was AMAIZING (okay okay, I know I‘m corny)! Enjoy the pics.