The Beauty in Reality

I have been in this program for a year. Last Saturday we had a graduation ceremony in celebration of all the students who are now on their way to their next phases of life. This time of celebration brought with it a big reality check. This year has been a tough year. It's been a good year, filled with learning, but it's been a really tough year. Just looking at what has gone on in clinic, this year has consisted of:

-over 2,900 clinical hours individually

-over 600 class hours 

-over 500 births as a class

-over a hundred sleepless nights

-thousands of loads of dirty laundry

-millions of pages of paperwork

Yet even with the grueling schedule, lack of sleep, and over-all difficult year, one of my classmates whose memory works in snapshots reminded us of the the good times midst the hardness: of times we came out of a water birth soaked to the bone and doubled over with laughter; of blowing kisses at each other while cleaning clots out of drains and rinsing off moms; of joyous melodies wafting out of the backyard shack where someone must be scrubbing blood, guts, grit and grime out of the sheets; of stories shared and hearts heard while dosing off in between births; of midnight baking parties while a mom's birth process is going slowly; of hard times where a simple touch brings torrents of tears; of the stillness and serenity of the deep darkness that comes before the morning; and, always, of the hope that comes with the first rays of morning light and a new day: a reminder of the beauty of life in the trenches. 

Downpour

So much for living in a desert. These past days have been filled with spatterings of rain, and today it has been steadily raining all day. The streets are flooded, the sewer systems are overflowing, and our leaking ceiling is starting to cause chunks of paint and particulate matter to be raining down on the containers spread out on the floor. One of the good things about this leaking water is that our floors are now totally clean. After having survived a couple of months without being washed, they are no longer in need of cleaning :)

General News

Hey there,

Life's been a busy mess lately. In these past couple of weeks since the last post, I've enjoyed the serenity and simplicity of living alone, and now I have roommates. The house is full once again, and the people living in my home are as diverse as the places they come from. I now have roommates from central Texas, New Mexico, and Washington. Along with their moving in, I've been asked to help teach some of their classes, and coordinate their first 24 hour shifts in the clinic to make their transition a bit smoother. Needless to say, that, together with the final exam next week, is keeping me quite busy, busy enough to actually have forgotten for a couple of days that I have a blog.

But not all I do is business. Today, as the sun was just beginning to peak over the horizon, I took the time to run out to the mountain and watch it until it was well established in the sky. This evening I'm taking a break from the studies to go to a potluck to welcome the new students. I was also invited to go see a movie in the canyon, but I think sleep is more important at the moment, so I'm skipping out on that.

So life goes on. Beautiful. Busy. Bountiful.