[visits&unconventional exercise]

so tuesday we visited the psych unit & surgical services (day surg, OR, & PACU).ironically these are the two places that i have worked at for my job at home. both of these visits were fantastic, almost too much good information. the psych unit is quite different than in the US. although they have patients with similar diagnosis' as we would in the US, the patients are required to follow the rules or they are sent home. this results in a much lower incidence of hostility and behavioral 'issues'. i initially was shocked when i saw the staff umbrellas in the hallway near the break-room, thinking that surely a patient would become violent with these. wrong. also, if they are on a "1:1" for suicide risk or something, it is not the staff that stays with them, just a family member. we had the opportunity to engage with a few patients. one was following us around for a while, come to find out she is an english teacher, and simply wants to talk with us in english. the charge nurse engaged her in some very therapeutic techniques and allowed us to observe what kind of 'communication' therapy they use. needless to say, this unit had a lot of wonderful therapies and avenues to help the patient.
next, we toured surgical services. i loved this. good thing, seeing as that one of my two rotations. this hospital performs over 100 surgeries a day! busy, busy, busy. honestly, most things i observed were standard practices that we would see in the US. we all got to go into several different OR's while surgery was in progress and observed the procedures for receiving a patient in PACU. then we went to day surgery. basically they have two 'slots' designated for day surgery, but these slots usually have 4 patients occupying them. i learned that this was the hospital's newest program, and it was launched in october. jordan quickly pointed out to me that, i have been working in pre/ post op at a large hospital for longer than their program has been open. when the nurse manager, sandy, learned that i had worked in surgery at all, she became so excited and told me over and over how much i will teach them. oh boy, the bar is set high. <---prayer request #1!
wednesday we had a skype sesh with our professor to go over things. and we worked on homework all day. with an occasional break. we were good students.
yesterday was our first mandarin class. let me tell you i was less than thrilled to be taking this class. i've already been responding to people in spanish, so i wasn't sure if my poor little brain could handle another language. overall the class was good. but the teacher moved SO fast. i like to think of chinese as a tongue workout. you make noises that you didn't know were possible. every time we learned a 'letter', everyone would repeat it, at the same pitch of the teacher. i kept giggling, half from our "song" and half from being so overwhelmed. and she told me "don't laugh"... that just made me laugh more. we did the class primarily in pin-yin. at the end of class she told us that we needed to have what we learned easily recalled tomorrow. "oh and the characters too!" WHAT??!?!? this is gonna be a long class.
we took the bus to and from school. what an adventure in itself... cramming together with our new bus- mates while the bus sounded like it would fall apart ever time the brakes were hit was quite the experience.
now i am happily sitting in my apartment, drinking instant coffee in my pajamas, denying the existence of my homework for a few moments. God is being so unbelievably kind and gracious to me as i reflect on this journey. and i want to thank you all for your prayers and love. it's making a huge difference. i've been feeling better the last 2 days. i'm still homesick, but the importance of that is beginning to be revealed. even if just a glimpse, it's helping me cling to God... the only constant in this adventure.