Cakehunting and Praying at the Cathedral Basilica

After walking to the central West End to see the Stl 250 Cakes at the Chase Park Plaza and World Chess Hall of Fame, I stopped by the Cathedral Basilica on my way back.

I've been to this Church several times in the past few years, and every time it blows me away with its beauty! The basilica is home to "one of the largest mosaic collections in the western hemisphere." There is actually a museum in the basement of the Church that explores how mosaics are designed and applied. I had never seen the museum, so I took a visit while there for cakehunting. I wasn't quite prepared for the emotional toll of the visit... In the museum is a lot of "memorabilia" from Pope John Paul II's visit to the Basilica in 1999.

JPII holds a major significance in my heart as my Godson was named after him when born too early last summer. I have always loved JPII, but since my little angel Godson is named after him my devotion has grown much stronger. I have a 3rd class relic of JPII that I received as a gift from my sister for being little JP's Godmother. Seeing so many pictures as well as the vestments and ornaments that Pope John Paul II used on his visit to St. Louis really hit me. I got to spend a lot of time praying in front of these artifacts and thinking about the wonderful man that JPII was. In the Catholic faith we rely a lot on the Saints for intercessory prayers. Many people misunderstand this as praying TO the saints in worship. It's more like asking a friend to pray for a special intention, but this friend happens to be sitting up in Heaven right next to the Big Man himself. I already ask my little angel for so many prayer intentions daily, but I got to spend a little extra time reflecting on the people in my life that need extra prayers lately.

After spending time in the museum I went up to the Church and sat in Holy Adoration for a few minutes. It was a much needed time for prayer in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. I asked through the intercession of little JP and Pope John Paul II that my sister will continue to have a healthy pregnancy, as she is exactly at the point in her pregnancy when little JP was born too early. I also asked for their prayers for a woman who is at the same stage in her pregnancy who is quite set on having an abortion. She was a patient of mine at clinical the other day and did not think the pain of pregnancy was worth it. She was set on getting an abortion so that that she wouldn't have to go through it anymore. The staff nurses and social workers were not exactly discouraging her intentions, which was especially sad considering it was a Catholic hospital. My heart broke as I listened to her talk about how she didn't want her baby, and I thought about how devastating it was to lose little JP. I thought about the contrast of one woman worried sick about losing her baby and another woman sick to her stomach about keeping her baby. I thought who better to pray for these women than little JP himself. I asked that he pray for his mother and for this woman to help them both through their pregnancies as he sits in Heaven close to our Lord.

After an extremely difficult and emotional week (for other reasons besides my clinical experience), these few minutes in prayer and adoration were exactly what I needed. It was a beautiful opportunity to reflect on the emotional stress I have been feeling related to pregnancy in general, for my sister's pregnancy as well as the patient's I see weekly in clinical. I know not everyone is pro-life, but considering the experiences I've had with my family, it is hard for me to comprehend someone not wanting to give their baby life. Losing JP last summer was devastating for my entire family. On the other hand, gaining a niece and nephew at birth through the gift of adoption is something I will never be able to thank their birth mothers for enough. It's so hard to think that a person is willing to take away something that others would do anything to have, especially when it's a human life. I know these struggles will be especially prevalent in my life since I strive to be a maternity nurse. I just hope I will have the strength to help the women who don't believe they are strong enough to get through their pregnancy, as well as to help the women who believe it's just not worth it.

4 cakes down, 246 to go! #staytuned

Cakehunting in Central West End

Since beginning this "Cakeway to the West" adventure last week, I have done a lot of planning and research. I have assemble an Excel spreadsheet of all the cakes based on their locations. This way I can hit multiple cakes at once by knowing which cakes are close to each other. I've decided I don't just want to find and take a picture with each cake, but I want to have an adventure/experience associated with it. I want to know why it is important to St. Louis and what it has to offer! Since yesterday was a beautiful day in St. Louis (about 70 degrees and sunny all afternoon), I decided it would be a perfect day to walk on down to the Central West End and do some cakehunting. My first stop was the Chase Park Plaza!

This hotel is known for its elegance and grand style. The experience I had at this place was actually a few years ago. I have a couple friends from Normal, IL that also go to SLU with me. Freshman year, before we all had cars at school, our parents took turns carpooling to and from school for breaks. One break, my friend's mom took us out to lunch before bringing us back to campus. We ate here at the Chase Park Plaza! I remember it was absolutely delicious and it was a fun afternoon to sit and have a nice meal with friends! Thanks for the experience Cindy!

Apparently cakehunting was the thing to do yesterday because I followed a couple groups of people to each of these cakes! My original plan was to take a "selfie" with each cake, but I decided I needed to work on talking to strangers, so I have decided that I have to ask someone to take my picture at each cake. The conversations I've already had by doing this have made the experiences special already! People are so enthusiastic about this city and about sharing their experiences with the cakes they've seen around town. People are always willing to take my picture and love to hear how many cakes I've already seen (which sounds pathetic right now considering it's 3...). Even just the few experiences I've had have already forced me to break out of my comfort zone, and it has definitely been rewarding!

Back on topic... The next cake on this cakehunting day was down the street from Chase Park Plaza at the World Chess Hall of Fame!

The story here is stretching it a little... First of all, I hate that the world's largest chess piece is donning a Cardinals jersey (that's what I get for living in Cardinal Nation I guess...) but I countered it by wearing my Cubs hat all around town! Second of all, I don't actually know how to play chess or have any desire to play chess... So my story is going to go with the restaurant that this cake is located by! Lester's Restaurant is a sports bar right across from the Chess Hall of Fame. I've been to the restaurant a couple different times and it is absolutely delicious. One time in particular was when a few friends came to visit SLU for Relay for Life, exactly a year ago. These friends and their families came to St. Louis to Relay all night long. We went hung out all weekend and had a great time! After Relay on Sunday we went to Lester's and enjoyed a nice meal on their outdoor terrace.

I had barbecue pork and cole slaw and it was SO GOOD, but the best part was having an opportunity to spend time with friends and enjoy the Central West End! I remember we were all super busy with schoolwork because it was nearing the end of the semester, and the out-of-towners were crunched for time to get back to school. Despite the stress we were able to let it go and relax for a short time. We got to catch up on each others lives and just enjoy the beautiful day. That whole weekend was a huge blessing in a time of stress! (A post about Relay for Life itself coming soon)

I had one more cake visit to the Cathedral Basilica after Chase Park Plaza and the World Chess Hall of Fame, but it deserves its own blog post! I figure you're probably bored of reading by now, so I'll give you a chance to take a break! Stay tuned for more adventures! 

3 down, 247 to go!

STL 250 Adventure

So St. Louis turns 250 years old this year. To celebrate this milestone, the city is doing a fun "scavenger hunt" type of celebration all year long. There will be 250 birthday cakes displayed all over the city and surrounding counties. Each cake is placed a location of significance, either a historical landmark or a St. Louis original landmark. My newest adventure idea is to visit all 250 cakes. I realize it is extremely unlikely that I will find them all, but I'd like to try! Since I am planning on living in St. Louis after graduation I would love to get to know more about the city. I figure doing a scavenger hunt is the perfect way to learn my way around this town! I am eager to learn about each location and why it is significant to St.Louis. I have already been to several of these places, but I'd love to go back and learn more! I am officially declaring this my year of STL!

As part of this adventure I will take a photo with every cake as well as write a post about what I experienced while visiting that cake. So here's the first one!

St. Louis Holocaust Museum

This past Sunday I had an opportunity to visit the St. Louis Holocaust Museum in the Jewish community in Creve Couer. I had been to the museum once before with my public health clinical group, but this was a great opportunity to visit again and learn even more. The Holocaust has always been an interesting topic to me. It seems like something completely made up, because I just can't imagine human beings that would do such a terrible thing. This is why it is so important to visit these museum and learn more about it, so that no one forgets that it was a very real event. After having a guided tour of the museum we got to listen to the story of a Holocaust survivor. She was an infant at the beginning of the war and her family was forced to flee to South America for safety. It was the only place that would allow Jews in, because most countries were refusing to allow Jewish immigrants. It was amazing to hear how the events of WWII affected her family, well beyond the end of the war. The first time I visited the museum I heard the story of a survivor of a concentration camp and the Death March. Both stories are so humbling. I can not even begin to imagine living through such an ordeal.

One thing that really struck me and sits with me is the fact that Hitler was able to assemble such a following. People then and now still are so influenced by public figures. We are so willing to believe what someone says as long as they say it well. I feel like there are so many times that we agree to whatever we hear without really comprehending what it means. So many Nazi soldiers stated that they were just "following orders." This really bugs me that a person will just do as their told without thinking about whether it's the right thing to do or not, and yet people do it all the time. I was also amazed to learn that there are still Nazi communities and active anti-Semitic groups in America today, just like there are still active KKK clans. It's incredible to think that people deny that this happened, and deny that it was wrong.

Like I said, visiting the museum was a humbling experience. I gained a better understanding of how important it is to always stand up for what it is right. If one person can gain such a following for something so evil, imagine the following a person or group can assemble for a purpose that is good.

1 cake down, 249 to go! Let the adventures begin!

Hacking up a Lung

So I have viral bronchitis. Not a big deal, just really inconvenient. I'm one of those people that does not go to the doctor until I absolutely have to. Well last night I felt like someone was stabbing me in the chest every time I took a breath, not to mention the chills I had despite flannel pj's, flannel sheets, and 6 blankets on top of me in our 70 degree apartment... I decided it was probably time to see the doctor, so I went this morning. The doctor prescribed some intense cough medicine and told me to rest and "wait it out" for the virus to be gone. I came home, took a dose of cough syrup and slept for over 3 hours! Then I woke up and chatted with one of my new roommates. She was concerned about how I was feeling and offered to buy me soup while she was at the store. My other roommate also bought me Kleenex just in case I would need them while hacking up so much phlegm. I realized how fortunate I am to have such awesome roommates!

I recently thought about how many different roommates I have had in college, and the number is quite high! I have had 11 different roommates in my four years of college (and probably two new roommates coming this summer). Despite having so many different roommates I have never had a single roommate conflict. There have been times I've been frustrated with my roommates obviously, but I have never actually fought with one. I have never had to fill out a roommate agreement, or talk to an RA or anyone else about an issue. Considering the very different values and beliefs of some roommates compared to mine, it's really amazing to me that I've never had a disagreement. My family history of roommates is absolutely terrible, so coming to college I expected to also have difficulties. That has definitely not been the case, and I am so grateful for that! I have really been blessed to have such great roommate experiences!

A Semester of Boredom

To say it's been a while since I blogged would be an understatement. I think it's time to start back up again just for my own sake of keeping track of all the craziness that this semester will be. Most people are aware that I am a senior and getting ready to graduate this year. My track is a little different than some nursing students, but it has turned out to be the perfect plan for me. I dropped a difficult class and decided to retake it the next semester. This decision put me "behind" a semester from the other students in my class. It turns out almost a 1/3 of my class had to do the same thing. At the time I was really upset about this change in plans, but like I've been reminded several times in my life, this plan was what God intended and has turned out to be much better for me. I ended up learning that I am meant to be a maternity nurse. Seeing babies delivered is the most wonderful thing I have ever experienced, and I don't think it could ever be anything less. By having my maternity clinical a semester later than orginally intended, I was placed at Mercy Hospital with a clinical instructor that was new to SLU. I learned through my clinical experience that Mercy Hospital is my DREAM hospital to work at as a maternity nurse, and my instructor will be a great contact to hopefully get a job there. Having my clinical any other time would not have put me on this path of knowing exactly what I want to do and where I want to do it someday, not to mention a great contact to help me achieve it. I had this clinical as well as my pediatric rotation last semester. It was my best semester yet academically. I am really proud of how well I did and how much I have improved since last year. Nursing has its own language and its own type of test question. I finally feel like I understand both and with practice I actually feel confident about taking my boards later this year, which is not how I felt this time last year.

So that brings me to this current semester. I am finishing all of my theory courses and will walk at graduation in May. Then over the summer I will finish my clinical portion of school and technically graduate in August. In theory I should be really busy this semester because of all the classes I am taking and all the studying for the NCLEX I am supposed to be doing. The thing is, two of my classes are online, two classes do not meet every week, and the other two classes are mostly just review of everything I've learned in nursing school. This means I go to class 2, maybe three times a week and I have clinical one day a week. The rest of the time I do nothing. I shouldn't complain about all my free time, but I'm going to. I'm the type of person that needs to be busy. I need to have pressure on me to get things done. I need an excuse to wake up and be productive. The problem is I have all the time in the world. Therefore I do nothing. This is the first time since my freshman year of high school that I have not had a job. This is the first time I have had so much time I don't even know what to do with myself, and I hate it. I feel like I am literally wasting my life away because all I do is sit around and study a little all day, every day. It's too cold to even go outside and take a walk, or just chill, so I sit in my apartment all day. It's so repetitive that I have trouble keeping track of the days. The only upside to so much free time is that I have been able to make it to daily mass (I could make all 3 times every day if I really wanted to). This has been a blessing, and yet sometimes I feel like I'm just using it as an excuse to get out of my apartment, not because I actually have a desire to receive the Eucharist. There are even days I miss mass because my afternoon nap gets in the way (usually a nap after only being awake for a few hours). Honestly though, without this excuse to get out of my apartment, I'd be even more stir crazy than I already am. I convince myself that it doesn't matter the excuse for being at mass, as long as I'm there, but I'm hoping to start going because I really want to go.

I may be rambling a bit, but I want people to know having nothing to do isn't necessarily a good thing. I would trade anyone in a second to have an overwhelmingly busy schedule instead of my overwhelmingly empty schedule. Sitting around with an open book or practice quiz all day every day is boring. It is hard to be motivated. It is hard to stay focused. I expected this semester to be difficult, but it is difficult in a way I definitely did not expect. So if you ever need a buddy, for anything, give me a call because chances are I am eagerly waiting for something to do!

Snow day!

Snow days aren't so exciting when you already have nothing to do for the day. Our campus had a snow day yesterday, but I don't have classes or anything else on Thursdays, so it was a normal day for me. It was nice having my roommates around for the day instead of sitting in the apartment by myself all day. I was actually pretty productive yesterday with my homework! I could have been way more productive, but I'm satisfied with my progress. The snow day made me even more jealous of my parents who have been sitting on the beach in beautiful weather all week!

People think my schedule this semester is kind of joke, but let me tell you, it is much more difficult to get things done when you literally have no plans 4 days of the week. I only have class on Wednesdays, and I have clinical from 10-2 on Tuesdays and then 7-7 on Saturdays. That means there are 4 days during the week that I have nothing to do. Except I need all those days just to keep up with studying and homework! Unfortunately it's hard for me to be productive when I know I have so much time. I'm the type of person that needs motivation to get things done. I am much more productive when I have pressure to get everything done. I'm definitely getting better about getting stuff done on my days off, but there is still so much room for improvement! Imagine all the studying and homework I could get done if I was awake and ready by 10am and worked diligently until 8 or 9pm every day! I'm working on it...

I made a really delicious meal last night! I cooked some chicken, veggies, and rice and mixed them all together with teriyaki sauce, ginger, and crushed red pepper. It was essentially stir fry, but with out the frying part because I don't know how to do that... It was muy delicioso! I'm sad I can't eat the leftovers today though because it's Friday in Lent...

One more random blurb. I am now going on day 9 of my "common cold." I am so done with being sick!! I also had pink eye over the weekend along with the cold. I'm finally over the pink eye business, but this cold just won't go away! I am so ready to feel healthy again!

The Real World

College students often say "When I get to the real world..." referring to life after college. This week I came to the realization that life after college is no more real than the life I'm living right now. I have to work hard, stay in touch with friends, face harsh realities, and get through each day just like I will have to do beyond college.

I had a meeting with my academic adviser this week and it actually seemed like a real advising appointment. Usually at these appointments I'm just told what classes I have to take, and they can never answer the questions I have. They usually last five minutes and then I have to go on a hunt to find people to actually answer the questions I have and figure everything out. I was assigned a new adviser and he actually asked me about my life after college. He sincerely wanted to help me figure out where I'm going, what I want to do, etc. He told me I have options of classes to take in my extra time (since I'll be an extra semester than originally planned, I have lots more time). I learned I don't just have to take nursing electives like I thought. I could take other classes that may interest me more, like Health Care Ethics, or philosophy, or theology, or anything I want! I always just assumed I would have to take nursing elective classes and that's that. I learned I actually have to start thinking about what I want to do after college. Where do I want to live? What state do I want to take the NCLEX in? What are my priorities for a job? What kind of jobs do I want to apply for?  He also told me that he has never met a nursing student that loved all their classes. They love the job, not the classes to get there. I've heard that from other people, and it makes me feel so much better about disliking school so much. After this meeting I realized that I'm already in the real world. It doesn't happen with graduation. While I have to start thinking about my future after college, I also have to think about what I'm doing with my life at this point in time. College isn't just some fake world with frolicking and free time, it's very much a reality.

I may not enjoy my classes, but that doesn't mean I won't enjoy being a nurse. To be a nurse though I have to get through these classes. Sometimes I think my college experience will be more difficult than work after college. I hate to study and I'm not good at it, but I love to work and I would work 80 hours a week if it were allowed! I've had to work very hard just to pass my classes, and sometimes that's not even enough. I've had to fight very hard just to be where I am right now. Being a student is the vocation I have at this time in my life. It takes just as much effort, maybe even a little more, than what I will have to do after college. The work I'm putting in now is no less real than the work I'll have to put in after college. The "real world" after college doesn't scare me nearly as much as the "real world" of college I'm trying to get through right now. Homework and studying is not nearly as enjoyable for me as taking care of patients will be.