bad mood monday morning!

clinical fail: kinda in a rush and the 5 yr old E was tired, so he totally freaked when i started giving an injection. i couldn't continue because he was flailing. on any other day i would have fought him a little longer with his mother's help. but bad mood monday morning caused me to quit early and refer him to a pediatric specialist right away, so that i wouldn't have to fight him anymore.
so he was happy. but prolly going to turn into a spoiled brat.
then as he sat in the corner waiting for his mom to finish her cleaning, monin gave him a cookie.
i was a little annoyed because the kid's got a bunch of cavities. but she, in her grandmother's heart, couldn't deny the boy.

anyway, on a brighter note, the afternoon was much more chill and i was in a better mood after rocking the christmas music a while longer.

last week i spent some time coming up with a list of things that i'm thankful for at esperanza, since today i finished my 1st year of working at ehc. hooray. so i mass messaged it to my coworkers. i'm glad i wrote it in advance, because i wouldn't have had the heart to write it today and it would have been a list of complaints. anyway, by the end of the day i got a dozen encouraging responses. so went from not feeling supported at all and feeling discouraged, to feeling supported and encouraged.

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subject: feliz one-year... to me!

hola!

i survived EHC one year today! praise God! haha. just wanted to thank todos from the bottom de mi corazon for their support during my transition into the workplace and to philly (the REAL WORLD).

recently i've been trying to carve out time to internally process the year, in order to best come up with goals/personal mission/vision for next year. my reflections are below if you're interested. (no offense taken if you're not! it's muy largo!)

some things i'm thankful for at EHC:

-snow days
-holidays
-vacations
-lunch time
-bathroom breaks
-timely paycheque

jajaja, now onto the real things...

-morning devotions
-prayer groups
-retreat pow-wows
-supervisors who pray for me
-digital imaging, paperless charts
-the 6th floor view of philly from k&a, that makes philly seem so serene
-health insurance that i still don't fully understand how to use
-co-dentist who bails me out and covers my clinical fails without telling me i failed
-assistants and staff who translate the culture and language for me, especially when i am unaware that a patient is asking me out to dinner while i'm trying to educate him about cavities.
-lots of grace given by all during my 1st year in practice
-all the kids who make me laugh every day
-all the kids who scream and misbehave and make me content that i'm not in a season of life to have kids right now
-working with an islander immigrant population (because i'm a second generation islander immigrant)
-being able to witness God's work and redemption in the patients' and coworkers' lives
-moments to share God's work and redemption in my own life with others
-patients who bring me food
-coworkers who bring me food
-shop owners on kensington avenue who give me food
-the opportunity to re-examine and refine my values, namely financial values, family values, and educational values. to not assume that they are always better, just because they might seem more 'successful' according to the world's standards. but to really seek the Lord and the word to determine whether they are right and bibilical, and to adjust/align accordingly.
-a very unique cross-cultural learning experience. i was raised in a racially and socio-economically mixed small border city in a very relaxed and socialist-leaning canada. since then i've had to adapt to living in an ambitious, progressive u.s. college town, southern rural france, urban japan, simplistic sweltering tropical pacific islands, a bush-bush village in west africa, and a quaint colonial town in guatemala. north philadelphia has been just as, if not more eye-opening in terms of seeing the extreme diversity of humanity (people doing/having done things that i would have never imagined to exist/been done before. reaallly?...)
-decompartmentalization/integration of my spiritual/physical life - i can't not talk about faith with non-believer friends, because it's foundational to our daily work/career.
-God's protection in a neighbourhood with statistically higher crime. my most hazardous experience in the 19134 so far is that a bird pooped on my face. i hate birds!