a boy named Shakespeare.

Shaky for short.

He is only 7 years old, the second to the youngest child of a strong Samoan family, soft spoken, with beautiful dark eyelashes and dark raven hair that reached the back of his shins.

We spent most of the day smirking at each other--me trying to make him laugh and him trying to pretend that he didn't want to. At the end of the day, he finally smiled--revealing several missing teeth and said "You're weird." I told him that I took that as a compliment.

This may sound kind of weird, but really...when I'm at Children's Hospital of Orange County for clinicals, I feel kind of like I'm....shopping for children. Don't worry, I don't have any immediate plans to take any home...but I just fall in love with all the kids that I encounter. Today was no exception. I wanted to take all my patient with me.

When I'm around kids, I just feel like I'm in my element. They are the best kind of people, i think.

Another semester begins...

School started yesterday. It was slightly overwhelming because it was a drastic change in my brain activity level--it was like going from zero to 60mph in 10 seconds. By the end of the day, I already felt like I was halfway through the semester...but it was only the first day! AH! Nursing school owns my life.

Not that I'm complaining, though I will admit that I am kind of freaking out. However, I am thoroughly excited for what this semester holds. My first clinical rotation, at the Children's Hospital of Orange County, makes me squeal with delight. I love children so much and I can't wait to get started. I know that this semester will have it's own unique joys and challenges, but I say... bring it on.

With the start of every semester--especially in these last two years--I tend to look back and wonder how I managed to make it through without spontaneously combusting. Last semester was the most difficult semester thus far, in terms of academic work load and emotional hardships. But I somehow made it through, even though there were days when the painfulness of it all almost consumed my world in darkness. Yeesh. I was really humbled in a way that the only person who mattered the most, the only person who was the most clear to me, whose love became more tangible and more real on a day to day basis was...God.

I know that I'm not completely in the clear of all the things that happened a few months ago. There are remnances that linger that kind of help me understand the whole "thorn in my side" idea that the Apostle Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians 12. These "thorns" seem to be gentle nudges, constant reminders of my weakness and my need to be completely dependent on God, and how the entirety of my will needs to be surrendered to His. It's become so strange to me that I see this kind of pain as something so good...something that encourages me so much when I take the time to remember how much more God matters.

Thus says the LORD:
'Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the LORD. But this is the one to whom I will look; he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.

[Isaiah 66: 1-2]

studying in between daydreams...

maybe it's because of the enormous pressure that i've been feeling lately to become a competent nurse by the time I graduate (in three semesters!) that i've turned to dreaming about non-nursing related things that I could be doing for the rest of my life to cope with the stress. Or maybe it's just part of my "jack-of-all-trades" frame of mind--which means that i have a varied interest in...things: I enjoy playing guitar/writing music, i love art, i get giddy about sitting in various coffee shops, drinking from "for here" cups, i love cooking, i love photography, children, i enjoy the vocation of nursing, i have great interest in fashion & interior design, and in the culinary arts, i love traveling... and the list goes on. There must be a reason why God put all those interests inside me. I'm sure they're supposed to come together in some way, shape or form...

so today, in between reading/studying the primary interventions for a burn patient and my roast beef and swiss sandwich-- i came up with the "perfect" life: I would be a nurse by day (or 3 days of the week), of course, but I would eventually have a music therapy clinic, while also co-owning a coffee shop in which my children would help/work in (if they were of age, of course, and if they wanted to, this wouldn't be an infringement of any child labor laws, at all--though i would highly encourage work. i think kids would enjoy that sort of thing, plus it supposedly teaches them responsibility). Did I forget to mention that I went to culinary school in between the establishment of my music therapy clinic and the coffee shop (where I would host different shows/performances and invite my clients from the clinic to attend to these performances). Anyways, because I would be a graduate from culinary school, I would make amazing gourmet meals for my family & friends (for fun and for special occasions: church potlucks, birthdays, etc.) And sometime in between or after culinary school and my coffee-shop, I would record a CD and proceeds from the CD would go to different missionaries and maybe fund some sort of organization that will sponsor a mission trip I would take someday where I will use music therapy in conjuction with my nursing skills to bring Jesus and wholistic healing to the culture/people I encounter on said mission trip. I would also have the time of my life decorating my coffee shop, my clinic and my very own home--while borrowing ideas from places like Anthropologie and Pottery Barn. And I would be the sort of mom that would take lots and lots of pictures of her family and put them up on a blog, or around my home...

Though, reality still likes to penetrate even the thickest and foggiest of daydreams--I probably would have to have my school loans paid off before any of this could happen, if it could ever happen. HAH. ew.

Sigh. Wouldn't that be cool if life did turn out the way we plan it? Maybe some things will come true. It is exciting to think about what God has planned for my life. I have a new found openness to wherever He'll take me, or have me do with the time on Earth He has given me. I firmly believe--with all my heart--that He gives us the desires of our hearts, though, it's only through His perfect timing that these things come about.

Ok. study break over.

pajama kid

most kids stay at home on saturday mornings, either to sleep in from a busy week of school and recess, or to sit in front of the television with a bowl of cereal watching cartoons.

but not pajama kid.

pajama kid forgoes the age-old tradition of Saturday morning cartoons and comes to Starbucks with his mother. He wears his floor length navy-blue fuzzy bathrobe, complete with fuzzy teddy bear slippers and his stuffed spotted leopard shark snuggled nicely in his left arm. His red hair epitomizes the meaning of "bed-head."

I watch pajama kid with great interest and amusement as he bounces up and down with excitement, his eyes gleaming with pure joy as his mother orders him a Venti vanilla bean frappuccino with whipped cream. He holds his mother's hand tightly and snuggles his messy little head in his mothers arm--completely unbeknownst to him that his warddrobe and fuzzy slippers make him stick out like a sore-thumb. Not that he would care. Oh, the days of blissful ignorance.

I find this whole situation endearing and I'm not entirely sure as to why. Maybe it's because I like that it seems that the kid is not being held to the same social standards that I find myself bound and obligated to uphold--i.e., he gets to wear his pajamas to public places and I don't. I admire his mother for risking her reputation of being a "good mother," by taking her kid to Starbucks and ordering him a vanilla bean frappuccino at 9:00 in the morning. And I would like to give her the benefit of a doubt that this ritual is not a regular occurence--judging from the excited/spastic nature of the child in question and his obvious endearment of his mother. But I like this "ritual," or this tradition, where for one morning the child and his child-like nature is exemplified, nurtured and adored, by allowing space for his natural affinity for soft, fuzzy things and sugary foods.

shout outs...

To the Micu family. 2 great parents/mentors/people + 7 amazing kids.
I love this:


I can't wait to see all of you in about a week.

Naming my un-born child.

I did not intend for the title of my blog post to be so...creepy. Hah. Oh well.

You might find this surprising, since my affinity for children is borderline obsessive--but don't worry your kids are safe with me, I promise (can't guarantee I'll give them back though. Just kidding!) Anyway, as I was saying, you might be surprised to find out, that even though I love children, I have never really thought about potential names for potential children that I might produce someday. The reason for that is because thinking of potential children leads to thinking about potential husbands, or boyfriends, or weddings... stuff that I don't really care to think about or dwell on. Especially as of late, because believe it or not: boys stink. Sorry. They do. I try to stay away from them, or anything that has facial hair or speaks an octave lower than me.

Well, ok. It's not like I never think about weddings and/or stuff like that, I just try not to do it too much.

Anywho. Baby names. Ok well, today I ran across a name that I thought was...the greatest name. I recognize that that is a completely subjective statement and YOU may not agree with me, but I'm going to tell you anway. The name is... Milann (pronounced--carissa, help me out here--"mull-ahn"). Yeah. Like the city in Italy. I just think it's so... elegant. If God chooses to bless with me with a daughter (after he blesses me with a boyfriend who turns into a husband, etc), I am naming her Milann. Or at least that will be one of her names. She might have two.

Yeah, I know it's unorthodox. But I am a fan of unorthodox. After all, my real name IS Lenimfa.

Conundrum.

Kids say the funniest things.

While babysitting the other night, I had to explain to Brody, age five, what the word "conundrum" meant--which he then applied to a real life situation, as you will see further on in the story.

The word had slipped out of my mouth, while I was talking to Brody's baby brother, Brenner, a newly adopted 21 month old Ethiopian baby. Brenner was insistent on reaching for my food, though he had his own bowl of mashed up bananas in front of him--which was his second option, since he rejected his mom's chicken noodle soup. "This is my grown-up food, Brenner," I tried to explain, but Brenner responded with an indignant, "No," followed by some gibberish. Angry gibberish. "Well, what a conundrum we have," I sighed as I tried to think of a more creative way to get Brenner to eat his mush. Brody, who had been engrossed in the construction of his new Lego police airplane, immediately piped in:

"Hey! What does that mean?"
"Hey, what does what mean?"
"Co..non...Conunderum?"
"Conundrum?"
"yeah, co-coh-nonde...rum."
"Um, people say it when there is a problem. Like Brenner not wanting to eat right now. That is a conundrum."
"Co-nun-derum."
"Yeah...and..."
"There! finished," Brody beamed proudly, as he placed the last piece of lego on his airplane. Seeing that Brody was more interested in his plane than a vocabulary lesson from his baby-sitter, I dropped the subject and once again, turned my attention to Brenner.

I decided to let Brenner out of his high chair since he didn't seem to0 hungry at the moment, trusting that when he did get hungry, he would eat his mush happily. As soon as Brenner's feet touched the floor, he made a bee-line for his brother's newly constructed Lego airplane and "CRASH!" with one fell swoop, Brenner knocked the plane onto the floor. I quickly looked at Brody, who looked more shocked than he was angry, and then I looked at Brenner, who was smiling awkwardly, knowing he had done something bad. Before I could say anything, however, Brody screamed, at the top of his lungs, "CONUNDERUM! Brenner! CO-NUN-DUN-DERUM!!!"

Andrew.

Tonight, during the last Craft night of Adventure week, I was helping an eight year old named Andrew. The craft tonight was to make life-preserver bible verse frames from two paper plates. The project was simple enough, so Andrew really didn't need help, but I needed an excuse to sit by him.

Andrew has very cherubic features: a rounded face, rosy, squeezable cheeks, sizable blue eyes and short, sandy brown hair. Andrew is also the smartest kid I have ever come across. When I say smart, I mean, he talks like a British scholar. His vocabulary is very sophisticated and proper, not just for an eight year old little boy, but for anyone! For example, after helping him punch a hole through his life-preserver frame, I asked him what he was going to do with his finished project. This was his response, word for word: "I do not know. Perhaps, I shall hang it onto my bed post. Perhaps, that may be a good idea. Do you think so?" I stared at him, flabbergasted, with my mouth agape. I just shrugged my shoulders, nodded and took a deep breath to stifle my laughter. I made eye contact with one of his group leaders, sitting in the chair next to him, and her eyes had grown as wide as her mouth was open. She was as pleasantly shocked and entertained as I was.

After I made sure I wasn't going to laugh, I cleared my throat and asked, "Andrew, would you like to pull the string through the hole?" He nodded his head and threaded the string through with his clumsy, chubby eight year old fingers. Then I asked him, "Can you tie a knot?" Andrew shook his head vigorously and said, "No, no, no. I cannot. Please help me." Once I finished tying the knot, he clapped his hands together, smiled gleefully and said, with utmost resolve: "Perfect."

After putting his project away, Andrew and I actually got into a short discussion about words. He asked me what my favorite word was. For some weird reason, the only word I could think of at the moment was "arbitrary." Andrew, in sincere eagerness, asked me what it meant. How do you explain what "arbitrary" means to a child who, according to Piadget's Stages of Cognitive Development, cannot grasp abstract concepts?

The best explanation I could come up with was that it meant something random and unpredictable. I suppose most eight year olds would've looked at me blankly if I had tried to explain a complicated word with complicated concepts, but Andrew placed his chubby little fingers on his chin and let out a contemplative "hmm." I asked him if he knew what random meant. Immediately, his eyes lit up as he replied, "of course! See, when things are in order...it's like counting from 1-10...you know...1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and on and on. But when something is random then it's like not going in order! It's like 1, 7, 10..."

I wanted to steal him right then and make him mine forever.

This is why I love kids so much. You just never know what you're going to get in terms of personality or...lexicon.

me? a grown-up?

Today, I babysat six of my pastor's seven children. When I walked in the front door, it was sort of like being swarmed by an army of locusts. That's probably a prodigious exaggeration, but maybe not. They all rushed to me, pulling me in different directions, talking all at once...it was a bit overwhelming. But they are precious, indeed. And it's nice to be missed. Rebekah, who is 5, took ownership of my right hand for the next 20 minutes and sat on my lap everytime I sat down.

While her siblings were napping/playing Jenga, Sarah, the oldest, wanted to make her world-renown (at least in the Micu household) "chocolate upon chocolate cookies"(I don't think that's the official name of her cookies, but after tasting them, I decided that I would call them that).

Sarah put the cookies in the oven for about 5 minutes. When the timer went off, I inspected her batch. The cookies were still a little mushy, so I suggested that she put them in for about 6-7 more minutes. When they came out, the cookies were very much done. Rebekah's eyes brightened, the hair in her eyes flew out of her face as she turned quickly to me and asked, "How did you know that they needed to be in the oven longer? How did you know!" Before I could answer, Sarah interjected, in a very matter-of-fact tone: "It's 'cause Ms. Linell is a grown up."

I stood there, finger in the air, with my mouth slightly ajar. That wasn't the answer I would've picked. I think what I was actually going to say was, "It's because I'm smart and I go to college" (That answer probably would not have sufficed for an inquisitive five-year old, anyway). But what Sarah said also struck me in a different sense, in a way that feels like lightning struck my brain. I AM a grown-up!

BUT what does that even mean? I certainly don't feel like one. But I, apparently, am one.

weird.

Happy Boxing Day (or at least that's what the Canadians say).

if it weren't for Jesus, the Christmas season would really be anti-climactic. I am sure the "holidays," as the rest of the world prefers to call it, is pretty anti-climactic for those unfortunate enough to live life without Christ. I mean, after weeks and weeks of preparations and thousands of dollars spent on presents, it's all over in one day. ONE DAY. eyuck. The thought of it makes me shudder. All the more reason why people need to know about Jesus. They need to released from the disappointment they are probably feeling now. Christians know, or at least they should know, that the celebration of Christ is a 24/7, everyday, ongoing celebration. Because Christmas, the birth of Christ, means.... God wins.

My pastor is going to have his seventh child (yes...seventh) within the next few days. Hopefully. I definitely want to be around for that. In my eyes, the Micus are like an extended family. I mean, I make home movies of the kids, for the kids. That pretty much means, I'm sort of like part of their family. This is them:
yeah. The kids are half filipino. That explains why they are so good looking. That is also probably why they are so loud and crazy and full of energy. I love them. I am really excited as to what baby number seven will be like. Or what they'll name him/her. I still say Micah Moses Micu is a good one.... (i'm being facetious, of course...)

So other than the Micu's having another child, I've thought of more good reasons for staying home:
1.) I'm enjoying the time spent with my brothers.
2.) My parents make the best filipino food. So it's been nice eating home-cooked meals.
3.) I am really, really low on cash. Being at home means I have a better chance of NOT spending money.

I think that making lists is another way that I am avoiding making a decision. My therapist says that I am a very indecisive individual. She actually asked me if i thought I was indecisive, and I answered, "Maybe? I don't really know..." Way to give myself away, eh?

Anyway, that's all for now.