Back to Work!

Aloha! After about 5 weeks off from work, I began at Straub Hospital this week. It is in downtown Honolulu. I had classroom orientation 4 of my 5 days this week. I am not used to sitting in a classroom as a nurse, but it was good to get back to a routine. One thing I am really happy about being hired at Straub is that it is associated with Hawaii Pacific Health, which is a company that merged 3 hospitals together on the island of Oahu. They really like to "take care of " their employees and encourage career development and growth within the organization. After about 6-12 months at my current position, I will be able to apply for new positions on other floors if I want. I am really interested in working at the Kapiolani Women's and Children's Hospital, and hope to get in there sometime within the next year. Working in the NICU or on a Mother/Baby Unit is a job goal of mine and I may be able to achieve it through this organization. I already miss working with those babies since I have left OCAHS. So we will see where my job brings me! I am just glad to have been hired so quickly. Some nurses at orientation said they had been trying to get in for 2 years! It makes me realize that this was all a part of God's Plan!

I was also able to shadow a nurse on my floor on Thursday for 8hrs. It was great to get a feel of how they do things and fun to get to know some of my co-workers. Culture here is a huge thing. It is a melting pot and  I am a minority. I figured that out quickly this week at orientation. We had a speaker ask our group of 40 to look around the room and note what the main ethnic groups were. The bottom line, Caucasians are the minority. I was even asked to talk about my cultural differences from the locals in Hawaii. It is different to be the minority in this culture and for people to say, "I can tell you are from the "mainland" or the "midwest" by the way you talk." :)

Another discussion we had was that spirits are pretty dominant here and can be a cause of illness. "Cupping and Coining" are common practices here to rid the spirits from the body. (Cupping is applying suction cups to the body to "draw the spirit out." It causes hickey-like welts throughout the body, but they are primarily seen on the back. Coining is what it sounds like. You take a coin (nickle, quarter, or whatever and rub it in a linear type motion on a skin surface. This causes a reddened abrasion and line marks on the body. It is a way to treat certain physical symptoms a person may be feeling.)

I previously took BSN classes in "Cultural Competency" and learning what these methods were and what they meant to the cultural group. I never thought I would actually work with patients who practice them. In my orientation, the speaker even mentioned that "NOT everyone believes in spirits and how they affect the body as health care providers you need to be sensitive to them and try to understand what they believe also." That was the moment that I felt the most uncomfortable and knew that I was one of "those" who don't believe in the whole spirit thing.

Another huge cultural change that I am not sure I will fully adjust to is the food culture here. It is so different from what I am used to! Example: At work on Thursday, the nurse and I were on break in the break room and she told me that there were lots of goodies to eat. When I think of "goodies at work" I think of cookies, chocolate, candy, and more of sugar-high items. Instead, they had :

Half Moon 

which is steamed and filled with some type of meat and vegetable mixture. This looked more like a meal than a snack to me, so I passed on this.

Manapua (pronounced:"manna-pooha")

looks like a warm, tasty baked good. Maybe even sweet. But looks are deceiving, especially when you are thinking it tastes like that and you take a bite and....

taste meat! It hit me like a wall. I was expecting a "dessert" type food. I held my gag reflex as I choked down the manapua. My nurse said, "Manapua are the best, what do you think." I put on my best face and lie, "it is GOOD." :)  I don't like surprises in my food, and it was probably my own fault that I didn't know what manapua was before biting into it. It looked familiar and safe to me. If I would've known what I was biting into, maybe I would have liked it more and been prepared for the BBQ meat... ?

(This is what it looked like after I bit into it.)

So as you can see, things are quite a bit different here than what we are used to. :) 

Another highlight of the week: Ben received a promotion!!!!! :) He was promoted to Chief Scribe at Castle. This means that his current bosses will be leaving soon to move to the mainland and he will be in charge of the other scribes that were hired with him. He will be in charge of hiring/firing, making the schedule, interviewing new scribes and teaching/testing them in a classroom setting, meeting with physicians about their needs for scribes, and also continue to work in the ER. This means that he will probably have more hours and will be more challenged, which is a good thing. Another Bonus: increased hourly wage and being able to make his own schedule. Hopefully we will be able to work out our schedules so we are working similar days and will have a few off together.

That's all for now from Kailua. We look forward to having Ben's family come out in about a week to visit! It will be so much fun to show them around and to just be together.  We hope they love it here as much as we do.

Hope everyone is doing well and has a relaxing weekend! Mahalo!

Out and About...

We really enjoy biking/running on a route in Kailua. I wanted to take pictures and show the route through our eyes.

Here is the beginning of the bike trail.

A view from the trail going through Kailua Beach Park.

Here is where we usually see my biggest running fan. He is a homeless fellow who spends a majority of his day laying on this very bench. He is there for everyone of my runs. The other day I got more than I bargained for during my run. I was blinded by a white butt while running by. He decided to have his pants pulled down to his knees and his bum facing the bike trail. I was thinking it was quite warm out that day, but he took things a bit too far. I was shocked at what I saw, but felt worse for the poor children playing near him.

Here is the beginning of a killer hill. Only the strong can survive running/biking up it without stopping. It separates the boys from the men.




As you can see, she even hopped off her bike. :)



Finally! Arrived to the top.

The views from the Lanikai hill are breathtaking!




Here is the beach entry to Lanikai.

 

Another beautiful beach.

And now we are heading back home.


 
Heading back up the hill.


 

God is GOOD!

 

"The heavens declare the Glory of God..."




Now we are on our road, about one block from our cottage.



This is where we park and is the back of our cottage. Our landlord's house is to the left and in front of ours.


Our front door.
 

Here is a picture of our pet Gecko that tries to sneak in to our apartment. Only one of his friends has been successful so far.



There is a very good story behind this picture. We got these super sweet beach chairs the other day from our new favorite store "Costco." We can strap them on our backs just like backpacks and head down to the beach. Do we look dorky? ABSOLUTELY! Are they exactly what we needed? YES!



Ben is  embarrassed. He feels like I am a mom taking pictures of my preschooler on the first day of school. :) 



Did I mention they were "bike friendly?" Even better!

That is just a little update on life and what we are keeping busy with these days. I have one more week off before I begin work, and cannot wait to get back into it again. Ben continues to stay busy and enjoy his scribing work at Castle.

We are blessed beyond all belief! Hope you have had a great holiday weekend and week to come!

"You may not know where life's road will lead you. But keep moving. God is walking with you."

Anniversary

June 22nd marked 3 years of marriage!

Looking back three years ago, I cannot believe how young we were when we got married. We have made it through 2-3 years of college and a huge move. Looking at the picture below makes me realize how young we looked. These changes also make me think back on the way we have matured emotionally, socially, and spiritually together. (And how awesome it has been).

Of course there have been rough days and even weeks throughout these years, but those have helped mold us into the couple we are today:

(we are working on the whole photogenic thing)  :)

So, Ben had the day off and we decided that a snorkeling trip would be a great way to celebrate! We found some cheap snorkel rentals from town and found out the great snorkeling locations by the North Shore. And for those who are wondering: No, we did NOT snorkel amongst those crazy waves that one thinks of when you mention THE North Shore. Right now is the quiet season there for surfing and the perfect season to snorkel.


Here are some pictures:

Here are some pictures of the beach we snorkeled at:

Crazy, awesome "Sand." It was so soft and upon closer examination, we realized they were tiny, polished stones:

We ran into the famous "Turtle Bay" golf course. We had to check it out. Ben was in heaven....

It was gorgeous and Ben appreciated the green, green fairways. It is his dream to golf here in the future. Not as a professional, rather as a resident. :)


After a successful day of snorkeling, sack lunches on the beach, and slightly sunburned bodies, we decided to go out for  a nice dinner to celebrate our anniversary and me landing a job.

We have seen this restaurant near the Kailua Beach often on our bike and running outings. It's called BUZZ'S. It is a rather famous steakhouse. So we made our reservations for 6:15pm and took our bikes 1/2 mile down the road to the restaurant. (Parking here can be pretty crazy, as we had observed previously, so we decided to just bike :) 

Upon arriving, Ben realized he forgot to bring his wallet, or possibly dropped it on the way over. Without even thinking about me carrying my purse that evening, he quickly biked back home to get his wallet. By the time he had left, I realized I had my wallet along, but had no means of getting a hold of him about this. (I decided to have a "cell-phone free" date night). SO, needless to say, I was one glass of wine in and had a very sweaty husband arrive to the restaurant with wallet in hand 15 minutes after our previous reservation. You can only get by with situations like this on your 3rd year anniversary and not care. It would not make a good impression on a first date.

We had a good laugh, enjoyed exceptional food (that we were able to enjoy even a few nights later), and called it a great anniversary. As my father reminded me, "Most couples do not get to celebrate 3 years of marriage in Hawaii. Most have to wait for their 10th, 15th, 25th, or 50th annivesaries to do so." My dad is so good at putting things into persepective for me. Love you, Dad! :)

We both feel so blessed to be living here right now and pray to never take it for granted!