I got a panda in D.C. His name is Baboo. Coincidentally, Mina has a teddy bear
her mother dubbed "Babu," which apparently translates to "little
boy". Upon hearing this I insisted that they meet.
I personally think they enjoyed
the visit while Mina showed me a beautiful sari she got me in Indian and an
adorable evil-eye elephant keychain that I promptly attached to my rearview
mirror, making me the only member of my family that doesn't have a crucifix hanging in their car.
After
seeing my "lover" I took off to meet my family for that dinner that I
was not looking forward to.
 |
| Believe it or not, this would've been an improvement. |
Turns out, it really was as bad as I thought it
would be; with my parents sitting in one corner of our booth throughout our
appetizer without saying more than maybe five sentences to me put together. I'm not sure what that was all about, but it was kind of annoying, seeing as how it'd be another month before we'd all be able to sit together as a family with my mom going back to the motherland. Either way, I found myself counting down the minutes until the Baby Sister showed up to lighten the mood.
...So
I have to attend this class for work; it's more of a workshop than a class,
revolving around how your energy and
perceptions directly affect your quality of work. Not gonna lie; I
completely anticipated being bored for the entire 8 hours but finding myself
pretty interested and a little more than slightly invested in what we're
talking about.
I've
moaned more than once on how I end a lot of my workdays on a bad or depressing
note, with my mood lower than my height. Last week was particularly trying and
I contacted Zi with the following:
"I
find myself feeling like a constant failure; that I can't get through one week
without being too slow or making a mistake or doing/saying something that the
charge nurse will likely interpret as yet another proof of my utter
uselessness. Is this supposed to happen or is the universe telling me that I
suck cojones at my job?"
The
next day he texted me back:
"That's
part of the learning process - you'll get better at it. Just keep an open mind. Think about it this
way: though yelling at you isn't the most professional method of telling you to
get better, it can still serve as motivation for you to push yourself harder
for the benefit of your patients. Don't take it personally. It's for the good
of the babies youre taking care of. Try to put yourself in the third person
perspective and analyze your shortcomings. Then improve upon them. Do your best
and have a positive and open attitude about it... don't take it personally.
You'll be okay. Experience isn't learned overnight."
And
the more time I spent there, the more modules the workshop went through together, the more
hope and courage I gathered in what I learned, which served only to reinforce
Zi's own words. I know in my heart that it's okay that I don't know everything, that it's alright if every move I make is just shy of perfect or not-quite-just-right.
I got out of the workshop early, heading to the gym for the first time in about two-three weeks (my belly has exponentially expanded since). I felt my body about to die after only half and hour and tried doing some floor exercises...only to amaze a set of 60-year-old women with my backbend.
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This then lead to a fifteen-minute moment of amazement and subsequent attempts by elder women, one of whom had horrible arthritis, to attempt backbends next to my mat. Needless to say, it was entirely amusing. After less than an hour of working out (pathetic by my usual standards), I headed home in my usual cruising fashion
Although it would've been a lot easier to get home without the idiots going the speed limit...
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Written 4.26.1
Posted 4.27.11
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