Oh spanish...

Something Lynn said in our meeting bothered me. In the process of trying to develop this program and make sure that the Latinos that express interest actually attend, they need a person that encourage them to come. Lynn told me  “You are white, and if they don’t quite understand everything you say, they’ll say yes but not show up. You need a Latino to be in charge of patient communication.” 

That makes sense, but was a major ego killer. I was just coming out of another dagger to the heart from the night before at the Latino Patient Advisory Counsel. I could communicate well enough, but you get enough Hispanics in a room they just rattle off with all the nuances of the Spanish language and slurring of words. I understood the gist of everything, but definitely not word for word. Being the only Gringa in the room was definitely intimidating. I was getting more and more confident with my Spanish at clinic, but this was definite proof that I am not where I need to be with my Spanish skills. I speak well, and my roommates are encouraging, but I need to be able to communicate better. Bummer.

Manténgase Saludable

So I was pulled into a meeting two weeks ago with our Executive Director and the Kaiser summer intern to discuss a Grant that we were awarded. We were awarded a grant based on our proposal to provide nutrition education and healthy cooking classes to the latino population that our clinic serves as a way to be involved in diabetes/hypertension/obesity education and prevention. Sounds pretty exciting, right? I thought so... until I realized that the summer intern was about to take off back to school and the reason I was involved in the meeting was because this is now MY project. So here I am, two weeks later, losing my the summer intern/grant author tomorrow, about to be left out on my own on this project, and completely overwhelmed. 

Up until yesterday things had gone fairly smoothly. I was calling locations: churches and schools with kitchen and childcare facilities, narrowed it down to a few to visit. Went to a local middle school and decided that their facility was probably the best. I even presented to the Latino Patient Advisory Counsel – a meeting of our Latino patients to get their input on the services we’re offering, a meeting all in Spanish mind you – to get their opinion on what days and times would be best for classes. Things seemed to be going well.

Then Yesterday morning I had a meeting with the woman who runs a very similar… well pretty much the same… program through the OSU extensions office. The intern and I were supposed to go together, but she was shadowing in the ER, so I was on my own. My intention was to get some information about their program and some helpful tips and resources about running our own. Little did I know that I was walking into the lions Den. The woman was not happy that we were “trying to reinvent the wheel” of a well-known and well-oiled program. She was frustrated that we didn’t use them in the grant writing process and after a lot of discussion and trying to convey that I wasn’t involved in the grant writing process and didn’t know if our ED was aware that we could partner with them, she reluctantly decided to let us use their curriculum, and perhaps even teach the classes herself. Though our meeting ended with a hug, it was an awkward and tense experience, and now there is even more pressure on me to make sure our program is well advertised and well attended so that Lynn’s time is used well and we don’t create any more conflict. Yikes – not what I was expecting

Ciao Amiga

We once were 7, now we are 6. I've heard stories about JV's leaving their communities, but I never thought it would be mine. My roommate Meagan left us last wednesday. She told us a week before she left that she was going through some personal stuff, couldn't be herself in the house and had decided to go back home. It was weird though, because as soon as she told us this secret that she had been carrying around, everything started to mesh a lot better. We got a lot closer in her last week here. But none the less, it's hard to deal with a lot of personal stuff in a new place with new people. So she's back in New York, hopefully feeling better, and hopefully gonna stay in touch. She had her negative moments, but I think we could have been the support she needed if she had let us. I'll miss her hugs and her laughter, but hopefully we'll see her again.

Labor Day Weekend

I know I'm a little over due for a blog post, so I'll do a few to make up for it :)

Labor day weekend I took my room

mates home to Seattle!  It was awesome... well... at least by the end. It was transformational for our community for sure.

My parents were visiting the rest of the fam in the bay area for the weekend, so we had the house to our selves. When we first showed up, I was nervous as usual, about to invite my roommates deeper into my life - I felt pretty exposed. They were all in awe of the trees, and excited to be in such a beautiful home, going crazy sliding across the wood floors... but I was pulling back thinking to myself "why the hell did I bring these strange people to my home. They don't get me. This is weird. I just want to go hide." So I did. After everyone was set up with a place to sleep I went to bed first.

Saturday, I woke up early and went on my usual run through the woods, and came home refreshed and de-stressed and ready to play hostess and tour guide. We had an incredible day doing all the touristy things you gotta do in Seattle: walked from Capitol hill where my roommates met my friend Whitney, through down town, through pikes place, ate the donuts, watched the fish be thrown, got coffee at the first Starbucks, walked to the space needle, then ended with a nice happy hour back on Capitol hill. That night we went to the JV party at the Seattle Cherry Abby house and were suprised to be greeted so excitedly - EVERYONE was awaiting the arrival of the GRESHAM house. Who knew we were so popular? But this is where we really bonded - we were our go-to people, we danced together, we drank together, we had fun together. It was 

great.

Sunday I took them all on a very wet hike to Franklin Falls (pics at top), then we had a nice after noon of movie watching and warming up with some tea. Then I took everyone to my home church to give all my catholic roommates a taste of my protestant upbringing. It was so good to be home. It really showed me what I'm missing in my spiritual life during mass. And then during communion the band played "Be Though My Vision," the song I sang at Ian and Annie's wedding - and I lost it. My family was all together, without me, in California. I was home with these people who are slowly getting to know me better, and there was no one at the 6 o'clock service that I had expected to see. I tried to hold back the tears, but I couldn't. After the service I tried to compose myself, but ended up sitting down and crying in the narthex in front of my roommates. I eventually recovered, and we headed to a coffee shop on the Ave to discuss how we felt about the service and had some great discussion about where we are all at in our spiritual lives, what we value in our faith journeys, we talked a lot about catholic culture and guilt, which is so foreign to me. Then we finished off our intense conversation at the Compline service at St. Mark's on Capitol hill and left the service of Chanting monks a little more relaxed and reflective.  A great day.

Love

I love my job.

I had the best day at work today. It was another grown up day. I started out in our office downtown on Overton, then went an orientation meeting with the Coalition of Community Heath Clinics - the coalition that our clinic and 12 others like it belong to that are providing no-to-low cost health care for those that our health care system has left in the dust. The people at the coalition are the people who help clinics communicate to each other, share resources and ideas, and they are the ones that put into motion all the referrals that I start during clinic. To have this incredible network of advocacy and support for those who are not provided for by the government is incredible. These people do amazing things and I am so excited to be a part of the work they have set in motion.

After orientation it was off to a manager's meeting/happy hour hosted by the coalition. Yet another venue for clinic managers to update each other on the new happenings in their clinics and try and help each other trouble shoot. I ate my fondu and listened to Angie from Inside Out talk about her need for a new Dermatologist to direct the tattoo removal program. This may seem somewhat trivial, but tattoo removal for someone who is trying to get out of the gang scene and turn their life around, or a man who got a swastika tattooed on his chest in prison and now has a two year son and doesn't want his son to grow up in an environment of hate, or a homeless youth with tattoos all over their face trying to get a job and get off the street Tattoo removal can mean rebirth. 

These people running these clinics are Saints. They are crusaders for love and respect. They want everyone to claim their human right to live a full and healthy life. Without the coalition, thousands of people would have no where to go. I was doing a referral tonight and as the man left my office he said to me "It's such an incredible service you people do. You have no idea." Another woman shook my hand earnestly and said "Que dios te bendiga. Muchisimas gracias" - God bless you. Thank you so much.

Eventful Week

A lot has happened in a week, so I'll just do a quick recap:

On saturday we had an all day painting party that was also youth event for the parish. We spent roughly 9 hours painting the downstairs common areas of our house with our neighbor (and youth director of the church) and 7 or 8 high schoolers. The kitchen now has yellow walls in addition to the already light green cabinets, orange countertops and purple doors, our dining room is a beautiful espresso brown with a "sand dune" beige accent wall, and our living room is a deep crater lake blue with an espresso brown harem (it has  little nook we call the harem or love nest). The hallways each got a fresh coat of beige and the bathroom is yellow as well. Its starting to feel a little more like home. After the long day of painting, my old roommates mom was dropping off her youngest daughter at George Fox and stopped by to say hello. It was so nice to see a familiar face - I  think I hugged her harder than I've hugged anyone in a long time. Then our house joined Crunchy (our neighbor) and the kids for a viewing of Back to the Future outside in our shared backyard.

Sunday my parents came out to take me to an early birthday lunch! It was so nice to be able to show them where I live and explore the city a little bit. I took them to Cafe Delirium, the local cafe in Gresham where my house spends a lot of time, out to lunch on trendy 23rd, down to the sunday market, and out to Mt. Tabor fora pretty view of the city. They were able to meet most of my roommates, which was fun. Everyone thought my parents were super cute - Gretchen says her favorite thing is meeting parents. It makes the world make sense :)

Tuesday: a lot of things happened... My work day was full of meetings, which is always interesting. I learn a lot about what wallace does and get to contribute to making it better. At the end of our big team meeting, the office had a delicious chocolate cake for me and sang an early happy birthday to me. It was very sweet:) This was also the day that MCAT scores are released, and they were supposed to be released the same time that my team meeting started  - so when the singing was over, I rushed back to my office to check, but no luck. Scores weren't released until 6pm. Gretchen and I borrowed Crunchy's internet to check our scores after dinner... me first... and I'm happy! I'm not taking them again anyway. I got a score that was at the lower end of what I wanted, but I think it's good enough. So now I can just sit back and relax until I start applying to medical school in 8 months! 

One more big  thing happened on tuesday - one of my roommates told the community that she's leaving . She didn't go into too much detail, but she's dealing with some personal stuff that she can't resolve here, so next wednesday she's flying back to New York. So there are some big changes to be had. I have a meeting with our area director today to check in about the situation.

Wednesday: My Birthday! I'm now officially 22. It was a wonderful and relaxing day. I got up and made myself some breakfast pancakes, read my book, talked a lot of friends and family, treated myself to a salad at cafe delirium for lunch and headed off to work at 2. It was an awesome clinic! I was in charge of referrals and it was great! I also was able to talk about my MCAT score with our medical director, and laugh and chit chat with all the medical providers between patients. I am bonding with my coworkers and just having a great time. When I got home, my roommates had prepared a feast of hummus, bruschetta, birthday cake and beer and we had a nice little birthday party. Over all a good day.

This weekend the community is headed to Seattle to visit the other JV houses for Labor day. I'm going to be taking my roommates to my church on Sunday and then to Compline gregorian chanting at St. Marks on capitol hill for our spirituality night this week, so I'm really excited to hear their thoughts.