Orientation so far

Today was only day 2 of the orientation part of things, and already it feels like there's so much that's gone on...

We've started having our "group" sessions, had a tour of the hospital, had lunch with people from the pastoral committee, gotten or badges, had our first round of shots at the health center... I've met with the woman who is going to be my supervisor at Hospital for Special Care (partly along with the people who are running the CPE program this summer and partly alone)...

That's not everything that's happened...but it's the "me" related stuff. If I think of anything else, I'm sure I'll edit.

Our group sessions are going to be on Tuesdays and Thursdays, along with some time to be out on the floors of the main hospital. For the group time, we have some homework assignments throughout the summer.

Monday, Wednesday and Fridays (starting on Wednesday next week) I will be at Hospital for Special Care (I'll probably start labeling it HSC here). The first Wednesday there (since Monday is a holiday) starts my orientation there. I'll be getting my HSC badge and meet the staff/patients and get a tour of the building.

As far as my feelings about everything so far go, I'm less nervous about not being able to relate completely to patients because my "differability" happened at birth and not later in life. All of us have our own stories, and nobody can COMPLETELY relate, except on the level that we all can understand emotions. That's all the same no matter what color, gender, etc., we are.

I'm excited to realize how much I can probably use the training I've gotten both in undergrad at Quinnipiac and at Saint Joe's. I realized that one of the problems I had personally with the counseling sessions in school was that it felt more fake. This will be an opportunity to use it in "real" life. I'm just hopefully getting to use it in real life sooner than I thought. In a weird way, that feels like a bonus to me.

I've been thinking a lot about the internship I did at Camp Hope in Carmel, NY (http://www.cbfny.org/), too, now that I'm doing this. I discovered when I was there how good I was at relating to/with the campers each week, even if they weren't my specific campers. Both the campers and the counselors, I think, felt comfortable with me as far as opening up to me/asking questions/getting advice etc. And I think I was really good at making sure everyone had what they needed, being an encourager/cheerleader when it was needed... Maybe some of the gifts I discovered there will be things that will also be used this summer. And maybe I'll discover new gifts that I haven't found in myself yet.

It will be interesting to see how it all unfolds. I'll talk more about specifics about the Hospital for Special Care at some point, but I won't get ahead and talk about it until that part starts. (Although, I am a "research nerd", as I proudly call myself, so I will probably do research on different things that will be involved there before I blog about them.)

I could definitely tell you about things I KNOW are supposed to happen tomorrow, too...but this is enough for now. :-)