A Boring Tuesday!

I woke up at noon yesterday, but I got up in time for work. When I called to make sure they needed me, there was confusion and the lady on the phone told me I was "called off". (If there aren't a certain number of residents in-house, they call off an assistant, and I'm last on the list, so I that would mean I don't work.)

But oopsie! I was actually supposed to go. So I was an entire hour late! Haha. :)

Working is fun. I meet a lot of elderly people, and even though caring for them might be messy, it's also amazingly fun to get to know their funny personalities, talk about life, joke around with them, and care for them when they need help. They're actually quite adorable.

It is also a good way for me to learn to be a less prideful person. Everybody is always saying, "Cara, you're so nice" and I'm thinking inside, "Yeah, that's what you think!!" So ultimately, I'm actually a lot more stuck up than they know. Doing a hard job like this might not be able to cure me of my hidden snobby thoughts, but at least I deserve being praised if and when I am praised, because I really did hard work. I'll just have to learn not to be so sensitive when people tell me I've done a good job.

I don't want to be impressed with myself because other people are impressed with me-- instead, I've got to be confident in myself because I really have done a good job.

A sweet guy named Freddy can't talk, so we use this hardback clipboard with papers stuck to it, that have words and letters that he can point to, when he wants to tell us something. The things he says might be "pain pill", "RN", "wash face" or "drink". It is very hard to understand him, but it's so much fun when I figure out what he wants. Today, he was spelling things for me by pointing at the letters. First, he said, "W-H-A-T-E I-S I-T?"

And I was like... "Uhhhh.... I'm sorry.... I don't.... Mmm...."

It was the "E" that was confusing me. But as it turns out, he was sticking an "E" in there for no reason. It MIGHT have actually meant something... but eventually, I figured out that he was trying to say, "What is it?"

By the time Freddy had showed me those letters five times through, he was pointing especially vigorously, more like... "What IS it?!!"

It was fruity orange-lemon-pudding stuff! Poor Freddy. But he's persistent, so finally, he was able to get me to understand... and he got to eat his food! He ate it all up, too.

Later that yesterday, he spelled out some very confusing words that I never completely understood, but included a sentence that ran along the lines of... "I am... the... with you... joy" and "happy with you".

Apparently, Freddy was happy that I was able to communicate with him! I was doing a good job! (My job is to make people happy while helping them through daily-life-activities, basically.) He enjoyed the fact that he could communicate by pointing and motioning, and I could understand. Imagine not being able to speak or write-- it would be CRAZY annoying. It's no wonder Freddy enjoys it when people finally can talk to him and--moreover-- understand. To be misunderstood or ignored is like being alone... because human relationships, without some kind of communication, (physical, verbal, nonverbal, eye contact, facial expressions, language, music) are not relationships at all!

That was a nice little thing at work. :)

Boring Tuesdays are great. (I don't mean boring negatively. Boring to me equals normal.)