Life Stories

Today I spent 2 hours and 45 minutes with the Assisted Living residents. I will break my blogs up by each activity.

Initially, I was nervous ,yet again, to be thrown out into the wild with the residents by myself. After a few minutes, we were all able to warm up to each other and it really wasn't bad after all. I truly enjoyed the time I had getting to know 3 residents personally, especially #3.

For the first 2 hours, I had a personal discussion with 3 of the residents. Nancy, Vera, a resident who would like to be kept unknown (i'll address him as #3 in this blog), and I discussed about careers and my future career goal in nursing. Nancy was a librarian, Vera had studied psychology in college, and #3 was a police officer for SFPD for over 30 years. The main difference between the three is that Nancy and Vera are quite old and #3 is rather young to be living in Aegis. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and assumed he was only there to visit. 

For a large chunk of the 2 hours, #3 narrated his life stories and experiences as a police officer for LAPD & SFPD. His stories were so vivid and clear that I had to assume he wasn't a resident. He shared close-to-death experiences, one that even involved a criminal firing towards his head 4 times at a crime scene. As #3 shared his interesting stories, he would say how he come back to the point that he was just doing his job to protect fellow officers and to protect the public. I related those words back to my own passion for helping others and my future goals as a nurse. I shared with the three residents some of my deepest career desires. I shared that I am determined to study hard in order to become accepted into the nursing program at CSULB; I am determined to save lives; and I am determined to fulfill, and surpass, the expectations required of a nurse. #3 expressed how he admired me and believed in my success. I took that to heart, especially coming since it was coming from a person who has seen so much injustice, and so much good in this world. 

After our 2 hour session of life stories, I connected our talks to a short lesson of the fifteen unique traits of a great teacher.