General Dave would not stay down for long. Despite his sickness from the previous evening, it was obvious he would not allow himself to be sick or unable to function normally. True to his name, General Dave is a leader! We offered several times to take his lecture or move things around but he would have none of it. The morning began as expected. Jesse had decided to go golfing today instead of hanging around the 120 center being bored and reading how to win at poker books. That was ok with us. Sometimes having someone around feels like we are being watched. Well, go away big brother! We are fine on our own! Except we can’t communicate with anyone until we arrive at the 120 center and see our interpreters. That part is never good.
Silence is golden. I’m not sure if it’s because we are tired of each other, or are just plain tired, or just have nothing to say in the morning, but our trips to work in the morning are becoming increasingly more silent. General Dave is a manager, and as such has tons of emails to answer to every morning. Paula is pretty popular too, so she also does her emailing for the day. This is also to my benefit as I am still waiting for the infamous cell phone to arrive. It spent 6 days at customs just waiting to be cleared, and was now again in transit. By doing all her emailing early on, Paula ensures that I am able to use her phone without keeping her from her business. I don’t know what I would do without Paula letting me do that. It’s a very considerate thing that she does! Lately I started reading Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson, and become immersed in that. So perhaps it isn’t anything personal that we don’t talk much in the morning. Or perhaps it is! We have spent a lot of time together, and we would be stupid to ignore the fact that we can get annoying at times. I know that sometimes I have been considered annoying!
Paula dominated the ACS lecture again. We sort of had an unwritten code between us that we would simplify and shorten our lectures. I don’t think Paula is capable of this. And it is a very good thing. The lecture is so packed with information that you can’t help but listen and learn. As I have said before, it is going to make me a much better instructor. I had stroke next, and heeded the code to simplify. But this time I went longer than the last class. I suppose that I can talk more when things are simple, whatever that means!
When we started the skills stations, the emphasis was on getting them to be able to teach other students. But we had to make sure that they knew the material first! As we saw on several of our hospital tours, they have flow charts that follow ACLS algorithms perfectly, so one would expect that they do in fact know this stuff. And they do. Our first class had a mix of doctors and nurses, and this class was entirely made up of doctors. They know the drugs, when to give them, when to do CPR, when to shock – everything! As an instructor you cannot ask for a more prepared class. Despite the fact that we were only giving them pieces of the puzzle, they were dazzling! Made our lives easy! This was going to be an enjoyable class to be sure!
Since General Dave had not eaten much lately, we opted to go to dinner as soon as we got back to the hotel. Same place, same food, same servers, same cooks. And yet again, we all retired to our rooms with nothing exciting to report. Unless you call me doing my AHA updates exciting. Some might.
Since the days are getting to be the same thing during our class time and no exciting pictures can be taken, I have decided to include a shot of us and our interpreters. In front of Paula is her interpreter, Michelle. She went on the hike of Mt. Qingcheng with us and was the one Paula wanted to toss off the side because despite being small at 95 lbs, she is remarkably strong! In front of me is Crystal, my interpreter. She is responsible for teaching me all the Mandarin words and phrases I know. In front of General Dave is Sara, and she is the main interpreter and has become the General’s interpreter, along with Angela, who is not pictured. Crystal and Michelle are students of Sara and Angela at the local university and are majoring in English. Apparently they are the best, and we would be the first to agree with that!
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