surrounded and ensconced.

last night at work, 4 nurses came in to buy cat food. they were still dressed in their scrubs. i wanted to ask them all if they had any advice for me, a prospective nurse. i do not think i spoke to any one of them.

then it hit me: i could believe in signs. i asked God to show me three MORE nurses if he wanted that to one day be me.
i saw one more that night. she came through the aisle twice, but i don't think that counts.

tonight at work, there was another nurse.

and, to add to things i'm suddenly surrounded and ensconced by: my friend Blessing, at work, is Nigerian. her uncle is going back this summer probably around the same time i will be travelling.

today was the first time a couple people at work had heard of my plans to go to Africa. Steve, Jess, and Natasha were all real surprised. Jess said she was proud, Natasha was jealous, and Steve was flat-out surprised when i told him i will be there in June or July. I have been running into way too many people who have connections to Nigeria. actually, Shawn's (Shawn works with me, too) aunt went there on a missions trip for while, a couple years ago.
i do not want to take this as a sign, but i am also afraid to ignore the possibility of (yet another) divine intervention!

On a side-note i had a couple epiphanies today (both while at work)!

1- i am far more comfortable talking to black girls than i am talking to white girls. Natasha, Alex(andra), Sierra, Jess, Lakeitha, Blessing, Ashley, Chantelle, as well as one other girl (who's name i haven't learned yet) who cashiers are all black. Melanie is white and i feel far more easily judged by her. aside from Tara, i do not regularly talk to most of the white girls at work. i can relax a lot more in the presence of all my black friends, there. i do not yet understand entirely why, but quite frankly, they are ALL my sisters... just for some reason my black sisters at work seem to get me better. understand me better. and besides, i can be a total fool around them. either way, i've got some work to do in my own view if i am intimidated by white folks. loving everyone normally means giving them ALL equal respect and time.
yeah, a lot to learn...

2- my second epiphany is simple to explain, yet quite profound: a new generation of socially aware teenagers and twenty-somethings are being raised and finally blooming. there is within this generation, i believe, a very strong influence from our parents who (in many cases) were well aware of Apartheid and were VEHEMENTLY against it. there may be more to come along these lines... actually i hope there will be. the point is: we who care so much for the world as a whole now, likely were influenced by adults who knew of, or even witnessed, such crimes, atrocities, and humanitarian smearings as Apartheid.
can you tell i don't like Apartheid. (maybe that's why i get uneasy around white people...haha!)

love and peace or else, brothers and sisters of all nations.
-Archer