Busy as a BYU intern

This week we finally got our assignments. We put our top three choices for the morning and for the afternoon on a note card and Aislynn, our facilitator, assigned us to different places. I’m actually not working in the orphanage at all. The orphanage has satellite apartments that they send the higher functioning kids to so they can live in a more “normal” environment. I work at one of these every morning with Angela Monday through Friday. Then MWF afternoons, I work in the hospital with 7 other BYU girls. And TTH afternoons, I work in another satellite apartment with Rachel.

We got super lost on the way there on Monday morning. It was traumatic. I repeated this thought about 17 times to Angela while we were lost. I'm sure it helped her peace of mind.

I love all of my kids so much. I’m already catching on to some of their mannerisms. It also really helps that one of the workers in my morning apartment speaks English (EXTREMELY well). It is actually rather intimidating because I think he expects our Romanian to be a lot better than it is because his English is so amazing. Oops.

The morning apartment only has 6 little boys, but only 4 of them are there in the mornings (one goes to school and the other goes to the orphanage in the mornings).

The afternoon apartment I have only gone to once and it was only for about an hour and a half, so I don’t know those kids as well yet, but they are adorable and one of them is extremely talkative, so I better learn to understand him soon.

I have dubbed one of the little boys in the hospital Scotty because I don’t know his name. He is the first one I held in the hospital a week or so ago. He is doing much better now than he was when I first held him in the ICU. He is still a little blue, but his rash looks much better and his breathing is slightly better, though still very odd sounding. We also went to visit a boy from the orphanage. He is easily the most popular kid in the hospital. There is always a crowd of people in his room, especially when all 6 to 8 of the BYU girls in the hospital go in to visit him and bring tons of toys. On Monday he asked that all of the BYU girls give him a kiss and beckoned each of us while presenting his cheek. He is so presumptuous. Today I said ‘pup’ (yes, that means kiss) and he said ‘nu!’ and wouldn’t give me one. So offensive.

I changed 2 diapers today. The first time in about 4 years and probably the 3^rd and 4^th diapers I have ever changed. I would say I done good. We played with one of our favorite babies for a while. He is an unbelievably attractive and content baby. The same mom and little girl were in the room with him. I gave the little girl a small toy dog, which she loved. The poor girl must be so bored being in there all day everyday, but with our language barrier, I came to the conclusion that she is leaving tomorrow.

I get to see the boys at the afternoon apartment again tomorrow! I’m so excited.

At FHE on Monday, we played a surprisingly fun game with dice and writing numbers. Apparently it's really popular at BYU. I guess I'm not very popular at BYU since I haven't played it in years. It got pretty loud in there with almost all girls in the room.
We all are fans of this boy who is taking discussions from the missionaries (and speaks english) and we're all generally very friendly. So when he walked into institute on Tuesday, he grinned while looking around and said "buna," knowing what the response would be. The loud chorus of "BUNA ZIUA" from 15 girls clearly did not disappoint him.
There was also a new boy at institute on Tuesday, he looked delighted with the room full of girls and walked around introducing himself to all of us. (Background: we have certain phrases that all of us have memorized and say all the time some of these include "my name is," "what is your name?" "I love you," "nice to meet you," and "how are you?") One of the girls, clearly meaning to ask the boy what his name was, said: te iubesc (I love you). We all stared at her...and then she repeated herself. We then drew attention to her mistake. I'm sure the boy was very flattered, though. At least his smile said so.

Ais says I need more emotion in this. It's already outrageously long.