8 posts tagged “school”
On January 5th my new school semester begins. I found out over the holiday break that I was admitted to the official nursing program. I was in the pre-nursing curriculum after I transferred into the school this fall, meaning that I had to finish up the school’s pre-requisites for sciences, nursing intro courses, etc. From my understanding, about 80 people applied to get into 45 spots for the nursing program this semester, and I was one of the selected. Whee! I had a big smile on my face the whole week that I found out.
My schedule will be Monday through Friday, and I’ll be taking these courses:
*Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (Lecture and Lab)
*Foundations of Nursing and Critical Thinking
*Nursing Therapeutics (Lecture and Lab)
*Health Assessment Throughout the Lifespan (Lecture and Lab)
Now reality is setting in – holy crap, I got into the nursing program – and I am a bit nervous about starting this part of my journey. What if I have a hard time balancing work and school? What are my classes going to be like? What if I’m terrible at nursing or flunk out of my skills labs? I am sure all of my questions will work themselves out, but for now, I have a bit of a bellyache about it.
I’m trying to help myself by preparing as much as I can before the semester begins. I got my planner out and wrote all of my classes in it. I labeled and prepared my 3-ring binders and notebooks. I’m going to purchase my textbooks as soon as the bookstore opens after the holiday and start reading. I’ve also been trying to do things like prepare bigger meals than I normally would, and freeze part of them so I can have dinner ready in a flash at night, instead of coming home exhausted and eating a bag of chips for dinner. (Nothing makes me feel more exhausted than bad nutrition, I’m finding out.) I’m trying to pare down my life so that I can concentrate on the things that are important to me right now: K, school, my health, my house, my pets, and work. Finding balance between these things is going to be the most challenging issue as I progress through nursing school, I’m predicting.
After a week of this.....
And this....
I am totally ready for a little bit of this.
The stress has been nonstop for a few solid weeks, but as of this evening, all of my school finals are taken, all of the Christmas presents have been mailed out to their respective recipients, and I'm off work for a few days. I'm exhausted, and rightfully so. But I'm looking forward to a little r&r over the holiday, possibly to include a little sewing time (fun stuff, not work stuff), a movie or two taken in with my favorite someone, and fondue for Christmas Eve dinner.
And maybe, if I am lucky, a little bit of this.
The title of this post was the title of a spam email that I received today. I love to go through my bulk email inbox and see all of the crazy titles of the emails and the names of the "people" who sent them; they are usually rather entertaining. So yes, I had to laugh when I saw this one, as it was particularly relevant to how I've been feeling lately. Why am in school again? Sometimes it feels like I'm in for a grunge money order, sometimes it feels like I'm in for a diploma. I guess we'll see when I get to the end.
The one thing I do know is that they call me a nursing student, but sometimes I just feel like a fraud. Last night I held a (real) infant's skull in my hand and succinctly explained to someone the physics of giving birth and its relevance to the osteopathy of the infant's skull. And then afterward I thought to myself, I have no idea what I am doing. Seriously. All the info may be there, the skills may be there, but when I actually think of myself as a nursing student who will one day be released into the wild beyond, I question the judgement of the university for giving me a degree and the medical practice that will one day hire me. I feel like a kid playing nurse, that's what I feel like. It's all a little surreal. Maybe I should just take the grunge money order and run.
In other more exciting news, I finally took the plunge and bought some Lunapads. Big hippy that I am, I already have a DivaCup, but I've been having issues with that lately and I needed an alternative for days when that doesn't work out. See, you may think you don't want to hear about my period issues, but you do. Because I swear, these things have changed my life. Before the Diva, I had incredibly long, heavy periods with bend-you-in-half-for-three-days cramps. The Diva shortened them up by 2-3 days and took away almost all of the cramps (and decreased the intensity of those that were left). IT. IS. AMAZING. It takes some time to get the hang of it, but it's worth the trouble. And I've never tried cloth pads before, but I've heard such good things about Lunapads that I have high hopes for them. Who knew that I would ever be so excited about buying menstrual products? lol.
I thought for sure that I was headed for the looney bin during the last couple of weeks. Things were going along really nicely for the last several months, then all of a sudden it was like BAM, and life really knocked me flat on my tuchus. I was lagging in school, crying all the time, calling out of work, and fighting with K constantly over nothing (I think we actually had a fight last week about whether or not K should be allowed to leave glasses of soda out on the counter. It's a long story, but regardless, it was a ridiculous thing to have a fight over.).
So I'm trying to make amends. I firmly believe that there are just times when the universe blasts your expectations to bits and the best thing to do is just do what you can to pick up the pieces that are salvageable and move on. So that's what I'm working on now.
1. I dropped my statistics class. I just wasn't getting it, and I had a teacher that was so new that she had no concept of pace or workload. She would seriously assign 20 hours of homework every week, and it was sucking up all the study time I had for other classes. I feel good about this, even though my mother continues to try shame me into thinking that I will never graduate from college.
2. I started reading a book for nursing students about surviving nursing school. It has study tips and advice from other nursing students and I'm trying to let it coerce me into having a positive outlook and getting pepped up. This kind of seems silly, but it's helping me a lot. Because I was so ready to just quit school in general and become a baby-makin' housewife for the rest of my life. Not. Kidding.
3. K and I took some time (actually, she forced me into it, but it worked out for the best) to clean up the house, get rid of some stuff, and put things in generally better order than they were. It definetly feels better to have a clean house than a clutter-filled one (although it still needs a lot of work).
4. We are going shopping for new clothes, shoes, etc. this weekend. Besides the actual act of retail therapy, it also always makes me feel better to have shiny new clothes to wear.
5. We are going on a date this weekend to drive/bike around and see the fall leaves. This makes me happy. And it makes me happy to be spending quality time with K instead of just spending the few precious hours we per week that we have together vegging on the couch and staring at the tv.
So that is what is happening in my life since things fell apart. I am trying to take things one day at a time and enjoy the little positive things that make my heart happy. When I clear out the junk and really take a look at life, I realize that there is a lot to be thankful for.
Just when I was starting to have anxiety about college (more on that later), I find this educational film on YouTube. I watched the whole thing with a mix of envy and horror. (I want to take classes in Foods & Nutrition and Applied Art in Home Decorating and have gabfests with the girls after the Sunday football games!!....but I don't want to live a life where my ultimate goal of college is to learn how to be subservient to men. Hmph.
Anyway, my favorite part probably comes around 11 minutes into the film, when they talk about their classes in sports, and this little gem comes in the narration:
"Some girls liked it so well, they took extra courses to qualify themselves to take jobs in physical education."
Ha.
Sometimes to get through my endless Anatomy & Physiology homework, I pretend to be a member of the Grey's Anatomy cast in my head. (Now, if only I were as cute as Izzie or Cristina or Meredith. Hmm.)
Seriously, people, it's sad, but it gets me through my 20 hours of memorization each week on blood pH and cell organelles. And the new season starts on Thursday, so that might just get me through the semester. Whee!
I've been swinging back and forth wildly lately between the mindsets of "life is fabulous" / "life stinks." So most of the time I'm neutral about life, and I just kind of do my thing and take it day by day. But also I have these days where I'm either manic about everything and I'm just bouncing off the walls with happiness and waxing poetic about how wonderful life is. And in turn, I have the days like yesterday (night), where everything that could possibly go wrong does, and I am miserable and cranky and left standing in the proverbial rainstorm with no umbrella.
Ugh. The meat of last night's misery was the statistics class I am taking. The teacher is about 12 and just spews through pages and pages of pertinent info in mere minutes, then lets her inexperience get the best of her and lets the class boss her around. I ordered my textbook online 3 weeks ago and it hasn't arrived yet. Several people who have been asses to me at my job are in the class (and I'm required to do group work with them). Also, the only student who has ever made me cry at my job is in the class, and while I am no longer intimidated by her (it was when I first started this job), she is just nasty, bitter, and mean to everyone in the class and constantly loudly interrupts other students and the teacher. (I am, however, able to take her less seriously, now that I've seen her sad attempts at being cute by posting pictures of herself in an outdoor shower and in a bikini on myspace. Ha.)
Anyway, I would just drop the class, but I've decided to stick it out. After all, I've paid for the class and the book (even if it hasn't arrived yet), and I have just as much of a right to get the damn class over with as any of those schmucks.
But still, your suggestions on humor to deal with the situation, if you'd like to share them, would be much obliged...
All I want to do lately is sew, listen to Elvis songs, and cook. In that order. I have been seriously contemplating calling out of work every morning so I can stay home to do these things. I haven't done it yet, but the time may be coming when I do.
Last night, instead of doing my homework, I made the teeny tiny housewarming present that I had been envisioning for a certain someone . It turned out so cute that I almost died, and had to fight the urge to keep it for myself. (I hope she likes it that much, too!) And it involved sewing, and fabric, and I listened to Elvis tunes while I was making it, therefore putting me into a state of near giddiness. And right before that, I spent a few hours in the kitchen making smashed potatoes and a meatloaf. Yes, my friends, yesterday was a good day.
