Excellent

Nursing clinical is just rolling right along. I wish the labor and delivery portion would last longer than three weeks but already it's done and I am moving on to postpartum. My rotation is ten going out to the community and into schools for basic health teaching. After every clinical day we have assignments due, some are care plans and other are self reflection journals...although nothing is given an official grade, they do use key words to describe your work, these key words are what you measure your worth by...as a student, as a nurse, as a person. Your whole identity gets caught up in this mysterious world of ambiguous feedback. good really means bad, and satisfactory is even worse...the word to look for, the word I wish and hope for is...EXCELLENT and she writes it just like that too...in big capital letters like she is shouting it at your from her office to your little basement apartment while you read about ears, mouth, throat health examination techniques...like right now:)
One excellent is always a good sign (good actually means good right now) 2 excellents' is like drinking coffee with a decadent dessert and 3 excellent's is basically like drinking that coffee and eating that dessert and loosing weight...it defies reality...at least for me. I gave up on excellence long ago. I usually settle for getting by or by the skin of my teeth...even breathing is pass for me... but today I am drinking coffee with pastry and loosing weight. BOOM

I am excellent:)

hummmmmmmm

I can be alittle irrational sometimes, every now and then. It's like the compass of common sense all of a sudden just becomes this whirling dervish of chaoticness...there is no rhyme or reason for it, it's just something that happens to me...sometimes...

Like when I was 8 or so and my mum made pizza with mozzarella cheese. I remember sitting at the table and looking at the pan of pizza and thinking somebody just threw a bunch of goop on top of tomato sauce and meat...seriously, it was like a big lugee on a perfectly good pizza...I had this intense feeling of disgust and fear...disgust because snot is kinda that way I think everyone would agree and fear cause my parents were going to make me eat it...I remember them trying to convince me to eat it, using persuasive language, trying to make me think that it would taste good...telling me I had had pizza before and not acted that way...but I would not budge.
I knew, deep down inside of me, down to the bottom of my toes even, that I did not want to eat that pizza. I got so scared that night I had a nightmare about mozzarella cheese chasing me, trying to smoother me in a goopy, gelatinous, dairy death...to this day I can still remember the feeling of horror as that cheese was coming for me...and sometimes when i see mozzarella I still shudder involuntarily remembering that nightmare from long ago...

here's the thing, even then i knew it was ridiculous to be afraid of mozzarella cheese, I still was...it was overwhelmingly terrifying for a moment in time...and I just couldn't do it...it was not the time to eat mozzarella pizza...

all this time i still wonder why that happened? What was it all about? Why couldn't I stand the cheese...so frustrating...irrational me.

lately I have begun to think that that confounding childhood incident was good...it helped prepare me for the rest of my life as i continue to do things I shake my head at...although I am not proud of being the girl who is afraid of mozzarella cheese, I am realizing that as ridiculous as that is...well, it just is. The things I do don't always make sense, sometimes I am a mystery to even myself or just a frustration...but if I could explain everything that would be no fun...so I just laugh a little...sometimes alot...usually really loud and ironically enough I currently really love pizza...and cheese...mozzarella is still my least fav cheese though...but you never know...it could change too

I should be studying...

but I'm not...

I took a math test to see if I could stay in the nursing program....thankfully I got over 90% and can stay (had to get 90% so basically I got the minimum)...my stomach hurt all day waiting for that lame-o test...but now it's over and I found my mark out so am happy about that...also i am realizing that nursing has an insane amount of homework...take a normal course and times it by three...cause you have to prep before labs and then practise after labs while you move onto new material cause you will have to do everything in front of a preceptor by the end of the semester...so you have to learn it, cause there is always someone waiting to watch you...hate that!

I luv free food, hung out with Linds for the first time in forever and got a ride home but before I came back her mum gave me soup...I am so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I got soup!

Bible study is starting again, awana is starting too...

also as I rode the bus today i was contemplating asking God to keep the weather the way it is right now, I like this sweater weather, it's fresh feeling. It's not cold enough for a coat, but cool enough to wake me up whenever i step outside...then i used my new skills of 'critical thinking'
(thats a huge catch phrase in all my classes) to think about the bigger picture and the repercussions of such a prayer...what would winnipeg be without a bitterly cold winter? How will this affect the global environment by keeping a mild tempurature here in winnipeg...after much deep thinking and logical deductions ( an hour or so...cause thats how long my bus ride is) I then decided on not asking God to keep sweater weather for the greater good of the whole of mankind....because I am learning to use my noggin like that....

no more selfish prayers for me...about weather anyway...

now I am going to do some more pharmacology...

lately...

My mornings have been a shock to my sleep system. I have never been one for early mornings especially when they don't stop. My days have just been full. So, as i finish readings and work on writing assignments i am always thinking about the next morning. It's coming so soon, and then when it does, when that alarm goes off...I always get up right away-because I've done the whole roll right back over and then never get up again-literally the first thought that goes through my head as I sit on the edge of my bed is...man i hate this day. I really mean it too...
Seriously, sometimes I wonder about myself...I mean, somewhere, way back when, back when i was still young I used to enjoy getting up. but now, I sincerely hate every moment of the first ten minutes of my day...
this has been a very heavy burden to bare...I mean, i am supposed to be happy and love Jesus and want to learn nursing but for ten minutes the sky really does fall right on my head...so i thought I'd share it with you all...you know, on the worldwide garbage dump of words...

BUT...
after the initial black hole passes...things do get better, I still wonder what i did to deserve the pain of having to wake up so stinkin early...it's not like I'm popping out children and bringing it on myself...

oh, did i mention that i told my Grandma B about my blob and she wrote back and said I was really wordy...thanks grandma...

also as to the previous post...funny story...well, kinda lame but...i was wondering if I should even post cause it could be seen as morbid, to always post a remembrance post on certain days since Ste's been dead a long time...I thought, maybe I should just let it slide...but then i started thinking about what I would post for Ste, if I did actually decide to post something on his birthday... I'm thinking and thinking...about a post I might never post and working through idea's of how to be creative...and that's how the whole...what if I could just have coffee with him, what if we just met for a moment and then I would go back to my life and he would go back to heaven kinda came about...here's the funny part...I'm am not writing it down, I am lying in bed-thinking about this post-start bawling and bawling cause my post is so good (in my head)...I mean I thought the most amazing post(it's making me cry)...and I wasn't even sure if I should post it...
eventually I did decide to post it, didn't turn out as good as that post in my head...that one was genius...it would have made a criminal cry it was so good...but when my Dad wrote that he was in his office crying at his computer screen as he read my post...I was so happy that my post made him cry.
the moral to this whole blurb is that sometimes really sad things are actually really funny. Cause me and Dad defo cried our tears over two different posts...but one very loved boy. Thanks for crying Dad...

if

I'll sit in the university Starbucks. I'll wait for you so we can have coffee...my treat. That would work, I think, you like treats. So I'll be waiting with my boring latte that I know you'll give me a hard time about. I would wait for you to show up.
Wondering what you would drink-probably a frap-an extra espresso shot, maybe just an espresso, but for some reason i really can't picture you having a sugarless drink. Or tea. Thinking about how long it has been since I've seen you...knowing that really, I would have no idea what you would order. Nervous, wondering...wondering if I'll recognize you. What if your a yuppie with your i-phone? What if your a hippie with a beard? What if...
Just for a day, if we could meet. You would breeze in late, on the go, reminding me that your taking time out of a ridiculously amazing life to acknowledge me. But I won't mind, just glad it's you. I would catch you up and talk about everything. I would tell you about all these people you need to meet. Go on and on about stressed out I am, and then, you'll stop the whirlwind just by your laugh. I know you will laugh at me, and as much as I'll love hearing it; you'd still manage to really emphasize the whole laughing at me part...not even beginning to acknowledge the fact that maybe I am playing the paranoid, melodramatic person for a reason. Maybe I want to make you laugh... just because your naturally funny while I have to make a complete fool of myself to get laughs doesn't mean your funnier than me. well, maybe. I am offended just thinking about it. You, making me laugh while you laugh at me, which makes me feel even more lame. You always win, some things don't change, at least I don't think that part would...I didn't forget to ask you how your doing, I just know your amazing.
And after talking and laughing, you'd be off again. Someone more important to meet. Rushing through what's left of our drinks, we'd barely manage a proper goodbye, forgetting how final they can be...but maybe some things do change. Maybe this time I would realize how much a hug means...I'd grab you and for a moment, in front of random strangers, I'd cry like a baby and make you promise to stay in better touch. Wailing about how much i miss you and getting you back the only way i know how...by embarrassing you. then you'd be gone again...

still waiting, sitting with my boring old latte, wondering...if you really did show up, just a breath away...to hear me say, Happy 26th Birthday!

What I'm doing...right meow!

I just finished writing a few notes on meconium aspiration and Group Beta Streptocaccous which I will have to present to my group tomorrow morning. I multi tasked and made curry, organized for tomorrow and realized how much i forgot to do today...poop...I mean meconium!
It seemed like alot especially when i got the energy to post as well...but now it looks a little meagre...I am meal planning people...my supper is made for the rest of the week...this is huge...ok, now I am appreciating what i accomplished today again...whew, thought I'd lost it for a second...



back to me...



Lately, my days have and will consist of waking up at 6:30am (unheard of!!) to get organized, catch the bus and then it's a crash course in all that I luv to call nursing. Seminar after seminar and a what to do list...Mostly it's paperwork, paperwork, paperwork...which always has to be submitted asap, sometimes it feels like I have to move on fast forward in order to cope.
Me and fast forward go way back...that was for you mums...

I get to start on a labor ward this week. Yup, no classes yet but I am going to be walking the haloed halls of the labor ward perusing the rooms for poor pregnant ladies who are in a butt load of pain...butt load, I am so puny right now cause I am really tired.

Waiting for the bus my eyes started tearing up, I got a little exasperated with myself cause I was not emotional or overwhelmed for once, just tired.

I also managed to fit in a little modeling of the pristine white uniform-which I will have to wear for the next three years-and pranced around my little apartment like a giant marshmallow. So fun. Then i packed my bag for tomorrow's class where I get to see a simulation of a labor...'Frank' is going to have a baby. There are no female heads so whatever we do is practiced on poor old Frank. Me and Frank are going to be besties very soon.

and now I have to read a dew chapters on laboring women and what not...to freshen up for tomorrow...and friday...kinda nervous...excited too...still tired though...

first day....again

I hate first days...of anything, but school is even worse...so the night before I didn't sleep..and then I had to catch the bus at 7am...it was late...that was a sign.
I even went to the breakfast to 'mix and mingle'...I hate that kind of thing.

but there I was, awkward and newbie...making first introductions...I did happen to recogize a few faces of girls in previous classes...but this was the first time I had ever talked to them...hated it...they were all really nice...I don't remember any of their names...poop...hate that.

then in orientation the girl right in front of me started crying when she answered a question in the orientation lecture...I think the question was something very innocuous like..."What is a nurse to you?" really hated that...I mean she didn't have to raise her hand...she could have just sat there like me...sitting, not raising my hand...hating the firstness...

so now lets tally up the firsts...

late to meet and greet

first introductions and new people

lists of all the paperwork that is needed to be filled out by the end of next week

crying girl in orientation

long awkward pause as the whole lecture room realizes that said girl is crying...actually more like uncontrollably bawling...right in front of me...wait a second...what if they thought it was me...

buying my first nursing books for this year

buying crests and name tags...I HATE name tags...they are the most rediculous things ever invented...but now I won't have to ask the girls what their names are again...I still hate name tags...so dehumanizing...hello I am a tag...read it and move on...hate it.

finally it ended...

the first day...

later, on my way home, as I was switching buses the bus driver stopped and waited for me as I hobbled towards the bus loaded down with books and other firstness....finally the safety of something I can do...

the bus...
I luv the bus...