Archive for May, 2009

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Okay so “failure” may be too strong of a word. But WHOOSH was this day a doozy.
Let’s cover everything in between the last post and now. Took the first test, was EASY-PEASY compared to “Dr. G from JBU”’s exams (that is his official name now). I honestly saw the first page and nearly cried with gratitude. The last pages…not quite as happy about those. We each had a test booklet that we were free to, and encouraged to, write on and also had scan-trons for answers. We knew we’d go over the test after everyone was done, because naturally everyone would have written their answers in their test booklets as well as writing them on the answer sheet. You know, because having your answers would be HANDY when the teacher was going over the test. Not so handy if you didn’t write your answers on your test booklet. I don’t really know what I was thinking, all brain cells were directed to DO WELL ON TEST, REMEMBER ANY AND ALL INFORMATION ABSORBED IN LAST 3 DAYS! I did, however circle the questions I wasn’t sure about. Which was not helpful at all. So when people ask what I got on the first exam my answer is “I missed at least six and less than 10″. I will find out for sure tomorrow. All that said, I got, at worst, a high B on my first official nursing school exam. The funny part was that I wasn’t really at that stressed about the exam. I had my moments, but overall I felt steady and sure, which I think is going to be the hallmark of my year of nursing school (excluding today).

This morning I was driving to school and I was actually excited. I KNOW this is what I am supposed to be doing RIGHT now. I love seeing and interacting with the other students, I love getting up every morning with a PURPOSE, I love challenging my mind and I love knowing I am in God’s will.
I’m sure that moment of joy was planned because I arrived to my lab only to realize I had COMPLETELY forgotten to do the assignment. That was due before lab started. AHHHHH! Okay so this is the SECOND assignment I have forgotten, and both were assigned by the same teacher. And it’s the freakin’ second week of class. Not a great batting average. Anywho, we got it all straightened out, not before I did a lot of blubbering and blushing and profuse sweating (I was expecting a swift kick to the rear).

So I hated this day. The rest of it was all harried and frazzled and just not my best. I hate giving less than stellar, especially in an academic setting because I believe that teachers and professors think less of me as a person if I perform poorly. Which would explain why the JBU biology/chemistry department didn’t seem too enthused with me (or did I imagine that? oh wait, no there was definite crying, it happened). BTW I’ve recently had a bit of an epiphany on my experience at JBU and shall share with all of you shortly. You know, in my free time. The free time I keep telling all of you DOESN’T exist yet allows me to blog regularly every week. Apparently free time shows up when you FAIL TO COMPLETE ASSIGNMENTS!

And today I had a boy partner in lab again. He gave me a sponge bath. I gave him one. He told our professor it felt like we were playing house. Weird. We laughed through the awkwardness (best way to deal!) though and I found out he received the same scholarship as I did, so we’re future workmates. Let’s hope we don’t ever have to bathe each other again. EEK.

LOVE!

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This weekend was wonderful and despite the innumerable distractions I was able to dedicate time each day to studying. My wonderful brother let me assess him 2 or 3 times. Assessing a boy related to me is a lot less awkward than assessing a girl, even though that girl is my friend. Although (for those of you up on your nursing lingo) I find purcussion a bit easier on girls/females. Percussion is, by far, the most difficult part of assessment for me. The best way I can describe percussion is a sort of tapping done on certain parts of the body. We are learning how to percuss the intercostal (between ribs) spaces and deciphering the sounds. There’s also a test where we have the patient hold their breath while we percuss in order to measure the “diaphragmatic excursion”. As if percussing wasn’t hard enough, throw in the time/oxygen-need element. Sheesh. I’m starting to wonder if it’s a coincidence that “cussing” is in that word.
Anywho, onto the present. My first midterm is tomorrow. Half of me is completely calm, pretty confident that I’ve reviewed all of the revelant information. I freakin’ survived Dr. G’s exams (though not with particularly impressive grades) at JBU, this shouldn’t be that hard. The other half? Pees its pants every five seconds. We must get a 75% in each class to “pass” and we also must have test average of 75% to “pass” each nursing class. So it would be in my best interest to get above 75% on this midterm. WELL ABOVE a 75%.
I’m thinking I need to add a category called “peeing my pants” for every entry where I write that phrase. What do you guys think?
So yes, if you are looking for a distraction tomorrow, especially around 9AM CST, I would GREATLY appreciate your prayers. For my test-taking skills and my bladder control issues. Thank you friends.

LOVE!

PS I totally forgot to turn in an assignment this week too. If I had an iPhone this would NOT have happened.

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Or one who just (almost) finished her first week of the BSN-AT track. I’m writing now because you better believe I’m running off to the Lake ASAP tomorrow after class is finished and there will be no internets available there.
First of all, I knew that I would get to know my fellow students well, you know, after a few marathon studying sessions where there is no time for personal hygiene. I did not think we’d get truly up close and personal the FIRST STINKING week. shoot. First of all, I had three male students tie me to a hospital bed with restraints yesterday. My dream come true. Secondly today my Assessment partner got to see way more of me than she ever wanted. We learned to assess the heart and lungs and chest today. Which requires less clothing than I usually wear, in fact less clothing than I wear when I go swimming (praise God for tankinis!). Thank goodness my partner is my new friend and non-judgemental! Let me explain a little something. We are learning to do head-to-toe assessments. This means we go over the whole body, looking/feeling/listening to everything from the scalp to the retinal background (not so much listening to this) to the pulse at the top of one’s foot. This is an incredible amount of information and procedure to take in and be tested on. June 1 we will be tested on our head-to-toe assessments performed on our partners. Am I worried about my grade? No, I’m worried about the fact that ANOTHER PERSON IS GOING TO SEE ME LESS THAN FULLY CLOTHED. I will say this again, rational thinking has no place here.
Other than the awkwardness of practical strangers, who are sometimes of the male persuasion, in my personal space, nursing school is great. “Practical strangers” doesn’t include you J! Of course this is my first week with most of the focus on one 2-hour class. Ask me June 1 and I may have a very different and fake-explicitive-laced answer. And by “fake-explicitive” I mean “dang”, “blast” and perhaps the ever-so-ladylike “effing”. I cannot be held responsible for my lack of manners when under extreme amounts of stress. Please excuse all future “effings” on this blog.
Maybe I need to type some blog rules up. 1. Any and all sarcasm is welcome, mostly self-deprecating sarcasm though. 2. Rational thinking has no place here. 3. This is my blog and I reserve the right to say/type “effing”. 4. I also reserve the right to add rules at my discretion. There ya go.

Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend lovely friends and blog-readers.

LOVE!

PS Here is the image of the doctor I hope to meet when I start practicing. HELLO LOVA!

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Ya’ll, I survived. Though there were moments on the drive to Liberty this morning where I was this [-] close to pulling over, throwing up and then bursting into tears, I got through it. I’ve found my anxiety/nervousness manifests itself in my digestive tract. That may be TMI but I need you to know that last night was a little rough. EEK.
Today has a much better outlook. For some reason I do this thing where I make situations out to be a bajillion times worse than they are or could be. I was freaking out like I was going to be the ONLY student in this program and the teachers were going to be MEAN and do things like not tell me about assignments until the minute they were due. Apparently I equate nursing school, the program I wanted into SO desperately that I started BAWLING when I gained admission, with HELL. Or prison. Because you know I’d decided I wasn’t going to see ANYONE I love for the next year, on top of NO SLEEP or FUN or FOOD. AT ALL.
Today I showed up and I actually KNEW people (yay) from the get-together Friday night. I also had an offical nursing-school friend, due to my email-stalking (don’t let anyone ever tell you it doesn’t have benefits!) So I’m totally set for a lab partner. And you won’t even believe this but today I found out her dad has PKD. I told my mom that if my new friend turns to me and says, “Matt Wertz is my favorite artist EVER”, I will look at her in disbelief and say, “GET OUT”. That’s how clandestine this whole thing feels. I mean REALLY!? Could there be ANYMORE CLEARER SIGNS that this is where I’m meant to be right now? It’s great to have confirmation of your hopes and dreams.
Now if I could just remember that I can do all things and that I should be “anxious for nothing”, I will do this without throwing up or hyperventilating. That, my friends, is true success.
I’m off to spend the rest of the night doing homework.
PS I TOTALLY took someone’s blood pressure today. How skilled am I?

LOVE!

Demo: this picture is for you. I’m pretty sure everyone who saw it guessed I was a doctor. I’m okay with that. I wasn’t about to drive into a brick wall, don’t worry!

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2nd edit: The anxiety has now moved to my digestive system. EEK. I am pulling it together. Plus I just got $75 worth of Starbucks giftcards and loads of chocolate. YAY!

edit: I replied to all the comments ya’ll left as a comment on the last post. Make sense? If not, click on the comments from the last post (for those of you blog-challenged).

I’ve been thinking a lot about music and it’s transporting qualities. All this thinking and transporting has made me start listing the most influential albums in my life. As excited as I am to share these with you, I’m really hoping you will reciprocate and either leave a comment or post on your own blog about your most influential albums and the stories behind them. Think of it as a last blogging hurrah (I do a lot of “last hurrahs” I’m finding) before fully immersing myself into nursing school. Plus talking about music and musical taste tells you so much about a person. Let’s get to know each other better, come on now.

1. Abbey Road by the Beatles

As I said before in another post, getting into the Beatles and Abbey Road was, perhaps, the ONLY cool thing I did before everyone else did. I don’t have psychic music abilities like my dear BFF, who totally gets into musicians like 6 months to a year before they get big. 95% of the music in my itunes/ipod is from C, whereas I’m thinking like 1% in hers is from my recommendation. Anyway. Abbey Road transports me back to when I was 12 and just learning about longing and yearning and all those desperate words of teenagedom, or tweenagedom. Remember when everything was so dramatic? When that boy found out you liked him because that other boy told him in the locker room and then the boy you liked said, “YUCK” or something to that extent, which you heard about from other boy and then promptly ran into the bathroom to cry? That VERY sentence reeks of middle school. Anyway, Abbey Road reminds me of young love. It’s so dreamlike, I loved listening to it on summer nights (especially since “Sun King” has little cricket sounds in the background) and imagining my first kiss. Listening to that album still calms me down and always makes me smile. That album was my first love. And, I believe it was the best introduction to the Beatles.
I wasn’t expecting to write so much about just one album. This may be a series. ha.

2. Twentythree places by Matt Wertz

Most of you know I have the teensiest of crushes on MW (we’re on an initials-calling basis). Most of you know that “teensiest” is a gross understatement. I can’t help it. I went to his concert in Siloam Springs and he talked about “The Sound of Music”. HELLO! How about THAT destiny! Obviously mentioning TSoM is to me what using a pick-up line is to other women. Moving past the obsession, I bought his album after that concert and listened to it ALL THE TIME. My favorite thing though, was listening to it while on a drive with Kate on the backroads of Siloam Springs. All felt right with the world on those drives. And it was.

3. Speak for Yourself by Imogen Heap

So I had a REALLY tough time when I moved to D.C. For about six months things were awful, like the most awful time of my life awful. I flew down to JBU for a wedding and homecoming and stayed with my wonderful friends Corrie and Brandon. They introduced me to Imogen and oh my, was it love at first listen. Learning her music helped me learned to love living in Virginia by myself. It will ALWAYS, ALWAYS remind me of VA in autumn. I can’t even describe to you how much I love this album. BTW I’m totally twitter friends with Imogen.

4. Thinks of Her by Andy Davis

This album represents my FAVORITE time in D.C., the time when I was with C. It reminds me of the two of us, bundled up on the metro, listening to our respective ipods yet both listening to this album. We had such wonderful adventures and explorations and wanderings and it seemed like this album was the soundtrack to that special time. It always felt appropriate to start playing this album once I was on the metro, which was a lot those days, because I didn’t have a car. Those Nashville Boys (Dave Barnes, Matt Wertz, Andy Davis) write some dang good lyrics. I hope someday someone will use words like they have written to describe their love for me. Sappy I know, but dang, they’re good.

5. Messiah by George Frideric Handel (performed by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra)

that’s not the picture of the album I have but oh well.

First of all, Christmas is NOT Christmas in our household without Handel’s Messiah. Again, they are not really words to express what this piece of music means to me. It is the most beautiful music I’ve ever experienced written about the most profound event to ever occur to mankind. Honestly, I cannot listen to it without tearing up. It’s heavenly and it’s what I imagine heaven to be like. When I read the verses this music is based on I always hear the notes in my head. It’s my favorite version of the Christmas story. I could seriously write about this forever. AHHH!

Okay, I’m done, for now. What are a couple of your favorite albums and why?

I will say that I got over the freaking out earlier this week only to be faced with some classmates at a little get-together bent on bringing my freaking-out to Defcon 5. Seriously people? I thought we were going to get to KNOW each other at this time, NOT SCARE the complete poop out of one another. I seriously almost cried at the get-together from the stress of thinking about all of the stress. You know what though? I CAN TOTALLY DO THIS! And I WILL. If all I do for the next year is study and sleep I’ll be fine. But I really do need my sleep. Please let me have sleep. Okay.

One more “free” day.

LOVE!

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Demo: I cannot believe that I didn’t write down how I imported my xanga entries. I feel like a failure, HOWEVER I’m tracking down all the sites I looked up and WILL have a step-by-step manual for you soon.

Nursing necessities according to Mandy:
- iPhone, chuh.
- new huge purse, preferably patent leather and kate spade. I will need to be carrying A LOT.
- new, reliable car. Every day I have mild anxiety attacks while driving my car. I picture myself on the highway when all the sudden my car stops and completely falls into shambles, leaving me sitting there in disbelief.
- dorky nursing shoes. check
- masseuse on call
- espresso machine. The reason for this should be abundantly clear.
- echinacea. check
- bright, distinguishable stethoscope. check

Thanks again Alex and Kaitlyn!
- some of THIS, because I will probably wash my hands about 930997 times a day. check

- supportive and loving family and friends. check

LOVE!

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Yeah, I’m not sure anyone out there is really reading. I know you just want to see pictures anyhoo!

Our Mother’s Day gathering. Have I ever told you how much I love being around my family?

Here are our three generations (two of which are Eagle Scouts) of Boy Scouts. Including Eagle Scout Ben.

the cutest older sister of the cutest 9-month-old ever

the photograph Ella (older sister) took. I think she takes after me.

What family gathering isn’t complete without a little wrestlemania? I have to say their father was strongly encouraging this behavior (and closely monitoring). Ethan totally won.

me with my favorite guy. I figured it was about time I got a picture with him. I should redo this photo a year from now when I finally get to see this kid again after rigorous nursing school.

Me with both kiddos.

So I’m starting nursing school in a week. WEEK! I’m so terrified it’s not even funny. On the other hand I’m ready to get this show on the road because, obviously, the anticipation is KILLING me. Slowly. Not softly with his song. Let’s just say I’m having a lot of daily pep talks. Eek. Glad I figured out that xanga importing business before school starts. Accomplishing this makes me feel like QUEEN OF THE WORLD! I’m practically a blog-making GENIUS.

LOVE!

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I’ve been a nanny for 2.5 years but I started watching and caring for kids around age 12. I was always fascinated by them and have pretty much longed to hold every baby I’ve ever come across. You could say I know a little about caring for children. I have learned A LOT. But this past year taught me 3295072 times more than all the previous years combined. Probably because I traveled with two children under the age of 3 twice. This is a huge deal. If you’d asked me last year whether I thought this experience would teach me much, my answer would have been, “ehhhh”. But DUDE. It did. I learned about not peeing for a few hours because you’re rocking a baby to sleep (sometimes it takes a few hours). I learned about changing diapers in the front seat of a car. I learned why parents lose weight sometimes: they forget to eat. I learned that you can never exhaust your powers to entertain, especially if you are terrified of the ever-looming tantrum. I learned things from my non-traveling adventures as well. I learned that sometimes you have to put the baby down when he/she is crying for your own sanity (but I always went back after my breather). I learned how to pray over a sick child. I learned how to really, REALLY trust God’s plan. I learned how to deal with the “terrible 2s/3s” (yes Katie Holmes, they DO exist). There is SO much more.
My point is this: I appreciate my mom 3295072 more than I did at this time last year. Mom, thank you for all those times you didn’t pee because I had to be held. Thank you for all those times you went without eating. Thank you for all the silly faces you made to keep me from crying. Thank you for the COUNTLESS, INNUMERABLE prayers you laid over me. Thank you for not killing me when I had the “terrible 2s/3s”. Most of all, thank you for being my mom first and my best friend second. Happy Mother’s Day! I LOVE YOU!!

LOVE!

*ahem* guess who TOTALLY figured out how to import over 5 years’ worth of xanga entries onto her NEW BLOG?!?!

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It’s been crazy. I find that May often is crazy as far as busyness goes.

Sunday we saw the youngest cousin become an Eagle Scout. GO BEN! We are so proud of you big guy.

Monday was the PKD’s annual “Drive Home a Cure” Golf Tournament. This was my second time volunteering and I will admit that the lure of driving a golf cart is too strong to deny. I always thought it would lose its appeal after I acquired a driver’s license but NO, it’s STILL so fun. Maybe because I’m a 12-year-old boy at heart.

There was a debate about whether this guy was alive or not. He was. He chose to show us that he was alive at a very opportune time. Someone’s foot happened to be right next to him (for size perspective) when mister turtle moved. Person attached to foot jumped approximately five feet and screamed like a little girl. Person shall remain anonymous (but is in the next picture).

I found out a pretty cool kid I know was volunteering too! Small world. (Eagle Scout Ben was there too.)

Tuesday I took my Abnormal Psychology final and remembered why it’s so hard to care about finals. No picture for that one. I headed to the place where they grow the delicious babies.

Today I introduced someone to Starbucks. You can never be too young for coffee! (next two pictures were taken with my phone)

I think he’s a fan!

I hope your week has been equally exciting!

LOVE!

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