Can't sleep

After 3 days of being ill, I still have the bug going through my system. It has, however, decided not to settle into my lungs but to stay in my head, making me very fuzzy. I'm hoping that the extra strength cold medication will mask my symptoms enough that I can make it through clinical tomorrow. Yes, I am going, even though I perhaps should stay home.

My problem right now is that I have to wake up ridiculously early (5:30am) but I cannot, for the life of me, get to sleep. I have been trying for over an hour, to no success. This past weekend I couldn't' go for more then 2 hours without needing a nap, and, now that I am needing to get sleep, ironically I am awake.

I was told to prepare for paediatrics with learning how to assess a child. Also, I am to know the normal vital signs for children. This is understandable, since I am going to be on a paediatrics floor, getting my first paediatrics patient on Wednesday. However, I do not know which age range my patient will be, nor do I know anything about the floor I will be working on. Apparently this is supposed to be found out tomorrow during my first shift, where I will be paired with a staff nurse who will show me the ropes. Also, my currently classwork has been soley focused on prenatal and labour/delivery, not paediatrics. We haven't even cracked the book on that yet, although we'll get there later this term.

I also haven't mentioned that I tend to scare children under the age of 4. Perhaps this was just earlier in my youth when my excitement to see them tended to come out as being over-the-top and intimidating for young children. I hope that with maturity comes less enthusiasm, although the last baby/toddler I have played with was my own younger sister (who is now 17!), and my cousins (who are now 15!). Over the age of 5, my camp skills come back and I think I could handle it. Although I must say, my experience with having a non-stop crying 5 year old for the tots camp is haunting me now. Wish me luck, I'll have more to post later. I think that soon I may be able to sleep. I hope the 2nd nighttime cold medication will kick in.

Urgh..

So life has finally caught up to me and I am, at 4pm on Sunday, still in bed. I have a brutal head cold. I guess this is repayment for the lifestyle I have been leading the past few weeks. Somehow, I noted the other day, I had lost a month. I mean that I have missed out on a month's worth of stuff because I have been working myself like an animal trying to get things done.

The bugs have been flying all over campus, so it wasn't surprising that now I have succombed. I hoped it would be next week. But alas, here I am coughing and blowing my nose.

A funny story of the day (and to show you how out of it I really am), I woke up from a nap today, looked at the time, and flipped out because I was late. What was I late for? I was late for orientation (by then it would have been finished) for my nursing class for our upcoming paediatrics rotation. I was also late for teaching birth control, as it was 3:21pm. After freaking out and running around for a few minutes looking for a phone to call the clinic, I realized something... it was still SUNDAY. I hadn't lost a day, I'm just a sick dufus who is too out of it to realize the day had not passed yet.

Sigh. Well wish me luck, i have to try to catch up on readings. Perhaps 10% will stay in my brain.

Kids these days

I had a funny run in yesturday while at work until 3am. Some first years were walking around and all I hear is "avada kadavara!"... and "crucio!"

It's amazing how much pop culture can influence us.

One note... of course they had to use the forbidden curses to yell at each other! They couldn't use "expelliarmus!", or "furnunculus". Naw, they have to use the curses that could take them straight to Azkaban.

I love the HP series, by the way. I couldn't put the 7th book down, and finished it within 24 hours.

Feeling the crunch

I need to be more with it. I have assignments coming up, as well as other commitments that are putting me into a tizzy.

Divide and conquer, divide and conquer.

Some people call me a machine. I'm not 100% sure what it means, although I take it as meaning that I keep going and going and going.. sort of like that cute pink bunny with the drum from the battery commercial.

I have a secret for everyone who thinks I'm a machine... it's a facade.

Work, Work, work.. yet no play equals a high strung, addicted to caffiene, emotionally unstable, and physically exhausted person. And that's just my significant other! (joking hunny!)

I feel bad for neglecting both my health, my family, and my friends. My wish is that this is only temporary, and that some day I will have a regular, normal, less harried life.

It has been 8 years. I still wait for that day.

Long day

I know I have done this to myself, but today was a particularly long day.

I seem to regularly over-extend myself. Some of the activities I participated in are necessary, and others may not be as much, but I'm a person that keeps my commitments as much as possible.

Hence my long day today.

It started at a reasonable hour, 9:30 class... which turned out to be an interesting lecture. After this followed a 1 hour meeting/lunch with my classmates for a group assignments, and another lecture.
Its now 3:30, you'd think I can pack up and go home. NOPE. I then head over to the clinic where I do birth control counselling, and teach for 2 hours. Not done yet, I have a volunteer commitment until 10pm. a 12.5 hour day isn't bad, but I'm not done yet.

I then procede to go BACK to work at a different locale, and will continue this shift for another 6 hours.

My day ends at 4am.

So what have I done in total?

1) went to school for a 6 hour shift
2) went to work for an 8 hour shift
and 3) volunteered 5 hours.

I still have to catch up on reading, I have thesis work to do, I have a meeting with my supervisor and I"m not done the prep work, AND I'm volunteering again tomorrow night.

I love life.

Holy Reading Batman!

I will not be writing much tonight as it's 9:40pm and I have a case study for which 150+ pages were assigned for reading. Today is the second 'reading day' we've had this week ( I guess specifically for these pages) but since my priority is my graduate work i have put off even opening my textbook. Well it looks like it'll be an interesting night.

rrrrrrrrrrip goes the shrinkwrap!

All you can eat sushi

Tonight I took the evening off and went with my boyfriend, a nursing colleague, and her boyfriend to a local all-you-can-eat sushi place.

Sushi is something I never even thought I would like until I tried it in residence in first year university. From then on, I was hooked.

Now, 3 hours after we left the restaurant, I'm STILL full. God bless crunchy spicy salmon rolls.

My computer's name is Fluffy

No joke. In fact, my boyfriend cut me from internet access because he thought my computer was a hacker or a virus.

I called my computer that because first of all, it's funny that a solid, metal object could be called Fluffy, and two, I just realized that the name symbolizes a lot of what I am 'learning' in nursing school. Don't get me wrong, this program is very busy and can be incredibly stressful as well as challenging. But what I find is that there are a lot of "caring and sharing" classes, understandable as it is a nursing program, but I am a fact-oriented person, not a caring/emotional person. I do develop a good therapeutic relationship with my patients/clients and I pride myself to get to that point of trust with a patient. But I will not be the nurse that will hover over a person and go 'aww that's too bad' at every complaint that a patient has. It's just not my personality, and if I did that I think the patient would feel I'm faking it, and the therapeutic relationship will become strained.

Right now we are in maternal/child health. This is a topic I find very interesting; I've always enjoyed learning about developmental biology/physiology and about the birthing experience. Today we are having a lecture on the health promotion of pregnancy, and what I've found so far that the information we're presented seems very subjective, and loosely based on theoretical constructs. Shouldn't we be learning about how to give health promotion to the client? What information is important to give? But instead we are once again talking about non-scientific concepts, and family dynamics. We have spent over 3 hours on about 20 slides. This is ridiculous and a waste of my time. I have yet to learn anything I have not known before, either through my education in Health Science, or in life experience. Give me the textbook reading, and instead in lecture focus on what we are to do with these clients.

I've decided to just shut up in lecture, and suck it up and take it in. There's no point in trying to provide scientific/factual or even direct information to the class, the professor skirts the issue. Nurse BS here I come!

The life and times of a long term student

Eight years. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the horror stories your parents heard of their friends- friends'- friends' daughter continuing in post-secondary education much longer then anticipated are indeed true.

Although at first it seems ridiculous that one person could be in university that long without at least starting a PhD, my story seems to have some sense. After an undergrad where jobs after were rare, I turned to graduate studies. During the second year of graduate studies, realizing once again jobs were scarce in that field, I then again turned to undergraduate. This time, however, I had a plan: utilize my knowledge for health studies within the nursing field. Thus I am currently completing a 2-year intense nursing program and will be complete in spring 2008.

This blog will be focusing on the struggle to deal with the stresses of this program, the struggle of being in school for 8 years, and the successes (hopefully!) that will come out of being in this program. Also included will probably be rants and raves, which, honestly, is a reason to read this blog!

I look forward to writing, and hopefully, you will look forward to reading. See you soon.