made some changes

let me know what you think of my new banner! I made it all by my lonesome!

I'd also like to add something else I'd like to do, to the list I made in the post earlier today. I'd like to catch up on the books I've been meaning to read. Wouldn't you know each and every one of them is about nurses!

The first is Nurses: The Human Touch by Michael Brown, R.N. I started reading it earlier in the semester when I thought I had some time. Ha! I did get halfway through it!

Next we have, A Nurse's Story: Life, Death, and In-Between in an Intensive Care Unit by Tilda Shalof.

My final selection is, Touched by a Nurse: Special Moments that Transform Lives by Jim Kane and Carmen Germaine Warner. This and Nurses: The Human Touch are both anthologies.

Since I'm not going to study for the rest of the evening I just may go curl up in bed with Nurses, well and the hubby, too! He'll be thrilled, I'm sure!

all i want to do

Some things I'd like to do during my upcoming winter break, Dec 17th to Jan 11th:

*clean out my closet
*give old clothes to Goodwill
*clean LB's room (he does it himself, but this will be a thorough "Ought oh! Mom's been here!" type of clean.)
*scrapbook the rest of LB's book
*clean out arts n' crafts stuff
*go through AW's clothing and ditch what he doesn't or won't wear
*organize bookshelves
*tell everyone I see that I just finished my B.S. degree
*clean up and organize the computer room
*decorate for Christmas
*spend time with family and friends
*bake holiday goodies
*relax
*relax
*relax

Nothing fancy, just some stuff that has been neglected over this past semester.

finished! finito! terminado! fini!

Yep! I just finished the huge project we've been working on all semester in our online psych class...you know the class...the one that is my ticket to my B.S.!? We collaboratively worked in lab groups, albeit online (yes, very difficult at times), on a lab report, as well as a psychology lab poster.

Our hypothesis was that although as we age our reaction time slows, physical acitivity will have a positive effect, reducing reaction time speeds. It was a quasi-experiment and nothing to get worked up over, except for dealing with partners you don't see face-to-face. We used the Fastball Reaction Time Test as our reaction stimulus. It simulates a baseball player swinging at a ball, and measures how fast you click the mouse when you see "swing batter" come across the screen. Give it a try! We did ten trials for both our dominant hand, and our non-dominant hand.

STBTF
What do you think I'm thankful for? You've got it! Having this hurdle out of the way, and being one step closer to my B.S. makes me so happy, and for that I'm thankful!!

a shout out laden with irony

I have to give a big shout out to my awesomer than awesome old friend Robin Rivers, over at Our Big Earth, because of the latest blog feature article, "Love the Skin You're In-Say No to Dieting".

Check it out. You are sure to love this blogsite, especially if you're a parent...even more so if you're one of my Canadian buds! There's something there for many to take an interest in or even to be inspired by!

The reason I'm so excited about this feature article is, well because, as so many of us are unhappy with our bodies, I too would love to just love the skin I'm in! Our last post on our Nur100 classroom website has to do with what we plan to do, now that we're completing our first semester of nursing school, in an effort to improve how we go about our new endeavor that is nursing school.

Needless to say the stress level has been quite high. One of the best ways to combat stress is with fighting fire with fire, or in other words get out there and get active! Get those endorphins working for you! This is essentially me having a pep talk with myself, via this post! But hey, maybe it will inspire someone else as well.

I'm afraid I've fallen behind on my STBTF posts...oopsy! You better believe that not a day goes by that I am not counting my lucky stars for something or another!

Today I took some time away from my studies and did something irregular for my usual routine. I went with a friend and her daughter, the lovely girl I would love to someday call my daughter-in-law (we can dream...), to her cheer competition. We recently went to her high school competition, but today was her Cheer Dynasty competition, well one of many. You might say seeing all those kids who are in such great shape was inspirational, but this was an area I was already looking to improve....have always been looking to improve.



So now that I'm in the contemplative phase to make a behavior change, I must set up my plan of attack. That will have to wait until tomorrow, when I'm not so tired!

STBTF
Today I'm thankful for having good friends who help to take my mind off the fact that I have finals coming up!

Come on tough nut....you are from Colorado!

That's what an old friend just said to me on my Facebook, in reply to what I wrote as my status message, "Kirsten learned sitting at a high school football game in 30 degree weather is NO FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Ummm...maybe my blood has thinned in my old age?

As if! I am only 37. Have been saying that a lot lately.

But yeah, sitting in 30 degree weather is just not for me! Even back in my Colorado days it wasn't. I have skiid one half day in my life. I was plowed into by an old man on the bunny slopes, and that was it for me! I went and slept in the car whilst everyone else mastered the blues? and greens? or was it blacks? of Monarch...whateva!

The three years in North Dakota didn't serve me well either. -70 degrees Fahrenheit, snowed in on Christmas day. Yeah, how romantic. Gag! That's about when you want to get out!

I was wearing thermal underwear, two shirts under a sweatshirt, under a coat, with a really thick, cable-knit beanie, scarf and gloves, two pairs of socks, and my warmest shoes...and I was still freezing!

A polar bear I am not!

thanks to you four!

Thanks Tiffany, PJ, Maggie and Drofen for telling me about your nursing schools!

It dawned on me I hadn't shared my information for everyone to read, so here goes:

If you have a BSN, ADN, LPN (or are working towards)?

ADN, but will most likely go on for the BSN, at least

Your biggest hurdle in school?

the transition of my program has been very frustrating

Year you graduated/will graduate?

May '10

For those in school:

What classes do you take in your first semester, and how many days a week do you attend?

Nur 100, Introduction to Nursing
Nur 105, Basic Skills, lecture
Nur 105, Basic Skills, lab

Next semester:
classes start January 12 and end May 8
NUR 108, Nursing Principles & Concepts I
NUR 136, Principles of Pharmacology I
NUR 203, Intro to Mental Health Nursing
Skills lab

When do you start clinicals?

We go to clinicals starting our second semester, at the nursing home in March/April

I'd still love to hear from more people! Don't be shy!

just wondering

What do I need to do to get more people to talk to me? If you're a lurker I would love to hear from you!

Let me get the ball rolling...

Tiffany had a nifty idea in asking people about their nursing school, so here it is:

If you wouldnt mind sharing the state/country you went/go to school?

If you have a BSN, ADN, LPN (or are working towards)?

Your biggest hurdle in school?

Year you graduated/will graduate?

For those in school:
What classes do you take in your first semester, and how many days a week do you attend?

When do you start clinicals?

For those non-nursing school peeps out there...because there is life beyond nursing school...somewhere...

Do you know me?

If so, how?

If not, what brings you here?

honestly

Sometimes I wonder if maybe I'm going through super duper early menopause. I am only 37, but the mood swings I have every once in a while are driving me madder than I normally am!

Just this afternoon I felt it as it was happening.

This morning was reasonably uneventful as I readied for the day, once dragging myself out of bed for the final time. After arriving at school I was still in a pretty decent mood, you could say I was in a fairly good mood.

Then it was lunchtime, and I had just eaten....and wam-bam-thank-you-ma'am!

SWING!

It was all I could do to make it through the rest of our day in lab, and then rush out the door at the end of the day without saying goodbye.

Even still this evening I feel sullen, and as if having my own pity party would be a vast improvement in my current state of mind.

The dean still hasn't posted our test grades from yesterday. Either we've been really spoiled by her having the grades posted by late afternoon on test days, or something's up.

It doesn't help that when I arrived home this afternoon I went upstairs and was greeted with a putrid diarrhea-type smell. I was not able to find the source, and pretty much gave up thinking maybe one of the dogs had passed gas...

Yeah, no such luck. Dogs have a keen sense of smell...and a need to roll themselves in that which is pretty much disgusting to us humans. I went back up to find out what Minnie was doing, and she had pulled LB's comforter off his bad and had pretty much raped it!

Voila!

That's where the smell had been coming from. One of the cats had pure liquid diarrhea on it, and that's why I couldn't see anything when first looking-it had soaked through the black material of the comforter. Lovely.

It was an old ratty thing, so it automatically went into the garbage.

Risk for Insanity r/t current life stressors, and disgusting habits of live-in pets

Oh well...

It's time to go relax. It's very much indicated!

so far we've gotten our grades for our Nur105 exam....and I pulled a B! I am so utterly shocked, you don't even know.

waddaday....What a day!

Today we had exams in both Nur100-Intro, and Nur105, Basic Skills lecture. The dean (she's teaching our Nur100 class because of the instructor turnover that happened just prior to classes starting in August) is stepping up the difficulty level of the tests with each one we've taken. I will admit this one gave me a run for my money. In fact as I walked out the door, toward one of classmates who had already left the room, I said, "There goes my A". After we did our collaborative testing and then the dean went over it, I feel a little better, not having done as poorly as first thought. We'll see what the final outcome is once grades are posted.

After all of that, and for the remainder of the class we had a guest speaker. The speaker was from the main campus and she was there talking to us about "caring communication". She had come in while we were doing the coolaborative testing and had observed our collaborative state of stress. So she at first had us do a focus exercise. She had us close our eyes, and then she spoke us through envisioning different places on our bodies-"knowing and naming, not judging". We started at our scalps, down the front, worked our way down to our feet, and then back up our backs, ending at our scalp. I have to admit it was very relaxing. Then she had us watch the following video. I highly recommend you watch it if you want to see a powerfully moving example of human fortitude.



I nearly had to leave the room because I nearly bursted into tears. That would have been just wonderful, but I maintained control. What can I say I'm emotional? I watched last week's episode of ER yesterday intending to relax before studying and I ended up bawling...sheesh!

Back to the matter at hand.

The whole experience with the speaker and the video was great, except for we were still facing our second test of the day. wonderful!

If we're not stressed enough we've just watched an emotionally riveting video. Not helpful!


Since this was our first test with the "new" instructor, who is actually an old instructor...hopefully you already know the story, if not read this, we were all more nervous than we have been since we took our first nursing exams....and with good reason. I thought I'd bombed the Nur100 test??? HA!! It was a consensus! We all felt the same way. We quickly went through it after everyone had finished and returned to the room, and I think I did better than I had thought at first, but still not very good.

STBTF?
I'm thankful to have no more exams until the final exams.

Oh! I am also extremely thankful for the college awarding me equivalent credit for A&P I. Now I just have to take A&P II and will accomplish that during the summer next year.