more about nursing...what do you expect

Not much is going on here today, I had a seminar, we talked about Diabetes.
Diabetes is seriously scary, so scary that I am taking a serious look at my sugar intake.
I feel like if people knew how CRAZY bad diabetes is they would probably do the same.

cake =sugar=diabetes=death

I cannot think of anything worth the side effects diabetes causes...every organ system in your body, every single one is affected....not.worth.it

Then clinical orientation...not much to say about that
Then career fair(more below)...
Then HIV counselor/tester training....ok not boring, but waaay too long, but now I can test you for HIV
Then home to Paul (yay!) best part of day!

Another big reason why nursing is a good choice is that nurses.........get jobs!
Today we had a career fair and you know what there were lots of hospitals/employers interested in hiring us.

It seems to from a lot of the blogs I read that people aren't really worried about getting jobs etc... but this is something I worry about, this was a huge part of picking nursing.

 I really like to know that is something serious happened to Paul and it was put on my shoulders to earn a living for our family that I could do it...of course there are plenty of potential disasters were that would not be helpful, but you get the point.

And with a big chunk of nurses on the verge of retirement and baby boomers aging, nursing has a positive job outlook.  read more

Well,  you don't love nursing? you can't stand bodily fluids? you hate hospitals?
In the future I will address why those are not absolutes if your working as a nurse...coming from a not very neat, non-perfectionist, considers-herself-to-be-somewhat-artistic-person

and that is it for today except I am wasting way to much time of the internet and should be doing hw.

                                                                                          image from here

Valentines Day

Actually I did the night shift last night and even though it seemed to stretch into eternity, it was really calm, nice and not nearly as hard as it could have been.
I will skip the nursing post today to write about Valentines Day.
We made each other tenderly written cards
hung out,
ate,
 watched a movie (after I slept off the night shift that is)
...nothing huge, nothing grand,
 but with the limited time that Paul and I have together these days, it was nice to just say, HEY its Valentine's  Day lets not feel guilty about not doing homework
 and just spend some time together
and for me that resulted in the best day ever.
  I love Paul so much.

The first reason

The first reason is of course the most important (and after this the rest will be more practical)  but nursing is about caring, nurses spend time with there patients, nurses are always there, they are there in the hospital when almost everyone else has gone home.  They watch the patients at night, the address concerns, they have daily opportunities to serve and uplift there patients.  Of course many many times it is not so wonderful or touchy-feely, but it can be.
Nurses give essential care and can really do good for humanity.
if this is not enough for that is ok too (keep reading there will be more reasons), but caring is the basis of the profession and there are always people to help.
I will soon revise this to be more descriptive, but for now, you at least understand the reason in raw

Also speaking of relationships, things are heating up between me and the sewing machine, well more like it seems to be out and used enough that I decided that it should no longer be naked and exposed to dust, so today I sewed a quick cover.  I did so with just quick measures and rough estimates, but it turned out to fit the machine perfectly.  I used the left over fabric from our chairs so it even matches our apartment (I will post pictures of it soon)...it was a really fast project but, now I know my machine is safe from dust.

artwork 

Why I am so glad I am in nursing school.

When I first went to college I had no idea what I wanted to do. I liked art, and history, but I knew I was going to need something more practical as well, some people can make amazing careers out of those things, but I am not one of them.  I tried architecture for  few semesters and well, I made some good friends but pretty quickly realized that I am not a perfectionists, not even a little bit, which is a requirement for architecture.  So, I worked hard and instead finished a bachelors degree in history ASAP, and left on a mission a week before I turned 21.
 During my final semester I began to look at my options to see what else I could do.  If there is one thing that I learned at Berkeley is that I did not want to get a PhD in history, or really go to grad school at all....way too many horror stories.

My mom who is a teacher always wanted me to be a nurse, probably because a good friend of hers is a nurse and she is aware of how much more it makes than a teacher with more benefits.

When I was 18 I would rather die than be a nurse, nursing was for practical people and I considered myself more complex and artistic than to do something that ahem..made sense.

Well,  I thought about it on my mission, I did research, I took pre-reqs,  I saw a lot of people suffering from health issues on my mission and somehow ended up in an accelerated bachelors of nursing program.  Even though nursing school is quite hard, sometimes seems pretty stupid and frustrating.  I am definitely glad that I chose to be a nurse (just a few more months until I graduate), and I find myself trying to convince others who are unsure of what to do (career wise) to seriously consider nursing.

So every day (or every time I write in my blog) I am going to share a reason I am happy to be heading down this path, and something that is positive about nursing as a career.

This will keep me motivated to study hard and maybe it will give the idea to someone else as well.

Lack of sleep

Really I could write about this every single day, because I swear I never get enough but this week it has been poignant.

I had my big test on Tuesday, and I did ok, but it took the life out of me and I only got one hour of sleep that night, it also made me decide that I don't really need to become a nurse practitioner right away, in other words I am not interested in grad school for at least a few years after I graduate.  I am ok with 3 twelves, no homework and money, yes definitely ok with that.

Then the next day after that I worked the night shift, still not caught up on sleep and it.was.brutal. but I made it and thought I did pretty good as well.

Last night, I was feeling the need to do something fun, so I tailored this shirt I bought for $2, it took about an hour and a half,  but now I have a shirt that fits me perfectly, just in time for the nursing school career fair next week.

On a related note, I think I have been pretty crabby because I sense myself getting upset with Paul frequently which is because I am being crazy.

Unfortunately not much else has been going on except for a walk today in the beautiful weather, and I have another test coming up on monday in..."health promotion in the advanced practice role"yes, names of nursing courses are silly and they all are related to health promotion disease prevention, which is why when Paul asks me what class I don't even really know what classes I am in.

anyway, it is my goal to stop writing about sleep and writing about something else.

For example I am getting certified as a HIV tester and have to attend a looong class for it, or that my clinicals got moved back so they area no longer earrly in the morning...best thing ever! basically being in nursing school makes me want to post about bodily functions which is probably not a good thing.

Sad day for the niners :(

and paul is sick, but we did eat homemade pizza today so that was good
I worked two night shifts and my schedule is all wacky,
I still have not studied much, yikes, I am so ready to be done with nursing school. so ready.  And this semester is really just beginning as far as the projects go.

I am also doing community at a school for teenager/high school mothers, and talking to the school about the health and social consequences of tatoos, should be interesting.

I always have a ton of letters to write it seems like, which I like because it gives me a chance to sit down and break out the watercolors which is what I did while Paul was watching the super bowl.

its been sort of "cold" here so I finally despite the fact that it is February I wore this fall outfit around Gainesville and was happy for an excuse to wear gloves

 and we went to the temple, we had to be home in time for me to be able to get to my 11pm shift at work and it ended up being quite a rush on the way home, but it was so nice to go to the temple and remember all those blessings

                                                                          lake alice

What's been going on over here

Well, I have not written here for awhile.  Not for any particular reasons, sometimes it feels like too much happens so to try and cover it all is quite the task.
So what has happened.

Christmas was wonderful we had the missionaries over

We got a wonderful package from a friend in Germany

We went on a little vacation Atlanta, Chatanooga, Knoxville, Colombia (South Caroline), Savannah Georgia and home.  It was fun and so nice to see other parts of the South that neither or us has ever been.

I have been working quite a bit usually a few shifts a week at the hospital which feels like a lot since I also have school.

School started up again, and this new semester is going to be a tough one, for both Paul and I.

We bought a car for really cheap,

 and are trying to sell this truck

I have been sewing, when I have the time.

I reupholstered our chairs, which don't look that good, but they look better than they did and it was the first time I tried something like that. (the circle one is the new one)

We went to a fabulous wedding in Orlando

For which I painted this as a gift

We have both been really busy with our church callings, but as part of our self compensation we loosened up a little on our grocery budget which now includes cheese, milk, and ice cream on a regular basis ,which has made life pretty nice.

And in case your wondering "winter" just never seems to really happen here longer than a few days.

So I will try and keep you updated a little more on here, in case your wondering I am working tonight from 11pm to 7 am...and I have a big test on Tuesday 

and that is how I feel about it