Friendship

I've been having an amazing break from nursing school, and it's due to my wonderful friends. M&M Tucker are the best hosts and friends a person could ever ask to have, and to think it all started with a double date with Barbara Hill back in 2nd Grade. Yeppers, Kermie I had to put it on here. My California getaway was complete with a trip to a spa outside of Palm Springs, a jaunt through Joshua Tree, and two studio visits. I got to visit Kermie at work and see them working on building sets for Pirates, and then as an added bonus I got to go to a second studio. I got to see the soundstage of my favorite daytime show...General Hospital. It seems appropriate that I would be sent this quote via email, because my friends embody this and I strive to on a daily basis.

"When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another."-- Helen Keller

Love ya Tuckers :)

Amendments and blogging.

I tried to create a new blog to post my vacation information, but apparently I was having some issues getting the site nailed down and I ended up with 5 versions of the same blog. Fun huh ??? But, alas I cannot manage 5 so I've nailed it down to four. Continue to check this one to see what's going on and then my other two have definite purposes. One is specifically for all the joyous activities that my classmates and I particpate in to maintain our sanity and the other is my vacation log.

The site for my vacation log is: http://suzvacation.blogspot.com/

To find out about what I have read or are currently reading go to this site (not including nursing textbooks): http://breakreading.blogspot.com/

To see my nursing school buds and I taking breaks see this site: http://rnschoolbreak.blogspot.com/

If you'd like to see what my buddy Adrianne is doing down in Australia (which is actually where I got the whole blogging idea) check her out: http://oz-adventure.blogspot.com/

In addition, apparently I've inspired my longtime friend Lauren to "blog" as well. Check her's out: http://jamsmom.blogspot.com/

My friend Bridget doesn't have a blog, but wrote the following and since I thought it was "blogworthy" I'm going to put it on here...Deja-2001

It seems that this is the second company that thinks putting my life in limbo is funny (for all those familiar with Uncle Tery-dynes tricks). I am now on a undetermined amount of time "temporary relocated assignment" in Ohio. That's right. So for most this will go unnoticed as I rarely receive visitors in Austin, but in case you wanted to drop by my Parmer location, I am no longer residing there.
I will however be in Texas every other weekend to get my feel of Mexican food and get a good dose of either "you are getting plump" or "you're withering away on the bone" lecture from my elderly relatives and my mother.
So if anyone has any suggested readings, great movies, or relatives/friends with all their teeth in Ohio let me know. I should have enough time on my hands to get to all of them. For those planning to vacation in Ohio, don't, but if you decide not to heed my advice, drop by the Stay Bridge Hotel. Just ask for the girl that has tried to put their happy hour out of business. C'est moi.

Well, I guess that's all for now. Then again, I guess that is enough already. Check out my other blogs.

Update 2...I'm Free

It's so much easier to convey good news. I'm happy to report that the psychiatric nursing HESI has now been conquered. It was a complete and thorough waste of time. Nah, anything that reaffirms that the past 10 weeks were spent doing something that I don't have to do again is a good thing right?? Yeppers. I think the main focus during the HESI was trying to figure out the proportion of questions I could get wrong and still pass. I think...no I know the subject HESI tests are so much easier than the broader ones like "med surg." How are we supposed to illustrate our knowledge about medical-surgical nursing in 75 questions? It's just not possible. Following a haircut and a brief stint at babysitting this evening I will be free to vacation like it's 1999. Okay, so maybe not like it's 1999 because I was still at TAMU and broke like a joke, but maybe like it's actually summer. What are my vacation plans you may ask? Keep checking out my vacation blog site http://suzvacation.blogspot.com/ to find out. See you back in September.

Update 1.

It's 10:27 a.m. CST and I am happy to report that my psychiatric nursing course is now over. Having passed my final (unless she throws out like 9 of the ones I got right) I am delighted that the course is now over. I cannot calculate my grade because I don't have all my grades back because apparently her going out of town the weekend before finals was more important than grading all our materials. Lovely huh ?? Anyways, now I just have to hurdle through the HESI and I'm done and vacation-bound. Then again the HESI really doesn't matter because we don't "have to" pass it. It doesn't factor into our grade, but if we don't pass it they can exert another level of control over our lives. I.e. they put us on a "glidepath" to pass the following quarter, which basically means NADA. They don't actually do anything for us but make us feel like outcasts and threaten our progress forward in the nursing program for another quarter. Oh joy, oh joy. Well guess I'd better put in a little effort to pass this HESI so I don't have them looming over me for another quarter :)

Laughter and Theories...

The countdown continues to summer break and the only thing that stands in my way is passing my psychiatric nursing final exam and finishing the HESI. Today I went up to school to pick up my paperwork, and feared that I might have to do better on my final than I first thought considering my classmates are ranting and raving about how crazy our instructor is. I'd just gotten to the box where we pick up our assignments when I looked over at our instructor's office and saw the funniest thing ever. "Those who care...TEACH." Now, this made me laugh out loud, and thankfully the secretary that is normally there was on her lunch break. First of all, has anyone in my class felt "caring" from this instructor. I'm going to go with no. Secondly, there has been very little "teaching" going on. I can give her a slight break because it's summer and we've been pretty lazy as a class, but then again there have been many, many b.s. assignments. Once I picked up my paper and got my grades I realized that my theory rings true.

I have this theory, along with many of my classmates, that this instructor will do everything she can to pass me through this class so that she doesn't have to see me again. It's not a theory that bothers me at all, because I am the last person who wants to spend more time with this lady. In fact, I said that if they tried to make me take this class again I would transfer schools. This is incongruent with the fact that I should be studying for my final right now instead of putting up a posting on my blog, but oh well. Countdown to vacation...2 days, 1 final and 1 HESI. More updates to follow.

And in this corner...

One of my classmates is as frustrated as I am with this whole class, and appropriately she sent this email to the group...

yup, so i picked up all of my graded stuff from school yesterday and I was a bit pissed about my paper grade, I will not disclose my grade for it is far to horrid to comment on, but it looks like I do owe someone a punch in the head, this will be occuring the day of the final, preferably after I turn my final in, so if anyone wants to come and bear witness to the blessid event show up around 9:30, 10 am....I won't charge the first time, but the second time I do this, and we all know there will be a second time, there will def be a charge.....

Thank you nurse of PAIN for giving us something to laugh about, but I agree with you that her whole grading criteria blah, blah, blah is no laughing matter. The woman is a psycho. Perhaps that's why she's a psychiatric nurse. When she went into her explanation about how she tried all these different types of nursing and yadda, yadda, yadda I just wanted to punch her as well. Basically what I wanted to say is that she couldn't handle "reality" so she chose psych nursing instead. Are finals over yet ????

The Stupidity Continues

I only have two actual days of interaction with my psychiatric nursing professor left, and right now that is two days too many. I think I should only have to deal with this madness for 5 more minutes because she is already driving me nutso. Needless to say the fun cannot end in this class until we do a "clinical summary." What is the purpose behind it you may ask, but the answer to the question is simple...THERE IS NO PURPOSE. It's just another assignment for us to do. It's 5% of our grade, which means that if you don't do it you lose 5 points and if you even attempt to do it your grade won't be impacted. The stupid part is that yesterday all the information from the site for the course was deleted. Hmmmm, I wonder who did that. Now how is this instructor going to delete everything and then expect us to turn in our clinical summary. The best was the following message she sent to us:

"I was not able to get everyone's summary. I could not open it. You may have to email it to me or give me a hard copy."

DUH.....first of all you didn't set it up properly for us to upload it to the folder you wanted us to put it in. Secondly, you deleted the electronic document the day before we needed to turn it in. Now, how are we supposed to actually do this work if she's deleting things willy nilly. Then she has the audacity to email this around. Gimme a break. Gimme a break......Will the stupidity ever end ???????

Countdown to vacation...7 days

In Nascar they do the "countdown to green" before the races, and now in my life I'm on the countdown for everything. Countdown to vacation 7 days, countdown to the night race at Bristol 17 days, and countdown to graduation from nursing school 199 days. For some reason I think it makes time management and life a little more "manageable." The sooner they get here the better. Now that psychiatric nursing class and clinicals are over I just have to focus on passing the final and the HESI. Let's just say I will study until I turn blue in the face to be able to pass this class and get out of there and not have to spend anymore time in psychiatric nursing. I think part of the reason I'm taking a vacation is solely to get my "mental health" back. Seriously...I cannot wait to go on vacation.

Bloodshot Eyes and Sleeping Through Clinicals.

Needless to say the "case study" is now done, bound and ready to be turned in a 2 p.m. CST. I don't know how well my grade will come out considering it was thrown together somewhere between 11:45 p.m. and 3:00 a.m. See Edward, I was up working just as long as you were. Anyways, so I'm running a wee bit late this a.m. because I had to print out my reference pages and then go and get the whole thing bound. I do the honorable thing and call my professor to let her know that I'm running late. The conversation goes something like this...

Me, "Dr. XXXX, it's Susan. I'm going to be about 15 minutes late this morning because I'm having car issues."
Her, "Okay Susan, just go straight to your unit."

Translation...she wasn't there either and wasn't going to be there anytime before I was going to get there. HA....So I went and got my paper bound and then didn't stop to eat breakfast because I decided that I needed to move along to clinicals. I pull in to park and bam there's my professor sitting there scraping her inspection sticker off her car. Now....did she get a ticket on the way in for an expired inspection sticker ??? Hmmm, what? Oh well, she didn't even see me. Whoo...scott free. Now I can feel free to relax for the rest of the day on my "unit."

Needless to say after no sleep I'm hoping to get some shuteye on the unit, but I'm not seeing that happen. Afterall, my eyes must remain open to stalk and watch all the interesting and mind-numbing behavior of the adolescents. Whoo...last day and counting. Next it's onward and upward to better things. Now all I have to do is survive the final and the HESI. More commentary on the HESI and other "wastes of my time." If only I could learn to sleep with my eyes open.

Case Study Nutcase!?!?!

Every quarter of nursing school without fail requires us to do some huge, drawn-out case study about something that most of us could care less about. It's like a right of passage to get to the next level. I already have a minor in English, so my writing abilities have been validated. Now I have to spend every quarter doing some long drawn-out process of trying to throw something together at the last minute, because if I even think about starting earlier than the night before it turns out like total crap. Why are they making 10% of every single one of our courses some sort of hell-project? I guess it's all part of the progress of rights of passage to get through nursing school. It's like a gigantic care plan gone mad. Care plans are the bain of our existence in nursing school and shock and horror hit all of us in school when we first went to clinicals and realized that NO ONE DOES THEM IN THE REAL WORLD. Argh, is all this stuff more useless knowledge they're making us obtain?

Meanwhile my classmates choose to deal with the case study somewhat differently. You've got my co-procrastinators that tend to freak out a little bit about it when their peers seem to have everything "under control." It's all a facade. These "under control" people are doing it soley because they have NO LIVES. I'm sorry did I mention I work two jobs and babysit in addition to the madness of nursing school? Yeah, not trying to be a "super nerd" in school. I'm just trying to get through. In most schools C=RN, but here it's B=RN. Well, as far as I'm concerned as long as I graduate with whatever average I need to get out and pass my NCLEX exam that's all I care about. Case studies will never be something I will ever use in the "real world." I understand it's about the research process etc..yadda, yadda, yadda. That doesn't make me like it anymore. Amanda, thanks for being a co-procrastinator with me :) As for the others whom already have theirs done...'PTUH.

And what??? Tease it out...

Anyone who is currently in class with me right now knows exactly what I'm talking about from the subject line, and those of you that have yet to experience psychiatric nursing at it's finest will soon understand. Today was another one of those days where you just want to escape from clinicals and go running out of there like a truly "crazy" person. My unit buddy and I were bored from the very beginning and then they made us go to this DBT group where the room was about 90 degrees. Ya, sitting in a hot room with a bunch of adolescents watching them play with scrunchies was really high on my priority list when I woke up this a.m. Needless to say the rest of the a.m. was spent roaming through the charts to determine if any of them were worthy of us actually doing a care plan on. Yep, you guessed it...nope but we still had to get info on at least two of them.

The highlight of our day. Then it was time for "post clinical conference." Let me just tell you this is supposed to be the highlight of our day because it signals clinicals are over for the day and it's usually low stress. Today we had to give presentations, and they were good presentations even if I do say so myself, but then our 'instructor' launches into all these "dissertation points" or something like that. I'm thinking if she really wanted to teach the subject she should've just done it instead of assigning it for 5% of our grade. Ya...5%. Basically, I could've had a monkey do the assignment and it wouldn't have affected my final grade at all. Ah...one has to love the trials and tribulations of doing this stuff for nursing school. Stress relief needed? DEFINITELY.