The Sanborns

I am so stressed out right now. I finished my Patho podcast, only to realize it cut off before the last chapter. This was a pocast the professor put up, so I’m screwed and have to teach myself the chapter. The test is on Monday and I think it’s so unfair that we still have the test, even though we missed another class this past Monday due to snow. She flew through the material in the hour we met, but it was 3 hours worth of material in 1, not cool.

I also didn’t have study group this week because no one could come and I’m super stressed about not doing well since I’ve discovered study group helps me so much.

Add to the stress of making sure we have enough money to pay for my dental fillings in March AND save back enough money to live in April thanks to losing $400 from our paycheck. I guess there goes our vacation fund unless something else happens… I just want a vacation, we finally paid off credit card debt and have money for a change!

So yeah, emotional vomiting going on right now, I think it’s time to go study some more. I need to just give all of this over to God.

I came out of this week feeling like a failure. I made a C- on my nursing test, which is really a D on their scale, but I’m calling it a C- because in the normal grade scale, that’s what it is! However, it’s not considered passing for Nursing school. sigh.

I’ve had a lot on my mind this week and haven’t been able to put anything into words. The private post (which btw, you guys can ask for the pw if you want to read, if I didn’t want anybody reading it, I would have made it private. I just wanted better control over who read it.) helped me a lot, but I’m still struggling in some areas.

I’ve lost some weight this week. Not a significant amount, but a little bit and that’s comforting to me. Nursing school makes it impossible to eat a balanced diet, but I’m trying to spread snacks throughout the day so I’m not starving in lectures.

I went to the dentist Tuesday afternoon and got some surprising news. This is a new dentist for our family and I really enjoyed the experience. The staff were all nice and caring and I knew they weren’t trying to rip me off. I didn’t exactly have that issue with the one I went to in December, it’s just that my insurance doesn’t cover them.

Immediately there were big differences between the two dentists. My new dentist office makes me feel like a queen. They take care of you down to the little details. It was so nice. They also informed me that I will not be getting my wisdom teeth out anytime soon. Apparently the way the bottom tooth is growing it will be very hard to take out and so unless it starts bothering me, they won’t be removing anything. I will be having fillings in March, during my spring break. Two days of torture, hmm.

Aside from all of this mess was the snow storm. We got quite a bit for TN and ended up getting out of school/work. At first I was excited, but then I realized that Gray and I lost $100 total from our paychecks which is not really good when you have limited income anyway. Luckily, it looks as though we will both be very close to 80 hours so it shouldn’t affect too much. It was just extra income we lost, which would have been nice, but at least it’s not horrible.

Speaking of money, we will (hopefully) be meeting a goal of ours in a few weeks and I will be very excited when it happens. Until then, we are going to enjoy the weekend, which includes a murder mystery party, yahoo!

Thanks everyone for the supportive comments on the weight-loss. It really does help to have a team behind you, encouraging the best.

First off, nursing classes started yesterday and I’m not sure how to feel about them. They are supposed to be 3 hours long and meet once a week but both of my Wednesday classes were out before 2 hours had gone by. I realize this won’t happen every week, but it was nice, except for the huge gap I had between the two classes. One of those classes won’t even meet but once a month on campus. I wish they would tell you these things before you sign up for the class.

Speaking of nursing, one things I’ve noticed and I don’t appreciate, nursing school seems to think that only their schedules matter. I was told I would have to stay late for lab the first time, well I work right after lab. It just seems that they feel they can switch stuff around and we deal with it. For example, I have to take the HESI on a Thursday in April, during a time in which I am working. I will lose four hours of work because of this, almost 50 dollars lost because they schedule a test on that day. I’m beginning to realize that working is going to be tough in the future and it makes me wary.

I am a little overwhelmed by everything because my nursing class is 75 people and right now I know maybe 5 of them pretty well through past classes. From what I’ve heard, the class will more than likely shrink after taking Patho, a class I’m going to have to kick and fight to stay alive during.

I have other thoughts, but I’ll probably end up having to do a private post sometime soon. I’ve learned not to express thoughts that you don’t want others to read. They can backlash at you, not fun. Of course, I still want to express myself, but sometimes my thoughts are petty and selfish and not everyone needs to read those thoughts.

One last nursing school story: So on orientation day we were told if we had no scanned our IDs and payed for malpractice insurance we needed to do so. Well, I had done both, but I wasn’t sure my ID was scanned into the system. I didn’t bother going to anyone because I figured if I couldn’t get into the computer lab, I’d just let them know and they could fix it. Imagine my distress when I tried to go into the computer lab yesterday. Another girl was having issues as well but I just figured her ID wasn’t in the system like mine. So I went down two doors to the office to ask them about scanning my ID.

Whatcha need?

Well, my…

Let me guess, your ID isn’t working.

Yes…

OK, I’ll let you in.

Is it not working?

It’s not letting anyone in.

Oh.

Needless to say, I’m probably not going to know if my ID is working until I go back and try again but I’d feel rather silly going in to the office again. However, the secretary knows me and that I am in the school, so it’s made for less hassle.

I’m sure I’ll have more stories to tell, nursing school can get pretty interesting!

School has started back and we find ourselves renewed. It’s the point in the semester where I can take on anything and everything and I am trying to channel that energy into usefulness.

I’ve dealt with a few issues the past week regarding my books. Wednesday, at my orientation, they showed us how to use Pageburst, this new software that has all my books and I can highlight whatever I want to and make notes, etc. Well, it’s been acting up since that day so I haven’t been able to do much with it. Then today at work, I checked the course website to see that I had the wrong book for my Pathophysiology class so I had to get the receipt and exchange the book for an older edition. Needless to say, I had already read one chapter in the old book so now I’m kind of not wanting to put forth the effort to read in the new book, but I will.

I actually put on my calendar all the test dates that I could say for my classes and then I felt very overwhelmed. It’s going to be intense and I know I will get used to the schedule, but right now I’m ready to dive in and try. Nursing school classes are done once a week so I have plenty of time for work and study this semester and I’m going to force myself to use it all, starting with getting ahead with my reading.

Gray has been pretty busy as well. He has started several of his classes and seems to be doing well, and I’m going to make sure he doesn’t freak out about any of them. We’re both glad to be back to a schedule and routine, with a normal bedtime. Today was our first day working on a Saturday, something that we didn’t want to choose, but it was necessary.

Here’s hoping to kicking some major butt this semester, because I plan to take Pathophysiology down.

First, some pictures…

On the 9th of January, Gray and I went to visit with Teresa and Ryo, her Japanese boyfriend. It was so much fun to see others I hadn’t seen in years and Teresa, of course! I am excited that I get to see her again later this year, it will be a good time.

Sunday I held a house party for the new game Your Shape for the Wii. Because of some circumstances, only two girls were able to show up, but it was probably for the best as I don’t have a lot of room or extra controllers. We all tried the game out and then played another game they sent me call Just Dance. I had some veggies with ranch dip and then the new Jello Mousse for people to try. I love the Jello mousse!

Yesterday I went and ran a few errands. First we tracked down a Redbox to find the new Final Destination movie since we had a free rental code. Then it was off to AT&T to swap out my old phone for my new phone (that is the exact same as my old phone). Finally, we dropped by campus to get my books and look up Gray’s. These are the majority of my books and I’m only taking four classes. One class DOES have a lab though.

Speaking of school, I was looking through my syllabuses, trying to wrap myself around everything and noticed I’m going to need some more stuff, specifically a clicker and a skills kit. I knew it would cost me more money, but I’m just sad that I have to part with more money.

Today I am going to pick up an extra DVD and perhaps later today we will go be social with some of the Cru kids.

The past few days will live on infamy, mainly because the Nashville metro area was promised snow and we barely got any. It was ridiculous. Gray and I had to get out in the snow and drive to campus because of my nursing physical and I have to say, it wasn’t nearly as bad as the weather man said. Of course, it never is down here, we just don’t get much snow!

The most interesting thing about the snow was that when we returned from my physical, there were little bird footprints!

Anyway, my nursing physical… let’s talk about that ordeal. I got there right around on time and was actually called back within minutes! This is the health services I’ve come to know (very well). I had quite a bit to “do”, including the basics of physicals (weight, height, ears, eyes, etc) and some lab work. I had to give MORE blood, this time to make sure my blood counts are normal. They are apparently perfect, hooray!

After some more waiting, it was time for a lot more paperwork and MORE vaccines. Yes, more vaccines, ugh. I had to get a tetanus (Dtap) vaccine and since it was free, I got the H1N1 vaccine. I was a little iffy about getting it, but since free turned out to be paid for with my tuition, I said sure.

We finished my paperwork and I went home… only to realize not all of my paperwork was done. So back we drove to campus, only to find out that everyone was at lunch. Gray and I decided to get lunch ourselves at Taco Bell. Mhmm.

A quick visit back to health services fixed the paperwork and we came home once again. I ended up scanning all my paperwork and emailed it to Accusource, the company that is keeping track of it all for me. I was able to confirm with them that it has been received, so I am pretty happy.

My left arm is definitely not happy with the Dtap vaccine, but the right arm seems to be having no problems with the H1N1 vaccine. I have spent most of the afternoon playing the Sims 3 (World Adventures) and I just finished “Julie/Julia” which I highly recommend if you enjoying cooking, blogging, or both!

Monday morning I had an appointment at health services to get blood work done. Basically, they took my blood so that someone can see if I have antibodies for certain diseases. I took several immunizations this past semester for nursing school and it’s important to see if they did their job. However, if I still don’t have immunity, I just sign a waiver and continue on with life.

We arrived and I signed in more than on time and then I proceeded to wait for almost 30 minutes. I am not kidding. I was the first person there and I still had to wait that long! Ridiculous. When I finally went back, it took five minutes to get me in and out. Seriously. We get charged a fee if we don’t show up, so why can’t I charge them for taking up my time?

Anyway, the lady went over everything with me and I was able to schedule my physical appointment for Friday morning. After that, I will be DONE with all these requirements and just have to submit all my paperwork.

The other thing that I’ve been trying to do is eat healthier. It’s hard to do when it seems like all we have in the apt. right now is junk food, but I’m making it alright. Today I started tracking what I ate and I’ve been constantly refilling my water bottle. I’m determined to get some exercise in this afternoon as well. Yesterday I did my new Your Shape game and it was awesome. I totally was sweating and I only worked out for fifteen minutes. It is definitely my new workout toy. I’m going to try and use my new heart rate monitor watch with it and see what happens.

So my new goals for the rest of this week are to track what I eat (every little bit) and to drink at least 8 cups of water each day. I’m starting out simple and hoping for big results!

I’m not doing resolutions this year because I’m still doing the 101 things in 1001 days. Instead, my goal is to participate in project 365. I will post pictures here occasionally but most of them will be in my flickr account.

New Years day I hung out with Trina. We grabbed lunch at Demos, a favorite in these parts. Then we went to Target and Wal-greens where I purchased a new purse, some sinus rinse refills, and some more facial lotion.

After that we went back to Trina’s to try out her New Moon game.

The object is to collect all the scenes and Bella and Edward cards. You do this by answering trivia questions and a lot of luck. We were surprised at how fun it turned out to be and it wasn’t super hard. I wasn’t a huge fan of the book when I first read it but I still knew most of the questions, except for the Voltari because apparently I didn’t pay close attention to them.

We had snow on the ground Saturday morning!

Saturday afternoon we drove over to the new, big Embassy Suites hotel in town. We decided to do a staycation and check out the new hotel, rather than driving to Nashville.

We were both really impressed with the hotel. I should have taken more pictures, but it has a huge atrium in the lobby. They gave us complimentary cocktails from 5:30-7:30 p.m. and then we got a complimentary hot and cooked breakfast this morning. We also discovered some free water bottles in our fridge because we are Hilton Honors members. Gray signed us up when we got married and stay the wedding night in a HIlton Hotel.

Anyways… it was pretty fun and something different for us to do. Now we have to go back to the mundane. Tomorrow I’m getting blood work done so we can figure out if I have immunity for all those vaccines I did last year. Last year, haha!

We have less than two weeks before work begins again. After tomorrow I should know when my physical is for nursing and then I have nursing orientation and I will be all ready for the spring semester. Woohoo!

What? I have a blog? Just kidding.

I haven’t posted all week long because this was my last week of h***. Aka, school week of craziness.

I survived!

I had a Micro lab practical on Wednesday and my Nursing final on Thursday. I’m not sure about the practical yet, but I made a B on the Nursing final and thus, an A in my class. Woohoo! I was joking yesterday about how sad it would be to fail the 1 hour nursing class when we only get one class to fail in nursing school and I still have to go through A LOT.

Anyway, that’s what has consumed my time this past week. Last night Gray and I sat down and watch a MOVIE together. This is not that exciting to anyone else but us because we haven’t done it in forever. At least not at home without each other being on our laptops. Ok, so I used mine for the last fifteen minutes. Really, it’s because I was dead tired and almost fell asleep and there was still about 30 minutes to go in the movie.

I will say that the movie (Up, btw) was really sad and made me cry, but the ending was better than I thought. 5 stars for Pixar!

We’re going to see A Christmas Carol this weekend with our free movie tickets. It’s going to be awesome because Jim Carey is Scrooge.

Let’s see, what else… OH! I am going this afternoon to take a class and get CPR certified, woohoo! All I have left to finalize for nursing school is the following:
- Have final fall transcript sent to school when grades are posted
- get CPR certified
- get titers re-drawn (must be AFTER Dec. 30)
- get physical
- submit results from titers to Accusource.
- purchase malpractice insurance from school

It’s really not as much as it seems because I’ve done so much of it already. We do orientation the day before school starts.

I also finally registered for classes and signed up for hours at work. I will be in class M-W and I work M-Saturday. So, only one full day off, but I will say two of those days only have one hour of work, so I’m not sure how much they truly count. I am signed up for Pathophysiology, Health Assessment (with lab), Health and Gerontology, and Special Topics: Spirituality.

I am pretty excited, but I still need to finish all this paperwork and pass Microbiology, eep!

So I made it through another year of posting every day in November. It was a lot easier this year, probably because I wrote a lot of drafts to remember things to blog about. I also scheduled some posts ahead of time due to the holidays.

There is more to write about coming soon as today I am getting dose two of the varicella (chicken pox) vaccine. Ugh.

This week is full of a lot to do and let’s face it, the end of the semester is usually pretty insane.

Here’s hoping I can make it through the next three (?) weeks until Christmas break!