Summertime

I'm starting to run out of homework to do as the semester is FINALLY coming to a close. I had some fun today and made a new song playlist of summertime songs. There's tons! I typed in summer to the search box and it come up with over 2,000 songs :). So I'm going to enjoy the rest of my summer to some good music.

Update

Hi all! Today was my last day of clinical at the nursing home, woohoo! It was certainly an experience over all, but it was hard and I don't think I'll miss it. Things I learned: to be more confident with myself and my abilities, be comfortable doing the things necessary to help people no matter how gross it is, nothing in real life nursing is textbook, talking about sensitive subjects with patients, I don't want to work in the nursing home, I don't want to be a nurse's aide in a nursing home, and I don't want to put my parents in a nursing home.

This summer is almost over. I can't believe how fast it flew by! I have two assignments due tomorrow, a test and a final and then I'm done with my classes. It's so awesome! I think I deserve a three week break that I'll get before fall starts.

I am definitely psyched to start fall semester. It is going to be a lot of work, but I am going to learn so much! MedSurg is when I really learn my skills for being a nurse (what farther along students have said). I will get to observe surgeries and pass medications and clean wounds, all sorts of fun gory stuff :)

Leave a memory

1. Leave a comment on my blog, one memory of you and I together. It doesn't matter if you know me a little or a lot, anything you remember.
2. Copy and paste these instructions to your own blog and read the memories people have of you.
:)

Update on the test

It was keyed wrong so the computer scored it lower than it should have. I got a 93, woohoo! Plus she hasn't gone through and looked at bad questions to throw out yet. So it may go up.

What do you call a nurse that graduates with B's?

I think I suck at being a nursing student. I always got really good grades during my pre-reqs and studied a lot. Now I study A TON and I'm really not doing so well. I am really good at practical stuff, hands-on, procedures, things that are important, but written tests, not so much. But what do they call a nurse that graduates with B's? An RN. That's what I've decided my new motto is. I will still try my best but I'm not going to freak out if only get an 86 on the test I just took when I was positive that I only missed 3 questions. Ok, I'm over it.

Okay some more frustrations and then I will end on a happy story that happened during clinical. Sometimes I wonder about our classes. I feel like some of the things we do are complete waste of time. How have the students before us not stood up and said something about this before us? Whatever their reasons, I don't care. I am standing up. I'm currently drafting a letter to the dean of the college requesting an entire change in the layout of our Nursing Research class. I have legitimate reasons why we don't need to spend class time on certain topics because we have already learned them in many of our other classes and it's just useless repeat. I am being very professional and not just complaining but offering a real solution to the problem. The other stupid class I have is what we call, Communication Lab. Now this class, unlike research has a lot of potential to be beneficial, it is just going in the completely wrong direction. Right now it's basically a relief society lesson every week. Let's learn how to be compassionate and listen to our patients. Okay, first of all, how could a person even get through life this far without doing some of these things. Second, don't you think that we already know how to do this otherwise we wouldn't really want to be a nurse? Some things that have been suggested this semester are aspects of communication that we actually need to learn how to do like: talk to a doctor, put disease explanations into layman's terms, handle workplace conflicts, get telephone orders, handle combative patients.

Okay, I'm done complaining. I have a patient that I'm responsible for in the nursing home, we'll call her Ann. Ann, on a first meeting is not a very nice person. She has something called, agorphobia, which is fear of people or social situations. You can only imagine. Each morning, "good morning, Ann"..."TURN THE DAMN LIGHTS OFF!" It is actually quite hilarious at times, but it does start to get old. Because of her surface negative attitude nobody spends any time with her. She doesn't like to get out of bed and tells people to leave her alone and turn the lights off. Well, I decided to try a little bit harder. We have a lot of down time during clinical so lucky I was able to do this and it was really neat for me. Luckily Ann was in a little bit better mood one morning and was willing to go down to the Dining Room to eat breakfast. When she came back to her room she was grumpy and asked me turn to the lights off. I did but I stayed in there with her. I talked with her, mostly just coaxed her to talk by asking questions about some pictures that she had and an Elvis movie that she had on her table. She got to talking a little bit to me. She has slight dementia, but she knows that she does so she couldn't remember a lot but I think it was nice for her to have someone to talk to. No one even put forth any effort before. Well soon enough, 9am rolled around and that means The Price is Right, definitely can't talk during that. But I sat with her. After about 20 minutes of just sitting with her I got up to go and Ann said, "You leavin already?" I said I just had to go check a couple things and asked if she needed anything. "She said, you've done more than enough. Thank you." That is huge for Ann!! Usually she kicks people out of the room. It was so cool for me.

You never know what's underneath that first layer of someone. First impressions are not always correct. Give people some time and you may make there day and/or your own.

The Dark Knight

Oh my gosh, this was the best movie that I have seen in a really long time. I saw it on Friday night with a group of friends and it was an experience! Even still I'm not quite sure how to describe it except incredible amazing, in every aspect. The acting, special effects, story line, everything about it was out of this world. Christian Bale was of course, gorgeous. Heath Ledger, not so gorgeous, but did an outstanding job as the Joker. If you are going to see it, I would most definitely heed the MPAA rating, PG-13. The Joker was scary and creepy (he's a masochistic serial killer if that gives you an idea). Don't bring your kids to see this movie, Ledger will probably give them nightmares, as he did himself. But I would definitely recommend seeing it on the big screen, it will probably be in theaters for quite some time. I read that it broke the record for midnight showings sales, not surprised. It was edge of your seat the entire time! I quite literally was sitting on the edge of my seat, and I no longer have fingernails. Unpredictable, it breaks all the rules of storytelling and is just awesome! GO SEE IT!!!!!

Some great quotes:
"You complete me."
"You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villian."
"You like ballet, then?"
"Should I go to the hospital?"
"Conspirator? I'm going to tell them the whole thing was your idea."

PS: Did anyone else know that Aaron Eckhart, the guy who plays Harvey Dent/Two Face, was Mormon??? He went to BYU to study film.

Cha Cha Cha

I'd like to formally announce how totally awesome my roomie Cha is. She was accepted to the Accounting program at BYU which is among the highest ranked, most competitive programs in the country. The Marriott School surpasses even some of the Ivy League schools with this program.

CONGRATS CHA!!!!!

Picture taken by my other totally awesome x-roomie, Sarah.
Breanne, you're totally awesome too!!!!
:)

PEACHES!

I've discovered something strange about myself since coming to school (a pretty broad statement I know). It's about my eating habits. When I lived at home, mom did the groceries (or at least she made the list for groceries) and the food that was in the house was there for the eating. I used to be a picky eater growing up, but I'm not so much anymore. I'll eat almost anything. Now when I go to store I'll see something (like peaches) and say in my head, "I don't like those." But then the next week I'll come back the the store and see them again and say, "peaches sound good. I think I get a couple." So I'll buy some. Then when I am sick and tired of doing homework, I'll walk to the kitchen eat a peach and be amazed at how delicious it was, then come tell you. So I don't really get me. How could I think that I don't like peaches? They are so yummy!

...speaking of peaches, I saw A League of Their Own for the first time this weekend. Good movie. Their baseball team is "the Peaches"

I love to laugh, ha ha ha

Name that movie, anyone? Well I am writing a paper for my nursing research class right now on the topic of my choice. I decided to write it on the current research regarding laughter. I've found some pretty amazing stuff so I decided to share it all. First all in order for humor/laughter to work, you have to laugh out loud (that's what the findings are saying). Being exposed to something humorous and not laughing has bad effects on your body. So let yourself go and laugh at things, don't hold back. Laughter boosts the immune system. Your immune system cells can stay elevated for 24 hours after exposure to laughter. People that laugh in groups have a more positive effects than people that laugh alone. Laughter also increases levels of Dopamine and Seratonin which are the hormones low in people with Depression. People that laugh out loud have a higher pain threshold, meaning they can tolerate more discomfort without it becoming pain. Laughter has a long term effect on cortisol levels. Cortisol is the stress hormone in our body. The laughter decreases levels of cortisol thus allowing us to cope with difficult situations. One study found that people with Atopic Dermatitis (a chronic allergic reaction of the skin) had less severe outbreaks following times of laughter and that the blood components that fight off the reactions were higher in these individuals. These are all the physiologic parts of laughter. You don't have to have a PhD to know that laughter is good for you. So go ahead, laugh your heads off.

Have you ever asked your child a question too many times? My three-year-old son had a lot of problems with potty training and I was on him constantly. One day we stopped at Taco Bell for a quick lunch, in between errands. It was very busy, with a full dining room. While enjoying my taco, I smelled something funny, so of course I checked my seven-month-old daughter, she was clean. Then I realized that Danny had not asked to go potty in a while. I asked him if he needed to go, and he said "No". I kept thinking "Oh Lord, that child has had an accident, and I don't have any clothes with me." Then I said, "Danny, are you SURE you didn't have an accident?"

"No," he replied. I just KNEW that he must have had an accident, because the smell was getting worse. Soooo, I asked one more time, "Danny did you have an accident? This time he jumped up, yanked down his pants, Bent over, spread his cheeks,

And yelled, "SEE MOM, IT'S JUST FARTS!!"

While 30 people nearly choked to death on their tacos laughing, he calmly pulled up his pants and sat down. An old couple made me feel better, thanking me for the best laugh they'd ever had!

Telephone Pictionary

We had a good Family Home Evening tonight. We played this really hilarious game. You should try it sometime with a group of friends. It's called Telephone Pictionary. Everyone sits in a circle. Each person writes a sentence at the top of a piece of paper (full 8 1/2 x 11). They pass it to the next person and that person draws a picture of the sentence. Usually it's good to set a timer of maybe 2 minutes for the drawing parts. After the person is done drawing they fold the top sentence down so that the next person can't see it. You pass it along and the next person writes a sentence of what they think the picture is. You keep passing it around the circle making sure that the next person can only see the last step above them, whether it be a picture or a sentence. You stop when the paper gets full or the story gets back to the original person. Everyone reads their stories aloud and shows the pictures. Guaranteed to make every laugh!
Here are some of ours from tonight:

The past few days

I haven't said much in the past days about things going on. The past week has had its ups and downs. I started getting sick on Tuesday and by Wednesday I KNEW it was a sinus infection, not good news for me. I got them a lot when I was younger and they will last for 2-3 weeks at a time. I went into the doctor Thursday and got some antibiotics (it feels weird writing that out, we have so many abbreviations in nursing, and we can make just about anything into an abbreviation. Antibiotics is abx.) I'm doing much better now. Wednesday and Thursday were my first day of clinical and Thursday was my first day of being a nurse. I gave medications to my first patient. :) After clinical on Thursday I went home and napped because I wanted to make sure I got better as soon as possible, I cannot afford to miss any school, as much as I'd like to. Friday I was a little more productive, we had no classes. I cleaned my room a little bit (and by a little bit I mean picked up dirty clothes) and did some laundry. Friday night I watched the fireworks, totally amazingly awesome. Saturday I did some homework and then volunteered at Freedom Festival. Freedom Festival is an event that the city of Provo puts on each year for the few days before and after 4th of July, it's basically like a county fair. I helped with some kid crafts, that was fun. Sunday was really nice. We had some great lessons at church. It was sort of a bittersweet day as my family is gathered in Cleveland for Julie's baby blessing and I'm not there with them. Which brings us to today, Monday. I got onto Janelle's blog and saw her template layout and got jealous so I went to the site that she got hers from and got my own. I really like it, I think I'll keep it around for a while.

Tagged

Jeannie tagged me!

8 things I'm passionate about: (no particular order)
Nursing
Sleeping
The Gospel
Not stressing out over stuff I can't change
Cooking
My family
Learning what I can
Ice cream

8 books I've read and enjoyed:
The Book of Mormon
Angels and Demons
Harry Potter series
I have to come up with 8...?
My nursing textbooks
The Secret Life of Bees
The Brothers Karamozov
The Odyssey

8 Things or words I say often:
I love you
I hate nursing research (a totally pointless class that I am in right now)
What's for dinner?
What's due next?
I'm tired
It's a beautiful day outside
How'd the test go?
I miss you

8 Things I want to do before I die (not in any order):
Visit all 50 states
Be an ER nurse
Visit Italy and Greece
Be a grandma
Be an emergency natural disaster relief nurse (work for American Red Cross)
Be married in the temple
Own a second house in some really cool getaway place in the middle of no where
Race car drive

8 Things I have Learned (or remembered, again) this past year:
I don't stress out over stuff that isn't in my control
Reading the scriptures makes my day better
Tolerance of annoying people
Forgiveness of those that have wronged me
Going to school year round isn't fun
Procrastination isn't healthy
I have learned a lot of academic stuff and skills :) not necessarily life lessons, but important
To be less judgmental of people

8 People I want to Tag:
Well, I don't really read that many blogs so I'm not going to tag anyone. :)

Happy 4th!

Just want to write and wish everyone a Happy Independence Day this weekend. Remember that this holiday isn't just about barbecues, pool parties, and fireworks, although all very important. Think about the ability you have to celebrate in these ways because of the sacrifices our fore fathers made to let us live in The United States of America. BE SAFE AND HAVE FUN!!!