Saturday, September 13, 2008
Thursday, September 11, 2008
My September 11th
There are very few days in a person's life that they will remember absolutely every detail of. Baptisms, weddings, births of children/grandchildren, and tragedies. I think (and hope) the September 11, 2001 is a day that we never forget. Here's my story of this day 7 years ago:
I was 13 years old and had been living in Connecticut for a grand total of 15 days. I knew nothing about the east coast except that New York and Washington DC were both located on it. I was in Mrs. Keeler's science class when the first plane hit. We however didn't have the TV on so we didn't know anything was happening until the bell rang about 15 minutes later and the buzz through the hallway spread like wildfire. I remember being so confused. People were telling me the Pentagon had been hit. I remember asking someone what the Pentagon was, I didn't know. I didn't know what the World Trade Center was or had even ever heard of it. Five minutes of passing time goes by and I'm sitting in Miss Tozzo's drama class. We are all gathered around the TV watching the news coverage. They are showing a live feed of the burning WTC, then all of a sudden...a plane comes in from the side of the screen and crashes into eh building. The reactions in the room from a bunch of 8th graders were mixed as you can imagine. Some laughed because that's what people sometimes do when they don't know how to react. Some people weren't paying any attention because the were too busy messing around doing whatever 8th graders do. I was awestruck and dumbfounded. I didn't know what to think, I didn't know what was going on and what people were talking about, and I remember being absolutely mortified by the people laughing. People were saying that the terrorists could be headed for Haddam (the town of my high school) because of the nuclear plant there. I realized after a few minutes that my dad was supposed to be flying out that morning on a business trip. I called from school (I can't remember if I talked to my mom or dad) and found out that he hadn't left and obviously wasn't going anywhere for a while. Miss Tozzo turned the TV off a little while after and then the loudspeaker came on instructing us that we were to resume with the normal day's activities. I can't remember the rest of the day until I was out of school. We were still living in a hotel at the time and so I wasn't taking the bus home from school yet, my mom was picking me up. Waiting at the door, my mom was a few minutes late, I talked with a high schooler. He told me that all their classes for the day were cancelled and they sat and watched the reports. I remember being jealous because our teachers had kept us out of the loop so much for the whole day. Mom showed up and jumped out of car. As we embraced it was the first time that I cried the whole day. I was scared. It was hard being the new kid, new to the east coast, new to everything, and feeling like we just moved into a war zone (I didn't know the distance to NY). Back at the hotel room that afternoon I remember doing homework and laying the bed with my mom watching the TV screen, watching the replay of the plane hit the building again and again. Saying out loud, "what have moved to? What did we get ourselves into?"
It was an impressionable day and will be with me always. I am so grateful for the men and women that are protecting the country. Thousands have given their lives to fight against the injustice that was done here, one of which attended my high school. Remember them in your prayers, and please don't forget what happened 7 years ago.
I was 13 years old and had been living in Connecticut for a grand total of 15 days. I knew nothing about the east coast except that New York and Washington DC were both located on it. I was in Mrs. Keeler's science class when the first plane hit. We however didn't have the TV on so we didn't know anything was happening until the bell rang about 15 minutes later and the buzz through the hallway spread like wildfire. I remember being so confused. People were telling me the Pentagon had been hit. I remember asking someone what the Pentagon was, I didn't know. I didn't know what the World Trade Center was or had even ever heard of it. Five minutes of passing time goes by and I'm sitting in Miss Tozzo's drama class. We are all gathered around the TV watching the news coverage. They are showing a live feed of the burning WTC, then all of a sudden...a plane comes in from the side of the screen and crashes into eh building. The reactions in the room from a bunch of 8th graders were mixed as you can imagine. Some laughed because that's what people sometimes do when they don't know how to react. Some people weren't paying any attention because the were too busy messing around doing whatever 8th graders do. I was awestruck and dumbfounded. I didn't know what to think, I didn't know what was going on and what people were talking about, and I remember being absolutely mortified by the people laughing. People were saying that the terrorists could be headed for Haddam (the town of my high school) because of the nuclear plant there. I realized after a few minutes that my dad was supposed to be flying out that morning on a business trip. I called from school (I can't remember if I talked to my mom or dad) and found out that he hadn't left and obviously wasn't going anywhere for a while. Miss Tozzo turned the TV off a little while after and then the loudspeaker came on instructing us that we were to resume with the normal day's activities. I can't remember the rest of the day until I was out of school. We were still living in a hotel at the time and so I wasn't taking the bus home from school yet, my mom was picking me up. Waiting at the door, my mom was a few minutes late, I talked with a high schooler. He told me that all their classes for the day were cancelled and they sat and watched the reports. I remember being jealous because our teachers had kept us out of the loop so much for the whole day. Mom showed up and jumped out of car. As we embraced it was the first time that I cried the whole day. I was scared. It was hard being the new kid, new to the east coast, new to everything, and feeling like we just moved into a war zone (I didn't know the distance to NY). Back at the hotel room that afternoon I remember doing homework and laying the bed with my mom watching the TV screen, watching the replay of the plane hit the building again and again. Saying out loud, "what have moved to? What did we get ourselves into?"
It was an impressionable day and will be with me always. I am so grateful for the men and women that are protecting the country. Thousands have given their lives to fight against the injustice that was done here, one of which attended my high school. Remember them in your prayers, and please don't forget what happened 7 years ago.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Nursing, football, nursing, tennis, nursing, church, nursing, nursing....
This first week of school has been the most ridiculous few days. I use that word ridiculous because there has just been so many words to describe everything, I can't possibly pick one! Let's go day by day since my last post.
September 2nd: The first day of school. I was talking to my roommate, Cha who is just starting the accounting program here at BYU. She described it well. It feels like we are starting freshman year all over again in a way. Completely new classes and new people that we HAVE to get to know because they are going to be with us for the rest of our college career. Granted I do have a semester of nursing school under my belt it certainly didn't feel like it on this day! I kind of feel like summer was a complete joke, not really but definitely not serious nursing stuff. But now, it feels more real than ever! I have six hours of lecture on Tuesdays, three in the morning and three in the afternoon. It is so draining.
September 3rd: I had my Doctrine and Covenants class. I'm going to love it! The guy teaching it isn't a religion professor. He's the head of the Biology Dept at BYU and teaches the evolutionary biology classes on campus. He said that sometime during the semester he would give a lecture on evolution and the gospel and I'm really excited. Sometimes BYU students annoy the crap out of me with how close minded they are about things mostly because they don't know what they're talking about so hopefully he'll be able to instill in the minds of some students that God and science can and DO coexist.
I also had my church history class. Susan Easton Black is my professor. I am so lucky to have gotten into her class. She is one of the greatest church historians there is. She's written over 150 books or something. She's hilarious too!
Wednesday afternoon I had a front load lab for nursing. What that means is in these first two weeks of school as nursing students we have 4 hours of lab each week to learn the skills absolutely vital for us to know before we hit the ground running in clinicals. Wednesday we leanred how to scrub down from surgery and prepare a sterile field. We also gave each other IV's. They HURT!!! I had never gotten one before and those are definitely no fun! My friend Megan took pictures of the IV's but I haven't gotten them from her yet. Here's a picture of me all sterile ready for surgery :)
September 4th: PHEW!!!! WHAT-A-DAY!!! This was my first day at the hospital. I started at 5:00am. We got the hospital at 6:45am. The days events: we sat and talked about the semester and assignments for about an hour half (which just confused me more from Tuesday's full day of nursing stuff). We then proceeded to take and 3 hour tour of the floor we would be working on. OR (Operating Room) was by far the coolest! We went into the locker room and had to put on the hospital issued scrubs, booties, and hair covers to go through this part of the hospital. We stopped at one OR and the nurse came out and explained what the surgeon was doing. We cold see the incision up on the screen from outside the room and were watching him open the patient. Unfortunately we had to keep moving but we almost got to see the heart! We continued our tour with the Medical/Telemetry floor, Oncology, Transplant, Trauma, Cardiovascular, and Cath/Endoscopy labs. Then we learned how to chart on the computers. Can I just say I LOVE TECHNOLOGY!!!! Charting by hand on paper over the summer in the nursing homes was just a pain in the behind. I will definitely get used to this whole computer thing :). After that our instructor split us up all over the hospital to shadow a nurse for a couple hours. I was on the Trauma floor. That was interesting. Nothing too thrilling happened, actually it was kind of boring. Hopefully I'll get to see some more action this week!!!
September 5th: Okay, I can breath. I had the day off. And I definitely took it! I did get some new scrubs because my old ones are baggy and boring and I didn't like them. The ones are got are much comfier and more fitting so I don't look like a potato sack.
September 6th: FOOTBALL!!!! My friend Chris has access to a projector through his major and he basically just has it all the time. He came over and we set up the game in my apartment so it was really big up on the wall. My apartment is bigger than his and figured a lot of people would come so we had it in my apartment. It was awesome! Talk about a way close game, TOO close. You've probably heard about the call at the end that Washington was called out for "unsportsmanlike conduct." I thought that was stupid, but whatever. Even if they hadn't been called and we didn't block the kick, Washington only would have tied us, not won like everyone said they were going to. The game would have gone into OT and we would have had possession. So pretty much BYU would have won anyways, and we did. :)
The US Open was this weekend too, although there was some bad weather interruptions that went on. Saturday Federer beat some guy (can't remember the name) to advance to the finals. And Serena Williams also advanced to the finals. Andy Murray and Nadal played the first half of the match before they got rained out on Saturday too.
September 7th: Stake/Regional Conference in the Marriott Center. President Uchtdorf (spelling?) and President Packer both spoke. Sister Dibb who in the general young women's presidency and daughter of President Monson also spoke. It was a great meeting! US Open: Serena won and became #1 in the world again. Murray beat Nadal in the semifinals to play Federer in the finals.
September 8th: Class again :P. This was the first Monday of classes. I finally got myself together and did my homework for all the nursing classes tomorrow. Although today after going through everything is when I realized that I need a secretary to organize my life. I still don't know what I'm doing. On the up side, I got home in time to see the final point of the game in the men's final. I literally turned the TV on as he was serving the last point. Federer won!
I guess after all this what I have to say that I maybe didn't clarify too well is that I'm ok but under a lot of stress and pressure right now. I am having windows of fun but they are short. I am generally a low stress person and can handle things well but right now I am kind of freaking out inside, so keep me in your prayers please. LOVE YOU ALL!!!
September 2nd: The first day of school. I was talking to my roommate, Cha who is just starting the accounting program here at BYU. She described it well. It feels like we are starting freshman year all over again in a way. Completely new classes and new people that we HAVE to get to know because they are going to be with us for the rest of our college career. Granted I do have a semester of nursing school under my belt it certainly didn't feel like it on this day! I kind of feel like summer was a complete joke, not really but definitely not serious nursing stuff. But now, it feels more real than ever! I have six hours of lecture on Tuesdays, three in the morning and three in the afternoon. It is so draining.
September 3rd: I had my Doctrine and Covenants class. I'm going to love it! The guy teaching it isn't a religion professor. He's the head of the Biology Dept at BYU and teaches the evolutionary biology classes on campus. He said that sometime during the semester he would give a lecture on evolution and the gospel and I'm really excited. Sometimes BYU students annoy the crap out of me with how close minded they are about things mostly because they don't know what they're talking about so hopefully he'll be able to instill in the minds of some students that God and science can and DO coexist.
I also had my church history class. Susan Easton Black is my professor. I am so lucky to have gotten into her class. She is one of the greatest church historians there is. She's written over 150 books or something. She's hilarious too!
Wednesday afternoon I had a front load lab for nursing. What that means is in these first two weeks of school as nursing students we have 4 hours of lab each week to learn the skills absolutely vital for us to know before we hit the ground running in clinicals. Wednesday we leanred how to scrub down from surgery and prepare a sterile field. We also gave each other IV's. They HURT!!! I had never gotten one before and those are definitely no fun! My friend Megan took pictures of the IV's but I haven't gotten them from her yet. Here's a picture of me all sterile ready for surgery :)
September 4th: PHEW!!!! WHAT-A-DAY!!! This was my first day at the hospital. I started at 5:00am. We got the hospital at 6:45am. The days events: we sat and talked about the semester and assignments for about an hour half (which just confused me more from Tuesday's full day of nursing stuff). We then proceeded to take and 3 hour tour of the floor we would be working on. OR (Operating Room) was by far the coolest! We went into the locker room and had to put on the hospital issued scrubs, booties, and hair covers to go through this part of the hospital. We stopped at one OR and the nurse came out and explained what the surgeon was doing. We cold see the incision up on the screen from outside the room and were watching him open the patient. Unfortunately we had to keep moving but we almost got to see the heart! We continued our tour with the Medical/Telemetry floor, Oncology, Transplant, Trauma, Cardiovascular, and Cath/Endoscopy labs. Then we learned how to chart on the computers. Can I just say I LOVE TECHNOLOGY!!!! Charting by hand on paper over the summer in the nursing homes was just a pain in the behind. I will definitely get used to this whole computer thing :). After that our instructor split us up all over the hospital to shadow a nurse for a couple hours. I was on the Trauma floor. That was interesting. Nothing too thrilling happened, actually it was kind of boring. Hopefully I'll get to see some more action this week!!!
September 5th: Okay, I can breath. I had the day off. And I definitely took it! I did get some new scrubs because my old ones are baggy and boring and I didn't like them. The ones are got are much comfier and more fitting so I don't look like a potato sack.
September 6th: FOOTBALL!!!! My friend Chris has access to a projector through his major and he basically just has it all the time. He came over and we set up the game in my apartment so it was really big up on the wall. My apartment is bigger than his and figured a lot of people would come so we had it in my apartment. It was awesome! Talk about a way close game, TOO close. You've probably heard about the call at the end that Washington was called out for "unsportsmanlike conduct." I thought that was stupid, but whatever. Even if they hadn't been called and we didn't block the kick, Washington only would have tied us, not won like everyone said they were going to. The game would have gone into OT and we would have had possession. So pretty much BYU would have won anyways, and we did. :)
The US Open was this weekend too, although there was some bad weather interruptions that went on. Saturday Federer beat some guy (can't remember the name) to advance to the finals. And Serena Williams also advanced to the finals. Andy Murray and Nadal played the first half of the match before they got rained out on Saturday too.
September 7th: Stake/Regional Conference in the Marriott Center. President Uchtdorf (spelling?) and President Packer both spoke. Sister Dibb who in the general young women's presidency and daughter of President Monson also spoke. It was a great meeting! US Open: Serena won and became #1 in the world again. Murray beat Nadal in the semifinals to play Federer in the finals.
September 8th: Class again :P. This was the first Monday of classes. I finally got myself together and did my homework for all the nursing classes tomorrow. Although today after going through everything is when I realized that I need a secretary to organize my life. I still don't know what I'm doing. On the up side, I got home in time to see the final point of the game in the men's final. I literally turned the TV on as he was serving the last point. Federer won!
I guess after all this what I have to say that I maybe didn't clarify too well is that I'm ok but under a lot of stress and pressure right now. I am having windows of fun but they are short. I am generally a low stress person and can handle things well but right now I am kind of freaking out inside, so keep me in your prayers please. LOVE YOU ALL!!!
Monday, September 1, 2008
Labor Day weekend
Scratch the hike for today. It's pouring down rain! As fun as thunderstorms are, I think I'd rather be outside playing than inside. We'll see if it clears up later. But on the upside, I did get to sleep in since we didn't leave really early.
Last night I had the Connecticut reunion dinner at my apartment. I invited everyone that I know of that is in Utah right now that went through the youth program in the New Haven Stake back home. It was so great to be able to catch up with people I haven't seen in a year or so. We used to do them pretty often when I was a freshman, but we hadn't had one for a long time so I decided to throw one. Hopefully we'll do it more often!
Last night I had the Connecticut reunion dinner at my apartment. I invited everyone that I know of that is in Utah right now that went through the youth program in the New Haven Stake back home. It was so great to be able to catch up with people I haven't seen in a year or so. We used to do them pretty often when I was a freshman, but we hadn't had one for a long time so I decided to throw one. Hopefully we'll do it more often!
Saturday, August 30, 2008
I LOVE MY LIFE!!!
This has been a totally completely awesome week! I am SERIOUSLY SO BLESSED! (Go read the blog, it's hilarious). I've been hanging out with my mom, my friends and freshman all week and I absolutely LOVED it! Mom was here until Thursday helping situate the apartment and do errands, have fun, buy me things :) it was so great! My bestest buds are also back in town, HOORAY!!!! I was a Y-group leader with my friend Jolysa this week. That means that we were the upper classmen leading around a group of freshman for New Student Orientation all week, giving them the "BYU experience." Sarah flew in from Hawaii, Breanne moved in today, and Cha is coming tomorrow! I miss my roomies and am so excited to have them all here again!!!! Kickoff is in 16 hours, but who's counting? Sunday I am having a Connecticut reunion dinner. There are lots of students here that are from CT so were having a big dinner. I'm going on a hike on Monday and school starts TUESDAY!!!! I can't believe summer is almost done but these three weeks have been so awesome!
...more pictures of the family vacation to come...
...more pictures of the family vacation to come...
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Life is good!
I would just like to say, life is good, life is great!!! Why the last two weeks have been totally awesome: family, friends, Olympics, and learning. I was able to spend time with my family over the last couple of weeks as they were here. We saw some of the Lord's beautiful creations while out and about.
Claymiester and I
Mom was sitting in the car a ways from where this was taken, I don't think she liked this idea very much, but it was fun :)
Clayton and I climbed up this little waterfall, we saw it from the side of the road.
This week was also Education Week at BYU. Ed Week is a week on campus that is filled with classes the whole day everyday for the whole week. To use a word from Three Amigos, there is a "plethora" topics that classes are offered on: Self-improvement, understanding Isiah, nutrition, service, how to endure trials, praying better, ballroom dancing, becoming closer to the Lord, being a better teachers, raising kids, the Savior's life, being a grandparent, youth speakers, law stuff, relationships...to name a few. It was such an awesome week! I am so glad that I got to go. Anyone that has ever thought about going, should go. It's only $50 something for the whole week!
Olympics, AMAZING! I'd like to congratulate US volleyball for an all around awesome Olympic event. Misty May and Kerri Walsh won gold, Rogers and Dalhausser won gold, Women won silver, and THE US MEN'S VOLLEYBALL TEAM WON GOLD!!!!! My personal favorite picture of all time right now, Ryan Millar: (he played and coached by BYU, so I'm kind of partial)
Don't tell NBC I took this picture from their website.
I stayed up late into Friday morning to watch the semifinal match against Russia, I'm glad I did. What a thriller! Five games, so close, jumping up and down, pounding the floor, yelling at the TV. I was going to watch the gold medal match but I got confused with the time change. NBC said it would be on at noon on Sunday, I didn't realize that meant Beijing time. Oh well. I'm so glad for them that they were able to come back and have such an awesome two weeks after the tragedy that they faced at the beginning of the Olympics. Hugh McCutcheon's, the head coach, in-laws were stabbed on the night of the opening ceremony. His father in law died and his mother in law is recovering. He is also a former Cougar and coach the men's team here. Rich Lambourne, the libero for the team also played for BYU. We had a good representation.
Last night I also went up Provo Canyon with a bunch of people. We sat around the fire and just talked for about three hours, had s'mores and watched the stars. It was a great end to an awesome week!
I almost forgot, this upcoming weeks is going to be totally awesome too!!!! I am going to be volunteering for freshman orientation, which is way fun to do. My roomies are coming back to provo, and FOOTBALL ON SATURDAY!!!!
Claymiester and I
Mom was sitting in the car a ways from where this was taken, I don't think she liked this idea very much, but it was fun :)
Clayton and I climbed up this little waterfall, we saw it from the side of the road.
This week was also Education Week at BYU. Ed Week is a week on campus that is filled with classes the whole day everyday for the whole week. To use a word from Three Amigos, there is a "plethora" topics that classes are offered on: Self-improvement, understanding Isiah, nutrition, service, how to endure trials, praying better, ballroom dancing, becoming closer to the Lord, being a better teachers, raising kids, the Savior's life, being a grandparent, youth speakers, law stuff, relationships...to name a few. It was such an awesome week! I am so glad that I got to go. Anyone that has ever thought about going, should go. It's only $50 something for the whole week!
Olympics, AMAZING! I'd like to congratulate US volleyball for an all around awesome Olympic event. Misty May and Kerri Walsh won gold, Rogers and Dalhausser won gold, Women won silver, and THE US MEN'S VOLLEYBALL TEAM WON GOLD!!!!! My personal favorite picture of all time right now, Ryan Millar: (he played and coached by BYU, so I'm kind of partial)
Don't tell NBC I took this picture from their website.I stayed up late into Friday morning to watch the semifinal match against Russia, I'm glad I did. What a thriller! Five games, so close, jumping up and down, pounding the floor, yelling at the TV. I was going to watch the gold medal match but I got confused with the time change. NBC said it would be on at noon on Sunday, I didn't realize that meant Beijing time. Oh well. I'm so glad for them that they were able to come back and have such an awesome two weeks after the tragedy that they faced at the beginning of the Olympics. Hugh McCutcheon's, the head coach, in-laws were stabbed on the night of the opening ceremony. His father in law died and his mother in law is recovering. He is also a former Cougar and coach the men's team here. Rich Lambourne, the libero for the team also played for BYU. We had a good representation.
Last night I also went up Provo Canyon with a bunch of people. We sat around the fire and just talked for about three hours, had s'mores and watched the stars. It was a great end to an awesome week!
I almost forgot, this upcoming weeks is going to be totally awesome too!!!! I am going to be volunteering for freshman orientation, which is way fun to do. My roomies are coming back to provo, and FOOTBALL ON SATURDAY!!!!
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Time for an update
I've realized that it is time for a much needed update. Summer classes ended last week and I now have two weeks off remaining. I finished off everything pretty well and I think that I will do okay in my classes. I did have a scare this morning though. I got online to check what I had gotten on the final and my grade said 85/200, that would be a 42%, which would mean that I would get kicked out of nursing school, they require us get a 75% on all our tests. I talked to a couple people that said our professor entered our percentage grades not the points we earned. So I actually got an 85% on the test, good enough for an A- all around in the class, so that's good.
I bought my books today for my fall nursing classes, $260. My MedSurg book is the biggest textbook I've seen in my entire life! 2217 pages which doesn't include the index or the front intro stuff. I also went on an adventure today to look for some kind of PDA that I can put my reference books on so that I can carry them around with me at clinical in the fall like my dictionary, drug guide, and test results guide. I found out that PDA's no longer exist, old technology. So I am contemplating buying a Blackberry.
I bought my books today for my fall nursing classes, $260. My MedSurg book is the biggest textbook I've seen in my entire life! 2217 pages which doesn't include the index or the front intro stuff. I also went on an adventure today to look for some kind of PDA that I can put my reference books on so that I can carry them around with me at clinical in the fall like my dictionary, drug guide, and test results guide. I found out that PDA's no longer exist, old technology. So I am contemplating buying a Blackberry.
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