first day

i just got home from my first day of clinical. i think it's going to be a really good rotation. it seems that with pediatrics, they only have 1 or 2 medical conditions as apposed to the elderly who generally have at least 18. our instructor seems really good, easy to talk to. and i have a really good group of colleagues too. there was a chance that tomorrow i was going to help with a gastric wash (put a tube down a baby's nose and suck out some snot for testing), something that we have not learned in school yet. but now i won't be, for various reasons. but as it would have been my 2nd day of clinical, i would have expected myself to have been scared of doing something like that. but i wasn't. i was getting excited. last night before we went to sleep, R prayed that i would be excited about clinical, that i would look forward to it, be the highlight of my week. what an interesting idea.... see, i think i always viewed it wrong -it was a long day, with a lot new things to know and do in a new environment where i was supposed to act 'professional' and know what i was doing. with a lot of ways to learn new things. but i need to get excited to learn, and to learn how to relax. i've never really been truly comfortable in any of my clinical placements -- too much info and too many new and different things. and i think my groups have been made up of people who made it difficult to be myself. as in, i needed to be loud and boisterous just to be heard, sometimes just to get a word in to my instructor, as i didn't want to come across as shy and insecure (as i am really none of those) to my peers or esp my instructor.

but i think this time will be different. i'm ready to learn. i'm ready to step out and do things that i'm uncomfortable doing. you know the feeling when you're the newbie at work, and everything is new and awkward. and then one day, when there's someone newer than you, you realize how comfortable and quick and good you've become. well, i can't wait for that. every new clinical rotation we have, we're the newbies. we don't know what's going on. and if we do, it's only in theory, because we haven't had the experience to be any good yet. and by the time we've done something a handful of times, it's time to move onto something new. but i'll be in peds twice a week, for 9 weeks. hopefully by the end, i'll have a grasp on something!

busy week...

it's only 2 days into the week, and it has been busy....
i wrote my first exam of the year (which i think went pretty well actually), worked for a few hours with a steady line-up of crazy customers, was informed that my massage therapist no longer works on campus because someone else wanted his room for officespace and no one actually knows where he works now, and during the break of my very, very boring (and cold) evening class i was informed that i could not purchase a hot chocolate from tim hortons because they were closing in 10 minutes. i wrote my drug calculation test - have to get 90% to pass - and i think i did. we'll find out tomorrow. (that means i can only make 2.5 mistakes and still pass). and i just got a haircut. busy busy week so far.
oh, and did i mention that i was hit on by a lesbian. asked out for coffee, actually. can't say that's ever happened to me before. hmmm, guess she didn't see the ring sparkling away on my finger.

wonder what tomorrow holds....

obviously

i had heard that water draining from a sink or tub always goes the same way (clockwise? or is it counter-clockwise?) and that in the southern hemisphere it naturally goes the other way. i remember that when i heard that, i thought it was absurd. and i think i heard it in school. i really don't think i made that up. [why would i make that up??]
but today as the water was draining out of the tub, i watched it swirling about. then the swirlies stopped and the funnel disappeared. but then it started swirling the other way. "that's bizarre," i thought to myself. and then.... it stopped again.... and started its swirling in the first direction. hmmm.

so why was i watching the drain in the tub? well, obviously, because i was kneeling beside the tub, leaning over into it. this is because, obviously, i was washing our curtains in the bathtub. which i was doing, obviously, because i have 2 major tests coming up in the beginning of next week. which i obviously was supposed to be studying for.

make sense?

well, it's time to go eat some popcorn and read the hobbit with my man....

school school school

i am going to be in pediatrics this semester! we just found out where our clinical placements are and i'm at the children's hospital! i'm super excited to be working with kids and their parents (and rae and i are together, too). only a few of us get to be in peds, so we're pretty lucky.

we have our first exam on monday. i'm a little nervous. okay.... i feel like i don't know anything. i'll be sitting in class, and the prof will ask questions, and i'll be following along, sometimes even working up the courage to answer out loud. but then suddenly, the topic shifts and i have no idea what's going on. aldosterone is responsible for the reabsorption of what? what are signs and symptoms of hypokalemia? i don't know!!
and we have a calculation test on tuesday, that we have to get90% on to pass. if you don't pass, you get kicked out of the course and have to try again next year. (if you fail that, i think you're forever kicked out of nursing at the u of m - no joke).

but besides that, things are going alright. clinical starts next week and i think i'm gonna stop helping at junior youth when it does. it's just too much. and people are encouraging me to let it go. i could easily do 6 hours of homework a day and still have more to do. of course, i'm not one of those people who can do 6 hours of homework a day, so i settle for less.

cold and wet and yucky

it's yucky outside. i got all muddy on the way to school this morning, and since i stopped to wipe the mud off my bike with some leaves so it would stop transferring the mud onto my pants, i was a slightly late for class. and i was wet since it was raining. and i was cold since it was like 3 degrees. (it was 29 last week. what happened?) and i was grumpy.


but now it's the evening and i'm back at school. however, this time i drove the car to school and i'm wearing sweats. i'm sitting at the computers right now at school... technically i'm in class, but we're not exactly paying attention.... we're learning how to search for articles on databases..... okay, i'm in year 3, and i've heard this every year. and yet, somehow, i'm still terrible at doing research and i still hate doing research. perhaps that means i should be listening.... the fluorescent light above us is dying and randomly flickering, trying to give us all seizures. it's making my eyes go buggy....

my safety apparatus

i bike to school and i wear a bike helmet. sometimes i feel a little dumb, with my big helmet, which is looking pretty ratty and old and i'm not even exactly sure where it came from. but i wear it for the same reasons that i wear a seat belt - i don't want to die, or, perhaps even worse, become paralyzed. nor do i don't want my body to lie in a comatose state with my husband wondering when to pull the plug. and so i wear a helmet.

today however was one of those beautiful days (it was 27 degrees) where i want to fly along with my face to the sun and my hair flowing freely... enjoying the day... with no heavy backpack or helmet to keep me down. as i was leaving school, i put my helmet on, and turned to unlock my bike. behind me, i hear 2 guys talking. about helmets! something about having to wear a helmet and something else and they laughed, and for this brief, rare moment, i was self-conscious about my safety apparatus on my head. ....were they talking about me? should i be embarrassed? but no! i'm supposed to be wearing a helmet. if i got hit by a semi, on my way home..... through the field and the wooded area.... hmm....

i turned to look at the guys who had already walked out of earshot. they had numbers on their shirts. and they were both carrying football helmets.

oh.

lift it

my maintenance course. homework. clinical practise. skills lab. junior youth. homework. working at the post office. R teaching sunday school. homework. transition time. mmmm. yes, we already know that i hate transition times.

this is a song that i have loved for a number of years. it has helped me through many a transition time, has aided many prayers and wet many pillows.


lift it
(by thousand foot krutch)

through my temptation to walk away,
and through the endless troubled days,
there's a hundred million ways,
for me to release your praise;
and by and by, and throught the tears
and things you've taught me through the years,
my whole life was designed by you,
i'll never know anyone half as true;

i lift it up, i lift it up, lift it up so you can see,
i lift it up, i lift it up, lift it up from inside of me;

so i lift it, i lift it up to you,
and i'll never forget the times that we've been through,
so i lift it, i said i lift it up to you,
and i surrender all of me, to you, to you, to you
and everything i'll ever be, to you, to you, to you

and i surrender all of me

...if you'll only call me Anne spelled with an 'e' I shall try to reconcile myself to not being call Cordelia...."

i'm currently reading the anne of green gables series. believe it or not, i have never read the books. .. i know, i'm a terrible person... i call myself a fan.... I've read parts of some of the books, yes, but now i'm reading all of them in order. i absolutely LOVE the movies (if you are boy and are rolling your eyes right now, i have only one thing to say to you: give Anne a try. i know a few guys who admit that they don't hate it....) and i love reading books.... but with school starting again i can't see myself having a whole lot of time to read fiction. if you love the movies as much as i, but you've never read these books.... do it!! the thing is, with the Anne-girl's crazy imagination and her fiery, vivacious spirit, the book is so incredibly intense. she'll talk nonstop for a page and a half, ranting or raving about the Lake of Shining Waters or how she'd like to one day be a minister's wife but she couldn't possibly because then she'd have to always be good and no matter how hard she tries, she's still wicked and some people are naturally good and she is not one of them and how could she ever be, since her hair is so red?? it's not the easy-reading that i was expecting from a book i signed out of the 'juvenile' section of the public library. but it's oh-so-wonderful! i love her love for life. she's just so happy to be alive and loved. that's all she really wants - to love and to be loved. isn't that exactly what everyone really wants?

this time of year

oh good. the fire alarm just turned off. it's 10:30 am and the excrutiatingly loud fire alarm in the hallway spontaneously turned on about 15 minutes ago. i called our caretakers, and they weren't home. so i called the landlord/company that owns this place and they said that they'd call me back. (i didn't really want them to call me, i just wanted them to make my ears stop bleeding). this is not the first time this has happened, so that's why i didn't vacate the premises immediately.

well, i have to be honest. i'm a little anxious. yes, i tend to get anxious at this time of year. by "this time of year" i mean the 8 months that i'm in school. technically classes start today, and i have orientation starting 12:30. but school is only part of it. okay, it's most of it. i have been forewarned that 3rd year is the hardest of the 4 years (4th year is apparently a breeze compared to 3rd). and not just by past students, but by our professors last year too! for example, "does anyone know why this would happen to this patient? ...no? okay, well i'll give you a hint. but you know, in 3rd year you are going to have to think through the physiology of it and figure it out yourself. we won't be giving you hints...." hmmm. the one glimmer of hope in statements like this is that i LOVE physiology. in first year, i took anatomy and physiology, and i spent a lot of extra time studying those courses... and it showed in some of my other marks. for example, the C+ that i got on a different exam could have probably been a bit higher, had i evened out my focus slightly. [i ended up with an A+ in both anatomy and physio]
so this year is supposed to be very hard. but another bright side is that my year that i spent at U of W has completely transferred over and i have no electives to do during my whole 4 years of nursing. so, i'm doing 6 credit hours less than a full courseload.
did i mention that R and i are helping in jr. youth this year?? should be fun! we had a meeting last night and planned the events up until christmas. R's also teaching sunday school. and right now he's in his practicum.... crazy crazy time here right now.

oh and one more thing. Bozo moved out at the end of July (hallelujah!!!!!) and we've had a quiet month or so. it was beautiful. but now the 'single, quiet, female student' has a moved in beneath us, and i'm a little nervous about that to. she may be single, but we have heard a male voice a lot, at night when we're trying to sleep. (okay, i've heard all this. it never bothers R) and we heard her music pretty loud yesterday, but that was totally okay, because it was classical and no pounding bass. i wrote her a note, welcoming her to the apartment, trying to start out on friendly terms. i also mentioned that we try to keep it quiet especially at night when voices (especially male voices) carry very easily. i was talking about us, but maybe she'll read a little more into it and find that we'd like her to try to keep it down too.

i guess i'll just have to keep praying about this crazy time that we're in and keep working on my attitude towards all of this and see how things turn out.

hecla, sweet hecla

we went back to hecla this week. it was amazing. just me and my husband, relaxing and doing a whole lot of nothing at all. how to describe it? i think tolkien described it perfectly in 'the hobbit', in one of the chapters that i coincidently read to R on friday while we sat on the stoney beach by hecla village:"Now it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway."
in other words, it was the most wonderful vacation, but there's not much to tell about. we brought our bikes and explored the island a bit, discovering the rocky shale cliffs that overlook the endless lake winnipeg. we read books, had late-night campfires with marshmallows, and used up all our batteries on taking pictures of us in the amazing autumn nature (yes, it was fall there already, which surprised us some). it was good for the soul, for the mind, and for the marriage.
















no one attacks my french toast and gets away with it.





















appropriately named "sunset beach"

















exploring...