quick update

i survived my first week of practicum. it went really well, despite the fact that it was 3 12-hour night shifts. i'm back on days tomorrow. i've already learned a lot and had a few adventures. one night, I went to the ER to help out with resuscitating a patient. it's not like on the sensationalized tv shows where it's so crazy that everyone has to shout to each other just to hear anything and it's all chaos. it was calm and organized and we were all prepped on the patient before the ambulance even arrived. someone has to chart every single thing that happens and the exact time it happened, and that fell to me. this was very interesting and at first i wasn't sure if it was a good idea for me to be the one since i didn't know everything that was going on - but i was surprised that i knew as much as i did. anyways, the team was really great and would tell me anything that i had missed. and i felt comfortable asking for clarifications. it was a good experience for me, since i'll be in the ER for my last 6 weeks of practicum.


our house is coming along really quickly now. the basement is poured, the walls are up and if you look closely in the window, you can even see our shower/bathtub in the bathroom. haha! we are SO EXCITED! we bought the house so long ago now, that it had already come to a point where we were wondering if it was actually going to happen or not. we said to each other, "hey, remember that time that we bought that house? yeah... that was fun. good times...." but now i think that it might just be finished one day and then it will be ours!! sometimes i feel so materialistic when i think about all the new things i'm going to have in 2 short months from now - new washer, new dryer, new stove, new carpet, new paint, new fridge, new countertops.... etc. etc. i can't wait!

it all comes down to this

i'm starting my senior practicum on tuesday. crazy. it's hard to describe - these last 4 years have flown by, yet it feels like i've been in school forever. and i can't believe that i've made it to my final, senior practicum. i'm excited. i'm scared. i'm ready to do this. sometimes i feel like i don't know anything, sometimes i feel like i've learned so much my head is really going to explode. over these last few weeks i've been reviewing my notes and practicing in the skills lab to refresh my mind about anatomy and illnesses and medications and skills that i haven't done in months, even years. i only gave one IV medication during my whole 4th year, so when i went to practice reconstituting meds (adding a fluid to a powdered med, so it can go in an IV) in the lab, i thought i had forgotten everything. but it all came back to me so quickly, because i had done this everyday when i was at the children's hospital in 3rd year (it also helped that i ended up overdosing Jake, the dummy, with antibiotics. i learned from my mistake - i won't do that in practice).

yesterday was dedicated to reviewing different types of drugs that are commonly used on my wards. i was supposed to review "antihypertensives". okay, that's a huge class of drugs for lowering blood pressure - there's beta-blockers and ACE inhibitors and calcium channel blockers and other types that you probably don't really care about either. this was stuff we learned in geriatrics - 2 years ago. and slowly, it all came back to me.

so, i'm not really too worried about tuesday. i'll find out what i don't know, but should have reviewed, and then i'll go home and review it.

due to the confidential nature of my career, i'm not going to have a lot of stories to share with you about my practicum. but i'll try to keep you posted on how i'm surviving...

the final product

And here it is....I LOVE how my dress turned out! It was so comfortable and I still totally love the colour (in case your colour is off on your monitor, it's not coral or peach, its a deep orange).

Julie, Rachael, Rachel & Julia (no joke!)

We had a blast! I took a ton of other pictures, which may find their way onto my blog yet, but I don't have time now. I'm feeling a little anxious to get going on my massive proposal which is due this week. More to come....

my latest project

tomorrow is my graduation dinner & dance, so i've been hard at work transforming my bridesmaid dress (that is, my sister's dress from my wedding) into something a little more fun. yes, this much orange crepe-back satin and it still could turn into something more fun. who knew?

the nasty BEFORE picture

hard at work

it needed a good hem. as in, 13 inches. then with the leftover fabric i added some wedge-shaped panels on the sides to make it a bit more of an A-line.

i also added this waistband just below the bust, using the crepe side of the fabric.
because i wanted to.

and the finished product..... oh wait! you can't see it yet. you'll have to wait until after my banquet tomorrow. ha!

fondue!

i was beginning to doubt my culinary abilities recently as foods which i've made many times before haven't been turning out as planned lately. but i think that "lately" started when we moved to this apartment. so i think that i'll listen to R and accept that maybe the failed chinese chicken balls on friday were more due to the fact that my range is older than i am and not as reliable as it was, say, back in 1979 (they did promise us new appliances when we moved in last year. yeah... that's not gonna happen anymore is it?).

after an hour of trying to deep fry my chicken balls so that the outside looked good AND the chicken was cooked inside, i gave up. i kept the chicken and yesterday we had a fantastic oil fondue. i have the company's coming fondue book and i made a Basil Garlic Mayo sauce to dip the chicken in, we had "fried cheese" (dip in beaten egg, coat with breadcrumbs & shake-n-bake, repeat, fry in oil fondue - so gooey!), red and green peppers, and i made some biscuits to soak up all the oil in our tummies. mmmm-mmmm! maybe i'm not such a bad cook after all.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SIS!

the end is near.

i should be studying, but all i feel like doing is painting with watercolours. i should be into the books, but i just want to work on my scrapbook which has been collecting dust. i'm really sick of studying. i hardly even care about this exam tomorrow, since i'm going into it with a good mark and it's only worth 20%. but i will go and get it done. i know i'll find the motivation somewhere. oh yeah......
IT'S MY LAST UNIVERSITY EXAM!
wow.... this is totally crazy. i can't believe it. when i started out 4 years ago i'm not sure that i ever really thought that i would ever be finished. oh, i planned to stick it out, but what does it feel like to be finished school? i don't know. i've been in school for 20 years.

i'll let you know when it really hits me that i don't need to go back to classes.