The Irony of Nursing School

In nursing school we learn the importance of sleep, nutrition, exercise, and how stress affects the body. In nursing school, we set our alarms for 4:45 in the morning and get very few hours of sleep. In nursing school, we are lucky if we get 20 minutes to microwave some Ramen noodles or scarf down a power bar and a coffee. In nursing school, we get home from lecture and clinical with every intent of going for a run, but end up making anatomy flashcards instead. In nursing school we have a test every other day and are literally responsible for the life and death of other human beings. Talk about stressful. Dear Alanis Morrisette, THIS is irony.

 

My car, the Delorean...

Dear readers, I have made a discovery. A loophole in the universe, if you will. You see, no matter what I do, I arrive on campus at 7:01am. My GPS says it takes me about 35 minutes to get to class. If I leave at 6:15, which I have tried, I somehow pull into the parking lot at 7:01. The other day, I got lost, didn’t get on my way until 6:40, and still pulled into the parking lot at 7:01. I have somehow stumbled upon the secret to time travel. I don’t know how, so don’t ask. All I know is that next week, I’m gonna sleep in until about 7:30 and then see if I can travel back in time to make it to campus at 7:01. With my record so far, it can be done. I’ll keep yall updated! ;)

The Beginning of Classes and Hurricane Irene

Hello, hello, hello! I hope everyone has had a wonderful week! This week has been crazy and busy and unusual. First of all, I moved into my new apartment in Charlotte on Saturday. So far I love it, and I can’t wait to finish decorating and putting the finishing touches on it! Then on Wednesday I started my nursing classes. Why is it that even after 6 years of elementary school, 3 years of middle school, 4 years of high school and 4 years of college, the first day of school is still scary? Of course Tuesday night was filled with the typical pre-first day panic questions like: What should I wear? Will it be cold in my classroom? Will the teacher be nice? Will my classmates like me? Will I make friends? What should I pack for lunch? How long will it take me to get there? What if my alarm doesn’t go off on time? So after I finally turned off my brain, I got about 5 hours of sleep before waking up for my first day at 5am. You see, classstarts at 7 and I live about 35 minutes away (and I have a huge fear of being late), so my day starts at 5am! Then I had class until 3:30, got home at 4, and worked on homework until 1:30am. Which allowed me a total of 4 hours of sleep on Wednesday night. Needless to say, I was tired exhausted during class today. I have a feeling I’m going to be pretty MIA on Wednesdays and Thursdays, so I will have to make good use of my time on the other days! But overall, so far so good!
In other news, mother nature is insane. On Tuesday of this past week there was in earthquake in Virginia that could be felt all the way down here in NC. And if that wasn’t enough, my little Wilmington is now preparing for hurricane Irene! I know I should be glad that I’m safe and not there, but I can’t help but wish that I had school cancelled, or had to stock up on hurricane items, or was sitting in my house without power and with boarded up windows. There is just something about a hurricane that reminds me of childhood! I guess that’s what you get when you grow up on the coast!
I hope everyone stays safe in all this crazy weather! I’ll be back tomorrow for another Follow Friday!

I should have studied more freshman year...

17 years. That's how long I've been in school. I am 21 years old and 17 of those years have been spent buying notebooks and pencils in August and counting down days to summer break. Now I am counting down days to graduation. And after that there will be no more school supply shopping in August. So weird.
But anyways, in my 17 years of schooling I don't think I've ever felt as dumb as I do now. I am 21 years old and graduating from a fairly prestigious university in a few months, and yet I have no options. I have applied to nursing schools and been wait listed and I know with my GPA I won't get into any graduate schools. So after graduating high school with honors and getting accepted to a competitive, private university, I will probably end up at a community college. Now, don't get me wrong, there is nothing bad about community colleges. I just feel like I'm going backwards. Like everyone else is making progress, getting jobs, going to grad school, getting married. And I am stuck. I don't know what I want to do with my life, I don't know where I want to live, and I don't know how to even begin figuring out how to do this 'growing up' stuff.
Have you ever felt like you are moving in slow motion while the rest of the world speeds by you? I just wanna scream "STOP! PAUSE! SLOW DOWN!" But really maybe everyone else is on the right track and they are yelling at me to 'pick up the pace' or 'speed up'. I just wish I had a clue of where to start. Maybe then I wouldn't feel so dumb!

Sorry. That was my rant for the night. All done! :)

"So, what do you wanna do with your life?"

For the past semester or two, my peers have all been freaking out about graduation and the lingering question "what am I going to do with my life??" Meanwhile, I have sat back and been pretty calm. (*I am NOT a calm person. I am a very anxious and overly planned person, so this recent sense of peace and calm has been strange).

Then it happened: 10:35pm on March 14, 2011. Let the freakout begin. I don't know what happened or why it just hit me, but I have no idea what I'm doing with my life. Graduation is in 65 days and I am clueless. I have a few ideas of some things I would like to do, but no idea how to put these plans into action. I think the thing that scares me most is that I am an adult. I guess. And unfortunately my desires don't line up with my reality. I would love to be able to have time to figure out what I am doing. A time (other than while taking 5 classes and trying to graduate) to sit and really plan. I would also really really really prefer to not move back home with my parents, long-term, after graduation. Sadly though, if I am busy trying to figure out my life and don't have a job, that means I won't have money to get an apartment either.

I know everyone has their own path and technically it's okay to take time to figure out what you wanna do, but in today's society, or maybe just Elon culture, there is SUCH pressure to find out what you wanna do with the rest of your life and start working towards that the day after graduation. I just wanna scream "I DON'T KNOW! I DON'T KNOW!"...So next time someone asks me what I'm doing after graduation (which is asked at least twice daily), I may reduce to a blubbering pile of tears. I apologize in advance.

Hopefully this crazy pressure/stress/panic will pass soon and I can stop feeling like I'm drowning in thoughts of an unplanned future!

Carrie Bradshaw from SATC says it best: "When you're young, your whole life is about the pursuit of fun, then you grow up and learn to be cautious; you could break a bone, or a heart. You look before you leap, and sometimes you don't leap at all because there's not always someone to catch you. And in life, there's no safety net. When did it stop be fun and start being scary?"