Nursing School starts in 24 Days!

24 days until my first nursing class starts! ...but I've got to remain focused on microbiology for another 10 days. I have an exam this Monday on Infectious Diseases (including STIs) and then my comprehensive exam must be taken on/before May 8th (my birthday). So I'm feeling a lot of pressure, but not a lot of motivation. I'm sooooo ready for a break...even if it's only for two weeks. I wish I could quit work now, but I need the money and the insurance through the summer. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to cut back work hours this summer to make room for being on campus, which will be hard financially, but also because I need to start spending more and more time preparing to pass things off to my replacement.

I'm mostly through with the list of things to do. Gotta get my TB test checked tomorrow and get paperwork from my PCP turned in. Scheduled to take CPR class in early June. I've ordered all the text books and they'll be arriving in the next week. Still waiting to hear back about scholarships and if I'll have any help financially in that regard. That would be huge relief.

Good news! I have made plans to travel May 13-17 and go visit my sister and her family in Ohio. I need the break! Classes start back May 24th --so I gotta rest and build some excitement and enthusiasm for summer classes. I'm hoping to track down a "surviving nursing school" book that I've heard about. The trip is 8 hours and I'm hoping my parents do the bulk of the driving so I can rest and read.

May 10th is my goal to start back running. As a nurse I gotta practice what I preach, right? So I have some fitness/weight-loss goals for the summer and for fall semester. I also know the running will help with stress relief too. I just wish I had someone in my neighborhood to run with! Maybe I'll find someone in the nursing program who lives near me...or who would be interested in running the Monticello trail on Tuesday/Thursday afternoons after our summer Health Assessment class.

I also need to cook up a storm and get some food (soups) put in the freezer. It's just so easy to stop and get Panera or Chipotle if I know I have nothing in the refrigerator. I won't be able to afford eating out financially, and of course to lose weight I gotta start cutting calories and quantity. So back to the kitchen it is!

Until next time...

P.S. The nursing program opened another section of the Dosage Calculations class and I was able to register for it. Whew!

Student Life...there are benefits.

It's always nice to have friends in high places. A friend from church, who traveled with me to Liberia one summer, works at the college in the Student Activities department. I bumped into him this afternoon and he gave me a lot of good information including: there is a Nursing Christian Fellowship and there is a Fitness Room that is open to all students (and faculty/staff). It's equipped with cardio and weight machines and free weights. There are locker rooms/showers too. The fitness room isn't always available b/c scheduled classes have priority. But it's better than nothing and doesn't cost me anything extra (or rather, I am paying for it in my tuition fees). I'll be setting some personal health goals to achieve during nursing school and so it will be nice to have access to this room during the week. I won't be able to take advantage of it during this coming summer semester simply because I'll be working when I'm not in school.

Got a Student parking sticker. I was SHOCKED that they are free. They were NOT free when I went to college umpteen years ago. But again, I guess it's part of my tuition fees. :)   No more parking in the visitor lot, I guess. Being an online student has had its perks--no need for parking! Ha. Well, now I'll get my exercise walking from the student lots.

Next I'll be getting a student ID made. Wonder if that will get me discounts at the grocery store??? I can hope.

Wow, I really am feeling like a co-ed again. Although today, reality struck. I am going to be the "older student" in the classroom. Yeh, probably there will be students older than I am, but I realized that the majority will likely be younger than me. I will just have to start praying for good friendships to develop within the nursing program--we will definitely be needing friends who know what we are going through.

Enough for now. I gotta go crack my last Unit of microbiology. Woot.

Registered for My First NURSING courses!

This morning was the first day that we could register for Summer Nursing Courses. I was able to register for the Intro to Nursing course and the Health Assessment sections that I wanted. Unfortunately, the Drug Dosage Calculation class was full. There was only one section offered. Maybe they'll open another.

I'm headed over the campus this morning to pick up a Drug Screen document, so I will try to connect with my nursing advisor assigned to me and to ask about the Dosage class and see if I can be put on a wait-list or something. If that doesn't work and they don't open another section, I will probably contact the instructor for copy of her syllabus so that I can just work through the text myself. Two days ago, I ordered all the textbooks for all three classes (premature-maybe, but I knew I'd need them eventually!) which includes the text for the Dosage class. So at the very least, I can start working through the book on my own. Maybe there are others who couldn't get in and we could form a study group of sorts. The school did provide a sheet of dosage "problems" for us to review to see if we wanted/needed the course, so at least I have an idea of the kinds of questions. Might need to get some tutoring from my Math Teacher sister on word problems. :)

Afterthought:  As an explanation, the dosage class is not required for the program. It's a 1 credit class offered for the last five weeks of the summer. I've been told by a current student in the program that every semester they give you a drug dosage quiz/test which you MUST pass or be kicked out of the program (even first semester!) Which is probably why everyone is eager to take the class. Gotta brush up on those math skills!

Things to do...

Today the admissions packet came. So now I have the fun of crossing things off a list! yay! Background checks, drug screen, CPR course, medical forms, buy equipment & uniforms, etc...many of which has to be done/started before I can start classes.

But while its fun to think about nursing school prep...I still have Microbiology to think about--two exams to take by May 8th (one of which is comprehensive). This weekend I'm working as a standardized patient (and making $$), so I'm losing about 4 hours of study time from Friday, Saturday and Sunday! I'm cat-sitting for a friend, so I'm out of my normal habitat too...but I've just got to find a way to get re-focused now that I know I've been accepted to the nursing program. mercy.

ACCEPTED!

YAY! Was notified this evening that I've been accepted into the nursing program for fall 2010! I'm so excited! We will receive our admissions packet in the mail this week and we'll have to either accept/decline the offer within two weeks so that they can start bumping people from the wait list.

It was hard to hear from my microbiology lab partner that she was wait-listed. I was so hoping she'd be accepted right away so that there would be a familiar face in my first nursing class. Hopefully she'll get bumped and be able to join me.

What's next? Notification to the church (my employer) of my expected departure later this summer. And I'm hoping to start official nursing classes THIS summer (end of May) with a ten-week class and two five-week classes--all while still working "full-time". Although now the pressure is on to maintain GPA (so that I don't get kicked out of program!). I may drop hours back at work, although not sure yet. Seems like a good idea. Fewer hours now might provide for longer transition later with my replacement. But will have to find time to prepare for a turn-over (documentation, etc). Will be a busy and interesting summer for sure.

Maybe in a few weeks I'll post my "Why I want to be a nurse" paragraph.

Still Waiting

Well, the date we've all been anticipating has come and gone...and we still don't know more than we knew a couple months ago. We were all told that we would be notified of our acceptance status by April 15th. Nothing yet. I'm just anxious. I'm ready to know...my life is about to change in some major ways if I get accepted. A wait-list response would almost be harder to deal with (especially if I'm in the top 15 of the wait list). But I also do rest in God's sovereignty and trust that He's got it all worked out. I think I'm ready, but He knows best. Waiting is hard...

Nat'l Museum of Health and Medicine

Just learned about the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, DC. They've got museums for everything else, why not health and medicine? I only learned about it because a Facebook friend of mine (who I've never met but who I know because of connections to Liberia) is in DC this week and visited there (she's also an aspiring nurse).

Here's link to their website: http://nmhm.washingtondc.museum/.

I may just have to find reason to go. Anyone???

What a Week!

This past week was a tough one, probably the toughest in a very long time. Primarily stems from the fact that it was Holy Week and with my job as assistant for worship ministry... the majority of planning & logistics is on my lap (plus we have serious crowding issues that we were trying to alleviate). It's not that we wait until the last minute to do the work--because actually I've been working preparations since January! But it's all the stuff you can't really do ahead of time--because you are waiting on other people--so that ends up consuming the majority of my time during Holy Week...plus making sure everyone (staff, officers volunteers) are on the same page. I can't even estimate the number of emails I have sent out about Easter. Probably 20x as many as for a normal Sunday service! But things went great this morning and the hard work paid off.

BUT the hardest element of the week was managing school work within the crazyness of Holy Week. I'm not sure WHY exactly, but the school scheduled our last day of laboratory to fall on the Saturday before Easter! It's a holiday weekend and many people travel--so not sure why they did that. Worse though is that because it was our last lab class of the semester, we had 3 assignments to do, one of which was worth 20% of our grade! Plus still had to do the reading for the day's lab experiments.

So basically 4 assignments due for lab on Saturday...a weekly lecture unit deadline due Sunday evening (tonight) PLUS a micro lecture exam hanging over my head (due tomorrow) all week. I had planned to take lecture exam last weekend, but it was not posted when it should have been and then Monday came and I realized I wasn't ready for exam and that the Lab Report deadline was my priority--since my lecture exam isn't due until tomorrow ( a week later).

So with work crunches and school scrunches I had to find extra time in the day. So I somehow managed to get up and get to work by 7am each morning--which afforded me luxury of leaving work early to go home and work on school stuff for 6 hours. Well, I planned to get to bed by 10pm each night, but that didn't happen...so I was getting about 4-5 hours of sleep each night last week. The Lord has certainly sustained me and given me the energy and health needed to get through the week. I still need to take the exam tomorrow and then I will have a bit of breathing room. Yay!

Two great things: learned at Lab yesterday that I scored a 98% on my first lab exam. After taking exam I just wasn't sure how I did--so this was great news! Then today, the attendance for worship services worked out great--we were worried that we'd have to tell people that the middle service was full and to come back for the last service. I had been praying for "supernatural distribution of people" and that is certainly what happened. God certainly blessed us and our preparation work. So very thankful.

Should know something within the next two weeks about nursing school.