All I've got is this weekend. . .

. . . and it's half over already!

*SIGH*

It's official. I am going to have to work my tail off like never before. I'm going to have to dig deeper like never before. I'm going to have to start taking performance enhancing drugs, drink liters upon liters of caffeinated drinks. Okay, so maybe not those last two, but I'm already terribly overwhelmed and classes don't start until Tuesday. I think it's the normal pre-semester shock when I open up Blackboard and there are a dozen more clinical docs (this time for Med-Surg). There's also something called "Simulation Day" on the Med-Surg calendar that pretty much sends me into a bout of tachycardia!

I did get some things crossed off my list this week, but I still have a few more that I'd like to get done before Tuesday - specifically, I'd like to get two more batches of soup made (not sure why I'm dragging my feet?) and my bedroom/bathroom need some attention desperately. I haven't done anything yet about my vacuuming out my car or getting it washed, but maybe I can get that squeezed in too. The homeowners are in town until Monday, so that has been an added distraction. And I dog-sat a few days for my aunt/uncle this past week, which prevented me from the above projects too. Thursday night I had a REALLY rough night with the dog (I think he woke me up about 6 times during the night and every time I dutifully took him outside afraid that maybe he had to pee.) So needless to say, I did not make my 6:15 aquatic class on Friday morning, and generally felt pretty fatigued/lousy all day on Friday :(

I'm beginning to think that maybe I'm being a bit optimistic that I will get to the gym 5-6 days/week.  Only two of those days are afternoons trips (after clinical), the other 3-4 days are early morning aquatic classes. The only way I'm going to be able to get up for those early morning classes is to make sure that I'm getting to bed on time. I am not very good at getting 7-8 hours of sleep a night. I'm a night owl, but my life requires getting up early.

Below is my traffic flow (schedule) for the next semester. You can see that my schedule is mostly school and gym at this point (and 4 hours of work) and I've filled in every other hour with "read/study" time. I am fully aware that I only have 24 hours a day to work with, so anything extra (aside from meals/travel time) like house-cleaning, paying bills, chiro appts, social outings will come from my read/study time slots. Monday and Wednesday nights will basically be reviewing/studying for quizzes/tests the following morning. Note I've included my wake and bed times (calculated for 8 hours of sleep). Yes, this is a very optimistic and terribly depressing schedule.  I honestly don't think there's any way I will get to bed on Tuesday nights by 8:30. Clinical prep you stay up until you are done--whether that's 10pm or midnight or later :(


My gym time should provide the necessary stress-outlet - all the while either helping me to lose weight or at least not gain weight.  Hopefully the Slimdown program at my gym will enable me to stay focused and motivated - or at least make me feel guilty when I don't get to the gym and re-motivate me to go.

So RIGHT NOW (!), to motivate myself to clean my bedroom and bathroom, I'm going to clean for 15 minutes and then read Book #2 of the Hunger Games for 15 minutes and then clean for 15 minutes and then read for 15...until I'm done cleaning. It could be that I will get so into the cleaning, that I will skip the reading. Here goes!