Semester 2

Well that was a little bit hectic...

Passed all my finals. That's the good news. On the college side of it, I got an A+,A+, A, A- and a B. I'm quite happy with that. The B was for English, for the last assignment it was supposed to be a critical analysis of a documentary on morgues and with a friend of mine dying earlier this semester, it was too close to do a good job. I'm cool with that.

Then came the distance learning course. Anatomy and Physiology. My bugbear for the semester. I did the final exam on the 16th, and the final assignment on the 24th. My deadline as given by the college was the 31st of January. My distance learning tutor was aware of that.

The college elected to de-enroll me on the 24th or 25, I don't know. I found out on the 25th when I checked (yes I'm a sad person who checks courses on Christmas day. My family lives abroad, so sue me if I don't enjoy Christmas very much.) Cue many many many phone calls to Distance Uni and Local College during the week after the 16th, and a good bit of panic as I was convinced I had not passed my exam and I had a deadline to meet.

Nobody seemed to get this and everyone advocated watchful waiting. If I had have followed that approach I'd have been scuppered.

So I went on the Distance Uni facebook site and when they started telling us all how students where their pride and joy, I publically asked them why I couldn't get any help then?

Things started happening, slowly, but before New Year I spent 40+ hours on the phone and email to them. And I type fast. I got the mark back, a 62. I had passed.

On the third I went in to Local College. Local Collage swears they could not accept printout  (under their noses) of syllabus, marks and unofficial transcript. They needed an official one. Distance Uni swore it would take 4-6 weeks. I calculated my final grade as I had marks and values available in less than a minute. I spoke to more managers and stuff. I got four different stories from different people.  I had their registrars office sending my registrars office saying things like 'she has a b- average, and she's passed her course, we haven't got the transcript put together but she's completed it' and still they wouldn't accept it.

It was very frustrating. My course starts on monday.
On thursday I called the dean and broke down crying. She told me that i should relax and just go with it and things would happen and that they wanted me. And my only thought was 'then put your money where your mouth is'. and I walked away for the day. I was done. Sitting back and relaxing is not appropriate when there are three days left till semester starts.

I got re-enrolled on a probationary basis until the final transcript comes, based on the unofficial transcript, but it has to get there before the 16th. I've paid for it to be couriered, both to Local college and to myself. I don't trust it with just one copy. I'm still waiting for it.

I'm also overenrolled now, with an extra bio course i've already done.

Right now i'm not confident either of these two institutions are where I want to continue later and do my LPN-RN bridge when the time comes to it.

And today I should be reading ahead for tomorrow's class, as for a first class of a year? 10 chapters of pharmacology due? Dude! that's just brutal.

And I"m still trying to find energy. I'm told I had a holiday. But I just feel like I had an extended finals period. I don't feel like I rested at all.

I've started taking st john wort again in the hope of more than three hours uninterrupted sleep a night.

Midterms

Midterms are killing me.

I elected to do Anatomy and physiology via distance learning earlier this summer, and one of the college requirements be that I finish by December. This was in september, or i'd have to enrol in Bio. I still have to do the second half of their A&P to make up the credit hours in spring, so essentially I'm having to work ahead a semester, and redo it then to save 350. I'm mad. Mad.

Monday is midterm re muscles and nerves and the brain and that stuff...and I really dont' think I know it as well as I should. And dammit, I have a good brain but there is just so much.....

And then there's the other exam, project, 2 assignments, communications stuff, essay and ..i'm sure there's something else. And this is after several exams already!

Kill me now?

clinical, anatomy and scrubs

Well, went to the first clinical...

We did the highly exciting activity of having the manual read out to us. Oh boy. That said..I know long term care for the elderly may not be exciting to most but I actually kinda like being around the older dears. They have the best stories to tell. I'm looking forward to this, even if all we get to do will be talking, bedmaking, feeding and the like.

I know its probably wrong, but I see lonely people in a lot of the cases. A lot of them abandoned by their family, sometimes there with their friends and sometimes not depending on what their families have chosen.

I don't think most families take the person's friends into account when chosing such an option. But I'll try and confirm that in the next few weeks.

In the mean time I have my first make up assignment as i'm away next week for a wedding. I know, bad student! I'm still going though.

My scrubs were less than comfortable. I'm emailing to see if i can cancel teh other two on order. We'll see.

I went to book my A&P exam, and somehow managed to book four first midterms instead of midterm 1-3 and the final exam. We got it sorted though.

Oh, and amusingly, I have to practice journaling for my Clinical.

think I can do that? *G*

Anatomy, Arts, Crafts and Glitter Glue

Well, I did my first anatomy and physiology quiz. Didn't do bad, 88%. Sadly, that was the open book exam and yes I had to look some things up. I don't expect nearly as good a results on the actual closed book midterm which I still need to book and will do when I  have finished this post.

I picked up my first set of scrubs yesterday, but I swear the 'test' set is wonky so they can charge extra for the adjustments. Not on account of me, I know I have a slightly different shape, but my roomie is a perfect size 34 male and has never had a problem with anything off the rack and he even had trouble. They're in the wash now though to get the starch out and then I'll sew the flashes on.

And then there's comm, my eternal bugbear..
I must have spent the better part of two days this week, two full days on comm. Including building a 'tree of life'. This may be a great project for the 18 year old who don't know bugger all about what they want, what they find important etc, but I do. It took me longer to cut out everything than to do the write up and if you want me to talk about what is important to me? Don't give me a mere 2 pages. At least let me do it right. Though I wasn't aware I signed up in a diploma for arts and crafts. Or glitter glue. Ok there was no glitter glue harmed in the making of this project, I promise.



And then there's one other thing...we have to sign an oath of confidentiality not to reveal any details on a patient or institution...but what about coursework? that is in essence revealing social, economic, religious and political viewpoints of that patient, as is expressly forbidden, in their holistic model. I have emailed for clarification.  Clear as mud?

Thankfully we had Game last night. Vampire the masquarade. I got to mess with three players heads again, as my gals are wonderful and let me. They came up wiht a solid anti-tremere plan though, I was kinda impressed. Of course, execution was not nearly as flawless, but its progress from 'flailing newbie'..I'm talking about the players and the characters here mind you. But its fun. they make all the mistakes the  experienced players wouldn't and that makes it even better. *Grins*

Well, did my A&P quiz...got an 88. Which sounds brilliant, but it was open book and I had to go back and check a few things here and there. The actual midterm is closed book.

I hadn't expected the minutea of a few of the questions. I'm going to have to reread and take notes of the minutea.

Also had a call from the provider, my first set of scrubs can be picked up monday ;-)

I know, silly thing to be thrilled about. The shiny will wear off, i'm sure, probably when sewing on the patches.
Spent the rest of the day cleaning and looking at nursing history and theory. That stuff is really dry as dust, but watching roomie and studybuddy discuss care settings was giggle worthy

I need those two in a room more often.

A&P

Well the last few weeks have been a merry go round. Find shoes, get scrubs (marble green! no other colour!), go find a stethescope (LPN roomie turned around and took the $ 20 one away and told me to get a 'decent' one so I did), going out for an hour drive to campus (luckily i only have to be in for one class and for clinical this semester, the rest is online). And then there were the clinical prereq's. 4 hours to find a CPR - HCP course, and the instructor..lets just say I know here and she doesn't impress me much. Then there was the crim check that I ended up stressing about...it came in time thankfully. And the shots..oh my the shots.

It turns out that Cait, growing up in several countries missed several. So, hello MMR (I was only missing mumps!), Hep B, Diptheria, Tetanus, Polio, and god knows what else. I had a BCG in my travels so the mantoux test reacted and now a week later I have a welt still! It'll be referred to a TB doctor but i've reacted to every mantoux since the BCG so I wasn't suprised but they still insisted on doing it. Even after I went to my GP and got a chest x-ray beforehand as I knew it would react. Its clear, I'm clean.

But they'll probably still try and get me to take 9 months of drugs. I'm not. I dont' see the point.

But yeah, eventually got all that sorted. I'm starting to settle into a routine. And the jabs seem to have stopped knocking my immune system down as today I actually had a little energy.

I had a library orientation today...I did an MSc during 2005-2006, granted not in nursing, but I did it, and I k now how libraries work. There was a competition for printing dollars and I'm pretty certain me and mate won the first and second prizes. Piece of cake ;-)


I'm doing A&P with Athabasca (open university canadian style) and its six credit hours. It doesn't correspond to the 8 credit hours they want me to take here so I get to work through the entire book this semester, and next semester still take bio 161 which is the second half of the book.

Sadly, I have perfectionist tendencies. I want to know it all! I tried yesteday and i can recite pretty much every bone in the body bar the tarsels, metatarsels, carpals, metacarpals, and a few of the skull bones. .....and its an open book midterm i should be doing this week. And I want to know them all dammit!

N and M, my roomie and my best friend, keep calling me a nut as its open book.

Today I go through my 8 chapters, review the heck out of them and annotate with post it notes. ...

and try and let go of my perfectionist tendencies. Which include procrastination and blogging, as hey, if i can't do it perfect I'd just as soon  not do it. Which won't help in this case.