Fail sledding

I love FAIL Blog. Love it.

This, my friends, is why:



I waste hours on stupid videos like this one. And I'm okay with that.

Can you throw them over your shoulder?

I'm so inflexible, sometimes it hurts a little when I stretch to touch my toes.

And then I watch stuff like this, and I feel like a failure at life...Maybe if I stretch every day, one day I'll be able to sit Indian-style and not be a little sore afterwards. But probably not.



The part at 1:23 really shames me.

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And for this one, check out 4:07. I'm convinced she's not human. How is it possible to have such strong muscles?

Scrabble

So our family decided to play a game of Scrabble tonight, mostly because I needed to redeem myself against my Mom for her claim of superiority against me. My brother didn't want to play, and the conversation ensued as such:

Shrtstormtrooper: Come on little brother, you have to play!
Little brother: I hate Scrabble!
Shrtstormtrooper: Really, you hate Scrabble?
Little brother: Yeah, it hurts my head. You have to think a lot...

Nice (love you, little brother). At any rate, I completely dominated the game and felt no shame in rubbing it in.

Hope everyone had a merry Christmas!

***
Also, I got an NCLEX review book for Christmas, and started reading through it and answering practice questions today. I feel kind of dumb for missing some of the antepartum and baby planning questions, but I blame it on disliking babies and tuning out that semesters' worth of class. Let's hope there aren't a lot of baby questions on the real test...but just in case, I'll be reviewing that section again :)

And oh yeah, I start work in 13 days! Eegh! I'm excited, and I'm sure you all are excited to read about something more substantial than my Scrabble exploits.

Humility, the real meaning of Christmas

It's always a good time when you're brought back to Earth without mercy by a parent.

Scenario: Mom, Dad, and Shrtstormtrooper are having a Cosmo (or five). Conversation turns to the stress of nursing school and how it looks like I've lost weight.

Mom: Yeah, it looks like you've lost a lot of weight since last year.
Shrtstormtrooper: I really haven't lost any, it just moves around. I'm still around 120, just like always.
Mom: You're only two pounds less than me.
Dad: Mom, those two extra pounds are in your brain.
Mom: Of course they are, I'm smarter than Shrtstormtrooper.

Ouch. No mercy.

On that note, I hope everyone has a very merry Christmas, and that you remember the real meaning behind the holiday: Christ our Savior is born. Or if you don't celebrate Christmas, air your grievances and put up your Festivus pole!

New title

This is an interim blog title. I'm having trouble thinking of a witty enough title for me now that I'm not in nursing school anymore. I'm not technically a new nurse yet either, but what the heck. I'm out of school and currently Shrtstormtrooper, BSN. So don't judge me, son. I'll think of something appropriate soon.

Feel free to chip in with title suggestions if you so desire.

Graduation

It doesn't seem real yet.

I'm done nursing school. I went to the pinning ceremony yesterday. I walked at graduation today. I feel like my life has no direction now! Every day for the past 18 months, I woke up and thought, "what do I need to study today? What do I need to read/type/research/procrastinate for this week? And I woke up these past few days and didn't have a dang thing to do.



Of course, I still have to study for the NCLEX. But that's an at-your-own-pace type study thing. And I won't fail anything if I only do 75 questions a day instead of 150. I won't get marked down if I skip a day, either.

It's very strange to not have my life dictated by school anymore. For the past 18 years it has. Now I'm a big girl! With a big girl job!

I'm really excited to move on in life and start working. I've got a job at the hospital I wanted to work at, in the ED like I had hoped for, on night shift like I enjoyed this summer. Everything is coming together perfectly. It still doesn't feel real that I'm a big girl now, but I'm looking forward to it sinking in.

I'll write later on how far I've come since I started nursing school and throw in some nice deep reflections for you, but for now let's just revel in the fact that I'm DONE nursing school and I have a job and I have a career! Hooray!

Shoegate

While this video is sort of shocking, what's more shocking is that someone hasn't done this sooner. I feel bad for Bush though. How embarrassing. And while I don't agree with Bush policies, I do feel bad for him as a person who got utterly owned by a pair of size 10s.



I am impressed at his ducking skills though. Man's got reflexes like a cat!

Activities that might kill me

I've decided, at the prodding of The Fabo, that I will be running a half marathon in March. You have my permission to laugh.

The last time I was actually in shape might just be high school. I played field hockey and lacrosse, and we ran a lot. Funny thing is, I was never good at the running part. Maybe that's why I decided to play goalie; there isn't a lot of running required when you just stand in a small area and hit people with your pads.

I went to college and played Ultimate (a staple of white people games) once or twice a week, and stayed somewhat fit. Then I got lazy. And fat. And unmotivated. And then I decided to go to nursing school. Even if I had the motivation to work out, I found that I'd rather sacrifice physical fitness for an extra hour of sleep in the morning.

But now I'm just about done with school, and I realize that this flab isn't going to run itself off. I need to not be lazy anymore. Thus a half-marathon is in the works! I'm not sure about the whole 13.1 miles deal...that seems like a lot. I think the most I've ever run at one time is 3.something miles. This might just kill me. Wouldn't it be ironic if I drop dead of a heart attack when I'm trying to be fit, Jim Fixx style?



Anyway, I think I'm going to do this. Feel free to check up on my progress and encourage or snark at my lack of fitness.

***
And this might seriously be the coolest grandpa ever.



I'd lose that staring contest, for sure.

It's a family game!

Gee, I wonder why this never caught on?

Ever drunk Bailey's from a shoe?

Because you've seen me. And you know me. I'm Old Greg!



It's worth watching. Trust me.

I can hear the colors...

So I have this psych professor, and she is way beyond awesome. She's so awesome, we call her Doc Roc. She's self-professed ADHD (and I believe it!), spouts off the most random and occasionally awkward of comments (my boyfriend is 20 years older than me, and he doesn't use viagra!), and definitely did a lot of drugs in her day.

We're sitting in class one day, and she's trying to get a video to load up from the internet. When she tries to open it, the file wouldn't play in Windows Media. All she could get was the audio and those weird squiggly acid trip lines. Her response?

"Look at the colors! It's like when I did LSD!"

Man, she's awesome. I wish all professors were like her.

Upgrade!

So I'm obviously aware of the fact that I'm graduating soon. 10 days to be exact. I've got a job lined up, I only have one assignment left to do (which I'm currently procrastinating on), and four classes left to attend. It hadn't really hit me yet though, that I'm going to be in the real world soon...until I looked at this blog.

The title? Nursing School Insanity. Soon it won't apply anymore! Egad!

I'll need to update this blog soon.

THIS JUST IN:

You're reading the blog of a newly hired, Emergency Department RN! WOO!

I got the job offer and formally accepted it yesterday. Now I've just got to finish the last week of class, 3 finals...and graduation!

I'm terrified. But I'm way beyond excited. I've been working towards this for 2 years now, and the day finally came where a hospital said "yes, we think you'll not kill patients. Would you like to come be stressed out and overwhelmed and pushed to your limit every day? Good, you're hired!"

Woo! (The use of multiple "woo"s in this blog signifies that yes, I am very excited!)

JCHAO and chickens

When I entered the world of nursing school, I got a lot of theory and a host of new skills thrown at me. Very rarely did we hear about JCHAO, as they were fondly called back then.

When I entered the world of medical blogging, there was a veritable shatstorm regarding JCHAO. I had never seen animosity levels so high! Why were these nice JCHAO people hated so much? Since then, JCHAO has become "The Joint Commission" and I found that they will get all over a hospitals' case for the stupidest things. Who really gives a crap if supplies are 18" from the ceiling or not? Will that really matter to patients in the long run? Why are they calling themselves a name that sounds like a knee-replacement support group?

At any rate, I'm here blogging because I'm procrastinating an assignment that is due in the morning. It's not that I don't care about classes anymore, it's just that...well...okay, I don't care about them anymore. I have 17 days until graduation, and I'm so full of senioritis it's not funny. But I digress.

I hopped over to the JC website to peruse any info that might be remotely useful for my project. I'm sort of shocked at the website! For such a Goliath of a bully, you'd think their website would look a little more intimidating. Instead it's a nice blue and yellow color, with pleasant looking people at the top and a convenient search bar. Who would have guessed such a tool of an organization could be so deceptively demure?

Eh, I suppose it's the same way some of my fellow students can be deceptively normal looking, but complete morons on the inside. They're like brainless chickens - walk around and look busy and accidentally let your patients CBI clot off multiple times. Sort of like JCHAO, although I bet JCHAO would be able to figure out how to put a bedrail down. Maybe.

***
This is a True Story. All of the aforementioned bad patient care was performed by one GP, a fellow student who might just kill somebody one day. Case in point: She tried to get an ancient LOL into bed without lowering the bed or putting the bedrail down.