I have been bothered since late in 2008 over the "stimulus" and "bail out" monies being ponied up by the govt to pay for all sorts of private sector endeavors that should just have been allowed to fail. If business don't produce goods and services people want, or decide to spend profits loosely or corruptly, they can and should fail. It is not the govt's job to rescue these people. Bush started the mess by pushing for the 700 billion (with a b, that is 700 and then NINE zeros) of which he spent about 350ish and has left the other 350 for the new administration to allocate. Now Pres. Obama and the democratic led congress are pushing for another 800+ billion, which it looks like is all but a foregone conclusion. Without even getting into how this bill will most likely do nothing for the economy and is full of rediculous spending on tons of pet projects, just imagine what this is doing to the dollar. Here is a quick video that I think will explain it better than I can. I hope it scares you as much as it does me.
Forget $4.00 a gallon, are you ready for $15 or $20?
January 29, 2009
July 30, 2008
How did that happen?
I guess it happens to everyone at some point...maybe women are just more aware of it than men...but I don't think anyone is ever really prepared for it.
I'm talking about that single moment in which you look in the mirror and don't recognize the person looking back. I had that moment just now, in the bathroom of the nursing building. I looked up from washing my hands (while singing Happy Birthday, to make sure I washed long enough...I'm such a dork) and was almost frightened by the reflection. Bags under my eyes, lines in places that didn't used to have lines, a deer-in-the-headlights look in my eyes, and really poorly-styled hair that needs a good cut. This semester has really taken a toll on me, I guess. It's a good thing that nursing school is preparing me to make good money because I'm going to need it to start doing more self-maintenance.
I just handed in an essay that will count for a good chunk of my grade for the summer. I have to say, while everyone else has been freaking out about having to write a 5-page paper (which is NOT a big deal), and making sure their APA format is correct, I actually really enjoyed the assignment. The topic of the paper was not one I would have chosen myself, but the task of writing is one that I know I can complete...I am confident in my ability to write, especially when I have time to draft and revise. The essay was probably one of the first assignments this summer that I actually felt certain I could and would earn a good grade on. It is nice to finally find a piece of nursing school I know I can do well.
I'm almost done for the summer...one more week, and then I have a few weeks of vacation to relax, recoup, and re-energize. "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can," said the little blue engine...
I'm talking about that single moment in which you look in the mirror and don't recognize the person looking back. I had that moment just now, in the bathroom of the nursing building. I looked up from washing my hands (while singing Happy Birthday, to make sure I washed long enough...I'm such a dork) and was almost frightened by the reflection. Bags under my eyes, lines in places that didn't used to have lines, a deer-in-the-headlights look in my eyes, and really poorly-styled hair that needs a good cut. This semester has really taken a toll on me, I guess. It's a good thing that nursing school is preparing me to make good money because I'm going to need it to start doing more self-maintenance.
I just handed in an essay that will count for a good chunk of my grade for the summer. I have to say, while everyone else has been freaking out about having to write a 5-page paper (which is NOT a big deal), and making sure their APA format is correct, I actually really enjoyed the assignment. The topic of the paper was not one I would have chosen myself, but the task of writing is one that I know I can complete...I am confident in my ability to write, especially when I have time to draft and revise. The essay was probably one of the first assignments this summer that I actually felt certain I could and would earn a good grade on. It is nice to finally find a piece of nursing school I know I can do well.
I'm almost done for the summer...one more week, and then I have a few weeks of vacation to relax, recoup, and re-energize. "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can," said the little blue engine...
July 22, 2008
Tired
The summer semester is winding down...finally. My last skills mastery test will be on July 31, and then my last final is August 6. One of my classmates emailed recently with the comment, "Does anyone else wish that today was August 7???!?!"
One of my professors had mercy on us last week and condensed material so we would have an extra day off this week, which was yesterday. Not much of a day off, really, because while we weren't in class as much, we had more homework to even it out. I woke up this morning, after sleeping for 10 hours, still feeling really tired. I realized it's the kind of tired that isn't going to go away with a day off or extra sleep or anything...it's being tired of having things to do always hanging over my head and having no relief from huge stressors (the skills masteries just freak me out...I start shaking about two days beforehand and can't eat until about 5 hours after it's all over...assuming I've passed...). As soon as you wrap up one, there is another one looming on the horizon.
Every morning I tell myself, "You just have to get through today. Just this one day." And I make it. And start all over again the next morning. It's getting old.
I really need an end. I wish today was August 7.
One of my professors had mercy on us last week and condensed material so we would have an extra day off this week, which was yesterday. Not much of a day off, really, because while we weren't in class as much, we had more homework to even it out. I woke up this morning, after sleeping for 10 hours, still feeling really tired. I realized it's the kind of tired that isn't going to go away with a day off or extra sleep or anything...it's being tired of having things to do always hanging over my head and having no relief from huge stressors (the skills masteries just freak me out...I start shaking about two days beforehand and can't eat until about 5 hours after it's all over...assuming I've passed...). As soon as you wrap up one, there is another one looming on the horizon.
Every morning I tell myself, "You just have to get through today. Just this one day." And I make it. And start all over again the next morning. It's getting old.
I really need an end. I wish today was August 7.
July 12, 2008
Zipping right along...
What a crazy time! We spent our 4th of July weekend moving across the metroplex to a fun little duplex...it is a great place with a big yard for Jasper and so much more space inside than our old apartment. Plus it is not on the third floor. I can't tell you how appreciative I am of that fact when Jasper needs to pee at 3am.
We are pretty much settled in now with just a few random items still needing a place (or a trashcan). Moving in really takes a long time when life outside of the move doesn't slow down. School keeps rapidly firing the work at me, and Nate's duties at his job actually increased right about the time we moved, making more demands on his time and energy...so the fact that we don't still have rooms full of unpacked boxes is pretty significant.
This past Wednesday marked the beginning of a new 5-week summer semester for me, and after only one day (and several hours of reading assignments), I feel like I have a renewed spirit about this whole pursuit of a nursing degree. Up to this point I've become increasingly down-trodden, feeling crushed by the workload and discouraged about the difference between my picture of the nursing world and the reality that I've been observing in the hospitals. Without knowing it, my scope of vision had been slowing narrowing until I was only thinking of nursing in terms of a list of skills I needed to master (quickly!) and an extensive list of dos and don'ts for every shift. Not very inspiring or encouraging. I had lost sight of the bigger picture: the place of a nurse in society, the significant role the nurse has played in history, the overarching goals and priorities of nursing, and the general sense of pride a nurse can take in her/his work: knowing it is an act of service done for the betterment of a single patient, and therefore of all mankind.
I just finished reading an article in the American Journal of Nursing by L.L. Dock and am feeling very inspired by her words. She wrote about our duty to continually be advocating for the fair treatment of everyone, not just ourselves, fellow workers, and patients...like our role as nurses expands far beyond the hospital or clinic we work in, reaching out into other professions and into society in general. For example, she wrote that a newspaper had printed an article comparing the grossly underpaid teaching profession to the nursing field. She chided the nurses who had responded to the article by pointing out the inherent dangers of the nurse's work as justification for the salary difference, saying they should instead have used the opportunity to advocate for the teachers and say, "Yes, they are underpaid! We should do something about it!" The general tone of the article was just so...noble, I guess. The way she wrote about the work of the nurse...to be associated with an emerging profession that is generally aimed at helping, encouraging, uplifting and supporting people rather than doing whatever it takes to scramble up the proverbial professional ladder first creates such a sense of fulfillment for me. Not that I am above scrambling up the ladder, but that my profession expects me to be. Even though she wrote the article in 1913, I feel like her words are as relevant today as they were the day she penned them.
I have so much work to do today...I've got to get back at it. I just couldn't help taking a few minutes to (for the first time since I started nursing school) vent the pride I take in my line of work.
We are pretty much settled in now with just a few random items still needing a place (or a trashcan). Moving in really takes a long time when life outside of the move doesn't slow down. School keeps rapidly firing the work at me, and Nate's duties at his job actually increased right about the time we moved, making more demands on his time and energy...so the fact that we don't still have rooms full of unpacked boxes is pretty significant.
This past Wednesday marked the beginning of a new 5-week summer semester for me, and after only one day (and several hours of reading assignments), I feel like I have a renewed spirit about this whole pursuit of a nursing degree. Up to this point I've become increasingly down-trodden, feeling crushed by the workload and discouraged about the difference between my picture of the nursing world and the reality that I've been observing in the hospitals. Without knowing it, my scope of vision had been slowing narrowing until I was only thinking of nursing in terms of a list of skills I needed to master (quickly!) and an extensive list of dos and don'ts for every shift. Not very inspiring or encouraging. I had lost sight of the bigger picture: the place of a nurse in society, the significant role the nurse has played in history, the overarching goals and priorities of nursing, and the general sense of pride a nurse can take in her/his work: knowing it is an act of service done for the betterment of a single patient, and therefore of all mankind.
I just finished reading an article in the American Journal of Nursing by L.L. Dock and am feeling very inspired by her words. She wrote about our duty to continually be advocating for the fair treatment of everyone, not just ourselves, fellow workers, and patients...like our role as nurses expands far beyond the hospital or clinic we work in, reaching out into other professions and into society in general. For example, she wrote that a newspaper had printed an article comparing the grossly underpaid teaching profession to the nursing field. She chided the nurses who had responded to the article by pointing out the inherent dangers of the nurse's work as justification for the salary difference, saying they should instead have used the opportunity to advocate for the teachers and say, "Yes, they are underpaid! We should do something about it!" The general tone of the article was just so...noble, I guess. The way she wrote about the work of the nurse...to be associated with an emerging profession that is generally aimed at helping, encouraging, uplifting and supporting people rather than doing whatever it takes to scramble up the proverbial professional ladder first creates such a sense of fulfillment for me. Not that I am above scrambling up the ladder, but that my profession expects me to be. Even though she wrote the article in 1913, I feel like her words are as relevant today as they were the day she penned them.
I have so much work to do today...I've got to get back at it. I just couldn't help taking a few minutes to (for the first time since I started nursing school) vent the pride I take in my line of work.
June 18, 2008
Shadow Day
This is an excerpt from my nursing clinical journal...I think it paints a really good picture of the struggle I'm having in school so far:
Shadow day at the hospital. I definitely felt better about today than I did about orientation day...what a world of difference being one-on-one with a nurse made. I think I am still experiencing a little bit of reality shock, though. For some reason I just seem to have a picture in my head of what a nurse's job looks like each day, and it is not jiving with what I am seeing actually happen. I can't figure out if this is because I am seeing a Med-Surg unit and that's just what Med-Surg units happen to look like (while some other unit matches my mental image), if it is because I have not yet seen a nurse who performs nursing care the way I envision myself doing it, or if it is because I really just have a skewed picture of what the nursing profession looks like. It is a little bit discouraging, but I keep reminding myself that the nursing field is so broad; somewhere out there is a niche for me. I just have to find it. :)
I think another little point of discouragement is the reality of the nursing shortage and all that follows because of it. We are reading Bed Number Ten for Cheek's class, and I was horrified to read of all the miscommunication between staff and the lack of loving, personal care to each patient. I thought I was reading about a rare unfortunate situation, but I'm finding out it is reality. There really are lazy nurses, there really are communication breakdowns (frequent, actually), and there really is a lack of warm, personal care, simply because nurses are stressed, busy, and overloaded. I don't want ever to become that kind of nurse, and I'm afraid that working in an environment that repeatedly puts me in that situation will mold me into that shape.
On the bright side, I am really looking forward to relationship-building with my patients, and I am thankful that I will only have one patient to really focus on each day, leaving me with lots of time for personal attention. Even just the small amount of time I had with first-time acquaintances today, I experienced the emotional high of helping someone get to the bathroom. Sounds weird, I know, and it probably won't last, but I felt really good being someone's rock--meeting such a real and tangible need. I enjoyed helping. I really think that med-surg is going to be a difficult unit for me, just because of the rapidly changing clientel. I see myself doing better in a unit such as oncology, or even in a nursing home, where I am able to interact with clients for longer periods of time, getting to know them as people with lives rather than just bodies in beds.
That's all for today, I guess. Mental note: stuff more PB crackers in my scrub pockets next week. I gave mine away and was really shaky by the time we got out of post-conference today. This is not conducive to learning!!
Shadow day at the hospital. I definitely felt better about today than I did about orientation day...what a world of difference being one-on-one with a nurse made. I think I am still experiencing a little bit of reality shock, though. For some reason I just seem to have a picture in my head of what a nurse's job looks like each day, and it is not jiving with what I am seeing actually happen. I can't figure out if this is because I am seeing a Med-Surg unit and that's just what Med-Surg units happen to look like (while some other unit matches my mental image), if it is because I have not yet seen a nurse who performs nursing care the way I envision myself doing it, or if it is because I really just have a skewed picture of what the nursing profession looks like. It is a little bit discouraging, but I keep reminding myself that the nursing field is so broad; somewhere out there is a niche for me. I just have to find it. :)
I think another little point of discouragement is the reality of the nursing shortage and all that follows because of it. We are reading Bed Number Ten for Cheek's class, and I was horrified to read of all the miscommunication between staff and the lack of loving, personal care to each patient. I thought I was reading about a rare unfortunate situation, but I'm finding out it is reality. There really are lazy nurses, there really are communication breakdowns (frequent, actually), and there really is a lack of warm, personal care, simply because nurses are stressed, busy, and overloaded. I don't want ever to become that kind of nurse, and I'm afraid that working in an environment that repeatedly puts me in that situation will mold me into that shape.
On the bright side, I am really looking forward to relationship-building with my patients, and I am thankful that I will only have one patient to really focus on each day, leaving me with lots of time for personal attention. Even just the small amount of time I had with first-time acquaintances today, I experienced the emotional high of helping someone get to the bathroom. Sounds weird, I know, and it probably won't last, but I felt really good being someone's rock--meeting such a real and tangible need. I enjoyed helping. I really think that med-surg is going to be a difficult unit for me, just because of the rapidly changing clientel. I see myself doing better in a unit such as oncology, or even in a nursing home, where I am able to interact with clients for longer periods of time, getting to know them as people with lives rather than just bodies in beds.
That's all for today, I guess. Mental note: stuff more PB crackers in my scrub pockets next week. I gave mine away and was really shaky by the time we got out of post-conference today. This is not conducive to learning!!
June 15, 2008
Picking up a second income...
My mom is an expert at finding money. She saw some program on TV once about all the places you can find money, and once she started paying attention and looking around, she found all kinds of change in all kinds of places. Dollar bills in the car vaccuum filter, quarters in the newspaper and vending machine returned coin slides, random money in random parking lots...we have paid for ice cream at Dairy Queen with Mom's found change on more than one occasion. Free ice cream tastes really good.
It appears I have inherited this talent for finding change. Or maybe just the appetite for free money (but who doesn't have that??!). I have gotten pretty good at finding money in the parking lot of our apartment complex; I usually make anywhere between one and five cents every time I take Jasper out to poop (letting him out to pee doesn't take me far enough into the parking lot...has to be #2). Today, though, I hit a personal high of 56 cents, mostly in pennies and nickels. And I found it at the beginning of our walk, which means I held onto a dirty handful of change for 30 minutes while we walked around the neighborhood. It was gross, but I was not giving up my free 56 cents.
Don't laugh. It all adds up, you know. I've calculated that if I find just two cents every day, I can pay off my tuition loans in about a million years...that's faster than the billion years I'm looking at without that free change!
It appears I have inherited this talent for finding change. Or maybe just the appetite for free money (but who doesn't have that??!). I have gotten pretty good at finding money in the parking lot of our apartment complex; I usually make anywhere between one and five cents every time I take Jasper out to poop (letting him out to pee doesn't take me far enough into the parking lot...has to be #2). Today, though, I hit a personal high of 56 cents, mostly in pennies and nickels. And I found it at the beginning of our walk, which means I held onto a dirty handful of change for 30 minutes while we walked around the neighborhood. It was gross, but I was not giving up my free 56 cents.
Don't laugh. It all adds up, you know. I've calculated that if I find just two cents every day, I can pay off my tuition loans in about a million years...that's faster than the billion years I'm looking at without that free change!
June 12, 2008
Lab Specimen
Interesting day at school today. I was not really prepared to take my shirt off in front of everyone in my nursing lab.
We were practicing musculoskeletal assessments today, so we were doing all kinds of range of motion exercises with our partners, assessing gait and looking for any kind of abnormalities. You can only practice range of motion for so long, so to kill the extra time, my partner suggested practicing checking for scoliosis. No problem there...I have great posture and have no problem being a model non-scoliosis patient. So we went behind the little curtain thing and I whipped off my shirt so she could look at my spine. When I bent over, she said, "Hmm...this side looks higher than this side. And your rib cage looks uneven." I totally thought she was joking.
Right about then one of the instructors walks in and says, "Oh, my..." I'm thinking, "Oh, crap." She palpates around and calls another instructor over and they poke around together. Before you know it, the curtain is gone, and the instructor is pointing out my problems to everyone in the class. Everyone is looking at my back, gasping and leaning forward, trying to palpate my back muscles and get an idea of what an abnormal musculoskeletal finding looks like. That was kind of an awkward moment, to which I responded by exhibiting diaphoresis (excessive sweating), making palpating me that much more fun...and by that I mean embarrassing.
In the end, the instructors diagnosed me as having one leg shorter than the other (which I suspected after doing inversions in yoga...my legs always looked uneven to me). Apparently this has caused my hips to be unequal in height, my back muscles to develop differently in order to compensate, leading to a slight side curvature in the thoracic spine and an elevated right shoulder. Great. So funny that something like this can go on and I have no idea about it. Not even an inkling. I don't walk strangely, I don't have back pain, I really do have great posture...apparently things just aren't so perfect on the inside. I'm actually kind of impressed at the body's adaptation skills.
For the rest of the day my partner, Dy, and I kept making jokes about peoples' reactions to my "deformity," we called it. People kept asking me if it hurt to walk, if I'd broken my back, if I wore special shoes, etc., like it was even a miracle to them I'd made it this far in life. We were just cracking up. We wondered if maybe I could get a handicapped parking pass out of the deal, which would be stellar because those are about the only open parking spots on campus. :)
We were practicing musculoskeletal assessments today, so we were doing all kinds of range of motion exercises with our partners, assessing gait and looking for any kind of abnormalities. You can only practice range of motion for so long, so to kill the extra time, my partner suggested practicing checking for scoliosis. No problem there...I have great posture and have no problem being a model non-scoliosis patient. So we went behind the little curtain thing and I whipped off my shirt so she could look at my spine. When I bent over, she said, "Hmm...this side looks higher than this side. And your rib cage looks uneven." I totally thought she was joking.
Right about then one of the instructors walks in and says, "Oh, my..." I'm thinking, "Oh, crap." She palpates around and calls another instructor over and they poke around together. Before you know it, the curtain is gone, and the instructor is pointing out my problems to everyone in the class. Everyone is looking at my back, gasping and leaning forward, trying to palpate my back muscles and get an idea of what an abnormal musculoskeletal finding looks like. That was kind of an awkward moment, to which I responded by exhibiting diaphoresis (excessive sweating), making palpating me that much more fun...and by that I mean embarrassing.
In the end, the instructors diagnosed me as having one leg shorter than the other (which I suspected after doing inversions in yoga...my legs always looked uneven to me). Apparently this has caused my hips to be unequal in height, my back muscles to develop differently in order to compensate, leading to a slight side curvature in the thoracic spine and an elevated right shoulder. Great. So funny that something like this can go on and I have no idea about it. Not even an inkling. I don't walk strangely, I don't have back pain, I really do have great posture...apparently things just aren't so perfect on the inside. I'm actually kind of impressed at the body's adaptation skills.
For the rest of the day my partner, Dy, and I kept making jokes about peoples' reactions to my "deformity," we called it. People kept asking me if it hurt to walk, if I'd broken my back, if I wore special shoes, etc., like it was even a miracle to them I'd made it this far in life. We were just cracking up. We wondered if maybe I could get a handicapped parking pass out of the deal, which would be stellar because those are about the only open parking spots on campus. :)
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