Catch up

I haven't posted in so long!!!!

It has been crazy hectic and I haven't been able to take a few seconds to type on here... But let me catch you up really quick...

So that Monday (3rd) I had a test in my health assessment class and I did pretty good!

Tuesday - 4th - During lab we did a lot of fun stuff actually. We learned about how to properly make a patients bed if they were in the bed or not. Then we got in a line and gave each other back rubs! It is recommended that we give patients back rubs (if they need it) for even one minute a day. So this was actually a fun relief :) Then Grace and I volunteered to brush teeth! Grace was the patient and I was the nurse and I had to help her brush her teeth. It was hilarious. We got a toothbrush and toothpaste afterwards for volunteering :) Afterwards I stayed for openlab to practice for our skills checkoff in a week.

Wednesday - 5th - After class Alex and I went to our friends house for dinner. When we were done with dinner I was able to do a DDST (one of my assignments from health assessment lab) on their child. He is extremely smart and the DDST shows the developmental status in a short explanation. I haven't written the report up yet, but he was a lot further in the chart doing things that a 4 year old starts doing, and he is less than a month from 3 years old.. Told you he was smart. Afterwards Alex and I went to our rockclimbing workout.

Thursday - 6th - NO CLASS TODAY!!!! So at 8AM I met these two guys from UF at the millenia mall. They were doing a survey about the (STUPID) flashing speed limit signs on I4 that change during rush hour? Well you just drive their car from conroy to maitland and back, and they pay you $50!!! It was the easiest cash I have ever made. Then, I met up with some friends from highscool, and we went to LEGOLAND!!! It isn't even opened yet, but Brittany got four free tickets from her work for a "VIP" day. Basically, in the middle of one o the rides, I realized we were pretty much test dummies and it made me uneasy : / But this place is pretty cool. We rode all of the four rides... we saw a water ski show, and also there is this little area that is made COMPLETELY of legos. It has every main city pretty much in the USA. Las Vegas was there, NASA, New York, San Francisco. Any place you can think of, it was pretty much made out of legos and put there. Some of these building were at LEAST 5 foot. It was a really fun day.

Friday - 7th - NO CLASS TODAY!!! I went over to Kimberly's house and we made study guides for all next week because next week is... DUN DUN DUN.. MIDTERMS!!!! I stayed the night with Alex tonight. In the morning he was laughing at me so hard because I was talking in my sleep. I held out my closed hand towards him, and said... , "Take this needle... take it to the sharps box... be careful! Take it to the sharps box... Take this needle... " And I just kept repeating it... he said I was doing it so much and for so long, that he seriously thought that I had something in my hand! I guess I studied a good amount for my skills checkoff for Tuesday...

Saturday - 8th - So I studied all morning and then went over to Ray's house downtown. A friend, Kirsten, from Ohio was in town for the weekend, so we were over there hanging out with them all day today. It was really crappy outside. It rained all day. Alex and I had tickets to go with Brittany and Alejandro to UCF's football game but we passed. So Kirsten, Ray, Alex, and I went to get some monster margaritas!! We had a really good Mexican lunch, then headed to one of Alex's friend's house. We played some beer pong a little bit, then went back downtown to Ray's place. We all got ready and took a GOLF CART CAB to Frankenstein's. It was pretty funny. In the cab, we were really hoping we got the cash cab. But of course we didn't. So everybody started just asking questions and we were answering them. Even the driver got involved. Funnest cab ride ever. Afterwards, we got invited to the penthouse at solaire. It was GORGEOUS. $10,000 a month for rent.... The view was amazing, and everything was so modern. It was a great time and the people were amazingly nice.

This was just the master closet..

I love you!!!

 The sink in the hallway bathroom!

Sunday - 9th - Stayed the night at Rays last night. Woke up and went home all day pretty much. I studied and studied for midterms then went to church. When I was taking Bradley outside, I finally was able to catch the kitten outside of my apartment! I have been trying to get her for a while. I saw her about a month ago with other little kittens and a mom. This past week and a half it has been just her. I've been bringing her food. She is extremely little and skinny and looking for attention. I tried to get her but I never could. She is soooo fast. But today, she just walked right out of the bush and just meowed at me. So I walked up to her and she let me pick her up!!! She is soooo cute!!! I met up with my parents so they could take her because they have a cat as well and have cat food and a litter box on hand. I got really attached to her just like she got really attached to me pretty fast. There is a little bit more of the story behind it, but it is kind of corny... so if you want to know it, then you can email me :)

She is so freaking cute...

Monday - 10th - ESSENTIALS MIDTERM!! AHHHHH, I think I did OK, but I still don't have my scores yet.... I also found a home for the kitty!!! One of the girls from my CNC took her. I'm so happy I found a home for her :) She was adorable with Bradley though. His nose was about as big as her body. And they were sitting on the floor doing this weird stare/tilting head contest. Then the little kitty put her paws up to paw at him, so Bradley barely touched her with his paw.. and she fell over.. It was cute.. but ill shut up now..

Tuesday - 11 - ESSENTIALS SKILLS CHECKOFF!!! Alex came over in the morning to help me study. Bradley was my patient on the couch. (When I had to check his wrist band for name and DOB, he would hand me his paw... so cute) So this is how it goes.. you get thirty minutes with a one on one instructor pretty much interrogating you and asking questions about why and what you are doing. You have to mix insulin, give a subq injection, draw a medication from an ampule, and give a intramuscular injection. It is pretty simple, but extremely nerve racking when an instructor is standing right there asking you all of these different types of questions like where are the IM sites? and what gauge are you using and why? My instructor asked me if a pirate came into the clinic and needed insulin, which would you give him? I had no idea.. and I thought he was being serious... I started thinking.. ok.. well... pirates probably eat a lot of fish and not very much any other meat.. maybe they are malnourished from being at sea... and I just start going off.. well he laughs at me... and he goes RRRRRRRR ( the options were R, or NPH)... DUH KATIE!!! He was great. He made me not so nervous and the best part... I PASSED!!!! I was so excited. Afterwards we went to health assessment lab where we learned about the cardiovascular assessment. It is fun doing these assessments lately because one of us has to volunteer to be the patient, so we actually get to see the real thing (I volunteered last week for respiratory, and Leah volunteered this week). I also got to play with a neonate stethoscope. This is what I want to do, is the NICU, so it was really neat....

Neonate Stethoscope

Wednesday - 12th - Uhhhh.. class at 7:30 for Role of the Professional Nurse. She told us to come prepared on the steps of solving an ethical dilemma. And then she gave us a pop quiz on something that we have never seen before. After class, we had ANOTHER MIDTERM in community class. I did good on this though! I got a B! I didn't even start studying until about an hour or so before the test, so I definitely did good... I was so excited to be done with midterms. So I went over to Alex's house with two bottles of wine to celebrate.

Thursday - 13th - TODAY!!! Our first day at the VA long term care unit! It is going to be amazing. And everything is so up to date and electronic. Some things are even by fingerprint... It is a really nice facility. We are on night shifts now. We got our computer access codes, badges ( I have two badges now! I'm starting to look professional ), computer class, and a tour. Tomorrow we get assigned our patient and start doing the fun stuff!! We can now adminster shots and medications. So I am excited to see our next steps :) :) :)

Midtermless,

Katie

Falling.

So Friday was my last day in the community. I got a Satisfactory in the class. 1 class down, 7 classes to go this semester! Myself and three other girls gave teaching presentations about stranger safety and dental hygiene to 3-5 years old. They were really cute. We did 7 presentations in 2 hours. It was a lot of running around. One little kid, when we asked him what a stranger was, he said somebody that would come up to you and have a snake or an alligator in their mouth. That would definitely qualify as a stranger danger.....

 I look crazy don't I? I'm suppose to be the stranger danger. My outfit is definitely dangerous....

This is the dental presentation.

Afterwards since it was our last day with our instructor until our last year, we made her a picture and we all signed the picture and a card. She loved it.

She's a fairy godmother.

Then Saturday we had to sit in a Long Term Care Orientation class at school from 8:30 to 3:00. It was horrible. Very long and drawn out. It could have just been put into an email or a module online. Some of the things we are doing at the LTC is pretty intense: sponge baths, diapers. But the best part is we start giving injections!!! I'm pretty excited about that. And actually being in a clinical setting every week... that will be a relief.

As to the rest of the weekend = stressful. One word. I will tell you that I do feel like I am falling, and not stopping at any point lately, but definitely picking up speed.

Took a break from Studying,

Katie

No colors today. I am not in a colorful mood. I am in a studying mood.

This is the closest I will come to feeling like a celebrity....

Ok... so it has been a while since I have written... but... same excuse.. I'm crazy busy....

Well... Monday was just another day. Class in the morning from 11-3. Next week we have a test and in this class we only take a few test and that is pretty much it. So pressure is on there. Then we had essentials class. We learned about injections! Something finally interesting. So we were all told to bring our needles and syringes (if you get pulled over with your lab kits and you don't have a UCF Student Nurse ID on you, you could get arrested... pretty intense stuff). And Tuesday... we learned about it all!!!

From 1415 to 1600 we were bumbarded with so much information. We each had our own "station" and we had to give injections to these imitation arms which were pretty much kind of like a sponge. It was so much stuff!!! How to properly give an injection to how to properly draw up the medication. It was a lot to handle, not to mention that there is SQ injections, IM, Subdermal, mixing insulin, reconstitution. Then.. afterwards.. we realized that our skills lab checkoff is in 2 weeks!!! If you don't pass the first time, then you get one more chance to do your injections... and if not... FAILURE....  At home, they told us to practice on hot dogs and oranges....
O...M...G.... and I was talking to some of the seniors and a lot of people actually ended up not passing the first time... awesome. Pretty much, it is just you and the instructor and you walk into an imaginary room and act like the patient is real. You talk to them and figure out what types of medication they need and how to administer the medication correctly. Well, we have to do all of this for three types of injections within 30 minutes while you have an instructor breathing down your neck and grading your every move from washing your hands to documenting the medication.... but that is two weeks away, and right now.. I am still trying to catch up on yesterday...

Well anyways.. afterwards I had Health Assessment lab. We got to play with the ear and eye equipment (otoscope and ophthalmascope). It was pretty neat to be on the other side and look in.... like literally inside.....

Well afterwards I signed up for open lab. This is when you can come into the lab and practice your skills checkoff or anything you would basically like to practice. So all of us girls are standing in the hallway waiting to be let into the lab. And I have been keeping this story from you, because I really didn't want EVERYBODY knowing this certain thing. OK, so you know how busy I am... well.. I am so busy that it is really hard to find time to do the normal things.. like... clean.... and laundry.. and stuff... Well, I only have two white tops, and one white pants and one blue pants for scrubs. And I have only done laundry once since we have been in nursing school so far.. (yes OK, I do realize that it has been about 6 weeks....) On my defense, I only wear scrubs 3/5 school days a week.. so that really isn't that bad. Well our white pants are extremely see through so we have to wear a certain white / beige granny panties. And of course, mine were dirty. So I grabbed a pair of white granny panties instead of beige. BIG MISTAKE! The elevators doors are mirrors, so as I am waiting to go into open lab, I realized how much you could see my underwear through my pants!!! So I tell the girls and everybody starts looking into the mirrors / elevator doors at my underwear line! And at this point, one of the girls has joined me, and we are bent completely over in front of the doors... when all of a sudden.. our instructor for open lab... comes around the corner and stares at us.. and by the way.. he was a male..... I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard.

I did my whites that night.....

Today I was at clinicals. I went to an elementary school in the morning to do hearing screenings. It was nice to do something besides vision! All of the little kids of course were adorable. The test was pretty easy once you got it down. I had my own little work area and screened a good amount of kids.

If a child doesn't understand that he needs to raise his hand when he hears a beep, we use a play off method. We give them a ball, and tell them to hold it up to their ear, and when the ball makes a noise to let go of the ball and drop it in a bucket. They got so excited and balls were going everywhere.

One of the little girls didn't know much english. And I can speak a very good amount of spanish. So I told the little one that, "Cuando oiga un BEEP BEEP BEEP, levante la mano." (When you hear beep beep beep, raise your hand.) So not only did she raise her hand, but when I pressed the button for the beep, she would go, " BEEP BEEP BEEP LEVANTE LA MANO BEEP BEEP BEEP!!!" At least she understood right?

Afterwards I left their and headed to catch up to the girls at another location for, yes you guessed it, more vision and BMI screenings. It is always nice to be around everybody though because some of the conversations are crazy. If any of you ever go to nursing school, the friends that you meet in your clinical group, will end up being your best friends for life. The girls in my group are amazing and we talk about everything. I can't count the number of times that all of us are dying laughing. But its ok, at least we can take each other's BP if one of us passes out... well... we might read it wrong.. but it will look like we know what we are doing.

As we were walking out, we walked through the cafeteria where all of the children were. They all started yelling and waving and trying to come see us. There were OHS, and AHS. Everybody was staring and talking about us. We all started waving. By the end of the cafeteria, I realized, this is the closes I will come to feeling like a celebrity. Thank you elementary schoolers.

Tomorrow is another day,

Katie

Home

So wow there is a lot to catch you guys up on!!!

So Tuesday, we ended up learning about PEG tubes during lab. No injections yet! But I will keep you updated. Then I ended up going to Alex's house to study, which turned out not happening very well. I thought we were going to study, but there was a lot of commotion around me, so it took me a while just to finish my study guide. So I finally actually STARTED studying at about 10 that night... : / I went home shortly after thinking I could study better at my place. I was in and out of it trying to study. I would wake up, first realizing that I had fallen asleep, then go back to studying. Repeat. Repeat. One of the times that I woke up, I remember a friend of mine wanted a copy of my study guide so I emailed it to her. I could have sworn I emailed her around 1 AM, but the next day she showed me the email.... it was more like 5 AM. Well I got up,  went to school, and kicked some exam butt!! I felt so good walking out of that room. They used new scantrons this time, and we found out our scores that same day. I GOT A 49/50!!!! WooHoo!!

Afterwards was community class. We had a guest speaker for tobacco. And wow... I don't smoke, and I am glad that I don't. Some of the statistics she was telling us were literally making some people gag. It was intense.

• 1 out of every 5 deaths in USA is due to smoking. 
• It's the number one preventable disease, yet still kills more than AIDS, Fires, Suicides, Murders, Heroin, Cocain, Drugs (and a few others that I forgot) COMBINED!
• For every 8 smokers that pass, one non-smoker dies from second hand smoke.

The list really goes on and on... it was eye opening. Then that night I went to my workout at Aguille with the rockclimbing club (no swollen arms this time :) )

Thursday I was at another elementary school doing height, weight, BMI, and vision screenings. They were very well behaved and classes flew by. There was only three of us this time because the clinical group was separated throughout the community today. It was a crazy day though. We got there at 7:30 and didn't leave til almost 4:30. Our instructor, Dr. Swenson, is amazing though. She is one of those really sweet and cute older people. She seriously is like a fairy godmother. She moves her hands so elegantly, you ask a yes or no question and you get a 5 minute answer, she is always smiling, and her laugh is adorable. Well anyways, we realized that after next week we won't be with her anymore because we will be transferring to a VA clinic. So we started talking to her about her past and just sharing stories. She apparently used to be a backpacker! (Alex and I backpacked through the smokey mountains this past summer.... we went on a huge vacation and visited 10 states in two months. It was an amazing summer. When I get time, I will post about it....

This last one is one top of Charlies Bunion, 5,565 ft... the day before we were even higher on a different mountain.) Anyways, she was talking about how she has climbed mountains in Argentina, and places all over the world. It was very interesting. After talking about that, one of the girls wanted to show her the youtube video of that horrible zit on that persons back! Have you seen it? It's pretty "gruesome" according to Dr. Swenson. It is reallllllly gross. Well anyways, while it was playing.. Swenson's face was priceless.... hearing it in the background though was making me almost vomit... it was horrible. Then Dr. Swenson started talking about how unsanitary they were when they did that, and if somebody possibly got it in their eyes that wouldn't be good. At this point, I am freaking out, covering my ears, rocking back and forth, and saying, " I don't want anything in my eyes, I don't want anything in eyes!" over and over again. It was making Rachel laugh so hard. I seriously terrified.

The day before, Alex and I took Bradley outside to play. We threw the ball around and he was chasing it for a while. Well we were on concrete.. and Thursday morning, he couldn't walk on one of his legs. I was pretty nervous. I called my parents and they said they would pay for me to take him to the vet to make sure he was ok. He couldn't even climb up the stairs or jump on the bed. So of course, I was worried all day and rushed home to check on him. When I got home, Alex was there checking on him. But Bradley already seemed a lot better. Apparently, he rubbed one of the pads on his back left paw almost completely all the way through. It was a pretty big gash. So Alex and I stayed with him that night and did homework.

Friday I went to a Florida Nursing Association conference! My first professional, big girl, all grown up conference. It was in Altamonte Springs, and our whole CNC group had to go. The lectures were semi interesting. There were some about resumes, portfolios, and interviewing skills. So I paid attention during those. But the best part: The Free Stuff!!! I got highlighters that look like syringes, luggage tags, mugs, pens, and lots of brochures. One of the booths even had a candy bar. Yes you read correctly, A CANDY BAR! And boy did I take advantage.. it was the only thing keeping me going from 7:30 to 4.

 All of the UCF Nursing girls that went to the conference.

Lunch by the pool :)

 Dr. Swenson and my clinical group!!!

I <3 my CNC

This weekend I was suppose to go to St. Augustine with Alex. It was suppose to be a nice weekend away. We were going to go see the fort, do ghost tours, see the town and everything, but of course... my loan still hasn't come through. I only had a few bucks to spend for the weekend so I didn't go. I really really wanted to considering this is my only weekend to relax until OCTOBER 22!!! I'm completely booked up. Alex still went to see his friends, and I was sitting at home.. already miserable after the first few minutes of knowing he was on his way to St. Augustine, and I thought... what better night to go to my parents house!!!?? So I packed up Bradley, and we drove home!!! Now I am sitting here in a lazy boy, with a full stomach, no worries (except homework) with my parents company. 

Also, great news!!! I have a new nephew!!! My brother just had another baby! Welcome to the world baby Shane Matthew Rodgers!!! I already miss you and I haven't met you yet!! Now I am at two wonderful nephews :)

Happy to be home,

Katie

I can breathe!

Finally! I can breathe! Well.. at least for the next 30 minutes. I just now, finally, absolutely, happily, finished, done, over, no more, with homework!!!

. 

Can I get a HELL YES!!!

So in 30 minutes I have to leave for lab, and decided to use my leisure time to eat a popsicle and talk about my weekend.

First off, what weekend? I had so much homework I dreamed about nursing school. No lie.
Friday night I stayed in. Everybody was going to Gainesville, Alex went downtown, and responsible Katie, stayed home, with a pile of homework, a puppy dog, and a bucket of frozen grapes.

Saturday, I woke up early, and what did I do? You guessed it. Went straight back to homework. I'm on this biological clock lately, to where I can't sleep past 0800 anymore. It is very annoying. Well my break today was going to the grocery store! I have been so busy (and broke...) that I haven't gone full, actual, grocery shopping in a LONG time... So this was very exciting for me. I have been saving a bunch of coupons and went when Publix was having really good buy one get ones. I felt like an extreme couponer. :) Needless to say.....

Look at that LONG receipt! And I only spent $70!!! I ended up saving a little over $25. The best part of the adventure.. when I was leaving there was a fist fight outside over a parking lot. By the time I was pulling out, there were cops EVERYWHERE. Who knew Publix is where people get there punch on?
I lit some candles, put on some music, and read a book until Alex came over. I cooked him some awesome flank steak stuffed with provolone cheese and spinach with scalloped potatoes on the side. MMmmMMmmmMMMMMMmmmMMMmm.

And remember how I was saying my arms were so sore from working out on Wednesday? Well I really think I did something.. three weeks in nursing school.. and I know that this is not what my arm is suppose to look like...

It is sooooo swollen (top and bottom)! And I can't move it. It's really stiff and won't go straight. I look like a retarded person walking around and Alex laughs at me almost every 5 minutes (or at least he giggles under his breath).

And here comes the dreaming about nursing school story. So this night I ended up staying the night at Alex's house. We went over to his place after dinner and watched movies. Well.. I had a dream that my clinical group and I, were in one of conference rooms that we go to every Friday for our "clinical conference". And somebody called us.. telling us that there was a BOMB in the room. Tells you how much I am not stressed out huh? Well the dream goes on to being pretty scary...being chased, screaming girls, bomb terrorist, nursing school.  The best part was waking up because Alex was snoring.

So Sunday comes around. I met some friends at IHOP for breakfast. Then I really really wanted to hang out with everybody at World of Beer. The football games were going on, Alex wanted me to stay really bad, my friends were there... so, using my first three weeks of nursing school education about critical thinking... I hooked up my laptop to the outlets behind the bar, ordered a beer, studied at World of Beer, and played corn hole during my breaks. It is the best decision I have had all week. It is a great way to solve all of my problems! For you future nurses: It combines boyfriend, friends, TV, beer, and Nursing School ALL IN ONE!!!

I had a huge smile all day and to top it off, that night when I took my test, I was pretty confident that I did good. I actually STUDIED AT THE BAR, and it really worked out.

Monday one of my friends from church went into labor! So after school and dinner, we went to the hospital to give her our blessings. I was wondering around looking at the papers that show the babies heart and the contractions. It was really interesting. I can't wait for the OB rotation. Everybody was saying I should get some clinical hours... that would have been nice.
So Alex and I decided to go check out the nursery and see the babies! So we go through one of the doors.. we had to call somebody to let us in, and when we went through.. everybody was staring at us, a little alarm went off, and then over the intercom you hear " CODE PINK, CODE PINK". Umm....
So we realized that we were in the wrong wing, and had to go through the doors that we just came through. But they locked... apparently a code pink is a baby is missing. We thought it was called on us! We had no idea what to do. So I called to get back through the door, and the lady on the phone asked if we were the reason that they called Code Pink. I didn't know what a code pink was at the time, so what was I suppose to say? So she said we had to wait for the alarm to go back off and for the code pink to be resolved and them we could be let through. People were staring vigorously...
We ended up not being able to see the nursery... and we just stayed put in the waiting room for the rest of the time....
Other than that.... Welcome to the world Baby Ian!!!


This leads me to today. I woke up early.. unintentional.. and started on homework. I finished everything with 30 minutes to spare before class. Today in lab we are going through medications I believe. Should be interesting (oh yes, I am bringing my camera). Afterwards I am headed to Alex's house for an all nighter probably. I have a test at 0730 in the morning tomorrow.. and I haven't started studying because I have been crazy busy on doing actual homework. So yet again, cross your fingers!

Relaxed for once within the past month,

Katie

P.s. This was sent from my mom yesterday. My parents read my blog since I have been so busy, I can't call them as much as I used to. This put a huge smile on my face. I love you guys!!!

From mom:

Okay little girl…..I read your blog this morning and if your brother is a turd what does that make your father and I??????????

 

Are you sure that was okra and not a cucumber that thing was huge.  You should buy one and I’ll cook it for you.  Alex is not your only rock to lean on you have your father and I.  Sweetie please don’t ever fill like you are alone because you are not.  You need to sneak away one night and come home and let mom pamper you.  We can go get a pedy then head home I’ll fix you a big meal and fill your tummy then we can do facials put in Lion King or one of the other movies’ we use to watch and I’ll make us some drinks with alcohol since your are legal now.  You should have no problem in sleeping……….

 

Have a good day and I love you very much.

Mom

Gluten Balls

So Wednesday, I did pretty good on my test. I know I missed a few questions, but that's Wednesday's news. After class I went with Alex to the UCF Rock climbing clubs workout at Aguille. It was awesome. We did abs, and arms, and bouldering. It was a lot of fun.

Thursday I woke up early and went to Bermuda with Amanda.

We were on Meals on Wheels today. This is a program that serves hot meals to seniors that can't take care of themselves and aren't capable of making themselves a home cooked meal. There are so many clients in the community that I was in today that 6 routes or so are not covered by volunteers, DAILY. There are so many seniors in need that there are hundreds and hundreds on the waiting list. The client list is about 300 per town in Orange County.

Well anyways, it was a crazy day. First off, I can barely move my arms. Turning the wheel was a hard activity today. My arms are so sore from the workout! Amanda and I delivered a bunch of meals to a bunch of people in the community. They ranged from disabled to 94 years old. Everybody was so sweet. We put a pink magnet on the side of my car and drove around in our nursing scrubs. It was a lot of fun and we met a lot of.... different... people.

We finished early and had a while before we had to go back to one of the elementary schools to fill out paperwork, so we decided to "assess our community". We stopped at this crazy flea market place. They had a whole bunch of random things. Like for example.. these reindeer rings on my fingers.....

We still had a little bit of time, so then we came across a Chinese Supermarket. If you haven't been in one of these style supermarkets, EVERYTHING IS IN CHINESE!!!!
When I was little, I used to always eat Koala March. They were so good and absolutely scrumptious. Well, they stopped carrying them in Publix and I haven't seen them since elementary school (they are little Japanese cookies filled with chocolate). Well, Target actually has some in the dollar section right now called Hello Panda. They are basically the same thing, except they are Chinese cookies and they are pandas instead of koalas. Anyways, we found them in chinese!!!!! I was extremely excited. This moment was the highlight of my week. Kind of sad huh?

Anybody remember them?
Well we also found bags of Pocky that were a couple pounds big. That's a lot of Pocky.... Some other interesting things that we found...

The above picture is a Chinese okra. Where do you even start with one of those things?

Well overall my day was pretty good. Then when I got home, yes, I had my first melt down. I was looking at all of my work that I had to do (which keeps getting to be a longer list every day), and was just getting more stressed out. It was just everything all at once going downhill. Alex and I were in a little argument, and when we are in an argument, I have no other rock to lean on. Alex didn't realize how stressed out I have been lately so he came over. It was the first night that I actually got to sleep at a descent time and slept all the way through (the night before I was working out at 2AM because I couldn't sleep).

So this morning I woke up refreshed and ready to go. Alex and I are back to being perfect, I was able to sleep in today, it was a good day. Clinicals didn't start until 9AM today.. err.. 0900. We were at a program this morning doing vision screenings. The kids were really little, around three and four years old. They are all absolutely adorable. They get really attached to us. They yell our names, they give us hugs, they hold our hands. We go to this location every Thursday and Friday to see them, so we have gotten to know a lot of the students by now. Afterwards, we went back to an elementary school to do some paperwork to prepare for screenings at this location in a few weeks. Then we headed back to the morning program.
One of our assignments is a teaching project. There are four of us in my group to teach dental  hygiene. We put together a really good project and taught about 15 kids all about their teeth. We had a poster that they could post good and bad foods for teeth, we made the kids stand up and act like teeth and showed them how to brush their teeth properly by acting like we were brushing them, we gave them certificates, and we gave them coloring sheets. They really liked it and did a really good job.

Next week we are doing the teaching projects again to some more classes, so I will try to get better pictures.

That leads me to where I am right now. I thought I was hurting yesterday, oh no. My whole BODY hurts today. Hurt is an understatement actually. Some little man, jumped off of my drink (if you don't know this reference, you aren't in college) and into my body and he is playing jump rode with my fibers in my muscles. OOOOOMMMMMMGGGGGG, my abs hurt so much that I can't even stand straight. My arms are so sore that I can't even put my arm stretched out completely. I was leaning in my chair today, and pushed up on the chair with my hands to sit back up, and my arms started shaking like crazy. Kimberly saw it and was a little nervous.

For the weekend I have a bunch of homework to do. There is a huge list of things to do, that I will not post right now because looking at it, I'm probably going to have a panic attack.
Right now: chicken parmesan from my amazing friend who loves me so much.

Food is the answer to all of my problems,

Katie

P.s. Hello turd brother Branden!!!!! If I'm a turd, you're a turd since we are related. ;) Love you!!!

Study Study Study

Haven't been able to write much lately because studying has become a natural hobby of mine. My first "official test" is in class tomorrow at 10 AM. I have a class from 0730 to about 0920. We have 40 minutes in between, and then at 1000 is the class!!! It's an actual sit down, raspberry scantron, penciled in test. I haven't taken one of those in a while. Last year I did almost all online classes. It's been a year since I have taken a class on campus and not online. Everybody is freaking out about it. I'm nervous because I think I should be more nervous than I am about it... which is ironic.. but everybody is starting to freak me out. The test is in community, and it seems pretty much like common knowledge. There is a little bit of history, but I took a Nursing as a Profession class and learned the history before (which I suggest if you pre-nursing majors need to fill in some electives). Well anyways, I have been studying and trying to stay on top of homework this whole week, and it has been pretty hectic.

I finished all of my assignments for the week so far. I feel pretty good about that. Monday was just a regular day of classes and then church. Today, in lab, we learned about the proper body mechanics when you are trying to move patients. Most hospitals have a "No Lift" policy. This means that you are not allowed to physically lift a patient, you have to have a device, or a sheet to lift them properly. So we were switching from being a patient and a nurse while lifting each other up with devices like Gait Belts. The College of Nursing just ordered a Hoyer Lift. I'm going to be the first one to volunteer as a patient for that!

Afterwards I went over to the bookstore to pick up my ATI books (its a package that we had to pay $500 for. It includes test and books.) They said to bring somebody with you because it is heavy. And for $500 I was expecting a huge box that I was going to need a dolly for. So I bring Alex. And the box turns out to be about the width and height of my radius. .....Way too heavy for one person..... ok.....

Well anyways, afterwards we went to the rockwall at the gym, and now we are at the library. I decided to take a break from my studying and post on here to catch everybody up :) Cross your fingers for tomorrow! I will be up bright and early at 6 to start my day, and hopefully to ace a test.

High apple pie, in the sky hopes,

Katie