day one

Yesterday was my first real day at work. It was long and it was busy, but I made it. For the most part, I followed the nurse who will be training me while she did all the work. It was a busy day so I ended up doing lots of little "menial" tasks. She was very apologetic about making me do so many little things, but I was just glad to feel useful!

I learned that I did learn something in school and I actually have opinions/ideas about the way things should be done! I had no idea! Mostly I suffered from massive information overload and by the end of the day I thought my head might explode (partially due to the extreme headache I had in the afternoon). Hopefully I absorbed something that she told me so when I go back tomorrow I can feel a little less lost.

a week of sitting

I started working on Monday, although I use the term working very loosely. I sat for almost 40 hours of orientation...yuck! It wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't just finished school. Most of the information was not new (to me) or was something that was drilled into me over and over again in school (i.e. wash your hands, it prevents the spread of infection).

I start real work on Wednesday and I am very much looking forward to it!

oh what a tangled social web we weave

I don't know if this comes from living in Alaska or if it's because I've spent most of my life in one place or what. But I found out today that I (unknowingly) fraternized with the ex-girlfriend of a very close friend's (now) husband.

Now, we females have an unspoken code where we despise ex-girlfriends of boyfriends/fiances/husbands (past or present) of our friends. Same goes for the ex-boyfriends/fiances/husbands of friends...we hate them too. Which makes life more difficult when people start dating people they've already dated who we hate by default. It's a hard-won appeal to "the committee" to get those in good favor again.

Anyway...said friend tells me a story about husband's ex being at an event they attended over the weekend. Friend describes said ex to me...and a situation where friend's husband's sister was forced to work with said ex while ex was doing a rotation for med school through said husband's sister's unit. As friend is describes husband's ex...I say, "wait...I know her! I spent a whole evening with her!" Turns out an ex of mine was really good friends with her (friend's husband and my ex were roommates at one point...which is how friend's husband's ex knows my ex...which is a connection I knew about...thank goodness because at this point I doubt I could have handled it otherwise). Not to mention the fact that I saw friend's husband's ex on the same unit as friend's husband's sister works on while I was doing my rotation through there for nursing school. She (friend's husband's ex) did not recognize me and I chose not to bring our connection to light..thank goodness, that might have made things more complicated when I found out that I had to hate her by default.

Did you get all that? There will be a test later.

motivation comes in many forms

Today I saw something that I really wish I didn't see (it's my own fault...but that didn't make it any less awful).

How did I deal with it?

Well, I took my trusty iPod and went running. And ran...and ran...and ran...for an hour.

Do I feel better? Why yes I do! I suppose that it helps that I may have seen a certain East High Alum, we shall call him AH, playing soccer with no shirt on at APU. Very nice...

Here's the playlist that saved the day:

Sort Of - Silversun Pickups
Hearless (Kanye West Cover) - The Fray
Run - Gnarls Barkley
Touch the Sky - Kanye West
Want You Bad - The Offspring
Lights Out - Danity Kane
You Haven't Told Me Anything - Keane
Two Weeks - Grizzly Bear
Tiffany Blews - Fall Out Boy
Shake Me Like a Monkey - Dave Matthews Band
Set Out Running - Neko Case

an early saturday morning rant

Although I haven't been following the story very closely, what I have read makes me angry. No, not angry, I think I might be flat out disgusted. How dare the President of the United States want to speak to children about staying in school. Blasphemy! I think the Anchorage Daily News said it best (which is actually quite surprising considering that they pretty much never say anything best...or anything at all for that matter), "fear of Obama's school speech testifies to the need to stay in school and learn critical thinking." YES! If you can't send your child to school with the confidence that they will practice a little bit of critical thinking...then perhaps you should do some critical thinking about your parenting. I know I'm not a parent and therefore I really have no idea how these things work, but based on my own experiences being parented along with those of my close friends...I don't feel like expecting your children to think about things before they incorporate them into their worldview is particularly far-fetched.

It makes me so angry that closed-minded parents are teaching their children to be close-minded. Please, send your child to school, let them hear what the President has to say (oh here's an idea...listen to his speech yourself so you know what they heard), and then when they come home talk to them about it. Use it as a learning experience, as an opportunity to find out how they use the morals and values you have filled them with to process information. If you don't like what they took away from it 1. deal with it, they are obviously smart enough to think for themselves 2. agree to disagree or 3. help them to understand why you don't like what was said.

End rant.