Roadkill

My car died yesterday.

In traffic. On I-5. I was running late to class because I woke up and found out my car need jumping to start, anyway.

See where I'm going here? The alternator'd had enough of life.

Anyway. I merged into the slow lane, and almost immediately my radio made that weird groaning noise that faded as my music disappeared and my car lights dimmed. Good thing traffic was standing still.

Setting aside the fact that this was absolutely a freaky situation, this is where it gets funny.

I quickly realized that since my car had no power of any kind, and thus, my warning lights did not work. Traffic was starting to creep forward, so I hopped out of my car and yelled to the lady behind me that my car was dead and I didn't know how to get off the freeway.

Keep in mind we are maybe 200 feet from the next, clearly marked exit.

Her response? "I don't know how to get off the freeway either! I'm from Oregon!"

*facepalm*

Maybe she didn't notice my Oregon plates.

Anyway, the nice man in the panel truck behind her jumped out, stopped traffic, and shoved my poor little car onto the freeway shoulder.

My hero.

whinge

Nursing school is taking a lot out of me. Maybe I'm just going stir-crazy from having to study all summer, but I have reached the point of not caring. School is not impossible, just frustrating for a variety of reasons, including the fact that I am not particularly enjoying psychiatric nursing. I understand the need for students to experience a variety of types of nursing to develop a good judgment base etc, etc, but I also appreciate that my personality type is not a good fit for psych.

August needs to come a little faster. One week till my birthday, two and a half weeks until sweet sweet vacation.

Maybe I should go into sports journalism.

sad day

Me: "I hate my life."
Friend and fellow classmate: "No, you don't! You know how I know? You don't HAVE a life!"

keep your hands inside the vehicle at all times

Three exams stand between me and a precious 10 days of freedom.

I wish it were Thursday already.

who said this was gonna be easy?

Thanks, bff, for the reality check. Among the embarassing blunders I made yesterday:

-Struggled to divide 2 by 4. No kidding.
-Read "grains" as "grams" on a med calc test... whoops
-...and then forgot how many milligrams are in a grain (60).


...sigh.

Can you tell it's dead week? Should be renamed "hell week". This too shall pass.

what we have here...

...is a failure to communicate.

Throughout my whole life (or at least the parts when I had someone other than my mother grading my papers), I have gotten good writing grades. Sometimes I can form sentences. More rarely, I string together words that make sense. When I write, I procrastinate until the point of no return, then stay up all night and drag the words out in a process so painful that it's probably not worth the good grade.

And then I had to take a Nursing Communication class.

Both of the writing projects I've done so far (a speech and a "wellness education" brochure on a health-related topic: drug-induced coma was my cheery subject) have been recieved in confusion. By this, I mean that the feedback my instructor gave me clearly showed that she had NO IDEA WHAT I WAS TRYING TO SAY.

It's frustrating.

If your communication professor doesn't understand you, is it because you're a bad communicator, or is she failing at communicating communication?

Do you see my dilemma?

I'm totally not failing any of my classes. I'm just annoyed that I have to keep doing well on the quizzes in that class to keep an A.


In other news, I just got a perfect score on an essay I turned in for the class I detest the most. Thank goodness for small favors. And pie charts. Haha.

gee... that's news to me

I really hate going to the eye doctor. It's worse than going to the dentist for me. Right now, only my right eye is dilated because the chick missed my left eye with the drop (twice). Seriously. This is what went down:

Eye doctor: "So... the vision in your right eye has changed a little bit."
Me: "It has not. When your assistant was checking it, I told her I rubbed my eye and then she found an eyelash in it but said it was fine."
Eye doctor: "K. Lemme check real quick."
*checks real quick*
"Yeah, you must have had something in your eye because her readings don't make any sense compared to the ones I just got."
Me: "...told you."

modern-day hitchhikers

I'm stuck in Hermiston because my stupid car died on the freeway. To be fair, it didn't die, it just stated making a horrific clunking noise that was scary enough to make us stop and call Triple A. Also, my parents don't love us enough to come and pick us up, so we had to get a hotel room.

Turns out that the hotel that the tow truck driver brought us to is the one I got in trouble for sneaking out of during a state theatre conference trip my senior year in high school. This time we snuck Panda in. Also they gave me two free beers. And they have FSC. Woohoo.

You know what I learned today?

Never leave home without your towel.

welcome to my life.

Last night I found out what happens when you drop your ID into a conveyor belt.

Not a lot, actually, it's more anti-climactic than I thought, but does involve a few seconds where you and the cashier freeze and stare at each other helplessly until some nice dude in an apron comes round to open the little drawer under the belt and free the Lost Goods from the Dark Place.

It's kind of freaky, watching your adult drinking life slo-mo over the black rubber like a barrel over Niagara Falls and disappear into the abyss.

It's good she checked it first, or I really would have needed that holiday porter I was buying.

'nursing school' is synonymous with 'blood'

Getting ready for nursing school is scary.

On one hand, I think whoever let me in must be crazy. On the other, I think about some of the nurses I've known and then I fear the classes, clinicals and boards far less than I did previously. I think I'll be fine once I get there, but I have seven weeks to worry about it.

Right now I have to catch up on my immunity. Yippee for me. Today I needed a TB test, so I went in to work on my day off to let somebody stab me. Voluntarily.

She told me I had thick skin. I told her it's because I have three brothers.

The RCM told me that it looked like the nurse had done it wrong, and maybe I should let the RCM do it again in my other arm. I suggested she do it between my eyes instead.

I have two more shots to get, a CPR class to take, and infinite papercuts by way of Necessary Forms to receive. Booo.


I'm gonna go brush up on the rules of Keno and roulette for my stats class now.