Utterly Exhausted

For those of you that don't know, I am currently in the process of orienting to 2 hospitals. 1 hospital, I interviewed for L&D but got told that I would need to work Mom/Baby for awhile. The other hospital was scheduled for an interview the day I got the Mom/Baby offer, and that was for the NICU. Me, being my greedy self of not being able to see myself stay in Mom/Baby with no NICU baby interaction, I decided to propose working part-time at both places to the managers. Well... they accepted that bargain.

The manager for Mom/Baby told me I would work in that department for a year before being able to switch over, I told her that was absolutely too long. She countered with saying it might just be a few months (like 3-6ish months). This didn't sound great, but it sounded do-able with me also keeping my NICU critical care skills up to par.

Well, Tomorrow is finally my last day of charting class, a.k.a. my last orientation piece before going to total floor orientation. I can do floor orientation all the day long! It's the classroom nonsense that'll kill ya... slowly...

Well, I went to talk with my Mom/Baby manager about some scheduling troubles, and she offered me a L&D position, starting at the end of the month!!! OH. MY. GOSH!!! Thing is, it'll be full time instead of part time. My insurance is through the other hospital, and I can't leave the NICU, I just can't. So, am I crazy for thinking I can do 5 days a week between 2 critical care areas? Plus, the on-call shifts taking me up to 6-7 days each week!

I'm sustaining this crazy 6 days a week schedule right now, but I'm working days. I already know that working nights is a much bigger challenge when working so many "days" (shifts) in a row. That messed up circadian rhythm will actually slowly start to kill you.

I just don't know if I can do it. But I sure want to try it for awhile. Worst case scenario is that I go to PRN for NICU and keep full-time with L&D. Plus, I don't have on-call days for L&D until I complete the 3+ months of training required to begin in L&D. So, that helps for a few months to get my feet under me and my schedule ironed out a little bit.

I guess we'll see how it goes when I talk to the Mom/Baby slash L&D manager on Tuesday. She seems pretty excited to get me over to training in the field I actually wanted to be in an originally interviewed for. She actually took a similar road to me and started in Peds/PICU and transferred to L&D, but she worked both jobs at the same time for about a year or so! I think she liked that I was trying to do that and she understands the whole process and desire to do that "double specialty" type of nursing. It's like double majoring in college, except everybody thinks you're insane and you get even less sleep.



Problem is, I've been trying to find a house to rent so I can bring my dog with me. I would also need a roommate (or 2), so that my dog would have a friend while I'm working. She is currently staying with a friend of my mom's, who has another dog. This lady takes my dog for walks with her dog every day. She has a roommate that is home most of the time, except for maybe 3 hours a week (it seems like anyway, he doesn't work I don't think...). So, my dog has friends and another dog to hang out with all the time! Sometimes she even gets to go on a "field trip" to the lady's son's office because he owns his own business and hardly has customers to the office, he mostly goes out to remote locations for quotes and stuff.

So she has a really good set-up, compared to living with a night-shift nurse, who's exceedingly lazy on her days off and doesn't even get to play with her dog because she's too tired. I really feel like the worst puppy mom in the world! But I also feel terrible for leaving her at another person's house because I don't want her to feel abandoned. She gets so excited when we come to visit her! And then she goes into a depression when we leave again!!! It's too much for me to handle.

Times like these, I start to get upset that my parents aren't living together and able to house her and my brother. I get it, they were having lots of problems and it's not economical to afford a house with a backyard, just for the dog. But still, she's my dog. I picked her out, I have cared for her. She's been my best buddy since I was about 10 and I'm now 23 1/2.



I guess I'll talk it over with the lady keeping her, and I'll try to work it out with all of my managers to see what will happen. Mostly, it's a wait-and-see type of situation. The lady keeping my dog says she loves having my dog with her dog and it's not much different than her normal routine to have an extra puppy around. Plus, she appreciates the extra money every month. My current living situation is wonderful and is great while I am working so many crazy hours, and I don't have to do much since I have a roommate that does most everything around his house.



My heart says YES!!! My brain says I could probably make it work, but I'll be beyond exhausted, but I need the experience and my resume will be beyond great! My body says are you insane? I'm barely running as it is, AND WE'RE ON DAYS!!! So, mostly, I'm leaning towards the hard YES!!!!!!!!!!! But I'll talk with my manager Tuesday and discuss it a bit more.






Time to go pray! This will be quite the interesting adventure, should I choose to embark.

Random Thoughts

It's 0230 and I'm home, but not able to sleep. This, combined with odd life circumstances and a naturally analytical mind, leave me with strange thoughts on a regular basis.

• The extent of which the domestic violence I survived is beginning to hit me from a more logical frame of reference instead of solely from the emotional garbage it laid on me.
• The mice that have taken up residence under my kitchen sink are fixin' to meet the Good L-rd if they don't take the bait in the live traps I set out so that I can transport them to another location still breathing...
• The screen name BedpanAlley doesn't really suit me anymore, seeing as I no longer deal with bedpans... so I need a new name.
• I want to change the way NICU and L&D cares work in the United States, but that's an awful big dream for one tiny little gal. Especially if said gal hopes to someday get married and potentially have children (though that seems improbable and dangerous).
• I need to find a church, but that leads me to try to find a church with a single's group. However, my motives for finding a single's group is less honorable than they should be, because I want a fella. Several problems with this: 1) church should be to learn about G-d, not to find some boy 2) I just tried to "talk" with a boy in hopes of eventually dating and learned I am so far from being ready to date that it's not even funny 3) I still have to wrestle with some shit before dating is even on my radar.
• I need friends to hang out with. While Dog is digging the amount of time I spend at home, she is less thrilled with the fact that I sleep about 18 hours a day. Before you say anything, yes, I know this is unhealthy and I'm working on changing it. She and I went for a "run" today and I made it out of the house before noon!
• My last shift of orientation is tonight. Just let that sink in.
• I wonder how my folks are really doing. I've called them nearly 4 times each this week, but they always make it sound as if they are fine.
• I miss Brother, but he won't talk to me.
• My week is fixin' to become overloaded with extra days they will ask me to work. Knowing me, and how much I would love the overtime pay, I will likely work a bunch of the extra shifts. I'm saving for a car, massage, mani/pedi, trip to a fancy resort in Home State with mom, general savings account, and student loan repayment
• I have mice living in my house. They didn't ask permission and they sure as hell aren't paying rent! Maybe I should get a cat? But Dog tries to eat cats because they look and move like squirrels... Plus I'm allergic to cats and they pee everywhere. *sigh*
• ... Oh, and I think my washing machine broke.

It'll Never End

As mentioned in my last post, my day began at about 3 this morning. Not pleasant.

I made it through the sim lab and my group did really well. The instructors were surprised and kept saying they didn't think we would do so well because my group wasn't very interactive on Monday during the skills lab... I think it was supposed to be a compliment but it came off terribly. Whatever, we rocked it and now I'm done with that.

All day, Country Boy has been on my mind. All week, in fact. This morning, before hopping in my shower, I went back and looked at some pictures of him. A few tears fell, but I'm still too overwhelmed in my life to be able to cry much. I went through sim lab and my brain was not working. People kept talking to me and I couldn't even focus. I saw their lips moving, but I couldn't hear anything.

Last night exfiance called me 3 times... They didn't ring through, because I blocked him. However, I woke up at 1:30 a.m. wondering why my phone was lit up, but I decided to ignore it. At 3, when I woke up for sure, I saw the little symbol for voice mail. I was confused, wondering why anyone needed to leave me a voice mail so early in the morning and I panicked wondering if it was family or a friend who needed me. Nope. It was exfiance. I didn't listen to his message because I was scared he would have called me and left a voice mail while he was pretending to die or while he committed suicide just because he knew how badly Country Boy's death affected me. Sick thought process, I know, but he's done terrible things to me and he messes with my head. If you go through something like that (and I pray you never do and never have), you begin to wonder what kind of bullshit they are going to unleash on you this time.

I waited until my roommate woke up, and then I told her about it. She offered to listen to the message to screen it for me. Essentially, it said everything his 9 text messages from Easter said to me. Again, those too were blocked and I didn't get them until a day or two after Easter Sunday.

I didn't listen to the voice mail until my lunch break between simulations today. I went out to my car and listened to all 3 fucking minutes of the bullshit message. The messages (voice mail and texts) went to the effect that he has been attending the church I go to for the last month. He says he wants me to go see him at church and sit with him... He says he's changed and that I'm amazing and all this bullshit. Seriously, he told me I brought him back to the L-rd. What the fuck?!?

Honestly, I hope he did find the L-rd but I don't believe him at all. I don't believe a fucking word he uttered the entire time I've ever known him. I don't believe any of the nice things, I don't believe any of the crazy stories, I don't believe the apologies, or anything else he ever said. I don't. So, you can go pound sand fucker. Leave me the hell alone. STOP TRYING TO TALK TO ME!!!

So sick of it.

After sim was done and I was driving home, I was barely keeping the tears from falling. I was handling myself until I saw his truck. Not Country Boy's, not exfiance's... the other one. I saw exboyfriend's truck passing me on my way home. Fuckin' A. Of course, this is going to happen on one of my shittiest days. He works on the exact opposite side of town. Why the fuck is he on my way home?!?

I lost it. The tears started, my panic attack began in earnest, and my brain shut down with that last straw. It was the last straw to break my mind from how it had been dealing with all of the overwhelming nonsense I had been dealing with all day. Seeing exbf's truck is what did me in.

I got home and Roomie asked how I was doing. My chin and voice began quivering as I told her the extremely shortened and condensed version of the shit I survived today. She stood there quietly and told me she was sorry. She suggested I go climb into bed and watch a movie or take a nap. My beautifully happy and cheery roommate didn't know what to do. She doesn't know what to do when I don't even know how to handle my life circumstances. I don't blame her.

She left a few minutes later for work and her dog followed me into my room. I collapsed on my bed crying because I was finally done with the shit show that was my day. Oh my goodness, the dog flipped out! She jumped on my bed, started licking my face and acting all frantic. She licked me and tried to climb in my lap (she's 50 lbs) for a solid 10 minutes, as the tears streamed down my face. She kept making me pet her and push her from my face because she was taking away my tears. She jumped down, ran out of my room, but returned about 30 seconds later and began barking at me! She put her front two paws on my bed and started barking and whining at me in her scared bark. I pulled myself together, stopped crying and then the dog left my room. I don't know what else happened, but my eyes opened about an hour and a half later, and I didn't know where I was or what time it was. I woke up another hour and a half after that in the same condition, but laid in bed answering my 9 text messages that had accumulated, as I stared at my ceiling for an hour.

I don't know how to explain times like this, but when I have a bad enough day, I can stay in bed and stare at the wall or ceiling for hours with no thoughts going through my head. I snap out of it a couple hours later, but it only felt like 5 minutes at the most. No thoughts, no emotion, no ability to move my body. I legitimately shut down all the way and can do absolutely nothing.

Days like this, I don't even need alcohol. I know that on a day like today, drinking would simply get me stuck in the sad, terrible existence of my brain when my brain is literally refusing to think about it. My brain is overwhelmed and refusing to think about the stressors because it's unable to handle it anymore. Why would I drink and remember if I can just disappear into nothingness?



Today, everything that I needed to not happen, all happened... Today, was one of the hardest days to survive. Today, but not just today, I wished Country Boy would have taken me with him. I get mad at him for leaving me here.

I just don't want to be here anymore.

This is bullshit.

Sleep Disturbances

Let's start off by discussing how precious sleep it so me. First of all, I sleep an absolutely ridiculous amount. This is because of depression, I work nights, and it is my drug of choice when life is getting too hard and I need to escape. Lately, life is very difficult, I worked last night, and depression is probably at an all time high and the longest duration I think I've ever had it in my life. Therefore, I require a lot of sleep.

Oh, an I'm in nursing school. If you are not in nursing school but plan to be, just know that some of your vacations will be spent sleeping because you get NONE during school, especially if you work and go to school and ever want to see any other human being while you are in the program. Get used to living with coffee running as the fluids in your vasculature, blood is now overrated.

Did I mention I worked last night? Before work, I typically sleep from noon until about 5:30 so that I can get sleep before work so I will not be dozing off during my shift. Seeing as I sit in a dark room with a patient I am trying to get to sleep, but I need to not sleep, this nap is crutial to me keeping my job! Yesterday I got to sleep around 2, slept for about an hour before getting woken up. Oh the rage. Words do injustice to the anger coursing through my body after being woken up. I get grumpy anyway when I'm woken up. HOwever, when I am woken up after it was incredibly difficult to fall asleep, and it took another 45 minutes to get me back to sleep in the middle of the day, I was furious. I was woken up so that the dog could come and jump on my bed because roommate does not like her being alone when she leaves. The dog is fine alone, we leave her completely alone for hours and hours during the day when we have stuff to do, she will be fine for a couple of hours while I sleep so that I can work.

Today I had to go run errands before coming home after my shift. I waited at both of the stores I needed to go to because I got to both of them before opening time because I got off at a terrible hour in the morning and nobody should be up that early. I tried for the rest of the day to lay down and take a nap after that, but I just couldn't do it. I finally got to sleep around 4 then the damned dog came in 30 minutes later whining to go out. Exasperation consumed every atom that makes up my being and I woke up to take the dog out. After 15 minutes of her sniffing around, she still hadn't gone to the bathroom at all! Oh my goodness! I was so beyond pissed. I brought her back in and told her to go to her kennel. So pissed!!! It took another 30 minutes to go back to bed (keep in mind I've been up for about 24 hours with no sleep and that makes me incredibly grumpy anyway) but having sleeping problems makes it worse. I get to sleep, stay asleep for about an hour and a half and wake up to roommate asking me to wake up to come pick up a bug she killed in her room. Yeah. I absolutely adore this girl, but the lack of sleep I'm getting is making my depression get exponentially worse by the hour and so my life is getting darker and gloomier by the moment. At this point, I am about to lose my shit because I was woken up from my very short nap to pick up a FUCKING BUG!

Please excuse the bad words, I need a little chesed (grace) because there is a lot of anger in my heart and the lack of sleep is contributing to the addition of more and more grumpiness as each day passes.

These two incidences, plus getting woken up because the dog starts barking and playing around when she gets home and the volume in the apartment raising to extremely high levels, typically once I am down for a much needed nap. In addition, being woken up at 0600 on my fucking days off so the dog can eat a treat on my bed and snuggle for a solid 3 seconds before roommate leaves, I am so beyond past my level of being ticked off. I'm also not supposed to sleep as much as required by my depression because seeing me only come out of my room to pee and eat occasionally, because I am sleeping the rest of the time, makes her worried and I made her cry because of that.

I need sleep! That's all I want. I want to sleep in a bed where the dog doesn't keep peeing in it. I want to sleep in on my days off when the apartment will be silent and I can maybe catch up on sleep without roommate worrying about me because she won't be there during the day. I want to sleep before work and know that I can get a decent nap in before work without getting woken up. I want to be able to sleep after my 12 hour long night shift because I am stressed and exhausted, without getting woken up by barking by an excited dog, barking and whining because the dog is bored and wants to go outside to sniff around, and other things that wake me up unnecessarily because I haven't slept in a very long time. ALL I WANT IS SLEEP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm so at my whits end with life, it's just not even funny.

Add all of these things to the recurring nightmares and strange, vivid dreams I keep having about exboyfriend, Country Boy, and fiance and my life is getting very little sleep, let alone restful sleep.

Senior Year of Nursing School

Folks, I have made it to my senior year of nursing school! I figured it would be a rough road but had no idea what kind of bumps I'd experience. Turns out school was the easier part, and it is still nursing boot camp. Seriously, nursing school is hard but so worth it.

This semester I am taking:

• Med/Surg "Capstone" (my fourth [and FINAL!] med/surg rotation)

• Community Health

• Jewish Philosophy

• Epidemic of Sexual Assault (It focuses on forensic nursing. I worry about this one because it is an entire course about rape and sexual assault. I can always drop it and I've always wanted to learn more about forensic nursing so I guess we'll see how the first couple of weeks go. I plan on emailing my professor to let her know that I have a personal history so that she can advise me to continue on or go ahead and drop the course.)

So, four classes. 2 have clinicals, one is on main campus (the nursing school is banished to the end of campus away from the normal people...), and one online class (the sexual assault one). We shall see how I do with 18 credits, my hospital night CNA job, and now a boyfriend/fiance in the mix. At least he works on the oil rigs and is gone for 1.5-2 months at a time and only home for 2 weeks in between those hitches (time he's away working).

I remember joking to my friends saying I would be okay with a boyfriend or husband that was home for a couple days and then gone for a few months. In marriage, that will be very difficult. While I am in school, this is highly advantageous for me because we have 30 minute phone dates each night and sporadic texting throughout the day and I have time to study and do what I need to do for school. Praise the L-rd! We will see how this juggling act goes; it may be a complete disaster or G-d may give me the strength and ability to make it work, we shall see.

Fiance surprised me by coming home early Friday. He has had a really difficult hitch. Cliff notes of the past 5-6 weeks for him include: a fellow employee almost killing my man by leaving him on an oil rig with no protection during a lightning storm, that guy then stole the company truck when he was fired for almost killing my man, there was an explosion and fiance saved two guys' lives by running back towards the fire to grab them, now he is being sued by the government for saving lives because it went against safety protocol. There were other delightful little gems in there too, but those are the major highlights.

Anyway, he found my roommate on Facebook and started trying to plan how he could surprise me when he came home. He told me he would show up at any time over the next few days, this was on Wednesday I think. I was freaking out! My roommate was a few states away until Thursday because she was visiting her boyfriend and I had been living in my same pajamas for a few days and slept nearly 18 hours a day most days. What if he came home and my hair was a mess and I didn't even have time to brush my teeth? Oh no! Once roommate got back (new roommate by the way, not the one from last year), we had a night to decompress from her trip and get our little routine started. I mentioned that he had spilled the beans that he might be surprising me and that he had said he might have Facebooked her. She said he had but that she wasn't going to tell me anything.

He texted me later Thursday night and told me he wouldn't be coming home that weekend like he thought because his boss wanted him to stay, but that he would be back next weekend. He apologized up and down all night (he worked night shift that hitch). I told him I understood and not to worry about it. I was thinking, "No big deal, he'll be back next weekend and I have a week to get school figured out before he comes home. Okay, we will make this work."

Friday, roommate and I woke up. She and I had planned to go to campus to get parking passes and textbooks before the mad rush of students would crowd campus this coming Monday. She also said she wanted to take me to lunch for taking such good care of her dog while she was gone for two weeks visiting her family and boyfriend. That wasn't a problem for me because she only had me pay half the rent for August in return for watching her dog and I took her dog up to my parent's house so that her dog and my dog could play. There is also a dog door which makes taking care of a dog really simple, as opposed to going for walks every 2 hours because we live in an apartment. So really, I got the better end of the deal. Anyway, she suggested a really expensive restaurant that fiance loves but had told me he wouldn't take me to yet because it is so pricey and it needs to wait until a special occasion. So I knew something was fishy there. I told her she already paid me for watching her dog and that going to lunch there was too expensive so I suggested we find another place to go. She insisted that "we have to go there." She is not a pushy person, so that was clue number two. When we were heading out she mentioned that she had a piano lesson (she teaches piano) in the area so it would be perfect for her to go to lunch there so that she wouldn't have to drive all the way back across town to go home. I asked her if I needed to drive separate so that I could go home after lunch and she told me not to worry about it. Clue #3. I decided not to push because I was already putting pieces together. When we got there and nobody else we knew was there, I brought up me needing a ride again. I asked her how I was going to get home? She said she would drive me home (across town). I mentioned that she had said she didn't want to because she had a lesson near the restaurant. She started blushing and told me to stop asking questions and that it would be alright. I win! I figured it out. So, about 15-20 minutes go by while my mind is racing but I try to keep the conversation going with her about how fiance had told me he wasn't coming home and she looked so sad because I was sad. Then I asked about her trip and we decided to go up to the salad bar and get ourselves some food. I got so distracted getting food and talking for the next 10 minutes that he came up behind me and gave me a hug and I had totally forgotten I was hoping he would come! It was a wonderful surprise and a great lunch. Roommate likes him and says he reminds her of her boyfriend.

She's a really sweet girl who found a guy with a good heart but ridiculously rough edges too. We find solace knowing each other's similar guy troubles because we are similar and our guys are similar. Yet, we both love our men, no matter how crazy they make us sometimes because we see the good in them and we see them trying to be sweet and tender for us.

Tonight the L-rd is giving my heart peace. I am anxious about tomorrow, but the troubles that plague my brain about the events that have happened this summer are set aside. He has taken them. Oftentimes He has to take them back from me daily, but it is getting easier to relinquish them each day. Forgiveness is also a daily battle that is getting easier each day. I am to a place where I believe that ExBoyfriend just made a mistake and I didn't fight hard enough to let him know I wasn't happy with what was going on. ExRoommate and I made mistakes that made us both sad and I am very sorry for that. The words that were spoken by the girls freshman year, my brother, ExRoommate's mom, and countless others over the years were just mistakes. It's all about each of us learning. That is what life is, right? Learning to let G-d have control of who we are and allowing Him to teach us how to model ourselves after His heart? I don't know, I don't know what life is. Right now I'm resigned to what it has become and I hope and pray that there is something more meaningful. I yearn for the day when the L-rd will tell me there was a bigger purpose to me going through this last summer and other people being able to be told that their life struggles (which are far greater than my own) have purpose and meaning. Who knows though? Only the Good L-rd knows and so I will keep my hope in Him and start getting my eyes and feet trained back to His path because I got a bit sidetracked and turned around.

The Great Debate: Does this sound like flirting?

A few nights ago we decided to keep Roommate's dog (a chihuahua) at our apartment for a couple of nights to see how it would work out if we decide to pay the pet rent and keep her with us. Her mom had driven into town to see us, which is about a 45 minute drive from their country home to where we met. We were not expecting to keep the puppy with us but we both love critters and were missing the joy dogs bring.

Long story short, we needed some supplies for the dog. So, on the way home we stopped by the local Walgreens and picked up a can of dog food and a dish brush. Now, the brush was for the sugar glider's cage so we could clean it easier.

Anywho, we bring our items to the cashier and he just looks at us and asks, "Really? A dish brush and a can of dog food?" That's all he said.

I responded, "It's been a weird day..." At which time my roommate and I both giggled a little to keep from exploding in laughter and looked at each other.

Now, Roommate's mom thinks he was flirting. I, however, think he may have been high or something. But, if that was his attempt at flirting, he needs to work on that because I totally did not get it!*

*Note: It's beside the point that I don't know what flirting is...

Sippin' Sweet Tea

Just sittin' here sippin' some home-made sweet tea wishing the sugar hadn't settled to the bottom (I'm drinking the last bit of it and boy howdie! It is far too sweet for me.) I took my lab practical and final chapter exam Wednesday and I take my comprehensive final today.

Chapter Exam: 72% after adjustments
Lab Practical: 88% (I'm really pleased with this score because I was sure I hadn't done very well)
Comprehensive Final: I will update you later

I am having huge troubles studying though! 1) I have never taken a true comprehensive final before. My teacher says she gives the same final every semester to see how she is doing with teaching, but I heard it is ridiculously hard. Like, harder than her other tests. Plus, I heard this from some of the smartest people in our class who had to take it early because they have lives this summer. 2) I calculated the minimum score I need to pass the class. It's a 0. So, if I wanted to pass with a C and not worry about it anymore, then I could just skip this silly test. 3) I calculated what I need to pass with a B. That's only 30/120 points. This was probably a really bad thing to do because I have not been studying well all day. Knowing that an A is impossible and passing is a sure-thing, I have given up my fight with this class. I just don't care. That's not totally true. I do care, but I'm one of those people that will give up trying so hard for something if the outcome is so certain (as is the case here). I kinda wish I wasn't like this, but I wish that I would have done a million things differently this summer instead so that my A could have been earned, even if I did have to fight really hard for it. At least then I would know that I did my best. I think that's what bugs me about not getting A's. It's the fact that there is a score reminding me that I did not live up to my expectations or goals, especially when I only had this one class to take!

C'est la vie, eh?

On the bright side, my mom is here at our apartment and she brought... my Punkin! (Yes, I know I technically spelled that wrong, but that's how I pronounce it). It's my dog. The sweet, miracle of a dog G-d blessed me with in the 6th grade who embodies the entirety of a 6-8 page journal prayer. I still have the prayer too. She is my baby and I have missed her so much! When I come home, or when she gets to see me after being apart for a long time, she is so happy that she does this little wriggle thing and starts whining. The whining is super weird for her because she never whines or barks, unless there is an intruder or some kind of danger or when she sees me, I guess.

Work went really well yesterday. I worked with my favorite CNA and my favorite LPN last night. Both of them are trying to set me up with the LPN's brother. Good news there: he's not moving here anymore. He is on the army reserve and could not get transferred to this state from his home state so now I don't really have to worry about this fictional relationship suddenly coming to life. They are still quite convinced we'll find each other in some romantic, serendipitous way and he'll bring me home to meet his family where I will find the LPN welcoming me to the family with open arms. Me: ya, that's not gonna happen. But, I kept up with the girl who works that floor every night and I even had harder people. Well, normally they are harder, but everyone was completely exhausted last night. Normally, some people will stay up until 10 or 11 p.m. Everyone was in bed by 8:30... It was beautiful!

More to come tonight if I can remember. Daily Thanksgiving will likely be done then too. Hey, are y'all trying the thanksgiving thing? You know, everyday you find something new to be thankful to G-d for, even silly stuff like no traffic jam or sleepy residents. It can change your life and prevent the psychology thing of one wrong thing making you think of everything else that went bad that day. Just try it, it's good stuff.

Off to take a shower, get ready for my comprehensive final and then... NO MORE MICROBIOLOGY!!! Plus, shopping with my mom. Yay!

Advice to the Older Me

I got an idea from another blog I read and I have decided to write advice to the older me. This advice focuses on my dreams right now and why I want to be a nurse so badly.

1. Mom and Mema: Remember, you are not doing this entirely for yourself, you are walking in the shoes of your family. You are completing what your mom was unable to complete to share your joy with her when you graduate.
2. Babies! Whether you become a NICU nurse or L&D nurse upon graduation, remember the sweet babies you will get to care for and share the beginning of their lives with.
3. The stress you feel over getting a B is unnecessary. It may feel like the end of the world, but it's not even close. You passed all of your courses freshman year when so many thought you wouldn't.
4. It is okay to cry. One of the hardest things to admit, but it reduces stress hormones. We both know you have an over-abundance of stress, so just shed a few tears and move on.
5. Continue to learn from your mistakes and keep taking advice-wise advice, of course.
6. Always be working on remaining humble. When you do something wrong, ask how to make it better next time. Then make it better the next time.
7. Remember, you started out as a CNA. You were a really slow CNA. Keep chesed for all of the CNA's, EMT's, new nurses, doctors, patients, and everyone else in the world. 
8. If someone doesn't treat you right: 1) Assume they could be having a bad day and continue to be kind. Do not talk about others behind their backs, but you can compliment others whether to their face or to others around them. 2)  If they continue to not treat you right, STILL BE NICE! However, you can tell them that you will not help them or ask them to stop talking disrespectfully. DO NOT talk about them behind their backs. If others are, defend them, regardless of what that person did to you.
9. Don't become anti-social. I know you have tendencies to do so, but get a dog and some friends!
10. Read the Bible everyday. Learn to care from how Ad-nai and Yeshua (Jesus' Hebrew name) first cared for us. Wash your disciples feet (metaphorically, but can be literally too!). 
11. Breathe. Relax when you can. Enjoy life. Don't stress about stuff you can't fix. When you can fix something, work the problem out in your head and take care of it.
12. Remember, G-d's plan for your life is infinitely better than your plan for your life. Just trust Him and stop giving the reigns, then taking them back right away!

 Feel free to add anything, I would love more advice for the future nurse me!