aqui, no mas *

Quick run-down:

Maternity - test this week on labor and delivery, extrauterine transition of the newborn, newborn care and teaching. take home points: Babies should be warm, pink and sweet and labor hurts a lot. Aforementioned clinical drama. Excellent patient interactions for two weeks running now.

Public Health - 92.1 on last week's test. Proud of the studying I did - in small chunks, used textbook for making study sheets, even though I never read before class. Also aware that this is one class where more studying likely will not bring better grades, but taking more time to read the questions will. A big relief.

one of the Disciplines - panel with new grads for class this week. Take home point was there's a relatively high rate of job-changing 1 year out of school, and attrition rate from the profession altogether. Choose your workplace based more on the co-workers than the patient population - it's never worth it to work with nasty-assed people. Also made the mistake of sitting in the back of the class, and listened to the back row bitch and moan and make snide comments the whole time. The irony was lost on them, of course.

the other Disciplines - watched the movie Wit with Emma Thompson and cried unabashedly. Excellent, excellent movie. Fodder for hours of discussion. I will have a hard time limiting my paper to a page.

Spanish - survived another conversation hour, complete with dialogos enacted in front of the class. received positive feedback on paragraph re: the usefulness of the pain scale with patients who are not native English speakers. I said, Shit, it doesn't work so well with patients who ARE native English speakers. Again, did not die during public speaking en espanol.

Patho tutoring - still need to drop off paperwork for payroll. Held session on SuperBowl Sunday night - 25 students showed up! I was thinking, maybe 10 would come! What's worse is that we were doing my weakest lectures - immunity, B's, T's, NKs, types of hypersensitivity reactions and classes of antibodies. survived.

State Board of ANS - another marathon meeting, this one with hours of driving attached on both ends. It's looking bad for our upcoming mid-year conference, and it's hard for me to get all gung-ho about it because it's so clear that most of our activities are merely for self-perpetuation. Approved an operating budget of $65K at the last meeting that included $1000 for scholarships. AND that pittance took over an hour to agree on. excited about nationals in Texas in March, sad that I didn't get my shit together for a resolution, excited about folks planning outreach projects with kids. also, i'm a big dummy and volunteered to take the minutes and have yet to send them out. shrug.

Honors - hmmm. Thought a lot about this. It seems a little insane to take another thing on this semester. But I've been wanting to do an Honors project since I started the program and was thrilled when I squeaked through with the GPA last semester to qualify. So I decided - Yes, I am doing this thing. Now, I just have to find an adviser in the next five days to sign my intent to participate form. hmmm.

the kid - getting my head around re-districting for next year. processing more worrisome progress reports from the teacher who doesn't have credibility with me, and from the art teacher who was more worried that I thought was appropriate. planning birthday hockey game with friend.

the house - rearranged the living room, with the bookshelves I bought for shoes two weeks ago. Nice to have the lake of shoes off the floor behind the front door. Appalling to see the amount of cat fur that builds up in two weeks. Dishes are going on 13 days now since original use, although they have been rinsed and stacked in varying arrangements twice in that time.

in the category of Nothing to do with Nursing School - hang on, I know there's something... hmmm. made new list of scholarship applications due on March 15th? no no that won't do. chinese food with friend which included discussion of nursing school, but also of her new job and dying cat? better. did taxes, and was impressed that I managed to earn only $4K last year, down from $10K the year before. Now that's gross income! badumdum. attended Friends meeting. good. very intense feeling of peace this last week, lasted about 4 minutes. distracted by making mental lists of this weeks errands. watched leaves blow outside.

*literally - here, no more. I've heard it used to indicate to a professor that one is present in class, but not at their best that day, so don't expect a whole lot.