research, addiction and other things I am angry about today.

My friend told me that I was very distractable today. I didn't really listen to her because I was trying to figure out how to get one of those cute little KEEN shoe keyrings... I also wasn't listening because I'm jealous that she gets to take her Master's degree in Research and roll out at noon on Fridays, whereas I have to remain on campus for at least three more hours, and possibly as many as four more hours. It's just horrible.

I turned into that back of the room asshole today in Research. After one prof read the damned slides verbatim to us, and offered nary a word of additional information or real explanation, another prof flashed a list of journal article titles on the screen and asked us to tell whether they were primary or secondary sources, and if they were empirical or theoretical. From the title alone.

I get that if it says review, it's secondary and if it says exploring or study, it's primary. But for one example, she said that it was not theoretical although SoandSo's Theory of Anywho was in the journal article title. We murmured and buzzed like the courtroom of Matlock when Andy Griffith makes his startling revelation, and she said, yes, it's empirical, because SoandSo didn't deal with these other subjects when she developed her Theory of Anywho, and so this article is actually creating a theoretical model, but not dealing solely with the theory.

Um. Prof? I have a question. Since we haven't studied SoandSo, nor her Theory of Anywho, we would not have been able to reach that same conclusion. I personally am still not clear by what you are using as the definition of theoretical framework and theoretical model. Will this sort of question appear on the midterm that you keep alluding to in such vague and threatening ways each week?

sigh.

We had a guest lecturer in Psych today, talking through Psychopharm and fucking it all up.

Five minutes into the lecture, she said, in essence, that if someone becomes tolerant to a medication, they are addicted to it, and that addiction and physiological dependence are one and the same*. When several of us in succession raised our hands and explained that that was directly contradictory to what we had learned in Pharm and Adult Health and Fundamentals, that the bigger concern for the general population was untreated pain due to a fear of addiction, that addiction is a pattern of behavior motivated by craving the euphoria effects of a substance, not the physiological tolerance that most people develop to drugs like narcotics.
She responded that we should challenge our professors and question that teaching (and I'm thinking that is a ridiculous statement to make, when although a Guest Lecturer, she is still a lecturer and should have some concept of the rest of the curriculum of the program, especially before she rolls in and starts talking shit).

To add insult to injury, this class is a combination of second semester accelerated students, third semester traditional 24 month students, and last semester traditional students. So, the seniors are just so over our questions, and one of them eventually raised her hand and said, all snotty, Can we just move on? It seems that we're not getting anywhere with this. I cannot imagine saying such a thing to a professor. It's really amazing to see entitlement in action at 10am on a weekday.

Ridiculous Guest Lecturer also told us that she is more likely as a nurse practitioner to adjust someone's lithium levels based on their experience than based on their levels. Sure, sure, know the levels for the boards, she says, and yeah, yeah, hydration and I&O's are important. but I think that a tremor is a better indicator of toxicity than a level over 1.2.

In good news, I got a voicemail from the lady with the testing company that administers the Nurse Aide Certification test that I took and failed on Saturday, and I think that she hinted that upon review, I did, in fact, pass it. I don't believe shit until I see the score report. I dare them to tell me that I have to spend $22 and an entire morning answering scenario questions about what to do when you find a patient masturbating and how to properly handle a patient who doesn't want to eat breakfast and throws it at you, whether to abandon the patient you are transporting when a fire alarm sounds and my very very personal favorite (I actually laughed out loud when I read it!), whether it's a good idea to respond to a patient touching you inappropriately by touching him appropriately and asking him how he likes it?

A busy day tomorrow:

• eggs from the happy chicken guy at the farmers market at the crack of dawn before he sells out, because they really do look and taste sooo different and better and because he has a photo album for the love of pete, a photo album, of his chickens and the Great Pyrennes who herd and protect them from predators.
  
• Pride parade with the kid, bouncing between the gay parenting folks and the gay students from the university.
• haircut for the kid, because school pictures are Tuesday and he's a tad shaggy. Incidentally, I'm thinking of growing out the crew cut and going for the chin length shaggy surfer cut that the boys are sporting these days. I love it.
  
• museum to see them feed the bears and give Kongs to the lemurs
• home to remove the clutter that has accumulated, and police the house for shoes, trash, and stray tumbleweeds of cat fur.
  
• spend AT LEAST an hour on notecards for peds, since there's an exam next week, and another hour reading the material for research, which may enhance my experience in the course a bit.
  
• make brownies and watch the disk of Scrubs that Blockbuster so thoughtfully mailed me today.
  

*I thought this phrase was - one in the same - for many many years.