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.

knit one, purl one, double crochet.

Currently I have the following fiber arts projects started:

one shawl, aforementioned in this blog, for which I have begun the far shoulder and have one cake of yarn left. We shall see.

pads, knitted and crocheted from kitchen cotton, flat and in the round. These are in an attempt to use up the bags of the stuff that I bought at Michaels last summer, when I was just learning to knit and thought I'd make a thousand facecloths for holiday gifts to practice on. Lately, I've been teaching myself to use dpns and my friend has been teaching me how to do matched decreases, and how to add crocheted trim to knitted items. So far I have learned that I am still a lumpy purl-er and that stockinette curls even with crochet wings added. I did manage to make something that the kid at the playground suggested looked like a trout. Great.

A hat for my step-father. This pattern looks like it will be perfect for his head, and within my abilities to make. But it called for Cashmerino Aran weight. I didn't want to pay that much for a muffler, and wanted the lady at the yarn store to help me find an alternative, but then the kid started to rip things off the walls and she wasn't as helpful anymore. So, I'm back to internet searching.

I just finished crocheting the blocks I was making for kitchen decorations. I was thinking of felting them for trivets, but then I remembered that I was using Superwash. so. not so much with the felting...

Projects I am contemplating:

felted placemats because I think more surfaces in my home should be coated in cat fur.

a sweater, sweet jesus. why? or hell, let's just make it really complicated!

socks for the love of pete.

mittens to go with the hat for step father, and an alpaca mitten/ scarf set for mother.

a bathmat to use up the rest of this god forsaken pale variegated cotton, which unfortunately can't even be dyed, right?

a super fancy blanket with super fancy yarn. Oh Babette, why are you so attractive?


In other news, I have no plans for the Pride Parade which is this weekend, other than to trot around with the kid in tow. I made cute shirts for the Dyke March a coupla years ago - the kid's said Mommy, what does queer mean? and mine said Hi kid! I'm queer! My friend, who has a girlfriend this year for Pride, and who I am ridiculously jealous of at the moment, is thinking of making a shirt that says Does this shirt make me look gay? which I think is incredibly clever. I'm still jealous of her girlfriend, though.

Speaking of knitting and such, I have done not one stitch of my lit review assignment for research. It was the only thing on my agenda for the day, and I have spent the whole day working on essays, and surfing, and catching up on email and blog-reading and posting, and daydreaming about going to a honest-to-goodness arts and music festival with tent camping and everything!

Tagged!? Me?

I was soooo about to do my nursing note for the day's shift, practicing my SBAR format and then start to type some of my IPR (Interpersonal Process Recording - a word for word account of what he said/I said with notes about what I think he meant and whether I think I did a good job of responding/redirecting). I also planned on getting physically ill thinking about what in god's name I will talk about with my patient tomorrow and wondering how in god's greenest I managed to select the one man on the unit who looks 85% like my dead father. Well, other than the right BKA and left AKA. And the tweety bird tattooed on the side of his head and the CBR and the flaming eight ball on his hand.
But no.

*RULES - Post rules before giving the facts - Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves - People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules - At the end of the your blog you need to tag six people and list their names - Leave them a comment on their blog, telling them they have been tagged and not to forget to read your blog.*


1. I feel weird saying I'm queer since I've never had a girlfriend. a sketchy sexual history, but never a sustained relationship. And I don't see that happening in the next 18 months either.

2. speaking of 18 months, I haven't had sex with another person in at least that long. Apparently, when I decided to stop sleeping with men for a while, I sent some sort of "No, thanks" to the universe.

3. I really enjoy picking the dead skin off my feet. I have become brave enough to get one of those horrid shaver-things recently, but I'm terrified to use it with the force needed, scared that it will slip and I'll slice off the end of my toe.

4. Speaking of toes, I can't feel the tips of my great toes. It happened about six months after I started waiting tables (HOLY BIRTHDAYS BATMAN, that was 12 years ago!), and I was still covered by my mom's insurance. The doc squeezed my toes and shrugged. They look sort of long-bath-prune-y all the time.

5. I haven't been to the dentist in 7 years. I overheard a woman that I was waiting on say, "Well, everyone goes to the dentist twice a year, I just don't understand how something like that could happen!" And until I left my husband, I know that I never considered the possibility that I might not be able to get my teeth cleaned q 6 months.

6. Secretly, I love the abbreviations of medical terminology. It makes me feel proud to be able to remember what the NOS in a psych diagnosis stands for. (not otherwise specified, when something's not *quite* in the diagnostic criteria)

7. I'm a know-it-all. Always have been. I can remember being aware of this in kindergarten and chasing around the girls that had told me they didn't like me, asking them if "it was me, or my big mouth" that they didn't like. cringe.

8. I have given myself a series of mouth ulcers this summer from eating tomatoes from my mom's garden, and I'm getting ready to go make another tomato sandwich!