A Whole New Domain

It's a whole new domain! Which means there's a whole new layout coming, which means, there's new post coming everyday! I'm getting a little more serious when it comes to my blogging and developing my brand! I promise that what's to come will be worth your while!

My parents purchased the iPad Pro for me back in April for my birthday, alongside the Apple Pencil, and as a gift to myself for passing my classes in these past two semesters I went and bought myself the Smart Keyboard to make blogging from my iPad so much easier!! If I'm out here spending all this money on getting my blog together, you better believe it's because this time around there's no more slacking! The only thing I wished was that I could connect to my server and code for my web layout via the iPad, then I can do it all from just one simple place... I've been doing my research, and working to find a way to do it, and hopefully I can figure out a way to do it, because THAT WOULD BE AWESOME!!!!

Either way, the new layout is coming with a new nice chic design, and is going to be everything I've dreamed of and more. What else is coming with it is new content, from photoshop tutorials (the basics-the really tough stuff), to circuit tutorials, as well as DIY projects. I'm doing all this while in nursing school and I'm going to be kick ass at it! I've always wanted to build my brand since I was little girl and I plan to do that now. My web design and graphic design skills were not learned over night, and were met by many trials and errors, and trust me when I say I am NOT an expert, but it's something I'm extremely passionate about and absolutely adore doing! So cheers to the new and improved That Girls a Nurse, and I can't wait for you all to see it!!!! It should be up and running as soon as October rolls around. I'm still working on the design ideas, and I'm transferring from blogger to Wordpress so it's going to take time, but my goal is to be done by October 1st!

This is a dream of mine as much as nursing school and I will see it through! Have you ever quit on your dreams only to realize you wanted more than anything to make them come true? Have your dreams come true? Tell me what you would like to see on this new blog!! Your opinion matters to me more than you know! 

I Made a Promise

I made a promise to you all that I would tell you how my first two semesters of school went and so here I am to tell you how they went!

Day One of Semester One 05.16.2016

I woke up at 6AM, well who am I kidding, I didn't sleep! I got out of bed at 6AM, hopped in the shower really excited to be able to finally wear my scrubs! I think that was the most exciting thing to me about going to nursing school at first, now I can't wait to get out of them when I get home. Oh how the times have changed! 

Once out the shower and in my scrubs, I do my hair and my make up, because it's the first day of classes and everyone always puts in effort the first day or week. I leave the house around 6:45/7:00AM and head to my friend and classmates house to pick her up. We are so giddy and excited to be starting the journey together! We get to campus no later than 7:15AM and our class doesn't start until 8:00AM so we wait around, expecting no one else to be there... Yeah right, there is about 10 other classmates waiting outside the classroom, we're all talking, comparing what we brought with us to class and who's read what to prepare for the class. My friend and I decide to head to the cafeteria to buy some coffee, and their closed :/ So we sit inside waiting for them to open, and they did, at 7:30AM. We got the fresh / first pot of coffee they made and headed to class, again expecting it to still be empty since it was now 7:45AM and we don't start until 8:00AM. Again yeah right, the room is full of the other students, in fact we had to sit in the back since we were probably the last two to walk in that room. We set our coffee down on the table and save a seat for our friend who was still on her way to class. When she arrives, she sits next to Camille, my friend, and the professor shuts the door. Samantha (another classmates) turns around and looks at my binder, with EVERYTHING that the professor sent us printed, and says wow! how long did that take you? I laugh and tell her it took me a few hours and about 2 ink cartridges to print but I didn't want to miss any of my paperwork. She turns back around and our instructor tells us all that we can't have any drinks with us in our class. Camille and I just looked at each other like crap, there goes our coffee lol. 

A few hours later and our professor gives us our first break, it's around 9:30AM and we have to be back within 15 minutes so we head outside and start to drink our coffee as fast as possible so as not to let it waste. We head back to class and while our instructor is teaching he tells us that he really likes when people tell personal stories that pertain to the lecture, so one of the girls in my class announces that she's a PCA and tells us some stories about her patients. I was thinking OMG that's so cool I want to be her friend!!! I'm such a nerd I know. 

Around 12PM our instructor finally lets us go and we head to the cafeteria for our lunch break before our dosage calculations class, we start talking about our excitement and our nerves and how this is just so incredible. We head to dosage class and sit there for 2 hours with our instructor, she's pretty amazing I have to say, and strict and lot of people didn't like her but I had a feeling she was going to be one our best instructors. She turned out to be my favorite instructor, and I can't wait to be in her class again in October for Peds. 

Day Two Semester One 05.17.2016 

Ah the day where the fun stuff began, my very first clinical day! This day was going to be a very long day, we started at 7AM and didn't leave until 7PM, which I guess is okay since that's pretty much what our shifts are going to be like for the rest of our lives. 

Today we learned the basics, hand hygiene, PPE (personal protective equipment), Precautions (when to put on the PPEs), we learned about sterile fields, we learned how to take blood pressure, how to take the apical pulse, and so on and so forth. It really was awesome because we learned so much that day, but at the end of it all I was exhausted. 

On this day is when we formed our group, it grew from 3 of us (Nadia, Camille, and myself) to five of us (Nadia, Camille, Lyndsey, Samantha, and myself)! Samantha is the same girl that spoke to me the first day about my binder, she happened to be assigned to the same clinical instructor as Nadia and myself, Camille was set with another instructor. We have no control where we go though.

Lyndsey was the PCA from the other day! I was so excited to be her friend!!!!

She also happened to be assigned to the same instructor as Nadia and myself, and so the four of us were going to be together on hospital days! 

Honestly now that it's our third semester, I don't know where I would be without my girls! They are literally my rock! We've all been so stressed out in front of one another that we feel like we've been friends for years. I'm glad that I met them and when you start your school I suggest you find yourself your group of friends that are your rock. I'm not saying that people who aren't in nursing school won't understand what you're going through, but those that are in it with you will understand it and probably feel the same way that you do, so I suggest finding that group of friends that you know you wouldn't survive without! 

This post was just about the first two days, look out for the next post on how my first week of exams (4 to be exact) was, and how well, or terrible I did on them! These exams were difficult, and it's only going to get harder from here on out! 

Update: Nursing School is HARD!

I'm not much of a blogger it appears, I always work on starting one, and then after a while I just stop writing, but that ends now! I've started to get my life together, trying to manage my time more and more since nursing school started! Honestly it's been tough, I've passed some of my classes by the skin on my teeth. The semester started out great, I was going to class early, getting my reading and assignments done and then the work load just kept increasing. Read more chapters, study more power points, prepare to demonstrate the skills you learned for a grade. It all just got really hectic, and the final days of my second semester, I needed to pass my final with a 36/40, and I did thankfully but it was the most stressful time of my life! I cried when I got the results because of how freaked out I was that I was going to fail nursing school. 

I've worked too damn hard for too damn long for it to end so quickly! So I made a promise to myself after that, study longer, but smarter, and not harder. I will put in more work (the right work) and do what I have to do to pass each class without freaking out the entire time! My plan to help me do that, is a bullet journal. If you've never heard of what a bullet journal is, it's like a planner but your own style. It's supposed to be the way it works for you. So I drove over to my local target, and purchased a small journal, with some Staedtler pens to get started. The point of the journal is to help me manage my life and make sure I stay on task.

I've always used regular planners and agendas, and I think some people still use both the planner and the bullet journal but I prefer one, and right now I'm giving the bullet journal a try. The bujo (bullet journal) is more of a week to week, or day to day thing. You plan as you go along, you can do it every day for the following day, or every week for the following week.

It's whatever works for you! You can do a monthly spread, a daily spread, or a weekly spread. You just have to play the field before you find your rhythm, and that's exactly what I'm doing. I started by having my year at a glance so I can see what day falls when, then I did the month of august, a small calendar on one page, and the dates to remember right next to it, then I got to the niddy griddy of it all. My weekly spread, I wrote my goals for the week, the tasks that I need to do, including blogging! So far I'm really enjoying it, but since I'm on break from school until August 22, I can't really say if it's going to help with school, but I will keep you posted.

What the weekly spread looks like

The bullet journal is definitely something you all should look in to if you need some more time management help, and trust me when I say it, if you have a creative bone in your body, you'll enjoy it more than a store bought planner!

That's all I have to say for now loves, but I will be back to give you a full detailed post on how my first and second semester of nursing school went! Till then try bullet journaling and let me know what you think!

What do you think about nursing school? Have you tried bullet journals? Do you love it or hate it? Tell me what you think! Share some pictures of your journals!

Momma, I made it!

On March 4, 2016 I received a letter from the health science administration team of my university. In this letter they informed me that I have been selected for a seat in their nursing program starting on May 16, 2016. I was napping at the time my email got to me, and my friend, whom I will be going through this journey with, texted me 5 times in the span of 5 minutes. When she saw I wasn't responding she called me and yelled "LOOK AT YOUR EMAIL!!!!" I don't think I've ever woken up so fast in my entire life!

Since then I've done 6 certification classes, gotten my fingerprints done, gotten a drug test, did an online background check, and made an appointment for my physical. I also attended the first of two orientations. I'm just so ready to start! Let me not forget to mention that I'm currently in a microbiology course, which I just want to finish so I can start the nursing program.

I can officially register for my first semester of nursing school on April 6, 2016 at 8:00am, and I'm just dying to get it done, just so I know it's real, it's actually happening. If you're a pre-med student, or a pre-nursing student, you know what I mean when I say, I JUST WANT TO START.

I know that for sure I'm going to be saying I JUST WANT TO FINISH within the first couple weeks of the first semester, but the fact that I made it, that I got in, just makes me so happy and excited!

I can't believe that after so many years of struggle and hardship, I can finally say I'm a nursing student!

MOMMA I MADE IT!!!!!

Have you applied to get in to your school? Have you gotten your acceptance letter? When do you start? When will you apply? I want to hear your stories of your journey to get in to nursing school! Comment below, and lets chat!

It's started with an apology... followed by advice

Can I just begin by apologizing at how much I let go of the blog! I'm truly sorry, this A&P class has taken over my life and I haven't blogged since. The course is/was 6 weeks, and has been so demanding that every spare second I had was spent studying for the course. I'm a little more than half way through considering that Monday is the last week of Lab and the following Wednesday is my final for the lecture. It's safe to say I've done well enough in the course, the last time I checked *this past Wednesday* I had a 85% in the lab, and an A in the lecture (she didn't give me the percent for that one). I'm hoping I can keep those, or make the 85% better when it comes time to finish the classes. I won't be stress free until I know what grades I got, but I will say this, there's nothing like taking a course, and feeling great through the whole course. I don't think I've ever studied for a class as much as I have for this class. 

If you want my advice, don't take anatomy until your last semester. People might say that's crazy, and you should always take easier classes towards the end, but I think that is bogus! When you start college you're transitioning from high school, and its a big change. You should start off with your basic core curriculum, and make your way up to the higher level, more intense courses. When I started college my first semester was ENC1101 or English Comp, MAC1105 or College Algebra, CHM1032 or General Chemisty (literally just the basics of chemistry), and HCP0001 or Health Careers Core Curriculum, which basically just taught us the basic in health care. How to put sterile gloves on, how to take vitals, how to wash your hands, etc. These classes were all the basic requirements in college, and I took them first, then I went on in my second semester, not knowing how difficult it was going to be, and took A&P 1. It's safe to say that I failed that class, and I can explain why. 

When you start college, your mentality is still the same as when you were in high school. You expect your professors to be as helpful as your high school ones, in that when you miss an assignment, they accept it late and they pretty much baby you. In college, you miss an assignment, then you've missed that assignment, unless you get one of those professor who really don't want to see you fail, and work with you. Regardless, you don't think about studying, and you don't think about working as hard. It really does take the few easy classes in the beginning of your college career to learn just how much you have to put in to school, and how much you have to study. 

The first time I took A&P, I wasn't spending that much time studying, I would go about college the same I did with high school, minimal effort, and to be honest, it worked with the few 'easy' core classes. When I took A&P I learned just how wrong I was about studying, and I had a lot to learn about how to study effectively. For me, it's important you learn that before you take the classes that will effect you in the long run, because you don't want those on the admission committee going through your application wondering, "Why did she get an F?" "Did they not put forth maximum effort?" "Do we want someone like this in our program?" 

It's not to say that you can't ever fail a class, hell I failed A&P with an F in the lecture and a WF (withdrawl fail; I stopped showing up) in the lab, and I'm still going to get in the program. I'm just saying you don't want that on your record because you don't want people to question you and keep a close watch on you. 

I'm retaking the class and hoping that I'm getting an A in the end. This way the nursing admissions committee can see how much I've grown and changed over the years, and they may give me a shot. But speaking from experience, you don't want to be scared about what's going to happen to you because of one grade, just listen to this advice, and when you've learned how to study effectively in college, start taking your more difficult classes. It'll help you so you can pass with flying colors! Trust me! 

I'm not expert, and I'm not a college adviser, but I'm speaking from personal experience! College isn't a joke, it's your future, and you should take responsibility in making sure you have a good experience, but you also have good grades.