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! 

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!

Ordering Transcripts

As most people may know in order to get in to a university, or even register for classes at a community college you must submit transcripts. Whether you're transferring or going straight from high school, they need to see your academic background. Since I'm transferring back to my community college in order to get the missing classes I need for the nursing program I had to order the transcripts from my university. I've order the transcripts 3 times in the span of 2 weeks, and the college has yet to receive them. I purposely ordered them electronic through F.A.S.T.E.R and they still haven't gotten them. I'm so annoyed about the whole situation because I made sure to do everything by my registration appointment so I would be able to pick up the class I wanted. Since my university keeps messing up the transcript delivery, I haven't been able to register for my class, and now the class I wanted to take is full. There are other options, but the time of the class I wanted is taken. I don't see how its fair to me to have to wait for some stupid university to take my classes. I'm frustrated, and completely annoyed with the school I am leaving, and just wish this transition went smoothly. That's why this morning I tweeted "When life throws you curveballs, you catch it and throw it right back" because this is slowing the process down for me to get in to nursing school. 

Honestly if I have to order those transcripts one more time, I'm going straight to the office on campus and giving them a piece of my mind! Isn't it enough that they screwed up some one my work before, now they have to screw up me leaving them too! 

I know I'm ranting, but someone from some university must see this and realize how frustrating they can be to students. I just want to make something of my life!

On another note, I've been doing a lot of practice questions for HESI A2 exam. If you don't know what the HESI is, its the entrance exam for the nursing school I want to go. I'm going to buy a book from elsevier.com to study for the exam and hopefully get an amazing passing score to impress the admission committee! Other than that there's nothing new to report! 

Hope everyone is having either a great semester, or a great summer break! Comment below and let me know if you ever had a problem with your college transcripts!  

Australia for Medical school?!

Today my school sent out an email about going to medical school in Australia, and that got me thinking! What if I go to medical school somewhere other than America! I mean I would move back home and practice medicine in America, but what if I study somewhere else?! Australia, is obviously an option! Ireland would be so totally awesome! I mean it's been my dream to visit there but imagine living there for four years for school!! 

Ireland has been my dream for many years, and I was thinking of giving myself the gift to visit for a few weeks after I graduate medical school, but what if I can study there, what if I can live there! So I know this is the World Wide Web, and someone from Ireland can come across this post and be like "What's the big deal about studying here?" but are you kidding me! IT'S IRELAND! 

I mean just look at that picture! It's such a beautiful place! That's not the only place that would be a dream! Australia would be so wonderful to study too! I would love to be there to live for some time. It would really just be a dream to live any where other than america for a few years, and study while doing it. 

Just imagine, going to a school away from home! Yeah it would suck to live away from my family for so long, and not get to visit them often, but the experience would be so worth it! I know it would cost me an arm and a leg to visit, but technology now a days would allow me to see them more often than not. There's so many other places that I would love to go to, but my dream would be Ireland. It's going to be really cool if I get to do this. 

Lets talk about how I'm getting overly excited about this, and yet I still have a while before I even apply to school, but after getting that email I just got so excited. I might actually go to the meeting that my school is hosting to meet the dean of the medical school in Australia, I mean to weigh my options of where I'm going!

What's your opinion about traveling for school? Did you go somewhere else for graduate school? Would you jump at the opportunity? Leave me a comment about what you think!

Thoughtful Thursday: Coding and Armed Forces

Hey all!

Today is Thoughtful Thursday, a segment I wanted to incorporate in the blog. Everyday I'm constantly thinking about all sorts of different things. Like my life, my school, my future. And so I wanted to just vent out what goes through my head, but instead of doing that everyday and boring everyone, I figure I'll just do it on Thursdays. Hence Thoughtful Thursdays came to mind. Today I was really struggling in my head because I'm not in love with the look for the blog, the layout, the colors, the appearance, they all just don't look right. I've been practicing writing my own code, and until I get it down packed I know I'm not going to like the look of the blog. I'll get over it, but I want to make sure I make it look as nice and user friendly as possible for my readers. Writing your own code for your blog isn't easy, and there isn't a lot of tutorials (that I can find) to help you learn, and therefore once I do learn and have it mastered I will be making my own tutorial on how write / create your own blogger template from scratch. I know HTML and CSS extensively. I don't really know much about XML or JAVASCRIPT but I'm learning, or trying to. I altered a code on my old blog (Champagnemedicine.com) which was run on wordpress but I never mastered that because it was so many files for just the one template. Once I get blogger down packed I want to learn to code my own wordpress. If I do that, then I will also make a tutorial on how to create your own Wordpress theme. I'm getting way ahead of myself here, and I shouldn't be making so many promises, especially if I can't deliver, but I want the motivation to deliver these tutorials and therefore I'm making promises.

Other things that have been on my mind lately, joining the United States Army, or Air Force, or even the Navy. When I graduated high school, I wanted to join the Navy but was convinced otherwise by family and friends. To this day I always think about how different my life would be had I joined, hell if I joined when I graduated, I would have served and left the Navy by now. I'm thinking of doing it, and becoming a medic in the military. Theres so many opportunities as a medic for the US military, and although it's scary to deploy and be away from family, I will be serving my country alongside doing something I love. Medicine is something that I've wanted to do/study for a very long time, and I really want to take advantage of being a doctor (in the future) and help out everyone who needs it. Aside from those rural areas, the US military could really use doctors in their fields. I'm truly thinking about doing this, but I need to think about it A LOT because I would be leaving my family, and thats something thats really hard for me. Plus for every year of medical school, its another year serving the military, so four years of medical school = four years in service, and possibly more. There are perks of joining the military to go to medical school, and they are extreme but thats not the reason I would do it, so I'd rather not talk about them. I wouldn't want to give people the wrong idea about why I would want to join the service. I don't know, its really something to think about and I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Are you a blogger? Did you write your own theme code? How did you learn? Are you in the Armed forces? Are you a Medic in the US military? What do you think about being a medic for the US military? I want to hear your thoughts, they really are important to me!