They are bound by flesh
as leather around a Bible.
That they dance and write
in air the story
of what is lost, what is gained.

That they are soldiers
cut and bleeding, a link
to the heart’s kingdom.
That they are so beautiful
a moon has landed on each finger.

That they are trained
for harps and hired for murder.
That the cuticles are shaped
like soft horseshoes.
They contain rivers.

That the ring finger’s shyness
suffers when gripped by the powerful.
That the palm yields to blisters
and wears the calloused rags
of repetition.

That they are mythical
with their lifeline’s hieroglyphics.
That they struggle
because of their great strength.
They are able to heal themselves.

That they know what it means
to draw the water
and work without pay.
That they will hide our eyes
and pray for our sins.

That they may life the hammer
and lead our bodies to grace.
That they will make a print
like no other
until they wave goodbye.

~ Jeanne Bryner, nurse poet

printed in The Poetry of Nursing 

it expresses perfectly the awe I feel about becoming a nurse.

this is most definitely a theme with me. I wonder if it is fear and shake my head no. I wonder if it’s regret and again get a no. It’s pure and simple awe.

i get so jazzed over being good to people and solving their small and not-so-small problems. i want to do it more. and i want to solve bigger problems. i know i can.

in my mind’s eye, i am just me. i’m sure you see yourself, your passion and creativity and drive as just you.

yet when i look at you, I see amazing possibility. and here on this side of the coin, i see much lacking.

That was my evaluation of myself upon ending my first clinical rotation: understands people, needs more confidence.

But I was given the chance to interact with a deaf client, for the very first time outside of those i know in class. I think that was the best part of my time in gerontology. Communication, belonging, i felt a part of her community even though i was so new and faltering and still asking her to sign things slower or repeat them. I love community and team and teaching. I had to teach too! Because of my PSW experience, I was given the opportunity to mentor a fellow student. And then there are the days I’m absolutely certain that I could teach said class better than the already awesome teacher standing before me.

My dreams are scaring the crap out of me. And I can’t wait to rush right into them.

the above initials will identify me when i work in clinical placements this semester. I am, wait for it… student nurse, first year.

thrilling. terrifying. I feel as though I need a super hero cape.

baby bath, temperature, parental education.

therapeutic interactions, tub baths, conflict management, and quality of life.

the language i speak now is significantly altered than the one I spoke eight months ago. AND i actually have to speak – WITH my VOICE – to my patients. coming from PSW/nurse’s aid work in a bilingual hearing and deaf environment, using my voice felt pretty awkward that first day.

but I’ve digressed. initials. behind my name.

It only seems fitting that there is some designation behind my name to explain the breadth of information I digest daily and how annoying I can be to working PSWs who have a much smaller crunch time to get things done.

I’m really trying hard to not get discouraged by the eye rolls sent my direction, the varied ways I have been told “why aren’t you working faster,” the many naysayers who say that nurses are the grunt workers of the healthcare system, and the very sad story of Amanda Trujillo.

I want to be positive, I want to change things. I’m a mature student, but still very much an idealist. And when I see nurses having moved up into management positions, I wish I had the guts to say to them: have you made a difference? or have you simply filled the shoes of the one before and done good enough?

Perhaps it’s the amazing nursing program I am in, but my eyes seems even further open than they’ve ever been. There is so much to do, and I am more anxious than ever to do it.

I am immensely proud of my SN1.

Some days I am scared about the role I am being handed, about the role I have asked to be given.
Some days I embrace it and know in it hides all the amazing sides of myself I’ve yet to discover, in it I will find my life’s work.
Just turning it over in my imagination, I feel bubbling over excitement, creativity and wonder.
For now they’ve yet to tie the ribbon and release it’s weight.

One day I will be… a nurse.

Now I do realize that everyone is different. We have our own systems and modus operandi, so I won’t say that these are for everyone. Personally I use them, they keep me sane. You may not realize you are in need of them, so here’s my story.

Way back in the dinosaur ages, I was in college in Louisiana. We didn’t have email addresses, we didn’t turn in papers electronically to check for plagiarism and we did our research leafing through actual books. In the same vein, I wrote to-do lists for homework, papers, assignments, readings and projects. Actually wrote them, with a pencil. Problem was that I had to continually rewrite them as I completed things. My name is Adrienne, and I killed some trees. Sorry. On the positive side, I was always reminded of what I needed to accomplish.

I started out this semester – I won’t tell you how many years later – the same way. But then the written to-do list got lost multiple times, was in the wrong binder that was not at school with me even more times and just… felt… wrong, palpably, as I went about my cell-phone wifi connected day.

So, I found an app for that. It’s called myHomework and there is an iPod *and* Android version. It’s accessible online from their web-app and on your smartphone. Oddly enough I primarily use the web-app. I find that interface faster to put in assignments and I work really hard to put readings in all at once, at least a week in advance.  When you’ve completed something, I can check it off and gleefully see the reward of the strike-through on the words of that item, bypassing the obsessive compulsive urge I have to rewrite an entire list because I finished one of twenty items.

So remember, SMART goals and try myHomework.

Also, college is powerpoints and papers these days. Lecture notes are sure not what they used to be. Neither is research. I have pdfs piling up already! Thank goodness for Dropbox because it makes my life much easier to manage.

Dropbox is a software that you install on your main computer/laptop at home. The Dropfox folder then becomes part of your computer’s file system. All my school work is saved into the Dropbox folder.

So, that’s not too exciting. But this is! I can access all my files from school by signing into the Dropbox website. I can access all my files on my ipod Touch. And best of all, they are kept synced for me. Changes I made to one file at school or files I added at school are synced up to my account once I am home without me having to think at all!

Your storage space is limited but there are ways to increase your limit without having to pay. But I think that the amount of space you get free is pretty generous. I have personal files in there plus my school stuff and am not at 50%. Worst comes to worst later, when my account gets full, I’ll only leave my work for the current semester.

Now you know all my bestest secrets. Here’s wishing everyone an organized and successful semester!

p.s. Dropbox is great, but back it up.

It was one of five workshops available at a conference I was attending, and since going overseas to study/work isn’t a possibility and my facebook account is pretty locked down already, the only chance that I was there to learn something and not completely waste my time was with the learning strategist.

She was so good and taught me so much that I am here, duty bound to tell you on Sunday afternoon, share and divulge my secrets rather than horde them on this countdown to midterm weekend.

I thought I have great study habits. Guess who failed her little “how well do you study?” quiz? Yeap.

I’m nothing if not dedicated. Her presentation however was focused on efficiency and she showed me a few nifty tricks.

• Make a list of what you need to know. This is especially important if your teacher doesn’t give you any kind of review before an exam. She recommended showing it to your teacher and asking if it was comprehensive. In her experience, if the teacher did point out something that was missing, it was usually a crucial concept and on the exam.
• Summarize the book and what you need to know between your in-class notes and maybe through home notes, but put the textbook away after that. She says textbooks are too overwhelming. I heart my own, so I was 100% with her on this, but for those less bibliophilic than myself, I can understand it totally.
• Divide what you need to know into three piles.Think of a stoplight – red, green, yellow. She told us that research shows that we study what we already know (!) most. Apparently, we like the good feeling and positive reinforcement so much that we stick with it. Her advice? Put the stuff you know in the “green” pile and only bother reviewing it after a thorough going over of everything else. The yellow pile is for what you sort of know, and of course the red pile is what you do not at all know. Study the red pile first and most. Then hit the yellow. And later review the green.
• Here’s another statistic I had never heard. We remember 5% of what we hear audibly, 10% of what we read and a whooping 90% of what we teach. Go find a study group and teach ‘em something, man. Wow.
• Make up questions from the bold terms and headings in your texbook. She said this partly falls into the “How to take a test well” category because how well we do on a test is not necessarily a reflection of what we know. It IS a reflection of how well we study. And if you are always studying with the question AND answer sitting there staring at you, your brain will totally freak out on you when test time comes and ONLY the question is there.
• Another test-taking tip: cover up the answers of multiple choice questions as you move through them. Those answers are meant to confuse, as we all know only too well. Removing them from the picture allows your brain to recall the information without that distraction and you can proceed to picking a, b, c, d with much more confidence.
• My favourite variation of that advice was this keen idea: cover up those beloved power point slide formatted notes with post-it notes. Write the question on the post-it note, the answer is underneath, and voila! instant test question to quiz yourself or friends. I’ve been doing this as I go through my anatomy today and it’s a whole new world!
  
• Most shocking and revelational to me was the evidence-informed practice (lol) of how soon after a lecture you should be reviewing the material covered. Take a guess..
• Pretty picture break while you think.
• 
• 12-24 hours!!! no seriously, she says it’s proven that one of the best ways to move information from the short term memory into the long term is to review it within one day of the lecture. Obviously, I can’t do that now as I sit and prepare for midterms, but I am going to attempt to do this once we are back into the lecture cycle again. Her advice was not to take too long. A quick review… maybe ten minutes.
• Then the next step for memory retention is to spend an hour at the end of the week reviewing that week’s material. This I already sort of do, but I am going to work on improving.

Please know that this was not all of her advice, but only what stuck out as perfect for me, my life, habits, needs. I would highly recommend seeing a learning strategist yourself. They have so much to offer you.

Good luck on your exams!

Santa Filomena

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Whene’er a noble deed is wrought,
Whene’er is spoken a noble thought,
Our hearts, in glad surprise,
To higher levels rise.

The tidal wave of deeper souls
Into our inmost being rolls,
And lifts us unawares
Out of all meaner cares.

Honour to those whose words or deeds
Thus help us in our daily needs,
And by their overflow
Raise us from what is low!

Thus thought I, as by night I read
Of the great army of the dead,
The trenches cold and damp,
The starved and frozen camp, -

The wounded from the battle-plain,
In dreary hospitals of pain,
The cheerless corridors,
The cold and stony floors.

Lo! in that house of misery
A lady with a lamp I see
Pass through the glimmering gloom,
And flit from room to room.

And slow, as in a dream of bliss,
The speechless sufferer turns to kiss
Her shadow, as it falls
Upon the darkening walls.

As if a door in heaven should be
Opened and then closed suddenly,
The vision came and went,
The light shone and was spent.

On England’s annals, through the long
Hereafter of her speech and song,
That light its rays shall cast
From portals of the past.

A Lady with a Lamp shall stand
In the great history of the land,
A noble type of good,
Heroic womanhood.

Nor even shall be wanting here
The palm, the lily, and the spear,
The symbols that of yore
Saint Filomena bore.

and guess what? they both want to go to medical school!

what is it with 18 year olds helping along the “mature” thirty-something through school?

i know, i know. it doesn’t really say anything about me but wow is it ever awkward?! and humbling. i was always the big shot around campus, you know. maybe one day i will be again.

Between that and postponing homework for a night of Glee and committing to some kind of exercise daily, I feel so much better. And I’ve realized why this is such a challenge for me — my anxiety. I take medicine that I wanted to get off but a great counselor advised me to try school with the help first. That’s what professionals are for. But even with that help – or crutch as it sometimes feels like – I’ve felt on the edge of breaking. Too much input and not near enough time to process. Hence I heard that same voice in my ear with the other half of the best way to manage anxiety disorder – exercise.

I must exercise. If you have diagnosed anxiety like I do, you need to exercise too.

Yesterday it was throwing ball in the park with my guy. Today I went for a walk and ended up in front of school to meet the kids at the exact right time.

I know I won’t always remember or be disciplined enough to get off my tush, but the hour not spent studying to physically move is so worth it. My mind is clear, I feel ready to tackle hours of reading, essay writing and skill videos. And most of all the stress is way WAY lower. Time to get to it!

This blog is officially a “whatever I feel like it today” blog.

Today there was panic and loneliness, feeling weird, forced extrovertedness, success, laughes and kale chips! Wanna hear about it?

Going back to school is a dream come true. As school drew nearer over the summer, my long awaited excitement slowly became a dawning anxiety and nameless general fear.

The first days were a blur, keeping my head above water, orientating myself to college as a mature student, to a system of education in a different country, to a university nursing program instead of the diploma one, to new people, to buses that don’t go the direction I think they will, to where to park and how to find food.

The second week was one long sugar craving. Seriously.

The third turned serious. Two quizzes and a first assignment due changed everything, and I went even more overboard than needed, totally killed a quiz my eleven year old daughter could have passed and am rethinking everything.

Hence, I’m blogging.

But today, wow, what a rollercoaster.

It occurred to me that we have our first skills lab on Monday – we get to bathe each other! – and that I’d better ask around to the few people I feel comfortable with to find a partner. My efforts gave me the impression that everyone else seemed to have paired up already and that I was a really late bloomer and would probably have a total stranger giving me a bed bath! This did not help that general nervousness and overwhelmedness.

I took my sad sorry self to the library to watch the skills video in preparation and found that my cat had eaten through my headphone wires. Strike two for the day. I kicked myself out of my hidey hole however and went over to the “caf” which in Canadian college speak means the cafeteria. And yes, it has it’s very own… you guessed it… Tim Hortons. When I saw some girls in my classes, I literally forcefully willed that I must ask them to sit and chat over lunch together. Natural for me would have been to sulk.

Miraculously it worked. We ate, we “studied” in the library, I found someone available to partner with before our next class, our teacher had us play a nursing board game for two hours which was JUST the break that everyone needed, we laughed and I came home to make mini crustless quiches and kale chips for supper. My ten year old son is eating the leftover kale by the handful as I type. I kid you not! Try them, you’ll love them. Just take it from me… don’t overdo the salt!

G’night, back to student mode.

p.s. and anyhow i really need somewhere to break grammatical rules and not captitalize personal pronouns just so i can pretend i’m heckling professors and their personal pet peeves. not to mention, i NEED somewhere to write creatively because they are making me be straightforward and concise and direct and… worst of all, without metaphor! /swoon