My Blogemy

Yes. That's what I'm calling this blasted thing that invokes as much guilt as walking through an animal shelter knowing half of those beautiful dogs won't leave that horrid place.
Blogging is tedious. And a little time consuming. Not to mention, I'm such a control freak and perfectionist that I feel I should entertain as well as inform every time I write. My mom says I'm 'hilarious'...but I don't see it so much and it's all I can do not to over-analyze and re-read everything I write before I post it. You don't understand...I'm a lunatic when it comes to this. Which is probably why I try to avoid it at all costs. I think "hmm I'm tired", or "hmm...not tonight", or "hmmm I don't feel like it", or "hmmm maybe later." -- The self excuses never end. Kind of like a Bette Midler ballad....btw, Wind Beneath My Wings just KEEPS GOING. Don't get me wrong, the Divine Miss M is my role model, but honestly....how many times can you say 'fly' at the end of a song before someone goes "spread your wings, god damn it!"
On a more depressing note, I am still jobless. The Job Market (my other enemy...a close second to the blogosphere) is kicking my ass up and down and all around. It's...lovely. You'd think that I'd find something...anything!...by this point. But no. I can't find my purpose. As Princeton said in Avenue Q "I've gotta find my purpose..." -- granted, he was singing about it and he is a puppet...but that doesn't matter...doesn't make it less true.
I tried using italics up there...no clue if it will work. It had some strange code that inserted automatically when I pressed the little italic 'i'....and I was like "wait, wtf?...awkward."
Bed time! KU game tomorrow! Mimosa's and eggs at 8:30am! Woooo! ROCK CHALK.

Just a thought...

I cry way too easily. Especially when I'm alone. I need to work on that. It's depressing.

DIPWAD ALERT! DIPWAD ALERT!

Omigod. So. Dipwad (B.J.) e-mailed me all apologetic about how he pissed Monica and I off when he was here. I almost choked on the cereal I was eating when I read it. WTF? So I e-mailed him back and was like "yeah...you fucked up. end of story." --- no, but really, I actually was very nice and cordial and said "maybe we started off on the wrong food, yada yada yada...." blah blah blah blah blah I basically bullshitted my way through...mostly for the sake of Karen because she obviously loves this man and I'm willing to give him another chance. Monica, on the other hand, still wants to throw him over the balcony. To each his own.

I have come to a conclusion: I HATE TO BE COLD WHEN I'M NOT SLEEPING. It's really obnoxious because I can't fall asleep unless I'm cold but I hate to be cold. Take that as you will.

OH and I've also decided that I"m going to be a spinster with 20 cats for the rest of my life. I will not marry because men are stupid. YES! I SAID IT!

I also hate technology.

That is it.

The end.

Go to bed, you.

er...yeah. :)

New Apartment, New Adventure

So I know it's been a minute since I posted last, but for good reason: I'm lazy. Blogging is a kind of task I haven't mastered yet...much like 'studying' (it's like a four-letter word). But here I am, at 2:06am on a...Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, in the computer lab of my apartment complex (the reasoning behind that will be explained below), just finished up a work out, and figured "hell, why not." I'm obviously terrible at e-mailing, as most of you know, so blogging is like...a mass e-mail without the impersonality of a mass e-mail. (if that sentence made any sense to you, I congratulate your awareness...I'm half asleep).

About a week ago...a little more...maybe, like, seven days...something like that...REGARDLESS! A little more than a week ago, I moved back to Lawrence. With no job, virtually no money, and the little bit of faith I have left that I will be able to make it on my own for at least a semester. Pray for me? Please do. I need it. My lesbian Christina helped my mom and I move me into the apartment. Monica and Taja had already moved in, and Karen was to arrive the next day. I get to the complex (it sort of reminds me of a hotel resort, actually...luxurious pool, hot tub, waterfall, sand volleyball court, full basketball court, grills in the courtyard, rec room open 24/7, game room, computer lab, tanning bed, study rooms, and our own video rental spot...yeah, I think that covers it), go to the main office to get my key, have to sign all these ridiculous papers, get my parking permit, and head up to the apartment. It's in the building right next door to the main building, which is kind of nice when I'm doing these late night workouts, and on the top floor of the building. Elevator you say? No no...we're young. We have STAIRS. THREE FLIGHTS to be exact. Count 'em...three. Uno, dos, tres...three. SOOOOO we start moving. Thank god my OTHER lesbian Tori (...you can tell...gay pride EVERYWHERE in my group of friends) was there to help. She and Christina are like two little oxen ready to move the load up the mountain. And so they did. ...With my help, of course. Mom stayed upstairs and took on the task of doing the mound of laundry I was too lazy to do and pack. Yeah. I moved dirty laundry. Bring it.
Moving went relatively well, except that the dolly was POINTLESS because the stairs are so damned steep. It's definitely more of a two-or-three-stairs kind of thing...or...you know, flat surfaces. Three flights? Not so much. Christina took one...or...three..for the team that night. She slipped in the mud, dropped the TV, but no worries!!!! -- her leg broke its fall. She then proceeded to develop a heart shaped hematoma on her thigh. Lovely, right? So we get the damned TV upstairs to find out (lo and behold) it doesn't work. The picture tube is out. Awesome, right? I thought so. So the TV is just sitting on the TV stand...for decoration. Because until we get a new one, that's what it's serving since our living room looks like a psych ward at the moment. REGARDLESS.
So I get all my things inside, blah blah blah, and mom takes off for Tom & Linda's where she's going to stay the night and come get Christina in the morning to head back to Salina. We took showers and went to get dinner with Monica, Joel, Jessica, and a couple of Monica's friends at Chilis. (...oh...side note: Taja had gone home for the night to get more stuff) Yada yada yada, we eat, we talk, we go back to the apartment and decide "hey...we need a drink and then we can start on the room"...so...that's exactly what we did. We got a drink (a STRONG drink) and ventured in the abyss that was my room. The idea was to put the clothes away, and then move around the room so it was more open. Sounds simple, right? HAHAHAHAHAHA no. We did the clothes then proceeded to attempt to move the bed. It kept...well...BREAKING on us. The legs would just pop off. All but one did that until we got the damned bed moved to where we wanted it. Better not have any rough sex in that bed, I'll fuckin' break it. (no pun intended) ===== and I digress.
Somehow in the process of this entire thing, Christina managed to rip the back of her pants AND cut her toe. So now...she's got a hematoma, a cut toe (it bled profusely), and has ripped the only pants she brought with her. LOVELY. I owe her. You know...I owe her, like, blood. On the real.
Then we decide that...well...we're awesome so we're gonna keep drinking and stay up all night to finish decorating so I wouldn't wake up to an utter mess the next morning. So........we did. We stayed up until...like....7am finishing the damned room. (I'll post pictures later because I'm not on my computer at this time.) Sooooooo....Sunday: Christina leaves, Mom leaves, Monica and I have lunch, we go get Karen from the airport, we bring Karen back, Taja shows up, we make dinner, we're all unpacking and bonding, and then we go to bed.
Sunday night, apparently, BJ showed up. BJ is Karen's boyfriend whom none of us had met. He's from St. Louis and is doing an internship there writing for MLB.com following the STL Cardinals. (baseball...not my thing). Anyways..so...as the week progresses, Taja, Monica, and I bond pretty well. Karen, on the other hand, has been holed up with BJ (his name even makes him sound like a douche...I mean, really? His real name is Bobby Joe Raines.................................yeah. WTF?!) We met BJ (kind of) and we only saw him a handful of times even though he stayed in our apartment for, like, five days. Every time we DID see him, however, he was a complete DICK. He called Karen a 'fat ass' and made fun of her weight in FRONT of all of us AND Karen (she's, like, 5'8 and a good 140....WHAT THE HELL, THE GIRL ISN'T FAT AT ALL). He was totally snotty to Taja and rude to Monica and I. I about punched him in the face. If he comes back and says one fuckin' word about Karen's weight or ANYTHING EVEN PERTAINING TO HER WEIGHT I will tell him to get the fuck out of my apartment. I swear to god, he better be glad he's not leaving over the railing because I'm not above murder of douchebags. So we're already annoyed with him, and HER for that matter, because she's acting COMPLETELY not like herself. Karen is usually totally goofy, not scared of anything (besides commitement), try anything once, loud, crude, and open. But when he's around...even when he's NOT around (noticed it over the past couple of days) she's almost...creeeeeepy nice. She's demure and quiet and awkward. She's...not Karen. I kind of want to pull a Cher, slap her and tell her to 'snap out of it!'. So..then...wednesday (he has plans to leave Friday) he goes golfing with some of his buddies here in Lawrence so Karen has some time to spend with us. We're hanging out, talking, when BJ texts her. He and his buddies are going out to El Mezcal for dinner and he wants her to come. But she's already eaten, so she tells him no, to go have fun with his friends and she's gonna hang out here with her roommates. Well...he flips a SHIT and says "ohhhh I'm so sorry I"m such an inconvenience to your roommates, I'll just come back and get my stuff and leave, I'm sorry I ever came, I'll give my football tickets away, I won't come back" etc. Karen just falls apart...she starts BALLING...hardcore, like...it sounded like a bassett hound was DYING in her room. We were PISSED. So he comes back all nonchalant, like we don't know what's going on (dickface), goes into her room and three minutes later..................all is well!!! She acted like nothing ever happened! Ohhh it was all hunky dorey after that! SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO RIDICULOUS!!!! OMIGOD I WANTED TO SHOOT MYSELF!!!! She's in this verbally, emotionally abusive relationship and I can't say anything about it...she KNOWS he's wrong...SHE KNOWS....and she just said "well...I dont' know why I like him, but I do"------ when you DON'T know why you like someone, why you LOVE someone, SOMETHING is WRONG!!! DING DING DING!!! BIG FLASHING RED FUCKING LIGHTS SHOULD BE GOING OFF IN YOUR HEAD RIGHT NOW!!!....ugh. It's enough to make a girl be asexual. Back to the weight thing, though, BJ is NOT small. He's overweight and extremely UNattractive, I might add. He's NOT the cutest...or even slightly adorable...at all. So he has NO FUCKING RIGHT to say anything about how Karen looks. She's gorgeous. I don't know who the hell taught him how to treat women, but they FAILED. EPIC FAIL, RAINES FAMILY, EPIC FAIL!

Well...while all of this is going on, Taja, Monica, and I are having a grand time bonding. We cooked our CA (Community Assistant) and his roommates dinner (which we're doing every week from now on), met some people, went to a pool party, got burned (damn it), played hide and seek in our little apartment (very challenging, but WICKED fun), had a craft project (we're getting a picture of the four of us blown up and hung on the wall and surrounding it with canvases we all individually designed with our names on them), and have had some interesting conversations. Taja and I have almost killed each other a million times (totally kidding always, but nontheless) and we've had a VERY good time :) We are all pretty much the same when it comes to values...we all don't mind doing dishes and cleaning up after ourselves, we keep our rooms neat, we pitch in for certain things, and help out all the time. It's a good time in our apartment. Tomorrow we're cooking steak and shrimp for the boys. We've learned to eat well on practically no money...it's interesting the things you can find in the clearance aisles.

My romantic life doesn't exist and I'm sooooo okay with that. A friend of mine from high school goes here now and we've had lunch and are going to hang out more, and yeah...I have a crush on him...just a little ;)...but I'm not even thinking about a relationship. I need to pay the rent before I can handle a boyfriend! :-)

Now...I'm getting a little tired. So I'm gonna go finish my laundry, put it away, and go to bed...big day tomorrow!

Teaching Nurses

So I have this theory. A theory that has been cultivated and nursed through many years of watching my mother deal with these new nurses straight out of school who have their BSNs or RNs but have virtually no idea what they’re doing in an actual health care setting. It’s my understanding that a BSN is a Bachelors of Science in Nursing. That means (at least, at the University of Kansas) that a person is to go two years of undergrad and then two years of ‘nursing school’. I have a need to put apostrophes around that phrase because I find it to be sort of a joke. I understand that the nursing students go through a series of clinical, but that doesn’t prepare them for the actual workforce…dealing with administration and such.
Anyways…my theory…
I would like to conduct a study of sorts. I’d like to take two future nursing students (student A & student B) and put them in two different situations. Student A will go to a regular university program, do her two years of undergrad and two years of nursing school. Student B, however, will do ONE year of undergrad (most classes geared towards nursing) and then spend the next three years doing a sort of “residency”, shadowing a seasoned nurse and learning on the job. Then, after the four years, I’d like for them each to go work for a week with a completely new staff of nurses. They’d work different weeks, of course, a week each. And at the end of the two week period, have that staff evaluate the nurses and determine which one was more prepared, if either, for the work force.
Mind you, there are variations of this idea possible:
A) The full four years in the work force.
B) Two years undergrad, two years work force.
C) Three years undergrad, one year work force.
The nurses teaching would have to be certified – most likely through something like a six-week course in instruction – and would be paid more for taking on a student. The student would also be paid. It would resemble the residency program doctors must go through when they get out of medical school, making minimum (something like $15-$20/hr) and learning all the while.
But this program wouldn’t only benefit the people wanting to be nurses, but it would benefit the nurses who only have their diploma. They could skip the undergrad part and shadow a nurse for a year and a half or so, depending on their experience (determined by a placement test) and, upon evaluation, could receive their BSN without having to skip work for school and being able to make a living as well. Obviously, asking a registered nurse to go from making $30/hr to $15/hr is very unrealistic (due to the economy) so they’d be able to keep their own job and do the shadowing as well, as most of it would be shift work anyway. Three days a week at their job, three days a week at the training…mostly just schedule juggling for the person.
Just an idea. Any thoughts? Maybe I’m way off base…

Happiness maybe?

As a preface: I'm only writing this as a rant. Not preaching, not being dramatic, but I started writing during class and this is what spewed out.


Somewhere, maybe parallel to this world, is a beautiful place where promises are kept, expectations don't exist, broken hearts are not as painful, and people actually have faith in other people. But that world seems to only exist in movies and the imaginations of writers, painters, and musicians. Our dreams hold more of what we truthfully want. Everyone needs to trust their subconscious, their "gut", so to speak. The fear of judgment is so great, so fierce, that almost no one is who they really want to be. But maybe we, as a whole, are not meant to be completely happy. Maybe we will always be searching for something better, something more fulfilling. It's almost sad to think about, though, because the idea that we'll always be striving in vain is morbid, to say the least. I think the greatest challenge anyone will ever face is to be happy and content with themselves. It's obviously much more difficult for some people, for personal reasons as well as societal standards.
"You must go to college."
"You must make a lot of money"
"You must get married."
Yada, yada, yada...
If I could count the times I've been "directed" to do something because it's what I "must" do to be "successful", I'd be here until I'm twenty five. We dont' have time to be frantic or in a rush. I know, that seems contradictory. "If you don't have time, get it done NOW!" But...if that were the case, I'd be an almost-junior in college probably studying something that will result in a career I'll end up hating by the time I'm forty. Given, a lot of people know exactly what they want to do, WILL graduate college on time, and will work and enjoy the same career for the better part of almost fifty years. Great, awesome, I'm jealous. But that's not the only option....life is short, yes, but if it's not enjoyable because of your high stress levels not only will you shorten your life, but it's just as much a waste of time as watching FOX News - you'll get nothing out of it! My best friend just started Cosmetology school in April and I'm so proud of her...she left college because she wasn't happy and wanted to do what she was born to do and I couldn't love her more. I, like her, know what it's like to say "I left college" and get those looks like "Failure, failure, failure..." but...we're not failures. We just know that when we're not happy, something needs to change. I'm not saying we're perfect, or that everyone should drop out, but it takes some courage to do that.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm thankful someone gave me an 'out' - let me know that it's okay to take my time, find out where my life is going, and enjoy being and discovering who I am. I'm not trying to say I know what I'm doing because I don't. No clue. My life is up in the air. But I'm okay with that. I'm okay with being somewhat of a mess because at some point it'll all come back down to earth and everything will be as it should.
Maybe in that separate universe, everyone can enjoy themselves without fear. But in the chaotic lives we lead, it seems almost impossible...but here's to dreaming.

"You may say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one." - John Lennon

Surgeon in Training? Maybe

Sorry for the long pause between posts, I've been lacking inspiration for anything to write about. But here I am, working on a worksheet about Preventing Infection. It's not for any credit, but my course teacher (CJ is her name) told us we should do it because Chapter 13 is kind of tough and lots of people's grades suffer with it. So I decided 'what the hell'. I did learn a new term though - medical asepsis: the practices used to remove or destroy pathogens and to prevent their spread from one person or place to another person or place. IN-TER-ES-TING. Annnnd we've been talking about AD (Alzheimer's Disease) all week, since most CNA's will end up in LTC facilities, and we learned the difference between Dementia and Pseudodementia. Pseudodementia presents like dementia, but it can be reversed because it's only caused by depression...usually occurs in older people suffering from a chronic illness. It might very well explain why Grandma gets confused and anxious sometimes. She's cooped up in that damned apartment...but I hear she's getting out and has gone back to PEO, so I'm sure her mind will be as sharp as ever soon enough. It's amazing how that woman recovers from everything. Watch her pass away of something common - like old age. I love her so much. Anyways, regardless, CNA training is going really well. I'm sooo excited to work in this field! I took some random career placement test online, to tell you what you'd be good at, and it said that my attention to detail lands me in two categories: medicine or art. (Insert 'WTF' look here) --- So I'm seriously thinking about taking this year to work in a hospital, see how much I like it, then go to JCCC (Johnson County Community College) and get my associates in Biology, then go back to KU and get a BA in English, take another year and work (maybe at Christ House? very much a possibility), and then apply to med school. I know, that's a lot of work, but I'm so freakin interested in this CNA class it's out of control. I just want to keep learning. I'm taking a Med Aide course next so I can administer drugs, which will be AWESOME. I come home and look up stuff I learned in class just to know more about it. WebMD has become my new best friend. Did you know Ovarian cancer is almost NEVER caught before Stage III?? You'd think technology would have moved up so we could detect things like that, but by the time it gets to Stage III it's a death sentence. So, so sad.
Apart from my crazy obsession with medicine at the moment, I've also met a new person. His name is David. He's an illustration major at KU, wildly talented, fantastically cute, and quite possibly the most honest person I've ever met. He's got this crazy dry sense of humor and a twinkle in his eye. He asked me on a date, so we're going to the movies on Friday...excitement major. I'll write and tell how it went.
Mama and Papa are still in VA....you know, chillin out and seeing EVERY family member they can. I swear they've been to Aunt Dor & Uncle Bill's fifteen times. It's fantastic. :) I miss them, though, strangely enough.
Anyways, I must be off to finish this packet...