What's been eating my social life??

Man, it has been a while since I've been able to sit down to type some bullshit and try to sound funny. I've missed it!! In case you've been wondering what has been taking up all of my precious blog writing time (and you missed all my facebook posts about it).......

I started nursing school!! And holy cheezits does that eat up my time. I mean, I knew nursing school was going to keep me busy, but I did not expect my brain to be so damn TIRED all the time. I've had a lot of funny stories that I have been wanting to write about, but studying usually got in the way and now I have forgotten most of them; I have to do a lot of brain dumps (teehee) to be able to smash all that new nursing information into my head. So I will do my best to fill you in on the last semester and a half of madness.

Remember when I posted about my slight note card hoarding tendency? Nursing school is a whole new monster. Just to give you an idea of how much stock you all should invest in note cards, this is about two tests worth of flash cards...

It's a little insane. Needless to say, I've been busy!

Non-nursing school related updates:

• Boyfriend and I have moved into a house together and love it! I've heard plenty of stories about not really knowing a person until you live with them, and I can say that is partly true for boyfriend and me. We've learned new things about each other, but mostly, it's solidified what I already knew about him, and that is that he's pretty much amazing (eeeeeewww, puke! I know, I know!)
• We had to put my sweet, old girl Snickers to sleep. She was one month away from turning 16 and stopped eating. My family didn't want to see her in pain, so we chose to surround her with love and send her out with dignity. We plan to spread her ashes in a few of the places she loved to be. 

Snickerbees! What a pretty girl :)


Anyways, let's start with semester one; Pharmacology, Professional Roles in Nursing, and Healthcare Ethics. Fun stuff. Let me remind you all that I have taken Biology, Chemistry, Anatomy & Physiology 1&2, Physics, and Advanced Anatomy & Physiology, and yet, somehow none of those prepared me for the ass-kicking that was Pharmacology. That shit is HARD, especially when you can't pronounce half of the drugs (how would you say fluoroquinolone?). Professional Roles wasn't bad, our teacher was such a sweetheart and there were no tests (!!!). Healthcare ethics was a bit tedious, but really interesting and thought provoking. I did really well grade wise (straight A's woot woot), but what I did not expect was the emotional toll that nursing school would take on me.

The first semester I cried EVERY SINGLE WEEK. At least once a week. Sometimes because I was overwhelmed, sometimes because I felt like I didn't know what the hell I was doing, sometimes because I was tired, and most of the time for no reason at all. Time for a shout out to boyfriend for being so supportive while I sniffled and babbled and made no sense at all, thanks loverbutt! Nursing school is definitely not for the weak or the alone, you need to be strong enough to push through all the emotional breakdowns and it is an absolute must that you have a strong support system, I don't know how you could do it otherwise. Thankfully, I am emotionally sound for the most part and my parents and boyfriend have been an amazing support system, so thank goodness for that.

Another thing I have learned (or re-learned) is that school bookstores are pure EVIL. Do not buy from them unless you have to! Most classes list that you are "required" to buy the newest version of each book. And a lot of the times the difference between the newest version and the last version can be as small as a few sentences. I spent around $750 for books this semester, and after finding out I could have gotten all of my books one version older, I realized I could have saved around $300, so never again will I jump the gun and buy everything new from the bookstore. What I should have done is followed my previous practice from school and found all my books at amazon.com or half.com, they are life savers!

One semester's worth of books (plus all my ATI books for every class I will take before I graduate). We're definitely going to need to get some bookshelves in this house!

This semester I only have two classes; Health Assessment and Foundations of Nursing. We are learning a lot of different nursing skills that we will come in handy no matter what type of nursing we choose to go in to. We've done everything from bed baths, ambulation, wound care, NG tubes, and assessing from head to toe. One thing I know for sure, NO would care nursing for me. Just looking at pictures of the really nasty wounds makes my stomach a little upset, and it didn't help that some of my classmates started comparing the purulence (pus) on the wounds to food products (let's just say I won't look at hummus and melted cheese the same for a while).

So that's been my life for the last eight months. Stressful, but exciting; terrifying, yet exhilarating, and I hope I can find more time to write about it so you all can revel in my misery with me!

Fourteener Shmourteener

For the past few weeks, the boyfriend had been trying to talk me into hiking a fourteener. For those of you that do not know, that means hiking to the summit of a peak with an elevation of more than 14,000 ft. (aka hiking really effing far). Being as incredibly out of shape as I am, I told him I would think about it, all while thinking to myself that there was no way I would go. Plans were made and just my luck, the hike was scheduled the weekend I would be getting home from a four day shit-show in Vegas for my mom's birthday. I figured the altitude change and inevitable crap-tastic hangover that comes with returning from Vegas would be a good enough excuse not to go on the hiking trip. But alas, the Vegas trip was not as much of a shit-show as I had previously experienced, and I really missed the boyfriend and wanted to hang with his friends, so I agreed to go.

Sunday morning we woke up at way-too-goddamn-early (4 am) to get everything ready to go and headed towards Grays and Torreys around 5 am. The plan was to start our hike around 6 am to get the majority of the walking done before a. it was too hot and b. any storm clouds moved in. Once we got started, I suddenly had a burst of self-confidence. I was keeping up for the most part and I started to think that I may have sold myself short, maybe I could actually make it to the top! I AM GONNA KICK THIS MOUNTAINS ASS!!!! WATCH OUT YOU ROCKY SONOVABITCH, I'M ABOUT TO WALK ALL OVER YOU!!!

Then reality set in. I was having to stop more often and longer than everyone else. My knees hurt, my hips hurt, my lungs hurt and I already wanted to eat my lunch. The boyfriend was great and stayed with me every time I took a break, but I could tell he wanted to make it to the top and I couldn't keep up the charade of the badass girlfriend who was going to make it to the top no matter how tired I was, so I told him to go on without me and I would continue at my own pace. We had two-way radios and there were people every where so I was pretty sure I would not be eaten by a mountain lion. After he went on, I sat a little longer and gave myself a little pep talk. "You can do this, now you can go at your own pace and it's really not that much farther!" So I started walking again. Five hundred feet later, I threw in the towel. Not only was my hip joint killing me (gawd, I'm an old lady) but my hiking pants had started chaffing my inner thighs, which was a whole other brand of pain.

I started my descent back down the mountain feeling pretty crummy about myself. And of course, because I am me, I had a few mini woe-is-me-meltdowns on the way to the bottom. Thank GOD no one was there to see those because they are pretty ridiculous. By the time I had made it to the bottom of the mountain, the rest of the group was on their way to the second summit, so I decided to take a nap. Yes, I was sleeping to recover from my portion of the hike while everyone else huffed their ass up the SECOND summit...whatever. Two hours later, everyone was back. Boyfriend was still feeling pretty good (although a bit sore) and there I was walking around bow-legged because of my stupid pants rubbing my legs raw and on top of that, I had thought I had no sunscreen so I had burned to a crisp. Now, I am talking BURNT. Like, holy-crap-what-happened-to-that-girl's-face? burnt (realized later that I had sunscreen in my bag the whole time *facepalm*). And I won't even get into what happened when I tried spraying solar-caine on my chaffed legs...let's just say it was not pretty.

So that's about it. I attempted to hike a fourteener and failed miserably. But I did try. My next hike will be to the nearest Dairy Queen. I think that sounds more feasible. WATCH OUT SIDEWALK, I'M ABOUT TO KICK YOUR ASS! Oh, there's a hill? Damnit, nevermind.

Hoarders: The Moving Home Edition

Have you ever watched that show hoarders? For me it's like a horror film, I can't get through a whole episode without experiencing some serious anxiety. Really, lady? You didn't realize you hadn't seen all five of your cats in months?? Well guess what, they are all petrified underneath your boxes of figurines and empty paper towel rolls that you just couldn't let go of *shudder* It's terrifying.

This week I have been packing and have come to a shocking realization...I'm a quasi-hoarder. That's right, I am the diet cola of hoarding (just one calorie, not quite enough haha). I did not find any dead cats (thank god!) and so far I have been able to dispose of most things that are considered garbage. But holy SHIZZLE do I have a lot of unnecessary crap. I figured out that my hoarding is mostly school related. For some reason I feel like anything I have from school could come in handy later; report cards, notes, notecards, books, drawings, diagrams, you name it, I probably have it dating all the way back to kindergarten. Now, some of this stuff definitely has sentimental value. Like the five page (and five sentence) book I wrote in first grade that won some kind of writing contest, that I should keep forever. But my Introduction to Philosophy notes?? When am I EVER going to need those again?? Is someone really going to quiz me on Rene Descartes at random? (I am quite impressed I even remembered a name from that class, wooo!)

The worst part is I will be starting school again in August, nursing school to be precise, so in my cleaning today I again found it hard to throw anything from school even slightly associated with health care, i.e. chemistry, biology, anatomy. And these kinds of classes are the ones that tend to come with the most crap. For each class you have a text book, a lab book, a notebook and printed notes. And then I have note cards. Thousands and THOUSANDS of note cards. I discovered around the first semester of my sophomore year of college that the best way for me to study was to make flash cards out of note cards, the re-writing and repetition just worked for me. And I have learned a LOT of crap since I discovered the note card phenomenon. So I ended up with an insane amount of them. And I finally dumped them all today. All 5,000 of them (okay, so I didn't get a precise count, but I am telling you, 5,000 is pretty damn close). But they are all gone now.

I may have had a little bit of a pack-rat issue, but hey, I didn't need a counselor to help me cope with throwing all my stuff away, so I guess I'm not too bad off!

Jillian Michaels is a monster...

So, I've been attempting (half-assed) to get into shape recently. My work did a "Biggest Loser" challenge that both my parents participated in and ended up losing over 10 pounds. Now my mother weighs as much as I do, and that made me sad.

Now don't get me wrong, my mom is smokin' hot. If she still colored her hair people would think she is my sister. My mother is also *almost* 50 and has given birth to two children. I am 23 and have given birth to zero children; logic says I should be in much better shape than I am.

The realization that I am in sad shape actually came last year when my family, friends and I did the Warrior Dash, a 3 mile obstacle course that whooped my ass. Not only did my 52 year old dad with a torn meniscus beat me by over 30 minutes, but an 80 year old woman blew my time out of the water. Ouch. It was time to get my ass off the couch.

So my dearest mother, in an effort to help me in my quest to not be such a sad sack, bought me Jillian Michaels' Ripped in 30. The workout is only 20 minutes and starts off easier and progresses each week so I figured this could be my transition into the world of fitness. Boy was I in for a surprise...

I thought I was going to die. I had to stop multiple times. My face was bright red. I was covered in sweat. And the entire time, Jillian Michaels kept telling me that if 300-400 pound people (from the real Biggest Loser) could do these exercises, I could do it. It's gonna be a loooong 30 days.

You, Ms. Michaels, are an evil monster. An evil monster that is going to make me look like a super model...or at least make it possible for me to keep up with an 80 year old woman at the Warrior Dash this year.

Steph After Oral Surgeon

I decided it would be funny to try and write a blog after my visit to the oral surgeon this morning to have all my wisdom teeth ripped out, you know, because all the fancy drugs I got would made me loopy. Sadly, by the time I got home all those mind-altering drugs had worn off and now I am just a cranky, sore chipmunk-face. Dammit, I'll write something anyways.

I would like to say that I probably had one the best oral surgeons you could ask for. He knew I was super nervous (obviously, because I was crying like a big ol' baby), but he came in the room, handed me a kleenex and said it was perfectly normal for me to be so freaked out. He asked if I had any questions and I only had one thing to say; "I just don't want to remember anything that is about to happen." "None of it?" "Not a single thing." "Well I can make that happen." And he did. They gave me a nice dose of versed through the IV and hooked me up to some gas...BOOM. Next thing I know, I wake up with a bunch of gauze in my mouth and the nurse asking if I was doing alright. It wasn't bad at all...you know, other than feeling like my face is 10 times bigger than it should be.

Right now, I feel like some one punched me in the face and my tongue feels like sandpaper. Which is a lovely combination of misery. I just can't wait to get all this damn gauze out so I can close my mouth all the way and get to the fun part...PUDDING, and percocet of course.

P.S. If there are typos, I'm tired, and don't care.

I don't mean to sound like a total biotch but the walls are really thin...

So, my roommate kinda sucks. And while I only have two months left of living with her, that still doesn't make her ridiculous passive-aggressive behavior any less suck-y.

Anyways, let me preface this story by saying I did like my roommate at one point. In fact, we were pretty good friends when we moved in together (I know, first mistake). We would have dinner and watch tv together and actually go out on the town at first. Then she started disappearing. It was like I lived alone, and I was totally ok with that. I mean, if we never saw each other, we could never piss each other off, right? WRONG. One night I was out for a friends birthday and got an email on my phone from my roomie. It was a long, annoying letter about how she felt uncomfortable in our apartment and didn't feel like it was "ours," she didn't feel like she knew my boyfriend very well, yadda yadda yadda. The details of the email are a moot point, basically she was never home and it was my fault. I tried to make time to talk to her about it, but per usual, she was MIA for about three weeks or would come home and retreat to room like a sneaky ninja before I even knew she was around. By the time we finally talked about it, I was over the whole thing and let it go. We only had a few more months. I could handle that.

And then I got the DUMBEST text message complaint from her ever.

My boyfriend was over (the one she barely knew because, well, she was never home) and we had just finished dinner and gotten ready for bed. My phone went off and thinking it was my sister or one of my friends needing something, so I checked my text messages. What I received confused me; "i don't mean to sound like a total biotch but the walls are really thin..." HUH?? Now me and the bf can get down, and I try to be respectful when the roomie is home, but there was no boning going on. We were just watching tv, most likely the Food Network (I looooove Triple D), so I had no flippin' clue what she was talking about. I let her know that all bedroom activity was g-rated and that I had no idea what she heard. Turns out, she heard my boyfriend...BURP. OH MY GAWD!!!!!! How rude of him! He is so nasty! How dare he let out a belch past 9 o'clock! Didn't he know my sneaky ninja roommate had come home??? Really.

Now, the boyfriend did burp. I'll give her that. And he burps loud...so, I'll give her that too. But he burped once. ONE time. And I got a text complaint. Thank goodness he didn't burp twice, she might have called the cops on me.