"Did you know that if you squeeze a chipmunk, it'll pop??"

I LOVE this song. It makes me happy. :D Yay!! They're just so cute, you could squeeze them, but if you squeeze a chipmunk it'll pop!! Actually back at home in Colorado we call them "chipchunks" cuz they're so chubby. You can bet that I'll be at the movie on opening night this Friday, bouncing up and down in my seat like a little kid. Yes, I'm still a little kid at heart. But hey, if you don't make too much fun of me, I might even sing the song for you sometime (chipmunk voice takes some real bribery though)!! I used to love this show though, I grew up on it, give me a break. This is my new favorite Christmas song. Besides, you know that deep down you like it too. Just admit it and you can sing with me!!

Worst Music Video Ever??

This is possibly the worst music video ever!! Don't worry, after my friend Megan introduced us to it, we then proceeded to go around NYC singing it for the next two days (we did part of her oh so cool dance too, it was priceless. I have no shame, seriously). The only problem with that is the only words I could remember were "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, and 10," which made it a short song. Poor New Yorkers who have to put up with stupid tourists like me. I'll write another blog on our trip later, but I had to share this little piece of art now. I hope you don't get any dumber for watching it. :) Enjoy!!

6 things you may not know about me...

So after reading Megan's 6 things list, I thought about it long and hard (or not) and came up with my own. This is my oh so brilliant list:

1. Minus a little jaunt, with 3 gorgeous blond roommates, into Tijuana I've never been out of the United States. Pathetic, huh?! Don't worry, I'm planning on going to Belize (and Guatemala) next May for a month. Still, at 25, that's just sad. My life is boring.

2. I have this weird habit of pulling one of everything that I love (one of my favorites) off of whatever I'm eating and saving it to the end and eating it last. For example, I pull 1 sausage, 1 pepperoni, 1 black olive, and 1 mushroom off of my pizza, or 1 dill pickle slice, 1 piece of bacon off of my hamburger, etc. I do this with almost everything that I eat that it's possible to do so. Hamburgers, Sub-sandwiches, Pizza, Calzones, Salad, etc. I do it unconsciously though. I've done it for as long as I can remember. Why not save a little bit of the best for last though?! Sounds like a great idea to me. Savor what's good in life!! Yes, I know that I'm weird.

3. I grew up horse-back riding. I LOVE horses. I was probably put on my first horse around 3 or 4 years old and fell in love. I spent as much of my child-hood on horse-back as I could. I miss riding horribly. Someday I'm going to own my own ranch and have horses. Gosh, I miss them... :( That made me really nostalgic there, sorry. Moving on....

4. I'm an American and English Literature junkie. (This is probably the only time I'll be serious in this blog, but...) I love Thoreau, Emerson, even Poe, and Faulkner (because you can try to figure out their deeper meanings), etc. I've even been to Emerson's home and Walden Pond (they're near Boston, duh). A.P. English was probably my favorite class my Senior Year of High School (except Athletic Training, of course). I would have been an English Major if Nursing wasn't an option (too bad I have an Exercise Science degree too, funny how that works :P). Anyways...that's a whole different side of me you'll never get to see probably, sorry.

5. Easter is my favorite holiday. It's such a happy time. Obviously it's celebrating the Resurrection of the Savior which is an incredible event in and of itself, but it also means that the Atonement had to happen first. Easter is also happy and full of pastel colors and bunnies. I like bunnies. I know that seems out of character for me, but I do. I used to own rabbits, so don't make fun of me. It's just a sunny, happy, fluffy (yes, I said fluffy- bunnies are fluffy) holiday. Oh, and it's Spring which means that it's relatively warm again after a long cold winter. Yay. :D

6. I HATE hair. Lemme explain. When it's in your head that's fine, but once it leaves your head (or anywhere else for that matter, yes I said that), it completely creeps me out. Gives me the willies. Yuck. I don't like touching it or seeing it, anything. My own hair is bad enough cuz it falls out constantly and I still have plenty on my head, but other people's hair completely grosses me out. I hate hair so much that I actually shave my arms, everyday. No, I'm not kidding. Everyday. I've done it for years. My nursing friends tease me about this because obviously I have lots and lots of hairy patients that I have to get pretty personal with and touch a lot. Yeah, it still totally freaks me out to touch their hairy bodies. Ok I can't think about this anymore, it's gonna give me nightmares.

(Oh, and Megan...this is a bonus #7- I can also touch my nose with my tongue. Honestly I think I have one of the longest tongues on earth. Yes, it's disgusting, I agree. No, I probably won't show it to you. Merry Christmas, hope you enjoyed reading this at work :)).

This isn't Celebrity Death Match

So clinicals were a little out of control tonight. They were loooong and at points kind of boring. Other points were cool. I won't give you details on seeing a circumcision done or feeling a fundus, cuz I'm pretty sure that just made some of you puke, but it wasn't all bad. There were some interesting moments. The problem moments were between my instructor and a certain individual (who will remain un-named although you could probably figure it out), they had somewhat of a disagreement. In other words, they despise each other. Basically they spent the entire shift venting about each other and we vented about this particular individual too. He irritates the staff, offends the patients, and pisses off our instructor, along with annoying all of our clinical group. We just dread all shift what's going to go wrong next with him...aka what he's going to do to piss someone else off and then my instructor has to try to fix it. Don't get me wrong, this individual is very nice and probably has good intentions he just goes about them all the wrong way. When he doesn't get his way he appeals to the person above the person he asked and so on until someone gets so irritated they just say yes to get him to just shut up and leave them alone. He thinks he's entitled to everything whenever he wants it. Lamesauce. Then he throws a hissy fit when he doesn't get his way. Good grief, we're not in grade school anymore, kids. These are our second degrees. Grow up!!

Anyways, my clinical instructor happens to be a very outspoken person (sound familiar?!). Except, unlike me, she uses very, um, filthy language when talking, especially when she's mad. Boy was she mad today....and at a student, even worse. She went off on this particular student to us several times while he was in another part of the hospital observing, then she came to "save us" from him during dinner, then when this particular student didn't show up for our presentations on time (like half an hour late) I thought she was going to blow a gasket. The cuss words flying around that room were a bit shocking. That's not the worst of it though...the worst is what he was calling her. He literally pulled my friend out of her patient's room (where her patient was giving birth) and started spouting off about our instructor and then decided that he was going to disregard our instructor's instructions anyways and go watch a C-Section that he wanted to see, just because he felt like it. He hates our instructor so he was complaining about her in the hallway to my poor friend. #1 Totally inappropriate place for that conversation (patients and families are all around and can hear everything you're saying), #2 Very unprofessional, #3 If you have a problem talk to the person you have the problem with, not everyone else, #4 Wow, I won't repeat the word he used to describe our instructor, but it's possibly THE most offensive word you can use to describe a female (no, I'm not kidding) and he said this is the hallway of the Labor/ Delivery floor. So needless to say, it was an unpleasant atmosphere in our post-conference tonight. Our instructor was confronting him as we were leaving....we bailed, we practically ran out of the building. Don't get me wrong, I don't usually back down from fights, but when you start resorting to name calling like we're 12 years old again and I think fists might actually get involved between 2 sober adults, I'm sorry I'm outta there. Good grief, buddy, grow up. Buck up and do your school work. She's the instructor with a Bachelor's and Master's and years of experience in this stuff why can't you just follow her instructions for once?? This isn't Celebrity Death Match, I didn't sign up for this.

Ok, that's just flat out X

It's been a while since I wrote a blog on my actual classes, sorry. Just for the record, my instructor was wrong, my slides say it's actually > 3-4 cups/day of caffeine that's unsafe for pregnant women, not 5. Still, that's a LOT.

I decided after my class last week that Drama Queen is just plain Anti-Estrogen in addition to the multitude of many other issues she has. But that would explain a lot if she is. She also just can't leave milk alone. She just has to bring it up every class. Basically my friends and I decided that "If you learned anything in this class, just don't drink milk." Ok, wow, I think I'm dumber for being here. My big mouth got me in serious trouble though last week. My friends call it my filter. The filter between my brain and my mouth. Yeah, sometimes it catches things before I say them out loud, often it does not. Hence the blog name. :) Anyways, we were doing a test review and the professor basically just reads the test to us. Awesome. So she's rattling off questions and (p.s. having 4 3rd semester accelerated nursing students sitting together in a 1st semester class is a really bad idea, we are just FULL of smart ass comments. I'm sure she thinks we're obnoxious know-it-alls who don't care...oh yeah, we are :P)....she's like asthma is caused by allergies and allergies are triggered by (here's her pause waiting for the answer and Jennie yells out)....."MILK !!!" Oh my gosh, I actually said that out loud!! Wow. Oops. Everyone just burst out laughing. Brilliant Jennie. It was like a knee jerk reaction, but I just couldn't resist giving the smart ass response. I don't know if she heard me, but people like 7 rows up from me were laughing, so apparently it was really loud. I'm sure she hates me now. Eh, oh well. She pretty much begged for that one. Oh, I'm so mean. Moving on...

Drama Queen also went off last week about Colorado and high altitudes. I'm from Colorado and I miss it horribly, I absolutely love that state. Ok that was a side note. She was talking about pulmonary edema (short explanation- fluid in the air sacs in the lungs) and how you can get it from hiking at high altitudes. Ok, granted that's true, but rare. But she basically sounded like a commercial for this drug Diamox that you can take that helps you breathe better. "I highly recommend that when you go to Colorado you get a prescription." Ha, that's the Florida girl talking. She talked about going hiking in Colorado and how it's SO high. blah blah blah Ok, I hiked a fourteener last year. It really wasn't that hard and it was totally worth it. Of course I was acclimated to Colorado altitude, but still it's not really THAT high. She's like, "they suggest you walk in, not fly." *Snort* City girl! Then of course she had to bring up Wyoming, Tibet and Peru and how the same thing happens in all those places too and you absolutely HAVE to get a prescription for Diamox before you go there because of course it worked for her. Uh huh, cuz she's so cultural. I swear by the time my class is over every week you'd think my eyes would be stuck in a permanent eye roll.

Ok, different class now...Stalker was really on one yesterday. This was great dialog between Stalker and my friend and I (at the back of the class of course, so he didn't hear us) though: [We were talking about epidurals and spinals that are given to women during labor] S: "So this is given after?" Us: "Because post-partum means what?" "When the baby is parted from the mother's body." Wow. I feel like my IQ drops every lecture. Apparently we need to go over basic definitions like "post" again. Unbelievable. People in my class (the same people, over and over and over again) kept asking the same questions too. Write it down people. You could tell my professor was getting ticked, she actually started being short with people. By this time my friend and I were having completely different discussions in the back of the class of course and laughing our heads off. That probably didn't help my professor's mood. Eh, I don't really care. We were annoyed too. Part of that discussion involved the fact that several people were wearing rather unusual hats in class. This is an example of what some sort of looked like. (this last one was on "uh-huh's head, if you remember him from my MySpace blogs, except it was much much smaller, as in it only covered the very top of his head, yeah weird). Ok here's the dialog now: "What's up with the hats today?" "Maybe it blocks the rain [it's been raining for 2 days straight now]." "It doesn't even cover their faces." "Maybe he has a problem losing body heat." "hahaha." "Apparently we're in Paris now." "I love it." :)

Alright I saved the worst for last. Since it's O.B. the pictures in our slides are rather graphic. (See the "Do I have what?! Shhh...." Doctor Porn blog for more explanation). My friend likes to point out that they also happen to be drawn anatomically incorrect. I decided that including one of those pictures was just a really bad idea and this is the commentary that resulted between said friend and I: "You're doing your part to de-sexualize medical conditions." LOL...actually that was from her friend and I just sat there and stared at her for a minute and was like, are you serious?! "That's not even remotely attractive." "Well I just think people need to know this." I still decided that including the pics was too graphic. This was her advice to me, "Well you did make your blog PG-13," and my response, "Ok, that's just flat out X." Uh yeah sorry, no pictures kids.

I am like a "Stah" from "Bah Hahbah"

(So I started this, but never finished it and now I’m going to try before I fall asleep). Like I said before, I flew to New Hampshire 2 weeks ago. My mom was born in Massachusetts (which is a really hard state to spell, by the way) and lived in New Hampshire for most of her life until her 20’s. So her family still lives in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. If you’ve ever seen “What about Bob?” the movie, Lake Winnipesaukee in that movie is where she grew up and where I go to visit. I’ve been going there basically almost every year or every 2 (sometimes 3) years since I was a baby. If you don’t already know, Boston is absolutely my FAVORITE city. I’m so in love with that city. I love everything about it. That’s a long story though and not something that I necessarily want to explain in this blog because it would require real writing (which, believe it or not, I can actually do…but you have to be pretty special to actually get to read something that I’ve written without sarcasm or anger and with actual sincere feeling). That’s pretty heavy writing and a little too deep for a blog though and that’s not what this is about, so moving on…Anyways, I’ve spent my fair share of time in the lake’s region of New Hampshire and in Massachusetts and Maine too, but I never get tired of going there and New England in the Fall is AMAZING!!

One of the reasons I particularly love going to New England is because I absolutely LOVE their accents. I think they’re hilarious! I do everything within my power to get my Uncle to say Porsche just so I can hear him say “Porscha” like we’re in Europe or something. Well he drives like we’re in Europe so we might as well be. He drives like an absolute maniac!! VERY fast and tails someone, whips around them, and then pulls right in front of them. People in New England are NOT nice drivers. They yell, honk, make rather rude gestures, etc. while driving. We told my Uncle that he drives way too fast because he was doing 90 mph driving to Massachusetts one day and he’s like “No I wasn’t.” Well on the way back, he of course was doing it again, so we pointed it out and he was like, “wow, well I thought I was going 60. Well it is 60, just upside down.” LOL, right. That’s SO comforting while we’re flying down the road doing 90 in the pouring rain with a psycho in the driver’s seat. It’s even better because they have these road signs everywhere that say “Drive courteously It’s the New Hampshire Way!” Yeah right. I burst out laughing when I first saw one. I really wanted a picture of one. I could never tour Europe with my Uncle either because it would be like “oh and that was Switzerland that we just passed. If you blinked, you missed it and we’re not going back.” My Uncle knows how to get to and from places, but the concept of being a tourist and wanting to take pictures and get out of the car is completely foreign to him. It’s like, what you wanted a picture of that thing, oh that one, that we just passed. Oops, sorry. Good grief. My smart ass comments from the back seat were pretty bad this trip, I do have to say. But there’s just something about my Uncle and his “My way or the highway” mentality that I just can’t keep my mouth shut. I guess I’m the highway. He’s never had anyone stand up to him before, I don’t think, so having his 25 year old niece (he’s in his early 70’s although he doesn’t really look it and he’s in better shape than most people I know) tell him off probably doesn’t go over very well, but he just asks for it. I am not a soft-spoken girl and I’m NOT a push-over, unlike my Mother and he’s used to that, being able to get his way all the time and push people around. It doesn’t work with me, though. I dish it right back and I think it ticks him off but it’s a challenge at the same time. I actually at one point during the week when he was arguing with my Mom started screaming at him and totally told him off. I called him a 5 year old and basically told him to shut it. It was awesome. He deserved it, though. Don’t get me wrong, I love my family and they definitely love me. I’m probably the favorite since I’m the only niece and the youngest grandchild/ niece and I still come to visit unlike my brothers. They spoil me and I know it, but they also irritate me. But what would a family be like if they weren’t dysfunctional on some level. Mine is just extra specially dysfunctional all the time. :D Not all of them, of course, just some of them, lol.

Anyways, I loved going down to Massachusetts to see more cousins too. One of my (I think we decided he’s a second cousin?, eh, they’re all just cousins to me) cousin’s wedding receptions was a couple of weeks ago while I was there, so we went down for it. I wish I knew those cousins better; I really want to spend more time around them. Especially the second cousins who are around my age. Maybe someday I’ll get to live in Boston. *Sigh* I would LOVE that. The accents when I’m around my family from Massachusetts are even better, too.

We also went to Maine. Maine has a very distinct smell. It’s like a mix of seaweed and saltwater. I love that smell though and I’ve discovered it’s very unique to Maine. I would live there too except that it’s stinkin’ cold, except when it’s really hot in the summer. New England is a summertime kind of place to be, but once it turns cold it’s REALLY cold and I HATE cold weather. I know, I know, the Colorado girl hates cold weather. Blah.

Oh, what I was saying about their cool accents...in Maine, Mass., and New Hampshire the accents are all slightly different. They all add and subtract “r’s,” and they just have slightly unique accents. Like in Maine they say… “A ‘Yuh Been to Maine.” Which comes out sounding like “a-ya ben tah Maine” or “ben they-yah” that’s about the best way I can describe it without saying it. They also add a "h" to the end of words when they take out the "r." Like I saw a t-shirt that said "Green Monstah," so typical to Maine. At the moment though, you’re probably saying here’s a quarter (pronounced kinda like Cor-ta with the Cor like you’re gonna hock a loogie, no I’m not kidding. I’ll even say it for you sometime) call someone in the “nahth” who cares. :P

1R

I have a new favorite band. Actually if you look back at one of my previous blogs. I posted "Apologize" by OneRepublic a long time ago, so it's not really new. But they don't even have a CD out yet, it comes out November 20th and I'm totally buying it on November 20th. :) But guess what?! I just found out they're coming to Annapolis on November 10th. I WANNA GO!!!!!!! Who wants to go with me? Some of their music is on my MySpace profile as well as clips that are on my Facebook profile. They're amazing. I've even tried to find their music illegally on the Internet and can't find it. Boooo...that's how much I like it. Sad. I guess I can wait another month until the CD comes out. But the concert...seriously, who wants to go?!

Have I told you lately...

How much I HATE grocery shopping? Yeah I'm not saying a little bit of hatred here, utter contempt. It's hard to portray just how much I abhor it. I've told several people that I'd write a blog on this though, so I'll try to explain my reasoning here. When I lived in Provo, Utah and went to school there for five and a half years, I obviously had to go grocery shopping (except my first year that I lived in the dorms, yucky food). The problem with Utah is that there are so many couples. Maybe that's just my warped point of view, but I hate seeing the couples there. It makes me sick. They're disgusting. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for affection and dating, but it just felt like people were sickly affectionate and it makes me gag.

Alright, moving on to grocery shopping. I quickly discovered that people rarely go grocery shopping alone in Utah, or so it seemed to my single brain, at the time. I swear you can see more couples at the grocery store than anywhere else, including the movie theaters, or restaurants, etc. So every time you go you have to be reminded just how single you really are. Of course you could try to drag a roommate with you, but then you're on their schedule and feel rushed and forget things. So around every corner is another couple and the gagging just kind of takes away the appetite. So after years of dealing with the stupid couples everywhere you go, I developed a loathing for grocery shopping. Therefore, I started avoiding it as long as I possibly could. Basically I'd rather starve to death for weeks than have to go to the grocery store. No, I'm not kidding. I like food, don't get me wrong, it's just not really worth it if I have to go to the grocery store all that often to buy it. Even now that I live in Virginia where I rarely (as in never) see couples shopping together (welcome to career family central) I still absolutely dread having to go. Besides, you have to spend money and decide what you're going to buy and that means you have to cook and you should be eating healthy, but I don't have time to really make food that's healthy nor do I particularly enjoy cooking most of the time (and...who has time to cook?), so that means that it's just plainly a chore to shop for food. (deep breath) OK, so sometimes I don't hate cooking, but I think I'll always hate grocery shopping. Some people hate doing laundry (haha, Lex), dishes (these aren't my favorite...scraping other people's food off of dishes kinda freaks me out), washing windows, etc....and I hate grocery shopping. I also hate hair, it freaks me out too, but that's an entirely different story. So there you have it. When I get married, maybe I'll make my husband go, or at least I'll drag him along with me...then we can be like those disgusting couples in Utah....YUCK!! haha

It's a bird, it's a plane, oh wait...it really is a plane

I flew from Baltimore to Manchester, New Hampshire last Thursday and the following are some of the safety instructions that the flight attendant gave at the beginning of our flight. “It’s a $2000 fine for smoking in the lavatory and if you had that kind of money, let’s be honest, you would’t be flying Southwest. If the pressure in the cabin changes during the flight, first of all stop screaming and strangling the guy in the seat next to you, unless of course he is incredibly attractive :D…If there happens to be an emergency, well if we already knew about it we would have called in sick today of course…blah blah blah.” She said more, but I missed it. Apparently no one else was listening and thought the flight attendant was funny, but I was cracking up and I wasn’t even really listening.

Instead of listening, I was reading a textbook smashed between two full-sized men. What is it about being in the middle seat that you just HAVE to be between 2 huge guys? Good thing my flight was only about an hour and 15 minutes. Luckily I was just reading the Pediatric part of my textbook. People don’t tend to appreciate when I read the OB part of it in public. The pictures (refer to my “Do I have what?! Shhhh….” Blog for the Doctor Porn story) don’t tend to go over very well with non-medical personnel. Still it was pretty uncomfortable to try to read/ highlight a humongous textbook smashed between two guys who were taking up more than their fair share of room. It’s one thing to read a flat piece of paper or book, but when you have to open the cover to read a textbook, its pretty inconvenient b/c then you’re taking up twice as much room on your lap space with it. So you have to hold up one cover and try to read sideways which is really hard, by the way, while trying to highlight too. At least I finished reading the rest of the chapter and could move on to the novel, much more convenient for plane reading.

Just like medical TV shows, I love medical novels. They’re fascinating and educational. Oh...I am SUCH a dork. Oh well, I really do learn things by reading them. That’s how I justify taking time to do reading for pleasure, not from my textbooks, every once in a while.

P.S. On the way home the flight attendant during the safety instructions again added funny stuff such as, "the attendant will be by to shut all the overhead compartments and to make sure your belt matches your shoes." He also said something about your kids "or if you're like the guy up here who's just acting like a kid." Again, no one laughed. Why am I the only one who hears these things? I wasn't even paying attention. Good grief, I guess if there is ever a crash we'll all be screwed or we can hope we've heard the instructions enough times that we'll remember them. Hmmm...

Avoid caffeine = 5 cups of coffee a day??

I don't really have time to put a full story of last week's classes together so this is just the highlights. Drama Queen has it in for milk, seriously. For some reason my slides aren't opening so I'll just quote what she typed on the slides, my comments are in brackets. "Do not put a baby or child to bed with a bottle of milk!!! [Um, this is Pathophysiology, NOT Pediatrics, I happen to be in OB and Peds right now too, so I don't really think you're the expert on kids, sorry.] If the child must have a bottle in bed, fill it only with water. When they lie flat, children will aspirate the milk down the right main stem bronchus and develop pneumonia- very common [I'm pretty sure if you lie anyone flat with fluids while sleeping, they'll aspirate and could develop pneumonia, it's not just the milk]. No pacifiers- They cause vacuum pressure in eustachian tubes with resultant otitis media (ear infection). No smoking around infants and children- results in lung and ear infections." She then felt the need to add her comment that this was not her bias and that studies have been done that have shown these results [that just made me roll my eyes, not your bias, B.S.]. She also mentioned several times that her children didn't ever take pacifiers [of course not, because your children were perfect, of course]. This woman drives me crazy! I wish I could put some of our slides on here for last week, you can't even read them, the print is so small and they're just paragraphs of information that we can't even read. Oh, and how do you know that your professors need a hobby? When they're so bored they're putting the pictures of famous authors who had diseases from the 1800's on your slides because they have nothing better to do. What a waste of ink and paper, since we have to print them out. This particular author that she put a picture of on our slides had TB (tuberculosis). She told his story of how he moved to a better climate for treating his TB, then his wife hated it, so they moved to a different climate and the "TB loved it. [like it had a personality] It did him in. [Of course it did, otherwise the story would SO not be worth DQ telling it]." It's like inanimate objects talking, except now diseases have personalities too, lovely. Oh, and we're CONSTANTLY told NOT to diagnose in nursing school, including this class. But somehow several times each week DQ will find a way to slip into her lectures "nurses do a big job in diagnosing." Or "the doctor told me that basically I diagnosed the guy." Of course you did, and you're the hero and you lived happily ever after....oh wait, wrong story. Oh, by the way, apparently DQ has gone off on milk in other classes. My friend said that she also told them not to shave their arm-pits [excuse me while I gag here] and that deoderant is bad and gives you infections, or something like that [remind me never to get too close to her]. The woman might actually be insane, I don't know though, I'm not supposed to diagnose.

OB is always interesting as well. Monotone nearly kills me each week of boredom. Everytime I look around the room everyone looks like a bunch of zombies that are completely zoned out. We may be looking at the professor, but that doesn't mean we're paying attention. Like I said, it takes all of 10 minutes or less to zone out in that class. The glazed over eyes aren't from drugs, they're from boredom and lack of sleep. This is about how I feel about that class: Actually this picture was on the slide about the effects of alcohol and drugs and tobacco on pregnant women. As my professor put it, "cigarrettes have that stuff in them, what is it called, nicotine, in addition to upteine other things, and it's best avoided." Um, no kidding. Street drugs will cause your "baby to be born as a junkie." Oh yes, this is the enlightenment I get in my classes each week. That doesn't even count the comments we get from the idiots in our classes. OB is probably the worst b/c some of the students have kids in there, so obviously they think this makes them THE experts on the subject (more so than the professor, at least). They also think whatever stupid things they hear from their friends who have kids are automatically facts. One said idiot tried to argue with my professor for like 10 minutes about whether you can have too much Vitamin C or not. My professor kindly tried to explain time and time again that Vitamin C is water-soluble and therefore goes right through you. It can't build up in your body. But this girl was having none of that. She's still convinced that you can have too much. Apparently we need to go over the definitions of water and fat-soluble again. Good grief.

Pre-natal classes are common and there's several different ones besides just "Lamaze" which is the one most people have heard of. Unfortunately, one of them is named after it's creator "Dick-Read." Why the hell would you name a childbirth education class this? I also love (NOT) that all of them are created by men. As one of my friends raised her hand and asked in class, "are any of these actually created by a woman who's been through birth?" Seriously! One of them is all about the woman being able to feel the pain and he thinks that "fear of birth = tension/ pain." Um, I'm pretty sure that's because he's a guy and he's never been through it. The jerk. I'd love to see him try to go through just an hour of labor. I'm pretty sure he'd change his entire philosophy then. Apparently when you no longer fear the birth you won't feel tension or pain. Yeah right.

Peds was actually pretty good this week. I actually learned stuff. That might have more to do with the fact that I had a really cute 14 month old as a patient this week, so lecture related to what I actually saw with my patient. I totally wanted to keep him, he was adorable. But the one highlight from that class was when my professor (Scatterbrained) was talking about allergies [not milk] and stated "If the dog/ cat dies, it's a good opportunity not to get a new one." Brutal! My classmate chimed in and was like "In other words kill it," (sarcastically of course). I think that just came out really wrong for Scatterbrained. It did not go over well for my class.

Oh, the title line: "Avoid caffeine = 5 cups of coffee a day" is from OB. Apparently avoiding caffeine during pregnancy is equal to having no more than 5 cups of coffee a day, a couple of bars of chocolate, some coke, etc. Ok, even thinking about that much caffeine is making me sick and I'm not pregnant. Yuck! It sounds a lot like the diets of a lot of my classmates though. Not like mine is all that much better, minus the coffee. :)

Dove Chocolates are GOOD

These were the messages on the inside of the wrappers of my Dove Chocolates today.
Smile. People will wonder what you've been up to.
Be mischievous. It feels good.
Do what feels right.

Huh?! Aren't those a little contradictory? It's ok, I guess cuz sometimes I ask the Magic 8 ball questions about my life. Of course if I get an answer I don't like I can always shake it until it gets the answer right. That's also effective with some men. haha :)

P.S. I promise I'll post my latest stories from classes as soon as I get some sleep in my life. I don't remember the last time (minus last night when I went to bed a little after 1am, I think) I went to bed before 2 am. Right now I'm pretty sure my blogs would not make much sense. I'm not exactly coherent, sorry. I feel a little bit like death warmed over and I definitely look it. But don't worry, instead of sleeping right now I'm watching Discovery Health. LOVE love love Discovery Health!! Besides, I learn stuff watching their shows. So, that counts as homework right? Ok, maybe not, but it's still educational.

"But [you] can't fight with an eclipse...."

I think Edward Cullen has ruined men for me. I will probably never be able to settle for a normal man again. Stupid perfect gorgeous vampire. Dammit. Can I have him? Seriously, now why don't men like him exist in the real world? Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Being in love with fictional characters is obviously a lot more exciting than my real life. I need to stop reading novels. But, I still want to keep him. Besides, he loves blood as much as I do. He's definitely perfect. Hahaha, I'm morbid. I'm totally kidding. But I'm not kidding about the perfect man. Damn you, Edward Cullen.

The best Knuts come from Germany :)

Another video that makes me smile, everytime. He's possibly the cutest thing I've EVER seen. I WANT him. ADORABLE!!! This video makes me happy. He's better than a puppy. :)

I. Am. So. Bored.

Makes me laugh, everytime. I love German. I love this video. :)

Why I don't go on blind dates anymore

So some friends and I were discussing malpractice insurance for Doctors the other night and it reminded me of the time that I could have sued a Doctor for misdiagnosing me....We were also discussing dating which reminds me of the same story. This is why I will NEVER go on another blind date again. This is also why I don't have an appendix, or a belly button either.

I woke up at 12:30am with the worst pain I've ever experienced. Actually, it's a toss up between that pain and the pain of having the packing removed from my nose after that surgery. But, that's an entirely different story. I can tolerate my fair share of pain, really at it's worse I've only called my pain an 8 out of 10. For me to call it a 10, I'd have to be unconscious from the pain, nearly dead. Anyways, I suffered through the night somehow until 8:30am and then convinced one of my roommates to take me to the Health Center at BYU (this is no way degrades the care of the Health Center, they are great!!). Let me back up just for a second, my pain was in my abdomen, but was not localized like appendicitis usually is. Since I knew appendicitis is usually pain in the lower right quadrant of the abdomen I figured that it was not appendicitis so I could put heat on it, which I did. BAD BAD idea. NEVER EVER put heat on appendicitis. It can kill you! I'm an idiot. Luckily I survived my stupidity. Back to the Health Center....I received IV #1 and fluids. They took a x-ray of my abdomen and the Doctor determined that I was constipated. Are you freakin' kidding me?! Worst pain of my life and he's says it's just constipation. Yeah right. He wouldn't give me any pain medication because he said that would make the constipation worse. Lovely. I stayed in misery for the next 4 hours at the Health Center. They finally sent me home sometime after noon (they took out my IV) and told me to call if I started vomiting.

I went home and of course...I started vomiting. At this point they decided that I needed to get in to have a CT Scan. So I drove to the Imaging place, bawling my eyes out. At this point, I called my brother and sister-in-law and asked them to meet me there. At the Imaging place of course they had to start another IV (IV #2) to do a contrast CT Scan. If you've never had one of these done, I'll just tell you this, it leaves a copper taste (kind of like penny's) in your mouth and also makes you feel like you peed your pants. I know, awesome. At least I can have empathy for my patients now, I guess. They did the CT Scan and I sat in the waiting room with my bro and sis- in-law and nephew for a while crying until they told me to go straight to the hospital, I had appendicitis, I have to have surgery immediately. Basically, do not pass go, do not collect $200. So, luckily the Imaging place was around the corner from the hospital. I was no longer in any shape to drive though, so I had to leave my car and have my sis-in-law drive. I'm so grateful for the Priesthood in my life. My brother gave me a blessing on the way to the hospital, it wasn't the only one I would get during this hospital visit.

We got to the hospital ER (I don't remember what time it was). So much for being an emergency, though. I sat in the waiting room of the ER for like another 2 hours, puking my guts up in a bucket. Oh the joy. I vaguely remember that one of the bathrooms was flooding in the waiting room too, but maybe I just made that detail up, I don't know. My brother called my Mom while when we got to the ER waiting room to tell her what was up. Unfortunately, I had not warned her of what was going on, so she just got a phone call from my brother saying..."we're in the ER, Jennie has to have surgery." Hahaha, my poor Mom. My brother thought I had talked to her earlier, so that news was a bit of a shock to her. Luckily my home in Colorado is only a 5 hour drive from Provo, so she left right away. Now, to the blind date part....

I had a blind date planned with a guy who's parents were good friends with my parents for the night after my surgery. Well...as I was puking in a bucket in the ER waiting room, my date called me to finalize details. Of course I didn't want to answer, so I made my brother answer and explain to him that I was in the ER and about to go to surgery for an emergency Appendectomy, so the date would have to be postponed, obviously. End of story, right? Wrong! But I'll get back to that a little later.

I was finally admitted to the actual ER around 5pm, where they FINALLY gave me Morphine for the pain. YAY for narcotics!!!! Big fan!!! So basically I hadn't had ANYTHING for pain for the past approximately 17 hours since my pain had started. Yeah, it was the day from Hell! Well, I had never had Morphine before and it works great for me, but it also knocks me out and makes me pretty loopy. Basically I am NOT responsible for ANYTHING I say when I'm on narcotics. I DO NOT edit what I say and basically you could probably get me to tell you anything. I'm pretty sure it would NOT make any sense though, sorry. I'm not sure if I received IV #3 or if they left the one in from the Imaging center. I thought I spent like 2 hours in the ER waiting to go into surgery. I found out later that it was actually 5 hours. My poor brother, who must seriously love me, sat with me for the entire 5 hours. I love him dearly!! Poor guy! Apparently there were like 3 or 4 more cases of Appendicitis in the ER at the same time I was there, which was really random. I was finally taken back into a prep room for surgery at about 10pm. They gave me something that they said would make me kind of drowsy. Hahahaha, yeah right. I was completely out in like 30 seconds. I don't remember anything until they were taking me into my room 3 hours later. I wasn't even awake to go into the OR. I woke up at 1am as they were wheeling me into my room on the Med/ Surg floor and my Mom had just barely arrived.

The funny thing is they put me on the floor below where I worked. 3 weeks previously I had started work on the Medical/ Oncology Floor as a PCT (Patient Care Tech- basically a CNA who gets to draw blood and put in catheters, woohoo :P). I was even supposed to work that weekend. That obviously didn't happen, but I did go up to visit my co-workers, IV pole and all, just to prove that I wasn't just skipping out on work for fun. :) The next day was pretty blurry for me. I was on a lot of drugs, which not only knocked me out, I was also in pain. I know a bunch of people from church, who I didn't know yet (later we became really good friends) came to see me. I don't remember the details though. The funny thing about narcotics and me is that, like I said, I don't have the ability to edit things when I'm on them. So, apparently I told me brother something that is entirely too graphic to put on here (I've taken so many medical classes that I tend to use correct medical terms. This isn't coming out right. Ok, I described something in detail in medical terms that normal people don't use in casual conversation). My mother was mortified, though. I think it's hilarious, but my brother was kind of horrified. Anyways, me on narcotics is dangerous for casual conversation.

Back to the blind date thing. The evening after my surgery, we got a phone call in my room that my Mom answered and guess who it was? My blind date. Yeah, guess where he was? Downstairs in the hospital. Oh yeah. No, I'm not kidding. He drove like an hour and a half to get there, it wasn't like I could turn him away. Another note on narcotics, they make me incredibly emotional. So I was completely irrational and had just been crying about something. So anyways, I got to meet my blind date while lying in a hospital bed wearing literally nothing but a hospital gown, no make-up, I've just been through surgery, and I'm totally loopy on narcotics. Lovely. Talk about embarrassing. He does get points for making me cookies and bringing me a card, but I can't quite forget how humiliated I was. Now it's just funny, but it wasn't very funny at the time. Apparently, my Mom spent almost the whole time talking to him. I was too drugged to be very conversational. That may be kind of rude, but considering the state I was in, I didn't care. I did end up going out with him later on our date, which was disastrous, by the way. It was awful. He was sizing me up for marriage the whole time, basically. But, I don't want to totally trash the guy, so back to my hospital story. Nope, I'm not done. It gets better, although the blind date part is done.

I should have gone home the next day (Post-Op Day #2?), I think (I don't know, the days all kind of ran together). But I do remember the PCT coming in the next morning and taking me vital signs. She stuck a sat monitor on my finger and nearly panicked when it read my Sats as in the 70's. Yeah, VERY bad. Ok, your "Sats" is your oxygen saturation in your blood. Basically you want it to be above 90% (my nursing professors say much higher, but basically when it gets to 88% it rapidly drops)...so the fact that I was in the 70's was a bit of a panic moment for them. I had to get a chest x-ray, which showed that the bottom of my lungs were starting to collapse (I had atelectasis, my nursing friends will appreciate that diagnosis). Basically, that put me at a big risk for getting pneumonia, unless I started moving around and coughing, deep breathing. By the way, when you've had you're stomach muscle cut through, the last thing you want to do is cough or deep breathe. Yay for nurses who told me about using a pillow as a splint. Ok, I better stop there before I get really carried away with the nursing stuff. They also sent me down for ultrasounds on both of my legs to check for DVT's (blood clots) from lying in bed too much (a cause of the atelectasis). It was a rough day. I finally got to go home the next day (I think). Recovery was like 3 weeks at home and another 3 weeks not lifting anything. That was just a laparoscopic appendectomy. (P.S. Yes, this means I have 3 tiny scars, one of which is in my belly button, basically he destroyed my belly button. I don't really have one anymore). I can't imagine what an open appendectomy would be like. Recovery sucked, to put it lightly. Lortab (Vicodin) was my friend for weeks! Thank goodness I only had one appendix, I NEVER want to do that again.

Anyways, the good thing is it did give me a lot of empathy for my patients. I know what it feels like to have a sore throat from being intubated. I know what it feels like to be in pain from having air inflated into your abdomen for surgery and then to have to burp it up for the next day (yes, they do that, and yes, it actually hurts). I know what real pain feels like (to a degree, of course, pain is subjective and different for every person). I know what it's like to need pain medication and to have to wait forever (or so it seemed) for your nurse to bring it to you. Ok, I should stop. Basically, I learned a ton from the experience.

Hmm...did I forget anything? That's a really long story, sorry. It's better when I tell it in person, with my voice inflections and facial expressions, of course. I'm not telling this to be cocky or dramatic, it's just a great story. Anyways, I refuse to go on anymore blind dates. They're not worth it. What would happen next time? I'd probably get hit by a truck and have to get my spleen out or something. I can only lose so many internal organs. Yeah, it's not worth it. No go. (because I'm morbid and like pictures) :)

"Got Milk? Got Allergies?"

Ms. Drama Queen was on a roll today. Maybe I should mention that she just got divorced, so maybe that has something to do with why everything is so dramatic for her, I still don't know. Apparently she's VERY biased against cow's milk. "Cow's milk is only for baby cows." Well then, Ok. She vehemently told us this in class today. She's against human beings consuming any kind of milk, clearly. She said and I quote "NO MORE MILK!!!" Wow...she thinks that the majority of people are lactose intolerant or have an allergy to milk and should not be consuming it. She said NO soy milk either, sorry. Soy milk has estrogen in it, she stated and "you'll BLOW RIGHT UP!!!" In other words you'll be very edematous (swollen) from it. Right. I've had soy milk and I've never "blown up." I also have milk with my cereal everyday. LOVE cereal. It's never really bothered me either. I do HATE the smell of milk though, I can't tell whether it's rotten or not. It all smells rotten to me, even when it's not. Little tangent, sorry. Anyways, the woman was pretty passionate about the subject. My friends and I decided that we'd all love to bring milk to class next week just to see what she'd do. Have a flippin' MI (heart attack), I imagine. Then a guy in my class (he may earn himself a nickname by the end of semester), decided that he should invent a bumper sticker that says "Got Milk? Got Allergies?" Um, no comment. Anyways, my professor told her normal dramatic stories in class. Except Pop decided that one story was about her having an allergic reaction. "and then the little girl, I mean boy....named Nancie, I mean Ned..." Yeah and the allergic reaction was probably to milk, go figure. Maybe that's why she's so biased against it.

We also covered HIV/ AIDS today. Pop felt the need to tell the class I have HIV by pointing at me. Yeah, I don't. But it was funny nevertheless. The teacher was like, "you don't need to tell us." Oh good grief. Yeah, you know me, total skank and druggie too (rolling eyes). The only way I could've gotten HIV is in the hospital. I did stick myself with a dirty needle once though. It sucked. I had to have my blood tested for like 6 months or a year, I don't remember which. It was less than fun. Don't worry, I'm clean. That's a story for another day though. Anyways my teacher told a story about a couple who came in before their marriage to get tested for HIV. According to my teacher the guy was "REALLY cute!!" Unfortunately, he tested positive for HIV. His fiance' then wanted nothing to do with him, of course. My teacher's comment then was like, "it was really too bad cuz he was REALLY cute. What a pity!" Or something along those lines. Uh, yeah I don't know about her sanity sometimes.

Moving on...in my other class today it was back to monkeys again. Some girl in my class watched the Discovery Channel last night and saw a show about Orangutans or something. I have no idea what that had to do with our lecture, but my friend once again stated "I'm not a monkey, dammit!" Orangutans?! Honestly, the people in program worry me some days.

Don't worry, it gets better...a lot of our lecture today was on the topic of breast feeding. Milk vs. no milk, that is the question of the day. You're supposed to switch to cow's milk at 1 year old. Would you people make up your minds? Milk or no milk?

We moved on to pregnancy. During the first trimester feelings of ambivalence or uncertainty are common in mothers. Questions like, "Is this the right thing for me?" Well, I'm sorry to tell ya, but it's a little too late for that. Sometimes Dad's have "Couvade= pregnancy- related symptoms" in addition to the Mother. The commentary between my friend and me on this was: "Serves him right." "You're mean. Remind me not to talk to your husband when you have your first child." :D We also talked about the Dad's first reaction to the pregnancy. That reminded me of that AT&T commercial where the woman calls her husband and announces she's pregnant, except her call gets dropped and she can't hear him screaming and yelling in excitement. Her response is, "Way to step up there, Rick." hahahahaha, that's one of my favorite commercials, ever!

My lecture today reminded me of when my oldest sister-in-law was having her third baby. Her doctor told her she was going from man-to-man to zone defense. Lol, so true. I love those kids though. They have nothing to do with this blog, but being in this class today made me miss them horribly, hence the picture. Isn't she cute?!:)
(Sorry this was pretty disjointed. I'm kinda tired so I'm rambling. Oh well.)

Yellow Jackets and Yellow Fever

I don't know if it was actually a Yellow Jacket, it might have been a hornet, either way I have NO idea how a bee ended up in my pajama pants @ 5:30am. I totally got stung and then had to try to catch the stupid kamikaze bee careening around my room. My poor roommate was wondering why I was jumping around so much. Now almost 2 days later my leg still hurts and itches. Yay for Benadryl. But, boooo for bees stinging me. I still want to know, how do you get a bee in your pants (excuse the phrase) @ 5:30 in the morning? But this blog isn't actually supposed to be about me, it's about school, of course.

Moving on...my professors this semester are interesting to say the least. Scatterbrained, monotone, and drama queen are words that have been used to describe them. Don't get me wrong, they're all very nice and they know their subjects well, but that doesn't mean they're good at teaching them.

So, as I stated, one of my teachers is a total drama queen. Maybe it's because our class is in the auditorium in the library where the plays are held. So she teaches from the stage. There's actually a white board that states there will be auditions for some Christmas play soon that is on the stage, so maybe that rubs off on her. I don't know. When she tells stories in class we're just waiting for her to say something like, "and then I came and saved the day..." blah blah blah. One story last week was especially bad. Apparently in Panama there was a guy (and his wife) who had had yellow fever before, so he'd built up an immunity to it (I wasn't listening all that hard, so I think this is what happened, anyways, he had an immunity to it). When they had a really bad epidemic of yellow fever down there and everyone was sick, no one could help them because then they would catch the disease as well. But, since he was immune he was able to go around and eliminate every bit of yellow fever in Panama by himself. Because of this, it was then possible for the Panama Canal to be built. I kid you not, that's what she said. Yeah, I do my fair share of eye rolling in that class. Pop, who sits next to me, just cusses at our teacher and makes sarcastic comments. haha

In another class there is, unfortunately, an individual who does not feel the need to wear a bra. I wouldn't normally notice that, but my friend brought it up and now it's really obvious. Gross! This is a quote from a classmate on that topic: "I'm a hippie. I like my freedom." I decided there's entirely too much estrogen in our lecture halls of women. There's only 2 guys in that class, poor things. That class is also incredibly boring. Not because the material is boring, it's not. But because the professor is so monotone that I zone out in about 10 minutes or less. It's bad. So of course we have to entertain ourselves to even stay conscious in class. The following is the disastrous consequences...(once again, I'm not really distinguishing who said what)

At first glance it just looks "busy or crowded." But in response to this picture I said something like, it would be hard to teach your kids about #'s..."this little piggy went to the market." Ohhhh, Jennie you're so morbid. Morbid, but funny according to my friend. She just decided to cross out a toe though, I don't know if that's any less morbid. Ok, maybe.

Often in nursing classes you find yourself diagnosing your own problems. All of a sudden you think you have all of these horrible diseases because you have some of the symptoms. This is pretty common, actually. We decided that it's pretty hard to diagnose yourself in OB though, because we're not babies. Except we could probably pull off a "lusty cry like a baby" pretty darn good. Especially after sitting through 6 hours of class straight. Yeah, you would want to cry too.

At some point in the lecture last week my teacher stated something about "we come from monkeys." My friend vehemently opposed that statement. "I don't believe that. I'm not a monkey. Take THAT chimpanzee." hahaha There's a skin disorder called a "stork bite" due to it's location and appearance that is common in children. Gggrrrreeeaattt....so we came from monkeys and we're dropped off by storks. Lovely.

We got in trouble for talking in class though. Gaysauce. The professor asked us what was so funny and would we like to share with the class since we'd been laughing all class period. My friend after a slight pause was like, we're just laughing about my car breaking down this morning. I chimed in something like yeah if we didn't laugh, we'd cry (which is true). Good thing she saved the day cuz I had nothin'. Crap. But what can she do, kick us out of class? Yeah right. Since we're paying a freakin' fortune to be there. Maybe that means we should pay attention. Nah...OK, OK, that's not totally true. We do pay attention. But we're pros at multi-tasking. Listening to lecture and still having fun with it is a talent, thank you very much. At least in my classes it is.

"Take 'em back, take 'em back..."

I realize I haven't written in awhile and people have been asking about it, so here's the deal....I'm taking OB and PEDs this semester (aka children and mother/ baby). So...a lot of our lectures, at least in OB, are really graphic and pretty awkward subjects outside of nursing (even in nursing). I'll try to tone it down for the blog, but you've been warned, k?! This commentary from today's OB class was between a friend and I. I'm not going to distinguish between who said what, but they are direct quotes mostly. :) Oh...and most of it shouldn't be said out loud, as usual, last warning...

Male determines gender of new baby
X = girl
Y = boy

I believe the response to this picture was:
"Cute."
"You just called sperm cute."
"It looks happy."
"Not THAT happy, it hasn't been fertilized yet."
"Why does the male get to determine the gender?"
"Because they don't really get much of a say in anything else." (Oh, soooo true, poor men. I almost feel bad for them, almost).

A fact on another slide: "Sperm: Live 1-3 days after ejaculation"
Response to that slide: "AH-HAH! That's how they do it. Otherwise they'd never survive in our world. We're very mean to them." (Ouch, that's actually true too...hmmm, but they might deserve it).
In response to this slide and my professor's rather terrible explanation of it my friend wrote on her slide "WTF?!" "Look up in book!" Hahahahaha...that's pretty bad when you have to write WTF? on your notes b/c your professor sucks so bad at explaining the material.

On the "Infant State-Related Behavior Chart" descriptions of actions of the infant are evaluated on scales. Under "Cuddliness" the "Implications for Caregiving" are stated as: " cuddliness is usually rewarding behavior for the caregivers. It seems to convey a message of affection." I do believe, we volunteered to spoon at this point...cuddliness IS, indeed a message of affection. Hey, guys are good for something, at least. Yay for LoveSac's which facilitate great said "cuddling or spooning." ;-)

Last Saturday I went to my bro's house for their going away party. Boooo....they're abandoning me in DC. Gaysauce. I'm really too bitter about this subject to talk about it right now. I already whined for a good half an hour about it today alone. Anyways, I went to their party with a bunch of married people, oh the joy, actually that really has nothing to do with this except we were talking after. OK, I am tired. Moving on. My sister-in-law works at an all girls private school. One word, "MONEY." Their tuition is more expensive than mine, good grief. Who pays $25,000 for their 7 year old to go to school? The answer is lots and lots of people in the DC area. Anyways, Carly was telling me a story that one of her co-workers, an alumnus (is that the right word? whatever) told her. The woman said she knew that she went to an all girls school one day when she saw a girl walking down the hall, grab her stomach and say "Ah, my uterus hurts." Uh yeah, only at an all girls school would that happen. My sister-in-law is also pregnant and due in February with their first baby, YAY (except they'll be in Littleton, BOOOO, again). The problem is, my brother gets horribly queasy when it comes to blood and guts. Yes, we have VERY different tastes in life. Poor guy can't even handle me telling stories...he turns a little green. It's kinda fun. :-D I'm so evil! He's convinced that he's going to be in the Labor/ Delivery room with Carly when she has the baby though, I'm convinced he's not going to make it. He'll pass out, I'm sure of it. He's so determined that he'll be fine and that he's just going to stay at the top of the bed. He thinks he'll rally when he has to though and be just fine. There's a slight possibly that might work, but there's NO way he's going to make it through the after-birth. The placenta is probably the bloodiest thing I have ever seen/ touched. I used to have the oh so pleasant job of cleaning the birthing carts and bagging the placentas to freeze them. My professor tried to describe a placenta today, but until you hold one in your hands there's no way you can possibly sum up how bloody, rubbery, and disgusting it really is...and yet that sack allows a fetus to grow for 9 months, amazing. Truly incredible! There's also nothing like holding a brand new, literally, baby in your arms. It's a pretty special experience. I would never do OB, it's just not for me, not enough excitement, surprisingly enough, but it's fun to do every once in a while. I enjoyed the time I worked there as a CNA and a secretary on a Mother/ Baby Unit.

Anyways, that was quite the tangent, sorry. I hope I didn't gross anyone out too bad. Oh, I just realized I didn't explain the title line. We also talked about twins and how they're formed today. My friend decided she definitely does NOT want twins and if she has them she's going to be like: "take 'em back, take 'em back!!" hahaha...yeah, I would probably feel the same way. In fact, by the time this class is over we're probably not going to want kids at all. Thank goodness for nieces and nephews. LOVE them, especially since you can give them back!! ;-) So this semester promises to be an entertaining one full of lots of blogs, probably. For now, it's late and I need to be sleeping.

Hotter than H#!!...

So, I just looked up the forecast for today for Arlington...right now it's: Sunny, 97 Degrees, feels like 108 Degrees with 46% humidity. Yeah right. Just shoot me. No wonder our air conditioner never shuts off. I don't even want to leave my house, but guess what?! I have to...and I'm home alone because all of my roommates are on vacation, BORING. OK, time to go brave the heat. At least I love my moonroof!!! :)

Scratch that, I went outside, um, dripping wet in about 10 seconds. 46%? Yeah right...more like 99% humidity. YUCK!!!

Durnit....

It's almost 3:30am and I totally can't sleep. Why?! This sucks. My nephew and niece will probably wake me up in about 3 1/2 hours. Awesome.

Who needs a conscience, I have a nephew...

It was my niece's turn to say the family prayer tonight, she's 2 1/2. (Oh, P.S. I'm in Utah with my bro's family right now, yay!) So she said her prayer, but then my nephew (he's 5) decided he needed to say his own prayer too. I don't remember exactly the words he used in the prayer, but it went something like this..."please bless that Aunt Jennie will not be good and will not be mean to Daddy and put hot sauce in his water again like she did last time." He struggled through that part trying to put it into words, but by that time I had my hands over my face trying REALLY hard not to laugh out loud. Once he was done, I burst out laughing. I couldn't help it. That was 3 months ago, he has an amazing memory. Apparently I traumatized him by doing that. I was just getting my brother back for something he did to me, I don't even remember what. Welcome to my family! That's what siblings are for, right?! My brother was like, "yeah, he's got my back." Blah...now I feel a little bit guilty. OK, maybe not. Kids are great!!! He repeated the "Aunt Jennie will be good" part at least twice. So apparently I'm supposed to be good this vacation. Hahaha!! We'll see.... :D

By golly I think she's got it!!

Today was the last day of Med/Surg II Clinicals. Stupid Dean of Nursing decided that we needed to have clinicals during finals week still. Boooo. I'm so glad they're over though. I still only had 2 patients even though I actually requested to have 3 b/c I'm bored stiff. I'm asking for more work and she won't give it to me, go figure. "Pop" decided to write out a list of something that everyone in our group can be remembered for this semester. It would require too much effort to think of what everyone else was remembered for, but guess what I was remembered for?! Um yeah...Jennie always looked bored. Lol. Well yes, that's actually true. (Please refer to my previous blog "4 more weeks" if you don't understand this). Apparently my instructor did not remember that she already told me that sometimes I look bored in clinicals (which Pop thinks is hilarious and has to bring up constantly :D) b/c she thought it was really funny that Pop thought the same thing as her and noticed that I look bored too. Well, duh....maybe cuz you pointed it out in the first place. And yes, I'm still bored.

We had to meet with our instructor to do our final evaluations for the semester. I won't explain my entire medical background b/c that would take forever, but needless to say I've wanted to be a nurse since I was 17, I know EXACTLY what I want to do, I've been in all kinds of areas of health care, and i know how to get there. If you get in my way I will stomp on you. Don't mess with me. Haven't you ever seen that "competitive jerk" poster form Despair.com? Don't get between a competitive jerk and their goals. (Ok, so I just found it for you, aren't I nice, um maybe not). When I know what I want I'm admitting I can definitely be a competitive jerk. But hey, I wouldn't be where I am today if I wasn't that way. Anyways...my instructor asked what I wanted to do with nursing and I said I wanted to be in a Trauma Unit (possibly ICU later) and that shouldn't surprise her. I love adrenaline, I'm a junkie, the more the better. I explained more of my medical background and all of a sudden, tah dah! It was like the light came on...my instructor FINALLY understood me for the first time this semester. She understood where I was coming from, who I was, and why I was the way I was. It was like it finally was all making sense to her. "Oh you're right, that doesn't surprise me" (or something like that).

I went on to explain that I had spent 1 1/2 years working on a cancer floor before and although I absolutely loved my job and learned a ton, I promised myself I'd never do it again. Emotionally it was just too difficult. So when i got stuck there for clinicals this semester it was the last place I wanted to be. I was miserable. Again, more understanding dawned on my instructor's face. I went on to explain that with all my background I felt like I wasn't being challenged and when I'm not challenged I feel like I'm moving backwards. (Why do you think I always go for guys way outta my league?) So yes, I was bored. I hate that I feel like I just wasted an entire semester. I've been a CNA (PCT, tech, whatever you want to call me) for years, I don't need to relearn that stuff, give me something valuable to learn. I think my brain might have actually atrophied this semester. I learn by doing and observing. I can't believe I just paid thousands of dollars to be a glorified CNA. I was paying THEM to do crappy work that I've been doing for years. What a waste. At least my instructor understands me now though, as useless as that is since clinicals are over for this semester. Why didn't we have this conversation at the beginning of the semester? Oh yeah, b/c she wouldn't listen to me then. But now she gets that I'm not a complete idiot and I'm not lazy, just bored. My classmate was taking pictures to send to our instructor though and of course the one of me is me with my head resting on my arms on the table looking like I'm sleeping. Classic, Jennie. (Of course we planned that on purpose :D) Hey, give me a break it's finals week. I have 3 finals tomorrow and another on Thursday. Mylifesucks.com cuz it sounds cooler. Ok, I'm done venting for now....back to studying and maybe even some sleep. HA!

I feel old

So after giving out my list on my birthday of things that people had to avoid talking about, things people could talk to me about, and things they could not do around me, people's reactions were somewhat interesting and very entertaining...

My birthday started with a phone call from Austria at 12:15am at the beginning of my bday. My oldest brother has been there touring for several weeks. I got a call from Europe for my birthday. YAY! He was pretty confused though b/c it was 6am his time and he was like "did I miss it?" Uh no, it just started, lol. Good thing I was up still writing my paper. :) At least he remembered.

Moving on to some of my Facebook and Myspace comments- an old roommate recommended that I eat lots of olives :), a classmate didn't mention school b/c she said it's a dirty word (well, it is), I'm not explaining the Loch Ness Monster picture a friend posted on my Myspace page b/c that would take too long, but it's hilarious to me, at least, and a singing YouTube video were the unique ones in addition to the awesome comments from other friends that basically said happy birthday (imagine that?!).

One friend left me a message singing the entire happy birthday song, then ended with "Go Red Sox. Bye" then hung up. LOL That was awesome. Then my next oldest brother called and he had actually printed the list out and was looking at it during our conversation. lol Except he cheated. He used Littleton instead of Denver, that's totally cheating. They just bought a house there and are abandoning me in D.C., the punks. Sure, as soon as you find out I'm going to be an Aunt again, you move. Boooo. Actually most of what he said was on the Disapproved List (see there were reasons for those things being on the list). Oh well. It was an entertaining conversation, nonetheless. I got another very entertaining phone call from a good friend who used several words on the "Approved List." Except he said it so fast I really have NO idea what he said. Something about "squirrels who wore boots when they ride bulldozers." hahahaha Yeah, I don't know. Awesome!

The emails I got in response to the one I sent out with the list were classic as well. My cousin for instance, is absolutely awesome. He insists he's not a day over 30 (pretty sure he's several) and that there's no way I can be 25. He emailed me the link to a Yankee haters site, a tree house site, invited me to Oregon to visit and also to go to Europe in the fall with him, and mentioned several other things on the approved list. He did break the rules and mention a couple things on the disapproved list, but since he's family and since I related to what he was talking about....well, never mind, he got away with it. :) Most people avoided the list altogether and just said happy birthday or waited until several days later to email me. That works too, lol. Luckily my friends know me well enough to appreciate my humor and liked the lists and didn't take them too seriously. One friend mentioned how much she loves squirrels, one friend wanted to do a list for her bday next year, more emails involved people mentioning things on the list and how they related to them and to me (oh, and apparently lighting bugs are called "fireflys" in Tennessee and you get made fun of if call them lightning bugs, whatever, lol), one friend offered to hit on me if no one else was doing a good enough job of that, since one friend just had her baby she couldn't say much, but told me to call her when we could talk (ooops, my bad), one friend mentioned EVERYTHING on the list, awesome! I found out later she had to ask my roommate what UFC was, lol (incidentally my roommate despises UFC and won't let me watch it when she's home). Oh, and she said she wouldn't discuss TWSS. hahaha, gee I wonder why?! I would post that whole email on here, it's entertaining enough, but then I'd have to cite it, and I hate citing things. APA sucks. Another friend told me to dream about my list, but mostly people just enjoyed reading the lists. Yay, I'm glad I could provide some entertainment cuz believe me the week before my bday was HELL!!!

Then another friend showed up at my doorstep with a 6 pack of Dr. Pepper, yay! The first thing he says to me when I open the door is, "it's salmon, not pink." Referring to his shirt that he was wearing, lol. I just laughed at him. I then gave him a 30+ minute massage. Happy Birthday to ME, lol. :P J/K, in all reality I love giving massages, I love getting them too, of course.

A friend took me to breakfast and I only got a little bit lost getting there. :) That night we went to dinner, just my roommates and me. I wanted a drama free bday and thankfully I mostly had one. Unfortunately most of my friends can't be in the same room right now without there being some drama between all of them, so I opted to have no friends around, except 2. Maybe that's mean, but it's my bday and I have a bad track record with bdays I wasn't going to deal with other people's drama on that day, sorry. We went to P.F. Chang's. I haven't been there in a while. The funny thing is I HATE Chinese food. I'm not sure that qualifies as Chinese though. Well, it rocks anyways. Minus the fact that I for some reason decided it would be a good idea to eat one of the peppers. I thought I was going to start blowing fire out of my mouth. It was bad. I was dying. My roommates thought it was funny though. Never again. I can't even eat Hot Tamales, that pepper was WAY outta my league. I was miserable. (you can see the evil red pepper here...bain of my existence!!! Oh, and I like soy sauce) But I got to take home my "Chocolate Wall." Worth every calorie. SOOOO amazing. Chocolate cake, chocolate frosting, and fruit with raspberry sauce drizzled over it. Oh yeah!!!!! Love it!! Other than that, the day was pretty unexciting. Couple other good phone calls and texts. One friend was nice enough to mention that I was just one day closer to my death. Lovely. The quarter of a century thing came up a few times too. Oh well...my roommate was shocked when she realized that she's two years older than me which makes her 27, so hey, I'm not that old. J/K I'm just in my mid-twenties closer to 30 than 20. Groan....

P.S. I'll add the pics when I get them from my roommate. For some reason most of them I think are of me climbing into fountains. I have no idea why. I'm weird. Holding bag and purse, talking on the phone, walking into the fountain, and holding up my pants (I know you can't tell that, but I am) = multi-tasking at it's best!
Just so you can see how cool this fountain was (downtown Arlington has really cool fountains)
Testing the water....

It was really tempting...

We are cool

Sometimes we pretend we're back in the 80's again.

(P.S. Yes I do actually have 3 toe rings, I have a thing for pretty feet. Not ugly feet, just pretty feet).

My Birthday Rules (or rules for my birthday either one)

(The email I sent to my friends the night before my birthday)....
Ok people here's the deal...I've had a terrible week, no kidding. It started out horribly and got WAY worse from there. My bday is on Friday. I hate birthdays, but since a lot of you already know about it, I'm setting some ground rules. I have a bad track record with birthdays. They do not go well for me, I'd rather just kind of skip over them and I already feel old. My roommate decided I needed to make up this list of approved and unapproved topics and Rules/ Restrictions. If you think I'm kidding then you obviously have not talked to me this week. I've had the week from Hell. This is NO joke. If you bring up one of these restricted topics or break a rule do not think I will just laugh and blow it off and we'll be ok next week. You will be excommunicated from my birthday and probably as a friend too. I'm not feeling very forgiving this week. So read carefully. Ok, have a good rest of the week. Love you all, Jen

Rules/ Restrictions:
No one can wear the color pink in my presence
No one can "pop" their collar in my presence
No cutting onions in my presence

Unapproved topics:
School (don't ask me how it's going)
Nursing
Hospitals
Moving
Black Beauty (or any cars in general)
Papers
Exams
Sleep (or lack thereof)
My week (do NOT ask me about it)
Denver
Babies
Clinicals
My relationship with ANYONE (guy or girl)
The Metro
Rubik cubes (I'm sick of hearing about them, no offense)
Being old
Previous birthdays
Utah
the War
Iraq
Saudi Arabia (or why this is my nickname)
Baltimore
Homework
Harry Potter (I like HP I just don't want to hear about it on my bday)
Your advice on my life
Idaho
Arizona
Booeymongers
Awkward relationships
Dating
Marriage
Mitt Romney
Politics
Winter
Turtles
Humidity/ Heat
the Yankees
missing the baseball game on Monday
Finals
Transformers (I haven't seen it yet, stop rubbing it in)
Pinatas
Honey
Cauterizing
Rook
Sea Food
Grocery shopping
Clowns
Hair
Calories
Weight
Poison Ivy
Langley Ward

Approved Topics:
Baseball
Red Sox
Boston
Moose
Lighthouses
Pickles
Milk Chocolate
UFC (especially if you are a guy and want to try the moves on me- um, a friend said I should say that) :P
Bones (it's a TV show)
the Office
Colorado (but if you make me homesick you get kicked out)
the beach
Winnipesaukee
Ice cream
Dr. Pepper
Motorcycles
Black olives
Hot tubs
Shoulder holsters
Amusement Parks
Good music
Thunder and lightning storms
Painted toenails
Cowboys
Good movies
One liners from 8 Simple rules (that's for you, Lex) :)
Luv Sacs
My blog
Horses
Boats
Bulldozers
Guns
TWSS
Lightning bugs
Verbal vomit moments
Cereal
Bubble gum
Good memories of/ with me
Tree Houses
Swings
Boots
Squirrels

You can always try to bring up another topic but that's pretty risky for you unless you want to be on the hit list. Apparently, 24 would like to go out with a vengeance so my last week of being 24 is one of the worst I've ever had. Either that or 24 hates me. :) I'm past the tears point now, it's almost funny how bad this week has been, so I'm only partly joking here. :P Laters ya'll....

"Open mouth, insert entire body"

So I took my car to the Honda Dealership today to get it fixed, supposedly. That's another story though and I'm entirely too angry about that to write about it right now. Anyways, the guy at the desk asked me which car was mine so he could fill out the paperwork. I automatically responded "the Honda." At which point he burst out laughing at me and I realized what I had just said...um Jennie, you're at a HONDA DEALERSHIP of course it's a Honda. Oh my gosh. I am cool. I tried to recover, it wasn't very graceful though. Bleh. Oh yeah, I rock.

Dear Jennie,
You haven't bleached your hair blonde in YEARS, try not to act that way, ok?! You are working on your second degree, try not to act like the stupid blonde bimbo girl who knows nothing.
Sincerely, your Brain.

Yeah, now would be a good time to "discontinue my spot on the planet" because now I have to try to fix my pharmacology paper that I did wrong. Apparently I won't be sleeping, ever.