I passed at least

Unfortunately I missed the top level by 3% - ugh!

Feeling less overwhelmed but at least I have a bit of stuff off my plate. I'm plugging my way through it.

I feel like the little train that could - "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can" - therefore I know I can.

On other news... I've been in talks with the teacher of my next course (clinical that is) about trying to set up placement cause I've had SUCH a hard time getting it arranged myself. I have inquired whether I would be able to do placement in the ER because I work already in a medical unit and if I can't get into a surgical unit then I would love to try out a placement in the ER. We'll see how that goes though, it's doubtful.

Down a point

I tried to complete all my readings. Doing so by pulling all nighters, literally. Staying up from approx. 9pm to approx. 6am doing as much reading and writing as I could manage. The unfortunate thing is is that I lost track of dates. Subsequently I lost track of my days and so tonight when I was doing my work, I happened to move my cursor over the date and realized it was monday morning already.

SHIT SHIT SHIT....

The thing with one of my courses is that we have a weekly discussion posting - but this week we had an additional one (one I forgot about) and so I did it late. That means that instead of getting full points I get docked one... and that point can be uber important when we're talking about degree points.

I'm going to have to make sure I pay more attention!

Semester One DOWN... 7 more to go!

Did my last exam today, got 90% on it YAAAAAAAY... would have gotten 92% but I read one question wrong and realized it after I submitted it and this teacher doesn't let you go back to check over your answers so you really only get one shot. Plus her questions are EACH worth 2% - shitty IMO

Plus the way she sets up her course, you have to get 75% on your tests/quizzes (minimum) AND on your paper/clinical stuff. Then so long as you get over 75% on both then you factor them together and divide by 1/2 = your actual grade. So this can be tricky because if you fuck up a couple of times on your tests/quizzes then you are seriously screwed! Also, this program only allows you to do each course twice so you have to make sure you're careful or you're out! You can tell that this isn't necessarily easy since this class had DOUBLE the # of students as the other course I took = way harder course!!!

So me passing this course means that much more to me cuz obviously not everyone makes it through, only the strong ones.... which equals me!!!!!!

Now I get to go send off an email saying I want to register for some spring semester courses - YAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYY

Finally a beacon of hope

In about October I was notified via email that the next course would be a psych course (already knew this but was reminded of it) and was told to begin the search to find a suitable placement. I believe I've said it before but it really irks me (maybe a tad more ;P) that I have to find my OWN placement as well as preceptor while the school sits back and does jack shit except do the clinical contract with the facility. Complete bullshit IMO. The old school that I was going to (for my LPN/RPN as well as my previous BSN) did this leg work for us (and was compensated IMO for this) which made life easier and certainly less stressful. This was something that I asked before committing myself to this school because I don't think it should be my responsibility to do this.

So for this semester my hubby thought to find a list of ALL the NPs and so I began calling them ALL - EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM!!! And was told that if I didn't find a preceptor in that two week period of time that I would have to abandon that course! So off I went asking whether they would be willing to "oversee" a basic review of assessments that I would do in front of them. Only ONE off a list of probably 30-40 ppl said yes. And OMG am I thankful to this person!!! Told her everytime I saw her! I was certainly stressed out and certainly worried that I would have to postpone starting my core nursing courses because of this stupid thing that I was told by the university to wait on until I was officially "IN" the course. It's complete bullshit IMO and I should have been advised of this.

Now getting back to October... I procrastinated on finding a suitable placement and figured that the school would do ANY of the leg work. Now it's December and I come to find that the school basically did jack shit in terms of helping me. A couple of days ago hubby wanted me to start doing the same thing as before but now focusing on calling the "key" people in the hospitals who would enable me to have a pysch rotation in the hospital. Focused on big hospitals and then I decided to broaden my search to smaller ones. Then hubby had an epiphany that it would be smart to check out the psychiatric nurses' association. I figured it couldn't hurt anything and off we went calling them. They instructed us on how to find the local chapter ppl and then we went off googling these people to see about contacting them directly to see if I could network with them to find a placement. Hell these people wouldn't be part of this association if they weren't somehow involved in psychiatry right?!

Next day I called up a couple of people and happened upon one lady who said that so long as I was allowed to do it at an out-pt clinic or in ppl's homes then she could help me. YAAAAYYYYYYYYYY OMG I was eccstatic. The relief was immense let me tell you!

Now I'm trying to convince hubby to register for next semester's courses. He doesn't seem overly keen on this idea though (not sure of the exact reasoning seeing as he told me that once I secured a placement then we would register being that we'd been in this sort of predicament already right).

So I started the paperwork with the uni to get the contract going so that in January I can start my placement hours. The good thing (though weird) is that for that course it only requires FORTY hours. Crazy low amount, very shocking to me and to the lady I spoke with. I don't really care so long as I get the hours in.

Not quite done yet

Had my follow-up appointment with the surgeon last week, was told that I good in regards to the abcess but now I need surgery for the fistula. But this surgeon is now sending me to ANOTHER surgeon to have this particular surgery done.

Now I'm waiting to hear from this other surgeon to find out WHEN I might have this surgery.

The downtime is helping me finish my course reading for the interpersonal comm'n course that I'm taking and need to have completed the exam by the end of August and I still have 4 more chapters to read. Boring stuff I may add!

I heard back from my uni who told me that there's outstanding things for my admission. I have to have ANOTHER dose of MMR & Tdap - which my family doc indicated that I don't need to.

Record of my flu shot - which I don't understand why I need to provide this at this point seeing as we aren't going to have clinicals til winter semester (Jan 2014) and by that point I'll have had ANOTHER flu shot.

The outstanding course which I'm working on.

They indicated that they need my highschool transcripts - which I sent 2yrs ago - and I even have paperwork to indicate this - so I sent off an email indicating this. ERG, it had better not be lost!!!!

Things are going the right way

It's been about a week since I passed the TEAS exam and so I emailed the program development specialist (at hubby's behest [and pestering]) to enquire about placements since their website indicates that it could take up to 2 months to complete a contract between the uni & the chosen hospital/agency. Man will I be furious if I'm close to entering my placement courses and have no contract in place and then have to wait an additional 6+ mos to complete the course!

I did, however, receive semi confirmation that I am accepted into the program - yay for me!!! According to her my "official" acceptance letter will be coming in the mail (hopefully sooner rather than later!)

I've ordered my book to start studying for Interpersonal Communication instead of public speaking (as referred to previously) - a course that I have to test out of. I need to have this completed by August. Not sure I'm going to enjoy this course, it's probably going to be quite dry. We shall see though, wish me luck!

Am I awesome or what?!

I FINALLY got my mark from my prof for developmental psychology throughout the lifespan - only took 2 weeks and me constantly haggling her!

I got 94% in that class!!! BOO YA!!! That will certainly jack my GPA up a few notches!!!

So now all I have to conquer is my CPR recert - doing that later this week. And then I have to study to test out on an english course and public speaking - the last which you have to do a speech for that has be 3-5 min long. Now that might not seem long, but if you don't know your topic before hand, that could be tricky!!! Not really looking forward to it let me tell ya!

This online crap is SOOOOOO not for me. It definately stirs up my ADHD and procrastination let me tell ya all! It's super hard to be motivated in the environment that I live in. I wish hubby would have my back and be ok with us moving out of this place and FINALLY having a place to our OWN again. It makes me so sad and depressed and when I'm like this it's hard to be motivated to do school work and studying.

Work is going well, again, just wish that I were in a department that I loved - like paeds! I'm so uber jealous of my coworker for getting a position on their unit. I'll seriously have to keep my eyes peeled.