Rant

If you're not in the mood for a "frustrated, I'm a little pissed at the world, can't stand my life" kind of moment, come back another day. That's just who I am this week.

Guys, it will be a HUGE and FANTASTIC miracle if I make it through this semester without either
1. Being medicated
2. Taking up drinking
3. or Doing hard drugs

It's a damn joke, my life. And believe me, this is me trying to have a good attitude about it. But clearly that's not working yet. I'm still fighting too hard against the stupid loop holes nursing school forces you to jump through. I'm sure in the morning, I will be ready to face my life, deal with my issues, and start jumping so damn high that I'll have reached the clouds. Until then, welcome to my little pity party.

This semester has been THE most challenging by far since I started school. Balancing my marriage, school, work, my health and well being, and my own spirituality has proven to be So. Hard. I feel like I'm constantly running on empty, and there's always more work to be done than I have time or energy to give.

School feels so insanely unorganized with too much work to get done in a week, let alone a day, and get enough sleep to continue functioning. I really do stay pretty on top of my life. I have a calendar, and a planner, and reminders in my phone. I get things done. I do them right. But for one reason or another, I completely spaced on part of my assignment. To add insult to injury, my instructor was less than helpful or understanding about it, and to be honest, a little condescending and unforgiving. I understand that I didn't get it done, and that's fine. I can own that. What really grinds at me is that it's the first week of clinical. How in the world are we expected to get every single little thing right the very first week. Can't you cut a girl just a little slack? Take points off for being late, whatever, but at least show a little kindness and understanding.

Just empathize a little. Recognize that I, the STUDENT NURSE, don't know everything. I am just LEARNING. I don't have 20+ years of nursing experience in one particular field under my belt. I haven't seen THAT much. And what I have seen has been in 3 separate fields, and no two fields are alike. Respect that I am trying to learn and master skills. I'm trying to apply the things I have learned in YOUR lecture to my clinical experience.

The stress and anxiety of it all is making me sick. Literally. My stomach has been in knots for the last week. Today, I barely made it out of the hospital before I burst into tears because it's too much. Much too much.

So tomorrow will be a better day. Tomorrow HAS to be a better day. For now, I'm going to finish a few things and just be done for the evening.

Checking out. 

Pulling my hair out

I feel like this is my life right now. Today. Tomorrow. This week. This whole damn semester. 

I wouldn't be all that surprised if by the end of the semester I have some grey hair, or my hair is falling out. It's ridiculous to say the least. So much for this being the "easy" semester of nursing school. It's already turning out to be much more difficult that Med-Surg. Not in the content, but in the amount of work they're asking us to do. You guys, it's a freaking joke. 

Care for a sample? 

For tomorrow, I have to have read 2 chapters in my Mom/Baby book (mind you these chapters are like 80-100 pgs long each), 30 pages plus another 80 page chapter for Pediatrics, and then 4 different articles for Ethics. 

Oh and to add icing to this cake, I have a public health module that I have to complete by the end of the week...which let's be real for a minute--it's a waste of my freaking time. I pay my college tuition not so I can do it online, but so I can sit in a classroom and have instructors teach me. Ugh. We won't get into that.

I feel like in a nutshell, this semester is a mess. It's all over the place and so completely disorganized I can't even stand it. I try so hard to keep myself organized and I just feel more and more frustrated with each email that I get telling me about a different assignment, or changes to an assignment. I kind of want to scream at someone to get their shit together. The faculty expect that out of us, don't you think it's rightly fair that we expect that out of them? 

I get that occasionally there's going to be changes, and not everything works out in real life as well as it looks on paper. But really, it's like one thing after another. And I'm over it. Done. Checked out. Ready for it to be Christmas break and onto a new semester. 

At the end of the day, this is what my life feels like. A complete and utterly disgusting mess. And I hate it. It gives me so much stress because everything is all over the place despite my best efforts to keep it organized. Not joking-I have a planner (that I'm ACTUALLY using this semester to write everything down) and a white board that's probably 3-4 feet long with a gigantic calendar drawn on it and all of my assignments color coded so I know what's what. I'm pretty freaking organized. 

But it's still not enough. I probably should consider investing in a personal secretary to keep me on task and getting my assignments completed. 

Because, at the end of the day...I feel like this. Crash and burn. 

At some point...somethings gotta give. At some point...this will all get better. At SOME POINT...I will look back on these days and laugh...or at least smile. Right?