Going and Going

I know it has been a couple of weeks since I posted anything, but it has been rather hectic around here.  Classes started last week along with our back to school celebration that we call WelcomeFest.  This is the University’s way of welcoming the students back to school and also help new students meet people and learn about student life and activities.  There is something different happening every day and night and it all sounds super fun!   The only thing I help out with is the day all the different informational booths are set up outside along with a band and some games, and I help hand out free hotdogs.  Every year a group from work coordinates our part with the WelcomeFest committee and we set up a hotdog stand.  It is a great opportunity for us, the Foundation, to interact with the students and to share with them what exactly the Foundation is and does.  Plus, it is a lot of fun! 

Then this week I helped out with Convocation, which is basically a campus wide “pep rally”.  We get to hear from the President, our student council and an alumni speaker.  Afterwards the students line up for a free t-shirt, pizza and ice cream.  This is the second year I have helped with it and I was part of the “crowd control” and helped to herd the students to their seats and then out to get their free stuff.  Here I am hard at work with one of my fellow co-workers. 

 

On top of all the extra fun stuff I have going on at work, I have also been delegated as the assistant to two more people, so I am now the assistant to five development directors.  Needless to say, I have been quite busy with the added workload.  On top of this, I am squeezing  my classes into my schedule.   My class schedule is MWF 9:30 -10:20 for statistics and TW 4:00-6:00 pathophysiology.  Since the class only runs until 6:00 I am still able to get home at a decent hour, workout and have plenty of time to take notes and study.  So far things are going well, but we haven’t had any quizzes or exams yet so my feelings may change in the near future.  :o) 

I mentioned in my last post that we were going to go camping, but we ended up not going.  I wasn’t feeling the greatest so we decided to wait until this weekend, Labor Day, to go.  I’m not crazy about going considering I will have to pack my notes along with to study and I won’t be able to watch any of my lectures.  I know I’ll have a good time, but I am afraid I won’t get to do much studying, and by “get to” I mean “want to”. But I have to.  :o(  boo.

This past weekend I tried to catch up on some of my reading and Brad and Bo were sweet enough to go to the store for me.  I can’t tell you how awesome that was for me.  And on top of that they surprised me with some beautiful flowers.

I really love the orange roses!  I felt pretty special when they came home with these beauts, plus they both looked pretty darn cute when they handed them to me.  I think they were quite pleased with themselves and they had good reason to be.  Don’t you think?  :o)    

The Dog Days of Summer….

… are over and the start of the new semester is right around the corner.  I have been trying to enjoy the last few days of freedom before my classes start on Monday, but I am still not ready!  It seems like this summer has flown by so fast I feel like I didn’t even have one!  I’m sure taking the C.N.A class in June is the main cause of this feeling, but it was worth it. I caught up on some reading I have been wanting to do and some movie watching.  I even managed to organize a few things around the house to prepare for moving.  I sort of feel like I have been in a nesting mode the past week. 

This semester I am taking elementary statistics and pathophysiology.  I already have homework.  Boo!   My pathophysiology professor is going to Beijing next month for research, and to make up some class time, he has already posted the first lecture and materials for us to review (he webcasts his lectures and posts them after class).  I haven’t taken a class where the professor has used this method, but so far I really like the sound of it.  Mainly because if I get a second job and have to work on a night that I have class, I won’t miss anything, plus he is going to be starting class an hour early on Wednesday’s in order to make up some additional time and since I can’t leave work that early  I can catch it on the web.  I watched the first lecture last night and I can already tell this class will be challenging.  I was watching the video and felt that he was moving through the material pretty quickly, and I’m not sure if it was because he was “lecturing” in his office and thus no audience to judge comprehension, or if that is really his method.  He also does not require a book and provides all of the notes and material needed, which means I will have to figure out a good way to study. He has a list of questions to review as we are studying, and most of the exam questions will come from this list, so at least I will know what I need to study.  Last semester I would go to class, take notes, and then use the textbook as a supplement to fill in anything that needed to be expanded upon.  This worked great for me and I felt I really understood the material which helped immensely during exams when I came to a question that we didn’t really go over in class.  I still want to use this method, but since there is no assigned textbook, I think the best way may be to use the review questions as a guide and answer them as detailed as possible.  Just because I have a list of review questions which ask something as simple as, “What is a gamete?” doesn’t mean that I will have the same “easy” question on the exam.  I will need to know what a gamete is, how many chromosomes it has and which method of reproduction it utilizes.  This is where a textbook would come in handy. 

Anyway, enough about my boring study methods.  This weekend we are going to go camping at Lake Wilson.  I have never been there, but I guess it is one of the nicer lakes in Kansas.  We decided to go camping this weekend to do one last fun thing before classes start and there is no time for fun.  Ok, I’m exaggerating a little bit, but it is the end of summer as we know it and we wanted to do one last fun thing while we had a chance.  The only bad thing is because it has been so dry there is a burn ban, which means no campfire.  Camping just isn’t the same without a fire, but I’m sure we will make do.   Break out the sweatshirts and sweatpants!

(Ground)Breaking News

This happened yesterday.

 

  
After two weeks of impatiently waiting, they finally started digging our basement!  Yay!....Yikes?  Brad and I went over to take a look and while we were out taking pictures we met our soon to be neighbors.  They are actually family members of a guy that drives truck for Brad's company.  Small world, eh?  (No, I'm not Canadian but I did grow up close to the border.)

I have better pictures on my digital camera, but I haven't loaded them to the computer yet, but these will suffice. 

Here is where our new home will be.

The excavator that sat on the lot for a week and a half waiting for the title company to do their thing.














And finally the groundbreaking. - Sorry so blurry.

I still can't believe that in a few short months we will be moving into our own home!  I am guessing we will be moving around the middle of December, if not (hopefully) before.  The middle of December will be better for me because I will be finished with my classes so I won't have to pack and move, work a second job and study for finals all at the same time, but the earlier the better for moving purposes. I am going to start packing a little bit at a time right now - yes, it is ridiculously early but I will be busy in a couple weeks. We will only be moving a few blocks away, so I plan to take over as much as possible in my car during the week, and then leave the big stuff and left over to move on the weekend. Another thing we haven't decided on is if we will lay the floors down ourselves.  We want to put in laminate flooring everywhere except the bedrooms and we will save money doing it.  It won't take that long to do, but we will have to see what we will actually save doing it ourselves and if it will even be worth it.  
 
I am a little scared that once the house is finished and we start closing something bad will happen.  I think I feel that way because this all feels like a dream, too good to be true.  Our house isn't going to be anything fancy, but it will be nice and new and OURS!  I know we have worked so hard for this for the past six years and it is finally happening, but it just doesn't feel real yet.  I keep waiting for the "thud" of the other shoe dropping. I know my fears and worries are a little silly, but after going through what we did with the first house, I am just a little leery.  All good things come to those who wait, and we have been waiting a long time.

CNA State Exam

This past Wednesday I took the state licensing exam to be a certified nursing aid.  Obviously I can't give out any specifics about the exam, but if you are worried about passing it, then you are wasting good energy.  When I was taking the class, my instructor gave us some advice about the exam and to use while working.  She said "always inform the nurse."  Basically anytime you see a change in a residents behavior or habits, change in vitals or any physical changes, report it to the nurse.  Have a question? ask the nurse.  See where I'm going with this?  As a nursing assistant, we are not only an extra set of hands for the nurse, we are an extra set of eyes and ears.  We spend more time with the residents than anyone else, so we will be the first to notice any changes and it is very important to report those changes to the nurse. 

To give you an idea of what the exam day was like, which I'm sure will vary greatly depending on where you take it, I will give you a rundown of what it is like in Kansas.

Before the exam:
After the class is finished, our instructor sends our information to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and lets them know if we passed or failed.  If you pass, then the KDHE  assigns you a test date and place and sends this information to our instructor.  If you need to reschedule the exam, you can contact KDHE and reschedule it through them.  Once I received my letter, about three weeks after the class, I had to print it out and bring it with me along with my social security card  and drivers license to the testing site, which was an hour away.

The day of exam:
My exam was schedule to begin at 1:45 pm.  I made sure I had directions to the testing site, my letter to test, and my required ID.  Once I arrived at the testing site I had to pay my $20 to take the exam.  I handed the lady my letter to test and she handed me a receipt.  I thought it was weird that she kept my letter, but thought that was the procedure.  I then went to the classroom where the exam was being proctored.  There was another lady checking everyone in and I gave her my receipt and my ID's.  She then asked me "Where is your Letter?" I looked at her a little confused and said "They kept my letter when I paid."  She then told me I needed the letter so she could cross it off her checklist, so I had to go back to where I paid for my exam and get a stupid piece of paper that said I could take this exam.  My first thought was, "Who the hell is going to pay $20 to take a test they do not have "permission" to take and won't get a certificate for because KDHE won't have their name on the record?" Plus, my name was on the list obviously showing that I did indeed have "permission" to take the exam.  I was a little pissed if you couldn't already tell.  Moral of this story - make sure you have ALL the required documentation and make sure you print out at least 5 copies of your letter to test! That is all.

ANYWAY,  once I showed her my letter and ID's I sat down to take my exam.  The ladies were all very friendly, but OMG!  How many times do they have to explain that we need to log into a website to see if we passe or failed and that we will not know "today"?  I'm jumping ahead here, but the ladies passed out a piece of paper that had the information as to where to log in to check our status, and WHEN to check it.  Granted, we do have to wait 3-4 weeks before we will know if we pass or not, which is a little ridiculous considering the exam is graded via scan tron. Seriously? I had to wait this long to find my MCAT score, but that was because they had to read THOUSANDS of essays. (That's government for you, right?)  The ladies were not sure if we would get anything in the mail, like our certificate or a letter stating we passed, because KDHE was changing the way they do things - going electronic and all.  They repeated the information a couple of times and a few people had questions related to this so we covered it THOROUGHLY.  Then two minutes before the test began, two more people came in to take the exam and then the door was shut.  The proctor then slowly handed out our exam and answer sheets and started to go over how to fill it out, when one of the late people asked, "When do we find out if we passed?" There was a collective sigh in the room as the lady explained it all again, and then showed her the piece of paper the information was listed.  Then the late comer had that gal to say, "oh, I was really hoping to find out today, but I guess I have to be patient," which prompted the proctor to start over with her explanation of when and where to go to find out the results.  *this is the moment I began banging my head against the wall, and I'm pretty sure I heard a few more thumps behind me.*  THE HORSE IS DEAD PEOPLE!!!

Finally, after going through EVERYTHING more than once, we took the exam.  The exam is 100 multiple choice questions and the time limit is two hours.  I finished in under an hour, and I even went back through the questions and my answers twice.  There were a few questions that I felt had some poor answer choices, but the test was very doable. While we were testing, the proctor went over to someone behind me and said, "oh, no! you have to use this pencil for the exam!" She handed out #2 pencils to all the testers when we checked in believing that any pencil we had with us would not work.  Her pencils were the only magic pencils the scan tron reader would recognize.  *rolls eyes*  (ok, ok, she was a lady in her 70's, so I will give her a little break.)  The test taker said, "no, it's ok.  I'm fine."  The proctor kept trying to insist, but the tester was adamant that her non magical pencil would be ok, and the proctor gave up.  I was trying not to laugh.  When I handed in my booklet, answer sheet and magic pencil, I was free to leave and I think I left a smoke trail to my car.  I could not get out of there fast enough. 

So, that is about it regarding the exam.  I hope you have a better testing experience than I did, but at least I got a good story out of it. 

Weekend Ramblings

This weekend was very relaxing and quiet.   Brad and I went to Chili’s on Friday to celebrate our six year anniversary.  Six years!!  I really can’t believe we have been together that long already!  We talked about that first night we went to dinner together and how crazy it is that we ended up being married. If anyone would have told my 13 year old self that I would be married to my dream crush, I would have taken it as a sick joke.  After being together six years, four years married, I still feel the need to pinch myself.   I told Brad this today and his response was "That's self abuse!  You can be committed for that. Funny guy.  

We reminisced the past years over hot wings, a steak and a couple of beers while watching the opening ceremony for the Olympic Games, and then we went home to watch a movie and soon after went to bed.  We lead exciting lives I tell ya!   Saturday and Sunday were pretty uneventful as well.  We ran over to GameStop and bought a few games, then ran back home to play them.  :o)  It was the first weekend Brad has been home in about a month.  He has been working a lot of Saturdays to help save up for the new house, so having him home was really nice.

Ready to Submit

Well, I think I am ready to submit my application for PA school. EEK!  I am a little nervous about this even though I KNOW I have a pretty good chance of NOT getting in this year, (does that even make sense?!) but I think it is because I am really hoping to get an interview.  I mean, I think my stats are competitive enough, even without the patient experience, to at least get me that far.  I have had my app ready for about a week now, but I am still hesitant to click on the submit button. Don't worry, I will be submitting it this weekend.  :o)

I will be taking my state exam for the nursing aid certification next Wed., August 1.  I need to take some time this weekend and next week and brush up on everything.  The material is pretty common sense, but there are a few things that are needed to commit to memory, such as normal blood pressure and temperature ranges. I am not too worried about it, but it would be terribly embarrassing to fail!

I am still searching for a part time job.  I have found a couple, but I am not sure if I want to work in Wichita or Hutchinson.  It all depends on the days and times I would work.  If I work on the weekend, Hutch would be ideal, but if I were to work at night during the week, I would stay in Wichita.  I have noticed that a lot of the jobs I am looking at seem to be "as needed", which may not work very well with my schedule so I am hesitant to apply for them.  I'm really not looking forward to a second job with school and all, but the extra cash will be nice.  :o) 

Last week I took the opportunity to sit in on a PA anatomy class and it was frickin' awesome!  I know, I know, I really need to get a life. :p But I really loved my undergrad anatomy class, so sitting in on an advanced class was pretty cool for me. They were going over the vascular system in abdominal area and I kept thinking, "man, there is so much we did not cover!" I really liked the professor and the way she lectured.  She was very clear on what information was important and she wasn't boring to listen to, which was refreshing. I'm sure I'll feel differently once I'm actually IN the class, but for now it just makes me want to get into the program that much more.

Compliment

With the deadline for my CASPA application approaching, I have been working and reworking my personal statement.  I wasn't sure what to think of it, so I asked our very brilliant and talented proposal writer to review it and I was pleasantly surprised at her comments:

"I read it quickly, but I’m quite certain it is better written than 90 percent of the statements the school will receive!

   You have a very warm and persuasive style that seems to speak from the heart. I did not find it repetitive.  Your detailed explanation of the first-hand experiences you had shadowing other professionals was very impressive.

   Your intro also is good: to the point, compelling and thoughtful.  I really don’t have any substantial changes to suggest. If you have addressed the areas they ask you to address, and it is the proper length, I think it’s in good shape."

I think having someone read and critique something so personal can make one feel very vulnerable.  It is very humbling to ask someone to critique such a personal document, and to have such nice compliments really puts my mind at ease.  I have heard on more than one occasion that I write really well, but I feel that my writing is still a little juvenile.  I struggle the most with grammar and punctuation, which happen to be the two areas we hardly covered in school due to our English teacher leaving and problems finding a decent substitute.  I also have a tendency to write the way I speak, which isn't exactly what you call sophisticated.  :o)     I do enjoy writing and at one point I even wanted to become a writer.  Throughout high school I would write quite a bit and even started a few chapters of a book, but once I graduated I stopped pretty much stopped.  Who knows, maybe one of these days I'll get back into it.