*Insert Preferred Deity Here*: I know we go through this every day but please give me the knowledge as to why I actually wanted to go to nursing school. Lord, give me the strength to make it through those boring three hour lectures without falling asleep. Lord, please give me the patience to make it through twelve hour clinicals with instructors that can’t just give you the right answer and on the same note, give the nurses the ability to remember what it was like to be a student and give use just a little more respect. Lord, give me the endurance to read all the assigned readings and be able to remember it when I am taking a test with four right answers. Lord, give my family and friends the ability to realize that I really am on the edge of insanity. Finally Lord, give me the vision to see that one day I will be a real nurse and I will never have to wear this ugly uniform again.

i don’t know that i was this sad this often when patrick and i split. maybe i did later, when we had gotten along so well and he wouldn’t talk about it. i certainly cried myself to sleep after i moved to austin. my situation is different now, of course. honestly, i feel abandoned. i am struggling day by day to stay above water and my closest support gave up on me. i’d like to think of things i could ask my friends to do to help me, but i don’t know what that is. they can’t spoon with me as i try to go to sleep. they can’t go over my flash cards with me before bed, cause they sleep at their house. if andreas couldn’t do it, he should give up. reality is reality. but it still makes me feel abandoned. like i was too much trouble. i tried really hard not to be trouble. i kept so many fears to myself. or at least i tried. maybe that was my mistake. i am guessing that patrick found me too emotional (i shared everything about how i felt) and andreas found me not emotional enough (i didn’t share enough about how i felt). i think my behavior with andreas was a response to my experience with patrick. not sure what i will do next time. perhaps third times a charm and i will find somewhere in the middle. or maybe i am completely off base and andreas found me too emotional as well. whatever. i just feel lonely tonight.

and i don’t mean the food-stuff. lately i have been getting a lot of auto-replies from mailer-demons that say i tried to send a message titled “it’s so nice to write to u” (or something to that effect), which i obviously didn’t. so, why does that happen? why is some spambot using MY email address? is there something i can do to stop/reduce that? i don’t want heathershair to get a bad name.

today made me sad. school is frustrating and i wish i had a shoulder to lean on. someone to nap with. i did decorations shopping for KS. that cheered me up a bit. i think deep in my brain it doesn’t realize this one isn’t going to be the same. i did find out that i am a story told to all new party city employees. i am that girl who rented a helium tank and took it home in a miata, roof down, seat belt on. they were happy to hear i have a mini now. though they thought the fact is wasn’t a convertible was going to be a problem. we will see on march 12th.

my brain hurts from studying. it is all a blur at this point. i took the afternoon and evening off because i just couldn’t focus anymore. went to perry’s steak house with my friend fred. he was feeling he wanted to enjoy finer dining again and most of his friends are couples. i was a practice date too. since it had been a while. thing is, i don’t know if i was suppose to give him feedback or not. since we have been friends for a while (and went on a couple of dates years ago) it is sort of hard to be sure. i mean, he knows me. so is this how he would be on a first date? i had a good time and the food was amazing. we talked about designing and building things. tattoos. getting hit by cars. nursing. his job at txdot. a nice evening.

have you heard about the georgia representative that wants to create a new legal classification for pregnancy termination – a new legal classification for pregnancy termination – “Prenatal Murder,”:
“HB 1 creates ‘Prenatal murder’ means the intentional removal of a fetus from a woman with an intention other than to produce a live birth or to remove a dead fetus; provided, however, that if a physician makes a medically justified effort to save the lives of both the mother and the fetus and the fetus does not survive, such action shall not be prenatal murder. Such term does not include a naturally occurring expulsion of a fetus known medically as a ‘spontaneous abortion’ and popularly as a ‘miscarriage’ so long as there is no human involvement whatsoever in the causation of such event. C) The act of prenatal murder is contrary to the health and well-being of the citizens of this state and to the state itself and is illegal in this state in all instances. D) Any person committing prenatal murder in this state shall be guilty of a felony and, upon conviction, shall be punished as provided in subsection d: of Code Section 16-5-1. The license of any physician indicted for an alleged violation of this Code section shall be suspended until resolution of the matter. The license of any physician convicted of a violation of this Code section shall be permanently revoked. The provisions of this Code section shall be in addition to any other provisions relating to the killing of a fetus or any other person.”

this is the same guy who wanted to change rape laws to refer to rape victims as “accusers” until after conviction. do we call them murder “accusers” until the murderer is convicted? ANYHOW…there is an email campaign going out to this loser which i got in on…

Dear Rep. Franklin,

Though I live in the state of Texas, I applaud your efforts to support the rights of zygote citizens of Georgia by criminalizing miscarriages and investigating every instance of fetal death as a potential crime. The Georgia State Assembly knows that life begins at the moment of conception, and a fertilized egg death is a human death – a death that we should all grieve, and of course investigate to the fullest extent until we find the responsible party and bring them to justice (the death penalty, which your bill prescribes as the punishment for killing a pre-born Georgia citizen, is definitely appropriate here). I could not agree more, and I would like to help.

As I am sure you know, more than 50% of fertilized eggs – US citizens! – naturally do not implant, and are flushed out of the body during menstruation. I am personally concerned that my own murdering woman-body may have flushed out some human beings, and I may have flushed them down the toilet without knowing that I was disposing of citizens in such an undignified way. This must be remedied. I would like to be sure that I am not killing any more citizens – and that if I am, they are able to receive a proper funeral and not a burial at sea, and that the appropriate authorities can dedicate valuable time and resources to investigating their deaths.

To that end, I am preserving all of my tampons, as well as all of my pads, feminine hygiene products and soiled panties from my current and future menstrual cycles, so that the appropriate state/federal officials can come collect them as evidence when your recently submitted bill is adopted by my fine state and the union as a whole. I would also be happy to ship the specimens off at your office, should you want to hold them for future admission as evidence.

Please let me know if I should ship these items. Or, since I appreciate that you are a very busy man, please let me know when the authorities will be by my home to collect them, as my next cycle is rapidly approaching and they are starting to smell. I cannot keep them in my refrigerator for much longer.

Thanks for all the work you do to further the pro-life cause.

Sincerely,

Heather A Owens – Citizen of Texas and the US of A.

perhaps i should have used sarcasm HTML tags?

this is the email i got back from Bobby Franklin in Georgia:

From: Franklin, Bobby
Subject: Out of Office AutoReply: Reproductive rights
Date: February 26, 2011 10:34:00 AM CST
To: heather a. owens

Due to the unreliability of the General Assembly’s technical support team, it is unlikely that I will receive your email. Please call my office at 404-656-0152.

he is just an all around jerk, eh?

i got a 92 on my legal/ethical exam and 100% on assignment #3. that was nice. mind you, a 92 is a B in nursing school. but having that big of a margin from an F feels good. as i spent a number of years in the legal field, i have been frustrated with my experience in the class so far. i spent from 12:30 until 21:30 yesterday at bennu studying for my electrolyte and acid-base exam. still pretty frustrated with that topic. i get the two topics separately, but ask me something like “you client comes in dehydrated from 2-days of vomiting. do they have a) metabolic acidosis, b) respiratory acidosis, c) metabolic alkalosis or d) respiratory alkalosis?” uh, i don’t know. ask dr house! you give me lab numbers, and i can tell you in negative time. ironically, i find the topic of electrolytes and acid-base balance really interesting. randomly, i have been noticing that i find the blood related topics pretty fascinating.

so my friend frederic called me last weekend. he started the conversation as a lot of people do “how’s it going?” my reply was “crappy, i failed a test, my cat ran-away and andreas broke up with me yesterday”. his reply, “damn, i am sorry. i was calling to see if you wanted to hang out tonight, but after a week like that, it hardly seems like you would.” truth was, i would really have liked to. distraction would have been awesome. but i was already in belton. i suggested later in the week. he explained that he is looking at getting back into dating so he needs to practice and wanted to go to dinner/be social. i thought that was pretty awesome and was delighted to be his practice subject. he is taking me to a swanky steak house downtown tomorrow night!

i was thinking about how things worked out between myself and both patrick and andreas. i am just really struck by how in both cases, when i finally had some hope for the relationship, they both were done. is that me? is that a guy thing? the relationships were both very different. patrick and i were together 16 years. andreas and i 3. not to say that 3 years isn’t a long time, but patrick and i were frustrated a lot longer than andreas and i were. not that i am saying you should be frustrated for at least X number of years before giving up. i can’t truthfully say i think there should be a time minimum of struggle. people are different about how much struggle they can take. patrick and i got together young, andreas and i were a bit more mature. regardless, this perspective difference between myself and both patrick and andreas is worrying. one of my best qualities is that i am very loyal. i stick with people, i don’t give up on them. that doesn’t mean i baby them or don’t express my differing of opinion. i don’t actually think you are a very good friend if you just blindly support a friend. loyalty is being there during good and bad. but is this a loyalty difference? (not that patrick and andreas aren’t loyal, i just take it to a higher level than most people…which may be good but may be bad). anyhow, i am thinking of going back to see my therapist a couple times to discuss this perspective difference. is it that i hold on longer? is it that i see something differently? and if i do, why is that? is what i see a reasonable facsimile of reality? in the case of patrick, i don’t have any corroborating opinion. it was just he and i. with andreas, i have some corroborating opinion i don’t feel it is appropriate to discuss here. is this just a difference between men and women? i am not saying their being done when they were was “bad”. sure it hurts, but when you are done, you are done. then again, why the difference? i think understanding the difference might help me in future relationships. all relationships go through rocky times. i think our relationship was really hard for andreas in the last 6-months. so is that the difference? should that be what i worry about? what i should try to address during future rocky times with future partners? 2-data points are, well, just 2-data points. but it covers a lot of years in my life. i want to try and figure this one out. i’d really like to not feel this way again.

2011-02-23
good news: today, i got my approval for the high risk insurance pool. the fat lady hasn’t EXACTLY sung, as i still need to set-up my payments through the IRS AND i have no idea whether my Drs are on the plan or not (you couldn’t look that up during application since this is a last resort program anyway). but at least i know i have insurance in case something catastrophic happens. also, something REALLY good happened to my best friend. i don’t want to go into details, but it was seriously awesome. she also got to see “camper van beethoven” last weekend. and they played “take the skinheads bowling” even. lastly, i asked paul from “an engineer’s guide to cats” out via FB (though he lives in wichita). i figured, what the heck. though it felt weird asking a vaguely famous person, maybe they don’t get asked out that much, cause people think they get asked out too much. turns out he just started dating someone, but he was impressed with my “attitude. nothing ventured, nothing gained”. he didn’t mention my cats names though. i find my cats names impressive. it was a fun thing to do, at least.

bad things: i got totally lost during the acid-base lecture today. she even confused me on electrolytes a bit. i thought i had conquered those. it is too bad that the lecture went as it did, being that i felt so good after yesterday’s simulation. another bad thing is how next week is going to suck. i have to do my nutritional assignment, my lab values write-up and pass meeds in clinical. i also have a test in decision making (electrolytes and acid-base), plus a test in legal/ethical. crazy stuff. i am going to study my brains out this weekend for the two tests so i can focus on my clinical paperwork on monday/tuesday.

i guess another good thing that happened was some of my classmates gave me a “cheer you up” card today. they had heard about all the things that went wrong last week. i am not my perky self. being i am usually a very perky person, people tend to notice when i am blue. so my clinical buddies bought me a card. it felt sort of weird as i don’t really know some of them. like they got the card passed to them so they had a write something. but all the comments were really nice. so it felt good. nursing students are generally pretty awesome.

i think i cried in my sleep last night. my eyes were puffy and very soggy this morning when i woke up. i was exhausted too. which was a bummer after such a great start to yesterday (went to bed at 9 on sunday, totally work up awake monday morning). here’s to being so tired tonight i drop dead asleep.

we did a simulation at school. our client had 2 days of vomiting and diarrhea before being admitted through the ER. i can’t really say more because a classmate might read my blog and it would spoil the sim for them. suffice to say, i was pleased with my performance and so was the instructor. she was really nice and encouraging. she said i was very methodical about my work and that would serve me well in nursing. that made me SO happy. it was nice to hear that something about my personality would be a benefit to my future career. and that a teacher was routing for us. certain someone is so negative all the time. while smiling even. i felt good about what i did too. ok, i spent more time with the chart than one normally would, but i was prepared and i didn’t forget anything critical. i can do this and i am going to be good at it (assuming i can pass the tests required to graduate…strangely, i am NOT worried about the NCLEX).

i am finally getting electrolytes. the pieces are coming together and having meaning. if i understand how the system works, i don’t need to know all the details. i can logic it out. i realized last night that physiology is my topic, anatomy not so much. it is way easier for me to remember bones and crevices when i know the logic of how they work, not the other way around.

one of my classmates, she is only 19, asked me today how i grew to be so self-confident. 2 reasons i said. one, i told her it was because i spent a lot of time alone as a child because i was “weird”. i didn’t relate to my peers and said strange things i shouldn’t. i pointed things out that, at that age, should not have been pointed out. i did this because i was forced to be a little adult because of my home life. being the weirdo meant you spent a lot of time playing alone so you had to get comfortable with yourself. two, i explained that my mother liked to embarrass my brother and i as much as possible. you get good at dealing with it in that case. also, i explain,d that when i know in my heart that whatever it is i did or said was the right thing, i am not overly bothered by people when they disagree. i don’t need to convince people. i try and work things out with people, if there is a disagreement or misunderstanding, but if they don’t like what i did, but i feel right about it, i don’t let it bother me that much. not worrying about what others think (while not disregarding them), helps to give one confidence. she admitted that she is a people pleaser. she can’t defend herself. i said “you can’t possibly please everyone, so be true to yourself”. i was honored she asked me the question. i found it sort of amusing too. i mean, she obviously hadn’t read my blog from last night. didn’t show a lot of self-confidence, did it? i still believe in me. i mean, i did say i was awesome, and i believe it. but, it would be unreasonable of me to suggest it doesn’t take two to tango. i am not perfect, i just believed we were on the way to better.

i am going to go home now and make cinnamon rolls for the guy who scraped my car window for me week before last. he was a life saver.

Mo got wait-listed to the Michigan MFA writing program! They have a 2% acceptance rate. She beat SO many people! Way to go Mo!