i have been to the gym 4 times this week.  having my guilt partner is AWESOME!

went to lunch with billie and sandra today.  it was really nice.  even though i am in class with everyone 4 days a week, it is just class and i am alone at home studying all the rest of the time.  i really start to miss interaction.  it was nice just to chat and connect today.

i am very popular with mid to late 40-year-old men at the coffee shop in belton.  i get chatted up quite a bit.  they are always surprised by my age, which makes me wonder how old they think the girl they are chatting up is.  they are always nice.  often the hold my hand too long when we shake.  and they aren’t my type.  nice, yet odd.

tomorrow is computer training at the VA.  monday is our first clinical day.  i am very nervous because i am slow at making mental connections between diagnosis and intervention.  we only have a couple of hours on mondays, so i worry about figuring things out with enough time to get it done.  i KNOW i will get this with time.  what i don’t know is if i have the time.  i understand why we are pushed so hard, it is only a 2-year program.  it is just, it usually takes me about 6-months on a new job to become independent and quick.  of course, from that point i start kicking ass and taking names, but it doesn’t take me that long.  and i am not sure i have that.  i think i am going to ask one of the teachers to do some tutoring with me on client care plans.  we don’t do them in the real world, but we do use the same thought process.  i need to work at making it second nature.  i want to be a good nurse and do great things.  i just need a little more help, to start, than the structure of our program gives.

we found out that we have a group project the last 8 weeks of school.  instead of giving us a document that listed out the scope, objectives, deliverables and due dates, they just sort of generally said things like “you’ll have to do a flier and there will be a press release.  we’ll tell you more about it as the semester continues.”  ARGH!  we were told to get into our groups and pick a topic.  it was from a list of 10 off the healthy people 2010 list of categories.  things like: cancer, diabetes, nutrition and overweight, respiratory disease, etc.  these are general topics.  they did NOT tell us how we were suppose to focus our work.  just, pick a topic and we’ll have you do a list of things on it which we will let you know as time passes.  ARGH!  my team picked our topic (tuberculosis), choose who would do what, shared emails and phone numbers and briefly talked about areas we should explore.  i went up to the teacher and said, “our team choose a topic, are we allowed to leave?”  she replied, “you should talk more in your team about the project.”  i replied, “i was a project manager at a high tech company before coming to nursing school.  we have determined our topic, distributed action items, agreed on how to communicate and shared information.  the next step is to start doing the actual research.”  her reply? “oh….well, i’ll let you go in 10 minutes.” *head desk*