Jennifer Vitti

Yeah we had a snow day… AT 2 PM AFTER ALL MY CLASSES WERE ALREADY OVER! Seriously people… give me a break here.

However, in light of my personal lack of a snow day I was very productive today. I did all my homework except for my physical chemistry homework (which I will promptly do as soon as I finish this post and should only take me half an hour or so) and I was able to do some fun reading and catch up on my shows. Although productivity is sometimes boring… it also makes me feel really great at the end of the day.

Samm is coming to visit on Friday. I am really excited! We are going to the 106 Day Dance at the Hilton Friday night and hopefully Chowderfest Saturday during the day. This is also a 2-week early celebration of our FOUR YEAR ANNIVERSARY! Four years… wow =) It’s been an AMAZING four years. And I can wait for more… <3

*sigh* I can’t wait for January to be over. Then it’s February which is a nice short month… followed by March (yes I know you all know the order of the months but bear with me), where the weather FINALLY starts to get a little nicer (p.s. I am not looking forward to digging my car out on Friday… good thing Samm will be here to help me–THANKS BABY!) and I will have officially heard from ALL of my graduate schools and be making plans for the next part of my life whether it is nurse practitioner school or plans to buff up my resume so I can apply again in a year, next comes April–another nice month and everyone can finally start to breathe a sigh of relief with classes all done, followed by (the best month ever) MAY–where I turn 22 and I graduate!!! I can’t believe it. There will be lots of activities during the summer as well, but we’ll get to those in later posts. Right now I need to focus on getting through my last semester of undergrad.

~love always~

Jen

I did NOT get into Boston College Master’s Entry Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Program. Am I surprised? No I suppose not. Was it still a let down to get a rejection first? Hell yes. Okay they take 32 people, 5 on the waitlist and it’s number 26 in the country for a Direct Entry program and in the top 10 for pediatrics. I am still in the process of completing my pre-requisites, so that wasn’t going for me and I did get a C in organic. Again… I’m not surprised. However, it has shot my confidence level down quite a bit (not that it was super high to begin with) and I’m starting to get REALLY nervous for MGH and Northeastern…both which are still good programs (although slightly easier than BC… they are in the top 100 schools for the program, but have bigger class sizes and aren’t in the top 40 list). So I’m resending my transcripts tomorrow to show MGH and Northeastern that I got an A in anatomy last semester and I definitely am finishing up my pre-reqs this semester. I hope it gets there in time and I hope I get in to just one. If not… CNA here I come. It’s not what I want to do forever, but it will get me prepared and it is a paid position. And then I try again. I hope it doesn’t come down to that, but I need to be prepared.

Changing the subject… I watched another Italian movie tonight: Ladri di biciclette directed by Vittorio De Sica. It was good (and I heard the kid, Bruno, wasn’t even an actor… he was so good!), but I’m not sure how I feel about all this “neorealism”. The last movie ended with a sad scene. This movie ended with barely an ending at all (nor was it even remotely happy). I mean I guess that is reality hence what this whole “movement” was all about, but STILL… films are also about being pleasing to the audience… and we want to get away from reality and have a happy ending! Don’t get me wrong it was an enjoyable movie… I just don’t know if I am going to be able to stand a whole semester of them (especially if I keep getting rejections myself…someone needs to be happy here!).

~love always~

Jen

Today I watched the film, in which my post is titled, directed by Roberto Rossellini. The film is from 1946 and I assumed that I wouldn’t like it. I’m a snob like that. I am not a big fan of black and white movies, I can’t stand the voices of the actors and actresses from back then, and I don’t like the fuzzy pictures. But I loved this movie. I laughed, I cried. I enjoyed the characters and the black and whiteness, fuzzy picture, and voices did not take away from the movie. I thought it was great! I especially liked the character, Pina,  and also her son Marcello…they were very talented. This movie was filmed on a very low budget with some people who weren’t even actors! Amazing!

I’m paranoid about my car. Ever since last year when I left it in my boyfriend’s school parking lot for the weekend and the battery died because the interior lights were and neither of us remember turning them on I have become extremely paranoid and feel the need to check all the time even though I never touch those lights. I’ll check tomorrow morning and then I’ll feel better. The only good thing about it happening up at his school was that then I had to drive four hours back to Skidmore and my battery got fully charged. If it dies here and I’m not heading up to see him or back home then I could be in trouble… STRESSFUL!

I’m already ready for my first week of classes to be over. I’m tired!

~love always~

Jen

I finally made it to Skidmore. I did go yesterday after the snow slowed down around 2 PM. And low and behold the roads were FINE! Well…that is until I got into Saratoga Springs and Skidmore’s campus. I was sliding all over the place and I eventually dropped my friend off near her dorm, but not right at the door like I normally would because my car couldn’t make it up a hill! But I unpacked and got here safe, so I guess that is what really counts.

Today was my first full day here, although classes don’t start until tomorrow. However, my day didn’t go quite as planned. I first picked up my textbooks, one which contained literally HALF of a CD…interesting Skidmore. Then I got my mail, which included a big bill from a doctor’s office, which should have been covered by my insurance… that will be fun to deal with tomorrow. And then I went to WalMart to do some grocery shopping and deposit a check from my work and I forgot the check back in my room. So I guess I’m still working out the kinks–not quite in a routine yet.

As I said tomorrow is my first day of classes. I start off with statistics and I also have anatomy and physiology II and italian cinema. I usually enjoy the first week of classes though, so it should be alright.

~love always~

Jen

I was all ready to drive back up to Skidmore today. In fact I’m STILL READY! But it had to snow…and I of course happen to be in the one tiny region that is more likely to get 6-9 inches vs. the rest of MA that is only getting 3-6! I have stuff to do. And I just want to go back and get it over with! So instead right now  I’m sitting at my computer in my pjs, surfing the internet, blogging, and writing in my nursing forums (which by the way I love and will talk about in a sec) when I should be driving up to Skidmore, unpacking, running errands, and visiting with old friends. GRRR! I’m still hoping though that it will slow down (especially because if it keeps up like this we’re gonna have WELL over 9”) and the roads will get treated in time for me to execute my new plan of leaving between 1 and 2 PM. If it gets too much later than that though I’m going to have to leave tomorrow and that just will not be very good for my schedule.

Anyway so on to happier things. I just joined this forum the other day: http://allnurses.com And I’m in love with it! Everyone there is so nice and I have found some of my potential future classmates in there and I even posted my first thread today a few minutes ago and already 3 people have replied. I posted about one of my biggest concerns going into the field: looking too young. I asked if anyone had any experience with this and how they handled it/if it was a problem/were they taken seriously. I am 21, but I look like I’m 15-16 and people always say I’ll appreciate it when I’m older, but if it affects my career then no I will not appreciate it EVER. However, I have gotten some good responses… people were saying that it happens quite a lot (especially when you can become an RN right out of college ya know? not to mention the people who like me just look young in general–well actually I guess I have both going against me…I look super young and I am on the younger side of the field), but when they corrected people saying I’m such and such age or showing the patients their badge and saying I am a licensed RN or whatever their professional title was, the people were pretty respectful of their training. See my biggest fear is that people will know that I’m a nurse or an NP, but because of how young I look they won’t want me. *sigh* I guess we’ll see, but I’m hopeful with the positive responses I’ve gotten so far =)

~love always~

Jen

p.s. HOPE THAT I MAKE IT TO SARATOGA TODAY!

Hi everyone,

Welcome to my first blog entry! This site was set up for me by my lovely boyfriend, Samm (Thanks Baybee!) so that I can tell you about my life… how vain of me!! But I promise to be entertaining. So feel free to read entries and leave me comments!

So first introductions. I am a 21-year old senior, Biochem major and Italian minor, at Skidmore College and am starting my last semester of college this Tuesday. It’s surreal. In just 4 short months I will be graduating from college!! Then comes the real world. My plans after graduation are to go straight into graduate school to become a pediatric nurse practitioner. I am wicked excited about my future plans and can’t wait to get to that part of my life. Now just one more semester…well and acceptance letters…stand in my way! I could hear from graduate schools as early as beginning next week. So yay for all of you who get to experience those ups and downs (hopefully mostly ups!!) with me as I get those letters. I applied to Northeastern, Mass General Hospital Institute for Health Professions, and Boston College. These are all direct entry programs and therefore I don’t need to have my RN license or a Bachelor’s in nursing. I will become an RN in about a year-to-a-year and a half into the programs (depending on which one I go to). My top choice right now is MGH, but I’d be ECSTATIC if I got accepted into any of them and would be very happy at all of them. Over the coming weeks and months I’m sure a lot of posts will be about Grad school, just because I’m so excited for it and it’s a huge step in my life. I know it’s going to be tough–I’ve never heard anyone say direct entry MSN programs are easy–but I still can’t wait. I know this is what I want to do with my life.

So yes I’m heading back to Skidmore tomorrow and we have Monday off for Martin Luther King Day and then classes start on Tuesday. I’m not thrilled to be going back (you can tell from my previous paragraph that I’m kinda ready to move on), but I’m ready for it to be over. Not to mention this semester is not going to be fun. I am taking SEVEN classes…that’s like unheard of. I am taking Statistics, Anatomy and Physiology II, Physical Chemistry II, Senior Seminar, Peer Health Educator, Italian Cinema, and Italian Language and Literature Discussion, for a whopping total of 18 credits. CRAZYYY!!! I also work for the Art History Department (I’ve never taken an Art History class in my life, the job is courtesy of my lovely old roommate Jack Quellin) 6 hours a week, babysitting once a month, and after spring break I will also be shadowing a pediatric np in Glens Falls. So this semester will be busy busy busy, but I’m up for the challenge.

Anyway…I’ll end the first post there! I’m hoping to be able to make a post a few times a week even if it’s sometimes a little shorter than this first one.

~love always~

Jen