Jennifer Vitti

Today is my little sister’s 19th birthday! We’re all going out to dinner later, but I just wanted to wish her a happy birthday on my blog as well!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SARA! Hope it is a great one! LOVE YOU!

Nothing else new really. Tomorrow is my last day of housesitting for a few weeks. This is definitely a relief as I am starting to become extremely bored. Also I received my tuition bill finally and it was lower than I expected because they discounted my $500 deposit. Yay! So now I’m not as COMPLETELY broke as I thought I was going to be.

~love always~

Jen

P.S. 18 days until orientation!!

Wow it’s getting so close, yet at the same time I feel like I’ve been counting down FOREVER. August 18th still seems far away even though the month of August is already starting on Saturday! It will be here before I know it. I’m just impatient and the nursing stuff is moving slow. I’m still waiting for my tuition bill. I just want to get it out of the way. I finished my first round of math hw. Chapter 4 was just making sure that you know all the abbreviations for grams and micrograms and liters, etc. I knew a lot of those from chemistry, so it wasn’t bad. I will go over the math again a few days before classes starts just because I’m obsessive like that.

I plan on putting a few more free apps on my iPod Touch. I haven’t looked yet, but the apps that were required didn’t take up very much space at all, so I’m going to get a few fun apps and maybe add some of my pictures and music too. Not a ton because I still want it to be primarily for school, but it will be good to kill time in the library with, which I know I’ll be living there for the next three years!

I am still housesitting. Housesitting until August 1st (Saturday) and then I have a break for a few weeks, but my August is starting to get booked up too. I’m in high demand To keep myself from being totally bored I have been doing that math hw, watching some movies (Million Dollar Baby, P.S. I Love You, Philadelphia, Slumdog Millionaire, A League of Their Own, Sleepless in Seattle–A lot of Tom Hanks Movies apparently. Just some movies that I never got to see and really wanted to. I’ve been pretty happy with my choices), and working on my Italian. I was an Italian minor in college and received the Dante Award when I graduated, which is awarded to a senior Italian major every year. It was a great honor as I take a lot of pride in my Italian speaking/writing skills. But I tend to lose it if I don’t use it, so I’m chugging through Rosetta Stone starting from the basics and working my way up to strengthen the easy stuff and work on some of the things I never really mastered. It’s going well I love other languages. I hope to also take a Spanish for the Medical Professions course that Regis offers as an elective sometime while I’m there too since that will definitely be very useful.

Enough about my boring life–hopefully some nursing stuff will come in the mail for me soon!

~love always~

Jen

Today I had an appointment with the nurse practitioner. I am not going to get into all my medical mumbo jumbo right now, although I might in the future play a game of Mystery Diagnosis with you guys if I actually get an answer (and so far the nurse practitioner is closest…and she might have figured it out!!). But I would just like to share that the nurse practitioner I saw today graduated from Regis too! She was super nice and obviously competent, and she is doing pediatrics too, which is what I want to do (yes I’m 22 and I still am a pediatric case only because my primary care physician loves me too much and wants to hold on to me for one more physical in January–it’s a bit embarrassing when I walk into the waiting room, but at least I look young so most people probably think I’m a teenager). She said that she loved Regis too! She did the same program that I am going to do. She also said it was a lot of work and you basically give your life away for these three years, but I already know that to some extent (I won’t get the full picture until I’m actually in it). But it was cool to see her working at somewhere where I could potentially want to work when I graduate. Very exciting

Other nursing news:

-I did another chapter of the book I mentioned in my previous post. This one was dealing with fractions: relative values, reducing, multiplying, dividing, and equations involving them. Again not too hard, although this one I did make a few mistakes when I was checking my answers because I hadn’t read the problem all the way through. Like I would do the calculation, but then the problem would actually say that the amount calculated needed to be given to Patient X twice a day, but I wouldn’t multiply my answer by 2 to get the correct answer. I have to be really careful about that. I’m hoping it is just because I’m tired and I will be more alert the first week of school when we have our exam. I am planning to go over the last chapter I need to tomorrow: Chapter 4: Units of Measure.

I am done housesitting tomorrow morning for this job. Yay! The dogs are really sweet, but I’m getting tired. Both unfortunately and fortunately I am only home for one night before I start another housesitting job for a week–until August 1st (unfortunately because I’m tired and I’d rather be home, fortunately because it means more money, which we all know I desperately need).

Tomorrow we’re celebrating my mom’s birthday (even though it’s really on Saturday). Should be fun!

~love always~

Jen

 So I have started doing my summer “homework”–going through the first four chapters of this lovely book, Math for Clinical Practice, shown to the left (ignore the cute table cloth–I am housesitting and they have little kids). That is also my new basic calculator since all I had was a graphing one. Overall the homework is easy as expected. I have done the first two chapters which consisted of relative values, adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing decimals. The problems themselves are easy and the math is easy, but interestingly what has been getting me is the nursing/medical way of writing the answers. It took me a minute to figure out that mcg was micrograms instead of using the symbol mu, which I don’t know how to type into my blog. And there is no significant figures! So if the answer comes out to be 3.0 mg with sig figs it is just 3 mg in nursing terms. In chemistry (my first undergrad major) it was all about the sig figs. Almost never did we see whole numbers without .0 behind them. It is taking a bit to untrain myself haha. But that’s good. It is making me think more about what I’m doing instead of mindlessly going through the math. Tomorrow I plan to do Chapter 3, which is fractions and Friday I’ll do Chapter 4, which is Units of Measure. And then that’s all my homework, since I already did the math review worksheet a while ago. I will obviously review again before school starts in September just to make sure I’m doing it the way the school wants me to do it, that I’m not making any stupid mistakes, and that I do have that nursing way of writing numbers down. I’m just bored and all alone at my housesitting job, so why not get it out of the way.

I have been playing with the nursing apps I just put on my iPod Touch a few days ago. I love them! LOVE LOVE LOVE THEM! They’re so much fun. When I am outside with the dogs I’m taking care of I just bring it with me and I sit and read about different drugs and diseases and what medical words mean, etc etc. I calculated my BMI, a pretend APGAR score, and some other fun things. I sound wicked nerdy right now, but I’m just so excited for all this stuff! There is so much on there that I have no clue what it is, so I’m excited to learn about that too. I would say I’m pretty computer competent (not proficient just competent) thanks to my IT major boyfriend, but have never gotten too into electronics, so I was not sure how I would like my PDA. But surprisingly I’m just so in love <3 I can’t wait to get to use it in clinicals!!

Added a new link to the “Nurse/Nursing Student Blogs I Love to Read” List. Undergradrn is awesome!! I caught up in her life over the past weekend/this week. Check her out!

I also added pics from my vacation–specifically the zoo. Scroll down to check them out!

That’s all for now–nothing else new with me: still housesitting, still dog walking. Doctor’s appointment tomorrow (with a nurse practitioner yay!) and dentist appointment Friday oh how fun (sarcasm).

~love always~

Jen

p.s. 27 days until Orientation!! LESS THAN FOUR WEEKS!

Sorry it’s been a couple days! I have been busy busy, but also pretty productive. I have been working a lot, dog walking and housesitting, so that keeps me occupied and also pretty tired. For Christmas I had gotten my dad a tour at the local winery to do when the weather got nice. I also bought him a bottle of blueberry merlot when I was there. Well now that it’s the middle of July we decided to take Sunday and go do the tour, also with my mom, and my sister (who isn’t 21 yet) tagged along. It was a special tour as they were doing 4 dessert wines + 4 dessert samplings and then we could pick any 2 extra wine tastings after the tour. Unfortunately when we got there they had already run out of desserts from earlier tours–bummer! But we still went on the tour since that wasn’t the main reason we came anyway (although my sister was pretty upset about it). We tasted plum wine, dessert wine, raspberry wine, and peach wine on the tour and then I used one of my samplings to taste a strawberry wine. They were all delicious. I like a good dry wine, but I also like a sweet wine too. My favorite was the dessert wine followed by plum and peach right behind. It was a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon. We also received free complimentary wine glasses which was nice. I saved the rest of the tasting tickets we didn’t use…maybe Samm and I will go visit in a month or so. I might even buy a bottle of that dessert wine if I have any money!

Nursing School News:

-Requested for my summer transcript to be submitted to the Graduate Admissions Office. That means that all my pre-requisites are officially completed and submitted!

-Bought the software that I need for my PDA, which includes Davis’s Drug Guide, Taber’s Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary, Nurse’s Pocket Guide, and Nurse’s Manual of Laboratory and Diagnostic Tests. I also received Archimedes 360 calculator and an International Classification of Diseases for FREE! Love Skyscape! I have not played around with them too much although I’m already a big fan of the free version of Archimedes that came with Skyscape. You can easily calculate things like BMI, APGAR score, and a bunch of other things that I don’t know what they are, and it walks you through what to enter in to calculate. Very helpful! I plan to play around with the other products later though. I’ll be sure to give you a review and in a few months let you know how they work in clinicals!

~love always~

Jen

p.s. 29 days until orientation!! Less than a month–crazy!

I am in a great mood today. I am just getting off of my amazing vacation with my boyfriend and although I was sad to go it still puts me in a good mood. Work was pretty uneventful (that’s a GREAT thing) and it didn’t rain today like the weather people said it was going to! I also got organized (always puts me in a good mood) with all the little things I needed to catch up on now that my vacation is over. Life is good today Simple, but good! Sometimes that’s all I need! I don’t need anything super special to happen just life to go on pleasantly. It’s a good feeling. Hopefully it lasts!

Nursing School Stuff:

-Called Health Services to make sure all my forms are in: CHECK! My doctor’s office is notorious for sending stuff to the wrong place or not at all. And that’s not even my experiences they told me to call the school and check a couple weeks after I handed in the form. I wanted to say “umm can you just make sure you send it then?” but they did so we’re all set with that.

-Received an email saying I will be getting a bill in the mail in the next few days and if I don’t get it to make sure I contact someone about it. Just when I thought my bank account was looking pretty good…ah oh well!

I hope all your days are going peacefully!

~love always~

Jen

So I didn’t have time to post while I was on vacation. Samm and I had a blast though! We saw some movies, went to the zoo (I’ve been dying to go to the zoo haha), took a day trip up to Lake Ontario (only about 1/2 hour away from his school) and went to the beach, we hung out with his friends, did some cooking, shopping, dancing, and just had a really good time. I’m bummed to be back. Samm and I have been in a long distance relationship for a very long time. Even when we’re both home in MA we’re almost an hour away from each other. So we both are understandably very eager to have this distanced shortened (right now we’re SIX HOURS apart–ugh!). Probably another year. I get to see him in about a month though when he comes home to visit before his fall semester starts.

UPDATE: PICS POSTED

I have like 60+ pics just from the zoo. I wasn’t going to post them all here, but I posted a few of my favorites.

White Bengal Tiger–Our first exhibit!

Penguins! Coming out to say hello!

Samm being silly and cuddling up with the polar bears. I think they like him…

Monkey staring me down!

Other animals we saw: wallabies, leopards, meercats, jaguars, hyenas, wolves, vulchers, other birds, orangutans, different types of primates, rhinos, elephants, baboons, and much much more. It was a lot of fun!

Nothing too new on the nursing school front. I purchased the book Math for Clinical Practice that I need to go over the first 4 chapters to before school starts. It shouldn’t be too bad. Those chapters are decimals, fractions, and units of measure. So it really shouldn’t be too bad. I also received my CPR certification card in the mail. I will probably send a copy of that out to the nursing department at the end of the week.

Nothing too exciting…but I’ll keep you updated!!

~love always~

Jen

p.s 34 days until orientation! <–new countdown

I’m so excited!! I’m going to Rochester tomorrow to spend 9 days with Samm (my boyfriend of almost 4 1/2 years)! I haven’t seen him in a month so I’m sure you all understand I miss him like CRAZY! I am driving 6 hours (leaving at 10 AM) to get from Concord, MA to Rochester, NY. I got a 10 hour book on CD from the library for the car ride there and back though which should help a little bit. I am not a huge fan of driving. I just get really cramped up and there are too many idiots on the road. I’m going to try to only stop once in the middle around 1PM (for gas, bathroom, and lunch) that way I can make it there for 4-4:30PM. We have a couple things planned for my stay–we’re going to the zoo, the beach, shopping, parties, and a picnic. One or more of these may be combined on the same days and we’ll have to decide if anything else comes up. I am so looking forward to this!! This is my only vacation this summer and I’m definitely ready for it and ready to spend some quality time with Samm.

Samm is still taking a few classes this summer, so I may try and blog while he’s doing homework, but if not you’ll definitely hear from me when I return!

<3 Samm and Me <3

(I think we took this with a web cam–but it’s still a cute pic!) 

~love always~

Jen

I bought the iPod Touch today (just the 8GB one…which should be all I need) and I really like it so far! Background information: I was required to buy a PDA for clinicals for Regis along with about $200 worth of applications (bleah, but apparently necessary). They recently mailed us out the information. For the most part we had our pick of PDAs it just had to be compatible with Skyscape (medical tool application) which is where I buy all the applications I need. However, it was recommended that if we don’t already have a PDA (I didn’t) that we could get the iPod Touch. This seemed like the best option for me since it was on the lower end for PDAs in pricing and I have a cell phone right now which I am really happy with and therefore getting an iPhone or a Blackberry wasn’t an ideal option. My sister also already has an iPod Touch that she uses just as an MP3 Player and for fun and I felt comfortable using hers whereas I don’t know too much about some of the other PDAs out there. I have not done too much with it yet though, so I will be sure to do another review once clinicals start, which is where I will really be using it. I did put Skyscape on it since that is a Free application. I have not put the four other applications I need on it yet though (Davis’s Drug Guide for Nurses, Taber’s Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary, Nurse’s Pocket Guide: Diagnoses, Prioritized Interventions, and Rationales, and Nurse’s Manual of Laboratory and Diagnostic Tests) because those cost money and I believe I get a year subscription to them, so I want to wait a few more weeks until I am closer to the start of school. Although I am anxious to play!! Also once I put those 4 necessary apps on it I will see how much room I have left to see if I want to put any more fun/free apps on there or if I want to put music, pictures, etc. It all depends on space. I have another iPod (it’s actually the mini which they don’t make anymore–that’s how old it is), which is still hanging in there great! So unless that one dies I am not too too anxious to fill this one up with music and such. Right now it’s pretty professional, but we’ll see.

Do any of you have the iPod Touch? How is it in clinicals? Have you run into any problems? Do you use a differnet PDA and how do you like that? Leave me some feedback! I’m curious!

~love always~

Jen

p.s. 2 days until I leave for vacation to see Samm!!

Posting 2 days in a row?! UNHEARD OF! No I am trying to be a better blogger. Plus now that I have more time on my hands I have no excuse. Today is 4th of July…half way through “summer”. I have mostly been relaxing today. Went and sunbathed outside for a while (yes there is still sun today!) with the dogs I’m taking care of, caught up on some reading that I have wanted to do, and basically have been taking it easy. I do have to leave to go do a couple of dog walks in a few minutes, but it’s only for a couple hours then I’m back for a while and then out for a few night walks. Not bad and since it’s a holiday I make extra! Sweet!

I did my math homework (well the part that came in the mail with the package from Regis anyway–I still need to review chapter 1-4 in the book that I ordered, but it hasn’t come in yet). It was only 20 problems of really basic review. It also had the answers attached. I did the problems without looking though and then checked my answers after (got 100! yay me!). I have a feeling that I am going to get to actual nursing school (not just this pre-req/summer hw stuff) and get my butt whooped though! I’ve heard it’s so hard. I’m definitely going to try my hardest and I have a pretty good work ethic, but still…I doubt those 100′s are going to be on my test papers for long, so better love them while I can! Even though it is probably going to be really hard though I am still excited and I am thrilled to finally be studying something that matters to me. You really get into trouble when you take a class that is really hard and the subject does not really apply to you (physical chemistry this past year for me–I already knew I was going to NP school and pchem was not a pre-req, but was required for my undergrad major. I tried hard, but my heart just wasn’t in it–and hence a low final grade. It wasn’t the teacher either–she was awesome. Pchem was just not my subject!). So despite the scary things I hear about nursing school I CAN’T WAIT!!

Hope everyone is having a fabulous fourth–enjoy the sun, bbq, and fireworks!!

~love always~

Jen