Jennifer Vitti

I have a nursing kit and I’m not afraid to use it (well at least not in the coming weeks/months). Picked up my last supply pretty much for school. My lab kit came in and although I’m not allowed to open it, it is in a see-through bag, so I can see what is in it. A piece of paper is there that says everything in it too. The kit includes a wound care kit, a respiratory care kit, a urinary care kit, a medication administration kit, and an IV kit—SO COOL!!!! I’m so excited. I was kind of hoping for a blood pressure cuff, but I’m sure I will get one of those later. I can’t wait to start classes and start practicing things (hence the title-friends and family beware haha)!

One of my professors put stuff up on blackboard. It is a little confusing because it is mixed in with last year’s documents as well, but I was able to look at the Fall 09 syllabus among other things. Looks like I may be doing some reading before school even starts–I want to wait a few days to see if the professor cleans blackboard up a bit, but then I’m going to start based on the reading list because it looks like for class 1 there is A LOT of reading. I don’t know if they are expecting us to read ahead or not because I don’t think everyone checks blackboard regularly yet and it didn’t say explicitly if we’re supposed to read BEFORE class or AFTER class, but I’m usually a before class reader because I like to be prepared, so I probably will unless upcoming instructions say otherwise!

I know a lot of people have already started in these past few weeks! I’m so jealous! I hope everyone’s first weeks have been AMAZING! Feel free to let me know how it’s going

~love always~

Jen

p.s. 12 days!!!!!!!!!!!!

*WARNING* Short vent ahead…

Let me preface this by saying that it’s not a bad trait per se, but sometimes I’m just soooo exhausted from trying to be perfect all. the. time. I don’t want to disappoint anyone. ever. And when I do I beat myself up over it a lot longer than I probably should, even when everything has been resolved. I like to think that I learn from my “mistakes”, which is good. However, it’s unrealistic for me to think that I’m never going to do anything wrong ever or that everyone is always going to be 100% pleased with my life choices. Or that I’m not human and I’m never going to make mistakes (big or small) that aren’t going to have consequences (big or small). And I have to deal. I guess that’s it I need to learn how to deal. ESPECIALLY starting nursing school. I am entering unknown territory here and I can’t be getting upset about some little mistake I make in class/clinical and beating myself up for a week that everyone else is already over with by the next day. I have just always felt this sort of pressure to please everyone, including myself. And it’s not really a competitive thing like I applaud people who do better than me in fact they become role models to me or someone I know I can turn to. It’s just something within me. It’s good to strive to be the best you can be, but it’s also good to be realistic. I just felt the need to write that out because I’ve been struggling with it a lot not only lately, but my entire life and if I can’t change 100% I at least want to be aware of it and make baby steps in the right direction.

Thank you for letting me get that off my chest Onto other things…

Nothing too new with nursing school stuff. Our classes opened up on Blackboard today SCHOOL IS GETTING CLOSE THAT MEANS! There wasn’t too much on there, although one of the classes had the syllabus from last year up there, so I was checking it out. I definitely have my work cut out for me, but I’m SO FREAKING EXCITED! I just want to do a little wiggle dance and scream in excitement. Now if only September 8th could get here just a little bit faster…

~love always~

Jen

p.s. 15 days until school starts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am off to work in half an hour, but I thought I would post on how my orientation went!

…it was kind of lame! I was so excited for it so I’m sure I built it up too high in my head, but even if I hadn’t I think it still would’ve been kind of on the lame side. First I picked up my books, which are huge! HUGE! But that part kind of was very exciting. I looked at some of the ones that aren’t in shrinkwrap, but most likely I will not being able to resist looking at the other ones, which means unwrapping them. I don’t plan on selling them back anyway so theoretically it shouldn’t matter. Then I stood in line for a really long time to get my parking pass only to realize that all the people in line were waiting for their photo id, which I already had. Whoops! I saw some people I recognized from the ice cream social back in April, and they recognized me, which was nice. Then we handed in our CORI forms and picked up some info. The info wasn’t really anything terribly exciting: Nursing Program Addenda to the college handbook, and then brochures for things around campus. We sat in the foyer with all the other programs (therefore this portion was not program specific) and listened to all the different services on campus give a 2 minute introduction: campus po, library services, registar, etc etc. That took about 45 minutes and then we had a short break where I went back to the bookstore because one of my two backordered items had come in. Of course the one back ordered item that I really NEED is the one that is still back ordered for another week, which means I will have to take an extra trip to Regis before September 8th…oh well.

Then we finally went to a separate room to talk about our specific program. I people watched for a while as everyone came in–some familiar faces, some not. All very interesting and quite a diverse group which is great! Then we were given a very vague talk about our program. I was hoping maybe to meet some instructors, find out more about what we would be doing, how the program would go, what our first day would be like… not so much. We did find out where the clinical placements would be though (not specifically where I will be, but where I could be placed first semester). I would not mind being at most of them! There was a couple I wasn’t too familiar with and they were kinda far away, but none were more than an hour, so they’d be manageable. And that was it… again I think I built it too much up in my head, but I was just expecting more. It doesn’t really change my excitement for September though, so that’s good!

~love always~

Jen

p.s. NEW COUNTDOWN: 20 days until school starts!!! <—you love it!

I had wisdom teeth surgery yesterday! Pretty minor because all my wisdom teeth were out anyway (or at least partially). I actually have a lot of energy and a good appetite too. My mouth is just sore a bit and I can’t open it very wide or chew very well. The day of the surgery I even was doing well except for the very beginning. I didn’t react very well to the anesthesia apparently (my mom has the same problem), so I vomited twice when I got home, but after the anesthesia wore off I was fine. Samm was the one taking care of me for the day. I was pretty mortified when I was throwing up in front of him, but through sickness and in health right (okay I know we’re not married yet, but we’ve been together 4 1/2 years we basically are)! He was great! Oh and I didn’t need the pain killers at all. It was interesting because I have never been put under general anesthesia before and I was terrified. Everyone said it wasn’t that bad, but I just pictured this horrific experience where I would be fighting the urge to go to sleep and not be able to. But it wasn’t like that at all. So for any of you who are nervous it’s not bad–take this from a girl who was basically in tears beforehand. It was super fast, and I didn’t want to fight it. It felt pretty natural. So not nearly as bad an experience as I had feared all around. I know some people have a harder time with their wisdom teeth, but I was lucky!

Orientation is on Tuesday–THREE DAYS! It’s so soon finally! I can’t wait! A lot of other people who I’ve been talking to on allnurses have been going to their orientations and it sounds very exciting! Especially when we’re all so anxious to finally getting to do what we want to do! NURSING!

~love always~

Jen

I was away this weekend at my cousin’s wedding. It was beautiful! They had it outside and it was perfect weather and everyone looked so nice. I had a lot of fun too Then I visited my friend Sarah from Skidmore. I haven’t seen her since May, so that was a ton of fun. I got a little burnt though. I tried to put sunscreen on myself. Well I missed a huge part of my back and then laid out in the sun for HOURS…whoops. It actually isn’t that bad I’m just a little sore and I am basically only burnt in that spot. However I do have yet another Dr/NP appointment tomorrow and I have a feeling I’m going to be scolded. Then today it was back to the real world of work. Samm is coming home this week though so that gives me something to look forward to. And Friday I’m getting my wisdom teeth out–oh yucky! Def NOT looking forward to that! I’m scared of being put under anesthesia haha I’m such a baby.

Nursing school is getting scarily close. Only 8 yes EIGHT days until orientation. I am buying school supplies (notebooks, pencils, etc) tomorrow and picking up my books on the 18th. Then that should basically be it before the start of school. Less than a month until my first day of classes–it’s crazy my head is spinning. I’m also getting really nervous about how everything works…clinicals? labs? classes? books? studying? are my old techniques going to work or am I going to have to forget everything? It is surreal for sure.

My project I’m starting this week is to paint a bookshelf! We are getting an addition put on our house and we’re re-doing the bathrooms including creating a new master bath.  My parents are moving into the addition which is going out over the garage and my room is being converted into the master bath. So I get to move into my parents’ old bedroom, which is nice and spacy. I have too many books that I don’t read anymore that I want to give to good will, but I also need more space for my nursing books so I’m painting it white outside, bright yellow inside of the shelves. It matches the wallpaper in the room really nicely. And it’ll give me something to do yay!

~love always~

Jen

p.s. just for emphasis EIGHT DAYS UNTIL ORIENTATION!

So as I get ready for school I have started to pick up some suggestions from other nursing students. Some of them I’m going to give a try and some I have no interest in, which I think is fair. For example I will NOT be debinding my books because I think I would just feel too disorganized and I would hate to accidentally bring the wrong section to class or need more than one section. I also will NOT be getting a rolling back-pack. I have heard great things about these, but it is just not for me. I have a very simple over the shoulder backpack, which is fine to get around my little campus. Some things I did learn about that I am trying out and am a big fan: getting a little ID tag for my stethoscope (apparently these go missing quite a bit and no way do I want mine to if I spent $50 on it) and Microsoft OneNote.

Now I have only played around with Microsoft OneNote a little, but so far I am in LOVE with it. I set it all up for school already. First I have a little intro page with some Regis general info and my fall schedule. I also put some cute inspirational quotes on there for me because that’s the type of girl I am Then I set up different Tabs within the Regis Notebook for all my classes: Professional Nursing, Lab, Clinical, Health Assessment, and Clinical Pharmacology. I think I also have a to-do list tab as well. Then within these tabs you can make other tabs for individual assignments and such. I also like that you can click and write anywhere, you can make diagrams, and you can record while you take notes (although I probably won’t be using it for the last thing). My laptop is pretty monsterous and I use it more like a desktop computer, so I doubt I will be taking my laptop to classes (I’m more of a notebook + pencil kinda girl), but it will be great to come home and go over my notes and type them up and get organized within this program. That is how I will plan on using it–see how it works for me. Have any of you ever tried it? If you want to give it a try I think you just need the Microsoft 2007 package. It gives a nice tutorial if you want step-by-step instructions or you can just play with it–pretty easy to figure out as long as you’re familiar with Microsoft in general.  I will let you know how it ends up working for me once my classes start!

~love always~

Jen

p.s. 15 days until orientation!!

Other than being a full time student my other job, as I have mentioned a few times, is dog walking (I also do housesitting on the side). Dog walking sounds like a great job–and it is most of the time. You get to play with animals who LOVE you, you are outside a lot (yay for summer tan!), good exercise, and it pays pretty decent money. However, there are a lot of downsides: cleaning up dog poop (you kinda get used to that though), bugs, tired, smelly, unruly animals, and the weather. Yesterday was one of those bad weather days. It poured!!! And I mean POURED! I had like 6 walks and I was outside in the pouring rain. I keep an umbrella in the car, but I didn’t have any other proper rain gear because a) it wasn’t supposed to rain until the PM, not start at 9 AM and b) I’m housesitting so I don’t have everything I usually have. I was soaked by the end of the day. Which of course put me in a cranky mood–I was tired, cranky, frustrated, annoyed, PMS-y, lonely, and WET (which really probably caused/exacerbated all those other moods). Even the poor dogs didn’t want to be outside. When I took them out they would look up at me and be like “You’ve got to be kidding me? You’re taking me out…in this?!” Bleah. Luckily I lifted my mood in time for my sister’s birthday celebration. We went out to dinner with my parents and then came back for cupcakes and presents We’re celebrating again with my grandparents and my brother (who was on vacation) on Sunday.

Nursing News (can’t wait until this is the main talk almost every entry instead of at the bottom!):

-Book list came out. OMG SO EXPENSIVE! I could’ve added “and totally broke” to my bad list of feelings yesterday. I bought them all today though. My classes aren’t changing, so why waste time and not get the cheapest ones I can before they sell out. Luckily a lot of these were not books they were nursing kits, so my guess is those things will not have to buy again. Hopefully every semester will continue to get cheaper and cheaper (crosses fingers). I’ll let you know more about the books when I receive them (around orientation–17 days!).

-Paid tuition bill–really really really broke right now.

~love always~

Jen