IS THIS REAL LIFE????

Okay you guys, this has probably been the craziest three months of my life and I'm not even exaggerating. Here's how it went down:

1. In the second week of may I graduated with my Bachelor's Degree in Nursing! I have wanted to be a nurse for as long as I can remember, and when I was in junior high (around age 13) I developed a full academic plan so I could be a nurse, and then I stuck to it and guess what? I'M A NURSE!

2. After I graduated and partied it up a little bit with friends and family I started studying for the biggest test of my whole life: the NCLEX (aka the nursing licensure exam). I took a week-long prep course and then studied for a month and ended up taking over 1,000 practice questions which pretty much drove me completely crazy. And then in June I took it and I kicked it's butt, and a few days later I had an actual bona-fide nursing license in my hands. That was probably one of the best feelings in the world knowing I had accomplished this goal that has been pretty much a lifetime in the making.

3. Once I had a license in hand it was time to get a job. After applying for about a bagillion jobs and being rejected for all of them, I went to a recruiting fair and ended up being interviewed for a Heart hospital. Let me just state here that working in a Cardiovascular ICU is pretty much my dream job so when I got the call a week later that I got a job in the Cardiovascular PCU (which is a step-down unit from the ICU so it will be the perfect starting point) I was over the moon. Especially since one of my best friends from nursing schools is orienting with me to work in the same system!! We were pretty excited on our first day :)

I feel so blessed and humbled by everything that has happened to bring me to where I am today. I am so excited for this opportunity to really learn how to be a nurse and take care of people in need. I feel like everything in my life has changed and more big changes are coming, and I can't wait!

Senioritis

So I'm going to graduate from college in 25 days!!!!! I'm not entirely sure where the last 4 years of my life went, but clearly they happened because my transcript tells me so. Some weeks when I have a paper to write or something I don't want to do I think school is taking forever, but then I look back and realize that the last few years went by so quickly and I don't feel that different from when I was a freshman just starting out. But on the other hand I feel like I'm a completely different person than I was back then. It's sort of a conundrum. But in any case, I have less than 4 weeks before there's going to be a BSN by my name and I won't have to do a homework assignment ever again unless I want to (aka unless I decide to go back to school...which is likely). Of course this doesn't really mean I'm free because I still have to spend every day from now until June studying for the NCLEX exam so I can get my license, and then I have to try to get a job, but it's nice to know that there's a light at the end of the tunnel, and one day soon I'm going to be an actual bona fide nurse, which is something I've known I was going to be since I was probably six years old. It's just crazy that it's actually happening, and thankfully so far I love it :) 

Day 6: Your views on mainstream music

Ummmmmm love it. Well sometimes. I like a lot of music regardless of it's "mainstream" status, but the fact is when a song is more mainstream you hear it on the radio more and then it gets stuck in your head forever and you learn all the words and then it's your new favorite song. Which I'm fine with, whatever.
But I also like not-mainstream stuff too, I don't even know what qualifies as mainstream, but I'm assuming it's stuff like T-swizzle and whatnot.
Anways, basically I like music. Right now my favorite things to listen to are Carrie Underwood and Death Cab for Cutie, so there you go.

Day 5: Things you want to say to an ex

Ummm I don't have an ex, so I don't really have anything to say to them, because they do not in fact exist. I suppose if I had an ex, it's likely that I wouldn't want to say anything to them at all :)
That is all.
But hey guess what?? I just finished my critical care rotation in nursing school!! Which means I just have one rotation left (aka 2 months) until I am done and I graduate!!!! :)

Day 4: Bullet your whole day

Well my days are all different but here's how my typical Tuesday goes:

• 5:00AM-Alarm goes off at which I whack it as hard as I can repeatedly until I hit the right button to turn it off.
• 5:15-Alarm goes off again, I repeat above step.
• 5:30-Alarm goes off again, I repeat above step but this time I roll out of bed and make a break for the shower as fast as I can because I'm late.
• 5:45-Eat breakfast whilst printing whatever notes or homework I need off the computer.
• 6:00-Make my awesome dad get up absurdly early to drop me off at the light rail.
• 6:20-Get on the light rail and spend 45 minutes people watching
• 7:30-Arrive at class and try to stay awake for four hours of lecture.
• 11:30-Eat lunch
• 12:00-Arrive at second class and try to stay awake for another 3 hours
• 3:00-Go home
• 4:00-Study, do homework
• 7:00 eat dinner, go do more homework
• 11:00-Collapse in exhaustion and get ready to do it again tomorrow.

And that, friends, is why I have no life, because the most exciting part of my day is the life-or-death battle I have with my alarm clock in the morning :) But at least this Tuesday I get to go to my best buddy Celery's BRIDAL SHOWER!! So that will be good. And then on Thursday and Friday I get to shake up my routine and go do 12 hour shifts at the hospital :)

Just for fun, these pins from Pinterest pretty much sum up my life:

See first 3 bullets above

I love scrubs. they are so comfy.

Sorry guys, I know I do this a lot.

hehe

:)

After I graduate I'm going to sleep for a week.

Every test EVER

But it's all good because you get to do awesome stuff like this:

Day 3: A book you love.

I love ALL THE BOOKS! Okay not all of them, but I really love to read. As evidenced by the fact that I have four bookshelves full of books in my room alone and then a kindle full of even more books. So it's a little hard to pick just one that I love, so I'll just go with the one I'm reading right now:

Northanger Abbey!

I watched the Masterpiece movie adaptation of Northanger Abbey a couple of years ago and totally loved it.

And not just because I was a little bit in love with Henry Tilney:

(Hottie!)

But also it's just a cute story and a great movie for when you're in the mood for Austen-y romancisms. So I saw the book in the kindle store and decided to give it a shot since I liked the other Austen books, and so far it's one of my favorites. It's been a long time since I had read something by Jane Austen and I had forgotten how snarky and sarcastic she is. She interjects a lot of notes to the reader in her chapters about character personalities and they crack me up every time. Her works are very insightful in regards to different facets of human nature, and it's funny how people haven't really changed much in the last 200 years or so. I almost always know someone who reminds me of all of the characters in her books, (except Henry Tilney, if I knew someone like him we'd be married by now :).

In any case, I highly recommend it if you're in the mood for a fun read with a cute love story 

and a few laughs. :)

Day 2: Something you feel strongly about

I feel strongly about education. I think that education is so so so important and everyone should have the opportunity to get one. I have been so blessed in my education to be able to go to college to learn how to be what I've wanted to be pretty much my whole life: a nurse! Now that I'm almost done with my Bachelor's degree it's pretty crazy to look back at how far I've come. I remember going kindergarten as a little kid and being so excited to go to school and eat snacks and sing songs and whatnot. And now 16 years later I get to go to school and learn things like what to do if someone starts bleeding all over you. Still exciting but very different :)
So even though I probably whine way too much about homework and teachers, I'm still really excited to be going to school and learning how to do my dream job. Like I said I've been very blessed the whole way through and I'm very grateful for the opportunity :) I think education opens a lot of doors for people and helps you grow a lot and it would be pretty great if the world decided to focus less on fighting over things and more on teaching people.