rest in peace dear, dear frederica

poor, poor, frederica,

not that death is ever timed well, but you couldn't have blown at a worse time.  i just moved to a new city where i still don't know my way around, i'm living on student loans, and i have no time because i'm in the School of Really Really Really Really Hard and Fast.

now i have to spend all my time (maybe not all) replacing you.

i'm sorry i drove over a parking curb and massively punctured your radiator so that it (and the reserve) would drain out in one night.  and i'm sorry i tried to drive you to the ford place to get your puncture fixed, and that your temperature gauge didn't work right and so said that you weren't overheating but you really were and then you blew a head gasket.  and i'm sorry i was really scared because you started smoking like crazy, and the battery light came on (along with a billion others), and the power steering stopped, and the brakes wouldn't push and i was crying.

i'm Really sorry that i had to get you towed (a whopping $70 for half a mile) and that they could only fix you for $6000, which (no offense) is far more than you were even worth when i bought you.

i'm also really sorry that i know nothing about cars, and that i don't have my daddy to help ask all the right questions to the pushy dealers.  (this growing up thing is turning out to be much harder and scarier than it looks.  i just applied for a Very Large Loan without getting help from my mama and it was very scary.)  but i'm learning about financing, and so i hope some dealer will let me trade you in for more than $100 so that you can help lower my monthly payments.  that would be nice.  it would have been nice if you could have figured out whether i can finance a car using my student loans.  as transportation is a big part of getting to school (yesterday i used my two little legs, which is probably for the best, but still).

we had a few good times, i'll admit that.  like when we went to the cabin the day (or maybe day after) i bought (sort of) you.  and like the times driving back from the ski hill where if i went over 30 you would slide all over the road.  and like the time where your window thing was broken so we had to tape the window shut and wedge it up with cardboard.  and like the one time on the way to texas when you got 45 mpg.  that was fun.

i'm now on blown head gasket number 2.  let's hope your coming descendant will be stronger in that department.

i'll miss you a little bit, frederica.  have fun at the scrap shop.

love,
the poor college kid (stilllll...) who may or may not buy a new car (the may not means i'll get a used one)

remember my first nursie-ness?

i can't get enough of this beautiful band

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i finally got a photo of all us fresh new students at our nursie-ness volunteer day.

taaa daaaaaaa!!!!

there were more students from last year's class, but this is the only photo i have seen.

cheerio!

oni the panther/jaguar/bobcat/dog...

as everyone probably already knows, i love these lovely lacey ladies

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oni mostly acts like a cat.  maybe more of a panther or a jaguar or a bobcat.  a wild panther/jaguar/bobcat who never snuggles and attacks your toes in the middle of the night.

but i'm pretty sure she thinks she's a dog.  since the majority of her life as of right now has been spent almost constantly in the company of the eda tornado dog, who is very much a dog.

she likes to go out on the deck, and she can go out there because she can't escape into the wild and wreak (?) havoc on the rest of the world.  the other day she was out on the deck and i was inside probably doing homework or something important.  randomly i looked out at her, and she was digging furiously in mikah's pots, which i am babysitting since they are newly planted.  dirt was flying, and oni was covered.  when i spanked her she just rolled over and tried to play with me.

i had to break the news to mikah, and she told me i should discipline oni more.  i figured that i would not enjoy the hair covered tongue as a result of biting her head (isn't that cat-mom discipline for their babies?). anyways.  oni is continuing to be disciplined via spanks, which she either has no idea are punishment, or simply chooses to ignore that fact.

sadly, this has happened more than once.  today it happened when i was out there with her... and this is what happened:

this is after i cleaned all the dirt up.  luckily she only dug in the one without the new babies

oni hiding after i spanked her and she bit me and i screamed at her

in better news, this is the view from my lounge chair on my deck!

and in other great news, these are just 3 out of the 5 new babies!  i'm not sure if there will be any survivors from the 3rd pot....

stupid tfc day 13

i found this in my history!  some time i will find my little notebook so i can finish my texas fire adventures.  now that i'm in my texas nursing adventures!
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on day 13, yes, still at the fire, no, i can't seem to just finish this adventure, on day 13 i was recovering from realizing that i never get to drive and i never get to use the radio. 
i was also recovering from sunburnt legs that i acquired while napping responsibly by the pool (my legs tricked me because they weren't even the slightest shade darker when i went in.  3 hours later, they were red like crab legs).
i was also recovering from being tricked into going on a date.  some kid (josh or david or matt? who knows?) talked to me when i was at the pool and said that him and a bunch of kids from his crew were going to the rockin rodeo (it's a real bar, boys and girls) and that i should go too.  stupid me:  ok!
when i showed up, josh/david/matt tells me "oh, my crew decided they didn't want to go.  but you and i can still go!  me:  uhhhh...
and that was how i got tricked into a date.

so day 13 began with some day old cold pizza and a chocolate milk.  we got called back to the fire, so i needed a breakfast for a champion. 

note to everyone:  slightly (may be under-exaggerated) burnt legs do not feel very nice inside kevlar/nomex fire pants.

another note to everyone:  slightly (see above) burnt legs do not feel very nice inside hot tubs. 

the hot tub is where tanesha (other fire girl) and i ended up at the end of the day.  while we were there the dozer guys showed up with their lemonades and sweet teas.  phil, who turned out to be jake, asked if i wanted one, and then carded me.  i was trying (and failing) to make jokes about how old should you be to drink lemonade and other ones that were probably worse.  everyone looked at me funny.  i was a lemonade and half a sweet tea in before i realized they were "big kid" drinks.  aka alcohol. 

after the hot tub we went back to the rockin rodeo, the real bar, to go dancing.  none of us knew how to "country dance".  but we pretended like we did.  i think all the girls in their track shorts, tall socks, sparkly tank tops, and skater shoes completely saw through us.

my very first nursie-ness!

today i did my first volunteer nurse-ness.  it was so fun.  a bunch of us helped do health screenings at the texas folklife festival (which is basically full of sweets, and unhealthy food, and jumpy-kiddy games).  we did blood pressures (automatic ones, because it was too loud to do real ones...), cholesterol, glucose, and bmi's.  and i didn't kill anyone while pricking them with the little auto-lancets.  and i maybe made a difference in someone's life, and made them want to eat healthier and try to exercise more!  and i experienced different cultures and lifestyles, and it was all amazing!
and then at the end of the day i ate a baclava sundae!
and all these people who were excited to start eating healthier and exercising more motivated me to keep trying to eat healthy, and keep exercising as much as possible so i can be a Really Great example!!

bad reputation

my latest love, and kind of fitting, i guess, at the moment....
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of course, i should be studying right now, as i have an exam tomorrow.  but i have been griping to everyone i know, and they are sick of this conversation, so now you get it!


last week we had to give presentations in one of our classes.  our topics were already chosen for us, we just had to put them together.  (our group did a skit! about racism....)  part of the group's grade depended on the class asking at least 2 questions.

some of the topics were cultural competency (racism is culturally incompetent), medical errors, and fidelity.

the fidelity group presented under the theme "if you cheat on a test in college you are less likely to report a medical error while working as a nurse," which kind of made my eyes pop a little.  at the end of their presentation, only one person asked a question.  so because i was a "little" irritated by their presentation, but i still wanted to help them out for their grade, i just asked a question.

and i said:  "can anyone here HONESTLY say they have never cheated on an exam?  i have never even played a game of solitaire with the cards without cheating.  does that mean i have less fidelity than someone who has "never" cheated on anything?"

and then i felt the eyes of 82 students and 3 professors (who i later found out were nodding and pointing at themselves when i asked my question).  and i wanted to sink into the floor.

this is the answer i got:  "if i'm in the hospital, i don't want to be treated by someone who cheated their way to being a nurse, because obviously they don't know what they're doing."

because patient care is severely affected by wyoming government.

it just made me so angry because they just sat in front of the class preaching fidelity, but they couldn't even own up to the fact that they cheated on a government exam freshman year (that was me), or bumped a car while parallel parking and didn't report it (that was also me), or kept the miscounted change in the amount of an extra dollar (that was probably also me).

we all cheat.  maybe not always, and maybe about more or less serious matters.  maybe simply in our own heads.  i don't know if i even know a single person who has not cheated at some point or another.

maybe there are a few out there who are genuinely moral people, maybe i know a few and i didn't even realize.  but if cheating on a government exam is an indication of being a horrible nurse who will not own up to her mistakes, then no one should be allowed to be a nurse.

i think we're all doing the best we can.  yes, some people are subconsciously more ok with cheating than others - intentionally copying the person's answers next to them on an exam, versus someone (me) who realized that their notes were sitting beside them, and answered a question with those notes without even needing to; a giant hit and run versus a bump that left no scratches (i checked) and so didn't really warrant reporting; stealing a wallet versus keeping a dollar of accidental change.  but i believe that most people know when to draw the cheating line.  or their guilty conscience does.

anyways.  i'm now the girl with the "i steal meds and won't report my iv mistakes" card on my forehead!
probably only in my own head, because my little argument has been festering in my brain.



on a separate note, i'm at the library, and this is my view at the moment:

no wonder i can't study.  i can't stop looking at the trees!!!