So, this is New York, eh?

My first week in New York has been good. I had nothing to do except having to go to the hospital to get health paperworks done--an x-ray and blood draw while we were at it--and I was done. After that day I sat in the apartment thinking oookkaaay, what do I do now? I am not used to having all of this free time on my hands (see a few posts below), and it's like, I have no purpose in life, someone, help me! And let it be said that with free time comes spending money. A lot of money. 'Tis no good.... Need. to. stop. shopping. now.

So living arrangement wise, I'm getting used to it and liking it more and more each day. I live outside of Manhattan with a roommate, who has very kindly welcomed me into her cool apartment in a building with no elevator (*sighs*), who has two cats who are adorable and fluffy and cuddly and can be very weird a lot of times. I've lived with a roommate before, back when I went to Baylor University for a short while, but I've known said roommate before (we're good friends from high school). This time, it's a completely unknown person to me, a friend of an acquaintance, who I've only heard good things about. So this is something new--along with a lot of other new things I have to adapt to, but it's working out well. The roomie is super nice, and I like nice people, yes, I do.

Orientation for the internship starts bright and early on Monday at 8 am. Heh. 8 am is way to early for my brain to function, we'll see how that goes.... I'm getting anxious, wondering if I remember what they taught us in school. All kind of things are running through my head now that orientation is a few days away and actual work (on the Peds floor) is a week away. Do I remember how to take vitals manually? What are the baseline for pediatrics? Do I remember how to assess and know what to look for? Do I remember how to start IV? Draw blood? Give injections? Hang IV's? Holy crap, I am going to make a fool of myself aplenty! They're going to ship me back to Texas!!!

Wish me luck, I have a feeling this is going to be a very interesting 10 weeks. Very interesting....

I already don't like the taxi drivers....

I have arrived in New York City, where I'm doing this summer externship. I arrived safe and sound, with no missing suitcases. I have to say, you gotta love on time flights and speeding pilots. I arrived 30 minutes ahead of schedule, yeah!

So I took the taxi to my friend's apartment because she doesn't have a car and we figure, well, her place is close to the airport anyway (10-15 minutes), hence, it wouldn't be much a problem. However, it became a problem when the taxi driver had no clue where he was going. As a result, what was supposed to be a 12-15 dollars ride ended up to be a 25 dollars ride. Thankfully, I had exactly 29 dollars in my wallet, to which I gave all to him. I still had no idea if I gave him too much or too little tip. If I'm going by how much I tip at restaurants, which is 20%, the tip should be 5 dollars. But then again, I'm on the pissy side because we got lost and the fare was double what it should be, so I was like oh well, buddy, you kinda deserve less than a dollar. But then again I felt bad because I had two suitcases he had to put in and out of the trunk. And it's not like I had a choice on how much to give, because 29 is all I had.

How much do you tip taxi drivers anyway? What's the rule of thumb? What happened if the driver got you lost?

I'm sticking to the subway for the remainder of my time here.

And so it begins.

My duty as a maid of honor....


That is me reading those Dummies for Maid of Honor/Bridemaids, while my bestfriend--the Bride to be--browse floral and cakes for the wedding. I offer either a "nay", "yay", "eh", "meh", "heh", "blah", or "wow" when asked, and edit the written part of their wedding website amongst other things.

Um, now what?

A quote courtesy of my friend's--F--facebook status: "What?! No Studying?! I don't even know what to do with myself!!!"

She couldn't be more right, because come on, the words "free time" don't exist much in the nursing students' vocabulary. So now that the do exist, it's like um, okay...really? Seriously? You mean, we can do whatever we want now?

My bestfriend asked me, as we went around to look for some of her wedding stuffs after I'm done with the short semester class (which is a walk in the park compared to the real semester btw), "Are you sure it's okay if we go to Borders to look at bridal magazines?" To which I answered, "Yea, it's alright. I have no homeworks. Omg, did I really just say that? I have no homework?!"

It feels VERY WEIRD that I can--for everyday of this week--go out with my bestfriend to finally fulfill my maid of honor duty and have scheduled lunch, dinner, and happy hour with a bunch of friends (Look, friends! Outside school friends! Who still remember me, yay!) before I leave for the internship. I am not complaining about the abundance of free time, but it doesn't erase the fact that it does feels strange--other wordly even--to go from being busy and chased by due dates to not having to worry about school.

For almost everyday of last week, I had to truly convince myself that no, I didn't have any deadline missed and yes, I really do have this much free time, because I felt like I was supposed to be doing some kind of school works when in reality, the only time we had to study in this elective class was for the midterm last Friday and the final this Friday. Oh, and I scored a 99 on the midterm, it was that easy.

I have time to read, I have time to exercise, I have time to pack, I have time to have lunches and dinners with friends without checking my watch thinking I have to get home soon to study or write papers, I have time to chat online with my friends, I have time to talk to my parents on the phone for more than 30 minutes, I have time to take a nap, I have time to change my car's oil on time along with getting it washed, I have time to do laundry before I realize I've run out of clean underwear, I have time to go on dessert runs.

I.finally.have.the.freaking.time.to do normal things and it is Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! Like, wow, I'm not calling what I'm doing procrastinating because well, there is nothing I'm procrastinating on--okay, I lie, maybe I am on procrastinating on this one thing called packing. Mostly, I call what I'm doing these days...vegging. Awesome!

Okay, enough of me blogging about being jaw-droppingly shocked having free time. I'm just being a dork.

Packing.

Have I mentioned how much I hate packing? Because I do. Really do. Despise it with passion. And don't even mention unpacking, that is a whole other level of hatred.

But packing I must because I'm leaving for NYC in two weeks. It is more overwhelming than I thought it would be, I don't even know where to begin. Or maybe I'm just saying to cover the fact that I am truly afraid of packing for this move, because then it will be real that I am leaving--albeit for only a summer, and there is always something about leaving for an extended period of time--no matter to where--that scares the crap out of me. Or maybe it 's scary because I am leaving to work instead of just a summer vacation, I am actually being paid for my skills, the skills that are beyond serving food to costumers or putting books on the shelves or teaching math. However, it is a good scary methinks, the kind that is mixed with excitement and anticipation, the kind that is challenging and pushes me out of my comfort zone.

The plan is to bring one huge suitcase and a medium one, the huge one for clothes and the medium one for other things such as shoes and nursing stuffs (textbook(s) for reference, stethoscope, scrubs, and what have you). I figure I'd be in scrubs most of the time anyway, so I don't need to bring that many clothes. Plus, it is inevitable that a girl in NYC will shop. I mean, duh....

Now, I just wish I can have this packing done like in one of those cartoons where inanimate objects come alive, line themselves neatly, and jump into the suitcases one by one with impeccable organization while I sing a happy packing song in an overly cheerful voice. Oh, and help by the animal kingdom is also appreciated, but only little birdies and squirrels are welcomed though, no cockroaches or rats please. And then I happily skip my way to the airport with the suitcases dancing their way too behind me. Ah, how wonderful life would be.... Obviously, I watched too much of those fairy tale Disney movies growing up (Cinderella was my favorite, I have to say).

Anyway, I also found out that I will intern on the pediatrics floor. NICU was my first choice and to be honest, I am slightly disappointed they weren't able to grant me that. Nevertheless, pediatrics would be an amazing place to learn from as well. So I'm excited. And scared. And I still hate packing. And moving. And I hope New York will be nice to me.

Auf wiedersehen, Junior II!!

I can proudly say that I have officially finished (and survived) my second semester of nursing school. HUZZAAH!!! Today is my last final and I am D-O-N-E with Junior II semester. WOOT!!!

I took the OB final and scored an 85 on it, giving me an 86 in the class. I have an 80 in Adult Health, and two A's in the two 2 credit hours classes. I'm still waiting for the final grade in another 2 credit hours class. I'm hoping for an A in that class so I can have 2 B's for the big classes and 3 A's for the small classes.

So relieved and happy to be done. I come back for a short semester on Monday for nursing elective, and leave for the internship right after that. Can't wait!!!

Finals week, day 1

That Adult Health exam just killed me. I felt like I guessed my way through all 100 questions. I'm dead.

Next is OB.

Oy....