Defintely not in Texas anymore....

So New York had a heatwave this past weekend and oh how I miss the central AC at my house in Texas. It was so freaking HOT!

Anyway, I had my first 12 hours shift on the floor, and boy was it an eye opener. I can't help but comparing it to the the last hospital where I had my clinical last semester. Perhaps, it's not a fair comparison considering the obvious difference in that my internship is on a Peds floor while the clinical was on an Adult floor, as well as the difference in acuity. Obviously, I can't talk much about these differences due to privacy purposes, so I'm just going to leave it at "It's different."

I've heard about the Peds floor, about how difficult is it for first timer to remember all the baselines for the different ages and to deal with family members on top of the patients. So much can happen in those 12 hours, really. Another new thing that I have to take in is seeing all of those sick children, realizing that, unfortunately, it is real that they are that sick, that they have to go through so much in one day.

And with hailing from Texas and interning in New York comes the inevitable question of "So, are you going to move to New York?", to which I answer "I have a year to think about it." I really do. I love living here in New York, there is that desire to move but of course, there are a lot of other things to be thoroughly considered. We'll see. Stay tune for a year and we'll find out. For now I'm just enjoying the experience while it lasts.

Oh, you know what I saw while walking home from the subway? An ad that says McDonald sells sweet tea! Huzzah!

List.

There is much to be told since the last post, so I'm going to make a list. My brain is a little scattered so this is in no particular order.

1. I've been in orientation all this week from 0800-1630 and next Monday is the last day.

2. Orientation SUCKS.

3. There were lectures of things we've already learned in school such as infection control and pressure ulcer, yadda yadda yadda....

4. It is so boring I had to force myself to drink coffee this morning to keep me awake. Coffee does not make me happy....

5. Oh and we practiced blood draw on fake arms, then they told us we're going to be checked off drawing blood on EACH OTHER.

6. WTH?! I thought we are well past the days of poking fellow students with needles! Heh.

6. Speaking of needles, I've been stuck with needles more time than I would like ever since I arrived in New York: One blood draw from employee service, one blood draw from the check off, and one shot from employee service.

7. Being stuck by needles does not make me happy either.

8. Wednesday has been the most interesting orientation day thus far.

9. I mean, they took us down to the morgue for crying out loud!

10. So of course I saw a dead body being pulled out of the refrigerator and caught a glimpse of an autopsy.

11. Then we went back to the skill lab and drew blood on each other.

12. I thank my new friend J for offering his arm. He is very gentleman-ly like that.

13. J has many a gorgeous vein that I was successful on first try.

14. Also, if you stick a needle in a person and see no flashback in the butterfly, do not--I repeat--DO NOT wiggle the needle trying to get into the person's vein!!!! It hurts, dammit!

15. I received a crash course on Jewish traditions (due to the large population at the hospital), which was interesting because I've never had this situation in Texas.

16. I miss Chick-fill-a and its sweet tea. And chicken fried steak with mash 'tatoes and biscuit.

17. I do not miss my car and driving.

18. I walk a lot here. A LOT.

19. My roommate's cats shed like there is no tomorrow.

20. Hence, the lint roller has become my new bestfriend.

21. I got a laptop. FINALLY.

22. So stay tune for more stories.

Toodles!

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....

A whole new world.

In less than a month, I will leave the great state of Texas to spend the summer in the great state of New York, where I'll be doing my internship. I am excited, nervous, anxious, and scared all mixed into one. It's getting closer and I still find it hard to believe that I've gotten into this program, not to mention that I'm spending 3 months in NYC, one of my favorite places.

I got my tickets and I got a place to live for the summer (with a cool roommate to boot!). Then, my friend Stepha will visit me the weekend before I start orientation, and if last summer's vacation in New York is any indication, we're going to have a blast this year too. Eeeeeppss! I'm so stoked for this summer! It's going to be one heck of an experience, I can hardly wait! I've got 3 finals and a short semester to go before I can leave though, but oh wells, I have greater things to look forward to once I get over those.

Oh and one of my bestfriends is coming for a visit this weekend, yay! She wanted to visit me in New York but she can't due to her busy rotation (she's in PA school) this summer. So she's just
going to visit me now and we're going to try on bridesmaids' dresses for our bestfriend's wedding. FUNNESS!

And yes, I fully realize that am going out the Saturday before finals. But hey, I've been studying this week so it's a much deserved break, and it's not every weekend I get to go out with my girls.
Plus, I would like to come in next week and actually be somewhat sane when I do those exams.

I hope your summer is looking wonderful too!