2 Day School-a-thon

I don't know whose idea it was to put me in 9.5 hours of lecture every Monday (8:30-6pm) and then 8.5 hours of clinical the next morning (6:30am-3pm). I am dyingggg over here!

This week I literally did over 36-hours of school, straight! As soon as we got out of lecture, I had to go home and write a journal about my clinical experience so far and create a rough care plan for my patient the next morning. I scrambled to make dinner and leftovers for the next days lunch and got just about 5.5 hours of sleep before my LONG day. Because we're assigned so many group projects this semester, (and of course they're all due around the same time), I had to get started on one of them. Tuesday afternoon was really the only day my partner and I had that was compatible because we aren't in the same clinical, so I worked on that until after 7 and got home by 8pm. 

8:00am Monday morning until 8:00pm Tuesday night. Wednesday is my school hangover day...even though I have NO TIME for that!! I have a night nutrition class on Thursday and an evening Psychiatric clinical rotation on Friday evenings. Unfortunately this make most of my study time on my weekend time :(

But for now, my life is like this:

AND this:

but mostly this:

I can't wait for my preciously sweet 2 weeks break of summer starting May 13th!! D;

Downtown San Diego

Thanks to my friend, Jayce, and his DJ expanding, this semester I've been able to escape away from the tortures of school by going downtown with my friends on random days I have off. If he weren't able to get me to these places for free and carpool with me, I definitely wouldn't be able to afford it. So I'm taking advantage of the opportunity while I can! :)

It's nice having an excuse to see all my friend in between my non-stop studying sessions!

Mardi Gras Tuesday

Gina, Lindsey and me at the Hard Rock 

End of the week trip to Mike's BBQ! 

Iron Mountain

Dalton and I have been on a hiking kick this year. I miss my climbing friends from high school because we went to such cool and beautiful places. Although we may not be climbing, hiking and boulder scrambling is half way there! Unfortunately, I can't remember ALL the places I used to go in high school, but I've been searching.

A couple weekends ago, we decided to try another place in Poway, Iron Mountain.

tree tunnel!

bubble gum rocks!

rocks, rocks everywhere!

I've seen more than my fair share of different kinds of rocks in my climbing days. This place has the most beautiful rocks I've ever seen! Must be the iron in the mountain ;)

view from a boulder half way up

I called this the fist rock, haha

View from the top! Best part (and best motivation) for a hike! The shiny white area in the middle of the roads is where our car is! Helloooo down there!

We did it!!

22nd Birthday

Once again, my family and friends have outdone it for my birthday! Haha, I felt like my birthday was lasting forever!! 3 birthday dinners, and a birthday vacation to Vegas with my friends! That was quite a week! I dunno how we fit it all in!

The weekend before my birthday, my mom and Kevin took Nicky, Dalton and me to this new fresh kitchen in La Costa for lunch (as of now, Dalton and I are addicted) for my first birthday dinner. I LOVE this place! My mom discovered it about a month ago because of their gluten-free menu. It makes me so happy seeing restaurants with fresh food made with good ingredients, no preservatives, no unnecessary grossness added to lower of the quality of food. Good quality food tastes GOOD! Makes sense, huh?!

The next night, my Dad and Melissa took my brother, Dalton and me to Casa de Bandini (which is also another place that has a huge gluten-free menu). Before this place was here, it was called the Yellow Coyote Tortilla Factory, which was delicious, quality Mexican food...doesn't seem like much has change! And I like it! :)

Knowing my parents, they just HAD to do something clever for my birthday present. After seeing this picture on Instagram of me stealing some toilet paper from the community pool to fill the roll in the apartment:

They decided to make a box of tissues with the money for my birthday folded inside the tissues! Haha definitely was not expecting that!

 When I woke up on the morning of my birthday, I found my car nicely decorated by McKenzie and her mom. Haha they did a good job. And they were lucky that was I was early that morning! It took me way longer than expected to unravel my car. Although, if I were late for lecture, I probably would have just driven down the street...decorations and all

Lucky for me, my birthday fell on the day that I have my nursing lectures from 9am-6pm. I HATE MONDAYS! It is soooo hard to sit in the same classroom all day long listening to endless lectures. Some of my friends from my cohort were sweet enough to bring me flowers and gluten free cookies to help get me through the 9 hours of pain. Love my cohort! Hate nursing school ;)

After a LONG day at school, the Kuhns took me and some friends out to Benihana for dinner! We had the kookiest chef, haha I had no idea what he was doing the whole time. But, we like it crazy anyway ;)

 

By the way, I've been waiting for this day for YEARS! Marty McFly chose my 22nd birthday to go back to the future. Haha, too bad I didn't run into him ;)

At the end of the week, I had my first rotation at my psych clinical in San Diego. Although we were excited to get our orientation to the hospital (even though that never happened) I was anxious to get out of there because all my other friends were headed up to Vegas for my birthday bash! Clinical was suppose to go until 9pm, but thankfully we got out closer to 5pm and Dalton and I were able to get up there earlier than we thought!

After a LONG week of school, we were Vegas bound!! 

Gotta love Sprout's when it comes to road trip food. Gluten-free sandwich from the Sprout's deli and organic lollipops :)

This time we stayed at the Luxor. It's always the best price to stay on the strip and near all the action. 

Seeing how I don't go to Vegas clubs or bars, the main attraction is the people watching. Definitely plenty of interesting (and stupid) people to watch here. My first find: this man DEAD asleep on a bench.

The next day, we wandered the strip and went to the mall in Caesar's palace. We decided to go to dinner at Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville Restaurant. While we were waiting for a table, Dalton walked me across the casino to show me where the bathroom was. When I came out of the bathroom, I find this face holding up a $650 voucher! He spun the slots 3 times and got this! LUCKY BOY!! Haha and of course, later that  night, he won over $100 more :) 

My nacho queens :)

22 birthday balloon hat

After a great weekend, and a long drive home back to homework and studying, we made some chicken and rice soup before a trip to the sauna to kick back into study mode. I've had a semi-addiction with cooking soup recently. It's so much better taking the time to make it yourself! Less salt and nonsense...more delicious and flavor ;)

Last Day of Winter Break: Beach Celebration

The last day of winter break is always so painful :/ Especially when I've been warned that the second semester of nursing school is the hardest and most evil. Maybe they're trying to weed out the week in the early stages? Either way, I've spent too much time and money in school to get kicked out or delayed any longer! So this semester is definitely going to be...interesting.

No better way to start the worst semester with doing one of my favorite things! Beach! Just being at the beach is enough therapy for me. But friends, football, sand sculptures and sunsets with some jacuzzi time after it gets colds sounds even better to me ;)

Snowboarding in Big Bear

I made a very bad decision to take a winter class...Latin American Politics Through Film, to be exact. I was trying to catch up on my Spanish major while they actually offered an upper division Spanish class over the winter. Very rare!! Haha I guess I didn't realize how burnt out I was until I started ANOTHER two week class during my beautiful 5 week (much needed) break after my introduction to nursing school :(

SO, after I finished that class, I celebrated with a trip up to Big Bear for snowboarding. I didn't get to go last year because I was so busy with school and work and really couldn't afford it. So this year, even though I can't afford it even more, I forced myself to make it happen!

It was a perrrrfect day for snowboarding. And it even snowed the day before, putting a finishing touch on the mountain. We even waited in an hour long line to get past chains check. And OF COURSE we didn't even need them! There was NO SNOW on the road!! I think we passed by maybe 2 small patches of snow in the road that were probably the size of my two feet together, haha. Thanks mountain cops...

 After 6 years of riding on my board (that I got for a huuuge discount) the sale-quality is starting to show itself and my board is breaking apart :( Sad day...at least it wasn't the main strap that broke so I could at least attempt to make a few more runs down the mountain, haha

 What used to be a shiny white Suburban, haha

 After it got too dark, windy, and FUHREEZING to stay on the mountain, we went down the road to the MOST DELICIOUS Mexican place I've ever been too. I used to come here all the time when I visited the mountain in high school, and I have no idea how I forgot about it. When I was up here in the fall to go fishing, I remembered about it when I was driving by and rediscovered its wonders!

Grant got a FIVE pound wet burrito. Haha that thing was nearly as big as he was!

This picture doesn't make them look appetizing, but I've never had fajitas more delicious ever in my life!! I'm seriously addicted. Why does Big Bear have to be over 100 miles away!! I will seriously make a trip back up here soon just to visit Esperanza's. MMMMM!!! :D