San Luis Obispo

During the end of September, I took a mini break before midterms to go visit my friends up in San Luis Obispo. Some of them have been living up there for 3 years, and I've never had the time to make it up there. It was SO PRETTY up there! I would love to live up there some day, for at least a little while. But it is super expensive! 5 of my friends are all sharing a house and their rent altogehter is close to $4,000/month. I guess housing is really scarce up there, so they can amp the prices as high as they want and people still have to pay.

My dad and Melissa have always talked about how much they love it up in SLO. Haha, they were so excited for me to go up there. They gave me a list of restaurants to go eat at and things to see. Melissa applied to transfer to Cal Poly SLO, and it is one of her top options (just under UC Berkley anyway). She's been working on her GE at Mira Costa, and has finally worked her butt off hard enough to transfer and finish her Literature degree! 

The downside to this is that this means my parents will be selling the house I grew up in! So I have until July to soak up all the "home" I can until it is gone forever!!

Having that little weekend away was really nice for me. This is when nursing school started getting overwhelming and it was perfect timing to have a weekend away with my friends. I missed my SLO friends!! :)

First Semester of Nursing School

My first semester in the nursing program was....absolutely EVIL!!

Looking back, I can hardly believe I survived. But I'm still so grateful and happy I got into the program. I worked my butt off to get into this program (so I can go work my butt off some more)! Luckily, I have some truly amazing people in my program...another relief! I'm happy I will be forced to spend every week with these people for the next 2.5 years. I have the best new nursing family.

I had my last 3 finals yesterday...and it feels SO good to finally be done! I never would have imagined I would be working that hard in school! 

I AM SO TIRED!

At least my grades are looking okay, so far. I know I've passed the 72% minimum requirement on everything, so I won't get kicked out yet.  I think I may have managed mostly As and a few Bs! I was so terrified I would be getting my first C ever...haha I know it sounds pathetic, but that's what got me into this program in the first place, so I would really like to at least keep those standards up

This is basically the sum of my semester:

an unnecessary amount of notecards 

weird tactics to keep me going through the NON-STOP studying 

study guides...

more study guides...

Pretty much endless study guides. I really had to get creative because there literally are not enough hours in the day (even if I didn't sleep) to do all the readings, assignments and studying that was given to me. So I really had to buckle down and figure out the most productive way I study. 

Turns out, in order to remember all this info, i must draw it out. Pictures, charts, and written notes. I can't just look through thousands of slides and expect it to stick (like some of the few, and extremely lucky, study geniuses in my cohort)

 I also had to change study locations all the time! I get too distracted in environments I am familiar with. Haha and it sucks because I'm usually sprawled out all over the place...oh well, taking time to switch up locations was always a good distraction for a break ;)

 I would study at my brother's rock climbing gym...and I would be itching to climb! Good thing I couldn't give in to that because I couldn't afford to pay for the membership after quitting work for my 17 unit load :/

Alone at random restaurants with WiFi 

 I would always try to use the iPad my mom gave me because it's SO much easier to lug around and seems so much easier to use for quick reference. But in the end every time I would always end up needing a real computer

One of my favorite place to study...in class! Haha, we have all our nursing lecture classes on Mondays. This semester is was from 8am-4pm with an hour break at lunch! That's a long time to listen to my professors (mostly) read of the slides. I really wasn't that impressed with our lecture professors this semester. We had one good one who did more than just read slides to use and explained things better. The other two kinda sucked, but one was extremely fair on her tests and assignments, so I can't really complain. 

The only place I think I learned something of any real quality was in clinical (mine was Friday 7am-5pm) and we would have to go in the day before for pre-clincial where we do research through the patient charts and build a care plan for the patient we chose for that week.

One of the most unexpected assignments I had...draw out the auscultation sites for the heart and lungs on the front and back of a T-shirt (that's where to listen, in a certain order, and what to listen for).

And then I had to do a presentation on the cranial nerves...haha it's days like these that I missed my Anatomy & Physiology class. 

On top of my nursing classes....I took two extra. I guess I've decided on having a second major in Spanish. If I take at least one Spanish class per semester, I should be able to graduate in both. Haha but can you tell where it goes on my lists of priorities? Thankfully, our Spanish program at school is really tiny and all the professors love nursing students! :D

Lots of days with crazy hair and almost always sweats... 

My favorite part of the semester was the clinical days. It was always an extremely long day. Half of the day was spent at the nursing home (apparently that's the easiest place to get started) and then the rest of the day we would come back to the lab to practice skills and assessments.

I got really lucky with finding a nice little group to study with and think like I do. Haha it's funny how all 40 of us really have become a family

I don't even remember how it started, but our cohort motto has become a quote from a YouTube video... "Ain't nobody got time for that!" And it's true! We don't!!!!

I found a shirt made from the video quote...it just gets funnier and funnier every time

If you think I'm weird, take a look ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaAd8OuwwPk

This was the clinical group I shared 3 days of the week with. And I had so much fun with them! My professor was really amazing. She was perfect for our first semester for warming up to the nursing field and program in general. Next semester we change groups and I will really miss getting to work with them!

I know it seems silly and stupid, but this is my life for the next 6 semesters (including summer).  I do get breaks every now and then. This 5 weeks we get for winter break will be amazing...and I'm going to do as much relaxing as possible! I wont get another break longer than 7 days until next winter!

Havasu River Trip

After the first week of classes (which were INTENSE!) we already had a 3 day weekend! Whewf! And I was definitely ready! Every year on Labor Day, a group of us all go up to Havasu for a weekend river trip! I LOVE our yearly river trip because everyone always definitely takes the time off of work or other schedules to go and we can all spend a good and fun weekend together with no school and no work stopping us :) It was definitely a hot one though!!

Worst rental boat ever, so much water would tidal wave in, we almost sunk the boat several times!

 The girls at London Bridge

 Pit stop at the sand bar

Homemade coozies by the twins!

All the ladies on the float...haha 

 Dinner time!

M.I.A.

Soooo, just after I started my first days of nursing school, my blog stopped working. I wasn't allowed to post pictures and it was really frustrating me. Although I had very minimal time throughout the semester, I would give it a try when I had a little time to spare and end up getting frustrated and have to give up because I SHOULD HAVE been studying. Thankfully, my nifty little Cindy came home for Thanksgiving Break and fixed my blog all up for me and now I can resume sharing with everyone :) Well, now that the semester is over, I have plenty of time and plenty of pictures. I tried keeping connected at least a little bit on Instagram (which connects online to its own website and to Facebook), but I know that doesn't go for all my friends. So...I'll add a few posts for the recap of the semester...although extremely outdated ;)

Disneyland Gift Cards!

Dalton and I both got gift cards to Disneyland this past Christmas, and we almost forgot about them until the last week of summer! (I would probably NEVER go to Disneyland unless I had discount tickets or a gift card or something... $105 for a ticket to the happiest place on earth is a bunch of nonsense!)

Tram ride to Disneyland!

 The lines were pretty short when we were there...probably because it was SO HOT that week! It was a little ridiculous!

Castle! 

I lose...by a lot :( Haha I had no idea what was going on for most of that ride. 

Space Mountain 

The new Cars World at California Adventures. It was actually really cool. They replicated that street really well and the red rock mountains in the back ground looked so real! This is where all the line build up was, so we didn't get to do much over here. 

Disney fireworks...so magical ;) Haha, and also the best time for the rides!

Weekend in Vegas

A couple weekends before school started back up, Dalton and I went up to Vegas to watch the races (and also, for an official Vegas birthday trip for Dalton). It turned out to be about 112˚F while we were up there, so we stayed away from the races until later in the afternoon to avoid boiling out blood.

I have no idea how everyone else survived out on the track all weekend...being on all that asphalt already makes it so much hotter at any race! :/

We stayed in New York New York, a hotel on the strip we've never stayed, and also right in the middle of all the action.

View of the pool from floor 20 

The first night, since it was just practice night at the racetrack, we got some dinner at this delicious steak house in our hotel and went from a night walk on the strip for the usual people-watching entertainment :)

Gallagher's Steakhouse...now those are some big hunks of meat!

Musical water show of "Viva Las Vegas" outside the Bellagio 

The next morning, I guess there were delicious breakfast foods everywhere, because I have may pictures ;)

GIANT donuts 

But even better...strawberry banana waffles! MMMM! But I didn't get any :( 

Since it was so hot outside, Dalton and I mostly stayed indoors and tried our luck at gambling (which I really don't like!) Turns out Dalton was pretty lucky! I think he ended being up $100+ at the end of the weekend!

After we got bored of the New York New York gambling, we wandered around the casinos nearby until it was time to head over to the track to watch the races. 

In the morning, Dalton just had to spend one last dollar on the mega size slot machine, haha :)

Potato Chip Rock at Mt. Woodson

Last week, Dalton and I made a late afternoon trip (after a day at Costco and the gym) to Mt. Woodson in Poway/Ramona to hike the trail up to Potato Chip Rock.

Since my summer, full of traveling adventures, is coming to an end, I have been busy working (to pay off my Europe and now Nursing School debt!) and gathering up everything I need to start the program at the end of the month! I love to hike and it's a nice, FREE, and fun activity to do, especially with beautiful views like this, surrounded with boulders (and memories of the days I used to come rock climbing here in high school), and of course the photo opp of potato chip rock at the peak of the Mt. Woodson trail!

 Giant boulders everywhere! I miss rock climbing :(

Crack cave! 

Cool rock formations 

Haha I think Dalton was too scared I was going to fall, so he made my picture blurry :/ Haha!

 The view on the way down

When we were walking back down to the road, we saw this flying bug with orange wings bite/sting this tarantula, which stunned it, and it carried the spider all the way across the path! CRAZY!!