This · World · I · Live · In....

One of my good friends is in town tonight, and it is my only opportunity to see her. I haven't seen her in about six months as she lives quite far away. She also has two special needs children and has been a tremendous support for me in the last few years. I am also dead-assed tired and I swear my ass is super-glued to my couch. But since NOT seeing her is NOT an option, I am juicing myself up with some caffeine to make it through the evening.
The next three days are going to be insane!! I work three solid days of clinical (from 7 to 3), and then have all my tutorial/lab work to do after that, not to mention being the mom, the wife, the laundress, the cook...blah blah blah. I am using the power of positive thinking to get myself through it...(just kidding, I have bought some wine as incentive to find my way home at the end of each day).
Ok, that's all I've got right now. More later perhaps.

We had our customary UFC night on Saturday night and had quite a few people over. It was a really good time! The day started off on a great note because I went to an antique sale with my friend Toni and found THE.MOST.AMAZING.PIECE.OF.FURNITURE.EVAH!!! Fortunately Toni's ex-husband (with whom she is on good terms with) was there with his truck and was able to bring it home for me. I felt like a giddy little kid decorating it in my house! I had been looking for something very similar for a long time, and when I saw it across the room...it was love/lust at first sight. I knew it was MINE. Thankfully, Visa agreed.
After getting my new love set up at home, I tidied up a bit and then headed back into town to play piano for all my buddies at the seniors lodge (they wre hosting a "tea" fundraiser for Cancer.
I got home, crawled into bed for a nap, got up at about 6:30pm, cut Eddy's hair because he was complaining that he looked like a sheep, and then put out the snacks. Our first guests showed up at 7:15ish.
The night was awesome! My neighbor to the west brought his all time famous stuffed mushrooms (tres yummy!), and we all laughed lots and enjoyed the fights. I hadn't seen one of the neighbor's sons in forever, and it looks like somebody had stuck the kid on a stretching rack! He sprouted up and thinned out like nobody's business!! My kids were very well behaved, always a bonus, and so were most of the adults..lol!
Austin was really well-behaved, leading us to think that this latest medication might actually be working. I refuse to wave the victory flag until I know for sure the he is *consistently* doing better, but I must say that Eddy and I noticed a difference.
I had my midterm evaluation today, and it went very well. My ego hardly fit through the door on the way out. This particular instructor adores me (heh..what's not to love?), and confirmed that I got the highest mark out of all the students on the Nurs. 280 final! Squeeee!!! So all good on the school front. My next clinical placement, starting tomorrow, is in a longterm care facility. I will be working with younger psych patients. Can anybody say TRIGGERY?? I will learn a lot I'm sure, and it will be a tremendous challenge.
Tonight is going to consist of R&R. I am hoping for an early bedtime after getting my LJ fix. Tomorrow will be a busy day and I need to hit the ground running at full speed!

So it looks like my mother really might disown me if I use the zombie picture in our annual Christmas card...so we might have to use this one.....
( Family Picture 2009 )

I set my alarm for 5am this morning because I had a LOT of things to get done before leaving the house. I watched my "mini nutritional assessment" (detects malnutrition in the elderly) video while eating raisin bran and drinking coffee, folded and put away laundry, had a quick shower, packed lunches, got the kids up and ready to go, dropped Morgan off at the neighbor's to get on the bus there, drove Hailey into town for a playdate with her little friend Preston, drove to the college, ran across the parking lot and then slid into my seat in the lab at 8am on the nose. Whew. I felt like a baseball player running the bases, not even daring to stop to see where the ball was for fear of not making it to home plate!
After school I went and picked up my neighbor/friend Toni and we went for a wonderful lunch at a cute little Russian bistro! We shared a half liter of wine, a couple of different dishes...and lots of laughs. Good times!
Tonight while the kids were at karate, I took the escalade for an oil change and a car wash. The nice man there fixed my errant windshield wiper (something needed tightening) and attempted to replace my burnt out tail light only to discover that it must be an electrical problem because the new bulb did not fix the problem. O.o. That's really not good because I have already been warned that electrical problems + escalade = lotsa $$$$. We learned this when the damn truck would lock itself all on it's own! How efficient! We tried to figure out *why* it felt the need to lock itself with the key IN it and me OUT of it...but settled for cutting another key and hiding it on the vehicle because it was by far the most economical option. It doesn't lock itself often, but when it does, you can be sure it is during a most inopportune moment where I have to be somewhere five minutes ago and I desperately need something locked in the truck to take with me to wherever I was supposed to be five minutes ago. All this to say that it looks like we will have to sort out this wiring crap sooner than later.
Anyhoo, that's all I've got for now. I'm going to hit the sack early so that I can get up and repeat most of the above all over again tomorrow. Lucky lucky lucky me!

I just finished watching my FAVORITE show of ALL TIME...that would be The Biggest Loser...and I can't believe that they voted Shay off (after she lost 17 lbs this week)!!!!! Bastards!!!
The sent two people home tonight, and Danny and Shay were eliminated. That after Shay set a record for losing 100 lbs in 9 weeks! She still had so much weight to lose, and they sent her home. ARGH!!
And if all that wasn't bad enough, they didn't even show Shay's follow up!
So frustrated.
Ok, Janice, share your thoughts...I know that you are as invested in the show as I am. Why do you think they didn't show Shay's follow up?
And can somebody tell me why I am so fired up over a stupid reality TV show??!! Lame.

This week is going much better than I thought it would. Sunday night was a long one since I had to bring Morgan and Hailey up to Edmonton to bring Austin back to the Glenrose. I jumped in Eddy's truck (it has the DVD player so trips are much less painful)and started off. I got partway down our road when I noticed that there was not enough gas to make the trip. Damn. Instead of heading straight north towards Edmonton, I had to go through Red Deer to fill up. Since I was in town, I bought the kids a booster juice. I was barely on the highway when Hailey announced that she had pee. I resisted the urge to bang my head against the steering wheel and convinced her to hold it for half an hour until we hit a gas station on the highway. As I was pulling into Edmonton, the Glenrose called to warn me that the unit was in real danger of being shut down the next day (H1N1 drama). I was ready to blow. Fortunately the rest of the evening was without incident and I pulled back in our yard at about 9:30pm.
Monday was much easier because I didn't have any classes. I tidied up the house, and headed straight for Red Deer to run a thousand errands and get the dreaded H1N1 shot. I fought it to the 11th hour. I did not want this vaccine. But I was in grave danger of being kicked out of clinical practice for being "non-compliant". And being that I am a shit disturber when I feel strongly about something, I actually contemplated fighting the system and risking it all. Logic and common sense kicked in and I realized that I wasn't willing to lose everything I have worked towards because of this. Without clinicals, I would fail my program and lose all chance of ever getting into the midwifery program. That price is just too steep. So I rolled up my sleeve and took it.
Today started bright and early with my alarm going off at 6am. I had to get myself, Hailey, and Morgan showered (they were too tired to shower the night before), Morgan's lunch packed, a snack prepared for my tutorial group, and the car loaded with my bazillion text books and binders and doula bag. I dropped Morgan off at Toni's at 7:25am, dropped Hailey off at my SIL's at 7:40am, and slid into my seat at school at 8:01am. Whew.
Tutorial ended at 11:00am and I headed straight to one of my doula clients who is 22 weeks pregnant and has had H1N1 for the last several days. She has lost many pregnancies and has been BEYOND anxious about the possible negative outcome of this pregnancy from being so sick. We listened to heart tones, I listened to her chest, took her BP, and pronounced her on the mend. Her oldest daughter sounded very wheezy but didn't seem to be in respiratory distress so I will check up on her again in a couple of days. She was in a much better place when I left (just hearing that heart beat is the best therapy for an anxious mama).
While I was on the way to get Hailey, the Glenrose phoned me to advise me of an "incident" that had ocurred this morning. I will post about that separately.
I picked Hailey up from my SIL's, picked up a few movies for our pajama day tomorrow, and headed for home.
Tomorrow will be a sleep-in day (oh I hope!!) and then we will have a nice pancake and bacon breakfast, and watch movies! I can hardly wait! I will head back up to Edmonton for family night at about 3pm, take Austin out for supper and for a haircut, and then head back home.
Thursday is a clinical day from 9am to 2pm, and Friday is either another clinical day or lab..I can't remember.
I am doing it! I thought this week would be straight from the pit, but it is actually going better than expected. Eddy will be home Thursday night and will be home until Sunday when he leaves for his last week of audits. One day at a time, we are getting closer to the end of this solo-parenting craziness.
Cheers for continued sanity!

So here was my attempt at our family of "zombies"! I'm afraid that Robin has no real competition from me...lol!
Here goes!

( Halloween Pics )

I decided to check the grades one last time before going to bed, and they were posted!!! I got an 84% on the final exam, giving me an 88.5% in the course which translates to an A- in Nursing 280. I will gladly take that!
Exhale.

I am still waiting for the final exam grades to get posted. Impatient much? Ayup. Word on the street is that everybody passed the final...but obviously I am expecting a whole lot better than just a pass.
All my laundry is done. All of it! Now it just needs to get put away. Bleh. I can't see it happening tonight because I just don't feel like it. This week feels like it has been dragging on forever and it's only Tuesday. Oi. Starting the week with a final exam, followed by a big orientation day today introducing the next leg of our nursing education, and another long day tomorrow with our "research conference day". Oh, and then I am heading up to Edmonton tomorrow night to see Austin. These long days are whooping my butt. Thursday and Friday will be better because they are only half-days (this week anyways). I also have about 100 pages of textbook reading and then some homework to do sometime in the next 48 hours. Somedays I wonder why I am doing this. Oh right...I want to be a midwife...and ironically, this appears to be the path of least resistance. Least resistance, that's funny because this feels like a hell of a lot of resistance. Of course this is the "tired me" talking. I am very greatful to be at a place in my life where I *can* go to school and become whatever I hope to become. I just need to keep on keeping on, one foot in front of the other.
Halloween is this weekend of course, and we are having the kids party at the hall on Friday night (we are doing the hall party on Friday so that Saturday can be a trick or treating night for those that want to do that). I think I am going to dress our family up as zombies (thanks Robin for the idea although our makeup will not be anywhere near as professional as yours!). I'll just shred up some jeans, rub some dirt and fake mud on our faces, scruff up our hair...and voila! And since Eddy is in desperate need of a haircut, his hair will make an impressive "fro" with minimal mussing. Think Kramer. I will just back comb the crap out of mine, stick in a few leaves and maybe a twig, and that should do it. Likewise for the kids. It should be fun! Saturday we are heading out to the farm for their annual Halloween party. The kids are going to have a blast! Eddy's birthday is on Oct. 29th, so I imagine we will do something for him too. It will be a busy weekend!
And amidst all this craziness, I just wish that I was on a beach somewhere and drinking a pina colada. I'm not fussy, any beach in the Carribean will do. But seeing as that isn't going to happen, my best bet is to go to bed and have a DREAM that I'm on a beach drinking pina coladas. And on that note...g'night!

Things are turning around a bit at school. While I am still not overly thrilled with the CBL format (ok, actually I still HATE it), my grades are not reflecting my dislike. My final for Nursing 280 (combination of tutorials, seminars and lab) is 93%. The final exam in on Monday and is worth 30% of our mark. So unless I screw it up horribly, I am pretty much guaranteed an A. A few of my classmates are so lucky. There has been a lot of grumbling about the grading system of this oddball program. The group processing aspect of it makes it very hard to achieve if you don't "play the game". I still cringe everytime I hear the words "split up into groups of 3 and blah blah blah..." because I hate group work. Hate hate hate. But apparently my poker face (big joke because I am such a shitty liar)isn't giving me up.
And now I need to put groceries away, rotate laundry, unload and reload the dishwasher, fold and put away laundry and then make supper.
Oh, and I have my sisters kids because her MS is relapsing. She can barely feel her feet and has numbness up both legs. Poor girl. I wish I could wave my magic healing wand and make her "all better". Instead I have to settle for just pitching in where I can. Life's a bitch sometimes.

I sure hope I'm not getting some kind of flu. There just isn't time for it.
I feel a little dizzy, have a dull aching pain in my lower back and down my left leg, and feel a little nauseated. The pain is a throbbing kind of pain that is really annoying. And since I just got a necessary flu shot yesterday (damn health region won't let me do my clinicals unless I am vaccinated within and inch of my freaking life), and the last time I accepted a flu shot I was sick for weeks, I am a little concerned. Eddy, God bless him, took the kids to karate and I had a nap. I woke up feeling disoriented and still dizzy, and pukey. And my supper feels like it is stuck in my throat. I really really hate puking, so I hope this isn't a gastro bug that is beginning to percolate.
I am not amused.

Grades were just posted for our "Introduction to Scholoarly Writing" assignments. Mine was on the childhood bullying and longterm psychiatric outcomes. I got 95%!!!!
It's about bloody time is all I have to say.

I have been spent the last day and a half doing a boatload of reading and note talking to get ready for our upcoming final. Since I'm fairly certain that I am not going to get my "A" based on my fabulous group processing skills, I need to nail the final. Period.
I haven't been out of my house since Monday morning, and that is craziness for me! I have to say that I am enjoying being at home and not having to rush off anywhere. I have heard from a couple of neighbors and friends that the roads aren't all that great today, so I may wind up not going anywere today either. I had hoped to go into the College later this afternoon to work on some of my lab skills (we need to have two documented hours of "out of class" practice). We are practicing taking vital signs right now. Definitely not rocket science, although I could use a little more work on taking blood pressure manually. If the roads stay crappy, or if I really don't feel like going anywhere, I might just do the lab practice another day.
I taught a piano lesson for the firs time in a long time last night! The mother of this particular child has hunted and stalked me for the last couple of years. I taught her daughter for a year, but had to beg off when everything started going for shit with Austin (evenings were just not good for us). She begged and pleaded for me to teach her daughter again last year, and I declined....but this year she caught me at a weak moment. The lesson really went well, and it is a burst of sunshine to teach a student who *really* wants to be there. This is the ONLY student that I am taking on, but I'm glad that I agreed to this one.
And now I am going to start studying Epidemiology. If only I can stay focused!

As soon as the merry-go-round stops, I am jumping the hell off. OMG.
My usual busy Thursday (the one day that I go to school from 8 to 3:30 straight)got kicked up a notch by running off to attend a birth. My respite worker, and Green Clean worker Patty had her baby! It was a great birth aside from the fact that the nurse had no idea how to support a perineum and looked offended when I suggested a warm compress. Good grief.
Before running off to the birth, I had to stop by the health unit to receive a multitude of vaccinations so that I am allowed to do clinical work in our health region. I had been procrastinating doing this for way too long, and was down to the wire. Four needles later, I raced off to the hospital, attended the birth, and spent an hour and a half teaching mama and baby how to breastfeed. Baby is a tongue-thruster, so it was a bit of a challenge. And I'm sure it's not over yet! My last tongue-thruster took weeks to establish a good latch. If it was anybody else, I'd pull out the yellow pages and point to a publicly funded lactation consultant. But since Patty and her husband Mauricio have been such blessings to us, and Austin, I will gladly offer up my services.
So due to the above reasons, I did *not* finish my paper last night...and should be working on it now :-/ I have to swing by the college and hand it in before Hailey and I head up to Edmonton to collect Austin.
But first....one more kvetch...DAMNITALL....MY ARMS FREAKING HURT!!!!!! I can't believe most people give an 8 week old baby this many shots. Ludicrous. But alas, that is another rant.

Truly I do. I came home today hoping to work on a paper that I have due on Friday. I had high hopes of getting the first draft done tonight, but alas....no go. I arrived home to the same mess that I left...oh yeah...and seeing as the housekeeping/laundry fairy had NOT come in my absence, I had to forego all plans of homework and focus on the domestic arts for a few hours. Cripes. I cleaned the kitchen and folded 8 loads of laundry while Eddy took the kids to karate. And now I have to tuck the kids in and make lunches for tomorrow.
It is now almost 8:30pm, and my desire to start homework is at an all time low. I am enjoying my clean living room, and want nothing more than to lay down on this couch and close my eyes. Not cool.
My paper is due Friday, and I wanted to have it *done* for Thursday. Sigh. There is no question, I need either 8 extra hours in a day, or at least one more of me. And since neither can logically happen, I'm just going to pour myself a glass of wine.

I have come to the conclusion that I am really not enjoying this year as much as I should be. I really don't like this CBL style of learning, I am not getting the *high* of studying my ass off and acing the test...and all in all, it is leaving me feeling flat. And resentful. Resentful because I am spending time doing something I don't like. However, I know that this is the path of least resistance. I see so many of my friends struggling to get their midwifery education accepted in this country of ours so I know that I need to push through this. Unfortunately, I am just not enjoying this part of the process. Damnitall!! I am questionning whether I should have just stuck to my part-time general studies and continued to peck away at classes that will apply to my future midwifery degree. I could be taking biology, microbiology, genetics, pharmacology and just doing what I do best. But no, I am stuck in group work HELL. Sigh. This must be one of those character building experiences. OH what a character I will be by the time this year is over!
Eddy took the kids to karate tonight, so I might just take the opportunity to have a catnap. I always feel better after after some time with the Sandman.

...that we are doing the right thing.
Austin's day staff said that "...it has been a very long time since we have had a child on this unit as impulsive as Austin. He has NO BRAKES, and yet desperately wants to please."
Holy shit. Out of all the kids in Alberta, our sone ranks as one of the most impulsive kids they have ever seen.
My only question was in regards to what kind of success they had with the last really impulsive kid. She said that they got there eventually, but it was a lot of work.
How glad am I that he is there??? Very. Am I convinced that he *needs* to be there?? Yes. And do I now feel validated for the choices we have made??? Hell yes!!!

So we had our second CBL (context-based learning) tutorial today. Remember the group work from hell/self-directed learning/everybody contributes to everybody's learning? Well part of this process involves giving each other feedback at the end of every three hour tutorial. Feedback looks something like this:
Me: I really appreciate the way you contributed to our group session today Jessica! (said in a valley girl voice) Your research and comments about stress affecting males and females differently *really* made me think! I would appreciate though if you could cite your source when you quote information that you've researched.
Jessica: (also in a valley girl voice) Why thank you Tina, that is wonderful feedback! I am so glad that you enjoyed my research on the different genders coping with stress! I would love to cite my sources in the future!
Now I know that this is going to inspire all kinds of practical skills in how to deal with constructive criticism, and giving praise to others...but honestly? Spending half an hour on feedback at every tutorial is stooopid. And a big fat waste of time. Worse yet, we are being graded on our group processing skills. How well we listen, how well we contribute, how well we encourage others, how well we paraphrase, how well deal with group conflict, how well we give and accept feedback etc. etc. etc.
So here is the problem. My group consists of me and 8 other girls aged 22 years and younger. They all sit there with blank looks on their faces, and hardly participate at all. Everybody sits there looking at each other. The tutor puts a "thought provoking question" out there, and nobody answers. And since I can't stand silence, wasting time, and happen to have done all the readings and know the answer, I finally blurt it out. In a nutshell, I wind up being one of the only talkers. So here was my feedback:
Classmate: Wow Tina, you are really prepared and obviously love sharing! (puke) I really appreciated your insight on health determinents! But maybe you could sit back and let others answer, or encourage others to answer some questions.
Me: Thanks for your feedback Shelby! I sometimes struggle with containing my enthusiasm for group work and just can't help blurting out the answer! I will really work on encouraging others to answer! (ummhmmm)
It is such a wierd atmosphere. We all sit there and nod like a bunch of bobbleheads, and fake all kinds of ridiculous enthusiasm over every little fact regarding health. All the while our "tutor" is making notes on how well we are all contributing. Sigh.
On the upside, I *really* enjoyed our lab! Our teacher seems very no-nonsense yet extremely knowledgeable with and extremely diverse background in nursing. She runs the class with a very clear beginning and ending point. I learned a lot today, and am looking forward to the next one.
My first FRS was also today (nursing seminar) and it was on calculations. No problemo. It was an easy 80 minutes and is one thing that I can safely tuck away out of sight. I nailed every conversion and dosing question the first time, so I will not need to worry about it.
Hopefully this whole foreign process will start to seem normal and bearable before long.
Didja all know that "EDUCATION" is a health determinent?? Oh yeah!! That's why I'm doing this....it's for my HEALTH!!! Lol!

B.Sc.N orientation started on Wednesday morning and finally ended a few hours ago. I am not really sure what to think as of yet. The U of A nursing program (which is what Red Deer College is affiliated with) is based on a "context based learning" model, otherwise known as CBL. CBL works by dividing students into groups of 8 or 9 students, led by a "tutor" (instructor), where scenerios are presented and the group is to break apart all aspects of the patients condition/treatment/long term prognosis (everybody takes a different angle, researches the crap out of it and then presents it to the group) and then analyzed through means of "critical thinking" where we are encouraged to debate, discuss, and challenge each other.
We have to take a library tutorial on how to identify reliable sources for our research (ie. avoid wikipedia because it is not peer reviewed, stick to medical journals or google scholar), and then write a paper on how to use good sources. WTF?? Are we in junior high school here?! Worse yet, our library tutorial, which is mandatory, is two sessions of two hours. Ugh.
So back to CBL...I understand that they are trying to promote group work/group research/group problem solving, but I can see where there are going to be a lot of challenges with this. First of all, my grade is going to be influenced by my group. I really don't like that. Secondly, I hate group work. I don't mind group discussion, or study groups...but I prefer to do my work and research independantly. CBL is ALL.GROUP.WORK! Yeebus. Also, our "tutor" is merely a guide, not an instructor, because they are encouraging self-directed learning. Riiiight. And the way that CBL has been "Rah Rah Rah'd" for the last three days, you would think that it was an Amway convention. Anything that takes this much PR to pump up is usually not all it is cracked up to be.
Anyhoo, our CBL group will meet for a total of six hours a week to tackle different scenerios. Reading will be assigned in between tutorials (I assume this is where we will learn the meat and potatoes part of our profession because it has been stated repeatedly that our tutor is merely a guide, NOT a teacher...we are to be self-directed learners). This is how we are to get the majority of our education. Our hands-on skills will be learned in two hours of lab time per week, and the rest is a combination of once a week seminars (also known as "FRS's") and our actual experience in the community where will be placed.
Our groups and tutors will change every 7 weeks so that we learn to work with all kinds of people.
Being that I can knee-jerk and cast unfair snap judgements, I tracked down a couple of graduates from the program that I know casually, and asked a few higher management people in the health care system what they think of this CBL model of learning. The feedback been overwhelmingly negative. They said that the RN's coming out of this model of learning are less prepared and need a lot more coaching on the job when they start. Great.
At this point, I can really only go forward. I will learn valuable skills I am sure, and NO education is a waste...but I am really dissapointed in the lack of structure in the program. Since I am not taking actual "courses" like pharmacology, genetics etc., I can't imagine any of this transferring to my midwifery education at Mount Royal. Bleh. And maybe I will learn to *like* group work. Not probable, but one can hope.
I am taking my health care providers first aid and CPR this weekend, and will then be hitting the ground running come Monday.
I hope I have a more positive outlook about this program after a full week of classes, but right now, I am not particularly impressed.
All education is good. All education is good. All education is good. All education is good. All education is good. Yesssssss.....

P.S. No offense meant to Amway members...