please forgive me this small rant- there's no one i can talk to who will actually care.

jon and kate.  plus 8.  *sigh*  tonight they announced they are getting separated, and it's just very upsetting.  i hate that i feel like society, our whole culture is coming trained to think "marriage gets tough, i don't like being with my spouse anymore? let's get a divorce!"  no one ever promised it would be easy.  but it's that the whole point?  for better or for worse?  why say the vows if you aren't going to follow through?  i'm not going to pretend like i fully understand what it's like to be in a marriage, because i don't, but i do know that it's not going to be easy, and there might even be days, or stretches of time that i do not like my husband as much as a i used to.  but i will still love him and remain married to him, because love is a choice.  and we made promises.  we made covenants.  it's not about only doing it when you feel it and it feels good and happy and bubbly inside.  it's about doing it when it sucks and you hate it and you're not sure why you're there.  it's the better and the worse.  the health and the sickness.  the richer and the poorer.  the nights of bliss and the nights of fights.

i feel unbelievably blessed to have two parents who do love each other, and have loved each other through everything.  and i feel like they've given me a very healthy, realistic picture of love, haven't tried to blind me to the ups and downs of it.  and i know that half the world now is from broken families.  and i hate that.  i makes me feel the same way as when i find out someone has died.  it's that same breaking of something that was never meant or designed to be broken.  we weren't meant to go through things like that, we weren't meant to have broken relationships, and yet we now live with them everyday because of our sin, because of the fall.  and it's just so sad to feel that and see it play out.  and to be longing for the way things were designed to be.

and it really frustrates me that they say it has nothing to do with the show- i'm sorry, putting your family on national tv, being surrounded by papparrazi and filming all the time, never having true alone time?  yes, the show has definitely at least encouraged an environment that is unhealthy for your marriage.  and i hate that they aren't even *trying* to make it work.  as in, i feel they should be going to every extreem to exhaust every option to make this marriage work and last.  where is the counseling? where is the, i dunno, cancelling your show?? where is the trying to work on your communication.

you want what's best for your kids?  teach them that even when it's hard, you learn to work things out- you learn to push through it and stick together and to keep your promises (promises you in fact renewed not too long ago in front of your children).  cancel your show, go to counseling, exhaust your options.

i feel like the problem is that kate doesn't want to get separated, but also doesn't want to let go of the show and everything she's doing now because of it.  and jon doesn't want the show anymore, and wants out of everything it's brought him.  and i feel like they aren't really communicating, because i don't think either of them truly wants to be doing this, they just feel like it's what they have to do, because it's what we're taught that you do now when your marriage doesn't work.

and yes, maybe i'm so niave.  maybe there are somethings you can't work out- but i think that's crap.  in that, if you want to work it out, you can work it out.  both parties have to be willing, and it won't be easy, it won't be over in one counseling session, or one month or maybe even one year.  but you can work it out.  isn't that the whole point??

again, whatever happened to for better or for worse?

i think it upsets me more because they are christian, and they, at least in their book, talk about all these great things like believing in god's grace and goodness.  learning to trust him completely, lean on him completely with everything.  and yes, obviously this can apply to going through a divorce and trusting him there, but why can't it also apply to going through a rocky marriage?  she talks so much about his unconditional love and grace and mercy and all that god taught them through the crazy, stressful, insane time of the pregnancy and early days of the sextuplets.  how god continually provided financially and with energy and helpers and everything.  and i know god has more lesson in store for the family through this, but i hate that they've decided the lessons should take place apart.  god, in his infinite goodness, put you together, and no, you don't have a perfect marriage, but i just wish for once people would realize that no one does! you aren't supposed to!  your only perfect lover, true bridegroom is christ!  the marriage is our own messy way of learning more about our relationship with christ, learning to love the way he loves us.  and he loves us even when we repeatedly go out and sleep with other lovers, even when we turn around and spit in his face when he asks to talk, and even we we snap at everything he offers us, assuming he has some mixed motive behind it or something.  and yet he never wavers, he never asks for a divorce, he never goes anywhere, he is never leaving, even when we're shoving the divorce papers in his face and walking away.

i mean, i know, there is no perfect marriage, and we all make mistakes.  and i shouldn't expect jon and kate to be some example of perfection.  but i did hope maybe they could be a different example, stand up and say, listen, our life isn't perfect, but we aren't running away from it.  and i guess that aren't and are at the same time.

it also disgusts me that people said things like "i can't wait to see this episode!" "i'm so excited to watch it!"  you're so excited to watch a marriage fall apart?  wow.  did you forget these are real people? this is really their life?  we aren't talking about lorelai and christopher getting a divorce, or are merideth and dereck finally going to get married or not?  we are talking about real life.

and all the sudden it sickens me that we really do this for entertainment.  and i mean, i obviously watch too (granted, i haven't watched jon and kate in a while).

i long for the world as it was designed to be.  i hate this shadow world where people die and get divorced and hurt people and hurt themselves.  but i suppose i'm not supposed to like it, am i?  but we're living in it- and god's goodness still shines through.  i've turned my eye away from the true thing, the good thing, the sweet, glorious thing that promises hope and redemption and says that all things will be made new.  the cross.

okay, i've rambled about this long enough.  life sucks, but god is still good.  he has good feeling for you when you're feeling nothing at all.  he's singing praises over you when you think he's just whatever.  i want to learn to be married to god better.  and i'm excited i have my whole life to do it, because i think i'm going to need it.


~*~

this blog post helped give some good perspective: http://learningmylines.blogspot.com/2009/06/jon-kate-too-late.html

i pray god will pull kate back to him sooner rather than later, that he will take her to rock bottom now so that she can refocus on what truly matters.  same for jon.  i pray that god will use the beginnings of this divorce to draw them back into his arms, and maybe back into each others.

well, i'm back from europe, had a great time.  it'd be hard to tell everything in a post that people would actually fully read, so i'll just try to hit some bullet points

the nursing research class was intense (basically an entire course in 5 days) but it wasn't anything too difficult that i hadn't really already learned before, and i really liked the teacher.  i didn't hang out with the other girls as much, because we had to study every night for a test every day, and i don't study well with other people at all. (being an extrovert, i can never focus on my work, because i just want to talk).  both weekends there i traveled with the other two girls from samford, first a day trip to venice, and then an overnight trip to florence, and we had a lot of fun.

the second half with heike and her two friends was awesome fun-
prague was gorgeous!  fun to just walk around in.  we ate good food, went to a strings concert that was beautiful.
berlin was really neat, lots of history, lots of change going on in the city now, lots of cool symbolism in their monuments and museums and such
amsterdam was beautiful, i loved all the canals and the houses.  it was an intersting experience walking through the red light district.  and i really... i don't know how to describe it experience walking through the anne frank house- like, i loved it, but it was obviously sad.  like sad and cool at the same time.  and i loved going out into the country, too. and i loved our hostel there the most.  i would love to go back there.  i wish i had known about the hostel before and could've gone to volunteer there for a summer, that would've been awesome
wurzburg was a perfect end to the trip, we got to stay in a real home and spread out our stuff and take amazing showers.  we went to a wine tasting and played minigolf and rode bikes, it was tons of fun.
my last day i went to bamberg to visit anna p.- she's there for school for 5 weeks, and that was awesome, and kind of funny, that it takes us both being in germany to see each other over the summer- that we were only an hour away in germany instead of the multiple hours away in the U.S.

now i'm back home, not much going on.  i'm doing sunday school for kindergarten and first graders, which should be exciting.  and that's about it right now.  hopefully i will babysit a lot (because as we know, i happen to owe a guy a lot of money).  i still think i'm going to try to get involved with some ministry in atlanta volunteering- i just have no idea what.  like i have no real starting place to decide or know really.  but hopefully god will make something clear to me.  i just don't want to spend all my days at home alone doing nothing.

i'm doing pretty well with jetlag- stayed up til 11 the first night back (and my first night in italy too), which helped a lot.  i'm pretty tired right now, so i might go to bed soon... we'll see.


oh, i'm also reading mansfield park (almost done!) and really enjoying it.  but i'm so anxious to see what's going to happen.  a lot has happened that i didn't expect at all, and i know jane austen must work it all out in the end, but i'm like, jane! what are you doing?!   and i hope that fanny opens her eyes to whats in front of her, and that what's in front of her really is a good thing, because i'm still with her, i'm still a little skeptical.

i kind of wish andrew c. hadn't gotten an estimate on his truck until after i got back from europe, so i wouldn't be going into the trip with a $2,000 estimate hanging over my head.  and him sending me e-mails asking me can't my parent's pay for it upfront (because obviously if his parent's and he can't pay for it up front right now, my parent's should be able to... because that makes sense...)  and trying to, i dunno, guilt me even more for denting his car?  telling me he won't be able to get it fixed until he gets the money from me, which sounds like it will be awhile, and reminding me once again that this was why he wanted only approved drivers to drive it.  can i remind you that *you* said I could drive it?!  and that i called every single one of your stupid approved drivers and they all said no, including yourself, because you decided to go to a movie and leave your truck, because obviously that would be a nice thing to do, but you aren't going to be nice enough to actually drive it for them- just lend it with the stipulation that they can't actually drive it, and if anything happens to it, then you'll be completely ticked off.  listen, yes, the dent is completely my fault, but you still bear some of the responsibility in the situation.  and yes, i'm sorry it sucks that you'll have to drive around for a year with a dent in your truck.  but can't you stop for a second and think about how much it sucks that all of my income for the next year is going to go to you? that i can't go out to the movies or go out to dinner with friends or go buy coffee on a coffee date because i won't have any spending money because i'll be giving all my money to you?  you don't have the money to pay for it right now? well guess what, buddy, i'm in the same boat as you, and neither do i, but i'm still going to be the one paying for it, not you.

gah, sorry, i just feel like there's no where else i can vent about this situation because i'm not getting any grace or understanding from him and i guess i'm not giving much grace or understanding to myself and it's just so gosh darn frustrating that this happened.  and i feel like it's not just my fault- i was doing the best i knew how, but in the end, the blame is still on me.

ironically, i guess this is what i was trying to tell stephen after he broke up with anna- yes, he did nothing technically, but it's the risk he took when he asked her out, and there is hurt and pain involved with this possible result, and you still have to bear it, even if you didn't technically do anything wrong.  you decided to ask her out.  i decided to drive the truck.  we take risks, and sometimes they work out great, and sometimes not, but we have to bear those consequences anyway, even if we were only doing the best we knew how.

because in the end, the best we know how isn't ever good enough.  that's kind of the point of life.  we need someone else to come in and do it for us.  thank the lord someone has and did and is. 

well, i'm all packed up and ready to go to europe!  crazy!  we ended up buying the rei grand tour backpack that can zip the straps up for the backpack and has a removable (very small) day pack.  so that is all i'm taking.  i feel like i'm packing light, but i still feel like i have so much stuff.

i'm wearing on the plane jeans, tennis shoes, a shirt, my jacket, bra, underwear, socks.  i have a pair of slacks i have to have (lame), jeans, shorts, khaki longer shorts, a skirt and a thin jumper dress. i have another pair of walking shoes, flipflops, my flats (for the slacks), and shower shoes (hostels!),  i have a raincoat, a towel, a long sleeved shirt, a pair of pajamas, an undershirt and a cami, a bathing suit.  i have 4 t-shirts and 5 nice shirts.  i could probably take out one nice shirt.  i have my toiletry kit.  i have 7 pairs of underwear and 7 pairs of socks, 2 bras. (technically adds to 8, 8, 3).  i have my chargers for my phone, i-pod, and camera.  and my plug adapter.  i have two light paperback books, my ipod, my camera, the notebook and book for the class (lame!), a couple of travel books (i guess i could take some of those out ?  rick steves prague could go... i should probably keep the italian phrase book).

i mean, really, i'm not taking much.  but the backpack feels heavy to pick up.  of course, it's really not bad to wear, since it puts most of the weight on my hips, and i have very nice weight-bearing hips.

well... i guess i'm ready.  crazy.  and i still have.... 36ish hours before i leave.  crazy!


i still need to put in... glasses, toothbrush, contact case, bandana? cards? oh, and ziplock bags.

so, this day is turning out to be not so good.

it started happy- val spent the night in my room, and then we woke up and watched grey's, which is like *gasp*, but yeah, good.

and then i started working on finished up packing stuff.  i realized i needed hex keys, so i went on a search for those- frustrating at first, but then, ronald, my favorite maintenance guy, showed up and had some, and he offered to take it apart for me! so that was really exciting and nice of him.  yay.  one obstacle down sucessfully.

then i needed to find one or two guys who could help my load up andrew c.'s truck (one of the ra's and like the only one with a truck).  his dad is picky about who drives it, so only the smith ra guy's or a handful of the girls could.  well, i asked around a little before lunch to no avail, but it was a mute point then because i didn't have the truck yet.  and lunch, jordan and canaan's younger brother's, shaphan (a freshmen in choir, going to be an officer next year) and josiah were available and said they could help me move.  so then i called one of the girls, and she was like, yeah, i totally can! so yay, that was happy- i finally got it down and worked out.  but then she texted back about 15 minutes later when i was still waiting for the other girl to get back with the car that she found out she had to go to a meeting 45 minutes away and couldn't help.  so yeah.  i called every single smith guy, and all of them were busy.  ALL of them.  yay.  so whatever, once we got the car, we went ahead to pack it up.  and then we had it packed up and still no one could, so i texted andrew if it was okay for me to drive it.  and he was like, yeah, just don't tell my dad ;)  so i did.  and it was fine on the way there.  it's just like driving the surburban, but a little better, i think.  i really felt perfectly fine with it on the road.  backing up out of where we had it parked for loading was stressful, but josiah helped me back up. 

we get to the storage unit, and the place where you unload is inside up a ramp through an automatic timed door that you enter your code into.  well, it was really tight in there- like basically a little more than the length of the truck (or a little more than two car widthes long) and width was like... two trucks? i dunno.  very tight.  anyway, we got it parked fine in there, even with another car in there.  but then we went to leave after loading up the storage unit, and the turn out was really tight.  so we did a lot of going foward, backing up to get a better angle, with josiah helping me again.  and then i thought that i had the turn- i thought i was in a position that i could just kind of diagonally go and be perfectly fine.  i really thought i was fine.  but i wasn't.  i think i was also worried about the automatic door going down again, because it had been up for a while, and there was a car waiting to come in, but i guess i should have been more patient.  but i thought i had it, so then i accelerated a little, too, going out.  and yeah- crunch.  against the right side, by the back wheel.  i dented it pretty bad.  i mean, it's drivable still, but it's definitely a noticable dent.

i feel TERRIBLE.  so terrible.  i mean, i technically wasn't supposed to be driving it yet.  and i was just getting impatient and just wanted to get it done and move on.  and if i had waited til later tonight, maybe one of the guys would've been able to help me (well, really, none of them gave that impression.)  but haley, the girl i called originally might've been back.  but i didn't want to wait anymore and i was sick and tired of every single person i asked to help me couldn't help me.  and that was frustrating.  i cried a lot after i called the last person and they were like, yeah, i can't help you, sorry!

gah.  but i can't do anything about it now.

it's making me nervous- i called andrew crosson 45 minutes ago to tell him i was back, could i meet him to give him the keys? and he said he was 10 minutes away- just got out of a movie he went to see, and i told him about the dent, and he didn't really say much except he'd call me when he got back.  and he hasn't called me yet.  gah.  i feel terrible.


this is kind of what it looked like:

I-----------------    ----------I
I                                      I
I      the truck                   I
I                                      I
I-----------------I         I-----I
                      the ramp
                     where you
                         leave

so we went out to a pizza/pub place tonight- mafiaoza's.  it's a mafia themed pizza place!! very fun.  fi got my first official drink (and didn't get carded *gasp* kind of sad.)  i got what the waiter suggested, a mai tai, which was very fruity and fun.  also had a sip of some of anna's wine (a really good white wine- a type of chardonnay.  i need to learn which wine's i like, because i like having wine with dinner.  i suppose that's also what the waiter's are for, because ours suggested anna's wine.  and my drink.  so he did a good job.   and the pizza was also very good.  i would definitely go back.

i still need to watch grey's.  valerie's spending the night here, but she hasn't come back yet- she was in stephen's car, and i'm assuming she and josh went out for a walk... but i don't know when she's planning on coming back.  she can't stay out too late- she can't get in without me.  i was hoping to maybe watch it tonight with her.... but at this point, i don't know if she'll want to stay up that late.  we could watch it in the morning, but i don't know if she wants to wait that long.  anyway, i definitely want to watch it before i take my tv to the storage unit.

speaking of, i need to find out which guys could take my stuff over there tomorrow... *sigh*.

so i went and got a storage unit for the summer- $100 for the entire summer- which really isn't that bad.  yay.  and my packing is... coming along... it's getting closer, that's for sure.  i'm aiming to take everything to the storage unit tomorrow morning, and then pack up my car by tomorrow evening.  and then i'll leave as soon as possible saturday.  and i need to check rooms.   about half of my girls are gone now... but only about 5 rooms that i could check yet.  i'll just do most of them all tomorrow afternoon.

anyway, now i'm off to get my haircut.  woohooo.

left to pack... closet and clothes.. and some random desk things.

i hate end of the year stress and hormones and everything that piles up.

the girl who i was going to share a storage unit called earlier to say she went down there and it's smaller than i expected, and she has more things than she originally thought and i have more things than she originally thought, so now i'm back to trying to find a place- i guess i'll call the place she's storing things at in the morning.  i don't know exactly where it is, so i'm kind of tempted to just call back to the place i stored stuff last year, even though it will probably be a little more expensive, but it's closer maybe? so it's less gas for whoever drives me there.

speaking of- i asked anna b is she could ask her brother if he could come down with his truck to move everything for me- if i have a truck, i can get it all in one load.  and she was like, i asked him, he hasn't told me yet, but i finally got her to answer a minute ago, and apparently her brother is "working out somewhere" friday, so he can't come to help me, so now i also have no earthly idea how i'm going to get everything over there.  i have to have someone else, because there is no way i can fit my futton or fridge in my car.

and after i hung up the phone i just started crying because i feel so stressed.  i have barely put a dent in packing yet today, and i have no idea where i'm going to store stuff or how i'm going to get it there.  and i can't help thinking about how if i was living where i wanted to, i wouldn't be having to worry about this.  i mean, there are many reasons i'm glad about living in evergreen, such as actually getting to keep my futton for next year, which is nice, but just means that i now have the stress of having to find a place to store my stuff.  anna p is storing stuff at alan's grandad's (right next door to his parent's house) and last year they had a lot of room there, but this year they don't have very much room because they've rearranged storage.


i don't want to pack, i don't want to have to figure out how to get stuff there.  all of my guy friends are gone or leaving.   i don't want to go home and be separated from everyone for three months.  i want to go to italy, but i don't want to have to get home and immediately have to figure out how to pack for that.  i don't know why i get so paralyzed when it comes to packing.  i just don't know where to start and i just have so much freaking stuff it's ridiculous. 

i really don't want to pack.  i hate packing.

the new star trek movie was good.

so my adult health teacher decided to drop one more quiz grade, which really means that any extra quizzes go as extra credit points- so now my quiz average is a 109.9?  which, at 15% of my grade, bumped my grade up to an A!  i couldn't believe it!  i definitely wasn't expecting that at all, but it's a nice surprise.

the OB final was this morning, and a got a 90!  which was very nice, considering i just read through my notes.  but now a little sad, because it's 4 point away from a B+. it would be nice if maybe we got some points back on the test.  or if they decided to drop a quiz grade in there- because i forgot to take one.  it also makes it frustrating that the group project grade is so low because if it had been higher, that probably would've been a b+ in there.  oh well.  such is life.

and now i have to start packing... lame.  it's hard to even know where to begin.  i do hate packing with a passion.

yay for late night waho trips.

though for some reason right under my right eye is all swollen- it started while we were there.  i'm thinking it must be a reaction to something in the air- it was really smoky in there at one point from the grill.  this has happened one time before that i can remember, but on the left eye during ra training last year, when i was on the way to get my stuff from my storage unit- i figured then it was from helping dust a very dusty vail the night before.   but it's weird- it's not the normal allergic reaction i have to things- itchy eyes and runny nose.  it's just this annoying swelling that makes me feel at first like i just have a little of that eye mucous in the corner of my eye or my contact is sitting in my eye a little wrong.

anyway, waho is fun.

and i wish knowing and being content and happy that right now is not the time to date and being single is right where god wants me could mean that i could at least stop liking boys for a little while.  or even thinking about liking them.  that would make life a lot nicer.

so i don't think i'm going to be able to leave until late friday evening or maybe even saturday morning.  i have two girls who wrote down that they aren't leaving until friday evening, one at 4, the other at 5 ot 6.  well, i e-mailed them making sure they know they have to be out 24 hours after their last exam.  and the later one says that her parent's can't come to move her out until after they get off work friday (and she does have a 1:00 exam thursday), and the other is like, well, i have an exam at some point on thursday, i'm not sure when though...

and then i have one leaving saturday morning because she's helping out with graduation friday, and another leaving saturday night because she's playing at graduation on saturday.  i know that canaan will check the saturday night room for me, but i'm not sure about the other saturday one- she probably will, but i feel bad like sloughing my work off on her.  but i need to leave by 11 to be able to get to maggie's wedding on time.

so we'll see.  i really don't want to stay saturday night.  and i really don't want to wait until after 6 pm on friday either.  like, really.  LEAVE PEOPLE!  i was reading some of the end of the year surverys we send the freshmen, and some were like, i think it's really inconvient that we have to be out 24 hours after our last final- we should be able to stay longer.  or they say things like, we should be able to sign in people in pitman lobby, too, it's not fair that it's in vail and we have to walk all the way up there.  and i'm thinking, do you realize what you're asking?  sure, it's an inconvienence to you, oh dear, i'm so sorry, but remember that people have to wait around for you, and you're asking the entire reslife staff to have to wait around all weekend because you're being a lazy bum.  you're asking them to delay starting the work and cleaning and preparing for summer housing that they have to do?  or you're going to ask to find people to staff a whole nother office for one of the smallest buildings on campus- when i'm sorry, pittman, you know that the smith guys don't get their own sign in either? and when you move to beeson woods next year, there won't be an office in every single house- you have to go to the main office in evergreen like everyone else.  it's not biased for the vail girls, it's just where the central campus office is, which is staffed from 9 am to midnight for your convenience.

my other favorite was the request (multiple times) that housekeeping clean inside their rooms too.  one stating 'i think i should have the same comforts that i have at home.  it would be very helpful and convienent if housekeeping cleaned our rooms too'  or 'the housekeeping staff is really nice and does a good job cleaning the hallways, but i have to pull a tooth and a nail for them to do anything inside my room'  maybe because it's not their job for them to clean your room.  sometimes i forget how many spoiled rich kids go to samford.  no, you are not paying for someone to come pick up your room and clean your junk.  when you move out into your own apartment, no one is going to come in and do that, either, unless you pay for it yourself.  and guess what? you probably also won't be paying for them to come every day.  so get over yourself and do it yourself!

*sigh*  freshmen.  what gets me is that these things are suggested completely seriously.  like they seriously think it's realistic to expect housekeeping service in their room or for reslife workers to double the hours they work a week in their already busy schedules.  i suppose if we were going above and beyond, we might.  but while we are here to serve and help the residents, we are also here to push them to grow up and take some of their own responsibility.  and sometimes it seems like they forget that the whole maturing and taking responsibility thing is something they're going to have to do

i got an 87 on my adult health final, plus the two point from the ATI makes an 89, which means i get a b+!! in fact, even without those two points i think it was just barely a b+  yay!  especially considering the fact that i did nothing more but read through all my notes once.  and then kind of skimmed back over things i highlighted as not remembering as well.  woohoo.

now i have to study for OB.  this one i just have to make that 70.  which really shouldn't be hard.  but i should probably read through my notes.  but i'm postponing that until after lunch.  because my head needs a break.

so i'm listening to wicked!  kiss me too fiercely, hold me too tight!

and as if anyone was worried, my papsmear was normal! i was kind of dissapointed because i was hoping the online link to check the results might have some pictures of the cells or something.  but no.  sad.

i think i might watch a  movie before lunch...

or maybe i should finish reading a wind in the door, which is apparently overdue.  okay- i checked it out of the library on the 5th, and it was apparently due back on the 8- i thought she said 18th!  that's only three days! when i checked out a wrinkle in time, i had it for like two weeks... that's really lame.  and now i have to pay a .20 cent/day late fine for it.  which is also lame, because when a wrinkle in time was getting close to being due, i got an e-mail, but this time i just got the "your book is late" e-mail.

well, i'm living in evergreen next year.  that's kind of disappointing, because i had really been looking forward to living in malcom with the anna's, and being able to hang out in their common room all the time and such.  but i guess in other ways it's good- the room in evergreen is bigger, and i don't have one of those stupid murphy beds that sound really really annoying.  but evergreen is the farthest walk to campus.  and there is no kitchen, AGAIN.  however, the main office is in that building, so that's nice, i guess.

it's frustrating because kacey obviously didn't give me my first and only preference, and i'm not really sure why she didn't.  (i think it has to do with thinking that since i'm good with freshmen and used to the more "hall" experience instead of "building" experience, it will be an easier transition for me, and since i'm "really good with freshmen" it'll be good to put me with sophomores.)  i feel like i have been really accommodating and helpful and uncomplaining with residence life.  i feel like i have always strived to be a good RA, and to try and enforce the rules as fairly as I can, and to try to respect all the girls on my hall, and be someone who they can come talk to if they need help, but also not invade their life if they're fine and not doing anything wrong.  this year i feel like i don't know my girls as well, but at the same time there are some girls i've gotten really close to.  and there are some girls who i don't talk to that much, but who feel totally comfortable coming in and borrowing my movies when i'm not there, which i LOVE because that's what i want.  so i feel like i've done a good job.  i've lived on the 6th floor completely willingly, hiked up all those stairs, had a humongous bulliten board.  i try to be productive in the office, actually do what is asked of me.  when i feel like a procedure is running smoothly, i try not to complain about it but think about if there is a way we could make it better and recommend it.  no, i don't hang out with the RAs all the time, because they aren't my best friends.  but that doesn't mean i don't do my job well.  and it is frustrating to feel like i do not get recognition for that, but other people get lots of recognition when they do maybe the same amount of work as i do or less.  and they take advantage of it, and they are biased and play favorites on their hall, they don't follow quiet hours, they don't enforce quiet hours, etc.  it seems very disrepectful, and then they're the ones who get SRA.

but i'm not sad i didn't get SRA- i know that's not what god wanted me to do, i'm choir president, and i'm SO excited.  and i'm glad to not be stuck in the middle even more of the bad reslife environment that i'm getting sick of.

part of me does wonder if i should think about getting out of it now.  but i have no idea where i would live or with whom.  and i've been an RA this whole time, and i'm used to it.  and it's like, my only source of income, which is really nice.  but i am starting to get tired of the environment, and wondering why i even bother to try to do a good job.  but i need to remember for whom i'm really doing this.  for god's glory, and for the residents.  and i want to stay and be a good RA to the girls i have.  so i will.

but i also don't know whether i should go talk to kacey, to just ask her why she put me in evergreen.  i mean, she'll probably say what i said- that i'm a great RA for the freshmen, etc. etc.  and even though i don't like it, i do feel like that's where god wants me more.  i am happier thinking about living in that actual room.  and i did have some anxieties about being the anna's RA... i dunno.  i want to say "oh, well if i see her tomorrow or next week, i'll bring it up, but if i don't, i won't"  but i don't usually see her right now since we live and work in different parts of campus.  my dad thinks i should, because it would be good for me to just approach her respectful to ask why.  and she did say that if we had a problem with it to come to her and we could talk about it.   but i don't want to waste energy confronting her about it, when i could be using that energy learning to be okay with it.

i dunno.


grey's was sweet tonight.

and laser tag was AWESOME!  even though i'm really not that good.  hah.  but AWESOME.  yay :)

so maybe this is weird, but one day i would love to have some prints of different degas' paintings of women bathing and stuff in my bathroom.  that way i can be surrounded by images of healthy-sized women who are beautiful.   i think more people should pause to appreciate the beauty of a real-sized and shaped women.  more time looking at degas and less time looking at the most recent magazine would make for a healthier mind-set, i think.

i'm in the computer lab- it's annoying how slow EBSCO host is.  I'm looking up research articles to use for nursing research in italy.  we decided yesterday to do eating disorders on college campuses- looking at the prevelance, risk factors, etc. etc. because we know there is tons of research on that already.  which is fine, though there are some other things that sounded really interesting that our teacher suggested- for instance, i would've been interested in looking at the better predictor for doing well on the nclex- test averages, ati scores, or something else?  also, she suggested something to do with stress level and nursing school or something- i think it would be interesting to compare how many activities nursing students are involved in vs. their stress level, plus their average time studying, their test averages, etc.  these are all interesting things, though, it is true, would probably be more complicated.  plus we can survery more people than just nursing students once we get back.

but yeah, i'm looking up research articles and it takes a while for stuff to load.


so, i did all of my calculations to see what i need to get on my final and such- in adult i'm doing better than i thought, because apparently my quiz average is a 100 (don't know how that happened), but in OB, it's a little worse because my quiz average is a little lower (i forgot to take the quiz this past sunday, but i was like, oh, that's okay, they drop the lowest grade- nope- that's only adult. lame).  and our group project that we got a stupid 83 in. 

but anyway.

adult:
to make a B, i need to make at least a 63.  yay! i probably won't even really need to study too much.
to make a B+, i need to make at least an 87.  Okay, this is potentially feasible, seeing as I have an 87 test average.  But we'll see what happens.
to make an A, i need to make a 99.  Hah, yeah right.

OB:
to make a B, i need to make at least a 72.  this shouldn't be that big of a deal, but you know, i should probably study.
to make a B+, i need to make at least a 96.  Okay, that's just not going to happen.  oh well.
to make an A, i need to make at least a 108.  wait, oh yeah, that's impossible.

soooo, i am getting Bs in both my classes, which is totally fine.  I may get a B+ in adult- we'll see.  I wish that OB was adding 2 points to our final grade as opposed to our final grade.  if that makes sense.  like they are adding 2 point to whatever we make on our final, instead of adding 2 point onto whatever we make in the class.  which is lame- last year in foundations and stuff, it was 2 points to the end of our final grade in the class.  which is how i got As.  and i'm still not sure if maybe they just misunderstood, because i thought the faculty had decided to make that a universal policy.  maybe they decided it was a little too nice and took it back.


we had our OB ATI today- made a 2- yay!  tomorrow the only thing I have is the "adult" ati, which is really the pharm ATI... I have no idea how i'm going to do on that.  and i probably really won't study, because it doesn't matter. huzzah.

and then friday is just review for adult, and then adult final monday and ob final wednesday.

i am just so ready to be DONE!

i just have to say that i can't believe private practice ended it's season like it did (i watched last weeks finale yesterday).  it is ridiculously insane! and i dreamed last night about things that might happen in the fall to make everything turn out okay.  so, that's not, like, weird, right? hah.

but seriously, it's killing me.  and i hope grey's doesn't do anything near as bad.  i might die.

i have an 87 test average in both classes.  which i find funny. and really, when you get down to it is pretty good.  the last test in each class i ended up getting a lower B in, but still a B, mainly because i just didn't study as much, because it's always so hard at the end of the year to care.  everything else but studying seems way more important.  i mean, the people i'm around- i'm not going to see them again for three months.  some of them- who knows when the next time i see them will be!  because they are graduating, and i'm sad.

but, this also means that basically, unless i made a 100 on the final (and even then, not really), i'm making a B in these classes.  a B+ would require like a 96 or a 94, which i also don't see happening... so I'm getting B's.  I could get as low as like... oh, darn, now i forgot.  I think my OB was actually 79, which isn't that low really, which kind of stinks, because of our amazingly annoying group project that we made an 83 on!  which is RIDICULOUS.  apparently, even though it was straight from the book, we said some incorrect information.  and because we left out something, which, i'm sorry, we're supposed to include every single thing possible in our presentation?  that's not possible, seeing as advice for pregnant women and eating changes like every 3 months or something.  speaking of, we didn't use our research enough in our articles.  i'm sorry, because if i'm planning a presentation for underpriviledged moms and teaching them what to eat, i'm not going to ramble on about the latest reserach, i'm going to get right down to the point and tell them what they need to know and what matters.

but anyway.  yes.  that was quite annoying and is 10 percent of my grade, which is helping keep me down.   i did lots of math calculations on my grade on my scratch piece of paper for the test, but then i had to turn that in.  oh well.

anyway, i don't want to be one of those people who just complains about the grade and says it's unfair and whines and moans and expects the teacher to change their expectations.  i would have liked it if maybe they had TOLD us their expectations a little better, because they NEVER talked about this stupid project, but, yeah, whatever.  i'll just trust i won't make lower than a 79 on the final.  which should be okay.  as long as i'm not having a bad day and keep choosing the wrong one out of my final two choices because of stupid wording.  but hey, that's why we love nursing, right?


seriously, i hate my cynical bitter moods sometimes.

happy things include the fact that we had our RUF end-of-the-year party last night (oh wait, that's sad too... because it was the last time i'll see some of those people until fall.  and lindsay and blake are leaving!!!)  and we had fun scrapbooking in vail lobby.  and i'm going out to dinner with the choir officers tonight, and choir is playing laser tag on thursday.  and in just a week and day, i will be DONE with this semester, and classes that involve crazy teachers who don't actually teach you or tell you anything but then expect you to know what they're thinking.  yay!

oh yeah, and i had to clean up throw up yesterday.   i think people expect that since i'm in the hospital twice a week, and clean up poop on a regular basis throw up shouldn't bother me.  but i haven't had to clean up any throw up yet.  and i find throw up substansially grosser, i think because it's less contained and more... projected.

so the good thing about making friends with freshmen who you realize live on the 1st floor is that you can call them before you lug your laundry all the way down there to make sure that there are actually available machines.


a random ramble on modern medicine, life, and death, spurred by grey's anatomy and the swine flu:

so we had this discussion about the swine flu and somehow someone brought up the whole "decreasing the surpless population" thing, and how thoughts like that are just "evil" and i was like, well, not really... i mean, if there is a point there- it's still sad and tragic when people die, but people die.  and if it's from natural causes, that's life.  i mean, yeah, it's evil and terrible when someone is intentionally going to kill people, but it's not evil to accept the fact that people die.  it's sad, but it's part of life.  you can't have new life if there isn't death.

and then on grey's anatomy.  izzie and this stage 4 melanoma that is in her liver, gut, brain, all over the place.  i understand that it's hard to accept death, but why does it have to be a bad thing?  i hate that they're showing her keeping on fighting and fighting- and for what?  to loose her entire bowel? to have it metastize somewhere else? to end up eventually dying and having spent the last days of her life feeling like complete crap while she sends poison through her veins?  i'm not advocating here not ever treating cancer or other illnesses, but i am advocating accepting death.  it's okay to accept the fact that there is nothing more that you can do.  with it leaving the episode with her going off to surgery and bailey promising to be as aggressive as possible.  where is that going to leave her, if she makes it through?  with hardly any small intestines, so therefore a significantly decreased area to absorb nutrition from her food, which means the rest of the time she is alive, however long that is, she'll be struggling with trying to get all the nutrients her body needs to live.  and there is still no garauntee that the cancer will be gone.

this is such a fine line, though, because i feel like it sounds like i'm saying that since she won't have a good quality of life, you shouldn't bother saving her.  and i don't believe in that sentence, in that there are lots of situations that may seem like 'bad quality of life' but in fact people can live and thrive and be incredibly happy (i'm thinking specifically right now of joni earackson tada and her spinal cord injury leading to quadraplegia, and how she wished they had just let her die for a long time, but now is doing so much with her life and is such a blessing).  but i feel like modern medicine hates the idea of letting people die.  i feel like there's this unspoken goal of 'if we figure out how to fix things enough, we won't die anymore' but that 1-isnt' possible, and 2-isn't something we should be striving for.

maybe it's just because i have great hope and expectation for my life after death, and i have great confidence that i will finally be restored in jesus.  and that's an exciting thought, so i just don't understand why people hold onto live so much.  there is something better than this wordly life!   i'm sure if i was the one in the hospital bed trying to make that decision, it would be much harder to have peace about it, but at the same time, i know that the spirit does give a peace which passes understanding.

i just hate to see izzie going through this pain when there's what, a 5% chance of survival?  and a 5% chance of what?  another few years?  i doubt that 5% is back to live as they knew it before cancer.  and i just wish she was spending this time getting to say goodbye, getting to spend time outside of the hospital.

i also hate how doctors don't like to take hospice patients.  i had a patient who had just been put on hospice, but was still in the hospital, and the family desperately wanted him to come home, but he still had a chest tube in.  and no doctor would claim him as their own- they all kept saying it was someone else's decision on whether to pull the tube, water lock it, or what.  one doctor was like, yeah, i'm fine with that, but so and so has to make the order, because he's their patient.  and those people were like, why don't you just pull it?  and the nurse told them how they were worried about his lung collapsing again, and they're like, well, why does that matter, he's going to die anyway?  such a complete lack of sympathy and desire to make his death peaceful.  death by a collapsed lung is not a nice way to go.  and here's the family, just wanting to get him home so they can take care of them in the comfort and privacy of their own home, and there are like 4 of his kids all sleeping in his hospital room, sharing the cot and the couch, and every doctor is refusing to make an order.  no one wants a hospice patient, because they can't save them anymore, so what's the point?   luckily, i found out this week, he was able to go home and has now passed.

this makes me wonder how i would respond to hospice nursing.  i would really like to maybe shadow a hospice nurse and see.  because i feel like these are people who need love and compassionate care just as much as anyone else.   i don't know, though, if it would be too hard.  and i've already seen that it kills me when i'm having to bath them or something, and i now it's so painful for me to move them, and i'm wondering why i have to bother them with this- does it really matter?  why do i have to put them through the discomfort of a path when they are going to die soon anyway.  of course, just because you're on hospice doesnt' mean you're going to die tomorrow or next week- it could be months.

yeah, i don't know if i could do it or not, but i would be interested to see some hospice nurses in action.

and i wish that people would accept the fact that we all die, and you don't always have to try and stop it.  and just because you do accept it doesn't mean you are weak or have lost hope.

it really is such a complicated issue and one that i still can't really decide how i feel about.  i wish there was some easy guidelines on if ______, then you should try to keep them alive, but if ______ then accept your death.  but there's not.

an another note about death- we had a guest speaker last week who has done lots of different types of nursing but is now doing dialysis, and he told us about how during one of his first codes, one of his superiors was like, dude, relax! they're already dead, you really can't make it much worse!  and i thought it was good advice to calm down in a code.  a code is that person's last chance- if they die, it' s okay, they were already dead, and would've been dead without you, you can only do the best you can to potentially save them.

we had our choir party for the seniors tonight, and it was fun and full of awesomeness and we had good share time and josh's slide show was awesome, and they all loved the picture frames that me and courtney made.  i feel like i want to be emotional, because i really am sooo sad they are all leaving.  in like, an unbelievable, i have no idea what choir is going to look like or be without them, because they have been so integral to my choir experience.  but like, i think it just hasn't hit me, because i haven't even felt close to tears.  even when other people were totally crying.  i think it's going to really hit me until the first choir next year. 

man, but really, i love these people so much.  beth and allison and sam and bekah and tara and gena and carole and lana and all of them.   i feel like there is going to be this huge void in my life without them.

though i am so excited about the new leadership in choir next year.  and the freshmen who have just really connected one with the seniors (they were crying more than me, and they just met them and got close to them this semester).  these freshmen like courtney and lauren really just have such a huge heart for choir, and it's exciting to know that next year when it's my turn to leave, i'll be leaving it in good, capable hands who love choir for all the right reasons, and will continue to keep it a welcoming environment that is constantly encouraging one another on toward love and good deeds!  yay! :)

but man, i'm going to miss these awesome people.