L'aventure américaine

We're baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack... "Are you registered to vote?" This sentence rings through the campus center again as Students for Barack Obama has set up the table and plans on sticking around between now and November 5th. Happy Election Year, everyone! Moments of today included: "Don't ask me now. Especially while I'm eating." Stated with disdain and disgust... The returning heckler who keeps saying, "Don't vote for change" and hangs around our table. He has yet to say anything substantive about why he's voting for McCain. A concerned voter who is leaning toward Obama, but very concerned because her church insists that he is the Antichrist and has been showing newspaper articles that match up with passages in the Bible. Whichever she decides... she's now registered to vote. Two and half months left. Don't forget to register.

This week I had my new job orientation. I will be working as a Student Nurse Extern (SNE: pronounced snee) at University Hospital. It's like a glorified tech with more privileges and I'm pretty excited about it. So, this week I had job training from 8-4:30 for four days with other nursing students. These included students from the traditional program at IU, Purdue, Anderson, Ivy Tech, etc. I had become accustomed to the students in my program: my classmates whom I love. They're smart and serious students with varied interests and I had projected our diversity onto the rest of the nursing students. This week, I realized that that wasn't quite the case. Obviously, I get offended when people try to stereotype nurses, but some of the students that I met this week really represented that stereotype. It's true, they're extremely kind and sweet people who will be good, caring, empathetic nurses. But, I felt that they were missing that something extra. For exa...

You know that you're about to take a trip with a girl when... You spend a good portion of the morning preparing snacks. You worry about which book to read and debate which library is on the way out. You discuss whether or not hair dryers will be in the hotel. Off on a trip with my mom! We've got quite the Hoosier storm showing us the way, but I'm not worried. We've got plenty of snacks...

Today is my last day of my second summer session. The part of nursing school that our program warned us about it almost over... 6 hours away from finishing. I wouldn't say that nursing school is the most efficient program. I have spent the majority of this clinical session (of psychology), trying to figure out how to pay attention and foster interest versus letting my mind wander but maintaining a focused facial expression. Also keeping my contempt of time wasting under wraps. That's been a challenge. Sometimes I've succeeded, and as my classmates can attest, sometimes I haven't. But, now, as everyone else buckles down for the start to the school year, I'm getting ready for my vacation. I have one whole week (slightly more, in fact) in which I have no work to do and no studying to do. I'll do some campaign work and I'm going on a trip with my mom and my second week of vacation will be full of job training, but when I finish a day, I will get to read ...