it's been a long long long long time

my computer died a few months ago, which is why i haven't posted anything in a very, very long time. i've actually had all kinds of things to say--nothing useful, of course--but had no way to put them up here. and now they are lost to the recesses of time and my mind forever. oh well.
so many things have happened in the last few weeks, and now i'm just sitting here on this borrowed computer with allergies worse than i have ever experienced thinking of all the studying and chores that have piled up but that i still really don't want to do. it's summer! i want to play!
but not yet, little lizzo, not quite yet. it's a little frustrating sometimes. people think that now that school is over it means i'm free and have all the time in the world. but actually, the hardest (and scariest) part is still to come. now i have to take a test--one test--that will determine if the last three years of my life were really useful for anything at all. if i pass i am a nurse. if i don't... and everyone says that of course i'll pass. but people don't. lots of people don't. and i'm not going to lie to you or anyone else--i wasn't the best student last year. or any year, really. i can get good grades, but i take lots and lots of shortcuts that mean i don't really retain the material very well. anyway, i digress.
also, i know i'm new to all of this, and one of the most significant things i have learned over the past two years of nursing school is that we are so dang complicated that no one will ever really know everything, and even the basics will take years and years and years to get down. but i still can't even seem to diagnose myself and my own symptoms. is this actually just plain allergies? or are the signs and symptoms indicative of something more? it's hard to say. also, our bodies really only react in a limited number of ways to millions of things, so that makes it tough too. i hope that one day i will feel confident in my ability to give advice, knowing that it is actually based on something besides my best guess. or maybe that's all nursing really is.
i have to go see if my phone is locked in my boiling hot car, and if so, if it has melted or exploded yet. good luck!

we put the bs in bsn

so...

i graduated this morning.
i knew it would all happen really fast, but it is kind of unbelievable that it truly already came and went. everyone told me there would be this great letdown at the end of everything, but like the ornery girl i am i didn't believe them. now i get it. for the past two years i have worked my ass off. and for the past three months i have worked more than 60 hours a week and gone to class. it's hard to follow that with nothing. i'm not really sure what to do with myself now... a thought i never, ever expected to have.

it has been a great time of celebrations and parties and happiness for all of us, though i must admit it is all slightly bittersweet. i can't help but feel a bit sad when i realize that we probably won't all ever be in the same room together again, or when i know that some of the people who helped me through some of the toughest moments in and out of school these last two years are leaving this place. my overactive sentimentality gets me every time. things change and as much as i am responsible for changing things i still feel it when they do. how deep.
also 6 out of 8 members of my family are moving in the next week, including myself, which is causing great upheaval in all of our lives. all 8 of us will be in seattle for a spell, something that brings great joy to my heart and confusion to my planning. i keep telling myself that one of these days it will become more clear. one of these days coming up, i'm sure of it.

congraduations class of 2008!
best of luck.

introspective

my final paper is ready to print. my last real assignment as an undergrad (again) is done... it is a great feeling.
in mere days i will go back to only having one job and hopefully lots of free time. i have a lot of weeks of hard work to make up for--that's a LOT of fun things i have to do.
and i am daydreaming about summer plans. i have about a month off from the time i finish my tech job until the time i start my real job and i want to do everything. that is the story of my life. everything.

i am fighting with myself again. i have "decided" to take the job offer at children's, meaning that i will be staying in seattle for a bit longer.
hence the fight.
it is a strange prospect to think of staying here for practical reasons, which is what i am doing. i will stay because i know the hospital, i know the way things work, and i know some other people who will be working there. safe. all the nurses i know say that they cried and/or threw up every day during their first year of nursing. i figure it's a little easier to do these things with the people who have already seen me at my worst throughout this whole nursing school debacle instead of foisting my emotional self onto a whole new set of folks i know nothing about. safe. safe and boring. safe and dreary. safe and sleeping. i can't believe that i am choosing this. but sometimes i get scared too.
my way of justifying this whole mess is by deciding that for as long as i am here i will do everything. see, there it is again. i will do all of the things that i have always wanted to do and all of the things that come up that are interesting. i will go to beautiful places and play with as many different people as i can find. and maybe somewhere in there i will finally see why some people i know seem to love this place so much. and maybe i will finally feel the freedom to leave once and for all.

katie tagged me a long long time ago. i'll do that next time.