Breath before the Back-to-School Storm

Summer semester begins tomorrow and as my Adult 1 course is posted and gradually fleshed out online, I am having an overwhelming urge to print, highlight, organize, and all-around prepare myself for the semester. I only wish this drive would last past the first two weeks of each semester. I'm one of those sick people who get excitement upon entering office supply stores... pens, notebooks, dividers, planners, and sticky notes all hold a strange fascination to me and the beginning of the semester brings this fetish to a high point. The disappointing thing is, unlike my classmate Erica (ha, sounds like we're back in grade school) who, with boundless energy, color codes and tabs every reference page offered her, my organizing enthusiasm has a very specific inverse relationship with how long I've been in each course and by the end of the semester all I have piled in front of me is a loose stack of papers with no color or markings anywhere on them. Each semester I vow to change that and so far my vows have not come to fruition. But regardless, I try and try again!

So here I am entering my first semester of grad school with clinicals. Everything from this point on is officially downhill until graduation at the end of next summer. Four semesters down, four to go. I am excited to start my clinical experiences because that is where I really learn what it is to be an ARNP and begin my career but I am also insanely nervous because despite feeling prepared on some levels, I feel extremely ill-prepared in others. My pharmacology class was a joke. Everything I know I learned in my bachelor's level course or on my own on the floor. I went back over my pharm powerpoints the other day to see if it was me, my lack of dedication to a class that required so little in submission when another class was demanding all of my attention. But upon opening those slides I discovered that no, I was not the one who failed that class, it was the professor who failed me by only 'teaching' the bare minimum and not educating us on why an NP would prescribe one drug over another. And thats incredibly disappointing as pharm should be one of the most informative and challenging courses of this program. I am hoping clinicals, along with a decent amount of self-study on my own, will give me the real-life application I'll need in my future practice.

But there is life outside of school, a fact I sometimes have to remind myself of. I am home in Tallahassee for the first time in 5 months and here for Mother's Day for the first time in a number of years. Its been good to have this refresher with family prior to returning to the real world. Sleeping in, home cooked meals, old canopy roads and late night talks with my mom can do wonders for the soul. Plus we had a rope climbing/ziplining adventure you'll hear about in my next 30 Before 30 post!

Also, my amazingly talented boyfriend recently premiered as Brick in Tampa Repertory Theatre's production of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. So far the show has received rave reviews from critics and audiences alike. You can read Creative Loafing's review of the show here. The cast is talented and the setting very intimate, definitely a show that will have you mulling over the conclusion long after you leave. 

And now I am off to enjoy the rest of Mother's Day with the fam before returning to the real world of Tampa tomorrow. I hope everyone enjoys a relaxing day of celebrating their family today!

Love,

KayCee

2014 to date

To see such an extensive lapse in my blog is such a bittersweet feeling. I miss being able to write 20-30 posts in a year and enjoy looking back on changes both big and little in the last few years. Yet, these long voids in posts means my life is busy and full. Both good and bad, always, but still full and in constant motion. 

So what has happened in my life over the past 6 months? 

Well first of all, my family has continued to grow. I mentioned Clara in my last post, the sweetest, loudest deaf cat you ever will meet. Well she's continued growing from a measly 1.5 lb kitten to a full grown 10 lb cat and celebrated her first birthday at the end of March. My baby is a baby no longer! *sniff* 

However, Clara's birthday wasn't the only big event last month...she also got a brother! I've become really accustomed to having more than one pet over the years and always felt bad that I have to leave her alone for 14 hours a day when I work, not to mention nights when I'm out with friends, or running errands, etc. So I've very much wanted to get her a sibling. I've spent weeks on petfinder.com searching rescues. Normally I gravitate to the older, more 'needy' animals that I know may not get adopted otherwise, but with Clara being so young, I wanted to find her a companion she could bond and live out her life with. Yet not one so young she could boss around (which she would definitely be prone to do!). 

So I knew I was looking for males between the ages of 2-5 years. Plus, I knew I was partial to orange tabbies after Peanut, but wouldn't make that a deal breaker. I went out to shelters a few times and found some promising cats, but none that I felt were "the one." Finally, one weekend my sister came down and she, Nate, and I devoted the entire day to visiting rescues. We had no luck at the first few places and decided to make one last stop at the Clearwater Humane Society. There we found this sleepy, orange guy making his bed by holding the blanket in his mouth and purring away. He took to all three of us right away and we knew the decision had been made. The only problem was his name...Chuck just wasn't going to cut it. Nate pointed out he was a bit 'two-faced' because of the line running down his nose. This of course made Nate think of the Batman character Two-Face who's real name is Harvey Dent. So now our little guy had a new name...Harvey! It's been about a month since he moved in and it was a bit rough at first but now he and Clara are openly curious and tolerating each other and I can only hope that they'll be best buds in the near future!

view of the city from my hotel room

Two months ago, one of my best friends Tiffany turned 30 and her husband planned a surprise trip to New York for her. Of course there was no way I was going to miss this trip, but I wanted it to be a genuine surprise! I spent a month convincing her (with some outside help!) that it wasn't possible for me to come, only to receive a "talk" from her the day we were supposed to leave that she was really disappointed that she had figured out I wasn't coming and how she thought out of everyone I would be the one person she knew would come. It was all I could do not to give in and tell her right then and there! But when she burst into tears after seeing me as she was coming through the security gate at the airport, it was all worth it. We met two more of her friends in the airport and a few others in the city and had a blast of a weekend! We shopped (almost literally until we dropped), ate the most amazing food, deciphered the subway, visited the 911 Memorial, went to Broadway, and did a few authentic New Yorker activities like the equally cool and creepy Sleep No More interactive show. Plus, I got to see my amazing friend Diana who recently made the brave decision to drop everything and move to the city - I miss her so much!! It was freezing, but an absolutely blast and I was so glad to be there to celebrate with Tiff!

You caught that I mentioned Broadway, right?? Aka #28 on my 30 Before 30 list? And we didn't just see any show, we saw THE show. THE show that I have wanted to see since I heard the first notes of the soundtrack at age 11: Phantom of the Opera. It blew my mind and almost brought me to tears. Definitely an amazing experience I wouldn't trade for anything!

You couldn't wipe the grin off my face that night if you tried!

Other than that, life has been pretty status quo, mainly revolving around work and school. At the end of next week I will officially be at the half-way point in my ARNP program. I am astonished and proud to admit, barring anything crazy happening in the next 1.5 weeks, I will have continued to maintain a 4.0 so far in the program, far surpassing my academic achievements when pursing my BSN. It's such a great feeling to have made it this far in the program, but its also terrifying because next semester begins what I have been dreading for awhile now...clinicals. Don't get me wrong, once I get in a groove, I actually think clinicals will be great. And I'm not that nervous about interacting with my patients in a student-ARNP role, but what I am concerned about is meeting my preceptor. I feel so confident about some of my skills and like I know practically nothing in other areas...I just hope that I get someone who is passionate and smart and empathic and really values their role as a preceptor because I very much want to learn. And besides being nervous about meeting my preceptor, I'm anxious about handling my time management. I have 180 clinical hours I am expected to complete within 2.5 months, all while working and taking class. I've already dropped down to part-time at work to help compensate for the time I will be 'working' for free...but then that adds on the added stressor of money management. So I guess goal #18 Make a Budget is going to become a critical factor in my life soon. Lets just pray I can manage it all while still being a healthy, happy, functioning human being!

I've got some fun things planned for my 30 Before 30 list coming up and one more thing will be checked off this weekend! So stay tuned for that!

Until then....

Love,

KayCee