1/30/13

I kicked NCLEX butt!

As of 1/17/13 I am officially a Registered Nurse! Now I just have to find a JOB.

I went to a job fair yesterday and was disappointed to see that no one was hiring new grads. I did get some information about internships but I can't even start applying for them til April. I need a job now but I know that an internship is the best way for me to transition from a student to a "real" nurse. If I was really smart I would have thought about this earlier and applied in October/November for the January start... hindsight.

I went with a friend from school, and am glad I did. It was so nice to catch up with her and have someone there to talk to/stand in line with.

NCLEX!!

I got my ATT today, scheduled my NCLEX for 1/14/13 one month after "official graduation". I'm nervous and excited. :)

Graduation!

I'm finally finished!! Woohoo!!! Now I just have to schedule my NCLEX after I get my ATT.  I'll be a RN before the end of January.

[summer evening birds are calling]

It's the last weekend before school starts *sigh*. I've finished all my pre first day of school homework and pretty much have everything ready. Tomorrow, I'll pack up my backpack and get everything ready to go.

Yesterday, I had an awesome end of summer/back to school date with C. I have been thinking about HK a lot and decided we should go to eat dim sum. I looked up some places online and found a place in "Chinatown" that serves HK style dim sum all day. It wasn't quite as good as Tim Ho Wan but it was pretty yummy. My favorite was the har gow (steamed fresh shrimp dumplings). After dinner we browsed around the Asian grocery store next door. The sights and smells reminded us of HK and brought back memories of the different places we had been. The experience was bittersweet, more for him than me obviously. I spent 2 weeks there and missed it when I left, I can't imagine the feelings he must have after living there for a whole year.

After the Asian market, we headed to the theater and paid way too much to see Paranorman. It wasn't a bad movie, in fact, we really enjoyed it. It just sucks that it costs almost $30 for 2 people to see a movie and near $50 if you want sodas and/or popcorn. Insanity! While we were waiting for the movie, we played Terminator Salvation and Street Fighter. I usually kick C's butt at Terminator but I swear something was wrong with the gun as I only killed 4. FOUR! That is so not right, I usually kill 10 times that many! I made up for it in Street Fighter though, I beat C and a whole bunch of other characters until Nash K.O.-ed me. I had so much fun playing even though I hurt my fingers punching those buttons, lol.

Today, dad and I took my niece and nephew to his company picnic. We had a lot of fun, the kids played games and putt putt and got their faces and arms painted. I got a one eyed wolf painted on my arm... OK it was a two eyed one but one eye looked weird, loll! It was still cool. We played ping pong, lawn chess, ate sno-cones and watermelon. My niece won first place in the pie eating contest and won a huge tote bag full of summer water stuff- a slip n slide, goggles, water frisbee, pool toys and some other small stuff. Her favorite thing? The bubble wrap. My nephew won a squirt gun and a Sponge Bob puzzle which he put together and took apart 4 or 5 times.  We were all sweaty and tired by the end of the afternoon.

I probably should have taken a nap when I got home but I didn't and now I'm super tired. Later!

[Stars spell out your name like in a science fiction drama]

Nothing super exciting happened today, I went to school and listened to a presentation about the future of nursing, watched an old 80's video about patient/client boundaries and then we took our leadership test which I did well on. I ate lunch with V and K, stopped by Ulta to check out the nail polish and came home.

Once I got home my mom let me know that my dad was starting his IVIG treatments tomorrow. We had to straighten the house and vacuum and mop all the floors because the dogs tracked in mud. That was a chore! Mom and I worked together though and got it done. I finally cleaned out the front room and put a bunch of stuff in the garage. My shoulders and ankles hurt now though :(

Dad will be home for 9 days straight due to the treatment, weekends and the Thanksgiving holiday. Dad overload? I hope not. I really hope he tolerates the treatment well.

Tonight we watched some TV and I gave Pepper a bath to get the mud out of his hair. He was not happy about that, poor baby. He got his teeth cleaned last week and they did an awesome job. He's not as growly and his breath smells way better. Maybe those two teeth he had pulled had been hurting him.

Tomorrow I have my second therapy session, I hope it goes well.

[There is thunder in our hearts, baby.]

I had big plans today to clean the front room but that didn't happen cuz I stayed up all night watching OTH with my dad (he couldn't sleep). When I woke up this morning C was online and I ended up playing RuneScape for a couple hours with him. I doubled my magic level and almost died trying to prove that I could kill dragons too. I did kill the dragons, I almost died because I got poisoned by some creature in the dungeon when I was on my way out, lol. 

I went to the doctor this afternoon to get some more samples of the new med. It's been like 10 days and I don't really feel any different. The samples should last me a month, hopefully I will know if it works by then. I should be able to tell if its working right? I wonder why it takes so long... I mean I know it has to build up in your system, but why can't they make something that works faster?

I took pics today after it rained of the dogs, the bees on the lemon tree, rain soaked leaves and the sky. I really love the sky, That sounds so random but it's beautiful, night or day. Clouds and stars, rainbows and moonbows. It's amazing. I'd love to one day be able to take photos of the night sky, like really awesome photos.

I saw a shooting star last night, it was pretty cool. I was taking out the trash and happened to look up and see it. I never see one when I want to see one or am looking for one, weird how that works. I looked up shooting stars on space.com and found out that they aren't even stars, its debris and like space grit, meteoroids really. I think shooting star or falling star sounds so much better than meteoroid.

I studied for my leadership exit exam tomorrow and took a practice test which I did well on. It's mostly delegation and prioritization. I have some NCLEX preparation tests to take this week. I don't have to take them (as I was informed yesterday) but I am going to take them anyway because I want to be a part of my class and I want to get all the prep I can. We took a NCLEX predictor test Monday to see how well we might do on the test. I have a 93% chance of passing if I took it now. That's pretty good, if only I had the clinical part down :( Oh well, I have another year to figure that part out. 

I painted my nails after my practice test with OPI Teenage Dream, I like it, it's really glittery but kinda thick. I had Orly's Shine On Crazy Diamond on last week. I love the holographic glitters, they're all rainbow-y and happy.

After my nail polish dried I watched 2 episodes of OTH and was going to watch another but decided to use the time to post. I need to get back into the habit of taking the last 30 mins or so before bed to get things out of my head. I can only tell C so much in my good night emails, lol. I know he doesn't care about nail polish :D

random jumble

I spent today with my brother and 14 year old niece (I*) at Texas Children's Hospital (TCH). It was for a follow up appointment cuz I* is having some girly issues and my brother felt weird going without a female (his wife had to work). Four hours and a nutritionist later we get to go home. She's underweight for her height and needs to eat more. Wish I had that problem! Spending the day with her was interesting, most of the time was enjoyable, but there were a few times when I wanted to smack her, lol. I don't know how my brother stays sane with a teenager and a 6 year old around. Further proof that I am not ready for kids, LMAO!

I watched Game of Thrones this season and really enjoyed it. I have the audio books but they are like 40 hours long and the guy kinda bores me. I would rather read than listen right now since I'm not doing anything else, lol. I recently found out that my iPod touch has a Kindle app and was way too excited about it. Unfortunately, my library doesn't support Kindle and the ebooks I want to read (GoT and some others) have like 98 people waiting... WTF?

Father's day was awesome, Mandy and I collaborated on a menu and I made a copy cat version of Carrabba's Chicken Bryan , Trottole pasta and grilled asparagus. It was just like the restaurant but better cuz I did it myself! Mandy grilled and I did the inside cooking and baked a sugar free pineapple upside down cake and a peach upside down cake. Yum!

C and I are still doing well, we are playing a game online together and using FaceTime daily. I absolutely love FaceTime. It's way better than Skype, Oovoo or Yahoo video messaging. As much as I bitched about Apple in the past, I love my iPod touch, it is my entertainment HQ- music, internet, movies, TV, photo album, camera and now books! I am so getting an iPhone when I can afford one. /apple testimonial.

I am going to Hong Kong in December. I am excited but scared. C says there is a lot of walking and everything is small, which makes sense since Asian people are smaller. I am thinking it will be like Tokyo though and I didn't have any problems there, of course that was 10 years ago and I was more physically fit and about 75# lighter.

I need to continue walking. I took a walk yesterday as part of my daily challenge and walked today when we went to TCH, I just need to keep it up. I have been in the pool about 4 times a week walking/floating/swimming. I want to start doing water aerobics I just need to find or make up a routine.

I've rediscovered my love for Noxzema! I used to use it as a kid/teen and for some reason stopped using it. I bought some recently for a sunburn and started using it on my face too. I'd forgotten that tingly, cool feeling and the smell. :) Now, if only I could find the Freeman Wild Cherry conditioner I used to buy in high school I'd be even happier! It smelled divine!

That's about all for now :)