Two plus two is ten

So Thursday was my four-year anniversary with Nate, which I think is pretty radtastic. He bought me a blu-ray player and "Tron: Legacy," because he is MADE OF CUPCAKES AND WIN and has sort of twigged to the fact that I'm utterly obsessed with everything Tron right now. We didn't really want to stack the blu-ray on top of the 360 or the stereo, so we bought a new little entertainment stand thingy as well. It's all wood and glass and fancy and shit, serious grown-up furniture for sure. We'd made an Ikea run earlier last week and got some curtains, a rug, and a new lamp for the living room, and finally switched out the old beat-up coffee table for the pretty black lacquer one that's been hanging out in my office. With the new entertainment stand thingy in there, our living room is finally starting to look like a REAL living room, as opposed to one we cobbled together out of dorm room leftovers.

Not that it was bad like that or anything. It's just a lot prettier this way!

Now we only need a couch that we can wipe down after the dog flops all over it and a better bookshelf for all the games and movies and things, and we'll be set. Oh, and more art, but we need more art throughout the entire house. Stuff on the walls = good times.

Seriously, I can't believe we're at four years already. We have a house and a dog together, for fuck's sake. That is hella domestic right there, and I feel kind of deliriously happy whenever I think about it.

So apparently you can't install .exe files on a Mac. Who knew? Besides everyone else on the internet, I mean. I don't really want to install Windows just so I can switch back and forth between operating systems, because half the reason I bought a Mac in the first place was so I wouldn't have to deal with Windows anymore, but we'll see how I feel a few months down the line when I'm really feeling the lack of access to some version or another of Photoshop. Why oh why didn't I ever buy a legal version?! WHYYYYYYYY?

...oh, wait, that's right, because it's two hundred freaking dollars. Silly me.

If any of you know of a similar program that won't make my wallet cry, I'll be forever grateful. Layers and the ability to futz with brushes are the big things, really; everything else is just (expensive and delicious) gravy. Bluh. I can't wait until I have a job again and I don't have to agonize quite so much over every expensive thing I buy.

In other news, this week's Metal Evolution was all about nu-metal, and I've had Limp Bizkit's "I Did It All For the Nookie" stuck in my head EVER. SINCE. Seriously, it's making me want to claw my eyes out. I hate that song.

Anyway. Today's my orientation for one of the clinical sites I've been assigned to this quarter, and I'm kind of excited about it. We're working out in the community this quarter, and I think it's going to be a really good experience.

Ugh. This week has been utterly exhausting. And I still have a shitload of reading to do for tomorrow (along with a quiz that's due before 1:00, and if I don't want to be completely overwhelmed tomorrow night I should probably start on my pharm reading and my clinical judgment worksheet for Tuesday's clinical session), but I'm tiiiiiiiiired and keep poking through my email drafts instead, where I apparently emailed a million story ideas and notes to myself back before I left my job. Some of them are pretty rad! I also have NO TIME AT ALL in which to pursue them!

Seriously, all of last year's grads who said the first quarter was the hardest? THEY WERE LYING LIARS WHO LIED. This quarter is way more difficult! It's more about time management than subject matter, but the time management thing is plenty rough. I mean. On Sunday, I need to get my reading and any remaining assignments done for Monday. On Monday, I have five solid hours of chronic illness theory, and after class I have to get my patient assignment for the next day so I can do patient prep. Patient prep involves several hours of chart review (on school computers, because of HIPAA), and then I have to go home and spend another few hours researching my patient's medications so that I know what they do, why the patient is taking them, and what side effects or drug interactions I should expect to see.

Tuesday is my clinical day on a patient floor. It starts at 6:45 AM and last for eight hours, I'm on my feet pretty much the whole time and keep forgetting to take breaks, and it's fucking AWESOME and I love it but oh my god I am WIPED by the time we're done. Tuesday nights, I do my reading for Wednesday.

Wednesday is technically supposed to be our "light" day, since all that's on the docket is a two-hour post-clinical conference session, but we still have to get trained in a bunch of stuff and so they front-loaded the quarter with skills labs and sim sessions in addition to our post-conferences. Those last for four hours, and then on Wednesday night I can finally do my pathophysiology reading and online quiz.

Patho is four hours on Thursdays. Thursdays I do my reading and online quiz for pharmacology, along with my clinical write-up and reflection for the week. Friday is pharmacology, which is also four hours long, and then I finally get to come home and spend time with Nate, who's off on Thursdays and Fridays. I...don't get to spend much time with him this quarter. :( I've been using Saturdays mostly for catching up on errands and making flashcards and/or food, and then on Sunday the whole thing starts over again.

Then you add transit time (2-3 hours total each day), puppy time (30 minutes each day), and exercise time (30 minutes to an hour every other day or so), and this is pretty much why I want to just collapse face-down in bed and never ever leave.

This is week three. Of an eleven week quarter. Nggggggggh.

On the plus side, I'm learning a LOT and I'm feeling pretty good about my clinical time so far. I just wish I had time for some non-school things, like...reading. Or writing. I'm doing okay on my movie/tv consumption, but that's only because I make flashcards while I watch (go go gadget multitasking!) and don't pay all that much attention to the screen itself.

Is it weird that I'm sort of looking forward to having a job again? Because I'm sort of looking forward to having a job again. I'll have money AND time again! Yay!

Gahhh. I had this whole huge post written up earlier today, and then my iPad LJ-client ate it. The iPad LJ-client is a JERK.

I suppose I could try to reconstruct the lost post (it was such an awesome post, you have no idea), but the sad truth is that -- after somehow managing to survive my first quarter of nursing school AND finals week unscathed -- my traitorous body has decided to succumb to A Sickness merely one week before fall quarter is set to begin. I suppose it's technically not too bad as sicknesses go, but I'm definitely feeling a little more feverish and addled than usual and this is why I won't be reconstructing the lost post of awesome. Instead, I will be watching The Crow.

For the second time in three days.

Unironically.

Okay, so.

I really, really hate the people who moved into the house behind ours. We are talking full-strength, 100% proof hatred, because they are the loudest motherfuckers on the entire goddamn planet. We've had to call in noise complaints to the cops three times. THREE. You'd think they would get it after the first time, but...nope, apparently not! Because they are assholes, and apparently don't understand things like common courtesy and, I don't know, maybe NOT having giant loud parties that start at midnight on Tuesday or Wednesday nights? Where they blast shit like P.O.D. and Papa Roach and Creed -- fucking CREED, are you kidding me?! -- and stand on the balcony outside so they can smoke and scream along?

AT MIDNIGHT. IN A QUIET LITTLE SUBURBAN NEIGHBORHOOD.

*infinity headdesks*

As I write this from my delightful little office in the back of our house, they are currently listening to something that sounds an awful lot like Limp Bizkit. They are, of course, shouting along, and because it's only 5:00 in the afternoon I can't really say or do anything about it. I can only try to ignore it as best I can and continue to work on my case study and the fifty pages of reading I need to finish by tomorrow. I probably should've done some of the reading yesterday, but yesterday was my pathophysiology midterm, and last Wednesday was my pharmacology midterm, and I've pretty much spent the past two weeks doing nothing but eat, attempt to sleep, and cram my sad little brainmeats full of pharm and patho knowledge. I am tired. I needed a break.

And I am sorely regretting yesterday's break, because now I have to contend with Limp Bizkit at top volume and I just...

the human brain was not meant to withstand this sort of thing.

I don't care what anyone says: Pluto will always be a planet to me.

ALWAYS.

So today was my nursing school orientation, and...oh my god, I can't even express how excited and nervous and abso-fucking-lutely terrified I am about this program. I know I'm going to be fine -- everything will work out and I'll meet a bunch of new people and I'm going to learn the sorts of skills that will render me incalculably valuable in a post-apocalyptic world*, and I'm probably going to have a lot of fun amidst all the work and stress...but I barely slept last night because some part of me was convinced that I would arrive at the school and discover that it had all been a mistake and I wasn't really accepted, and that kind of tells you everything you need to know about the way my brain works.

(Honestly, though? I think this is going to be great. Scary and difficult and stressful? Absolutely. But it's also going to be amazing. I feels it in me bones.)

My final day as an admin was last Wednesday, and I'm a little surprised at how much I miss everyone at the office. I need to head back to campus on Tuesday for my new ID badge and to pick up my books, and I think I might swing by to say "hi" if I have time. I mean...they got me a $500 gift certificate to the student bookstore as my going-away present. FIVE. HUNDRED. This pretty much covers my books for the entire quarter and I almost started bawling when I opened the envelope, especially when they told me that (a) everyone in the division had contributed, and (b) that Dr. Z -- "my" doctor -- had contributed about $100 his own self. I just. TEARS. Everyone kept telling me how happy they were, and how proud, and how they hoped I'd come back to work with them in the ICU or trauma research or as a scrub nurse. My last days at the law firm were awful; my last days with trauma were lovely. As frustrated as work made me sometimes, I really do ♥ those folks, truly.

In other news, Nate and I have started watching Battlestar Galactica (EEEEEEE!). We just hit Season 3 last night, but had to go to bed before we finished the premiere episode. It's one of those shows where we're watching it together and agreed not to watch it if the other person isn't around (d'aw), but he's not going to get home for several more hours and the wait is KILLING ME, UGH UGH UGH.

But I will wait, because we've made a pact and he is my geek and I love him. So. I will be streaming The Deadliest Warrior in the meantime, because I am apparently the sort of person who needs to know if the Jesse James gang could beat Al Capone's gang in a fight. I'm not proud of my need to know these things, but there you go.


* Because this, obviously, is the most important thing when choosing a career these days, y/y?

Bleh, I need to get a tumblr or something. When it comes to livejournal these days, I am the failingest fail that ever did fail. Here is a condensed version of the past few weeks:

- Nate's parents came to visit for a week, and it was lovely to see them again.

- I finally got an iPhone, and can now a) read books on ALL THE DEVICES, and b) play Scrabble with my cousin in Vermont. The magic of technology!

- Nate and I got a puppy! He's a four-month-old lab/border collie mix, and he's precious. We named him Cuddy, because Nate's currently reading Men at Arms and we both think "Cuddy" is a pretty awesome name*. Our Cuddy is not a dwarf, nor does he sport an amazing beard, but the name still somehow works for him.

- Aaaaand...everything else: nursing school preparations and Pokemon and excitement over Portal 2 and being all, "Man, I really need more IKEA bookshelves, 'cause the bookshelves I have sure aren't cutting it in the shelving all of my books department." I am so seriously boring, my god. :I

- No, really, it's ridiculous. I spent a good chunk of my lunch hour looking at scrubs online, all, "I know I prefer a drawstring waist to elastic for the pants, but how many pockets will I need?!?!?!" This is my life now, folks. These are my choices.

- Classes start on June 21. I am mentally keysmashing so hard at this that it would be utterly ludicrous to type it out.


* Whatever animal joins our menagerie next, I'm totally naming it Detritus. Even if it's a girl.

I did it.

I got into OHSU.

It's the only program I was able to apply for this year, and it's the one I wanted more than anything, and there were hundreds of applicants (last year they only accepted like 60 people into the program) and

I got in.

I'm kind of in shock about it, actually. And I feel sort of like my heart might explode, because I am just so fucking happy and amazed and I just...can't believe I actually did it. One of the top ten nursing schools in the entire country, and I got in on my first try.

CLOUD.
FUCKING.
NINE.