The wire is in view

As we come to the halfway point of this semester, I have realized that I usually outperform my own expectations.  This hasn't changed from grade school but what HAS changed is the stress caused by constant guilt trips from my parents about my not studying for four hour chunks as they would like me to do.  Now, I just get nagging thoughts about what would happen if I would "fall below the line" in any one of my exams.  So far, one unit test in Human Growth and Development: 77%, Midterm in Nutrition:  76.7%.  I have another HGD test on Monday and then the big kahuna, Physiology is on Friday.  Apparently, the majority of the test covers neurophysiology and, as much as I hate the insane detail we're expected to memorize, I would take this course over six credit hours of "Health Promotion of Child Bearing and Child Rearing Families" any day. 

I just read this paragraph after being distracted by the men's bobsleigh coverage....it blows.  My apologies, but this blog will consist of at least 45% suck until two things happen: 1) I get back into a hospital/healthcare setting and, 2) I get into one or more classes in my next year that involve debate and/or general feeling discussion, I can't tell you how excited I am to bring you the tales of humanity!

Oh yes, there will be tears...

What I want from you

In case you know me or have been able to deduce with the content of my blog (even the fact that I have one will suffice as a reason), I have some opinions. These opinions are my own and you are here reading them but I don't want it all to stop there. In fact, I think that would be a most unfortunately premature end to what could be a most engaging, stimulating, and possibly offensive relationship. If you, the visitor to this page, would be so kind as to leave your thoughts on this page then I could rest well knowing that I'm not banging rhetoric off like-minded individuals' nodding heads. Maybe you have no idea what I'm talking about, maybe you have opinions of your own as to what I should be talking about; whatever your thoughts, do me and those that will visit this blog (all three of them) after you the favour of letting those thoughts be known.

Thanks, may the thinly-masked ridicule flow...

Let's Break it Down

I have in front of me the four year course schedule for the Nursing program at the University of Manitoba.

129 Credit hours to be taken

29 Credit hours of Clinical Nursing Practice
15 Credit hours of Biological Sciences
12 Credit hours of Social Sciences
6 Credit hours of Electives
4 Credit hours of Nursing Skills Laboratory
3 Credit hours of Mathematics (Statistics)
3 Credit hours of Pharmacology

and...

57 Credit hours of Theory-Based Nursing Courses

By my calculations the graduate nurses turned out by this institution will have spent 44.2% of their time learning theoretical and lecture-based concepts, 30.2% of their time on courses that build a basic medical knowledge-base, and 25.6% of their time with any sort of actual patient contact or physical skills application.

This means the U of M graduate nurse taking care of the severely physically abused woman in ER bed 2 will be able to empathize with the patient's family issues and accurately identify the patient's current stage in life but will only be able to slide the IV in 25% of the way after she/he has missed three times and will then be able to think of 25% of the appropriate medications to administer.

That is, if the nurse is perfect...

It's Christmas, I think

As final exams have consumed the majority of my time that I might have otherwise spent blogging, I can now officially say that stranglehold on my time-space continuum has ended and now I'm free to not blog out of sheer laziness instead.

A few thoughts on my first round of university final exams to share with you:

1. We all deal with stress differently but you would be interested to know that when you have 400-500 people waiting to write an exam, most tend to do the same thing: Talk incessantly to the person nearest to you and try to gauge through indirect questioning whether you know more than they do.
2. There is a God. Specifically, There is a strong positive correlation between the direction I have chosen and the success met the further I walk down the path. Don't mistake this for fair-weather fanship as it is considerably more difficult to attribute one's success to anyone other than oneself.
3. Finishing multiple choice exams in the shortest amount of time possible is highly recommended.
4. Avoiding the persons mentioned in #1 will drastically reduce your pre-exam stress.
5. Taking a pre-exam constitutional is the most economical way to accomplish #4

Now for those marks...

My Waves

You all remember the great story when Jesus is walking on water and then Peter gets out of the boat and waltzes out a ways then he takes his eyes off Jesus and look sat the waves and starts to sink? Common knowledge, yeah? So, I was thinking about this story the other day and how I've got to keep my eyes on God and his faithfulness thus far in my life and have faith that it will continue and I feel a bit ashamed that I have worried so much already about things I can't know yet like my performance at school. I realize now that it would be fairly inconsistent of me to have believed that God's hand was so evident in my life up to this point and then completely forget that He exists when I consider future events.

As always, these lessons are easy to sum up but harder to to put into practice, especially when the waves in my life walk around in sweatsuits that say "Grad 2009" all over them...

Of Correlation and Regression

Is there a point in life where everyone feels that their life is going "according to plan"? Is there a certain point where everyone feels that life couldn't be further from the ideal than it is at that moment? Is there only a single time where either of these events occur? If statistics were the glasses with which we viewed our past, would we find that all of our lives fluctuate above or below the average, all eventually equaling zero? Or would we find that some finish with a strong positive correlation to the average life while others have had no relation whatsoever to that which truly equates "life"?

Something to break down this postulating mess is the language in which we interpret our lives, the standard by which we measure our current position and the standard by which we determine the scale of our position. With the subjectivity that is human understanding of the world around us, can there truly be a standard by which all things are counted?

There is.

Hidden somewhere between the implausible and the unbelievable lies the realization that in every pursuit that humankind has ever undertaken, there is commonality and, more importantly, the understanding that no new ground has ever been broken.

Someone was here before me.

Someone has a deeper understanding of the world I live in and no matter how far I perceive myself to have gone or how high I perceive myself to have risen, the answer remains the same. The playing field is not an unknown, the players within it do not contain unknown potential. The only unknown, if it can be described like this, is that which is known to you as such.

Applied to all facets of life, the only question that remains for myself and everyone who came before me and all those who will follow after is whether you can accept your insignificance.

1.6180339...and so on.

A Good Education

Just a short note here to put something on the table for later, let's say dessert as it will fit figurative purposes. I wanted a professional and clinical education but, unfortunately, the liberals got to it first and wiped their golden butts with it. I have a sneaking suspicion that I won't be in the same boat as I was with my EMS education in the past where the learning always had a practical application. We'll undoubtedly revisit this topic in the future.