Countdown to class: 1 week!

I cannot believe it’s almost already here. Next Monday, I’ll be starting nursing school. It is surreal. It’s going to be one heck of a year. Because of the nature of my nursing program (as in, they expect us to ONLY BE DOING SCHOOL for the next year) I am still not 100% sure of how my schedule is going to look starting next week. I am prepared for anything.

I have a mentor with my program, and I met with her about a week ago to pick her brain. Meeting with her eased a little nervousness, but also made me highly aware of how on-top-of-it I need to be this next year. Some things on my mind as I get ready:

Schedules and planning = essential

Because the program goes at such a fast pace, things are due all the time. I’m kind of crazy about list-making and writing things in my planner already, so I should not have to worry about this too much.  I use a Moleskin planner, and when I’m in school, I usually schedule my days to the hour. I know it can be crazy, but I will literally forget to go to class if I don’t have it written down (Hey, don’t judge. Even Einstein said that we should never memorize anything we can just look up). I just hope I have enough space in my planner!

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     Studying, note-taking, reading…

It took me a while, but during my undergrad I found a system to take notes that really works for me. Generally, I read and outline material in my notebooks before I go to lecture, spend lectures mostly listening and taking very few notes (only filling in the gaps that I missed in my outlines), then reading and rewriting/typing notes later. I am a little concerned about having a good handle on some of the material—it’s been a couple years since I took classes like Anatomy and Physiology—so I have a feeling I’m going to have to do a bit more prep work than I’m used to.

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     $$$

I feel like everyone stresses about this, so I know I’m not alone. Nursing school is expensive. Life is expensive. I am up to my eyeballs in scholarship applications, so hopefully some help comes through.  But if it doesn’t, I’m taking out loans, both federal and private, to get me through the year. I’m just going to have to live cheaply (shouldn’t be too hard since it sounds like my social life is going to be at a low for the next year) and take comfort in the fact that it is very, very likely that I will be able to find a job as a nurse when I graduate.

·      Health

I really like to be healthy. Really. A lot. I like to exercise at least once a day and I eat what I think is a pretty healthy diet. I am a firm believer in quiet, alone time to myself (usually at 5am with a cup of coffee… don’t talk to me before that). I have always been all about balance—school is important but burnout is a real thing. I am really hoping that I can maintain balance while I’m in nursing school. I’m currently training for a half marathon, so at the very least I need to keep up my running for a weeks (Colfax Half – it’s on May 18), and after that I want to keep a regular exercise routine. Again, this is when keeping a schedule is probably going to be so important. If I stay focused I think I can stay balanced and healthy (and not lose my mind … haha)

So that’s the scoop as I get ready to go back to school. Anyone have any thoughts on these things? Advice? Please?! As crazy as it all is, I am really excited to get this started.

introductions

Hi, and thanks for checking out my new blog! I believe introductions are in order. I’m Amanda. I’m a nursing student in Denver, Colorado.

I never thought I’d be the type to keep a blog. Who knew they’d be such great tools for networking and sorting through / sharing ideas. But, as I wrote this while I was living in Honduras, I found blogging to be practical and useful. So here we go again.

I spent my undergraduate career studying Spanish and Portuguese. I read some books, traveled a little (I’ve lived some short-term stints in Brazil and Chile, too), and I have become convinced that culture and language permeate and affect all aspects of people’s life, including and especially their health and healthcare.

While completing my language degree, I also chipped away at the various prerequisites to apply to nursing school. It was quite the combination of classes in college: I would spend an hour talking about Cortázar in Spanish Lit, then run off to a cadaver lab, then turn around and spend a class singing some ChicoBuarque tune to work on my Brazilian Portuguese pronunciation.  Not a bad way to spend four years of college.

After graduating in May of 2013, I’ve spent the last year bouncing between a couple different jobs and countries. Now I’m on my way to nursing school. Classes start in about a month. I hope that this blog will be a platform to engage in the conversation about healthcare and it’s potential to improve the lives of individuals – in whatever the language that conversation may be.

coming soon!

blog in process... check back soon for updates on how I'm staying sane in nursing school and my musings on health care. in the meantime, check out my previous blog, A Su Corazón, that I wrote while I was volunteering in the health system in Roatán, Honduras.