On/off

I am excited. I am scared. I am, however, not taking drugs. But really, was she taking caffeine pills or actual speed? Because if it's caffeine, I miiiiiiiiiight have a problem.

Actually, at this particular moment, I'm physically tired, mentally alert and superficially sleepy, if that makes any sense at all. I made the mistake of letting myself take a nap this afternoon and woke up later in a panic that I have 2 chapters of Pharmacology and 5 chapters of Fundamentals to cover for tests Friday and Monday. Add to that a dash of BLS today, Skills Lab tomorrow (vitals, fun!) and orientation at my clinical site on Friday (along with that Pharm test I just mentioned), and well, I'm kind of overwhelmed. Not as overwhelmed as a lot of my classmates, but yeah, that doesn't help.

We also just got our first tests back. No one was expecting the questions to be so NCLEX-esque (why, I've no clue -- we'd been properly forwarned). I did not make a grade befitting my usual performance, but I also did better than about 2/3 of the class (we're talking tears in some cases), so I'm not complaining. I think now I get the idea of how we need to think for tests, not to mention that our professor said this was our "wake-up call". So, wake-up. I looked at my test, saw that I effed myself up on 90% of what I missed by judgment error. Yay for critical thinking!

I've just been texting/talking with someone from my study group about the possibility of finding places to study late/early (I'm talking after midnight and open by 4:00 for early). I don't want to make a habit of it, but I know there will be nights like this that we need to. In Pharmacology, we're working on routes, prep, admin, sites and etc. In Fundamentals, it's care plans, care plans, care plans. The way we've divided the work is that every person is responsible for reading all material alone, then each person takes a chapter to dissect and create scenario-based questions from. The study materials are individual choice. I'm partial to typed outlines and flash cards. It's worked for me so far. My chapter happens to be planning. Trying to pare down the material is tricky for me, but I'm managing. When I get overwhelmed, I walk away (which is why I'm blogging right now).

And, just for the sake of my own sanity, there are things other than nursing school that I love and remind myself of for about 0.5 seconds of the day:

- My husband is the best, most supportive, wonderful person ever. BFFF.
- If I didn't have an iPod right now, I would probably go insane. Really.
- It's September and that means Pumpkin Spice at Starbucks for Fall. (!!!!)

Okay. Me + fork = done.