The Cat Empire sang about it

This is a cartoon i drew of one of my teachers. She wasn't actually asleep - but I felt like I was close enough!

"Protons, Neutrons, Electrons" - quite the quirky, funky song as all good songs are from the Cat Empire. So you're there, you haven't heard of it and want to geek yourself up a little bit? Check it out now.

Anyway, the point of that is to mention what I'm up-to studying now. Protons. Neutrons. Electrons. Because Chemistry is involved in nursing. Its in everything we do and can see. Oh, and we're also learning about the Legal side of nursing. Sooo - there is currently alot of reading, writing, listening, thinking and lack-of-interest in places/sections at the moment... atleast when I find it gets too much, I go and look up some weird word and learn what it is.

I'm finding it a struggle to study at home - too many easy distractions or easy annoyances. Yet, when I take myself out to a cafe, despite the noise level, it seems remarkably easier. Except this afternoon that is. While trying to drill my brain with chemistry information, I'm more interested in hearing the conversations around me; the girls planning the new interior design of the store, what colours and where everything should/could/would go; the two older ladies discussing their woe's of ageing bodies and family; the two Christian guys discussing church, studies and expectations of people [I might have tried to find out which church they belonged to via their conversation - or I perhaps I didn't].

Today I also spent an hour with one of the ladies from my church, who after a health problem a fortnight ago, is now residing in the hospital awaiting transfer to a long-term facility. When I arrived, she was quite agitated and eager to get out of her seat and away from the hospital. Throughout the time I spent there, we had to locate her glasses [tucked well into her dressing gown] as some mail arrived from her son in Tassie. I read the documents to her, and at the end she looked at me with the strangest perplexed expresssion. I think she didn't understand who was writing to her for a little while, but in the end she did. I read her some of Philippians 3 to encourage her - however when I was finished I wasn't sure if she was sleeping or praying. In the end, she seemed alot more content and less agitated and was enjoying a good perusal of a gardening magazine.

Today I also [randomly] decided to review on some "Bloody Idiot" tv ads. These are the "if you drink and drive, you are a bloody idiot" ones. One of my friends sent me the youtube link to TAC - the Victorian's plan to lower the road toll deaths around the country. Some of these ad's I've seen before, and others I've seen for the first time. Most of them are horribly impacting, challenging and extremely unnerving - especially when you can consider countless times when you could've been in the same position as a driver, passenger or onlooker. However, they were very effective on causing me to be even more aware of my surroundings when driving.... especially as I already think I am pretty aware of everything... but accidents definately do happen [as I've proved twice already].

Hmm...ski


Happy One Month Anniversary, Nursing Class 1103!!
Four weeks of 5 days [of both work and study in a row], and I'm pooped.
Exhausted.
Knackered.
Whatever you want to call it - that's what I am.

But, heck its great fun and I'm so loving nursing school!

However, working in this environment where we see the end of peoples lives is a hard ball sometimes.
Just this past week, one of my favourite residents [I know, we shouldn't have favourites] passed away. 
It wasn't sudden, mostly expected, but totally sad.
Even maddening, but that's mostly in relation to a family member's treatment of this resident...
Before and AFTER they passed away.

The world we live in is a scary, evil, confused and corrupt place.
Thank God for all the love, joy and peace He still provides amongst all that.
And laughter. OH MY GOSH! I love a great sense of humour.
Peace... x




:: Leaf Me Be


End of my third week at Nursing School. I'm tired! I've got SO much to read! I think most of us only realised today just how much extra work we have to proactively set about to do ourselves. We have so many classes on different topics with different teachers, being given different assignments to focus on,  and today was the first time one of the teachers said [first time that I was aware of] that we need to read "x" chapters of our main text book PLUS the extra, non-compulsary workbooks they put online for us - JUST to keep our minds fluid with the phrases, abbreviations, and context of what we are doing. That's onTOP of doing our assigned homework!!

This could be a painful 12months ahead, but despite all the work, these are very exciting days...

Enjoy
Today, I was not interested in listening to the Teacher at school.
Don't get me wrong, I bet she did good...
Its just that I can't seem to enjoy listening to a talk about the 
Government, Politics, and the Law in a mono-tone voice.
Major-brain-pain.
So, to keep my brain entertained while I [tried] to listen,
I sketched... a pair of these...

PS -
Sorry for the triple-post-sesh. Just seeing what the new look looks like.
I think I am liking it.
Thoughts?!

And - thoughts on more regular pictures?

:: Eye/see... ::

Sometimes I am positive we have a picture frame follow us around with 
speech bubbles anticipating our next moves... 

This was in my diary last year. I painted it, randomly. 
Then when it was dry, I drew on it with a felt tip pen... randomly.

:: just be...

I am having a real desire to just be... as is, full stop, hold that colour palatte. I've been thinking about changing my blog to a pure, white canvas, but haven't felt committed to it till last weekend. Then I noticed a friend of mine, who is a drawer, animator and graphic designer who's blog has totally inspired me to get back into my drawings, has a white blog page. It looks good.

So now I'm looking for a good, white blog template. Perhaps you are already looking at it. Perhaps, you aren't... but here's a thought for today after I just spent a couple of hours writing notes about Mumps, Meningitis, and Meningoencephelitis. It was pretty interesting, in my opinion.

Channelling the Nurse Within

Last Thursday, I began the journey to move towards the next step to become a bigger part of the Health Care Industry. So far, its been a breeze, as orientation days can be. I've got most of the names of my new class friends down pat, and I think I've successfully established my quirky-friendly-"ice breaking"-uniqueness within the group.

Mostly its been listening, discussing, reading while listening, signing, agreeing and reading. And having enough breaks to consume mass quantities of coffee - in my dreams - because they stock the worst of the worst.... INTERNATIONAL ROAST!!! OH MY GOD! That is not coffee... looks like I need to bring some of my coffee expertise to school!!

I have some really quirky new buds... the few I've had the most time with include a quiet chick who sings in a metal band, a Bieber-fantatic zany quirky girl, a know-it-all opinionated but still fun dad of one, a overly-zealously-random Plebotomist [takes blood]... among those I've still got time to get to know!

Around study and school, I've still got work. Its really hard to remember I'm not a nurse YET, but I am heading there.

Today, however, I wish I had all the possible training. One of the residents literally went from consciously there, to suddenly unable to walk, to unconscious way too quickly. She was out for about 10 minutes, and for about 8 minutes my heart was racing SOOO hard. She's one of my favourites, and shes one that doesn't really speak but has alot of animation in her face. The idea that something possibly was seriously wrong and there was nothing that I could legally do to help other than assist the nurse and RN.

Thankfully, I had another carer with me at the time that our resident went down hill. Thankfully, there were two people outside of the residents room with phones that I could borrow - because 2 of the 3 carers on shift don't carry phones, and both of us happen to be in the situation today. Thankfully, I remembered my training to only speak the necessary urgency on the phone, and not to 'diagnose' the situation. Thankfully the nurses allowed me to ask questions afterwards, and thankfully they were both happy with how us carers handled the situation. Mostly, I'm thankful the other residents didn't get mad when lunch was late.

For a moment I was scared that I won't be good in urgent situations. But when I thought about it, I was mostly scared because I didn't know what I could do - but that is fine because - I'm not at that stage yet. I'm not trained in those areas yet. I've not had the time to build the experience to get the confidence yet.

So for now, i'm just channelling the nurse within...