Out with a bang…
Sadly not the bang of firecrackers, but the bang of tree branches falling under the weight of ice. A storm blew our way Thursday afternoon and didn’t let up until mid-day Friday at which point much of the area was without power. Our professors had already sent out an e-mail on Thursday night cancelling our final classes of the program. At 10pm that night I lost power here. Friday morning I was still without power, as were many of my classmates, including the one who was hosting our end-of-program party, so that got cancelled. It was truly a bummer of a day. I wasn’t planning a big celebration anyway, but I really wanted some sort of event with my classmates to provide some closure to the past two years. Hopefully we can reschedule something, but I’m still in a snit that things didn’t go as planned.
On the upside, I am thankful for the fact that I somehow still had warm water 16 hours after the power went out (I kicked myself for not checking this before!) so I could take a shower. And I was thankful that my gas fireplace still works even without electricity and I was able to at least keep the main room toasty warm. And at 2 o’clock this morning I was thankful when the lights, furnace, and refrigerator kicked back on. Twenty-eight hours without power is more than enough, thank you.
So there ends my nursing school journey. It’s not quite the ending I was hoping for, but I’m trying to keep some perspective and remember that it’s not how it ended but the fact that it did end. I might remain a little grumpy for the next few days, though!
Positively giddy
Well, friends, I am about to turn the last page of this book. I have a bound copy of my final paper ready to turn in tomorrow (assuming the weather doesn’t cancel class!). I have nothing left to do for school other than to show up for the last day. It feels so, so nice. The stress of the past few weeks has evaporated and I can finally breathe a sigh of relief. Assuming passing grades in my two classes (which I dare say is a safe assumption at this point), I am done. Now on to the celebrating!
One paper away…
The final presentation is a thing of the past! All in all I think it went well. I felt good about it, got positive feedback… but more importantly: it’s done, it’s done, it’s done! Now all that stands between me and the end is writing my final paper. Not that I’m feeling particularly inspired. After being part of the collective glee of my classmates yesterday it’s hard to remember that we’re not quite done yet. They presented us with carnations at the end (I managed to behead mine accidentally before I even got it home… oops) and we had cake and punch. A few of us headed to the bar downtown that we occasionally haunted during our time in the program. It felt very celebratory. So it’s hard to get back in the mode of doing work.
But do it, I must… so that we can continue the celebrations this coming Friday with our last classes and final party! I have a good start… I just need to somehow inspire myself to barrel through the end. So close!
Crawling towards the finish line
Wow, I can’t believe I started this blog two years ago as I was just embarking on my nursing school journey. Now here I am less than two weeks (God/dess willing) from being el-done-o. The 14th can’t come soon enough, it really can’t. I am tired of my project, I am tired of trying to juggle learning a new job with school, and I am tired of my home being merely an annex of the classroom. I can’t wait for my time to be my own again.
Right now I’m supposed to be finishing up my presentation for this Friday (eek) and writing my draft of my final capstone paper. I have made some progress on it today. And I realized that my work for my other class is done, so that’s good. But ugh, my attention span is awful. I did talk myself out of going out for coffee in favor of drinking something from my own kitchen. But I’m daydreaming while staring into the flames of the fireplace. Staring out the windows into the dark to see if I can see Venus and Jupiter. Staring at the cats. Wandering around the kitchen looking for unneeded snacks. Mentally making up my Christmas card list. Coming up with random questions and googling to find out the answers. My pattern seems to be: five minutes of productivity followed by 45 of mindless nothingness. Geez, if I’m going to take these long breaks I could at least be cleaning. Then I could at least say I accomplished something.
The sad part of all of this is that I know within a month of being done I’ll start missing school. I’ll probably complain that I’m bored. Never satisfied, me.
Check back in a couple weeks when I’ve gained some perspective. For now it’s Captain Complainer, over and out!
