Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Time for a real blog entry again…

I revamped my blog the other night when I switched over to the beta version. It is so much easier to use, except I hate how you have to constantly re-log in every screen change, despite selecting “remember me” – gets a little frustrating after a while. Hope you guys like the improvements – now to try and make it a little more interesting and on topic now that I am a member of the nurses blog ring! Just wish I had an interesting life to fill in my blog with ;-)

So I found out on Friday where my January clinical placement will be – unfortunately it isn’t just a couple blocks from my house this time; it’s actually about a 20 minute drive. Normally that wouldn’t be a very big deal, but considering I usually don’t get to sleep until 3:30 am, and will need to be at clinical for 7 am, those extra few minutes that I could have been sleeping really do make a difference (especially after what happened last year!) Hopefully my request for modifying my hours a bit (coming in half an hour early each day all week so I can leave work 2 ½ hours earlier the night before clinical) will be approved. I guess worst case scenario is that I can use vacation time again this year, but I get so few vacation days as it is, and I work so hard all year long, it really sucks to have to use precious vacation time for school. I usually have to give up 2 – 3 days around exam time as it is. Oh well, the sacrifices we make to try and better our lives.

Wrote my anatomy bell-ringer exam today. I studied my ASS off for this exam; probably the hardest I ever prepared for an exam. Almost every waking moment for the past 2 weeks has been in preparation for this exam; from coffee breaks and lunch hours, flash cards between screen changes at work, flash cards at red lights in my vehicle, having friends give me spelling tests on the really complicated words - like chordae tendineae (no way I was losing 10% on spelling on THIS exam!) I had company from back home that I hadn’t seen in over a year stay with me last weekend, plus worked at a craft show Saturday, and my flashcards never left my hands. So I went in thinking I would get around a 90% cuz I KNEW MY STUFF! Unfortunately came out of it a little less certain…

Pathetically enough, I think I did the worst on the male reproductive system – I blame it on the fact that the model was so small (hee hee – no pun intended) that I had difficulty landmarking the internal vessels/structures... I also had a little difficulty with some of the circulatory system too, especially in the neck and face, as once again the models were so confusing. Most of the models were colour coded (red for arteries, blue for veins, {except obviously for the pulmonary arteries and veins} yellow for nerves, etc) but on some of the models everything was just pink, and in 30 seconds per station, there wasn’t a whole lot of time for landmarking so at times I just had to guess…




(speaking of the pulmonary arteries, it just dawned on me that I got that question wrong! I just realized I labeled it as a vein – DOH! I went in prepared for the trick question, and the 30 second time limit screwed me up!)








I’m positive that I passed THIS exam, so there is still hope of me passing this course yet so I am not giving up on my dream of applying to medical school just yet. And my final lecture exam is next Thursday, which is worth 45% of my final mark, so as long as I can do really well on it, I will make it………..

Sorry this wasn’t the most exciting blog…but literally nothing new in my life as every waking moment has been used studying, and every thought has been regarding anatomical landmarks! 10 more days until I am done school for a month! What will I do with all that free time?????

Thursday, November 16, 2006

It’s All Fun And Games….Until Your Dog Puts a Tooth Through Your Monitor

So I am playing around on my laptop, while laying in bed watching TV (slow episode of Criminal Minds) Molly (my non-cuddly beagle) is curled up on my lap cuz she senses I am sick. I start playing a game and am moving the cursor all over the screen. This catches Molly’s eye and she starts intently following the cursor. I think it’s adorable and start teasing her with more complicated cursor movements. When I would slow the movements down, she would lick the screen where the cursor was (ew – will clean that up later).

I had a flashback to when I was staying at my friend Carrie’s place back home, and when playing Mario Kart on Super Nintendo with Tim & Jon, Carrie’s cats would run up to the screen and start batting at the characters on the TV. When a character would disappear, the cats would run behind the TV to see where they went. I used to think that was cute, and thought, hmmmm, what would Molly do if the cursor disappeared. So, I started moving the cursor quicker and quicker and then just when I was about to make it appear like the cursor was going to go off the screen “CRUNCH” – Molly decided to catch the cursor with her teeth.

Yeah….it was cute at first…..

Time out....

Home sick with the flu tonight :-( Guess I shouldn’t really complain as I haven’t been sick in a LONG time and it’s been going around the office. I’ve managed to avoid all the colds that went around this fall, and despite my crazy schedule and lack of sleep, I’ve been surprisingly really healthy lately. Then “bam.” I even missed school today, which I did not want to do considering how little hope I have of passing this course right now as it is! Oh well.

Crawling back into bed now….

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Go, Leafs, Go!


I've always wanted to attend a Leafs game and tonight would have been a perfect one to go to. Home ice - playing against their #1 rivals, Montreal - and winning 5 - 1!!!! Toronto is actually doing awesome lately! And strangely without Sundin who is off injured right now! Wellwood and McCabe are the ones to watch right now!

This year I picked some great players for my hockey pool, all high scorers, but they keep getting injured, so I'm not doing very well :-( Sundin and Bertuzzi are the guys I need back out there! Thank goodness I still have Jagr winning points for me!

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Telemarketer Revenge

First, get a train whistle - j/k.

(Sorry for stealing your next blog topic, Peter!)

I came across this and thought it was hilarious - my only complaint is that the radio show hosts that introduce it didn't turn their mics off while they played the clip; their laughing drowns out some of the words, and I haven't been able to find a version of this yet that doesn't have someone laughing along with it. Thankfully, you can read along with the audio.




On somewhat of a similar topic, in this case, insurance companies, I thought this was cute too. One of my youtube saved favourites:

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