Excitement

Okay, I'm excited to be in school now! After my last post this morning, I plopped Dorian down on the bed and told James I was leaving. He'll get used to these early mornings. I forget that I've had a whole summer of them and he hasn't, so he's not used to the 5am alarm clock anymore. Plus, he has a cold too. I drove (yes, drove - I have a car now!) to Starbucks and studied for 2 hours. I felt very young again being without baby, wearing my cool new jeans and Payless shoes, carrying my new backpack with all my new school supplies and textbooks, drinking my Venti Decaf Nonfat Latte and eating my vegetarian spinach feta breakfast wrap. I was there so early I actually got one of the big comfy armchairs and personal reading lamp. I managed to get two chapters read, which made me just over half-way done with the reading assignment due at 8:30am. I then went to campus for the first official nursing lecture (yesterday was just orientation).

Lecture was great! It got me sooooo excited and revved up to be back in school. It was split into different parts, each one taught by a different instructor. Both instructors were amazing. I was also very pleased that they basically went over each chapter word for word, gave us written outlines and went through our study guide questions for each chapter. It will definitely help the reading stick more.

For those of you who are interested in what I've learned the past 2 days, read on. So far, we have read about and discussed the following:

1. Nursing history, practice, education, responsibilities & roles, professional nursing organizations, and future trends in nursing (enh...kinda interesting, kinda boring, kinda easy, kinda mindless, kinda nothing)
2. Health care & health insurance in the US (very interesting and really made me want to move back to the UK)
3. Community-based nursing practice, vulnerable populations, roles in community-based nursing, assessment, changing clients' health (fascinating)
4. Theoretical foundations of nursing practice (boring!!!)
5. Evidence-based practice (also boring!!!)
6. Health & Wellness (this is more like it!)
7. Caring in Nursing Practice (now we're getting somewhere!)

Normally, I'll have about 3 chapters to read a day, not 7. I guess they're still trying to weed out those of us who aren't ready for the program.

After lecture today, I came home for a bit around 1pm because my breasts had seriously quadrupled in size since I left the house at 6am. I'm trying to wean Dorian off the mid-day feeding because I really don't want to have to pump on campus - there's no place to do it and I don't have many breaks. I had to feed him a bit today because I was surely going to explode and when he saw me, he desperately started nuzzling my chest anyway. He's doing great without me and so happy to be with James again, so at least that's a worry I can cross of my list. I studied for 45 minutes at home while both boys napped, then left the house when Dorian awoke. I went back to Starbucks and studied for 2 more hours and came home. I gave Dorian a bath, giggled with him for a bit and then put him to bed. Then it was back to studying for another 1.5 hours. I have 1 chapter left from yesterday's reading assignment...I will complete this chapter in the morning before my Nursing Law & Ethics course at 8:30am tomorrow. Then I can start on next week's reading. Would you believe I already have an exam a week from tomorrow??? And so it begins! Very intense.

I'll post more on my classes and schedule this week-end. I need to go get some sleep now. This yucky cold is still affecting me big time but I chugged water and tea all day, drank hot soup, popped Tylenol and tried to think positively. I do feel better for it. Hopefully, this will be a short illness.