"Headaches and microbiology are synonymous"

I was trying to fill out my micro study guide for our quiz Friday but my head is hurting too much to focus. Each Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, at about 3:30 in the afternoon, I get a headache. I believe it's the result of my micro lab. Which I love... but looking in microscopes is not good for my eyes and therefore I get headaches. Yuck. Usually my headaches go away in a couple of hours, but today it didn't and I just took ibuprofen to help reduce the pounding. Headaches are awful things. I've been working on my DOTW, which is streptococcal pharyngitis, rheumatic fever, acute glomerulonephritus, and diphtheria. The first three are all related, which makes my life a lot easier. :-) I would tell you about them, but I'm sure that would bore you.

In my character of nursing class they have been pushing the thought of Critical Thinking into our heads. Do you know how hard it is to think critically? Oh boy. It's overwhelmingly scary. It just takes time and lots of practice, which is something I'm not very good at. I like to see results quickly and acurately. But I have learned that to get acurate results, you have to use the "elements of critical thinking". I never knew there was so much out there on this subject. Of course I knew how important it was for nurses to be on their toes and assess the patient, but never like this. Wow... But you know what? I'm so thankful our professors do this because it will make us great nurses. The process to get there is just a little difficult. :-)

This Friday I'm meeting with my adivisor to talk about time management and how to handle life along with nursing school. Let me just say that becoming a nurse would be a thousand times easier if I didn't have life. But then, what would be the point? Exactly. My life will slowly evolve into nursing as long as I pursue that as my career. I've struggling with time management for some reason and I'm hoping my advisor, Dr. Williams, will be able to help me come up with some ideas on how to handle it better. I just really want a social life and I realize that I will never be able to take an evening off in the middle of the week and be able to hang out with friends, but sometimes I just really want too. Fighting that urge is hard. Usually I make up for it by inviting my nursing buddies over to study with me so we can at least hang out with each other. It's hard. And I don't want to complain, but I find myself doing so more often than not. What I've noticed myself doing is trying to multitask everything and I end up being scatter brained and don't do the best I can. Which bugs me to high heaven! It should NOT be that way. If I want to be a successful nurse, I need to try to my hardest to do the best I can in the time allotted to me. This is something I want to talk with my advisor about as well. Nurses have so much to learn in 4 years. Those 4 years go by so quickly and it is so easy to cram things in for a test and the second you write the answer down, it's gone. I don't want to be like that. I want to be a good nurse.

Pray for me friends. I'm struggling right now. I love you.