School time!

For the first time since 2009, I'm enrolled in 18 credit hours for this fall and let me tell you - it makes a difference when those 18 credit hours are in nursing classes as opposed to five English classes and one 200 level German class. We're three days into the semester and I've already studied for over twelve hours. So, yeah, it's kind of insane, but the good kind. And all of this means that Silas is now in daycare full-time.

Silas is taking to daycare like a dog to a ham bone. What I'm saying is, he really likes it. Today as we were driving home, he informed me that he "played dinosaurs today!" and that, in case I didn't know, dinosaurs go "rawr!!"

Two nights ago, I was vacuuming Silas's room and he asked me to put him in the crib; sometimes he likes to stand in the crib and watch me vacuum. He lay down on his pillow and when I was done, he asked me to turn off his light. Then he just went to sleep, and he slept until the next morning. I was so excited at the idea of daycare helping him sleep better.

So of course, last night he was up at midnight until 1:30 and then up again at 5. I actually had a dream that I was sleeping and in the dream I woke up and complained that the mattress was too hard. Then I woke up for real and realized that I had fallen asleep on the nursery floor. My back is still a little stiff.

Anyhow, I have to get back to studying. I have a feeling this is just a first week information flood and that things will mellow out (slightly) in the coming weeks, but there's no sense in getting behind before I even get started.

And you know what's weird? This time next year, I'll have my second bachelor's degree. I'll be a nurse. Seeing as I can't even properly use my stethoscope yet, it seems unbelievable. But I believe in myself, if nothing else.

On Top of Things

It's not often I feel like an adult. Sometimes I realize my birthday is coming up and that I'm going to be 26 this year and it makes me pause for a moment. The last thing I remember, I was graduating college like, yesterday.

There's no way I already have an almost two year old baby. I remember the day I told Smiley I was pregnant while covering my stomach with a pillow. It feels like last week. I told him right over by our kitchen counter. I had taken three pregnancy tests.

But here I am, adulting it up like a pro. Balancing our budget and raising Silas to be one darned awesome baby (are you detecting a little bias there? Whoops!) and prepping to start nursing school this fall. (Oh, and writing a lot of fanfiction. If you're wondering why I haven't posted here in forever, that's why. Every free moment of my life has been fanfiction for this past month.)

Why, this morning, I made four phone calls. That's right, count 'em - four. I made a vet appointment for Sophie, scheduled car maintenance for the weekend, called my Ob/gyn to get my records and called my regular doctor to schedule my physical. You just don't see that kind of call output from me normally, but here I am, getting all of my ducks in a row before I go up north with Silas for a family visit before school starts.

Did I mention I also watched my lecture for my summer class and wrote three hundred words for my fanfic? All of this - and more (and by more, I mean eating a greek yogurt and drinking some ice water like a BAMF) was accomplished during Silas's nap. Whew. It's exhausting being an adult you guys. I think I'm going to embrace this whole being an adult and go to bed early.

That's how it works, right?

Just Waiting

This month seems to be dragging on and on, which is crazy, right? The holidays are hectic and full of fun, but at the same time, I keep seeing the date each day and going, "Really? It's only the 15th?" It feels like it should be at least Christmas Eve by now.

I have a feeling that time will be passing slowly for a few months now as I wait to hear whether or not I'm accepted into an accelerated nursing program. I won't know until mid-March, so this slow motion time passing will probably stick around until then.

This year is Silas's second Christmas. He had a lot of "First" holidays last year, but was much too young to really interact with them. This year has been a lot of fun as he's enjoyed playing with the Christmas tree, playing with our (unbreakable) ornaments, putting his toys in the tree, and - my favorite part - waking up every morning and walking out to the tree and pointing at it until I plug the lights in. So cute!

Normal People Just Fill Out Transcript Request Forms

Applying to nursing school is starting to freak me out. And I'm not even at the part where I apply to the nursing program. I'm just applying to the college that the nursing program is at. (You apply to the college, send them your transcripts, and then apply to the nursing school and send the nursing school a separate set of the same transcripts because apparently the programs refuse to share.)

Last night, I was already in a bit of an unsettled mood. I had tried to put Silas down for bedtime at about nine and he was having none of the settling down. So I let him crawl and toddle around for awhile and in a few minutes he was ready to settle down and nurse. Recently he hasn't been nursing to sleep. He will nurse almost to sleep and then stop and look up at me.

At that point, my cue is to get up, brace myself, and bring him to his crib where he will cry for a few minutes and fall asleep. Usually, because he knows how sad it makes me (I assume), he starts crying as soon as we enter the nursery. Last night was no different. He started to sniffle as we crossed through from the hallway to his room and I gave him a few back pats, telling him that it was time for bed now. That we had had a busy day and it was good and fun and I loved him.

Suspiciously, instead of starting to cry, Silas lay his head on my shoulder as I lowered him into the crib. Then he flipped onto his stomach and - nothing.

He fell right asleep.

As I do every night, I kissed him and left the room, expecting that the crying would start up in a moment.

The crying never happened.

So, I was already on edge, figuring that he was probably coming down with the flu and a cold and everything all at once and would wake up any moment with a fever of doom and that he only fell asleep in the first place because he was getting deathly ill.

(In fact, after about an hour, I did go and check to make sure he wasn't warm and that he was still breathing. He wasn't and he was, respectfully.)

So there's my mindset for the evening as I sit down at my computer to continue applying to my hopeful transfer college. I have to send my transcripts. Call me old-fashioned, but I hate using online services to send transcripts, so I was printing out all of the forms from the now numerous colleges I have attended.

And I'm freaking out. Because even though all I'm doing at this point is printing forms to fill out, it's still a step towards applying towards nursing school and that is a journey that could potentially end with my rejection and, well, I don't take (small amounts of potential) rejection well.

So Smiley sat with me while I printed out the forms and set them at my desk to fill out today. Which I was going to do during Silas's nap. Instead, I spent an hour cleaning the garage to procrastinate. (You wouldn't know it if you looked at the garage, sadly. See previous rants I've made about the amount of Stuff we own.)

But this story does have a good ending. Last night Silas slept from about 9:30pm to 5:15am. Woo! And I'll probably fill out those transcript request forms before too long.

Oh This Will Sound Conceited

There's no way around it. I have to just say it. I happen to think I'm pretty good at learning things. As in, I take notes and study and generally (besides a bad bout with an algebra teacher in high school) I test well. When students complain that a teacher is "hard," I feel qualified to suggest that perhaps the teacher wouldn't seem so hard if you paid attention in class, read the material, and did the homework.

So yes, there's one area of my life where I think very highly of myself. It's a little pathetic, I know. But I needed to say that because I can't otherwise begin to explain how frustrated I am with a teacher this semester. I've managed so far to maintain an A in the class, but for the first time in my life, I found myself hitting up the rate my professor website to make sure I'm not the only person who feels like I'm unsure of what is expected by this teacher.

For example, she is unsure how to teach. I am not saying that I could do better, but that a teacher should do better. Her idea of teaching is to tell us to read ahead (and though we have unit guidelines, the nebulous "read ahead" can mean that next class we'll cover three pages of material to covering fifteen) and then, next class, complain that none of us have taught ourselves the material. When you hear your teacher saying, "I'm going to teach you guys these concepts" but then two minutes later she's complaining that no one is answering her questions about the concept we're supposedly being taught, there is a problem. And this problem is not with your students, but with how you are teaching and how you are communicating.

Oh, and constantly saying "you guys look like you're confused. Does anyone have a question?" is also not teaching. The people who are confused are so unsure of how to begin to word a question that they'd rather just nod and let the lecture continue than to try and ask anything.

And another thing - when you go through your powerpoint slides and continually say "oh, I'm not sure why I put that slide in there," I'm just going to go ahead and say that you are not inspiring confidence in your ability to teach.

I had a math class like this once, although it was not as bad, and I do feel for students who are trying to learn and coming to class and getting tripped up because maybe figuring out crazy teachers isn't their strong suit and they feel lost and confused when they shouldn't. I find myself asking questions in class as a means to clarify information to my fellow students. (And, being the occasionally conceited person that I am, feeling really happy when they tell me that the way I stated it made a lot of sense.)

We had an exam. The material it covered was certainly in the book, but the concepts that she had stressed over and over were less present than the concepts that she mentioned once, in passing. As a teacher, it is your prerogative to test however you like, but that seems a little harsh.

Overall, I still think I'll manage to make an A in this class, but I do regret to say that I wish I chose a different teacher and I think it's unfair to the people less versed in dealing with crazy (I have a bachelor's degree worth of experience on that!). Everything came to a point when we had a substitute teacher last class, and he taught the material so well and coherently that it was a real joy to have a substitute.


So that's that. Those are my frustrations with my teacher and I feel they are validated. Obviously.

Waiting

I can't log on to my college website because my account is apparently locked. I can't log on to my college email to email someone about why I can't log on to my college website because I apparently am using the wrong password. If I try to reset the password, it loops me back to the college website. I might pull my hair out in frustration, but probably not; Silas does such a good job pulling out my hair if I forget to braid it that I don't really have much left to pull myself.


When I was pregnant, I could wear most of my clothes for the first few months, about half of my clothes for the next few, and then about three outfits until I gave birth. I looked forward to having variety in my wardrobe again, but somehow I guess I forgot about the next year or so that I planned to breastfeed. Having my desk next to my closet is this huge reminder of all the different outfits I can't wear for convenience sake. Part of me keeps wanting to just box everything up and donate it, and another part keeps saying "hey at least after you're done having kids and breastfeeding (figure six to eight years but don't put anything in stone), those clothes will be there and you won't have to spend any money on a new wardrobe. And, with any luck, fashion will have rotated through enough styles that maybe everything will be retro-fabulous."


If I didn't mention it before, Silas is actually teething with his second tooth and MIGHT be leading in to a third tooth (although I'm going to assume I'm just imagining teeth at this point because I can't deal with all of these teeth right now), so he has a horrible case of The Sad. The Sad is diagnosed by a sudden predisposition to random fits of inconsolable crying and a good dose of breaking his mommy's heart. Luckily, I've found that a steady regimen of hugs, sit/stand practice and baby stretches and massage seem to make it better for him. I've also found that he stalwartly refuses to teeth on any so-called "teething devices," preferring instead to gum down on anything else; the cloth part of a toy, his sleeves, my finger, my shoulder, anybody's shoulder, he really likes shoulders for some reason, and his blanket.

In any case, he's down for a nap now, so I have to use my remaining five minutes or so to maybe fold laundry while studying flash cards. Crappy website or not, I'm still going to learn the crap out of Anatomy and Physiology.