Apparently Chattanooga is being infested with various viruses that are incapasitating a good portion of the populace. After working my alloted two days this week and staying over to help the night shift since they had 7 patients apiece, I got called at 10PM to come in for the 3rd straight day on Friday because THREE nurses called in sick in one day. However, I did get a dozen pink tipped roses mixed with some other flowers on Friday from the nursing students we've had on our floor on Friday. AND the bright spot in my three days was having this little Russian lady who came to visit her family in America. Customs didn't let her bring her blood pressure and diabetes medicine into the country so her BP went thru the roof and she had a small stroke. Over the three days I had her, she got confident enough to try to talk in English and we could carry on conversations although I felt myself reverting to broken English to help her understand. She was an economics professor at a university in Russia.
Needless to say, after 3 12+ hour days in a row working the longest hall, I was exhausted yesterday. It must be 1/4 of a mile to walk one way to the nurses station from the end of that confounded hall. We call it "the hole" because it also has a reputation for getting the worst patients. I seriously need to invest in a pedometer. I turned off my alarm clock on Sabbath morning, went back to bed, went to church and came back and fell asleep on the couch while Carrie made lunch. The whole rest of the day I layed on the couch and reread Joseph. About 6:30 I finally felt better and went for a walk, then came back and watched a silly romantic comedy with Vasti and Sharon. I can't believe how it feels to work like that, it took all day for me to feel better. You just don't feel good, not any one thing or part, just everything. I felt like just laying the floor and staring at the ceiling, not sleeping, just laying...
Now it's on to the week ahead. I have a big paper/project to finish and a big test in assessment to do before years end. Strangely I don't really care about either thing. During all of this I have to keep working and move all of my stuff to Kari Shultz house (including myself for the last few days before graduation), have my car packed with Stephanie's room, being ready to head for home on a detour to DC where we'll fly to London the day after graduation. Then I'll come back the next Thursday, spend the weekend at home, come back, move in and start two summer classes. Life is looking awfully busy.
It's starting to hit me... all this change about to happen in my world. I've delayed it for awhile staying around here, living in student housing, Carrie still in school. But this is it. The real world is about to hit me in the face. I'm about to live alone. In some ways I think it will be nice to not share a kitchen with 4 other people, to be able to burn candles in my living room, and decorate how I want to... but in some ways I will miss this crazy school thing. And I'll probably never get to live with my bestest girlfriend again... and that is sad...
Finishing a paper/project that is 30% of my grade in a class today. It's actually going better than I thought. That is if I actually start doing it this morning. Tomorrow ends it for this semester and I CAN'T WAIT. I'm just checking off the list for these masters' classes. I don't think I'm looking forward to a single one of them. Also some are the lesser of two evils...
