"Graduation"

Thanks to the solitary efforts of Mikey B. and family, we had a graduation celebration on Saturday. It was pretty spectacular. Picture an unassuming Veterans of Foreign War Hall in Brooklyn full of nursing students, tables with purple tablecloths, a buffet, an real open bar with real veterans serving drinks, and a two-man-band in the corner.




We were all excited about the results. Even Emily (she's just pretending she's not in that photo). She rounded up the Puerto Rican in the room and pulled off a little dance par-te between the tables.

While I was off partying with the chicken wings...



and trying on other people's Manolo Blahniks. They were lovely when Kara pulled them out of her purse, but as soon as I put them on I felt my heart beat faster. TACHYCARDIA, friends, tachycardia.


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Last Day of Class!

Roughly 15 months ago, I boarded a Jet Blue flight in Portland with 2 overweight suitcases and landed in nursing school.


My first nursing friend was Emily. This was back in the dark days before we had ever had a clinical, and months before we became roommates.



Now we're practically done. Looking back, here is my short list of things I will miss (read, not bring with me into my new life as a real nurse) about nursing school:

-Purple polyester scrubs. Above you see Emily ironing on her NYU patch. The patch I will really really miss. Especially since I only wore mine for about 3 months.

-Studying nursing interventions for 100 of the worst illnesses and then fearing that I have contracted every one of them.

-Class in a Regal Cinema! I have to hand it to our dean for arranging free admission to the Union Square Regal Cinema for 95 nursing students every Wednesday in order to attend "class" because NYU ran out of large classrooms. Yeah, I saw a lot of movies that term.

-Practicing inserting foley catheters, drawing blood, and suctioning tracheostomies on a dummy. It was fun, but it's just not the same thing as doing it to a real person that can squirm and yelp.

-Signing "student nurse" next to my name on patients charts.

-Power point.

-Remembering the answer to a test question based on an episode of ER that I recently watched.

There are many more things I will bringing with me. For instance, beans n' beer nights, my beautiful black littman stethescope (stolen from work and gifted by my mother), a love of drug handbooks, and all the nursing knowledge that I don't yet have.

Curtains Closing

The last week of nursing school begins tomorrow. It looks like I have been working very hard, but that was last week. This week is the savor-it-don't-stress-it week.

A few days ago I accepted a position as a registered nurse in a large, well-respected teaching hospital in New York. I am excited to become a real professional nurse and have all the responsibilities and benefits that come with it, but what I'm really peeing my pants about is not having to solicit myself anymore. No more interviews, no more buttoned collars, no more thick cotton paper for my resumes, no more phone calls and faxes to overwhelmed nurse recruiters. It feels good.

There are other impending endings/beginnings. The dorm life experiment will soon come to a close. I used to romanticize this aspect of college when I went the first time and had to live in spacious apartments with full-sized kitchens, a double bed, and adults with normal lives as my neighbors. Well, maybe not the normal lives part. Anyway, another impression of dorms quickly replaced the imaginary one when I moved into a closet-sized place that looked like the set off of Dark Water (2005 Jennifer Connelly movie that I didn't see because the previews scared me so badly). 15 months and 3 dorms later, I'm pretty sure I'm done with this chapter.

Cold Toes and Other Sensations

Friday evening I walked home from school around 8:00 in flip flops. It was December 1st and 71 degrees (that's 21 celsius to all you non-Americans I imagine are reading my blog). The temperature fell 30 degrees that night and by the time I went to work at the pharmacy on Saturday it was cold enough to freeze an uncovered pinky toe.

Life is changing almost as quickly. Today as everyone held their breath at the first sign of snow flakes, I arrived at my first job interview for a registered nurse position. In the interview, I was asked who my favorite nursing theorist is. Nursing theory may sound counter intuitive, but here's the thing: patients don't recover from a couple medications, an x-ray, and a blood test or two. It's not a math problem that works out if you have the right formula. A nurse's method of discovering the individual needs of each patient and deciding how to address them can hinge on strict science, on religion, on whim, or on nursing theory. And there are many nursing theories.

My answer to his question was Martha Rogers. When I watched an interview with her last year, her ideas about energy fields and unitary human beings went over about as well as my last horoscope, and I didn't see a way to apply it a clinical practice. I've since read more about Rogerian science and realized it's about a capacity to make changes. It's a positive theory. Unlike linear development theories like Erickson, with certian benchmarks of development (I hate benchmarks), Rogers considers life to be a process of continually repositioning oneself around unpredictable fluctuations in our environment. In a Rogers world, a nurse wouldn't assign a careplan for kidney failure, she would lend her energy toward helping the patient make individual choices about their health. All I know is if it were me in the bed, I would want my nurse to see more than a clogged artery, and ultimately when a patient leaves the hospital they will have to make their own health decisions anyway so why focus on the afflicted body part when it's the whole person that's doing the afficting. In the U.S., the most common causes of hospitalization are preventable or controllable illnesses. Nurses can't just pass out some pills and call it a day. So that's one theory.

A year ago I hadn't even finished a semester of nursing school and now I'm about to begin my career. The countdown continues: 14 days, 13 hours.

Free Press

I would like to announce the grand opening of GOLDMINE, my sister Nadia's virtual store and one of many post-grad school projects. Nadia– in her Bili Rubin debut, pictured left of me and Kirsten– currently offeres a selection of imported brooches, but there are other items offered by her business partners. The link is also listed to the right, for future reference.

Gastronomical

My 8 day holiday has come and gone, but the week's culinary memories aren't. Families were far away. In the American tradition though, it was still a great celebration of food. For me, it lasted the whole week. If I had my way, it would last my whole life.
I'm not sure why Barcelona is the current food capital of the world, because Catalan cuisine is filled with confused meat dishes, oily overcooked vegetables, salty fish, and insubstantial bread. But there is salvation in the produce and the butcher's specials from markets, in a small candlelit Italian restaurant in Saragossa, at the foodie shops in El Born, and in the regional wine and cheese.




Here are the bollitos of spinach, ricotta, raisins and pine nuts in butter sauce at La Contadina that I spent my whole morning walk to school today describing to Emily.


The big success of Thanksgiving, besides the turnout, was the beautifully brined turkeys. I had my doubts about the outcome of a dry salt brine, even with Cooks Illustrated and Sally behind it. For two days the turkeys sat, bundled up with salt in the refridgerator waiting to be cooked for 30 some people.


I was especially nervous while Chrissy and I bathed them and then watched them sit there on a pack of ice for the quinessential breast-cooling step. But it worked so well it brought back the merit of turkey as the table centerpiece. I relaxed when David started eating more turkey than he was carving.

What Is: Nursing School

Nursing school is an elusive experience. A year ago, I thought the disjointedness of the program was a byproduct of the larger-than-ever class sizes and the new distinction of being a College of Nursing, instead of a lowly "division" at NYU. Then the second and third semesters came and went, and I felt a little duped. I have learned to act like a nurse, to talk like a nurse, and to defend the nursing profession from the media stereotypes and the oppression of the medical community; but mostly, I have learned to put up with a lot of inadequate lectures about life-threatening conditions that I will be responsible for catching when I start practicing in less than 3 months. I feel like I don't know anything, but apparently that's not a problem.

There is a shortage of nurses in the United States. A big one. By the year 2020, it is projected that the shortage will grow to 1 million nurses. An estimated 120,000 nursing positions are currently vacant in hospitals alone (see AACN Nursing Shortage Fact Sheet). Despite my anxiety about finding a job, I know there will be one (or many) out there for me come January. If these weren't the conditions though, I would feel like a pretty poor candidate. We have supposedly completed over a thousand clinical hours in this program, but because of sneaky projects and papers that somehow count toward the tally, we probably only have a few hundred actual patient-contact hours under our belts. I am not ready to be responsible for 6 - 10 patients. Then again, I'm probably more ready than a lot other new graduates, but that's not much comfort.

Today in class, we filled out an exit survey rating our experience and the quality of our nursing education. I wish there had been a box to tell them that what I really got out of the program, and paid dearly for, is a ticket to enter the profession. While the state schools are creating lottery systems and complicated waitlists for qualified applicants to enter their understaffed nursing programs, NYU is doubling class sizes for those who are willing to pay the tuition. Sure, I still took my anatomy classes and jumped through the right hoops to get accepted, but unfortunately I have no sense of pride about the education I've received over the one I would have had to wait for had I stayed in Oregon. It just wasn't that good, and I feel a little guilty that my resume will hold more clout over one from a graduate of a public school based on NYU's reputation, and not my superior preparation I've recieved

Oh, school.

Coming Home to Roost

I'm snuggled up in bed watching a wonderful thing on television. Dick Armey has a gloomy look on his face. First of all, what a name for a big-faced, white-haired republican man. But more importantly, Dick Armey– sorry, I just can't stop saying his ironic name- just admitted, with a wobegone tone in his voice, that Bush is wrong about politics all being local. This election is about the war in Iraq, and that's why he's is so despondent tonight. It's not over yet, but I'm savoring the dead heat and the likely future democratic congress.

P.S. Although Dick Armey was born in North Dakota, about 30 miles from my Dad's farm, we have never drank the same water. Our farm has a well.

The Day After Halloween

I spent Halloween in Barcelona this year, which was of course not my reason for going but it wound up being a very nice benefit. Here I am pictured with benefit numero uno (y dos, tres...) on said holiday. Also pictured is the whip that I couldn't make work for me. It's hanging decoratively from my gold belt. I had already failed it and my servant boy by that point. The whip and rest of our costumes came directly from Egypt (see Jumping Over Egypt), which made me begin to believe my own costume and want to wear it all the time.

The whole night, from the extra spicey celebratory food to the entertainment provided by costumes, brought back Halloween's merit after years of blowing off the occasion with some extra candy and my normal black attire.

The holiday surprise came the day after Halloween though. Around noon, this scene began to unfold on the Olympic mountain, Montjuic, as moto by moto, these characters showed up half-costumed from the night before and ready to shoot a short IESE film. Amazingly, Noelle was able to direct it as her eyes probably stung from the fumes of alcohol wafting off her cast.



More Photos Here

Seasonings

I began my countdown of the remainder of the semester about 5 weeks ago with the purchase of a 12-pack of Trader Joe's sponges. At the time, I conveniently noted to myself that if I changed the sponge every Friday, I could wash my way to the end of nursing school.

There are now 7 sponges left. I wore my purple scrubs for the last time EVER on Saturday. Want to give a person a great reason to enjoy taking off their clothes? Make them wear purple polyester scrubs for a year and see what happens. Celebrating the scrub shedding coincided with Kirsten's departure for flight attendant training in Orlando, Florida. Emily baked the incredible cheese-filled pumpkins shown above at bon voyage dinner so heavy that it threatened to keep her on the ground. I'm happy to report that Kirsten did make it there yesterday and she loves it so far. She informed me last night that the best part is her free hotel room, where she can spread out her toiletries ad lib.

It's pretty sad when an airport hotel room is more spacious than home, but I'm in the same boat. My place barely fits the two twin beds, let alone the two doubles in Kirsten's hotel room. And for that reason alone, I'm hoping the last seven sponges will disappear quickly, leaving me with bigger beds and better scrubs.

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Ah, Mr. Rogers. Such sweet innocence. If only he could see my neighbors:



Tonight is the "last show" at CBGB's, but I can hardly believe the sea of cigarette butts and punk rock pants is over. What a strange sight to come home to. Without it though, I'm afraid the block will just be dirty.

Last Clinicals

Nine weeks left of classes. And clinicals. I don't think I will have to persuade anyone who has donned the purple scrubs and big white shoes to come to a scrub burning party on December 10th, but I have to admit, I've done some pretty good things in that blaspheme of a nursing outfit.

This semester, I have Saturday clinicals in a transplant center. Most of it has been spent in the ICU, with one patient assignment. Over and over, I am amazed at how it is possible to stay busier with one patient there than 3 or 4 patients out on the floor. The patients with new transplants have lists of medications that go on by the pages, many of which are entirely unfamiliar to me, so preparing and giving meds alone can take me a good part of the day. Vital signs are every two hours and nursing notes every hour, which adds up. Drainage tubes. The Jackson-Pratt, I love. It's like the turkey baster, the way you empty out the drainage and then squeeze it before reattaching so that it continues to suck out the...juices. I'm still a little frightened by T-tubes though. Two weeks ago one got detached and all the bile spilled on my patient's bed and gown and I thought she had exploded until I found the source of the brownish yellow liquid. Sutures and staples are not so scarey of anymore, which is good because the usual surgical procedure of a transplant is to cut in a pattern that looks like a giant Mercedes emblem without the circle around it. They even call it a Mercedes suture line. It must turn into a very impressive scar.

And that's the nice thing about the transplant ICU. Patients usually come in jaundiced and delerious and leave with a new liver and a cool scar. The outcome isn't always positive; sometimes an organ isn't available and they die waiting. It's really an amazing priviledge to work with several of the 6 ot 7 thousand yearly liver transplant patients in the U.S. And in purple scrubs too. I just looked it up, and there are roughly 18,000 people waiting for a liver transplant in the U.S. right now. Moral: hepatitis C is a big problem. And don't become an alcoholic either.

Sixes and Sevens

Today I rode the subway a lot. I usually like to maintain a question mark over my downtown reclusivity, and it had been awhile since I had left. I decided to get a job. Classes are pretty slow and I haven't been constructive enough with my free time to justify keeping all of it. I applied to four ads on the career website, and heard back from three. So I went to interview on the upper west side at a little pharmacy. I love pharmacies. The world has an order and a purpose inside the pharmacy. Then I left this orderly world and didn't realize I had left my i.d. with the pharmacist until I got home and needed it to get inside my dorm. What kind of order and purpose is there in that? On my way back uptown to retrieve it, two different egg-shaped women of probable midgit status fell over on me, one face first into my chest. Of course, that had to be the one that turned out to be angry at me instead of apologetic. Sometimes there is no way to hold yourself up and catch a humpty dumpty on the train.

Turnover

Does anyone else think of the beginning of the year as September instead of January? I always have. I used to attribute it to the school year starting in September, because when you're 8 or 13, the measurement of time or recalling the past seems to be by grade level. I mean, when I think of events like reading my first Salinger story, dying my hair dark, sneaking out of the house at night, singing a jazz choir solo...yeah I was a little lame...it was always in terms of 5th grade, 7th grade, 8th grade. Now I'm pretty sure I have reconfigured the calendar in my head because my birthday is at the end of August, which means I am just completely egocentric.

In any case, September is over, and for me that means that things are starting to move along from my imagined beginning point of an arbitrary parsing of time into years. Classes are all relaxed this term. Emily and I were reminiscing about classes at this time a year ago. Between our crazy Chinese professor of Fundamentals of Nursing, listing all the many ways we could fail, and our dominatrix Pathophysiology professor, belittling a student in front of the class for forgetting her pencil at an exam, we were quite scared. But they scared us for nothing. That was the worst of it. Now our main concern in school seems to be negotiating a better graduation party at the end of the term. And that's important. Fun is important. In fact, I think that will be my September New Year's resolution.

Homecoming Queen

Dear Blog Readers,

I always wanted to be nominated for homecoming queen, or prom queen, or one of those gay embarrasing titles for which I was clearly too cool to occur to my classmates when it came time for them to vote. My sister Nadia got nominated. Voting for her was as close to irony as highschool kids could ever come. So they did it twice, and left me with a complex.

Last night I ended up at Nevada Smith's- a bar that has a decidedly highschoolesque hype about it. One beer into it, an unattactive horde of women on a bachelorette party scavenger hunt nominated me to wear their "Awesome 80's Prom" banner, and I immediately channeled all of my repressed high school disappointment. I didn't get Rose Queen of St. Mary's Academy, but I got a sash from a very raunchy bachelorette. Can you blame me for being excited?

"You're the Awesome 80's prom queen!"

Claire, an admirer.

I was congratulated with a beer, but Kirsten was clearly much thirstier.

Back in Beans

Beans n' Beer night is back. As the bean queen, I have to say it is back with a vengence. This season, the addition of a handpainted fixins centerpiece has joined the scene, thanks to Claire.

For the kickoff of Fall beans n' beer night, we also welcomed special guest Matt, from down the hall. Matt really made the whole night possible because without him, I may not have had a roommate. Thanks to his heroically honest feat of returning Emily's wallet to her with all of the $1000 in cash still in tact, life moved forward as we know it.

There was one minor hitch. Due to our downgraded room assignment, we now have to eat sitting on the floor around a stolen table from the entertainment lounge. Oh well, the bean pot is still hot!

Nebraska Binge

I had the pleasure of attending a Nebraska-themed birthday party last weekend. The birthday boy was indeed from Nebraska and so were all the other Runza-loving football fanatics. So really, there was nothing too out of the ordinary about the whole affair. Except...the surreal condo building in the Financial District where it was held. Velvet curtains, 10 foot high mirrors, burgandy couches, a glass-rimmed pool table, the bar, and the pièce de résistance: a screening room showing the Nebraska football game.

Perhaps the elaborate setting was then to blame for the extravagant behaviors. I didn't catch it all on camera, but shortly before the handcuffing fight shown below, a scooter negotiation took place and resulted in a highspeed crash in the street below. I may take a lot of pictures, but that's one good instance when I clearly wasn't taking enough.
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HANDCUFF FIGHT
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SCOOTER NEGOTIATION















POSTSCRIPT


As far as I know, no one was hurt in the highspeed scooter crash. However, I still feel bad, as a soon-to-be health care professional, that upon witnessing it I laughed before I became concerned.

Vacation Postcards

Wheat in gravel. Overly, North Dakota.











Plane over sunflowers. Pierce County, North Dakota.











Lone Pine Valley. Oregon.












Ponderosa Pines. Black Butte, Oregon.
















Wine at Navarre. E. 28th St., Portland, Oregon.















Stumptown. Portland, Oregon.












Alona's Wedding. Lake Metigoshe, North Dakota.















Magic. Adirondacks, NY.