Did I REALLY sign up for this??

Me & my fam (not sure where my hubby is in this pic!!) Me & my beautiful daughter, as you can tell this is from her SC Yep that's right people, IT IS DONE! I know it's been three months since graduation but hey, I've been decompressing!! Actually I still am. Last night I was laying on the couch with my daughter watching Christmas movies & I looked over at her and said, "I'm so glad that I'm not doing homework right now" and she goes, "Yo u're still not over it huh?" hahaha!! No I'm not!! 6  Six (APA wouldn't let me type the number 6 haha!) years of nursing and nursing practitioner school still has me traumatized!! But I digress. Let's talk about NP school. So here goes with some tips and insight that I promised. 1. Every semester you get the syllabus and trust my you will FREAK!! Now trust me again, STOP IT. The syllabus ALWAYS looks worst than what it actually is. Yes there are 50 bazilli...

That's right, it's the FINAL COUNTDOWN!!! I mean can you even say that without singing that song? TWENTY EIGHT days until my LAST assignment is due!!!! Wooooooofreakinghoooooo!! Honestly, I could NOT be happier that this time in my life is almost OVER!!! No more school for me EVER!!!!!! Of course everyone is all like, "Yeah you say that now but you'll go back and get your DNP"...um NO! No I won't. I have NO inclination, nor desire to go on in schooling. Of course this is a personal decision based on where I am in life, not anything against getting the DNP. If I were younger I would probably go ahead and pursue this but at my age I just don't think it's financially feasible for me to continue on. While I think the DNP is on the right track, at this time I don't find the DNP to be very useful to actual practice. The DNP is too paper/theory/research heavy and in my opinion those things should be reserved for the PhD. If advanced practice want...

It's getting closer and closer. Only 4 1/2 more months of graduate school left and then I will be FINISHED with school forever!!! This semester I am in Adult. I have to have 240 clinical hours and 240 patients logged by the end of April. I'm severely lagging behind...as of right now I only have 116 hours. I probably have more patients than hours but I'm not even sure about that. All I know is the next month and a half are probably going to be pretty hectic. I am doing clinicals at two different sites, one is a family practice and the other is a walk in/urgent care clinic. I have to admit, I am LOVING the walk in clinic. As I may or may not have said, I'm not sure that family practice is my forte. There are so many illnesses, and I just don't know that dealing with everyone's multiple chronic illnesses is for me. I love the fact that in the urgent care clinic patients are coming in for one one thing (usually). They come in with their specific symptoms, you ...

Let's talk children. In my last semester I had Peds and Policy. To be honest I wasn't really looking forward to my Peds rotation. Although children have never really been my thing, for some reason they always seem to love me. I think I was worried about the fact that I still don't feel that sure about all of the disease processes of the adult body, much less the diseases of little people. Hindsight was that I shouldn't have worried. Of course that's hindsight on basically all the classes I've taken. I have found that I've needlessly worried over each and every class for nothing. Up until this point I have gotten straight A's, well except for that B that I completely eeked out in Patho (man was that a stressful semester). Another tidbit of advice, if there are FB pages set up for your school then go ahead and join them, they're a great place to get information. On the flip side of that though, DON'T visit them too often, and DON'T let everyo...

I know I haven't posted in 500 years, but I promise I'm still here....and I'm still in NP school. Thankfully I just finished my HARDEST, most stressful semester of all of my nursing school career. This past semester I took Advanced Patho & Advanced Assessment together. Can we say, BIG mistake?? Why didn't anyone tell me how time consuming and hard these classes were? I mean yes, I realize that we're talking Patho & Assessment here, but still, a little warning would have been nice. The funny thing is, I thought I was making the best choice. I mean it was between taking Patho & Pharm together or Patho & Assessment, so naturally I thought I was making the right choice, I mean wouldn't you think so? Well, guess who was wrong, big time?? Me!! Unfortunately, Pharm was WAY easier than I thought it would be and although assessment wasn't hard persay, it was EXTREMELY time consuming. Between the discussion boards (DBs), the write ups, the quizzes, th...

Summer is here, well I mean not officially, but close enough, and this summer means school is back in full force. Of course by full force I mean part time. In one way I'm looking forward to the fact that I'll only have 2 classes at a time to focus on, which hopefully means I'll make straight A's. On the other hand though, I wish I was able to go full time, like in nursing school, and get it over with! Another 2 1/2 years...sigh. The good thing about this time around though, is how AWESOME clinical is going to be!!! I am soooo looking forward to my clinicals, all dressed up in my white coat and professional name tag! Guess I need to do some shopping before then huh? Going straight from nursing school into nursing, I haven't really had the need to stock up on professional clothing. I went from jeans, sandals and tennis shoes, to scrubs and tennis shoes. And of course there's the ever present bun that I wear, definitely going to need to get my hair did before then!...

I love spring, spring is absolutely my favorite time of the year. To me spring feels like life, it's so full of promise and hope, of newness and freshness! I'm so happy that I'm starting school in June at a time when the daylight is longer and I can take my books outside and study in the fresh air. Speaking of which, I am so close to being able to register for classes. I have updated all of my information and am only waiting on one more hold to be released and then I can register!  It's getting so close, just right around the corner! Can you feel my excitement?!! If not, it looks a little something like this: Although on the same hand I am nervous as all get out! (Yes that's a southern expression.) If you read back through my blog you'll see that I'm definitely a nervous Nelly when it comes to school. I get myself all worked up quite often and although I'm not in a frenzy YET, I am still worried about how I'll do this time around. I mean I've...

Ok so I've had an ongoing debate with myself over whether or not I should go for the DNP or the FNP when I graduate next May.  I have looked into LOTS of programs & have gotten TONS of advice & I have finally made my decision.  I am not going to go for my DNP right now.  All of the schools I looked at for the DNP are about 3 years long, on top of being much more expensive than if I go for my FNP.  Roll in the fact that the so called "requirement" of the DNP by 2015 isn't going to happen & I have decided that I just want to go for my FNP & let the chips fall where they may.  The program that I am going for is about an hour away from my house & it's a hybrid program.  I will only have to go to campus one day a week & the rest of the time the courses are online.  The program is 4 semesters long as opposed to 7 or 8 & I will be done in about 18 months.  I have to say that now that I've made my decision I am SO excite...