43%!!!!!!!!!

So, it happened: I majorly bombed my second quiz in Adult Med/Surg. And as you can see by the title, I do mean bombed.  So frustrating.  It's not like I didn't study, trust me.  It's just that there is SO!MUCH! content that really all it takes is missing one table, one set of lab values, one slide in powerpoint after powerpoint, or one paragraph amongst the 200+ pages in three different books that are being covered and bam, there's your F. Especially since the quizzes are only 10 questions, there is no wiggle room.  And actually, that brings me to this, they are 10 questions and you have 10 minutes.  While I understand the "theory" behind this... once we graduate with our bachelor degrees we will take our state boards, the NCLEX, and they allow a minute per question on their test... so they are trying to prepare us.  But there is no autonomy to what we are doing yet.  It's all just being imputed and programmed - the reflex knowledge that usually comes from experience, repetition, and practice is just not there yet.  When I see a drug in a question I have to backtrack and figure out the class and then figure out what it's action is and the therapeutic effects, and hope that triggers the side effects/adverse reactions and then deduce using those to figure out contraindications and precautions in, and forget about normal ranges of doses depending on the route it's given! It's just not like I can look at a drug and see it and pull up this chart in my head with all the info.  What's not very encouraging is that I think there are students in my class that can do that - they read a drug, it's info, and it's there ready for filing and eventual retrieval.  The teacher lectures about a disease process and it all just clicks; it gets transcribed in cute little curly calligraphy and filed in some kind of elusive and elite filing system that I'm just not privied too.  If I want to put new info in my "vault", I have to purge first.  I have to struggle to get old, rusted shut, covered in cobwebs and dust filing cabinets open.  Cabinets that I lost or intentionally threw the key away to a LONG while ago.  I have to toss out piles and stacks before I have room for new stuff.  Sadly though, this method, or lack there-of I suppose, is so destructive.  My short-term and long-term memory are shot.  I'm tossing out my girls' volleyball schedules, promised dates, to-do lists' in the midst of the chaotic purging and then miss out and forget things that are important. And that's only the first half of the equation, then I have to figure how to retrieve this new stuff I'm cramming in.  Let me put it this way, you know when you defragment your computer?  There are sections of your computers memory that are designated for certain things, and every once in a while you make the effort to clean it up and get it organized so it works faster.... yeah, that's what I'm TRYING to do but not performing so well on thus far.

Oh well, I'll try harder next time and do better.  I don't often share the ugliness of my academics with anyone cause really why let what I am blessed to be doing right now lose it's luster?  I post big accomplishment and things I'm proud of when I think to, but seldom the gross moments - the more than subpar grades, the exhaustion and tears, the moments when I am overwhelmed with grief and guilt over not being the mother I want to be right now.  No need to dwell on that much, just gotta push through it.

So, back to my point... go to college young!!  ;)
Don't wait till you're in your 30's raising 5 children on your own.
Don't wait till you will have to choose between reading, "I Love You This Much" to your 2 year old or reading some of the hundreds of pages you haven't gotten around to yet because you fall asleep before the bottom of the first page.
Don't wait till you have to ask your teenager to make sure she changes the laundry and gets her sisters in bed on time cause you won't be home from your clinical rotation in time to tuck them in.
Don't wait till you're so preoccupied with homework that your 9-year-old falls asleep before you remember to go in her room to watch her latest ballet moves she learned at the class you were almost late getting her to because you were in lecture late, even though she asked a dozen times and you said, "In a minute." - you still forgot.
Don't wait till you have to set a 5-minute timer to practice volleyball with your 11-year-old cause all you can think about is needing to get back to playing something that resembles catch up but isn't because catching up isn't even in the realm of possibility.
Don't wait till you have to live off three hours of sleep a night cause there just really aren't enough hours in the day ever.
Don't wait till the worry of failing, and loss of time with my kids nearly overtake the drive toward a more promising future.

Don't wait.  Even if you don't think you need it at the time, DO IT!  Get a degree to fall back on.  Cause although it's possible later in life it's not nearly as glamorous and doesn't come nearly as carefree.  And your filing cabinets are vast and just waiting for you to fill them!  And you won't have to worry about crying yourself to sleep from the sadness of thinking about what if's and should have's and if only's.

Anyway, we'll get through this.  We'll be fine; I'll be fine.  Savings accounts in place for college tuition for my girls who will be getting higher level education straight out of HS and even earlier if possible.

Prayers are always welcome.  :)
God Bless!!