From a Different Perspective

Life never ceases to throw out surprises when you least expect it. Though they are always difficult, there is always a reason, for which we may never know, that lead us to become stronger people. This week will definitely go down as one I will always remember.

First off what didn't go on this week?! One of my best friend's got in a car wreck and lost 2 of her brothers, I was hospitalized for most the week from complications from having my appendix removed and getting pneumonia and atelectasis, some family friend's of mine got in a bad car crash as well and were in bed's just down the hall from me in the hospital, and it was Christmas! It was definitely an exhausting roller coaster of emotions.

If anyone wants to hear my horror stories they can just ask me, but I just wanted to write about some of the things I'm grateful for this week. Although it was pretty chaotic, I learned so much and realized a lot of things.

#1

I have THE best family in the world!!! They did so much for me while I was in the hospital and were such a help to me while I was struggling through tests and just being plain sick and miserable! I would have been perfectly happy just to be at home for Christmas, but they went above and beyond and made me feel so loved.

#2

I am also surrounded by such great friends and people in my community. I had so many people call and visit me and it meant so much to know people cared. Thank you to everyone for your support!

#3

I'm also grateful for great doctor's and nurse's who helped get me better. It was a good experience for me as a nursing student to see things from a patient's perspective to help in my training and see what kinds of things I want to do when I am a nurse. Strangely I'm also grateful for those not so good of doctor's or nurse's I encountered because they also made me see things I did not want to do that caused me stress and some pain haha.

                                                                                                                                                                        

This week I am feeling a lot better being off most of the meds they had me on. I can't imagine how people can be addicted to drugs because they make you sick and so out of it. I had some kooky experiences and don't want to go back! LOL. With school starting a week from today and I still haven't moved out, I'm fighting to gain my strength back to get everything done in time. Though I could of thought of a million other ways I would've liked to spend my Christmas break, I am grateful my Heavenly Father was watching over me and didn't let this happen to me while I was in school. Apparently my appendix had been sick for awhile and causing some issues I had no explanation for so it was a blessing in disguise and luckily didn't burst! I'm so glad that he is watching over me and can see and can control things I'm not aware of. I'm looking forward to a new year of experiences and goals!

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With a lot of children passing away in my community within the past year or so, I hope that we can keep them in our thoughts and prayers this holiday season and do what we can to comfort and support their families!

 

My First Taste of Christmas

So sadly, I have been so busy that I haven't really had time to enjoy the Christmas season. So yesterday I had the amazing opportunity to go to the MOTAB/David Archuleta Christmas Concert and can I just say it was AMAZING!!!! What a neat experience it was and probably a once in a lifetime opportunity. I just love Christmas music and the wonderful spirit this time of year brings. Not to mention everyone fell in love with David! He just has such a beautiful voice and sings with such clarity. Plus he's a BABE! haha

I got to go down with my friends Jordan, Erica, and Tina, and we had a blast! We were so worried about not getting in, but we lucked out and made it there safe and sound. Not to mention we had pretty legit seats down on the lower floor! We even saw President Uchtdorf like 20 feet away from us! It was pretty cool.

After the concert we also got to walk around Temple Square and look at all the pretty lights. They do such a good job with them and the view is always breathtaking! Pictures never do the lights justice!

Here's a few pictures from the trip.

At the Conference Center for the XMAS concert.

 The decorations and set up were absolutely stunning!

Walking around Temple Square

One of my favorite "castles" 

 On the Bride's Circle...

"Maybe we should have brought our boyfriends..."

"Definitely next Christmas!" haha I love you girls!



Thanks for a fun night you guys! :)

Finals Week: Nursing School Style

Who doesn't dread finals week?! Pretty sure NO ONE. This was my third round at finals, but being in nursing school (more like medical school) it was nothing I had ever anticipated. All of us were just waiting for our "funeral" or so we called it. The test we were absolutely terrified for was our Pharmacology final. We basically had to know every drug and everything about them. Impossible right? Yeah pretty much. So here's how studying for that final went down...

Well we knew we would be studying for ETERNITY so we decided to enjoy ourselves and have some sparkling cider! My study buddies were Megan, Kylie, and Whitney. I have become very close to them over the last few months and we have a lot of fun together.

After studying for 8 hours straight on Tuesday night we decided to call it a day and we would continue the next day. Our final was on Thursday so we were planning on taking it the latest we could possible.

So on Wednesday, Kylie, Megan, and I met again to hit the books. We had planned for a very very VERY long night ahead of us so we planned ahead. We ended up buying a ton of snacks aka junk food that would make us gain 20 lbs. Best way to cope right? We thought so... Don't worry we had a huge tummy ache for the next few days haha.

Well if you didn't think that was enough, we decided to order pizza. Long story short, we bought one pizza and ended up with three... what an interesting night!

We were pretty excited about eating pizza!

Not to mention way sick :)



As the hours passed on and the more our brains started turning to mush we started getting ornery. Let's just say we weren't too happy about this test and couldn't wait for it to be over with.

With the amount of material we had to go over and the limited amount of time we had to do all of it, especially since we felt like we weren't prepared at all and knew nothing, we had to come up with creative ways to memorize everything. After trying to make a "condensed" study guide (hint hint on the condensed part), it ended up being 186 pages. Yes you read correctly....

186 pages!!!!!

Yup... definite fail. So we tried just looking at each class of drug and finding different ways to remember them and that one only ended up being about 40 pages for our comprehensive test, which was slightly better. We did have fun coming up with ways to remember the drugs. Being tired definitely played a factor on how weird the things were we came up with!

For example:

This is "Phenytoin." This is an anti-seizure drug. The way we remember it was because first off it sounds Chinese so we pictured an Asian lady. You can't take this drug while you're pregnant so her pregnant belly is crossed off. It can also cause a gum disease of some sort so we drew this type of gingivitis. And last off, it increases your risk of osteoporosis so we drew squiggly extremities. Yes we are nerds, but did we remember it? OH YES!! We were joking about how we would be drawing all these weird pictures during the test and people made fun of us. We also came up with actions and phrases as well to help us study. It was quite entertaining!

Another strategy we tried was watching YOUTUBE videos on different drugs. Here's a video of us dancing to one of them being dorks. Don't worry we look ridiculous because this was taken at 3 in the morning after studying for 12 hours straight... NO BIG DEAL!!!

Zantac for Heartburn! We like it hot and spicy!!!

After this point we came up with a plan. Cram for a few more hours (meaning pull an all-nighter), go to breakfast, take the test when the testing center opened, and then go home and crash and party later. After much deliberation and  hesitation, I was convince so the madness continued! We decide to take a late night run to Macey's to buy some food that was actually healthy for us so we grabbed that and then came back to cram. This is when panic and serious anxiety started to occur. We were exhausted, overwhelmed, and just couldn't take anymore. Finally at 7 a.m. after studying for 16 hours straight, we called it quits, but instead of going to take the test, we went home and crashed for a few hours, studied for a couple hours, and off to the test we went.

After memorizing over 200 drugs we were so excited and ready to be done with the stress! After much crying, stress, being in the testing center for two hours being tested on stuff we didn't even study, crying some more, we were D-O-N-E.... DONE!!!!!!

I can honestly say I've never studied so hard to do so bad on a test in my entire life, but with most people averaging the same as me (which was terrible) and still getting an A- out of the class, I didn't even care! We decided to celebrate by going out to dinner and having a chill night by watching a movie.

As you can see we were so beat! haha I can honestly say this finals week was one of the worst and  hardest weeks of my entire life, but having good friends and a supportive family got me through it!

I passed my first semester of NURSING SCHOOL!!!!!!

(And may I add I got letter grades in the A's!)

I am very grateful to be done for a few weeks to be able to catch up on life and enjoy the holiday.

Time: Past.Present.&Future

TIME...
Funny thing isn't it?
It can move by so slowly and so quickly at times. Sometimes you want to get past something so badly, or want a moment to last forever.

I've had these moments happen over and over throughout my life and it amazes me how tricky time can be. It has also shown me how strong I actually am and what I can get through, especially when things don't always happen how we pictured them to.

So here I am...

• 19 yrs old
• graduated from high school a year and  a half ago
• in my second year of college and 3 semesters away from graduating
• all of my guy friends are on missions
• a lot of my best friends have moved away to college

First off, "When in the heck did that all happen?"
Secondly, "Where is my life headed?"

Back in high school I could have never anticipated how rewarding and how hard being an adult could be. It has come with so many emotions and it's something new everyday. It's been a real eye-opener for me. I knew where I wanted to go with my future, but how I wanted to get there was a lot different than how God has wanted it. Being the control freak/perfectionist that I am, it has been a real adjustment, but one that has definitely been needed. Because you know what? I am not super woman!! I can't do everything myself and I don't have to.

Sorry for such a serious first post to my blog, but I have just had so much go on the past couple weeks that it has made me ponder a lot about my life and my future. One thing I have realized though is that time doesn't stop for no one. If we don't keep up, so many things will pass us by. We have to live for NOW. This time of life the opportunities are endless, choices are life-changing, and the memories are unforgettable. I choose to make the most of them because I know God will take care of me and will lead me to where I am supposed to be. What a great blessing this gospel is to know that we are not alone!