Aaaarrrggghhhhhh....!

image from http://obeedesigns.tumblr.com/post/18553950131

     That pretty much sums up how I feel this weekend. Just three weeks into the semester and I'm already weighed down by all the readings, skills that need to be learned, exam, assignments, and online material from not just one but two different resources. And all these are just for one subject. I'm actually taking two subjects this semester but thank goodness the other one is not as demanding. Otherwise I'd be pulling out all my hair by now. I don't think bald is a good look on me. Then again, the sem's still early. I can still lose some hair by the time Christmas rolls around. Not a nice prospect when it's winter time and snow is falling.

     But this is all just venting. I'm glad I've finally started on the nursing program. Two weeks from now we'll be going on our hospital clinicals. We'll be dealing with actual patients, walking around in an actual hospital unit. It's exciting and kinda terrifying at the same time. Even with my medical assisting experience and background, I feel a kind of performance anxiety. It's going to be health care at a whole new level. At the very least I hope to uphold the directive of "do no harm". And that I don't do a face plant while on duty. Can you imagine doing that in front of a patient?

     Anyway, enough venting and goofing off. I hear my megaton textbook calling me.


© Margj Castillo, Between You and Me, 2010 - Present. 

Teaching an Old Dog (or Cat) New Tricks

     I've been doing a countdown of sorts these past few days. And weeks before that I had been praying and thinking over the decision that has lead to this countdown. In the previous year I already knew that eventually I would have to move on from being a medical assistant and that I would need to do it sooner rather than later. I'm not getting any younger and starting a new career all over again has a better chance of succeeding at a (relatively) younger age. So in about seven days I'll be leaving my present job, and four weeks from then I will be going back to college.

     It was a choice between becoming a physician assistant or a nurse. Admittedly, I originally leaned more towards being a physician assistant. Don't ask me why, I just thought it was the better choice between the two. But during the year and few months since I became a full fledged medical assistant I kept hearing more things in favor of nursing as a career compared to being a physician assistant. Nursing has a wider range of specialties and areas you can get into, you get more freedom since you have your own license, nurses are always in demand, etc, etc. I looked into schools in our area to see what courses are being offered and how much it would cost and found a community college that seemed to be the most promising. But even with all that, I still didn't really take any action until just a couple of months ago when I realized I'd reached my self imposed one year deadline and the time to act was now.

     So I started the ball rolling by sending in my application and one cold November morning I took my placement tests. To my surprise I passed the college math test and glory be, the college credited my statistics subject from my undergrad days! I won't have to take math anymore! And a week or two later I received my acceptance letter - I was officially a college student again.

     I'm still going through the process now of registering for my subjects for the coming spring semester. Hopefully I'll be able to get all of my preferred subjects and schedules. And with mixed feelings of excitement and anxiety, I'm now counting down to when classes begin.

© Margj Castillo, Between You and Me, 2010 - Present.