Day 146: January 20, 2010

Quote of the Day:  "I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than attempting to satisfy them."  -John Stuart Mills

Well, day one is done of classes, but I found out today that we have to be back in Vernon tomorrow morning at the State Hospital for our orientation, so it'll be another early-to-rise morning, only earlier than this morning was. The good news is, however, that because of the "nature of our clinical requirements" at the state hospital  we will not have to wear our uniforms. We ARE however, on strict requirements as far as what we can wear, so that we don't trigger an outburst or a breakdown in one of the patients. And we have to wear solid shoes that we can run in if we need to. We have a mile long list, it seems, on how to avoid making the mentally unstable patient even more unstable, and tomorrow's lecture is going to include a long sermon on ways to avoid the aggressive and violent outbursts the patients can and do exhibit. Thankfully, they said that very few of the students have ever been physically attacked on this rotation. I personally am looking forward to it, because the mind is a pretty interesting topic. And let's face it.... you can learn a lot by talking to someone with a mental illness.

I haven't gotten that "I finally feel comfortable in knowing what I'm doing and what is expected of me" feeling yet. I would have thought that after today I would be a little bit more in control, but instead I think I'm just more anxious. And, of course, not having known that I have to go be in Vernon so early tomorrow morning, I told Ron that I would be able to be online to talk to him. And now I'll have to cut that talk short so that I can get even a little bit of sleep. Sigh. This semester is really going to be interesting, to say the least. Did you know that we are required to attend either an AA or NA meeting and write up a report on what we see, hear, and how they are organized? Yikes! But the good news is, most of these meetings have smoking at them! LOL

I'm also excited about the mother/baby class and clinicals, to a point. The teacher for that class is really cool. She went over the lecture with us today, and then we watched an episode of House dealing with sick babies. I thoroughly enjoy ANY class that lets you watch something as cool as THAT! LOL And she's the perfect teacher for the class, since if I remember right she has like six children herself. I wish they would have had this semester FIRST in the program, instead of last... although, it may have made it completely unbearable to have our last semester be as boring as some of them were.

I'd better get off here now, though, we're having one HECK of a thunderstorm right now, and the lightning and hail are pretty intense. I'd hate to lose my computer just because I'm being all long-winded. : )