crazy people

So I am expanding on my last post. As I left my house this morning, trying to calm down, I realized that I see myself as a crazy person who is trying to act normal. Every once in a while there is a crack and that crazy person gets out and acts crazy. I wonder how I will have a high stress job and not freak out. I know that this is something that Josh has been talking to me about lately.

I know that I am not really a 'crazy' person, and that word doesn't really mean much anyways. I am embarrassed about the fact that I have stayed in a mental ward 3 times, because I couldn't handle my life and emotions and wanted out. I take medications daily to help 'stabilize' my moods. We went around the group for clinical and everyone talked about why they wanted to become a nurse. I didn't really tell the truth, because the first time that I felt like nursing was something that I would like to do was the first time I was in the psychiatric ward at Valley. There was a nurse working there who seemed like a nice normal guy who was willing to share about his past. He told us that he has bipolar disorder, but has learned to live well with it. I thought that I would like to help other people realize that what they 'have' isn't so horrible and that help is there.

Random change in topic - or not. But I sent an e-mail about 1 word that would describe me. So far I have gotten: fun, mega-intelligent, committed, and 'loving one'

learn to love it while you have it

This quarter I am doing my clinical work at the VA hospital in Seattle in the spinal cord injury unit. Talk about learning to love your body. I hate my body most of the time. I constantly think about how ugly it is, how embarrassing it is, how I wish I could get up the gumption to change it, etc, etc. Well, imagine it just not working anymore, accompanied with extreme chronic pain and nausea from reflexive muscle spasms. It occurs to me that maybe I should be a lot nicer to myself once in a while and be grateful for what I do have - a functioning body. It may not be what looks really good, or normal, or .......but it works.

I woke up late this morning with an hour to get dressed and get to my clinical. For some reason when I first woke up, I thought that I was already late and didn't have any time. I flipped out. I had an anxiety attack, and was hyperventillating and sobbing. I called my clinical instructor, while trying to control my sobbing to let her know I was on the way. She told me to calm down and take some deep breaths and get there as soon as I could. I ended up being one of the first ones there, and felt like an idiot. My instructor just seems like a really awesome person and like she takes everything in stride. I am glad for that with this being my first experience.

I have a test again on monday, so I will spend the weekend studying. I don't feel as panicked this time around though - but if you ask me on sunday night, it will probably be a different story. I found out that I had the highest grade in the class on the first test. That was pleasantly surprising. I mean, I know I am smart, but I lot of the time I don't feel really smart. I have a feeling most of the time that I am going to fail - in life, as a mother, as a spouse, at weight loss, in a job. I don't really like feeling like that, but it is hard to change.

Getting Paid to Study

My instructor sent an email to me and a couple other students in my class. She needs people to be 'peer tutors'. We get paid 8.50 from the school after getting trained. I guess a lot of people did bad on the test, so they qualify for free tutoring.

SCORE. I mean, 8.50 sucks as a wage, but I will have the know the stuff anyways. And teaching a subject makes you remember it much better.

Yay.

I don't get it

So, seriously people. I am really confused, and I am not being sarcastic here. Several 'well educated' people that I know seem to think that having Obama as our president is 'scary'. Okay, well, either way, McCain or Obama, things will probably be the same as they always were. Every election is about changing this or changing that, but the rick always get richer and the poor always get poorer, etc, etc. But SCARY, really? Apparently he hates 'the white man' and it is obvious from the book he wrote, 'Dreams of my Father'. Now, I haven't read the book. Maybe I should, to get clarification. I guess I think that if he hated white people so much, we would know. I mean, there are MILLIONS of white people voting for him. Is it possible that none of them have read the book and found out that he hates us? Oh, and that all his publicists are in cahoots with all the book stores to put his 'nice' books at the front of the store, and this book hidden in the back, so that we won't know the truth. Really? I am usually totally down for conspiracy theories, but wouldn't a publicist/editor want to sell as many books as possible? I dunno, maybe I am being naive.

After dinner tonight at my house, SNL was brought up (funny!) Instead of it being a funny conversation though, a certain person I know started talking about 'that Obama' who is going to become president and start a war with Kenya. WOW. That is news to me. Something about how all his relative are from there, blah, blah, blah. I walked away because I didn't want to here it.

I happened to be sitting next to that same person weeks ago at a restaurant for dinner, when it was brought up. The person said, all 'those blacks are going to vote for Obama' I said that wasn't necessarily true, but the person started going on about it, and I excused myself from the table. I mean, since Palin has a cunt, I will vote for her right. Women are just as stupid as 'those blacks' because they are all just going to vote for him because he is black, and we women will all vote for Palin.

Who is a black woman suppossed to vote for then?

Josh's word is the truth

My brother Josh is an interesting guy. He is intense, caring, emotional, a feminist, anarchist, nurse. It would be impossible to put him in a box. And exceptionally witty and funny.

Once I got into nursing school, he said, your worries are over! You are in, no need to worry about getting perfect grades, etc. I agreed with him, but with a grain of salt. I mean, everyone talks about how hard nursing school is.

Well, I took my first test and got a 96%. NICE!! Of course I studied, but not a crazy amount. I found that test to actually be pretty easy. I wonder what is wrong with me, because the teachers have been talking about how tests in nursing school are so much different that other classes test, and how it is very hard, blah, blah, blah, blah....Uh, really? Maybe it is just because it was the first test and so it was simpler, but it wasn't THAT hard, and actually it was easier to rule out obvious wrong answers that almost any other test that I have ever taken.

Word to the wise - Josh is always right!!

Cunts

I am reading a book that is called 'CUNT' So far I really like it. It has me thinking about things that I never thought about before. For example - did you all know that 'vagina' means a sheath for a sword? I think I'd rather have a cunt. In fact, when my daughter starts talking about her 'cliternuts' as she like to call her womanly erectile tissue, I will make sure that cunt is what she will use to refer to her second meatus in her genital area.

Furthermore, she discusses an interview that she had with a woman who must be famous in feminist cicles (as I am clueless as to who she is) about how her aquaintances have 'menarche' parties for their preteens. For the layman, menarche is the term for a womans first mentral cycles. So, the party is focused on the girl. She wears a red dress, has a red cake, presents are presented in red wrapping paper. How wonderful!!

I remember starting my period as extremely embarrassing and something that I didn't want anyone to know about. How wonderful it would be for girls to love their bodies and what having their first period means.