best and worst thing

Moving back home has been the best, and worst, thing that I've ever done for myself.

On the one hand, it's exactly what I needed as I have about $10 to my name. That last week before I moved home I went to the grocery store and could only afford to buy one thing. So I bought more cat food for my kitten Greta. I lived off of slightly moldy bread, tap water, and 100 calorie pack cookies for the last 2 days I was in my apartment.

I'm so broke right now, it's not even funny. Thanks to my [former] crap-hole apartment screwing me out of $184, I can't even go on my friend's bachelorette party trip to Padre. I can't buy gas for my car. I couldn't even buy aloe for my nasty sunburn last week. And thanks to our lovely economy, the only monetary assistance my parents can provide me is a roof over my head and some food (provided I don't eat too much and don't mind cheap food).

I say this is the worst thing I've done for myself because living with my family again is very hard. I'm not just talking about losing my independence and what not (because my parents are very flexible and I can go wherever, whenever-you know if I had money; they really don't care). Mostly I'm talking about adjusting to being around people again....(if you could see my editing of this blog, here's where you'd see a whole HUGE paragraph deleted. While it felt great to write that out, I'm just not ready to share that tidbit with anyone in the world who feels like reading my blog today).

Having no real study space has become a huge pain the last few days. My stuff and my parent's terrible-pack-rat-accumulated-crap is everywhere. They had been using my bedroom as a storage room, so now all that crap is all over the house, not to mention all the stuff from my apartment. I'm trying to find places for it, to put all my stuff (and theirs) away, but it's not going well. So I'm stuck sitting on my bed in my room for privacy. Attempting to study in the same room you've sat in for four days to get away from the crazy does not end well. Not only am I getting stir crazy, but my family won't leave me alone! I keep telling them I am studying, that I need peace and quiet and no distractions. Yet they keep coming to bother me. Tomorrow I am going to the library. I can't take it anymore.

I'm so upset/worked up/down/whatever about my current monetary and living situation that I'm back to not sleeping well again. Okay, to be fair, I never did sleep that great to begin with. Still, being wide awake at 3:30 am despite trying to sleep is quite annoying.

So if I jump in my car and show up at your doorstep randomly at an odd hour of the day, know it's my last-ditch effort to preserve what is left of my sanity by escaping.

sunburn from hell

warning: this blog contains some disgusting details of my sunburn and a PSA for sunscreen in it. Reader discretion advised.

Last Tuesday, I went to the Rec Center, to enjoy a little bit of sunshine and go swimming for a little while. I figured I'd sneak in a last trip or two to the rec center before our "membership" was completely abolished.

Instead, I ended up with the sunburn from hell.

It started off with horrible tan lines from my bathing suit and a bright red, lobster look to the entire front of my body. Using the Rule of Nines, I estimated my total BSA burned to be about 51%. It was miserable. And of course I was at my apartment with no after-sun lotion, no aloe, and so completely broke I couldn't even go buy some from the grocery store.

Wednesday morning I woke up so sore where the sunburn was. I was a maroonish-red (go look at the cover of our pedi books and that's what I looked like). I looked like an alien, or a tomato, or something.

Thursday the blisters appeared. That's right, my shoulders, chest, and upper arms were no covered with blisters. Disgusting, horrible, blisters. The weeping, easily ruptured, horrible little blisters. Not only was I now covered in blisters, had the disgusting tan lines, and was pink everywhere else, but now my shoulders were so raw that it hurt to move them. And of course I'm still trying to move, so I'm at my apartment packing, moving heavy furniture, and cleaning, all while in some pain.

Friday, the pain was much much worse. I couldn't even lift my left arm up because any movement that caused my skin to stretch caused extreme pain to me. Luckily, the dress I had picked out to wear to Derek's wedding covered the disgusting sunburn. Too bad something as simple as holding the steering wheel caused me so much pain.

Saturday, the blisters were starting to disappear and I was beginning to peel. Joyful....disgusting, peeling skin. The pain was still pretty awful; and I still had way too much stuff to do at my apartment.

Sunday, the blisters are finally gone, but the pain is still around. Stupid ass sunburn.

Now it's Tuesday, one week since the horrible sunburn appeared, and it's still awful. Everything but my shoulders and upper chest has healed. I'm peeling all disgustingly and look like a crusty old lady with terribly dry skin. I'll deal with the peeling and tan lines though, as long as the horrific pain is gone. It still stings a little, but it's nothing compared to the pain I was feeling this past weekend. Seriously it was bring-tears-to-my-eyes-begging-for-morphine-wanting-to-chop-off-my-arm-to-make-it-stop pain. The worst part was any little movement, and extra pressure from my t-shirt, and little thing would bring on the pain again.

Moral of the story: wear sunscreen!!!! Even if you think you won't be exposed to too much sun, or it's overcast, still put some on! Save yourself the pain and anguish of a sunburn and help reduce your risk of developing skin cancer by investing in some SPF 30. Sunscreen is especially important if you are going swimming! Invest in a good sport sunscreen or reapply frequently. Learn from my idiocy.

moving

I hate moving!

All that packing, unpacking, taking apart furniture crap SUCKS.

And as a result of my complete loathing for packing, my apartment is only half ready to move out, and people are coming in the next hour to help me move stuff.

Oh well. It'll get done eventually. I'm just being entirely too lazy (and loving it) to care much right now. Besides, if I wait until my family gets here to pack some of this stuff, then I'll get plenty of help with it!!

things I should be doing instead of this

10 things I should be doing instead of blogging:

1) unloading my car full of stuff (trip 1 out of many for the great move back to the rent's)
2) helping my mom move all of the boxes from the storage room (aka my old bedroom soon to be my bedroom again)
3) going to the bank to take care of some financial issues
4) studying for the NCLEX
5) packing my apartment up
6) making lunch....I'm starving
7) helping my brother give Mini a bath
8) driving back to my apartment so I can pack
9) doing laundry, laundry, and more laundry
10) cleaning my apartment after bug-bombing it yesterday

And yet, here I am, writing another pointless blog. Oh well, why fight tradition, right?

Graduation and festivities

Valarie and I in our lovely caps and gowns.

Valarie, Sam, Me, and Keren at Lucky's.

Alyse, Me, Katie, Deanne, Elizabeth at Lucky's.

My decorated cap :o).

Hopefully soon I'll be able to put up more photos or put them on Facebook. Unfortunately, for Graduation at least, I wasn't a camera fiend. And as my camera was in Melanie's truck, I didn't get any photos at Pinning. Hopefully my parents got some good ones. The whole week was so fun (okay the end of the week...finals sucked). The perfect way to end the craziness: more crazy partying. [at least that's how Lucky's was. Thanks again my angels for taking care of me]

And in the end

Well, graduation has come and gone.

We did it. We made it through that hell that is nursing school. We survived late nights of care planning, early mornings on the way to clinicals, final exams, long hours of lecture, no summer break, tough teachers, and stressed classmates.

Pinning was wonderful. The highlight of my day was seeing my favorite professor, Dr. D again and getting to hear one more poem from him! My aunt Sylvie (RN) pinned me. And seeing everyone dressed up was a nice change from the jeans and sweats.

Graduation was mercifully brief, and I got to spend it sitting next to one of the funniest persons I know.

Now it's all over. I'm a college graduate! I even get to start signing my name with all those little letters: Linnea Richardson, GN, BSN. [I can't wait to replace the GN with an RN]

And of course, the silly sentimental side of me is getting all teary-eyed as I type this. Great. I hate crying.

procrastination via rants

Instead of studying for the community HELLth final that's tomorrow, I thought I'd procrastinate some more. Of course I don't have much to say, so instead I'll rant about a few things that have bothering me.

• Today we were supposed to have graduation rehearsal at 3pm in the auditorium. The juniors were taking a psych final in there that was supposed to end at 3. At 3pm, there were still 6 people taking the exam, who proceeded to take another 30 minutes to finish. They had 2 hours to take it, they shouldn't have needed all that time! It's psych!!! Besides, never in nursing school have we had extra time for exams. If they say we get 2 hours, then when 2 hours are up, turn it in, no matter what. It was so annoying as we were all waiting outside for them to finish. The test proctor should've said, "time's up". That annoyed me so much. (or maybe i'm just cranky today)
• Don't trust people, because we're all bastards. It's so annoying to go on defending someone because they looked in your eyes and swore that they didn't do it, and got on your soap box for that person because of it, only to find out you've been making an ass out of yourself because they lied to you all along instead of just trusting you with that one tiny thing. It's not like I would've spread it around, or judged you or anything. If you don't want to tell me or talk about it, that's one thing, but to look me in the eye and lie to me about it, then don't bat an eye when I defend you on that lie....
  
• The people at the financial aid office are idiots. Every time you call them with a question, they tell you something completely opposite what they told you last time. No wonder all of us are broke right now; none of us got proper financial assistance for the last 2 years.
• I hope the office at my apartment complex burns down. For that matter, once I move out, I hope the whole complex burns to the ground.
  

insomnia

I can't sleep. Again.

After studying all day, being exhausted, I still can't freaking sleep!!!

I hate this!!!!!

I'm so exhausted! Last weekend when I was home I couldn't sleep at my parents house since I had to sleep on an air mattress. Then I came home, and can't freaking sleep thanks to my insomnia!

UGH. Maybe I should try studying some more, maybe that'll put me to sleep.

Knowing my luck, hell no. UGH. I freaking hate this!!!!