Hello Summer :D

After the longest semester of my life, it is FINALLY summer!!

This nursing program is NO JOKE. I was so stressed out at times that I believe my stress level was unhealthy. I spent anywhere from 45-50 hours a week in classes and working on schoolwork combined. I went to Florida on Spring Break and had to study until 1am every night that we got back to our resort. But, I made it through, and several good things came out of this semester that I will take away with me as positive experiences.

- BFF
I met a woman named Marlys, who was my study partner throughout the semester. She is quite a bit older than me, many people in the program were, I was one of the youngest. We are so alike in so many ways and we literally got each other through everything. We are registering tomorrow for classes together, so I hope that we can stay together for all the classes until graduation.

- GUIDING LIGHT
I had the most inspiring, amazing teacher that I've ever had in my life. I am so, so grateful to Beth for everything she did for us the entire semester, which was miles above and beyond what she actually was required to do. It is so wonderful to have a teacher care about you and your progress as much as she cared about us and ours.

- MANAGING EXPECTATIONS & A NEW PLAN
I decided that I'm going to go part-time for at least 2nd and 3rd semester, meaning it will take me a year each to complete each semester, because I will only be doing 2 classes a semester instead of 4. However, I believe that this is the only way that I will be able to have a life and still succeed. The semesters get progressively harder and I know at least 3 or 4 people who were in second semester this Spring and failed at least one class. My main goal is to fail no classes, because it will waste an entire semester if I do, to retake the class. So if I need to go part-time to do that, I will. My new plan is now to do 2 classes in Fall, 2 in Spring. At that point (a year from now) I can take the NCLEX-PN and become an LPN (licensed practical nurse) and get out of the Olive Garden and start working in my field while I finish up. Then hopefully when I graduate, wherever I'm working will offer me a position as an RN.

I got 2 A's, 2 B's -- a 3.5 GPA that luckily brought my previous cumulative 4.0 down only to a 3.85, thank goodness :) So all in all, I was relieved! Getting ready to have the best summer ever!