NursingZen

Update: Yes, I’m not alone! A classmate just called me and said: “I just got back from L.A., I’m totally out of it and I don’t remember anything. Help!” Tomorrow’s going to be interesting…

The two weeks have flown by and I quite unexpectedly failed to write for NursingZen. I’m sorry. To my utter surprise, when it came to thoughts about MEPN and even nursing, my brain completely, 100 percent, checked out this vacation.

When I tried to reflect on the first quarter of nursing school, especially because I wanted to share the experiences with you, I found to my horror that some memories were fuzzy, like the picture on an old TV, and some felt unreal, like a dream, but on the whole, my mind went blank. I might as well have had amnesia. I felt like the world of MEPN and of the journey to becoming a nurse belonged to someone else entirely.

Fortunately, it has started to come back to me, though not in the best way: The other day I dreamed I was at the hospital and was completely and totally mismanaging the care of all my patients. It was 7 a.m., and I hadn’t a clue who my preceptor was. Then it was 8 a.m., and I was letting a patient walk all over me. Then it was 9 a.m., and I still didn’t know who my patients were. No one would help me. I sensed doom. Then I woke up. Hmm, so those are my deep fears; that’s the real life that I’ve got to get back to. Tomorrow. Joy!

I’ve got one word for the San Francisco Bay area in September: Spectacular. I didn’t want to be any place else for my break. I love how the bay dazzles with sunlight all day, how weeks of 80 degree weather turned my skin the color of caramel, how the winds from the Pacific ocean make my bike rides a breeze and how the colors at the farmers’ markets remind me that it’s actually fall, not summer. My connection to the Bay area is getting stronger!

In the beginning of the break I had a list of goals and projects (nursing school/nursing= obsession with time management), but thankfully, I think, the list flew out the window by day 2. Suddenly I had the kind of summer vacation I wished I had when I was growing up: carefree, with an abundance of new experiences and new people.

(A digression: Summer vacations when I was little were boring and dreary: While my friends went to camp or played on the streets, my evil stepmother kept me captive in my dark railroad apartment and loomed over me, ruler slapping in her hand, as I practiced math problems and was forced to teach her English. Later, summer vacations during college were fraught with stress about making money to support myself =(.)

This time, I had no worries. Every day I secretly thanked the universe–and my man–for the gifts of unemployment and student life (amazing!).

Highlights:

• 12-mile bike ride to Sausalito
  
• Family weekend at the Russian River
  
• Hiking from Mt. Tamalpais to Stinson Beach
• Rock climbing at Mission Cliffs
• 
  Farmers’ market