Quote for the Day

“Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say 'what should be the reward of such sacrifices?' Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!”

-- Samuel Adams

Day(s) off!

For some reason, the instructors in my LPN program have seen fit to give us today, Friday and next Monday off. Of course, we're expected to use the time to catch up on preparing for boards and class work. We still have clinicals on Thursday and Tuesday. Wednesday through Friday of next week is Fall Break.

So, I didn't roll my arse outta bed until 8 this morning. I'm happy for the break. After Monday's final, 4 more people washed out of the program. We started last Fall semester with 25 students in the program. We're now down to 16. When students are being told - one by one in personal conferences with our instructors - that they didn't pass, that adds a bit of stress. By this point, we know each other pretty well; we're saying our good-byes to people we've come to know. (Actually, after getting to know them, I'm not sorry that 3 of 'em washed out. They don't need to have people's lives in their hands... maybe that sounds harsh, but I wouldn't have wanted those 3 at my bedside if it came down to that...) Anyway, I'm glad to have it behind me and to have some time to catch my breath.

I managed to maintain my 4.0 GPA, I'm glad to say. I don't know if I'll be able to keep that up once I get into the RN program (since the program to which I'm applying is designed for LPNs working full-time - class is Tue. and Thurs. nights with clinical practicum on Saturdays), but I'd like to get out of LPN with a 4.0. I didn't manage to do that the first time around in college.

Which reminds me ... my RN program application packet is due Friday. It's pretty much complete. I'll probably hand-deliver it - just to placate my little bit of OCD.

In the meantime -- here's to a few days off!

Good Lord ... might I actually get some trigger time?!?!?

It's not just me

Tam sez:

I hadn't read any of the big newsweeklies in quite some time, and so was a little taken aback by the tone of an article that sounded like a collaborative (no pun intended) effort between the Daily Worker and Al Jazeera. Had the rest of the magazine gone this wonky? I clicked on another article at random. Yup, it had. Jeez, this was worse than Earth First! Monthly er, National Geographic.

I've subscribed to National Geographic since 1992. Back in the day, the magazine was actually about geography, with some adventure thrown in to spice things up (I must have read the April 1996 article "Storming the Tower" a thousand times, and the photos still thrill me. That was one of the things I read early on that drove me to keep climbing, and still makes me crave my next little mountaineering adventure...)

In recent years, though, it seems to me the magazine has become little more than Algore's global-warming-the-sky-is-falling-we're-all-gonna-diiiiiieeeee-and-it's-Bush's-fault mouthpiece. The current state of the magazine is a good example of what happens when advocacy is taken too far. They used to make me care by simply showing me the world and letting me drink it in. They didn't have to preach environmentalism, or even suggest it. Reading the magazine gave you an understanding of the value of the world's people and places. That subtlety is long gone. Now every issue practically screams ENVIRONMENTAL ADVOCACY!

Of course, National Geographic could have been that way for years, and maybe I've only recently come to recognize their perspective. I graduated from high school in 1992, after all. My perspective has changed quite a bit over the years.

Miss Fluffy insists on maintaining our subscription. Otherwise, I'd use the money for more ammo so I can study the geography of an earthen backstop and enrich the soil of the earth with more lead.

Oh, how I needed this...

I just finished my Nursing 200 final.

I needed to de-stress.

This helped.

(h/t to Tam)

Stuck

The sky today is the most beautiful Carolina blue with some white puffball clouds ... temp in the mid-80s ... nice breeze ...

... and I'm stuck inside for the next 3 days studying for a nursing final Monday.

Figures.