Monday, December 24, 2007

Home

I'm heading home from the in-laws later this morning. Since I have to work Christmas day, I got to be a spoiled brat & open my Christmas presents early. One of the gifts I'm looking forward to enjoying is God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens. I'm agree with about half of what Hichens says, but he makes me think. I also thoroughly enjoyed seeing him hand Bill Mayer his ass.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm still a Christian, and I'm not sorry. I do, however, think it's important to take into account the way in which Christians (and other religious people, for that matter) are perceived and how they can, indeed, screw up society.

I also got some reloading supplies, a couple of Magpul p-mags, some .223 ammo (apparently worth more than gold nowadays) new overalls and some Smartwool socks (the best socks on earth.)

Greedy gift-hoarding aside, I had dinner(s) with my wife's side of the family, which was alot of fun. I love Christmas, and I hate seeing it go.

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Update

Well, the LPN program has wrapped up. I'm working as a nursing assistant at the hospital until my temporary license is issued. Once that happens, I'll do 120 hours of "internship" before I can take the board exam. Once I'm licensed, that'll be that.

Actually, that won't quite be that. I've been accepted into the LPN-to-RN program at the college. I'm taking Medical Microbiology next semester (it's a required part of the curriculum later on - I'm just getting it out of the way.) I'll still be a college student until May 2009.

I'm currently at the in-laws' for an early Christmas. I work Christmas day. That's the bad news. The good news is that I got to open gifts early! Woo Hoo!!

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Sky on fire

Yeah, I'm hung up on sunsets. Waddayawant? My preceptor works 7am to 3pm, so by the time I get home after a shift, clean up and walk out in front of my house, this is what I see:


Sunday, December 02, 2007

More IDPA

From the same match (I think...):


Man, IDPA is a hoot. If I could afford it, I'd shoot a match every week.

IDPA

Some video from a recent IDPA match:


Sunsets

The view from my front door.

And people wonder they can't drag me kickin' and screamin' off this farm...





Home stretch

Holy smoke, this last couple of weeks has been hell-on-wheels (thus my blogging hiatus.) This is "finals" week, though I don't have any typical final exams.

I'm in the last few hours of my clinical practicum with my preceptor. I have to work 120 hours with a preceptor, and mine had right on 120 hours scheduled by the end of her shift on Dec. 7 (the last day of the semester.) Since I also have to take scheduled online NCLEX practice tests during this time, I was going to have to miss some clinical time with my primary preceptor at the hospital. That would have caused me to come up short on practicum hours, so I managed to get some hours scheduled with a secondary preceptor at the nursing home. Those few hours were actually pretty educational -- I probably administered more meds via g-tubes within the first 3 hours than I had ever done before, and their MARs look way different. Value of the experience aside, I really just needed the additional hours.

As of right now, I've got 109.75 hours in. 10 hours and 15 minutes to go.

Aside from practicum time, I've got one more busywork .... er, written assignment to submit by Tuesday, one online practice test on Monday and another "comprehensive" practice exam on Tuesday.

I've already gotten verbal acknowledgement from the hospital's DON that I can do my 120 internship hours at the hospital, and that I'll be working there after that.

Some of my classmates are going to work as nursing assistants over Christmas break until they're cleared for their internship hours. Not me. I'm going to enjoy this -- probably my last Christmas break.