Mary's Pad

The days are flying by so rapidly that my head is spinning. The reality is that I am less than three weeks to my final exam, less than four weeks to graduation, and consequently, closer to the title of RN than I want to believe.

That reality hit me so hard today that I broke into a cold sweat! I had been putting off setting my semester-ly appointment with my academic advisor because of my busy schedule, but while sitting in the computer lab today it hit me that I didn’t have much time left, that I was about to finish school, and that I needed advice, so I rapidly shot off an email that I am sure sounded pretty goofy. Here is what I wrote:

Dear Ms.{my advisor}
I trust that you’re well. I would like to request an appointment with you for academic advising. Nothing urgent or specific, just general “end of semester”, “end of nursing school”, “Oh God I can’t believe they’re about to let me be a nurse” advice.

Please let me know if you have any time available and what a good time would be for you.

thanks
mary

Ofcourse it was only after I had hit “send” that I realized how totally pathetic I sounded. But that’s because I have such a total cocktail of emotions right now that it’s hard to not sound pathetic.

A few of us were just discussing today what mixed feelings we had. We’re tired of school, it’s going to be great to finally NOT have to study. But on the same hand, as I stated before, this means that the hand holding is coming to an end, we’re about to be let loose on the world, stethoscopes and sharp pointy objects in hand. It’s enough to make me break into a cold sweat and send pathetic emails to people who think I am an academically competent, critical thinking, soon to be… OMG I can’t even say it… registered nurse.

And did I mention that yesterday we took our graduation photos? We all dressed in the baby blue gown (with jeans and such rolled up underneath) and cap, got ourselves sorted and sifted into a long line by height, and made our way in single file into the chapel where we were sorted and sifted one more time, arranged and rearranged, scrutinized and reshuffled, and finally had numerous pictures taken. We did have some speculations about the fancy photo-shopping that would have to happen if one or more of us, God forbid, fails the class!

Anyway, the gist of this is that I am excited, terrified, tired, energized, goofy, clear-headed, and totally confused, all in one.

Delightful, isn’t it?