remember. remember.

I remember my generals, and I remember them in a way of who was in my general classes with me. For example: Everyone bonds in general classes when you meet someone from your same major, not nursing majors. You say you're a nursing major and it's instant competition and you start sizing each other up like I'm so gonna get in the program before you do!! I wasn't that bad but I do remember that was where the conversation usually tended to end unless they added in one last thing like "So when are you applying??" competition in generals is what nursing students find.

I used to sit in my generals and think the exact opposite, it never felt like applying for the program was ever going to happen so I used to automatically think oh man they are gonna be done way before I am!! This thought got worse as I watched on facebook girls I went to BYU-I with who weren't even interested in nursing graduate from the program up there. I however moved to Cedar.

I'll never forget my nutrition class with Professor Schmidt ( he still says hi and acknowledges me everytime I see him to this day). I love that guy and have so much respect for that man, I may have loved him enough to want to set him up with my roommate but that's a different story : ) Anywho, his class is in the general classroom building on the first floor. I used to sit outside his class waiting for it to start on a bench that if I looked to my left this is what I saw..

I would sit and stare at this sign and everybody that would walk up and down the stairs in envy! I used to wonder what it would be like or if I'd ever get to be one of those people going up and down those stairs. There's no bathroom in the basement, so the nursing students would have to come up to the bathroom right outside Schmidt's classroom. At the time my cousin was actually in the nursing program, and as I would run into her in the bathroom I knew it was her classmates discussing nursing and medical terms through the stalls and I would once again start envying them and wanted what they had. My envy was such that I used to stumble across these Mosby skill videos on the library computers where I would browse through the tabs and picture myself as a nursing student. I'm weird I know.

I remember when Tamara got her acceptance letter, I was so excited for her and I wondered how excited and awesome it must be to get that letter! Then Candice got her phone call saying she'd been accepted and I thought the same thing all over again. Not gonna lie I was a little jealous that I wasn't in with them : )

My first time in the nursing department was with Candice. I finally got to go into that mysterious basement, past that sign I'd been staring at forever. I was her live IV poke so I got to even go back into the lab! I was in awe as I looked around at all the mannequins and I even thought Janet was cool haha!!

then finally my time had come. I was ready to submit my papers and when it came down to sending them in, I just didn't feel right about it. I felt like I needed to wait until it was time to apply for the upcoming fall semester. So that's what I did but when I met with my advisor the second time I suddenly was somehow missing 3 credits. shoot! I was so mad and irritated as I left his office so I called me mom and she talked me in to applying anyways. so I turned in my application and that was that.

Spring break that year I was in Arizona having the best spring break trip I've ever had. I started getting texts from people at work who had also applied for fall. I was surprised when my boss text me saying she was an alternate. I was instantly scared to go home knowing my rejection letter would be there waiting. Sunday afternoon we're on the drive home to Utah when my roommate Julia calls me. I answer thinking something must be wrong with the house when she tells me there's an envelope waiting for me at the house. I go on to freak out saying I don't wanna know because it's gotta be bad, and I've had such a great trip, in a car full of people etc... When she could finally get a word in through my rantings she said "Britt, it's kind of a big envelope." having confidence the rejection letters were in small envelopes I felt better and proceeded to put her on speaker phone for her to open it. As she said the word accepted I started screaming and cheering and shaking so violently my phone shut off somehow. I was SOOO excited and SOO happy!! The day I'd been envying all this time was finally there for me!

And now here I am about to graduate. I've walked past that sign so many times but yet everytime I really look at it, I think about those days where I used to sit on the bench and want to be a nursing student so bad. I'm now one of those nursing student freaks that sit in the bathroom with all the girls in my class and swap inappropriate stories and such and is one of the people that bust out laughing when a poor innocent non-nursing student comes sulking out of a stall scarred for life. We tend to forget we're not always in our own little bubble like we are in the dungeon, we even forget over lunch in the rotunda that is until everyone at all the other tables are looking pale and then we quiet down our conversation.
That lab I initially went into for the first time is the Validation lab and I hate that room now. The anxiety and stress levels that build in that room is insane. just thinking about validations can make a nursing student wanna throw up.
I teared up at Candice's pinning ceremony last year, cheesy and lame I know, but now I find myself a week away from pinning and just knowing as soon as that slideshow starts I'm toast. I flip through pictures and watch how far we've come and start to remember all the good times, crappy times, laughs, and tears we've been through and I just wanna drag my feet a little bit to hang on to the time we've got left. We're all going separate places soon, and have different life changing events that are taking place: 2 weddings this summer, a baby next November, boyfriends coming home from missions, and moving out of state.
Point is: those people I used to envy and looked up to, never looked as miserable as nursing school is! If they would have always been coming up those stairs crying and pissed off I probably would have changed majors, but the misery was hidden on their faces so away I envied. However, as miserable as the past 2 years have been, my class has helped me survive it. We're there for each other and we've seen the worst over the past two years. The experiences, the professors, the class, and even that dang dungeon all to our disturbed selves was worth envying. Because even though I didn't know what I was fully getting myself into.... I'm now very aware of what I'm getting myself out of. And even though I've not been a nurse for a year or so like I thought I would be by now, I'm grateful for the brick walls, and stumbling blocks to put me in with the class I have because I wouldn't want it any other way!!