longest.post.ever.

Can you tell I'm graduating and about to make a huge life change by the sappy amounts of posts recently?? well good. because here comes another one.

I'm a pack rat. like almost borderline serious problem pack rat, I save EVERYTHING!! which I think I've discussed before how I somehow have sentimental value to everything that crosses my path and I just need to keep it to hold onto and remember. Well seeing as how I'm graduating and all, with that comes moving. For years I've been moving around as a student and packing all these old binders, notebooks, planners, handouts, etc... you name it I saved it! well that streak of packing around all that "junk" ended last night. I literally had a de-junking session with myself where I ended up throwing away things that I had clear back from BYU-I five years ago!! Crazy. So naturally I started looking through all these things that I hadn't touched in years and oh boy the memories started pouring back!! I had every single planner I'd used in college and looking in those was a trip, I also handouts and worksheets from professors clear back to the Natzi Brother Ririe, and I found copies of my application process and acceptance letter and packet to the nursing program. Let's just say going through all this stuff has put a prospective on the literal process and journey persay I've been through to get here!! So now things get worse.... I also came across old photos which is not a good thing for me either so you now get to humor me as I re-live some of my favorite moments and memories over the past 5 years....

Freshmen Year: BYU-I in Sexy Rexy Idaho...
If you would have asked me first choice which college I wanted to go when I was in high school I never would have said my ideal college choice was BYU-I. Nonetheless I applied got accepted and at the time was lookin for a change, and out etc.. I didn't want to be just another Timpview student at BYU(no offense). So I packed up and moved to the Burg with my best friend Jessie who was also going there. Thus began the adventure...
I had GREAT roommates. Fall semester was especially my favorite. We were full of random adventures and events from decorating our door with notes and barbies(long story) to forts and photoshoots around broulims. Late night jam sessions were common with sarah and Shanno. Melanie with her drama and many times finding Rach sleeping on the floor outside the bathrooms, due to hysterical crying and screaming in her bedroom. Bonnie was our little mother always trying new recipes and cooking things up in her wok!


-shanno! I'll never forget the first night I met her when she immediately intimidated me with her experienced college ways, her way of making everyone laugh and everything fun but she became one of my best friends and I'll never forget all the funny memories. She was such a great example to me and was always there to make me laugh.




-Rach: The one I instantly judged when I saw her unloading all her prom dresses out of her car : ) The only other freshman in the apt we instantly bonded and became great friends for fall haha! we took tons of classes together and always made our 6:45am walk to the science building across campus together laughing at everyone falling on the ice alongside of us. We walked to the gym at night and rocked out on the free equipment, sneaked around the boys dorms(hiding from Sam), and stayed up late comparing dates and giving advice. She was a pal!!


Roommates Fall 2006


Roommates Winter 2006


I didn't have a vehicle and I'll never forget walking to classes, Broulims(grocery store) and -not having a vehicle and walking everywhere!! I also had a long distance boyfriend(yes believe it or not I used to actually do those kind of things like date). Seeing him every other weekend or every weekend if I was lucky was usually the highlight. We would do all sorts of adventurous things like him drive me across town to Walmart to get groceries : ) but usually went bowling, movies, or eating at really nice places in Idaho Falls. Jessie was going to school there as well and I soon adopted myself into their apartment! They were so fun and so great to let me tag along to their adventures, including ones in Idaho Falls!


FHE was obviously a big deal up there and through my awesome 2nd ward we met our FHE brothers, FHE brothers that truly were like brothers. Offroading adventures, multiple sunday night dinners(sometimes serving the meat from their latest kill), game nights, movie nights, and parties. love them.






There's many more memories and extremely more people I could discuss but let's just leave it at the first year of college was a memorable one! I grew up the most when I checked my own blood levels in Pyhsiology and found out I had extremely high cholesterol! Thus was the beginning of 1% milk and whole wheat toast and I was well on my way to growing up.
Then I got the news about the nursing program there and when I had too many credits to apply I was outta there! A scholarship and the same boyfriend mentioned earlier found me headed for Cedar City.
SOPHMORE YEAR: SUU
Believe it or not I actually moved myself down to Cedar initially. Everything I own used to fit in my car and I met the boy at my house and he helped me unpack it all and we were off to grocery shop and explore the new place. I was lucky enough to fall into a great job at Emerald Pointe and with that, the boyfriend, and school work those pretty much consumed my time. Hot Tubbing, sand volleyball, movie nights, eating out, double dates, etc..described my first couple of months. Halfway through the semester I found myself single again and in a place where I truly realized I knew nobody in town, and I was alone after depending on someone else for so long. It was then I decided I would never rely on someone that much again and my "quest" for independence and finding myself again began, thank goodness I had been blessed with an amazing roommate.





Jeni pretty much saved me that year from lots of lonely times, It was rough for a while but we soon met Tyson and Skyler who then became our best buds and our good times contiuned. Jeni and I became HR after a trip to Moab

and the four of us became the clomp : )





That year was also about dealing with our not so lovely roommates : ) let's just say it says alot about their character that one girl didn't know how to run a dish washer. flooded our kitchen 2 times in a row by using regular old dish soap in it. silly stupid girls!!
-Roomies sophmore year-


Jeni graduated and was off to bigger and better things, the boys moved home and I stayed for my one and only summer in Cedar City.
JUNIOR YEAR: the ol CC
I moved in with Candice, who had been a co-worker from school, along with Lera and Julia. Many interesting things happened this year: Lera got mono and also got high in our apartment with 3 other friends, Julia had many frequent male visitors to the home, we also had a cop come looking for her twice. Candice and I were the perfectly normal ones : ) we made friends with the girls across the parking lot in SB 1: Jacqui, brook, brittany, and Amanda. We started temple trips with the ward relief society and for the first and only time in my life I attended the temple every month! along with ate at olive garden once a month!




There were many notable men that came into this year. Let's start with the Roberts. Robert Warby and Robert Christian. They were both from Cedar and we would hang out with them at different times throughout the year. Robert Warby used to come over and want to role play with me, while robert christian was a huge flirt who loved to come hang out with all the girls : ) Candice and I developed a "spot" in the library that year where they boys would come sit and visit/entertain us while we tried to study. It was there they first introduced us to our good friend Rhett, who used to bring his IPOD with him and we'd share headphones while jamming to Mikka's "Big girl you are beautiful". I bet everyone in the lib hated us. who cares!


The next boys were our home teachers actually(don't get any ideas Ash!!) well one of them was the other was the Elders Quorum president. Jake Mecham was from Green River and I ended up knowing him in a round about way, while matt goff was a guy I'd seen around here and there but never knew. Got to know both of them very well!! Sunday nights it was usually the night we'd all hang out, the boys would come over to our house and we'd play games, arm wrestle, or any other event that suited our fancy. Matt and I started hanging out a little more than sundays with random events and Jake and Lera became study buddies. We could always count on Jake to bring us cookie dough on demand and Matt to do something totally off wall like shoot our house with air soft guns and get yelled at by our ex cop neighbor. Our favorite nights also included when we used to make the 2 compete in hula hooping contests! never a dull moment, and Matt also got to be a part of some roommate issues such as a late night run to the ER or picking a sick roommate up from a friends house or better yet bandaging up Candice after a bad fall : ) Life was all fun and games till things got awkward then the fun stopped.



Two events that October brought on the start of creating the Cedar City Crew. Jacqui's brithday and Mindy's birthday mixed in with the howl brought us all together on multiple occasions and friendships started to form!! The CCC was not in full swing but that spring semester especially we started to blossom and I was so grateful to have met them all! Even those that weren't included in the "crew" like Melissa florence, vanessa watson, Brittany Whimpy, and amanda. The memories continued outside of the birthday celebrations and we had our first christmas party @ PF that year as well as the ugly sweater party at the pack porch.







Spring Semester soon became probably my favorite semester ever! I took the semester off while awaiting getting in the program and was working as supervisor at EP. The CCC was in full swing at that point and man did we like to partaaay!! We went to every sporting event, any dance party including ones in St. Geezy, took trips to eat at Texas roadhouse, attended random 80's dance parties where we were the only ones who danced and proceeded to parade around campus, took vegas day trips, pranked a lot of people and "trashed" a lot of cars, went to bonfire after bonfire, and like I said partied a lot(everyone's birthday was a huge deal)!!










That semester we also fell into the BEST SPRING BREAK EVER!!! who knew that staying with strangers in Arizona would be such an amazing experience??










-Roomies-

SENIOR YEAR: Cedaaaar Cittaaay!!!
Cedar City turned into the CC aka Cedaaaarr Citttaaay! The CCC became a legit thing in our books and we thought we owned the town...but seriously we kinda did!! I had the best living situation that I've ever had when I lived with my 3 best friends, Candice, Jacqui, and brookie! We became the shady ladies and were known to be up doing random activities till the wee hours either model walk offs, climbing in our attic, hiding from the home teachers, pranking the BP boys, going on drives jamming in the car, or suscribing to random newspapers this apartment saw it all! I loved living with these ladies, I loved having the toilet times with jacqui and being locked in the boys closet for 2 1/2 hours when we got busted : ) the littlest things made me happy about these ladies!! The CCC also had fun events we were always up to, and this year brought Ty and Matty into the picture as they became our best buddies!!























This year brought the start of nursing school which also lead to the start of my stays in St. Geezy with Channy! we had a blast a the red rocks, breaking in to hotel hot tubs, drives with jams, late night talks, and de-stressing on my part : ) She's the reason I survived clinicals 2nd semester that's for sure!



SUPER SENIOR YEAR: still in the CC
last but not least super senior year. let's make this short and sweet seeing as how this was my least favorite year of college. I HATED my living situation-loved the house because it was so nice and really grown up but I have hated the living situation. Let's just say I was gone a lot this year and it endedd up working in my favor : ) School was a beast and once I said goodbye to my best friend I experienced depression in a way I didn't think I would. I basically spent this last year in cedar how I never wanted to spend it. I lost a lot of friends or people I guess I thought were friends, but on the reverse side got to meet amazing patients and get closer to the nursing students that I call family who became my new best friends. Drama consumed Cedar city 90% of this semester so sleepovers were had in New Harmony, extra days were spent over weekends in Provo and extra hours put in at the library. Sent Taylor and Jacqui off on missions and Grandma Olsen passing away were also hard parts of the year. Anywho I've had enough negative and debbie downer posts about this year already so we'll leave it at that. The happy side is this year brought about multiple trips/adventures to Piute (which ended with a free trip to see George in Vegas), countless nights with friends at TOADZ, heart to hearts in walmart parking lots,










The roommates...


PHEW!!! So there we have it. My college experiences in a very large nutshell : ) Thanks for the good times, the bad times, the amazing memories, and the experiences that made me grow up and really make me who I am today. So long college. Real world here I come.

Grrreat news.

My dreaded to-do list is finally complete (including the career portfolio I put off till last minute)!!! Joy to the world : ) So I'm now obviously spending my free time right instead of studying for comp tomorrow...

speaking of comp...Tomorrow starts my last finals week ever!! I can't wait until Wednesday afternoon when they are all done because then some stress can subside. Although, "studying" for tests is a great excuse for not having started packing and de-junking my room yet. I'll do it Thursday after I pick up my cap and gown from the alumni house : )

I finally had a fantastic week/weekend in Cedar and I owe it all to my BFF Melissa. Tuesday night we had a bridal shower for Melissa. She gets married in June but wanted to do one while us as classmates are all still in the same area code. It was a lot of fun!! annalisa made us dinner and we chatted about what all of our plans are following the big G-day, and where we're gonna end up. We played wedding pictionary and another game that I wish I could show pictures from because it was a hilarious moment. I love my class. We're all so comfortable with each other and the littlest things that should phase us, don't!





Thursday we had originally planned on going to St. Geezy but Evan's parents were coming into town so we changed plans and went to the baseball game. I'm gonna miss SUU sports that's for sure. The wind got the best of us and we left finding ourselves at the SUU nursing club social aka free pizza at the park. We chatted with our friends including some from other levels and found out Nicole was on her way to a softball game. We told her we'd come watch and she joked about us having a poster for her and being on the front row. Nicole should know us better by now to know we don't take those things lightly. this is what happened...




She loved her sign I'm sure of it, although the other people that were there aka the team members probably weren't so enthusiastic of our sign blowing around and us being the only ones yelling. we however, loved it! Following the game it was Grey's time and unfortunately it got interrupted by Evan's parents coming to pick up Melissa's stuff. So we sat outside and chatted about Price and Justin's baseball games, while his dad tied down the tarp on the back of the truck. Evan's so great and so were his parents. Anywho... next stop we went to the Carnival that has plopped down into town tucked away in a corner off main street by my house. Let's just say this was different than what we were expecting, the Carni's were creepy!! way worse than normal. The ferris wheel went around only twice I swear, and the there was only one ride we enjoyed, while the other one we went on made us both wanna vomit! We bought cotton candy and neither of us could even look at it let alone eat it until Friday night without the grease smell reminding of us of the ride. Did I mention that the power went out while we were there?? sure did. lights went out and when everything went dark we realized how close our creepy carni was getting to us. Never again.





Friday Morning we took off for St. Geezy! we packed suits and towels for Sand Hollow and went on the hunt for graduation outfits. PIt stop first of all found us at Maverik off Washington Parkway waiting for an old friend of mine. I hadn't seen Dashelle since I left helper when I was 15. She had wrote me on facebook a few weeks back wanting some of my nursing stuff to start their BSN program next month. So there we were waiting and talk about awkward at first. We used to all have this crew we'd run around with, causing mischeif together since about pre-school then I moved they all went to high school together and now everyone's gone their seperate ways. Anywho she left and we were back on a mission. It was a great day in St. George full of shopping, finally satisfying my post braces removal apple pie caramel apples from rocky mountain chocolate factory, more shopping, a free lunch and cupcakes from twenty five on main cafe(thank you starving student card), and more shopping followed by snickers ice cream bars and soda's for the drive back. After another visit from Dashelle at my house we were off to watch Water for Elephants and it was so great!! kinda depressing but really good movie! Evan was finally in town so after 2 failed attempts at scaring/sneaking up on him we found ourselves in his car headed to Mesquite. I loved hanging out with these 2! we had a great couple hour visit to Mesquite then off to bed.
I did homework ALL day saturday!! Did I mention that I was home alone from Thursday till Saturday night?? It was fantastic!!! I did laundry, cleaned the house and it stayed clean and watched free movies on our TV while I typed my own theory of nursing, cover letters and other portfolio garbage! Then it was off to dinner with Melissa and Evan,(along with Michelle) a visit to Melissa's Aunt's house, changing of clothes, and we were at Toadz!! We went there for a pre-family arriving into town Graduation Party and it was a blast! man I'm gonna miss that place. We weren't the only ones that had the idea cause it was packed!! We stayed up way too late and it was off to bed again.

phew!! there it is. My great week/weekend in a nutshell!!! definitely had it's downsides but for once I was happy in Cedar and enjoying myself with some good friends, and that is grrreeaat news! thanks Melissa & Evan. you're awesome!

5 days till graduation!!! that means 5 days till the fam arrives and I can't wait to see them. Also 5 days till the pinning ceremony which sadly enough won't be having a slideshow in it anymore, probably better for my mascara's sake. Now what would make me really happy is if I could see my best friend this weekend at my graduation!

been missing her a lot lately!! along with this young man...

Anywho enough rambling.... happy Sunday!!! and happy final finals week to me!! now off to study for comp...

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!!