Greetings from my city-to-be. Mom and I love it here – everyone is so friendly and helpful! And so much green.
We just finished a looooooooong day of apartment hunting – 4 places in all, all appealing for different reasons. Rent was comparable across the board, even though each location was in a very different part of town. And I’ve pretty much got my heart set on the “green” building I mentioned before.
The location is fantastic – close in but not in the middle of all the hustle and bustle. A five minute walk from a very cute little neighborhood of shops and restaurants and wine bars. A hop, skip and a jump from the bus line that will take me right into town. Although the suburbs were nice and clean and offered a lot of shopping, the commute would get very old very fast (especially on clinical days – ugh!), I think this is the time to take advantage of being young and living a little bit more urban, which I’ve never done before. If I had a family to worry about, I’d be more inclined toward suburbia. But for now, it’s just little ol’ me.
So there you have it … They’re processing my application as we speak and I will be more than likely putting down a deposit on my new home within the next week or two. What a relief to have this part figured out. And how cool that I can put my money where my mouth is and live in a place that is so environmentally friendly.
Yesterday we visited my campus. It was beautiful, if a little far out from the rest of town. But seeing the classrooms and simulation labs and textbooks on the shelves of the student store made me very jazzed about being in school again.
All in all a successful weekend. Tomorrow we get to play – I’m meeting a friend (and fellow Davidson alum) and her fiance for breakfast, then we’re off to see more of the city!
Apartment hunting is the worst. Most places on craigslist are posted only a month or so before they become available (if not sooner) so traveling to my city-to-be 6 weeks before I am scheduled to move is proving a challenge. Not to mention there aren’t a whole lot of options for places to live in the area immediately surrounding my school.
I do have appointments to look at a couple of apartment communities. One is in the southwest part of town and is built completely of recycled materials. Pretty damn cool. And since it’s in town I’ll feel very urban chic (or as close as I’ll ever get to urban chic). And eco-hip, considering I’m going to be living green. However, this hipness comes with a rent price tag that is about $150 more per month than the going rate in that part of town.
The other option is in the burbs – a brand new community that is absolutely fabulous. And I do mean absolutely fabulous. I could only afford a studio but hell, it’s just going to be me, and once I start the graduate part of my program, I’ll have an income again and can upgrade. The apartment is literally two blocks from the subway/metro/train station that can take me straight into town, and the school has a free shuttle that can pick you up from a nearby station and take me straight to campus. This method of getting to school is actually faster than living in the city and having to change buses three times. On days where I have to drive, it’s only about a 20-minute commute.
When I was living in North Carolina and attending grad school at Duke, it took me about 20-25 minutes to get home every day. Although it was a bit of a hassle, when I got home, I was home and it was nice to literally distance myself from the craziness at school. Since I won’t exactly have a disposable income for my first two years, it’s not like I can take advantage of the restaurants or nightlife in the city, and my program is going to be so intense, I’m wondering if giving myself that space would be to my benefit.
But am I “selling out” by moving where I’ve always wanted to live and yet settling in the suburbs? Isn’t this my opportunity to be young and single in the city? Am I over-analyzing this decision?
I had my first nursing school dream last night. Strangely the building made it seem like I was back in elementary school. My class schedule was extremely confusing and I ended up in an undergraduate Physiology lecture by mistake (I was supposed to be in a Literature elective at the time, which is laughable considering there is no room for electives in this program). But the professors were all very helpful and nice, which is reassuring. And boyfriend was going to school with me!
Curiouser and curiouser… I’m sure there will be more of these to come.
The word from up north is we should be getting our registration information sometime next week. Hooray! This will soon be followed by our financial aid packages, which I am not so excited about considering that FAFSA believes I have $11,000 just sitting around to contribute to my education. Whoever came up with the “Estimated Family Contribution” formula needs a serious reality check.
But I digress… In lieu of any more details from my program, I decided to do a little investigative work of my own. So I went online to the Registrar’s page and checked out the nursing class schedule for Fall 2008. I’ve been warned by the program coordinator that our actual timeline will not exactly match what is posted, but I was desperate for SOME semblance of a schedule. Since I like to plan months ahead of time and all.
So if the website gods be true, it looks like most of my lectures will be Mondays and Wednesdays all day, and Tuesday mornings. Clinicals/labs will fill in the rest of my “spare time”. The great news is, it doesn’t appear that any of my lectures start before 9 a.m. so I won’t have to wake up quite as early as I feared.
Here is my course load – it’s a doozy for the first semester:
Physiological Nursing – basically Adult Health Nursing
Mental Health Nursing – talk about trial by fire!
Pharmacotherapeutics
Professional Role Development
Clinical Skills (4-week summer course we tackle before the semester officially begins)
Note to self: Brush up on Anatomy, Physiology and Pathophysiology this summer. I’m about to get my ass handed to me.
I’ll post more when I actually get my registration information. Next week Mommy and I travel to my new city to check out the campus and do a little apartment-hunting. I can’t wait!!!!
Wow, I had no idea it had been two weeks since I posted! Then again, there’s not much new to report. I’m just plugging away at work as my last weeks there begin to tick away. This week was a fun one – I woke up Sunday feeling icky and by Monday was officially feeling like C-R-A-P. Fevers, body aches, and the most painful sore throat I have ever had (at least that I can remember). Doctor diagnosed me with tonsillitis – who knew? So I’m out all week from work, which I so cannot afford (ran down my sick-day balance with my whole gallbladder adventure in December and the flu in January), but you gotta do what you gotta do.
Mr. Wonderful is still wonderful. When I was sick this week, he came over every day to walk and feed my dog, get me soup, cool down my feverish forehead with a cool washrag and just hold my hand. What a guy! And now he has tonsillitis too. I feel horrible that I gave it to him but he insists it was worth it (although I’m sure he’s not really feeling that way right about now as he fights this thing off). But again, what a guy. It’s when they’re there for you when you look and feel like crap that you know you can count on them.
And yes, I’m still moving to attend my program in *****. That was never really a question. It will suck being apart but ****** really isn’t that far away and he really seems to want to make this work. So we’ll keep on truckin’.
Since life here is not all that newsworthy, I thought I’d leave you with the newest kickass installation of Obama-rific videos. Some genius is telling Obama’s campaign story using great epic movie clips – you already saw Ba-Racky. Now check out The Empire Strikes Barack.
Posted by Teeny 
Posted by Teeny 
Posted by Teeny 
