So Goes Life These Days...

I am so tired. These past couple weeks of school have been absolutely insane!!! I can't even tell you how riduclous. I have honestly had a test pretty much every single day since last Friday.
Friday I took my Pediatrics ATI, I failed it. I studied ALL WEEKEND! Monday, I retook my Peds ATI test and passed (thank God!). Tuesday I studied in the library for 12 hours! Wednesday I took my medsurg ATI, I failed it by 2 questions. I then had a nervous breakdown and felt like such a failure. Retook my medsurg ATI on Thursday, PASSED IT! (I guess it just takes me two times to pass those things..) Had a Pediatrics test on Friday. Dead week was NOT so dead.
This morning I had to wake up at 7 to work at the registration day for incoming freshmen.

I really feel as though God is teaching me perseverance. This whole nursing school thing has been a challenge from the beginning. I have wanted to be a nurse and care for people since I was little. I have always felt as though that is what God wants me to do with my life. I applied to WVU 3 times, did not get accepted. I applied to Fairmont State, did not get accepted. That time was such a challenge for me. It was so hard on my confidence and I really questioned whether or not this was for me. I almost wanted to take it as a sign from God that nursing, in fact, was not what He had planned for me to do. I was told my WVU's dean of the nursing school that basically, I was not smart enough to ever get into any nursing school. At that point, I was determined to show her a thing or two!!! I called West Virginia Wesleyan, and got RIGHT IN over the phone!! I knew that this was where God wanted me, all those times I had not been accepted... and I really feel as though it was just not my time yet. God wanted me here, at this time, for these 3 years for a reason. I often find myself being almost angry, or quesitoning God about this. Why in the world am I here?!
Now, the challenge is passing my tests. For some reason, I have never been a test taker. I study soooo many hours and go in to take the test and freak out. I believe some of it is test anxiety and lack of confidence, but nursing school is just SO HARD!! I hear people complaining this week about how hard their majors are and how busy they are and I just secretly scream at them in my mind. I understand that everyone is stressed out right now, but honestly, nursing school and med school are (I believe this... just personal opinion so no one freak out on me) the hardest majors by far. Medicine is so hard and there is SOOO Much information in health care that I have no idea how it could all possibly fit into one brain!!

Anyways... enough ranting about nursing school. I just have one more year after Wednesday and I am sooooo ready to go into my senior year! The sooner it starts, the sooner it is over!!! A lot of my friends are graduating this year, as I should be, and it is so hard to sit back and think that I should be walking with them... but when I transferred here, I knew that I would have an extra year.

The only thing that has been getting me through this tough time right now is the fact that in 2 WEEKS I will be in Tanzania, AFRICA!!! It is honestly my dream!!! I have always dreamt of going to Africa and helping the people there, and now it is finally coming true!!! I cannot believe that God is doing this for me! He is so amazing and has blessed my life tremendously! I sent a box of medical supplies through DHL to the clinic that I will be working in in Africa and it arrived at the clinic this week after much turmoil and running of the people there who went to pick up the box at the airport. Apparently it was a problem that I put glucose monitors in there and they had to go through the food commission to get it released to the clinic. CRAZY GOVERNEMNT! lol! I found this video this week... and I started crying during it because it is so true. After I see what I am going to see in Africa, I want to come back here and spread the word. I want people to know (even though people seem to be fully aware of the problems there.. and HERE and don't do anything about it because they are too selfish and stuck in there own world...okay that's another post for another time.) that people are suffering.

Watch this video--the words are so true!!

I cannot wait to finish this semester, go to Africa, come back and spend time with Matt, have Audrey's bridal shower, and start my externship at Ruby Memorial Hospital! oh, and PLAN MY WEDDING!!!!! :-)