Political Correctness

One of my roommates (the teacher/virgin Mary) could be considered a great roommate. I love the fact that she is never around. It’s nice to have the house to myself more often than not. However, my fear with this particular roommate is that I might come home one day to find my house burnt to the ground or maybe a wall or two accidentally knocked down. You see, my roommate has Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) so extreme I sometimes wonder how she functions. Some of you might remember the tomato on the floor incident (see link), which was very much her work. Earlier this month she destroyed my mixing bowl (the one that is to be used with my food processor). She was never willing to admit just HOW the mishap happened, just that it was a very stupid mistake. I believe it involved popcorn and it left my bowl looking like this:



Last week I came home to discover a steak knife with mustard on it in the middle of the living room floor. Actually, Pacha is the one who discovered it! I was not impressed to find my dog licking a very sharp knife! Ugh. This morning, I tried to leave the house, but couldn’t open my front door. I have no idea what she did to it, but unless you put your entire weight on it and push really hard, you can't get out. I still don’t know how someone is going to get back in. *sigh* Last year she tore the door off the hinge so I guess it was just a matter of time before she completely killed it. I don’t even know where to begin to fix it.

So here’s my question: is it politically correct to tell someone with ADD to focus? Let me put it this way, if I were really depressed (having been diagnosed with chronic depression) and someone would tell me to just “snap out of it” or “just be happy”, I would be royally pissed because sometimes it is out of my control. Sometimes I want to scream: “Good Lord Woman just pay attention!!!!” I have brought up many things she has done and she feels horrible about it, but it doesn’t change her behaviour. What else can I do?

Anyway, I think she is moving out at the end of November. I say I think because she is supposed to get married on November 22... but doesn’t have enough money to start planning the wedding until the end of October. What the ?? Given that she is supper religious, we aren’t talking about a little trip to city hall, here. I have no idea how the most disorganized person in the world is going to put together a wedding in 22 days. I haven’t advertised her room yet; because I get the feeling it’s just not going to happen. I guess we’ll see.

Step. By. Step.

I just had to share these hilarious mini-videos of Pacha!

As I've mentioned before, she's afraid of stairs. She has come along way though and now zooms up and down short, wide stairs. She also isn't big enough to jump up on the couch, although she can jump down. She tries to jump up all the time by giving herself a running start but she never quite makes it.

So last weekend my sister saw these funny little "doggy steps" while we were in the States and decided to purchase them for Pacha as a gift from her boys. So far she has gone up a few times on her own, even though it's taken a LOT of coaxing! Here are two little videos of her attempts. The first one was sooooo funny, but my memory ran out so I didn't get the end. The second one should wrap it up a little better. Notice my attempts to help her out.





And just for the fun of it: sleepy dog picture

Dropping like flies

We are midway through the semester and almost 25% of my class has dropped out! We started out with almost 90 second-year students and we are supposedly down to 70-something. Some of them have completely abandoned the field, while others have merely spread out their class load over 5 years instead of 4. Honestly, I don’t blame them. I can’t imagine doing this undergrad as a 19 year-old. It’s quite the workload and very demanding. I was talking to some of the “kids” I study with and they are already burnt out. Most of them haven’t gone out all semester. I haven’t gone out either, but I’m 32 and have lots of going out years under my belt! I find it sad that there isn’t more support for second-year students. You really only skim the surface of nursing in your first year and the second year can be quite a shock for many of them! I fear more are going to drop out. :-(

The nursing shortage is scary, therefore we need as many graduates as possible. I wish there was something I could do to encourage them. I know I want to be here. I know what I want out of life so my decision to stay is an easy one... I can't say it would be the same if I were 19.

Coffee first. Haircut Second.

There should be a Surgeon General’s Warning posted at the hairdresser’s door:

Getting your haircut before your morning coffee can be harmful to your hair and lead fits of swearing.

As you can guess, I got my haircut this morning. Since I was running late I didn’t have time for coffee and sat sleepily in the chair. I get my haircut at the University Salon because it’s cheap… however, I don’t, always get the same hairdresser. The request was a simple one: just a trim, but please accentuate the angle going from the back to the front. It’s essentially the cut I currently have, but I wanted slightly shorter in back. Think Katie Holmes last years.

As I flipped through a magazine, I could barely stay awake. Damn you coffee addiction! I wasn’t paying much attention because it was just supposed to be a trim! I looked up to see huge bits of hair falling to the floor. What the? She had trimmed it shorter in the back, alright... or should I say shaved. Ugh.

My hair before the haircut was almost shoulder length and now the shortest part is an inch... the longest part? Maybe 3 inches. Frack. Frack. Frack! I was so pissed off at myself for not paying attention. Now I can’t tie my hair back when I’m working in the hospital. Grrrr.

Two years ago I went to a hairdresser and had a similar mishap only she cut the front part super short. It’s taken me this long to even it out... now I’ve gone bald in the back.

Don’t even get me started on the bangs! I’m not 5 years old and therefore should not have bangs that go from one ear to the other.

Mid-Terms: 5 down, 2 to go

I’m almost done with my mid-terms… although some of them are 1/3 terms I guess. I’ve done five so far and still have 2 left. I’ve received my score on three of them; Lab: B (I was a little disappointed but still very good), Intro to nursing: A (super easy!), Therapeutic Communication: another A and Biology: C+ (I was actually really happy with this one given that it’s a class that I’ve really been neglecting and not keeping up with my readings). Yesterday I had an exam in Principles of Nursing (I’m thinking A or B). I still have the two most difficult exams to do: Adult Health which requires us to assess, identify, analyse and identify the steps needed to care for several diseases and/or health issues and Health Impairment (roughly translated). The second one is tough because is mostly philosophy-based and quite vague.

I’m loving it so far! I mean; I’m REALLY loving it! It’s tough and requires a ton of work, but it really is awesome. I feel like I’ve found my place.

Well, back to studying!

Thank God for ID tags!

I have three big exams early next week so I’ve been studying non-stop. Pacha tends to sit on the couch with me when I study. In the evening we go for a walk, but during the day I’ll just let her out a few times to go play outside a while. I have a fenced-in yard so I don’t tie her. When she gets bored, cold, tired, etc. she barks and I let her in. She gets cold pretty quickly so if I don’t hear her barking within a 15 minutes I go check on her. Sometimes she’s just sitting on the patio watching over the neighbourhood, other times she’s walking around with her bone looking for a new hiding place or at the fence staring down Blackout the evil neighbourhood cat.

Today I was absorbed in my studies so I don’t know if she had been out there more than 15 minutes but when I went to check she was nowhere to be found. It’s happened before, but she is usually just in an area I can’t quite see or she somehow got through the fence and is sitting on the other side trying to figure out how to get back in. I thought I had blocked all the holes in the fence, but I guess not!

I ran around the house desperately looking for her. She was nowhere! I ran inside, grabbed my phone and some shoes and started to walk down the street. My heart was racing a mile a minute and I thought I was going to cry. Why hadn’t I checked sooner?! I was 4 houses from my house and was about to call someone; anyone, to come help me look for her when my phone rang. It was my vet! Pacha has a rabies ID tag with my vet’s phone number and her ID number. The vet was calling to let me know someone had found her.

Turns out she was at the house right behind mind. She had somehow gotten through the fence to the other side and was pacing back and forth trying to get back in when the neighbour saw her and picked her up. She had her wrapped up in a blanket because she was shivering (probably more from stress, than anything).

I was so happy to hear she hadn’t actually run away! My stomach is still doing flip-flops over the situation! I consider myself a really calm person, but I sure wasn’t calm when I thought I had lost her. Gah! I can’t imagine how emotional and crazed I’ll be when I have kids!

Now I need a new tag that says: Hi, my name is Pacha please call my Mommy before she has a heart attack at 123-4567.