Hello there. I am sorry that I have been so quiet. Things have been all over the place in the last few months and they are just beginning to slow down. So, I thought I would take this opportunity to update you guys.
What can I say about third semester of nursing school? Well, let’s just say if it wasn’t for God I would probably be crying around 5 days out of the week for at least 10 hours each day. I may be over exaggerating, but that is just how it feels.
Before I go on, I would like to make it clear that I am not complaining. I am just stating the facts (the relevant ones) and how I feel about them, good? Now, let’s continue.
This semester we had Medsurg 2 (with two teachers) it’s clinical, (another teacher), Psych and community (taught as one class, but two teachers), and their clinical (one teacher for each half). So in all, that’s five teachers for basically two courses. The courses are all demanding with case studies, papers, group projects, care plans, readings, studying, extra resources, and of course exams (except for the clinicals).
This may be different for each school/semester, but for our school and this semester, test day consists of 2 tests: the major/regular test with 50 questions and a pharmacology test with 10 questions. On the first medsurg test, I failed the major test, but passed the pharmacology and for the first psych and community, I passed both sets of tests. The second medsurg, I passed both sets and I am awaiting the results for the psych and community.
Now back up to that first medsurg test: I was not too surprised that I failed as life was a bit disorganized (I am not even sure if that’s the correct word) and I did not have the best attitude. Towards the end (on my birthday) when I realized that things were a mess, I had not studied, and the test was just a few hours away (over 24 hours to be exact), thus with all that stress, I called it quits. I had a meltdown, went to bed, got up, took a shower, cried, had negative thoughts about why it’s too late and why I could never do this, and then prayed (not necessarily in that order, but you get the picture).
This Is More Than Me
I soon realized that this was more than me. I was letting myself down, being hard on myself, and focusing on this one problem rather than the whole picture. A test grade was not going to define me. Yes, I could have tried harder, but at that moment, things were all over the place and I just had to accept that. Furthermore, God had brought me through too much for me to just give up and do absolutely nothing. My mother did not raise me to run away from my problems. It was my birthday, a new day of life, a fresh start, and here I was with some sort of time to do things, laying in bed with my negative thoughts and throwing a pity party. Thus, I got up and tried- only after crying and letting it out of course. In the end, I got a grade that I was not proud of, but I knew I could do better next time (and I did by God’s grace), but the sections that I did get to study, I did okay on that. Now suppose I didn’t study anything?
To be honest, I am more ashamed of how I treated God and myself in the situation than my grade. I doubted Him, forgot all the lessons that He had taught me and allowed the negative thoughts to take over. I think that part was the worst birthday of my life. Nursing school tests you: mentally and emotionally. Fortunately, I had a good support system who continued to encourage me and seemed more concern about my stress levels and health rather than my grade. Furthermore, I have an even greater God who was gracious enough to let me see how toxic I was being and allowed me the strength to both learn from it and change it.
That’s it for now, until next time, Peace be.
~Simply Anna Reece
P.S Laptop background by CandidlyKeri.
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