Disappointment, Exhaustion...and Encouragement.

Sooooooo....this turned into sort of a venting post....fair warning.

When I started nursing school, there were three tracks we could choose from: medical Spanish, research, and genetics/genomics.  I have always wanted to learn Spanish, so I decided to go for it.  As German and Sign Language are the only languages I've ever taken, I asked to be placed in the baby beginner Spanish class.  First semester it was fantastic.  Our teacher was fun and supportive and she definitely knew where we stood as BEGINNERS.  Second semester it all changed.  Several of the students who were in our class graduated, and suddenly our class was too small to run (they require six students to run a class and we had five), so they merged our class with the intermediate class.  Intermediate is a bit of a misnomer, though, as most of those students have taken at least 5+ years of Spanish, and there were at least twice as many of them.  (The advanced class is full of fluent speakers, so intermediate is really advanced, just not fluent.)  Our teacher was still the same wonderful woman, but now she taught the entire class in Spanish.  Rapid-fire Spanish with a thick Chilean accent.  I usually do a pretty good job of understanding Spanish, but as one of only two students who had never taken Spanish before this, I was drowning.

I've never been a quitter, so I desperately tried to stick it out, growing more and more frustrated each week as the semester wore on.  After several weeks in a row of spending the entire 90 minute class utterly lost and leaving in tears, I knew it was time to do something about it.  After a long, crazy, drawn-out process, I was finally able to switch tracks (which they told us from the beginning would be very difficult once we started the program).  My dear friend, Nick, who is still in Spanish, assures me I made the right decision.  (He says I would be miserable in there this semester.)  Which brings us to today.

Switching tracks means that I am both behind and ahead in the program up to this point.  Ahead because my extra elective class is already finished since Spanish counts (yay!), and in fact, I will graduate with more credits than I need.  Behind because everyone else in the program took a class last semester that I did not take (the Spanish track folks take that class this semester).  Basically what that means is that I have more credits this semester than anyone else, and since it's our short semester, it's extra accelerated.  Yay.  :/  I knowingly did this to myself, but holy moly, I had no idea how intense it was going to be.  

Just this week, I had to write FIVE papers that each required a literature search.  If you've ever taken a college-level research class, you know that lit searches can be time-intensive and cumbersome.  These were no exception.  Seriously all I do right now is write papers.  It's totally crazy.  Thank goodness I have a fair amount of skill in writing papers, because otherwise this would be TROUBLE.  Everyone told us that last semester was the crazy hard one and our third semester would be a piece of cake, and super fun to boot.  They were LYING.  There is SO much work to do, it's out of control.  And exhausting.

The hardest part so far, though, has been the surprise and disappointment I've had with one class in particular.  Anyone who knows me knows I've ALWAYS loved babies.  Ever since I was a baby myself, I've loved babies.  I also had the privilege and honor of witnessing my sweet baby nephew's birth, and it was truly an incredible experience.  I thought I might be interested in being a maternity nurse/nurse midwife.  This semester is leading me to believe that is probably not my calling, which is highly disappointing.  My maternity class has actually been pretty interesting, although a ton of work.    It's the rest of the experience that's been hard, and the disappointment of it has been hard to get over.  I'm trying, though.  As my best friend pointed out to me the other night, loving BABIES doesn't have to mean loving working with their "hormonal, grumpy moms."  Haha.  Who knows, maybe someday in a different location I'll feel differently, but for now, unless the next few weeks picks up, I think it's getting crossed off the list.  Oh well.  Also I had the strange and uncomfortable experience of being bullied today--I am way too old for that kind of crap.  And that kind of stuff stays with me for way too long.  Darn that sensitive heart of mine.  :/  

Anyway (despite an actually pretty great morning), needless to say I came home pretty discouraged tonight after a very long day, only to find one of the most lovely and encouraging, supportive emails I've ever received in my inbox from one of my favorite professors.  It was unexpected and I will admit I cried...both times I read it.  And then I remembered that I AM cut out for this and I WILL make it through this and I DO really love it, even when it's hard.

And since my last couple posts have seemed rather overwhelmed and not overly positive, I will also tell you that I ran into another of my very favorite professors the other day, who I completely adore, and she also gave me the best pep talk.  I have had some really awesome things going on lately, and I just have to remember that through the haze of stress and never-ending work.  Both of these incredible mentors of mine also reminded me that I only have to make it through a few more weeks of this craziness and then it's on to pediatrics, which I already know I'm going to love.  Can't wait.

Cheers to tomorrow being a new day, taking deep breaths, making the most out of hard situations, and remembering all the time I love this beautiful place in life I'm in right now.