The Complaints of the Day

In some ways, this week was worse than last week, even with a four day weekend. Partly that was because making up the holiday day off for school meant sitting through double classes on Wednesday. Partly it was because of another exam that I had today. Partly it was because I'm just exhausted and PMS-ing. I think. I mean, I must be.

Today I had on-campus clinicals and we had to go through our simulation labs and meet the medical mannequins that we practice certain things on. They're creepy, those mannequins. We have to sign a contract saying that we'll interact with them as though they were real, live patients, but that's a leap that The Brain is reluctant to make. I have been trying to convince The Brain that we had dolls as children that we treated like near-real life beings (except for the one whose eye I poked in to see how it worked). So on the mannequins, they can "talk" (a voice actor behind a one-way mirror does the talking, actually), they blink, the pupils dilate, they turn blue if they're not getting enough oxygen. You can take their blood pressure and certain pulses. You can listen to heart and lung sounds. One gives birth to a baby. The baby cries. You can listen to its heart and lungs and take its pulse as well. They can all be programmed to have various ailments. One has seizures.

I don't like them. But it would be a long time before we would get to practice on a live patient a lot of what we can practice on a mannequin. And there is little danger of killing the mannequin. At most you might kick out the plug. Instant death.


I'm incredibly behind on my reading, but I am having trouble motivating myself this evening. Yes, we just had a holiday. On Saturday, I studied for six hours then did laundry. On Sunday, I studied for eight hours. Same on Monday. Same on Tuesday. Wednesday I sat in class for six hours straight then went back to Judi's to pack up my stuff and feed and walk Crunch. I stayed up until 12:30 a.m. or so studying and was up at 5:40. Thursday (today) I had five hours of clinicals, including an exam. Then I came home and slept.

I'm in bed now. It's 10:10. There are things that I could be doing--and things that I definitely should be doing, but sleep is first right now.

Only, I know I'm going to just lie in bed for the next two hours without being able to fall asleep...

But before I go, here is a picture of our little queen, asleep on top of a pile of laundry.
Now that she's feeling better, she loves to spend time outside, which is awesome.