Not Friday

It's not Friday, but Thursday.  Obviously. So this is not my usual Friday night post. Obviously.

I'm updating tonight because my clinical week is effectively over; I have to be on campus tomorrow instead of at the clinical site.

It rained last night, thank god.

I never wear my hospital shoes into the house. I leave them outside the front door. This morning instead of having to shoo the spiders out of them, I had to pour the rainwater out and dry them with paper towels.

My patient today was Humpty Dumpty. He was old and crotchety and I was perfectly fine with that.

I've had a rough week; it turns out that I might have to repeat a class. I'm going to email the dean of students in the morning to see what her opinion of the situation is. So there's that.

I just finished two online quizzes--got a D on one and an F on the other, but I actually don't care at this point.

I have an exam tomorrow and then finals next week, starting with two on Monday. Next Thursday I have one last clinical day and then I receive my evaluation from the clinical instructor. The biggest problem for me on that day is going to be keeping my mouth shut. I can't stand the clinical instructor. He's been late to the clinical site two out of five days so far. He doesn't let us take breaks individually, but he waits until he wants a break and then he drags us all off the floor at once. He disappears for hours at a time. He makes up arbitrary rules about what we can and can't do. He's just a complete shithead.

I was warned by a guy in my class about him before clinicals began.  I had to stop and listen because before that all I heard were good things from a bunch of 20-something women who oohed and ahhed over him. And yes, just as I'm sure you've guessed, he happens to spend an inordinate amount of time fawning over the young women in the clinical group. The rest of us who are not young and not cute can go kick rocks.

All I have to do is get through one more clinical day and then the evaluation without telling him how I really feel about him.

Sometimes that's a challenge for me.

When I was an undergrad, I was part of a program that gave me a full-ride--scholarship, books, lab equipment, stipend, everything--but I could not stand the person who ran the program. She was a nasty, condescending, patronizing asshole. Once or twice a semester, I had to go in to her office and talk to her face-to-face, which infuriated me. I got so fed up with her bullshit that before one of these meetings, my mentor pulled me aside and said, "You have to talk to her for 15 minutes. That 15 minutes is worth about $8,000 to you in tuition, books, lab equipment, everything. So just keep telling yourself while you're sitting there: This is worth $8000. This is worth $8000." I managed to do it once. Then I said fuck it. (My mentor paid me out of her own pocket after that. She knew.)

So that's the end of story time.

Tonight I have to start my clinical assignment and study for the exam tomorrow. Tomorrow I have to be on campus at 11:00 and then I have to spend the rest of the day studying.

I am exhausted and PMS is rearing its ugly head and because of those things, I am having trouble controlling my temper.  Not a good situation.