Nurses were Drunks!

So far I've learnt quite a bit in nursing.

Just started week three, half way through this week.

I have four subjects I'm studying right now, 'Discipline of Nursing: Contexts of Nursing', 'Primary Health Care Nursing: Health Promotion and Education' and 'Sociology of Health and Health Care' and 'Human Bioscience'. 

All are interesting and have their own values.

Primary Health Care Nursing, is basically education about prevention of diseases and illness', and creating our idea of what health is, is it just the absence of illness or does it incase more than that, does it involve all aspects of life today such as socio-economic status, employment opportunities and whether or not you feel safe in your community.

What is your idea of health?

We are also learning in this subject, a lot of practical based skills, so we just learnt how to take a BP reading with a sphygmomanometer (try and say that word 5 times fast) and a stethoscope. It's quite hard but with a bit of practice I should pick it up, poor S being my guinea pig. This friday we learn how to take a blood glucose level as well as understanding how that works.

Sociology allows us to view 'Health', and the ideas surrounding health from different perspectives. Such as functionalism, marxism or conflict theory, Webernism, feminism, Symbolic Interactionism, and Postmodernism focusing on Foucalt. 

So it's quite a bit to take on and I have to chose one of those theories and apply it to attain a deeper understanding of health and health care. Will be an interesting essay, and I'm enjoying learning all these theories but am somewhat nervous about writing this essay. 

I haven't had a great experience writing essays, haven't really done well with them in the past, probably to my lack of time spent on writing these essays, but I always submit something I think is good. Then get it back and realise its not anywhere near as good as I thought it was. But alas, I will do my best, try and use the resources available to me through CSU and hopefully I can at least get a credit.

Contexts of nursing encompasses the history of nursing, professional expectations, things along those lines so it's interesting. 

The history of nursing is quite interesting, nurses were originally thought of as drunkards, slovenly, low class women, and they were usually prostitutes. They were made to take care of ill people because they did not want to 'waste' , 'good christian nuns' (who usually took care of people) so these less than desirable women to do less than desirable jobs. And they usually turned up drunk to work because they were paid in alcohol.

We have such a nice history, we do.

Nursing is also found to be a woman's job because nursing it seen as an altruistic job, where they do it out of their empathy, compassion, their love of helping people and not necessarily because it's a professional job and deserves to be paid. 

If you were to ask nurses these days, how many would say they would continue doing their job if they weren't getting paid?

I suppose you can guess what Human Bioscience is about. We are learning about the body, especially what makes the body up. So we are going right down what makes the human body up, and everything else in the world for that matter. Atoms!!! Aren't they fun.

An atom is incredibly small, they compared it to, if you had an apple, and blew that apple up to the size of the Earth, they an atom would be an apple inside that apple thats the size of the Earth. And inside that atom is a nucleus, which determines which element it is. So the nucleus is inside of this atom that is an apple within an apple which is the size of the Earth. Then the nucleus is smaller than that. If you blew up an atom to the size of a large cathedral then the nucleus would be the size of a fly inside that cathedral. A fly!!!

How crazy is that!!!!!

And what is between the atom and this nucleus? The simple answer is nothing. Well thats not really simple but thats the answer, between the nucleus of an atom and the outside of an atom is nothing.

So as well as being made in the bellies of stars millions of years old, we are also a whole bunch of nothing. How excellent!

So we just started chemistry this week and so far I'm getting it. We did microbiology last week so I will be studying up on that a LOT as it is so straight forward as chemistry.

Human Bioscience is a humungous subject, we have two lectures a week, two hours each, plus a two hour lab session.

Tuesdays are the biggest days as we start at 8am for a two hours lecture, then at 10 start another two hour lecture. Then at 12 I have a 1 hour tutorial, I have a 1 hour break, then get right into the first of two, two hour lectures, taking me all the way to 6pm tuesday night.

So that about 10 hours of lecturing with a one hour break!

Lot's of learning new things so far this semester!

And we are already into week 3!!!

Easter is so close its crazy! The days are going so quickly!!!

Whats been happening in your life? Learnt anything new this week? I'd love to hear about it!

Hope the rest of your week is full of knowledge and fun!

Linking up with Jess for IBOT

Gen Y

I did not write this and do not know where it came from, I thought it was well written and had a good message that I'd like to share with you.

"Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.

The woman apologised and explained, "We didn't have this green thing back in my earlier days."

The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."

The older woman was right - her generation didn't have the green thing in her day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilised and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were truly recycled.

But  we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags that we reused for numerous things, most memorable besides household garbage bags, was the use of brown paper bags as books covers for our schoolbooks. This was to ensure that public property, (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribbling. Then we were able to personalise our books on the brown paper bags.

But too bad we didn't do the green thing back then.

We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.

But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby's nappies because we didn't have the throwaway kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts --wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

But that young lady is right; we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we have on TV, or radio, in the house --not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Tasmania. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower than ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

But she's right; we didn't have the green thing back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.

But we didn't have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerised gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then? There is a lot to be grateful for no matter what your age or experience."

I am a gen-y, I was born in the year 1990, I am still considered very young, I have a great stereotype with being born in this time frame.

Just like the stereotype projected onto this older lady, the stereotype of lazy gen-y is on me. Stereotypes are hurtful but so ever present in our society, they aren't considered stereotypes anymore. They've become our first thoughts when we look at someone young, or see someone old driving a car or someone smoking. 

You never know the circumstances around that person and who they are. It's sad to think that as a nation we are always trying to shift the blame on to another generations or on to a different sociological group, yes we working class folk do hate against those you have more money then we. Though we do not know what they did to get there and how much effort they put in or what they do with all their extra money.

We need to stop pointing the finger or trying to shift the blame, if we did, we'd probably be a lot closer to finding some answers to our questions.

"Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honour one another above yourselves. Never lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervour, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people in a low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord. On the contrary: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his heart." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

-Romans 12:9-21


Linking this post of up Jess for her weekly   

Vaccinations

The start of last year I wrote a post about assignments. You can pop over and read it here

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"I lost respect for you when you took over my life, monopolised my thoughts and stole my time."

These are the words I began with when writing my first post about assignments.

This time around it's a little different. I'm a year older and feel like bit wiser, or maybe just more sane.

I have 17 assignments due this semester, which goes for 14 weeks. One of which includes 2 weeks of clinical placement in a hospital somewhere in NSW.

This may sound exciting, being able to get some hands on experience, see what the workplace is really like etc. 

But just to get to this point is a huge obstacle.

I have to order and pay for my own national police check, child safe check, first aid(which I already had thankfully) and also all my immunisations.

Immunisations they protect us and hurt us all at the same time. And I'm fine with immunisations because I'd believed that I was up to date. 

But apparently not.

My whooping (pertussis), diphtheria, and tetanus shots are all up to date, as well as my measles, mumps and rubella. Though my hep b and chicken pox shots may not be.

Hep B alone is three injections whilst chicken pox is two.

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I also need a serology (blood test), NSW Health need to be able to see how well my immunity is to all these diseases. 

But the funny thing is, a serology is not enough for Hep B, if your serology says you are immune to it, you still need documented proof you've had Hep B shots via vaccine batch no. etc. 

If you don't have those, but your serology says you have immunity to Hep B, you still need to go out and get the three course injections of a few months. 

So I'll be paying a visit to my childhood GP when I go home for Easter and hopefully he'll have proof that I had chicken pox and Hep B injections. 

If not I'll be coming home for a long, and maybe painful visit to the doctors.

So you could say I'm a tad stressed, or at least just freaking out, big time.

It's hard being away from home and feeling like you have everything to do and you don't know how to do it. 

I'm learning though, feeling more grown up everyday unfortunately.

You can guarantee that there will be a few more posts about the tumultuous journey to be able to get to my placement this semester. Which is a key component of the subject and I fail the subject if I don't go on placement.

So I'm off to continue my study of microbiology and the fundamentals of nursing, ah the joys of university! 

Honeymoon

S and I at Port Macquarie

My cool new shoes I bought!

Port Macquarie

Lunch by the beach on Surfers Paradise:: Our second week of honeymoon

Put on a bit of a show for us Surfers did while we were there

Sunrise on our last day in Surfers Paradise

Road trip home

And all the way to our new home

And the awesome heatwave we did. Took this photo at 11:20am!

It just wouldn't stop!

Awesome hair day

Then I chopped it all off. 

Enjoy your Wednesday!!!

100 Redemption In Progress 2012

ONE HUNDRED!

Well what a year it has been. So many things have happened. 

• Seven couples I know have been married this year 
• I became a godmother for the first time 
• My gorgeous niece turned one
• I ran 9km and lost 5kg 
• I bought a wedding dress
• Planned a wedding (with some help, thanks mum!)
• Grew up a tiny bit
• Finished one year of uni
• Started my nursing degree
• Moved away from home

So much has happened this year and I can't quite comprehend or put it clearly into words how crazy fast, and annoyingly slow it's been all that the same time.

This is post 100, I've been building up to this post, wanting it to be this awesome post about, well I had no idea what it was going to be about, just that it would be good. 

I'm celebrating. 

I'm celebrating this blog of mine that turned 100 today.

These have been my milestones in my life so far:

• I travelled to USA for school and even attended an American high school for two days
• I have travelled too New Zealand 3 times
• Got my license (and if you know me than you know it took a while!)
• Moved out of home for one year and survived it
• Made some amazing life long friends along the way
• Completed a Certificate 3 in Children's Services
• Completed one year of university

These milestones I have made on my blog to date

• 100 blog posts
• 2225 page view
• 170 published comments (half are probably my own)
• 14 Followers with Blogger
• 51 likes on Facebook

It's always nice to stop and reflect on all the things you've accomplished, if you ever feel like you aren't going any where, stop and reflect on how far you've come already!!

As I've gotten internet again and started my uni course, I'm lost for things too write about... If you have any ideas please go ahead! I need the help!

Anyway, I hope your Tuesday went well and the week ahead is all excitement and fun for you. 

Linking up with Jess for I Blog On Tuesday