Review of the Week (Or Longer)

:: We had out intergenerational pot luck last week. I am a second year student. Our responsibility was to give the new students their welcome folder. We all have an incoming student ("little sister") that we're supposed to mentor and that's who we give the folder we created to. The folder has photos, poems, stories, etc. passed down from each class, plus a bios for each student of each class, and a letter written from them welcoming you to midwifery. I think I was the only one who contributed anything new to the folder this year, which I thought was sad. I included an excerpt from Toni Morrison's Beloved a small portion of which I will put up sometime soon, and this quote from Anais Nin because it made me think:

Man can never know the kind of loneliness a woman knows. Man lies in a woman's womb only to gather strength, he nourishes himself from this fusion, and then he rises and goes into the world, into his work, into battle, into art. He is not lonely. He is busy. The memory of the swim in amniotic fluid gives him energy, completion. The woman may be busy too, but she feels empty. Sensuality for her is not only a wave of pleasure in which she has bathed, and a charge of electric joy at contact with another. When man lies in her womb, she is fulfilled, each act of love a a taking of man within her, an act of birth and rebirth, of child-bearing and man-bearing. Man lies in her womb and is reborn each time anew with a desire to act, to BE. But for woman, the climax is not in the birth, but in the moment the man rests inside of her.

We also gave them a CD that we created by each contributing a song. My song was "I Believe" by Fantasia. The faculty then presented us with these bags they quilted us. And lastly the 3rd year students put on their performance which really was great. The made infomercials about products they made up (ie: a scratch and sniff card to diagnose BV) and did a dance they choreographed based on the movements you do for shoulder dystocia. What a great evening. Now we have to get busy planning the "blessing of the hands" for them.

:: School is kicking my behind. The first round of exams are out of the way, and the second wave begins this week with Adv Phys Assessment. I can't wait for this class to be over. Clinical is still wonderful but this week is a reverse observation week where our preceptor observes us all day. That makes me anxious. It's like now I'm going to forget to do stuff I always do, just because she's watching! Ack! I sent in an application for the new Johnson & Johnson Minority Nurse Faculty Scholars Program. I'll let you know how that goes. My expectations are low because I heard about it a little late and by the time I sat down to write my personal statement, I was speechless. Nursing school has really taken everything creative right out of my brain, and I haven't written anything like this in so long that I've forgotten how.

:: I visited Johns Hopkins last weekend to check out their PhD program. I really, really liked the school, but there were a couple things that turned me off...1) They only have guaranteed funding for the first two years, after that you have to apply for outside sources of funding. That makes me cringe. Not because I wouldn't be doing it anyway, but because I don't want to depend on outside funding to finish the program. I'd much rather be guaranteed funding all the way through. 2) The set up: just like many other prestigious medical campuses, it's located in the middle of a low income neighborhood (in Baltimore) and I am not sure if I want to do this setting again. (That's how my current school is) It's frustrating to study in places like these because you're conflicted about where you really belong, and it's hard to be in a position of privilege (through education at a prestigious university) and but feel like you're not really helping the people in the community. And yes, I feel that way even when I'm working in the community really helping people! It's weird. Maybe I'll articulate that better another day. But there were some issues with the trip. Me and the man went down with one of my friends, but ended up having to come back via train which cost us $225. I was pissed to say the least. Basically me and my friend had some issues and I thought "there's no way I'm riding home with you." And she didn't want us to anyway. I think she was very competitive about the whole visit to Hopkins and was stressed about getting into the program because it was her first choice school and she just took all of that out on me. She apologized profusely, but it takes me a long time to forgive such blatant rudeness. So, that's that for a while.

Ok. Back to work, studying for phys assessment.