Since I am Book Smart Only...

So I have a follower.

Follower, do you have a blog? I'm trying to learn more about you!

I also started this blog on my personal email address. My Twitter is using my "non personal" email address... anyone know how I can move the blog over to that gmail account?

Gmail to Gmail?

On the subject of personal vs non personal.. I'm indecisive to blog anonymously or not.

To be or not to be...

Again today, I was forced to endure the pain of an inefficient Barista.

I ordered a grande white mocha americano.

I pay, walk over to the bar area and observe a drink being made...

There is a grande cup with white mocha at the bottom, ICE INSIDE THE CUP ALREADY, and espresso pouring out the machine.

My inner thoughts... I hope that isn't my drink.

Reality... it is my drink.

She serves it up without a smile. I don't smile either.

The line in the cafe has now grown lengthy, so I decided to wait for it to die down and ask it to be remade. I honestly did try to swirl it, use the straw to mix it, vigorously shake it but you see... ICE MAKES SYRUP HARD AND IMPOSSIBLE TO MIX!!!!

SuperBarista is on the register and glances over at me, I cast a rather dismal look.

He asks "everything okay?" (his facial expression implies he already knows the answer)

Me.. I just nodded my head no with a cowarded smile. I truly hate having to complain, but come the fuck on! It's an expensive coffee drink. Starbucks is one of my broke ass nursing student luxuries.

DumbAssBarista occupies herself somewhere else and avoids me. SuperBarista walks over and asks for the drink, holds it up and shakes his head in his own disappointment.

He says he has no problems remaking it.

Normally they quickly chuck the subpar drink into the trash but he put this on aside, I can only imagine for teaching purposes.

He remakes it quicker than DumbAssBarista, and perfectly.

On the way out I stop at the cafe stand to get a cold sleeve for the cup and noticed business cards with SuperBarista's name on them.. he is now the store manager!

I walk over with a card in hand, "I didn't know this!'

"Yep.. recently promoted.. please let me know when drinks aren't to your satisfaction. You come in every day with a pleasant smile, always tip us and I appreciate that."

Well I hate to complain but I mean Starbuck's isnt exactly cheap but I love it.

"DUDE, we are in business to make DRINKS, if we can't even do that right, we won't be in business! It drives me insane when the staff can't do a simple drink correctly."

Well said. Thanks for remaking my drink! I have a test Monday and need the energy!

Now I have a picture to show what drives me nuts. At least he corrected it and perfectly articulated they are indeed in the beverage making business, and if they can't do that right, they won't be in business!

Nursing Students: Community Health Rotation

This block's "Community Health" rotation consisted of us going to an elementary school to educate kids on hygiene, nutrition, hand washing, exercise, and answering questions they have.

Imagine that. Just take a moment to picture this.

8am, tired ass nursing students sitting in circles with elementary aged kids who ate straight bacon & sugar for breakfast, and trying to educate them.

HAAAA.

We had 8 groups of kids to circle through.

The first 1-2, I was friendly with.

The 3-4, I started to discipline "sit up please" "come back to the circle" "LISTEN"

5-6, I started to get angry. "Anyone in your family talk about having "diabetes" or "heart problems" *points to chest*

Every, single kid YES.

Well, do you want to have those problems? Doesn't look fun does it?

NO

Okay then DON'T EAT FRIED CHICKEN AND BACON EVERY DAY!!!

My inner thoughts "MAYBE TEACH YOUR PARENTS WHAT A DAMN VEGETABLE IS!!"

Kids WHAAATT BUT I LOVES MA FRIEND CHEEKEN AND DEM BACONS

Holy fuck. No wonder these obesity is an epidemic.

My clinical mate brought a box of plastic toys in the shapes of foods, veggies, fruits, bad things: fries, burgers, chicken leg, etc. We had them separate good/bad, tell us why its good/bad.

Half of them thought hotdogs were as healthy as a bowl of green peas and half of them couldn't tell me what cauliflower was, they couldn't identify an APPLE.

This day was about as useful as a button on a dishrag.

We talked and talked, but I sincerely doubt jackshit sunk in.

One of my clinical mates has a very low tolerance for bullshit & stupidity, as evidenced by his parenting of his daughter, and he snapped.

After we did a round of 4 groups, 1 class combined, the PE instructor let them play ball for a few minutes before going back to their homeroom.

He blew his whistle to signal play time was over and said 20 seconds to get everything back in place and sit in line.

1 minute elapses and the kids are scrambling to return balls/jump ropes and get back to the other side of the gym.

1 straggly, very noncompliant, very pissy kid was taking his sweet old time and literally bitching the teacher out!

He essentially told the kid he won't get anywhere in life if he keeps misbehaving and acting out.

Harsh? No. Those kids needed a serious can of whoop ass, as my grandpa would have said.

Nearly all of the kids would talk back to us and the teachers, they were just straight up brats.

Now I'm not that young, I'm quite young, and I remember being in grammar school.

That shit would have NEVER flown. Granted, I did go to private schools, but times ARE inarguably different.

I have respect for teachers, that's a lot of bullshit to put up with.

Inefficiencies...

If I had to pick my biggest pet peeve.. It would have to be inefficient people.

Lets me clear on the definition of inefficient:
not producing desired results, wasteful, inadequate, unsatisfactory.

My Starbucks beverage of choice is either an iced white mocha latte or an americano. Difference, milk or water.

Having worked at various coffeehouses and a stint at Starbucks, I am well educated in the proper beverage making protocol.

When making mocha, white mocha, caramel.. you pump the syrup into the cup and then the HOT espresso. Now, a prudent, EFFICIENT barista would know that this is the perfect, appropriate, EFFICIENT, time to swirl the espresso and the syrup to ensure proper blending of the ingredients.

Now... unfortunately, there are more inefficient baristas than there are efficient baristas. And they don't recognizie this prudent, efficient, perfect time to provide their patron with the perfect choice beverage. Pure laziness? Uneducated? Poor training? Doesn't give a shit?

I become an uber asshat and make them remake the drink.
1) Starbucks has a nice sign infront the bar stand where you get your drink that says "if your beverage isn't perfect, let us know and we will make it until it is perfect"
2) When I trained at Starbucks, they made it well known and clear that we are to follow that practice.
3) I'm paying at a minimum, $3 for my drink. You better fucking make it right.
4) I always tip. And that means you better FUCKING make it right.

Last week.. new barista.
Serves me up a drink with 0.5" white mocha at the bottom. Seriously.
Do you think I enjoy having a huge gulp of white mocha?
I ordered a white mocha latte, not a latte with white mocha at the bottom only.
Take the 10 seconds to swirl the espresso with the syrup and deliver me a premier Starbucks beverage. Uphold the brand! Deliver superior customer service! I am a paying, tipping, smiling, coffee ADDICT! You don't mess with a crackmans, crack. Don't mess with my caffeine.

EasilyAmused: Can you please remake this? Now that you've iced the drink the white mocha won't blend..
Barista: I DID BLEND IT
EasilyAmused: *holds up cup to light to show full goop of white mocha*
Barista: *snatches cup*
SUPERBarista: You have to make sure the espresso melts the syrup before you ice it and add milk.
Barista: *glares at SuperBarista*
EasilyAmused: Thank you SUPERBarista.

Call me a bitch. I don't care. People need to learn to do their jobs. Working at Starbucks isn't a glamorous job but its simple. Just make drinks correctly and asshats like me won't take advantage of company policy and have you remake my $3+ tipped beverage!

Now, onto Subway.
Subway is by school and by work, I am forced to eat it more often than not because of convenience and the local discount.
I get a plain and simple 6" wheat, turkey, lettuce and mayo. Hardly ever change my order.

WHY DO THEY PUT ONE LONG ------------------ LINE OF MAYO!?

Don't you think I'd like mayo on my entire sandwhich not just huge bites of it in the middle!?
Quiznos at least got smart and made a thing with three lines, to cover the entire sandwich!

One time I opened my sandwich and the turkey was smushed to one side, lettuce in the middle by itself, and then goopy mayo all on the other end.
Can I eat my sandwhich with everything in one bite and not have to take 3 separate bites to get the full dressed effect...?

Again, working at subway isn't glamorous and probably gets paid less than Starbucks, but come the fuck on. Your job is to make sandwiches!!!
MAKE THE SANDWICH RIGHT!

I can be quite a bitch.

Note: inefficient people do NOT easily amuse me. They easily piss me off.

All good things must come to an End

Let's get personal.

The saying "all good things must come to an end" couldn't be any more true than for a solid retail item.

Case in point #1: Victoria's Secret underwear. Stop changing your product! If it ain't broke, don't fix it!!! They were fine!! They now decided to put these little rivets of lace or whatever on the inseam/leg part and it's so FUCKING annoying. Seriously.

Please, VS, revoke this change immediately.

Case in point #2: Good flipflops. No, not your old navy/walmart rubbery ones. Good solid, decent looking, good for wearing with a sundress - flipflops.

Steve Madden in 2007 had the BEST leather flipflop. Super comfortable. White, Black or Brown. Staple colors. The "Cayman"

I love this shoe. When they went on clearance, I bought FOUR pairs! Two brown, two black.

Well, they lasted me some time and my last black pair finally bit the dust (thong part came apart after accidentally stepping in a puddle of water). And I have one brown pair that's in good shape.

I've tried so very hard to replace this shoe style and can't find them online anymore :(

Case in point #3: Good casual black zipup. Any chick needs a black dress and a black zipup. Black zipups look cute with shorts, jeans, workout pants. It's just a staple item. I go nuts when mine starts to unravel somewhere. RETAILERS: WHY IS THERE ARE A SHORTAGE OF CASUAL SIMPLE BLACK ZIPUPS?! Now when I find one I really like, I stock up for the next season.

Always will eventually need to replace any clothing item, these days nothing is made to last and washing/drying destroys clothing. I can't hang up anything wet, I don't like how it turns out to feel like wearing cardboard. No cardboard attire for me, thank you.

Anyway..

I had to go to the hospital tonight to pick up my patient assignment and experienced 3 cases of White Coat Phenomenon.

Walking into the hospital...

Guard: Good evening doctor

Me: Uh.. I'm a nursing student..

(HELLO LOOK AT THE EMBLEM ON MY COAT & NAME TAG!)

Guard: *gives puzzled look*

Me: They make us wear a coat to be professional when not in clinical duty...

Guard: Have a nice evening.

Walking through hall to elevator..

Random visitor: Excuse me doctor! How do I get to StreetWomanCantFind exit?

Me: (racking brain to remember way around hospital) I'm pretty sure you take this hallway, make a right and it's right there..

Random visitor: Thanks! Have a great night!

(Sure..)

Finally on the unit and I'm staring at the whiteboard figuring out what patients are still on the unit...

Nurse behind me: Can I help you doctor?

Me: Oh! I'm a nursing student, here for my assignment.. my patient was d/c so I need to pick up a new assignment..

Nurse: (examines white coat, examines nametag, examines emblem on white coat, finally looks up at my face) uhh... okay.. let's see if we can help you find a new assignment.

Ok so I get that they don't want us to show up in scrubs on days we aren't actively involved in clinical work, but the White Coat Phenomenon is way to out of hand!

People instantly assume white coat = physician. I typically think the same thing but is it fair to assume attire equals who you are??

I don't want to embarrass a kind guard wishing me a good evening, but I also don't want to tote around with people thinking I am a doctor.

Whenever I correct someone, I have to go through explaining my school makes us do this... so on so forth....

When I left, the guard still gave me a puzzled look.

And then a visitor and I had that awkward tango about who gets to walk through the door first and the woman almost cowarded down because of the White Coat.

I let her go first of course but she did give a puzzled look as to why a girl who looks no older than the age of 15 (damn you young genes...) is sporting a White Coat.

Interesting night.

Well.. these books won't study themselves, unfortunately.

Mid semester blues...

Exam 3 grade was officially posted today and confirmed my grade of 85.

A C, but well above "passing" and only 2 glorious points away from a B. I could have had +5 points if it weren't for my stupidity in miscalculating the ANC question and 4 points for 2 really stupid mistakes regarding glycemic levels and prednisone.. ****double facepalm****

But alas... I'm good to go and passing.

My next exam is 11/1.. and at least the materially is managing to attract my attention, not maintain it yet, but just interesting enough that I went to class. Wait.. I didn't go today.

BUT! I have my textbook with me.

Now that I have my manager-numbers-jardon for the meeting tonight done with, I can update this here blog and then onto the textbook.. What a Friday, huh?

And in other exciting news.. Starbucks FINALLY has free WIFI!

N E R D A L E R T

Yea.. I'm one of *those* asshats with my laptop, schoolbag, purse, gigantic starbucks (paying customer, starbucks-card-carrying-gimme-my-free-drink), crackberry and lets not forget the ipod touch. Don't judge me.

But since my stint working at this beloved Starbucks in my neighborhood, I'm still cool with the staff that is still around, and thus the newbies are forced to deal with me too, but I tip well. I feel their pain. And am jealous of their benefits package.

I am a coffee addict. And after all that bitching and pursuit of making my own iced coffee, after a 1 month never-ending-supply of it, I got reaaaally tired of it. I'm back on my iced white mocha latte/occasionally americano binge.

The hospital I'm rotating at now has one of those "pseudo-Starbucks" you know.. "WE PROUDLY BREW STARBUCKS COFFEE!"

And, it's actually not bad. Most of those pseudo-Starbucks are on the crappy end, but this one does the trick. I'm up to 3 coffee beverages a day (and the intermittent diet coke) can you feel my PVCs though the internet?

I blog about coffee way to much. And I suspect, that as a gradute-hopefully-working-RN my coffee habits won't subside, but intensify. Indeed they will intensify if I go back for the BS in biology. Who knows.. T-14 months to decide.

How to NOT Study

Today I have evaded studying in every form that a student can.

A little person blab..

I've been on a tirade to get a puppy. I've had animals my entire life and since DB and I have been living together, the extent of another life form we've had is a herb plant that I failed to grow.

Perhaps keeping it out of direct sunlight wasn't the best way to ensure it's survival.

I digress.

Work and school is very overwhelming and always enough to fill the schedule but I do have a void I want to fill. Companionship between work and school. A little puppy to cuddle with, take walks with, play with... I just want a dog!

Why else do people want a dog?

I've always been an avid animal rights individual, for the longest time I've tried hard to give my spare time to the various animal rescue agencies in the area. One in particular I adore.

I had a bad day a few weeks ago and to liven my spirits I went to volunteer for a few hours, which turned into about five hours. I just love it. It is a truly uplifting experience to turn a sad scared puppy into a tail-wagging playful little nugget.

The lead volunteer tossed an application my way and one of the questions is "why do you want to have a pet?"

I stumbled to answer. You would think with all said and done I could come up with something but I felt it wasn't good enough. I gave her a confused glance and she just smiled back and said "companionship.. why else?" She was so right.

DB and I have complete opposite schedules and a lot the time when I'm home alone, I mentally entertain going somewhere else to study or taking a break to go shopping because I just hate being alone.

So, I've been in pursuit of looking online at pictures form local agencies and lo and behold last night I found the most adorable puppy. I texted DB about it and he went on his rant and rave about it, he's no enthused with the idea.

Make a long story short, the agency was supposed to be at a local pet shot every Sunday with their adoptables. This morning DB woke me up and said we better get going if you want to go up there and look at the puppies.

HE woke ME up to get me going to see the puppies I've been on a mission to see, albeit his stubbornness and not even wanting to get a puppy.. he still agreed and remembered I want to go!

That is an act of kindness and a reason I love him. :)

But of course... they brought the puppies YESTERDAY because of the NFL game today.

OF COURSE.

So, we remain puppy-less. Still remain unsure if DB would allow the getting of a puppy, but at decision, couldn't see the little puppy today.

And back to the evading of the studying...

Since we couldn't go puppy looking, I went to get breakfast. I brought my textbook, NCLEX review book and loose leaf paper - intentions of getting work done, right?

Nope.

I then decided I should go back home and get on the computer to complete a case study, so I come home.

Then I decide it's too hot in the house.. so I change, fool around with the thermostat, turn the fans on...

Then I decide its too quiet (again, I hate solitude and being alone) so I fool around hoping to find a stay pair of headphones. No luck..

I actually then decide to sit on the sofa and crack a book.. I glance up and notice we have an ipod docking station. WTF. Since when? OOOOOOH I remember... that's the surround sound system I threw a fit about when DB bought it when we supposedly "didn't have any spare money." So I never cared to investigate the system.

I can barely operate a remote (true story for another post) but I figured out how to operate this thing & Pandora all at the same time. And alas, the silence is broken.

Until DB came back home and was not pleased with my choice of music, Norah Jones. However thankfully Pandora had recommended a piano-type non-vocal song "like" Norah Jones that he mysteriously was okay with listening to while we study.

I'm not complaining! That's two wins for me today!

Having a blog is yet another way to evade studying, and of course the intermittent facebooking, Post Secrets, the news (yep...), my blog roll, random checking of emails, and internet shopping.

Internet shopping is a worse addiction for me than facebook is to a 16 year old highschooler.

And 99.9% of the time I am just window-internet shopping. Sometimes I'll even put stuff in my cart with intentions to buy and just decide not. It's a lot less guilty to just back out on an "internet cart" than leave a store employee with another task. I know they get paid to do it, but still why complicate things.

Overstock had a "birthday" sale for themselves, didn't find anything all to interesting but still managed to cart two things.

I can't bring myself to buy anything unless I'm 110% convinced I want it.

There are quite a few things left on my agenda to furnish/decorate the house, and until I find that right piece in mind AND at the appropriate price, I won't buy it. No substitutions.

(here is where the movie War of the Roses comes to mind.)

If one of my life worries is finding that perfect piece of furniture, then life must be pretty damn good.

And aside from school driving me nuts... I'd have to agree, it is pretty damn good. :)

True Story

classmate: did you go to school yesterday?

me: yeps

classmate: anything important?

me: besides her confusing everyone, no.

classmate: good.

me: did I miss anything worthwhile thursday?

classmate: no, I played on my computer the entire time.

That's a summary of how the semester is going now.

The material on exam 3 could not possibly fail to maintain my attention any worse.

It's terrible material, just boring and bland. Part of it is oncology concepts and I just can't seem to get interested in the subject - no offense to cancer! It's just not my forte.

In other news..

Having a never ending supply of my beloved iced coffee has done two things..

1. I felt like I had a cold this week and when I was resting my heart felt a little strange. Being the nervenne that I am, I listened with my steth and self-diagnosed PVCs. Looks like I need to lay off the caffeine and probably even more so when taking the real-deal sudafed.

2. basic supply and demand. now that my supply is never ending, the coffee cravings have ceased greatly over the past few days and I don't even flinch when I drive past a coffee house. That is all changing with another exam creeping up.

So there, that is all.