Oh my gosh. Stuff is happening, people. For starters, I graduated. After a longish boring ceremony, they finally announced, “You may now move your tassels from the right to the left,” and a shiver went down my spine. It was a very special moment. Then we sang “The Eyes of Texas,” and it was over. Yay me!
Only one more hurdle to jump before I am an official RN. I have to pass the NCLEX, the state board exam. I scheduled it for June 11 at 8 a.m. I am nervous, and really need to kick the studying up a notch. To that end I am taking another review course this week. In fact, it is going on right this moment. Perhaps I should be paying attention instead of blogging?
Our save-the-date magnets arrived in the mail, and I do like them except that I wish the brown was darker. I spent some time addressing them last night and I hope to have them out by the end of the week. But what I am most excited about is that we actually booked our honeymoon to Kauai, airfare, hotel, car rental and all. So really, the most important part is taken care of, right?
The pinning ceremony is a nursing tradition. Nurses wear pins (usually on their name badge at work) to identify what school they graduated from. These pins were presented to us at the ceremony last night and we were able to choose someone to pin us. I chose David, as my husband-to-be.
But before all of that happened, my parents, David, and I all arrived waaaay early because we didn’t know how the traffic would be. So we decided to get some picture-taking out of the way:
And for some reason I find this very amusing: my mom trying to take a picture of David and me without realizing that the camera was set to record. Obviously I don’t have much patience for this, but David just laughs.
Soon enough my brothers arrived. At this point we were also sharing the table with another family, a family much quieter than ours. As we were waiting for our food, we had the following conversation.
***
Dad: So Uncle David is getting another Ridgeback. They got a good deal on it because it doesn’t have the show-quality ridge. They’re naming it Rigby.
Dad (even more shocked): Kat! It’s a song by The Beatles!
Brothers (in unison): AHHHH LOOK AT ALL THE LONELY PEOPLE
Me: I have never heard of it. [This is true. I listened to it later.]
Dad: I can’t believe this.
Me: Listen, I am not a Beatles fan. I don’t dislike them, I will listen to them, but there are so many other things that I would rather hear.
***
My future mother-in-law will be devastated when she reads this, but there it is. My confession.
Continuing with the evening, we waited quite a long time for our food. In fact, David and I were finished with the whole pinning ordeal before we even took a bite. Ah, what the heck, here’s a little video of me being pinned.
So by the time we got to eat we were all ravenous. We promptly cleaned our plates, and my brother Barry asked for seconds, which I don’t think was part of the deal. After he got his request, though, we discovered that we could all just go help ourselves to seconds, even though no one else was doing so. One woman that we were sitting with offered Barry her roll, but he politely declined. A minute or two later, this happened.
***
Dad (to stranger woman): My wife would like your roll.
Mom: Chris! (She hides her face in her hands.) I am SO embarrassed. You were not supposed to say that!
Dad: What? You wanted it!
Stranger woman: I did offer.
***
I like how my family is the noisy one that eats all the food along with other people’s. I think we have more fun.
So I passed my test! With a very high score, actually, and I have no idea how I managed to do that because there were so many questions I was unsure of. Anyway, remember how I said that the coming weeks will probably be stressful? Well scratch that. I defy stress! I’m tired of it. Finals aren’t for a couple of weeks and there’s really nothing for me to worry about until then. And let’s be honest, I’m not really worried about finals either. Nothing can keep me from graduating, and I already have a job.
Last night I set the tone by renting myself a movie, something I hardly ever do anymore. Since David couldn’t be with me I made sure it was one he would never want to see – Stardust (he doesn’t do fantasy). I loved it. Then I finished off the evening with some ice cream and “Dancing With the Stars.” A good night’s sleep later, and I am unwound. Ahhh.
I apologize in advance if you get tired of hearing about how great it is that I’m graduating. I’ve been in college now for eight years, and I’m just really excited.
This is me with my preceptor Carol in the surgical ICU of Methodist on my last day of clinical. It felt really good to finish, but it was sad at the same time. Carol and I have been working together all semester and I really learned a lot from her. The next time I’m working at Methodist I will actually be getting PAID for it!
