My First Obstacle

WARNING: Those of you who don't care to read bitter ranting you might want to avoid the first three paragraphs!!!!!


So, Rhode Island College. . . why did you bother to ask me what my 1st, 2nd and 3rd preferences were for class placement if you were going to give me my 3rd choice anyway? Don't bother asking if you really don't care!!!!

OK, so I am a bit miffed and trying to remind myself how thankful I am for getting into this program, but I am frustrated with my class schedule. 1st degree college students get priority in their class placement (and priority for everything else as well :op) which, in the end, means I get screwed - it's pretty plain and simple, but it makes me want to scream!!!!! 1st degree college students do not have families to keep track of and care for -- their time is much more abundant than mine -- I should get priority! I am the mother, wife, homemaker and student afterall! My advisor has been of no help either and basically just gave me a "deal with it" answer. GAH!

As it stands now I am in class on Monday and Wednesday from 9:30 - 10:50 learning all about Foundations of Therapeutic Interventions -- oooh, aaaah. . . Then Fridays I am at school from 11:00 am until 1:50 submerged in the world of Professional Nursing I -- boo, hiss. . . this is the class time that really doesn't work for me!!!!! If I am honest, the problem is probably more of a preference issue -- who wants to sit in a lecture hall for THREE hours on a Friday??? ICK! But the stressful part is that Aiden gets out of school at 2:00 and if I am getting out of school at 2:00 in Providence how am I supposed to pick him up at the same time??? Therefore, I need someone to pick him up at 2:00 and bring him home until I get home at 2:30ish. Sounds easy, but it is hard to find someone to watch a child for such a teeny snippet of time!

OK, so no one said that nursing school was going to be easy. I hope that maybe it can be a teeny bit of fun, but I knew from the start that it was going to be a struggle. This is my first obstacle. This summer I did a race in Massachusetts called "The Spartan". From the name, I am sure you can surmise that it was very "warrior-like". The race was 5K (which for those of you who are unable to convert metric distances -- it was 3.2 miles). Sounds easy enough, right? Well imagine running those 3.2 miles up and down hills that are the equivalent of black diamond ski slopes only a lot rockier, woodier and sometimes muddier. Now throw in some obstacles like climbing under barbed wire, trudging through knee deep mud, scaling 8 foot walls, traversing 12 foot long walls holding onto 4 X 4 inch wooden hand holds, jumping through fire. . . I think you get the picture. Anyway, as an athlete, when I learned about the content of the race I really focused on those obstacles --- mud, barbed wired, big walls, FIRE. . . In the end the obstacles really weren't the hard part -- in fact they were the easy part, and provided a break from running up endless mountains! This is strange, because in life, we consider our journey to be impeded by obstacles -- we go along (running, walking, sometimes crawling) until we reach an obstacle, then we have to stop and contemplate the best way to tackle the obstacle so that we can continue on our route. During the Spartan Race the obstacles proved to be times of rest allowing me to refocus on the finish line. What does that mean? Perhaps the Spartan Race can teach us something about life? What if the obstacles are what really keep us on course by giving us time to refocus on the finish line?

As I stated from the beginning, this blog is really more for me than for anyone else -- If you happen to be someone who enjoys it then that is just an added bonus for me! In typing this post, which started off as a bitter rant, I have now brought myself to a different state of mind. Instead of focusing on this obstacle of being enrolled in a section time that doesn't thrill me, I have now realized that this obstacle exists to very simply help me refocus on the finish line. Fourteen weeks of a class that meets at an icky time is just a blink in my nursing career. God will send me someone to pick up Aiden from school on Fridays. In the end it will all work out.

I will leave you with one last point to ponder. . . During the Spartan Race my dear friend, Nicole, and I encountered a yellow jacket hive while knee deep in mud. The bees began stinging us in their fury and it was nearly impossible to get away due to being sunk in knee deep mud. In addition, about 50 yards from the finish line I turned my already bad ankle in a divet in the ground which forced me to limp to the finish line. Whomever can give me an insightful reason for the bee stings and the ankle twisting will win my undying praise. . . :) Despite these injuries I perservered and finished the race, crossing it off my bucket list.

WORDS OF WISDOM FOR TODAY: Don't let obstacles impede your journey, use them to help you refocus on the finish line.