I think the end has come for my blog.


Besides for the obvious reason-I don't blog anymore-if I did continue blogging I'd probably have to change my name from FCG to FGG.

I'm finally graduating :)

It's been a long road and I've come a long way from my first day when I didn't even know the difference between sodium chloride and normal saline. Along the way I've learned about more diseases than I knew my brain could hold, given dozens of injections, administered medications, inserted foleys, cleaned gangrenous diabetic foot wounds, watched a c-section, a PICC line insertion, a cardiac catheterization, and laparoscopic cystectomy, did a shift in the NICU, the ER, OR, cardiac unit, pediatrics floor. I've spent countless hours reading, studying, written papers and essays on everything from nursing management to cultural awareness. I've ingested a lifetime's supply of caffeine, made a dozen friendships along the way, and now it's finally drawing to a close.

Of course I'll be going on to take the NCLEX exam and then go for my BSN and then hopefully a masters, but for now I've come to the end of an era. For those of you who have stuck by my side with your endless support,I thank you, and know that I would not have made it without your encouraging words. I look forward to the next stage in my career.


FCG

While every summer there are kids who come very often, there's always that one kid who manages to come up with the stupidest excuses. This summer that kid is a boy going into sixth grade. He once got a bee sting on his lip which blew up so now he thinks he may be allergic to bee stings. So every time he thinks he may have gotten stung he comes rushing into the office so we can tell him that he's fine. The latest was when he was convinced he'd gotten stung on the back of his neck when it was just his tag rubbing against his neck. But the latest incident takes the cake. There was a bubble machine in camp one day last week. It was a big inflated pool that had a machine blowing large quantities if bubbles out for the kids to jump in. In the middle of this activity the boy came in

"My friend pushed me down and forced me to swallow two bubbles and I saw on the side if the pool it says that you shouldn't eat the stuff and if you do you should seek medical attention immediately so I'm here"

We gave him a cup of water and sent him back.

Little kids have a habit of volunteering way too much information. Not in a gross-I-didn't-need-to-know-that-kind of way, but in a way that makes you want to interrupt their story to tell them to get to the point already.

A seven year old was brought to the infirmary with a sting. In order to make sure the kid wasn't reacting to the sting, I asked him to tell me how he got the sting. "so I s standing in the pool area next to Pool One. No actually it was Pool Two. I was really closer to Pool One but I was walking to Pool Two to go swimming. Not the really shallow pool. That's Pool Three. And i was facing the green tent. I was looking at the purple sign hanging up....."

So cute.

Sometimes it's less than cute.

There's a junior counselor who talks like that too. When he brought a camper in who'd hurt his shoulder it took a full two minutes for him to get to the part about the shoulder. "he had the ball and he was trying to dunk so he jumped up with his arms outstretched like this, (at this point the jc demonstrated for me) and when he came down his foot was like this, (another demonstration) and then he landed on his shoulder"

A simple "he fell on his shoulder" would have sufficed

Then there was the camper who simply did not stop talking. To be honest, I'm not sure why he was even brought in in the first place. He was complaining that it had been very hot in his apartment that morning. But the boys' bunkhouses are air-conditioned. In any event,he sat here for a bit to cool off and then waited for his counselor to come pick him up. Since it was the beginning of the day it took awhile for the division head to send someone to come collect him. So he sat for fifteen minutes talking non-stop. About absolutely everything and nothing at all. About his breakfast that morning and the air conditioner in his apartment and his recent wii score and I'm not sure what else because I sort of tuned him out at that point. Thankfully he left before he drove us all mad.


Sent from my iPad

Working in a nurse's office means hoping for a boring summer. We're the only part of the camp that hopes that we sit around all day with nothing to do.

Today was definitely not that kind of day.

One of the camp buses had a little fender-bender on its way to camp this morning. Thankfully everyone was OK, but as per the camp's policy we had to check all the kids to make sure there weren't any problems. So the entire group piled into the little nurse's office. It had been a mini bus and a few kids were not coming to camp so there were only about thirteen kids and three staff members. We gave them each a mini checkup and handed out bags of chips and powerade to the kids to keep them quiet while the nurse called their parents. It's kind of difficult to keep thirteen kids (mostly boys) quiet when they're hyped up about "getting into an accident" of course The Nit Lady was here too, huddled over the phone and glaring at the kids. Add that to a camper who split his finger open on a metal gate, and a pair of siblings with matching nosebleeds, and it was total chaos. With the help of two counselors and a division head who can whistle REALLY loudly we managed to call all the parents, staunch the flowing of blood, and bandage up the bleeding finger so he could get into his moms car to go to the doctor without staining her seats.

And that was only in the first hour of camp. The office door has been revolving non-stop all day. But thankfully nothing too serious.

Nothing some powerade, a handful of pretzels and some TLC can't fix

I have to issue a warning that this post is not for those readers who are squeamish or faint-hearted (*cough* FBB)

There's a woman who works in the camp. Well I'm sure she has a name but in camp she's referred to as The Nit Lady. She checks the heads of all campers entering camp. Almost every week she finds a "case" as she likes to call them. When that happens she brings the child to the nurse's office and plunks them down in the back of the office. I wish she would give them something to cover their heads. The children are often young and don't understand that if they actually have lice, they can jump from one head to another. Call me irrational but I'm terrified of getting lice or nits. She then proceeds to tie up the phone line for twenty minutes while she chats with the parent and explains the while life and birth cycle of her little friends. She even pulls them out and tapes them to a piece of paper to send them home with the camper. I'm not kidding. It's almost like she actually likes these pests. When we see her trudging up the hill with a camper in tow we send a message to the main office that we need to take any incoming calls at the main office because she's going to be on the phone for awhile.

Shudder.

Blogging regularly was on my list of things to do this summer. Unfortunately our laptop screen is currently out of commission because mr. Fcg stepped on it. Which is a story in of itself. I was searching for an app that would allow me to blog from my iPad. Thanks to blobby I found one.

So I'm back in the same day camp I worked at last summer. A lot of the staff are back as well. It was funny to see the counselors and jc's, some have gotten taller, some lost weight, some put on weight. When the campers need over the counter medication we need to get a prescription from the physician. When a staff needs medication, like Tylenol or Advil we need to obtain parental consent if they are under sixteen. The girls' staff members usually whip out their cellphones and call they're moms who are more than happy to give them permission to take the medication. Anything to prevent their daughters from coming home grumpy. But when the boys' staff comes in for advil and I tell them I need to talk to their moms, all of a sudden they don't have such a bad headache. I feel like telling them not to be so macho and just call their moms. But I guess to a fifteen-year-old boy the worst thing is admitting you still need Mommy. One of the many differences between guys and girls.

being a mother means learning the true meaning of sleep deprivation

being a mother means making no plans for the mornings because i never know how the nights are going to go

being a mother means I've traded in my purse for a diaper bag

being a mother means getting used to the smell of spit up on my clothes

being a mother means planning my day in two and a half hour increments

being a mother means learning how to multitask, and do things with a baby over my shoulder

being a mother means falling hopelessly in love with a twenty inch, nine pound boy

being a mother is exhausting, frustrating, demanding, thrilling, exhilarating, and I'm loving every second of it

i always loved words. they helped me daydream, express my feelings, and communicate with others.

but there are no words to describe the feeling i had when i held my son for the first time yesterday :)

i sort of assumed pesach at my in laws wouldn't be that different than succos at their house. but that was before we decided to go for the first days.

of all the Jewish holidays, pesach is the biggest when it comes to family traditions. and my family is full of them. from the tunes, to the songs, to the food, and just about everything in between, i always knew my family did it differently. my mother makes food from scratch, like mayonnaise, strawberry jam, orange juice, chocolate syrup, tomato sauce...it might taste a little different, but once you get used to it, it's very earthy and wholesome. the seder might go until 2 am because my family has songs for everything, and there are some divrei torah that are said every year, even though we all know them by heart already.

on the flip side, my mother in law buys pesach processed things, so there was ketchup and soda, potato chips taffies. and my father in law is a rabbi so he has to "work" the day after the seder, so the seder is slightly shorter (by about two hours) the tunes they sing are different, and even the way my husband's family reads the haggada is different from what i was used to.

i missed my mother's traditional chocolate mousse and cucumber salad, but my mother in law has her dishes that she makes every pesach that my husband and his siblings look forward to.

it wasn't difficult to be with my "other family", it was just different. and I'm looking forward to spending the second half of yom tov with my side.

people love to complain about change.

Facebook obviously has a lot of issues because they're changing the layout every five months, and they sneak in subtle changes in between. for the first two weeks after the changes have been made, everyone groans and talks about how they want the "old layout back" but they fail to remember that they complained just as much when the old layout was the new one.

so i usually wait to get accustomed to changes before I'm so quick to complain. that's why I've waited since the summer to comment on the changes in the Starbucks i often frequent. they changed the whole look of the place, down to the tables and chairs. there is now a three foot table which is great for accommodating large books plus a laptop and notes. but the chairs are really, REALLY uncomfortable. they're rounded wooden chairs with a little lip around the edge which makes it uncomfortable to sit for more than ten minutes. there used to be two big green poufy chairs at the window, which were almost never unoccupied. they got rid of those chairs too, and now there are four brown leather chairs, which aren't nearly as comfortable. at least they've made the music a little quieter. some of the other changes are more subtle; they now keep the sleeves at the counter and you can opt not to take one, the counter with the sugar, straws, milk, and napkins are closer to the door (which makes sense)

i say bring the old chairs back. and get rid of the new barristas. they make a racket, and are always laughing hysterically, at a decibel level which is too loud to be polite for public. and it's not because I'm getting old. it's because they're loud.

as a little kid i loved getting the mail. there's a satisfaction in opening the mailbox to see it stuffed with envelopes. and on occasion there was actually an envelope with my name on it.

these days, getting the mail is a lot less exciting. we don't get that much mail-we pay our bills and do banking online. most of our mail is the rent stub or a wedding invitation, and the monthly magazines that we get. but yesterday i got an envelope with my name on it that i was not excited to see at all.

it was from the Jury Department. i know, it's all part of being an adult and good citizen, bla bla bla. to me it means yet another hassle to deal with. at least I'm not missing work, and i don't have kids so i don't need to find arrangements for that. but it also means that i don't really have a plausible excuse for missing it. it's in the beginning of April, so i can't use pesach as an excuse, and it's on a Monday so i might not even be able to use school to get out of it. it's probably worth it to do it now and then not have to worry about it for awhile.

still, I'm not looking forward to it.

life is a series of ups and downs. sometimes bad things happen that set you back, and leave you stunned for a bit, and sometimes good things happen that leave you with a good feeling for a bit. recently we've had a high point in my family, which left many of our family members with the good feeling.

my siblings and i made a surprise party for my parent's anniversary.

they had a milestone this year, and as their children, we felt it appropriate to celebrate with more than just the usual card/gift. my mother is not really one for surprises, but my dad loves them. and what better way to show the two people in your life that have done the most for you than by throwing them a party?

we started planning months ago, from the food to the decorations. we split up the chores and the phone calls, and got to work. brother1 is away in school, sister2 has a busy senior year schedule, and brother2 is at school till late at night, but they all pitched in with their opinions and help whenever possible.

we were sure my parents (especially my mother) suspected something was up when brother1 called my mom on Thursday to tell her he was coming home for shabbos because he "needed a break", or when i called to invite them for melava malka, but my mother's face when she walked in the door proved that we had successfully pulled off the party.

the aunts and uncles and grandparents helped with the food preparation, and my siblings decorated my apartment with lots of signs and appropriate colors for the milestone. Mr. FCG did his part by shlepping soda and chairs up the stairs and taking the decorations off the ceiling the next morning. who needs a step stool when your husband is over 6 feet tall?

the food was great, nobody spilled on the couch, the speech was nice, and my parents loved the party. the Far Away Aunt and Uncle got to join in the celebration with the help of Skype, and we all went to bed exhausted but happy.

happy anniversary! we hope to celebrate many more with you!

there are two kinds of snow days

the kind i had last week was the productive kind. i was up relatively early, and since i had a lot of time and not that much to do (beginning of the semester is usually pretty quiet) i cleaned the entire apartment from top to bottom; swept, dusted, mopped, vacuumed, washed anything that wasn't sparkling, refolded the linen, cleaned out the fridge, and rearranged the cabinets. at the end of the day i felt very accomplished, but could not move. i literally collapsed on the couch.

this week i had another snow day. i stayed in bed till much later and didn't do much besides for some laundry. sister2 came over and we baked-or more accurately, i baked and she sat and chatted with me while i measured and poured. unfortunately the cookies came out nasty and I'd used up some of my baking supplies so i couldn't try another recipe. we ate and made smoothies and looked at stupid videos on YouTube. at the end of the day i was also exhausted (doing nothing is very tiring!) but instead of a clean apartment i had counters full of dirty dishes and laundry that needed to be folded lying on my bed. definitely not the most productive of days.

but now that I've had both, I'm ready to be finished with snow days for the rest of the semester. as is everyone else in New York. all anyone's been tweeting, blogging, or facebooking about has been the snow. and football. and foot fetishes. thankfully that's going to be over after Sunday.

there's a total art to packing. the trick is to start at a timely manner so you're not running around last minute trying to shove everything into a suitcase all willy nilly. but if you start too early then you can't pack half of your stuff because it's either yet to be cleaned or used. i usually start making a list mentally about a week in advance, and then sit down to actually write it about three days later. since our flight is tomorrow night, i started taking out the stuff i needed already on Friday when i packed to go away for shabbos, but that was really so i felt like i was getting ready. this morning i went over my list one last time and then took everything out and packed it all. and it looks like i won't even need to sit on my suitcase to close it. then again, i haven't yet packed all the things I'm taking for other people, like the four pounds of jelly beans for my brother in law, or the Utz potato chips for my friend's brother in yeshiva. it looks like Mr. FCG might actually be packing more than me :)

so I've cleaned out my fridge, made sure i don't have anything due at the library, checked my passport, gotten instructions from my grandparents (we're staying at their apartment) and brushed up on my Hebrew. and we're off to Israel! going as a married person will probably be a wholly different experience than going as a seminary girl or on a family vacation with my siblings

why i love facebook

there comes a time when you have to grow up and step out from under your parents wings. I'm not talking about getting married and moving out. that i mastered pretty well. I'm talking about paying your own phone bill.

like most families, we had a family plan from Verizon, so it paid for me to stay on my parents plan, because it was cheaper than any single line plan i could find. but when sister2 needed a phone, someone had to get booted off the plan. so i was left to searching for a phone plan that would give me what i wanted without being too expensive.

i looked at Verizon, Spring, AT&T, Boost Mobile, Orange, and virtually every other phone company I'd heard of. but the plans were either very limited, way too expensive, or didn't have good service where i live.

so i networked. i updated my Facebook status to express my desire to join someone else's family plan. within ten minutes my friend commented on my status that she had an extra line that wasn't being used and was more than happy to add me to her plan. that was Sunday night. by Monday evening i was on a new plan, and sister2 could start shopping for a new phone.

even if I'd emailed everyone i knew, i don't think i would have gotten such quick results.

of course the three and a half hours i spent on the phone with a very inept woman named Julie who kept hanging up on me and didn't understand what i was trying to tell her is another story...