Hangnails and Handrails

Do you know that  feeling that you get when you're walking up a flight of stairs that doesn't have any handrails? You feel shaky and uncertain, but you keep on going because you know that you have to get to the top of the steps. You push through because you haven't got a choice, but you keep on wishing that you just had a handrail to guide you and reassure you.

That's how I feel about my life. I wish that I had a handrail.

My classes today have been incredibly discouraging. My first class, Nursing Concepts, seems like it's going to be crazy difficult. My second class of the day, the lab for Basic Skills in Nursing, was difficult and long. We practiced some basic skills, but I was freaking out a little bit. The whole time that we worked with the mannequins, I could only think about how much I completely hated it. I'm definitely not sure that this is the right career for me any more. In fact, I'd say I'm even more discouraged than I was before.

The only class that I found myself truly enjoying today was pathophysiology. I feel like that will actually be a very fun class. Dr. Boudrie seems very nice and very interesting. I just wish that I was as confident and sure about the rest of my classes as I am about this one. I'm starting to really think that nursing is not for me. I'll hang on through the rest of this semester just to be sure, but I'm not really feeling it so far. I think I might end up an English major after all.

I'm not usually a quitter, but I'm not really sure that I'm cut out for this. I'm going to work hard like always, and I certainly won't do anything less than my best. We'll see how it goes, I guess. I just think it bears noting that, as of right now, I'm incredibly discouraged.

I also discovered today that washing one's hands repeatedly in a lab about hand-washing is not so fun when you have something like five or six hangnails. Needless to say, today was an FML kind of day. Tomorrow HAS GOT to be better.