the final frontier

This is it. It has come upon me. My final year as an undergrad. It has been a long and hard summer, in fact I did not stop for a minute, what with working in mental health and casualty and in an old age home and juggling my thesis in the midst of it all, I hardly had a minute to myself. However I have no regrets. When I am not busy I get bored. So one thing is for certain, I was never EVER bored.

I have just had my first day back, and even though I only hung around for three hours I was exhausted. There was so much to take in. I felt bombarded with information regarding my thesis. The crux of it all was that most of it has to be ready by the 10th of October. We were told all this yesterday, 3rd of October. Now I had nothing to worry about because I am a nerd and I got everything ready beforehand. However I could not say the same for my colleagues.

When the news was broken to us, it was bedlam. Girls were getting hysterical, faces turned pale. The lecturer in charge did not know how to cope so she basically just ploughed through the madness, in regular form.

Yes, I was back at nursing school and of course, nothing had changed. The familiarity of it all, the amount of confusion and none of us knowing what is going to happen next. But hey, its home.

I hooked up with my regular posse of friends before we got into the lecture hall. It was hugs and kisses all around, we had not seen each other in ages. The more spirited one of the group confided in me:

“This year I’m really going to study. I’m going to be a nerd.”
I just gave her a look. “You say that every year.”
“Yeah, I know,” she replied, “but this year I really mean it.”

You say that every year too, I thought to myself but thought it wiser not to put down anyone’s morale so early in the game. Having a good group of friends by your side always improves any bleak situation and the more idiosyncratic they are, the more you can realize that at the end of the day, it really is all just a game and that nobody is some study or work machine. It pays to keep everything in perspective and not to get carried away with the hype and the fuss that will surround me 75% of the time.

Obviously, along with the friends in my course, there are also the assholes one has to deal with, the know-it-alls, the Florence Nightingale reincarnates or so they believe. The ones who feel they have nothing else to learn. God, they irritate the living crap out of me. But part of being a nurse is acceptance of others and learning how to deal with those who get on your tits. And believe you me, there are so many of those that they could practically crush one’s sternum.

However, there are only a few months left and then its all done, all over. But I know I won’t miss it. The time has come to move on to bigger and better. I simply hope I get there.