The Countdown Begins To our Trial Move-in!

It's official. Only 20 days left before I fly to Vancouver and Brian and I embark on our six week trial move-in.

To be perfectly honest, it shouldn't even be counted as a full six weeks since my mother will be out with us for one week and Jennie and Dan will be joining us for a week as well in addition to our time spent with Brian's family at Tie Lake. But we'll take whatever we can get.

I call it our "trial move-in" not because it will ultimately determine any sort of decision but because it will be the longest duration that we will have actually physically spent with each other and it will be a tentative indicator of how life really is with each other outside of the vacation times and Skype sessions.

I know that this may be shocking for most especially since Brian and I are already engaged and have committed the rest of our lives to each other but I've come to accept that life works in mysterious and unconventional ways. You may label us as being naive love-struck kids that are just trying to play house but I can't change the fact that Brian and I are in two different countries. Um yeah. It sucks that the man I love is a million miles away. It sucks that I only see him every other month. It sucks having to explain to people that I'm transcontinentally engaged. And it sucks when I get the raised eyebrows when I explain that I'm moving out there to marry him and be with him after approximately 2 years of dating (Most of which was over skype sessions). But I've learned to accept that people are going to have opinions no matter what the circumstances are. It's not my duty to convince people that yes, I actually have a stable committed relationship with a Canadian on the other side of the country. I love Brian and I'm following my heart. So go ahead and label me under the applicable "reckless young love" categories. We all got one life to live folks and I'm gonna live mine to the fullest, including chasing my hot studly stud of a man to the other side of continent! :)

I'm not saying that we have the perfect relationship; we have the same disagreements that every other couple has and I know that when I finally move out there in approximately nine months (Eeek!) I can expect that there are going to be lots of adjustments and just having to deal with the general pains and labors of getting used to being around someone so much. For myself, I am going to keep an open mind, maintain as much positivity as possible, and most importantly, remember how amazing my fiance is and how lucky of a girl I am to have someone like him in my life. It's all about the love people, all about the love.

I'm making it sound like us moving in together will be nothing but a period of turbulence and disagreements but really, who knows? It might be the greatest thing to have ever happened to me, especially considering the fact that Brian cooks and cleans so well (Tee hee!). I'd have clean clothes and delicious home-cooked meals on the regular. Considering the facts, I might turn out to be one happy geisha.


Okay so here's what the monthly sched looks like so far: It's another busy one!

- This weekend: It's "Our Country Kicked Your King's Ass" weekend here in the states so I'll be attending BBQs left and right! Bring on the grilled hotdogs, potato sack races, and horseshoe tosses!
- Next week: Another round of clinicals, school stuff and then off to a Girls' Weekend at the beach! My bridesmaid Jenn has a beachhouse down near Rehoboth and there will be approximately.... 7 of us? Looking forward to lots of laughter and all-night gossip seshes! It'll be our last summer hurrah before I ship out! :(
- The week of the 11th will be slightly stressful considering I'll be studying for final exams and writing papers and packing for six weeks worth. That Friday I'll hopefully be attending my first ever Polo Game! I'm earning my Yuppie Badge! Woo hoo!
- The week of the 18th: Final exam and fly out to be with my love! :)


Much to look forward to! It's gonna be a summer for the books!

Ridic: Christian Louboutin Ballerina Heels

Random find of the day:

Foot crampin' style.

Insane or insanely brilliant?

A History of Violence

Okay so there are a couple of things that I should divulge to my fiance before we tie the big fat knot.

I have a teeny-weeny ragey side.

There are a few things that spark this little ball of rage.

I'm not trying to say that I'm an angry person. I'm actually far from it. I hardly ever get angry. I'm more of a chill, laid-back, don't-sweat-it type of girl, really. But I have unleashed the beast a few times in my life.

I've decided to lay out the top 3 "sure things" that trigger my violent side. The first two have been consistently sources of rage while the last one is more recent and pretty much temporary.


I present to you.......
THE LIST OF "DO NOT FREAKIN' GO THERE, BRO":

NUMBER ONE: FAT ASS FLIES. I'm talking the huge fat ones that can barely fly due to their obese insecty state.

Like seriously. Ew.

Why God, why? Maybe I'm just born with this innate hypersensitivity to these little flying bodies of evil. Everything about them makes me violent: the sound of them flying, the audacity of these little sh*ts to land right on your forehead while you sleep, the way they spit everytime they land, the way they freaking rub their little hands together as if these little bodies are engaged in the innocent act of prayer...

Let me introduce you to what I call "The Solution".

1500 volts of pure fly roasting power.

This is seriously my favorite device in the entire house. Nothing's better than the sweet smell of toasted insects. Don't EFF with this swatter-wielding geisha. Don't. EFF. With. This.


NUMBER TWO: Douchebags that think it's cool to be heartless and cruel. We ain't in high school anymore, turdwads (Bonus term). Example: My friends and I were walking out of the Camden Yards after a baseball game and we had made friends with the group that had been sitting next to us. We had agreed to go out for drinks and were trekking back to the main strip together. A homeless woman was sitting on the side of the street with a little cup full of coins asking all the leaving fans to spare her some change. THE DOUCHEBAG OF THE CENTURY we were walking with ran up to were the woman was sitting and KICKED her change cup and sent it catapulting down the street. Her coins flew every direction and the woman was visibly distraught. I had never witnessed such douchebaggery in my entire life and neither had many others who witnessed this unprovoked and entirely uncalled for behavior and my friends and I quickly helped the woman collect her coins. Some of the witnesses actually began confronting the douchebag and I was ready to give this dude a swift kick to the scrotum. Needless to say, we ditched that group and the incident pretty much ruined my mood for the night. Seriously. I would have had no problem castrating this dude and hanging his testicles up on a pole for birds to eat. Seriously.


NUMBER THREE: A certain someone in my Accelerated Program who I am CONVINCED is a human robot programmed to annoy people with his condescending monotonous voice and his inability to control his gaping mouth syndrome. EVERYTHING that comes out of this lame-o's mouth has to be sarcastic or "witty" at another person's expense. He's a nerd-douchebag combo. I know. They exist. And he's in my tiny 35 person program.

He looks like this all day:



Makes my eye twitch.

Remember this awesome scene from "American Psycho?" Yeah. Exactly. I replay this in my head everytime he opens his gapey little mouth and says something snotty. It really helps.






Andddddd.... I think that's enough rage thought for today. So as long as my baybuh keeps the Off-candle lit and the douchebags away from the tip of my chainsaw, I think we'll have a beautiful, peaceful relationship. :)

Textbook picture of sanity.

What makes you tick?

JOB OPP

I have an interview at the Christiana Hospital in 1.5 hours.

I hope they don't mind me coming in dressed in scrubs. I have to pick up a patient chart in the unit today.

Wish me luck.


***UPDATE***

So the interview went GREAT! The lady who interviewed me was super duper nice and accomodating! I still have some hurdles to get through though. I'm waiting for my placement now and hopefully will have my final interview set up for the next week or so. I really wanna get my big fat foot in the door!

Let's see..... I am about three weeks away from heading over to the west coast to be with the lovah and already my trip is getting pretty booked without me working/volunteering in Vancouver. At this point, I think it's safe to say that I will just be chillin' out, maxin', relaxin' all cool, and..... all shootin' some b-ball outside of the school. Turns out my good friends Jennie and Dan will be joining us for a little mini roadtrip out in the beginning of August which is AWESOME since I have been wanting to go see Seattle and Portlandia for quite some time.

In other coupley news, Brian has been seriously interested in this little number:

Not the most pimpdad place in the world but it's cute and AFFORDABLE. I rikey.

Can't wait to go house huntin'! :)

A Birthday Post for Anneliese

I have mentioned my friend Anneliese in a few of my posts. She is a girl that I have gotten to know very well in the accelerated program and her family has pretty much adopted me into their clan.

It's funny. In the beginning of the semester we had a brief conversation in the hallway as we were waiting for nametags or paperwork and I had decided that I disliked this girl. She said that she was from upstate New York and had studied to go to PA school. I thought she was stuck up and snotty and I did not want anything to do with her. I told my circle of friends that Anneliese was going on our "X-list" and she was permanantly shunned.

In the following winter semester, Annie must have overheard me saying that I really enjoyed playing tennis and that I wished I had a tennis partner to play with on the regular. She said that she was looking for someone to play tennis with as well. I really wanted to tell her to piss off and go find a New Yorker to play with. Then I realized that I'm from New York as well. So I grudgingly obliged whilst secretly being stoked about the idea of playing tennis again. Lo and behold, Annie called me later that week for a tennis sesh and that sparked the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

Annie and her family have been so generous and welcoming and I kid you not, I spend probably 4 days out of the week at Annie's either just hanging out, or eating their delicious meals (They always set an extra "Gina-friendly" plate for me since I'm such a picky eater). When they heard Brian was coming in to town, it was Annie who decided to set up a welcoming dinner and Robert (Annie's cousin) arranged a night of festivities in Brian's honor. They loved him as one of their own and sent him back home with a 4 pack of their finest Massachusettes beer which Brian is now obsessed with.  Annie's clan, without a doubt, is one of the most wonderful people I have ever met and they have already stated how they would like nothing less but to be able to be there for our wedding day. The Provost Clan is coming to Vancouver! :)

This pretty much sums up last night.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANNIE!  WE LOVE YOU!!! :)



Quarter-life Crisis

Yessir.

Cartilage piercing. Hurt like a biznatch.

Next up: tattoo sleeves! :)

Baby Pic War!

Brian the baby vs Gina the baby!

Brian as a tot:



Now Gina as a tot!

Whatchyall think?? Who's the cuter rugrat? It's a tough one, I know. We're pretty stinkin' cute, I gotta say! :)

Random but Awesome

Scary Facebook Friends Profiles Slideshow


Love this! Which am I? :)

WTF Percy!

1. Yes that's Percy from The Green Mile.  He's also been on the show Lost.
2. He just got married this weekend.
3. His wife is 16 years old.
4. That female in this picture is 16 years old!!!

Goooooooddd Morninggggggg Neverlandddddd!

Holy cow, internet world.

It's 9:30 pm and I have just risen from a 4 hour afternoon hibernation sesh. Talk about feeling like you're in the twilight zone.

But in my lazy bear defense, it's not just me. These early morning clinicals are seriously draining even though they really aren't too high stress. My girl Ashley who is in clinicals with me just texted me saying that she fell asleep at the pool. Anneliese who NEVER takes naps took two naps last week. I think all of our bodies are just in shock from waking up at 5AM.

For those unfamiliar with what "clinicals" are, they're semesters of in-hospital training days where you get assigned one or two actual patients on the floor and you are their sole care-provider for the day. Here's a snippet of what my day was like today:

- Haul ass to my unit because I am officially 7 minutes late at 6:37 am.
- Dash in to my patient's room to get her vital signs (Blood pressure, oxygenation levels, pulse, breaths per minute, etc).
- Patient needs more crackers, ginger ale, extra maple syrup
- Chart chart chart.
- Get nurse's report
- Review patient's history, consultations, allergies, etc, etc, etc. Nothing too unusual: history of depression, drinks a pint of alcohol a day, smokes a pack of cigarettes a day, schizophrenia, going through a messy divorce, lawyer found patient sitting in a pile of her own feces and called 911.
- Time to prep medications. My patient has 12.
- Time to give patient her bed bath and change her linens. She is not compliant and puts up a fight. I call for backup.
- My instructor goes in with me and pretty much says, "You're getting a bath whether you want it or not." You'd think the patient would enjoy the bed bath. It's pretty much a free sponge bath. You just have to lay there.
- I have a difficult time bathing this woman. She keeps falling asleep on me and I have to manually turn her 250 pound body. I'm sweating up a storm under my isolation gear and face mask (The patient is under isolation precautions because she has a bacterial infection that spreads rapidly and causes seriously loose stools).
- I change her out of her stool stained gown and realize she has a diaper-rash like irritation all over her lower flank and buttocks. Turns out she has a fungal infection.
- I cream up her affected area with some topical antifungals and change her sheets.
- Chart chart chart.
- Another round of medication administration
- Lunch time!
- After lunch, things aren't as busy and the day is pretty much over. I empty the patient's foley catheter, empty her nephrostomy bag (she had a kidney obstruction) and clear her IV lines.
- The patient complained of her pain being a 6 on a scale of 1-10 and so I gave her some percocets and it knocks her right out.
- I give my report to the nurse who is taking over after me.
- End of the day meeting with my clinical group and instructor to recap on how our shifts went, turn in our assignments.
- FREEDOM!!!

Never a dull moment in nursing. And tomorrow I get to do it all over again. Lucky for me, my weekends start on Thursdays so I'll be back to summertime shenanigans after tomorrow!

Summer Daysss....

I am a slacker.

I had an exam today and I didn't watch a single lecture for it. Go me. I'm going for the biggest slacker of the year award. I figure, it's summer, I'm tired of studying, and I just wanna relaxxxxxx...

Well it turns out I didn't totally bomb the exam (I got a B) and I haven't missed a single class yet. So I still have some room for more slackerish behavior. Woohoo! Clinicals have been a pain to get up early for but so far they have been low stress. I'm tan, lazy, and chillin'. A great place to be!

Recap of the week:

With the lovely Ava at the pool!

Stunner smile

Too presh.

Pool days with the gals.

Gettin' color.

BBQ number 343.

Miss Susan gettin' groovy.

Fah-hoood.

5'8

Sarah wins by a hair.

Brooklyn knows how to take pic.

Big news. The mumsie is officially booked for her first visit to meet the in-laws. Eek! I'm not too worried about it because I'm sure they'll all get along just fine. I'm pretty stoked to show her around though. I think she will really like Vancouver and what the city has to offer. While she's in town, I'm going to go ahead and book our top 3 or 4 venues options and see what she thinks of each of them. It'd be nice to get some Chung input.

I'm still trying to workout the details of my duration out there but so far my plans are minimal. Momma Chung will be with me the first week, Brian and I are planning to spend a week at Tie Lake sometime in August, and there's one week where I'll have to study for my online course final exam. The day before I leave, the mud run is scheduled to take place and Brian's friend Sean has also invited us to a beer fest in Oregon for a weekend in July. That still leaves about 2 weeks of nothingness.... I was thinking about seeing more venues during this time and just veggin' out. NIIIIICE.


Anyways folks, I'm off to pick up my patient assignments at the hospital. Hopefully my patient won't die on me tomorrow. :)