If we're all updating...then I suppose I'm down. Here goes.

I fucking hate my job.

We're all totally surprised, right? Seriously people, can we just pretend that my existence is not as horrifyingly predictable as it appears?

I have twice as many patients as I was promised, and it makes me feel sick to my stomach to know that patients are not getting good care on my shift. The ones who are hurt the most are those least able to protect themselves, the ones who are too out of it to put on their call lights and demand my scanty attention. I spend 9 hours running back and forth answering lights and trying to resolve issues and find missing items and chart, and at the end of the night I realize that one or two people on the hall have had about 15 seconds of my attention all night.

One of my coworkers pulled something on Tuesday that was, as far as I understand it, completely hostile. Now I'm considering the possibility that there may be some particularly hard and nasty element at work among the nursing staff at Holgate, something that resembles mismanagement but may really just be meanness, and I am investigating another job. On Monday I am going to orientation at the second job that I was offered, the one right down the street from my house. I shall check out the lay of the land, see if people seem any nicer and more organized. It's only an on-call position, but if the environment is better then it'll be worth it.

I won't have a regular paycheck, but I might not end 9 hours of chaos wanting to die. I guess I'm holding out hope that part of my troubles at Holgate have to do with disorganization and attitudes among the staff (I've heard as much from people there).

I told my dad about the too many patients, too serious problems, not enough time to do anything right...and he said, "welcome to nursing."

So, um, yeah. HOW'S ABOUT THAT GRE!? It's not too late for me, right? Somebody tell me it's not too late to decide to become a criminologist!

In better news, we had a fantastic guest speaker in my European Union class today. He was an Austrian ambassador in town for the weekend (apparently it's Austria-US friendship day or something tomorrow...so go hug a vaguely German-sounding person), and I think I loved him a little. European Union politics and history, even the technical details that everyone else seems to find so tedious, absolutely fascinate me. That shit is hella complicated. Are you guys up to speed on the Cypress Debacle?

OH MY GOD.

That Cypress. Bitch so crazy!