Lone Wolf + Teamwork = Disaster?

For most people, our first involvement in peer group activities occurs in preschool or kindergarten. We learn how to work together to clean up the classroom or we sing a song about the months of the year as a group. Maybe we even participate in junior versions of sports where teams are formed or work on mini-projects with each other. From early on, we’re encouraged by society to be able to “play nice” with each other.

And it makes sense, really. Groups frequently get more done than individuals can. Groups are more efficient, oftentimes. They can provide safety and security. We can sometimes learn more about ourselves by looking at the groups we associate ourselves with.

That said, much like definitions, groups can also be confining. If you don’t want to go with the majority, it can lead to strife or even chaos. You can become the outcast, black sheep, or lone wolf of the group. Or, conversely, you might realistically be able to accomplish more as an individual, because you’re not trying to deal with a committee or democracy.

Now, in some instances we – as people – may have the ability to choose who we want to work with or what group we’re a part of. But by and large, I’ve found that the groups we’re in tend to be determined by default characteristics or happenstance, rather than deliberate action or inaction. Your family, for instance. Or your coworkers. Or the people of the religion you were born to. You may have minimal things in common, but you share the sense of belonging to a certain mini-culture. And it does have an effect on most people.

This is something that’s on my mind, because this is the second week of my third quarter in nursing school. And the thing that I was informed of – or warned of, you could say – during the nursing orientation session way back in April  has come to pass.

“You will have to collaborate. Nursing is not a one-woman or a one-man show. It’s a circus in which even the bit-players do have their importance.” The dean of nursing said that and I winced on the inside, because even in kindergarten, I would have preferred to spend two hours picking up blocks and books and crayons by myself, rather than spend fifteen minutes doing it with a group. Because (horror of horrors) what if one of the other kids didn’t realize that all the red crayons should go together? What if they tried to but the picture books with the story-time books? What if they didn’t stack the blocks in the box so that the lid would go on right? My five-year-old heart couldn’t handle the stress.

Eventually – after my second or third time out for disrupting the “tidy time” by throwing tantrums over these sorts of things – I realized that I would not always be able to convince the other five-year-old kids to clean up properly. Sometimes they wouldn’t put the red crayons with the red crayons, no matter how much more sense it made. It took me even longer – maybe the second or third grade – to realize that it wasn’t because they didn’t know any better . . . they just didn’t care about the same things I did. Once in a while, sure, I’d find another odd-ball kid who realized that it made sense to be organized and neat, but by and large the other kids just didn’t give a damn about making sure the vocab cards got sorted alphabetically.

I’d hoped that things would change as I got older. I imagined that groups were something that would settle down as we all got older. I was very wrong about that, of course.

When I entered high-school after being home-schooled for years, I quickly came to dread group projects. Inevitably, there was someone (or multiple someones) who didn’t care about the group, who didn’t want to work together, or who simply didn’t understand what we were meant to do and instead just sat there and doodled. I couldn’t stand the thought of getting bad grades and I still can’t. Part of my submissive nature makes me want to please authority figures and teachers definitively fall into that category for me. I want to get good grades, because it makes people happy.

Well, not my peers so much, but other people.

And a big thing about me is that I’ve never really cared for the majority of my peers.

Which is why, when two classes this week forced me into a group with others, I instantly started trying to think of an out. It was a reflexive thing. I’m going to end up paying $40,000 over the course of eighteen months or so to get my associates in nursing from this school. I decided on that, because it’s the best school in my area for this thing. But I don’t want to waste a single instant in my classes, because I’m paying an enormous amount of money (for me anyway), to be in them.

In Health Assessment – which is a class with an accompanying lab, where we learn some “basics” of the nursing process – I am going to be working with two other girls on a project that’s due in week 9. It’s a fifteen minute Power Point presentation on a specific culture and how their believes may be influential within the health care setting. We ended up grouping together, because we sit at the same table and it was simple. I’m the oldest of the three of us, even though I’m only twenty-four. I’m also the only one without any experience in the medical field. 21 is an LPN in a pediatric unit and 22 is a med-tech in an out-patient cardiology office. That worries me, somewhat.

I am normally the quiet one, the follower, the one that goes with the flow.

I can’t be that in this group. We’d never get anything done.

I had to prompt them to select a culture. And then had to make them specify, because “Native American culture” is a very broad thing. After some more prodding, we ended up with “Cherokee culture,” because all three of us have Cherokee blood. We’ll see how they do with the sections they’re supposed to be working on.

In Microbiology – which also has both a lecture and a lab component – we work in groups of four. Myself and another member of my group (we’ll call her Fish) were together last semester in A&P II and I thought of her as something of a go-getter in that class, but I already know that won’t be the case this time. The first thing she said was, “I don’t care about all these little microbes. It’s like Chinese to me.I don’t understand any of this.” Another woman in our group agreed wholeheartedly and spent the instruction’s introductory lecture eye-rolling and giggling. Then, the fourth member of our group came in, ten minutes late . . . and it was 21, from my other group.

After the introductory lecture and the instructions on the board for that lesson had been gone over, the instructor told us to get to it. We were meant to make a wet mount slide using L. acidophilus and a drop of water, to substitute for the fresh yogurt sample we were meant to compare to the prepared yogurt sample, because we didn’t actually have fresh yogurt. It wasn’t going to be a difficult thing – there was a capsule of L. acidophilus in our lab box in the center of the table and slides and slipcovers on the counter.

“So, what are we supposed to do?” – Fish

“I don’t know. Look at the fresh yogurt?” – 21

“Well, where is it? I don’t see any yogurt. . . ” The Eye-Roller

I looked from one of them to another, hoping they really hadn’t been that oblivious.

“Hang on, I’ll ask, ” 21 stood up and summoned the instructor over as I’m going, “Guys, there’s no fresh yogurt. We make the substitute with the L. aciophilus powder.”

The instructor comes over. My lab partners explain that there’s no yogurt. The lab instructor waits for the punchline. Asks them, “Did you read the board?”

They say, yeah. But then they say it doesn’t say anything about the yogurt.

But it does. On the second bullet point.

We made it through the lab, but just barely. And by the end of it, they were all saying, “Well it’s not like we need to pass with more than a D in this class. And it’s all easy.”

Yeah. Okay. Whatever you say.

*facepalm*

Third Quarter Jitters

In the United States, there’s arguably always been a “pioneer” mentality. For all that America is a melting pot of people from different cultures, we’re known collectively as individuals who value foresight, innovation, and the willingness to take a risk . . . or several. Personally, I’ve always been more of a reflector and – while I do appreciate innovation- I tend to take comfort in the familiar.

I’ve never been someone who could be accused of being an adrenaline junkie and “play it safe,” could be my catch phrase. The things I enjoy that some people may consider unnecessarily risky – like riding motorcycles in my “vanilla” life, or breath play in my kinky life – are things that I don’t actually view as dangerous.

I’ve been in only one motorcycle accident, but three car wrecks.

And I’ve never felt my life was at stake during breath play.

Realistically, I can count the number of risks I’ve taken on one hand. And I’m not talking about small scale stuff like eating raw cookie dough or getting an asymmetrical hair cut. I’m talking about the big, life-changing stuff. The stuff that you can’t sleep on, because the opportunity won’t be around come sunrise. The stuff that’s now or never.

I consider one of those risks my decision to go into school for nursing. For someone else, that type of decision might not have been a big deal, or they might have felt that they had plenty of time to consider the option. Hell, they might’ve not even lost any sleep over it.

For me, it was like deciding to jump out of a tree without knowing whether or not I’d fall or fly. I threw myself out into open space and couldn’t consider the possibility that I might not succeed, because the other alternative was splat.

Even now, two quarters (or six months) into school, I still feel like I might just be floating on a thermal. I haven’t looked down for fear of the height I’m at. All I can do is keep my eyes closed and hope that my flailing is actually doing something. I know I’ll have to come back to Earth eventually, but the question of whether or not it’s a graceful landing or one that’s disastrous is yet to be determined. I don’t even have a parachute, or plan b.

So far, I’ve taken some standard prerequisite courses and some career specifics courses. I’ve passed Structure and Function, Human Growth and Development, Dimensions of Nursing Practice,  Anatomy I and II (and the accompanying labs), Algebra, and English. I haven’t gotten anything lower than a B, overall. But I’m still finding myself nervous about this next quarter. And I’m not quite sure why.

This quarter, I’m scheduled to take Conflict Resolution, Introduction to Microbiology (and the lab), Nutritional Principles in Nursing, and Allied Health (and the lab). It’s a total of 13 credit hours – plus the Conflict Resolution course, which is competency based and technically counts as an additional 4 credits. My scrubs came in the mail on Friday and so did my brand new “nursing” shoes. (Sketchers: Slip-Resistant Relaxed Fit women’s shoes in white – AKA: The Most Expensive Shoes I’ve Ever Bought.)

I think the fact that this is the first quarter I’ll have to wear my scrubs is making this “real” to me. Prior to this – despite having taken Dimensions of Nursing Practice – it just felt like school. It didn’t feel directionless necessarily, but it didn’t feel like the end goal of becoming a nurse was something tangible. Now it is and that’s a little terrifying.

Also, in that same fashion, this is the first quarter in which I will have classes at the campus, beyond just my labs for anatomy. I’m not sure why, but having a lab at the campus feels different than having an actual class there. Possibly, that’s because the labs weren’t overseen by an actual teacher, in the stricter sense of the word. They were merely supervised by someone who was there largely just to prevent us from damaging campus property and/or improperly handling the dead cats we used for our dissections.

Another reason I’m more worried about this quarter than the other quarters might have to do with the fact that D – who was the one who largely encouraged me to start school – has intentionally flunked himself out. He couldn’t handle balancing work and school, he got placed on academic probation, and he just didn’t bother showing up for his final exams or last week of classes. He still intends to finish school . . . but he doesn’t plan to start back up until next fall – at which time I’ll (presumably) be just a quarter away from graduating.

The prospect of graduating is an interesting one as well – seeing as I left high school to get my GED at the start of my senior year of high school. And, given that graduating school is only part of what it takes to actually become a nurse, I’m even more nervous.

Overall, I’m not sure what to expect from the next week. I won’t have a campus class until Thursday. I don’t even know which of the two campuses in town I’ll be going to. I’m not sure how my boss will respond when I actually am out for a cumulative day (between Thursday and Friday). I don’t know what the first day of classes will be like. A part of me is hoping that it will be like high school, where day one is just a day to introduce yourself and get the list of what you’ll need for the other weeks of the class. That’s a little nerve wracking too though, because I’m not one that’s ever found making friends to be easier and I never know what to saw during the introduction phase of things.

I’m trying to not over think things.

I don’t want to get so caught up in looking for potential hurdles that I end up tripping over my own shoe-laces.

What It’s All About

Another pin in my Map to ELSEWHERE has been added. This one is centered over a little place called College Orientation (Nursing Edition). It’s small, but not so small as the Nursing Information Session was. And it came with its own realizations and quirks.

I felt kinda like a kid being dropped off at my first day or school, because of the fact that my mother gave me a ride to the campus for the orientation – and even provided me with snacks (a bottle of water and a little bag of pistachios). I met up with D at the entrance and he exchanged pleasantries with her before we had to run to sign-in.

There was a pot-hole, right away, for me. D signed in, was assigned to Room 204, and immediately took off down the hall. I signed in and was told to go to Room 205.

Wait, what? Don’t we do this together? Why are we in different places???

I didn’t question the smiling receptionist. I took off down the hall after D. But Room 205 was on my right within a few steps and he was standing at the VERY END of the hall. There were so many people there to be orientated that we had been divided into three groups. And he and I were – by virtue of the alphabet – in different rooms. I had not anticipated getting separated from him, but I was somehow standing in Room 205. I put on the little name-tag sticker that was already filled out with my name and signed another roster sheet. And then found my way to a seat in the second row from the front.

Orientation itself went well. I think. I’m fairly sure that it was standard – though I have no experience in these things.

The Dean of Nursing gave a small speech about how we (those of us in the room who were coming in as freshmen) are embarking on a journey. I understood this, because I’m using a similar analogy in my use of the Map to Elsewhere. She also showed us a list that was created by a class of senior nursing students during their very last class. It was a list of things that they felt had helped them through the most difficult challenges on their journey. The words that struck me the most were Determination and Dedication.

You can be determined to do something. But you should also be dedicated to doing it.

She then asked us all what we thought we were going to school to do. Most of us answered that we were there to learn. When prompted to be more specific, we said we wanted to learn to help people – to make them better, or at least less bad. She then asked us what we thought we needed to be taught. Again, she got a few different answers – how to give medications, how to respond in an emergency, how to think critically. She was satisfied with all of those responses, but she pointed out that the last one was the one she was really looking for.

Thinking critically, she said, is one of the hardest things to teach. And it is one of the most essential things for a nurse. The NCLEX exam – which is the final step in becoming an R.N. – has questions that are intentionally phrased in such a way that every answer is right . . . but only one is technically correct, based on a full and proper evaluation of the information presented in the question. We all got what she meant, because some of the questions on the TEAS exam (our entrance exam at the school) were formed that way.

But then she went on to a topic that I knew right away I’d want to put down on paper (or into cyber-space), because it’s something that I had on my mind, though not so well-worded as she presented it. She started talking about how we’ll learn attitudes, too.

Some of them, she said, will be things we already have – hopefully.

Thinking compassionately, acting with integrity, being professional.

But some of them, she noted, we might have to work to acquire. Like teamwork.

Ick. Teamwork.Working with a team. And not one that I carefully selected in order to ensure comparability and  a positive outcome . . . one that will be arranged by my instructors and (later) my employers with little to no regard to my own preferences.

That’s one of only a few things that have made me hesitant about choosing this career. I tend to be a loner. I prefer to work on my own for reasons of convenience and comfort. I don’t like the potential for conflict that seems inherent in teamwork situation (except in some situations and circumstances). I don’t like unknown variables or sudden changes.

I’d been ignoring this – both my dislike of teamwork and my dislike of unpredictability. I didn’t want to consider anything that would be an obstacle in my following this map that I found. When there’s  treasure at the end and who cares about quicksand and pirates?

But the Dean introduced a new concept to me. And it was another light-bulb moment.

Working well in a team and handling sudden changes are both attitudes and attitudes can be learned. Just because someone is like me and doesn’t do well with those two things, doesn’t preclude that person from ever becoming someone who is able to do well with them. Not at all. A person can learn to adopt a different attitude.

The professional slacker turning into the business professional.

The awkward loaner turning to the motivational speaker.

Me turning into a registered nurse.

As long as there is a true desire for change, change can be enacted. As long as I am willing to make an effort to move beyond my comfort zone. As long as I am willing to learn something new. As long as I’m willing to ask questions to answers I don’t know.

It’s ironic, a bit, because this blog is called Chaotic Metanoia.

I knew there’d be change. I just didn’t expect to be doing so much of it – even though it feels like getting the answer to a question that I’ve been asking myself since I was twelve.

Getting Orientated

Today is Monday, but for once I’m not dreading everything that entails.

Possibly because I will only be at work for three and a half hours, this morning. And then another two hours and fifteen minutes, tonight. In between that will be my Orientation for school. And I am so excited that I think today will probably fly by in a Friday-like manner.

Though my friend and conspirator, D, will be going to the Orientation as well, we’re going there separately. He works much closer to the campus than I do and he’ll be leaving work at noon rather than 12:30. He’ll basically get a fully hour to hang around while I will get there with about fifteen minutes to spare. I like being punctual. Especially when nervous.

My mother very kindly agree to pick me up and give me a ride to the Orientation, because I don’t drive and don’t really want to rely on D – just in case he bails, for some reason.

Even though he was the one who encouraged me to try nursing school, because he didn’t want to go through it alone, he’s actually been the one slacking on the enrollment requirements. All I’ve got left is getting a TB chest x-ray on Wednesday or Thursday, getting my second Varicella shot on the 12th, and finishing up my financial aid stuff. He’s still got to get most of his immunizations, his CPR certification, his TB x-ray, and his financial aid stuff. He’s got roughly until the 12th to complete everything.

I don’t know that he’s going to make that deadline. I might be going through school on my own, at least during the Spring Semester. A couple of month ago, when I first started seriously considering going, I was terrified even at the thought of going to the Nursing Information session – with him. Now, I’m telling him that I’m going to start with or without him, because I’ve vested too much energy into striving to make the April start.

Initially, I expected to quit work right away and simply go to school full time.

Now, however, I’m going to attempt to hold down my full time job while also doing 12 credit hours a semester. I don’t know how well this is going to work out, but I feel obligated to make an effort. I have several friends who have stressed to me that it will be next to impossible to work at all during my second year of the RN Associate’s degree program at the college, but that just makes me more determined to attempt to get through it during the first year – or at least during part of it. I want to try, anyway.

It occurred to me, the other day, that I have been gainfully employed since I was nineteen. I worked at Chili’s as a hostess and back of house prep person for three years and then transitioned straight to working at the call center that I still work at. I hit my two-year anniversary there on March 3rd. Which seems insane, because it feels sorta like yesterday.

I am used to having money available – even if it’s only five dollars to splurge on Starbucks (like I totally did this morning, given that I woke up at 6:00 with my SO and still need to kill an hour and a half before I actually have to start heading to work). Not having my own funds will be strange. Not knowing exactly how I’ll pay my bills is absolute agony.

My SO will cover whatever I can’t. I’m aware of that. I’m his and he intends to take care of me. But I don’t want him to be responsible for all of my bills – which total about $750.

I pay half of rent, cable, and electric. I pay for our car insurance. I pay my phone bill and health insurance and for the up-keep of my pets (two snakes and two cats). I take turns with him on paying for grocery trips and eating out and other misc. activities.

Not doing that will feel like I’m not holding up my end of our dynamic – even though finances are only one aspect of it and something that he never stresses over. As he often points out to me, his money is my money is our money. And even though I only have $35 in the bank as of this moment, he has about $3,000 saved up – not including credit cards and a line of credit that total about $3,500 on their own. We will not starve, essentially. And I won’t need to decide between canceling my phone bill or the cable. He’s got it covered.

In a way, I love that feeling of security. On the other hand, I wish I could do more to help.

Which, he reminds me, I am. I’m going to school to start a new profession that will benefit both of us in real, lasting ways (assuming all goes well, of course). I’m working to become a better me – both for myself and for him. He’s there to support me, he says. To help.

I appreciate that way more than I can ever hope to adequately explain to him.

So. Instead of stressing today, because of trying to see too far ahead, I’m going to live in the moment. I’m going to look at the future as an abstract that will never actually come to pass – because as soon as it does, it will be the past in the very next second. That’s not to say that I’m not a bit nervous about going to the Orientation – I am. But I’m not sick-to-my-stomach like I was before the Nursing Information session. This time, I am feeling tentatively optimistic, instead of feeling dread and uncertainty.

*And on a side note, regarding my Breaking Rules post . . . I ended up wearing flip-flops. Life is funny that way, isn’t it? There are almost always options that you didn’t think of.

Terminal Velocity

Just last night, I heard something on TV that made me pause. I actually pointed it out to my Significant Other, because I was so impressed by it and it seemed so brutally true.

I think it was on the FoodNetwork. Pretty sure it was. One of the competition shows that they seem to always play reruns of. A contestant on the show was talking about how his father was his inspiration for trying out for the show, because he’d told him, “Leap, and the net will appear.”

                        Leap, and the net will appear.

I’ve looked the quote up – for the purposes of this post. The man who said it was John Burroughs. And, by and large, the people who seem to have latched onto this quote are in agreement that it doesn’t encourage recklessness, but foresight and imagination.

I don’t know if it’s a sign of my current mental state that this quote struck me as being so poignant, or if I would have noticed it last year, or the year before. I’m sure that it wouldn’t have meant so much to me, six months ago; however, because six months ago I had not really thought about leaping without first seeing the net.

It was only about five months ago that I started to consider that option. And it was only two months ago that I was making a post about my worries related to taking the first step toward that option. The Nursing Information Session at Rasmussen College was the metaphorical Point A on my internal Map to Elsewhere.

It went well, by the way, in case that was something you wondered about. It was not terribly scary or nerve-wracking. And, in retrospect, I was positively silly to have been so concerned about that one small thing, but in retrospect a lot of things seem that way, I suppose.

—*—

Everyone knows the quote about having the best intentions go awry . . . well I’d intended to regularly post throughout my journey. And I still do. But I was waylaid. It occurs to me, now, that such things invariably happen during adventures and along quests, but it still felt like I was blind-sided . . . which, I suppose, is also common.

I posted, two months ago, that my dog was dying. Well, she did die. That thought is still enough to make me cringe and tear-up and feel like my heart is sinking. She died the day after I made that post. It happened without me being there and I didn’t really get the chance to say good-bye to her properly, but I’ve got a picture of her on my desk and I’ve reached the point where I can smile at how goofy it is. She’s got her head half-way in a giant McDonald’s bag – getting high on the smell of fresh french-fries, I guess.

Anyway, that shook me up. And so I didn’t post again, after that, and didn’t really come onto this site very much, because it reminded me that she’d been alive when I last posted. Which made me sad, because I missed her so strongly, still.

But enough time has passed that I no longer feel quite so awful about it. And enough other things have been happening that I haven’t been able to continue to dwell on death and mortality and some of the injustices of those general subjects.

—*—

Now, I guess you could say, I am traveling from Point A to Point B.

The Nursing Information Session is behind me and the Nursing Orientation is ahead of me . . . but there are a few required stops along the way – again, as there often are.

Before I can actually say with any sort of true certainty that I am enrolled in school to earn an associate’s degree in Professional Nursing (basically, before I can say that I am going to school to become an RN), I must first complete Rasmussen’s enrollment requirements – the last of which is actually attending the Nursing Orientation.

I’m fairly sure that all of the requirements are actually pretty standard for any nursing program. I’ve had to upload proof that I am fully immunized (which has included having to get a Flu Shot and a TDP booster), proof that I am physically and mentally capable of meeting the demands of the nursing program (more or less a standard physical with a few questions about my motivation and state of mind), proof that I am CPR certified through the American Heart Association (which was its own adventure and which deserves its own post, actually) . . .  oh! And also proof that I have no criminal history and am not wanted by the FBI or some such.

The only things that I have yet to complete on the handy check-list that they gave me at the Nursing information session are things that I am – mostly – sure I will be able to finish by the end of this next week.

I still need to upload proof that I did actually get the Flu Shot and TDP booster, I need to get my high-school transcripts from the appropriate government office building (which is conveniently on my way to work), I have to complete my second back-ground check (in case the first one missed something?), and I still have to complete my TB skin test.

The TB skin test has actually been the most interesting part of the process, but that’s mainly because it was the thing that I’ve never had before and I did not look it up in advance, and thus did not have any idea what to expect. I will go to have the results of the first portion read tomorrow morning, before work. And then I will return to to the Health Department on Friday of next week to have the second one started.

—*—

I do feel as though I have made the leap. And I made the comment to my Significant Other that I feel as though I’ve reached terminal velocity. I am traveling as fast as I am able to . . . and it feels as though I am now suspended in relative comfort.

There’s still this feeling of breathless anticipation that’s sort of scary . . . but  . . . it’s liberating, too. I’ve made the jump and now gravity is doing what it will. It doesn’t seem reckless to believe there’s a net somewhere just past the edge of my vision.

It feels like it makes perfect sense, actually.