On our first night of lab, the Professor struggled with the teevee for a good ten minutes, and finally cued up what can only be described as a moving, powerful, important safety video. Believe me, I scoured youtube for this gem, but I couldn't find it. If anyone out there works for the American Chemical Society and wants to forward me that 1991 footage, you may reach me at the imaginary nurse at gmail dot com. Thank you.
Until then, you are going to have to let me describe the highlight in a word picture. To illustrate how different materials catch fire, they lit the clothes on a mannequin on fire. Then someone hiding out of frame hobbled her over to the safety shower to douse her. And then, to show us what to do if we're aflame but out of reach of the shower or fire blanket, they grabbed her by the feet, lowered her to the floor, and waggled her from side to side in a "stop drop and roll" maneuver. See? It's not as funny that way. Dammit.
Also, for anyone who kind of thinks that the 90s had no distinct style: I'm here to tell you that you are incorrect. Words do not do justice to the plaid shirts, mom jeans, and Lollapalooza-bowl-cut-rat-tail hybrid styling that went on in this video, but timeless it was not.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Brand New School: Making Friends!
I got to school a bit early for the first lab seesion and sat around eavesdropping on my classmates. Most are early-20s women; plus a couple of old ladies (okay 40 or so), a few dudes, and a tranny type. One girl announced that she already had a BA, from the private and very expensive Big Ole City University, where I also got mine. The difference is that I won't be telling that to anyone. One of the ladies, who I am assuming based on her therapist-style reading glasses is a know-it-all, was explaining how cutthroat the corporate working environment is. I found it interesting that although nurses are not supposed to have criminal records, both of the old ladies had apparently broken into my TV and stolen Candy Finnigan-from-A&E's-Intervention/my mom's haircut. Weird.
At first, everyone hated our teacher because she is about 100 years old, speaks with a thick Eastern European accent I'm only used to hearing from a bikini waxer, and is a low-talker. This is, in a lab setting, somewhat unbearable. She starts by telling us we should all go to tutoring so we can keep up with the class. The Wedding Planner, sitting behind me, sassily lets it be known that she will be in tutoring Mondays and Wednesdays starting next week. Because I have a rare hearing disorder that causes me to think such things could only be said in sarcasm, I reply that I will be in tutoring every day and will quit my job so I have more time to spend at the tutor center. Later, when she lets her lab partners know that she can be found in the tutoring center a few days a week, I realize on some level (though I still can't intellectually process it) that she might have been serious.
As class goes on, Teach has us go around and take turns reading safety rules out loud. When it comes to the no food and drink edict, she shares a tale/urban legend of a coworker who brought in a milkshake that someone else mistook for a chemical waste receptacle, and obviously he's permanently damaged [cue that one-armed guy from Arrested Develoment: "And that's why you never bring drinks into chem lab!"]. Professor goes on to remind us that other people in the room might not like us and could poison us if we bring in beverages. And with that, she's won over the room and everybody loves her.
It easy-going from there on out. She tries to explain scientific notation, my lab partners break out calculators to convert liters to milliliters, and I knock out my homework in about one little-fill-in-box' time. Oh, and my cubemate asks where I'm from, claiming she can hear the nonexistant midwestern accent that I didn't even have when I moved to Big Ole City 13 gd years ago. I would be offended, but I try to think strategically: These real students will probably be working nurses before I've even finished my snail's-pace prerequisities, which means if I knock out their lab work for them, maybe they'll write me a letter of recommendation in two years. Holla.
At first, everyone hated our teacher because she is about 100 years old, speaks with a thick Eastern European accent I'm only used to hearing from a bikini waxer, and is a low-talker. This is, in a lab setting, somewhat unbearable. She starts by telling us we should all go to tutoring so we can keep up with the class. The Wedding Planner, sitting behind me, sassily lets it be known that she will be in tutoring Mondays and Wednesdays starting next week. Because I have a rare hearing disorder that causes me to think such things could only be said in sarcasm, I reply that I will be in tutoring every day and will quit my job so I have more time to spend at the tutor center. Later, when she lets her lab partners know that she can be found in the tutoring center a few days a week, I realize on some level (though I still can't intellectually process it) that she might have been serious.
As class goes on, Teach has us go around and take turns reading safety rules out loud. When it comes to the no food and drink edict, she shares a tale/urban legend of a coworker who brought in a milkshake that someone else mistook for a chemical waste receptacle, and obviously he's permanently damaged [cue that one-armed guy from Arrested Develoment: "And that's why you never bring drinks into chem lab!"]. Professor goes on to remind us that other people in the room might not like us and could poison us if we bring in beverages. And with that, she's won over the room and everybody loves her.
It easy-going from there on out. She tries to explain scientific notation, my lab partners break out calculators to convert liters to milliliters, and I knock out my homework in about one little-fill-in-box' time. Oh, and my cubemate asks where I'm from, claiming she can hear the nonexistant midwestern accent that I didn't even have when I moved to Big Ole City 13 gd years ago. I would be offended, but I try to think strategically: These real students will probably be working nurses before I've even finished my snail's-pace prerequisities, which means if I knock out their lab work for them, maybe they'll write me a letter of recommendation in two years. Holla.
My First Day of School
Monday was my first day of school. For those of you who can't read the sentence above, I'm taking prerequisites to get into an accelerated nursing program. And by "prerequisites," I mean, "one class a semester for the next 2 1/2 years or until I get off this kick and drop out."
Anyway, I got to class with a pinched lower back from my two gigantic textbooks OHMIGOD I'm already too old and decrepit for this. I last took a college class in 1997, back when the interweb was a fancy thing at the university library. I'd seen in the movies that classrooms are now full of savvy young people clickity clacking their notes away on their laptops, and I worried I might have to also lug that around all day. But—and here's the takeaway for anyone considering classes at Big Ole City Community College—that's not the case. The class is about 25 people, all aspiring nurses or paramedics, most of whom seemed to have remembered paper. Turns out I also didn't need to bring my books, but that's neither here nor there.
We had a substitute, a skinny, pale, fidgety "scientist" send from Central Casting. He spent an hour reading us our syllabus out loud, then released us for a hard-earned break. After that, it was another hour of random scientificish anecdotes having something to do with the distance between him and another student and how we'd measure that and what if one of their belts was lower than the other, I think. It was very disorganized, but to be fair, it wasn't his job and no one was making eye contact with him. Then we got another break, and then class ended. The student on one side of me furiously scribbled notes listing wedding guests and their contact information; the guy next to me wrote absolutely nothing down. I asked him if I could copy his notes from the session and he laughed. A few minutes later, he asked if I was serious. The Wedding Planner, outraged at the nerve of our teacher to not show up, left during the first break. Captain No-Notes stuck around long enough to sign the attendance sheet, then left during the second.
I passed the time the same way I did during my first bout of college, which lasted a backbreaking 3 1/2 years and netted me an elbow grease-stained BA in Film Studies: I drew a series of tiny boxes on my notebook and allowed myself to fill one in every 15 minutes. As time goes on and my already-frail attention span wanes, these will likely multiply into boxes for every 5 and then 1 minutes. I wonder if I'll get an iPhone so I have something to do in class.
Anyway, I got to class with a pinched lower back from my two gigantic textbooks OHMIGOD I'm already too old and decrepit for this. I last took a college class in 1997, back when the interweb was a fancy thing at the university library. I'd seen in the movies that classrooms are now full of savvy young people clickity clacking their notes away on their laptops, and I worried I might have to also lug that around all day. But—and here's the takeaway for anyone considering classes at Big Ole City Community College—that's not the case. The class is about 25 people, all aspiring nurses or paramedics, most of whom seemed to have remembered paper. Turns out I also didn't need to bring my books, but that's neither here nor there.
We had a substitute, a skinny, pale, fidgety "scientist" send from Central Casting. He spent an hour reading us our syllabus out loud, then released us for a hard-earned break. After that, it was another hour of random scientificish anecdotes having something to do with the distance between him and another student and how we'd measure that and what if one of their belts was lower than the other, I think. It was very disorganized, but to be fair, it wasn't his job and no one was making eye contact with him. Then we got another break, and then class ended. The student on one side of me furiously scribbled notes listing wedding guests and their contact information; the guy next to me wrote absolutely nothing down. I asked him if I could copy his notes from the session and he laughed. A few minutes later, he asked if I was serious. The Wedding Planner, outraged at the nerve of our teacher to not show up, left during the first break. Captain No-Notes stuck around long enough to sign the attendance sheet, then left during the second.
I passed the time the same way I did during my first bout of college, which lasted a backbreaking 3 1/2 years and netted me an elbow grease-stained BA in Film Studies: I drew a series of tiny boxes on my notebook and allowed myself to fill one in every 15 minutes. As time goes on and my already-frail attention span wanes, these will likely multiply into boxes for every 5 and then 1 minutes. I wonder if I'll get an iPhone so I have something to do in class.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)