Atlantic City and Disaster Preparedness

Well, let me tell you now that this is not Part 2. I am not ready to spit out Part 2 yet....for many reasons. Lots of big bombshells in part 2. ooooh, *suspense* ! No but anyway, today I am going to entertain you with pictures of the week! Yes, you get picture(s)! And these are not on my campus, of babysitting or at home. They are from Atlantic City! Thumbs up for variety! Woot!

Anyway, lets show you some prettiness first and then we shall discuss the prettiness.

Person reading on the beach....perfect. I am jealous.

Beautiful birds.

Pier Shops Mall

From the boardwalk

Empty beach....love it.

So this past Thursday and Friday I attended the State Student Nurses Convention for New Jersey, and it was pretty interesting. I learned a lot of things and not just for nursing.

1) I love the beach. I love the beach, I love it. I am in love, with the beach. This is something HUGE to consider if I choose to move to Colorado. I will be really far from either ocean. That is a major disadvantage. This part of me means a lot, and I will bring back up my love for the beach.

2) I got some practice with how I'm going to conquer Europe with my food allergies and health issues and having a hotel roommate(s), not being in my own "home"...I spent the two days with my only alone time as time in the bathroom. That is hard for me. I cherish alone time. I love being with people, too, but I am one of those people that needs some alone time too. With a two day trip, I was prepared. I brought poptarts, which are dairy free, to eat as emergency snacks in case something was not provided. Otherwise I did OK. I ate the poptarts for Day 1 breakfast, lunch was provided for us Day 2- (Ham sandwich, chips, apple, cookie.) I was nervous about this because of the ham and its probable infestation with sodium nitrate, but I surprisingly did not get a headache. I ate the sandwich & chips. For snack later, because I could feel my energy depleting rapidly as well as my blood sugar, I ate the cookie...despite knowing that 1) It had milk, and 2) it had chocolate, which also has milk in addition to giving me a headache anyway. So, as you can predict, that made me feel sick. Dinner was a buffet and I found some chicken and broccoli, turkey and plain noodles. Still felt sick after, probably the minor amount of gravy on turkey. Day 2- breakfast provided- but only gave muffins, fruit & pastries. I was late, only made it in time for cantaloupe (sensitivity) and muffins and pastries...both with milk. so, yeah.
Europe will be interesting. To say the least. I am going to have to bring Lactaid pills and take it with every meal/snack because I most likely wont know over there what has what in it....

3) I learned a lot about nursing I didn't know before. I went to a disaster preparedness seminar....taught by two air force nurses. It was amazing. Did you know you can get your masters in Disaster preparedness? Do you know how extremely interested in this I am? Extremely. Thats how much. I am considering this, very much so.

4) Here is where the beach comes back in. I don't know if this is a good or bad thing. So I had a ten minute break. I walked to the window and saw this:

The ocean. The conference was held with a huge window view of the ocean, how unfair is that??  I then turned to the right and saw  a lot of people on the boardwalk, and a couple people playing around on the beach. I sighed. I looked at my schedule. All the seminars offered at that moment were ones I wasn't too terribly interested in...and it would be so easy for me to just go for a walk on the beach. At that point i hadn't been to the beach yet, at all this season. We literally pulled into the parking garage and stayed indoors the entire time. It would have been so easy to take the hour off and go....

But I didn't. I put my responsibility coat on and went to a seminar about what recruiters are looking for. It was the adult thing to do. I chose responsibility over playing around on the beach......am i growing up? Or am i just a wimp and didn't want to "break the rules"? Either way....hm.

Speaking of responsibility and adult-ness, I have been far too busy to do my share of NYT reading, which greatly disappoints me. I plan to do better this week. I have immense amounts of trouble doing one thing, the same thing,  every day. I don't like monotony. But thats not even my excuse. I've just been so busy. BUT, I do have this new book:

And it really is making me smarter. Each weekend it teaches you about something new. And it is written by the NYT writers...This weekend I got a review of the two world wars. It was a nice review and now I feel I can answer a couple questions and hold my own with a smart person...about the world wars. Then I would politely leave the conversation when it got more complex than that.

So, overall, the convention was a big learning experience and I am glad I went.

Tomorrow I will *try* to write my "Part 2" from yesterday. I already wrote some of it. But it requires a lot of thinking so we shall see.

Goodnight world,

~A Writer in a Nurse's Body