New York Times....and Babies.

That's right.

I read the New York Times.

For an explanation on what the flying duck I am talking about, Read This Post .

I swear, I am not an idiot. But this is an accomplishment, for me. Sadly. Very, very, sadly.

Okay, truth is...I had a two hour time span to read the entire paper. I'm just a beginner.

I made it through ~10 pages (with advertisments), and I read about 10 articles.

But I learned a lot! I learned a lot (enough) about Egypt to keep up with the discussions in my classroom, and I learned that Greece is having a terrible time keeping immigrants out of their borders (who knew?) and Afganistan is having a lot of problems with the Taliban (thats nothing new, I guess?), I learned a lot about Mubarak, and a couple more things. I *even* watched Obama's address to our country about the situation in Egypt. But that has nothing to do with the NYT- That's only because he posted it on twitter. Figures. But, I did watch the video while sitting in the library, with the NYT in front of me, open, so I probably looked smart. Anyway, my goal is to finish yesterdays paper. I want to read it all. And then I'll start todays, and then tomorrows, etc.

The teacher I mentioned in yesterday's blog post, whom I respect greatly and think is very smart, was chatting with me and a fellow classmate the other day after class. My friend asked, "How do you find all these articles? (That she talked about in class). You are so smart" (Ok, it wasnt said exactly like that, but that was the general gist of the message). And my teacher responded solely with "Well, I read the New York Times, religiously."

So, is this phase of mine to read the NYT and be smarter completely ridiculous, fake and pathetic? Maybe...probably...but, It can't hurt to try. :-(

ANYWAY, on to a happier topic....BABIES!

Yesterday was my FIRST community health clinical! I was SO NERVOUS, and my partner was amazing (she did her assignment first), and then it was my turn and I was definitely nervous. We both had to do a home visit to a mother and a newborn, to assess how both of them were doing. In addition, both of these visits were either going to be in Trenton/Ewing/Hamilton/Lawrence... so, I wasn't exactly thrilled with the aspect of having to lock my doors and always be on guard when going to visit a newborn. But thats another blog post. BUT, the families we both met were FABULOUS, and so nice! And the babies were adorable. "My baby" aka my assignment, was a doll. I did my assessment of her, played with her a little bit (she was 3 1/2 months) and then I had to re-dress her and that caused her to start crying (apparantly babies don't like to be dressed because this happened on my partner's "baby" too), so I picked her up. I'm not entirely sure if the mom wanted me to pick her up, but I sensed a mutual sense of trust vibes. And, I have baby-withdrawal. I love babies. And I never get to see any. My cousins are all grown up, and I babysit no babies (they are all grown up), so I miss taking care and holding babies. So, I really couldn't help myself from picking this adorable baby up. So I held her for about 15 minutes while talking to the mom, it was so nice. She kept looking at my face and playing with my glasses, ah, I LOVE BABIES. Can you tell? Did I mention that?

Then....oh, then... My stream of consciousness as I held this baby:

This baby is so cute. Wow, this baby is getting heavy. My arm is hurting. Ouch. How do mom's do this ALL day? They must have buff arms. Hmm...Holy crap, this baby is getting heavier by the second. I'm going to sit down, and put the baby on my lap. Oh, crap, the baby doesn't like that. Lets stand back up. Maybe I'll switch arms. Ah, the mom can tell I think she's heavy. She's probably laughing inside of her and probably thinks I am a wimp because its been like 15 minutes and this baby is only about 20 pounds, but it is heavy, really.

Then, we started talking about how much the baby sleeps, and the mom was saying how she was lucky the baby slept until 4 am.

I literally froze in my steps. With the baby in my hand. 4 am? thats lucky?

I clearly will not be ready for motherhood, ever, until I can get over the fact that sleep will be nonexistent and I can throw my incessant need to sleep in or I get cranky every morning notion out the window. I'll work on that after I graduate.

Well I have clearly rambled on long enough. But its okay, because I cannot think of any foreseeable blog posts that I have in mind to write about (usually I have a couple ideas), so...you can have a break of reading my retarded ramblings. I should take a class in "Not-writing-like-I-think" and therefore not-rambling. I'll work on that.

Au revior~

~ A Rambling Writer in a Nurse's Body

P.S.= My hands smell like playdough. What the flying duck....?

Facebook and it's Consistent Ability to Astonish Me

Facebook.

It has completely revolutionized our entire nation. Actually, the entire world. Because of one person. Zuckerberg is more than an entrepreneur. He should be in history textbooks...or at least sociology and psychology textbooks because with one website, he has completely revolutionized how we live. How we advertise. How we date. How we communicate. How we talk to each other. How we overthrow our government.

Did you know that Egypt's current situation was started and organized by a group that got together on Facebook? That Is on the verge of unbelievable. Can you imagine?

I think it is fascinating that this is how we live now. Facebook has become so engrained in our population and society, that I don't think we could function (properly) if the site crashed. Could you imagine that? What If someone hacked into facebook, or the site crashed on it's own? People would have to resort back to talking to eachother in person...or going up to a person and asking if they are single, rather than checking out their relationship status. Oh, imagine the turmoil...think of the young teenagers right now, ages 12-15 that have just recently gotten a facebook. They have entered the realm of dating with facebook to ease their fears. It is what they know, what they know how to do. You go to a persons page, check out their relationship status to see who they are dating or if they are single, check out their pictures and get to know them that way, reading all their statuses and friend comments to see their social network. If facebook went down, my generation (ages 18-26) would be fine. We entered this realm without facebook, we remember what It was like. We could go back to it. We remember writing love notes in high school, rather than writing on your crush's "wall". But new teenagers...rip it away and they would be lost, confused. It would take a while to re-train their brains on how human society possible functioned without facebook.

If a business (of any kind) wants to survive and do well nowadays, they better get a facebook account...and get people to "like" them. How else can a business that targets ages 12-75 reach the people? Tv? Yes. Newspaper? Maybe. Facebook? Of course.

Teachers, professors, principals..all get facebooks nowadays. Is it fair for a teacher to snoop on their students pictures or statuses and seeing they attended a party the same night the "dog ate their homework"? My college professor, whom I respect greatly and honor, told us yesterday that even she, has a facebook. The room wad silent. She then added, "I have to. If I want to see pictures of my grandchildren, that is." That thought astonished me. So, facebook is the only way she can see her grandchildren? So has facebook hindered that part of life for her or made it better? Before facebook, did she travel to see them in person? Did she receive a Christmas card in the mail annually with their pictures? Do they live in California and she never got to see them at all? Has facebook helped her get in touch and be involved in her grandchildrens lives? Maybe. Maybe both.

Both of my grandmothers have facebooks, in addition to my parents (both- although they know all about my life without the help of facebook anyway), 6 of my aunts (all out of state). I think facebook has been a remarkable way to stay in touch with them all, as well as my multitude of cousins, Also all out of state. I know what they are all doing on a daily basis, I know about their lives, I can see pictures of them growing as people and families. Most of them live in North Carolina and while growing up until the age of 19(when I got a facebook) I had no idea what half of my extended family was up too. I saw them once every 3-4 years and I was nervous to "meet" them because really, that's what I was doing- having not seen or even talked to any of them in so long. Now when I see them- I feel already updated on all of their lives, and them to me.

Walking around my library today, I have seen/heard the following: a group project getting together, one "head" person was instructing them that their following group from then on would be on a facebook group that the group head person had made.
Walking around the library, I'd say over 50% had their Facebook pages open.

A couple weeks ago, while watching "the social network" (facebook movie) in my campus student center, the majority of students had their laptops open with you guessed it, their facebooks.

Facebook is mentioned or seen in a massive amount of current movies or tv shows.

"the social network" is up for an Oscar, I believe.

More and more phones nowadays are smartphones(whether the consumer wanted it or not) and a smartphone would be immediately rejected if it did not support the Facebook app.

My phone autocorrects a multitude of strange and funny words, to facebook, in the hopes that facebook was the ultimate word I was trying to say.

The "share on facebook" icon is embedded into millions of websites, including YouTube, blogger, newspapers (online), etc. You can now "share" virtually almost anything.

Our president, has a facebook.

I can not honestly say that I would have watched the State of the Union address if it was not posted on Facebook.

I could probably say a lot more on the astonishing effects facebook has on our society.
But it would be a very long post, as I'm sure it already is. Point is, facebook has changed us and who knows what will happen if the site ever dwindles out or crashes completely. Facebook has changed us, whether we like it or not, believe it or not, or accept it or not.

Amazing. All because of one guy. In college. In a dorm room.

~WNB

P.S- I just typed "Facebook" 35 times. That, my friends, is sad.

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