Let Freedom Ring.

This Fourth of July marks the final weekend before I start my big kid job in this big wide world. I'm so excited, because I don't know which way my life is headed--and that's awesome. I don't feel like I'm going to be stuck in the same rut forever. The world is wide open. All because I decided to start in the ICU.

Don't get me wrong, I was just as excited to start on the surgical unit. But when I thought about it, I was confused about how long I should wait before I tried to get into either the adult or pediatric ICU. I want to travel nurse, but didn't know if I necessarily wanted to travel nurse with a med/surg unit, but if I waited too long, it might not be feasible anymore. I just feel like everything has changed and...opened up, if that makes sense.

I know it's going to be harder, that my new co-workers might not be necessarily accepting of the fact that I've got no experience, for all intents and purposes. But that's okay. It just pushes me even more to prove I'm competent. I hate stupidity as much as the next person, and so I'm determined to prove that I'm not an idiot. At the risk of sounding like a cocky ass, I know this is something I can be good at. I just need the opportunity to show you.

Our final day of undergrad, we wrote ourselves a letter about where we expected to be in 6 months, things we hoped to accomplish, the whole she-bang. This little pick-me-up will be opened 11.11.11, and I'm already excited about it, because my life is already entirely different than what I expected and wrote about in the letter. The biggest part to wrap my head around, is that I'm going to be on orientation for 12 weeks. So let me spell that out for you. I won't truly be on my own until sometime in October. And that's probably okay.

So, with that profound blog, I'm going to go swelter in the 100 degree weather outside. I'll try and keep you updated on this "new nurse." I'm willing to bet, as with most anything else I do, it's going to be entertaining.