Listening To Each Other’s Dreams

Congratulations for getting into nursing school! I put together a list of supplies you may need. There are also a few tips for surviving that no one else will really tell you until you’ve been through it. Keep in mind that every one’s experience is different. What applies to me may not apply to you.

MUST HAVES:

Blood pressure cuff (was provided to me through school via lab fees)

Compression stockings/socks

Bandage/dressing scissors

Drug handbook (pocket size)

Lab coat (ordered through the school)

NCLEX-RN Study guide (Saunders or Kaplan)

Tote bag for clinical/hospital/lab (separate from your lecture backpack!)

Nursing shoes

Watch - simple, waterproof, inexpensive!

Penlight (was provided to me through school via lab fees, but I purchased extra)

Scrubs (ordered through the school)

Stethoscope

Retractable badge holder

Nursing care plan book (we were given a specific one to order)

Clipboard and BLACK pens

Extra hair clips/bobby pins, hair ties

Medical dictionary

Lecture Supplies:

Binders

Looseleaf notebook paper

Black pens (or colored if you are the type to color-code notes)

Highlighters

Drug guide (App available if lecturer allows electronic devices)

Textbook (IF you need it)

Tips for Surviving LECTURE:

Read the assigned text BEFORE class. I don’t mean skim. Understand it. Make this mandatory in your homework routine.

Come to class with questions. Mark down the answers as the lecture goes on. If there are unanswered ones, get them answered before class ends. If you don’t understand something, don’t be afraid to raise your hand and ask. Chances are that there is someone else with the same question.

Star, highlight, underline, circle, etc. any topic that the professor repeats. I usually put a star down for each time it is said. I can’t tell you how many times they put this information on exams.

Avoid using electronic devices. I always use pen and paper. I have e-textbooks, but I only pull my tablet out when I absolutely need to. Silence your cellphone and only use it during breaks or emergencies.

Keep your energy up. Eat a high-protein breakfast and drink plenty of water. Snack on nuts or other nutrient dense food. I usually eat almonds and/or apples with peanut butter.

Be courteous to your neighbors. Avoid opening loud snack packaging, using your phone, talking, or doing another classes’ work during lecture. Anything abnormal that you do during lecture is a distraction to others around you. Don’t be afraid to move seats during break if you can’t concentrate.

Wear comfortable clothes. Nursing school is not a fashion show. I wear sweats most days because I am sitting for 6+ hours at a time. I usually have a jacket because I get cold very easily.

If you are given a break, USE IT! Go walk around, go outside, walk up and down some stairs, etc. Just get your blood flowing.

Tips for Surviving LAB:

Lab is for PRACTICING skills, not learning. Usually you will be assigned a video or reading assignment that explains how to perform the skill. The professor will demonstrate the skill, but you are more than likely expected to already know the steps. Don’t make a fool out of yourself by not preparing. We were given step by step instructions for most skills. If your school doesn’t provide these, then make your own.

Come to lab in uniform and with all of your supplies. Make sure you wash your hands before beginning.

Try performing the skill on your own before asking too many questions. You will learn more by making mistakes than by avoiding them.

Don’t overthink anything. You are practicing skills to perform them on a human being. Put yourself in their shoes. Practice compassion. Talk to your mannequin as if it were a real person. It will feel silly at first, but it will help you in clinical.

Explain every step out loud in lab. This will not only help you, but it will help your lab partner and others around you. It is also easier to catch mistakes this way.

Take advantage of open lab hours if your school provides it. Get together with a study buddy and spend an extra hour or so each week practicing.

Tips for Surviving CLINICAL:

Congrats, you’ve made it to clinical! You will probably be nervous, but that’s okay. I was nervous AND excited. That is normal. Take some deep breaths and go with it!

Eat a high-protein breakfast. You will probably have to wake up at an hour you’ve never been awake for. If you’re like me, I can barely eat in the mornings to begin with. Force yourself to eat. Don’t go for a high-carb breakfast. You will crash before 9am. Bring snacks for the commute. I usually eat egg/bacon/potato breakfast burritos and I bring an apple to eat on the way.

Be prepared. Your school will have different requirements for pre-clinical. If you are assigned a patient the day before, make sure you know which drugs they are getting and WHY.

Stay busy. If there is a lull in the day, ask your nurse if there is anything you can do. If he/she says no, then that’s the perfect time to go talk to your patients.

Ask to perform skills you have already learned. Already learned how to put in a Foley? Ask your nurse if you can do the next one. Injections? IV starts? ASK!!! You will never learn if you don’t ask. The worst they can say is no.

Talk to your patients. You will learn more about them through conversation than by reading a chart.

Don’t think of yourself as a shadow. You are a student nurse who is there to help, not follow. Although you will be “shadowing” a nurse, your confidence will give your nurse more confidence in letting you take the reign!

When it’s time for lunch, eat something healthy. You already know how high-carb/high-fat meals make you feel. Plan accordingly. Take the full break. If you get 30 minutes, try to sit and rest for that full amount of time. Make sure you wash your hands before and after, and use the restroom before going back.

Enjoy yourself! This is what you’ve been working hard towards, right??

We always had a debrief with our instructor after clinical. It was an open “round-table” discussion about our day. Be honest about how your day went. Not every clinical day is unicorns and rainbows. Other students will appreciate your honesty.

Tips for READING your textbooks (BEFORE lecture):

Turn off your phone, TV, etc. I have a classical music station that I listen to when I study.

Skim the chapter and pay attention to titles/subtitles. Count how many pages you have to read and allow yourself enough time accordingly.

Start reading from the beginning. Look up any words that you don’t know. Read slowly and carefully.

Take breaks every 30-50 minutes.

Write down any questions or unclear topics.

Tips for STUDYING material (after lecture):

Review the lecture notes from each class when you get home that day. Make sure everything is organized to make studying easier.

Go through the assigned reading again and highlight or underline the main topic/sentence of each section. This will make it easier to find information.

If you have a homework assignment for this chapter, do it now.

The next day, review your notes and skim through the book again. Look for different sources of information for main topics. I like to find YouTube videos that explain topics.

Rewrite important information on notecards or in a notebook.

If you can, on a different day, get together with a study buddy or group to discuss the information. Don’t do the homework together unless there’s a question that you couldn’t answer on your own. Study groups are not for learning, they are for discussing and solidifying concepts.

Notice that now you have reviewed/heard the material 5 times.

Tips for studying for an EXAM:

Although I study every day, I usually start my “exam” studying a week before the test.

Practice NCLEX-style questions.

Answer the questions at the back of the chapter.

Get any unclear topic resolved at least 48 hours before an exam.

Top 10 Study Tips!

1. Make a study schedule and stick to it. 2. Pace yourself. Study every day, even if it’s just for 30 minutes. 3. If you don’t understand something, find a different resource (ask a friend, find a YouTube video, email the instructor, etc.). 4. Study for 50 minutes at a time and take a 10-15 minute break in between. 5. During those breaks, don’t just be on your phone or computer. Get up. Move around. Get your blood flowing! 6. Make time for yourself. If you like to read leisurely, do it. If you work out, do it. 7. SLEEP. for the love of God. Get 7-9 hours of sleep a night. Here is an article explaining why this is so so so important. 8. Find a method that works for you. Flashcards, outlines, Quizlet, recording yourself, drawing pictures, etc. It’s all trial and error. 9. DON’T CRAM. If you don’t know the material the night before the test, chances are you won’t know it for the test. 10. Studies show that you need to review material 7 times to retain 90% of the information.

I hope that this information is useful! Feel free to reblog and add anything I may have missed. Also excuse any grammar/spelling errors. I am not an English major. Also feel free to message me with any questions!

I Hate How She Talks About Snow White

"People are making these jokes about ours being the PC Snow White, where it's like, yeah, it is − because it needed that. It's an 85-year-old cartoon, and our version is a refreshing story about a young woman who has a function beyond 'Someday My Prince Will Come. "

Let me tell you a little something's about that "85-year-old cartoon," miss Zegler.

It was the first-ever cel-animated feature-length full-color film. Ever. Ever. EVER. I'm worried that you're not hearing me. This movie was Disney inventing the modern animated film. Spirited Away, Into the Spider-Verse, Tangled, you don't get to have any of these without Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937.)

Speaking of what you wouldn't get without this movie, it includes anime as a genre. Not just in technique (because again, nobody animated more than shorts before this movie) but in style and story. Anime, as it is now, wouldn't exist without Osamu Tezuka, "The God of Manga," who wouldn't have pioneered anime storytelling in the 1940s without having watched and learned from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in the 1930s. No "weeb" culture, no Princess Mononoke, no DragonBall Z, no My Hero Academia, no Demonslayer, and no Naruto without this "85-year-old cartoon."

It was praised, not just for its technical marvels, not just for its synchronized craft of sound and action, but primarily and enduringly because people felt like the characters were real. They felt more like they were watching something true to life than they did watching silent, live-action films with real actors and actresses. They couldn't believe that an animated character could make kids wet their pants as she flees, frightened, through the forest, or grown adults cry with grieving Dwarves. Consistently.

Walt Disney Studios was built on this movie. No no; you're not understanding me. Literally, the studio in Burbank, out of which has come legends of this craft of animated filmmaking, was literally built on the incredible, odds-defying, record-breaking profits of just Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, specifically.

Speaking of record-breaking profits, this movie is the highest-grossing animated film in history. Still. TO THIS DAY. And it was made during the Great Depression.

In fact, it made four times as much money than any other film, in any other genre, released during that time period. It was actually THE highest-grossing film of all time, in any genre, until nothing less than Gone With the Wind, herself, came along to take the throne.

It was the first-ever animated movie to be selected for the National Film Registry. Actually, it was one of the first movies, period, to ever go into the registry at all. You know what else is in the NFR? The original West Side Story, the remake of which is responsible for Rachel Ziegler's widespread fame.

Walt Disney sacrificed for this movie to be invented. Literally, he took out a mortgage on his house and screened the movie to banks for loans to finish paying for it, because everyone from the media to his own wife and brother told him he was crazy to make this movie. And you want to tell me it's just an 85-year-old cartoon that needs the most meaningless of updates, with your tender 8 years in the business?

Speaking of sacrifice, this movie employed over 750 people, and they worked immeasurable hours of overtime, and invented--literally invented--so many new techniques that are still used in filmmaking today, that Walt Disney, in a move that NO OTHER STUDIO IN HOLLYWOOD was doing in the 30's, put this in the opening credits: "My sincere appreciation to the members of my staff whose loyalty and creative endeavor made possible this production." Not the end credits, like movies love to do today as a virtue-signal. The opening credits.

It's legacy endures. Your little "85-year-old cartoon" sold more than 1 million DVD copies upon re-release. Just on its first day. The Beatles quoted Snow White in one of their songs. Legacy directors call it "the greatest film ever made." Everything from Rolling Stones to the American Film Institute call this move one of the most influential masterpieces of our culture. This movie doesn't need anything from anybody. This movie is a cultural juggernaut for America. It's a staple in the art of filmmaking--and art, in general. It is the foundation of the Walt Disney Company, of modern children's media in the West, and of modern adaptations of classical fairy tales in the West. When you think only in the base, low, mean terms of "race" and "progressivism" you start taking things that are actually worlds-away from being in your league to judge, and you relegate them to silly ignorant phrases like "85-year-old cartoon" to explain why what you're doing is somehow better.

Sit down and be humble. Who the heck are you?

Y'all practical effects bitches are really sleeping on the Mission: Impossible movies.

"Oh everything is CGI these days!" Mission: Impossible uses practical effects whenever it's safe to do so, and their definition of safe is incredibly skewed because Tom Cruise is, frankly, batshit insane.

The man refuses to use stunt doubles because he insists the audience can tell when it's not him. He's apparently one of the best stunt drivers in the world. He drove up a cliff and skidded to a stop right on the edge for real in Dead Reckoning. He got a fucking helicopter license and spent like three years training for the climactic scene in Fallout.

Most of the helicopter chase in Fallout was real. The midair oxygen-tank swap in that movie was also real. They practiced for it in a wind tunnel and then did the real thing in freefall.

When Tom Cruise dies, it's either going to be because he realized Scientology was a crock and tried to get out and they fucking killed him (highly unlikely that he'll ever come to that realization), or because his luck finally ran out while filming a stunt for a Mission: Impossible movie (significantly more likely).

Seriously, if you have the blu-rays of any of these movies, I strongly encourage you to watch them with the director's commentaries. Especially the ones directed by Christopher McQuarrie. That man has an almost pathological distaste for CGI (and when they do have to use it, he's incredibly respectful and complimentary of the people who do the special effects).

Do yourself a favor and watch these movies. They're not just kitschy action flicks. They're kitschy action flicks with a metric fuckton of practical effects, and a production team that really cares about the stories they're crafting.

“Oh”

I saw these pics from Pushing Daisies and ended up down a rabbit hole.

Fun facts about boxes from TV Tropes:

Also this quote from Paul McGann is somehow delightful:

Lord of the Rings Memes

Everyone’s talking about Velma, but the only Scooby Doo revision/parody for me has always been and always will be the Groovy Gang from Venture Bros S2. You can’t do better, don’t even try.

Arnold Vosloo and Brendan Fraser at the opening of the "The Revenge Of The Mummy - The Ride" at Universal Studios, 2004

Very good boys