role(s) of a lifetime

because i ooze cheesiness, my last few entry titles have been songs from musicals. actually, that just kind of happened but i'll be cheesy now and do it again. i saw bare at the unicorn last night with brie and it was very, very good.

i might only be writing this because i've been told, rather unexpectedly, by a couple people recently that they read my blog. i really thought nobody did. shit, now i'm going to overanalyze this even more than i already do...oh well. it's summer, i've got time for that.

tomorrow i am moving to st. louis to start my nursing externship on the general medicine floor at st. louis children's hospital. i'm living in a house with a friend and his roommate and it's weird to think that after 3 years of campus living, i'm finally going to have a kitchen and multiple floors and other novelties. there are 2 cannisters of pepper spray to my immediate left: one for my purse and one for my glovebox. thanks, dad. i want to be in 3 places right now and i have a feeling that will last all summer. in st. louis, living my adult-ish life wearing scrubs and working 12-hour shifts and getting fantastic experience; in kansas city, with my family and home friends being the most relaxed person ever; and in kirksville, having adventures that only my theatre friends can dream up.

but for now, i have sleep and a couple more hours of packing and cleaning between me and I-70.

the tide turning endlessly

i might see someone die tomorrow.

my assigned patient has a "grim prognosis," according to his doctor, and his nurse doubts he'll make it through the night, because he was unresponsive today and had no urine output. he's from a nearby nursing home and his wife is usually with him during the day, but leaves at night. tonight i was copying information from his chart and was struck with a wave of sadness as i contemplated the possibility of him dying alone tonight.

i feel like i know this man just after reading his extensive charts and going into his room to introduce myself and pat his hand while he slept. i very much hope he lives through the night so i can be his student nurse tomorrow. i think patients who have student nurses receive better care than others, mostly because of the ratio...we have only one patient so we get to spend more time with them. i don't want this patient to die, but if he must i would like someone to be there with him. and tomorrow it would be me.

truman nursing students may be over-prepared in the area of death and dying because we have one professor who loves to talk about it more than anything else. i don't think i will feel at all prepared when i actually witness it but i do know that the sense of hearing is the last to go and i'd like someone to be talking to this patient, touching him, just being there with him in his last moments. tonight i prepared more than i ever have for clinical and most likely i will not need any of this information tomorrow morning. but if this patient survives, i want to be ready for him.

back to before

now that it's over i'm supposed to be all business. school stuff only, because God knows my GPA needs some attention. and what a week to kick it off...3 tests, a quiz, some huge assignments, and the biggest project of my life due. but i can't focus. well, it comes and goes. today i'm terribly sad and now that i've studied for OB, i can't get myself to move onto adult, even though it's going to be the worst test i've ever taken.

closing night i wasn't sad, just excited at how well we did. the cast party was the best thing i've been to in a while. i took erin and i hope she had a good time, because i sure did. we stayed until 4:30, at least, and kyle and jamin walked us home. apparently i got everyone to cut through mcclain as we walked through campus, which soberly looking back was the worst idea ever, but nobody got in trouble and now it's just a fun story.

for some reason it hit me during chamber choir today. i was sad enough that i went to the rec and ran 2 miles on the track. i should have known it would be like this when i went out for curtain call on opening night and felt exhilarated and wanted to do it over and over that same night. i just can't believe it's completely over and done with. all i'm left with is memories, pictures, and an eye infection. i know i'll still see people. i just had dinner last night with the family plus hank and they talked me into watching a movie afterward. this weekend is indecent proposals and the 2nd cast party. and then the banquet is the following weekend. the dvd will come out at some point, and i'm sure i'll watch it a million times. but the show is over. probably the biggest moments i'll ever have, all of them over. and looking back, i couldn't have lived in those moments more fiercely. i knew how precious they were. i've just never felt like this before. in high school i was always relieved after.

this...aches.

once upon a dream

no matter how tonight goes, this has already been a dream come true. this is all going to sound terribly cheesy, but...it is what it is. i put away theatre after i graduated high school (theatre in the park doesn't count). i was ok with never doing it again, i was closing that chapter of my life and focusing on my future career. but i kept singing (cantoria for 2 years, then voice lessons and chamber choir), and i acted to an extent (forensics and then the madrigal dinner), so i guess i couldn't ever really suppress it completely.

i heard that they were doing jekyll & hyde this spring and it didn't even cross my mind to audition. i was just planning on going to see it, and planning on feeling a twinge of nostalgia. it wasn't until i saw a midsummer night's dream and was absolutely enchanted that i made up my mind to do it, just because i wanted to be a part of an awesome production if i could. i listened to the soundtrack for ALL of christmas break (even though i knew it really well already) and started to daydream about having a lead. emma would be nice since i'm a soprano. but all i really wanted was to get in. and as a result, i've never prepared so much for an audition. i worked my butt off singing those 3 songs over and over awkwardly in front of a mirror in practice rooms and now i am so glad that i did.

so...all of this has just been unreal. i went to auditions with absolutely no expectations, so reading the cast list was just an unbelievable and indescribable feeling. i've been blown away from day 1 by the talent, professionalism, and extraordinary kindness of everyone involved. in high school i remembered feeling (and possibly acting) antagonistic towards random outsiders who auditioned for a show and got good parts, so it's been a wonderful surprise to be so welcomed and included. it's been bizarre to transition from scrubs to corsets, let me tell you, but i am so happy that i was able to do both nursing and theatre for at least these 2 months. it has been so amazing to realize how much performing is still a part of me and how fulfilling it is to let that part shine. i have learned so much about acting, theatre in general, and myself in this process and looking back on college, i know that i will cherish these memories as possibly the very best ones of my 4 years.

thank you SO much to everyone, and break a leg tonight!

spring break 2009: the soundtrack

...it's a CD i made, for real. that's how badly i want to be back in tennessee, or in mickey's dad's car anywhere between st. louis and there. i even put the songs we got so sick of, like "just dance" and "heartless," on there because it was so much fun to sing them all those zillions of times. fuck school, man. i thoroughly enjoyed having that week of literally no worries. i had an amazing trip with really fun people. we actually did cool stuff unique to gatlinburg, TN and the smoky mountains and came back with fantastic stories and pictures.

coming back was rough. i just could not switch fully into school mode. i pulled an all-nighter the first night back doing a project, leading to me skipping stats to sleep on monday. drank too much on st. patrick's day just because i could, leading to sleeping through adult health on wednesday. had an unsuccessful all-nighter attempt thursday night, leading to skipping OB so i could finish all the paperwork. i feel like a bad human being when i skip class, especially three in one week. no more this semester.

with brie at her pretty impressive st. patrick's day party. the cops came twice.

so that's how i'm sucking at being a student lately, but...other things are going well. the show is wonderful, easily the best choice i've made in college yet. i love all of the people involved and the work is so fulfilling and satisfying. this weekend, for all my intents of it being work-intensive for projects and stuff, has been fun as well. and i've been pretty productive. last night alex and i were sitting around doing homework toying with the idea of going out. it got to be like 11 and we were tired and comfortable. then she said, "you know, we need to remember more often that we're in college. suck it up, let's go." it's kind of depressing that we have to have those moments. we really do work too hard and play too little. spring break and the week following are not good examples of that, but really...we are pretty studious.

speaking of studious, it's now time to face my OB book (yet again), do laundry and dishes, and work on more projects. really just stuff to make the 5 hours pass before rehearsal :)

happy tired brain

grey's anatomy is a wonderful show. and private practice is only good when it's a crossover episode, or whatever. it would be better if audra mcdonald and taye diggs would sing all of their lines. i would venture a guess that most of the private practice audience hasn't a clue that they are 2 of the very best voices of today's musical theatre. even if they do want to have obama's babies. sigh...

i love shows or movies or books or whatever that make me think about my life. i also like stuff that makes me cry, so i'm a little weird. but this episode made me realize that i have some really great friends. i remember writing in my developmental autobiography for PSYC 377 that i make friends more easily with guys than girls. i attributed this to growing up with a brother so close to my age and my male best friend from my toddler and pre-school years. i still think that yeah, in a way i feel more comfortable with guys and they can be more fun to be friends with. but i am so incredibly thankful for my female friends. i have some really incredible women in my life that will always support me, take care of me, and lecture me...and probably more importantly, know when i need each of those things.

these medical shows are probably bad for us. if i saw mcdreamy or mcsteamy or addison or bailey on the street, i would expect them to be able to be able to provide me competent, if not world-class care. maybe someday i will be famous AND if someone dropped in a restaurant or got into a really bad MVA, i'd be able to save them. sweet, new goal in life.

sunday nights are the death of me.

i really like the idea of blogging and people who are good at it. i kind of creep on people who write really interesting or profound or clever things. i don't think it's one of my natural talents, though. it's more of a drain for time. i think waaaaaaaaaayyyy too hard about what sounds witty and deep.

i don't know what is worse...having a boring life or being limited to boring prose when describing it. i think i have some of both ailments.

i'm tipsy right now. i went to the boys' house for dinner tonight because mickey brought back imo's pizza from st. louis. not only did he come bearing food, but also alcohol...his parents gave him/us two bottles of wine. i had several glasses because i was the only one who liked it. probably more than what is decent for a sunday night, especially since i have more homework to do. considering how close i came to failing my first OB test (under 75% is a nursing failure), i should feel more motivated. uh.

in the absence of a clever closing line...Godspeed good friends, good night.