Kristen, SN BYU

I just got back from volunteering at the Utah County Health Department free clinic. Besides being a very rewarding service opportunity, it was significant for another reason. It was the last time that I wore my student nurse uniform. Since September of 2004, I have been wearing the standard blue scrub pants and white top with my nametag. I can clearly recall my first clinical and how I ironed my scrub top the night before to make sure it looked crisp and professional. Quite a contrast from tonight when I pulled my wrinkled top from a pile of dirty clothes and covered it with a sweater.

I couldn't help but feel nostalgic as I took off my student nurse nametag for the last time (just like I did when I took off my missionary nametag for the last time). There is something comforting about having the word "student" on your nametag. It is like saying, "Teach me, teach me, make sure that I get to see anything interesting and explain in detail what you are doing." New nametags await. Now I get to be responsible for all that information that I learned in my years as a student. I can't help but think that there will be times that I will wish that I could just put on my student nametag again.

Conference to coast to coast

What a great week it has been! On Saturday, I got to go to General Conference with Jessica, a good friend from the nursing program. I don't anticipate that I will ever again live so close to Salt Lake City so I was really glad to be able to get tickets (thanks cousin Leslie!)

Early Sunday morning I flew to Seattle. What a fabulous city! I am really excited for the chance to live there. This isn't a great picture of me but you can see the beautiful view I had from the park down the street from where I was staying.

Lukcily, I didn't come away empty-handed. I got two job offers at the hospital where I was interviewing--one in medical/surgery and one in nephrology. Due to the high number of interviewees, I need to make my decision by tomorrow. Barring a revelatory dream tonight, I am planning on taking the job in nephrology. Now all I need is a place to stay. :)

And now I'm in Maryland. It is very lovely! I presented my poster this morning at the National Conference for Undergraduate Research. We are planning on going to Ocean City tomorrow night and possibly DC on Saturday. I'm so lucky to get to travel so much!

You can probably see that the top of my poster looks rather jagged. My professor had brought my poster along with another girl's who presented also. When we tried to unroll the poster this morning, it was sticking to itself. It must have gotten wet and then dried to itself (which is strange because it was in a waterproof canister). It ripping and tearing as I unrolled it so I just tried to cut off the top few inches since that is where most of the damage was. Oh well, most of it was okay.