Phase 10-ed OUT.

At the of last week I was feeling pretty renewed and excited about being at Ferguson for two more weeks, but after this week I'm feeling much more ready to be done. It's not that I am not enjoying getting to know more about people, it's more so that we only spend time with the SAME 8-10 people every single day. I am just getting sick of sitting around and playing card games all day. And sometimes there are only one or two residents down in the conference room so most of us just sit and play card games with each other. I know there are still things that I am learning, but I just wish we were able to meet more residents and get to know new people. Some days I literally play 3-4 hours of Phase Ten, which, though it's my favorite game, I can only play so many hours of it before I start to go crazy. Especially when I play it with a resident who takes 5 minutes for each turn and also can't hear what's going on. It makes me a little nuts. So I'm at the point now where I'm about ready to move on to something new, so I'm glad we only have one more week left. I think I'm also just ready to be done with this semester, which is how I always feel when we are nearing the end. I have really enjoyed my time at Ferguson though and I definitely have learned SO much about working with and communicating with people who are mentally ill and I have seen my biases and opinions change so much in the past five weeks that it amazes even me. It's funny how you don't realize how many stereotypes and biases you have until you are actually forced to confront them. Honestly, spending time at Ferguson should required to graduate from the nursing problem, because it will forever change the way you will look at people with mental illness. It's unbelievable how much I have changed my outlook.

In other news, we have our third exam next week so I'm trying to actually be productive and study for it ahead of time. A group of us from class got together on Tuesday to start studying for it, and then Cheryl and I went out for breakfast this morning and studied for about an hour and a half so I'm feeling like I'm already ahead of the game since usually I don't start studying until the day of the exam...Haha so hopefully I will do well on it. AND we only have two days of class next week and then we are off Wednesday-Friday for Thanksgiving break! Then only two weeks and one final until the end of the semester. I can't believe how fast it's going :)