Amanda Smith, GN

I know it's not a great picture - but it's all we've got!

Friday night was our pinning ceremony. Mom, Dad, Ashley, Grandma and John all came and joined in on the festivities. The tradition of the pinning ceremony was explained: Florence Nightingale gave her nursing students medals upon their graduation, and over time this has changed to a gold pin with the student's school on it. Each student was called on stage and was pinned by one of our nursing instructors. At the end of the ceremony we recited the nursing pledge and our instructors lit our Nightingale lamps as we left. They only told us that we'd be voting on a nursing student that we thought was a leader and had a Christian attitude. I assumed this would be the only award given out, but they gave out three others that were picked by the nursing faculty. I recieved the Nightingale award for outstanding clinical performance. This award is given to a student who has exemplary clinical skills as well as a high GPA and Christ-like attitude. It was quite a pleasant suprise to recieve such an honor! Everyone who recieved an award was given a small Bible in place of a plaque or certificate. I thought that was a wonderful idea because now my award is useful!

Saturday morning was graduation day. John's parents came up and joined us. I really appreciate that they took the time to drive up just for me. I was the last graduate to cross the stage since nursing is the last major and I'm the last in my nursing class, alphabetically. Since we only recieved Associate's degrees we had no hood, only a boring black gown and my gold magna cum laude cord. Next year we get hoods, so I'm definitely looking forward to that graduation. The gowns were hot and I ended up waiting for Mom to get to the reception forever because of a sudden downpour as they were getting ready to leave the auditorium (luckily I made it to the reception in the gym just in time!). By the time they got to me I was just ready to get that thing off and give it back! Mom said "We have to take pictures, this only happens once!" I quickly reminded her that it will all be happening again in a year, and the I'll have more decoration to show off!

I really appreciate all of the encouragement that I've recieved over these last three years. That's about the only thing that's kept me going!

I'm getting ready to head out for Gulf Shores in a little bit, but I'm going to try to get some more pictures up soon!

Counting Down

Pinning - 4 days
Graduation - 5 days
HOME - 5 days
Spend the day with Laura Beth, Diane, and baby Carson - 7 days
Gulf Shores - 10 days!!!!!

These five countdowns are keeping me going through finals!

Today I took my Professional Practice final, which is another NCLEX-RN predictor test. We were told that a score of 850 means that you have a pretty good chance of passing the NCLEX-RN, and a score of 950 is "Outstanding". Some people in my class (around seven or eight people I think) failed the first predictor test we took and were told that they must pass this one in order to graduate. Luckily, I already passed the first one, so I just had to take this one for my final grade, which I'm not too worried about. Throughout the whole test I felt as if I was doing pretty well, which usually means that I end up not doing too well... As it started to score I held my breath, hoping for an 850 - I scored a 947! That's just three points from "outstanding"! I figured everyone would do better on this one, but apparently they didn't. None of the students who needed to pass did, and even some who had passed the first predictor failed this one. One friend asked me how I did, so I told her my score, then immediately wished I hadn't told her when she told me that she failed and failed badly. The head of the School of Nursing is supposed to have a meeting tomorrow with the Dean of the School of Sciences and Mathematics to decide what to do. If these people aren't allowed to graduate, we loose almost half of the Nursing School's graduating class. Things are tense around here since the Nursing department has allowed people to move on in the program without the required grades, and now, the week of graduation they're finally going to put their foot down. I'm just praying that the right thing for everyone (whatever that may be) is done.