That's right, Phoebe is finally here! My dad went and picked her out yesterday and she is getting to know the family. Will and I will finally get to meet her on Sunday when they bring her up for the graduation ceremony. In the end we went with a miniature Schnoodle (Schnauzer & Poodle) puppy because they have floppy ears and are super adorable. Just look at all of these pictures!

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As you know, I am officially a college graduate! While this is super exciting and all, I still have a lot of studying to do. The NCLEX is the national licensing exam for registered nurses and I will probably be taking it in about a month. The NCLEX is a beast... minimum of 75 questions and a max of 265 with up to 6 hours to complete it. It is a computer adaptive test, meaning that it changes depending on if you get a question right or wrong. Also, I can't be a real nurse unless I pass. So in order to prepare myself for the exam, I am taking a review course. A spirit crushing review course. We basically sit through two sessions a day, 3 hours each, and go over questions and the thought process for how to answer them. Yesterday we started with the topic of pharmacology. Did I mention that is has been a year since we had a class on pharmacology? Oh, and that pharm could be up to 20% of the questions you get on the NCLEX? Yeah. So hopefully the next few sessions will be better than yesterday because that wasn't pretty.

My dad is going to pick up Phoebe tomorrow! We had a slight change in plans, the little black female from last week that was suppose to be Phoebe didn't pass her vet exam. So now Dad is going down to pick out a puppy for us. Thanks Dad! We will get to meet her on Sunday when they bring her up for Will's graduation. We are super pumped (for graduation and the puppy!)

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Boy was that a good week/weekend. My parents, sister and grandparents came up to Chambana on Wednesday evening. We had a delicious dinner together at the Great Impasta - a restaurant in Urbana where they make all of the pasta by hand. We got up early and left Thursday morning to head to Chicago. After working our way through Chicago traffic and a major elevation in my blood pressure, we made it to the University of Illinois Chicago campus. For the record, I do not like driving in big city traffic, especially when following someone and trying to not get separated.  We ended up getting to the Pavilion early and they didn't have the building open yet so we went across the street and had a photo session.

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Well, it is official... I am done with my BSN. No more exams, no more clinicals, no more assignments, and no more 3 hour lectures! I cannot believe that I am done with my undergraduate career, now I just need to start/finish a master's degree.

So what did all of us nursing students do to celebrate the momentous occasion? We jumped into an outdoor pool that was just filled last week! I guess it is becoming a U of I nursing tradition to jump in the pool while wearing our nursing uniforms once classes are finished. Last year it was a beautiful, warm, sunny day and the pool was packed with people enjoying the weather. This year it was less than 60 degrees outside and we had to wait for a lifeguard to get there because they had sent everyone home early since no one wanted to be in the pool. The water felt great... getting out, not so much.

1... 2... 3!

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...walking across the quad as a student.

So yesterday was the College of Nursing Pinning Ceremony for the graduating class of 2011. It was a very nice event and we were at a good table. In our previous experiences with assigned seating (at engineering award banquets) we always felt awkward and had little to talk about, luckily that was not the case yesterday. The various personality types that are drawn to different majors is very funny to me. Anyway, we had a good lunch, listened to some awesome student speeches and were pinned. Apparently getting pinned is a very big honor in the nursing world and a pin from your Alma Mater is something you should always wear proudly wherever you work. I don't really know if that is the case these days... I rarely saw any nurses during clinicals wearing their pins. Either way, it was nice to be recognized for all of our hard work and accomplishments. They also handed out the cords we will be wearing at graduation.

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