things I have learned in three weeks of nursing school

First and most importantly, I now know how to properly don and doff personal protective equipment.  (Doff means to take off...  Good thing I am getting such a good education and now know all these fancy new terms.)   I also know how to set up a sterile field.  This is pretty big stuff, I know.

In my abnormal psychology class, I sit behind a girl who has perfected the art of the messy bun.  When I wear my hair in a messy bun, it generally just looks like I have bad hygiene and haven't washed my hair in a week.  (Which maybe I haven't, but I don't want other people to know that...)  So I spent my last class staring at the back of her head and I realized that her secret is making TWO MESSY BUNS and intertwining them.  Don't worry, I was still taking notes and paying attention (the class is actually supremely interesting) but whenever there was a break, I definitely studied her hair just as thoroughly as I will study my notes.  Maybe one day I will do a tutorial so that other people can also have perfect messy buns.  Probably not, though, so don't get your hopes up.

It's a good thing I paid such close attention in abnormal psychology because I failed my first nursing school test before school even started.  I didn't cry, though, because it wasn't a real test, just a TB mask fitting test.  Hospitals make you get fitted for TB masks before you can start working, just in case you have a patient with TB.  They make you stick your head in a plastic bag and spray a bitter-tasting solution into it until you start to taste the bitterness.  I stuck my head in the bag, and they sprayed thirty squirts of the solution in, and I tasted nothing.  I was even breathing as hard as I could with my tongue sticking out, and still nothing.  Apparently this has never happened before because the lab techs had no idea what to do and just told me that I failed.  All that means is that if I happen to have a patient with TB (which is unlikely), I will have to wear a big fancy ET-type mask, which I think will be pretty cool.