I’m gonna be a complainy-pants

Tomorrow is Thankful Thursday. But I think before I can make a proper thankful list, I need to have a small complaining session.

(Consider yourself warned, and proceed at your own risk.)

Before we continue, I’ll say I understand that, as current-problems-in-the-world go, the ones I’m about to fuss about are small and fairly unimportant. Still, it can be cathartic to have a little complainy-pants session, which is why I’m going to type it out and hope I feel better afterward.

So here’s the thing: I am having a Very Bad Attitude™ about my current BSN course.

I hate this class. I loathe it. It is the very first class in my nursing school chapter that has made me want to cry.

The assignments are overwhelming, with a zillion details and steps, and the information you need is in a wide variety of places online and on Blackboard (which is the learning management system this school uses.)

As a result, I feel like I am being pulled in 82 different directions, which makes every assignment take forever.

Furthermore (!), there are a ridiculous number of assignments. 

The first week of regular classwork had 17 assignments, many of which were multi-step, and unfortunately, this is not an anomalous week.

Plus, almost every module has an assignment that, in any other class, would be a big end-of-semester assignment (for instance, a presentation or a formal paper). 

But nope, it’s just a regular ol’ weekly homework assignment.

ALSO: we have a multi-week group project. I dislike these immensely. 

Add in the fact that the class topic doesn’t interest me in the slightest*, and we have a recipe for an unhappy Kristen. 

*It’s informatics, which is basically data analysis/technology for nursing. DRYYYYYYYYYYY. Not my destiny. I want to be in patient rooms, not in an office doing data analysis. 

Anatomy and Physiology was hard and a lot of work, but at least I loved the subject matter! It is much harder to do all this tedious work when I am positively bored by the subject. 

To add insult to injury, I got my grade back on my first week’s big assignment, and while the overall feedback was good, I got told I misinterpreted a chart I made.

I looked at this data, noticed the fall rates were higher during colder months, and posited that this could be both because of slippery winter surfaces and because of physical deconditioning that happens due to more indoor time (which means more inactivity).

I wrote a beautiful paper, dutifully citing multiple journal articles saying that this is, in fact, a thing that happens, for these specific reasons.

But somehow, I got marked down for “interpreting the data incorrectly”`. Color me confused. And annoyed. 

I think if I argued my point well and included supporting evidence, I should get the full points. 

BLEAHHHHHHH. 

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I should note that there is a difference between:

• disliking something
• being incapable of something

I hated my chemistry class, but I got an A in it. I hate this class, and I probably will also get an A in it.

It’s not that I can’t do this work, it’s that I don’t enjoy it. 

This is similar to the way I feel about math. After having taught math from kindergarten through high school to all of my children, I understand math (up through Algebra 2) quite well, and I am solidly competent. The thing is: there’s no joy in it for me. It’s just a slog, every time. 

And in my opinion, that’s ok. We can all enjoy different things! I happily do things at the hospital that some of you would hate, while at the same time, some of you are enchanted with things I hate, such as data analysis and chemistry. 😉 

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Ok! I feel slightly better after getting all of this off my chest. Thank you for reading.

Do you need to be a complainy-pants today too? Feel free to let it out* in the comments. And then we’ll all be fresh for thankful lists tomorrow. 😉 

*non-politically, please, since this is a Complain About Relatively Inconsequential Things session. 

P.S. Overall, my life is good. Great, even! I am grateful for the chance to be in BSN school. I love nursing! I just don’t love informatics. Or online asynchronous classes. 

Also: I am working out, putting myself to bed on time, feeding myself good food, and still, the bad attitude persists. I think I just flat-out DON’T LIKE THIS CLASS. And no amount of self-care is gonna change that, unfortunately.