Last day of spring semester! At William and Mary we call it Blowout. I'm not sure how we arrived at that name, but it is tradition and we don't mess with tradition in Williamsburg....or Charlottesville for that matter. This was the beginning of a wonderful weekend...foxfield pics to come. Cheers to summer!!!

Relaxing outside

At least we don't have our own pitchers like that guy behind us

I'm not sure what is going on here

I like to give parting gifts when people come over. Sometimes they get shampoo or leave-in conditioner. Other times they get tanning lotion or notecards. I hate having extra stuff lying around. Looks like Tim made out with an old cell phone and a plastic picture frame. Don't you want to come over now?

I have a lazy eye of sorts. Sometimes when I smile for pictures it just shuts half-way. Funny thing is that I can't wink if I try. Things you didn't know about me.

Here is my first nursing poster! We like to make posters - makes me wonder if I should just go ahead and start teaching 5th grade once I graduate nursing school. Here's the team with our poster titled "A Pressing Practice: Compressions Only vs. Standard CPR." And the evidence says, yes indeed, for bystander cardiac arrest, compressions only lead to equal if not better neurological survival rates than standard CPR with the mouth-to-mouth ventilation. So there ya go. No more kissing strangers, unless you want to. Actually, there is a lot more to the research, but that is the summary.

Fridays after five have begun at the Pavilion! Last week I met up with some William & Mary alums among nursing school friends to enjoy the weather, music, and company of good people.

Courtney and I are gearing up for quite the summer. Fridays after five through September.

Mike Cosner from my freshman hall visiting from Richmond and Courtney Grant from Barrett I think. I didn't know Courtney in college but we have become great friends in Charlottesville through Mike. Turns out that Courtney and I lived with the same girl at different times in college.

Sarah Ramsey lead Young Life with me in college and I haven't seen her years. Turns out that after we graduated, she and Mike started dating. Can you believe this web of Tribe in Charlottesville? I love it. PS - this is Sarah the night before running the 1/2 marathon. She finished 4th in her age bracket.

In honor of my love for pediatrics: these should make you laugh for a Friday. Enjoy.

Welcome to the age of using YouTube instead of encyclopedias for class projects. More and more, students are using YouTube to enhance their multi-media presentations and the CNLs are no exception. We have seen videos of adult day-care centers, med students rapping about pneumonia, a patient's experience in an AIDS clinic, pre-surgical treatment of pancreatitis, and the list goes on. Give us an assignment to do a group presentation and expect a YouTube clip. It is entertaining, but the novelty is wearing off and it is just poor form at this point. In preparing our presentation on the gallbladder, my group wanted to poke fun at this overuse of videography, so we made our own video and then posted it to YouTube. Grab a bag of popcorn and enjoy Tim's award winning performace as Juan, Guillermo, and Luis. Tiffany is credited for the superb cinematography and I am the director of music.

Many are aware of my distaste for the self-checkouts at grocery stores across America. I know many of you are thrilled to live out your high school dreams of not only scanning but also bagging your own groceries. I however, have a slightly different view. I don't think I would mind the self-checkout if there were more than one real cashier available at any given time. But as it stands now, grocery stores have two employees. The one cashier on duty from 8am - 4pm and the guy that restocks the produce. No one else works there. So here's my signature line: "If I wanted to scan groceries, I would have filled out an application." The problem is that the computer is never happy with the way you scan things and God forbid you try to scan a second item without putting the first one in the bag first. Then you get berated by the computer in front of all of the other customers. Although, they probably aren't paying attention to you because they are scrolling through the massive list of produce trying to figure out how to ring up Guatemalan apples. Secondly, the computer finds it necessary to shout out the price of the item you are purchasing with every scan. I don't know why this makes me uncomfortable, but maybe it's because I don't want people to know how much I am paying for canned soup even though it is probably less than what everyone else pays because I am the cheapest person alive. The best is when you get in the self check-out line to buy alcohol because the line in the real-life person check out is four men deep. You need approval for this purchase of course so the light on your station goes on and rings obnoxiously and you wait for the produce restocking guy to run over and verify that you are of age. Then, when you are done scanning items you have to run through a list of twenty questions before you can pay. "Do you have any coupons?" "How would you like to pay?" "I'm sorry, I didn't understand, please tell me again." I want to put the computer on silent. Now you move on to bag the groceries that you just scanned. With all of the work I am doing, I feel like Kroger should pay me to go to the grocery store. My last point of contention is this: If there are only two employees on average working at the grocery store so that payroll costs have been significantly decreased, how is it that the cost of food is still increasing faster than downloads of Hannah Montana? Someone is making out like a bandit with all the extra cash and it's not me.

Here is a video of someone in the self check-out line at Giant. I don't know why I thought this was so funny but I was crying while watching it. I think it is just the absurdity that it takes so long and the person can't even scan batteries because they don't weigh enough once she has removed two for her camera. Painful, but funny.