I am in a spectacularly horrific mood today. I don't know if has to do with the commute from the suburbs we've been experiencing this past week (dogsitting. yeah, we do that), or if it's related to the overwhelming workload of my new class, or if it's all hormonal, or if it's just sleep deprivation (please also see dogsitting). I actually can't remember the last time I've been in one of these please-God-take-me-now moods, where the only thing that sounds good is sitting on the couch in a blanket watching cable and eating cookies and thinking horrible nasty thoughts towards life in general.

There are only six weeks left in the semester, and then I can officially have senioritis. It's so close I can almost feel the heat and the freedom of summer, and the amazing realization that I will NEVER HAVE TO DO THIS AGAIN. My last time registering for classes, last winter break, last finals week, last time getting up for clinicals at 5 am. I have no delusions of nostalgia right now. This summer, and next year, and especially next summer, cannot come fast enough. Really. I spend an embarrassing amount of time thinking about our pinning ceremony and graduation and the day I pass NCLEX and the first day I get a paycheck.I know I am getting a little ahead of myself - I still have a whole year of school left to plow through before those days - but I feel like focusing on the light at the end of the tunnel is the only thing keeping me sane. Otherwise I just feel crushed by all the things that are left to do before I can scribble RN, BSN behind my name (and you better believe I will be writing that on every scrap of paper I can get my name on. People are going to have to beg me to stop).

I spent the day at Ikea - which was a horrible idea. I didn't go for myself,I was lured with the promise of free Starbucks to help a friend pick stuff out for her new apartment. Still, when you would like to be curled up in the fetal position and hanging out with the Food Network, Ikea is a nightmare. I am sad to say that I was absolutely no help at all. I kept wandering into different aisles and displays like a four year old looking at all the pretty colors, and all the cheap crap, and all the overwhelming possibilities of self-assembly. I tried at one point to pick out a large flower pot for our apartment (one of our more ambitious plants just outgrew its current home) and then my head fell off and I collapsed in a heap on the floor sobbing with the difficulty of it all.

Ok, no, I didn't. But that was what it FELT like - and so I bought myself coffee and
oatmeal chocolate crisp cookies and tried to sedate myself with sugar and saturated fat (25% of my daily value! In ONE cookie! HOW DO THEY PACK IT ALL IN?!?!). Add in the Chinese takeout we grabbed for lunch, and fast forward to me sitting in my lonely, dog-free apartment with some serious bloating and a headache. I am scrupulously avoiding Other People until I am forced to go to class at 6:30. I am also praying for some perspective and a slightly brighter outlook, because I recently walked passed a mirror and noticed that I looked like death dropping by for a visit. It's not fair for unsuspecting and possibly good-natured people to have to encounter THAT.

In other news, one of the dogs we are feeding and walking and generally keeping alive thought it would be fun to chew up the slippers my mom got me for Christmas. This is a dog that has not chewed anything for the entire week, even alone and uncrated for eight hours a day. Then Joshua stayed there sick today, and instead of being GRATEFUL that someone was there to play with her and let her out five times an hour, what does the dog do? CHEWS MY POOR, HELPLESS SLIPPER.

It just isn't right, people.