That one time I became the nerd I’d always made fun of

I was wondering the other day after some horrible experiences at clinical this week with my instructor why on earth I was trying to become a nurse. I decided to therapeutically start writing how this happened on my laptop while pretending to take notes during class:
After highschool I went to BYU and studied Family, and Consumer Science Education. Despite the fact that I could abbreviate my major to FACSed to sound more intriguing I sometimes wondered if there was something more I wanted to do. After all, most of my fun classes were things I would continue to do anyways (like cooking). After my mission, I decided it was too late to change. Last august I thought of applying to the U of U’s accelerated nursing program. I just had to take 5 of the 6 prerequisites fall semester in order to apply in January. I began signing up for the classes: Statistics, Anatomy, Physiology, Intro Chemisty, Bio-Organic Chemistry. They worked into a schedule, so I decided to give it a try even though each topic was completely new to me. I had to suffer the intimidation of sitting alongside pre-med smarties saying comments like “would you mind skipping these general things like the bicarbonate buffer system, it’s too easy and we’re bored.” Professors told me passing all those classes at once wouldn’t happen. Well it’s amazing what can happen when you actually open your textbooks and go to the library, which I’m pretty sure I managed never to do up until this point. Turns out I was able to pass all my classes and do well enough to be accepted into the program. (Thanks to my mom/tutor with amazing memory retention and my over willingness to put my social life on hold.) I loved learning about the human body and I sort of loved chemistry, I felt like I learned mysteries of the universe. (like how the molecules line up to form a bubble, or why on a molecular level the key to great cookies is proper emulsification of the fat and sugar by the eggs.) I began making incredibly nerdy puns using science jargon. I had changed, but besides just becoming slightly more nerdy, I felt like I had my first real academic challenge and was given a new sense of achievement and capability. Looking back, I think maybe I needed something like this before I got married and I try to remind myself of that when I’m doing something yucky at the hospital wondering why I ever switched from my care-free previous major. At this point I really don’t know if I’ll survive my semester w/ my viola swampish instructor, but there’s just got to be some reason this whole nursing thing ever intrigued me…