So Close

We are down to hours people ... hours. I actually think that I am pretty close to being ready. I need to finish packing a few items, but most of it is comfortably sitting in my suitcase. So I survived finals and moved out of my apartment. That's pretty much all that has happened since last time. Yesterday and today we had our "Immersion Days." Everyone who is in NURS400 was required to sit through class from 8:30-3:30 and learn about culture, global health, swine flu (we'll get to that later), humanitarian nursing, etc. Although some of the info was interesting, it just didn't seem like a good way to be spending my time when there are other things I could be doing. I'll put it this way. Today I woke up late, surprising I know, and I got to class an hour and a half late. No one really noticed, they hadn't turned in the homework yet (which is how they were taking roll), and I'm pretty sure I'll suffer no consequences. So that is how important Immersion Days were, but I'm still glad to be done with them.

Other than that the only concern now is the dreaded swine flu.
They have been keeping a really close eye on everything seeing that they are sending a lot of students to various regions (Australia, Ecuador, England, and Jordan). They have given us plenty of opportunities to change our minds if we don't feel that it is safe to travel, I'm going, a handout on the flu including symptoms, rates, areas, dangers, etc, I'm still going, and we talked about the cause, epidemiology, travel risks, and what could happen. Yes, I'm still going. In fact I say get me out the sooner the better. It's just if they are going to let me out. We are now at level 5 people. Don't get to excited, that's out of 20. Not really, it's out of 6, but I couldn't resist. They have told us to keep our phones on us in case there are any changes, but that we will probably be fine and we shouldn't be at too much risk, just stay healthy and make sure to get a lot of vitamin C. So I went to the store and bought "EmergenC" if you have heard of it. It says to dissolve one packet in water 2-4 times a day. I thought "I'll just drink two packets at the same time. What's the difference?" They made me nauseous ... but healthy? Hopefully the posts will be more entertaining in the future, and include real pictures not just clip art and maps. Next time I write it will be from Jordan!

15 Days To Go

So in case you hadn't heard I am going to Amman, Jordan with the BYU College of Nursing for our "Global Health and Human Diversity" class.

There are 7 students going, one graduate student who will be our clinical instructor, and then our director who currently lives over there.

We will be working in the University hospital along side students in their nursing program. We've have had the assignment to email our students (each of us have 2) and I finally got a response today. Let's just say I don't think their English is as fluent as we were led to believe, but she "wellcom in jordan" to me and "hopes helping [me] as much as [she] can" so that is promising. I can't really complain though because I'm sure their English is going to be much better than my Arabic. On the weekends (which I am confused about exactly when that is because Fridays are Sundays and Sundays are Mondays, or something like that) we will be taking trips to different sites. I know that we are going to Petra, the Red and Dead Seas, the Wadi Rum desert, some crusaders castles, Jesus' baptismal site in the Jordan river, a lot of other places, and hopefully we will be able to make a trip over to Israel and see some of the sites there. She has warned us that we probably won't get much sleep because we will be so busy, which I think is a good thing.

We take off April 30th and I'm not quite ready yet. Our director told us that we have to be very modest while we are over there which you would think would be easy seeing as we are already considered pretty modest compared to other people, but apparently not. We have to have at least 3/4 sleeves at all times, shirts that cover your chest (none of this shade tank stuff, it's got to be all the way covered, like t-shirt covered), skirts to at least 6in below the knee, and she suggested that our clothes should be a size larger that our regular size. Mind you it is also going to be like 90 degrees (I think). Needless to say I have some shopping to do.

Well I will try to keep you updated on my prep work for the trip before I leave (probably after finals are over), and stay tuned for future adventures.