Tales of a Nursing Student

Recently in my Pathophysiology class, we have been talking about the cardiovascular system, and naturally, because heart disease is so prevalent in our country, we were talking about prevention methods.

My nursing professor, a woman around her mid 40s who is about 60-70 (or more) pounds overweight, said, “As soon as we make broccoli taste like potato chips, people will eat it. Until then, it doesn’t matter how much education we get or how many more studies are conducted to show the effects of eating well on our health, Americans will not change their eating habits. It will only happen when broccoli tastes like potato chips, and whoever figures that out will be a wealthy man. Just look at me! I won’t eat broccoli till it tastes good, and I’m teaching you this stuff!”

So apparently the rest of the university is wrong; people won’t change just because of their level of education.

By the way, I certainly hope we never figure out how to make broccoli taste like potato chips because I happen to love broccoli the way it comes off the plant.

One of my favorite quotes is from Thomas Dekker (which I found quoted by Dorothy Sayers) on the wonders of sleep.

"Do but consider what an excellent thing sleep is: it is so inestimable a jewel that, if a tyrant would give his crown for an hour's slumber, it cannot be bought: of so beautiful a shape is it, that though a man lie with an Empress, his heat cannot beat quiet till he leaves her embracements to be at rest with the other; yea, so greatly indebted are we to this kinsman of death, that we owe the better tributary, half of our life to him: and there is good cause why we should do so: for sleep is that golden chain that ties health and hour bodies together. Who complains of want? of wounds? of cares? of great man's oppressions? of captivity? whilst he sleepeth? Beggars in their beds take as much pleasure as kings: can we therefore surfeit on this delicate Ambrosia? Can we drink too much of that whereof to taste too little tumbles us into the churchyard, and to use it but indifferently throws us into Bedlam? No, no. look upon Endymion, the moon's minion, who slept three score and fifteen years, and was not a hair the worse for it."

~Thomas Dekker,1572-1632, Elizabethan writer and poet.

On that note, good night. I'm going to the place free of complaints of great man's oppressions, captivities, and school worries. That delicate ambrosia of dreamland.

My car, Jane, is plain but a good worker. She gets me where I want to go without any fuss about it. We go on adventures together, sometimes going down to Bloomington and other times going beautiful places like Turkey Run State Park, about an hour from Lafayette.

This summer, we went to Cedar Bluff Nature Preserve, about 15 minutes from home.

It was really beautiful.

That’s Jane in the background. I told you she was plain, but don’t tell her that or she’ll get in a huff. Outside doesn’t look like that around here anymore. Drought and fall have taken their toll on the green.

Turkey Run was starting to show the first sights of shriveling up a few weeks ago when I visited it.

Not that you can really tell in that picture, but it was.

My most recent adventure, however, only involved Jane for about 200 miles of the over 1000 miles traveled. My family and I went down to the Smoky Mountains for a long weekend, where the higher parts of the mountains really were starting to look like fall, with fingers of red coming down on the ridges.

Our second hike was almost 9 miles long, so we started at the early hour of 8 AM, Sunday morning at one end of Cade’s Cove.

They don’t call them the Smoky Mountains for nothing.

Before we started, someone (Amanda I think) suggested we take a family photo.

Apparently Jonathan didn’t like it.

Since Sunday was October 10, 2010 (10-10-10) we kids decided to jump when the clock hit 10:10 (cause you know, nothing is more enjoyable than saying, “lets do something at 10 10 10 10 10 10” and lose track of the tens.

So we jumped

Apparently mom and dad kissed, but none of us saw that, much less captured it on film (which is fine with us!)

The top of the mountain gave us pretty swell views of the cove

Around this time, though, our guide estimated that we had only gone about a quarter of our hike, and it had taken us a good 2.5 hours. So we stopped taking pictures and practically ran for the next half hour, when we found we were actually more than half done with our hike.

By the end of the hike, we were ready for a big dose of power from peas and we formed a union to make our wishes known to the pea carrier.

Because we partially ran down the mountain, we reached our destination too early and had time to play before our next fun activity (a hay ride in the back of a cut-off semi trailer around Cade’s Cove).

The next day, after we had all killed our legs, feet, toes, anything that helped us climb a mountain, were killed again on another hike. Sure it was beautiful, but we still killed our legs.

Nearer the end, we found these great vines. If you fell off, you fell down the mountain. Great fun!

But by the end of this hike, the union was pretty determined to get what we wanted and so we went on strike. It was a great vacation.