Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Grammar Maven

I was sent this in an email, and I couldn't quit laughing.  Therefore, I'm having to share it myself. 

Fellow red-pen wielders, this is for you.

Caveat emptor.
Carpe diem.
O si villi, si ergo, fortibus es in ero.
Et tu, brute.

HOW TO WRITE GOOD


by Frank L. Visco

My several years in the word game have learnt me several rules:
  1. Avoid alliteration. Always.
  2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
  3. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)
  4. Employ the vernacular.
  5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
  6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
  7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
  8. Contractions aren't necessary.
  9. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
  10. One should never generalize.
  11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
  12. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
  13. Don't be redundant; don't use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
  14. Profanity sucks.
  15. Be more or less specific.
  16. Understatement is always best.
  17. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
  18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
  19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
  20. The passive voice is to be avoided.
  21. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
  22. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
  23. Who needs rhetorical questions? 
How to Write Good, Part II
William Safire
  1. Parenthetical words however must be enclosed in commas.
  2. It behooves you to avoid archaic expressions.
  3. Avoid archaeic spellings too.
  4. Don't repeat yourself, or say again what you have said before.
  5. Don't use commas, that, are not, necessary.
  6. Do not use hyperbole; not one in a million can do it effectively.
  7. Never use a big word when a diminutive alternative would suffice.
  8. Subject and verb always has to agree.
  9. Placing a comma between subject and predicate, is not correct.
  10. Use youre spell chekker to avoid mispeling and to catch typograhpical errers.
  11. Don't repeat yourself, or say again what you have said before.
  12. Use the apostrophe in it's proper place and omit it when its not needed.
  13. Don't never use no double negatives.
  14. Poofread carefully to see if you any words out.
  15. Hopefully, you will use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
  1. Eschew obfuscation.
  2. No sentence fragments.
  3. Don't indulge in sesquipedalian lexicological constructions.
  4. A writer must not shift your point of view.
  5. Don't overuse exclamation marks!!
  6. Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.
  7. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.
  8. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
  9. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
  10. Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.
  11. Always pick on the correct idiom.
  12. The adverb always follows the verb.
  13. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.
  14. If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be by rereading and editing.
  15. And always be sure to finish what

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

..........

Hurry up.

and wait.

Hurry up.

and wait.

That's what the weeks after nursing school feel like. 

Just saying.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

C. Dub, RN!!!!! :-)

NCLEX.

I came.

I took.

I conquered.

And now, after 2 incredibly trying years, I have my nursing license! 

The last two years, beginning with exactly one week after our wedding until this past Thursday, June 9, 2011, has been an upside-down whirlwind of emotions.  Studying until the wee hours of the morning, making friends with coffee, making friends with the staff of the local gas station that sold really, really big soda fountain drinks.  Psychotically checking online to see if grades had posted.  Cheering on your classmates.  Heart breaking when a classmate was left behind. Realizing at some point that you could hold an intelligent conversation with another nurse and not sound like a nursing student. Hating the HESI.  Realizing that you've passed the HESI. Hating the HESI.  Realizing that the friends that you've made in the last two years are people that you are proud of, are proud to call classmates and friends, and are people that would have your back one day if you meet again as colleagues.  Standing together at pinning.  Proud as peacocks in our caps and gowns...



And now, I'm done. It's a surreal feeling, waking up one morning and realizing that, no--I'm not going back to class in the fall.  I don't have to read a Saunders book, or open a Lewis book.  I don't have to have a backache from carrying my pharmacology book. It's....over.  There is no last hurdle to clear...
To my friends nationwide who are waiting to take NCLEX, or to some random person who may stumble across this blog who is getting ready for NCLEX...here are my thoughts:



1.  I don't care how prepared or unprepared you are when you walk into the testing, you feel like a moron when you leave.  The test is designed to make you feel dumber and dumber :-) (Oh, how to walk with a cane?  Then a question about thallasemia?  Then a drug I have never heard of?  Yep, I failed it).

2.  The actual process of checking in at the facility is incredibly unnerving, even under the very best of circumstances.  Being fingerprinted, palm-scanned, photographed, and then having to physically empty your pockets makes you feel like a criminal, and not being prepared for it can really, really rattle your nerves. The staff were incredibly nice, but even so, it's incredibly daunting right before you sit down for the exam.

3.  The 10-minute tutorial, which everyone is required to sit through, is invaluable time.  We already know how to answer the alternate-format questions.  That 10 minutes gives you a chance to get acclimated, say a prayer, calm yourself down, etc.  Use it.

4.  Knowing the classifications of drugs, and knowing specific endings ("lols," statins, etc) is INVALUABLE.  Also knowing the specific drugs that have very weird and very specific instructions (MAOI=no tyramine, etc) is also invaluable.

5.  The "Nursing Made Incredibly Easy" and the "Pharmacology Made Incredibly Easy" helped tremendously.  I had 6 or 7 endocrine questions that I was able to remember because of the book/pictures/mnemonic devices. You can't go back and re-read your med-surg, ob, fundamentals and psych books, but you can re-read the Incredibly Easy books.

6.  I didn't feel that the HESI and NCLEX were comparable at all.  HESI was more fact/knowledge-based, whereas NCLEX was far more about being able to think through a question and critically think about the answers.  

Now it's time to get a big girl job with a big girl paycheck.  :-)